"Quandary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the elephant itself, having recovered its feet, it stood for some seconds flapping its huge ears, and apparently in a kind of quandary—as if taken aback by the unexpected accident that had befallen it. Not for long, however, did it continue in this tranquil attitude. The arrow still sticking in its trunk reminded it of its purposes of vengeance. Once more angrily elevating its tail, and sounding its shrill ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... lost in thought on the gallery long after De Guy had conducted his mistress to the dinner-table. The mulatto was in a quandary,—a worse quandary than the congressional hero of Kentucky has described in any of his thousand relations of hair-breadth escapes. His mistress was fairly committed to her new destiny, and ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... mass with the tail of her gown about her head, instead of a veil; but now, forsooth, she has got her fine farthingales and jewels, and holds up her head as if we did not know her.' If God preserves me in my seven or five senses, or as many as they be, I shall never bring myself into such a quandary. As for your part, spouse, you may go to your governments and islands, and be as proud as a peacock; but as for my daughter and me, by the life of my father! we will not stir one step from the village; for, the wife that deserves a good name, stays at home as if she were lame; and the maid must ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Magistrate hesitated, and a frown showed his annoyance. "To tell you the truth, Captain Vyell, you put me in a quandary. I do not like to refuse you—" Here ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... you bet that La G. is not in a kind of quandary just now? Gods! what a pathetic love-scene it will make if ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... tell in a few words the outcome of this fine feat? Cornwallis had been drawn so far from his base of supplies, and had burned so much of his war-material, that he found himself in an ugly quandary. On his return march Greene became the pursuer, harassing him at every step. When Guilford Court-House was reached again Greene felt strong enough to fight, and though Cornwallis held the field at the end of the battle he was left in such a sorry ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... seats in that organization had never been sold. And also, by considerable effort, he had succeeded in securing Cowperwood, Sr., a place as a clerk in a bank. For the latter, since the day of his resignation from the Third National had been in a deep, sad quandary as to what further to do with his life. His son's disgrace! The horror of his trial and incarceration. Since the day of Frank's indictment and more so, since his sentence and commitment to the Eastern Penitentiary, he was as one who walked in a dream. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... that the romance is all it looks. We should be in a sweet quandary if anything happened to our sheet-anchor here. Just remember, in any danger, save Amanda first, then she will save us. But if she is lost, all is lost,' replied Lavinia, darkly, for she always took tragical views of life ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, imagined a most intelligent way of escaping ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... this Volksraad commenced negotiations with the Cape Government with a view to getting their independence formally recognised. The Governor at the Cape was again in the old quandary. While he personally desired to put an end to troubles from within and without by establishing a strong government over the whole country, he was crippled by the Ministry at home, which was consistent in maintaining its policy of inconsistency, and tried to maintain its hold on the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... cordial, but she rose as if to go. Ellis was in a quandary. If she went through the hall, the chances were at least even that she would see Delamere. He did not care a rap for Delamere,—if he chose to make a public exhibition of himself, it was his own affair; but to see him would surely spoil Miss Pemberton's evening, and, in her frame of ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Quagmire marcxejo. Quail (bird) koturno. Quail tremi. Quaint stranga. Quake tremi—egi. Qualification eco, kvaliteco. Qualify kvalitigi, ecigi. Quality eco, kvalito. Qualm konscidubo. Quandary embaraso. Quantity kvanto. Quarrel malpaco. Quarrel malpaci. Quarry sxtonejo. Quarter (1/4) kvarono. Quarter (district) kvartalo. Quarterly trimonata. Quartern kvarono, kvaronujo. Quartet kvarteto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Here was quandary. I looked at Bell, but God forgive me, it was not with the old trustfulness. He was on the top shelf but one, just in line with the eyes, with gilt front winking in the firelight. I had set him thus conspicuous with intention, because of his calfskin binding, ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... days A.O. had been in a quandary, for her mother's last letter had announced a danger which had never entered her thoughts as being imminent. "Jimmy Woods will be in Washington soon. He is going up with his uncle, who has some business at the patent office. I have given him a note to ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... story helps me out of the most heart-aching quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this—I've got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never have seen my ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... quiet ease, An' never wish'd to marry, O! But when I saw my Peggy's face, I felt a sad quandary, O! Though wild as ony Athol deer, She has trepann'd me fairly, O! Her cherry cheeks an' e'en sae clear Torment me late an' early, O! O, love, love, love! Love is like a dizziness, It winna let a poor body Gang ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... fair to put all one's Imperial relations, to say nothing of the Court officials, the Lord High Chamberlain, the Keepers of the Pedigree, the Diamond Sticks in Waiting, the Grooms of the Bedchamber, and the Valets Extraordinary—it was not fair to put their poor brains into such a quandary of contradiction and perplexity. And who shall tell the divine wrath of that august figure, obscurely visible in the recesses of ancestral homes, upon whose brow had descended the diadem of Roman Emperors, the crown of Christ's Vicar in things terrestrial, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... mustaches stand upright in the rain, laughed as if he thought it a very great joke; but the rest of the men looked doubtful. I knew they were unwilling to turn their backs on any of our number, yet afraid to force an issue, for Ranjoor Singh had them in a quandary. I thought ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... Government was in a quandary with its mob of unemployed baker unionists, till the voice of the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... smoke again? Last night I had been in a sad quandary of spirits, in what they call the evening; but a pipe and some generous Port, and King Lear (being alone), had its effects as a remonstrance. I went to bed pot-valiant. By the way, may not the Ogles of Somersetshire be ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... a quandary. It was evident that the dog was starving and in a very weak condition. Its coat was lacerated all over, probably from the bites of rats. That stump of a tail kept sending S O S against my mess tin. Every tap went straight to our hearts. We would ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... a quandary. He hated the bigotry and narrow-mindedness which forbade the study of any subject but the time-honored Talmud. He himself had been as anxious as was Mendel to strive after other knowledge. On the other hand, he bore in mind the prejudice which the Jews entertained ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... later, when, for some reason or other, I was out late in our back garden. This person, instead of knocking at the door, very cautiously tried it to see if it would open, and, finding it locked, stood timidly back and gazed at it in a quandary. Suspecting mischief, I went to the paling fence that separated our ground from the Faringfields', and called ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... quandary. Some natures would have embraced them all, but his heart only sought the one 'sweet face' that had haunted him so long, and in his perplexity he sought our counsel. It was finally arranged that he should answer the entire lot, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... still. If the unknown should prove to be a friend, my case might be better than before; if he should prove to be an enemy, I must act prudently and try to befool him. I must discover his intentions before making mine known. He, also, must be in a great quandary. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... was apparent. Yet the fact that the locked suit-case only contained books and that nothing had been found in our possession—thanks to the forethought of Duperre—the police now found themselves in a quandary. The man in the white spats whom we had seen in the Bois identified Madame as Marie Richaud, a Frenchwoman who had lived in Philadelphia for several years, and who had been implicated two years before in the great frauds on the Bordeaux ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... horseman gradually became more distinct, he saw that the rider was in an odd quandary. He was striving to turn the animal in the opposite direction, but he would not obey. He flung up his head, sometimes reared angrily, and, though he maintained a walk, kept pushing straight on toward the bush, despite the savage attempts ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... considered them to be an abandonment of the principles for which Americans had fought. One of the officials, whose relations with the President were of a most intimate nature, said that he was in a quandary about resigning; that he did not think that the conditions in the Treaty would make for peace because they were too oppressive; that the obnoxious things in the Treaty were due to secret diplomacy; and that the President should have stuck rigidly to his principles, which he had not. ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... overwhelmed at the prospect of such honor accorded me, and greatly touched, too, that my old friends should welcome me back so gladly, but I was in a quandary what to do: whether it would be more dignified to stay Bourbon in the middle of the road and await their approach, or whether to advance to ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... on, we had neither of us the courage to contradict our first account of ourselves; and what was extremely pleasant, the young lad seemed as perplexed as I was how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the state we had pretended to. Whilst we were in this quandary, the landlady takes the candles, and lights us to our apartment, through a long yard, at the end of which it stood, separate from the body of the house. Thus we suffered ourselves to be conducted, without ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... King Saul, when his term was about to expire, was in a quandary concerning a further lease of the Presidential office. He consulted again the "prophetess" of ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... went along. Aside from the ardent and unquenchable love that existed between them, the explanation may be found to a certain extent in Tazewell's love of humor. When Watkins Leigh's amusing letter of Christopher Quandary appeared in the Enquirer,—a paper, by the way, which, after the feud in the Jefferson administration, he never took in, thus showing that, if the democrats remembered his shortcomings, he did not forget what he deemed theirs—I took the ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... an army in the northern counties and was marching south to attack him. Brent, who was half Indian, was a sacrilegious man who was said to have drunk the devil's health, at the same time firing his pistol "to give the devil a gun." His advance put Bacon in a quandary. If he remained in Jamestown, he would be trapped between Brent on land and Berkeley's fleet by water. If he deserted the town, Berkeley would return and occupy it. In the end, he, Lawrence, Drummond, and the others ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... ran into the hut for his rifle and returned in a moment followed by the others. Half the occupants of the camp were out by this time to watch the outcome of the professor's quandary. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... to a close, and Clayton, disheartened and discouraged, was in a terrible quandary as to the proper course to pursue; whether to keep on in search of Professor Porter, at the almost certain risk of his own death in the jungle by night, or to return to the cabin where he might at least serve to protect Jane from the perils ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Cardinals had not been announced. Clearly Manager Watson was in a quandary. He and Boswell consulted together, while the players waited nervously. Some of the newspaper reporters, anxious to flash some word to their papers, ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... is of vast importance to a pilot, if he has to fly regularly, that he should have an instinctive and dependable judgment; a capacity for deciding quickly and without panic; a capacity, when several ways present themselves of extricating himself from some quandary, of being able to choose the right one, and of not having to think long before doing so. This implies a combination really of judgment and resource. The man of confidence, the man of resource, is well endowed for flying. But he ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... the best stuff now being swallowed by the uneducated public; and they deal with the governing classes; and when you have said that you have said all. Nothing truly serious can happen in them. It is all make-believe. No real danger of the truth about life!... I should think not, indeed! The fearful quandary in which the editor of Harper's found himself with "Jude the Obscure" was a lesson to all Anglo-Saxon editors for ever more! Mrs. Humphry Ward has never got nearer to life than, for instance, "Rita" has got—nor so near! Gladstone, a thoroughly bad judge of literature, made her ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... in a quandary. First Crane had confided in him over Diablo, but now his silence seemed to indicate that he meant to have this good ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... exclaimed that had I been Christopher Columbus I would have said nothing about the discovery, but that I doubted if Great Britain would have come in any earlier to help the United States had they been in a similar quandary. ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... in that special quandary reserved for independent American girls who want to have their cake ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... morning I found myself in a quandary. I had determined to make a long tramp inland, and if necessary to ford or swim streams, and I could not determine whether or not it would be wise to take Walkirk with me. I concluded at last to take him; it would be awkward to leave him behind, and he ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... as much of a quandary as ever as to what I should choose to consider the inevitable in my own path. It never occurred to me in this dilemma to seek advice from the elder members of my own family. They knew nothing really ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... supervision was extended to the bananas, the bread-fruit, the cucumbers, the melons, and even the squashes, and always with the same results to the editorial larder. Once, however, this worthy did get himself in a quandary with his use of the imperial pronoun. A mate of one of the vessels inflicted personal chastisement on him, for some impertinent comments he saw fit to make on the honest tar's vessel; and, this being matter ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... away, and all through the recess hour, boats upset and awful sharks swallowed shrieking victims. But, as might have been expected, most of the other children came flying back to the schoolroom for their geographies, and again Miss Lawrence was in a quandary. ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... to be done, and there you have the whole history of his life. As simple as saying good-day, is it not? Then there are battles in which your horse casts a shoe at the outset, and lands you in a quandary; and as far as you are concerned, that is the whole of it. In short, I have seen so many countries, that seeing them has come to be a matter of course; and I have seen so many men die, that I have come to value ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... bushes, we went straight for the line of my musket, as I had expected; but by some unlucky chance it didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in the hurry, any good reason for firin' off my piece. But they say necessity's the mother of invention; so just as I was givin' it up and clinchin' my teeth to bide the worst o't and take what should come, a sudden thought ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... quandary, and he cursed the vanity which had urged him to don his most resplendent garments upon his errand to the great hotel, to which he had come after a violent argument ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... while the marvelous pushing forward of the poor white daily threatened to take even bread and butter from the mouths of the heavily handicapped sons of the freedmen. In the midst, then, of the larger problem of Negro education sprang up the more practical question of work, the inevitable economic quandary that faces a people in the transition from slavery to freedom, and especially those who make that change amid hate and ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... find what we want—something that the rest of us can't find, by the way—you'll be doing as much, if not more, than any of us toward securing a victory over Robinson. And don't hesitate to come and see me if you find yourself in a quandary or whenever you've got ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... in this part of the world, need be any the wiser about our night's work.—A smart piece of running, eh?—Phew, I am tired! Bring me some food, and some brandy, like a good fellow. Then you can back to your pillow and flatter yourself that you have helped Jack Smith out of a famous quandary." ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Larry could not move, the others were in a quandary as to what to do. Dick was impatient to be after ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... found myself in a quandary. As you know, a rhinoceros is a very short-sighted brute, indeed his sight is as bad as his scent is good. Of this fact he is perfectly aware, but he always makes the most of his natural gifts. For instance, when he lies down he invariably does so with his head down wind. ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a quandary? Media's household deity, in the guise of a plethoric monster, his enormous head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth stuffed full of fresh fruits and green leaves. Truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his knotty ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... here's a quandary, the Burrawalla is in! but it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and since you must be delayed, Ay'm very glad ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... stranger, "that's what I fear has happened, or may one day happen. The fact is, caro mio, we are in a quandary at the present moment. You were a bit too confident in dealing with those documents you found at Glencardine. You should have taken her ladyship into your confidence and got her to pump her husband concerning them. If you had, we shouldn't have made the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... ranch to me, subject of course to the encumbrance. The war-time moratorium, which protected men in the military or naval service from civil actions, forced you to sit tight and play a waiting game. Then I was reported killed in action. My poor father was in a quandary. As he viewed it, the ranch now belonged to my estate, and I had died intestate. Probate proceedings dragging over a couple of years were now necessary, and a large inheritance tax would have been assessed against the estate. My father broke under the blow and you took possession. Then ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... effect that the Kingdom of God is nigh when the teacher gives the name of the author of the information that he is passing on. With every desire to fulfil the rabbinical precept and acknowledge the sources of this booklet, I find myself in a quandary. If I make my acknowledgments duly I must begin with my grandmother and Culpeper's Herbal. Following upon those come the results of my own and friends' practical experience. After this I should, perhaps, give a list of the periodicals from whose pages I have culled much helpful information. But ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... dear fellow," he wrote toward the end of the epistle, "I am in a quandary. That the little beggar is of startling beauty is undeniable. That he has got his bill agape, like a young bird, for whatever food of beauty and emotion and knowledge comes his way is obvious to any fool. But whether, in what I propose, I'm giving a helping hand ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Adam shamefacedly claims they hid because they were naked, his maker demonstrates how his very words convict him of guilt, and inquires whether they have eaten of the forbidden fruit. Unable to deny his transgression, Adam states he is in a quandary, for he must either accuse himself wrongfully or lay the guilt upon the wife whom it is his duty to protect. When he adds that the woman gave him the fruit whereof he did eat, the judge sternly demands whether Adam was bound to obey his consort, reminding ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Ann was in a quandary. There remained but two other men in all Oogaboo, and if she made these two Lieutenants, while there were four Captains, four Majors, four Colonels and four Generals, there was likely to be jealousy in her army, ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.—It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.—If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites—well, He has the right. Now, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Burr. Consequently neither was elected, because neither had a majority. The superiority of Hamilton over Jefferson as a party manager is manifest by the fact that Hamilton had feared a Federalist tie in the election of 1789 and had taken steps to prevent it. The Republicans were now in a quandary. John Adams had received only sixty-five votes, cut off with one term, a vicarious sacrifice, as he thought himself; yet neither Jefferson nor Burr was elected, each having seventy-three votes. Various rumours disturbed ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... enough. And Raffles had no banker; it was quite impossible for him to explain, across any single counter, the large sums of hard cash which did sometimes fall into his hands; and it might well be that he had nursed my small account in view of the very quandary which had now arisen. On all grounds, it was impossible for me to refuse him, and I am still glad to remember that my assent was given, ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... three years to remain under legal tutelage. Perhaps Andrew Fraser may have been already coached upon his course by his unrelenting kinsman. And there is a fortune waiting for father and son in the perquisites." Madame Louison fell asleep in a vain quandary as to the precise age when men ceased to value wealth and to sell their souls for gold. That question was still undecided when the steamer Sparrow Hawk sped into ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... of it was, that when the answers to the invitations came back, everybody accepted! Here was a pretty quandary. How they were to get twenty into their dining-room was a calculation which poor Timmins could not solve at all; and he paced up and down ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the heavy load of fuel and treasures resisted their combined efforts and they could not make the vessel stir an inch. The mountain giants, witnessing the scene from afar, and noticing their quandary, now drew near and said that they knew of a giantess called Hyrrokin, who dwelt in Joetun-heim, and was strong enough to launch the vessel without any other aid. The gods therefore bade one of the storm giants hasten off to summon Hyrrokin, and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Adaptation of what all our profoundly critical native journals pronounce the "most elaborately artistic work" of the grandest of English novelists. In an equivalent situation of real life, Mr. DIBBLE'S quandary would not have been easily relieved; but, by the magic of artistic fiction, the particular kind of extemporized character absolutely necessary to help him and the novel continuously along was at that moment coming up the stairs ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... before them. At one side, Marsh saw a stairway and at the other a high curtained doorway, which probably led to the drawing room. At the back of the hall seemed to be another smaller doorway, but Marsh could not be sure in the dim light. He was in a quandary. So far as he could see, the house was deserted. Possibly the caretaker was spending his Sunday afternoon with friends, and the door had been closed carelessly so that the latch had not caught. Had Marsh been alone he would have welcomed this opportunity ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... him in the composite language, and in a manner that did not excite the slightest suspicion, I did so unconsciously. In spite of the quandary in which I found myself upon coming face to face with an inhabitant of Mars, I outwardly remained perfectly calm, nor did it require any effort to appear so. The brain, in such an emergency, followed instinctively its natural habit. It was as if another man had spoken from within me, one who was ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... to be seen reading a two-penny newspaper are now in a quandary since the price of The Times has been reduced, and it is again rumoured that, in order to cater for this class, an unsuccessful halfpenny paper is about to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... to allow the butler to pass, then shutting the door again turned resolutely to Therese, trying to conceal from her the quandary in which he ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... beset all arguments in which it is maintained that "the late poets" are anxious archaisers, and at the same time are eagerly introducing the armour and equipment of their own age. The critics are in the same quandary as to iron and bronze as traps them in the case of large shields, small bucklers, greaves, and corslets. They are obliged to assign contradictory attitudes to their "late poets." It does not seem possible to admit that a poet, who ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... my possession, I did not know just what my duty was. To shut my eyes to the affair and let it culminate in disaster to innocent thousands, would have been a simple matter. For several days I was in a quandary, but my conscience at length conquered. I mustered up courage enough to speak to my employer. I chose for my time the hour after his return from church on Sunday. He had passed the plate with the unction of a saint. Men and women had looked at him and inwardly said: 'What a fine ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... famed of all writers, archaeologists, and painters alike, are the clef by which the whole harmony is sounded. One cannot but echo, and reecho, all that has been said of them, though in a quandary as to which of the two is the more beautiful: the plain, simple, symmetrical, older spire, or that wonderful work of Texier's, replacing another burned in 1506, which rises in gently sculptured and tapered ranges to a height which exceeds its companion by some ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... instead of imitating Roland and his fury, he turned to the more melancholy Amadis, whose madness was of a much milder form and needed a less strenuous outlet. But to imitate Amadis, he had to have a rosary, and he had none. For a moment he was in a quandary; but a miracle gave him the inspiration to use the tail of his shirt—which was too long anyhow—and tearing off a long piece, on which he made eleven knots, he repeated quantities of credos and ave-marias on it, there in the wilderness. His love would at times drive him ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... in a quandary. I might as well try to break the branch as to pull the bear down. "If we had only thought of bringing a bucket of meat!" ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... cried the colonel.—"Buckhurst, you have always so much to say for yourself, do help your cousin here: I'm sure I know how to pity him, for many a time the morning after a ball, I've been with my partner in just as bad a quandary—without a word to throw to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... quandary. If he continued down stream he must pass directly beneath the spot where his foe was standing, and the shadow was by no means dense enough to make it possible for him to escape observation. He was confident, however, that if he could change places with the warrior, he could discern the ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... in a quandary. For how, pray, is it possible for me, a simple-minded male, fittingly to depict for you the clothes of Margaret?—the innumerable vanities, the quaint devices, the pleasing conceits with which she delighted ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... my sister Sally hasn't sent Tom to look for us, or I am much mistaken," he exclaimed to himself rather than to his companion. "Poor soul! she's been in a precious quandary at our not returning sooner, and has been fancying that we shall be melted by the rain, or carried off the cliffs by the wind, though it blows ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... Whig conspiracy in favour of the authenticity of Oates's Popish Plot; last, Godfrey himself, who was of an hereditary melancholy (his father had suicidal tendencies), and who was involved in a quandary whence he could scarcely hope to extricate himself with life ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... A QUANDARY.—If a boy should catch hold of your ear, and ask if he had the wrong pig by the ear, would you ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... law in most civil cases is—and it truth it might as well be one way as the other. A noted member of the supreme bench of the United States is reported to have said that when he was chief justice of one of the State courts, and he and his confreres found themselves in a quandary over the law, they were accustomed to send the sergeant- at-arms for what they called the "implements of decision"—a brace of dice and a copper cent. Thus the weightiest matters were decided ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... have seen them bet, for they put up all the money they had, and one of them went to the office, and bringing out a valise, said, as he laid it on the table, "There is $18,000 in that valise, and I raise all of you that much." What to do I did not know. I was in a quandary, when, quick as thought, a plan flashed upon me. I jumped up, and rushing to the office, got all the small bills they had—mostly ones and twos—and securing a piece of brown paper, wrapped these bills around it, which made an enormous ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... the story I have how told you be agreeable, I have one that is even much more so. If your majesty will please to hear it the next night, I am certain you will be of the same mind. Schahriar rose without giving any answer, and was in a quandary what to do. The good sultaness, said he within himself, tells very long stories; and when once she begins one, there is no refusing to hear it out. I cannot tell whether I shall put her to death to-day or not. No, surely not, I will do nothing rashly: ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... is; but she wanted to know more than Mrs. Crofton was inclined to tell her about the circumstances—the really extraordinary circumstances, Janet—concerning Colonel Crofton's death. And now I'm rather in a quandary as to whether I ought to tell her what I heard, and indeed as to whether I ought even to send her the report of the inquest which appeared in a local paper, and which I at last ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... What a quandary for a thick-skulled old horseman! "Wal, it seems to me Slone didn't act so bad, considerin'. You'd told him you cared for him. If it wasn't for thet! ... I remember I did much the same to your mother. She raised the devil, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... peer with half a million of dollars' income doesn't care about accepting troublesome and occasionally anxious duties, from which he, at all events, has nothing to gain. For some time Lord Derby was in a quandary to get any one who would do to take it, and it may be doubted whether the marquis of Abercorn would have sacrificed himself if the glittering prospect of a coronet all strawberry leaves (for he was created a duke while in office) had not been held before his eyes. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... both by reason of the huge remoteness of the places from one to another, as also because of the impeditive interposition of many great rivers, the interjacent obstacle of divers wild deserts, and obstructive interjection of sundry almost inaccessible mountains,—whilst he was in this sad quandary and solicitous pensiveness, which, you may suppose, could not be of a small vexation to him, considering that it was a matter of no great difficulty to run over his whole native soil, possess his country, seize on his kingdom, install a new king in the throne, and plant thereon foreign colonies, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... and no hint of resolve shadowed itself in his own face. His expression was as of one in a quandary. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... closely I was soon able to grasp the situation. After I had finished putting the things in the boxes I did not know whether to take them back to the jewel room or not, or whether to wait until Her Majesty ordered me, and again I was in a quandary. I saw she was talking to my mother, so I waited a little time and finally made up my mind I would risk it and take them back, which I did. As I was returning I met Her Majesty in the big courtyard. She ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... for information, but only threw him into a quandary, and he proceeded to add to ours. The usual price for a woman, it seemed, was cows—many or few according as she was lovely or her father rich. In case of divorce, custom decreed that the cows with ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... corridors to the dining-room. At the door Wilbur paused hesitatingly. He had not been invited to stay, but at the same time he felt that he could hardly leave without thanking his uncle, who at the time was strolling toward the other portion of the house, deeply engrossed in conversation. In this quandary the Chief Forester, all unknown to the lad, saw his embarrassment, and with the quick intuition so characteristic of the man, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... himself was in a quandary. It looked as if he would have to let one girl go to save the other, when he saw one of the canoe paddles floating within reach. He gave it a swift push ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... in a very difficult quandary. Greece says she is ready to fight the whole of Europe rather than leave her brothers in Crete in the power ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the narrow ledge of rocks in a quandary as to what course they should pursue. Below them was the steep, rocky incline of the hill and behind them was the cave containing they knew not what. At their feet lay their comrade, unconscious and helpless. It was a situation ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... of human beings back to the home harbor of Kamchatka. Meanwhile a hurricane caught Pushkareff's ship, chopping the wave tops off and driving her ahead under bare poles. When the gale abated, the ship was off Kamchatka's shore and the Cossack in a quandary about entering the home port with proofs of his cruelty in the cowering group of Indian women huddled above the deck. {87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors were landed with fourteen women. Two watched ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... unfortunate offspring. He ignored the choice fruits and buds she picked for him, repaid her caresses with scratches, screams and snarls or received them in the most indifferent manner in those rare intervals when he did not violently resent them. Myla was in a quandary. Should she restore him to his mother by taking him back to the windfall? Should she desert him in the treetops, or should she cast him to the ground and thus be rid of him quickly and without trouble? No! She had longed for him, had risked her life to gain possession ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... look after the slaves below," said Archie; "the poor fellows must have been in a fearful quandary while the fighting ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... myself now in a strange quandary, longing to know what she meant by being slit, and had a hundred strange notions in my head whether I was slit or not; for though I knew what the word naturally signified well enough, yet in what manner or by what figure of speech she applied it to me, I had no idea of. But ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... she was selected for admission. When she received the august-looking document asking her to accept the honour, she said to herself, "Now, who has done this? Who am I, and what is my distinction that I should have it?" She was in a quandary how to answer, but eventually complied with the request, thinking that would be the end of it. Shortly afterwards came a letter stating that "her selection had received the sanction and approval of His Most Gracious Majesty ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... in a quandary. This news was black. Things had been working out so well. Here was a setback. At the moment Duane did not know which way to turn, but certainly he had no idea of going back to Bradford. Friction between the two ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... in a quandary. What should she do with the girl? To leave her on the street was out of the question. She was now more helpless ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... be in such a quandary because you knew nobody you could make your women-folk out of! Do you mind that, and how we both laughed at the notion of your having to ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... two of me! What's the use of a double if not for a quandary like this! Worth, you must go to tea at Beechwood Saturday afternoon in my place. They'll think you are my very self. They'll never know the difference. Go and keep my place warm ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... am in a quandary! But you haven't told me yet how you happened to meet Wool and to come here just in ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... players there were seven. It was common sense, then, to hitch the school playground and the children together. It seemed a happy combination, for the new law had been a stumbling-block to the school commissioners, who were in a quandary over the needful size of an "open-air playground." The roof garden idea, which was at the start a measure of simple economy to save large expenditure for land, had suggested a way out. But there was the long vacation, when schools are closed ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... assistance, and he was permitted to visit me quite early, soon after the prison had opened. He was prompt and practical, and proceeded to perform the commissions I gave him with all despatch. I charged him first to telegraph to England, to our office, briefly stating my quandary, begging them to commend me to some one in Lausanne or Geneva, for Becke's have friends and correspondents in every city of the world. He was then to call upon the British Consul, producing my passport in proof of my claim upon ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... by the observation that Mr Sharnall himself had severely felt the strain of this mental quandary, for the organist said that he was upset by so difficult a question, and filled himself a bumper of whisky to steady his nerves. At the same time he took down from a shelf two or three notebooks and a mass of loose papers, which he spread open upon the table before ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... So far from being angry with you, I am very thankful to you for coming. You have relieved me from a quandary. I didn't know how to return the work or to get the pay. For after what has happened, Morris, the cloth might have stayed here and the money there, forever, before I would have gone ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a quandary. Something was going on aft—but what? Newman was missing. The bucko knew he was absent from the gang, he must have known. Yet he ignored his absence. Was it treachery? Was Newman in trouble? Had he and I been mistaken in our judgment of Bucko ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... burning questions were heard. The still light in Mary's eyes would have checked him, if not his own proper second thought and the fear of precipitating an ungovernable crisis. There had been shadows, real shadows, he was thinking wildly; they were not born of desert imaginings; and out of the quandary of his anguish came only the desire not to part from the Doge and Mary in this fashion! No, not until in some way equilibrium of mind ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... however, at the river-bank; for, search as he might, he could not find a canoe nor a craft of any kind. Now, he was indeed in a quandary. It would be worse than useless to return to the Indian camp, that might at any moment be repeopled. He dared not go up the river, for that way lay the hosts of Pontiac; nor could he cross it and make his way to the fort. There was obviously but one course to pursue, which was to keep ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... years. He remembered, with a grim amusement, the excellent advice he had given Peyton Morris, Peyton at the verge of falling from the approved heights into the unpredictable. If he had come to him now in that quandary, what would he, Lee, have said? Yet all that he had told Peyton he still believed— the variety of life lay on the circular moving horizon, there was none at hand. But now he comprehended the unmeasurable longing that had, for the time, banished every other consideration ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Carwell's death occurred, Blossom was in financial difficulties on account of the demands of Morocco Kate. He could not get hold of the money he had invested, nor could he get hold of the money he had loaned Carwell. In his quandary he took certain securities belonging to Carwell and hypothecated them, expecting, later on, to make good as soon as he got some of his own money back. Of course the whole transaction was a rather shady one, and yet I still believe the young ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... mortal disease, Soliman, his brother and heir, wrote to Musa when at Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, asking him to halt there, as his brother could live but a few days. He, as the new caliph, would receive him. Al-Walid in turn ordered him to hasten his march. Musa was in a quandary. If Al-Walid should live, delay might be fatal. If he should die, haste might be fatal. He took what seemed to him the safest course, hastened to Damascus, and met with a brilliant reception. But a change soon came; in forty days Al-Walid died; Soliman, whom he had disobeyed, was caliph ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... right. Dey don't know nothing of what's up. Mine bruder have constant watch over their camp. They be in von quandary, and will ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... lot, the whole pack of them," said the lawyer, savagely, thinking of the quandary in which he and his ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... took the papers, felt himself in a quandary. Though he could speak, he could not read Hindustani! The papers might not be the dastaks after all. What was he ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... confusion, was trying to think of something helpful to say, when the little man suddenly found a way out of his quandary. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged herself to you, she hears of another situation where there is less work or more wages, she takes it in preference, and leaves you to manage as best you can. Even when ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... two hours, the visits of the Generals, one or both, meant considerable interruption to the hospital routine. Sometimes, by chance, both Generals arrived at the same time, which meant that there were double rounds, beginning at opposite ends of the enclosure, and the surgeons were in a quandary as to whose suite they should attach themselves. And the days when it was busiest, when the work was hardest, when there was more work than double the staff could accomplish in twenty-four hours, were the days that ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... with as grave a peril as any that has beset her. Would that he had a grain of ambition—of anything that a performer upon the various chords of human nature could impress. I suppose if he were not so desperately perfect, we should not be in the quandary we are, but he would be far easier to manage. As I awoke from my siesta just two hours ago, my brain was illuminated by the idea that one man alone could persuade him; and that was Alexander Hamilton. He likes us, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with the object of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... but Paul did not leave the car. Locke was in some quandary what to do. To attempt to enter the house without Paul's seeing him and raising the alarm would, he realized, be impossible. Therefore he waited for nearly half an hour before his patience was rewarded by seeing Balcom come out of ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... dining-room he found the head footman, who presided, in something of a quandary as to where he should place him. Emilia, Miss Wellington's maid, had of course lost no time in imparting to all with whom she was on terms of confidence, that the new chauffeur was the same with whom her mistress had flirted on the General. Consequently, Armitage ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry |
