"Avoidance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... problem, for his characters belong to that class of society in which, as Mr. Dooley points out, the multiplication of automobiles is preferred to that of progeny. But he has not omitted to hint at the problem of the children, and, as it were, confess his deliberate avoidance of it. He does so in a touch of exquisite irony. John and Cynthia Karslake are a couple devoted, not to automobiles, but to horses. Even their common passion for racing cannot keep them together; but their divorce is so "premature," and leaves John ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... most sailors, possessed a quick temper and high notions of discipline and obedience, was little pleased with this event, and still less satisfied with his son's grave demeanor, and avoidance of the manners and ceremonies of polite life. Arguments failing, he had recourse to blows, and as a last resource, he turned his son out of doors; but soon relented so far as to equip him, in 1662, for a journey to France, in hope that the gayety of that country would expel his new-fashioned ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... between the theories of vocal scientists and the practical methods of singing teachers is well illustrated in the subject of nasal resonance. A striking feature of all the discussions concerning the use or avoidance of nasal resonance is the fact that vocal theorists base their opinions entirely on empirical observations. The use of nasal resonance is condemned by almost every prominent authority on Vocal Science. Yet the only reason ever advanced for condemning nasal resonance is the fact that a tone of objectionable ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... quarter of a million inhabitants, was also surrendered peaceably to the Germans, and again the energy and initiative of an American, United States Vice-Consul J. A. Van Hee, had much to do with the avoidance ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... our notice of it by advising all our natural history readers to make its acquaintance. There is no work we should prefer to it as a book for the student, for it is a treatise which displays an absolute avoidance of mere compilation, and it is pervaded by such a tone of earnestness, and contains so many original observations, that the reader is inducted by it out of the usual book-land of idealism into the substantial region of actuality and ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... of the avoidance of technicalities have prevented a really full account of the written gesture of Charles Dickens; scanty as the foregoing account is, the illustrations it contains could not have been supplied by any one collector of Charles Dickens's ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... links between these and the third and fourth are no less real: to make life go tolerably smoothly it is most important to be just and to know how to win a livelihood; but happiness also largely depends on prudence and care both in social and home life as well, and not least on avoidance of actions which offend supernatural powers and bring ill-luck. And finally, if your industry is to be fruitful, you must know what days are suitable for various kinds of work. This moral aim—as opposed to the currently accepted technical aim of the poem—explains the ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Prussia against the great tyrant of Europe. Most touching anecdotes are told of the bravery and fine behaviour of the native troops. Perhaps no war was ever more nobly sustained, and with such anxious avoidance of cruelty. What a moment it was to Prussia when the news of Bonaparte's abdication reached the country! when there might be some hope of reaping the harvests they had sown, and rebuilding their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... wrong, but insists on chiming to show everybody that it hasn't the least idea of the time;" and secondly, the men who "took no interest" in the problems of religion and morals; for a deliberate avoidance of them he had some respect, but for a professional moralist who took everything for granted, and for feeble materialists who did not "trouble their head" about such things, he had ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... On recovering his powers, it was evident his brain had suffered a serious lesion. The old energy and love of labor had completely gone; even the capacity for work seemed absent. Marked melancholy followed, characterized before long by avoidance of friends and the loss of a desire of life. This occurred with increasing force until it led to his death, on July 1, 1876, through some toxic agent, the nature of which ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... the sense of illness; he did not keep his bed. Some feverish energy must have supported him through this avoidance of every measure which might have afforded even temporary strength or relief. On Friday, the 29th, he wrote to a friend in London that he had waited thus long for the final answer from Asolo, but would wait no longer. He would start ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... may appear unimportant to the civilian reader, but any question relating to the efficiency of its material is of such paramount importance to the fighting efficiency of the Navy that it is necessary to mention it with a view to the avoidance of future mistakes. ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... beauty of movements, or steps, is, for every one of them to be distinct; not huddled and running into one another, so as that one should begin before the precedent one is finished. This so necessary avoidance of puzzled or ambiguous motion, can only be compassed by an attention to significance and justness of action. This simplicity will arise from sensibility, from being actuated by feelings. No one has more than one predominant actual feeling at a time; when that is expressed clearly, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... valued, and the avoidance of wanton opposition honoured. All men are swayed by class feeling and few are intelligent. Hence some disobey their lords and fathers or maintain feuds with neighbouring villages. But when the high are harmonious and the low friendly, and when ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... cante-fable as in "Aucassin and Nicolete." The Cinderella formula shows clear traces of such rhymes, especially at the stages of the narrative where incidents are repeated—the appeal for aid at the mother's grave (Dress Rhyme), the avoidance of pursuit by the guards (Pursuit Rhyme), and the calling attention of the Prince to the mutilated feet of the ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... young hunter had seated himself is some paces distant from the path. He has a slight knowledge of this Indian family, and simply nods to them as they pass. He does not speak, lest a word should bring on a conversation—for the avoidance of which he has a ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... conscious that, though he would have been glad to question Dowie daily and closely, a certain reluctance of mind held him back. Also he realised that, being a primitive though excellent woman, Dowie herself was secretly awed into avoidance of the subject. He believed that she knelt by her bedside each night in actual fear, but faithfully praying that for some months at least the dream might be allowed to go on. Had not he ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fish", so abundantly caught along our Sound coast during the summer months, or any variety of fish may be composted with muck, so as to make a powerful manure, with avoidance of the excessively disagreeable stench which is produced when these fish are put directly on the land. Messrs. Stephen Hoyt & Sons, of New Canaan, Conn., make this compost on a large scale. I cannot do better than to give entire Mr. Edwin Hoyt's account of their operations, communicated ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... editor who went to Washington to learn the real sentiments of the Southern members, reported February 1, that if the Wilmot Proviso were not given up, ample provision made for fugitive slaves and avoidance of interference with slavery in the District of Columbia, the South would secede, though this was not generally believed in the North. "The North must decide whether she would have the Wilmot Proviso without the Union or the Union without the ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... knowing how to renew it. A very rude barter exists between tribes of the same group in regard to articles not locally obtainable. The religion consists of fear of the spirits of the wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts traditionally displeasing to them. There is neither worship nor propitiation. An anthropomorphic deity, Puluga, is the cause of all things, but it is not necessary to propitiate him. There is a vague idea that the "soul'' will go somewhere after death, but ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wore on he devoted his spare time more exclusively to polo and Persian; continuing his lessons to Honor; and rarely spending his evenings in the drawing-room, unless the girl's music held him spellbound, and ensured the avoidance of dangerous topics. Evelyn retorted by a renewed zest for tennis and tea-parties; an increasing tendency to follow the line of least resistance, regardless of results. Thus Honor found herself thrown more and more upon the companionship of Mrs Olliver, Mrs Conolly, and Paul Wyndham, whose ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... bonds, and the solitary struggle with difficulties before that relief is sought, something which, if related officially to the Domestic Relations Court, would be of a more flexible and private nature than most of its proceedings. We need more an aid to avoidance of marital rocks than a rescue, as from a life-boat, after ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... he was a man of some education and familiar with the history of my case. But this man, who had tried to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when I was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to whet my desire ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... to meet her again, even though on this lump of rock the difficulty lay as a rule rather in avoidance than in meeting. But Avice had been transformed into a very different kind of young woman by the self-consciousness engendered of her impulsive greeting, and, notwithstanding their near neighbourhood, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... it is immodest to use I is a superstition. Undue repetition of I is of course awkward; but entire avoidance of ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... she as religious as there was any need to be, or at least as she could be without alienating her children or affecting more than she felt? Give herself to Him? How? Did that mean a great deal of church-going, sermon-reading, cottage visiting, prayers, meditations, and avoidance of pleasure? That would never do; the boys would not bear it, and Janet would be alienated; besides, it would be hypocrisy in one who could not sit still and think, or attend ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... things unusually and yet well. They do not seem to me, even in this respect, a success. There are single phrases that seem almost an inspiration; there are bits of description, particularly of flowers and moods of nature, which are masterly; but the studious avoidance of the commonplace imparts to the reader something of the strain under which the author has labored. He begins to feel the sympathetic weariness which often overcomes one while ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... owing to the absorption of the party in their different pursuits, he was able to see more of Ethel than he had ever done. He was so different from the men she had known that he was a continual study to her. Instead of the studied indifference, shy avoidance, shy advances, culminating in a blunt and straightforward declaration of "intentions," which she would have thought natural in an admirer, followed by transparent, honest delight in the event of acceptance, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... think of the career that awaits him, of the help there is in him for men, and the honor that will follow him from them,—of the high studies, tasks, and companionship to which he is hastening. What avails this avoidance, this turning-away of the head? A fancy that must be kept is already lost. She read his quality in the first glance of deep-meaning eyes. When at last he speaks, she sees suddenly how beyond all recovery he had carried away her soul in that glance. They ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the most reserved. 'Elfride,' whispered Knight in reply, 'it is strange you should have asked that question. But I'll answer it, though I have never told such a thing before. I have been rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have never given a woman a kiss in my life, except yourself and my mother.' The man of two and thirty with the experienced mind warmed all over with a boy's ingenuous shame as he ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the young, the brave, the fair rivalled each other in demonstrations of their gratitude; and this high-wrought, delightful scene was heightened in its effect by the singular contest between the zeal of the bestowers and the avoidance of the receiver of the honors bestowed. Commencing his administration, what heart is not charmed with the recollection of the pure and wise principles announced by himself as the basis of his political life? He best understood ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... agreed her sisters, feeling a fresh pang that such avoidance was necessary. They had never hidden anything before, and the thought that this mystery lay between them and ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... of Arabic learning were opened, a stream of mechanized astronomical models poured into Europe. Astrolabes and equatoria rapidly became very popular, mainly through the reason for which they had been first devised, the avoidance of tedious written computation. Many medieval astrolabes have survived, and at least three medieval equatoria are known. Chaucer is well known for his treatise on the astrolabe; a manuscript in Cambridge, containing a companion treatise on the equatorium, has been ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... other by steamboat and rail, via San Francisco. If he took the boat, there was less danger of her discovering him, even if she chose the same conveyance; if she took the direct stage,—and he trusted to a woman's avoidance of the hurry of change and transshipment for that choice,—he would still arrive at San Luis, via San Francisco, an hour before her. He resolved to take the boat; a careful scrutiny from a stateroom window of the ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... probably from knowing that Mr. Brooke's was a thoroughly worldly family, and supposing that Lucy must be like her cousins in this respect. Miss Eastwood in this was acting conscientiously; yet such a determined avoidance of those who appear to be worldly in their principles of action, though founded on the desire of keeping out of temptation, sometimes leads to great mistakes. Real Christian sympathy may sometimes be found where from circumstances there may seem to be least appearance of ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... them so much easier than to secure pleasure. Deeply impressed as they were by the negative nature of pleasure and the positive nature of pain, they consistently devoted all their efforts to the avoidance of pain. The first step to that end was, in their opinion, a complete and deliberate repudiation of pleasure, as something which served only to entrap the victim in order that he might ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... 27th.—There is a general impression that membership of the House of Commons is in itself a sufficient excuse for the avoidance of military service. This, it appears, is erroneous. Only those are exempt whom a Medical Board has declared unfit for general service; and even these, according to Mr. FORSTER, may now be re-examined. This ought to prove a great comfort to ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... benefit of our guards and others of the prisoners whom we distrusted. At other times we foregathered in dim corners of our huts as though by chance. We conversed covertly from the corners of our mouths and without any movement of the lips, as convicts do. This avoidance of one another was made the easier because of the arrangement of the personnel of each hut. The various nationalities were pretty well split up in companies, presumably to prevent illicit co-operation and each company was separated from ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... refrained from doing so. What could it profit him to know where his wife and stepdaughter were to be found? Whether they were in the next street or at the antipodes could matter very little to him, except so far as the knowledge of their place of habitation might guide him in his avoidance of them. Between him and them there was a gulf wider than all the waters of the world, and to consider them was only foolish waste of time and thought. He left the house, which for the last five years of his life had been the outward and visible ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... going to be any avoidance on his part. If unpleasantness must rise between them Reid would be the one to set it stewing, and it looked from a distance as if this were his intention. Mackenzie went to camp, his ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... inadvertently: the moment she had uttered it she blushed and looked timidly toward her companion, fearing that he had noticed it. He had not. How could she have made such a blunder? she asked herself. She had been most particular about the avoidance of this word, even in the Lewis. The girl did not know that from the moment she had left the steps of the Old Ship in company with that good friend of hers she had unconsciously fallen into much of her old pronunciation and her old habit of speech; while Ingram, much more familiar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... back," said Mr. Phoebus, "and it will be acknowledged that true religion is the worship of the beautiful. For the beautiful cannot be attained without virtue, if virtue consists, as I believe, in the control of the passions, in the sentiment of repose, and the avoidance in ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... of not going to the hotel that night at all. But of what use could such an avoidance be? The apparition was bound by no fetters to that terrible sitting-room of mine. I might be put to the ordeal anywhere, even here in the thoroughfares of the city, and upon the whole I preferred to return to my lodging. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... frankness of friendship. Then, as his love grew, showing itself by every delicate and unobtrusive token, there came a change, and a subtle one, in her conduct; and the lover told himself with triumphant heart that he was beloved. Her sweet shyness, her careful avoidance of every possible tete-a-tete, her evident embarrassment on those rare occasions when she found herself alone with him—surely these things meant love, and love only! There could be no other meaning. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... but respect her dignified avoidance of him, which he felt to be in keeping with her character. He listened with such grace as he could to Uncle Martin, whose pessimistic oration to-day chanced to be on the general ignorance and uselessness of doctors. His complaints about the medical faculty were uttered slowly and with long pauses ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... destiny might not even yet have been modified. It may be questioned, and I think it should be doubted. It was in his horoscope to be parsimonious of pain to himself, or of the chance of pain, even to the avoidance of any opportunity of pleasure; to have a Roman sense of duty, an instinctive aristocracy of manners and taste; to be the son of ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... though without infringing on the reserved home coasting trade; the removal or reduction of burdens on the exported products of those countries coming within the benefits of the treaties, and the avoidance of the technical restrictions and penalties by which our intercourse with those ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... towards him. Emmeline joined not in the conversation. Her father did not offer to show her the letter, and she stilled the yearnings of her young and loving heart. From that hour the name of Arthur Myrvin was never heard in the halls of Oakwood. There was no appearance of effort in the avoidance, but still it was not spoken; not even by Percy and Herbert, nor by Caroline or her husband. Even the letters of Lady Florence and Lady Emily Lyle ceased to make him their principal object. Emmeline knew the volatile nature of the latter, and therefore was ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... had knit us together by cords never to be broken. If she knew he was in the house she would retire to her own room, or if advised of his coming would go abroad to visit or drive, in every way showing a clear avoidance of his society. And the second matter was in connection with the Burn School. This work had been the chief thought of her life before her illness, but upon her recovery she refused to visit the place, would walk or ride far around by ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... from figures of speech, we notice in the style of Prayer Book English a careful avoidance of whatever looks like a metaphysical abstraction. The aim is ever to present God and divine things as realities rather than as mere concepts or notions of the mind. So far as the writer remembers, not a single prayer in the whole book begins with that formula so dear to the makers of extemporary ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... characteristics of Alexandrianism are well summarized by Professor Robinson Ellis as follows: "Precision in form and metre, refinement in diction, a learning often degenerating into pedantry and obscurity, a resolute avoidance of everything commonplace in subject, sentiment or allusion." These traits are more prominent in Callimachus than in Apollonius, but they are certainly to be seen in the latter. He seems to have written the Argonautica ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... as he sat at his own table, one might have detected a kind of alertness in his eyes, as of a man ever on his guard, and what seemed almost a studied avoidance of his wife's soft, persistent gaze, as she sat ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... reasonably and joyfully be observed by liberals and orthodox alike. We have no need or wish to make a change.' And of the actual ceremonial rites connected with the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, it is apparently only the avoidance of leaven on the first of the three that is regarded as unimportant. But even there Mr. Montefiore's own feeling is in favour of the rite. 'It is,' he says, 'a matter of comparative unimportance whether the practice of eating unleavened bread in the house for the seven ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... swelled from day to day, from hour to hour, till it overshadowed this whole region, and not the least of the darkness it caused was on this spot, where this ancient homestead stands, and where the young man had grown and lived from the hour of his birth. He saw coldness and avoidance on the highway; he was shrunk from on sabbath-mornings, and by children; but this was little and could be borne—the world was against him: but when he saw an aged face averted," he looked at old Sylvester steadily, "and a mother's countenance sad ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... dramas do deal only with peasants, but they are handled in the universal way that Ibsen used when he made the bourgeois of slow Norwegian towns representative of the human race everywhere.... it is not only in the avoidance of joyless and pallid words that Mr. Synge has chosen the better part. He has experienced the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality; and so it was just because 'The Playboy' was so true in its presentation of the weaknesses—if weaknesses they can ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... of the fact that the other girls studiously left him to Miss Huling. If the avoidance had not been so marked, he would never ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... fever are harmless. He should be impressed with the fact that the early stage is the one when recuperation is most easy—that the will then has not lost its power of control, and that the fatal propensity is not incurable. The duty of prevention, or avoidance, should be enforced with as much earnestness and vigor as we are required to carry out sanitary measures against the spread of small-pox or any infectious disease. The subject of inebriety may be justly held responsible, if he neglects all such efforts, and allows the disease to progress ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... words of introduction. The primary function of all fiction is to furnish entertainment to the reader, and this fact has not been lost sight of. But the interest of so-called "detective" fiction is, I believe, greatly enhanced by a careful adherence to the probable, and a strict avoidance of physical impossibilities; and, in accordance with this belief, I have been scrupulous in confining myself to authentic facts and practicable methods. The stories have, for the most part, a medico-legal motive, and the methods of solution described in them are ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... even a plea of confession and avoidance. It is a plea of "Guilty" at the bar of the world. It has one merit, that it does not add to the crime the aggravation of hypocrisy. It virtually rests the case of Germany upon the gospel of Treitschke ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... original idea remained of a vacuum at the end of every stroke, of indispensable assistance from atmospheric pressure, of a careful use of the direct expansive power of steam, and of the avoidance of the high pressures and the actual power of which steam is now known to be safely capable. [Footnote: In a reputable school "philosophy" printed in 1880, thus: "In some engines" (describing the modern high-pressure engine, ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... and stood considering her in silence. She wondered if Miss Hatchard had sent him round to pry into the way the library was looked after, and the suspicion increased her resentment. "I saw you going into her house just now, didn't I?" she asked, with the New England avoidance of the proper name. She was determined to find out why he was ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... capable professionally, and thereby commandful of respect, he appealed also to men's regard by intelligent and constant thought for the wants and comfort of those under him; by evidence of strong service feeling on his own part; by clear and clearly expressed recognition of merit, wherever found; by avoidance of misunderstandings through explanation volunteered when possible,—not apologetically, but as it were casually, yet appealing to men's reason. Watchfulness and sympathetic foresight were with him as constant as sternness, though ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... subjects may seem out of place in a work designed for every member of the family, yet they are presented in a style which cannot offend the most fastidious, and with a studied avoidance of all language that can possibly displease the chaste, or disturb the delicate susceptibilities ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... pursuit of pleasure, but its correlative, the avoidance of work and duty, can be abundantly illustrated in this age; and this too may have had a subtle connexion with Epicurean teaching, which had always discouraged the individual from distraction in the service of the State, as disturbing to the free development of his own virtue. ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... and if we could suppose Lancaster to mean nothing more by tardy tricks than idleness and debauch, I should not possibly think myself much concerned to vindicate Falstaff from the charge; but the words imply, to my apprehension, a designed and deliberate avoidance of danger. Yet to the contrary of this we are furnished with very full and complete evidence. Falstaff, the moment he quits London, discovers the utmost eagerness and impatience to join the army; ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... impression that he was a safe man. And he was safe. Tradition, habit, education, inherited aptitude, native caution, all joined to form a solid professional honesty, superior to temptation—from the very fact that it was built on an innate avoidance of risk. How could he fall, when his soul abhorred circumstances which render a fall possible—a man cannot fall off ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... out a little later, perhaps, when after traversing many high and resounding marble halls, with a great many rooms opening into one another in a way that suggested rather the avoidance of privacy than its security, they found themselves in one of those gardens of shut delight of which the exteriors of Venetian houses give so ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... compelled an entire alteration in the system, and the abolition of the governing powers of the Company, as we shall have occasion to relate in a subsequent chapter. The principles which Pitt had laid down as the guiding maxims for the governors; the avoidance of ambitious views of conquest, the preservation of peace, and the limitation of the aims of the government to the encouragement and extension of commerce, were not equally adhered to. Undoubtedly, in some instances, the wars in which, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... present, Anna Leopoldowna was the ruler, and, as they were her subjects, they must in humble submission pay homage to her; but Elizabeth might become empress, and therefore they must likewise pay homage to her, with a prudent avoidance of the too much, which might cause them to be suspected in case the regent should still ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... and therefore far more serious because it may give rise to a split and weaken the cause—no cause can survive internal difficulties if they are indefinitely multiplied. Yet there can be no surrender in the matter of principles for the avoidance of splits. You cannot promote a cause when you are undermining it by surrendering its vital parts. The depressed classes problem is a vital part of the cause. Swaraj is as inconceivable without full reparation to the 'depressed' classes as it is impossible without ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... wishes, was something about which Eells knew no more than Wunpost, if, in fact, he knew as much. For Wunpost had a limp in his good right leg which partially conveyed the answer, and it was his private opinion that Lynch had gone bad and was out in the hills to kill him. Hence his avoidance of the peaks, and even the open trail; and the way he rode into ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... plain black, are safe from impeachment of their taste, just as people who say nothing are secure against an exhibition of folly or ignorance. They are the mutes of costume, and contribute nothing to the chromatic harmony of the social circle. They succeed in nothing but the avoidance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... facts are heaped together in these works, such incredible dulness is shown in presenting them, such careful avoidance of any generalization or of any interesting particular, such a bald and conceited style, and such a cockneyish and self-opinionated view of human history, as our soul wearies even to think of. Mr. Latham disdains any link of philosophy, or any classification, among his "ten thousand facts," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... and had made the story a mere tragedy. Dickens writes the story about the French Revolution, and does not make the Revolution itself the tragedy at all. Dickens knows that an outbreak is seldom a tragedy; generally it is the avoidance of a tragedy. All the real tragedies are silent. Men fight each other with furious cries, because men fight each other with chivalry and an unchangeable sense of brotherhood. But trees fight each other in utter stillness; because ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... matter. We are making here and throughout the Empire a great national and Imperial effort, unique, supreme. The recruiting of soldiers and sailors, the provision of munitions, the organisation of our industries, the practice of economy, the avoidance of waste, the accumulation of adequate war funds, the mobilisation of all our forces, moral, material, personal—all these are contributory and convergent streams which are directed to and concentrated upon one unifying end, one ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... be unequal. And though a slope towards north or south would not affect the equality of such shadows, and would therefore be admissible, yet it would clearly be altogether undesirable; since the avoidance of a slope towards east or west would be made much more difficult if the surface were tilted, however slightly, towards north or south. Apart from this, several other circumstances make it extremely desirable that the surface from which the astronomers make their observations ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... perils of foster-motherhood is not new, but Mrs. MERRICK has treated it freshly and with a very decent avoidance of its strictly sexual aspects. But her methods are too sedentary. She kept on with her atmosphere long after we knew the details of the cottage interior by heart; while a whole volume of active tragedy—Mary's six months in London—was ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... past the tobacco field, and Jason and Mavis, when they saw either or both coming, would move to the end of the field that was farthest from the turnpike and, turning their backs, would pretend not to see. Sometimes the two mountaineers would be caught where avoidance was impossible, and then Marjorie and Gray would call out cheerily and with a smile—to get in return from the children of the soil a grave, silent nod of the head and a grave, answering glance of the eye—for neither knew the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... central principles of things, without anxiety for minor details, and it is by nature largely intellectual in quality, though not by any means to the exclusion of emotion. In outward form, therefore, it insists on correct structure, restraint, careful finish and avoidance of all excess. 'Paradise Lost,' Arnold's 'Sohrab and Rustum,' and Addison's essays are modern examples. Romanticism, which in general prevails in modern literature, lays most emphasis on independence and fulness of expression and on strong emotion, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... character unfolding itself by means of one action, as far as possible in one place, and within the limits of one day. It is bound by other formal and conventional rules: of versification—such as the alternation of masculine and feminine pairs of rhymes, and of taste—such as the avoidance of all "doing of deeds" on the stage (e.g., all fighting and dying take place behind the scenes) and the grouping of the fewest possible secondary parts around ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... over the lines once more. The strangest thing to her was the avoidance of the familiar "Du," but that had to be. It was meant to convey the idea that there was no bridge left. Then she put the letter into an envelope and walked toward a house between the churchyard and the corner ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... So I was in a very hazy state of mind, and could not tell what to make of it. The Gods would surely never have been guilty of such behaviour if they had not considered it good; and yet law-givers would never have recommended avoiding it, if avoidance had not seemed desirable. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the United States has worked in close cooperation with the other American Republics assembled at Montevideo to make that conference an outstanding success. We have, I hope, made it clear to our neighbors that we seek with them future avoidance of territorial expansion and of interference by one Nation in the internal affairs of another. Furthermore, all of us are seeking the restoration of commerce in ways which will preclude the building up of large favorable trade balances by any one Nation at the expense of trade ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... before. Several times he was on the point of speaking on the subject. Once, indeed, he made a playful allusion to the flautist of the bower that was provocative of no more than a reddened cheek and an interlude of silence. But tacitly the lover was a theme for strict avoidance. Not even the Baron had a word to say on that, and they were numberless the topics they discussed in this enforced ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... generously warm; but when she smiled, Major Harper sighed, and cast his handsome eyes another way. All the evening he scarcely talked to her at all, but to Mrs. and Miss Ianson. Agatha was quite puzzled by this pointed avoidance, not to say incivility, and had some thoughts of plainly asking him if he were vexed with her; but womanly pride conquered girlish frankness, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... too well known to need particular description; but some notice of their habitudes may not be useless for avoidance. The whole class male subsists by fetching and carrying bays, grasping at notes and scraps, if any great name be to them; run wild after verses in MS.; fond of autographs. The females carry albums; some ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... loveliness of his mother's look; the quiet tone caught by the other children from the grown-up sister who sat next to him. His transgression had affected the spirits of the whole party. The very avoidance of all direct reference to it was significant and impressive. It was something too disgraceful for table-talk. A blackened soul! soiled lips! These were the figures most distinct to his imagination as he crept after supper into the library, and sat down at the alcoved window looking upon a side ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... an advance, and modestly refrained from putting his opinion against that of men trained to the profession of arms; though all allowed his right to a valid judgment. But he claimed, with some reason, that the political horizon was dark; that success by the Army of the Potomac was secondary to the avoidance of disaster. If, he alleged, this army should be destroyed, it would be the last one the country would raise. Washington might be captured; and the effect of this loss upon the country, and upon Europe, was to be greatly dreaded. The enemies of the administration ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... "Khovanchtchina" are full, that makes Wagner seem plebeian and bourgeois. Peasant-like though the music is, reeking of the soil, rude and powerful, it still seems to refer to a mind of a prouder, finer sort than that of the other man. The reticence, the directness, the innocence of any theatricality, the avoidance of all that is purely effective, the dignity of expression, the salt and irony, the round, full ring of every detail are good and fortifying after the scoriac inundations of Wagner's genius. The gaunt gray piles, the metallic surfaces, the homelinesses ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... the consequences, and all our Indians and Canadians (except Natanis [57] and another,) escaped across the ice, which covered the Bay of St. Charles, before the arrival of Captain Laws. This was a dangerous and desperate adventure, but worth while the undertaking, in avoidance of our subsequent sufferings. Its desperateness consisted in running two miles across shoal ice, thrown up by the high tides of this latitude— and its danger, in the meeting with air holes, deceptively covered ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... ate (and though the viands were new to me, I marvelled more at the delicacy than the strangeness of their flavour), my companions conversed quietly, and, so far as I could detect, with polite avoidance of any direct reference to myself, or any obtrusive scrutiny of my appearance. Yet I was the first creature of that variety of the human race to which I belong that they had ever beheld, and was consequently regarded by them as a most curious and abnormal ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the sharp antagonism of two types of statesmanship. The strength of the one lies in the recognition of actual facts, and the avoidance of all projects which seem likely, under existing circumstances, to fail. The other is of a more sanguine type, and believes in the power of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice to transform the existing facts into something better, and to win success against all odds. Statesmen ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... with an air of finality, as if their tete-a-tete were to be as long as the path before them, and as secret as the hedges could keep it. He would never have come out driving with three women if he had not hoped to get a talk alone with Rose. He told himself that Rose's avoidance of him was becoming quite an affectation, and after all, he asked himself, what had he done ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the D'Annunzio play with only slight mention—to show the husband's avoidance of her—to draw attention to her deep-rooted aversion to Francesca. Mr. Crawford also brings her on the scene, and has Paolo the cause of her death, wittingly distorting history, since Orabile died many years after ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... for his Government; inferentially it was a high compliment to the organizing ability of the Minister of Militia, but Sir Robert deftly left that to the imagination of his audience. . . . A curious feature was his avoidance of any mention of the 'Minister of Militia.' When he desired to speak of the military programme, he stated that he had decided, after consultation with the 'Chief of Staff'. This was done repeatedly and apparently with definite purpose. Once he mentioned the name ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... best in monarchies, and then refers to the indecencies of Horace and Ovid as an example of the reverse in a republic—as if Ovid and Horace had not lived under a monarchy! and throughout the whole of this theory he is as thoroughly in the wrong. By refined taste he signifies an avoidance of immodesty of style. Beaumont and Fletcher, Rochester, Dean Swift, wrote under monarchies—their pruriencies are not excelled by any republican authors of ancient times. What ancient authors equal in indelicacy the French romances from the time of the Regent of Orleans ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perplexities and cares sat with us at the fireside, we received them as friends; for in the light of Arden had we not seen their harsh masks removed, and behind them the benignant faces of those who patiently serve and minister, and receive no reward save fear and avoidance and misconception? In fact, having lived in Arden, and with the consciousness that we might seek shelter there as in another and securer home, the world barely touched us, save to awaken our sympathies and to evoke our help. It ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... again. A knowledge of the fact that he had been called in might give occasion for more disturbing thoughts than were already pressing upon her mind. And so, after giving some general directions as to the avoidance of all things likely to excite her ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... themselves as the victims of circumstances, bound in self-protection to combine. Our analysis of the operations of commercial competition enables us to see that these two forces are not really separate, but are only two ways of looking at the same action. Every avoidance of so-called "excessive" competition is ipso facto an establishment of a monopoly. The tariff of prices established a weak and partial monopoly. The "combine," whether it takes the name of "ring," "syndicate," or "trust," succeeds, in so far as it establishes a stronger ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... removed, Dick saw the doctor's face, and the fear came upon him again. The doctor wrapped himself in a mist of words. Dick caught allusions to "scar," "frontal bone," "optic nerve," "extreme caution," and the "avoidance ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... amount of solar ultraviolet which does get through. To defend themselves against this low level of ultraviolet, evolved external shielding (feathers, fur, cuticular waxes on fruit), internal shielding (melanin pigment in human skin, flavenoids in plant tissue), avoidance strategies (plankton migration to greater depths in the daytime, shade-seeking by desert iguanas) and, in almost all organisms but placental mammals, elaborate mechanisms to ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... said and done, the real solution of our industrial difficulties lies not in expert machinery, however perfect, for the adjustment or avoidance of troubles. "Industrial peace must come not as a result of the balance of power with a supreme court of appeal in the background. It must arise as the inevitable by-product of mutual confidence, real ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... acutely. "Sunday night you were too queer for words. You couldn't talk to Mrs. Craddock for more than a minute at a time. Did you call her Savina?" Mrs. Craddock's name, he responded in a nicely interrogating manner, he had thought to be Laura. She paid no attention to his avoidance of her ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... disposition left the good cleric, like many another, much puzzled. Was there anything of foolish pride or misanthropy in Gordon's avoidance of society that would have welcomed him? Both his recorded speech and his poems are without evidence of either. Those who remember his taciturnity and little eccentricities also speak of his kindness of heart, generosity and trustfulness of others. Did he ever complain ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... "The Economy of Speech," and "The Equipoise of Passion." In the first named of these he laid down as a broad general statement that some people talk too much and others too little. Here, as in other functions, either extreme was disastrous. Prolixity of speech produced avoidance of the offender, and silence tended to syncope of the language. The causes of either fault were in his opinion far to seek, and lay less in the nature of the individual than in the essence of orthography and diction. Tautology was the blemish of written ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... thwarted! I hate it! I hate it!" she often said angrily to herself, but she was helpless in the face of Van Lennop's cool avoidance. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Avoidance of this lack of uniformity in the product, and the great desirability to duplicate the normal bean as far as possible, necessitated the development of a method of extraction of the caffein from the whole raw bean without a permanent alteration of the shape thereof. The close structure ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... was entirely fitted and furnished, Mark Twain entered it for the first time. He had never even seen the place nor carefully examined plans which John Howells had made for his house. He preferred the surprise of it, and the general avoidance of detail. That he was satisfied with the result will be seen in his letters. He named it at first "Innocence at Home"; later changing this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all thinking people to gather their forces together and seriously apply themselves to consider how they can better this condition of things. In their daily life they can do so by setting up a high standard of sanity and right behaviour, by the encouragement of fine aims and high ends, by the firm avoidance of hypocrisy and hysterical altruism, and by intelligent explanation to those under their care of the reason why individual responsibility is necessary for the welfare ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... for a franchise for a street railway, the city officials might hold the opinion that a double track should be laid. In support of this opinion they would name the advantageous results that would follow from the use of a double track, such as the avoidance of delays on turnouts, the lessening of the liability of accidents, the greater rapidity in transportation, etc. On the other hand, the persons seeking the franchise might reply that a double track would occupy too much ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... provoke no comment. But Isabel's boasted, perfect nerves were shattered beyond such control. She moped all day in her own room, rejecting Flavia's companionship, and fled from Corrie with unconcealed avoidance. Nor did she improve, as the days passed, but rather grew worse ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... however, it seemed very hard for me to speak to her in cold conventional terms—when, my heart was overflowing with love towards her; and, this made me appear constrained; while, she showed a shy avoidance of me, which, only natural as it was, pained me—although I was certain, all the time, that she had not changed ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... delusion of the teapot which inspired her with the belief that they wanted her to go somewhere immediately, a shrewd avoidance of any further reference to the topics into which she had lately strayed, Mrs Gamp rose; and putting away the teapot in its accustomed place, and locking the cupboard with much gravity proceeded to attire herself for a ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... this scheme will show a logical procession from the existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason, and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to the second philosophy, or science in useful practical action, diffusing light ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... him, showed him that though her cheeks were wet there was no rosy dawn of passion there; though her eyes were as full of affection as of grief, there was no shy avoidance of his own, no dropping of the lids, lest they should tell too much; and though his arm encircled her, she did not cling to him as loving women cling when they lean on the strength which, touched by love, can both cherish and sustain. That look convinced him better than a flood of ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... distaste; but when we pray to various Saints fresh devotional fervour is stirred up in practically each case. Thirdly, because certain Saints are appointed the patrons of certain particular cases, so S. Antony for the avoidance of hell-fire. Fourthly, that so we may show due honour to them all. Fifthly, because sometimes a favour may be gained at the prayer of many which would not be gained at the prayer of ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... for a long period; but a monopoly of the kind became out of date as time went on, and in 1834 it ceased altogether. The Company was there for the sake of trade, and for nothing else; and one of its guiding principles was avoidance of any acts which might wound Chinese susceptibilities, and tend to defeat the object of its own existence. Consequently, the directors would not allow opium to be imported in their vessels; neither were ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... went out Leonard refused to spread his rug in that only bed of pulverized shingle; and Ethel respected his avoidance of it as delicacy to her whose husband had no ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which generations had never dared to penetrate. Originally the survivors of that war had shunned the whole continent which it disfigured. It had been close to two centuries before men had gone into the still wholesome land laying to the far west and the south. And through the years, the avoidance of the Big Burn had become part of their racial instinct as they shrank from it. It was a symbol of something no ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... system as outlined by Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path. The first steps, (1) YAMA and (2) NIYAMA, require observance of ten negative and positive moralities-avoidance of injury to others, of untruthfulness, of stealing, of incontinence, of gift-receiving (which brings obligations); and purity of body and mind, contentment, self-discipline, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... not content with showing that the good consists ultimately in a quality of conscious states, asserted that all of men's actions are actually DIRECTED TOWARD the attainment of agreeable states of experience or avoidance of disagreeable states. There is no act but is aimed for pleasure of some sort or away from pain; men differ, then, only in their wisdom in selecting the more important pleasures and their skill in attaining what they aim ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... was not a pronounced success, in spite of Faversham's avoidance of any awkward topic. They sat at the long table in the big, desolate and shabby room, lighted only by a couple of tallow candles set up in their candlesticks upon the cloth. And the two junior officers maintained an air of chilly reserve and ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... the Veda do we ever observe the employment of sentences devoid of a practical purpose: the employment of sentences not having such a purpose is in fact impossible. And what constitutes such purpose is the attainment of a desired, or the avoidance of a non-desired object, to be effected by some action or abstention from action. 'Let a man desirous of wealth attach himself to the court of a prince'; 'a man with a weak digestion must not drink much water'; ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... for saving their worship, she thought to abate their hot lusts. And so she let ordain by her subtle crafts that they had not their intents neither with other, as in their delights, until they were married. And so it passed on. At-after supper was made clean avoidance, that every lord and lady should go unto his rest. But Sir Gareth said plainly he would go no farther than the hall, for in such places, he said, was convenient for an errant-knight to take his rest in; ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... visitors. He realised that he had never seen his father with any stranger or visitor—no one came to the house and he had never been into the town with his father. With this realisation came a knowledge of other things—of things half heard at the office, of half looks in the street, of a deliberate avoidance of his father's name—the Westcotts of Scaw House! There were clouds about ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... first, strong attachment; sentences begun which he could not finish, his half averted eyes and more than half expressive glance, all, all declared that he had a heart returning to her at least; that anger, resentment, avoidance, were no more; and that they were succeeded, not merely by friendship and regard, but by the tenderness of the past. Yes, some share of the tenderness of the past. She could not contemplate the change as implying less. He must ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... avoidance of an unpleasant subject is the superstitious feeling that mentioning a thing will bring it to pass. Or, again, if a misfortune has happened, many people feel that it only makes it worse to talk about it. While everybody avoids speaking on the subject, we can half pretend to ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... in so marshy and woody a country, subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature, that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera—in a country where the thermometer ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... sit down and compose yourself, Mrs. M.," he said—he abbreviated her name thus on principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary labor—"perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other. You say ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... unbelief born of familiarity, and its effects on Christ (verses 1-6). Observe the characteristic avoidance of display, and the regard for existing means of worship, shown in His waiting till the Sabbath, and then resorting to the synagogue. He and His hearers would both remember His last appearance in it; and He and they would ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... as so naturally indolent that no wages could induce them to work. He represented them as flying from contact with the Spaniards, leaving Queen Isabella to suppose that their avoidance was due to a natural antipathy to white men. The Queen, in her zeal to fulfil the conditions imposed on her conscience by the papal bull of donation, was easily tricked by the representations of the Governor, coinciding as they did with those of other ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... acquaintance; much less so, to take them into our intimacy or confidence. Spirits cannot be put under oath, or their credibility be subjected to tests. Whether they are spirits of truth or falsehood cannot be known; and common caution would seem to dictate an avoidance of their company. The fields of knowledge opened to us in the works of mortal men; the stores of human learning and science; the pages of history, sacred or profane; the records of revelation; ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... alarmed her; and the proximity of the factory rendered Georges's avoidance of her even more apparent. To think that by raising her voice a little she could make him turn toward the place where she stood! To think that they were separated only by a wall! And yet, at that moment ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... is always terrible—no one need be ashamed to fear it. How we bear it depends much upon our constitutions. I have seen some brave men, who have smiled at the cruellest amputation, die trembling like children; while others, whose lives have been spent in avoidance of the least danger or trouble, have drawn their last painful breath like heroes, striking at their foe to the last, robbing him of his victory, and making their defeat a triumph. But I cannot trace all the peace and resignation which I have witnessed ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... come to the question as to how these effects are to be maintained. In what has already been stated as to the danger of introducing the dogmatic and direct appeal into the story, it is evident that the avoidance of this element is the first means of preserving the story in all its artistic force in the memory of the child. We must be careful, as I point out in the chapter on Questions, not to interfere by comment or question with the atmosphere we have made round the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... went further, and altogether silenced himself concerning his pursuit of her piano; he even sought occasions of being silent concerning her piano in every way, or so it seemed to him, in his anxious avoidance of the topic. In all this matter he was governed a good deal by the advice of Mr. Ellett, to whom he had confessed his pursuit of Miss Desmond's piano in all its particulars, and who showed a highly humorous appreciation of the ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... be conveyed in the Bora, or tribal mysteries, which, again, are partly described by Collins as early as 1798, and must have been practised in 1688. Mr. Howitt mentions, among moral lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old age, abstinence from lawless love, and avoidance of the sins so popular, poetic, and sanctioned by the example of Gods, in classical Greece.[11] A representation is made of the Master, Biamban; and to make such idols, except at the Mysteries, is ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... that we have returned to Alexander's treatment of epilepsy much more nearly than is generally thought. There are those who still think that remedies of various kinds do good, but in the large epileptic colonies regular exercise, bland diet, regulation of the bowels, and avoidance of excesses of all kinds, with occupation of mind, constitute ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... of Fanny's probable presence, Charlotte was, for a while after this, divided between the sense of it as a fact somehow to reckon with and deal with, which was a perception that made, in its degree, for the prudence, the pusillanimity of postponement, of avoidance—and a quite other feeling, an impatience that presently ended by prevailing, an eagerness, really, to BE suspected, sounded, veritably arraigned, if only that she might have the bad moment over, if only that she might prove to ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... that here in his hands was an instrument capable of working inconceivable good. He recalled the days and weeks of anxiety when he was hungry for news of his loved ones; he foresaw that in affairs of state and of commerce rapid communication might mean the avoidance of war or the saving of a fortune; that, in affairs nearer to the heart of the people, it might bring a husband to the bedside of a dying wife, or save the life of a beloved child; apprehend the fleeing criminal, or commute the sentence of an innocent ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the final orders and stowing away the nine wounded he has brought from Melle. The hall of the Hospital is utterly deserted. So is the Place outside it. And in the stillness and desolation our going has an air of intolerable secrecy, of furtive avoidance of fate. This Field ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... an interesting study to watch the savage, had his object been a good one—the patience; the slow, gliding movements; the careful avoidance of growing branches, and the gentle removal of dead ones from his path, for well did Maqua know that a snapping twig would betray him if the camp contained any of the Indian warriors of ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... quite possible to place all worship of animal gods, all avoidance of certain kinds of animal food, all adoption of animal names as the names of men and families, under the wide and capacious cover of totemism. All theriolatry would thus be traced back to totemism. I am not aware, however, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... said Mr. Utterson, "but I think I begin to see daylight. Your master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and his avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery—God grant that he be not deceived. There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and natural, hangs well together, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... under the eyes, but his eyes were youthful, and his hair and moustache and short, fine beard scarcely tinged with grey. His features showed benevolence, with a certain firmness, and they had the refinement which comes of half a century's instinctive avoidance of excess. Still, he was beginning to feel his age. He moved more slowly; he sat down, instead of standing up, at the dressing-table. And he was beginning also to take a pride in mentioning these changes and in the fact that he would be fifty on his ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Cuesta will pursue them, and get thrashed. The English will come up, and perhaps get thrashed too; but we, God bless us! are only a small force, partially organized and ill to depend on,—we'll go up the mountains till all is over!" Thus did the major's discretion not only extend to the avoidance of danger, but he actually disqualified himself ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... earlier play, is close, both as regards incidents and style; while he usually lacks their felicity. His claims as an original dramatist will not stand examination in view of the concealed shepherds in the Queen's Arcadia, of his careful avoidance of scenes of strong dramatic emotion—a point in which he of course followed his models, while lacking their mastery of narrative as compensation—and of his failure to do justice to such scenes ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... is the bare truth told us for our help and guidance, as being the necessary and preliminary step. It is a high standard which is held up before us, even in this first stage, for it includes, not merely the avoidance of all obvious sins against man and society, but a tuning-up, a transmuting of the whole nature to high and noble endeavour. Wordsworth found his reward, in a settled state of calm serenity, "consummate happiness," "wide-spreading, ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... It is a code whose modes [15] trifle with joy, and lead to immediate or ultimate death. It fosters suspicion where confidence is due, fear where courage is requisite, reliance where there should be avoidance, a belief in safety where there is most danger. Our Master called it "a murderer ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the War Office asks for new squadrons. Bold action of Directorate. Enlistment of mechanics. Agreement with Admiralty for allotment of machines and engines. The placing of orders. Avoidance of standardization. Opinion of pilots on their machines liable to error. Examples—the Sopwith Tabloid and the D.H. 2. Sudden demands of the war. Machines ordered. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Burne-Jones, that they have put, in 'Love and Death' or in 'Love among the Ruins,' what we might have expected from poetry, but could hardly have thought possible in painting. But a hundred years of studious convention and generality, of deliberate avoidance of the poignant, and the vivid, and the detailed, and the coloured in poetry had made Pitt's confession as natural as another hundred years of contrary practice from Coleridge to Rossetti have ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... the proprietor, but the two men withdrew into the shadow as he approached. An ill-defined uneasiness came over him; he knew the proprietor, who also seemed to know the Missourian, and this evident avoidance of him was significant. Perhaps his reputation as a doubtful Unionist had preceded him, but this would not account for their conduct in a district so strongly Southern in sympathy as Fair Plains. More impressed by the ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... now see it. Soon I shall try to show that the more acknowledged causes, such as change of climate, alteration of political institutions, progress of science, act principally through this cause; that they change the object of imitation and the object of avoidance, and so work their effect. But first I must speak of the origin of nations—of nation-making as one may call it—the proper ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... thoroughly understood the master's mood, and thus made it clear to herself that the evening's formality was simply a continuance of the morning's avoidance, after looking at him once with one of those profound looks of hers which made him almost beside himself, she set her head straight, turned her eyes to the floor, and lapsed into a silence as unbroken as his own. She was too proud and shy to attempt to conciliate him, but she wondered why ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that was not one of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that the element of the unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, and that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully effected without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... to say she was not a weak woman? It is not betrayal of feeling, but avoidance of duty, that constitutes weakness. After an illness he has borne like a hero, a strong man may be ready to weep like a child. What the common people of society think about strength and weakness, is poor stuff, like the rest ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... the beliefs of the Church. Had William's government, indeed, refrained from the imposition of the oath, it is possible that there might have been no schism at all; for the early Nonjurors at least—perhaps Hickes and Turner are exceptions—would probably have welcomed anything which enabled the avoidance of schism. Once, however, the oath was imposed three vital questions were raised. Deprivation obviously involved the problem of the power of the State over the Church. If the act of a convention whose own legality was at best doubtful could deprive the consecrated of their position, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... and rendering the two great branches of the government, while equally popular both in their origin and in their responsibility, an effective check on one another. The plan is in accordance with that sedulous avoidance of the concentration of great masses of power in the same hands, which is a marked characteristic of the American federal Constitution. But the advantage, in this instance, is purchased at a price above all reasonable estimates of its ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... the eloquently inattentive gesture with which she touched a bowl of Gloire de Dijon roses as she passed, and in her conventionally courteous acknowledgment of young Nisbet's greeting. And, too, as she seated herself beside her sister on the divan, there was perceptible purpose in her avoidance of the lamp-light, her withdrawal into the dark, deep corner. To the conversation which followed she contributed only such brief remarks as were made necessary by those occasionally ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... sins have been to Loango will scarcely care to have its beauties recalled to memory. And to such as have not yet visited the spot one can only earnestly recommend a careful avoidance. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... conduct." They were also to oppose the formation of an offensive and defensive alliance between the American powers, for, as Mr. Clay pointed out, the Holy Alliance had abandoned all idea of assisting Spain in the reconquest of her late colonies. After referring to "the avoidance of foreign alliances as a leading maxim" of our foreign policy, Mr. Clay continued: "Without, therefore, asserting that an exigency may not occur in which an alliance of the most intimate kind between the United States and the other American republics would be highly ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane |
