"Temporise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should positively gain by giving up Mrs. Brash. I appeared to have in any case lost Lady Beldonald, now too "upset"—it was always Mrs. Munden's word about her and, as I inferred, her own about herself—to meet me again on our previous footing. The only thing, I of course soon saw, was to temporise to drop the whole question for the present and yet so far as possible keep each of the pair in view. I may as well say at once that this plan and this process gave their principal interest to the next several months. Mrs. Brash had turned up, if I remember, ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... Mrs. Pasmer, recovering her good-humour in view of a situation that she felt herself able to cope with. "Of course he has to temporise, to manage a little. She's an invalid, and of course she's very exacting. He has to humour her. How do you know he has promised ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Opposition Bench. Is congenitally prone to take a short way with dissenters. Came to the fore five years ago, when what HALDANE called LLOYD GEORGE'S first great Budget (eclipsed by his second) fell like a bomb in the Parliamentary arena. Whilst elder peers were disposed to temporise in view of constitutional difficulty, WILLOUGHBY had only three words to say—"Throw it out!"—MILNER adding a fearless remark about the consequences whose emphasis has been excelled only by Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL in Pygmalion. So the Budget was shattered on the rock of the House of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... in Plymouth Sound, The Golden Hynde, the wonder of the world, A glory wrapt her greyness, and no boat Dared yet approach, save one, with Drake's close friends, Who came to warn him: "England stands alone And Drake is made the price of England's peace. The Queen, perforce, must temporise with Spain, The Invincible! She hath forfeited thy life To Spain, against her will. Only by this Rejection of thee as a privateer She averted instant war; for now the menace Of Spain draws nigher, looms ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... said the doctor, impatiently. "We must temporise. It is no use to try and do anything in haste. The first thing we have to find out is whether that ruffian goes off to sleep or ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... he was at that time of life, and of that disposition, which, for fear of being supposed to wish to deceive them, would rather exaggerate and make a display of the difference of his own views. Not for freedom, not for Lucy, would the Perpetual Curate temporise and manage the matter; so the fact was that he stood at the present moment in a very perilous predicament. But for this family living, which was, with their mother's property, in the hands of her co-heiresses, the three Miss Wentworths, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... something queer and stiff, something that bore on the situation but that it was better not to touch, passed in silence between them. Well, the effect of it for Strether was an abrupt reaction, a final impatience of his own tendency to temporise. Where was that taking him anyway? It was one of the quiet instants that sometimes settle more matters than the outbreaks dear to the historic muse. The only qualification of the quietness was the synthetic "Oh hang it!" into which Strether's ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... hardly occurred to him. He had imagined her going on at the High School for another year, say, and then settling down as mother's companion. His desire not to be harsh, coupled with his unreadiness, led Mr. Anderson to temporise. "Well, little girl," he said, "you plod on, and we'll have a talk about it." Nettie was in a triumphant mood. She had expected repulse, to be reminded of the terrible expense Tom was, and was to be, and she felt the battle already won. Doubtless the fact that Nettie ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... asked favours of him, whom he put down as debtors. "Make 'em pay," was his mentally jotted note. If he did them an obliging turn, he kept his memory alert to require the equivalent at some other time. But he did not see how to make Esther pay. So he could only temporise. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... who did not live by the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy, than in preaching Peace and Goodwill among all men. So the Papists had a worse time of it than ever. My Father, honest man, tried to temporise between the two parties, but was ever in danger of being shot by his own friends as a Traitor, even if he escaped half-hanging at the hands of the Protestants as a Recusant. Well, after all, Jack high or Jack low, the days must come to an end, and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter must ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the menaced party (as a charge of the French was always preceded by a furious cannonade). Lady Southdown, we say, for the sake of the invalid's health, or for the sake of her soul's ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her money, agreed to temporise. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should end with the year, it was impossible to send the proofs before printing for correction to Angouleme. Nevertheless, as he had undoubtedly exceeded his rights as editor, he thought it wise to temporise, and wrote an explanatory and conciliatory letter; and as this did not pacify Balzac, he dispatched a second of similar tenor. However, a few days later, on January 9th, 1832, he felt compelled by the tone of Balzac's correspondence ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... in some way temporise, and hold his place until he had led his flock to a loftier height. He had no desire to force his opinions upon any one else, but he wished to make clear his own strong, simple faith, and spread abroad, if he ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... populace to the point of seeing clearly the whole miserable situation. The reserves were powerless; the Royal Guard was besieged and greatly outnumbered; the fortress was lost. There was nothing for them to do but temporise. Time alone could open ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... while consumed in anxious and uneasy thoughts, he determined—as cowards of the mind determine ever—to temporise, to await events, to depend upon the tide of circumstance. He would, he thought, keep the appointment with his master—for such he felt that Catiline now was indeed—however he might strive to conceal the fact; endeavor to learn what were his real objects; ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... made a movement as if to follow, but William prevented her. She turned and walked down the passage and entered the kitchen. Her face was one white tint, her short, strong arms hung tremblingly, and William saw that it would be better to temporise. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore |
