"Stave off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poems delivered to Mr. Drury, as well as for others contributed to the 'London Magazine,' When these sources failed, and the succeeding schemes to acquire 'Bachelors' Hall' broke down one after another, there was bitter want staring him in the face, to stave off which he resolved to make an application to one of his first and best friends, Mr. Gilchrist. It seemed impossible that help, and, what was almost as precious under the circumstances, good advice, should be ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out of date. In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king's evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—how, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... the previous authority referred to. Nay, the old lady wished above all things that the ci-devant judge should marry and continue his line, a thing that for some special reason he did not desire, and found it difficult to stave off to her. This also from the same authority. Though very old, no legal ground could be found on enquiry by which her settlement ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... Mr. Douce, with considerable plunder, had made his way to America: the bank owed nearly half a million; the purchase money for Lisle Court, which Mr. Douce had been so anxious to get into his clutches, had not sufficed to stave off the ruin,—but a great part of it sufficed to procure competence for himself. How inferior in wit, in acuteness, in stratagem, was Douce to Vargrave; and yet Douce had gulled him like a child! Well said the shrewd small philosopher of France—"On peut etre plus ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... our pessimists. Their zest for elaborate organization of plan gave the Germans an immense advantage at the start, but it is proved that, once the plan has gone wrong, they are at the best not better in warfare than ourselves. Their zest for discipline, and their reserves, have enabled them to stave off a catastrophe longer than perhaps any other nation could have staved it off. But time is now showing that excessive discipline and organization produce defects which ultimately outweigh the qualities they spring from. The tenacity of the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Jim. "Come on, everybody! You, too, Filippo! Might as well show up our full force. It may help stave off trouble." ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... tale, of a somewhat grisly character, which Abner had composed during the holiday season. Bond had taxed him with using this work as a buffer to stave off other work of a practical nature such as was abundantly offered by Giles and his father about the farm; and, to tell the truth, Abner had limited his physical exertions to half-hour periods that most other men would have charged to ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... across the platform may give you time to grip yourself, compose your thoughts, and stave off disaster. Perhaps the surest and most practical method is to begin a new sentence with your last important word. This is not advocated as a method of composing a speech—it is merely an extreme measure which may save you in tight circumstances. It is like the fire department—the less you must ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the boy's mind that the conditions that brought him home so unexpectedly were known only to himself and he could stave off unpleasant explanations ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... be as I find him. He was ready to pay two hundred pounds for Bertie to stave off the worst of his creditors, if this marriage had gone on. Bertie must now have the money instead and go ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... she that she had tried to keep Ranny from ever seeing Violet. Time and again she had hurried her away when she had seen Ranny coming, while the fear in her heart told her that those two were bound to meet. She had lived from hand to mouth on her precarious happiness, contented if she could stave off the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... if I can help Description; and I won't reflect,—that is, If I can stave off thought, which—as a whelp Clings to its teat—sticks to me through the abyss Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp Holds by the rock; or as a lover's kiss Drains its first draught of lips:—but, as I said, I won't philosophise, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... daughter, she sits within her tepee making beaded deerskins for her father, while he longs to stave off her every suitor as all unworthy of his old heart's pride. But Tusee is not alone in her dwelling. Near the entrance-way a young brave is half reclining on a mat. In silence he watches the petals of a wild rose growing on the soft buckskin. Quickly the young woman slips the beads on ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... faced the Mongols, and were defenceless against them. All the buffer states had gone. The Sung were quite without adequate military defence. They hoped to stave off the Mongols in the same way as they had met the Kitan and the Juchen. This time, however, they misjudged the situation. In the great operations begun by the Mongols in 1273 the Sung were defeated over and over again. In 1276 their capital was taken ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... ought to stave off Higginbotham's suspicions. Evidently, the other was feeling around to learn whether they had flown sufficiently of late to have spied out the secret radio plant or seen ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... nature faints with the effort of resistance, and lies passive and hopeless under the next access of temptation. What we need then is some expedient or instrument, which at least will obstruct and stave off the approach of our spiritual enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and level with our nature to maintain as firm a hold upon us as the inducements of sensual gratification. It will be our wisdom ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... he could bide his time so patiently, without any pang of anxiety, or hope, or agonizing misgiving. He thought of Irene, but only of her welfare. If he were not brought down by a chance bullet early in the fray, he felt quite certain of being able to stave off the final rush long enough to give Abdur Kad'r a breathing spell, he had sufficient confidence in that wily old Arab's resources to believe that he would outwit his pursuers, provided they lost a good deal of time in ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... he wrote: "Can't you do something to stave off King Ptush? In making up my passenger-list I can't get hold of enough mammals to fill an inside room. I have been through the country with a fine-tooth comb, and as far as I can find out there isn't a prehistoric beast left in creation. ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... that intervened between the issuance of the ultimatum and the actual declaration of war by Germany against Russia on Saturday, August 1st, various sincere efforts were made to stave off the world-shaking catastrophe. Arranged chronologically, these events may thus be summarized: Russia, on July 24th, formally asked Austria if she intended to annex Serbian territory by way of reprisal for the assassination ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... proved poor that day, for there are lean days as well as fat ones for even the greatest of the jungle hunters. Oftentimes Tarzan went empty for more than a full sun, and he had passed through entire moons during which he had been but barely able to stave off starvation; ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... forces on the Board, and off, who would be only too glad to shelve him. If he were shelved here his other two Companies would be sure to follow suit, and bang would go every penny of his income—he would be a pauper dependant on that holy woman. Well! Safe now for another year if he could stave off these sharks once more. It might be a harder job this time, but he was in luck—in luck, and it must hold. And taking a luxurious pull at his cigar, he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the plane levelled off and quit swinging, and a while after that my image of the cabin quit swinging too. Once again I just managed to stave off the vomits, this time the vomits from natural causes. Alice looked very pale around the gills and kept her face buried in the ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... my business and I dare say that the money van Heerden paid you this morning will stave off your creditors. Anyway, I'm not running a Pure Business Campaign. I'm running a campaign against ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... social order. He is their embodiment: he is the most emblematic figure in the modern world that I know—in this country, at any rate—representing so much that is good in the great traditions which have got to go. And to stave off that day he will do almost anything. He would even—if he thought it would enable him the better to prick some of his bubbles—he would even take ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... dear, foolish man, can't you see that it's you I want?" And she leaned forward, speaking quickly to stave off interruption. "Don't make a fuss about it, please; because I have settled everything in my mind. I'll ask Mrs Rivers to take baby and Parbutti for me. I know she gladly will. As for me, of course I go down to Dera to-morrow, and do what I ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... more of her precious substance than society generally approves of, in whom the taste "for a wee drop" is so strong, that, to enable her to gratify it more freely, she has the pleasure of paying two medical men a guinea each daily, to stave off as long as they can its insidious attacks upon her gigantic frame. You must not, however, suppose that I am a teetotaller. I have tried it, and never found myself better than while practising it; still I never lose a chance if a bottle of iced champagne is circulating, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... gone to find mops and Dame Partingtons to stave off the deluge. Colonel Morley has obeyed Lady Montfort's summons, and has entered the carriage. Before she can speak, however, he has rushed into the subject of which he himself is full. "Only think—I knew it would be so when the moment came; all depends upon Guy Darrell; Montfort, who seems always ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... realized that a crisis had come in his life, —a crisis he had tried to stave off in vain. And yet there was a period during which he pursued his shrunken duties as though nothing had happened to him; as a man who has been struck in battle keeps on, loath to examine, to acknowledge the gravity of his wound; fearing to, perhaps. Sometimes, as his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... an extra plate of porridge with a few sardines thrown in (that is, to follow) might make up the deficiency, would be rude. Tinned sardines, salmon, crawfish, brawn, and such eatables were not reckoned fish at all; they were eaten—to stave off starvation—but they did not appease. As for butter; we had none for our bread! Fresh butter was unprocurable. Even the salted unguent sold in tins was hard to get, and only a very good customer could buy a ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... past experience had prepared me for the immediate introduction of such questions as the Trinity, the Sonship of Christ, His propitiatory sacrifice, and not infrequently the eating of pork. I have done my best to stave off such untimely discussion, and to keep to the subject I was teaching, but in not a few instances my audience has been broken up by the new-comer insisting on being heard. During my long missionary career I have had many discussions with Muhammadans in public and in private, in some cases conducted ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... out in the light of Maggie Jones's story, I concluded that poverty was at the root of nearly everything. If I could stave off poverty no real harm could come ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... this dishonour. {33} How then can you all ascertain without any difficulty who is the rogue? Recall to your minds who it is that has denounced the transaction from the outset. For it is plain that it must have been the guilty person who was well content to be silent, to stave off the day of reckoning for the moment, and to take care for the future not to present himself to give an account of his actions; while it must have been he whose conscience was clear to whom there occurred the thought of the danger, lest through keeping silence ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... willingness to take them on and from the 1st of February. And on the 3rd of February he found himself in the old quarters, Mrs. Bunce having contrived, with much conjugal adroitness, both to keep Miss Pouncefoot and to stave off the Equity draftsman's wife and baby. Bunce, however, received Phineas very coldly, and told his wife the same evening that as far as he could see their lodger would never turn up to be a trump in the matter of the ballot. "If he means well, why did he go and stay with them ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the long, rolling gallop of the bays ate up the ground, and bore them down on the leaders in a bright hurricane. The cowpunchers, hearing that volleying of hoofbeats, went to spur and quirt to stave off the inevitable, but at five furlongs Lady Mary left her sisters and streaked around the tiring range horses into the lead. Marianne cried out in delight. She had forgotten her hope that the mares might ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... the elm buds, to throw irrelevant golden splashes across their gloom; while the merry voices of the college girls, passing by in the street outside, came floating in across their waiting silence. There was nothing in the world that he could do, except to be there and, now and then, to stave off a caller too insistent to be appeased by any bulletin issued by the maid. Among those callers was Prather, the novelist. Priest though he was, Brenton was conscious of a human and athletic wish to wring his neck, so palpably was his expression of fussy sympathy ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Obrenovitches and being in close touch with Montenegro and Bulgaria was planning another coup in the Balkans. Albania was resisting it. The Turks under pressure from the Powers were striving to smooth matters down sufficiently to stave off the final crash that drew ever nearer. They arrested a number of headmen and exacted some punishment for Shtcherbina's death. Though if a consul chooses to take part in a local fight he alone is responsible ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... They stand up like a fort, and if we reach 'em in time we may stave off our pursuers. They're coming fast, and they're spreading out in a long line now. That helps 'em, because it's impossible for fugitives to run exactly straight, and every time we deviate from the true course some part of their ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... did not, at the time, tie up with views about the Colorado trip. That was still the guiding star of all her hopes. She must study harder during the spring term and stave off the threatened and unspeakable calamity. It was a hard resolution to put through, especially when she conceived a marvellous idea-a "farce" like one Polly Currier told her about when she was home for her Easter vacation. Missy wrestled with temptation ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... parties, their action would be nugatory, and, if so backed, the worst. But even the war is better than the degrading and descending politics that preceded it for decades of years, and our legislation has made great strides, and if we can stave off that fury of trade which rushes to peace at the cost of replacing the South in the status ante bellum, we can, with something more of courage, leave the problem to another score of years,—free labor to fight with the Beast, and see ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... So act that when you are giving an account of your stewardship your year of office may be felt to have been all too short[754]. If you have acted justly, and earned the goodwill of your Provincials, you will have no need of gifts to stave off accusations. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... to take him something wherewith to stave off the pangs of hunger," says the younger Miss Beresford, with that grandeur of style she usually affects in moments of strong excitement, and with the vigor that distinguishes her. "I see; certainly." She grows abstracted. "There's a leg of mutton ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... cried her father fretfully. "You won't have him; that's enough. The only road there was to extrication from my difficulties is shut up. The sheriff's officers can come to-morrow. I'll write no more humbugging letters to those attorneys, trying to stave off the crisis. The sooner the crash comes the better; I can drag out the rest of my existence somehow, in Bruges or Louvain. It is only a question of a year or ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon |
