"Foregone conclusion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... education and business experience to admit of their being entrusted with the charge of public affairs; and where all the offices were necessarily in the hands of a small number of persons, it was a foregone conclusion that irregularities should creep in, and that cliquishness and favouritism should prevail to a greater or less extent. When Lieutenant-Governor Hunter arrived, in 1799, he found that certain objectionable practices ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... [Footnote 1: Stewart Edward White, the author and big game hunter, has so entered into the spirit of archery, that he has become an expert shot with the bow after a year's practice. The use of fire-arms no longer appeals to him because it is a foregone conclusion just what will happen when he aims at an animal. He was considered by Col. Roosevelt to be the best shot that ever entered the African game ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... it was a foregone conclusion that if the suicide theory was exploded, these men would be ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... leave. The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads when the case was brought in. Impossible, they said. Throat, windpipe, jugular, all but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful. As it was such a foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods and done things which made them, even in their professional capacities, shudder. And ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... Liberals 274 seats, the Unionists 273, the Nationalists 82, and the Laborites 41. The Asquith government found itself still in power, but absolutely dependent upon the co-operation of the Labor and Nationalist groups. Upon the great issues involved there was no very clear pronouncement, but it was a foregone conclusion that the tax proposals would be enacted, that some reconstitution of the House of Lords would be undertaken, and that free trade would not yet be ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... who knew Jackson and his political managers expected them to accept the anomalous electoral results of 1825 as expressing the real will of the nation, and it was a foregone conclusion not only that the General would again be a candidate, but that the campaign of 1828 would at once begin. The defeated Senator remained in Washington long enough to present himself at the White House on Inauguration Day and felicitate his successful ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... attempts to bridge by the aid of the gallows. It is needless here to enter into details of this matter; of the second rising which preceded it; of the dead blank which followed it; of the heartless and disgusting cruelty which made the prisoners death a foregone conclusion at his mock trial; or of the deeds worse than butchery which characterized the last scene. Still, before quitting the revolting subject, there is one point that deserves remark, as it seems to illustrate the feeling entertained ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... the consul to take them into his confidence. After much delay he entered the senate house; but a stubborn silence was his only answer to the admonitions and entreaties of the fathers that he would desist from his purpose.[483] Flaccus knew the futility of arguing with people who had adopted a foregone conclusion; he would not even deign to accept a graceful retreat from an impossible position. The matter must be dropped; but to withdraw it at the exhortation of the senate, although complimentary to his peers and ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... to be accepted as a foregone conclusion by Euphemia and Pomona that the latter, with her husband and child, should accompany us; but of this I could not, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... who were said to have been wounded by Smith's pistol shots, but the sheriff did not succeed in making any arrests. In the May following some of the accused appeared for trial. A struck jury was obtained, but, in the existing state of public feeling, an acquittal was a foregone conclusion. The guards at the jail would identify no one, and Daniels, the pamphlet writer, and another leading witness for the prosecution gave ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... favor of any candidate to whom a special injustice has been done, and in the case of a popular favorite like Jackson, this might have been foreseen to be irresistible. His election four years later was almost a foregone conclusion, but, as if to make it wholly sure, there came up the rumor of a "corrupt bargain" between the successful candidate and Mr. Clay, whose forces had indeed joined with those of Mr. Adams to make a majority. For General Jackson there could be nothing more fortunate. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... the matter and after they had quarrelled for a long time went to call the villagers to arbitrate between them. But he took care to promise the headman and leading villagers a bribe of five rupees if they decided the case in his favour: so the result was a foregone conclusion and the arbitrators told Bhagrai to take ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... David Lester's turn. It was a foregone conclusion that he couldn't take the scooter up, alone. Palefaced, he rode double. Ramos was careful this time. But on the downward curve before coming to rest, the change of direction made Lester grab Ramos' arm at a critical instant. The scooter wavered, and they landed hard, ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... watch out for the main chance ... that Mr. Bryan will be a candidate for the Senate from Nebraska is almost a foregone conclusion. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and WAS a-going. You walk, as it were, round yourself in the revelation. Ordinary philosophy is like a hound hunting his own tail. The more he hunts the farther he has to go, and his nose never catches up with his heels, because it is forever ahead of them. So the present is already a foregone conclusion, and I am ever too late to understand it. But at the moment of recovery from anaesthesis, just then, BEFORE STARTING ON LIFE, I catch, so to speak, a glimpse of my heels, a glimpse of the eternal process just in the act of starting. The truth is that we travel on a journey that was accomplished ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... established. He heard, indeed, and he determined to hear, only one side of the case: indeed, at the time he wrote, there was not much to be heard on the other; and on the evidence he accepted the verdict was a foregone conclusion. It is impossible altogether to acquit Claverhouse of the charges laid to his account, nor will any attempt here be made to do so; but even the worst that can be proved against him, when considered impartially with the circumstances of his ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... am relating it;" and giving the results at the last trial, he says: "This Court of Oyer and Terminer, happy for the country, sat no more." Its proceedings were arbitrary, harsh, and rash. The ordinary forms of caution and fairness were disregarded. The Judges made no concealment of a foregone conclusion against the Prisoners at the Bar. No Counsel was allowed them. The proceedings were summary; and execution followed close upon conviction. While it was destroying the lives of men and women, of respectable position in the community, of unblemished and eminent Christian standing, heads of families, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... be sent for," Tallente went on. "That, of course, is a foregone conclusion. Nora, I wish you'd make him see that it's his duty to form a Government. There isn't any reason why he should pass it on to me. I can lead in the Commons if he wants me to, so far as the debates are concerned. We are altering the procedure, as I dare say ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to divy?" demanded Mr. Redmond, looking as though he had regarded such a disposition of the treasure as a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... a close in the Lakoumistan division. The candidate of the Young Turkish Party was known to be three or four hundred votes ahead, and he was already drafting his address, returning thanks to the electors. His victory had been almost a foregone conclusion, for he had set in motion all the approved electioneering machinery of the West. He had even employed motorcars. Few of his supporters had gone to the poll in these vehicles, but, thanks to the intelligent driving ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... these. She was strong and active, but she lacked the skill of her friend Harriet. The latter's playing in basketball and tennis was a revelation to the guardians who had never known a high school girl who could play such an even and skilful game. It was a foregone conclusion that Harriet was in a fair way to earn more beads by her accomplishments in the games of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... lay, in making a somewhat similar claim. My opinions may yet be shown to be mistaken too, but at present I cannot conceive how. When Speke discovered Victoria Nyanza in 1858, he at once concluded that therein lay the sources of the Nile. His work after that was simply following a foregone conclusion, and as soon as he and Grant looked towards the Victoria Nyanza, they turned their backs on the Nile fountains; so every step of their splendid achievement of following the river down took them further and further away from the Caput Nili. When ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the discovery of Blair's murderer, and thereby the freeing of his sister's fiance. These accomplished he would consider the case of his own restored identity, if it were not by that time a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... to any action, to the will of the people. The Convention covertly and treacherously abused its trust. In secret session it authorized measures on the strength of which the Governor of the State proceeded to put it into hostile relations with the Union. When the foregone conclusion was at last farcically submitted to the people, a perjured Senator of the National Congress notified such of them as would not ratify the will of the Convention, that they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... There was such a case the other day. There was such another case not long ago. There are such cases frequently. It is the commonest first exclamation on being seized. Now, what is this but a false arguing of the question, announcing a foregone conclusion, expressly leading to the crime, and inseparably arising out of the Punishment of Death? "I took his life. I give up mine to pay for it. Life for life; blood for blood. I have done the crime. I am ready with ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... Tsing-tau was a foregone conclusion. As a naval base and a seat of menace to the commerce of hostile nations, Tsing-tau occupied an unexcelled situation, almost equidistant from Nagasaki and Shanghai, in virtually the same latitude as Tokyo, San Francisco, and Gibraltar. Its defenses were second in strength only ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... be "a mere matter of marching." The final expulsion of England from the American continent he regarded as a matter of course. Cabinet ministers at Washington and rabid politicians looked upon the forcible annexation of Canada as a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... was a foregone conclusion. If Lord Hartington consented to form an Administration, Gladstone would not take a place in it. If he was not to be Prime Minister, he must remain outside. Having put this point beyond the reach of doubt, Lord Hartington returned next day to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Granville, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... little to excite the Stock Exchange for some weeks: nothing was active and the slightest flurry was hailed as an event. Every one knew that the calm would be disturbed at some near day, but nobody looked for a sensation in Lumber and Fuel. It was a foregone conclusion that a slump was coming, and there was scarcely any trading in the stock. When Elon Gardner, acting for Montgomery Brewster; took ten thousand shares at 108 3/4 there was a mighty gasp on the Exchange, then a rubbing of eyes, then ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... thereupon took place in Rita's mind would be a barren task, since its result was a foregone conclusion. Daring ambition rather than any merely abstract virtue was the keynote of her character. She had rebuffed the advances of Sir Lucien as she had rebuffed others, primarily because her aim in life was set higher ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... issue from the situation. The conference was duly held, and the constitutional question was, with great display of now unnecessary learning, solemnly debated; but the managers for the two Houses met only to register a foregone conclusion. The word "abdicated" was restored; the vacancy of the throne was voted by sixty-two votes to forty-seven; and it was immediately proposed and carried without a division that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be declared king ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... of thought went on in France during the middle of the eighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by historians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone conclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction and to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises, that the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical, and destructive. Each of these two currents was positive in the highest ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... haughty and aristocratic: Walter Scott, who is an aristocrat in principle, is popular in his writings, and is (as it were) equally servile to nature and to opinion. The genius of Sir Walter is essentially imitative, or "denotes a foregone conclusion:" that of Lord Byron is self-dependent; or at least requires no aid, is governed by no law, but the impulses of its own will. We confess, however much we may admire independence of feeling and erectness of spirit in general or practical questions, yet in works of genius we prefer him who ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... foregone conclusion since the afternoon, but we all behaved as though we had not been anticipating this result for hours, as though any other figures but nine hundred and seventy-six would have meant something entirely different. "Nine ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Hill and Ewell had had their bout the day before, it was a foregone conclusion that Longstreet's time to measure strength was near at hand, and the men braced themselves accordingly for ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... expressed their sentiments truly in the declaration that 'they would not remain in the Union, were a blank sheet of paper presented, and they permitted to write their own terms.' This declaration merely characterized the foregone conclusion. It was the evidence of a previous determination, merely withheld for a season, in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... thousand down and onward. He was silent as an image, but his men roared like a river in flood and he made no effort to check them. He was like a man who has made up his mind to victory in any event. He seemed to be speculating three or four moves ahead of this one, and to hold this one such a foregone conclusion in his mind that it had ceased to interest. He was admirable, there was no doubt of that. In his own way, like an old boar sniffing up the wind for trouble, he could command a ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... that the child was in a bad case. Halt was there, and Dr. Gazell; they were consulting gloomily. The father, haggard with his first bereavement, seemed to have accepted the second as a foregone conclusion; he sat with his face in his hands, beside the little fellow's bed. The boy called for his mother at intervals. A nurse hung about weeping. It was a dismal scene; there was not a spark of hope, or energy, or fight in the whole room. I cried out immoderately that it was enough to ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... of national wealth, such as Cromwell and Caesar planned for, he was incapable of. His idea of statesmanship was that his kingdom was a cask, into which he should insert a spigot and draw. This was government of an ideal order, Philip being judge. The divine right of kings was a foregone conclusion, antagonism to which was heresy. Here let us not blame Philip; for this was the temper of his era, and to have anticipated in him larger views than those of his contemporaries is not just. To this notion was his whole nature ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... 27th Nov., 1870, he writes:—"Speke's great mistake was the pursuit of a foregone conclusion. When he discovered the Victoria N'yanza he at once leaped to the conclusion that therein lay the sources; but subsequently, as soon as he and Grant looked to the N'yanza, they turned their backs on the Nile fountains. Had they doubted the correctness of the conclusion, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... that a conflict should arise between Agnosticism and Theology; or rather, I ought to say, between Agnosticism and Ecclesiasticism. For Theology, the science, is one thing; and Ecclesiasticism, the championship of a foregone conclusion[83] as to the truth of a particular form of Theology, is another. With scientific Theology, Agnosticism has no quarrel. On the contrary, the Agnostic, knowing too well the influence of prejudice and idiosyncrasy, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... second. A rigid enquiry was instituted, but the principal witnesses were not forthcoming, and the murderer—for as such he was commonly regarded—escaped the punishment which everybody considered he had justly merited. The severance of his connection with the army was a foregone conclusion, and he was formally expelled from his club. He was socially sent to Coventry, and his native land soon became for him a most undesirable place of abode. Then he crossed the Atlantic and made his way to Upper Canada, where, after a while, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... break the news to Helen Dunbar? Where would he find the courage to tell the unfriendly stockholders the exact truth? It was a foregone conclusion that they would consider him a fakir ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... wasn't that. I didn't want to kill him. But he forced me. As I had to go after these two men it was a foregone conclusion about Wright. It was premeditated. I ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... said Charlie, "I see that it is a foregone conclusion with you,—you are half ruined now—the more you have, the more you want. We shall be obliged to look after him more closely," addressing the last ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... horse dastardly deed delicious refreshments departed this life devouring element doing as well as can be expected dull thud elegantly gowned entertained lavishly fatal noose few well-chosen words first number on the program floral offering foregone conclusion fought like a tiger gala attire goes without saying hard-earned coin head over heels hotly contested hurled into eternity incontrovertible fact large and enthusiastic audience last sad rites last but not least led ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the Cardinal's usual tactics; for one of his principles was never to drive people to extremes by sending them away hopeless. What good, indeed, would it do to tell this one that the condemnation of his book was a foregone conclusion, and that his only prudent course would be to disavow it? Only a savage like Boccanera breathed anger upon fiery souls and plunged them into rebellion. "You must hope, hope!" repeated Sanguinetti with a smile, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Anglo-Saxon to give the law to conquered peoples, and ofttimes this law is harsh. But in the case of Imber the law for once seemed inadequate and weak. In the mathematical nature of things, equity did not reside in the punishment to be accorded him. The punishment was a foregone conclusion, there could be no doubt of that; and though it was capital, Imber had but one life, while the tale against him was one ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... human and passionate love. To him, at present, Juliette represented the perfect embodiment of his most idealistic dreams. She stood in his mind so far above him that if she proved unattainable, he would scarce have suffered. It was such a foregone conclusion. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... president had said, he had heard from Father Chavigny that he had told her the Sunday before that it was very unlikely she would escape death, and indeed, so far as one could judge by reports in the town, it was a foregone conclusion. When he said so, at first she had appeared stunned, and said with an air of great terror, "Father, must I die?" And when he tried to speak words of consolation, she had risen and shaken her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sizes too large, or a fur cap in September. He would have hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but for the apparently unexpected revelation that she couldn't play. He had received the news of a clue to his long-lost son without emotion, but lately he seemed to look upon it as a foregone conclusion, and one that necessarily solved the question of companionship for Flip. "In course, when you've got your own flesh and blood with ye, ye can't go foolin' around with strangers." These autumnal blossoms of affection, I fear, came too late for any effect upon Flip, precociously matured by her father's ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... (as a matter of fact they gave him a somewhat grotesque appearance, remotely suggestive of a Hindoo idol; but Miss Quincey had not noticed that); his bumpy forehead was terrible with intelligence; his eyes were cold and comprehensive; the smile of a foregone conclusion ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... moonlight, struggling through the swaying branches of a tree outside the window, drifted doubtfully into the room, and made a parody of that fleecy veil which erewhile had floated about the lissome form of the lovely Capulet. That he loved her, and must tell her that he loved her, was a foregone conclusion; but how should he contrive to see Juliet again? No one knew him in Verona; he had carefully preserved his incognito; even Mercutio regarded him as simply a young gentleman from Denmark, taking his ease in a foreign city. Presented, by Mercutio, ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... send messages to their families, in fact, they wanted everything under the sun, but to no avail. Finally, on the 14th of June the army sailed away, filled with hope and courage, on their mission that resulted in victory for the American arms; but that was a foregone conclusion, while we less fortunate ones were left behind to pray for the success that we knew ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... of the 1916 Convention at St. Louis approached, it was a foregone conclusion that there would be no serious contender against the President for the nomination and that he would win the prize by a practically unanimous vote. While at times the friends of Mr. Bryan and Mr. Clark were hopeful that the President might withdraw from the contest, after the Democrats at the Convention ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... There were still remaining many other Lieges in the interior. The Germans might force their way further in; then we would see how many of them ever succeeded in getting out. The entry into Brussels did not disquiet him. An unprotected city! . . . Its surrender was a foregone conclusion. Now the Belgians would be better able to defend Antwerp. Neither did the advance of the Germans toward the French frontier alarm him at all. In vain his sister-in-law, with malicious brevity, mentioned in the dining-room the progress of the invasion, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a serener air of contented industry than it wore that morning; but in spite of all this smooth outside it was a foregone conclusion with most of the men that Slocum, with Shackford behind him, would never submit to the new scale of wages. There were a few who had protested against these resolutions and still disapproved of them, but were forced to go with the Association, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was in those days writing those vividly realistic, indeed photographic stories which fixed his place among American men of letters. He had already written 'Their Wedding Journey' and 'A Chance Acquaintance' when 'A Foregone Conclusion' appeared. For the reason that his own work was so different, and perhaps because of his fondness for the author, Clemens always greatly admired the books of Howells. Howells's exact observation and his gift for human ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to the minds of the spectators he had no power to sway their emotions. It was different with Senator Green. A thunderous volume of applause went up the moment he appeared on the stage, booted and spurred and heavily swathed in American flags. His triumph was a foregone conclusion. The scene that ensued when Senator Green concluded his argument by leaping right over the table and pouring himself out a glass of ice-water on the way, ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... remarking that the suit was a mistake in the first place, and that it was a foregone conclusion the government would be defeated. Also, he offered $5,000 to any one who could ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... South, and indeed with the people of the whole country, divided between three parties, the election of a Republican candidate was a foregone conclusion. Following this came secession, with all the terrible disasters of a war in which the South could not have hoped to succeed if reason and common sense had ruled. If the South had fought for her constitutional rights in the Union and under ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... where Grijalva had found the natives friendly, Cortes found that the Yucatans had resolved to oppose him, and were presently assembled in great numbers. The result of the fighting, however, was naturally a foregone conclusion, partly on account of "the astonishment and terror excited by the destructive effect" of the European firearms, and the "monstrous apparition" of men on horseback. Such quadrupeds they had never seen before, and they concluded that the rider with his horse formed one unaccountable ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... sudden and heavy, and drove our columns back upon the main body. The assault had been resolute, as the casualties testify, "one regiment alone losing sixty-four men in as many seconds" (Wheaton); but the darkness, and uncertainty of our officers with regard to the position, made its failure almost a foregone conclusion. This was about daylight. "The force displayed by the enemy was sufficient to show that the intrenchments could not be carried except ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Dramaturge keeps his plot to himself precisely in order that the interest may be maintained up to the fall of the curtain. It may be that its disclosure would upset the conditions of some vast experiment which he is working out. Where would be the interest of a race if its result were a foregone conclusion? Where the passion of a battle if its issue were foreknown? What if we should prove to be somnambulists treading some dizzy edge between two abysses, and able to reach the goal only on condition that we are unconscious of the ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... reply, which he seemed to consider a foregone conclusion, he limped down the Kohl Markt towards the steps leading to the river, which in winter ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... present time is essentially different in this respect from any other. Much, therefore, which is now very commonly considered to be the result of experience, will be recognized in the next, or in some succeeding generation, as no such result at all, but as a foregone conclusion, based on some prevalent belief or fashion ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... so sure of thet." Joel Quimber's tone implied obstinate conviction that his modestly expressed doubt was a foregone conclusion. "Champ's a devil of a feller when it comes to puttin' through anything. He's a chip off the old block. He'll put through more 'n his mother can git out if he gits in any thicker with them big guns—race hosses, steam yachts an' ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... smashing of their fists. But the end of the fight was a foregone conclusion. Jeter had a bruised jaw. Eyer's nose was bleeding and one eye was closed when the reception committee finally came to close quarters, smothered them by sheer weight of numbers, and made them prisoners. ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... duties." From these last words the Emperor appeared to have forgot that when there are duties to be fulfilled prayer alone will not suffice. His speech at the opening of the legislative session, 7th March, 1860, showed that either irresistible illusion or a foregone conclusion of complicity guided his Italian policy. He accused the Catholics of becoming excited without grounds, and of ingratitude towards him. The logic of events, so plain to all besides, was a dead letter to the imperial mind, blinded as it was by the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... contributor to the best American papers and magazines, and was for a number of years editor of the Atlantic Monthly; an excellent journalist, poet, and critic, it is yet as a novelist—witty, graceful, and acute—that he is best known; "A Chance Acquaintance," "A Foregone Conclusion," "A Modern Instance," "An Indian Summer" are among his more popular ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... revealed in him.... Christ is in every man.... All may call upon God as a reconciled Father. Human beings are redeemed, not in consequence of any act they have done, of any faith they have exercised; their faith is to be grounded on a foregone conclusion; their acts are to be the fruits of a state ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... upon that point; but to my mind the fact of his asking you to run away with him argues a foregone conclusion. A man rarely comes to that until he has established a right to make the request. All I know is, that I saw you on your knees by your lover, and that you were candid enough to acknowledge your affection for him. This knowledge is quite sufficient to influence ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... who still called upon him, he leapt down the companion and strode along the gangway to the waist-deck to take his stand at the Basha's side. Asad watched his approach with angry misgivings; it was with him a foregone conclusion that things being as they were Sakr-el-Bahr would be ranged against him to obtain complete control of these mutineers and to cull the fullest advantage from the situation. Softly and slowly he unsheathed his scimitar, and Sakr-el-Bahr seeing this out of the ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... of a primeval revelation, or some reflection of the Jewish religion, had reached the uttermost ends of the world. This was a dangerous proceeding—dangerous because superficial, dangerous because undertaken with a foregone conclusion; and very soon the same arguments that had been used on one side in order to prove that all religious truth had been derived from the Old Testament were turned against Christian scholars and Christian missionaries, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... a foregone conclusion," agreed Nort. "But what do you think of him, anyhow?" he asked Bud ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... in this contest was to be a handsome telescope repeating rifle, and the rivalry for it was keen. The battle would be a stern one, and it was a foregone conclusion that the best ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... verdict was a foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able to save ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... be asked, what these conditions are to be. And that is not to be answered in a breath. That they can have but one result, emancipation, is a foregone conclusion; but the mode of reaching it is not so easily determined. A cotton-loaded ship took fire at sea. It would have been easy to pump in water enough to drown the fire. But the captain said, "No," for that would swell the bales ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... self-sacrificing effort for the benefit of the vilest and roughest as the highest of privileges. With such a force at command, we dare to say that the accomplishment of this stupendous undertaking is a foregone conclusion, if the material assistance which the Army ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... earlier report on elementary education. By far the larger part of it—the whole, indeed, except a "General Conclusion" of some forty pages—is a reasoned account of the actual state of matters in France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. It is not exactly judicial; for the conclusion—perhaps the foregone conclusion—obviously colours every page. But it is an excellent example (as, indeed, is all its author's non-popular writing) of clear and orderly exposition—never arranged ad captandum, but also never "dry." Indeed there certainly are some tastes, and there ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... that they exercise the most rigorous impartiality. His noble speech on this occasion has been preserved for us by Tacitus. "Let them judge," he said, "without regard either for the imperial family or for the family of Piso." The admonition was useless, for his condemnation was a foregone conclusion, despite the absurdity of the charges. The enemies of Tiberius wished to force matters to the uttermost limit in the hope that the famous letters would have to be produced; and they acted with such frenzied hatred and excited public opinion to such a pitch that Piso killed himself ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Janina. A Wallachian, named Nicholas Janco, took the opportunity to denounce his own wife, who was on the point of becoming a mother, as guilty of adultery, and handed her also over to the pacha. These unfortunate women were brought before Ali to undergo a trial of which a sentence of death was the foregone conclusion. They were then confined in a dungeon, where they spent two days of misery. The third night, the executioners appeared to conduct them to the lake where they were to perish. Euphrosyne, too exhausted to endure to the end, expired by the way, and when she was flung with the rest into the dark ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of his position, and Carey realised it. It was more than probable that Lady Emberdale would take Coningsby's view of the matter. If the man really attracted her it was almost a foregone conclusion. He knew Gwen's mother ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... Government. France had already put forth her hand to control Mexico, and although in England the Union had warm friends who still hoped for its success, the general impression was that its defeat might be considered a foregone conclusion. Financial ruin also seemed inevitable. The Northern army was costing the nation two million dollars a day. The Hon. Mr. Dawes, in a speech in Congress, had declared it "impossible for the United States to meet this state of things sixty days longer." "An ignominious peace," he ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... May Millar's case her failure was such a foregone conclusion, was so remedial by reason of her youth, and so qualified by the share she had taken in the Greek play, that a point was stretched for her, and she was privately put out of pain at once. Latterly May had not entertained the slightest expectation of any other ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... an impartial judge. Dr. Brandes has so profound an admiration for the man who dares to rebel that he fails to do justice to the motives of society in protecting itself against him. It is not to be denied that the iconoclast may be in the right and society in the wrong; but it is by no means a foregone conclusion that such is the case. If society did not, with the fierce instinct of self-preservation, guard its traditional morality against such assailants as Byron and Shelley, civilization would suffer. The conservative bias of the Philistine (though ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... has experience. As a youth, Caius heartily endorsed his father's views, and felt superior to all who were more lax. He had been born into that religious school which teaches that a man should think for himself on every question, provided that he arrives at a foregone conclusion. Caius, at the age of eighteen, had already done much reasoning on certain subjects, and proved his work by observing that his conclusions tallied with set models. As a result, he was, if not a reasonable being, a reasoning and a ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... prominent each in its sphere, and all were intimately bound together by the one passion of clannish allegiance to the family past. She knew that Rowan's attentions had continued so long and had been so marked, that her grandmother had accepted marriage between them as a foregone conclusion, and in letters had disseminated these prophecies through the family connection. Other letters had even come back to Isabel, containing evidence only too plain that Rowan had been discussed and accepted in domestic councils. Against all inward protests of delicacy, ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... Montcornet. Montcornet would be the embodied ideal of bravery, the type of the cavalry officer, of courage a la Murat. Yes, yes; at the mere sight of that statue all the Emperor's victories were to seem a foregone conclusion. And then such workmanship! The pencil was accommodating and answered to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... already exerted by the local managers, who so well understood the popularity of Mr. Gaston and of the strong hold he had upon the people. It seems now that the Democratic managers accepted or anticipated failure as a foregone conclusion, and no great fight was made; otherwise they would probably have won the election, as Mr. Rice was elected by only the small plurality of 5,306 votes. This is very significant, taken in connection with the fact that General Grant carried Massachusetts ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the other in a dispassionate, and if truth be told, somewhat disappointed tone. A death, though always exciting, was not after all so very uncommon, and when a man "'listed for a soldier," most of the older village folk looked upon his destruction as a foregone conclusion. "Killed, poor young chap! His aunt Susan ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... is always a foregone conclusion," said that young woman, saucily; "and now, at last, I have an aim in life! I ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... it is a foregone conclusion. More things than years go to the formation of character, Miss O'Shaughnessy, and if you will allow me to say so, you seem to me very ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... It's one of those situations in which a disenchantment seems the foregone conclusion," ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... gone to all this trouble," spoke up the fair and spirited Mollie, "only for that silly letter my friend in Harmony wrote me, saying that it was a foregone conclusion Harmony would sweep the earth this year because their team had been terribly strengthened. In fact she gave me to understand that everything, even to the crepe, had been ordered for poor little new beginner Chester. It kept me awake most all last night; and I felt so much excited that I ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... classes, the gentlemen, whose interests were on the side of privilege and irresponsible mastery. Here as in the French case it was the habits of thought of the common man, not of the class of gentlemen, that made the obsolescence of the dynastic State a foregone conclusion and an easy matter—as one speaks of easy achievement in respect of matters of that magnitude. It is now some two and a half centuries since this shift in the national point of view overtook the English-speaking community. Perhaps it would ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... night. Oh! d—mn 'em, replies the author, they HAVE found it out, have they!" That Fielding should be scornfully indifferent to the judgment of the pit on work forced from him by overwhelming necessities, and which his own judgment condemned, is a foregone conclusion; but that he suffered keenly in having to produce imperfect work, and was jealously anxious to clear his reputation, as a writer, in the matter of this particular comedy, is no less apparent from the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... one important witness, the mysterious woman who was in the apartment a few minutes before the shooting and who was in possession of a letter in which Underwood declared his intention of shooting himself, doubt was no longer possible. Acquittal was a foregone conclusion. So pleased was the judge at Annie's find that he did not insist on knowing the woman's name. He saw that Annie preferred, for some reason, not to give it—even to her legal adviser—and he let her ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... such divine right nor such gentle-mindedness They chose to compel no man's conscience Thirty-three per cent. interest was paid (per month) Thirty thousand masses should be said for his soul This obstinate little republic Those who argue against a foregone conclusion Thought that all was too little for him Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London Three or four hundred petty sovereigns (of Germany) Tis pity he is not an Englishman To negotiate with Government in England was to bribe To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a 'foregone conclusion,'" she said, "it is a 'foregone conclusion' that if I HAD been here, I'd have picked the blackberries, and so I'd have had the first chance ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... foregone conclusion," she wrote; "and although I cannot think such a change will be for her permanent welfare, it is her present WISH, and who knows, indeed, if the change will be permanent? I have not allowed the legal question to interfere ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... injury has been done. Few words of Scripture are more plain; and yet few have been more grievously misunderstood and wrested. At the entrance of the inspired explanation, the expositor, bent on the defence of his own foregone conclusion, takes his stand, like a pointsman on a railway, and by one jerk turns the whole train into the wrong line. "The field is the world," said the Lord: "The field is the Church," say the interpreters. It is wearisome ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... had gone over the matter insistently enough in the last few days, since the combination had been unwillingly given into his hands, but always with the foregone conclusion. The devil, as a rule, doesn't actively try to tempt us to evil: he simply confuses us, so that we are kept from using our reason. But this time he had no field for action. To use secret information against Cater, that could never have been had ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... disputing that Tatyana Grigoryevna Zarubkin was one of the most looked-up-to of the ladies. She invariably played the most important part at all the regimental affairs—the amateur theatricals, the social evenings, the afternoon teas. If the captain's wife was not to be present, it was a foregone conclusion that the affair ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... not trouble himself much in regard to Lincoln's second election, for he saw that it was a foregone conclusion; but after Andrew Johnson's treachery in 1866, he felt there was a need of unusual exertion. When the November elections arrived, he told his classes: "Next Tuesday I shall have to serve my country and there will be no recitations." When Tuesday came we found ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... "oracles" or "discourses," and much controversy has arisen over this term, it being contended that [Greek: logia] could not rightly be extended so as to include any records of the life of Christ: "It is impossible upon any but arbitrary grounds, and from a foregone conclusion, to maintain that a work commencing with a detailed history of the birth and infancy of Jesus, his genealogy, and the preaching of John the Baptist, and concluding with an equally minute history of his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... stairs," said Jack, as they continued the study of the one-story plan, "is at least an interesting one. It seems to be accepted as a foregone conclusion that modern dwelling houses, even in the country, where the cost of the land actually covered by the house is of no consequence, must be two stories at least above the basement; but I doubt whether this principle in the evolution of domestic ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... of Wellington's defeat would reach London to-morrow, as it had already reached Paris and Brussels. The panic in the money market was a foregone conclusion: the quick rise in prices when the truth became known was equally certain. It only meant forestalling the arrival of Wellington's despatches in London by four and twenty hours, and one million would make fifty ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the men leaping from the wagon which was really a barricade, flaming pistols aimed at the police, etc. The rest was quotations from their writings and speeches made years before the Haymarket meeting was ever dreamed of. The verdict was a foregone conclusion: death for all but Oscar Neebe and for him 15 ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... decided before time was. Surely, if this life have any bearing on another, we are running a race, the issue of which is undecided until death; and ours is a real struggle, not merely the acting out of a foregone conclusion, not the dramatic representation of a past event. What would you think of a modern Greek praying zealously that Mohamed II. should not have taken Constantinople? Or of a Roman of to-day besieging heaven ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... independence was from the first a foregone conclusion to all who impartially studied the geography of this country and the social progress of its inhabitants. The West, with its growing millions vigorously working out the problem of free labor, and of Republicanism, will inevitably control the Mississippi ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Olcott, the President Founder of Theosophy, in 1907, Mrs. Besant became his successor. So far as the Indian vote was concerned, this was a foregone conclusion; since her avowed sympathy with Hinduism in all its forms had gained for her a strong ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... honest pleasure I got out of the Rube's happiness, there was reason for me to congratulate myself. He was a transformed man, so absolutely renewed, so wild with joy, that on the strength of it, I decided the pennant for Worcester was a foregone conclusion, and, sure of the money promised me by the directors, Milly and I began to make plans for the cottage ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... publishing unlicensed news books and pamphlets of news' was put forth in 1680. Vigorous action against recalcitrants followed, and with such pliant tools as those perjured wretches, Scroggs and Jeffreys, for judge and prosecutor, convictions and the 'extremest punishment of the law' became a foregone conclusion. Doubtless there were many vile scribblers who deserved to have the severest penalties inflicted upon them, but no discrimination was used, and good and bad alike experienced the vengeance of 'divine right.' The aim of the abandoned monarch ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... neutralized by frequent references to the woman who she feared might become her rival. One-half of what she feared, she was sure had been accomplished: that is, Mary's half. She knew in her heart that the young queen would certainly grow fond of John. That was a foregone conclusion. No woman could be with him and escape that fate, thought Dorothy. Her hope as to the other half-John's part-rested solely upon her faith in John, which was really great, and her confidence in her own charms and in her own power to hold him, which in truth, and with good reason, ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... the joke. She seemed to wish the count to think that his love for Fernanda was a foregone conclusion. In spite of the kind smile on her face, there were certain strange inflexions in her voice that were only noticeable to one ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... promote their welfare. From natural causes the slavery question will in each case soon virtually settle itself, and before the Territory is prepared for admission as a State into the Union this decision, one way or the other, will have been a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile the settlement of the new Territory will proceed without serious interruption, and its progress and prosperity will not be endangered or retarded by ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... indeed a foregone conclusion, and Joan had known it from the first. The question was—could she go too? Would it be right to leave the old lady, depressed and suffering, all those hours—just for her own pleasure, even though it meant ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... infantry, they did good service with them; fifteen or twenty minutes after the first onslaught the enemy was writhing under the withering attention of his own abandoned ordnance. But the odds were still tremendous, and the weight of numbers made the ultimate outcome of the battle seem a foregone conclusion. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... on the course of the struggle, but in the roots—still far from lifeless—whence they sprang. For it is not so much the upshot of the first phases of the campaign as the deep-lying causes which rendered them a foregone conclusion that force themselves on our consideration. Those causes are still operative, and unless they be speedily uprooted will continue to ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... parties, and the Populist and Progressive parties when they existed, have stood for equal suffrage and unequivocally endorsed it in their platforms. The appointment of vice-chairwomen of the political State Committees is a foregone conclusion. During the memorable campaign of 1914, Mrs. Steele, wife of the late Chief Justice Robert W. Steele, successfully filled this place in the Democratic party during a time fraught with difficulties, as the then Congressional Union opened ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Mayor passes my window," said the Writer, "he has promised to look out as far as his dignity will permit and nod to me. That he also intends to nod to our old friend Lal is a foregone conclusion, for without that recognition upon his part I am sure the ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... or the fisherman out of a smack, might at the eleventh hour spring upon you a protection good for his discharge. Not so the smuggler. There was in his case no room for the unexpected. No form of protection could save him from the consequences of his trade. Once caught, his fate was a foregone conclusion, for he carried with him evidence enough to make him a pressed man twenty times over. Hence the gangsman and the naval officer loved the smuggler and lost no opportunity ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... they should fire the stuff too soon, or lest some stray spark from a man's pipe or an overturned lantern should do the work. Every imaginable fear presented itself, because, having no active part in the fighting, I had nothing to distract me from self-criticism. It became almost a foregone conclusion after a while that the night's work was destined to be spoiled entirely by some oversight or stupidity ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... only things a New-Englander was ever locked out of were the jails. It is quite true that our Republic is the heir of the English Commonwealth; but as we trace events backward to their causes, we shall find it true also, that what made our Revolution a foregone conclusion was that act of the General Court, passed in May, 1647, which established the system of common schools. "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers in Church and Commonwealth, the Lord ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... foregone conclusion.—But I should really like to know who is to assist you with your ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... save her life if she thought the Squire was going to suffer. Now she wants him to put his hand into his pocket for a considerable amount; for the child cannot go to my brother without suitable clothes—that is a foregone conclusion. But, dear me! all women are selfish when it comes to mere pleasure, and Nora is no better than the rest. For my part, I admire dear Terence's downright method of asking for so-and-so, and getting it. Nora is deceitful. I am ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... than commonly annoyed by the pretensions and aggressive epistles of his Imperial Majesty's consul he sent for me,—thinking, like all Orientals, that, being English, my sympathy for him, and my hatred of the French, were jointly a foregone conclusion. When I would have assured him that I was utterly powerless to help him, he cut me short with a wise whisper to "consult Mr. Thomas George Knox"; and when I protested that that gentleman was too honorable to engage ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... through the window at the darkness. Jerry had the pictures and story and there seemed to be nothing else to do except to cover the hearing that would follow. The results were a foregone conclusion. Trawler skipper admits he ran ship ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... upheld her, though Jason hadn't liked it at all. If he hadn't exactly opposed her course, he had tried to dissuade her from it. But she had persisted, and as the case was simple and quite clear her freedom was a foregone conclusion, though there were, of course, the usual ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler |
