"Last resort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be expected that the enemy could long be kept out, and in the last resort it would be necessary to retreat to the house. In view of the presence of the ladies this was a step to be avoided if possible. It might indeed be the wiser course to surrender, for their sakes. As the thought struck Desmond he called to the Babu, who was keeping watch ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... up a whip myself, I directed the men to lay on their gads, for each man had supplied himself with a flexible hickory withe in the early stages of the trip, to start the team, but this course did not move the wagon nor have much effect on the demoralized oxen; but following as a last resort an example I heard of on a former occasion, that brought into use the rough language of the country, I induced the oxen to move with alacrity, and the wagon and contents were speedily carried to the summit. The whole trouble was at once ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Gordon said patiently. "There are other outlets for intelligence than making clay pots. As a last resort for an intelligent being ...
— The Unthinking Destroyer • Roger Phillips
... Blake called down a seven-inch tube to an apartment in the depths,—a central station of pipes and wires, to be used as a last resort,—directing the officer on post to notify the chief engineer of the damage, and to order the quartermasters in the steering-room to disconnect their wheel and stand by. This was answered, and the captain resumed his lookout, one hand ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... cardboard instead of six-and eleven-inch steel; but still she held on her course. At five hundred yards her guns spoke, and the splinters began to fly on board the Britain. The Captain of the Verite signalled for the last ounce of steam he could have—he was going to appeal to the last resort in naval warfare—the ram. If he could once get that steel spur of his into the Britain's hull under her armour, she would go down as certainly as though she had been ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... helpless retreat; while FLORA'S increasing guilty consciousness of the implacable sentiment against her as a parcel of young girls, culminated at last in tears. Finally, when the miserable lawyer was beginning to think strongly of the House of the Good Shepherd, or the Orphan Asylum, as a last resort, it suddenly occurred to him that Mrs. SKAMMERHORN, a distant widowed aunt of his clerk, Mr. BLADAMS, had been known to live upon boarders in Bleecker Street; and thither he dragged hastily the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social classes unequally. It is ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... now those waiting dreams are satisfied, From twilight to the halls of dawn he went; His lance is broken—but he lies content With that high hour, he wants no recompense, Who found his battle in the last resort, Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence, Who goes to join ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... Southerner by birth, acquired a liberal education, and what the French call 'expansive' tastes, was adopted by a rich relative, quarreled with him, married 'for love,' and lived by editing magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York; by delivering lectures (the never-failing last resort of the American literary adventurer); by the occasional subscriptions of compassionate acquaintances or admiring friends—any way he could—for eighteen or nineteen years: lost his wife, involved himself in endless difficulties, and finally died in what should have ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... mountain, talk well of it; and it is often excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living talk draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still gossip, because it turns on personalities. You can keep no men long, nor Scotsmen at all, off moral or theological discussion. These are to all the world what law ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he must have managed in such a way that, for four or five weeks, no one could express or even conceive the least suspicion of the part played by Colonel Sparmiento. All the indignation and all the inquiries had to be concentrated upon Lupin alone. In the last resort, people had to find themselves faced simply with a mournful, pitiful, penniless widow, poor Edith Swan-neck, a beautiful and legendary vision, a creature so pathetic that the gentlemen of the insurance-companies were almost glad to place something in her hands to relieve her poverty and her ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... strewed their path with his favorite posers. The brilliant achievements of the class seemed to sink him deeper and deeper into the gloom of discontent, while the master, the minister and his wife, as well as the visitors, could not conceal their delight. As a last resort the old dominie sought to stem their victorious career with his famous problem in Practice, and to his huge enjoyment, one after another of the class had to acknowledge defeat. The truth was, the master had passed lightly over this rule in the arithmetic, considering ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... months passed, and March came—even the night of the twenty-fifth, with its order from the Sultan to the White Castle—an interval of indecision, shame, and self-indictment. How many plans of relief he formed who can say? Suicide he put by, a very last resort. There was also a temptation to cut loose from Mahommed, and go boldly over to the Emperor. That would be a truly Christian enlistment for the approaching war; and aside from conformity to his present sympathies, it ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... tending to decadence. They are not unmindful of the slow evolution of human government from earliest history, beginning in force and greed, reaching through struggles of blood, in the course of time, to the legislative stage where differences are adjudicated by reason, and the sword reserved as the last resort. This vantage ground has been gained only by a recognition of the primal right of the people to be consulted in regard to public affairs; and in proportion as this right has been respected and the franchise extended has government grown more stable and society ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... necessary to offer excuses for the womanly weakness which blinded Katharine to her obvious duty. It may also have appealed with considerable force to a statesman who regarded all pledges and bonds as being in the last resort dissoluble on grounds of national expediency. England had suffered enough from disputed successions; and while it is not probable that a title so incontrovertible as Mary's would have been directly challenged, it is evident ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... including such opposite thinkers as Tait and Haeckel, would say "matter" and "energy"; though Haeckel chooses, on his own account, to add that these two are one. (Perhaps Professor Ostwald would agree with him there; though to me the meaning is vague.) Physical science, pushed to the last resort, would probably reply that, within its sphere of knowledge at the present stage, the fundamental entities are ether and motion; and that of other things at present it knows next to nothing. If physical science is interrogated as ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... Bentley's Miscellany Epigrams by John G. Saxe. On a Recent Classic Controversy Another On an ill-read Lawyer On an Ugly Person Sitting for a Daguerreotype Woman's Will Family Quarrels A Revolutionary Hero Lowell Epigrams of Halpin. The Last Resort Feminine Arithmetic The Mushroom Hunt Jupiter Amans London Leader The Orator's Epitaph ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy's niche was her husband's life; and if it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard of utility. Ralph Grancy's was in short a kind of disembodied usefulness: one of those constructive influences that, instead ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... young children, a cook, or a housemaid, is regarded as the lowest and last resort of poverty, and one which no woman of culture and position can assume without loss of caste ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... day she would endeavour to support a reserve which should surpass his own, another she lost herself in bursts of emotion. The very care which she bestowed upon her personal appearance was a result of her anxiety on this point; in the last resort she knew herself to be beautiful, and to her beauty he was anything but insensible. Yet such an influence was wretchedly insufficient; she must have his uttermost love, and never yet had she attained ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... Persian, Libyan, Delphian, Cimmerian, Erythrian, Trojan, and Phrygian.[6] These sibyls were believed to be inspired, and generations of Greek and Roman philosophers never doubted their power. Their carmina were a court of last resort, and their books were guarded by a ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... my client, Mr. Cowperwood, the prisoner at the bar, is neither guilty in his own estimation, nor in that of two-fifths of the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court—the court of last resort in this State," he exclaimed, loudly and clearly, so ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... bringing her in. There's that apron between the Companies' Launching cradles and the Center—. It's clear there and we could give an E signal coming down which would make them stay rid of it. But I won't try it except as a last resort." ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... interest, ever happened to be the motive in those advancements? What share of knowledge these lords had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort? Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them? Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... House of Lords and the Judicial Committee.*—Of superior tribunals there are two others of large importance, the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The functions of the House of Lords as a court of last resort have been described elsewhere.[252] By the act of 1876 the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords, withdrawn by the act of 1873, was restored and provision was made for the strengthening of the legal element in the chamber by the creation of life peers ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... letter," she urged, as a last resort. "If, on reading it, I find your position is justifiable—you must admit it is now bewildering- -I will agree to abandon ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... fortune; fatalism; inevitableness &c adj.; spell &c 993. star, stars; planet, planets; astral influence; sky, Fates, Parcae, Sisters three, book of fate; God's will, will of Heaven; wheel of Fortune, Ides of March, Hobson's choice. last shift, last resort; dernier ressort [Fr.]; pis aller &c (substitute) 147 [Fr.]; necessaries &c (requirement) 630. necessarian^, necessitarian^; fatalist; automaton. V. lie under a necessity; befated^, be doomed, be destined &c, in for, under the necessity of; have no ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... my man and listened to his stories, sitting amid the bluster of his oaths; I plied him with rum and whiskey and mixed drinks, but there never came the tale for which I sought, and as a last resort I went to the Huthneth Mountains and bargained there all night with the ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... great streams of the Anglo-Saxon race. You have every right to be proud of hah; and so, I venture to say, have we. For we of the old country claim our share in the mare. She comes, I say, in the last resort—the last resort—of English thoroughbred stock. (Cheers, Counter-cheers.) And if she wins to-morrah—as she will (cheers), 'Given fair play'" came a voice from the back. "That she will get—(cheers ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... ratification of a State that any obligation was imposed upon its citizens. Thus believing, it is the opinion of the people of Carolina that it belongs to the State which has imposed the obligation to declare, in the last resort, the extent of this obligation, as far as her citizens are concerned; and this upon the plain principles which exist in all analogous cases of compact between sovereign bodies. On this principle the people of the State, acting in their sovereign ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... a temperament singularly cool and steady. His curiosity had been trained to wait, and he put questions only as a last resort. Throughout the strange happenings of the night—the tryst with Inspector Val—the meeting with Mr. Duff and Mr. England at the drain's mouth—the presence of Steamboat Dan—the colloquy between that unworthy and Inspector Val—the signal ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a suitable statement of the facts. These tidings had a conflicting effect upon me. At first I was indignant; but, at last, almost approved. The landlord's energetic, summary disposition, had led him to adopt a procedure which I do not think I would have decided upon myself; and yet, as a last resort, under such peculiar circumstances, it seemed ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... shift of values, which is forced on us by the war, touches the past no less than the present and the future. However objectively we try to present to ourselves the data of history, we cannot emancipate ourselves from the need to present them from a point of view which must in the last resort be our own. We may bring ourselves by training and criticism nearer to the centre of things, more intimate with essential factors and remote from the trivial periphery; but it is a matter of degree, and historical study ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... "As a last resort, it may be necessary for me to warn Miss Le Roy—not for my own sake. Were I alone involved, you know how much I would endure rather than grieve you. But this young lady must ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... thought nothing—only felt himself in hell. Roused by the sight of the faces of his hearers growing suddenly expectant at the very moment when he had nothing more to give them, he gathered his seven fragmentary wits, and as a last resort, to which he had had a vague regard in putting his manuscript in his pocket, resolved to read the remainder. But in order to give the change of mode an appearance of the natural and suitable, he managed with a struggle to bring out ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... of the list of desiderata so enumerated in the poet's flight, will quickly bring out the fact that any or all of them might drop out of the situation without prejudice to the plain call of patriotic duty. In the last resort, when the patriotic spirit falls back on its naked self alone, it is not reflection on the merits of these good and beautiful things in Nature that gives him his cue and enforces the ultimate sacrifice. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... Indian friends supplied cordage. When their bark was finished they set sail. Unluckily in their impatience to be gone, they did not reckon what supplies they would need. The wind, at first favorable, soon turned against them, and famine stared them in the face. Driven to the last resort of starving seamen, they cast lots for a victim, and the lot, by a strange chance, fell upon the very man whose punishment had been a chief count against De Pierria. Life was supported by this hideous relief, till ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... man's audacity spread among the higher officials, so that when the heads of the brotherhoods came—which is a last resort—the company were almost as haughty and remote as the head of the grievance ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... as a last resort we inspect, inspires me with a certain amount of apprehension. It is a low, mysterious loft, against the door of which is stuck, as a thing no longer wanted, a very old pious image: Kwanon with the thousand arms, and Kwanon with the horses' head, seated among clouds and flames, and horrible ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... began calling up hospitals. There were one or two that reported young women brought in, but the description was not at all like the girl of whom he was in search. He jotted them down in his note-book, however, with a feeling that they might be a last resort. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... chief cause of discontents and tumults in the capital. To the interests of the army he likewise paid particular attention. It was by the assistance of the legions that he had risen to power; and they were the men who, in the last resort, if such an emergency should ever occur, could alone enable him ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... upon the tendency to disregard constitutional limitations upon its power, but to subject the judicial check itself to reversal by a majority of that part of the electorate choosing to act on the matter. It is proposed that whenever a court of last resort shall adjudge that a statute trespasses upon the reserved constitutional rights of the individual, an appeal may be taken direct to the electorate, and that if a majority of those choosing to vote on the question desire the statute ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... nothing but a mode of mental action. The Idealist who has already identified matter with the object of thought will find no difficulty in going on to see in force simply the activity or expression or object of Will. And if he learns from the Physicist that we cannot in the last resort—from the physical point of view—distinguish matter from force, that will fit in very well with the metaphysical position which regards thought and will as simply two inseparable aspects of ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... Beecher, of Lane Seminary, Edward Beecher, J. M. Sturtevant, and William Kirby, of Illinois College, and George Duffield, of the presbytery of Carlisle, Pa., were annoyed by impeachments for heresy, which all failed before reaching the court of last resort. But repeated and persistent prosecutions of Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, were destined to more conspicuous failure, by reason of their coming up year after year before the General Assembly, and also ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Clawbonny, Venus Clawbonny, Caesar Clawbonny, Rose Clawbonny—who was as black as a crow—Romeo Clawbonny, and Julietta, commonly called Julee, Clawbonny; who were, with Pharaoh, Potiphar, Sampson and Nebuchadnezzar, all Clawbonnys in the last resort. Neb, as the namesake of the herbiferous king of Babylon was called, was about my own age, and had been a sort of humble playfellow from infancy; and even now, when it was thought proper to set him about the more serious toil which was to mark his humble career, I often interfered to call ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... graveled streets—dust the more irritating to eyes, nose and lungs because largely composed of lime, and which dries with marvelous rapidity after the frequent heavy showers and protracted rains for which this region is also remarkable. It is the last resort of the citizens of Munich, when driven out of every other defence of their climate, to say, "But it is a good climate for the nerves." One would like to know for what nerves and whose nerves, since strangers who reside here for any length of time generally find that any constitutional ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... ought to be told," said Ste. Marie. "If we try to carry him away by force there'll be a fight, of course, and—who knows what might happen? That we must leave for a last resort—a last desperate resort. First we must tell the boy." Abruptly he gave a cry of dismay, and the girl looked up to him, staring. "But—but you, Coira!" said he, stammering. "But you! I hadn't realized—I hadn't thought—it never occurred to me what this means to you." The full enormity ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... be denied that the large share of nervous sensibility which is allotted to the female constitution, peculiarly unfits woman for scenes of blood, like that to which I have alluded. And yet we see what can be done, as a last resort. [Footnote: Some persons object to the detail or such a scene of murder as this, even as an illustration of an important principle. They dislike to present such things to the youthful mind; and so do I. But it should be remembered that this book is not for ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... swiftly that the wind could have no effect upon it. He had planted slim switches of one kind after another and the wind had blown each to leaflessness, until now there stood a slim row of cottonwoods that he had tried as a last resort, but the same thing would happen to them, perhaps. He had lost faith in trees. But he would not say yet that he had lost ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... in Paris. Others, on the contrary, pride themselves upon the head-tones; but they are none of them willing to pay much attention to the medium voices: that is too critical and too delicate a matter, and requires too much trouble, for the modern art of singing. As a last resort, they bethink themselves of kind Nature, and ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... woman's fixed and scorching gaze, and his lips, white and tremulous, refused to breathe the fierce curse into which his brutal nature concentrated its fears and its hate. He walked on in gloomy silence; but some words she had let fall suggested a last resort to his ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... difficult part of the work is that of visiting the sick in their homes, both because of the great distances that have to be covered, and because in many cases the doctor is not called except as a last resort. One of Dr. Hue's reports reads: "I am very sorry that we do not yet have foreign vehicles, railroads, or street cars. It takes much time to go from one place to another. Fortunately my Chinese people live ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... former case, a conjectural explanation of G.G.S. But when you come to the present case, who the person paying was, why the money was not paid, what the cause of failure was, you are not told: you only learn that there was that sum deficient; and Mr. Larkins, who is our last resort and final hope of elucidation in this transaction, throws not the smallest glimpse of light upon it. We of the House of Commons have been reduced to form the best legitimate conjectures we could upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... His comrade was a very indifferent shot, but it would have been a relief to feel that they had something besides the ax to fall back on as a last resort. Firearms, as he was aware, are seldom made use of in a dispute in British Columbia, but, for all that, men have now and then been rather badly injured during an altercation over a mineral claim. At close quarters a shovel or ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... ain't much one for a joke," he confessed, and then went on. "Though too busy for love-making and all that, yet I've got my pride, Mrs. Bascombe, and I shouldn't like to be taken as a last resort—amusing though it ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... facts?—Just the reverse of what has been promised. Free love, which is free lust, has followed in its wake; homes have been ruined, families scattered, characters blighted; while insanity and suicide have been the fate, or the last resort, of too many of its victims. And outside of its own ranks, in the world at large, the fifty years since the advent of Spiritualism have been years of increase of crime and every evil in a fast growing ratio. Liquor drinking, tobacco using, gambling, prostitution, defalcations, ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... they establish in the lower layers, among the females, males who, because of their earlier hatching, would be much better placed near the mouth of the nest. I am convinced of it: if the Osmia refuses big reeds and accepts them only in the last resort, when there are no others, it is because she objects to additional labour and to the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... "I intend to risk that violent measure only as a last resort and in case my other ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... arms. Here is a principle that has been vindicated through all history and needs vindication now. But in our time the question of rightful war has been crossed by the evil of militarism, and in our assertion of the principle, that in the last resort freemen must have recourse to the sword, we find ourselves crossed by the anti-militarist campaign. We must dispose of this confusing element before we can come to the ethics of war. Of the evil of militarism there can be no question, but ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... newspaper notices of your own books. They gratify a body, but they always leave a small pang behind in the shape of a fear that the critic's good words could not safely be depended upon as authority. Yours is the recognized critical Court of Last Resort in this country; from its decision there is no appeal; and so, to have gained this decree of yours before I am forty years old, I regard as a thing to be right down proud of. Mrs. Clemens says, "Tell him I am just as grateful to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... opponent of this dominant system appeared: John Scotus Erigena. He contended that "reason and authority come alike from the one source of Divine Wisdom"; that the fathers, great as their authority is, often contradict each other; and that, in last resort, reason must be called in to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... them into positive intellectual character; but let them once divorce love from their occupations in life, and they will find that labor will degenerate into drudgery, and drudgery will weaken the power to labor, and weakness, as a last resort, will intrench itself in pretence and deception. If they are in the learned professions, they will become tricksters in law, quacks in medicine, formalists in divinity, though regular practitioners ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... the preposterous explanation. 'This man doth not cast out demons, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons.' That is the last resort of prejudice so deep that it will father an absurdity rather than yield to evidence. And Christ has no difficulty in putting it aside, as you may remember, by a piece of common sense: 'If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself, and his kingdom ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... right. For the ultimate answer to the critical intellect, or, as Newman called it, the "wild living intellect of man," when it is dealing with Christianity and miracle, is that reason is not the final judge—is, indeed, in the last resort, the enemy, and must at some point go down, defeated and trampled on. "Ideal Ward," and Archdeacon Denison, and Mr. Spurgeon—and not Doctor Figgis or Doctor Creighton—are the apologists who in ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... upper end of the pond, where the bank was higher, they dug a long burrow, running back ten or fifteen feet into the ground. This was to be the last resort if, by any possibility, the lodge should ever be invaded. It was a weary task, digging that burrow, for its mouth was deep under the water, and every few minutes they had to stop work and come to the surface for breath. Night after ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... are under the control of the principles of law. Lord Talbot (the Earl of Shrewsbury, an English peer of the era of William and Mary) says it is better to observe these than any precedents, though in the House of Lords the last resort of the subject. No Acts of Parliament can establish such a writ; though it should be made in the very words of the petition, it would be void. An act against the constitution is void. But this proves no more than what I before observed, that special writs may be granted on oath and probable ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... authority; for the original data of reason do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data are, therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that, in the last resort, we must, per force, philosophically admit that belief is the primary condition of reason, and not reason the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... minute without water seemed an age. We had to leave the horses and go on. We had deemed them indispensable to us, or rather to the extrication of the women and children, and yet the hope came to us that the oxen might help some of them out as a last resort. We were sure the wagons must be abandoned, and such a thing as women riding on the backs of oxen we had never seen, still it occurred to us as not impossible and although leaving the horses here was like ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... economical in the use of our ordnance stores, so we would never throw away a shot carelessly or unnecessarily. And it was a standing rule never to shoot a squirrel anywhere except in the head, save as a last resort, when circumstances compelled one to fire at some other part of the body of the little animal. And so I thought, at the beginning of my military career, that I should use the same care and circumspection in firing an old musket when on the line of battle that I had exercised ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... taxes shall be imposed and levied by authority and direction of the several States within the time prescribed by Congress; that Congress has the sole and exclusive right of deciding on peace and war, of sending and receiving ambassadors, and entering into treaties; that Congress shall be the last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences between two or more of the States; that Congress have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States, fixing the standard ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... oracle to the friends of her household. They kept sharp eyes on things returnable—plates, platters, knives, spoons, and tablecloths—in any doubtful case, arising from the fact of similarity in pattern, they were the court of last resort. Spoons and so on are unmistakable—but one sprigged saucer is very like other saucers sprigged the same. It was the Mammies rather than the masters and mistresses, who ordered carriage drivers and horse boys imperiously about. But nobody minded the imperiousness—it ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... assert her loyalty throughout that darksome hour. The fair widow was reduced to despair, when tidings reached her of grand tournaments to be held at Toledo, in celebration of the nuptials of Don Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings, with the Morisco princess Exilona. As a last resort, the duchess repaired to the Spanish court, to implore the gallantry ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... of splendid ships' companies and their heroic captains. We can sympathise with the cruel disappointment of those who, after bearing the brunt of the action, were robbed of the opportunity of overwhelming their enemy by failing light and the exigencies of a strategy governed in the last resort by political caution. But look at the sequel. The German Fleet, badly battered, retires to port; and despite the paeans of exultation from their Admirals, Kaiser, and Imperial Chancellor, remains there throughout ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... recover health through adherence to physi- 166:24 ology and hygiene, the despairing invalid often drops them, and in his extremity and only as a last resort, turns to God. The invalid's faith in the divine Mind is less 166:27 than in drugs, air, and exercise, or he would have resorted to Mind first. The balance of power is conceded to be with matter by most of the medical systems; but when ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... patent leathers should be varnished as soon as they come home from the bootmaker, but I disagree with them. A varnished patent leather has always a cheap look, and the coat of veneer is only applied as a last resort, to hide the cracks. Russet boots and shoes are treated daily with the special cream sold for them, which can be obtained at any bootmaker's or shoe shop. The price is small, and the stuff will last a long time. Russet boots, however, can be very well treated with a little vaseline, ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... cardinal directions and are impersonated in medicine ceremonies by men wearing stick masks, who always take stations at the four sides of the patient. These doctors are not called in case of illness until after the four chief deities have been supplicated, when, as a last resort, the medicine-man prays to the gaun. If the gaun cannot help, there is believed to be no hope for the patient. In ancient times all animals could talk, and many were used as beasts of burden. The bear and the deer were the horses of that time. In the graphic representations of ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... not met with that spontaneous generosity that I could have wished; in fact, they contributed nothing, and as a last resort, I was compelled to offer my horse for sale; which venture was more successful, and I soon disposed of him at a very fair price. I was now enabled to buy the few articles of clothing that I was most ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... threat was saved as a last resort, and he drove quietly around the curve of a hill. When they reached the other side, there was the rapid crunch of hoofs in the snow, an abrupt command to halt, and they found themselves surrounded by a dozen troopers. Prescott recognized the faded blue uniform and knew at once ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... conceptions of God, of man, of history, and even of nature; it determines them, for we must bring them all in some way into accord with it. It is the inspiration of all thought, the impulse and the law of all action, the key, in the last resort, to all suffering. Whether we call it a fact or a truth, a power or a doctrine, it is that in which the differentia of Christianity, its peculiar and exclusive character, is specifically shown; it is the focus of revelation, the point at which we see deepest into the truth of God, and come ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... something very dark as she stood holding Miss Robinson's expensive roses. For, after all, what was going to become of her? The final depth shaped itself to-day in more grimly realistic fashion than ever before: what was she going to do with herself, in the last resort, unless something happened? Her mind dwelt upon all the visible alternatives. There was philanthropic lunch-going and lunch-giving spinsterhood in Boston; there was spinsterhood in Europe, semi-social, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... As a last resort, he turned to the stage, not that he cared for the dramatic art, for no man seems to care less about "Art for Art's sake," being in this a perfect foil to his brilliant compatriot and contemporary, Wilde. He cast his theories in dramatic forms merely ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... across the harbor, which was to have a roadway of sixteen feet and to bear heavy vehicles. He also conferred with Todleben on other measures to protect the withdrawal, and accordingly barricades were built across the streets and formed into armed and defensible works which were intended, as a last resort, to hold in check the assailants. Preparations were also made for blowing up the principal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... order a scire facias against the bank, with a view to put an end to the chartered rights it has so palpably violated, were it not that the charter itself will expire as soon as a decision would probably be obtained from the court of last resort. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... office," said Bradley. "She was a last resort. We had to have some one, and she was the only girl there. We took her for a week on trial without references, and, by Jove! she ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... the very briefest character, the wreck would go to pieces under our feet. Therefore it seemed to me that the task which now clamoured most loudly for our immediate attention was the construction of a craft of some sort which would enable us to escape in the last resort. ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... turned toward the east, in the direction of Mosciska, twenty miles off, which was supposed to be the Russian supply base. This attempted foraging expedition—for it was nothing else—can only be defended on the broad general principle that it is better to do something than nothing as a last resort. Supplies were essential before any more could be undertaken to cut a passage through the strong double set of Russian lines that lay between the Carpathians and Przemysl; but that these supplies were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... her; and when, soon after, he conceived the purpose of devoting his life to the work of the Faith in Canada, he invited his maiden spouse to go with him. She refused, and forbade him to mention the subject again. Her health was indifferent, and about this time she fell ill. As a last resort, she made a promise to God, that, if He would restore her, she would go to Canada with her husband; and forthwith her maladies ceased. Still her reluctance continued; she hesitated, and then refused again, when an inward light revealed to her that it was her duty ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... Germans and two million Poles; and in such a community the wishes of the two million cannot be decisive for the forty-eight million, as must be apparent, especially in an age when political decisions are dependent on a majority vote as a last resort. The forces which guarantee the union of these territories are strong enough both in the parliament and in the army to assure it, and no one can doubt that the proper authorities are ready to use these forces at the right time. No one mistakes the meaning, when the announcement ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the interior pretty thoroughly, and gained a correct idea of their situation, but as yet he saw no practical way of getting out. The plan of diving down the stream, and trusting to Providence to come up on the outside was to be the last resort. ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... fear, George; I shall not murder her. I do not believe in violence; it is the last resort of fools. If I did, you would not ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... then, In pursuance of these clear and express In saying all this, I do not forget In something of a parallel In such cases In support of this claim In support of what I have been saying In the first place In the first place, then, I say In the first place there is In the last resort In the light of these things In this connection In this point of view, doubtless In this situation, let us In this respect they are In view of these facts, I say In what I have to say Is it fair to say that Is it not evident that Is it not quite possible that Is it said that Is not that ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... said Thugut, with a heartless laugh. "When medicine fails we use the cold steel; and if that is not enough, fire is the last resort. What are your majesty's conditions with Prussia, medicine, iron, or fire?" [Footnote: Thugut's own application of the old-fashioned method of cure. See Hormayer's "Contributions to the History of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of it, had begun to revive; but there was nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause—a pause in which neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, they could now after all only look at each other across the social gulf. They remained together as if it would be indeed their last chance, still sitting, though awkwardly, quite close, and feeling also—and this most unmistakeably—that ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... I could afford to wait. When a man gets to be as old as I am he can philosophise even in the matter of death. What is a year or two, one way or the other, to me? An operation is either an experiment or a last resort, isn't it? Well, my boy, I preferred to look upon it as a last resort, and as such I concluded to put it off until the last minute, when it wouldn't make any difference which way it resulted. If it had resulted fatally a year and ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... that. Even majorities have their rights. If a plurality of nine to two is not sufficient to determine policy and conduct business in a modern nation, then there is no other choice except anarchy, or rather an insane atomism. Not merely every party, but every household and, in last resort, every individual will end as a Provisional Government. Separatism of this type is a very ecstasy of nonsense, and none of my readers will think so cheaply of his own intelligence as to stay to discuss it. It is in other terms that we must handle ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... seeming to do so, he kept a watch on the man, but he disliked the thought of a personal encounter with him. The scene, the surroundings, and his own nature, revolted, and he resolved to submit to all that it was possible to bear before falling back on the last resort. ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... far lost ground in popular favor, as to be in the greatest apprehension from their prosperous but imbittered rivals, the Yorkinos, as a last resort, to save themselves, and to ruin the hated organization, they pronounced against all secret societies. Suerez y Navarro, in his "Life of Santa Anna," thus relates the history of these Secret ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... and adventurers, not even members of the quasi-romantic professions, but the ordinary small tradesmen, whom the world has hitherto neglected. The hero of the new book, Mr. Alfred Polly, is of the same school, but he is nearer Hoopdriver than Kipps. He is in the last resort the master of his fate, and squares himself defiantly against the Destinies. Unlike the others, he has a literary sense, and has a strange fantastic culture of his own. Mr. Wells has never written anything ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... last resort is to his SENSES. My thought makes me act on his senses much as he might himself act on them, were he pursuing the consequences of a perception of his own. Practically then MY thought terminates in HIS realities. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... find their court of last resort in the ear of the teacher. All other knowledge is secondary to this. He may believe any number of things that are untrue about the voice, but if he have a thoroughly refined ear it will prevent him from doing anything wrong. His ear is his taste, his musical sense, and it is his musical ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... up so furiously? Because we do not want to see the truth—and therefore because we do see it. Therein lies the tragedy of humanity; it refuses to see and know. As a last resort, it is forced to find divinity in the mire. Let us, on our part, dare to look the truth ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... by land to some navagable part of the Columbia river, or to the Ocean, depending on what provisions we can Precure by the gun aded to the small stock we have on hand depending on our horses as the last resort." ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... "the proclamation will undergo many strictures; and, as the effect proposed may not be answered by it, it will be necessary to look forward in time to ulterior arrangements:" that is to say, the employment of regular troops as a last resort. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that to the decisions of this court, in criminal cases, no review is allowed, except in the same court in the informal way in which I now ask your honor to review the decisions made on this trial. This is therefore the court of last resort, and I hope your honor will give to these, as they appear to me, grave questions, such careful and deliberate consideration as is due to them from such ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... handed back to soberness and morality and good government by that peculiar invention of Anglo-Saxon republican America—the solemn, awe-inspiring Vigilance Committee of the most grave and respectable citizens; the last resort of the thinking and the good, taken only when vice, fraud, and ruffianism had entrenched themselves behind the forms of law, suffrage, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... to do? is the subject of Ethics. These questions are closely related, and the answer given to one largely determines the solution of the others. The truths gained by philosophical thought are not confined to the kingdom of abstract speculation but apply in the last resort to life. The impulse to know is only a phase of the more general impulse to be and to act. Beneath all man's activities, as their source and spring, there is ever some dim perception of an end to be attained. 'The ultimate end,' says Paulsen, 'impelling men ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... the punishment of your infamous valet, and wishing at the same time to give proof of my respect for Count Waldstein, not forgetting that, as a last resort, I have the right to invade his jurisdiction, I took an advocate, wrote my complaint and had it translated into German . . . . Having heard of this at Teplitz, and having known that I would not save your name, you ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... swung, stepped out, and threw his body with the ball. This was his rarely used pitch, his last resort, his fast rise ball that jumped up a little at the plate. Lane struck under it. How significant on the instant to see old Cogswell's hands go up! Again the Rube pitched, and this time Lane watched the ball ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... and gossip, whether it be work at the easel, music, literature, the structure of the human body and the laws of health, any solid interest that will occupy their thoughts and their hearts. Idleness, frivolity and ignorance can only be put down by education and employment. In the last resort, the spirit of ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... noticed that Christianity was part and parcel of the articles of war; and so was duelling. Any officer speaking against religion was to be cashiered; and any officer receiving an affront without, in the last resort, attempting to kill his opponent, was also to be cashiered. Though somewhat of a book-hunter, I {402} have never been able to ascertain the date of the collected remonstrances of the prelates in the House of Lords against this overt inculcation of murder, under the soft name of satisfaction: ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... say so before, instead of having all this talk about it? I don't know whether to believe you now: it is more than likely only a lie that you have trumped up as a last resort." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Manege Club, the last resort of the Jacobins, formed in 1799, and closed seven or eight months afterwards. Joseph Bonaparte (Erreurs, time i. p. 251) denies that he or Lucien—for whom the allusion is meant—were members of this club, and he disputes ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... obstinacy, were not desirous to push matters to extremity. The three months named in his sentence, at the expiration of which he was either to conform or be banished the realm, were fast drawing to an end, without any sign of submission on his part. As a last resort Mr. Cobb, the Clerk of the Peace, was sent to try what calm and friendly reasoning might effect. Cobb, who evidently knew Bunyan personally, did his best, as a kind-hearted, sensible man, to bring him to reason. Cobb did not profess to be "a man that could dispute," and Bunyan had the better ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... They passed entirely through without any signs of the savages, and as they returned and emerged from the other side, John tried to give the Professor some advice, but the darkness prevented him from grasping his ideas. As a last resort John went up to a small tree and made the motions of cutting it down, and it at once dawned on him that a raft should be built, and this so impressed the Professor as a wise course that they ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... an automatic pistol in my pocket, but it would have been suicide to shoot except as a last resort. When a Mongol "starts anything" he is sure to finish it; he is not like a Chinese, who will usually run at the first shot. We stood for at least three minutes with that wall of scowling brutes ten feet away. They were undecided what to do and were only waiting for a leader to close in. One ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... most surprising things in the history of American art is the facility with which men of all trades turned to portrait painting, apparently as a last resort, and managed to make a living at it. During the first half of the last century, the country seems to have been overrun with wandering portrait painters, whose only equipment for the art was some paint and a ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... really fears. Of course, if the nation adopted the Fabian policy, it would be carried out by brute force exactly as our present property system is. It would become the law; and those who resisted it would be fined, sold up, knocked on the head by policemen, thrown into prison, and in the last resort "executed" just as they are when they break the present law. But as our proprietary class has no fear of that conversion taking place, whereas it does fear sporadic cut-throats and gunpowder plots, ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... As a last resort the shrewd king had rafts made of boards and barrels and put on these the high-born women he held as captives. These rafts were set afloat one after another, and the pursuers, on seeing these hapless fair ones and hearing their wild appeals for rescue, were obliged ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the half-empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences, the little inequalities will be easily tided over. Rarely has appeal been made to the good instincts of the masses—only as a last resort, to save the sinking ship in times of revolution—but never has such an appeal been made in vain; the heroism, the self-devotion of the toiler has never failed to respond to it. And thus it will be in ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... this," said the other. "My friend, Mr. Hasbrook, wishes to bring a suit against the Fidelity Company to compel it to pay to him his proper share of its surplus. He wishes the suit pressed, and followed to the court of last resort." ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... disregarding the uniformity of nature in order to maintain the higher uniformity of the Moral Law. The freedom of the human will is but the assertion in particular of that universal supremacy of the moral over the physical in the last resort, which is an essential part of the very essence of the Moral Law. The freedom of the will is the Moral Law breaking into the world of phenomena, and thus behind the free-will of man stands the ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... the Symes household. Her power over Symes went with her prestige, for her word would have little weight if the Dago Duke even partially carried out his threats. Her disclosure would appear but the last resort of malice and receive ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... sentence. Few had ever resisted it successfully, even monarchs themselves. Excommunication was still a fearful weapon, and used only in desperate circumstances. It was used only as the last resort; for frequency would destroy its power. In the middle ages, this weapon was omnipotent; and the middle ages had but just passed away. No one could stand before that awful anathema which consigned him to the wrath of incensed and implacable Deity. Much as some professed to despise the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Again, when earth From end to end is rocking under foot, And shaken cities ruin down, or threaten Upon the verge, what wonder is it then That mortal generations abase themselves, And unto gods in all affairs of earth Assign as last resort almighty powers And wondrous energies to ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... Spencer leaves behind him explain such discrepant appreciations? Can we find revealed in them the higher synthesis which reconciles the contradictions? Partly they do explain, I think, and even justify, both kinds of judgment upon their author. But I confess that in the last resort I still feel baffled. In Spencer, as in every concrete individual, there is a uniqueness that defies all formulation. We can feel the touch of it and recognize its taste, so to speak, relishing or disliking, as the case may be, but we can give ...
— Memories and Studies • William James |
