"Stake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lives the power of propagation and renewal of life. It is the foundation of morality, the chief educational institution, and the source of nearly all real contentment among men.' All other questions sink into insignificance when the stability of the family is at stake. In short, the family circle is a world in miniature, with its own habits, its own interests, and its own ties, largely independent of the great world that lies outside. When the family is of such great importance, how much greater should be the responsibilities of women in the ordering ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the croupier, he took his first lesson in roulette. He saw a mere youth win fifteen thousand francs, which were stolen in the most barefaced mariner by a rouged girl scarcely older than the youth; he saw two old gamesters stake their coins, and lose, and walk quietly out of the place; he saw the bank win fifty thousand francs ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... at present. And, although the mover of the resolution and the mover of the amendment would each have a reply, little would be left to detain the House, unless when some great interests were at stake. ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the youth, and added desperately, "I'm here in his place," mentally explaining to an outraged conscience that this was literally true, for was not his boat tied to a stake, and must not that stake have been driven by the old man for his boat? Dr. Watts has told ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... acquire any new degree; as if it were derived from the Latin sto; for example, stand, stay, that is, to remain, or to prop; staff, stay, that is, to oppose; stop, to stuff, stifle, to stay, that is, to stop; a stay, that is, an obstacle; stick, stut, stutter, stammer, stagger, stickle, stick, stake, a sharp, pale, and any thing deposited at play; stock, stem, sting, to sting, stink, stitch, stud, stuncheon, stub, stubble, to stub up, stump, whence stumble, stalk, to stalk, step, to stamp with the feet, whence to stamp, that is, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... others, which in the summer were generally kept at the river- mouth for the use of the boys, had been taken back to Penchurch. The only craft available was a flat-bottomed punt used by fishermen, and at present moored to a stake at the river-bank. It was capacious, certainly, but not exactly the sort of boat in which to get up much pace, particularly as its sole apparent mode of propulsion was by means of two very long boat-hooks, one on either side. These details, ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... The Earl of Surrey, however, who commanded in the north, was well prepared, and very soon took the field with twenty thousand men. James was obliged to withdraw, and though he challenged the Earl to single combat with Berwick as the stake, Surrey replied that Berwick was not his property but his master's, and he must regretfully decline the proposed method of arbitrament. He advanced over the border, making some captures and doing considerable damage; but after a week, commissariat difficulties ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... said, 'let us talk of something else, or would you care to play preference for a small stake? It is not for people like me to give way to exalted emotions. There's only one thing for me to think of; how to keep the children from crying and the wife from scolding. Since then, you know, I have had time to enter into lawful wed-lock, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... land Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon, And we laid them on the ballast down below; For we brought them all aboard, And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... continued the priest, "at every council. To the Indians a promise is not given, a statement is not true, a treaty is not binding, unless there is a present for each clause. We have much at stake, and we ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... "I would stake my life on it, George, if you set about it in the right way you can win Lutie all over again. All you have to do is to let her see that you are a man, a real man. There's no reason in the world why she shouldn't remember what love really is, and that she once had it through you. There's ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... time he spoke again. "Ah, but it's a night to be stirring! I'll stake all my pay for this unlucky voyage that there's not a native on the island who hasn't a bag of rubies tied round his neck with a string, or maybe emeralds—there's a stone for you! Emeralds are green as the sea by a sandy shore and bright as a ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... game to conceal the fact, to demand more and more money for more and more development, force us out, get our shares, and own the property. Why, laddie, the man that warned me dared not sign his name, for every wire was watched; yet I'd stake six months' pay he's got the rights of it. There's ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... but codes require a little time in the composition of a message, and time was the one thing he could not waste. He heard the gist of the message repeated to him, told the man at the other station that lives were at stake, and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... of the island itself, was at stake. A foreigner had dishonored their people, or would if they did not win back what he had gained from them. She was half Chinese; her father's soul was concerned. He had died in this very room. To save his face in ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... stake their money. If they lose one, they stake two; if they lose, they stake four; if they lose, they stake eight; if they still lose, they stake sixteen; now if they win, they have, of course, won one more than they have lost altogether. The banker ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... Maya name for woman, and the change from b to p is not uncommon. It is found in several places as that out of which plants are growing, as LXVII, 16, from Tro. 32b, which appears to represent some leguminous plant supported by a stake driven into the ground. It is that on which persons are sitting Indian fashion, and on which others are lying; again, it is that out of which a serpent is arising. As "earth," "ground," will furnish an entirely ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... of its members as merely single individuals; that only very confused, uncritical imaginations can lend themselves to these illusions, and that the only way to this end, the only way for the abolition of that cruel law of wages to which the working class is bound as to a martyr's stake, is the encouragement and development of free, individual, cooeperative associations of workingmen through the helping hand of the State. The movement for workingmen's associations founded upon the purely atomistic, isolated power of individual workingmen had only the value—and this, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... between the King's garden on one side and the convent of the Augustinian monks on the other, the two pyres were raised—two out of the four had shrunk back into their ignoble confessions. It was the hour of vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned; they were tied each to the stake. The flames kindled dully and heavily; the wood, hastily piled up, was green or wet; or in cruel mercy the tardiness was designed that the victims might have time, while the fire was still curling round their extremities, to recant their bold recantation. But there was no sign, no word ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... else seems unimportant to him; see it in your case, Blucher, and it makes my heart ache. You do not love me, your time hangs heavy in my presence; the card-table is your only pleasure, and I believe, when the passion seizes you, and you have lost all your money, you would stake the remainder of your property on a card, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Him they slew not, for he was the White Man's Wizard, All the land his fame, his mighty prowess knew, And the Red Man sought to learn his wondrous magic, Ere they led him tortured to the cruel stake. ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman
... created a new doubt; it has simply made perfect an old one; and has advanced it from the distant regions of theory into the very middle of our hearts and lives. It has made the question of belief or of unbelief the supreme practical question for us. It has forced us to stake everything on the cast of a single die. What are we? Have we been hitherto deceived in ourselves, or have we not? And is every hope that has hitherto nerved our lives, melting at last away from us, utterly and for ever? Or are we indeed what we have been taught to think we are? ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... healthy action, physical, intellectual and moral, depends primarily on cheerfulness," says E. P. Whipple, "and as every duty, whether it be to follow a plow or to die at the stake, should be done in a cheerful spirit, the exploration of the sources and conditions of this most vigorous, exhilarating and creative of the virtues may be as useful as the exposition of any topic of science or system of ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Al-Islam," cried a voice in India. "A base one in the service of some European coalition, who, under the pretext of preaching the spiritualities, is undoing the work of the Revolution. The gibbet is for ordinary traitors; for him the stake," etc., etc. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... stakes of the length of a man's arm and the thickness of a thumb, and wrapped around in gay colored paper ribbon streamers, and at one end a thin iron spike about as long as a man's little finger. The banderilleros had to stand in front of the bull, with a stake in each hand, and, as he charged, to step in between his horns and reach over and plant a stake on each side of his neck. 'It is most simple,' explained Ferrero, as he left Cogan to do his part—'only—surely—we must not make mistake.' ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... Pet's hands and wrenched off one concrete arm. He struck the head with a tent stake and shattered it into crumbling concrete. He jerked the Roman tunic from the body and disclosed ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... burning Rome. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Barbara Frietchie actually existed. Sheridan never made the ride from Winchester. Homer was born ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... it," growled Harry Marvin, with the air of a martyr going to the stake. "I'll do it for ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Major admitted. "I never had much truck with 'em, but I knowed a feller in the Jackson Hole County that made quite a stake out of dudin'. They took him to Warm Springs afterward—he'd weakened his mind answerin' questions—but he left his family well pervided for. Teeters," earnestly, "why don't you put your money in somethin' substantial—stock in the Ditch ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... wheezed. "No offence. We respect you. But still, when one has a stake, one likes ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... which way to turn to reach Tunbridge Wells. In the distance he heard the baying of dogs, and he guessed that they were being set upon his track. In that case he could not hope to escape them, and might just as well await them where he was. He picked out a heavy stake from the hedge, and he sat down moodily waiting, in a very dangerous temper, for what ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who usurped the throne of England and reigned as Henry IV. The influence of Lancaster was equal to his station, and he extended his protection to Wiclif. This, combined with the support of Lord Percy, the Marshal of England, saved the reformer from the stake when he was tried before the Bishop, of London on a charge of heresy, in 1377. He was again brought before a synod of the clergy at Lambeth, in 1378, but such was the favor of the populace in his behalf, and such, too, the weakness ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... liberty is the stake, what enterprise is too hazardous for its attainment!) was undertaken in this month by five convicts at Rose Hill, who, in the night, seized a small punt there, and proceeded in her to the South Head, whence they seized and carried ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... what were the fountains of these bitter floods that swept over Christ's sinless soul? Was the mere physical shrinking from death all? If so, we may reverently say that many a maiden and old man, who drew all their fortitude from Jesus, have gone to stake or gibbet for His sake, with a calm which contrasts strangely with His agitation. Gethsemane is robbed of its pathos and nobleness if that be all. But it was not all. Rather it was the least bitter of the components of the cup. What lay before Him was not merely ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... a shame, I agree, that I cannot set free all persons who kill the police; That patriots leal who in dynamite deal I can only in sections release: But I think you must see that a statesman like me has a character moral at stake, And must simulate doubt as to letting them out, for my ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... vengeance had prompted the bad priest to betray his confession. Saint-Thomas, hearing this, thought that this incident was of more importance than the trial, which concerned the life of only one person, whereas the honour of religion was at stake, with consequences infinitely more important. He felt he must verify this statement, and summoned the confessor. When he had admitted the breach of faith, the judges were obliged to revoke their sentence ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... seized her: she hastily arose to seek her friend. It was evident that some great event was in preparation. The Indian men had put on the war-paint, and strange and ferocious eyes were glancing from beneath their shaggy locks. A stake was driven in the centre of the cleared space in front of the chief's lodge: there, bound, she beheld her devoted friend; pale as ashes, but with a calm, unshaken countenance, she stood. There was no sign of woman's fear in her fixed dark eye, which quailed not before ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... victorious in war. Death is the least we have to fear. It is the plundering and sacking of our city, the profanation of our mosques, the ruin of our homes, the violation of our wives and daughters, cruel oppression, bigoted intolerance, whips and chains, the dungeon, the fagot, and the stake: such are the miseries and indignities we shall see and suffer; at least those grovelling souls will see and suffer them who now shrink from an honorable death. For my part, by Allah, I will never ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... the stakes were driven into the strong clay. They were placed some way up the slope, and one a little space above the other. To the lower stake they fastened Crewe. As the girl was being bound to the other, her arms were freed for a moment that the savages might the more readily remove her upper garments, and by a swift movement she loosened ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... spectator and of an agent or participant. The former is indifferent to what is going on; one result is just as good as another, since each is just something to look at. The latter is bound up with what is going on; its outcome makes a difference to him. His fortunes are more or less at stake in the issue of events. Consequently he does whatever he can to influence the direction present occurrences take. One is like a man in a prison cell watching the rain out of the window; it is all the same to him. The other is like a man who ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... you two needed something around that looks like a man a heap more than Jim does. I know Peter Howling Dog to a fare-you-well; you'll be all to the good if he forgets to come back. So if you'll stake me to a meal now and then, and a place to sleep, I'll be glad to see you through the winter—or until you get some white man to take my place." He took up the two water-pails and waited, glancing from one to the other with that repressed smile which Billy Louise ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... and degradation of woman. Historical facts to prove this are abundant. In the dark days of "witchcraft"—through centuries—alleged witches were arrested, tried in ecclesiastical courts, tortured and hung or burned at the stake by men under priestly direction, and the great majority of the victims were women. Eve's alleged transgression, and the Bible edict in the days of the reputed Witch of Endor, "Thou shalt not suffer ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... there before them. She sent a trusty servant to her sons to announce her coming. Then, at nightfall, she herself departed, accompanied by one of her ladies only. She was courageous and resolute, for she knew that the safety of her sons, her only happiness, was at stake. ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... stake my reputation on it, unable as I am to explain every circumstance, and close up every gap. Have you any further questions to ask or shall I leave you to ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... each river has its own variety of fish, which can be distinguished from the fish of any other river; another contends that there is no such difference; a third states that stake nets are exceedingly injurious to the breed of the fish; and a fourth attests that stake nets only catch the fish when they are in the best season, that neither Kelt nor fry are taken in them, ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... about the Budget and the position of the Government. The Government is in earnest about the Budget. The Budget carries with it their fortunes and the fortunes of the Liberal Party. Careful argument, reasonable amendment, amicable concession, not affecting the principles at stake—all these we offer while the Bill is in the House of Commons. But when all that is said and done, as the Bill leaves the House of Commons so it must stand. It would be a great pity if Lord Curzon, the Indian pro-Consul, or the London Spectator—it would ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... cause as long as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful." Subsequently, when pressed to leave the marshy and deleterious air of Missolonghi, he replied, still more forcibly, "I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of (even supposed) utility. There is a stake worth millions such as I am, and while I can stand at all I must stand by the cause. While I say this, I am aware of the difficulties, and dissensions, and defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them by ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... but still unconvinced. "If my whole medical reputation were at stake," he repeated, "I should still be compelled to swear to asphyxia. I've seen it too often, to make a mistake. Carbonic oxide or not, Templeton and Miss ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... came across the road for a few minutes' chat en route for a shopping expedition, and all the time that the elder was speaking, the younger stood in the background, rolling her eyes and mouthing unintelligible messages, evidently intended to convey the information that some great issue was at stake. ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Catherine firmly. "I could go to battle or the stake like Joan of Arc, but I draw ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... wishing with all my heart that we had never left that cosy kitchen, for I could not see how we were to cover another three miles in this fashion. I said not a word, however, for I would not have gainsaid mother in this journey, considering how much there was at stake. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... not only Darwin's "geological salvation" that was at stake, when he surrendered himself to his enthusiasm for an idea. To his firm faith in the doctrine of continuity we owe the "Origin of Species"; and while Darwin became the "Paul" of evolution, Lyell long remained the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Was it the coming event; was it the loss of sleep; the great interest at stake; the terrible struggle before him? I know not; but he looked anxious, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... life there was at least one enduring passion in Flaxman which dignified his character. For liberty of experiment, and liberty of conscience, in himself or others, he would gladly have gone to the stake. Himself the loyal upholder of an established order, which he helped to run decently, he was yet in curious sympathy with many obscure revolutionists in many fields. To brutalize a man's conscience seemed to him worse than to murder his body. Hence ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to go. He reminded them of the barbarous cruelties the Indians had practiced as allies of the King's troops in the war, and told them briefly the story of the battle Col. Crawford had fought with the savages in the Ohio country, ending with the burning of Col. Crawford at the stake. ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... command; but it was a bitter stroke for him to bear, particularly at this time, when so much depended upon his being able to pursue his calling uninterrupted, and still make the proper appearance in his person. He felt that at no previous moment had he so much at stake as now; that at no previous time in the course of his life could such an event have been more unfortunate. But Carlton was blessed with a heart easy to keep afloat; and though his future was hard, he looked upon its sunny side, and bore bravely ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... earth to heaven, With white-winged angels passing up and down; And, underneath the bridge, in a black stream, He puts the drowning face of the bad Prince Holding his wicked hands out, while a devil Stands on the bank and with a pointed stake Keeps him from landing— ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... are knocking—knocking. The sun in the sky is a flat, red plate, the branches creak and grate. She screams and cowers, for the green foliage is a lowering wave surging to smother her. But she sees nothing. The stake holds firm. The body writhes, the body squirms. The blue spots widen, the flesh tears, but the stake wears well in the deep, black ground. It holds the body ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... a little company and spend the cold weather trying to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one is rich, what better fun than to grub-stake an expedition on the supposed site of a dead city and see what turns up? There was a big-game hunter who had used most of the Continent, quite ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... was true! A great truth! Sulaco was in the forefront, as ever! It was a boastful tumult, the hopefulness inspired by the event of the day breaking out amongst those caballeros of the Campo thinking of their herds, of their lands, of the safety of their families. Everything was at stake. . . . No! It was impossible that Montero should succeed! This criminal, this shameless Indio! The clamour continued for some time, everybody else in the room looking towards the group where Don Juste had put on his air of impartial solemnity as if presiding at a sitting of the Provincial ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... executed by a party of Indians who had made him a prisoner on the banks of the Ohio. Years before, Kenton and Girty had been bosom companions at Fort Pitt, and served together subsequently in the commencement of Dunmore's expedition; but the victim was already blackened for the stake, and the renegade failed to recognize in him his former associate. Girty had at this time but just returned from an expedition against the frontier of Pennsylvania, which had been less successful than ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... remember that it is the principle at stake—viz., the recognition by a legal tribunal, as lawful or innocent of any attempt to violate the laws, or to take the law into our own hands: this it is and the mortal taint which is thus introduced into the public morality of a Christian land, thus authentically introduced; ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Lord Aberdeen as a national benefactor, who has not only turned aside a current running headlong into a revolution, but in doing this exemplary service, has contrived to adjust the temperament very equitably between, 1st, the individual nominee, having often his livelihood at stake; 2dly, the patron, exercising a right of property interwoven with our social system, and not liable to any usurpation which would not speedily extend itself to other modes of property; 3dly, the church, considered as the trustee or responsible guardian of orthodoxy and sound learning; 4thly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... haled from the dining-hall and drowned in a well, and testimony of the secret rites that were held there, and in which a certain black idol was worshipped, was forthcoming. The Grand Master was burnt at the stake, the knights were thrown into prison, and their property was confiscated. Then the forfeited estate of the Temple, presenting ready access by water, at once struck the advocates of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, and the students who were candidates for the privilege ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... that I have sacred duties to fulfil toward my people, and that, so far as my own person is concerned, I am not yet allowed to possess any other courage than that of resignation. I am not allowed to stake the existence of my monarchy and the welfare of my people to obtain personal satisfaction. Until I obtain the incontestable certainty that such a course would be brought to a successful issue, I must ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... exciseman by necessity: but I will say it! the sterling of his honest worth, no poverty could debase, and his independent British mind, oppression might bend, but could not subdue. Have not I, to me, a more precious stake in my country's welfare than the richest dukedom in it?—I have a large family of children, and the prospect of many more. I have three sons, who, I see already, have brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of SLAVES.—Can ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sympathy. The diversion of baiting an author has the sanction of all ages and nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teasing other animals, because, for the most part, he comes voluntarily to the stake, furnished, as he imagines, by the patron powers of literature, with resistless weapons, and impenetrable armour, with the mail of the boar of Erymanth, and the paws ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... how our real wide-awake world revolves around the shadowy unrealities of Dreamland. Despite all that we say about the inconsequence of dreams, we often reason by them. We stake our greatest hopes upon them. Nay, we build upon them the fabric of an ideal world. I can recall few fine, thoughtful poems, few noble works of art or any system of philosophy in which there is not evidence that dream-fantasies symbolize ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... his own family, these same people, suddenly animated by contrary sentiments of vengeance, imperiously demand an exemplary expiation and all possible reprisals. This sometimes goes as far as torture of the culprit or burning at the stake, as ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... lad gaily, knew exactly how brilliant her grey eyes became with that tone. She herself would have felt it bold to have greeted him in such wise. Yet there she stood under the self-accusation of wanting him, tied to that stake of torture. In bitter perplexity she ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... the lawyers will settle it: settle it with a fine bill of costs, of course. But, as Finnie says,"—Finnie was Sir Louis's legal adviser—"I have got a tremendously large interest at stake in this matter; eighty thousand pounds is no joke. It ain't everybody that can shell out eighty thousand pounds when they're wanted; and I should like to know how the thing's going on. I've a right to ask, you ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Freedom, my feet shall ever stand. I will walk beneath her banner. I will glory in her strength. I have watched her in history struck down on an hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen her friends fly from her; her foes gather around her. I have seen her bound to the stake; I have seen them give her ashes to the winds. But when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to face, resplendent in complete steel, brandishing in her strong right hand a flaming ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... kind and affectionate. Now I believe this; for who can look upon your face and doubt it? Believing this, then, how can you, when you know that the happiness of a man who loves you beyond the power of language to express, is at stake, depends upon your will—how can you, I say, refuse to make that individual—who appreciated all your virtues, as I do—who feels the influence of your extraordinary beauty, as I do—who contemplates your future happiness as the great object of his life, as I do—how ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and he knows it, and pretends to be fiery. What's bad,' pursued Lezhnyov, gradually growing warm, 'he is playing a dangerous game—not dangerous for him, of course; he does not risk a farthing, not a straw on it—but others stake their soul.' ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... "My own stake has disappeared," he declared; "and the pile of notes I distinctly saw in front of the banker has gone. I fear, Mr. Rubenstein, there is a thief ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... grocer's wife where he lodged, the end of it being that she drowned herself in a pond near by, leaving as her last word that he was the cause of it; and so he may have been, but not the way my uncle and the folk at Lewes thought, I'll stake my soul. God makes His troubles in dozens; He don't make a new patterned one for every back. I wasn't the only woman who ever loved Edgar Linley without encouragement and without hope, and risked her soul because she ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... is a far more important matter that is at stake. The Court considers the atheistical irreligious 'attentats' have gone too far and therefore ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... sure," said Dan to the men around him, for every soul on board, even including old Chasselot—called by the men "Cuss-a-lot"—our cook, was staring into the thick night; "and I wouldn't stake a noggin that her crew ain't cheated the old un at last an' gone down singing. It's mighty easy to die with your head full o' rum, but I don't go for to choose it ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... for the safety of his people was at stake. Considering, he remembered how Alwa and ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... such procedure recurred to him; the fact that nothing could result from their meeting but disappointment and recrimination. The man evidently disliked him, and would resent any interference; he had something to conceal, something at stake for which he would battle strenuously. It would be better to let him alone at present, and try to uncover a clue elsewhere. Later, with more facts in his possession, he could face the Lieutenant and compel his acknowledgment. These considerations caused him ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... strong personality, he was singularly unfortunate in having failed to impart to his wife any of that integrity which he may have practiced through life. Her methods of dealing with him after they had lived together for a good many years were criminal, considering the largeness of the issue at stake as the result of his blessing. As for Jacob, not a single praiseworthy act of his long life was available to his biographer. His career was that of the most sordid of hucksters. Of eleven of his sons nothing good is told, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... not to be borne; though, as I was but thirteen, he seventeen, and a very stout fellow, I should rather not have sought an action with him. But he had begun it: my honour was at stake, and I only wonder I had not drawn my dirk, and laid him dead at my feet. Fortunately for him, the rage I was in, made me forget I had it by my side: though I remembered my uniform, the disgrace brought upon it, and the admiration ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... grave, pale face, her heart misgave her strangely, and she trembled so that even he noticed it, and also another fact,—she did not meet his eyes. He fastened his upon her, as if he would read her soul, for he now felt that more than life was at stake. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... reverting to the aboriginal type. The Tennessee farmer and his neighbors, at any rate, reverted very strongly indeed to the original type when robbed by the gypsies, for they turned out all together, hunted them down, and, having secured the sorceress, burned her alive at the stake. And thus in a single crime and its punishment we have curiously combined a world-old Oriental offense, an European Middle-Age penalty for witchcraft, and the fierce torture ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... War in after days, Louis Kossuth observed that never did a statesman throw down a more hazardous and daring stake than Cavour when he insisted on clenching the alliance after he had found out that it must be done without any conditions or guarantees. Cicero's Partem fortuna sibi vindicat applies to diplomacy as well as to war, "but the stroke was ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... here?" Felix asked, half breathless, for the very magnitude of the stake at issue—no less a stake than Muriel's life—made him hesitate to put point-blank the question he had most at ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... as decisively as if he went and married some one else? Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,—that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. To preach scepticism to us as a duty until {27} 'sufficient evidence' for religion ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... I tell you Ed Curtis saw the same woman?" said Todd, now growing assertive. "And she was going out there alone. And if there was anybody else around would n't they be eating supper with them? And if a horse was dragging a stake-rope would n't Tuck ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... bending the neck of both under the yoke of foreign domination, or the despotic sovereignty of a conqueror at home. May heaven avert the omen! The destinies, not only of our posterity, but of the human race, are at stake. ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... Charter," said Mr. Delaplaine an hour later, "this son of yours should be a great credit and pride to you, and he will be, I stake ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... innovations, and he felt rather than argued that the State, as the ultimate guarantee of social order, must be maintained even at some cost of theological consistency. Until he could be convinced that high moral issues and his own salvation were at stake, it was useless or dangerous to excommunicate his king and to lay his country under interdict. For want of lay support the Church failed to make good such important claims as those of immunity from national taxation and of jurisdiction in cases of commercial contract. More striking still, ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... herd in a blizzard when the temperature was below zero. I've done my shift on the twelfth level of the Never Quit many a month. I've mushed in Alaska and fought against Castro in Venezuela. Do you think I'm going to give up my stake now I've won ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... to me and began to compliment me on the work I had done, I could not rise. I sat still and listened with downcast eyes, afraid to lift them lest he read in them something of my need and panic in this moment when my whole future seemed at stake. ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... the hands of trustees and devote its entire profits to charity during his term of office; but still the senate refused, and the nomination was withdrawn. It was a bitter blow to Stewart, nor was his fight for social prominence much more fortunate. As his last stake, as it were, he began the erection of a great marble palace on Fifth Avenue, designed to cost a million and to be the finest private residence in the world, but he died before ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... wrote her. I got down to the level of bribing the colored maid to take the notes to her, one every hour, like a medicine, and slip them under her door. I know she received them. I repeated it again to-day. It's Mary Virginia at stake, and I can't take chances, can I? And ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... foresee all this. No great or inspired man can foresee all the consequences of his deeds: but these men were, as I hold, inspired to see somewhat at least of the mighty stake for which they played; and to count their lives worthless, if Sparta had sent them thither to help in ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... Finance, and the protracted consultations may refer mainly to that subject—and a difficult one it is. Besides, if this revolution be doomed by Providence to failure, Mr. Hunter would be the most potent negotiator in the business of reconstruction. He has great interests at stake, and would save his property—and of course ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... was the offspring of a generation of men for hundreds of years, who would any of them have gone to the stake rather than have told the smallest untruth; and for him who had been watched and guarded and catechised against this sin from his cradle, till he was as true and pure as a crystal rock, to have his faith shattered in the woman he loved, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... United States has, by his Proclamation, made known the dangers which threaten the stability of Government, and called upon the people to rally in support of the Constitution and laws; and Whereas, The merchants of New York, represented in this Chamber, have a deep stake in the results which may flow from the present exposed state of national affairs, as well as a jealous regard for the honor of that flag under whose protection they have extended the commerce of this city to the remotest part of the ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... man should have hidden his authorship of such works as the plays of Shakespeare makes a draft on the credulity of men too great to be borne. Why Junius should not have revealed himself is not difficult to discover. His life was at stake. But why the author of "The Tempest," or "King Lear," or "The Merchant of Venice," should have concealed his personality so carefully that three centuries have elapsed before men could discover it—this is an enigma no man can solve. In general, it is objected by non-believers in Shakespeare that ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... went off into another explosion of rage. He would cut his heart out while the American devil was still alive. He would stake him out on the desert to broil to ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... gave the Staff some uneasiness, and considerable interest was taken in these forward workings. I went out with Capt. Welch for a short visit in that direction the first night, but we saw nothing of interest. The next night Capt. Welch brought back a revetting stake from the new German trench. I believe it was on February 13 that the Germans attacked and took the 'Bluff,' some trenches south-west of Hill 60. About 3.30 P.M. our own trenches were bombarded for about two hours continuously ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... prolonged absence on a tour, in which he had a large venture at stake, he came home in a greatly altered mood. His usual buoyancy of spirits was gone; he appeared gloomy and abstracted; and, although, in reply to the anxious inquiries of his wife, he represented himself to have been entire ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... "Let 'em stake!" answered Rimrock whose mood was vindictive, "and the first man that jumps me, I'll jump him, by grab, ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... of Anjou hated the Earl of Warwick, not only because he had unseated her husband but because he had doubted her fidelity to that husband. Nevertheless, under Louis's persuasions, she consented to forget her past wrongs and to stake her future hopes on fraternising with him on a basis of common hate for Edward IV. The alliance was to be sealed by the marriage of young Edward of Lancaster, the prince whose very legitimacy Warwick had questioned, with the earl's younger daughter. It was a ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... House of Commons was not conducting the war itself the excuse was shallow. Lord John threatened to resign unless he was allowed to introduce his measure, for he considered the honour of the Ministry and his own honour at stake. From the following letters it will be seen how hard he fought for this measure, and with what poignant regret he found himself compelled at last to choose between letting it drop and resignation. His resignation would have meant a serious shock to a Ministry already in disgrace through their ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... so often that she cares for me, has always cared for me, ever since the time she was living with her grandfather out on the rock; and an untruth never came from her lips. I'd stake my ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... of my experience upon the subject may not be inappropriate. After about three months looking on at chess play in 1844, at Raymond's Coffee House near the City Road Gate, where Dr. Michaelson of the Morning Post, and Mr. Finley, a farrier, were the respective giants, and a cup of coffee the usual stake, I learned the moves at chess, and receiving the odds of a Queen for a few games, I happened one day to hear with astonishment that the gentleman conceding me the odds was not as I supposed, the champion of the world, but that better players ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... the discovery is this: "Oct. 11, course to west and southwest. Heavier sea than they had known, pardelas and a green branch near the caravel of the Admiral. From the Pinta they see a branch of a tree, a stake and a smaller stake, which they draw in, and which appears to have been cut with iron, and a piece of cane. Besides these, there is a land shrub and a little bit of board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land and a branch covered with thorns and flowers. With ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... impression on me, and I assure you I thought of your father fifty times at least, and of the joy he will feel when he hears this opera." But enough of this subject. My cold is rather worse owing to this rehearsal, for it is impossible not to feel excited when honor and fame are at stake, however cool you may be at first. I did everything you prescribed for my cold, but it goes on very slowly, which is particularly inconvenient to me at present; but all my writing about it will not put an end to my cough, and yet write I must. To-day I ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... the freeman take, Still braving the fight and the felon stake,— The oath that his sires brought over the sea, When they ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... content to inflict a disfigurement; whence the offence was less, he could imprison, or confine to a particular spot, or simply banish the culprit from his presence. Instances on record of his clemency to offenders, and others which show that, when his own interests were at stake, he steadily refused to make use of his unlimited power for the oppression of individuals. It is unlikely that Anushirwan was distinguished as "the Just" without a reason; and we may safely conclude from his acknowledged title that his subjects found his rule more ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... have I to fight when tis beaten flatt To earth with sad afflictions? can a prisoner Glory in playing the Fencer? my life's at stake Allready; can I putt it in for more? Our army was some 14000 men Of which more than 12000 had spirits so high Mine never shall come neere them: would some of them Were here to feed your expectations! Yet, silly as I am, having faire pardon From all your ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... did not know in the least what he was undertaking for Gershom in this off-hand way, nor did any one else till it was too late to change the plan. Not that there was any serious thought of changing it. The honour of Gershom was at stake, and "to spend and be spent" for this—to say nothing of "the cause"—seemed to ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... pleasure of knowing my reader, but I would stake ten to one, that for six months he has been making Utopias, and if so, that he is looking to Government for the realization ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... of parting with an expression with which one has been so long familiar, we cannot suffer the sentimental plea to weigh with us when the Truth of the Gospel is at stake. Certain it is that but for Erasmus, we should never have known the regret: for it was he that introduced [Greek: kath hemeran] into the Received Text. The MS. from which he printed is without the expression: which is also not found in the Complutensian. ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... the trumpet-call, which behoved to be sounded by the cycloborean lungs of the broad-chested Panmure. The story has no reason to flag where the stake of the grimelinage is the upraising of white-robed spirits. The sour-milk horn is sounded as it never was sounded before on the earth which had passed away; every spirit comes forth from below the head-stones; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... of lottery-tickets, male or female, who has more at stake, and must run the risk of your displeasure for the chance of your custom. Even in your bed you are hardly safe from the ticket-vender. You stand at your window, and he, waiting in the street, perceives you, and with nods, winks, and showing of his wares endeavors to establish a communication with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... and honors courage: the courage of Christianity, which sustained martyrs in the amphitheatre, at the stake, and on the rack; the courage of Patriotism, which inspired millions in our own land to realize the historic fable of Curtius, and to fill up with their own bodies, if need be, the yawning chasm which imperiled the republic; the courage of Humanity, which is witnessed in the ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... is," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "They have enormous interests at stake. They said I would drag them into war, that I would disturb values, that the business interests of the country would suffer. I'm under obligations to most of them, they have advised me in financial matters, and they threatened—they threatened to make it unpleasant for me." His ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis |
