"Prevarication" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the judge, to evade compliance with the law, to the non-fulfillment of any duty, and to live only to enjoy his rights; he will resort, in dealing with human authorities, to the use of the same methods of propitiation, adulation, prevarication, humiliation, and deception which dominated the same God and triumphed over ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... followed by Mirabeau's Secret Correspondence with the Court. His prevarication and double-dealing as a popular leader in the pay of the king had long been known. At least twenty persons were in the secret. One man, leaving Paris hurriedly, left one paper, the most important of all, lying about in his room. Unmistakable allusions were found among the contents of the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... feelings of an adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness, or involve him in self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle, and straightforward, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my interlocutor ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... window?" I asked, as I extricated the four-year-old witness from Harriet's chiffon and violets. I doubted if young Susan had attained the years of prevarication as ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... knew that this way through the paddock led home. Come, Ermengarde, I am tired of prevarication. What ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... having free course and meeting with little objection. "Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for Him?" severely asks the old prophet of those who thought to cheat for their own set, as though it were in the cause of religion; and no godly soul can accept as a grateful tribute the least prevarication, however disinterested or devoted in its behalf. Indeed, no smart antithesis has been so hurtful as the overstated distinction between black lies and white. They are of different species, but have no generic difference. Charles Reade's novel, of "White Lies," in which the deceptions of love ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the real plasters," he said, huskily; "big ones as you've got. I—I want to pay for some vessel property!" He reflected that the few hundreds that the loss of the ancient Dobson called for lifted this statement out of the cheap level of prevarication. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... ought to hold firmly and assert, especially we bishops who preside in the Church, that we may prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood; let no one corrupt the truth by a perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one in its entirety. The Church, also, is one which is spread abroad far and wide into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays of the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... said to her smilingly, "tell me without any prevarication which of the three characters ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... being made of glass," she said brusquely; "you don't know anything about me, Mr. Morton. You have simply discovered that I have not a leaning toward prevarication. That's all your fine words amount to. Since I must keep up a reputation for telling the truth, I'm obliged to say that you don't remind me ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... however, came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for realities: but in the calmest and clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out of the wilderness. Yet such was the consequence of his prevarication that he could not obey the call. It was now too late to require the assistance of Roger Malvin's friends in performing his long-deferred sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible than the people of the outward settlements, forbade Reuben to go alone. Neither ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... before the court at Sauveterre, before a jury composed of people from this district, incapable of prevarication, I am sure, but, unfortunately, under the influence of that public opinion which has long since condemned M. de Boiscoran. The proceedings begin; the judge questions the accused. Will he say what he told me,—that, after having been the lover of the Countess Claudieuse, he had gone to Valpinson ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... he looked me straight in the eye. It takes practice to lie convincingly. And the Space Academy doesn't list the Art of Prevarication among its curricula. ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... to own the truth, and produce the letter," she resumed, "I will give you this, as your reward for finding, and restoring to me, something that I had lost. If you persist in your present prevarication, I can, and will, make that sheet of note-paper you have stolen from me nothing but waste paper in your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm with my interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm? Suppose I interfere before the week is out? Suppose I have other letters of Mr. Delamayn's ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... the amendments was one continued instance of the grossest bigotry, and the most material passages were turned with all the Jesuitical prevarication imaginable. As much as it was his interest at that time to cultivate the respect which many of the Tories really had for the memory of the late Queen, and which many others affected as a farther mark of their opposition to the Court and to the Whig party; as much as it ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... not a moment to trifle. Tell me, without prevarication,—were you, or were you not in the Park, walking with a gentleman, on the morning you left for Mrs. Brahan's? Answer ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... is made upon any other than reciprocated affection, is an unreasonable and irreligious one. "Parents have no right," says Paley, "to urge their children upon marriage to which they are averse;" "add to this," says he, "that compulsion in marriage necessarily leads to prevarication; as the reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is expected to take place." To proceed to marriage, therefore in the face of absolute dislike and revulsion, is irrational ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... your admission of that without any of the prevarications that are usual in your kind. And I will say this, that here prevarication would avail you little. For we always have the truth in the end. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... favourite themes for the display of his humour was the subject of prevarication. He seemed never to tire of ringing the changes upon the theme of the lie, its utility, its convenience, and its consequences. Doubtless he chose to dabble in falsehood because it is generally winked ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... his book—a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lying indeed! Why, you hate prevarication. As for murder, your friends know you too well to mention the subject in your hearing, except in immediate connection with capital punishment. You are, of course, willing to make some allowance for Cellini's time and place—the first half of the sixteenth century and Italy. 'Yes,' you remark, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... capacity not only to work oneself, but to make others work, begets success. I should hesitate to say of General White that he 'used' others, but his prudent selection of subordinates ensured that all units in his Brigade were well commanded. He was more than a good judge of character: hollow prevarication was useless with him, and bluff—though, when he liked, he was himself a master of it—a dangerous policy. Among the shrewd qualities of this man there were the abilities to summarize rapidly whatever he had been told, and to remember most of everything he saw. His ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... patient and then I had trembled at his approach. When he took my little wrist in his big hand, I remember with what reluctance I stuck out my quivering tongue, black, as I feared with evidences of prevarication. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... he, all the while that he was professing to be of the Church of England, expressing both zeal and affection to it, was yet secretly reconciled to the Church of Rome; thus mocking God, and deceiving the world with so gross a prevarication. And his not having the honesty or courage to own it at the last; his not shewing any sign of the least remorse for his ill-led life, or any tenderness either for his subjects in general, or for the queen and his servants; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... his dozing prevarication. It made her forget that he was no longer a sleep-loving schoolboy. She went quietly to his bedside and laid a hand on his forehead. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... prevarication, sir," cried the Vicar warmly. "The knife was dropped by whoever it was stripped the wall of my golden drops last night. There, take your knife, sir, I have altered my intentions. I did mean ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Mandarin drinks damnation to the Lord of the Manor in a horn of eleemosynary ale, handed to him by the village blacksmith, in days of old not the worst of the gang, and who, but for a stupid jury, a merciful judge, and something like prevarication in the circumstantial evidence, would have been hanged for a murderer—as he was—dissected, and hung in chains;—Be it a red-haired woman, with a pug nose, small fiery eyes, high cheekbones, bulging lips, and teeth like swine-tusks,—bearded—flat-breasted ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Tess recognized the prevarication instantly. Almost the first thing Dick had done after they arrived was to make a full statement of all the circumstances in the commissioner's office. However, she was not her husband. There was no ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... cast private property into the public stock, was so far from being required by the apostles, or imposed as a law of Christianity, that Peter reminds Ananias that he had been guilty, in his behaviour, of an officious and voluntary prevarication; "for whilst," says he, "thy estate remained unsold, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... "This is prevarication, sir," cried the lieutenant; "but I am not to be put off like this. Come, sir, I received information about a very valuable contraband cargo that has been run from Dunquerque. It has been landed here successfully during the past night ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... see each other—ha! I've got it now—did you see each other after I had left the town? No prevarication! You own to telling Helena that you knew her by her likeness to her mother. You must have seen her ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... the savage and exulting eye of Thornton, when it read the damning record of Glanville's guilt; and in spite of my horror at the crime of my former friend, I trembled for his safety: nor was I satisfied with myself at my prevarication as a witness. It is true, that I had told the truth, but I had concealed all the truth; and my heart swelled proudly and bitterly against the miniature which I still concealed ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upon the subject—an obscurity enlightened by flashes of delusive light. Two housemaids, and an odd man who looked after the coal scuttles, were produced, and gave their evidence in a manner which would have laid them open to the charge of rank prevarication and perjury, as to the receipt of a certain wooden box, which at some stages of the inquiry became hopelessly entangled with a hamper from the Petersfield fishmonger, and a band-box from Lady ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... arrived, and Henry, in deference to his rank, gave him precedence, and stepped into another apartment to hear his story. He accused Holbein of the violence, but suppressed the provocation; whereat Henry broke into a towering Tudor rage, and, after reproaching the nobleman for his prevarication, said, "You have to do with me, Sir. I tell you, that of seven peasants I could make seven earls like you; but of seven earls I could not make one Holbein. Do not molest him, if you value your head." And as second-hand heads, though plentiful about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... her face as she spoke, and gradually began to perceive the working of her mind. He was so true to himself that he did not understand that there should be with her even that violet-coloured tinge of prevarication which women assume as an additional charm. Could she really have thought that he was attending to his own possible future interests when he warned her as to the making of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... the tumbler touched my lips, and, girls, I was so sure that she would take me down to Miss Ashton,—and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'—that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... This prevarication, which was equal to a refusal, offended the Bretaks, as it was an infringement of the Sakai custom of sharing like brothers all they possessed. They insisted upon their right and at last obtained a handful of salt, given ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... My throat is sore from singing, 'Father, dear father, come home with me now!' and every move I make nets me a new ornamentation on my neck. Why didn't I tell the good wife that the ponies put the crimp in my pocketbook instead of crawling into this chasm of prevarication and trouble?" ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... collected, a positive little orgy of the senses and riot of the mind. Let me at the same time make the point that—such may be the snobbery of extreme youth—I not only failed quite to rise to the parental reasoning, but made out in it rather a certain sophistry; such a prevarication for instance as if we had habitually said we kept the carriage we observably didn't keep, kept it because we sent when we wanted one to University Place, where Mr. Hathorn had his livery-stable: a connection, this last, promoted by my father's frequent ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long. I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboy's death. Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery? No! Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled? Do you think I shall fail to discover those ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... was waiting to be answered, I had to collect my thoughts and admit, not without a little bashfulness, that my first account of my exploit had contained a slight prevarication. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... as the highest models of poetic excellence. His style is not that of Milton, who soared aloft into the eternal mansions and opened their portals to our astonished and admiring gaze, picturing to us "God in His first frown and man in his first prevarication." Nor is it that of Shakespeare, whose deep and subtle mind fathomed "the dark abysses of the human heart," and laid bare and naked the varied doings of mankind! Nor is it, least of all, that of Dante, who, with even greater ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... He poisons the atmosphere that others must inhale, and disputes their rights to breathe a pure, untainted air. The free use of tobacco by young people dulls the acuteness of the moral senses, often leads to prevarication and deceit in the indulgence, and is apt to draw one downward to bad associates. It is not the speed but the direction that tells on the future character ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... than a satire which is directed against him or his favorites, the moderation of the prince is meritorious. The pardon which he grants is a triumph obtained over himself! But when one treats of a crime against society, the pardon is not an act of clemency, it is a downright prevarication.... Every criminal who escapes justice threatens the public safety and innocence is not protected by being exposed to become the victim of a new crime. When a criminal is absolved all the crimes that he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... to know," he shouted. "Don't let me have any further prevarication. Where did the man, or Wallypug, or whatever ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... Frank Oldfield, when they were shut in alone, "I'll have a straightforward statement, without any prevarication, or I give you over at once into custody. If you can't clear yourself, and I don't see how you possibly can, there's the jail before you, the only place you're ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... effort recovered his equanimity, and said,—'Prevarication or denial I suppose to be useless. You have probably outbid me for the confidence of this miserable villain. What do you ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... certain that General Clavering ever was at any of her parties; she replied, 'So certain, that I always told him he need not use any ceremony, but come in his boots.' It will be remembered that General C. was sent to Newgate for prevarication on that account, not having recollected ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... influencing the natures of women Is but a trick to further base ends. They injure boys by magical arts, And commit many atrocious crimes. They say their religion is the only true one, But their answers are full of prevarication. They say their book is the Holy Book, But the Old and New Testaments are like the songs of Wei and Cheng.[!] As to the people who are gradually being misled, I compassionate their ignorance; As to the educated who are thus deceived, I am wroth at their want of reflection. For these men ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... say that Plunket has two Orange informers to produce as witnesses, who were parties to the conspiracy. There was no prevarication or difficulty with ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... to explain it?" inquired Polly, with maiden's curiosity in learning to what extent of prevarication a deacon would go in order to make ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... should hope for the best. Besides, I honestly believe you to be disturbing yourself unnecessarily. If nothing fresh transpires, a mere prevarication or so of your cousin's will not suffice ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... "I haven't suggested prevarication," said the Idiot. "Put on your front page, for instance, an item like this: 'George Bronson, colored, aged twenty-nine, a resident of Thompson Street, was caught cheating at poker last night. He was not murdered.' There you tell what has not happened. There is a variety about it. It has ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... saves prevarication and confusion. You've always been an idle dog, Roger, so I think 'a gentleman of no occupation' will be a sufficiently correct description. You are very well connected by ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... of the fire did the preceptress consider sending Amy Gregg home, for the origin of the fire was plainly an accident, though bred in carelessness. For prevarication, however, Mrs. Tellingham was tempted ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... intelligence that Mousi-toosese-capo is at their tent, having lately joined them, without his family of two women and two children, who perished during the winter. From his frequent prevarication when questioned by the other Crees, they suspect he has ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... acquainted with the particulars of this assertion, he turned up the page referred to, and there found, to his entire satisfaction, "Mr Justice Best said he had a great mind to commit the witness for prevarication." ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Baa! Baa! Thou art a liar, old chap. Thou liest in thy throat, thou silvery ram. Thou knowest her not! Thou paralytic pack of prevarication! This buxom smiling lady, with her attractive, plump figure, thou knowest her not? Thou thrice-bleached hypocrite! And all the time you share all she has, year in, year out, as far as you are able to. Baa! Baa! I'll help you. Baa! Baa! I'll teach you to tell me ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... fighting old marshal, even in a world of peace; in short, they are ambulating humbugs, and the would-be respectables that wear 'em are a huge fraternity of "false pretenders." Don't trust 'em, reader; they are sure to do you! there's deceit in their straps, prevarication in their trousers, and connivance in their distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. We would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... the doctor—"I hope you will never disguise it to any one, especially to me. Any prevarication, I promise you, will forfeit my ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Joshua Peck, and examined him on oath, and after much prevarication, he gave nearly the same account how the business was to be conducted as the others had done, except as to the manner how the officers were to be made prisoners, which was, "that after "they had secured me, they were to go to Mr. Dunavan's house at "the entrance ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... before the court as unworthy or incapable of giving a successor to the throne; but she still wished to save appearances: she would, if possible, make the world believe that the decree of Providence alone denied to her a mother's honors. She had the cruel courage to conceal the truth by prevarication. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... at first—as women of that stamp invariably do—she tried prevarication, but on being threatened that she should at once be given into custody if she did not tell the whole truth, she described the way in which you had run after the carriage, till as she said you were black in the face, and insisted on giving her all your pocket money, your knife ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... to the point, she always did; as a hunter goes at a hedge, so her ladyship without prevarication went at the matter she had in hand—"I have been talking ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... lying a necessity of your position; you lie as you would drink water. You lie to the people, lie to the Parliament, lie to the Crown, lie to your adversaries, lie to your friends. I know—some of you do not personally indulge in the general prevarication, but you tolerate it in your colleagues. Many of you shrink from assuming this on entering the seat of government, as, upon entering a mine, we put on a dirty dress to protect our own and, on coming out, lay it down joyfully. But can these, who ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... of Faith. One of those well-ordered accidents, which, from time to time, had brought the girl and the young borderer in private conversation, enabled him to effect his design with sufficient clearness. Faith heard him without betraying any of her ordinary waywardness, and answered with as little prevarication as the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... did Frobisher become at all this delay and prevarication that he went back to the Su-chen, selected some twenty of the strongest members of his crew, and himself took them up to the magazine with a number of hand-wagons which he had collected, under much voluble protest, en route. Then, having found the required pattern of cartridge, he ordered ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... out. The prevarication had been uttered, and Grace felt as if she had committed a crime and punishment was at hand. Tears of distress came to her eyes; the situation was ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... which, since they were once purged away from the church of Scotland and cast forth as things accursed into the jakes of eternal detestation, how vile and abominable may we now call the resuming of them? Or what a piacular prevarication is it to borrow from any other church which was less reformed, a pattern of policy for this church which was more reformed. But, 2. Though there could be more alleged for the ceremonies than truly there ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... farewell present. The Kamraviona finding me rather warm, with the usual pertinacious duplicity of a negro, then said, "Well, let that subject drop, and consider the present Kamrasi promised you when you gave him the Uganga" (meaning the watch); "Kamrasi's horn is not ready yet." This second prevarication completely set my dander up. If I did not believe in his dangers of the way before, it quite settled my opinion of the worth of his words now. I therefore tendered him what might be called the ultimatum to this effect. There was no sincerity in such haggling; I would ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... fashionable may call the candid speaker a boar, and shun him. He may be an outcast from their society: but, after all, his honesty and candour will wear better and longer than their sham and shoddy. His "Nay, nay," and "Yea, yea," will outlast and outshine their double-tongued prevarication and flattery. Better a boar—if you know him to be such—than a wolf in sheep's clothing. A rough friend is more valuable than ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... warned to abstain from the discussion of state affairs and from disobedience to the civil rulers in temporal matters. At Drogheda the new Oath of Allegiance framed by James I. was condemned as being opposed to faith and religion; Catholics were commanded not to have recourse to prevarication or wavering in regard to it, but to reject it openly, and were warned against attendance at divine worship in Protestant churches even though they had previously made a declaration that they meant ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... deadly pale. It was not that she at any one instant entertained an idea of the possibility of prevarication—it was the natural hesitation to extinguish the last spark of hope that remained ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... your share of duty, in doing the wisest and best thing which may present itself. And if you can induce Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother's wife, by telling her the truth without prevarication, you will have done something to atone for the past evil which, you cannot undo. I am not preaching to you, my dear friend. Pray look upon me as a man and not as a priest. Indeed, I would rather that you ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... and literal interpretation of the Articles were able to use language which, whatever might be the error involved in it, could not fail to impress a grave sense of responsibility upon every truthful and honourable man who might be called upon, to give his assent to them. 'The prevarication,' said Waterland, 'of subscribing to forms which men believe not according to the true and proper sense of words, and the known intent of imposers and compilers, and the subtleties invented to defend or palliate such gross insincerity, will be little else than disguised ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... any kind. If on such conditions a temporary return could be granted to me, I do not deny that it would be a lift to me. If, however, it is not possible, and if a definite negative answer is given, let me know at once and without any prevarication; then I shall know where I am. Then I shall begin a different life. Then I shall get money how and where I can; I shall borrow and steal, if necessary, in order to travel. The beautiful parts of Italy are closed to me unless I am amnestied. So I shall go to Spain, to Andalusia, and make ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... not prevarication only a mean lie? Oh, Terence, I am so deeply grieved! I know not what to ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... "Enough of this prevarication," said Rupert; "your crimes are discovered. A policeman is stationed at the corner of the court. Though only a private detective myself, I will take the responsibility of telling you that anything ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... ask, rather peremptorily, when the coke for her central heating might be expected. It was due now, and though it would be unfortunate if it arrived before Saturday, it was quite easy to smile away her peremptory manner, and say that Withers had not told her. Miss Mapp hated prevarication, but a major force sometimes came along.... But if no motors from Ardingly Park were in waiting for the 4.15 (as spied from her house-roof), she need not risk being seen in the neighbourhood of the station, but would again make observations some few ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... such evasion and prevarication it was out of the question to let the matter drop. On the 22nd of April the Government was forced to publish a second White Paper,[79] which contained a large number of highly important documents omitted ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... the said John Brown be, for his said prevarication, taken into the custody of the serjeant ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... is impossible—any such thing were to happen, how could we resist any error?—how could we correct those who err? If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace, what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made any attempt ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... they sin like men. (I have heard it said that a man should sin like a gentleman; but I am much disposed to think that the gentleman nature appears in the non-sinning lucid intervals.)] When I speak of sin I will be understood to mean the venial offences of prevarication and sleeping in church. I am not thinking of sheep-stealing or highway robbery. My clever friend's work consists chiefly in reducing files of correspondence on a particular subject to one or two ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... prevarication would serve. Even if she had been willing to lie, she could think of no excuse which would seem plausible. Tired as she had been that last night as Annesley Grayle, and throbbing as she was with excitement at the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... smirked mirthlessly; he saw no reason for being joyful over the lie he had told. He was getting deeper and deeper into the mire of deceit and prevarication, and there seemed ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the advancing generations between which, as a link in the great chain of eternal order, we stand.—We call this Nation, we call the world to witness, that the Commons have shrunk from no labor; that we have been guilty of no prevarication, that we have made no compromise with crime; that we have not feared any odium whatsoever, in the long warfare which we have carried on with the crimes—with the vices—with the exorbitant wealth—with the enormous and overpowering ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the case of the great Eusebius, who is known to have so accurately and faithfully produced a vast number of other ancient records, and particularly not a few out of our Josephus also, without any suspicion of prevarication. Now, not to allege how uncertain we are whether Josephus's and Eusebius's copies of the fourth century were just like the present in this clause, which we have no distinct evidence of, the following words, preserved still in Eusebius, will not admit of any such exposition: "This [bird] [says Eusebius] ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... silence, then Hal turned to the sofa and picked up her hat as if she were a little dazed. She seemed suddenly to have nothing to say, and she knew herself to be no good at prevarication. To congratulate him seemed an impossibility ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Benny, an unconvincing prevarication is of less practical value than—" he began, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a young lady who came ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Queen should come to Chicago she would live here," and I comforted myself by saying, "You shall have your hour of wonder and romance, even at the expense of a prevarication." ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... uselessness of any prevarication with an Indian; and the importance of complete frankness. He described the exact place where he had ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... another prevarication—with better results this time. "You will be the first person she writes to, of course." As that excusable lie passed his lips, his float began to tremble. Here was a chance of changing the subject—"I've got a ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... dexterous—has betrayed himself and is expelled. When will Bernstorff's turn come? That it will come, indeed must come, is self-evident. The artist sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white man can, in a wholehearted spurning of ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... gone down to The Haws that Christmastide, but feared that his failure to do so might seem strange. The needful prevarication cost him so many pangs that he came very near to confessing the truth; he probably would have done so, had not his mother been ailing, and, it seemed to him, little able to bear the shock of such a disclosure. So the honest deception went on. Will was supposed to be managing ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... any external manifestation of contempt even in your expressive countenance, you will certainly be unable to preserve kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... woman in the Taverne Royale? What about her? At whose bidding had she followed him? One or the other of them had not told the truth, and he was inclined to believe that the prevarication had its source in the pomegranate lips of the Calabrian. To give the old barb one more twist, to learn if its venomous point still held and hurt; nothing would have afforded the diva more delight. Courtlandt glared at the window as the ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... without saying a word. I listened—oh! with such a heavy heart, with such a crushing sense of disenchantment and despair! The idol of my worship, the companion, guide, protector of my life—had he fallen so low? could he stoop to such shameless prevarication as this? ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... whose loving trust bound them most closely to him, Satan had represented that he was wrongly judged, that his position was not respected, and that his liberty was to be abridged. From misrepresentation of the words of Christ, he passed to prevarication and direct falsehood, accusing the Son of God of a design to humiliate him before the inhabitants of heaven. He sought also to make a false issue between himself and the loyal angels. All whom he could not subvert and bring fully to his side, he accused of indifference to the interests ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... prevarication is unworthy of you. Without humbug, I think you might keep off it a bit before you dine with people. It doesn't matter about us, you know, but it's hardly the sort of thing Mrs. Rankin's ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... have not suffered in their linen trade with Spain, by not making their cloth of due breadth; and whether any other people have suffered, and are still likely to suffer, through the same prevarication? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... Proctor to public opinion. He abused him and his army in no measured terms, in general orders. He contrasted the conduct of the soldiery with that of Tecumseh and his Indians. He charged the Adjutant-General Reiffenstein with gross prevarication. He sneered at the captured, few of whom had been rescued by an honorable death from the ignominy of passing under the American yoke, and whose wounds pleaded little in mitigation of the reproach. The officers in retreating from Detroit, Sandwich ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... ascertained that she regularly lost weight daily. At the expiration of the ninth day of this strict watching, Dr. Fox found her evidently sinking and told her she would soon die unless she took food. After a little prevarication, the woman signed a written confession that she was an impostor, and had "occasionally taken sustenance for the last six years." She also stated that during the first watch of three weeks her daughter ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... have happened in such a case. He was in as high rank as Colonel Hannay; for Colonel Hannay at that time was only a major. I do not believe either of them was properly entitled to the name of Colonel Saib. I am ashamed, my Lords, to be obliged to remark upon this prevarication. Their own endeavors to get rid of their own written acts by contradictory evidence and false constructions sufficiently clear these women of the crimes of which they were accused; and I may now ask the prisoner at your bar how he dares to produce Captain Gordon here, how he dares thus to insult ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Helen; but you will do better now. You feel, I am very sure, that a life of prevarication and indifference does not answer for a Catholic; and now there will be ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth: there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor: but even so, a little charitable prevarication ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... not forbid its representatives abroad to be accompanied by their wives. France has seen such times—England and America have glanced that way. Women, like men, often do not know that the big prizes gravitate where they belong; instead, they set traps for them, lie in wait and consider prevarication and duplicity better than truth. When women use their beauty, their wit and their pink persons in politics, trouble lies low around the corner. But this sister of Seneca was never seen in public unless it was at her husband's side; she ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... are not to be done out of our Russians by any mere UNDER-SECRETARY FOR WAR; certainly not one who is capable of such prevarication. And anyhow, why should the Germans do ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... don't answer your mother like that," interposed Mr. Furze; "you know what you heard, or might have heard, last Sunday morning, that prevarication is very much like a lie; why don't ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... intensely dislike, Mr Maine. If there is anything that annoys, irritates, or makes me dissatisfied with the men— the gentlemen under my command, it is evasion, shuffling, shirking, or prevarication." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... hour ago. "Don't be frightened," he said gently; "I won't hurt you more than I must. Ever since we married I have done my utmost to help you, spare you, shield you; but now—we've got to arrive at a clear understanding, once for all. First I want you to answer a question or two, straightly, without prevarication. You went out early, it ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... occasionally get a man seemingly into trouble, but I do say that it is the only right course, and that he is equally certain to get out of it again; whereas an opposite course must lead him into difficulties, and involve him more and more as he tries to extricate himself by prevarication, subterfuge, or falsehood. I therefore told the chief that I had come on shore hoping to open up a trade with him, under the belief that the country was no longer either in possession of the Dutch or French, but that it ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... me nothing," said he, "and I would have made the teachers comfortable in prison; but now I know not what will be their fate." "But I cannot tell a falsehood," she replied; "my religion differs from yours; it forbids prevarication, and had you stood by me with your knife raised, I could not ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinized ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... lying &c. 454; untruth &c 546; guile; lying &c. v. misrepresentation; mendacity, perjury, false swearing; forgery, invention, fabrication; subreption[obs3]; covin[obs3]. perversion of truth, suppression of truth; suppressio veri[Lat]; perversion, distortion, false coloring; exaggeration &c 549; prevarication, equivocation, shuffling, fencing, evasion, fraud; suggestio falsi &c (lie) 546[Lat]; mystification &c (concealment) 528; simulation &c (imitation) 19; dissimulation, dissembling; deceit; blague[obs3]. sham; pretense, pretending, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... upon his wanderings in real earnest. He pulled street-cars, delivery wagons, drays and ash-carts. He was sold to unsuspecting farmers, who, when his evil traits cropped out, swapped him unceremoniously and with ingenious prevarication by the roadside. In the natural course of events he ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... politics. He slandered no party, stuffed no ballot box, forged no naturalization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, surrendered no principle, countenanced no demagogism. He called things by their right names; and what others styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement or hyperbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being undecided in his views, and never professed neutrality, or had any consort with those miserable men who boast how well they can walk on both sides of a dividing line and be on neither, ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... lie, cunning, double-dealing, fraud, lying, deceit, duplicity, guile, prevarication, deceitfulness, fabrication, hypocrisy, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... he saw that events in his career were moving with immense rapidity. He had wanted to be free, and free he was. Quite free! But it appeared to him very remarkable that so much could happen, in so short a time, as the result of a mere momentary impulsive prevarication. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... that she was his sister—which was not a direct falsehood, but only so by implication. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning relationship, she might be called a sister; and Abram stooped to this prevarication under that terrible dread which, in the case of Peter, drove a true disciple of Christ to the ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley |
