"Extricate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to extricate myself and crawl back again, with what speed and silence I could manage, to the more open portion of the wood. As I did so, I could hear hails coming and going between the old buccaneer and his comrades, and this sound ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the horse had fallen down, and the man was trying in vain to get him up. The harness was drawn so tight about the horse's limbs, by the constrained position in which he was lying, that he could not get up, and the man could not extricate him. The man had gone behind, and had drawn the wagon back, so as to loosen the pressure of the harness upon the horse, but, until Forester and Marco came, there was no one to unbuckle the straps when they were thus loosened; and, if the man let go of ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... of mutual affection. Eheu! Eheu! this puts me in mind of former visions of glimpses into futurity, where I fancied I saw retirement, green cottages, and white petticoats. What will become of me hereafter I know not; I feel like a ruined man, who does not see or care how to extricate himself. That this voyage must come to a conclusion my reason tells me, but otherwise I see no end to it. It is impossible not bitterly to regret the friends and other sources of pleasure one leaves behind in England; in place of it there is much solid enjoyment, some present, but more in anticipation, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... thinking that one of the seamen, having discovered him eavesdropping, had thus wreaked his revenge, taking advantage of his being covered up, and pretending not to know him. "Tunder and flame!" roared the corporal, muffled up in the canvas, and trying to extricate himself; but his voice was not recognised by the lieutenant, and, before he could get clear of his envelope, the handspike had again descended; when up rose the corporal, like a buffalo out of his muddy lair, half-blinded by the last blow, which had fallen on his head, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... but he was deaf to persuasion. He squatted down on the snow, and watched the efforts his companion made to extricate the old lady. When she was nearly out he started on a run, and was at a safe distance before Mrs. Payson was in a situation ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the Emperor had left me setting out, as I have before related, with the Duke of Vicenza in the coach which had been destined for me, scarcely anything was thought of but how to extricate ourselves from the frightful situation in which we found ourselves placed. I well remember that after a few regrets that the Emperor was not in the midst of his lieutenants, the idea of being assured that he had escaped from ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... successful and those in power he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under the expansive influence of a sufficient ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... been so stupid!" cried Mrs Gilmour laughing. "What, cut off the poor thing's head in order to extricate it?" ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... inviting spot. I thought that the scent of a wolf or some other wild animal might have disturbed him, but was soon undeceived by his sinking up to the knees in a bog. The animal uttered a shrill sharp neigh, and exhibited every sign of the greatest terror, making at the same time great efforts to extricate himself, and plunging forward, but every moment sinking deeper. At last he arrived where a small vein of rock showed itself, on this he placed his fore feet, and with one tremendous exertion freed himself from the deceitful soil, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... morning broke badly. I lashed my hand to my hammock and was forced to call on the P.O. to extricate me. He remarked, with ill-disguised bitterness, that I could think of more ineffectual things to do than any rookie it had been his misfortune to meet. I told him that I didn't have to think of them, they ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... of a system which, however honestly conducted, has a tendency to hamper their movements, to bereave them of independence, and to plunge parents and their children into debt, out of which they may never be able to extricate themselves. There is an antidote, but its application would require to be a ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... the 6th of August. The voting for the State legislature had commenced. The travellers did not know that there was any number of Mormon landholders in this place, but now they could not extricate themselves from the very contest that they had hoped to avoid. When the two women strolled through the streets to see the town they became involved in a crowd at one of the ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... the least observant could not but remark it. He has expressed himself most feelingly upon the unfortunate predicament in which he finds himself. He would welcome the hand that should assist him and the voice that should give him courage to extricate himself."—F. Jackson's despatch from Berlin, May 16, 1803; Records; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... It moves." But poor Emma could not obey. She would as soon have expected the mountain itself to give way as the huge mass of snow on which she stood. At first its motion was slow, and Lewis struggled wildly to extricate her, but in vain, for the snow avalanche gathered speed as it advanced, and in its motion not only sank them to their waists, but turned them helplessly round, thus placing Lewis farthest from the firm land. He shouted now with all the power of his lungs ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... regular course of study. His health suffered at times during this period of his life; at first from an affection of the chest, caused by an accident on his first journey to Leipsic; the carriage had stuck fast in the muddy roads, and Goethe exerted himself too much in assisting to extricate the wheels. A second illness connected with the digestive organs brought him ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... hedged around too completely by adverse circumstances for that. Everything pointed to his guilt, and only he himself and one other knew him to be the victim of a deliberate plot devised to compass his destruction. He was too hopelessly enmeshed to extricate himself, and the other—the only man in the world who could establish his innocence—was the man who had ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... always escape in this manner. Not to speak of minor mischances, on one occasion we stuck hard and fast for twenty-four hours, in spite of every attempt to extricate ourselves. Here was a predicament for the captain! He had received instructions to make the greatest speed on his trip; his passengers were all burning with impatience lest they should be too late to ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... lost its balance, and man, horse, and saddle went over the slope, pots, pans, and packages flying after them. At another time my horse sank up to his chest in a very bad bog, and, as he was totally unable to extricate himself, I was obliged to scramble upon his neck and jump to terra firma ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... venture to attempt a generalisation about woman, I endeavour to recall to mind without distinction all the different women I have encountered, and to extricate from my impressions what was common to all,—omitting from consideration (except only when I am dealing specifically with ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... are long and black in Paris; it would hardly be even moderately light before seven o'clock. But that were a respite none too long for Lanyard's necessity; he must think swiftly in contemplation of instant action were he to extricate himself without the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... general, let me," exclaimed poor Mrs Appleton, who was tall and thin; and she made an effort to extricate her bonnet. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... himself caught in a situation from which there was nothing to hope. His fleet was neither concentrated for a decisive blow nor spread for sporadic action. He had merely simplified his enemy's problem. Our hold was surer than ever, and in a desperate attempt to extricate himself he was forced to expose his fleet to the final ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... Ye pitying saints, forgive a father's blindness, And extricate us from this net of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... himself through the air. He struck the animal's right shoulder at the instant that it reared, terrified, to wheel in flight. The force of the impact hurled the horse backward to the ground and so quickly that the girl had no opportunity to extricate herself; but fell to the earth with her mount, her left leg pinned beneath ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... rashness is excused by the fact that Sherman was unable to return on the way by which he came; so that the most remarkable feature of the war, according to the President, is the wild and desperate effort of an out-manoeuvred General to extricate himself from a position which, whatever effect it may have had on the election, should never, on mere military grounds, have been ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... saying, "Mr. Graham, you have brought me into danger, and must now extricate me. Papa is an inveterate whist- player, and you have put my errand here quite out of my mind. I didn't come for the sake of your delicious muffins altogether"—with a nod at her hostess; "our game has been broken up, you know, Mrs. Mayburn, by the departure of Mrs. Weeks and her ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... that nothing could be done for it there, occupied some moments. His nearest neighbor was Trinidad Joe, a "logger," three miles up the river. He remembered to have heard vaguely that he was a man of family. To half strangle the child with a few drops from his whisky flask, to extricate his canoe from the marsh, and strike out into the river with his waif, was at least to do something. In half an hour he had reached the straggling cabin and sheds of Trinidad Joe, and from the few scanty flowers that mingled with the brushwood fence, and a surplus of linen ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... her countenance, and vainly endeavouring to extricate the hand which he had seized. "This is indeed cruel. You, the author of so many sufferings—such ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... invisible giants out of the fourth dimension ... we men kept on the sidewalks when we could ... but the winds blew the girls off into the half-hardened mud, and, at times, were so violent, that the girls could not extricate themselves, but they stood still, waiting for help, their skirts whirling up ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... that we should make another, and probably a last, effort to extricate ourselves. The winter is not far off, game is getting scarcer and scarcer, our stock of provisions is running low, and the sick—especially, I am sorry to say, the sick in the Wanderer's hut—are increasing in number day by day. We must look to our own lives, ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... about in the water at the foot of the mast, until at length he got upon his feet and seized a rope, which he held while considering what he should do to extricate himself. At this instant he perceived Mr. Holmes and his daughter on the capstan. How they had got there was a marvel to him which he had no time to investigate. Mr. Holmes beckoned with his lame hand to John, while he clung ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... least indirectly, be inconsistent with our wise and settled policy not to interfere in the domestic concerns of foreign nations. But does not the present case fairly constitute an exception? An adjoining Republic is in a state of anarchy and confusion from which she has proved wholly unable to extricate herself. She is entirely destitute of the power to maintain peace upon her borders or to prevent the incursions of banditti into our territory. In her fate and in her fortune, in her power to establish and maintain a settled government, we have a far deeper interest, socially, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... for this. I could only mutter and shake my head vaguely. Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty. From that moment, however, the old nakhoda became taciturn. He was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I had given him food for thought. Strangely enough, on the evening of that very ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Yeomanry, who had been scouting far ahead, now found themselves perilously involved with a small body of the enemy. General Hart, with a portion of the column, including the artillery and naval gun, moved out to extricate them, and very soon we heard heavy fighting going on. He succeeded in his object, however, at the expense of four of the Yeomanry wounded and one man killed. In the meantime, Colonel Hicks had thrown out outposts on the hills, 'G' company coming ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... complain, were given to the public without more particular inquiry. The poem, my Lord, was not written upon contract for a sum of money—though it is too true that it was sold and published in a very unfinished state (which I have since regretted), to enable me to extricate myself from some engagements which fell suddenly upon me by the unexpected misfortunes of a very near relation. So that, to quote statute and precedent, I really come under the case cited by Juvenal, though not quite in the extremity of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... at a later period of my life, when I had to discuss with Renan, at Paris, with Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and tried to show how entirely self-made some of their difficulties were. At present I have only to explain how it was that I had never to extricate myself from a net in which so many honest thinkers find themselves entangled without any fault of their own; as Samson, when he awoke, found himself bound with seven green withs and had to break them with all his might ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... we should seldom have occasion for any painful exertion of it; we are captivated by desires we might readily surmount, give into temptations that might easily be resisted, and insensibly get into embarrassing, perilous situations, from which we cannot extricate ourselves but with the utmost difficulty; intimidated by the effort, we fall into the abyss, saying to the Almighty, why hast thou made us such weak creatures? But, notwithstanding our vain pretexts, He replies, by our consciences, I formed ye too weak ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... proved an unceasing millstone about the unfortunate doctor's neck. In order to pay them, he had been obliged to leave more just demands undischarged; and thus he became involved in difficulties he strove in vain to extricate himself from. Yet in spite of all this, Job and his good little wife were a far happier couple than most of their richer neighbours. The constant hope that things would soon begin to take a more prosperous turn, reconciled them to their present perplexities; there was but one drawback they considered ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... what happened. The unfortunate animal, unable to extricate himself from the terrible grip of the sands, being too firmly held to permit of being dragged out, sank lower and lower. The water came half way up his sides. It closed over his back, but still his ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... them with the life of this Brassfield. I must take with me the bridge which spans the chasm between Brassfield and Amidon—I mean our friend Clara. Without her, I shall never go back. I haven't the nerve. I should soon find myself in a tangle of mistakes from which I could never extricate myself—I've thought it all out. The Cretan Labyrinth would be like going ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... little personal battle with the world, the end of judging and striving, the end of revolt. He should live on, strangely enough, into many years, but not as they had tried to live in self-made isolation. He should return to that web of life from which they had striven to extricate themselves. She bade him go back to that fretwork, unsolvable world of little and great, of domineering and incompetent wills, of the powerful rich struggling blindly to dominate and the weak poor struggling blindly ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... with the intention not to keep it? I readily distinguish here between the two significations which the question may have: Whether it is prudent, or whether it is right, to make a false promise? The former may undoubtedly of be the case. I see clearly indeed that it is not enough to extricate myself from a present difficulty by means of this subterfuge, but it must be well considered whether there may not hereafter spring from this lie much greater inconvenience than that from which I now free myself, and as, with all my supposed cunning, the consequences cannot ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... butcher, and of progenitors who poisoned St. Thomas Aquinas, their descendants conquering with the arms of Judas rather than of soldiers, and selling the flesh of their daughters to old men, in order to extricate ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... warmth he was in with continual toasting healths of the royal family, his lordship grew a little fond of His Majesty, and entered into a familiarity not altogether so graceful in so public a place. The king understood very well how to extricate himself in all kinds of difficulties, and with a hint to the company to avoid ceremony, stole off and made towards his coach which stood ready for him in Guildhall yard. But the Mayor liked his company so well, and was grown ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... a better foot-hold. But it was still of no use. It was not until the mud round the wheels had been all dug out, and the passengers lifted the hind wheels and the coach bodily up, that the horses were at last able to extricate the vehicle. By this time we were all in a sad state of dirt and wet, for the rain had begun to ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... misfortune happened to the expedition a little above Attah. The Quorra again ran aground, near the confluence of the Tshadda with the Niger, and all their efforts to extricate her proved vain; she was stopped for four months, after which the rising of the water lifted ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... the army that attention should be directed. There is the place for the bravest soldiers and the most trusted generals. It is there that all the resources of military science and its heaviest artillery should be employed to extricate the rear-guard—not to bring the main army back from good positions which it occupies, not to throw away the victory which it has won over the brute forces of nature—but to bring the rear-guard in, to bring them into the level ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... to the paying of debts, is highly curious. In the Gypsy language, the state of being in debt is called PAZORRHUS, and the Rom who did not seek to extricate himself from that state was deemed infamous, and eventually turned out of the society. It has been asserted, I believe, by various gorgio writers, that the Roms have everything in common, and that ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to marry this villain," he continued. "Heaven forbid!" (Not that Mr. Allen referred this or any other matter to Heaven; it was only a strong way of expressing his own disapproval.) "But we must manage to temporize and keep this man at bay till I can extricate myself from my difficulties. As soon as I stand on firm ground I ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... writings. This benevolent man sends his own children to a foundling hospital. This independent man lives for years on the bounty of an erring woman, whom at last he exposes and deserts. This high-minded idealizer of friendship quarrels with every man who seeks to extricate him from the consequences of his own imprudence. This affectionate lover refuses a seat at his table to the woman with whom he lives and who is the mother of his children. This proud republican accepts a pension from King George III., and lives in the houses of aristocratic admirers without ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... eagerly, pointed out. It was urged, for instance, by Miss Younghusband that it was substantially impossible for her to play the part assigned to her; Miss Mann was in a similar dilemma, from which no modern views on the sexes could apparently extricate her; and some young ladies, whose surnames happened to be Low, Coward, and Craven, were quite enthusiastic against the idea. But all this happened afterwards. What happened at the crucial moment was that the lecturer produced several horseshoes and a large iron hammer ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the loneliness of the pioneer, the theory of democracy, the Protestant tradition, and the limitations of political science all converged to make men believe that out of their own consciences they must extricate political wisdom. It is not strange that the deduction of laws from absolute principles should have usurped so much of their free energy. The American political mind had to live on its capital. In legalism it found a tested body of rules ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... found no bottom with a line of an hundred and seventy fathoms. This was altogether unexpected, and a circumstance that would not have been regarded if the breeze had continued; but at this time it fell calm, so that it was not possible to extricate ourselves from this disagreeable situation. Two boats were hoisted out, and sent a-head to tow; but they would have availed little, had not a breeze sprung up about eight o'clock at S.W., which put it in my power ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... into a German, the Fritz will fall. Perhaps your rifle will be wrenched from your grasp. Do not waste time, if the bayonet is fouled in his equipment, by putting your foot on his stomach and tugging at the rifle to extricate the bayonet. Simply press the trigger and the bullet will free it." In my present situation this was fine logic, but for the life of me I could not remember how he had told me to get my bayonet into the German. To me, this was the paramount issue. I closed ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... nets round the first one and then the other victim (precisely as in the case of one of those black thawed patches above named), so as to enclose within the toils whatever the creature is resting on. (12) As soon as the nets are posted, up he must go and start her. If she contrive to extricate herself from the nets, (13) he must after her, following her tracks; and presently he will find himself at a second similar piece of ground (unless, as is not improbable, she smothers herself in the snow beforehand). (14) Accordingly he must discover where ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... Men. "One never knows what may happen, dear Captain," says his Eminence to me, with his unctuous Smile. "Your Profession is one of sudden Risks, leading sometimes to prospects of painful Inconvenience. If you are brought to such a pass that all your Ingenuity will not enable you to extricate yourself from it, and if you have any rational Objection, say, to being Burnt Alive, or Broken on the Wheel, 'tis always as well to have the means at hand of executing oneself with genteel Tranquillity. Such means you will always carry with you on your Little Finger; and I can see, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to the earth. There I lay, right in the midst of the action, where carnage was riding riot, and every moment the shot, from our own and the Mexican guns, tearing up the earth around me. I tried to raise my horse so as to extricate my leg but I had already grown so weak with my wound that I was unable, and from the mere attempt, I fell back exhausted. To add to my horror, a horse, who was careering about, riderless, within a few ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... chariots, Dacians and their allies mounted and on foot, prisoners brought in, and a man, apparently a spy, bound before Trajan himself. Then follows a further advance, which occupies some of the succeeding scenes of the panorama. Here the Romans fall into an ambuscade, from which they extricate themselves; there they pass a post of danger, apparently a wooden stronghold of the Dacians, under cover of a wall of shields held aloft by the soldiers; and at length they arrive before a fortified town, where Trajan is again seen seated ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... for a friend for 600 francs. To meet it when it fell due two years later was impossible, and desperate were the efforts made by Castaing and his mother to put off the day of reckoning. His father, displeased with his son's conduct, would do nothing to help him. But his mother spared no effort to extricate him from his difficulties. She begged a highly placed official to plead with the insistent creditor, but all in vain. There seemed no hope of a further delay when suddenly, in the October of 1822, Castaing became the possessor of 100,000 francs. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... of your undertaking, (which was some time ago,) I own I was a little curious to see how you would extricate yourself from the subject of your two last chapters. I think you have observed a very prudent temperament; but it was impossible to treat the subject so as not to give grounds of suspicion against you, and ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... who were all on deck, snatched their cutlasses from the capstern-head, in which they were inserted, and before three minutes elapsed, during which the pirate had not time to extricate himself from his difficulty, were all ready for the service. They were joined by the Flemish sailors belonging to the neutral vessel, who very deliberately put their hands in their breeches-pockets, and pulled out their knives, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... in his "Memoirs" that the exaggerated system of general causes affords surprising consolations to second-rate statesmen. I will add, that its effects are not less consolatory to second-rate historians; it can always furnish a few mighty reasons to extricate them from the most difficult part of their work, and it indulges the indolence or incapacity of their minds, whilst it confers upon them the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the inward probabilities point another. Napoleon had said that if the Convention were not observed he would intervene, and he did intervene; nothing could seem simpler. Yet it is not doubtful that, in his inmost heart, he was wishing day and night that something would turn up to extricate him from the Roman dilemma once for all. While he hesitated, the Clerical party in France did not hesitate. Not a moment was thrown away by them. Towards the middle of October, it was reported that ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... apart; to make any certainty or distinction among so many casualties, distractions, when seldom two men shall be like effected per omnia? 'Tis hard, I confess, yet nevertheless I will adventure through the midst of these perplexities, and, led by the clue or thread of the best writers, extricate myself out of a labyrinth of doubts and errors, and so proceed to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... was both educated and intelligent; he knew that he was now in the power of the man who had been so foully wronged, and he conceived that there was but one way to extricate himself from the difficulty—namely, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... 'To extricate themselves, they decided to accept the services of a factor and manager. The factor was the Prussian Junker. He was an alien. For he could hardly be called a German. In blood he was more Slav than Teutonic. He was unrefined, unsympathetic, and overbearing. But as a manager ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... But the weather came to assist Von Scheer's tactical skill. He turned with less misfortune than had attended Beatty's similar manoeuvre two hours earlier, and set himself to fight a magnificent rearguard action and extricate his fleet as best he could. Fortunately for him the visibility grew steadily worse, and with it the range of fire diminished. This deprived Jellicoe of the advantage of his heavier guns, and indeed reduced the range of gun-fire to that of torpedoes. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... has a proper technical meaning, with which the orders of a naval officer when sent on a difficult or dangerous expedition always end. "Debrouillez vous," meaning simply "Come well out of it." There must be stuff in men who can be trusted to always extricate themselves from a tight place with credit to their flag without more words than that simple exhortation. But one cannot say much for the morality of a country where, when any one says "la muette" (the dumb one), it is understood to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... eyes could pierce through and beyond the immediate light afforded by our diligence-lamp, we discovered to be another diligence leaning heavily over a ditch, while its conductor and postilion were at their horses' heads, endeavoring to make them extricate it from its awkward position. This, however, was a feat beyond the poor beasts' strength; and our conductor, after a few "Sacramentos" at this new delay, got down and ran to see what could be done to help them out of the scrape. It had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... guilt grows beneath the wood, and seeks out a passage, by which he may extricate himself, having left his mother. Her pregnant womb swells in the middle of the tree. The burden distends the mother, nor have her pangs words of their own {whereby to express themselves}; nor can Lucina ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... dispatched him, had he not succeeded immediately in convincing them of his wonderful powers. It so happened that this gentleman was well informed in the theory of vaccination, and it struck him that by impressing on the savages his skill, he might extricate himself. By the aid of signs, a lancet and some virus, he set himself to work, and soon saw that he had gained a reputation which saved him his scalp. He first vaccinated his own arm, after which all of the Indians present solicited his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... upon and devoured them. A big bird swooped down and carried aloft some poor wretch whose fate it was to fill the hungry maw of a baby bird. And many an unfortunate, getting entangled in a soft gray curtain of silk that hung across the path, struggled vainly to extricate himself, till the hairy monster which had woven the snare crept out of his den and cracked his bones and sucked the last drop ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... their objects in detail, to go far in the road of general inquiries. They measure the extent of their own abilities, by the promptitude with which they apprehend what is important in every subject, and the facility with which they extricate themselves on every trying occasion. And these, it must be confessed, to a being who is destined to act in the midst of difficulties, are the proper test of capacity and force. The parade of words and general reasonings, which sometimes carry an appearance of so much learning ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... and biblical quotations, tacked on to a string of commonplaces, among which the great people he wishes to flatter are arranged under the head of the cardinal virtues, or some such category, and it is only with the greatest trouble, in his case and in that of many others, that we can extricate the few historical no- tices of any value which they really contain. The speech, for instance, of a scholar and professor of Piacenza at the reception of the Duke Galeazzo Maria, in 1467, begins with Julius Caesar, then proceeds to mix up a mass ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... he observed closely through the telescope. Suddenly he sprang up in great alarm, and gave a vehement order to change our course. He had seen the ship in front go aground on a sand-bank, from which, he asserted, she could not extricate herself; for he now realised that we were near the most dangerous part of the belt of sand-banks bordering the Dutch coast for a considerable distance. By dint of very skilful sailing, we were enabled to keep the opposite course towards the English coast, which we in fact sighted ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... The dust of the falling houses so thickened the air that men could not see a yard in front of them. Hundreds of the Roman soldiers were buried among the ruins. Some were killed, at once. Others, jammed between fallen timbers, strove in vain to extricate themselves, and shouted to their comrades to come to their assistance; but these—enveloped in darkness, ignorant of the ground, half suffocated with dust—were powerless to ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... he met Rosser in the Wilderness under somewhat similar circumstances. Had he charged the cavalry, Anderson would have effected a crossing, and in a very short time might have had the Michigan brigade at such disadvantage that it would have required all of Custer's boldness and skill to extricate it. Custer divined that the dash of Lee's advance was a mask for the infantry, and by a movement that would have done credit to Murat or Ney, caught Kershaw astride the river and trapped him completely. The behavior of the Fifth Michigan was never more ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... would necessitate putting confidence in Miss Massey? Telling her that once discarded slippers too small even for Maizie had been made to do duty by cutting the toes and lengthening with black ribbon, ribbon which in a miserable moment failed in its work? But how eventually to extricate herself from the miserable predicament? She could not sit forever on ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... another. "And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?" They consulted among themselves as to what answer would best serve to extricate them from an embarrassing position; no mention is made of any attempt to ascertain the truth and reply accordingly; they were thoroughly nonplussed. Should they answer that John's baptism was of God, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... as a most certain expedient to prevent many afflictions, and to be delivered from them: meddle as little with the world, and the honors, places and advantages of them, as thou canst. And extricate thyself from them as much, and as quickly ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... always found that proud and stately princes who will hear but few, are more liable to be imposed upon than those who are open and accessible: but of all the princes that I ever knew, the wisest and most dexterous to extricate himself out of any danger or difficulty in time of adversity was our master King Louis XI. He was the humblest in his conversation and habit, and the most painful and indefatigable to win over any man to his side that he thought capable of doing him either mischief or service: tho he was often refused, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... feel, that he made not the slightest attempt to extricate his master from a situation in which death must have inevitably ensued in a few minutes, but walked away to another part of the yard. Two or three journeymen, however, who witnessed the whole affair, were on the ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the elder branch. More than once he took particular interest in the family's affairs. He employed Corentin to clear up the dark side of the life of Clotilde's fiance. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Some time before this M. de Chaulieu made one of the portentous conclave assembled to extricate Mme. de Langeais, a relative of the Grandlieus, from a serious predicament. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... of the unconverted consists in their being in a state of separation from God, insensible of that dismal state, utterly unable to extricate themselves out of it, and loathsome to God while they continue in it. Reader, do you recollect when this was your state; if not, what hope is there that you have passed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... professed to work them; or that he rested his authority on extraordinary works of any kind; and it is strange indeed that Christians, with victory in their hands, should have so mismanaged their cause as to establish an objection where none existed, and in their haste to extricate themselves from an imaginary difficulty, to overturn one of the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... house. It is he who steals Freya's necklace and Sif's hair, and betrays Idun into the power of Thiassi; and although he sometimes gives the gods good advice and affords them real help, it is only to extricate them from some predicament into which ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... with his hat in his hand, wondering whether his engagement was to rest with the butler. Then a door opened and closed, and a girl dressed as a parlour-maid appeared upon the scene. She was walking slowly, and seemed to be endeavouring to extricate something from the depths ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... means by which they could get possession of it. Bouvard would extricate it at the top, while Pecuchet beneath would demolish the rock in order to make it descend ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... nullity. What with his immense patronage, the progress of events, and the chance of luring the opposing party into by-questions, the Presidential Micawber of the moment is almost sure that something will turn up to extricate him from the consequences of his own incompetency or dishonesty. The only check upon this system is the chance that the temerity engendered by irresponsible power may lead the executive to measures which, as in the case of Kansas, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... feet away, Burkett, the constable, was having a convulsion in his vain endeavour to extricate his cranium from a milk-can. The sounds that issued from that can ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... must consequently be done. Being, however, as I have said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... thing to hold a principle vaguely or latently as implicated in a principle already avowed, and another thing to extricate the implied principle and kindle it, as on the top of a lighthouse, on its own account. It is found, accordingly, that the early English Separatists collectively were much slower in this matter than Brown himself had been. They wanted toleration for themselves, and perhaps a general ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... coat, a light waistcoat buttoned high up, a black fashionable necktie, and light well-made trousers. After surveying him in detail, you would come to the conclusion that he was a man of daring enough to involve himself in danger of life, and with sufficient address to extricate himself from the peril. He was undoubtedly a man capable of winning the confidence and even devotion of others, as was shown when, falling into the hands of the Government, he was snatched from their grasp in the open day on the ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... a test of ingenuity. The subject who is given the problem finds himself involved in a difficulty from which he must extricate himself. Means must be found to overcome an obstacle. This requires practical judgement and a certain amount of inventive ingenuity. Various possibilities must be explored and either accepted for trial ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... he accepted was acrid, rasping, oppressive. The sheer weight of foreboding, of wild apprehension, of paralyzing fear, crushed him, until his shoulders bent low as he walked. How, lest he perform a miracle, could he hope to extricate himself and his loved ones from the meshes of the net, far-cast, but with unerring aim, which had fallen ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... cautiously and as the current swept in around the bend of the river, the noise he heard before seemed to be no great distance away. The speed of the current seemed to increase and in a few minutes afterwards, he was shot over a dam and hurled in the tumbling water below. Before he could extricate himself, the little boat had been upset and was about sinking when he grabbed her. The current soon drove him far below the dam, where he landed on a bar and emptied his tender of water. He knew her contents were ruined; but it was too dark to examine, so he kept on his voyage until sunrise, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... restless and uncomfortable dreams for Roderick Drew. While Wabi and the old Indian, veterans in wilderness hardship, slept in peace and tranquillity, the city boy found himself in the most unusual and thrilling situations from which he would extricate himself with a grunt or sharp cry, several times sitting bolt upright in his bed of balsam until he realized where he was, and that his adventures were only ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... "that you should have pledged your word in the matter. You will confess, Caron, that it was a little precipitate. Enfin," he ended, crumpling the document he had signed and tossing it under the table, "you must extricate yourself as best you can. I am sorry, but I ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... every movable article on the deck. Thomson, almost by miracle, escaped being lost; but having, in common with the lascars, taken the precaution to lash a rope round his waist, we were able, by its means, to extricate him from danger; at the same time the vessel made an appalling lurch, lying down on her beam-ends, in which position she remained for the space of two minutes, when the maintopmast, followed by the foretopmast, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... not appear so easy to extricate him from his unpleasant predicament; for the resemblance between his situation, and that of jack-in-the-box, went no further. There was no jerking machinery by which the ex-guardsman could be jumped out of his ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... over the treacherous surface, and I was waiting for an opportunity for a shot should he turn his head, when I suddenly pitched head first into one of these rocky holes. Here I scrambled for some seconds before I could extricate myself, as I was carrying my heavy four-ounce rifle; and at length, upon recovering my footing, I found that all the elephants had gained the jungle, except the one that I had been following. He was about twenty yards from me, and was just entering the jungle, ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... the schooner lay within four miles of the icebergs. To bring her nearer would have been to get among winding channels from which it might not have been possible to extricate her. Not that Captain Len Guy did not long to do this, in his fear ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... the least of his trials. As has been seen, he had fallen into the hands of the money-lenders in early youth, and he had never been able to extricate himself from their clutches. But so many of his friends and colleagues—Godwin, Leigh Hunt, and Sir Thomas Lawrence among others—were in the same position, that Haydon must have felt he was insolvent in excellent company. As long as he was able to keep ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... full of this project, and in great hopes, some how or other, to extricate myself in this way. But, oh! the artful wretch had provided for even this last refuge of mine; for when we came to put up at a large town on the way, to eat a morsel for dinner, and I was fully resolved ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... deserted corner of a drawing-room at his club, and there Seated himself for half an hour's meditation. How should he extricate himself from this dilemma? In what language should he address a young and beautiful woman devoted to him, but whose devotion he was bound to repudiate? He was not voluble in conversation, and he was himself aware ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... devoted, amorous, enamored. Force, strength, power, energy, vigor, might, potency, cogency, efficacy. Force, compulsion, coercion, constraint, restraint. Free, liberate, emancipate, manumit, release, disengage, disentangle, disembarrass, disencumber, extricate. Freshen, refresh, revive, renovate, renew. Friendly, amicable, companionable, hearty, cordial, neighborly, sociable, genial, complaisant, affable. Frighten, affright, alarm, terrify, terrorize, dismay, appal, daunt, scare. Frown, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... While visionary and impracticable efforts have been resorted to penetrate into the interior of Africa, we have strangely neglected the maritime situations, which abound with multifarious objects of commerce, and valuable productions, inviting our interference to extricate them from their dormant state; and the consideration apparently has been overlooked, that the barbarism of the natives on the frontiers must first be subdued by enlightened example, before the path of research can be opened ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry |
