"Evasive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the vision in which God bade him repair to the Valley of Dura, where Nebuchadnezzar had set up his idol, and had massacred the host of the Jews. Here God showed him the dry bones of the slain with the question: "Can I revive these bones?" Ezekiel's answer was evasive, and as a punishment for his little faith, he had to end his days in Babylon, and was not granted even burial in the soil of Palestine. God then dropped the dew of heaven upon the dry bones, and "sinews were upon them, and flesh came up, and ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... ran into her face, to the roots of her pretty hair; yet her frank eyes never left him. Then her evasive speech ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... more than ever curious. She asked the priest about it and even he was inclined to be evasive. He evidently either knew nothing about it or was casting about in his mind for some plausible explanation. At last he said that rumour had it that a huntsman's family had either been murdered or had committed suicide there, and, ever since, nobody dwelling in the district could be persuaded ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... ship changed. It no longer descended. The landing-grid operator was holding it aloft, but Calhoun could move it in evasive action if he wished. He approved the liberty given him. He could use his emergency rockets to dodge. A second thread of ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Then he came slowly, and touched me in a queer evasive way on my shoulder. Finally he drew a long breath, and gripped me by the arm. "Don't you recognize it?" "It's the dream! See! The stone wall—the field—the sumac! ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... is also declared that the Cunard Company is "wantonly guilty" of the deaths, in allowing passengers to embark under the conditions cited; unofficial expressions of opinion from public men at Washington show there is disappointment and dissatisfaction over the note, which is held to be evasive; German Foreign Secretary von Jagow, in an interview given to The Associated Press correspondent in Berlin, declares that the note is not a final one because the German Government considers it essential "to establish a common basis of fact before entering into ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... pretensions of the English to sovereignty in New France, and pointed out the impropriety of hostile communications between inferiors, while the kings whom they served remained on amicable terms. He rendered, however, some sort of evasive explanation on the subject of his preparations ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... evasive with me, boy!" She rapped that out with an officer's snap. "He left a note for Merry—two words misspelled and a big blot—all foolishness about joining Morgan. Said you had been to Red Springs, and he was going along. Why did you do it, Drew? Cousin Merry ... after Sheldon, she can't lose ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... attentions; his spiteful look at my refusal; his occupying himself wholly with Madame d'Albret after I refused him; her wishing to get rid of me, by sending me to England with Madame Bathurst, and her subsequent false and evasive conduct. Monsieur de G—had had his revenge, and gained his point at the same time. He had obtained the wealth of Madame d'Albret to squander at the gaming-table, and had contrived, by some means or another, to ruin me in her good opinion. I perceived ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... inoffensive person who possessed a red beard, and who had given the name of Jules Dequanter, and his nationality as Belgian, native of Liege—was none other than Gustav Heureux, the man who had been recalled from New York by the evasive doctor of Pimlico. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... but the day had been fine and warm, and the evening was dewy and soft, and full of evasive odor. The window looked westward, and the setting sun threw long shadows toward the house. A gentle wind was moving in the tree-tops. The spirit of the evening had laid hold of Mary. The peace of faithfulness filled the air. The day's business vanished, molten ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the common language of politeness, and servants do not understand it. As for myself, I naturally prefer the German tongue; it is blunt and honest and lacks the finesse of the French, which is full of evasive words and meanings. However, French predominates at court. Besides, heaven help the foreigner who tries to learn all the German tongues to be found in the empires of the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg. Luncheon will be served to you in the dining hall; the first door to the right at ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... for lack of a better word is termed "personality;" something elusive and evasive, that cannot easily be defined or explained, but nevertheless remains the essential quality that distinguishes its possessor from every other human being. But while all may have the potentiality for some distinct and special attribute, unfortunately for by far the ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... The faintest evasive glint of mischievousness in her withdrawn eyes at this moment mitigated the austerity of her command as ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... old man now, and the silver threads are beginning to mingle in my hair, but I can yet see my mother as I saw her the next morning when I went down stairs, and in a pleasant cheerful voice she enquired if I had slept well. I gave an evasive reply, for I did not like to tell her what a restless, miserable night I had passed. When the breakfast things were cleared away, my mother seated herself by my side, and said: "Upon reflection, my son, I have decided that you ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... his daughter, the furrier and his wife, sat before the tall chimney-piece draped with lambrequins of red serge and black fringes, and were talking of trifles. Babette asked once or twice where Christophe could be, and the father and mother of the young Huguenot gave evasive answers; but when the two families were seated at table, and the two servants had retired to the kitchen, Lecamus said ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Receiving polite though rather evasive answers to her enquiries concerning his late avocations, her ladyship could only learn that Tyrrel had been travelling in several remote parts of Europe, and even of Asia. Baffled, but not repulsed, the lady continued her courtesy, by ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... only preferred his business to his salvation, but he mentions it with evasive disdain. "When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." "When I have a convenient season!" Might we not thence infer that the truths discust by St. Paul were not of serious importance? Might we not infer that the soul of Felix was created for the government of Judea; and that the grand ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... form. This, however, was not the specific object of his visit, as will appear as we proceed. Keeping in view his real motive, the nephew continued his inquiries, always putting his questions a little indirectly, and receiving answers that were as evasive and cautious as his own interrogatories. All this was characteristic of the wary people from which both had sprung, who seldom speak, in a matter of business, without bearing in mind all the possible constructions of what they are saying. After a discourse ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the translation; in the absence of a new edition in which "Mine and His shall be marked off by distinct boundaries," he asks Goeze only to send to him, and beg "for original and translation," naturally for the purpose of comparison. This evasive reply is Bode's only defense or explanation. Bttiger claims that the review of Bode's translation in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek did much to spread the idea of Bode's authorship, though the reviewer in that periodical[39] only ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... difficulties, in spite of his Grace's extreme courtesy of manner and vague assurance of immediate attention to the facts presented to him. It was therefore with no surprise, but a good deal of irritation, that Mr. Morris saw the weeks slip by with but one evasive answer to his demands being sent him. Being importuned to appeal to the British Government on another score—the impressment of American seamen into the English navy—he determined again to urge upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs a settlement of the treaty stipulations ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... place between the Allied and Turkish fleets. The Dartmouth had gone into the bay twice, bearing the terms proposed by the allied commanders to Ibrahim Pacha. No satisfactory answer had been returned by the Ottoman admiral, whose conduct appeared evasive and trifling, implying a contempt for our prowess, and daring us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... in Miscellaneous Writings (1897) Mrs. Eddy, after a vague and evasive discussion of the subject, squarely puts the question: "Is marriage nearer right than celibacy? Human knowledge inculcates that it is, while Science indicates that it is not." In the same chapter she further says: "Human nature has bestowed on a wife the right to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... but there is no ground for supposing that he was ever in Italy, and that either he or Thomas Vaughan edited the works of Socinus is an ignorant fiction, for which even Miss Vaughan can find no better warrant than the evasive place of publication which figures on the title-page of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, namely, Eirenaeopolis. In like manner she erroneously credits him with the authorship of the Medulla Alchemiae, which is the work of Eirenaeus Philoponos ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... already awoke. He asked the reason why she had been called away, but Hsi Jen temporised by giving him an evasive answer. And only at night, when every one was quiet, did Hsi Jen at length give him a full account of the whole matter. Pao-yue was delighted beyond measure. "I'll see now," he said, with a face beaming with smiles, "whether you'll go back home or not. On your return, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... unbounded claims of an artist's career. The details of practical life and petty duties sprouted up at every step. If they were put aside, even for a moment, the wheels of daily existence became clogged and then all opportunity was over. Hope had begun to alternate with a fear lest that evasive corner should never be turned, that little crop of interruptions never cease to turn up. And yet it was so foolish. Each obstacle in itself was paltry. It was their number that overcame one, as the tiny arrows of the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... dusted the living-room, mended a collar-band, bathed Hugh, she was picturing herself and a young artistan Apollo nameless and evasive—building a house in the Berkshires or in Virginia; exuberantly buying a chair with his first check; reading poetry together, and frequently being earnest over valuable statistics about labor; tumbling out of bed early for a Sunday walk, and chattering ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... declined to interfere. This may have been prudent policy, but Hawthorne felt for the sufferers, and the memorial that he submitted to our government on their account has a dignity, a clearness and cogency of statement, worthy of Blackstone or Marshall. It is in marked contrast to the evasive reply of Secretary Cass, both for its fine English and for the directness of its logic. It is published at length in Julian Hawthorne's biography of his father, and is unique for the insight which it affords as to Hawthorne's mental ability in this direction. ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... smith only said, rudely: "It's none of your business what I do." So Fausch gave the trader a new nut to crack, though he had long puzzled over the smith's behavior and character. But Simmen, the landlord, of whom he also asked the cause of Fausch's departure, was equally evasive. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... he said, "I don't doubt your triumph, but I feel the necessity of again warning you to be absolutely silent. If you are questioned about anything, especially about Celeste, make evasive answers which will keep your questioners in suspense. You must have learned how to do ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the Protestants in quiet, when they saw plain indications that formidable preparations were being made for the purpose of overwhelming them. To these remonstrances, however, they received only what they esteemed evasive answers—excuses for not dismissing the Swiss, based upon representations of the danger of some Spanish incursion, and promises that the just requests of the Huguenots should receive the gracious attention of a monarch desirous of ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... comical, but to this question I put— A remarkably innocent query— I received but a sigh or evasive reply, Or a blush from the modest Kashmiri; And I gathered at last that the lady was "fast," And her name should be ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... resorted to in order to obtain it, would perhaps furnish materials for the most interesting chapter of his history. It was a common saying among his men, that "no lawyer can cross-examine like General Morgan," and indeed the skill with which he could elicit intelligence from the evasive or treacherous answers of men unwilling to aid, or seeking to deceive him, was only less astonishing than the confidence with which he would act upon information so acquired. In army phrase, he was a capital "judge of information," that is, he could almost ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... upon me, resign myself to my fate. Tell your family they may make their preparations, and be gone in a month's time.' Early in July Sir Francis Burdett's long-expected letter arrived, but brought with it no consolation. He could tell nothing of the legacy, but wrote in the soothing, evasive terms that might be supposed suitable to an elderly lady who was not quite accountable for her ideas or actions. As there was now no hope of any improvement in her affairs, Lady Hester decided to execute her threat of walling up her gateway, a proceeding which, she was ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... about to return some evasive reply, when the hustle caused by a party entering the next box seemed to attract the attention of all four gentlemen, who exchanged glances of much meaning. The new party beginning to converse together, Sir Mulberry suddenly assumed the character of a most attentive listener, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... concluding lines that I have quoted this passage; for evidently no portrait of Hawthorne at this period is at all exact which, fails to insist upon the constant struggle which must have gone on between his shyness and his desire to know something of life; between what may be called his evasive and his inquisitive tendencies. I suppose it is no injustice to Hawthorne to say that on the whole his shyness always prevailed; and yet, obviously, the struggle was constantly there. He says of ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... matter in which we are mutually interested," was my evasive answer. Then, after a pause, I looked straight into her eyes, and added very earnestly: "I wonder whether if I should require your help, Mrs. Cullerton, you ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... different rooms, and a sentinel was stationed in the gallery common to them all, in such a manner as to keep an eye on his whole charge at once, the hour had run deep into the night. Captain Borroughcliffe obeyed a summons from the colonel, who made him an evasive apology for the change in their evening's amusement, and challenged his guest to a renewal of the attack on the Madeira. This was too grateful a theme to be lightly discussed by the captain; and the abbey clock had given forth as many of its mournful remonstrances as the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bide in patience, holding her wonder in check. Edna's portentous manner throughout luncheon was enough to keep expectation at the highest. Even Aunt Clara noticed it, and had to be put off with evasive reasons. Subsequently Edna set the elderly lady to writing letters in a cubicle that went by the name of library, so the young people should have the drawing-room to themselves. Readers who have lived in New York ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... believe he knows what vessel he's on yet," declared Harry. "He asked me and I gave him an evasive reply." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... For an instant he reflected, and then gave an evasive answer. "I think I told you that I was alone in this hotel. Miss Guile. My friends are at another hotel. I ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... mother, and sisters at home, and breakfast was quickly served after his arrival. They all said he was looking much better, and all asked him when he was coming home. He gave an evasive answer, saying that there were lots of good times coming down in Eastborough and he didn't wish to miss them. He told his father he was improving his time reading and writing, and would give a good account of himself ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... been so used to having him evasive that now I did not exactly know what to make of such a burst of confidence. It was susceptible of at least two interpretations. Was he implying that it was sent to cast suspicion on him, because he felt that way himself or because he ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... day in early spring, honey pale and honey sweet, was showering over the red brick buildings of Queenslea College and the grounds about them, throwing through the bare, budding maples and elms, delicate, evasive etchings of gold and brown on the paths, and coaxing into life the daffodils that were peering greenly and perkily up under the ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the tale of the discovery of the letters—with the "Fly, you are discovered!" of romantic fiction? What if he had left her for good? It would not be unlikehim, after all. Under his wonderful gentleness he was always evasive and inscrutable. He might have said to himself that he would forestall her action, and place himself at once on the defensive. It might be that she had seen him go out of the gate ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... that he was thinking, as she was, of what they would say when they next had a moment together; that, whatever she wore, he found her worth watching; that, whatever her mood, she never failed to amuse and delight him! Her rather evasive beauty grew more definite under his eyes; she bubbled with fun and nonsense. "You little fool!" Ella would laugh, with an approving glance toward Susan at the tea-table, and "Honestly, Sue, you were killing tonight!" Emily, who loved to be ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... a stool at the fireside, and Heinrich plied him with a multitude of questions: Where did he come from? whom had he last served? how did he like Aladdin? and did he think they should get on well? To all these queries the Genie returned evasive answers; he was Delphic to the verge of unintelligibility. He would only nod mysteriously, muttering beneath his breath in some unknown tongue, probably Arabic—in which, however, his master thought he could distinguish the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... originally intended as a ceiling for the Louvre, and from a decorative point of view would excite a pitying smile from Veronese or Tiepolo. Taken bit by bit, as a beautiful exhibition of supreme knowledge, of the evasive quality of style in drawing, it is, however, admirable, and as a whole it has the merits of grave, balanced composition. It was the spirit of work like this which the master sought to force upon his epoch, rather than that of his portraits or of pictures like the "Source;" and the austerity ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... some one suggested that it might be Professor Frieze. I made my way through the crowd toward the room from which the sounds came, but before arriving there the music had ended; and when I met the professor shortly afterward, and asked him if he had been the musician, his reply was so modest and evasive that I thought the whole thing a mistake and said nothing more about it. On our way to Italy some months later, I observed that, as we were passing through Bohemia, he jotted down in his note-book ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... in a tone which plainly indicated that the evasive Shan-se had adopted a course which did not commend itself, 'how unendurable a condition of affairs is it for a person of acute mental perception to be annoyed by the inopportune behaviour of one who is only fit to mix ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... distrust of his powers, which have never been more vigorously exerted than in this debate, but evidently from distrust of his cause. I have seldom heard so able a speech as his: I certainly never heard a speech so evasive. From the beginning to the end he studiously avoided saying a single word tending to raise a discussion about that Repeal which, in other places, he constantly affirms to be the sole panacea for all the evils by which his country ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Britling was patrolling unimportant roads and entertaining Mr. Van der Pant with discourses upon the nearness of victory and the subtle estimableness of all that was indolent, wasteful and evasive in English life, the war was passing from its first swift phases into a slower, grimmer struggle. The German retreat ended at the Aisne, and the long outflanking manoeuvres of both hosts towards ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... account in John is not wholly false, I think the reply in every case discreditable. If literal, it all but indicates wilful imposture. If mystical, it is disingenuously evasive; and it tended, not to instruct, but to irritate, and to move suspicion and contempt. Is this the course for a religious teacher?—to speak darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice; and this, when he represents it as a matter of spiritual ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... the governor, as may be inferred from the evasive and cunning answer of the Prophet, produced no change in his measures, nor did it arrest the spread of the fanaticism among the Indians which his incantations had set afloat. The happiness of the Indians was the great idea which Tecumseh and ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... attitude and gesture with which he faced the world could be caught and fixed. The difficulty was that he was a man of ideas rather than of performance, suggestive rather than active: and the whole history of his experiment with life was evasive, and even to ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... distracted between his desire to preserve Dare from the consequences of folly, and a gentlemanly wish to keep as close to the truth as was compatible with that condition, his answers had not appeared to Paula to be particularly evasive, the conjuncture being one in which a handsome heiress's shrewdness was prone to overleap itself by setting down embarrassment on the part of the man she questioned to a mere lover's difficulty in steering ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... more conscious of a hesitancy in Professor Brierly's manner. Jimmy was quite certain that if the old man were not such a forthright individual he should have used evasive tactics at this time. After a brief pause, scrutinizing briefly the faces in front of him, he resumed ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... Flanders, who promised them that the King of France would entertain all their claims, Artevelde and Breydel, the deputies from Ghent and Bruges, even repaired to Courtrai to make terms with him. But as they got there nothing but ambiguous engagements and evasive promises, they let the negotiation drop, and, while Count Louis was on his way to rejoin Philip at St. Quentin, Artevelde with the deputies from the Flemish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... none of the mysterious discomfort alluded to by his friend. The element of mystery attached itself rather to the young lady's mother, who gave him the impression that for undiscoverable reasons she avoided his society. He regretted her evasive deportment, for he found something agreeable in this shy and scrupulous little woman, who struck him as a curious specimen of a society of which he had once been very fond. He learned that she was of old New England stock, but he had not needed this information to ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... accumulating documents and methodically arranging them in a method that refuses to be concealed, advances in a rectilineal order, step by step, and with a measured gait, to a solid truth which he did not wish to be either evasive or complex. Highly pessimistic and a little affecting to be so, just as Renan was optimistic and much affected being so, he believed in the evil origin of man and of the necessity for him to be drastically curbed if he is to remain inoffensive. He has written ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... singularly slightly made, soon dispelled the idea. Still, as he constantly appeared at the same spot, the grocer began to have a new apprehension, and to suspect he was an emissary of the Earl of Rochester, and he sent Dallison to inquire his business. The youth returned an evasive answer, and withdrew; but the next day he was there again. On this occasion, Mr. Bloundel pointed him out to Leonard Holt, and asked him if he had seen him before. The youth's back being towards them, the apprentice unhesitatingly answered in the negative, but as the subject ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... doubtful Whig, was a confession that the party was non-committal on the issues of the hour. There was much opposition to both candidates. Many anti-slavery Whigs could not bring themselves to vote for Taylor, who was a slave-owner; Democrats who had supported the Wilmot Proviso, disliked the evasive ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... suppressed the discussion of slavery, as was evident by its outburst in the debates between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stephen A. Douglas.[8] The main question was whether, according to the Constitution, Congress could prohibit slavery in the territories. Lincoln contended that it could but Douglas was evasive, as he hoped to reconcile his popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. Lincoln, on the other hand, showed that the public estimate of the Negro had become decidedly lower than it was prior to the industrial revolution, when masters could emancipate their bondmen of their own volition. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... think that this consolatory Biblical reflection disposes of the matter. Politicians, as also diplomatists, are often obliged to give evasive answers to inconvenient questions, but it is not possible for any man, when dealing with a point of primary importance, deliberately to make and to repeat a statement so absolutely untrue as that made by Disraeli on the occasion ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... house at Sorrento, now the Vigna Sersale. There he remained during the whole summer, soothed by his sister's affectionate kindness. The monotony of the life, however, began to pall upon him, and he longed to get back to his old scenes of excitement. Undeterred by an evasive reply which the duke sent to an urgent letter of his, he set out for Ferrara; and on his arrival, meeting with a cold reception, he was obliged again to leave the place where he had once been so happy. For a year ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... glad to hear this precise statement from you. It encourages me to ask again the nature of the freak which took you into this house. You say that it was not from any dread on your sister's account? What, then, was it? No evasive answer will satisfy ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... seal-killing during 1897. After a delay of four months the Foreign Office replied that it was too late to stop the sealers that year. In a rather undiplomatic note, dated May 10, 1897, Secretary Sherman charged dilatory and evasive conduct upon this question. The retort was that the American Government was seeking to embarrass British subjects ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... "knew Latin pretty well," and, on Ben Jonson's evidence, he knew "less Greek." That he knew ANY Greek is surprising. Apparently he did, to judge from Ben's words. My attitude must, to the Baconians, seem frivolous, vexatious, and evasive. I cannot pretend to know what was Shakspere's precise amount of proficiency in Latin when he was writing the plays. That between his own knowledge, and construes given to him, he might easily get at ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... and then the other entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and devilish tribes, and the burning of towns. It was almost as good, said these scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at work for half an hour on telegrams which the sack of Delhi would hardly have justified. To every power that could move a bayonet or transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder De appealed telegraphically. He was alone, his assistants had fled, and in truth ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... hall-clock are almost perpendicular—it wants but half-an-hour of midnight!—Several anxious mammas have sent several times for their several little ones; and the several servants have been sent away with several evasive answers—for "the little dears are enjoying themselves so much!"—"Mrs. Brown's compliments to Mrs. Fidgets, and would she permit the little Fidgets to stay just ten minutes longer?" No!—the Fidgety footman is only to depart with them; so he is ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... subjective—seems distant, evasive, and unreal, and in contemplating it he is filled with ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... the tolerably discreet African would have made some evasive reply, but with her feathers all ruffled, she belched out, "The upshot of the matter is, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... days of St. Gregory and Palestrina'; but this is surely a narrow outlook. Beauty combines the many with the one: and plain-song and the Missa Papae Marcelli show us only a few, a very few, of its manifestations. But artistic progress is, anyhow, very subtle and evasive; and musical progress, in particular, is hardly correctable with any other. Above all, we must recollect that, to us Europeans, music—which, in the only sense worth our present consideration, is an exclusively European product—is ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... evasive life beneath the outer forms and procedures of school and home, there came glimmerings of something that seemed charged with the promise of holding everything together, the key, religion. She was attracted to religion, much more attracted than ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Tenterden contracted such an inveterate habit of keeping himself and everybody else to the precise matter in hand, that once, during a circuit dinner, having asked a country magistrate if he would take venison, and receiving what he deemed an evasive reply, "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 ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... contend,—thus leaving to inference their religious connection, and giving no ground to call in question the ecclesiastical status and revenues conferred by the church act. This answer was considered by the free church evasive; and its more ardent supporters on the spot pronounced the course of the local presbytery jesuitical and dishonest. They affirmed that the church of Scotland alone was entitled, by colonial law, to state support; and that the retention ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... not venture directly to assert the complicity of the representatives of the German Empire in any single one of these offences. In reply to Senator Overman, who asked if Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed were held to be implicated in all these illegal acts, Mr. Bielaski gave the following evasive answer: "The most important, and most serious of these illegal acts, were, generally speaking, inspired, financed and conducted by one or other of the accredited representatives of Germany." Officials or agents ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... himself. At another time he might have got out of the room with an evasive answer, but he spoke without ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... was the evasive reply. "Il Duca has many names, but we do not speak them. When it is necessary to mention him we ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... must keep it. There is nothing more dangerous than to put a child off with evasive answers. He immediately jumps to the conclusion that there is some reason why his mother is afraid or ashamed to explain things to him, and if he has heard evil rumors it is quite natural for him to suspect that ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... junior in a licensing club case, had to cross-examine the certifying Justice of the Peace who was very diffuse and rather evasive in his answers. "Speak a little more simply and to the point, please," said counsel mildly. "You are a little ambiguous, you know."—"I am not, sir," replied the witness indignantly; "I have been teetotal ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... evening that I might do worse than pay a visit to La Coupole and inquire if a date was fixed yet for the rehearsals to begin. Well, I went! For a long time I could obtain no interview, I could obtain no appointment—the messenger came back with evasive answers. I am naturally quick at smelling a rat —I have the detective's instinct—and I felt that there was something wrong. My heart began to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... just as poor Mr. Flack did, just as Delia wished to persuade her that Mr. Probert did. The girl gave a sigh, looking up with troubled eyes at her companion and at the figure of herself as the subject of contending policies. Such a thankless bored evasive little subject as she felt herself! What Delia had said in turning away was—"Yes, I'm watching you, and I depend on you to finish him up. Stay there with him, go off with him—I'll allow you half an hour if necessary: only settle him once for all. It's ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... evasive reply, Juve beat a retreat in good order, and followed Colonel Hofferman, who was talking ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... under other circumstances might have met this imperative mode of questioning by dogged silence, or an evasive answer, was too uncertain as to what the doctor himself might have repeated to Jeanne-Marie, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... an elliptical nebulosity, stretching far to the southward from the star Merope. It attracted the attention of many observers, but was so often missed, owing to its extreme susceptibility to adverse atmospheric influences, as to rouse unfounded suspicions of its variability. The detection of this evasive object gave a hint, barely intelligible at the time, of further revelations of the same kind by ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... painful, and is unnecessary, to quote from the curses, whether matins or vespers, of the children of night. Their language is terribly severe, and, doubtless, was regarded as blasphemy by the sun-worshippers. Gladstone is said to have "no conscience," "no sense of honour," to be so fugitive and evasive in character, that one might almost think the moon, rather than the sun, was the topic under discussion. But, as Roth points out, this is easily explained when we remember the vicissitudes of English weather, and the infrequent ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... confirmed my suspicions; suspicions which, up to then, I had attributed solely to some aberration of fancy on my part. Then, again, when we questioned the skipper of the Pensacola relative to the Black Venus and the Vestale, how evasive were ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Liberty, arrived in port with a cargo of Madeira wine, the duty on which was much larger than on other wines. "The collector of the port was so inquisitive about the cargo, that the crew locked him below while it was swung ashore and a false bill of entry made out, after an evasive manner into which importers had fallen of late. Naturally enough, when the collector was released from the hold, he reported the outrage to the commander of one of the ships which had brought troops from Halifax, and he promptly seized the Liberty ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... looked searchingly into Carter's eyes and laughed in faint raillery; he partially understood. His reply was evasive. "It is not every one," he said, "who can gain a throne by marrying a pretty girl." Shrugging his shoulders, he abruptly left his companions and approached the woman, with whom he did not seem to have any difficulty ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... of an alliance to be cemented by a marriage between Giuffredo Borgia—aged twelve—and Ferrante's granddaughter Lucrezia of Aragon. The Pope, with his plans but half-matured as yet, temporized, was evasive, and continued to arm and to recruit. At last, his arrangements completed, he abruptly broke off his negotiations with Naples, and on April 25, 1493, publicly proclaimed that he had joined ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... opinion among Wellington's acquaintances that he was a single man. He had come to the city alone, had never been heard to speak of a wife, and to personal questions bearing upon the subject of matrimony had always returned evasive answers. Though he had never questioned the correctness of the lawyer's opinion in regard to his slave marriage, his conscience had never been entirely at ease since his departure from the South, and any positive denial of his ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... in this as in other emergencies, was sun-clear to himself, but for most part dim to everybody else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him, suspicious Kaiser on the other; he had to wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words and advance noiselessly by many circuits. More delicate operation could not be imagined; but advance he did, advance and arrive. With extraordinary talent, diligence, and felicity, the young man wound himself out ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... trial at York, without concurring with the jury in their verdict, and with the judge in his sentence? In short, without a strong feeling that the prisoner would not have been hanged, but for that over-ingenious, and obviously evasive, address, in which the plain averment of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... reason why the old gentleman's mental derangement should dignify his friend with titles he had never borne. She remarked to herself that his answer to Euphemia was evasive; she remembered his emotion and apology on seeing Mr. C. Kemble in Adelbert; and uniting with these facts his manners and acquirements, so far beyond the charges of any subordinate rank, she could finally retain no doubt of his ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... her mainsail to drop. As we pulled alongside I saw from the dress of the crew of three that they were man-of-war's men, and divined that they were deserters. They were thoroughly frightened at first, for our appearance was not calculated to impress them favorably. To our questions they returned evasive answers or were silent, and finally asked by what authority we had overhauled them. We told them that the war was not over so far as we were concerned; that they were our prisoners, and their boat our prize; that they were both deserters and pirates, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... of the chevalier was considered evasive, and only intended to gain time. The information given by Washington of what he had observed on the frontier convinced Governor Dinwiddie and his council that the French were preparing to descend the Ohio in the spring, and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... see him two or three times more ere I can make up my mind in regard to him," said Mrs. Waring with something evasive in her manner. "First impressions are not always to be relied on," she ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... all goes to prove the truth of what I said in my last letter. It is vain for you to protest that you came away more amorous than ever of the Countess, your embarrassment when she inquired whether you had remained long with your "fermiere generale," the attempt you made to deceive her by an evasive answer, the extreme care you took to disarm her slightest suspicion, are indications to me that you are far more guilty than you pretend, or than you are aware ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... evasive and laughing answer; but, being quite near the tent by this time, it was necessary to change the discourse. The reader may think it odd, but that was the very first time the possibility of my marrying Emily Merton ever crossed my mind. In London, I had regarded her as an ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... After a few more evasive remarks, in which he succeeded in drawing out the other more fully, and causing him the more completely to commit himself, Bart threw aside all bantering, and proceeded to relate all his discoveries relative to the contemplated ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... by his landlord with a notice of ejectment for arrears, although he had paid up six months' dues two months only before the service. Father Little charged the landlord in this case with prevarication and other evasive proceedings in the course of his negotiations with the tenants; and Colonel Turner did not contest the statements made by him in support of his contention that the Rosmanagher difficulty might have been avoided had the tenants been more fairly and more considerately dealt with. It is strong presumptive ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... officer's eyes as he put the question bluntly. An officer of the Army or of the Navy must not answer a question untruthfully. Neither, as a rule, may he make an evasive answer. So the lieutenant commander thought a moment, before ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter he frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is important, not for himself, but for the great ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a too sudden effect of joy, should I appear abruptly before him. Thus, in going aboard I shall take the precaution of well wrapping myself up in order to escape his eyes—and even if he asks you if I shall soon arrive, oblige me by answering him in an evasive manner. In this way we can prepare him for an interview, which without these precautions might prove fatal to ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Staples was important. He then lived at Machias, Maine. By writing and interviews when I found him in Boston, I became satisfied that for a hidden reason he was resolved to have nothing to do with the case. As a last resort, I took out a commission and submitted interrogatories. The answers were evasive or valueless from loss of memory. Thus the case was delayed. In 1862 I was elected to Congress. Childs was an easy going man who made inquiries occasionally, but never complained. Upon my return from a session, about 1865, I resolved to bring the case ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... of a thinking man in politics are curiously evasive and difficult to describe. Neither the public nor the historian will permit the statesman moods. He has from the first to assume he has an Aim, a definite Aim, and to pretend to an absolute consistency with that. Those subtle questionings about the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... His face flushed, and he looked up uncertainly at the goggles. "He used to teach, I told you," was the evasive answer, "until his eyes ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... girl with questions as to the friends who were to meet her on arrival in San Francisco, and Miss Ray had smilingly given evasive answers. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... lips when he heard this evasive answer, and saw that he had met his equal in diplomacy. A young man then approached and passed his arm into that of Monte-Leone's, thus putting an end to this annoying interview. This young man had an eloquent and distingue air, and handsome features, though they were delicate and betokened ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... as it was, it was not all a joke. It had already shut the sun from all Rachael's sky. What was it doing to Warren—to Magsie? With Rachael in a cold and dangerous mood, Warren evasive, unresponsive, troubled, what ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.[284] But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the Constitution, showing the enormities committed ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... world not through books or through the theories of books, but through his own eyes. He is sceptical because he sees that any one who wishes to live in harmony with the facts of life must be sceptical. Life is made up of such evasive entangled confused elements that any other attitude than this one is a noble madness if it is not knavish hypocrisy. The theories, convictions, moralities, opinions, of every child of Adam are subject to lamentable upheavals, as the incorrigible earth-gods, with their ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... everything was all right - that Clip was with little Wren, who had been very ill since the loss of her book, and that Paul Hastings was no worse. This last Cora considered evasive, but had to be content, for Ed would ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... evidently an Irish strain in her, but there was probably a dash of French as well, for she was an excellent cook and recipe was her master-word—she pronounced it "recipee." There was Jackman, the nurse, a mixture of Mother and Aunt Emily; and there was Weeden, the Head Gardener, an evasive and mysterious personality, who knew so much about flowers and vegetables and weather that he was half animal, half bird, and scarcely a human being at all—vaguely magnificent in a sombre way. His power in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Committee, the schedule was promptly furnished and they were assured that their speakers would be welcomed. When they applied to the Republican Central Committee, to their amazement, they were put off with an evasive answer. Meanwhile they had Miss Anthony, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Catt and other speakers waiting for engagements and did not dare make dates ahead lest it might interfere with the big Republican rallies which they wished them to address. Again and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... crowns, on condition that all the possessions in America should be previously put in the situation prescribed by the treaty of Utrecht, confirmed by that of Aix-la-Chapelle. The French ministry, instead of complying with this condition, produced an evasive draft of a preliminary convention, and this was answered by a counter-proposal. At length the ambassador of France demanded, as preliminary conditions, that Great Britain would renounce all claim to the south coast of the river St. Laurence, and the lakes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... relieve myself from liability. For this purpose, after arranging for the means to purchase, I employed counsel to make a definite offer for my parents and myself. To his proposal, the following evasive ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... aim, in this as in other emergencies, was sun-clear to himself, but for most part dim to everybody else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him, suspicious Kaiser on the other: he had to wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words, and advance noiselessly by many circuits. More delicate operation could not be imagined. But advance he did; advance and arrive. With extraordinary talent, diligence, and felicity the young man wound himself out of this first ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... evasive answer, but could not entirely conceal the confusion which overwhelmed me. I went to bed early; but I could ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... merely the reassurance of her answer, but to his surprise and growing alarm she hesitated, looking at him half fearfully and half ashamedly. "Oh, I—I don't know about that," she murmured, with evasive eyes. "An American girl—very ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... to his justice and generosity, Ferdinand replied with many courteous expressions, and with those general evasive promises, which beguile the ear of the court applicant, but convey no comfort to his heart. "As far as actions went," observes Las Casas, "the king not merely showed him no signs of favor, but, on the contrary, discountenanced ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... this outrage, and Cavignari immediately demanded the surrender of the murderers, as well as a heavy fine in money wherewith to pension the families of the victims. Secure in their fastness the men of Sapri sent replies, varying from the evasive to ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... ever learn about that," said he, in what seemed to me a rather evasive tone, "I had to gather from the incoherent and rambling talk of Wilderspin, a religious enthusiast whose genius is very nearly akin to mania. He was so struck by you that he actually believed you to be not a corporeal woman at all; he believed you had been sent from the spirit-world by ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... and the captain was not there: instead we found a mixed crowd of civilians and militaires who looked us over and shook their heads. Next we were taken to military headquarters the center of the town. For fifteen minutes we hunted the evasive captain while I ran through my head the various sets of credentials stuffed in different pockets; for, being in Dutch territory, although only a few miles from the Belgian frontier on one side and the German frontier on the other, I was not quite certain which to ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... of which had never yet been presented to her by love or philosophy, or even curiosity? As for any influence from the public offices of religion, a contented soul may glide through them all for a long life, unstruck to the last, buoyant and evasive as a bee amongst hailstones. And now her cousin, unsolicited, was about to assume, if she should permit him, the unspiritual direction of her being, so that she need never be troubled from the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... stand by the door after it had closed. Anna felt that he was looking at her, and sat still, disdaining to seek refuge in any evasive word or movement. For the last time she wanted to let him take from her the fulness of what the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... Bertie, who could generally be found at Lancaster Gate when he wasn't in his chambers in the Temple, was apathetic and amiably evasive. He took the line that Lancaster Gate took when he referred to his brother-in-law ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... you were slipping further and further out of my life—as if you were gone, and I had only the clothes you had worn, an odor about me somewhere to convince me that I had not dreamed you! Sometimes that faint, indistinct, evasive scent of you in the room has almost driven me out of my head. I wonder I haven't killed you before now—to be sure of you! I'm afraid of Hell, I suppose, or ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... to the English throne, for they feared that Henry purposed to leave that kingdom to John. During an interview between Henry and Richard, at which Philip was present, Richard demanded that his father recognize him, the elder son, as the future King of England. Henry made an evasive reply, whereupon, referring to the rumor that John would be heir to the English ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... matter of being a mediator, having planted the Paris idea in the mind of the Philippine leader, who is of the persuasion that he is the dictator of his countrymen, for the sake of his country, until he wishes to be evasive, and then he must consult others who share the burdens of authority, and told him when taking my leave I would like to possess a photograph with his autograph and the Philippine flag. In a few minutes the articles were in my hands, and passing out, there were the American priests in ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead |
