"Precarious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an unknown white man; if she would not rather face the supreme issue, once and for all, than perhaps be forced into it later by an over-zealous stranger! In her distracted state of mind I feared she would find the rescue too precarious—too easily offering the same danger that beset her now, and lacking her present weapon of defense. Yet if she refused to come—what then? I could always rush the camp, if but to die with her. Having gone over these possibilities, I whispered ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... small squadron in the Mediterranean is a necessary substitute for the humiliating alternative of paying tribute for the security of our commerce in that sea, and for a precarious peace, at the mercy of every caprice of four Barbary States, by whom it was liable to be violated. An additional motive for keeping a respectable force stationed there at this time is found in the maritime war raging between the Greeks and the Turks, ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... city, a band of poor whites, headed by George Bohn, sought this colored man's residence, battered down the door, fired several bullets into the bed where the man and his wife lay, the latter in a precarious condition. The house was riddled with shots; they were compelled to get out and leave their own home, to which they have not as yet been permitted to return. Bohn, after the deed was done, sneaked back to his home, and when the ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... Knowing the truth of the matter, Stiles had tried to save Podmore from the rough punishment meted out to him at McIvor's camp, but his net return for his efforts was abuse; he dare not reveal too close a connection with the envelope as his own position already was too precarious. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... plaster tower showing its slated roof above the low green clusters of the vines. We passed through several villages, whose inhabitants that day seemed to have but one care upon their minds, like the famous Scilly Islanders, to gain a precarious livelihood by taking each other's washing. On every bush and briar fluttered the household linen and the family apparel, of various textures and in different states of despair; and with that strict observance of utility which is the chief characteristic ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... the king's naturally gave great alarm to the house of commons. They saw their title to every privilege, if not plainly denied, yet considered at least as precarious. It might be fortified by abuse; and they had already abused it. They thought proper, therefore, immediately to oppose pretension to pretension. They framed a protestation, in which they repeated all their former claims for freedom of speech, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... period, we removed to a more quiet situation, and occupied a very neat and comfortable suite of apartments in Newman Street. I was then some months advanced in a state of domestic solicitude, and my health seemed in a precarious state, owing to my having too long devoted myself to the duties of a mother in nursing my eldest daughter Maria. It was in this lodging that, one morning, wholly unexpectedly, Mr. Brereton made us a second visit, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... his incessant toil, Lamarck's position continued to be most precarious. He lived by his pen, as a publisher's hack, and it was with difficulty that he obtained even the poorly paid post of keeper of the king's cabinet of dried plants. Like most other naturalists he had thus to contend with incessant difficulties during ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... support and readily perceived, is very perilous to friendship. Conscious of thoughts she must not utter, Alma naturally attributed to her friend the same sort of reticence. She feared that Sibyl must often have in mind the loss she had suffered three years ago, and would contrast her own precarious circumstances with the comfort of Bennet Frothingham's daughter. Moreover, Mrs. Carnaby was not in all respects her own self; she had lost something on her travels; was it a shade of personal delicacy, of mental refinement? She ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... most Cagliostros who pick up a precarious livelihood by pumping the bellies of their betters full of the east wind, the "able editor" would laugh in his sleeve at his dupes; but not so. He is more in earnest than the Lagado doctor, described by ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... or with anyone in your position. I have told you what my connections are; what my family is, you have now, I hope, some correct idea, and you will see how utterly impossible it is that I should, even to better my circumstances which I admit are somewhat precarious, make such a mesalliance— such a mistake, I mean, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... acquainted with Borneo in 1871, but the power of the chiefs has been much curtailed of late, owing to the extensive cessions of territory to Sarawak and the British North Borneo Company, and their hold on the rivers left to them has become very precarious, since the warlike Kyans passed under Raja BROOKE'S sway. This tribe, once the most powerful in Borneo, was always ready at the Sultan's call to raid on any tribe who had incurred his displeasure and revelled in the easy acquisition of fresh heads, over which to hold the triumphal dance. The ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... her father, Viscount Rochford, her cousins, Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir Francis Brian, and many more distant connections, were anxious at the first opportunity to lead an attack on the Church and Cardinal. Before the divorce case began Wolsey's position had grown precarious; taxes at home and failure abroad had turned the loyalty of the people to sullen discontent, and Wolsey was mainly responsible. "Disaffection to the King," wrote Mendoza in March, 1527, "and hatred of the Legate are visible everywhere.... The King would soon be obliged ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... consulted with Alfred how this should be done.——"My sister, he said, (in our private circles he always called me by the tender name of sister,) I am determined to see you happy before I relinquish the business I have undertaken: letters are a precarious mode of communication; I will make a journey to Connecticut, find out Alonzo, visit your friends, and see how the plan operates. I am known to your father, who has ever treated me as a relative. I will return as speedily as possible, and we ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... indefinite; ambiguous, equivocal; undefined, undefinable; confused &c. (indistinct) 447; mystic, oracular; dazed. perplexing &c. v.; enigmatic, paradoxical, apocryphal, problematical, hypothetical; experimental &c. 463. unpredictable, unforeseeable (unknowable) 519. fallible, questionable, precarious, slippery, ticklish, debatable, disputable; unreliable, untrustworthy. contingent, contingent on, dependent on; subject to; dependent on circumstances; occasional; provisional. unauthentic, unauthenticated, unauthoritative; unascertained, unconfirmed; undemonstrated; untold, uncounted. in a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the most of your opportunities; as, on the completion of your education, you will have to make your own way in the world. My profession, as you will perhaps better understand later on, is somewhat a precarious one. As long as I retain my health and strength and the unimpaired use of all my faculties, matters will no doubt go well with me; but accident, disease, or the loss of sight may at any moment interrupt my ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... Britain were signed on October 1, 1801, the Peace of Amiens itself on March 27, 1802, but in July, 1803, hostilities between the two countries were again renewed. All this meant that communications between the colony and the motherland were very precarious. Nominally a mail-packet sailed from Jamaica once a month, but the seas were swarming with swift-sailing French and Spanish privateers, hanging about the trade-routes on the chance of capturing West Indiamen with their rich cargoes, so the mail-packets had to wait till a convoy assembled, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... have been separately conscious in each little instant; but in the shaken condition of the brain may not have had power to spare for gluing together these instants and knitting them into a whole. It may be it was only memory which failed. I cite the case to show the precarious character of self-consciousness. It appears and disappears. Our life is glorified by its presence, and from it obtains its whole significance. Whatever we are convinced possesses it we certainly declare to be a person. Yet it is a gradual acquisition, and must be counted rather a goal ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... from her window she would see the mountain-side dropping from the gray walls of her home, with clinging flowery vines and trees growing downward, while the olives and grapevines of the Campagna came to meet them, setting here and there a precarious little garden halfway up the steep. Just under her window an almost perpendicular path came up, crept round the walls and entered the town. But no one ever used this road now, for a far wider and better one had been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... permit. Near the Calderwood place, but not on Calderwood's land, lived an old man named Micajah Staley and his sister Becky Staley. These people were old and very poor. Old Micajah had a palsied arm and hand; but, in spite of this, he managed to earn a precarious living with his turning-lathe. ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... whole, the Property of private Birds, which they would make you believe was much safer amongst them, than under any other Government in the World, appeared to me to stand upon a very precarious Foot, since it was always at the Mercy of the Law, and the most cunning and sagacious amongst them could never pretend to be sure what Law was: Nay, it was often found by Experience, that what was Law one Day amongst them, was not so another; so that I could not help thinking, ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... brown flood filled the town and spread far abroad over the flat countryside. Men were living in the second stories of such buildings as possessed second stories, and on the roofs of others. They were paddling about in all sorts of improvised boats and rafts. I saw one man keeping a precarious equilibrium in a baker's trough; and another sprawled out face down on an India rubber bed paddling ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... that he had no fleet of his own on which he could rely. Whilst the limited extent to which ships could be supplied by the most rigid exaction of the terms of those tenures compelled the state, on (p. 126) any occasion when extraordinary efforts were requisite, to depend upon the varying and precarious supply produced by the system ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... is to be placed on fortune! how precarious are the smiles of that uncertain goddess, when most secure of her promised favours, and just upon the point, as we imagine, of receiving all we have to wish from her, she often snatches away the expected good, and showers upon us the worst of mischiefs treasured in her store-house!—Some ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... though at length Mac thought they had about exhausted most of its possibilities. There were mosques, temples and bazaars; there was a wild race of desert Bisharin, whose living was precarious in those days of war, since they had existed by dancing weird, wild dances for the enlightenment of tourists; there was a museum, rather a mouldy place like their kind, where were relics of ages untold, and, much to Mac's amusement, a mummified sheep. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... Margaret," the Rajah said, after Dick had left the room, "is a very precarious one. When Hyder Ali marched down here, eight years ago, he swept the whole country, from the foot of the hills to the sea coast. My father would have been glad to stand neutral, but was, of course, bound to go with the English, as the Nabob of Arcot, ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... star; Big with the beams which from her mother flow, And reigning o'er the rising tides below: Now, mixing with a savage crowd, she goes, And meanly flatters her inveterate foes; Ruled while she rules, and losing every hour Her wretched remnants of precarious power. 510 ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... an animal welfare society had a call to one of the city freight-yards where a carload of horses was said to be freezing to death. It was not a false alarm. The agents knew that these were not valuable horses. Good stock is not shipped in this precarious fashion. It was a load of the feeble and the aged and maimed—with a few days' work left in them, if continuously whipped, gathered from the fields and small towns by buyers who could realise a dollar or two ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... soldier was inaugurated in 1806; his report of the route he had taken was the incentive for commercial speculation in the direction of trade with New Mexico, but it was so handicapped by restrictions imposed by the Mexican government, that the adventurers into the precarious traffic were not only subject to a complete confiscation of their wares, but frequently imprisoned for months as spies. Under such a condition of affairs, many of the earlier expeditions, prior to 1822, resulted in disaster, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... precarious, risky parasitism, wherein the Meloid is not sure of finding its food, which the Sitaris finds so deftly, getting itself carried by the Anthophora, after being born at the very entrance to the Bee's ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... of many of India's financial problems. The population is now too exclusively employed in agriculture, and its manufactured articles are imported. But the rains are so uncertain that the farmer's subsistence is precarious, and famines claim thousands of victims. Hence, next to Christianity, India needs industrial development. This has been the view of recent British governors. Better methods of irrigation and of cultivation have been supplemented by the introduction of new instruments of manufacture. Both English ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... without excessive exertion all those at which it aims. As it lies within the reach of all capacities, everyone can without difficulty apprehend and retain it. By its admirable conformity to human weaknesses, it easily obtains great dominion; nor is that dominion precarious, since the principle checks one personal interest by another, and uses, to direct the passions, the very same instrument which excites them. The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... nothing, child.—But in the state You know what daily cares oppress all those Who govern this precarious commonwealth; Now suffering from the Genoese without, And malcontents within—'tis this which makes me More pensive and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... mode for taking bears. Their chase was too precarious to make it worth while; and they were only encountered accidentally by the izzard-hunters, when in pursuit of their own regular game. Then they were killed by being shot, if old ones; and if young, they captured them by the aid ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Church. Most of the bishops fled abroad, "fearing the King, but afraid to obey him for dread of the Pope," and John laid hands on Church property and filled the royal treasury with the spoils of churchmen and Jews. But in 1213 John's position had become precarious, for the northern barons were plotting his overthrow, and the Pope had absolved all his subjects from allegiance, and given sentence that "John should be thrust from his throne and another worthier than he should reign in his ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... Mrs. Jameson's chicken pies. She baked them without that opening in the upper crust which, as every good housewife knows, is essential, and there were dire reports of sufferings in consequence. The village doctor, after his precarious drive in the ancient sulky, had a night of toil. Caleb—commonly called Kellup—Bates, and his son Thomas, were the principal sufferers, they being notorious eaters and the terrors of sewing-circle suppers. Flora Clark confessed to me that she ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... native village of sorts, a mere hotch-potch of mud-huts, whose inhabitants scratched a precarious living by tending sheep belonging to other people. Ancient and withered Bedouins—or Turks disguised as such—used to come into the camps and supply dumps and pester the troops for empty kerosene or biscuit tins, to be used ostensibly for carrying ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... for the 7th of August "to the end that the people may be relieved through legislation from present and impending danger and distress." In recent years, the fact has come to light that his health was at that time in a condition so precarious that it would have caused wild excitement had the truth become known, for only his life stood in the way of a free silver President. On the same day on which he issued his call for the extra session, President Cleveland left for New York ostensibly for a yachting trip, but while ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... a sickening decline of confidence, if he had done loyally to strike his father? For he had struck him - defied him twice over and before a cloud of witnesses - struck him a public buffet before crowds. Who had called him to judge his father in these precarious and high questions? The office was usurped. It might have become a stranger; in a son - there was no blinking it - in a son, it was disloyal. And now, between these two natures so antipathetic, so hateful to ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Of all the precarious and dangerous ways of making a fortune, I should think that went ahead," he said, still laughing. "What an idea now! Shouldn't you suppose people with common sense would have some faint idea of the immense expenses to be involved in such an undertaking, and the tremendous risks to be ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... path was dangerously narrow and rocky, overhanging unfathomable abysses of dark water. But Christina was in mortal terror, both for herself and Andrew. She did not dare to call his name, lest, in the sudden awakening he might miss his precarious foothold, and fall to unavoidable death. She found it almost impossible to follow him nor indeed in her ordinary frame of mind could she have done so. But the experience, so strange and thrilling, had lifted her in a ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... high speed is added the necessity of frequent recoaling, allowing the hostile navy time to come up, it is evident that the active use of a "fleet in being," however perplexing to the enemy, must be both anxious and precarious to its own commander. The contest is one of strategic wits, and it is quite possible that the stronger, though slower, force, centrally placed, may, in these days of cables, be able to receive word and to corner its antagonist before the latter can fill his bunkers. Of this fact ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... 1848, and about this time her husband's health became so seriously impaired that it was thought desirable for him in turn to spend a season at the Brattleboro' water-cure. He went in June, 1848, and was compelled by the very precarious state of his health to remain until September, 1849. During this period of more than a year Mrs. Stowe remained in Cincinnati caring for her six children, eking out her slender income by taking boarders and writing when she ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... recognise, that they had, for the few minutes, only stared and grimaced, like pitted boxers or wrestlers; but what had abode with him later on, none the less, was just the cherished memory of his not having so lost presence of mind as to fail of feeding on his impression. It was precious and precarious, that was perhaps all there would be of it; and his subsequent consciousness was quite to cherish this queer view of the silence, neither awkward nor empty nor harsh, but on the contrary quite charged and brimming, that represented for him his use, his unforgettable enjoyment in fact, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... of our Creator intended that we should be affected with anything, he did not confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will; which, seizing upon the senses and imagination, captivate the soul before the understanding is ready either to join with ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... who was obliged to continue in the place some days longer, to wait upon her with his last commands. He informed himself of the time when she was to return to Southampton, and he trusted to be there not long after her. In the mean time, as his situation was at present very precarious, he prevailed upon her to permit him to write to her from time to time, and to promise to communicate to him in return any thing of consequence ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... their possession. Hence it has been generally believed, that the richest mines are carefully concealed by the Indians, as well knowing that their discovery would excite in the Spaniards a greater thirst for conquest and tyranny, and would render their own independence more precarious. But, in regard to their commerce with the English, could that be established, these reasons would no longer influence them; since it would be in our power to supply them with arms and ammunition of all kinds, together with many other conveniences, which their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... only object discerned by the 'Wise of this World,' in this twofold union of the 'Zodiacal' and 'Cometical' systems: yet it is nevertheless a most 'Thrilling Warning,' to all the inhabitants of this precarious and transitory EARTH. We have no authorized intimation or reasonable prospective contemplation, of 'current time' beyond a year 1860, of the present century; or rather, except 'the interval which may now remain from the present year 1843, to ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... were torn down and defaced. Notwithstanding the eclipse, the Chinese year began at its appointed time. Some excuse might be made for Taoukwang on the ground of ill-health, for he was then suffering from the illness which carried him off a few weeks later. His health had long been precarious, the troubles of his reign had prematurely aged him, and he had experienced a rude shock from the death, at the end of 1849, of his adopted mother, toward whom he seems to have preserved the most affectionate ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... present in strength. On attempting to withdraw it was instantly evident that the Boers were on all sides and in the rear with a force which numbered at least five to one. The camp of the main column was only four miles away, however, and the bodyguard, having sent messages of their precarious position, did all they could to make a defence until help could reach them. Colonel Laing had fallen, shot through the heart, but found a gallant successor in young Nairne, the adjutant. Part of the force had thrown themselves, under Nairne and Milne, into ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... And there were many in the church who believed in the flattering words of Amalickiah, therefore they dissented even from the church; and thus were the affairs of the people of Nephi exceedingly precarious and dangerous, notwithstanding their great victory which they had had over the Lamanites, and their great rejoicings which they had had because of their deliverance by ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... tender youth had been taught music, then served as valet, could read and write, had read—so much I could discover—some few trashy books, and existed now, as many do exist in Russia, without a farthing of ready money; without any regular occupation; fed by manna from heaven, or something hardly less precarious. He expressed himself with extraordinary elegance, and obviously plumed himself on his manners; he must have been devoted to the fair sex too, and in all probability popular with them: Russian girls love ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... plant is very precarious, as it is liable to damage from a variety of causes; it will die if too much water collects round it, or if too little is given to it. It generally is grown on a dry soil, having a slight decline, to carry off the rain. ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... out the idea, and even borrowed a circus rider whose act was to play the violin while standing on the back of a galloping horse and to throw somersaults on such precarious platform while still playing the violin. This man he got merely to play simple airs in slow time, so that the assistants could keep the time and the air and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... rule of some eight or ten overseers, and the brutal surveillance of a company of Libyan or negro mercenary troops. The least political disturbance in Egypt, an unsuccessful campaign, or any untoward incident of a troubled reign, sufficed to break up the precarious stability of these remote establishments. The Bedawin at once attacked the colony; the workmen deserted; the guards, weary of exile, hastened back to the valley of the Nile, and all ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... thing for him, certainly." And then she began to consider whether the standing held by Lucius Mason in the world was not even yet somewhat precarious. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... leave Mecca.—In spite of this his position was a precarious and trying one. His wife Khadija, to whom he had been most faithful, died; so did his most powerful protector. The cause, moreover, was not advancing at Mecca, and was not likely to do so; and Mahomet began to consider ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... so belaboured a carnivorous world in the columns of the 'Penny Banner' for which he worked, and so grotesquely and persistently reduced all the problems of the time to terms of nitrogen and albumen, that curt dismissal came upon him, and for a time Dora saw nothing but her precarious earnings between them and starvation. It was then also that, by virtue of that queer charm he could always exercise when he pleased, he laid hold on a young Radical manufacturer and got out of him a loan of 200 pounds for ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... say why we should expect the growing girl, in whom an unlimited ambition and egotism is as natural and proper a thing as beauty and high spirits, to deny herself some dalliance with the more opulent dreams that form the golden lining to these precarious prospects? How can we expect her to prepare herself solely, putting all wandering thoughts aside, for the servantless cookery, domestic Kindergarten work, the care of hardy perennials, and low-pitched conversation of the engineer's home? Supposing, after all, there is no ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... markets credited with fabulous wealth which would have been otherwise lost to them indefinitely. The handful of English merchant-venturers who under Queen Elizabeth's charter first established three hundred years ago a few precarious settlements on the far-flung shores of a then almost unknown continent no more dreamt of ruling India than did the great East India Company of which they had laid the foundations when it first sought to extend its trading ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... couch. The Venetian masquerade is said to have produced a long carnival to this belle brunette, who seldom kept Lent; and who hero met, for the first time, a now noble Marquess, then Lord Y————, to whose liberality she was for some time indebted for a very splendid establishment; but the precarious existence of such connexions is proverbial, and Mrs. Padden has certainly had her share of fatal experience. Her next paramour was a diamond of the first water, but no star, a certain dashing jeweller, Mr. C——-, whose charmer she continued only until kind fortune ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... tolerable life in the lands immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the constitution of the Republic and the rights of its people, he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful power, which could have lasted but a little while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the country in a more deplorable condition than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and the moral support even of those who were at one time willing to see ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... challenged every interest in Worthington from which there was anything to expect commercially. He had peremptorily banished Esme Elliot from his heart and his hopes, though she still forced entrance to his thoughts and would not be denied, there, the precarious rights of an undesired guest. He was now simply and solely a journalist with a mind single to his purpose, to go down fighting the best fight there was in him. Defeat, he believed, was practically certain. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... upon his precarious perch trying to reassume the posture which insured a good balance, clinging to the trunk with one hand and to ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... negroes by a precarious tenure. The most intelligent were constantly escaping. The inter-traffic in slaves bred in the more northern slave States was likely to become less profitable. And patrols by night, to insure order, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... against it, as they say in that country—and every crashing blow he struck upon the drill was a relief to him. Indeed, he worked with curious cold-blooded fury that wore out his comrades long before night came. Saunders had invested the proceeds of several years of Spartan self-denial in the precarious venture, but that was as nothing compared with Weston's stake. He must succeed or relinquish all idea of winning the woman, who, he ventured to think, might listen to him when he had accomplished his task; and when he desisted at sunset his hands were bleeding and he had partly lamed Devine ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... men, or to attach herself to their theories. Her weariness of her father's academic plans presaged her disillusion in regard to Emmet's career, even if he had been what she first imagined him. Her colossal egotism demanded everything from a man, and was prepared to give nothing in return, except the precarious possession of herself. Yet what man, fascinated by the mysterious unrest and nocturnal splendour of her eyes, would not gladly pay for that possession whatever ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... law, my dear father. You may imagine that my life, without a profession and without any reliable resources, has been rather precarious. When I seemed to have acted worst, I have been only the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... R.). ROSE, you, at least, have not changed? Tell me you will love me still—even on the precarious summit of an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... is so much the more fortunate and singular as our Government is far from being content with the mutinous spirit (as Bonaparte calls it) of the Government of Naples, which, considering its precarious and enfeebled state, with a French army in the heart of the kingdom, has resisted our attempts and insults with a courage and dignity that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... rest of the Cabinet, although Mr. Rice,[14] against whom the greater part of Lord Howick's speech was directed, felt himself most deeply hurt, and so expressed himself in private afterwards to Lord Melbourne. Upon the whole, Lord Melbourne cannot but consider that affairs are in a most precarious state, and that whilst there is so much discontent fermenting within the Cabinet itself, there must be great doubt of Lord Melbourne's being much longer able to hold ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... accepted the precarious chances offered him by an uneven and unknown trail in the dark and raced on deeper and deeper into the long chasm. It seemed to him that he had glimpsed something moving at the top of the cliffs just about the place whence Blenham's men had lowered the steers. He ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... by half as much again for each son that he might possess: although it seems that the amount retained was not to exceed one thousand jugera.[339] Secondly, the land so secured to existing possessors was not to be held on a merely precarious tenure, and was not to be burdened by the payment of dues to the State; even if ownership was not vested in its holders, they were guaranteed gratuitous undisturbed possession in perpetuity.[340] Thirdly, the bill as originally drafted even suggested some monetary compensation for the land ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... was with them an important element of food, the loss of their guns was apparently a very serious calamity. It is not improbable that the English magistrates humanely hoped, by taking away the guns of the Indians, to lead them from the precarious and vagabond life of hunters to the more refining influences of agriculture. But it is very certain that the Indians cherished no such views. It was also agreed in the council that, in case of future troubles, both parties should submit ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... the chaste connubial state precarious, And jestest with the brows of mightiest men: Caesar and Pompey, Mahomet, Belisarius,[166] Have much employed the Muse of History's pen: Their lives and fortunes were extremely various, Such worthies Time will never see again; Yet to these four in three things the same luck holds, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... enjoyment of these advantages by the apprentices depends upon so many contingencies, such as the disposition of the master, and the faithfulness of the special magistrate, that it is left after all exceedingly precarious. A very few observations respecting the special magistrates, will serve to show how liable the apprentice is to suffer wrong without the possibility of obtaining redress. It is evident that this will be the case unless the special magistrates are entirely independent. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... don't mention that, Fisbee!" Parker tilted far back in his chair with his feet anchored under the desk, preserving a precarious balance. "I ain't as grateful for my promotion to joint Editor-in-Chief as I might be. I'm a middling poor man for the hour, I guess," he remarked, painfully following the peregrinations of a fly ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... flung out papers, ballast, anything he could lay his hands on, and once again soared to a great height with his damaged balloon. He could then do no more, and presently subsiding to earth again, he acquired the welcome knowledge that even in such precarious circumstances a balloon may make a long fall ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... times spontaneous, natural, without effort, simply dependent on the interest that a thing excites in us—lasting as long as it holds us in subjection, then ceasing entirely. Again, it is voluntary, artificial, an imitation of the other, precarious and intermittent, maintained with effort—in a word, laborious. The same is true of the imagination. The moment of inspiration is ruled by a perfect and spontaneous unity; its impersonality approaches that of the forces of Nature. Then appears the personal moment, the detailed working ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... re, in the land of their clients and the plebeians whose property belonged to the populus, i.e. the generality of the patricians; in the third place, in their own hands, they held lands which were portions of the domain and which were held by a very precarious ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... guilty, execute him. But trial would have meant conviction, and Italy would not hear of it. The Italian and Austrian battleships cleared for action, though the Powers had neutralized the Albanian coast. For twenty-four hours the position was precarious, but Austria once more swallowed her pride and yielded—this time to Italy. The Prince surrendered Essad to the Italians on condition that he did not return to Albania. With amazing effrontery the Italians took him to Rome and feted him in such a way as to make it ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... life by that means, but it would be a very precarious method of finding the way out ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... you are, or were, out of town, I do not know where this may find you, or whether it will find you at all. I wrote you a long letter, dated from the land of matrimony, in June; but either it had not found you, or, what I dread more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in too precarious a state of health and spirits to take notice ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... talents, and love of good society, without that desire of exhibition, that devouring diseased appetite for admiration, which preys upon the mind insatiably, to its torture—to its destruction; without that undefineable, untranslateable French love of succes de societe, which substitutes a precarious; factitious, intoxicated existence in public, for the safe self-approbation, the sober, the permanent happiness of domestic life. In England Count Altenberg hoped to find a woman raised by "divine philosophy" [Footnote: ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... three hours, during which Le Jeune, spent with travel, and weakened by precarious and unaccustomed fare, had the choice of shivering in idleness, or taking part in a labor which fatigued, without warming, his exhausted frame. The sorcerer's wife was in far worse case. Though in the extremity of a mortal sickness, they left her lying in the snow ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... pen." That during those five years she might, without painful exertion, without any exertion that would not have been a pleasure, have earned enough to buy an annuity for life much larger than the precarious salary which she received at Court, is quite certain. The same income, too, which in St. Martin'sstreet would have afforded her every comfort, must have been found scanty at St. James's. We cannot venture to speak confidently of the price ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... climbed up on a camp stool, with most precarious footing, and tried to readjust the fly at the back ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... gentlemen to know that their ardent attachment to scientific pursuits has alone occasioned these unpleasant consequences; for which the sympathy of a grateful country will sufficiently reward them. The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and Tinder-box, and up to this time is reported in a very precarious state. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... no matter how wild, how precarious, to the sense of the beholder, are started with confidence in their ultimate success; it is the one trite, universal reason for starting—that faith is the capital that all possess in common. Some ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... it. It stimulates the desire to incur debt; it causes high rates of interest; it increases importations from abroad; it has no fixed value; it is liable to frequent and great fluctuations, thereby rendering every pecuniary engagement precarious and disturbing all existing contracts and expectations; it is the parent of panics. Every period of inflation is followed by a loss of confidence, a shrinkage of values, depression of business, panics, lack of employment, and widespread disaster and distress. The heaviest part of the ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... hand, and Raf fought for control as they lost altitude past the margin of safety. Had he not allowed for just such a happening they might have been smashed against one of the rock tips over which they skimmed to a precarious safety. Raf, his mouth dry, his hands sweating on the controls, took them up—higher than was necessary—to coast above the last of that rocky spine to see below the beginning of the downslopes leading to the plains the range cut in half. He heard ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... throughout all of northern Europe. There were then very many tribes of diverse names peopling these vast realms, and incessant wars were waged between them. The domination which the Huns attained was precarious, and not ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... angles to the current. The bridge had consisted of poles fastened to these supports, leading between them and from the support at each end to the banks. The rope of tough vines had been stretched as a hand-rail, necessary with such precarious footing. The rise of the river had swept away the bridge, but the props and the rope hand-rail remained. In the afternoon, from the boat, Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey with a prehensile tail. It was very ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... but the day of deliverance seemed to grow more distant. Her father apparently was declining in energy and health, and his income was very small. She worked long hours over her fancy work, but the prices paid for it at the shops were so small that she felt with a growing despondency it was but a precarious means of support. Their first month in the old mansion was drawing to a close, and they had been compelled to draw slightly on the small sum of ready money still remaining after paying for their summer's board. They still had a few articles in storage, having ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... down in "Orders for Auxiliary Hospitals for Officers," or some such document, we practise fire-drill. This consists of escaping from upper windows by means of precarious canvas chutes. The only people exempted from this ceremony are Mrs. Ropes—who watches with great delight from a safe distance—and Sister, who stands sternly at the top to make sure (a) that those patients who don't want to go ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... a supply of this kind is so precarious, not only from the danger of the enemy, but the opportunity of purchasing, that I have revolved in my mind every other possible chance, and listened to every proposition on the subject which could give the smallest hope. Among others I have had one mentioned which ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Author proposes it, that I might also retain the propriety of some Latine Termes, to which I do not readily remember any that fully answer in English. But as for the Argumentation it self, 'tis built upon a precarious supposition, that seems to me neither Demonstrable nor true; for, how does it appear, that where the same Quality is to be met with in many Bodies, it must belong to them upon the Account of some one Body whereof they all partake? (For that the Major of our Authors Argument is to be ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... the reply, "you may preach that to Metternich and remain with him." And so the Prince worked on; determined that neither fear, nor treachery, nor much less blundering, on his part, should imperil the precarious balance of the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was one of those precarious ladies who make uncertain incomes by writing full-bodied storyettes. In the most dismal circumstances she enjoyed a buoyancy bordering on the indecent; which always amused old Heythorp's cynicism. But of his grandchildren Phyllis and Jock (wild as colts) he had become fond. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... employers of labour often discharge him in order to make way for younger and more vigorous men. If his home, as sometimes happens, is broken up by the death of his wife, his existence becomes a very lonely and precarious one. An odd job now and again is all he can get to do, and even these jobs are often hard to find. His sons and daughters are too heavily encumbered with large families to be capable of rendering any effective assistance, and the Union looms gloomily in the distance as the only prospect before ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... have just received is precarious, and every one of us is just as poor as another; want will soon overtake me again. Chrestien, at the service of the first that hires him, can do nothing with the publishers; Bianchon is quite out of it; d'Arthez's booksellers only deal in scientific and technical books—they have no ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... contenting himself to remain there on his precarious perch; indeed, only that he did not wish to seem to be interfering with Jack's plans Joel certainly would have ventured across the window sill. Unable to beep silent any longer, he finally gave a ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... Duelling was made a Fashion, the Point of Honour became, of Course, a common Topick of Discourse among the best bred Men: By this Means the Rules for Quarrelling and Ponctilio in Behaviour, which at first were very uncertain and precarious, came to be better understood, and refin'd upon from Time to Time, till, in the Beginning of the last Century, the Sence of Honour was arrived to such a Degree of Nicety all over Europe, especially in France, that barely looking ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... to bring to Sterne more solid gains than that of mere celebrity, or even than the somewhat precarious money profits which depend on literary vogue. Only a few weeks after his arrival in town he was presented by Lord Falconberg with the curacy of Coxwold, "a sweet retirement," as he describes it, "in comparison of Sutton," at which ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... 1868, the ramifications of which centered in Frankfort-on-the-Main—its speculations finally ending in disaster to many—the green-coffee trade was in a precarious condition until well into the eighties. "Previously," says a contemporary writer, "it had been the safest and prettiest of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... preparation, in which this root was an ingredient, was a compound powder; in which form its virtues are very precarious. Some recommend a tincture of it drawn with wine; but neither wine, water, nor spirit, extract its ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... with his wife, whose health was then precarious, stimulated his scholarly interests, and gave substance to his study of Dante and Italian literature. In October, 1853, his wife died; she had borne him three children: the first-born, Blanche, died in infancy; the second, Walter, also died young; the third, a daughter, Mrs. Burnett, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... you learn the actual bulk of the first metallic imports." "No, thank you," replied the prudent ones, "it will be too late then; when once they have touched our shores, the fall will be rapid." So they turned their gold, whose value was so precarious, into that unfluctuating material, paper. This solitary fear was soon swallowed up in the general confidence. The king congratulated Parliament, and Parliament the king. Both houses rang with trumpet notes of triumph, a few ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... best. . . . Thank God! the end of all is fast approaching.' . . . The end of all was fast approaching. On the 1st of June, every painful symptom of the poor sufferer had so increased that his friends held counsel with Doctor Kind, who considered his state highly precarious. Fuerstenau was desirous of watching by his bedside. 'No, no,' replied Weber, 'I am not so ill as you want to make me out.' He refused even the attendance of Sir George Smart's servant in his anteroom. Blisters were applied to his chest, ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... the Pentateuch cease as a whole to be regarded as an authentic source for our knowledge of what Mosaism was, it becomes a somewhat precarious matter to make any exception in favour of the Decalogue. In particular, the following arguments against its authenticity must be taken into account. (1) According to Exod. xxxiv. the commandments which stood upon the two tables were quite different. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... commenced, it is certain to widen out. The peasantry are, everywhere, fanatically hostile to foreigners. Attacks have been made upon these in various country districts; and, should Arabi be triumphant, the position of Christians will become very precarious. Matters are evidently seen in that light in England; for I heard today, at the office, that the British and French squadrons are expected here, in ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... eyes, when opened, stared up at him, wild and glaring; the ugly face bore the expression of abject fear. The man was no longer violent; he had become a child, frightened at the dark. His ceaseless babbling, his incessant cries of terror, only rendered more precarious any attempt at pressing forward through a region overrun with ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... roared. "Have I sat at table with a traitor?" And he thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them, some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord, came hurrying to ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... at Vera Cruz the Erie returned to Pensacola, and there on the 12th of January, 1839, Farragut gave up the command to an officer of senior rank and went home. Upon his arrival in Norfolk, finding his wife's health to be very precarious, he remained unemployed until her death, which occurred on the 27th of December, 1840. "No more striking illustration of his gentleness of character," says his biography by his son, "is shown than in Farragut's attention to ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... centuries remote from one another as well as from ours. In short, that they might leave no liberty untaken, even a wild fantastical similitude of sounds has served to prop up a system. As the materials they have are few, so are the very best and such as pass for authentic extremely precarious, as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... hands heard him, and there was a general snigger all round, the captain's very composure having given confidence to all. The men believed that he would not have taken things so quietly unless he had some sure hope of our speedy release from such a precarious position. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... elevated situations northward, continue to advance up the valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimac rivers, in which they ultimately disappear entirely or else reappear in the valley of the St. Lawrence; while many northern plants pushing southward maintain a more or less precarious existence upon the mountain summits or in the cold swamps of New England, and sometimes follow along the mountain ridges to the middle or southern states. In addition to these two floras, some southwestern and western species have invaded Vermont along the Champlain valley, ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... cut across the fields, avoiding the little town. I ran hard, stumbling often, for though I had got my mental energy back my legs were still precarious. The station clock had told me that it ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... residence. No disorders, or nightly tumults occur; and instances of murder and robbery are extremely rare. If serious quarrels sometimes happen, it is chiefly among the young Janissaries heated with brandy and amorous passion, who after sunset fight their rivals at the door of some prostitute. This precarious security is however enjoyed only within the walls of the city; the whole neighbourhood of Aleppo is infested by obscure tribes of Arab and Kurdine robbers, who through the negligence of the Janissaries, acquire every day more insolence and more confidence ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... other's shoulders, climbed for about a hundred feet up a steep acclivity and reached a level place, with very few trees, where the soil appeared volcanic. It was necessary to ascend by zigzags to make the slope more easy, for it was very steep, and the footing being exceedingly precarious required the greatest caution. Neb and Herbert took the lead, Pencroft the rear, the captain and the reporter between them. The animals which frequented these heights—and there were numerous traces of them—must necessarily belong to those races of sure foot ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... before Breckenridge formed the attachment for the young lady with the high principles, his mother's lawyer had persuaded her into a most precarious investment. For two years, a large part of her fortune trembled uncertainly on the edge of a precipice. She believed that her son required less a girl with high principles of living, than a girl with principles represented by quarterly dividends. ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... a precarious condition. There could be nothing permanent under such a regime, for permanency of government is necessary to the advancement of civilization. The government was non-progressive. It allowed no freedom of the people and gave no incentive to advancement, and it was a detriment many times to ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... enables me to write a little more explicitly than I have been able to do lately. The King has been in the utmost danger; the humour in his face having fallen upon his breast. He now appears constantly; yet, I fear, his life is very precarious, and that there is even apprehension of a consumption. After many difficulties from different quarters, a Regency-bill is determined; the King named it first to the ministers, who said, they intended to mention it to him as ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... midst of an open extent of country, where the only shelter I could find, without risking my travel by daylight, was a corn shock, but a few hundred yards from the road, and here I must pass my first day out. The day was an unhappy one; my hiding-place was extremely precarious. I had to sit in a squatting position the whole day, without the least chance to rest. But, besides this, my scanty pittance did not afford me that nourishment which my hard night's travel needed. Night came again to my relief, and I sallied ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... and walked out of the gymnasium unnoticed. This was the first time he had heard the particulars concerning that game, although on Saturday the surprising information had been telephoned to Oakdale that Wyndham had been barely able to squeeze out a precarious victory on her own grounds. As Eliot had stated, the Clearporters were batters to be feared, and Phil was now in no condition to be unruffled by this ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... means, to maintain a respectable station in society; the man who, with a large family to be supported and educated, and who moves in a respectable sphere of society, has to pay his L.9 or L.12 out of his precarious L.300 or L.400 a-year, is an object of most earnest sympathy. Still, let him not lose sight of the undoubted hardships borne by his wealthier brethren. Is it nothing for a man—say the Duke of Buccleuch, the Marquis of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Trichonis and Mount Aracynthus, forms a rich agricultural country. The northern and eastern regions are broken by an extensive complex of chains and peaks, whose rugged limestone flanks are clad at most with stunted shrubs and barely leave room for a few precarious mule-tracks. These heights often rise in the frontierranges of Tymphrestus, Oxia and Corax to more than 7000 ft.; the snow-capped pinnacle of Krona attains to 8240 ft. A few defiles pass through this barrier to the other side of the north ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... my sorrow? Is it not enough to know those I love in captivity, to behold my people, once so noble and heroic, degraded to the very refuse of humanity despised and detested of all men, having their dwelling on a barren rock, and earning by crime and bloodshed a precarious existence and doubtful freedom? Is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... was regarded by a large portion of the most powerful chieftains in his realm as a usurper. He was liable, at any time, on some sudden change of fortune, to be expelled from his dominions. His position, in a word, though for the time being very exalted, was too precarious and unstable, and his personal claims to high social rank were too equivocal, to justify her trusting her destiny in his hands. In a word, Matilda's answer to William's proposals was an absolute ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... enjoyed a parole freedom, and every consideration due to their rank. If of tender age they were educated with the same care as the children of the household. But when war broke out their situation was always precarious, and sometimes dangerous. In a few instances they had even been put to death, but this was considered a violation of all the laws both of hospitality and chivalry; usually they were removed to some strong secluded fort, and carefully guarded ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... tempted me to spend the evening-time of study and recreation where I had spent it yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks and shrubs in the garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; their seclusion was now become precarious; their calm—insecure. That casement which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it overlooked; and elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision, and the knots in the tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... am sorry to inform you my little boy still continues in a very precarious way, though somewhat better than when I had last the honor to address you. My respects to Lady Impey. And believe me, with great regard, my dear Sir Elijah, your faithful, obliged, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... as his chaplain, persuaded him to have a physician, to know in what state his health was; and by all I could learn, the doctor told him to settle his worldly affairs as soon as he conveniently could. "For," says he, "although your death is not certain, still your life is very precarious." ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... headquarters, and when supplied with money in notes of the State Bank of Tennessee, current everywhere as gold in those days, the party, composed of Card, the second brother, and the three East Tennesseeans, started on their precarious enterprise, their course being directed first toward the Cumberland Mountains, intending to strike the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad somewhere above Anderson's station. They expected to get back in about fifteen days, but I looked for some knowledge of the progress of their adventure ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... Mr. Campbell was right, and that a lady should not travel alone in Japan. Ito, who had the room next to mine, suggested that robbery was quite likely, and asked to be allowed to take charge of my money, but did not decamp with it during the night! I lay down on my precarious stretcher before eight, but as the night advanced the din of the house increased till it became truly diabolical, and never ceased till after one. Drums, tom-toms, and cymbals were beaten; kotos and samisens screeched and twanged; geishas (professional women with the accomplishments of ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird |
