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More "Predicament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... legs of the woodchuck are short and stout, and made for digging rather than running. The latter operation he performs by short leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the ground. For a short distance he can make very good time, but he seldom trusts himself far from his hole, and, when surprised in that predicament, makes little effort to escape, but, grating his teeth, looks the danger squarely ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... Sir,' replied the attorney; 'you're tumblin' yourself and your friend into a nice predicament—as good a consthructive ousther, vi et armis, as my client could possibly desire. Av coorse, Sir, we'll seek compensation in the regular way for this violent threspass; and we have you criminally, you'll ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... groundless, but it was forced by a spleenful pride. What is there to do? Nothing, save resignedly to prepare for his divorce from the conspiratrix Camilla and espousals with Michiella. The cup is bitter, and his song is mournful. He does the rarest thing a man will do in such a predicament—he acknowledges that he is going to get his deserts. The faithfulness and purity of Camilla have struck his inner consciousness. He knows not where she may be. He has secretly sent messengers in all directions to seek her, and recover her, and obtain her pardon: in vain. It is as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and thinking the matter over at his leisure, Reed admitted, with an impersonal candour, that it was very easy for his guests to err in tact. A man in his predicament was bound to be a trifle flooring; it did not affect the question in the least that he was in no wise responsible for the predicament. It had resulted, quite simply, from his natural instincts, not from any conscious thirsting for fame and for consequent ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... fancy we shall find it plain and unveneered. What a horseman! If I could run an automobile like he does a horse we should not be here. Did you notice that I didn't release the clutch? Just ambled into this predicament—embraced ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... will be always found some reference to their antient history, and religion. As they were particularly styled Ophitae, or Hivites, many places whither they came, were said to swarm with [1168]serpents. Rhodes was under this predicament, and had the name of Ophiusa: which name was given on account of the Hivites, who there settled, and of the serpent-worship, which they introduced. But the common notion was, that it was so called from real serpents, with which it was infested. The natives were said ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... reason that the man who wished to steer clear of shelves and rocks must know where they lie. I know the integrity of my own heart, but to declare it, unless to a friend, may be an argument of vanity; I know the unhappy predicament I stand in: I know that much is expected of me; I know that without men, without arms, without ammunition, without anything fit for the accommodation of a soldier, little is to be done; and, what is mortifying, I know that I can not stand justified to the world without exposing my own weakness, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... as was my predicament, at best, I saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side rather than the triumphant one. If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of partisans I began now, at this season ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was on a wharf, crawling around on my hands and knees in the madness of alcohol, with a New York policeman and a gang of longshoremen roaring with laughter at my predicament. It was on that occasion that, as my brain cleared, I saw what I had done. I had sworn a thousand times never to do it. And now it had come about. I had become responsible for another living human thing with the blood of my veins coursing in its own! I ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... child. Its mind is not capable of comprehending the condition which makes its suffering so sharp. Its little brain is too feeble, hardly strong enough to direct its awkward and bulky body, much less to solve such an incredible predicament as being utterly destitute of help, in a world fashioned upon such an ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... Cunn., N.O. Leguminosae, 'Wait-a-while' (a delicate allusion to the predicament of a traveller desirous of penetrating a ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... awkward position of being about to produce in Berlin the very opera which he had before declined in Munich, as it had been accepted by his predecessor in office. He promised me to consider what steps he would take in this predicament. In order to learn the result of Kustner's deliberations, I determined, on 2nd June, to seek him out, and this time in Berlin itself. But at Leipzig I found a letter in which he begged me to wait patiently a little ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... as death from poison, which an antidote, or the use of the stomach-pump, will sometimes avert. It is apt to be forgotten by people's feelings, even if remembered by their understandings, that human actions are in this last predicament: they are never (except in some cases of mania) ruled by any one motive with such absolute sway that there is no room for the influence of any other. The causes, therefore, on which action depends, are never uncontrollable; ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... for several days, feeding upon wild fruits, which, however, they could not manage very well, on account of their long bills. For lizards and frogs, they had no appetite. Their only satisfaction in this sad predicament was that they could fly; and they often flew over on to the roofs in the city of Bagdad, to see ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... our limit, and the best thing to be hoped for now is some vast cataclysmal event, which, by destroying us out-of-hand, may save us the slow misery of extinction by disease, despair, and the enmity of every man against every other. What Columbus can help us out of such a predicament? ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... now had leisure to consider his situation, and presently hit on a stratagem the like of which has often since been adopted by aeronauts in like predicament. Representing to his captors that without his wings he would be powerless, he suffered them to remove these weighty appendages, when also dropping a heavy cloak, he suddenly cut the cord by which he was being dragged, and, regaining freedom, soared away into the sky. He was quickly ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... went on. But the lecture committee told him they would send a check. Having no money to pay a hotel bill, he took the train back. Reaching Philadelphia after midnight he boarded a trolley and told the conductor who he was and his predicament, offering to send the man the money for his fare next day. But the conductor was not to be fooled, said he didn't know Dr. Conwell from Adam, and put him off. And Dr. Conwell walked twenty long blocks to his home, chuckling all the way at the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... starting at the first day of the poll. I told him it could not do, as I was engaged to you. He answered, that of course was only a conditional promise, in case none of my own relations stood. I fought shy, and he pressed confoundedly.—Gad! he would put me in a very awkward predicament, if he was really to stand! for you know what the world would say, if they saw me opposing my own nephew, a rising young man, and not for a relation either; and Marmaduke Lidhurst is just your deep fellow to plan such a thing and execute it, not caring at what or whose expense. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Warlock, now in orbit somewhere overhead, was well within the planet's gravitational field and could not use its Lawlor drive to escape with news of their predicament. In the normal course of events it would be years before a colony ship capable of landing or blasting out of a planetary gravitational field by rocket-power was dispatched to find out why there was no news from Xosa II. There was no such thing as interstellar signaling, of course. ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... into a turbulence of voiceless rage at myself, at her, at Daniel's treachery, at all the train, at Benton, and again at this damning predicament wherein I had landed. When I was bound to wrest free after having done my utmost, she appeared to be twitting me because I would not submit to farther use by her. I certainly had the right to extricate myself in the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think—as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too—at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... severe punishment would have sufficed the Spaniards, and that they would have abandoned the attack, and so, I imagine, thought the skipper of the ship, for while they were in this perilous predicament, he magnanimously withheld his fire, giving them an opportunity to retire without further loss. And so they would, in all probability, had Mendouca been a born Spaniard. But, renegade as he was, the British blood in his veins still told, and, despite the anguish ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... with the most excruciating pain in his stomach, and which continued for so long a period, that his case became desperate, and his life was even despaired of. In this predicament, the medical gentleman to whom he applied administered to him a most violent emetic, and the result was the ejection of the larva, and which remained alive for a quarter of an hour after its expulsion. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... Prince answered. "She must! Not only that, but you will earn her eternal gratitude. Listen, I must tell you the predicament in which we find ourselves. It places ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to Mr. Sparling, the owner of the show. He was quick to grasp the value of Phil's predicament—that is, its value to the show ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... secure counsel, we found that one and all insisted upon our paying over in advance even greater fees as retainers than those which we had demanded in like cases. I had never taken the trouble to lay by anything, since I had always had all the ready cash I needed. Gottlieb was in the same predicament, and in our distress we called upon Dillingham to furnish us with the necessary amount; but, to our amazement and horror, our erstwhile client refused to see us or come to our office, and we definitely realized that he, too, had sought safety in confession ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... sent a servant out to release Madge from her predicament, and bade him also bring the child to the door. There she gave Madge a plate of ice-cream, and told her to sit down on the step and eat it. "It is late for so young a child to be out alone. How happens it so with ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... their predicament, and she listened silently. Then she went to the sloping rock, descended its dangerous angle to the ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... It was a momentous predicament, but he must do the best he could in it. He was a man of nice honour, and he wished with all his heart that the earth would open and engulf him. "Eliza, my love, allow me to deal with this matter," he said, his voice taking a low, tender, considerate tone. "I ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... appeared to be holding up his pants, but I made no inquiry as to the reason for his so doing. When we took our first position in advance of where the Irishmen had fought, and began firing, Barney had to use both hands, and his predicament was at once revealed. He had held up his pants by a strap around his waist without suspenders. This strap had given out, and that accounted for his holding up performance. When he began loading and firing he had to "let go" and ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... I think I had better hurry," Mollie said. It had occurred to her that if she "went back" with her usual abruptness, before she delivered her message, Mr. John Smith might be left in an awkward predicament. ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... alongside of their men in the wagon camp.... German women will show their men the way to freedom. Doing more than their share of the nation's work, they insist upon being heard, and their growing influence is one of the greatest dangers to German autocracy in its present predicament. As politicians German women have the advantage of not having gone through the soul-destroying, brutalizing school of Prussian militarism, and of not being burdened with the rigmarole of theory which formed the content of German politics ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... the rabbinical seminaries and the ukase (May 3, 1855) that only such may officiate as rabbis as have completed a prescribed course of study, Russian Jewry was placed in a sore predicament. It was a very difficult task to find men who united secular knowledge with that thorough mastery of Talmudic literature which the Jews of Russia exact from their rabbis. Every community was compelled to appoint ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... the sallow and depreciatory Miklos or watched the podgy figure of Herr Schwarz, running from side to side as picture after picture caught his eye. The wincing salesman saw himself as another Charles Surface; but now that the predicament was his own it was no longer amusing. These fair faces, these mothers and babies of his own blood, these stalwart men, fighters by sea and land, these grave thinkers and churchmen, they thronged about him transformed, become suddenly alien ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as well as the drifting snow would permit, when coming along my tracks was a large yellow dog. My heart gave a bound of delight, and jumping up, I let a 'cooey,'[A] to tell its master that some one was in the same predicament, as I doubted ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... slowly began to tip. Frantically he reached toward the tall nipa-palms, nodding over his head, but their flimsy stalks gave easily, and he was almost thrown out of the boat. The sparkling water, as if laughing at his predicament, caressed the helpless craft, drawing it closer and closer to its bosom. The banco gave a lurch; it was tipping; it shipped a quantity of water. All Piang's weight thrown against the upturned outrigger had no effect. Helplessly, he looked into ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... with a vengeance! Foolish souls, I say the whole world cannot emancipate you. Fealty to ignorant Unruliness, to gluttonous sluggish Improvidence, to the Beer-pot and the Devil, who is there that can emancipate a man in that predicament? Not a whole Reform Bill, a whole French Revolution executed for his behoof alone: nothing but God the Maker can emancipate ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... himself in a predicament. They are drunk and don't know what to do. The whole world is stirred up over why one-fourth of the world should rule the other three-fourths. One-fourth of the world is white. The Bible says a house divided can't stand. The ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... brief manner he explained to all on board that he had thrown to the winds all idea of merchandising or privateering; that his pardon and his ship's clearance were of no value to him except he should happen to get into some uncomfortable predicament with the law; that he had no idea of sailing towards St. Thomas, but intended to proceed up the coast to burn and steal and rob and slay wherever he might find it convenient to do so; that he had brought the greater part of his crew from the desert island where Blackbeard had left them because ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... Dutchman he would surely recoup his losses. Alan explained all these racing matters very minutely and with great earnestness to Mortimer, for the latter was quite unfamiliar with the science of race gambling. Having stated his predicament and hoped-for relief, as an excuse for so doing, he wound up by asking his companion for a ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... knew how far that laugh went to soften her present predicament. As a matter of fact, Miss Thompson had never liked the teacher in mathematics, while the small, shabby pupil ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... Spain, Russia, Holland, Germany, Italy and Dalmatia, England, China, Tartary, Siberia; the only thing wanting was that neither of us had been to America or the Indies. Finally, Boutin, who still was more locomotive than I, undertook to go to Paris as quickly as might be to inform my wife of the predicament in which I was. I wrote a long letter full of details to Madame Chabert. That, monsieur, was the fourth! If I had had any relations, perhaps nothing of all this might have happened; but, to be frank with you, I am but a workhouse child, a soldier, whose sole fortune was his courage, whose sole ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... Lt. Jack Morten, whilst on a midnight prowl in No Man's Land almost met with disaster, and the performance came to an undignified close after they had extricated one another from deep muddy water to make their way back to dock minus gum boots. We knew that the Huns must be in a similar predicament, for their ground was equally low, and we could only laugh when on one occasion dawn revealed one or two of them jumping about in the open in attempts to dry their clothes and to restore life to their numbed bodies. It hardly seemed the game to fire ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... curiosity. He forgot himself in it: it was as if he were considering somebody else's strange predicament. But even that sort of interest was dying out when, looking to his left, he saw the accustomed shapes of the other bungalows looming in the night, and remembered the arrival of the thirsty company in the boat. Wang would hardly risk such a crime in the presence of other white men. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to him that Johnny needed time to think, and to recover from his sulks. Six days, in his opinion, would be about right. The first two would be spent in revilings; the third and fourth in realizing that he had only himself to blame for his predicament, and the fifth and sixth days would stretch themselves out like months and he would come out a considerably chastened ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... means through the water of one individual occasionally impregnating another: if individual animals can singly propagate themselves for perpetuity, it is unaccountable that no terrestrial animal, where the means of observation are more obvious, should be in this predicament of singly perpetuating its kind. I conclude, then, that races of most animals and plants, when unconfined in the same country, would tend ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... be ashamed of yourself." He gave a sigh of relief when he saw Grace and the strange man approaching at a quick trot, the wagon and plank between them. His confidence in Grace had not been misplaced. He felt that they would soon be released from their perilous predicament. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... summons from the authorities, and went up to matriculate at St. Ambrose's College, Oxford, He presented himself at the college one afternoon, and was examined by one of the tutors, who carried him, and several other youths in like predicament, up to the Senate House the next morning. Here they went through the usual forms of subscribing to the articles, and otherwise testifying their loyalty to the established order of things, without much thought ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... as prudent as all other hermetic philosophers. Whoever would read his book to find out his secret, would employ all his labour in vain; the pope took good care not to divulge it." Unluckily for their own credit, all these gold-makers are in the same predicament; their great secret loses its worth most wonderfully in the telling, and therefore they keep it snugly to themselves. Perhaps they thought that, if everybody could transmute metals, gold would be so plentiful that it would be no longer valuable, and that some new art ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... which excites our wonder that even he should have touched upon the spiritual side of his thesis at all. The idea of the dove sent forth from the ark fluttering over the heaving swells of the deluge, in vain endeavour to secure a rest for the soles of its feet, represents not inaptly the unfortunate predicament of his spirit with regard to a solid [208] faith on which to repose amid the surges of doubt by which it is so evidently beset. Yet although this is his obvious plight with regard to a satisfying belief, he nevertheless undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to suggest a creed for the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... several states of mind—reckless, humble, sentimental, most practical, defiant, apprehensive. At one moment he was crying, "Now, Grizel, now, when it is too late, you will see what you have lost." At the next he quaked and implored the gods to help him out of his predicament. It was apprehension that, on the whole, played most of the tunes, for he was by no means sure that Grizel would not look upon the affair of the glove as an offer of his hand, and accept him. They ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... also that the garrison had been put to the sword. Leading on the remainder of his troops he now came in contact with Isfendiyar and his two hundred and sixty warriors, and a sharp engagement ensued; but the coming up of Bashutan's force on his rear, placed him in such a predicament on every side, that defeat and destruction were almost inevitable. In short, Kahram was left with only a few of his soldiers near him, when Isfendiyar, observing his situation, challenged him to personal combat, and the challenge ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... in discovering the helpless condition of the "Delaware;" and field-pieces and siege-guns were brought down to the river-bank, until the luckless Americans saw themselves commanded by a heavy battery. In this unhappy predicament there was no course remaining but to strike ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... predicament to have clung to the old idea of walking up wind, and it must be considered wholly providential that on this course he next struck Tent Island. It was round this island that he walked, finally digging himself a shelter on its lee side under the impression that it was Inaccessible Island. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... navy happened to be passing, we should never catch the smallest glimpse of it, so long as we remained aboard the wreck. It was evident, therefore, that the first step toward an escape from our present predicament must be the transfer of ourselves and everything of value ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... professor. "Don't lose your grip. This is truly a serious predicament; but we have been ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... stared at his master with gaping mouth, as if he had been addressed in one of the dead languages. Seeing the predicament, and mastering it rapidly,— ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... and suggestive that it has extensively influenced the subsequent history of Philosophy. At the same time, and probably as a result of the vogue of the Kantian philosophy, the word 'category' has been vulgarised as a synonym for 'class,' just as 'predicament' long ago passed from Scholastic Logic into common use as a synonym for 'plight.' A minister is said to be 'in a predicament,' or to fall ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... lieu of words. Let but the art of Pantomime become universal, and this grand desideratum must be obtained. Then we shall find that candidates, instead of being able, as now, to become legislators by simply professing to be patriots, will be placed in the awkward predicament of having first to act as such; and that the clergy, in lieu of taking a tenth part of the produce for the mere preaching of Christianity, will be obliged to sacrifice at least a portion to charitable ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... thinking so deeply. She was a shade paler than usual, but beyond that there was no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred; nor did she manifest any evidence of the nervous fear which would have prostrated most women in such a predicament. ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... he said. "I hardly know what to say. If it had not been for me, you would not have been in this serious predicament." ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... a question whether the joy of intellectual work has kept pace with this joy of life in its other aspects. Sometimes it almost seems as if intellectual eagerness were in inverse ratio to the ease and fullness of the opportunities we have. At least many fair-minded girls have seen the predicament in which the teacher is placed. The man who makes a vase for the use and pleasure of others may rejoice not only in his own workmanship but also in the thought of the service and delight he is giving to others. That is, his pleasure ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... of many trials and disappointments which daily harassed him. He was over head and ears in debt, because, in his confidence in the immediate success of his operas, he had had them printed at once, at his own expense. The opera-houses were very slow in accepting them, and this left him in a sad predicament. There were, moreover, enemies everywhere,—ignorant, old-fashioned professionals, who objected to his way of interpreting the masters (though it was afterwards admitted that he was epoch-making as an interpreter of their deepest thoughts). All this galled ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... was soft, woman's laughter as if she enjoyed this joke on mere man—and even when Rimrock explained the dangerous side of his predicament she refused to take ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the better for coming straight from the heart without any style at all. If I thought that Mr. Lowell would not find these Athenaeums somewhere in Madrid, I would send them to him, as I would also to you in a like predicament. . . . ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... thought; "here's a predicament," but I didn't know what to do. I remembered a western adage, "When you don't know a thing to do, don't do a thing." I only said: "Tell Bezkya to go home, go to bed, and stay there till ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... we will perish trying to keep alive," remarked Washington. "We have plenty of room to exercise ourselves here, and keep up a circulation, with no fear of being shot at by savages. It will not do to sleep in this predicament." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... circumstances—a congested National Treasury and a depleted monetary condition in the business of the country. It need hardly be stated that while the present situation demands a remedy, we can only be saved from a like predicament in the future by the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... he remained in that uncomfortable position for two days, sustaining his life by eating the honey. He had become silent from despair, when, looking up, what was his horror to see a huge bear above him, tempted by the same object which had led him into his dangerous predicament, and about to descend into the interior of ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... showed the folly of putting any trust in a desperado. It was through Clancy's efforts that Katz had been freed from his dangerous predicament in Captain Hogan's bungalow. But Katz did not give any consideration to that when the time came for him to turn the tables and secure the satchel ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... "You must see my predicament." So spoke Ostermoor. "I'm dependent on the old man. If he cuts me off, and he says he ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... time Maurice had received a visit from the young student at the University,—the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,—an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with the ease which implied long familiarity ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which thirsts in vain for gratification. We can form an idea of what man then experiences only by imagining some one suffering from burning thirst in a region where, far and wide, there is no water to be found. This is the predicament of the ego after death, as long as it retains ungratified desires for the pleasures of the outer world, and has no organs by means of which to satisfy them. Of course the burning thirst, serving as a ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... I caught sight of a frightened look on the face of one of the boys; but of this I am not sure, and I heard no cries. I still floated, dangling, down the street. What was to be done? Should I call out? In that case, if I were not shot or stoned, my strange predicament, and the secret of my invention, would be exposed to the world. If I did not do this, I must either let myself drop and be killed or mangled, or hang there and die. When, during the course of the ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... uncomfortable and hazardous position of one who must choose between his convictions, and the retention of political office. It was a situation all the more embarrassing, because he had so often asserted the direct responsibility of a representative to his constituents. He extricated himself from the predicament in characteristic fashion. He reaffirmed his convictions; sought to ward off the question; but followed instructions when he had to give his vote. He obeyed the letter, but violated the spirit ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... plays havoc with our current notions! The logic of the facts leads us to it directly. And yet it seems so absurd that, before accepting it, we seek to escape the predicament by another absurdity. We wonder whether the quantity of food may not decide the fate of the egg, originally sexless. Given more food and more room, the egg would become a female; given less food and less room, it would become a male. The mother, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... the convent specified by the archbishop, but I warn you that if we catch the father of your child, he will hang. As for you, who have been seduced, and who belong to a good family, tell me one of your relatives with whom you are on friendly terms, and I will undertake to inform them of your predicament." ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... heathen fierceness and self-seeking of Helga. Between the two parties the bishop, whose motives and intentions are, however, not brought out with sufficient clearness. Like the proverbial fifth wheel of a wagon he seems out of place and embarrassing, whenever he appears—a predicament, to be sure, which he shares with the Church itself in those times, whenever not guided by a ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... must also consider whether it will be prudent to go in search of the ship, as she may have left the harbour to look for us. Judging from the appearance of the country we saw, we are not likely to find any food upon it; so that should we arrive there after she has gone, we should be in a worse predicament than we should be by ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... boyhood an adept at expedients for avoiding any unpleasant predicament, and one of his modes of getting rid of troublesome friends, as well as troublesome enemies, was by telling a story. He began these tactics early in life, and he grew to be wonderfully adept in them. If a man broached a subject which he did not wish to discuss, he ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... suggest du Croisier's name in this predicament. He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the man's real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... food, we all wakened up, and Gib asked very peaceably to be released. The gaoler laughed at his predicament, and inquired the tale of it; and when he heard the truth, called for a vote as to what he should do. I was satisfied, from the look of Muckle John, that his dangerous fit was over, so I gave my voice ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... helped greatly to restore Clayton to a more normal state of mind during the next few days. One of them undoubtedly was the Valentine situation. Beside Audrey's predicament and Chris's wretched endeavor to get away and yet prove himself a man, his own position seemed, if not comfortable, at least tenable. He would have described it, had he been a man to put such a thing into words, as that "he and Natalie didn't ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... my doubts—admire the modesty of a sceptic—whether the entire phenomena of religion do not favor the conclusion, that man, in this respect, only the traces of an imperfect, truncated creature; that, he is in the predicament of the half-created lion ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... best method of extricating the orphan from the unfortunate predicament in which her rashness had plunged her, he did not answer immediately, and ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... but he will know soon enough. Just at present he is in a somewhat uncomfortable predicament. The last I saw of him, your wife and Sandy were dragging him down into ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... away disgusted and indignant; but his indignation was neutralized by his astonishment at this incomprehensible brutality. He had no resource but to apply to some private house and state his predicament. As that luckless saddle had excited the derision of the girl, and drawn down on him the contumely of the tavern-keeper, he looked around for some safe spot in which to deposit it before it brought him into further disgrace. His linen and all his worldly possessions, except his money, which he ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... stands, as the sculptor's soul sat down before her, in a vision of faith and tenderness, to receive her image,—stands and waits for the pity and the help of you and me, her brothers and her lovers. We long to rescue her and take her to our hearts; we are touched by her predicament, as Michelet tells us the heart of the beholder is moved by the bound Andromeda of Puget,—that great artist in whom dwelt the suffering soul of a depraved age, and who all his life long sculptured forlorn captives,—"Ah, would I had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... this desperate predicament when Chang of the Cavern became in a sense the saviour of his country. This he effected by two actions which called for uncommon intelligence and moral force: (1) By assuring the British Government that he would at all costs maintain peace in Central ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... showers about, and a damp feeling in the lane. Both the others thought this perilous; besides that, there might be rude passengers to laugh at their predicament; and Captain Henderson protested that the weight was nothing. He prevailed at last; and she allowed him to hand her into the basket, when she could hardly stand, and wrap the dust-cloth about her. Thus the procession set forth, Gillian with poor drooping Bruno's rein in one hand and the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sympathy between man and beast. The great golden chestnut raced backwards and forwards like some well-trained greyhound, heading the leading beasts into the desired direction without effort or apparent guidance. It was a grand display of the cowboy's art, and, in spite of his predicament and the cruel tightness of his bonds, Jim Bowley reveled in the sight ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... overcame my still lurking distrust; her sobs alone broke the silence which ensued, and I was never in my life more painfully embarrassed. Fortunately the return of my neighbor relieved me from my peculiar predicament. No sooner did Adele hear him enter the adjoining room, than she opened the door of communication, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the local gentry aforesaid, whom awkward personal predicament—as in the case of Dr. Cripps and the Miss Minetts—did not preclude from visiting The Hard, having called early on Monday afternoon also left early, being anxious to prove their civility of purest water, untainted by self-seeking, by ulterior ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... works. The great Russian novelist was not a consummate technician when he wrote short stories, but the massive epic sweep of his genius clothed the somewhat inorganic substance of his tales with a reality which is masterly in the title story, in "An Unpleasant Predicament," and in "Another Man's Wife." The volume includes among other stories "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," which, though little known, is the key to the philosophy of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... this smooth fellow to get from Austin all his story; for the boy was entirely unacquainted with the ways of the world. And to his new friend the whole thing seemed a joke. He confided to Austin that he was in nearly the same predicament, but that he knew a way to ride about the country without funds. Austin had heard of such things but did not know how it was done, and showed some interest; and the young man proceeded to explain to him the tricks of his trade, ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... the case had emerged or not which law contemplated as the dissolution of their fealty. No man would say that a province was licensed to desert, because the central government had lost a battle. But a whole campaign, or ten campaigns, would stand in the same predicament as a solitary battle, so long as the struggle was not formally renounced by the sovereign. How many years of absolute abandonment might justify a provincial people in considering themselves surrendered to their own discretion, is a question standing ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Moreover they toiled without pay. Protest availed them little. And the straw that broke the camel's back was laid on in the form of rent by Lord Donegal. In 1717 when their leases had expired in County Antrim, they found themselves in a worse predicament than ever. Their rents were doubled and trebled. Now, to hand over more than two thirds of what they had after all the other taxes that had been imposed upon them left them with little or nothing. How was a man to pay the added rent? Pay ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... screaming at the top of her voice, "Save me! Save me!" that Jack got away. She scrambled out pretty lively, and when we got him in again, we were all seized with another fit of laughing at Totty, who, in her moist predicament, was jumping round to dry herself, because she didn't want to go home, that he crawled out as leisurely as possible. But we secured him at last, safe in the pail; and to prevent his crawling out, I clapped my sailor hat over the top of it, and the elastic ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... advance of congressional authorization, began a systematic course of Indian negotiation, all having in view the relieving of Kansas from her aboriginal encumbrance. No means were too underhand, too far-fetched, too villainous to be resorted to. Every advantage was taken of the Indian's predicament, of his pitiful weakness, political and moral. The reputed treason of the southern tribes was made the most of. Reconstruction measures had begun for the Indians before the war was over and while its issue was very far from being determined in ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... his tone. I glanced at him, but his broad red face and twinkling eyes told me nothing. "The Italian doctor," he repeated. "If I had a friend in Captain Percy's predicament, I should bid him beware of the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... adverse party was becoming offensive. The elder Sparks wrote like a man overwhelmed with mortification, and stung by a sense of undeserved injury; and his appeals to the sympathy and support of his son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful predicament as regarded the family ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... one to remind us that these two verses are in the same predicament as those which follow: are as ill supported by MS. evidence as the other ten: and must therefore share the same fate as the rest. The statement is incorrect, to begin with; as shall presently be shewn. But, what ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... entitled to feel the others' cocks. I felt theirs, but again to my mortification, the tightness of my prepuce caused jeering at me; I was glad to hear that there was another boy at the school in the same predicament, though I never saw his. This confirmed me in avoiding my companions, when they were playing at cocks-all-round; being a day scholar only, I was not forced at all times into their intimacy, as I should have been had ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... placed; or when born; or whether he stands or sits; or be shod or armed; or does, or suffers anything; and all the innumerable things which might be ranged under these nine Predicaments, of which I have given some specimens, or under that chief Predicament of Substance. ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... direct the masters in the disposal of their capital! Hamper had said, only this very day, that if he were ruined by the strike, he would start life again, comforted by the conviction that those who brought it on were in a worse predicament than he himself,—for he had head as well as hands, while they had only hands; and if they drove away their market, they could not follow it, nor turn to anything else. But this thought was no consolation to Mr. Thornton. It might be that revenge gave him no pleasure; ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in a business-like way, for he was quick to grapple with a problem, and solve it in short order. As it was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, one boy suggested a certain plan, only to have a second advanced as a better method of getting Noodles out of his unpleasant predicament. ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Theater, in consequence of this lawsuit and the debts which encumber the concern, is liable at any time to be called upon for twenty-seven thousand pounds; which, for a man who can not raise five thousand, is not a pleasant predicament. On the other hand, Mr. Harris, our adversary, and joint proprietor with my father, is also liable to enormous demands, if the debts should be insisted upon ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the comings and goings of the ghost were highly diverting, yet the farmer of T'nowhead only laughed because he had paid his money at the hole in the door like the rest of us. T'nowhead sat at the end of a form where he saw round the glass and so saw no ghost. I fear my public may be in the same predicament. I see the little minister as he was at one-and-twenty, and the little girl to whom this story is to belong sees him, though the things I have to tell happened before she came into the world. But there are reasons why she should see; and I do not know that I can provide the glass for ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... that night she recounted her experience: "The very courteous gentleman who informed me of your predicament happened to be a cousin of Mr. Banks, of Head and Banks. (They supply your grain, I believe?) Mrs. Howe (isn't it R. E. Howe who is president of the Newcomb Club?) was at my elbow. The salesgirl has Sam junior's Sunday-school class. Doubtless ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... dispatched to take upon himself the command of the army. Sailing immediately with the latter as his second in command, he had been favoured during the whole voyage by a fresh and fair wind, and now arrived in time to see his troops brought into a predicament from which all his abilities could scarcely expect to extricate them. Nor were the troops themselves ignorant of the unfavourable circumstances in which they stood. Hoping everything, therefore, from a change, they greeted their new leader with a hearty cheer; ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... heart turns to water at the nude recollection of such an unparalleled predicament, for the now unrestrained bicycle vires acquirit eundo, and in seven-league boots! While I, wet as a clout with anxiety and perspiration, did grasp the handles like the horns of a dilemma, calling out in agonised accents to the bystanders,—"Help! I am running away with myself! ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... and his muttered damnation of malahinis, disgustedly sure that these two malahinis would compel him to launch Number Nine and go after them when they found the current too strong to swim in against. As for himself, caught in their predicament, he would have veered to the left toward Diamond Head and come in on the shoreward fling of the kanaka surf. But then, he was no one other than himself, a bronze. Hercules of twenty-two, the whitest blond man ever burned to mahogany brown by a sub-tropic sun, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... began dimly to sense a predicament. Even then she didn't recognize it for an impasse. Such things didn't happen to Elliott Cameron. But she did wish that Quincy had selected another time for isolating her Uncle James's house. Not that she particularly desired to spend a year, or a fraction of a year, with the James Camerons, but ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... in a predicament that he couldn't laugh or fight his way out of; he has never yet found a job that he cared to stick at for more than a year or two, and seldom one that could ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... period assigned was impossible. She deemed it equally impossible, that he would ever dream of returning, standing, as he must now do, in the danger of an infamous punishment. By degrees, and at different times, she had gained from him a full acquaintance with the predicament in which he would be placed by failing to appear on the day appointed, and the very small hope he could entertain of being treated ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... of a Proud Man: all heads in that predicament are unsound. This man was rich; and as wealth is a certain hot-bed to raise flatterers, he had enough of them; they told him he was every thing; he believed them, and always spoke in the first person, saying, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... knew a little English, was a Norman by birth, knew who the Baron de Ribaumont was, and was able to make himself generally useful, though ill supplying the place of poor Osbert, who would have been invaluable in the present predicament. Nothing was so much dreaded by any of the party as that their chief should become utterly unable to proceed. Once let him be laid up at one of these little auberges, and Philip felt as if all would be over with him; and he himself was always the most restlessly eager to push ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Patties and their adherents arrived at the Colorado, where their horses were stampeded by the tribe living at the mouth of the Gila, the "Umeas." They were left without a single animal, a most serious predicament in a wild country. The elder Pattie counselled pursuit on foot to recapture the horses or die in the attempt. But the effort was fruitless. They then made their way back to their camp, devoured their last morsel of meat, placed their guns on a raft, and swam ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... care more about a knife, now he is going to have a wife," added Mr. Franklin, addressing his remark to Benjamin, in order to help him out of the predicament into which John's remark had placed him. "But did you not ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... that Perez began actually to think that perhaps he liked him for his own sake, and even cherished the wild idea of taking him into confidence concerning his passion and hope as to Desire. Had he done so Edwards would certainly have found himself in a very awkward predicament. Meanwhile, day after day and even week after week passed, and save for an occasional glimpse of her passing a window, or the shadow on her bedroom curtain with which his long night watches were sometimes rewarded, he saw nothing of Desire. She ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... a predicament to be in! Where do you suppose Johnny scraped up all these youngsters? I don't know what I ought to do to him for playing me this trick.' Mrs. Morris said this to the maid as they came to my side of the room. 'Think of all the work to be done, and which ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... strait he telegraphed to me, in Chicago, detailing his predicament, and asking instructions. He was much surprised at receiving an answer from Philadelphia, where I then was. I telegraphed him in cipher, congratulating him on his success so far, and told him not to ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... in began to be hard on me'. When the men were moving about and talking I had been so interested that my predicament did not occupy my mind. But now, with those ruffians waiting silently below, I was beset with a thousand fears. The very consciousness that I must be quiet made it almost impossible. Then I became aware that my ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... interesting details from Mr. Robinson Munro. Three plants, including one in England, have already been mentioned which were inveterately self-sterile, and Mr. Munro informs me of several others which, after repeated trials during many years, have been found in the same predicament. At some other places, however, this species fruits readily when fertilised with its own pollen. At Taymouth Castle there is a plant which was formerly grafted by Mr. Donaldson on a distinct species, name unknown, and ever since the operation ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... inhabitants thereof; a recommendation of Congress to the States in favor of the British who have not borne arms, possessing property in America; of the non-residents and loyal inhabitants in the same predicament, &c. &c. &c. But this article depends entirely on the recommendations of Congress, the States ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... at the serious predicament, which expressed itself in the faces of the boys. "That is true," he said; "but if we can get a small piece of tin, we can punch it full of fine holes, and probably make ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... that a species of Bignonia and Tabernaemontana echinata are both sterile with their own pollen in their native country of Brazil. (9/3. Ibid 1868 page 626 and 1870 page 274.) Several Amaryllidaceous and Liliaceous plants are in the same predicament. Hildebrand observed with care Corydalis cava, and found it completely self-sterile (9/4. 'Report of the International Horticultural Congress' 1866.); but according to Caspary a few self-fertilised seeds are occasionally produced: Corydalis halleri is only slightly self-sterile, and C. intermedia ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... of rascal whom he would prefer to deal with most fittingly by kicking him, were revealed in each syllable; but Jean de Courtois was apparently deaf to the mean opinion his conduct was inducing among those who had extricated him from a disagreeable if not actually dangerous predicament. He squirmed convulsively, and half sobbed his inability to realize the true nature of anything that had happened either to himself ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... have seen a man come out at the east door and go into the closet, at this moment. But here the witness made a mistake. He thought that Mr. Warren went through the east door, but Mr. Warren says that he came along the entry, and had not been in or out of that door. What then is the predicament in which Prescott has involved himself? Three different men must have gone into that recess in the short space of two minutes; two of them at least, must have been in the closet at the same minute; and the east door must have been opened three times upon ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... spent—that she had managed to get aground in the draw-bridge, immediately across the track—and that, consequently, no train could possibly pass until the tide rose again and released the unfortunate boat, well along towards midnight! Here was a pleasant predicament, especially for those who, like our travellers, had connections to make at Albany for the North and West; and yet, to their credit be it said, that particular couple bore the delay with wonderful equanimity! It is just possible that both remembered ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... reasons for regarding the stupor as a regressive reaction. We must now consider the clinical evidence to support this view. In the first place, we always find that stupor occurs in an individual who is unhappy and who has found no other solution than regression for the predicament in which he is. There is nothing specific in the cause of this unhappiness. At times the factors producing it are mainly environmental; at others, the problem is essentially of the patient's own making. Of course ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... us and the mountain summit seemed but a token of the storm of circumstances. One thing was certain, the muleteer could go no farther up the mountain, and yet he was mortally afraid to return alone to the Kurdish robbers. He sat down, and began to cry like a child. This predicament of their accomplice furnished the zaptiehs with a plausible excuse. They now absolutely refused to go any farther without him. Our interpreter, the Greek, again joined the majority; he was not going to risk the ascent without the Turkish guards, and besides, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... upon Laurel. The girl had gone from shock to shock until she was really in need of rest and nourishment. Of course Cora made light of her own predicament. She admitted she had been frightened when she found the boat gone, and Laurel sick, but tried to laugh and call it just one more experience, that would add to her general knowledge. But her face was white, and even Belle and Bess who had risen ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... almost supernatural, not to say diabolical, and the pursuit would probably have been a lengthy one but for the fact that a tall man, who was rapidly advancing from the opposite direction, seeing the girl's predicament, came to her help and headed off the truant sheets. Within a few moments the combined efforts of the girl, the man, and the greengrocer's boy were successful in gathering them together once more, and having tipped the boy, who had entered thoroughly ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... valet: "I am Monsieur de Balzac." It was useless. The door refused to open. Around Madame de Balzac, now seated on one of the trunks, other passers-by had gathered and listened to the novelist's excited comments on his predicament. The occurrence ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... shape of thy letter that thou thyself hadst had a good horn from the contents of the cider barrel, a part being written one side up and a part the other way, and it would need some one in nearly the same predicament to keep track of it. We hope thy cranium will get straightened when the answer to this is penned, so that we may follow thy varied thoughts with less trouble. A little advice perhaps would be good on both sides, and they that give should ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... shaking their heads—"Poor Abe!—he's a hopeless case," and left Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried, again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the old drunkard the rest of that night. ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... his way out of this predicament, he scrambled on, handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... talent, wild horses couldn't drag me from Wellington," said Bobbie seriously. "And I do hope, little Kitten, that I am not wholly to blame for your unhappy predicament," ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... two leguas away, called Fortuna, where a few of the ship's men who had more endurance in the sea, also arrived in safety. Some perished and were drowned, for they had not even disarmed themselves, and whom this predicament had overtaken when exhausted by the long fight with the enemy. Those who met death on this occasion were fifty in all. The most important among them were Captains Don Francisco de Mendoca, Gregorio de Vargas, Francisco Rodriguez, and Gaspar de los Rios, [140] all of whom ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... brigade, I noticed that Barney appeared to be holding up his pants, but I made no inquiry as to the reason for his so doing. When we took our first position in advance of where the Irishmen had fought, and began firing, Barney had to use both hands, and his predicament was at once revealed. He had held up his pants by a strap around his waist without suspenders. This strap had given out, and that accounted for his holding up performance. When he began loading and firing he ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... she recounted her experience: "The very courteous gentleman who informed me of your predicament happened to be a cousin of Mr. Banks, of Head and Banks. (They supply your grain, I believe?) Mrs. Howe (isn't it R. E. Howe who is president of the Newcomb Club?) was at my elbow. The salesgirl has Sam junior's Sunday-school class. Doubtless it ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... minutes the spitting blue spark flared and jumped as Peter spelled out his plight. He sketched their predicament by abbreviated code, and he impressed upon his friend the necessity for utter secrecy, hoping that the night had no ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... he would soon return. The islanders, however, had no intention of allowing him to depart, so while some of them laid hold of the gang-board, and attempted to drag up the boat on to the beach, others snatched at the oars, and tried to wrest them away from the sailors. In this predicament, and seeing that neither expostulations nor menaces were of any avail, the captain raised his musket, pointed it at the chief, who had again made his appearance, and pulled the trigger; but, as on a former occasion, the piece missed ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... with startling distinctness. And at the sight and sound, the girl's horse, unaccustomed to the pomp and pride of martial display, began to plunge and rear. She spoke sharply; tried to control it but found she could not. Lord Ronsdale saw her predicament but was powerless to lend assistance, being at the moment engaged in a vigorous effort to prevent ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... honest; for it is not to be supposed that honesty and respectability are by any means synonymous terms. It was only by the exercise of superhuman address that the Captain had extricated himself from that perplexing predicament at the Belgian watering-place; and it may be that the unpleasant experiences of that particular evening were not without a salutary effect upon the adventurer's ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... were in such a predicament I should say to the pirate chief who was about to maroon me, "My dear sir, as this island seems, for the time being, to have been overlooked by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, I must ask the loan of a volume from your private library. ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... universal, and this grand desideratum must be obtained. Then we shall find that candidates, instead of being able, as now, to become legislators by simply professing to be patriots, will be placed in the awkward predicament of having first to act as such; and that the clergy, in lieu of taking a tenth part of the produce for the mere preaching of Christianity, will be obliged to sacrifice at least a portion to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... curiosity to see how Teufelsdrockh in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; with what specialties of successive configuration, splendor and color, his Firework blazes off. Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such can meet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy, with their mad Petrarchan ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... local gentry aforesaid, whom awkward personal predicament—as in the case of Dr. Cripps and the Miss Minetts—did not preclude from visiting The Hard, having called early on Monday afternoon also left early, being anxious to prove their civility of purest water, untainted by self-seeking, by ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in the past. He is entirely too refined to be able to stand the rough life of imprisonment. Referred the examiner to the Austrian Embassy, which could readily establish his noble descent and get him out of this terrible predicament. When, later in his sojourn here, he was interviewed by several gentlemen from the Austrian Embassy he maintained the same attitude of wronged innocence, notwithstanding the fact that these gentlemen confronted him with an undoubtedly genuine photograph of himself, obtained from the Austrian ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... so busy sizing up the situation that he hadn't thought about his own predicament. Now he looked down and suddenly realized that he was floating free in space, a considerable distance above the asteroid, and with only small propulsion ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... down and took thought. Recalling a bath-room on the floor above, thither he went, unselfishly forgetful of his predicament if discovered, and, turning on the water, sopped his handkerchief until it dripped. Then, returning, he took the boy's head on his knees, washed the wound, purloined another handkerchief (of silk, with a giddy border) from the other's pocket, and of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... even for him, he assembled all the facts bearing upon their predicament, his and Lucia Bannon's, jointly and individually, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Maurice had received a visit from the young student at the University,—the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,—an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with the ease which implied long ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... enigma. The good souls got out of their predicament by saying, "After all, he is some sort of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... has given an exact analysis, will see that Lavradi, sentenced to be transported for ten years to the presides, comes to ask pardon of the king. Every one knows how freely the severest penalties were in the sixteenth century measured out for the lightest offences, and how warmly valets in a predicament such as Quinola's, were welcomed by the spectators in the ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... did not always escape in this manner. Not to speak of minor mischances, on one occasion we stuck hard and fast for twenty-four hours, in spite of every attempt to extricate ourselves. Here was a predicament for the captain! He had received instructions to make the greatest speed on his trip; his passengers were all burning with impatience lest they should be too late to acquire glory and prize-money—the prize-money at all events; the military stores on board were urgently required at Mooltan; ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... most matters was that of the sympathetic humorist who would be glad to have the victim of circumstance laugh with him, but was not too much vexed when the victim could not. He laughed now when his wife, with careful preparation, got the facts of his son's predicament fully under his eye. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that it was possible that they might put off their assault until daybreak. They were in this predicament, that if they lit any of the lights which we made no doubt they carried, in order to ascertain the plight that they were in, they would make themselves the targets for our muskets. But the one thing certain was that, under the control of a man like Jensen, they would most certainly ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... past, all snickering, of course, at his predicament. In this state of utter misery he arrived at last at the field, where, to his amazement, quite a group of Fifth-Formers came up and surrounded Miss McCarty, chattering in the most bewildering manner. Dink seized the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... get a rise out of you, you blessed tenderfoot! What difference does that make? He rescued you from a serious predicament; and more than that he's a fine fellow and ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of character, I believe I can make out a case in my favor; but with respect to capital—when I say I am a printer, I say also that I am in the predicament of the most of my profession, with nothing to recommend us but a willing heart and a ready hand; albeit, if the taking of one share of a hundred dollars will entitle me to membership, the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... Lunenburg." This request was denied. The honest people, who, for the sake of peace and reconciliation had favored the west at the previous meeting, were now thoroughly alarmed. They held the balance of power, and were in a very unpleasant predicament. If they voted to place the new house in the east, the west threatened to form a new parish; and if they favored the west, the east evinced strong symptoms of returning to the parent ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... interference was received by him as quite in the ordinary, though he protested against my good offices. He remonstrated indignantly when I acquiesced in O'Corrigan's assertion that my humble friend must be demented, a plea which opened a way out of the predicament. Fortunately, the Professor's own wisdom in refusing an explanation of an apparently unprovoked assault gave color to this theory, and as Talcott's one clear thought was to escape without any unpleasant notoriety, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... seemed to freeze and grow numb. In an effort to roll over upon his back he discovered that his position, or his being bound, or the numbness of his muscles was responsible for the fact that he could not move. Here was a predicament. It began to look serious. What would a few hours of the powerful sun do to his uncovered skin? Somebody would trail and find him: still, he might not be ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... Acadia. If this be so, some excellent sentiment and eloquent romance will have to be taken with considerable modification. A few of the most indignant bursts (?) in Longfellow's fine poem of "Evangeline" may be in this predicament; and may have to be read, not exactly as so much gospel, but rather as rhetorical extremes, unsubstantial, but too elegant to be altogether discarded. In volumes alluded to, of the record commission, the dispatches, and ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... himself a child in the hands of this big yellow man was disconcerting. To be calmly lugged off was almost humiliating. No one who was not a good sport could have grinned as Rawson did at his own predicament. ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... mastered a dozen common substantives and no other parts of speech, to satisfy his inquisitiveness, which I always endeavored to do, because it is wrong to repress that indication of dawning reason in a child, and Jack at eleven years old was in the predicament of a mere infant. More especially was I puzzled when his "what?" was accompanied by a motion pointing first at the dog, then to himself, to learn wherein consisted the difference between two creatures, both of whom, as he intimated, could eat, drink, sleep, and walk about, could be merry or angry, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... in his tone. I glanced at him, but his broad red face and twinkling eyes told me nothing. "The Italian doctor," he repeated. "If I had a friend in Captain Percy's predicament, I should bid him beware of ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... his instructions. Reporting his predicament to the sheriff would mean sowing news of the Sunkhaze ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... at which she should have spoken, but she did not. She, who had prided herself that she would make a race of it—she, who had always been able to slip out of a predicament in the nick of time—stood mutely by and let Transley and her father interpret her silence as consent. She was not sure that she was sorry; she was not sure but she would have consented anyway; but Transley ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... seemed to be in the like predicament, bending slightly with the neck, and I even fancied that her lips moved. The next moment, she had passed on, and I became sensible of the presence of ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... Oh, dear! Isn't this a queer predicament to be in, and not a chocolate left?" she wailed, as she looked in the box. "Empty!" she ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... began. We were obliged to move elsewhere, and to undertake alterations, for which money was indispensable, but we had no money. In that predicament, we began to speculate upon the Exchange, and the Exchange proved a kind mother to us; it sustained us until we were on our feet again. As soon as we had established ourselves upon another site, we proceeded to lose money, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... has acted in a friendly way to us and will so act, if we allow her. But Lansing, instead of trusting to her good faith and reserving all our rights under international law and usage, imagines that he can force her to agree to a code that the Germans now agree to because, in Germany's present predicament, it will be especially advantageous to Germany. Instead of trusting her, he assumes that she means to do wrong and proceeds to try to bind her in advance. He hauls her up and tries her in ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... home in several states of mind—reckless, humble, sentimental, most practical, defiant, apprehensive. At one moment he was crying, "Now, Grizel, now, when it is too late, you will see what you have lost." At the next he quaked and implored the gods to help him out of his predicament. It was apprehension that, on the whole, played most of the tunes, for he was by no means sure that Grizel would not look upon the affair of the glove as an offer of his hand, and accept him. They would show her the glove, and she would, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... precious lucky thing for me," said the officer. "I'd have been in quite a predicament, ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... well by the river, but there's no beauty in things out of place, like your Louis in Egypt—well, what was the end of this predicament?' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... street and in whispered tones wonder if they had yet been suspected. For more than a quarter of a century these two kids kept this secret in the innermost recesses of their hearts, and it is only recently that they dared to reveal their terrible predicament. ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... the face of one of the boys; but of this I am not sure, and I heard no cries. I still floated, dangling, down the street. What was to be done? Should I call out? In that case, if I were not shot or stoned, my strange predicament, and the secret of my invention, would be exposed to the world. If I did not do this, I must either let myself drop and be killed or mangled, or hang there and die. When, during the course of the night, the air became more rarefied, I might rise higher and higher, perhaps to an ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... you to advance with me to the year 2906 A.D. In this year the directors of the John Jones fund awoke to the fact that they were in a dreadful predicament. According to the agreement under which John Jones deposited his Dollar away back in the year 1921, interest was to be compounded annually at three percent. In the year 2900 A.D., the thirty-ninth generation of ...
— John Jones's Dollar • Harry Stephen Keeler
... at the discovery: if the pursuer was a "gentleman of the road" his predicament was indeed awkward. The carriage was rumbling and rattling so noisily that he had long since lost the sound of the horse's hoofs behind. He could not pause to learn if the pursuit had ceased; his only course was to drive on. Surely ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... vindicate, indication, predicament, predict, addict, verdict, indict, dictionary, dictation, jurisdiction, vindictive, contradiction, benediction, ditto, condition; (2) abdicate, adjudicate, juridical, diction, dictum, dictator, dictaphone, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... opinion a man should be either Referee or Umpire. Each position requires a different kind of experience and I do not believe officials can successfully interchange these positions. Those who have officiated can appreciate the predicament I was in, especially just at that time when there was so much talk of football reform, by means of changing the rules, changing the style of the game, stopping mass plays. However, I consented; for appreciating that McClung was sincere in his statement that he would do nothing ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... escape, Flint sat quietly, while his crafty mind schemed for some other plan. Suddenly he saw the bottle, the contents of which had restored his reason. Reaching out slyly, he turned it around until he could read the label, and then, even in his predicament, he exulted over his discovery. It was the antidote. Like a flash came to him a shrewd scheme to use ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... replaced the empty wallet in his pocket. There was no use waiting here any longer. He could not dine, if he wished. Never before in his life had he been confronted by such a situation. Once or twice he had been in Harndon's predicament, but that had meant no more to him than it meant to Harndon—nothing but a temporary embarrassment. The difference now was that Harndon could still telephone his father and that he could not. Here was a significant distinction; it was something ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... that they had to abate some of the statesman [laughter]; and I am not certain, I would not say it was so—I will not arrogate to myself to say so—but sometimes a suspicion flashes across my mind that that is precisely the predicament of my honorable friend. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... expense; his own sincere exclamations of "Allah!" being answered by unsympathetic jeers and sarcastic remarks. A few minutes later, perchance one of the hilarious twain finds himself unexpectedly in the same predicament; it then becomes his turn to look scared and importune Allah for protection, and also his turn to be the target for the wild hilarity ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... been in its present predicament for six or seven hours, and nothing had happened, there was no reason to suppose that things would not remain as they were for six or seven hours more, in which time I might get a good sleep, and be better prepared for what might come. There's nothing like a good meal ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... getting into the whirr of fleeting platforms, the multiplication of lights. "I think you'll find," I said with a laugh, "that your predicament will disappear in the very fact ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... What a predicament she was in, with a louse of a husband that prevented her from crawling under her own blankets and a low skunk behind her just waiting to take advantage of the situation to possess her again. She begged Lantier to be quiet. Turning toward the small room where ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... himself on the ground that the attack had been so sudden and treacherous, and the precautions taken so complete. He had proved himself an ass, and the whole country would ring with mockery of him! He had sense enough, too, to know that he was in a serious as well as ludicrous predicament: he had scarcely courage enough to contemplate the possible result. If he could but get his hands free, it would be easy to kill Oscar and disable Janet. For the idiot, he counted him nothing. He had better wait, however, until there should be no boiling liquid ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... was my predicament, at best, I saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side rather than the triumphant one. If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of partisans I began now, at this season of peril ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... parties the bishop, whose motives and intentions are, however, not brought out with sufficient clearness. Like the proverbial fifth wheel of a wagon he seems out of place and embarrassing, whenever he appears—a predicament, to be sure, which he shares with the Church itself in those times, whenever not guided by ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... naturally, and winced still harder when she stipulated that she must have four o'clock tea every afternoon, and every alternate Sunday morning off for the purpose of "saging" her hair, which was a new one on me. But I weighed the pros and cons, very deliberately, and discussed her predicament very candidly, and the result is that Struthers is now duly installed at Alabama Ranch. Already, in fact, that efficient hand of hers has left its mark on the shack. Her muffins this morning were above reproach ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... then, happened like a flash of lightning. For a brief second they saw Blythe hanging from the collapsing structure. Then they saw him let go. Perhaps they did not know the full significance of Roy's predicament. They ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... can't and don't. If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat, that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat is designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... said she, 'you do not at all understand your own predicament, and must just leave your matters in the hands of those who do. I dare say you have never even heard tell of the drove- roads or the drovers; and I am certainly not going to sit up all night to explain it to you. Suffice it, that it is me who is arranging this affair—the more shame ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... theory of acceptance did not comprehend everything. She was in a state of wild revolt, for instance, as to Johnny Rosenfeld, and more remotely but not less deeply concerned over Grace Irving. Soon she was to learn of Tillie's predicament, and to take up the cudgels valiantly ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Mrs. Sherman, stray scraps of recollection, such as these, flitted through her mind and helped to while the time away. Then, as she still waited, she grew gradually more composed, less unfamiliar with her surroundings, and the strange predicament in which she found herself. She could, at length, look at the door she supposed led into Mrs. Sherman's room, without such a quick contraction of the heart as caused her breath to come in labored gasps, could make some sort of sketchy outline of the part she ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... uneasiness as causes him to roll perhaps among many more smeared leaves, till at length he becomes completely enveloped, and he is deprived of sight, and in this situation may be compared to a man who has been tarred and feathered. The anxiety produced by this strange and novel predicament, soon discovers itself in dreadful howlings, which serve to call the watchful peasants, who in this disabled state find no difficulty in shooting the object ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... after sailing, the look-out from the mast head reported a vessel aground off the starboard bow, with a second vessel close by, and, seemingly, in a similar predicament. Our thoughts at once adverted to the two troopships which left last night, so we hurried on, and, arriving at the spot, found we had surmised correctly. One only, the steamer, was aground; her ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... replied; and, as I dismissed him, I rang for my wireless operator. When he appeared, I gave him a message to the secretary of the navy, to whom all vessels in service on thirty and one hundred seventy-five report direct. I explained our predicament, and stated that with what screening force remained I should continue in the air, making as rapid headway toward St. Johns as possible, and that when we were forced to take to the water I should continue in ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... figures of the dance, or to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence to times ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... was well deserved—some historians say so—but it was none the less terrible when it came; and I can imagine that the predicament of Meadows and young Hart, standing behind the barred gates of the Consulate, could have been little worse, mentally, than that of the wretches outside praying to them in the name of Heaven and the ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... and after eating to recruit their strength, they fell to their work again, seeing nothing all around but the sky and the sea. Though this was enough to distress them sufficiently, yet they were besides in the predicament of Tantalus, who had water within a span of his mouth yet could not quench his thirst; such was their distress, for, through the improvidence of the Indians and the prodigious heat of the preceding day and night, all their water was drank up without any regard to the future. As heat and labour together ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... whit for her rottenness—glorying rather, in her own degradation. The chief executive had flung back into their very faces the appeal to his conscience of the most influential men in Kenton City; the police, even now seated about their station stoves, were sniggling at the predicament of the public which paid them for its protection against precisely the kind of thing which they openly tolerated and encouraged; yes, and even the militia, the guarantee of law and order, Broadcastle's own command, were decked out in tinsel and pipeclay, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... time to lose if the machinations of his enemies were to be brought to nought, the bailiff and the civil lieutenant advised Grandier to write to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who had once already extricated him from imminent danger, setting forth at length his present predicament; this letter; accompanied by the reports drawn up by the bailiff and the civil lieutenant, were sent off at once by a trusty messenger to His Grace of Escoubleau de Sourdis. As soon as he received the despatches, the worthy ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... way young birds have," Mr. Bronson remarked, turning to Joe with a serious smile; "and I dare say you are on the verge of a somewhat similar predicament, my boy," he went on. "I am afraid things have reached a crisis, Joe. I have watched it coming on for a year now—your poor scholarship, your carelessness and inattention, your constant desire to be out of the house and away in search of adventures ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... to be able to. I've been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving for the past month," said Gilbert. "Only don't talk to me while I'm doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I'll be in a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Old Neeld hesitated a little. "These concealments lead to such complications," he complained. He was thinking, no doubt, of the Iver engagement and the predicament in which it ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... and dismay—surprise that they had not fled and dismay at the girl's predicament—and muttered: "Now what do you think of that! It takes an Eastern tenderfoot to kill a man and then go quietly home and ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... perish trying to keep alive," remarked Washington. "We have plenty of room to exercise ourselves here, and keep up a circulation, with no fear of being shot at by savages. It will not do to sleep in this predicament." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... his duty to his parents, to his sisters, even to God, to accept these terms,—to withdraw his little force? Why should he be perilling such precious lives and names in the defence of a government official who had been so reckless as to part with his guard and put himself and his funds in such a predicament? From the other room in which the major now lay, feebly moaning, no word of remonstrance came. Even in their extremity, then, the soldiers of the government would not urge that he stay and encounter further peril in their defence. One of the drugged troopers was beginning to regain ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... dressed in their quaint little red coats, must stand with the hand to the hat as if in token of profound respect for the train while it passes. This one, when lathered and half shaved, was suddenly called by the train, and in this predicament he stands while it passes. The best new work in the exhibition was one in water colors by Professor Schwind, of Munich, setting forth the popular German myth of the seven ravens. It sold to a prince for seven thousand florins. I know ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to me obvious that the first thing to be done was to communicate with Ruffiano's friends, for whether he had been spirited away by design or not, it was undeniable that he was in a strange predicament. I set out at once for our ordinary meeting-place, taking Hinge with me, and a brisk walk of a quarter of an hour brought me to the spot. The room in which we held our meetings was approached by an entrance ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Now, don't contradict me, youngster, for I have watched you, and I know! To continue from the point at which I interrupted myself, what I would advise you to do is what I would unhesitatingly do myself were I in your predicament, what I would even join you in doing were I younger by thirty years than I happen to be, and had no wife or family to think about and make me falter and lose courage on the brink of every extra hazardous adventure; and it is this. I would recommend you to draw the whole of your ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for their home by the shortest possible cut. Although ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... becoming a predicament, and you rescued me very ingeniously. There, will that content you?' said Theodora, with one of the smiles the more winning because so rare. I am perfectly ready to own myself in the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... without scruple as a means to an end. She had made him the instrument for escaping from a predicament which she found unbearably irksome. That she had done so in the heat of passion was small palliation. For the present, at least, she wisely resolved to make the best of things. It could not last forever. The day must come when she could free herself from the bonds ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... and gratitude to God for His bountiful care. By the brookside he took supper, and then began the ascent of the hill. After a few hours fruitless search for the road, he "got stuck," in the words of the diary. Finding himself in a helpless predicament, he gathered grass and dry leaves around him and prepared himself for ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... I will," he answered, but he still hesitated, and Dunn had the idea that he was pleased to see the girl like this, and would leave her so if he could, and that he was wondering now if he could turn her predicament to his own ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... came, he hurried across, and slipped, his foot falling between one of the cross-ties. He managed to extricate his leg from the tie, but lost his balance and the other foot slipped, precipitating himself in his former dangerous predicament, and narrowly escaped being crushed to death under the train, as he finally succeeded in freeing himself and jumped across the side just as the big ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... to be "Laurel Leaf" and "Running W" cattle, the very ones for which the International Railway agent at the meeting in February had so boastfully shown my employer the application for cars. The foreman was cursing like a stranded pirate over the predicament in which he found himself. He had left Santo Gertrudo Ranch over a month before with a herd of three thousand straight two-year-old steers. But in the shipment of some thirty-three thousand cattle from the two ranches to Wichita ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... toward the soft outer darkness. Presently there flashed into his mind Dr. Hartmann's words at their last meeting: "While I know how to cure mental disorders, I also know how to create them." The thought made him shudder. Was this, then, the explanation of his predicament? Somewhere he had read, not long before, a newspaper account of the investigations of certain Italian scientists, concerning the effect of the violet and ultra-violet light rays upon the cells of the brain. He could not recollect ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... and keep up a dangerous ferment among the people, by which her life and government were endangered. She could not fail to resent these efforts, which greatly perplexed her measures, and obstructed her design. Her ministers were sensible of the dangerous predicament in which they stood. The queen's health was much impaired; and the successor countenanced the opposite faction. In case of their sovereign's death, they had nothing to expect but prosecution and ruin for obeying her commands; they they saw no hope of safety, except in renouncing their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... our laager was a great hindrance to me in my work. Indeed, I opened a correspondence with the Government on the matter, and begged them to forbid it. But here again my efforts were unavailing. Later on, we shall see in what a predicament the Republican laagers were placed through the toleration ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... are in a like predicament. Your poets are the most persuasive of springs to a lively general patriotism. They are in the Celtic dilemma of standing at variance with Bull; they return him his hearty antipathy, are unable to be epical or lyrical of him, are condemned to expend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... disgusted and indignant; but his indignation was neutralized by his astonishment at this incomprehensible brutality. He had no resource but to apply to some private house and state his predicament. As that luckless saddle had excited the derision of the girl, and drawn down on him the contumely of the tavern-keeper, he looked around for some safe spot in which to deposit it before it brought him into further disgrace. His linen and all his worldly possessions, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Hoseander budged not a rod, being gripped fast by her anchors. In this predicament there was nothing for it. Best must close with the enemy single-handed. Placing his Red Dragon between the Portuguese admiral and vice-admiral, the company's commander gave orders to the gunners, and the battle ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... hope during the night. He soon would be well enough to take command, and then, thought Walter, they would soon find their friends. He had great confidence in Charley's ability to get them out of their present predicament. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the Indians—was begun, and a number of its chapters were set in type on the new Paige compositor, which had cost such a gallant sum, and was then thought to be complete. There seems to have been a plan to syndicate the story, but at the end of Chapter IX Huck and Tom had got themselves into a predicament from which it seemed impossible to extricate them, and the plot was suspended for further inspiration, which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... an office clerk. At that time of his life he couldn't have stood manual labour. Still he tried to get it, for he was willing to do anything to keep a lining to his skin. If you've never been in his predicament, you can't realize how it is and you won't believe it possible. But I've known more than one man to starve because he couldn't get work and wouldn't take public charity. Starvation was the prospect of this young fellow and his wife. So they decided to leave Pittsburg and come to Philadelphia, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... simple and clear, and Peter, as he listened, was almost ready to cry with delight, realizing that this was all he had to do to escape from his horrible predicament. He knew now what he was supposed to know; and he knew it. Why had not Guffey told him long ago, so that he might have known it without having his fingers bent out of place ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... drew a long and tremulous, but supremely happy breath as the realities of their predicament once more obtruded themselves upon her consciousness. She released herself gently ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... stopped, as though his ears heard a sound which warned him of danger. Then cautiously he crept on again. The garden was a ragged place of unmown lawn and straggling bushes. Behind each one Mr. Ricardo seemed to feel an enemy. Never had he been in so strait a predicament. He, the cultured host of Grosvenor Square, was creeping along under a wall with Continental policemen; he was going to raid a sinister house by the Lake of Geneva. It was thrilling. Fear and excitement gripped him in turn and let him go, but always he was sustained by the pride of the man doing ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... sun descended in the western sky, and the magnificent American twilight gathered upon the forest and river, the excited Hans Vanderbum could scarcely conceal his impatience and anxiety. Never before, since his marriage, had he been in such a predicament, and never again, he hoped, would he feel the misery that was now torturing him. Time always passes wearily to the watcher. It seemed an age to him ere the sun slipped down behind the wilderness out of sight. At length, however, the dusk of early evening enveloped the lodge, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... to the misery of their predicament. They had no resource but to fly on to Montreuil, which was still above two leagues distant from them; and should the republican troops persevere in the pursuit, their loss upon the road would be terrific. The darkness was their only friend, and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... of four, all of whom had acquired the English, like himself, in a prison-ship, and with these men he now prepared to land; for, as yet, he had made little progress in the business which brought him into his present awkward predicament, and he was not a man to abandon an object so dear to him, lightly. Finding himself in a dilemma, he was resolved to make an effort to reap, if possible, some advantage from his critical situation. Accordingly, after he had taken his coffee and given his orders, the boat's crew ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... case; he picked his steps, with the neatest avoidance of all dirty places on the pavement; and he surveyed the scene around him with eyes of two different colors—a bilious brown eye on the lookout for employment, and a bilious green eye in a similar predicament. In plainer terms, the stranger from Rosemary Lane was no ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... back into their seats, making many anxious inquiries as to whether any of them were hurt, and they drove rapidly away before a crowd had time to gather. The girls were breathless with laughter and excitement; it had all happened so suddenly they had not time to realize their awkward predicament before they were back into their places again. Lancy was the only one who did not laugh over their tumble, and his frequent apologies made them feel that he blamed himself for ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... would. The sooner we begin calling for help the better. I never expected to be in such a predicament as this, but it is wonderful how that young fellow worked out his plan of ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... was wretchedly uncomfortable. Marie's tragedy was his predicament. He disliked himself very cordially, loathing himself and his situation with the new-born humility of the lover. For Stewart was in love for the first time in his life. Marie knew it. She had not lived with him for months without knowing his every thought, every mood. She grew ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in a great state of excitement on account of the rain, and also because the dinner had been waiting for nearly an hour. That scamper in the rain, and the laughing and joking at our predicament, seemed to bring us closer together than anything else could have done. Mr. D'Arcy told Mrs. Titwing to take me to my room to change my dress for dinner, and he seemed quite disappointed when I ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... that Elliott began dimly to sense a predicament. Even then she didn't recognize it for an impasse. Such things didn't happen to Elliott Cameron. But she did wish that Quincy had selected another time for isolating her Uncle James's house. Not that she particularly desired to spend a year, ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... your fine gentleman ways of not sleeping along o' she, when she found the way she was in...." He laughed, a tiny, little old thread-like laugh, as out of the trough of the years there floated up to him Phoebe's predicament and his advice as to how to meet it—a thin little thread of laughter that spanned the years and connected that time of which he spoke with this present moment by the bed of death. The laugh died away and fell again into the abysses from which it had been evoked, and there only hung ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Our predicament was now clear to me. We had to weather the bight of land and islands into which we had drifted, and sea and wind worked directly on shore. The only way out was to drive through the water, to drive fast and hard, and this ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... I cared about;" and with respect to the old volume, the wonders of which had first beguiled me into common reading, I had so frequently pored over its pages, that I had almost got its contents by heart. I was therefore in danger of falling into the same predicament as Murtagh, becoming "frighted" from having nothing to do! Nay, I had not even his resources; I cared not for cards, even if I possessed them, and could find people disposed to play with them. However, I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Bill, quick-witted also, rushed to his assistance, and between them they hauled Pud back, though all three were on the ground and nearly over the edge before the two could stop the heavy Pud. A yell from the opposite shore told them that Mr. Waterman and Mr. Anderson had seen their predicament. Bob and Bill held on and slowly pulled Pud up to them. When all three at last arose, probably only a minute later, they were bathed in perspiration, as they had all been under ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... sheath, covering, capsule, receptacle, quiver, chest; event, happening, instance, circumstances, condition, affair, plight, predicament, dilemma, contingency. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... yourself to overtake them.' I slackened my pace; but next moment regretted having done so: my companion did not speak; and I had nothing in the world to say, and feared he might be in the same predicament. At length, however, he broke the pause by asking, with a certain quiet abruptness peculiar to himself, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... for half-past seven Christmas evening, but the great majority of them were on hand at four o'clock waiting for the doors to be opened. When they were opened, and the guests began to pass in, presenting their red tickets, a new predicament arose; for it was discovered that many of these tickets were of their own manufacture, the number of those which were passed in far exceeding the number of those which had been given out. But when the doctor looked over the crowds, and saw how eager they were to get in, and how good-natured ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... His predicament was indeed most serious when an idea occurred to him that altered his smile to a broad grin. The warriors were still some little distance away, advancing slowly, making, after the manner of their kind, a frightful din with their savage yells and the pounding ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in the air with a convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the knight to the ground beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had been the horrified spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to the assistance of their master, and succeeded in freeing him from his unpleasant predicament. Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing some water in his face he opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing spectacle of his monstrous enemy lying by his ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... been pouring on the new novel. Ballantyne, he says, finds fault with the subject, when what he really should have found fault with was the failing power of the author:—"James is, with many other kindly critics, perhaps in the predicament of an honest drunkard, when crop-sick the next morning, who does not ascribe the malady to the wine he has drunk, but to having tasted some particular dish at dinner which disagreed with his stomach.... I have lost, it is ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... did, every living man who had found himself by your side would have done, and most men in a far more dexterous manner. And, indeed, if instead of yourself, the merest stranger—the poorest creature in the parish, man, woman, or child, had been in your predicament, I think I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... they dare stray far from the camp for fear of being unable to find their way back. The foothills all looked so alike that if one unfamiliar with them should lose his way he would find himself in a serious predicament. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... that the water was too deep and for me to save his fish. This was an awful predicament for me. I knew the instant I grasped the leader that the big trout would break it or pull free. The same situation, with different kinds of fish, had presented itself many times on my numberless ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... we find ourselves in another predicament: this ridiculous little Bambou insists upon coming with us! No, he will take no denial, we must take him with us. This is out ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... the sole of his natty boot. "One would suppose he would feel very natural anxiety as to the predicament in which he has ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... ground in front of him for a weapon, but they saw only the uprooted gold, worthless to him now in his extremity. There was his pick, a handy weapon on occasion; but this was not such an occasion. The man realized his predicament. He was in a narrow hole that was seven feet deep. His head did not come to the surface of the ground. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... about a quarter of ten. Then he suddenly encountered Bert, who, in company with his lawyer, was on his way to a room in the town hall where the trial was to take place. Bert held his head erect, but his face was flushed with shame at the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself. When he saw Percy approaching he said to himself bitterly: "There is one who will rejoice ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... it that we were left in such a predicament—that of the inexperienced girl, or the chaperon's? What is a chaperon for? Mrs. Whitney has treated me shamefully, shamefully! Here I am all by myself, and I don't ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... gentleman whom his social acquaintances admire so sincerely. I believe he felt almost as badly as I did over the sad picture he had drawn of the proud old merchant yielding up his children's birthright. I felt grieved to the depths of my soul at Leonard Lewisohn's predicament, for I knew, as did all men connected with Wall Street or Copper, what a stalwart he was. He had the heart of an ox and the pluck of a lion, and his white-man squareness and sense of justice belonged to other periods than that of frenzied finance. No ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... in getting him safely home, and questioning him closely as to how he came to find himself in such a predicament; but all he answered was that he and Cuthbert had been about a good deal together, and that they had been mistaken for one another. As for Cuthbert, he was safe enough, but would remain in hiding for some few weeks. He was innocent of all complicity in the plot; but his carelessness had caused ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... voice seemed to suggest du Croisier's name in this predicament. He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the man's real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of exchange ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
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