"Expediency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... abated. The result was the development of Emancipation on the broadest possible grounds,—of Emancipation for the sake of the Union and of the white man,—to be brought about, however, by the will of the people, subject to such rules as discussion and expediency might determine. This was the present Emancipation movement, first urged by that name in the New York Knickerbocker magazine, though its main principles were practically manifesting themselves in many quarters—the most prominent ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... abandoned the intention of maintaining this proposition, even at the risk of loosing the friendship of his dearest political connections, he stood firm upon the solid basis of that incontrovertible principle, "equal justice and freedom to all." No pretended expediency, no crafty policy, although urged with the greatest force and zeal, by the most experienced and acute reasoners, neither flattery, bribes, nor threats, could ever, for one moment, shake his determination to support the principle Of UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE, or in other ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... cause of his downfall marks him as the greatest of the three, for he placed justice above expediency, and not even the attempt upon his life changed his feeling toward the South. Perhaps the wisdom of his judgment was never better exemplified than in his purchase from Russia of the great territory known as Alaska, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... will this be money honestly made. The one was legalized by the government authority; the other, in the end, will be recognized as—well, as detectional and punitive expediency. That's why I say ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... should not be drawn up by the friends of the deceased to be inserted in "Phillips's Monthly Obituary;" adding, that Amos was estimable both for his head and heart, and would have made a fine poet if he had lived. To the expediency of this measure Cottle fully assented, but could not help adding that he always thought that the qualities of his brother's heart exceeded those of his head. I believe his brother, when living, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... sudden and difficult complications which a war upon the ocean is apt to precipitate upon the vessels, both commercial and national, and upon the consular officers of other powers calls for the definition of their relations to the parties to the contest. Considered as a question of expediency, I regard the accordance of belligerent rights still to be as unwise and premature as I regard it to be, at present, indefensible as a measure of right. Such recognition entails upon the country according the rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... steward as he had been called, in Bishop Grantly's time, and still contrived to draw his income in some shape from the property of the see. The nephew had also been the legal assistant of the bishop in his latter days, and had been continued in that position by Bishop Proudie, not from love, but from expediency. Mr John Chadwick was one of those gentlemen, two or three of whom are to be seen in connexion with every see,—who seem to be hybrids,—half-lay, half-cleric. They dress like clergymen, and affect that mixture of clerical solemnity and clerical waggishness which is generally to be found among ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... who plead for the emancipation of their sex would stoop from the sublimer heights of Woman's Rights to arguments of mere human expediency, we fancy they might find some of their critics disposed to listen in a more compliant mood. We can imagine a very good point being made out of the simple fact of waste, by some feminine advocate who would point out in a businesslike ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... are used in the Talmud to point religious or even political morals, very much as the parables were. The fable, however, took a lower flight than the parable, and its moral was based on expediency, rather than on the highest ethical ideals. The importance of the Talmudic fables is historical more than literary or religious. Hebrew fables supply one of the links connecting the popular literature of the East with that of the West. But ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... of these sentences! Opposition, the mere suggestion of danger, had stimulated his determination to proceed rather than enjoined caution. Himself convinced of the expediency of our deal, no power on earth could make him deviate or face about. Truly a man of blood and iron, as Bismarck or Moltke was, his erected will is a sword and a vise. To gain a predetermined goal Henry H. Rogers will go through hell, fire, and water, swing about ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a question of expediency. As government of all kinds becomes better managed, there is less necessity for protection for the press. It must be recollected, however, that this anonymousness (to coin a word) may not only be useful to protect us from any abuse of power, but that at least it ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... formulas. While Luther's lifelong attitude on matters of Christian doctrine is characterized by the famous words spoken by him at Worms in 1521: "Ich kann nicht anders, I cannot do otherwise," Melanchthon, treating even questions of faith as matters of expediency rather than of conscience, was the man who, as a rule, could also do otherwise, and who was great in manufacturing "Polish boots," as the ambiguous phrases by which he endeavored to unite opposing parties were called ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... then, for reasons of economy or expediency, men were shipped to these destinations as "passengers" on colliers and merchant vessels, their escort consisting of a petty officer and one or more gangsmen, according to the number to be safeguarded. Occasionally they ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... expediency of the junction of this [McD.'s] large corps with the principal army was manifest," says ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... opinions, however different from his own, are readily regarded as part of her pretty ways, especially if they are merely negative; as, for example, that she does not insist on the Trinity or on the rightfulness or expediency of church rates, but simply regards her lover's troubling himself in disputation on these heads as stuff and nonsense. The man feels his own superior strength, and is sure that marriage will make no difference to him on the subjects about which he ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... tenure of colonial offices held during Her Majesty's pleasure will not be regarded as equivalent to a tenure during good behaviour, but that not only such officers will be called upon to retire from the public service as often as any sufficient motives of public policy may suggest the expediency of that measure, but that a change in the person of the governor will be considered as a sufficient reason for any alterations which his successor may deem it expedient to make in the list of public functionaries, subject, of course, to the ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... Thornton Lyne's body was discovered in Hyde Park with a woman's night-dress wrapped around the wound in his breast, Mr. Milburgh had, for reasons of expediency and assisted by a duplicate key of Lyne's safe, removed those diaries to a safer place. They contained a great deal that was unpleasant for Mr. Milburgh, particularly the current diary, for Thornton Lyne had set down not ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... found to put themselves at the head of the movement, it will cause trouble. As yet, Ledru-Rollin is the only known politician who avowedly favours it. The Government is, I believe, divided upon the expediency of holding the elections at once, or rather I should say, upon the possibility of putting them off without provoking disturbances. I am inclined to think that, as is usually the case, the Moderates will yield on this point to ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... the text of the statement I have just drawn up. It says all that is necessary about the island, whose exact situation is marked on all modern charts and maps, and points out the expediency of acting without delay, and what to do in case Ker Karraje is in the position to employ ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... both as a loving woman and as a devout Christian, was the most glorious triumph which Josephine had ever obtained over the enmity of her husband's sisters, for it was a new proof of the love and faithfulness of this man, whom neither expediency, nor family, nor state reasons, could remove from her, and who, with the hand of love, had guided her away from all the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... creased and worn bill. Spreading it out, he offered it to the man beside him. To loot an army warehouse was fair play as he saw it. Morgan's command had long depended upon Union commissaries for equipment, clothing, and food. And a horse trade was something forced upon him by expediency. But he still shrank from this kind ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... that, but I would stand by his side while he was going through the streets of East St. Louis. But he would not agree to this, so that my efforts to move a single train had met with complete failure. The result was that I was driven to the expediency of calling upon the military ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... indeed, from this period the politics of Persia became more and more concentrated in the dark plots of the seraglio. Thus superstition, flattery, ambition, all operating upon him, the irresolution of Xerxes vanished. Artabanus himself affected to be convinced of the expediency of the war; and the only object now remaining to the king and his counsellors was to adapt the preparations to the magnitude of the enterprise. Four additional years were not deemed an idle delay in collecting an army and fleet destined to complete ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the high-minded Maria Theresa a sacrifice, Kaunitz suggested to her the expediency of cultivating the friendship of Pompadour. Silesia was engraved upon the heart of the queen, and she was prepared to do any thing which could aid her in the reconquest of that duchy. She stooped so low as to write a letter with her own hand to the marchioness, addressing ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... abolished, and that of the female sex has been gradually changed into a milder form of dependence. But this dependence, as it exists at present, is not an original institution, taking a fresh start from considerations of justice and social expediency—it is the primitive state of slavery lasting on, through successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same causes which have softened the general manners, and brought all human relations more under ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... upon the principle of this measure, and nothing else, that we are at issue. It is a principle of political expediency. Your act of 1767 asserts that it is expedient to raise a revenue in America; your act of 1769, which takes away that revenue, contradicts the act of 1767, and, by something much stronger than words, asserts that it is not expedient. It is a reflection ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... about the expediency, as well as the mercy and christian obligation, of fostering the poor and helpless orphan, whose natural protectors have been removed by the Providence of God? Naked, we must clothe them, for their helplessness cannot provide for their ...
— A Sermon Preached on the Anniversary of the Boston Female Asylum for Destitute Orphans, September 25, 1835 • Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright
... level with the strong, and the quiet citizen upon a level with the military adventurer, or the ruffian of the gambling-house. The fact, I say, cannot be denied; neither can the low price be denied at which this vast result is obtained. And it is evident that, on the principle of expediency, adopted as the basis of morality by Paley, the justification of duelling is complete: for the greatest sum of immediate happiness is produced at the least possible sacrifice.[15] But there are many men of high moral principle, and yet not professing to rest upon Christianity, who reject ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... which comes from the revelation of private doubt or passionate affection that is ordinarily stifled by convention; they are, on the contrary, eminently respectable, deliberate, and carefully expressed. 'It has ever been the habit of my mind,' he writes, 'to trust that expediency will come out of fidelity to principles, rather than to seek my principles of action in calculations of expediency.' This is what the Americans call 'high toned'; but the metal is too heavy for the light ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... slavery is or is not to ultimately remain as a great barrier to free labor in regions where free labor is clamoring for admission. That is all we ask, nothing more. The instant the North and West are assured that at some time, though remote, and by any means or encouragements whatever, which expediency may dictate, the great cause of secession and sedition—will be removed from our land, then there will be witnessed an enthusiasm compared to which that of the South will be but lukewarm. That this will be done, no rational person now doubts, or that government will cheerfully act on ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... act of violence, his supporters might defend him on the doubtful ground of expediency; but he did not stop here. For centuries the tyranny of the sultans had been restrained by the derebeys, or lords of the valleys. They had been confirmed in the possession of their lands by Mohammed II, from which time they had continued to pay tribute to the sultan, and furnished ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... doors as soon as meals are discussed, with a sincere thirst of amusement, as certainly as rooks congregate in spring to discuss the propriety of building nests, or swallows in autumn to deliberate in conclave on the expediency of emigration. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... it might be necessary to alter a little the plan of the paper, and in order to allure a larger circle of readers, touch somewhat on the more vulgar news and Interests of the day. A change of plan might involve a change of title; and he suggested to my father the expediency of leaving the smooth hands of Mr. Tibbets altogether unfettered, as to the technical name and precise form of the publication. To this my father had unwittingly assented, on hearing that the other shareholders ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... help to make the atmosphere that gives us power to work, and if they do that, of course—" and the pursed seriousness of her lips gave Alicia the impression that, though the whole world took offence, the expediency of the illustrated interview was ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... that thy book might have been written just as well, hadst thou not had the heart of a woman. It bespeaks a superior intellect, but paralyzed and spellbound by the sorcery of a worldly-minded expediency. Where, oh, where in its pages are the outpourings of a soul overwhelmed with a sense of the heinous crimes of our nation, and the necessity of immediate repentance? ... Farewell! Perhaps on a dying bed thou ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... and angry with Artaphernes. He presumed, too, that Megabates would denounce him to Artaphernes, and, through him, to Darius, as the cause of the failure of the expedition. A sudden order might come at any moment, directing that he should be beheaded. He began to consider the expediency of revolting from the Persian power, and making common cause with the Greeks against Darius. The danger of such a step was scarcely less than that of remaining as he was. While he was pondering these momentous ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the year 1849. The response of the missionaries was in general favorable, though it required five years was complete the arrangement. The case was unprecedented; there was no experience; every step had to be considered in its principles, its equity, and its expediency. The transition was at length effected, and the mission was merged in the general Christian community of the Islands. The meeting of the mission in May, 1853, was its last meeting in its associated, ...
— The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands • Trustees of the Punahou School and Oahu College
... wiped her glasses, and read the note twice; then held it between her thumb and third finger, and debated the expediency of changing its destination. Her delicate sense of honor revolted at the first suggestion of interference, but an intense aversion to "love-scrapes" finally strengthened her prudential inclination to crush this one in its incipiency; and she deliberately tore ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... grow older, I tend to travel less and less, and I do not care if I never cross the Channel again. Is there a right and a wrong in the matter, an advisability or an inadvisability, an expediency or an inexpediency? I do not think so. Travelling is a pleasure, if it is anything, and a pleasure pursued from a sense of duty is a very fatuous thing. I have no good reason to give, only an accumulation of small reasons. Dr. Johnson ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... example," Douglass took the bold step of publishing in the spring of 1845 the narrative of his experience as a slave, giving names of people and places, and dates as nearly as he could recall them. His abolitionist friends doubted the expediency of this step; and Wendell Phillips advised him to throw the manuscript into the fire, declaring that the government of Massachusetts had neither the power nor the will to protect him from ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... commands the entrance to Salonica Harbour. He seized it—despite a solemn engagement to the contrary.[1] Then he judged it necessary to occupy the town of Florina. He occupied it. An appreciation of the efficacy or expediency of these measures—beyond a passing allusion to the obvious blunder committed by the destruction of the Demir-Hissar bridge—would be out of place here. For our present purpose their interest lies in the light ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... means made up his mind as to Female Suffrage, was much relieved that not a single woman in Redmarley had so much as breathed its name. His inclinations led him to follow where Mr Asquith led, but his long training in the doctrines of expediency gave him pause. He decided that he could not yet range himself alongside of the anti-suffrage party. As his old father was wont to remark cautiously, "You must see where you are first," and as yet Eloquent had not clearly ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses. The Transcendentalist claimed an intuitive knowledge of God, belief in immortality, and in man's ability to apprehend absolute ideas of truth, justice, and rectitude. The one regarded expediency, prudence, caution, and practical wisdom as the highest of the virtues, and distrusted alike the seer, the prophet, and the reformer. The other was by nature a reformer and dissatisfied with men as they ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the moment; or, which was quite the same, he did not know he was pursued. Another Northern city, with its full complement of grafting officials, was in the market for some train-loads of water-mains, and again Thomas Jefferson was fighting the old battle of conscience against expediency, this time in the evil-smelling ditches where the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Tories—Protestant Tories, as they were called—that have no sympathy with the Jacobites. We are as strongly convinced as Mr. Macaulay can be of the necessity of the Revolution of 1688—of the general prudence and expediency of the steps taken by our Whig and Tory ancestors of the Convention Parliament, and of the happiness, for a century and a half, of the constitutional results. We were, therefore, not without hope that at least in these two volumes, almost entirely occupied with the progress ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... pleasure and long reality of thought to lie deeper than all systems. Those current abstractions, which make up all the morality and all the philosophy of most people, have been brought under suspicion. Mind and matter, duties and rights, morality and expediency, honour and interest, virtue and vice—all these words, which seemed once to express elementary and certain realities, now strike us as just the words which, thrown into the scientific crucible, might dissolve at once. It is thus not merely philosophy ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... and her conscientious indulgence of the same, were proverbial among her acquaintances, but no one—not even prudish and fearsome maidens of altogether uncertain age, and prudent mammas, equally alive to expediency and decorum—had ever labelled her "Dangerous," while with young people she was a universal favorite. Although, with an eye single to her hobby, she regarded a man as an uninteresting molecule of animated nature, unless circumstances ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... securing some means by which railroad traffic can cross this river, and no one can fail to realize the serious inconvenience to travel caused by lack of facilities of that character. At the same time, it is a plain dictate of wisdom and expediency that the commerce of the river be not unnecessarily interfered with by bridges or in any ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... field think of it? They hate and abominate it, each and every one of them. They neither sympathise with the feeling that prompts the act, nor hold with the expediency of its commission. To them it represents no pleasure, and certainly coincides with none of their notions of sport. They would find much greater fun in seeing rats killed in a barn, and derive from the sight a much higher ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... the Roman arms, marked by frequent infraction of treaties, it was usual to remove the offending population to a safer situation, separated from Rome by the Tiber; sometimes entirely to disperse and scatter it. But, where these extremities were not called for by expediency or the Roman maxims of justice, it was judged sufficient to interpolate, as it were, the hostile people by colonizations from Rome, which were completely organized [Footnote: That is indeed involved in the technical term of Deductio; for unless the ceremonies, religious and political, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... indignity might make for him a favourable opening, despatched ambassadors to England with most magnificent offers; but this was not till the beginning of the next year after the battle of St. Cloud, which took place[261] on the 10th November 1411. That the King himself contemplated the expediency of sending auxiliaries (p. 269) to the Duke of Burgundy in the beginning of September, is put beyond doubt by the instructions given to the ambassadors. Even so late as February 10, 1412, the King issued a commission to Lord Grey, the Bishop ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... mind. The doctrine of a Free Trade was itself represented as of a revolutionary tendency, and some who had formerly prided themselves on their intimacy with Mr. Smith, and on their zeal for the propagation of his liberal system, began to call in question the expediency of subjecting to the disputation of philosophers the arcana of State policy, and the unfathomable wisdom of feudal ages."[251] People's teeth had been so set on edge by the events in France that, as Lord ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... not long. I will read it. It invokes a religious sanction and the authority of God on their civil obligations; for it was no doctrine of theirs that civil obedience was a mere matter of expediency. Here it is: ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... their lips framed no smiles. All felt as if they had entered a house where there was a corpse, an illusion accentuated by an odor of wax and incense. Don Custodio and Padre Salvi consulted in whispers over the expediency ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... beneficial or how far injurious; but in what way its benefits may be enhanced, and its mischiefs, if any, be abated. He who should demonstrate that it has a pernicious tendency, would but the more strongly enforce our propositions; since he would thereby show the expediency of diminishing that tendency and of mitigating that evil which the public will forbids to be ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... worldly wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his grandsire's muscles, tough as hickory, he had become the leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor. The Fifth were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket stump. The Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and uncommonly obliging. His house-master signed reports which neither praised nor blamed. To Dirty Dick the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... words, but only strongly hinted at the desirableness of the measure—that there should be no more paying rent, and a general division of property. I am not sure but there were some additional suggestions on the expediency of abolishing the Christian religion and the institution of matrimony, but that has nothing to do with politics. This last drop in the bucket quite overflowed poor Harrison; so, as if he had said to himself, "Let us eat and drink and get married, for to-morrow we ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... opinions on fiscal matters were somewhat vague. He afterwards declared that he held Free Trade to be altogether false. But in this as in other matters he certainly let his convictions be shaped by expediency. Just before the conclusion of peace with France he so far approximated to Free Trade as to insist that the Franco-German Commercial Treaty of 1862, which the war had of course abrogated—- war puts an end to all treaties between the States directly engaged—should now be again ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... welfare of the masses. Thrice he had quarrelled with his father;—but the old man loved his son, and though he was stern, strove to bring the young man into the ways of money-making. How was he to think of marrying Polly Neefit,—as to the expediency of which arrangement Mr. Moggs senior quite agreed with Mr. Moggs junior,—unless he would show himself to be a man of business? Did he think that old Neefit would give his money to be wasted upon strikes? Ontario, who was as honest a fool as ever lived, told his father ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... increasing, that of Great Britain decreasing. High tariffs and preferential rates had closed Corea and Manchuria to British enterprise. It is easy to estimate in what commercial jealousy and rivalry such circumstances had resulted. While the expediency of the British-Japanese alliance was fully recognized, and its consequences admitted to be the freedom of the China seas from menace of commerce-destroyers, nevertheless the fact remained that the hostilities against Tsing-tao would ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... to suffer for debauchery, Iyeyasu did not believe in the expediency of attempting to suppress all vice by law. There is a strangely modern ring in his remarks upon this subject, in the 73d section of the Legacy: "Virtuous men have said, both in poetry and in classic works, that houses of debauch, for women ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Government, he betrayed that party and suddenly threw himself into the arms of the Corn Law League. Neither of these views appears to be quite correct. The common, and it would seem, the more accurate opinion about him is, that he was a politician by profession—a man of expediency—and that on the question of the Corn Laws he did no more than he had previously done with regard to Catholic emancipation,—followed the current of public opinion, which he always watched with the most anxious care,—and turning ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the affair before a select council of old and experienced officers, who, after due deliberation, and weighing the excellence of Altenberg's character against the depravity of his slain antagonist, suggested the expediency of pardoning the offender. Proclamation was accordingly made to that ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... mingled with the world. Then the contrast between the common, every-day aims they encountered, and the teachings of their Eagleswood mentors, was forced upon them. Forgotten lessons of truth and honesty and purity were remembered, and the wavering resolve was stayed and strengthened; worldly expediency gave way before the magnanimous purpose, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... 'Mr Brehgert must of course have access to my private room, as long as it is necessary,—absolutely necessary,' said Mr Longestaffe in answer to a message which was brought to him; 'but he will of course see the expediency of relieving me from such intrusion as soon as possible.' But he soon found it preferable to come to terms with the rejected suitor, especially as the man was singularly good-natured and forbearing after the injuries he ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... made a brief reply. He confined himself to saying that this was a case of interpreting the law, and not of framing it anew on the ground of expediency. But, he added, even if the court had to decide without reference to authority, he should still be prepared to urge that the danger of convicting one innocent person must always outweigh that of granting immunity to any number of felons, ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... ground the ministry gathered courage to consider the expediency of introducing a bill to repeal the act. Could the king have had his way they would not have survived in office to do so. He would have had their ministerial heads off, as he had stricken those of their immediate predecessors. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... misunderstand you, sir,' said Darsie; 'but an enterprise directed against a dynasty now established for three reigns requires strong arguments, both in point of justice and of expediency, to recommend it to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... designed to be very scientific, exact or truthful—all they asked was, "Is it plausible?" Expediency, to theology, has always been ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... other on the public journals, that he should humbug himself into the delusion that book-writing is the highest work in the Universe, and that he should regulate his likes and dislikes by one law, that of expediency. If his nature is in arms against anything that is rotten in Society or in Literature itself, he must be silent. Above all, he must lay this solemn truth to heart, that when the World speaks well of him the World will demand the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... independence and of an earnest desire for the enlargement of popular liberty. But he was less attached to principle than to expediency. At the very time the first volume of his history appeared, in which he pays lofty tributes to human freedom, he came into Parliament as an avowed abettor of the ministry of George III., in their attempts to subjugate ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the amazing transaction on the floor of the Senate? Would the statue on the pedestal step down? Would the sphinx of the desert speak the story of the lost centuries? Would honor take the place of expediency in the affairs of state? What might not happen, thought the Senate machine, now that Peabody and Stevens had taken to their bosoms what they termed the purple ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... are older), people are obliged in practice to renounce for themselves the application of those rules which they philosophically prescribe for others. Thus, while I grant that a change of name for that dog is a question belonging to the policy of Ifs and Buts, commonly called the policy of Expediency, about which one may differ from others and one's own self every quarter of an hour, a change of name for me belongs to the policy of Must and Shall; namely the policy of Necessity, against which let no dog bark,—though I have known dogs howl at it! William ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... compelled to call Colonel Burr from his station at Haverstraw to the more important command of the lines in Westchester, in which measure, unprecedented as it was, the officers acquiesced without a murmur, from a conviction of its expediency. At this time I was doing the duty of adjutant-general ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... This is the error which must be destroyed by some means or other, even if it should be necessary to pick a quarrel with them, as we have already done with the Chinese. At the same time that I admit the expediency of so doing, I by no means assert that we shall ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... business-like. After a dignified remonstrance against the vile insinuations of Cleon, by whom all who differed from him were decried as fools or knaves, Diodotus proceeded to argue the question from the point of view of expediency. He was not there, he said, to plead the cause of the Mytilenaeans, or to discuss abstract questions of law and justice. What they had to consider was what course would be most conducive to the interests of Athens. According to Cleon, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... vanished. Though Montagu had obtained from Oxford some glimpse of the desire which the more sagacious and temperate Lancastrians already entertained for that alliance, and though Louis had already hinted its expediency to the earl, yet, till now, Warwick himself had naturally conceived that the prince shared the enmity of his mother, and that such a union, however politic, was impossible; but now indeed there burst upon him the full triumph of revenge and pride. Edward of York dared to woo Anne to dishonour, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... among the crowd of spectators. He said little by way of greeting, and there was considerable strain apparent in his manner towards Merefleet. He hurried his cousin back to the hotel with a haste not wholly bred of the moment's expediency. Merefleet followed at a more leisurely pace. He made no attempt to join them, however. He had done his part. There remained no more to do. With a heavy sense of irrevocable loss he went to bed and slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion for ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... mother had instilled into every fibre of my being. But on going into the world I found it ridiculed among my own class as obsolete and exploded. Every where it seemed to have given way to the mean doctrine of expediency. My sentiments were gayly ridiculed, and I soon began to fear that I was not suited for ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... and Graham, to visit the revolted colonies in South America and to ascertain their political condition, and their means and prospects of securing their independence; and early in 1818, the legislators of Kentucky adopted resolutions, expressing their sense of the propriety and expediency of the national government acknowledging the independence of the South American republics. These resolutions probably emanated from the influence of Henry Clay, from the first a zealous and steadfast friend of the South American ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... have hesitated at nothing. A letter of his to Idrilus, the Karian, runs as follows: "If Nikias be innocent, acquit him; if he be guilty, acquit him for my sake; but in any case acquit him." Such was Agesilaus in most cases where his friends were concerned; although in some few instances he allowed expediency to prevail over affection, and sacrificed his personal friend to the general advantage, as, for example, once, when owing to a sudden alarm the camp was being hurriedly broken up, he left a sick friend behind in spite of his passionate entreaties, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... explanation of the secret relation between husband and wife. Sabine thought of a love marriage where Calyste saw only a marriage of expediency. The joys of the honey-moon had not altogether conformed to the legal requirements of ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... She was the only soul the Queen could confide in, and the two frightened women clung to each other, waiting in terror for the issue of that day's great business. A hundred times did her Majesty change her mind about the expediency of risking further the displeasure of the Assembly and the people by this request to leave the capital; a hundred times did she revert to her former purpose of waiting for and trusting in the allies whose approach was now so near. It took all of Adrienne's courage and persuasiveness to bring ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... the war; to obtain a surrender of the Western military posts not yet evacuated; and to secure an article against impressments. It was believed that a storm of disapproval would greet his work, and the timid ones seriously questioned the expediency of his nomination. The submission of the treaty had already precipitated a crisis in the United States Senate, and while it might not be ratified and officially promulgated before election, grave danger existed of its clandestine publication by the press. Hamilton, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... unnecessary. We seem perversely bent on tormenting and being tormented. We visit people for whom we do not care one straw, because our position in society or our interests demand it. We sacrifice our own judgment to the whims of others as a matter of expediency, and almost ignore our own capacity in the eagerness to agree with everybody. We suffer because a rich snob snubs us, and agonize over unfavorable remarks made concerning our abilities or standing. These things ought not so to be. No man can ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... circular form is the more primitive and was formerly used by some tribes which now have only the rectangular form. Still the abandonment of the circular and the adoption of the rectangular form, due to expediency and the breaking down of old traditions, was a very gradual process and proceeded at a different rate in different parts of the country. At the time of the Spanish conquest the prevailing form in the ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... that he had made up his mind to marry Lucia, provided she did not deliberately prefer somebody else, he felt it useless to complicate his already confused ideas any further, by taking into consideration the expediency of such a connection. There was quite enough to worry him without that; and by some inconceivable stupidity it never entered his head that, while he was really so completely incapable of altering his mind, other people should seriously ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... rendered our chances of affording relief to the survivors more and more difficult; so much so, in fact, that at the council assembled to discuss the matter in the large dining-room of the hotel, several voices urged the expediency of abandoning any further attempts. Much valuable time, they remarked, had been already expended by men to whom time represented money, nay more—the means of living. Their own avocations imperiously demanded their presence, and ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... Subsequent reflection, however, induced him to waive all private and personal considerations, and he accepted the post assigned to him. The manner in which he discharged the duties of that trust, impressed the government with the expediency of securing his services in more important negotiations, and he was sent as Commissioner and Charge d'Affaires to Denmark. His mission to the court of that country was, at that period, a highly important one. The negotiations he had to conduct ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... whatever other substance seems most appropriate. An Oxford tutor used to give half-binding as an example of what Aristotle calls [Greek text], or "shabbiness," and when we recommend such coverings for books it is as a counsel of expediency, not of perfection. But we cannot all be millionaires; and, let it be remembered, the really wise amateur will never be extravagant, nor let his taste lead him into "the ignoble melancholy of pecuniary embarrassment." Let the example ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... Duke of Cumberland's march northward was much impeded by the difficulty of transporting his park of artillery. But after the decisive day of Culloden, the erection of Fort William, and the establishment of military posts at the foot of the Grampians, the expediency of readier communication between the capitals of South and North Britain was universally felt. Scotland could henceforward be held in permanent subordination only by means of good military highways. Accordingly in the year 1782 we find a German ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... not only of my Colonel's wife, but of the civil head of an important Government Mission, not to mention some bought Chinese evidence. Am I the first man to be offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of official expediency?" ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... case of evil tidings during his absence she should reject her feminine ideas of expediency, and believe that she was speaking to a brave soul firmly rooted in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... practice common among the gentry, 'to protect their tenants when they got into any difficulties by disobeying the laws. Smuggling and illicit distilling seemed to be privileged cases, where, the justice and expediency of the spirit of the law being doubtful, escaping from the letter of it appeared but a trial of ingenuity or luck. In cases that admitted of less doubt, in the frequent breach of the peace from quarrels at fairs, rescuing of cattle ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... minister I denounce them. Nothing can excuse a soul for wavering in its duty because that duty is hard. It is the hard things we should take delight in facing; otherwise we are babes and not men, and our faith a matter of expediency, and not that stern and immovable belief in God and His purposes which can alone please Deity and bring us into that immediate communion with His spirit which it should be the end and aim of every human ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... Adams asserted that "General Washington, one of the most attentive men in the world to the manner of doing things, owed a great proportion of his celebrity to this circumstance," and frequently he is to be found considering the popularity or expediency of courses. In 1776 he said, "I have found it of importance and highly expedient to yield to many points in fact, without seeming to have done it, and this to avoid bringing on a too frequent discussion of matters which in a political ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... in magnetism were still tried upon her privately, notwithstanding the recent exposure and the all but universal derision of the public, the House Committee of the hospital, early in December, met to consider the expediency of expelling the girl. Dr. Elliotson, on that occasion, expressed his opinion that it was necessary to retain her in the hospital, as she was too ill to be discharged. It was then elicited from the nurse, who was examined by the Committee, that Okey, when ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... were to admit further,—and this is the view of some who are not thorough-going followers of Protagoras,—that right and wrong, holy and unholy, are to each state or individual such as they appear, still Protagoras will not venture to maintain that every man is equally the measure of expediency, or that the thing which seems is expedient to every one. But this begins a new question. 'Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure. Yes, we have, and, after the manner of philosophers, we are digressing; I have often observed how ridiculous this habit of theirs makes them when ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... a hard thing to think of, and Stephen pondered upon the expediency of letting off Wyncomb Farm, and sinking all his savings in the purchase of an annuity. He could not bring himself to contemplate selling the house and lands that had belonged to his race for so many generations. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... removal of his master's wardrobe from the George and Vulture. This request Mr. Samuel Weller prepared to obey, with as good a grace as he could assume, but with a very considerable show of reluctance nevertheless. He even went so far as to essay sundry ineffectual hints regarding the expediency of stretching himself on the gravel for that night; but finding Mr. Pickwick obstinately deaf to any such ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... but it meant, I think, something rather different. It threw overboard the question of abstract, formal, technical right, and fought primarily, no doubt, for a humanitarian ideal, but fundamentally to enforce its instinct of the highest political expediency. The right interpretation of a state-paper, however venerable, would not have been a question worthy of such terrible arbitrament. Even the emancipation of the negro, had that been the sole object of the contest, would have been too dearly paid for in blood and tears. The question at issue was ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... the General Synod." (5.)— The "Address of the General Synod to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States," added to the Minutes of 1823, remarks: "Whilst the General Synod, with due deference to the judgment of this respectable Synod, cannot divest themselves of doubt as to the expediency of the temporary recession of the Pennsylvania Synod from the general union of the Lutheran Church, they rejoice that in the very act of withdrawing they declare their unaltered conviction of the propriety and utility of such a union, and intimate that their recession shall ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... to Justice Harlan, although he did not mean to say that the determination in this case should have been materially controlled by considerations of mere expediency or policy, had departed from the familiar rule requiring that the purpose of the law or Constitution and the objects to be accomplished by any grant are often the most important in reaching real intent just as the debates in the convention ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... incomparable speech vindicating his own consistency, explaining his motives for making the declaration which he did the first night, and repelling with great dignity the charges with which he was assailed.[12] Of course opinions vary as to the expediency and propriety of his conduct on this occasion, but I do not see that he could have acted otherwise, and it is much more manly, straightforward, and honourable to declare at once what his sentiments and intentions are than to endeavour to evade ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... his word, the courtier braved the displeasure of the Duchess of Bedford, in inducing the king to consider the expediency of permitting Adam to relinquish alchemy, and repair his model. Edward summoned a deputation from the London merchants and traders, before whom Adam appeared and explained his device. But these practical ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... years after the apostles. He wrote, therefore, within a hundred years of the apostle John. But he was a man of peculiar views, extravagant in his opinions, an enthusiast in everything. He proves that the practice of infant baptism was established, by arguing against the expediency of baptizing children, and unmarried persons, lest they should sin after baptism. His argument, with respect to both these classes of persons, is the same. His language is, "If any understand the weight of baptismal obligations, they will be more fearful about taking them than of delay." He argued ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... upon her entrance, that Mr. Smith came from the country, and could tell beautiful stories. Mrs. Shipton thanked him gratefully for being so kind to her little ones, and began to feel more comfortable about the expediency of having admitted him ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.
... should take some part as a belligerant, in these European struggles; and exerted each its influence to bring about such an interference as would be in accordance with their conflicting views of duty and expediency. ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... idols in their secret meetings, and had been guilty of horrible and shameful offences against God, the Church, the State, and humanity itself. Philip professed the most pious horror at what he had discovered; he lamented the grievous necessity laid upon him, and urged upon the guilty men the expediency of a full and immediate confession of their wicked doings as the only way to secure pardon and escape the just and extreme penalty of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... There was no need to tie Prince to-day. The usual equine sense of expediency would be quite sufficient to keep any horse under cover. She left the sleigh, and groped her way—truly it was not easy to keep on her feet, the wind blew so—till she saw the little white church just before her. There was not a foot-track on the snow which covered ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... herewith to the House of Representatives, for the consideration of Congress, a communication from the Secretary of State, setting forth the expediency of organizing a class of supernumerary secretaries of legation to meet the needs of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... who busied themselves to prevent the reprieve of Rebecca Nurse acted under the authority and by the direction of this self-constituted body of inquisitors. The agency of such unauthorized and irresponsible combinations is always of questionable expediency. When acting in the same line with an excited populace, they are ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to review the German explanation. One of these facts embraces a project for railway expansion engineered and carried out on the Belgian frontier, which can leave no doubt in any reasonable mind that Germany deliberately planned to violate Belgium's neutrality the moment it became a military expediency to invade France.[8] ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... classes. This is reinforced by the English freedom of bequest, a freedom greater than in most of the Continental countries. The question of the advisability of altering the English law of bequest is a matter not of abstract right, but of expediency. That the maintenance of inequality is expedient for English civilization and welfare is generally assumed. Whether or not this assumption is well founded, Arnold proposes to examine in the concluding pages. As a preliminary step he defines civilization as the humanization of ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... across the lines. Our men were pleased at taking them back with us, as they had already said, regretfully, "S'pose we leave dem Secesh at Fernandina, General Saxby won't see 'em,"—as if they were some new natural curiosity, which indeed they were. One soldier further suggested the expediency of keeping them permanently in camp, to be used as marks for the guns of the relieved guard every morning. But this was rather an ebullition of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... earnest words, and had controlled myself under a dread of the possible results, very unworthy of a Christian Englishwoman who looks, not to what is meanly prudent, but to what is morally right. At the point at which matters had now arrived, I rose superior to all considerations of mere expediency. If I had contemplated interposing any remonstrance of my own humble devising, I might possibly have still hesitated. But the distressing domestic emergency which now confronted me, was most marvellously and beautifully provided for in the Correspondence of Miss Jane Ann Stamper—Letter one thousand ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... relating to trade and commerce with other nations";[70] (2) that the act "did not, in any real sense, invest the President with the power of legislation. * * * Congress itself prescribed, in advance, the duties to be levied, * * *, while the suspension lasted. Nothing involving the expediency or the just operation of such legislation was left to the determination of the President. * * * He had no discretion in the premises except in respect to the duration of the suspension so ordered."[71] By similar reasoning, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of whom Mather in a later day, wrote: "She came from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, in the family of a noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants, and took New England in her way to heaven." There had been doubt as to the expediency of her coming, but with the wife of another explorer she had said: "Whithersoever your fatal destiny shall drive you, either by the waves of the great ocean, or by the manifold and horrible dangers of the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... counties in the Legislature, were every member to be guided only by the apparent interests of his county, government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual accommodation and sacrifice of local advantages to general expediency; but the spirit of a mere popular assembly would rarely be actuated by this important principle. It is therefore absolutely necessary that the Senate should be so formed, as to be unbiased by false conceptions of the real interests, or undue attachment to the apparent ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Power, have brooked interference such as is exercised in the case of Greece now? No. As things are among civilized nations to-day, I see not how the action of the powers in this case can be defended, except on the score of expediency, for, in truth, the interference is most unjust ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... whole body of measures of Compromise, by which the Government has sought to compose the country, and then for every man to set himself to suppress the further political agitation of this whole subject. These measures were then referred to, one after the other, and the essential justice and expediency of each were declared. The two great political parties of the North, he said, ought at once to strike this whole subject from their respective issues. He was not for any amalgamation of parties, or for the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... I confess, to prefer the latter of these courses, not only by reason of its manifest expediency as bearing upon present political contests, but also because I sympathise, to a considerable extent, with the views of the promoters of the movement. No one object, in my opinion, is so important, whether you seek to retain Canada as a colony, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... stamp them as being conspicuously dishonest. They were subjected to great and unusual temptations. Their vast power and their immunity from punishment, made it easy for them to enrich themselves at the public expense, while their sense of honor, deprived of the support of expediency, was not great enough to restrain them. The very men that were the boldest in stealing public land or in avoiding the tax collector might have recoiled from an act of private dishonesty or injustice. However, it would be absurd in the face of the facts here brought ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... unloading and loading of vessels. In fact, it would be impossible, in summarily noticing the beneficial tendency of this great work, to particularize its manifold advantages; they are too weighty to be overlooked, either by the Legislature or the community at large, and will doubtless dictate the expediency of bringing them into effectual operation. The different modes suggested of raising the capital required for the undertaking are: 1st. From the Provincial revenue by the annual rate of a loan; 2nd. By an Act vesting it in the City of Quebec, by way of loan to the city, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of the question of right, I come to the question of expediency. I listened, Sir, with much interest and pleasure to a noble Lord who spoke for the first time in this debate. (Lord Porchester.) But I must own that he did not succeed in convincing me that there is any real ground for the fears by which he is tormented. He ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Deronda. "But it is one thing to say, 'In this particular case I am forced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and another to buy a pocket foolscap and practice myself in grinning. I can't see any real public expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of deviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public man I might mistake my success ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... spirituality; the woman, of sin. It is not the woman alone,—but in her there cluster upon the stage all want and woe, all calamity and disappointment, all shame and guilt. In Christ there come forward to meet her, love, hope, truth, light, salvation. In Simon are acted out doting conservatism, mean expediency, purblind calculation, carnal insensibility. Generosity in this scene is confronted with meanness, in the attempt to shelter misfortune. The woman is a tragedy herself, such as Aeschylus never dreamed of. The scourging Furies, dread Fate, and burning Hell unite in her, and, borne on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Lord Vargrave was employed in examining the general outlines of the estate; and the result of this survey satisfied him as to the expediency of the purchase. On the third day, he was several miles from the house when a heavy rain came on. Lord Vargrave was constitutionally hardy, and not having been much exposed to visitations of the weather of late years, was not practically aware that when a man is past forty, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... did not see the expediency of writing the letter immediately, but at last he gave way to his friend's arguments. And he did so the more readily as his friend was there to write the letter for him. After some attempts on his own part, he put the writing of the letter into the hands of the Captain, and left ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... the Two Treatises of Government were both published in 1690. Five years earlier the Letter Concerning Toleration was published in its Latin dress; and four years afterwards an English translation appeared. This last, however, perhaps on grounds of expediency, Locke never acknowledged until his will was published; for the time was not yet suited to such generous speculations. Locke was thus in his fifty-eighth year when his first admitted work appeared. But the rough attempts at the essay date from 1671, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... different course; suppose that, after satisfying myself that the eminent clergyman whose name is paraded by the Duke of Argyll had really uttered the words attributed to him from the pulpit of St. Paul's, what right would any one have to find fault with my action on grounds either of justice, expediency, or good taste? ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... came to his opinion from a resemblance that he saw between me and the person who had inquired for me. I refused to go to the gate, however, to see who it was, and Jack was sent back to tell the woman that I had been left behind at Bermuda. He was directed to throw in a few hints about the expediency of her not coming back to look for me, and that it would be better if she never named me. All this was done, I getting a berth from which I could see the female. I knew her in a moment, although she was married, and had a son with her, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... agonising to you, and there would be dishonour as well as pain to me, in witnessing that agony. If, as I fully believe, you have been hitherto blind to the injustice of your connecting yourself with me, from a sense of duty and expediency, when you had not a first genuine love to give, I think you will see it now; and I pity your suffering in the discovery. There is only one point on which I wish or intend to hang any reproach. Why did you ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... seem at all like Saturday to me," said Johnny, who for some minutes past had appeared to have something on his mind, as to the expediency of communicating which he was undecided; "I was afraid that it was Sunday, every thing is so still; but I hope it is not, for Arthur would not think it right to start upon an exploring expedition on Sunday, and so it would be ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... cried Aunt Margaret in horrified protest against the last item on the programme. But Sylvia gave a chuckle of cheerful complacency, and, so far from being overcome, looked so much revived by the prospect that there could be no doubt as to the expediency of the proposed visit, so far as health at least ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... therefore first beg leave to observe that my proposed line of route is founded on views which I have always entertained respecting the interior, but not more so than on the expediency of ascertaining the character of that portion of the colony to the northwest of the River Darling. To avoid unnecessary repetition, I shall annex a quotation here from my despatch, dated Peel's River, 29th February, 1832, in which my reasons for believing that there ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and in many cases the people suffered from abuses and maladministration which they had not known under their Jesuit landlords. The aristocracy had always been in sympathy with the order, and in many states the Jesuits had been banished simply as a measure of political expediency, a sop to the restless masses. In these cases the latent power of the order was concealed rather than diminished by the pretence of a more liberal government, and everywhere, in one form or another, the unseen influence was felt to be on the watch ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... he knew, too, that the "eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, that his ears are open to their cry, and that he is able to succour them, being tempted;" and, therefore, he pondered the matter well in his own heart, and consulted often with his father on the expediency of removing William from the ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... She caught the honest wonder of his tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not talking more openly—before—You've made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing principles to expediency." ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... silent for a few minutes, and I am inclined to think that he was weighing in his mind the expediency of asking her to become Mrs Rubb, on the spur of the moment. But if so, his mind finally gave judgment against the attempt, and in giving such judgment his mind was right. He would certainly have so startled her by the precipitancy ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... carelessness overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica—his former revolt. * Note: The Orations in the third book of Agathias are not judicial, nor delivered before the Roman tribunal: it is a deliberative debate among the Colchians on the expediency of adhering to the Roman, or embracing ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... lover of beauty, and the hold he had upon his people was quite as much through training them to work as through his moral teaching. Indeed, his morality was expediency—which is reason enough according to modern science. When he wants them to work, he says, "Thus saith the Lord," just the same as when he wishes to impress upon them ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Nobili, Guglielmi is about to commit himself to a deliberate lie. Lying is not his practice; not on principle, for he has none. Expediency is his faith, pliancy his creed; lying is inartistic, also dangerous. A lie may grow into a spectre, and haunt you to your grave, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... predicted. Captain Beaver, after thorough consideration of the matter, decided that it would never do to allow his men to return to Ontario without having a "brush with the Indians." He therefore opened correspondence with Major Tonweight, pointing out the expediency of making an attack upon Little Poplar. "He is upon his reserve, it is true," Beaver wrote, "but he has gathered his men together for the purpose of marching on Hatchet Creek, and there effecting a junction ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... desire to censure the committee charged with the mission to Washington.—They have thought to act prudently and for the greatest good. We differ only on the real expediency of the case. We do not believe that such men as Benton, Calhoun, and other kindred spirits, ask or desire anything but what they think ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... and fall to it, as in parts of the English Book of Common Prayer. But in {155} general his sentences are long and involved, full of inventions and latinized constructions. Controversy at that day was conducted on scholastic lines. Each disputant, instead of appealing at once to the arguments of expediency and common sense, began with a formidable display of learning, ransacking Greek and Latin authors and the fathers of the Church for opinions in support of his own position. These authorities he deployed at tedious length and followed them up with heavy scurrilities and "excusations," ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the cities and burned, has been used to construct palaces and temples, houses and ships, with no recognition of the principles of priority or renewal. If wood was available where must it go? The oligarchy decided the issue in terms of ostentation and expediency. Rarely during recorded human history have there been oligarchs who said: "Irreplaceable resources like minerals must be used with extreme economy. Replaceable resources like forests or top-soil must be used and at the same time replaced ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... at this date, from Cobourg, to Dr. Ryerson, on the expediency of petitioning the Legislature to give the Methodist Ministry the right to perform the marriage ceremony amongst their own people, Elder ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... to an unusual degree. Of William H. Crawford of Georgia, who retained the Secretaryship of the Treasury, little need be said except that he also was a presidential aspirant who saw things always from the angle of political expediency. Benjamin W. Crowninshield as Secretary of the Navy and William Wirt as Attorney-General completed the circle of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... the immediate convenience of the philosopher himself; his personal character enters a good deal into the system. The object of Hobbes in his "Leviathan" was always ambiguous, because it was, in truth, one of these systems of expediency, conveniently adapted to what has been termed of late "existing circumstances." His sole aim was to keep all things in peace, by creating one mightiest power in the State, to suppress instantly all other powers that might rise in insurrection. In ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... those of expediency, it might be objected that a bargain which on one side you allow to be discreditable leaves the legacy of an indestructible desire on that side to wipe out the discredit by tearing it up. Though Cavour became great by his connection with a movement which, before ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... under the age of puberty is adopted by rescript of the Emperor, the adrogation is only permitted after cause shown, the goodness of the motive and the expediency of the step for the pupil being inquired into. The adrogation is also made under certain conditions; that is to say, the adrogator has to give security to a public agent or attorney of the people, that if the pupil should die within the age of puberty, he will ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian |
