"Dilemma" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conditions of human life. Any group falls into subdivisions, the members of each of which are approximately equal, when measured by any standard, because the classification is imperfect. If we make it more refined, the subdivisions must be subdivided again. We are in a dilemma: we cannot describe mankind at all without categories, and if we go on to make our categories more and more exact, each one of them would at last contain only one person. Two things result which are practically important, and which furnish us with ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... society is just now in an extremely critical pass, and that if something mysterious is not forthwith done the structure of it will crumble to atoms—he will see mankind grouped under the different reforms which, according to him, the human dilemma demands. And so on! These tendencies, while they should not be resisted too much, since they give character to observation and redeem it from the frigidity of mechanics, should be resisted to a certain extent. For, whatever they may be, they favour the growth of sentimentality, ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... of exasperation swept through him at the thought of his own white-livered irresolution. He was about to step forward to face the end of his dilemma when an unlooked-for movement occurred between him and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... and daughter. The latter was naturally surprised at his unexpected invitation, but surprise was soon obliterated by another and quite different feeling, which she kept rigorously to herself. Mrs. Levice was in a dilemma about it, and consulted her husband in ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... mishap, walking more rapidly than was his habit up and down the entire length of the hall that divided the house into two distinct sides, and his head had hung low upon his bosom. He had been pondering. Or perhaps he had been praying. His dilemma was by no means a ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... creatures of the imagination his own sufferings and fears. I think he was afraid of mental as well as physical decay, for he has studied insanity with the same assiduity as that displayed by Andreev in his nerve-wrecking story "A Dilemma." ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... Further, it sometimes happens that, before the consecration, the priest remembers that he has eaten or drunk something, or that he is in mortal sin, or under excommunication, which he did not remember previously. Therefore, in such a dilemma a man must necessarily commit mortal sin by acting against the Church's statute, whether ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... contrast with the passion of which Miss Hargrove was capable. She had seen his vain efforts to remain loyal, and had smiled at them, proposing to let matters take their course, and to give little aid in extricating him from his dilemma. But, if she had interpreted her friend's face aright, she could no longer stand aloof, an amused and slightly satirical spectator. If Burt deserved some punishment, Gertrude did not, and she was inclined to guess the cause of the latter's haste to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... been seen by him. As, however, there is no such sea in reality, Verrazzano could never have seen it; and therefore, he could not have so represented; or if he did, then the whole story must for that reason alone be discredited. There is no escape from this dilemma. Verrazzano could not have been deceived and have mistaken some other sheet of water for this great sea, and so represented it on any chart, or communicated it in any other way to the maker of this map; for he makes no mention of the circumstance in his letter to the king to whom he would have ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... physiologists that tea contributes nothing towards support of the human system; that it only rouses it into action, an effect which should, consistently, be followed by corresponding reaction and depression, which plainly is not the case. This hypothesis leaves the enquiring layman in a dilemma. Tea must either enable the system to draw more heavily or more economically upon the resources afforded by recognized food, or it is itself nutriment. Otherwise, an established principle of physics—that there can be no expenditure of energy without correlative cost—would be subverted. As ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... into the sitting-room, waited a full minute, taking deep breaths to still the beating of his heart. At this moment, so fraught with the future, to take out that morocco case seemed crude. Yet, not to take it out left him there before her with no preliminary excuse for coming. And in this dilemma he was seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia of excuse and justification. This was a scene—it could be nothing else, and he must face it. He heard her voice, uncomfortably, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... two evils you would choose the least," Gerald replied. "That is the common way of getting out of the difficulty. But it seems to me like compromising with evil. There ought to be always some third, wholly right, way out of every dilemma, if only one sought earnestly enough." She spoke more as if ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... correctness of the cause and mode of propagation assigned, yet the whole velocity could not be shown to arise from this theory. There was still a residual velocity to be accounted for, which placed dynamical philosophers for a long time in great dilemma. At length Laplace struck on the happy idea, that this might arise from the heat developed in the act of that condensation which necessarily takes place at every vibration by which sound is conveyed. The matter was subjected to exact ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... impossible to understand Irish history from the reign of Henry VIII. till the fall of James II.—nearly two hundred years—without constantly keeping in mind the dilemma of the chiefs and lords between the requirements of the English Court on the one hand and of the native clans on the other. Expected to obey and to administer conflicting laws, to personate two characters, to speak two languages, to uphold the old, yet to patronize the new order of things; distrusted ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... a skilful plot. Whilst advising James to resist the dictation of his uncle, he privately accused those of the Scottish nobles who had joined the Reformers of meditated treason against His Majesty. This placed the king in a serious dilemma, for he could not proceed against Henry without the assistance of those very nobles accused as traitors. The wily Cardinal had hoped that James would, in self-defence, seek an alliance with France and Spain; but he was ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... all this hairsplitting? Why not leave untainted the conviction that our first and foremost business is to crush the enemy's battle-fleet, and that to this end our whole effort should be concentrated? The answer is to point to Nelson's dilemma. It was a dilemma which, in the golden age of naval warfare, every admiral at sea had had to solve for himself, and it was always one of the most difficult details of every naval war plan. If we seek to ensure the effective action ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... back to the Mistress and laid gently at her feet the baby robin he had found. His keen teeth had not so much as ruffled its pinfeather plumage. Having done his share toward settling the bird's dilemma, Laddie stood back and watched in grave interest while the Mistress lifted the fluttering infant and put it back in the nest ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the same sort. I had plenty of time to see my dilemma. Either I would have to abandon my attempt to keep the men busy, or I would have to invoke the authority of Captain Selover. To do the latter would be to destroy it. The master had become a stuffed ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fervour, saying, "You have saved my life. Personally, I should be delighted to have Susil as a son-in-law, but you must let me consult my son and wife." He ran to the inner apartments, and communicated Sham Babu's offer to his near relatives. This unexpected solution of the dilemma filled them with surprise; and a loud clamour of voices echoed through the house. Finally all, without exception, agreed that the match would be an excellent one. Kumodini Babu brought news of its acceptance to Sham Babu, and it spread among the wedding guests, who ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... who played first violin in the quartet, had been so convivial that he was unable to continue. In this unfortunate dilemma Uncle Jens called upon Ole, saying, "Come, my boy, do your best, and you shall have a stick of candy." Ole quickly accepted the challenge, and as the quartet was one which he had several times heard, he played each movement correctly, much to the ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... been issued, to delay your departure, or retard the progress of the vessels, that you may be taken by the English? I consider it impossible, therefore, that your Majesty should escape them; or, if you should escape, but that you must ultimately fall into their hands, sooner or later. In this dilemma, it is right, at least, to endeavour to fall as nobly as possible."—"What are you driving at?" said Napoleon peevishly, thinking I meant to propose suicide to him: "I know, I might say, like Hannibal, 'Let us deliver them from ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... dilemma. The trio who had ridden in state now felt very small, indeed, and glanced at one another in dismay. Then Leslie surveyed the name over the ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... while to inquire what may have been the precise dilemma contemplated by the writer of this note, since most certainly it is not a reflex of Varro's meaning. The word dimidiatus is completely cushioned, although Gellius himself has a chapter upon it a little farther on in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... what it has its advantages too," he added thoughtfully, "and this very power of being able to disappear suddenly has just got me out of a most serious dilemma." ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... discomfiture and were delighted with the thought of an old-time talk from Toombs. For half an hour he made one of his eloquent and electric speeches, and when he sat down the audience screamed for more. No one but Toombs could have emerged so brilliantly from this awkward dilemma. ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... Now here was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded to follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when I would return and follow ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and well-to-do citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno, who happens to be present. He is asked 'whether Meno shall go to the Sophists and be taught.' The suggestion ...
— Meno • Plato
... except the interval from January 1 to March 24 inclusively. And hence arises a practical inference, viz, that the very same reason, and no other, which formerly enjoined the use of the compound or fractional date, viz, the prevention of a capital ambiguity or dilemma, now enjoins its omission. For in our day, when the double opening of the year is abolished, what sense is there in perplexing a reader by using a fraction which offers him a choice without directing him how to choose? In fact, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... say. "Aren't you ashamed of it?" And after inscrutable meditations the fond parent usually answers us by sending out the child to beg or sell matches or by some equally effective retort. Now a great number of excellent people pretend that this is a dilemma. "Take the child away," it is argued, "and you remove one of the chief obstacles to the reckless reproduction of the unfit. Leave it in the parents' hands and you must have the cruelty." But really this is not a dilemma at all. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... own situation was one of extreme peril. The Comanches must be aware of his singular dilemma, and were not likely to leave him undisputed master of the situation, at least as long as he remained ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... present House of Commons, and, as a qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you to decide whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of men who have reduced you to this unhappy dilemma, or whether you will gratify the united wishes of the whole people of England by dissolving ...
— English Satires • Various
... of men as an inspector. When he visited the reservation he asked for the witnesses at once. They asked for a reasonable time to get them together. This was refused and they asked for two days, and when this was denied they asked for one. In their dilemma and haste they got one Indian near-by to testify. The Agent himself broke down this man's testimony, because he had been at fault two or three years before, in a way which did not affect, in the slightest degree, his statement now, and the ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... creeds and philosophies—to be possessed of unconditional truth—can be scientifically tested? The sceptic's sneer, that the shifting systems of philosophy illustrate only the changing fashions of a great illusion about man's capacity for truth, plunges dogmatism into a 'Dilemma,' from which it can emerge only by finding a way of discriminating a 'truth' from an 'error,' and so solving the 'problem of Truth and Error.' The weird verbalism of the traditional Logic suggests a problem which strikes deeper even than the question, 'What do you mean by truth?' ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... did not see his indecision as she swept from the room, and "Marse Eddie" quickly relieved him of the embarrassing dilemma by picking up the carpet-bag and passing out of the door, closing it ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... throughout the South, no book could be distributed among the servile population more incendiary than the Bible, if they could only read it. Will not our Southern brethren take alarm? The Society is reduced to the dilemma of either denying that the African has a soul to be saved, or of consenting to the terrible mockery of assuring him that the way of life is to be found only by searching a book which he is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... call out for him. Night coming on, water began to rise about the base of the tree, and the Giant Beaver came and began to gnaw at its base. The friendly ants[16] tried to keep the tree upright, but the water continued to rise and the Beaver kept on gnawing. Then the Black Cat in his sore dilemma called out, "Grandpa, come!" The grandfather responded, "I am coming; wait till I get my moccasins." The water rose higher. Again Black Cat called out, "Come, grandpa, come!" "I am coming," his grandfather said; "wait till I get my cap." Again Black Cat called, "Hurry, grandpa!" ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... time arrived when the family not unreasonably suggested that the blinds of the house should be pulled down. Here was a dilemma. How was it possible to warn the household of the Pleasant-Faced Lion's approach if the blinds were pulled down? When Ridgwell found, in spite of much lingering, that the last crumb of cake had been consumed, to say nothing of ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Unlucky!" For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her father's death. Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn. "There," said he, "the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you—verily this largest will fit, and the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... started, and as we approached the north end of the meadow we found the ground swampy and wet and were soon obliged to leap from bog to bog on our route. A mis-step brought me up to my middle in water, and to add to the dilemma a swarm of hornets attacked me. Attaining the altitude of another bog I was cheered by the assurance that there was only a quarter of a mile of this kind of travel to the edge of my property. I waded on. In about fifteen ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... counsels of misguided friends and insidious enemies that she does not know what course to pursue in order to extricate herself from the web of difficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly involved. In this dilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a statue. Hear her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... how do you know?" he heard as he came up under the willows. This new voice, sweet and limpid, belonged to a girl of such striking appearance that the young man was on the point of forgetting his dilemma—until that infernal mosquito settled down back of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... poverty, while their fortunes, even in his hands, must bear all the jeopardy of the scheme. That was all. Retain Fausse Riviere and its wealth, and save the Grandissimes; surrender Fausse Riviere, let the Grandissime estates go, and save the Nancanous. That was the whole dilemma. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... camp determined to make the best of the situation, which owing to my failure to catch all of the gray devils, remained practically unchanged. Jim had been acquainted with my dilemma, as was manifest in his wet eyes and broad grin with ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... pocket-money remaining; so one proposed offering him a penknife, and another a pocket-comb, and a third an inkstand; indeed, there was no end of the number of small gifts which Monsieur Malin had pressed upon him. He was in a dilemma ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... a dilemma. The faces of the people present showed their approval of what Iwar had said, and at length, fearing that if he resisted their action the crown might be lost both to himself and his son, he gave in to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest, speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His happy thought was the cloister; ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... seeing dependent upon the eyes and nerves and brain does not even tend to show that there is not another chain of antecedents in which the eyes and nerves and brain as physical things are ignored. If we are to escape from the dilemma which seemed to arise out of the physiological causation of what we see when we say we see the sun, we must find, at least in theory, a way of stating causal laws for the physical world, in which the units are not material things, such as the eyes and nerves ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... for all that, the elements of a very pretty dilemma in the psychology of morals in the case of Miriam Gale and John Arniston. True, the calf-skin Bible said when it was consulted, "The letter killeth, but the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... produce his own, than to call for a display of your acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no shuffling. The truth will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.— ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... state briefly the objections which seem to me to be so fatal to either of the first two proposals, as to leave us no alternative but to accept the third horn of the Educational dilemma:— ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton
... found himself thus unexpectedly between two horns of a dilemma, the result in either case being the same—that is, the spoliation of the little pecadillo he had put away against old age. He shook his head, and with a sublime resignation accepted the voice of iniquity for that ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... influential position, which, from whatever fortunate cause, he held on Miss Aldclyffe's manor, would never again fall to his lot on any other, and he tacitly assented to this dilemma, hoping that some consolation or other would soon suggest itself to him; married as he ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... him by the hand, and, like a second Hagar, goes forth, whither she knows not. It is an instinct, an impulse, an inspiration. It is the mother's heart within her that bids her fly from the horrible dilemma, and save her child from the tyrant who seeks more than his life,—who would ruin his soul. Through out-of-the-way streets, into the deserted corners of the city she goes, clasping the boy's hand with an agonising grasp, with ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... In the dilemma in which he found himself there was nothing to be done but to be guided by circumstances. He was not willing to leave Kafka alone with the woman who hated him, and he saw no means of escaping her society so long as she chose to impose it upon them both. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... mischievous consequences, fills us with the highest indignation, and belongs to Tragedy. Why then are cunning and deceit admitted to be excellent as comic motives, so long as they are used with no malicious purpose, but merely to promote our self-love, to extricate one's-self from a dilemma, or to gain some particular object, and from which no dangerous consequences are to be dreaded? It is because the deceiver having already withdrawn from the sphere of morality, truth and untruth are in themselves ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Verkan Vall. "What does he think a religion is, on this sector, anyhow? You think these savages dreamed up that six-armed monstrosity, up there, to express their yearning for higher things, or to symbolize their moral ethos, or as a philosophical escape-hatch from the dilemma of causation? They never even heard of such matters. On this sector, gods are strictly utilitarian. As long as they take care of their worshipers, they get their sacrifices: when they can't put out, they have to get out. ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... the same case as if being cited he did not appear, or appearing did nothing but wrangle; so that, whether he has proved or not proved his cause, the second is not to be heard." And yet he who made this dilemma has written against Plato's Commonweal, dissolved sophisms, and exhorted his scholars to learn logic, as enabling them to do the same. Now Plato has either proved or not proved those things which he writ in his Commonweal; but in neither case was it necessary to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... who is planning a Thanksgiving dinner for "just us two" frequently finds herself in a dilemma. Turkey is much too large for her and chicken hardly appeals to her for this day. However, below are some suggestive menus for ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... he said, "what the deuce am I to do! To send for Curtis and Kelson will be fatal, and it will be equally fatal to leave them in ignorance of what has happened to me. I am, indeed, in the horns of a dilemma. I must get at ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... enough in the bare possibility of such a prospect to justify more than all the interest which has ever been expended upon it even by the most "anxious inquirer." But, haunted by these solemn thoughts, Mr. Holyoake takes refuge in the other alternative of his dilemma: "If there are other worlds, those will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who have made the welfare of humanity their business in this." Secular philanthropy is the best, and only needful, preparation. With this any belief in regard to the future is unnecessary, without ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... This brazen statue, which had been brought from Antioch, and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to represent either Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413, 414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P. p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri, Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived about the year 1100. They witness the belief of the prophecy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... sad dilemma, there came a Spaniard on board by composition to see our ship. He came on board again the next day, and we allowed him quietly to depart. The following day two Spaniards came, on board, without pawn or surety, to see ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... time Werper entertained the idea of bribing Abdul Mourak with a portion of the contents of the pouch; but fearing that the man would demand all the gems as the price of liberty, the Belgian, influenced by avarice, sought another avenue from his dilemma. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shoulders. The dilemma had been presented to him a hundred times. Time was pressing and there were ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... should there be none, to get for me a passage by some American trader. The China war, he assured me, had taken up all the Government vessels, and there appeared no hope left for me that season, as the last American trader was just then leaving for Zanzibar. In this dilemma it appeared that I must inevitably lose the travelling season, and come in for the droughts and famines. The tide, however, turned in my favour a little; for I obtained, by permission of the Admiralty, a passage ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... is arguing in a circle. The universal must be given up for the detail, the detail for the universal; we leave off where we began. Yes, that is the dilemma. Still, the gain to science through a devotion of a whole life to a mere group of facts, in a single branch of a single science, may be an incalculable acquisition to human knowledge, to the intellectual capital of the race - a gain that sometimes far outweighs ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... way of lifting his purblind stupidity to the light. She appealed to his experience of himself, on many a former occasion: "You fool, you have been drinking again—and there's a patient waiting for you." To that dilemma he was accustomed; the statement of it partially roused him. Mrs. Vimpany tore off the paper wrapping, and opened the medicine-bottle which she had ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... could have his pistols too! Ever since the Federals had cut him off from his furloughs home, those black ugly navies were next to the nearest in his affections. The nearest was the buckskin charger. And now, only the buckskin was left, which simply made the dilemma more poignant. The condemned man gazed critically at the walls, the rafters, the ground, and shook his head. Supposing a chance for escape, could he bring himself to leave Demijohn behind? He got his pipe to going, sat down, and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the front room, Mr. Blaisdell was receiving his guests in the most effusive manner, reminding Houston, even in his dilemma, ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... Blondel's lips before he could stay it. He saw what was coming, and the dilemma in which ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... you had a little good-will—if you entered a little into my dilemma." The note of reproach was so distinct in these words that Bernard stood staring. "You never take anything seriously," ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord, and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some of the writers who have come forward on the other side of the question seem to have been aware of the dilemma; and have even been bold enough to hint at the division of the larger States as a desirable thing. Such an infatuated policy, such a desperate expedient, might, by the multiplication of petty offices, answer the views ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... spark of curiosity had died out for lack of fuel. But to the man of five-and-thirty, racked with reawakened passion, and with a restless irritability, whose significance could no longer be ignored, the memory of his brother's whispered revelation flashed like a lightning-streak across his present dilemma; leaving him in the grasp of those invisible forces that are the true masters of destiny; that must either break or be broken by man's individual spirit and will. For some of us the struggle is conscious; for some unconscious; ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... long since solved Napoleon's dilemma: "Dans cinquante ans l'Europe sera republicaine ou cosaque." [1 Within fifty years Europe will be either republican or Cossack.] It found the solution in the "republique cosaque." [2 Cossack republic.] No ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... gentlemen, if not indeed in those of friends. It was some time before any one answered. The boys, by their looks and the expression of their countenances, seemed to appeal to me for a reply to get them out of their present dilemma, if possible. Before I had time to collect my thoughts, we were startled by these words, coming from the same man that had ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in question represented the unhappy dilemma of the handsome youth. Before him sat the grim baron, with a face worthy of the father of such a daughter, and looking daggers and ratsbane. On one side of him was Muckle-mouthed Mag, with an amorous smile across the whole breadth ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... laughs in his sleeve as he hears the affrighted partridge call, and the timid hare rushing through the vines towards him; they approach, are within range of his gun, and ere long the shot-bag is emptied, and the sportsman is in that rare but agreeable dilemma of not knowing what to do with his game or ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... from some sort of emotional block that left him continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. He was psychologically incapable of making a decision if he were faced with two or more possible alternatives ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... recognized the dilemma. The stout woman could not wear one of her night robes; and, if not one of hers, certainly not one of Miss Meeke's, or of either the young girls'—all of which were smaller than her own. What was to ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... opposing the Place Bill that they could not, without gross inconsistency, oppose the Triennial Bill. The whole House too bore a grudge to the other House, and had a pleasure in putting the other House in a most disagreeable dilemma. Burnet, Pembroke, nay, even Caermarthen, who was very little in the habit of siding with the people against the throne, supported Shrewsbury. "My Lord," said the King to Caermarthen, with bitter displeasure, "you ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the mimic perils of the Pond. The vessels lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, displaying a tantalizing lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore. As the gentleman observed their dilemma, a light came into his faded eyes, then died out, leaving them drearier than before. I wondered if he, too, in his time, had sent out ships that drifted and drifted and never came to port; and if these poor toys were to him types ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... position of the Ministry, to vindicate the honor and dignity of the Commons, to avert a collision with the House of Lords, and, in general, to extricate the councils of the nation from an embarrassing and dangerous dilemma. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... hand, but he could not reach the little leather bag with its silver clasp. If he could have jumped out of the window, he would have done so without hesitation, but the aperture was not large enough. He could not help being amused by the dilemma in which he was placed by this young lady's inflexibility. He did not know a girl, his sister not excepted, whom, under the circumstances, he would not have left to the consequences of what he would have called ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... ruined, so many people transported, so many citizens proscribed, so many coffins filled, so many graves dug, so much blood spilt" "Aha!" replies a coarse voice with a Dutch accent; "so you mistrust parliamentarism, do you?" Get out of the dilemma if you can. Parliamentarism is a great find. I give my vote to M. Louis Bonaparte for the next vacant seat at the Institute. What's that? why, we must encourage neology! This man comes from the dung-heap, this man comes ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Riccabocca, taking off his hat, with great formality, "if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... thee such a delectable bride." I now fell at her feet, entreated her forgiveness, and expressed my repentance; upon which, smiling upon me, she said, "Be not uneasy, for as I have plunged thee into a dilemma, I will also relieve thee from it. Go to the aga of the leather-dressers, give him a sum of money, and desire him to call thee his son; then repair with him, attended by his followers and musicians, to the house of the chief magistrate. When he inquires the cause of their ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... hunting party. But you see to-day is Wednesday, and we must leave Friday, and Frank and I have sworn by every fish in the creek to take to-morrow off for a fishing trip. Chicken Little, there is only one way out of the dilemma. Painful as it will be for you, you'll have to invite ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... one after another, not having the courage to continue the absurdity to the end. Add to all this the arrests made in its very bosom by the Assembly of the Hotel de Ville itself, and you will then have an idea of the extent of the dilemma. A few days more and the Commune will come to an end for want of Communists, and then we shall cry, "Haste to the poll, citizens of Paris!" And the white official handbills will announce supplementary elections ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... turned his attention to the Senorita. It was evident that the dilemma proposed by de Moche was not without weight. She had now coloured a flaming red. The woman had struck her ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... of our dilemma on which we have not before reflected. Should the Indians stay to "jerk" their meat, we will be in extreme danger from thirst, as well as of being discovered ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... officers upon the propriety of at once attacking an earthwork, thrown up to guard the ford. From all the information he could gather, this work was manned with about three hundred infantry—regular troops—and two heavy guns were mounted in it. Our arrival at this place after dark had involved us in a dilemma. If we did not cross the river that night, there was every chance of our being attacked on the next day by heavy odds. The troops we had seen at Pomeroy were, we at once and correctly conjectured, a portion of the infantry which had been sent after us from Kentucky, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... I felt my blood run cold. I may have lost my presence of mind; but I don't know how I could have got out of the dilemma even if I had ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... nothing of the conspiracy, and knew nothing of the young lord's story, except that he had involved himself in some tiresome dilemma from which his parents had rescued him—the Duke of Lester, who heard Lord Chandos spoken of as one likely to marry his niece, took a great fancy to him; he had no children of his own; he was warmly attached to his beautiful niece; it seemed very probable that ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... scarcely rising breasts; her arms singularly strong, at perfect rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, she holds a branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism); in her left, a scorpion with double sting, (the dilemma)—more generally, the powers of rational construction ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... capacities. It is pathetic to think of the mediaeval students poring over a single ill-translated sentence of Porphyry, endeavoring to extract from its clauses whole systems of logical science, and torturing their brains about puzzles more idle than the dilemma of Buridan's donkey, while all the time, at Constantinople and at Seville, in Greek and Arabic, Plato and Aristotle were alive, but sleeping, awaiting only the call of the Renaissance to bid them speak with voice intelligible to the modern mind. It is no less pathetic to watch tide ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Madam, in this dilemma I am happy to behold again your heavenly beauty. But with what eye can you look upon ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... now repaired to his wife, on whose prudent counsel he depended to extricate him out of this dilemma; but when he came thither he found his house in some confusion. So great envy had this sack occasioned, that when Mr Allworthy and the other gentry were gone from church, the rage, which had hitherto been confined, burst into an uproar; ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... her tongue. She was quite sure that Dorothy would never boast of her triumph. And Martha had been strictly cautioned,—as indeed, also, had Brooke Burgess. The man had behaved like an idiot, Miss Stanbury said; but he had been brought into a little dilemma, and nothing should be said about it from the house in the Close. But when the other rumour reached Miss Stanbury's ears, when Mrs. Crumbie condoled with her on her niece's misfortune, when Mrs. MacHugh asked whether ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... town two days afterwards, and the Marquis was left with the dilemma on his mind. Lord Saint George, though he would frequently interfere in matters connected with the property in the manner described, would never dictate and seldom insist. He had said what he had got to say, and the Marquis was left to act for himself. But the old lord had learned to feel that he ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... truth presented a strange and embarrassing dilemma, as we have remarked. In the war itself, moreover, began the stern cleavage between the North and the South. At the moment the rift was not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm. Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... dilemma, and it is a puzzling one, I admit. No Negro who has given earnest thought to the situation of his people in America has failed, at some time in life, to find himself at these cross-roads; has failed to ask himself at some time: What, after all, am I? Am I an American ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... himself, in a prison-ship, and with these men he now prepared to land; for, as yet, he had made little progress in the business which brought him into his present awkward predicament, and he was not a man to abandon an object so dear to him, lightly. Finding himself in a dilemma, he was resolved to make an effort to reap, if possible, some advantage from his critical situation. Accordingly, after he had taken his coffee and given his orders, the boat's crew was called, and he left the lugger's side. All this was done tranquilly, as if the appearance of the stranger ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... And now came the dilemma of our lives. It was impossible to delay the schooner, as already the crowd on board had lost several days; and it was not safe or right so late in the year to be keeping these other families from their homes. The Water Lily, so the kindly captain informed us, ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... me doubtfully, appealingly, as if for the first time in his life he had been given a glimpse of that dilemma of consequences which his nature never recognises. I thought he was going to give in. Suddenly, to my horror, Dan growled, "Play ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... enemy, but with some of my fleet afloat I shall eventually be successful. I can not lose all. I will attack, regardless of consequences, and never turn back." To a mind thus disciplined and prepared, the unforeseen dilemma presented before the barriers of Mobile Bay caused but a passing perplexity. Like the Puritan soldier who trusted in God and kept his powder dry, Farragut met the overthrow of his carefully arranged plans and the sudden decision ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... way again. But in the twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the county seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed horns of a cruel dilemma. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... that if a physician has been employed, he must be continued, however unable the patient is to bear the expense, as no apothecary may administer anything to the sick man, if he has been prescribed to first by a physician: so that the patient is reduced to this dilemma, either to die of the disease, or starve his family, if his sickness happens to be of any duration. A physician here scorns to touch any other metal but gold, and the surgeons are still more unreasonable; and this ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... the priest saw nothing of the scene before him; his eyes were fixed on vacancy; his thoughts were endeavoring to grapple with the situation and master it. Yet so complicated was that situation, and so perplexing the dilemma in which he found himself—a dilemma where death perched upon either horn—that the good priest found his faculties becoming gradually more and more unable to deal with the difficulty, and he felt himself once more sinking down deeper and deeper into that abyss of despair from which ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... yielding on the part of Mattie to the wishes of her mother. She only adopted this course as part of a plan by which she hoped to gain time, during which Tite might return, and thus afford her the means of averting a dilemma into which her ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... professor gently interrupted her: "Let us not judge a kind action harshly. Mr. Symington meant only to relieve you from an annoying dilemma, and he naturally concluded that this would be impossible should he disclose his real name and position. It seems that he merely allowed your inferences to go uncontradicted, and was, practically, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... be construed into a vainglorious desire of pushing myself into notice as a candidate. Now, if I am not grossly deceived in myself, I should unfeignedly rejoice, in case the electors, by giving their votes in favor of some other person, would save me from the dreadful dilemma of being forced to accept or refuse. If that may not be, I am, in the next place, earnestly desirous of searching out the truth, and of knowing whether there does not exist a probability that the government would be just as happily and effectually carried into execution ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... bricklayer to be an alderman of London. Among other of his early habits, the civic dignitary retained that of eating everything with his fingers. One day a choice bit of turbot having repeatedly escaped from his grasp, Wilkes, who witnessed the dilemma, whispered, "My lord, you had better ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... lay before me, trusting to the chapter of accidents to get through, incessant activity keeping anxiety away. I have never flinched from a duty, if I saw it, have never done an injustice to man or woman, intentionally, and at more than one moment of my career have accepted the worse horn of a dilemma rather than permit a wrong to happen to another; and if I have been erratic and unstable it has not been from selfish or perverse motives. I have always been what most people would call visionary, and material objects of endeavor have not ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... letter of the law and the records of history were unquestionably on the aide of the provincial and against the general authority. Yet to nullify the authority of the States-General by force of arms at this supreme moment was to stultify all government whatever. It was an awful dilemma, and it is difficult here fully to sympathize with the Advocate, for he it was who inspired, without dictating, the course ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pretensions, one who thinks he has produced the best grammar that has ever appeared in our language. To me, however, his work suggests an abundance of questions like these; each of which would palpably involve him in a dilemma: What is here meant by "objects," the words, or the things? if the former, how are they acted upon? if the latter, how are they governed? If "a participle is called an adjective," which is it, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... know it is bad, and I knew then that something of a decisive kind must be done in order to relieve myself from the dilemma into which this little untoward circumstance had placed me. I remembered that on that occasion you were somewhat disguised, so that in your natural state, or in any other disguise you might wish to assume, it would be impossible to identify you as the same individual. Well, ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... alternative, either to become the wife of Don Carlos Alvarez, or else to be confined in a convent, perhaps be constrained or influenced to take the hateful veil? You alone can save her from this dreadful dilemma.' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... him on the right track at once. He could tell his story if once he started at the beginning, though he found it impossible to make these strangers comprehend his present dilemma; so beginning from the time he left his own dooryard with the last cartload of potatoes, he gave them a detailed account of his wanderings up to the time when he met the fine young gentlemen in Halifax. But he had no idea how he got to Truro; that was all a blank to him. When Mr. Sherwood explained ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... he came with a radiant countenance to show his work to his wife, saying it was the best thing he had ever done. She read it and thought it the worst, and thereupon fell into a state of deep gloom, for she couldn't let it go, and yet it seemed cruel to tell him so, and between the two horns of the dilemma she made herself quite ill. At last, by his request and according to their custom, she put her objections to it, as it then stood, in writing, complaining that he had treated it simply as a story, whereas it was in reality an allegory. After reading her paper and seeing ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... was to be simply the usual reward of virtue, - the consciousness of having attempted the right. The Chateau de Chaumont was inexorably closed; so we learned from a talkative lodge-keeper, who gave what grace she could to her refusal. This good woman's dilemma was almost touching; she wished to reconcile two impossibles. The castle was not to be visited, for the family of its master was staying there; and yet she was loath to turn away a party of which she was good enough to say that it had a grand genre; for, as she also remarked, she ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Here was a dilemma for me. What should I say next? What business had I, meddling with a young girl's heart? I had been almost sure of finding soundings, yet here I was in deep water! And, with all my ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... performed before the more intellectual part of the work can be begun, has deterred, and continues to deter, men of excellent abilities from undertaking historical work. They are, in fact, confronted with a dilemma: either they must work on a supply of documents which is in all probability incomplete, or they must spend themselves in unlimited searches, often fruitless, the results of which seldom appear worth the time they have cost. It goes against the grain to spend a great part of one's ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... one-half of the taxes of the Province, that he might not sadden with the one hand those whom he was gladdening with the other. Herein he compares favourably with Joseph, who sold corn to the Egyptians, but on such terms that they lost their personal freedom. Doubtless that holy man was placed in a dilemma between the necessity of satisfying a covetous King on the one hand, and that of rescuing a starving people on the other. Still I must think that the Egyptian, whose life was preserved, groaned over the loss of his liberty; and if I may say so, with all ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... capacious tumbler he could find. The manner in which he drank this was highly illustrative of the customs which prevail on this subject in Ireland. He remembered, that in making the vow, he used the words, "neither in the house nor out of it;" but in order to get over this dilemma, he usually stood with one foot outside the threshold, and the other in the house, keeping himself in that position which would render it difficult to determine whether he was either out or in. At other times, when he happened to be upstairs, he usually thrust one-half of ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... between England and France was therefore the only rational course; but the American partisans of these rivals did their utmost to render this unachievable. Much of Washington's second term see-sawed between one horn and the other of this dilemma. The sardonic aspect becomes more glaring if we remember that the United States were a new-born nation which ought to have been devoting itself to establishing viable relations among its own population and not ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Mr. Dexter on the horns of a dilemma. Either it is too late in the day to discuss woman's education, or it is not. If the latter, why did he say it is? And if the former, why did he begin discussing it? That is how ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... once regulate his approach to Mrs. Grove, get himself firmly in hand; the situation, for him particularly, had far-reaching unpredictable possibilities. For all her exactness, Savina Grove had a very exclusive and definite attractiveness; and, faced by such a dilemma, Lee had the best of reasons for doubting the ultimate regularity ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... by the sound of thunder, Albert felt a little conscience-smitten that he had not traveled more diligently toward his destination. And when he drove on a quarter of a mile, he found himself in a most unpleasant dilemma, the two horns being two roads, concerning which those who directed him had neglected to give him any advice. Katy had been here before, and she was very sure that to the right hand was the road. There was now no time to turn back, for the storm was already upon them—one of those fearful thunderstorms ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... dilemma, it is difficult to point out any method of behaviour, by which she would not be exposed to censure: If she had still persisted in solitude, the ill-natured world would have imputed to it a cause, which is not founded on virtue; besides, as ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Tuckham on Beauchamp's behalf caused Cecilia to praise him, in the tone of compliments. The difficulty of seriously admiring two gentlemen at once is a feminine dilemma, with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Upon learning our dilemma, the good-natured fellows set at once to work to help us. We cut two pine poles, and placing one boat across them, each man grasped an end of a pole, and thus, upon a species of litter, we lifted the ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... try to show his father a way out of his dilemma, so he said: "Father, don't you think your explanation about that mist that is spoken of in Genesis, 2. 6, ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... with a handkerchief. His thoughts were still in a whirl, and even then he could not shake from his mind the more than half belief that in some unconscious way he had indeed, unwittingly and unwillingly—for he was as good a patriot as anyone—aided the runaways. In such a dilemma, feeling vexed and sore at his own loss, and indignant at the cross-examination he had just suffered, it was but natural that he should work himself up into a terrible passion, and should turn the vials of his wrath upon the ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... slight remark. The beefsteak smothered in onions was merely prohibited in future. But when, on the second day, the potatoes were served with mashed lemon-peel, the general discontent burst forth; and we scolded till we laughed again at the dilemma in which we found ourselves. Next to being without food, is the calamity of being subjected, in the middle of the Atlantic, to the diabolical arts of the French Admiral's cook. At sea, the arrangements of the table are of ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... known, Descartes boldly faced this dilemma, and maintained that all animals were mere machines and entirely devoid of consciousness. But he did not deny, nor can anyone deny, that in this case they are reasoning machines, capable of performing all those operations ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... lather, and is apt to hurt a little unless used by the most skilful hands. And finally, Japanese parents are not tyrannical with their children: they pet and coax, very rarely compel or terrify. So that it is quite a dilemma for them when the baby revolts against the bath ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... and no exertion on the part of his companion could avail to rouse him. In this dilemma, Edith once more wrapped him in her warm cloak, and causing Chimo to lie at his feet, hastened over the ice towards the igloo. On arriving she lighted the lamp and heated the tea which she had made in the morning. This took at least a quarter of an hour to do, and during the interval she endeavoured ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... this moment, and never had he felt his fondness for her so genuine. Yet, when she seemed almost to offer him herself and her life—if only he would stretch out his arm and lift her across the stream of dilemma—he could not urge, but sat tongue-tied. He could think only of the difficulties; and the thought of them staggered and blinded him. This was not the indecision of a man weighing the responsibilities of a step which might ruin the life of another man; it was ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... sight of the fourth boar. Geraldine and Duane saw his dilemma, saw him silently give Rosalie the signal to fire at the nearest boar in the open, then saw him turn like a flash and almost drag Delancy ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... hear or to read the dilemma put before the doubter, that he must accept everything or nothing in Christianity and the Bible.(1049) Such an alternative, though dictated by a commendable motive, is likely to prove ineffectual. The Dilemma is a form of reasoning which rarely persuades. Its object is rather to silence than ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... lieutenant flatly said he would never allow it. In fact he had hitherto concealed the non-presentable portion of his folly very satisfactorily from all save the mess-room, and Mr. Andrew's passion was a severe dilemma to him. It need scarcely be told that his wife, fortified by the fervid brewer, defeated him utterly. What was more, she induced him to be an accomplice in deception. For though the lieutenant protested that he washed his hands of it, and that it was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... only in Collins, but in others of the 'rising and growing sect.' The argument, e.g., drawn from the variety of readings in the New Testament, is not only demolished but adroitly used to place his adversary on the horns of a dilemma. Nothing again, can be neater than his answer to various objections by showing that those objections had been brought to light by Christians themselves. And yet the general impression, when one has read Collins and Bentley carefully, is that there is a real element of truth in the former to which ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... commissioned him to conduct the Spaniards to her mother's abode. He did not dare to disobey her commands. Either alternative was more to be dreaded by him than death. The ingenuous young man had, therefore, endeavored to escape from the dilemma by self-destruction. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... dilemma the Convention listened not unwillingly to the non possumus arguments of the States' Rights advocates. The "morality and wisdom" of slavery, declared Ellsworth of Connecticut, "are considerations belonging to the States themselves;" let every State "import ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... who does not speak French correctly, scarcely a shopman who cannot make himself understood in good or bad French, and there is scarcely a boy who is not acquainted with ten or twenty words which suffice to help a stranger out of a dilemma. This diffusion of a language so different from that of the country is the more to be admired when one reflects that it is not the only foreign language generally spoken in Holland. English and German are almost as widely known ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... incident of recent occurrence in a neighboring city. A friend of mine, a minister of the Gospel—you will bear in mind that my friends are not all actors—and this recalls the dilemma of a candidate who, upon inquiry as to the comparative merits of heaven and its antipode, cautiously declined to express an opinion, on the ground that he had friends in both places—this minister, upon being installed in a new pastorate, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Out of this dilemma was gradually excogitated the theory, which had been rejected by nearly all interpreters of the Constitution, that the United States can possess "appurtenant" territory, subject to, but not part of itself, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... opponent. Thus Augusta Goold and her friends were genuinely desirous of striking a blow at England, and really believed that their volunteers might do it; but this did not prevent them from finding infinite relish in the prospect of watching Mr. O'Rourke squirming on the horns of a dilemma. They took counsel together, and the result of their deliberations was peculiar. They proposed to invite Mr. O'Rourke to join his appeal to theirs, to pool the money which came in, and to divide it evenly between the volunteers and the members of Parliament. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... out of reach for mutual support, and neither one in decisively preponderant strength to the enemy to whom it is opposed. This disadvantage is greatest to the offensive, because to the defensive falls the privilege of increasing power by choice of position and by fortifying. It was in this dilemma that the British, in consequence of the abandonment of their original concentrative plan of advance through the Free State, and the adoption of two or more lines of operation, found themselves over their whole front; from Colenso on the east, through Sterkstrom and Naauwport, to the Modder ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan |
