"Prevarication" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Messiah, and his coming; and to suppose that the Supreme Being meant to describe and point out such a person as Jesus by such descriptions of the Messiah as are contained in the Old Testament, is certainly substantially to accuse him of the moat unjustifiable prevarication, and mockery of ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... any prevarication with an Indian; and the importance of complete frankness. He described the exact place where he had ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Oldfield, when they were shut in alone, "I'll have a straightforward statement, without any prevarication, or I give you over at once into custody. If you can't clear yourself, and I don't see how you possibly can, there's the jail before you, the only ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... not ask him a second time what he meant. He had made her realize the utter futility of prevarication. Instead, she forced herself to meet his look boldly, and grapple with him with all ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... said to them besides. This grand Point concerning the Austerity of Life, and mortifying the Flesh, being literally understood, and acknowledged by the Clergy to be such, as the Apostles have deliver'd them without Prevarication, it will not be difficult to make the Laity believe, not only mysterious Contradictions, but likewise the most palpable Absurdities, such as Transubstantiation; that the Pope is infallible, and has the ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Faith. One of those well-ordered accidents, which, from time to time, had brought the girl and the young borderer in private conversation, enabled him to effect his design with sufficient clearness. Faith heard him without betraying any of her ordinary waywardness, and answered with as little prevarication as the subject ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... on dead Caesar's behalf; but I differed from Antony so largely in result that the comparison is seriously disturbed. There was no more spring in my auditor than in a bag of sand. The honest fellow's double-breasted ignorance stood solidly in the way, rendering prevarication or quibble, or any form of subterfuge unnecessary on his part. He merely formed himself into a hollow square and casually glanced at the impossibility of those particular bullocks loafing on his paddock. If they came across the river again, he would hunt them back ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... a perfectly honest man, and hated shiftiness even worse than downright lying. The only time he gave me a thrashing was for prevarication. He had a plain, but not a dull mind, and loved poetry of a sublime cast, especially Milton. I can hear him even now repeat passages from the Comus, which was a special favourite. Elsewhere I have told how when he was young ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... not true; and this is not the place for prevarication. You wandered from your course. How did ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... assassination and the captivity of Sarai which would follow. Haunted with this fear, he told her to say that she was his sister—which was not a direct falsehood, but only so by implication. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning relationship, she might be called a sister; and Abram stooped to this prevarication under that terrible dread which, in the case of Peter, drove a true disciple of Christ to the brink of ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... no ballot box, forged no naturalization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, surrendered no principle, countenanced no demagogism. He called things by their right names; and what others styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement or hyperbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being undecided in his views, and never professed neutrality, or had any consort with those miserable men who boast how well they can walk on both sides of a dividing line ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... infinite spirit of the universe, paid Balaam a visit; and although he knows everything, past, present, and to come, he asked the prophet "What men are these with thee?" Balaam gave a straightforward reply, for he doubtless knew that prevarication and subterfuge were useless with God. Said he, "Balak the son of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out." The precision ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... the judge, to evade compliance with the law, to the non-fulfillment of any duty, and to live only to enjoy his rights; he will resort, in dealing with human authorities, to the use of the same methods of propitiation, adulation, prevarication, humiliation, and deception which dominated the same God and triumphed over ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... were, as regards the bookselling trade, they were, nevertheless, sometimes disregarded or infringed; some ventured to take more for a book than the sum allowed, and, by prevarication and secret contracts, eluded the vigilance of the laws.[75] Some were still bolder, and openly practised the art of a scribe and the profession of a bookseller, without knowledge or sanction of the university. This gave rise to much jealousy, and in the University of Oxford, in the year ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... say to explain it?" inquired Polly, with maiden's curiosity in learning to what extent of prevarication a deacon would go in order to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... 'Rene," gasped Penelope. And then she added, shamed out of her prevarication by Irene's haughty magnanimity, "I have. That ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be better acquainted with the particulars of this assertion, he turned up the page referred to, and there found, to his entire satisfaction, "Mr Justice Best said he had a great mind to commit the witness for prevarication." ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... saves prevarication and confusion. You've always been an idle dog, Roger, so I think 'a gentleman of no occupation' will be a sufficiently correct description. You are very well connected ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... attendant was dismissed, and his majesty remained alone with the prisoner. Fixing his eyes sternly upon the countenance of M. Pernon, Louis said, "If you reveal every circumstance relative to the death of Madame, I promise you full pardon. If you are guilty of the slightest concealment or prevarication, your life ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... to be answered, I had to collect my thoughts and admit, not without a little bashfulness, that my first account of my exploit had contained a slight prevarication. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... government! Who is at the Elysee and the Tuileries? Crime. Who is established at the Luxembourg? Baseness. Who at the Palais Bourbon? Imbecility. Who at the Palais d'Orsay? Corruption. Who at the Palais de Justice? Prevarication. And who are in the prisons, in the fortresses, in the dungeons, in the casemates, in the hulks, at Lambessa, at Cayenne, in exile? Law, honour, intelligence, liberty, and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... with me.' Bruce had now definitely lost his temper. 'I can stand anything except prevarication. Anything in the world, but prevarication, I can endure, with patience. But not that! As if you didn't know perfectly well there's only one letter ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... is a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my interlocutor ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... manifestation of contempt even in your expressive countenance, you will certainly be unable to preserve kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting words have ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... accomplishments of the prophet Elisha than his beneficiaries. He raises the dead, surpasses our Standard Oil Company in the production of that valuable article of commerce, cures one man of leprosy and cruelly fastens the disease on his servant for being guilty of a pardonable prevarication. Only one of the women mentioned has a name. One is the widow of a prophet, whom Elisha helps to pay off all her debts; for another he intercedes with the Lord to give her a son; another, is the little captive ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... declared with all the emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... the masters they were favorites, there was never anything low, disgraceful, or ungentlemanly in their escapades, and they could be trusted never to attempt to screen themselves from the consequences by prevarication, much less by lying. If the masters heard that a party of youngsters had been seen far out of bounds, they were pretty sure that the Scudamores were among them; a farmer came in from a distance to complain that his favorite tree had been stripped of its apples—for ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... him. He may be an outcast from their society: but, after all, his honesty and candour will wear better and longer than their sham and shoddy. His "Nay, nay," and "Yea, yea," will outlast and outshine their double-tongued prevarication and flattery. Better a boar—if you know him to be such—than a wolf in sheep's clothing. A rough friend is more valuable than ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... pretty woman in the Taverne Royale? What about her? At whose bidding had she followed him? One or the other of them had not told the truth, and he was inclined to believe that the prevarication had its source in the pomegranate lips of the Calabrian. To give the old barb one more twist, to learn if its venomous point still held and hurt; nothing would have afforded the diva more delight. Courtlandt glared at the window ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... afterwards pretended that the name Sappho was not applied to Lady Mary, but to women in general; and acted with a degree of mean prevarication which greatly added to the amount of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... compelled to appear and testify, but because apparently there is, in the minds of many, a peculiar virtue in "the rules of evidence" used by lawyers. Witnesses examined under these rules are supposed to receive from them a strong stimulus in veracity and explicitness, while they at once expose prevarication or concealment. One newspaper eulogist went so far the other day as to pronounce the rules the product of the wisdom of all ages, beginning with the Phoenicians and coming down to our own time. There is, however, ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... you consider lying a necessity of your position; you lie as you would drink water. You lie to the people, lie to the Parliament, lie to the Crown, lie to your adversaries, lie to your friends. I know—some of you do not personally indulge in the general prevarication, but you tolerate it in your colleagues. Many of you shrink from assuming this on entering the seat of government, as, upon entering a mine, we put on a dirty dress to protect our own and, on coming ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... to have prevaricated in making peace between Abraham and Sarah, which is not so surprising; for while one Rabbi teaches that prevarication is under certain circumstances allowable, another asserts it absolutely as a duty; for it is written (1 Sam. xvi. 2), "And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... it that in their future practice it must become perfectly familiar. The nice distinction of simulation and dissimulation depends but on the trick of a syllable; palliation and extenuation are universally allowable in self-defence; prevarication inevitably follows, and falsehood "is but ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... he looked me straight in the eye. It takes practice to lie convincingly. And the Space Academy doesn't list the Art of Prevarication among its curricula. ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... denial they had proofs. Prevarication they were familiar with, and never so happy as when they saw a poor, perplexed, bewildered victim vainly struggling in the toils, driven triumphantly from subterfuge to subterfuge, and at last, with nerveless arms and ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... offspring than to curse them before their birth with this hereditary taint, which is, perhaps, one of the hardest of all evils to correct. It may take the form of exaggerated speech, of courteous or cowardly prevarication, or of downright falsehood, but, in whatever guise, it is a curse to the owner thereof as well as to his family. If you are so unfortunate as to have any symptom of it in your blood, watch your boy or girl from infancy, and try, by all the arts ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... want to know," he shouted. "Don't let me have any further prevarication. Where did the man, or Wallypug, or whatever you call ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... poisons the atmosphere that others must inhale, and disputes their rights to breathe a pure, untainted air. The free use of tobacco by young people dulls the acuteness of the moral senses, often leads to prevarication and deceit in the indulgence, and is apt to draw one downward to bad associates. It is not the speed but the direction that tells on the future character and destiny ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... The prevarication had been uttered, and Grace felt as if she had committed a crime and punishment was at hand. Tears of distress came to her eyes; the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... such evasion and prevarication it was out of the question to let the matter drop. On the 22nd of April the Government was forced to publish a second White Paper,[79] which contained a large number of highly important documents omitted from the first. But ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... 454; untruth &c 546; guile; lying &c. v. misrepresentation; mendacity, perjury, false swearing; forgery, invention, fabrication; subreption[obs3]; covin[obs3]. perversion of truth, suppression of truth; suppressio veri[Lat]; perversion, distortion, false coloring; exaggeration &c 549; prevarication, equivocation, shuffling, fencing, evasion, fraud; suggestio falsi &c (lie) 546[Lat]; mystification &c (concealment) 528; simulation &c (imitation) 19; dissimulation, dissembling; deceit; blague[obs3]. sham; pretense, pretending, malingering. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... we ought to hold firmly and assert, especially we bishops who preside in the Church, that we may prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood; let no one corrupt the truth by a perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one in its entirety. The Church, also, is one which is spread abroad far and wide into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays of the sun, but one light, and many branches of a tree, but one strength based ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... any delightful girl but you!" he broke in with a voice that, as he afterwards learned, struck Mrs. Rooth's ears in the garden with affright. "I simply hold you, under pain of being convicted of the grossest prevarication, to the strict sense of what you said ten ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... "This is prevarication, sir," cried the lieutenant; "but I am not to be put off like this. Come, sir, I received information about a very valuable contraband cargo that has been run from Dunquerque. It has been landed here successfully during the past night ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... which, in my opinion, he is himself the most pleased) the fidelity and sincerity of his judgments equal their depth and weight; he is a philosopher who teaches us virtue. Let us see whether we cannot defend him from this reproach of falsity and prevarication. All that I can imagine could give occasion to this censure is the great and shining lustre of the Roman names which we have in our minds; it does not seem likely to us that Demosthenes could rival the glory of a consul, proconsul, and proctor of that great Republic; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... said Mr. Romaine, "if you call it prevarication. The order in question emanated from the Count himself. He does ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that Plunket has two Orange informers to produce as witnesses, who were parties to the conspiracy. There was no prevarication or difficulty with ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... as unworthy or incapable of giving a successor to the throne; but she still wished to save appearances: she would, if possible, make the world believe that the decree of Providence alone denied to her a mother's honors. She had the cruel courage to conceal the truth by prevarication. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the throne. The Church of England's glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory: Occasional conformists base, I damn'd their moderation, And thought the church in danger was By such prevarication, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... language which, whatever might be the error involved in it, could not fail to impress a grave sense of responsibility upon every truthful and honourable man who might be called upon, to give his assent to them. 'The prevarication,' said Waterland, 'of subscribing to forms which men believe not according to the true and proper sense of words, and the known intent of imposers and compilers, and the subtleties invented to defend or palliate such gross insincerity, will be little else than disguised ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... my mind the savage and exulting eye of Thornton, when it read the damning record of Glanville's guilt; and in spite of my horror at the crime of my former friend, I trembled for his safety: nor was I satisfied with myself at my prevarication as a witness. It is true, that I had told the truth, but I had concealed all the truth; and my heart swelled proudly and bitterly against the miniature which I still concealed ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... prevarication instantly. Almost the first thing Dick had done after they arrived was to make a full statement of all the circumstances in the commissioner's office. However, she was not her husband. There was no harm ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly repented. "Besides, they didn't ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... would be if one could foresee the result of every action! Hester Alden's slight prevarication to Robert Vail, when she told him that her father had been Miss Debby's brother, carried with it a long series of misunderstandings. Had Robert Vail known the facts—but he ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... door. He had had too much experience in such matters to attempt any prevarication. The three men crossed the room quickly and Bellamy followed in the rear. He heard a cry of disappointment from the foremost as he opened the door. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth; there is no telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor; but even so, a little charitable prevarication would be far ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for Him?" severely asks the old prophet of those who thought to cheat for their own set, as though it were in the cause of religion; and no godly soul can accept as a grateful tribute the least prevarication, however disinterested or devoted in its behalf. Indeed, no smart antithesis has been so hurtful as the overstated distinction between black lies and white. They are of different species, but have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... now, no more prevarication! Your wife told Mrs. Alving the whole story before quitting ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... since his father's death, having wasted his whole fortune in riot and feasting, has nothing left but this slave, whom he at last resolved to part with; and she was to be sold in his name, I sent for him; and, without mentioning any thing of his father's prevarication, or rather treachery to your majesty, I in the civilest manner said to him, 'Noor ad Deen, the merchants, I perceive, have put your slave up at four thousand pieces of gold; and I question not, but, in emulation of each other, they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... indicate some detail capable of improvement and pertaining to the better working of the law. But when it came to repealing the law altogether, not one of the distinguished men here quoted was in favour of it. The principle of State regulation, against the adoption of which in America every art of prevarication has been employed, that principle is fully accepted by the English medical profession to-day. Was it fair for the editor of a leading journal to misstate so obvious a fact? Can one imagine that the leading representatives of medical science in England, the leading teachers and professors ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... noted for its constant prevarication. Whatever it says about negroes is scarcely worth noticing, for be it in their favor or not it is almost certainly untrue. My "delighted father" was not within three hundred miles of Atlanta when I reached that place. I did not appear on the streets in uniform for several days after my arrival, ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... you could have seen him this morning," murmured Penelope, thoroughly enjoying the unexpected situation. Her conscience was not troubled by the prevarication. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... I stood by, proud all the time to show Mr. Montenero my calmness and self-possession; while Fowler, who was under salutary terror of my father, repeated, without much prevarication, all the material parts of her confession, and gave up to him Lord Mowbray's letters. Astonishment and horror at the discovery of such villany were Mr. Montenero's first feelings—he looked at Lord Mowbray's writing ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... your mother like that," interposed Mr. Furze; "you know what you heard, or might have heard, last Sunday morning, that prevarication is very much like a lie; why don't you ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... not! Baa! Baa! Thou art a liar, old chap. Thou liest in thy throat, thou silvery ram. Thou knowest her not! Thou paralytic pack of prevarication! This buxom smiling lady, with her attractive, plump figure, thou knowest her not? Thou thrice-bleached hypocrite! And all the time you share all she has, year in, year out, as far as you are able to. ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... seriously perplexed and startled him; and it had left his mind far too disturbed to allow him the possession of his ordinary resources. He hesitated; and his answer, when he succeeded in making it, began with a prevarication. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... gone down to The Haws that Christmastide, but feared that his failure to do so might seem strange. The needful prevarication cost him so many pangs that he came very near to confessing the truth; he probably would have done so, had not his mother been ailing, and, it seemed to him, little able to bear the shock of such a disclosure. So the honest deception went on. Will was supposed to be ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... see each other—ha! I've got it now—did you see each other after I had left the town? No prevarication! You own to telling Helena that you knew her by her likeness to her mother. You must have seen ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... at first—as women of that stamp invariably do—she tried prevarication, but on being threatened that she should at once be given into custody if she did not tell the whole truth, she described the way in which you had run after the carriage, till as she said you were ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... truth, mother; listen to me." And in a voice that trembled with emotion, he rapidly related all he had learned by his visit to the baron, softening the truth as much as he could without concealing it. But prevarication was useless. Madame Ferailleur's indignation and disgust were none the less evident. "That woman is a shameless creature," she said, coldly, when her son's ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... became our queen, The Church of England's glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory; Occasional conformists base, I blamed their moderation, And thought the Church in danger was, By such prevarication. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... making a confession of repentance of any kind. If on such conditions a temporary return could be granted to me, I do not deny that it would be a lift to me. If, however, it is not possible, and if a definite negative answer is given, let me know at once and without any prevarication; then I shall know where I am. Then I shall begin a different life. Then I shall get money how and where I can; I shall borrow and steal, if necessary, in order to travel. The beautiful parts of Italy are closed to me unless I am amnestied. So I shall go to Spain, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... hesitate very much about making it public, for fear of obtaining some unworthy charge against me instead of gratitude. But, as it is, when the performance will follow the promise this very day, I feel entirely confident not only of avoiding any shame for prevarication but of surpassing all mankind in good repute. [-4-] You all see that I am so situated that I could rule you perpetually. All the revolutionists either have been disciplined and been made to halt or have had pity shown them and so have come to their senses. My helpers have been ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... "Thank you, my lord, I am going to take boiled chicken," his lordship sharply retorted, "That, sir, is no answer to my question; I ask you again if you will take venison, and I will trouble you to say yes or no, without further prevarication." ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... the truth," said Fanny, raising her voice to a somewhat insolent tone. "The club does not permit the slightest vestige of prevarication. Is that not so?" ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... This prevarication, which was equal to a refusal, offended the Bretaks, as it was an infringement of the Sakai custom of sharing like brothers all they possessed. They insisted upon their right and at last obtained a handful ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... all proudly. "I eloped with no man. That was simply a little prevarication to worry you, my uncle, after the manner in which you have worried me. I was on my way to Dresden, it is true, but only to hide with my old governess. This gentleman jumped into my compartment as the train ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... a madcap young, who drove Through clouds of dust at postal pace, By the decree of Mighty Jove, Inheritor of all his race. Friends of Liudmila and Ruslan,(1) Let me present ye to the man, Who without more prevarication The hero is of my narration! Oneguine, O my gentle readers, Was born beside the Neva, where It may be ye were born, or there Have shone as one of fashion's leaders. I also wandered there of old, But cannot ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... about the rigor of his monastic life is perfectly true, but it was no reason why in 1512 he should counsel men to become monks. He had not yet come to the full knowledge of the wrong principles underlying that mode of life. To adduce such inaccuracies as evidence of prevarication is itself an insincere act and puts the claimant by ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... for all that the others have done. You are only responsible in the immediate future for your share of duty, in doing the wisest and best thing which may present itself. And if you can induce Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother's wife, by telling her the truth without prevarication, you will have done something to atone for the past evil which, you cannot undo. I am not preaching to you, my dear friend. Pray look upon me as a man and not as a priest. Indeed, I would rather ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... to his own interests and honour, did he refrain from testifying in favour of her through whom he had recovered his episcopal city? Wherefore did he not assert his right and do his duty as metropolitan and censure and suspend his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was guilty of prevarication in the administration of justice? Why did not the illustrious clerics, whom King Charles had appointed deputies at the Council of Bale, undertake to bring the cause of the Maid before the Council? And finally, why did not the priests, the ecclesiastics of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... his dozing prevarication. It made her forget that he was no longer a sleep-loving schoolboy. She went quietly to his bedside and laid a hand on his forehead. His ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... had, in fact, confessed that Cobham had mentioned the plot to him, though nothing would induce him to admit that he had asked Cobham for a sum of money, or consented to take any active part. Still this was enough; and in the face of his unfortunate prevarication about the interview with Renzi, the jury could hardly act otherwise. For a summing up of both sides of the vexed question what shadow of truth there was in the general accusation, the reader may be recommended to ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... of very rough customers, he wishes himself in the moon, and to the moon appropriately he goes. Mediaevalism can hardly be called anything but a rather enfeebling dream. If it were a real effort to live in the Middle Ages, your life would be one perpetual prevarication. You would be drawn by the steam engine to lecture against steam; you would send eloquent invectives against printing to the press, and you would be subsisting meanwhile on the interest of investments which the Middle Ages would have condemned as usury. If you were like some of the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... a Scottish farmer. "You'll affirm that when this happened you were going home to a meal. Let us be quite certain on this point, because it is a very important one. Be good enough to tell me, sir, with as little prevarication as possible, what meal it was ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... but I have most particular business with a gentleman in this neighborhood; and having travelled all the way from Paris, expressly to have it settled, I beg that I may be excused the pain of prevarication. The circumstance of my having served under the great Duke of Malborough against my own King and countrymen is sufficiently explained when I acquaint you, that I was then a French Protestant refugee; but now, without changing my religion, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... not prevarication only a mean lie? Oh, Terence, I am so deeply grieved! I know not ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... preaching thy word; I have sinned in my fasting, by repining when a penurious fortune hath kept me low; and I have sinned even in that fulness, when I have been at thy table, by a negligent examination, by a wilful prevarication, in receiving that heavenly food and physic. But as I know, O my gracious God, that for all those sins committed since, yet thou wilt consider me, as I was in thy purpose when thou wrotest my name in the book ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... betrayed himself and is expelled. When will Bernstorff's turn come? That it will come, indeed must come, is self-evident. The artist sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white man can, in a wholehearted spurning ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... many have said that is good, you pretend that nobody has said; and all that, once again, for the glory of God. For such direction of the intention justifies all that. Such direction of the intention will not suffice to justify a prevarication, but it is more than sufficient to justify calumny, provided only you are convinced that you are serving ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... say never. On many occasions I have resorted to prevarication; but on great occasions I have always told the truth. I regard this as a great occasion; and I won't be intimidated into breaking my promise. I solemnly declare that I did not know until this evening that Mrs. Juno was married. She will bear me out when I say that from that moment ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... ubiquitous throughout the range of physical phenomena of spiritism, and false pretence, prevarication and fishing for clues are ubiquitous in the mental manifestations of mediums. If it be not everywhere fraud simulating reality, one is tempted to say, then the reality (if any reality there be) has the bad luck of being fated everywhere to simulate fraud. The suggestion of humbug ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... this prevarication," said Rupert; "your crimes are discovered. A policeman is stationed at the corner of the court. Though only a private detective myself, I will take the responsibility of telling you that ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... not a moment to trifle. Tell me, without prevarication,—were you, or were you not in the Park, walking with a gentleman, on the morning you left for Mrs. Brahan's? ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... and a clergyman too! she thought herself secure and implored his protection:—He coldly answered—"O, yes, Madam"—But with all the base and black ingratitude of a sullen and unfeeling heart, insensible to past kindness, he drew back his horse, and with the jesuitical prevarication, natural to such a character, determined not to interfere, while he neglected to console her with an implied offer of assistance.——Thus deserted, she again abandoned herself to despair, and began to prepare herself for that death, which she now looked upon as inevitable.——A ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... truth—when desirable; spice with prevarication—when necessary; and never part with the whole truth at one time, since waste is sinful," was one of the maxims by which the Chancellor guided his own actions, though he did not give it away for the benefit of others; and he had made the most ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... upon his wanderings in real earnest. He pulled street-cars, delivery wagons, drays and ash-carts. He was sold to unsuspecting farmers, who, when his evil traits cropped out, swapped him unceremoniously and with ingenious prevarication by the roadside. In the natural course of events he ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... ago business was transacted mostly through fairs and ships, and by pedlers. Your merchant of that time was a peripatetic rogue who reduced prevarication to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... being made of glass," she said brusquely; "you don't know anything about me, Mr. Morton. You have simply discovered that I have not a leaning toward prevarication. That's all your fine words amount to. Since I must keep up a reputation for telling the truth, I'm obliged to say that you don't remind me of Adam ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... against me and cause me go forth from my house and from the hand of my husband and made thee practise thus against a man,[FN117] a true believer, and slay him. This is no place wherein leasing availeth nor may prevarication be therein.' ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... he saw no reason for being joyful over the lie he had told. He was getting deeper and deeper into the mire of deceit and prevarication, and there seemed to ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Unfortunately, prevarication has this drawback: that, if ever the truth comes to light, the prevaricator is in just the same case as if he had lied to the most shameless extent, and for a man to point out that the words he used contained no absolute ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lying indeed! Why, you hate prevarication. As for murder, your friends know you too well to mention the subject in your hearing, except in immediate connection with capital punishment. You are, of course, willing to make some allowance for Cellini's time and place—the first half of the ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... be here noted that at the conclusion of the evening each guest murmurs in a simpering, half-persuasive yet consciously deprecatory manner—as if apologizing for the necessity of so bald a prevarication—"Good-night! We have had such a good time! So good of you to ask us!" This epilogue never changes. Its phrase is cast and set. The words may vary slightly, but the tone, emphasis and substance are inviolable. Yet, disregarding the ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... out to be the mere phantom of a disordered imagination, instead of a logical deduction of truth, if the facts which have been urged in support of this charge, are the mere creatures of misrepresentation, prevarication and falsehood; this alone will settle the controversy, and fix the imputation, upon its unprincipled authors. The loop on which this absurd tale is made to hang, is the frail and feeble certificate ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... sake who wrote it; because she thought so well of him, and desired still to think so well, that she was sorry at any faults which rendered him less worthy of her good opinion. The cold civility of his letter had this effect—her clear, her acute judgment felt it a kind of prevarication to promise to write and then write nothing that was hoped for. But, enthralled by the magic of her passion, she shortly found excuses for the man she loved, at the expense of her ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... released to his guardian, and Stemmermann offered the prognosis that Johann might well develop into a typical pathological swindler. He came of a family of five brothers and sisters, one of whom was incarcerated for a year on account of stealing. One sister was noted for her tendency to prevarication. Several of them were remarkably unstable, at least early in life. All of them are said to have learned very unwillingly in school. One brother of the father was ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... success. I should hesitate to say of General White that he 'used' others, but his prudent selection of subordinates ensured that all units in his Brigade were well commanded. He was more than a good judge of character: hollow prevarication was useless with him, and bluff—though, when he liked, he was himself a master of it—a dangerous policy. Among the shrewd qualities of this man there were the abilities to summarize rapidly whatever he had been told, and to remember most of everything he saw. His power of observation ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... whom my darling expects to marry?" he asked, and Edith was glad he put the question in this form, as without prevarication she ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... Legrand, hissing out the syllables from between his clenched teeth, "you infernal black villain! speak, I tell you! answer me this instant, without prevarication! which—which is ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... questioned, women, as a rule, are much more ready to "swear their testimony through" than men. They are so accustomed to act upon inference that, finding themselves unable to substantiate their assertion by any sufficient reason, they become irritated, "show fight," and seek refuge in prevarication. Had they not, during their entire lives, been accustomed to mental short-cuts, they would be spared the humiliation of seeing their ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... followed by Mirabeau's Secret Correspondence with the Court. His prevarication and double-dealing as a popular leader in the pay of the king had long been known. At least twenty persons were in the secret. One man, leaving Paris hurriedly, left one paper, the most important of all, lying ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... replied, plainly picking words cautiously and measuring them. The able and acute interpreter dealt them out rapidly, and his rendering gave token that the Filipinos have already had lessons in diplomacy—even in the Spanish style of polite prevarication—or, if that may be a shade too strong, let us say elusive reservation—the use of language that is more shady than silence, the framing of phrases that may be interpreted so as not to close but to continue discussion and leave wide fields for controversy. The General did not refer to his counselors, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... she realized at this moment, if not before, that the coroner and jury had ample excuse for mistrusting one who had been so unmistakably caught in a prevarication; possibly her regret carried her far enough to wish she had not disdained all legal advice from those who had so earnestly offered it. But though she showed alike her shame and her disheartenment, she did not give ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... own. I shall describe it all fully as a preparation for an official account, which must be drawn up when Elliott gets back. Billy Dawson used to say that there were three degrees of comparison—a prevarication, a lie, and an official account. We at least cannot exaggerate our success, for it would be impossible to add ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would involve the quotation of passages so uninteresting to the general reader, that we shall ask him to be content with our assurance that these disgraceful attempts to injure a literary opponent and former friend assume severally the form of direct misstatement, suppression of the truth, prevarication, and cunning perversion; the manner and motive throughout being very shabby.[F] The purpose of all these attacks upon Mr. Dyce is not only to wound and disparage him, but to secure for the writer a reputation for superior sagacity and antiquarian learning; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... stepped into another apartment to hear his story. He accused Holbein of the violence, but suppressed the provocation; whereat Henry broke into a towering Tudor rage, and, after reproaching the nobleman for his prevarication, said, "You have to do with me, Sir. I tell you, that of seven peasants I could make seven earls like you; but of seven earls I could not make one Holbein. Do not molest him, if you value your head." And as second-hand heads, though plentiful about those days, were found to be of no value, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... plasters," he said, huskily; "big ones as you've got. I—I want to pay for some vessel property!" He reflected that the few hundreds that the loss of the ancient Dobson called for lifted this statement out of the cheap level of prevarication. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... would be foolish enough to imagine that the vision represented Edna? But the worst of it was that the Fairy could not explain her real intention just then without landing herself in fresh difficulties. So she sought refuge in prevarication. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... old marshal, even in a world of peace; in short, they are ambulating humbugs, and the would-be respectables that wear 'em are a huge fraternity of "false pretenders." Don't trust 'em, reader; they are sure to do you! there's deceit in their straps, prevarication in their trousers, and connivance in their distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. We would have sworn by him; in fact, we did swear by him, for ten long years ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... isn't that the same thing? I wonder, Ralph that you can give way to such mean-spirited prevarication. What? 'It's not prevarication!' Don't say that now; you know it is. Ah! you may laugh, my boy, but you have promised to go with me and Jack to Africa, ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... of merchants approaching caused Don Quixote to halt in the middle of the road, calling upon them to stand until they acknowledged Dulcinea del Toboso to be the peerless beauty of the world. This challenge was met with prevarication, which enraged Don Quixote, and clapping spurs to Rozinante he bore down upon the company with his ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... resumed. 'Now, sir, understand, before you speak a word, that I can see through any number of infernal lies. I see that you're prepared for prevarication. By George! it shall come out of you, if I get it by main force. The Duke compelled me to give you that appointment in my Company. Now, sir, did you, or did you not, go to him and deliberately state to him that you believed the affairs of the Company to be in a bad condition—infamously ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with the quickness of conscious guilt; and whilst a color stained her face, which of itself might have betrayed her prevarication, she asked, "Who?" ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... admittedly hoped that these persons would not conceal themselves behind the wings of epigram or intangible prevarication, I was far from being prepared for the candour with which they greeted me, and although by long usage I am reasonably unconcerned at the proximity of any of our own recognised genii, it is not ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... window?" I asked, as I extricated the four-year-old witness from Harriet's chiffon and violets. I doubted if young Susan had attained the years of prevarication ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dark. Say nothing of your crucial experiment just now. Irene—dear girl—has been a good sister to me, and has told many good round lies for my sake. But she will explain to God. I cannot ask you, Lord Ancester, to tell stories on my behalf. My petition is only for a modest prevarication—the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain a justifiable end. Consider the position analogous to that of one of Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs, you know—only what a truthful person ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... so disgusted did Frobisher become at all this delay and prevarication that he went back to the Su-chen, selected some twenty of the strongest members of his crew, and himself took them up to the magazine with a number of hand-wagons which he had collected, under much voluble protest, en route. Then, having found the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... into her face as she spoke, and gradually began to perceive the working of her mind. He was so true to himself that he did not understand that there should be with her even that violet-coloured tinge of prevarication which women assume as an additional charm. Could she really have thought that he was attending to his own possible future interests when he warned her as to the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Hannay; for Colonel Hannay at that time was only a major. I do not believe either of them was properly entitled to the name of Colonel Saib. I am ashamed, my Lords, to be obliged to remark upon this prevarication. Their own endeavors to get rid of their own written acts by contradictory evidence and false constructions sufficiently clear these women of the crimes of which they were accused; and I may now ask the prisoner at your bar how he dares to produce Captain Gordon here, how he dares thus to insult ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... intended to say no more than this. But the remembrance of Gloody's mysterious prevarication, and of the uneasiness which I had undoubtedly felt when I thought of it afterwards, led me (I cannot pretend to say how) into associating Cristel's agitation with something which this man might have said to her. ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself, protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese—I speak of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... the Queen should come to Chicago she would live here," and I comforted myself by saying, "You shall have your hour of wonder and romance, even at the expense of a prevarication." ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... her what I thought of the old auntie, though I could not repress a smile at her frankness, which pleased me more than prevarication would ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... went straight to the point, she always did; as a hunter goes at a hedge, so her ladyship without prevarication went at the matter she had in hand—"I have been talking to Marjorie about ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... quick at retort, he has never used the weapon in a way to wound the feelings of an adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness, or involve him in self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle, and straightforward, though ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Benny, an unconvincing prevarication is of less practical value than—" he began, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a young lady who came ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... lying that is very irritating and very hard to meet is that known as prevarication. This consists in telling a part of a truth, or even a whole truth, in such a way as to convey a false impression, and is most common at about twelve or thirteen years. When a child resorts to prevarication he is already old enough to know the difference between ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... while to live.—Every morning, seventy Paris newspapers and as many local gazettes in the large towns of the provinces expose, with supporting documents, details and figures, not merely their former crimes, but, again, their actual corruption, their sudden opulence founded on prevarication and rapine, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long. I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboy's death. Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery? No! Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled? Do you think ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... detest pitiful prevarication, sir," cried the Vicar warmly. "The knife was dropped by whoever it was stripped the wall of my golden drops last night. There, take your knife, sir, I have altered my intentions. I did mean ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... one, on your body, if you reject the terms I've offered. Accept them, Don Valerian Miranda; or before to-morrow's sun reaches meridian the birds will be feeding upon your flesh, and the wild beasts quarrelling over your bones. Answer me, and without prevarication. I demand plain speech, yes ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Nothing went wrong just now except little Tom, who seemed to be justifying Richard's fears of the consequence of exciting his father's anger. At home, he shrank and hesitated at the simplest question if put by his father suddenly; and the appearance of cowardice and prevarication displeasing Dr. May further, rendered his tone louder, and frightened Tom the more, giving his manner an air of sullen reserve that was most unpleasant. At school it was much the same—he kept aloof from Norman, and threw himself more into the opposite ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and instead of punishment to plead merit. I am not bound to find order and consistency in guilt: it is the reign of disorder. The order of the proceeding, as far as I am able to trace such a scene of prevarication, direct fraud, falsehood, and falsification of the public accounts, was this. From bribes he knew he could never abstain; and his then precarious situation made him the more rapacious. He knew that a few of his former ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... how could we resist any error?—how could we correct those who err? If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace, what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made any attempt against the public laws, you could ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... Pollard that I would suppress that portion of the truth which connected her name with this fatal affair, I did not of course mean that I would resort to any falsehood or even prevarication. I merely relied upon the improbability of my being questioned close enough to necessitate my being obliged to reveal the astounding facts which made this matter a destructive one for the Pollards. And I was right in my calculations. Neither socially, nor at the formal ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green |
