"Evasion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like the Spartan youths, they consider the most expert thief to be the cleverest fellow: should any of these young men be caught, they are left to get out of the scrape in the best manner they are able, for unless it be to swear falsely to an alibi, or some other evasion of truth, their masters never appear in ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... Cecilia concluded, 'he will request Mr. Romfrey to accompany him to Bevisham to-morrow morning, to make the apology in person. He will not accept the slightest evasion. He thinks Dr. Shrapnel may die, and the honour of the family—what is it he says of it?' Cecilia raised her eyes to the ceiling, while Rosamund blinked in impatience and grief, just apprehending the alien state of the young ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in a sort of parabolic curve and he dodged it. By a neat evasion he got the topic switched to sociology, from that to philosophy, to heredity, literature, journalism, art, and finally prenatalism. Every effort I made to probe him on public finance was met by some calm and smiling barrage of eclectic interest. For an hour we played ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the Arcadian shepherdess and the thunderbolt. Obviously a reality! Besides—so ran the doctor's thought—with her looking like that, what can I do? He felt perfectly helpless, but wouldn't confess it. He would make an effort. One thing he was certain of: that evasion, with those eyes looking at him, would ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... legislation has their approval and the courts are regarded as meddlesome when they enforce it. The anti-trust laws, the anti-pooling laws, factory legislation of all kinds, anything in short that interferes with the unrestricted use of property by its owner are roundly condemned and violated by evasion. On the other hand, so much has been written and said in reference to the creation of the fundamental rights to own property, and these rights depend so absolutely upon social arrangements and work out such manifest ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... thorough, and require from the cadet a close and persevering attention to study, without evasion or slighting of any part of the course, as no relaxations of any kind can be made by ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Square the next morning, but it became evident from the outset that the plan of confounding Grossmann did not appeal to the magnate of Stoke-Underhill. Challis frowned and prevaricated. "It's a thousand to one, the child won't condescend to answer," was his chief evasion. ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... supposing it paid without any method of evasion, is so low, that in a quarter of a pint, the quantity which the lower people usually demand at once, it does not amount to any denomination of money; and so small an addition will be easily overbalanced by the sale of a larger quantity than formerly; for it cannot ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... twenty-four was a permanent one, and its blow has continued to add itself to each succeeding bereavement in an ever lengthening chain of tears. The lightness of infant life can skip aside from the greatest of calamities, but with age evasion is not so easy, and the shock of that day I had to take full ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... reply; his little sweetheart pouted a little, but said nothing; it was an evasion which she did not like. A few seconds of consultation then took place, as a matter of form. Each captain asked of the other if he was perfectly satisfied as to Mr Littlebrain's capabilities, and the reply was in the affirmative; ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... division for the execution, and on the 13th of November, in the presence of their former comrades, the culprits were sent, in accordance with the terms of their sentence, to render their account to the Almighty. It was the saddest spectacle I ever witnessed, but there could be no evasion, no mitigation of the full letter of the law; its timely enforcement was but justice to the brave spirits who had yet to fight the rebellion to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the caftan of a Persian, and the silken robe of a Chinese, [Footnote: See the Persian Letters, and the Citizen of the World.] and are prepared to suspect their real character under every disguise. But how can we be ignorant of your country and manners, or deceived by the evasion of its inhabitants, when the voyages of discovery which have been made to it rival in number those recorded by Purchas or by Hackluyt? [Footnote: See Les Voyages Imaginaires.] And to show the skill and perseverance of your navigators and travellers, we have only to name ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... it might well have borne; in either text the Hero's addresses savour rather of a ploughman than a prince, and his finest courtesies are clownish though not churlish. We may probably see in this rather a concession to the appetite of the groundlings than an evasion of the difficulties inherent in the subject-matter of the scene; too heavy as these might have been for another, we can conceive of none too hard for the magnetic tact and intuitive delicacy of Shakespeare's judgment and instinct. But it ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... all night and got to the White Hart at eight o'clock this morning. I have been shutting myself up and resting," said Will, feeling himself a sneak, but seeing no alternative to this evasion. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... be done, nothing attempted. What has been said of kings, we may say of the waves—we are their people, we are their prey. All that they rave must be borne. The nor'-wester was driving the hooker on the Caskets. They were nearing them; no evasion was possible. They drifted rapidly towards the reef; they felt that they were getting into shallow waters; the lead, if they could have thrown it to any purpose, would not have shown more than three ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Still Hamilton failed to touch him. There was a baffling something in the old man's escape now and again from what ought to have been an inevitable stroke. Was it luck? It seemed to Hamilton more than that—a sort of uncanny evasion. Or was it supreme mastery, the last and subtlest reach ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... the blowing method is quite applicable to this case, and the effect may be obtained by welding in a rather thicker bit of tube, and drawing and blowing it till it is of the necessary thinness. This is, however, a mere evasion of the difficulty. ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... Father Orin, with a sigh of evasion, "if you are going on to the camp-meeting, Toby and I will have to leave you here. We have a sick call 'way over on the Eagle Creek flats. And it's a ticklish business, going over there in the dark, isn't it, old man?" ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... or the whole city of Jerusalem. And the Jews know his coming means their passing, and their obedience to him as Lord and Supreme Ruler. Therefore, they are inexcusable in their rejection of Christ. Of no avail is their evasion, "God has given us the dominion and the supreme power, and has commanded obedience to us in equal degree with obedience ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... for more than was appointed before. But this they consented to, that before their faces he might tell his servant, that today he would sup in "the Apollo" (for so one of his best dining-rooms was called), and by this evasion he outwitted his guests. For every room, as it seems, had its own assessment of expenditure, dinner at such a price, and all else in accordance; so that the servants, on knowing where he would dine, knew also ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... should be eighteen years, for men twenty-one years. The State should require health certificates before issuing marriage licenses. There should be Federal legislation on marriage and divorce and statutes prohibiting the evasion of marriage laws. 11. Laws should provide that women be subject to jury service and the unit vote of jurors in civil cases should be abolished. 12. Members of committees of the League of Women Voters should not use their connection with the league to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... keep a grand jury busy for a month. It came to me in the shape of unsolicited letters from the men who are benefiting by the railroad company's evasion of the law, and who are, of course, equally criminal with the railroad officials. Why these letters were written to me I don't know, Gantry. I merely know that they were ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Lipsius in his professorship at Louvain—and upon the printer, one Flaminius. Delays and excuses having followed instead of the punishment originally demanded, James had now instructed his special envoy in case of further delay or evasion to repudiate all further friendship or intercourse with the Archduke, to ratify the recall of his minister-resident Trumbull, and in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in her capacity of Grand Duchess, had many devoted friends, and it was evidently with their aid that the evasion had been brought about. And Lady Beltham, herself a dupe, still imagined it was her lover she had saved; when in reality she had set at liberty his most ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... Claudet's violent disposition, and wishing to avoid trouble for the cure, thought it advisable to have recourse to evasion. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... could not look me in the eyes and say that he was my honest friend. He would flirt with me, if he could, to beguile his burdensome leisure; but when I defined what some are to me, and more would be, if permitted, he found no better refuge than gallantry and evasion. What can he mean? what can he hope except to see me in his power, and ready to accept any terms he may choose to offer? O Arthur Strahan! your wish now is wholly mine. May I have the chance of rejecting this man as I ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... reason of a conscientious scruple. I went straight to my traitor, to confide In him; his sophistry made me believe That I must give the box to him to keep, So that, in case of search, I might deny My having it at all, and still, by favour Of this evasion, keep my conscience clear Even in taking oath against ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... as weak a thing as not to fulfill the letter of his oath. His shadowy duty to the girl would not justify himself in evading a crisis demanding his life for the life of another, nor would it vindicate the greater evasion. It was a matter of honor to remain true to that which at the start had justified the whole hazard to him. It was this which restrained him even from learning whether or not ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... convinced beyond the reach of argument or even the clearest proof, that it was his own hand that drove the knife to her heart. Then I recalled to his memory the case as reported, adding that the fact of the murderer's prolonged evasion of justice, appeared, by some curious legerdemain of his excited fancy, if not to have suggested— of that I was doubtful—yet to have ripened his conviction of guilt. Now nothing would serve him but he must give himself up, confess—no, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... you can do it, and it is not only your salvation, but also mine.—I am far from planning to sacrifice the half million for which the 'St. George' is insured on account of any evasion on your part. The half million will suffice to pay our debts and give us enough to live on for awhile. After your brother had the good grace to die just at ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... escape was discovered. The soldiers, on going past the place on their morning rounds, saw the bloody tracks of the prisoner's descent on the wall under the window. An instant investigation was made, and the truth of the awful manner in which Pomponio had accomplished his evasion disclosed. Stupefied, the commandant and his men gazed at, the traces of the deed, the pools of half-dried dark blood and the two pieces of bone, eloquent of the fortitude he must have possessed, the desperation he was in, to ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... indeed, seems to me to imply with some clearness that, in the long interval between Edw. VI. and the 14th Car. II., there had been many changes; but it does not stay to specify them, or distinguish between what was mere evasion, and what was lawful. It quietly passes them all by, and goes back to the legalized usage of the second year of Edward VI. What had prevailed since, whether by an archbishop's gloss, by commissioners, or even statutes, whether, in short, legal or illegal, ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... responsibilities upon her shoulders as she liked and, with her long training in a school of reticences and composures, she would remain placid and indifferent. So Jack worked it out, and he resented, for Imogen and for himself, such tact and such evasion. He wished that they had been more crude, more inappropriate. Thank heaven for crudeness if morality as opposed to manners made one crude. He entrenched himself in that morality now, open-eyed to its seeming priggishness, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to spare her anything that was due to her. Colonel Liscannon was so much better that he could easily be left, and, moreover, an old crony had come in from the country to spend a couple of days with him. So there was no chance of Gay's evasion without a seeming rudeness to Druro. But she was very late in arriving at the "Falcon," where she was to be a ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... no use in concealment or evasion, and it was not like him to resort to either. "Alice, my sweet little sister," he replied, resolutely drawing his chair near and taking her hand, "it is true, and I intended to tell you all about it, only I hated to do it at first, and ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... to King, the issue was clear and not to be clouded; to her credit be it said that she wasted no time in fruitless evasion. This matter would demand settlement, as well now as later. There was wisdom in ending all unpleasantness once ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... his hand, with one singular exception. He manifestly objected to communicate with Mr Boffin's solicitor. Two or three times, when there was some slight occasion for his doing so, he transferred the task to Mr Boffin; and his evasion of it soon became so curiously apparent, that Mr Boffin spoke to him on ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... agreed that we could not throw stones at each other on that account. Well, the gentle Sweyn has taken your evasion very much to heart, and earnestly desires to repossess himself of your person; but for this, my easiest plan would have been to rid myself of so troublesome a witness in a more speedy manner, and you might ere this have fed the fishes of ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... hands and raising their voices in loud cries of applause and excitement as the dance became faster and faster. The warriors bounded high, brandishing their tomahawks. A better time could not have been chosen for the evasion of the fugitives. Nelly Welch stood close to a number of Indian girls, but slightly behind them. She held the hand of ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... a moment for resistance, if resistance was to be made at all, it was this. The arguments of the court were undoubtedly strong, but a skilful lawyer could easily have found technicalities on the other side, and the real evasion of the Royal Charter might have been urged as a reason why the court had no right to press technical arguments too closely. The danger was all the greater, as it was known that by the renunciation of all intermediate heirs ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... personality satisfied in one objective. Every one has really a forced option between the costly effort to achieve this sublimation of impulse, this unification of the self on spiritual levels, and the quiet evasion of it which is really a capitulation to the animal instincts and unordered cravings of our many-levelled being. We cannot stand still; and this steady downward pull keeps us ever in mind of all the backward-tending possibilities collectively to be thought ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... truth, in a situation in which, for the first time in his life, he coveted nothing. The peril was one, also, from which, thus far, his mother-wit, which seldom failed before, could suggest no means of evasion or escape. His prospect was a dreary one; though with the wonderful capacity for endurance, and the surprising cheerfulness, common to the class to which he belonged, he beheld it without dismay though with ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... person or in some of his officers, led the fleet by night to the westward through the passage between Scilly and Land's End. On the following morning he was no more to be seen, and the enemy, ignorant of the manner of his evasion, was thrown wholly off his track.[134] Howe met the convoy; and a strong gale of wind afterwards forcing the allies to the southward, both it and the fleet slipped by successfully, and ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... She poured troops over the channel until there were 10,000 in the capital Then she showed her hand. The Japanese Minister, Mr. Otori, brusquely demanded of the King that he should renounce Chinese suzerainty. The Koreans tried evasion. The Japanese pressed their point, and further demanded wholesale concessions, railway rights and a monopoly of gold mining in Korea. A few days later, confident that Europe would not intervene, they commanded the King to accept their demand unconditionally, ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... feet and turned toward the door, guiltily conscious that he had evaded the subject of Geof. As his eye fell upon the lithe, vigorous figure coming toward him, he recognised the fact that evasion was no longer possible. An instant later he had recognised the young architect of Western proclivities whom he had taken such a ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... marriages celebrated by themselves, and were bound to furnish the superintendent registrars with certified entries of such marriages. The act was complicated by a variety of safeguards, enforced by heavy penalties, against fraud and evasion, but its leading features were simple and have proved effectual for their purpose. It marked an advance on the earlier marriage bill of Russell, since it not only allowed dissenters to marry in their own chapels, but ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... to task him upon this subject, the first time I could have patience to enter upon it with him. For, besides that it piqued me excessively from the nature of the artifice, I expected shuffling and evasion, if he were guilty, that would have incensed me: and, if not confessedly guilty, such unsatisfactory declarations as still would have kept my mind doubtful and uneasy; and would, upon every new offence that he might give me, sharpen ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... change of mood had overthrown the barrier which her stern refusal had raised between them. Calm and cheerful as in former days he sat before her, listening while, in obedience to his invitation, she told him, with many a palliation and evasion, about her married life and the children. She made her story short, in order at last to hear some further particulars concerning the welfare ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the utmost energy and intelligence. Pinckney finally wrung from the Spaniards a treaty which was as beneficial to the West as Jay's treaty, and was attended by none of the drawbacks which marred Jay's work. The Spaniards at the outset met his demands by a policy of delay and evasion. Finally, he determined to stand this no longer, and, on October 24, 1795, demanded his passports, in a letter to Godoy, the "Prince of Peace." The demand came at an opportune moment; for Godoy had just ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... I ask her to marry me?" he thought. Aloud he said: "Listen, Winifred, and know that I am trying to tell you the white truth without reserve or evasion. I come to you because you are the only person who will need no explanation of the past, to unravel the evil of the present. I went with Brady this evening to a meeting of the Salvation Army at a slum post down on Berry Hill, where Nora Costello was ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... Gallatin proceeded to apply with characteristic administrative vigor, and summoned Jefferson to authorize the collectors of revenue to call the military force of the United States to support them in the exercise of their restrictive authority. There was to be no evasion under the systems which Hamilton devised and Gallatin knew so well ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... of detection anywhere, but especially in India; but all restraint upon that grand fundamental abuse of presents is gone forever, if the servants of the Company can derive safety from a defiance of the law, when they can no longer hope to screen themselves by an evasion of it. All hope of reformation is at an end, if, confiding in the force of a faction among Directors or proprietors to bear them out, and possibly to vote them the fruit of their crimes as a reward of their discovery, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in it must make the break between the higher and the lower nature. For Eucken, as for Dante, there must be 'the penitence, the tears, and the plunge into the river of Lethe before the new transcendent love begins.' There is no evasion of the complexities of life. He has a profound perception of the contradictions of experience and the seeming paradoxes of religion. For him true liberty is only possible through the 'given,' through God's provenience and grace: genuine self-realisation is only achievable through a continuous self-dedication ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... Dennis, deserted for the moment by his customary adroitness, was unable to do anything else than respond, without evasion or subterfuge: ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... the secret without any evasion, that was just what Scranton designed to have inside of another week—a monster affair that included entries from all other schools in the county, and which already promised to be one of the greatest and most ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... know all that she said. It did no good. The principal Indian asked me if I was Imbrie's wife, and I could only answer that I did not know, that I had lost my memory. I suppose this seemed like a mere evasion to them. When Mary saw that they were determined, she said they must take her, too. She thought this was what you would want. They refused, but she threatened to identify every man of them to the police, so they ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... although I have been led to expect a good deal in this direction. These qualities are supplemented by a surprising degree of coolness in dropping a subject or making a change of front, as soon as the untruth which he has taken as his point of departure is identified beyond the possibility of evasion. In case of necessity he covers a retreat of this sort by an ebullition of moral indignation, or by an attack, often of a very personal character, which transfers the discussion to a new and quite different field. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... monopolize administrative and executive functions. By means of unequal rates of taxation, and more especially of unjust assessments, he is able to shift most of his taxes to the shoulders of farmers and small property holders in state, county and town. This outrageous evasion by the rich, of their just share of the burdens of government, is shameful to the last degree! It robs the poor of all protection, that governments are bound to offer! It is a crime against humanity! It is a sin against the perpetuity of the republic! It is anarchy! ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... exception, inasmuch as the vicissitudes are admitted to be partially the results of man's actions in this life, or of the influence of others from which his own deserts are insufficient to protect him. The main article, however, which admits neither of modification nor evasion, is that neither in heaven nor on earth can man escape from the consequences of his acts; that morals are in their essence productive causes, without the aid or intervention of any higher authority; and hence forgiveness ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... his evident and expressed intention of protecting the rights of the South. The doctor, on the other hand, quoted a certain speech of the President's, upon the question of abolishing slavery in the district of Columbia, which his fears interpreted into a mere evasion of the matter, and an indication that, at some future period, he (Mr. Van Buren), might take a different view of the subject. I confess, for my own part, that if the doctor quoted the speech right, and if the President is ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... England to come forward and say, 'You did not maintain the union between Holland and Belgium, an union which we did not wish, which we wanted to see dissolved, we declare ourselves free from the payment of that debt'—to have said so would have been such an evasion of an engagement, that I certainly could not have taken any part in adopting it. But it was not evaded. England being free from the letter of the engagement, made a new engagement with Russia; and in that engagement she agreed to continue the payment of the interest ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... in what was meant to be a confident tone. But he felt it did not deceive the gray-eyed girl at his side. Evasion was useless. ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... shrank from it. He was eager to shelter himself under the first excuse that he could find. His ingenuity, paralyzed by his fears, was unable to invent anything new. He feebly availed himself of the commonplace trick of evasion which he had read of in novels, and seen ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... and finally, at some odd evasion of his, accomplished by a monosyllable, I laughed outright—and he did, too! He joined cachinnations with me heartily, and with a twinkling quizzicalness that somehow gave me the idea that he might be thinking (rather ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... realised that a laugh was the last thing she had expected. For anger, evasion, denial, she had been prepared. Mary would probably storm and bluster in her ineffective way—and return ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... all Christ's ministers to the end of the world were commissioned to baptize with water, Paul only rejected.[42] This reflects unjustly upon Paul, the great apostle to us Gentiles.[43] Is it not a mere evasion of the gospel truth here and elsewhere inculcated, that Christ gave no commission to ...
— Water Baptism • James H. Moon
... natural. 'Even so it was with me when I was young,'" sighed the old lady, who detected no evasion in the words of ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... it is an erring fellow-being; a desolate, forlorn, forsaken soul; and his thoughts, enfolding the poor wretch, will be far deeper than those of indifference, ridicule, or contempt. All human offences, the whole system of dishonesty, evasion, circumventing, forbidden indulgence, and intriguing ambition, in which men are struggling with each other, will be looked upon by a thoughtful Mason, not merely as a scene of mean toils and strifes, but as the solemn conflicts of immortal ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... States then stood he was not a citizen of the United States; and to prevent this question being raised the word inhabitant was used,—thus making the conferment of civil rights so broad that it was impossible to defeat the full intent of the law by any technical evasion. It was undoubtedly a very sweeping enactment, the operation of which was not confined to the States which had been slave-holding, but bore directly upon some of the free States where the negro had always been deprived of certain ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of other supernatural beings with which the good people of Germany have been so grievously harassed since time immemorial. One of the poor relations ventured to suggest that it might be some sportive evasion of the young cavalier, and that the very gloominess of the caprice seemed to accord with so melancholy a personage. This, however, drew on him, the indignation of the whole company, and especially of the baron, who looked upon him as little better than an infidel; so that he was fain to abjure his ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... orthodox physicians will join me in my effort to save millions of unfortunates from the tragedy of our state hospitals. You won't lift a hand to help me. You all say there is nothing to be done. What a wicked evasion of responsibility! Nothing to be done? I tell you there is everything to be done. Suppose you had a daughter or a sister or a wife who was suffering from such an affliction—how would you feel? God grant you may never know how you would feel. Why do you doctors scoff ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... well assured of the fact that the earth is a globe, were not able to demolish the crafty arguments of Parallax publicly, during the discussions which he challenged at the close of each lecture. He was too skilled in that sort of evasion which his assumed name (as interpreted by Liddell and Scott) suggests, to be readily cornered. When an argument was used which he could not easily meet, or seem to meet, he would say simply: 'Well, sir, you have ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... to the South Atlantic in the neighborhood of Brazil, and finally to the Pacific, to destroy the British whale-fishery there. The plan was well conceived, and particularly was stamped with the essential mark of all successful commerce-destroying, the evasion of the enemy's cruisers; for, though the American cruisers were primed to fight, yet an action, even if successful, tended to cripple their powers of pursuit. A rapid transit through the Atlantic, with an ultimate destination to the then little-frequented Pacific, was admirably ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... in the literary conscience, just as much so as was Gladstone when he attempted to reply to Ingersoll in "The North American Review," and resorted to sophistry and evasion in lieu of logic. Absolute truth to Gladstone was a matter of indifference—expediency was his shibboleth. Truth to Mrs. Eddy was also a secondary matter; the only things that really mattered were Health and Success. Health and Success are undoubtedly great things and ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... exciting question which they embrace; and so far as they are concerned, we will maintain them and insist on their strict enforcement, until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legislation, to guard against the evasion of the laws on the one hand, and the abuse of their powers on the other, not impairing their present efficiency; and we deprecate all agitation of the question thus settled, as dangerous to our peace; and will discountenance all efforts ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... courteously. "I take four men with me, and I am told that I am to be responsible for your safety. It would be painful indeed for me to have to take any stringent measures to prevent you from escaping on the road, and if you will give me your parole not to attempt evasion it will be far more pleasant for ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... understand how it should have been supposed that troops could be raised here by Great Britain without violation of the municipal law. The unmistakable object of the law was to prevent every such act which if performed must be either in violation of the law or in studied evasion of it, and in either alternative the act done would be alike injurious to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... his love, he allowed it to appear in his every look and intonation. The girl met the attack with banter and raillery and adroit shiftings of the conversation whenever his ardent inferences became too obvious. Yet her evasion and her teasing could not always mask her maidenly pleasure over his adoration of her loveliness, and an occasional blush betrayed to him that his wooing was not ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... hastened to bring in a bill wholly forbidding the work of women in the mines, and greatly limiting that of children. The bill was adopted, but has remained a dead letter in most districts, because no mine inspectors were appointed to watch over its being carried into effect. The evasion of the law is very easy in the country districts in which the mines are situated; and no one need be surprised that the Miners' Union laid before the Home Secretary an official notice, last year, that ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... known world, whereby the secrets of Masonry may be unlawfully obtained through my unworthiness. To all which I do most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, without the least equivocation, mental reservation, or self-evasion of mind in me whatever; $1$2: so help me God, and keep me steadfast in the true performance ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... any one of the guarantees which the Cortes itself is authorized to suspend, but at the earliest opportunity such a decree must be submitted to the Cortes for ratification. It need hardly be pointed out that the opportunity for the evasion of constitutionalism which is created by this power of suspension is enormous, and anyone at all familiar with the history of public affairs in Spain would be able to cite numerous occasions upon which, upon pretexts more or less plausible, the guarantees of ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... sometimes at the Ten Broecks, the Schuylers, and the Patroons. And all the while I was debating within my mind how this proud and handsome, newly-married girl might receive my halting story. For it would not do to conceal anything vital to the case. Her clear, wise eyes would see instantly through any evasion, not to say deception—even a harmless deception. No; if she were to be of any aid in this deeply-perplexing business, I must tell her the story of Lois—not betraying anything that the girl might shrink from having others know, but stating ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... fear he should give order for more than was appointed before. But thus much they consented to, that before their faces he might tell his servant, that to-day he would sup in the Apollo, (for so one of his best dining-rooms was called,) and by this evasion he outwitted his guests. For every room, as it seems, had its own assessment of expenditure, dinner at such a price, and all else in accordance; so that the servants, on knowing where he would dine, knew also how much was to be expended, and in what style and form dinner was to be served. The ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... by avoidance and ingenuity. Amusingly enough, since the woman's main danger came through her "natural protector"—man; and since her skill and success in escaping from or overcoming him was naturally not valued by him, much less considered a necessity; this power of evasion and adaptation in woman has never been called a virtue. Yet it is just as serviceable to her as courage to the man, and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Romneys and such (there had been most profit for him in handling the forgeries of these particular masters), had been put, with an air of great secrecy, into the hands of divers newly rich gentlemen who believed they were getting masterpieces at bargain prices through this evasion of customs laws. ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... civil and discreet gentlemen think to use us who live by the free exercise of our wits! Had I answered your question by saying that it was simple curiosity which led me to visit my old comrade Anthony Foster, I warrant you had set it down for an evasion, and a turn of my trade. But any answer, I suppose, must ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... positively, and solemnly enjoin it upon my Executors hereafter named, or the survivors of them to see that this clause respecting slaves and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the Epoch at which it is directed to take place without evasion neglect or delay after the crops which may then be on the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects (4) the aged and infirm, seeing that a regular and permanent fund be established for their support so long as there are subjects requiring ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... his arms and looked down. "Why should you think I could have learned anything at Crumford Hall?" he demanded, with apparent evasion. ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... South shall give to the country a policy derived from her heathen notions of men, there will be such a peace as men have overdrugged with opium, that deep lethargy just before the mortal convulsions and death! All attempts at evasion, at adjourning, at concealing and compromising are in vain. The reason of our long agitation is, not that restless Abolitionists are abroad, that ministers will meddle with improper themes, that parties are disregardful of the country's ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... we forget the violent contrasts of the middle ages. Pure "Religious," striving after the exalted perfection enjoined by the Counsels, moved habitually among moral atrocities, and bold vigour of speech was a practical duty. Catherine handled without evasion the grossest evils of her time, and the spell which she exercised by simple force of direct dealing was nothing ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... themselves for this war; but before the war has as yet been well twelve months in operation, a bill has come out with a list of taxation so oppressive that it must, as regards many of its items, act against itself and cut its own throat. It will produce terrible fraud in its evasion, and create an army of excise officers who will be as locusts over the face of the country. Taxes are to be laid on articles which I should have said that universal consent had declared to be unfit for taxation. Salt, soap, candles, oil, and other burning fluids, gas, pins, paper, ink, and leather, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... prohibiting any one from either sitting or standing to teach a black to read. They, therefore, gathered the colored children around them while they lay prostrate on the couch to teach them. For further evasion they kept on hand splinters of wood which they had the children dip into a match preparation and use with a flint for ignition to make it appear that they were showing them how to make matches. When this scheme seemed impracticable, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... minute in the literal observance of their vows, and as shamefully subtile in their artful evasion of them. The Pharisees could be easy enough to themselves when convenient, and always as hard and unrelenting as possible to all others. They quibbled, and dissolved their vows, with experienced casuistry. Jesus reproaches the Pharisees in Matthew ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... [False or vicious reasoning; show of reason.] Sophistry. — N. intuition, instinct, association, hunch, gut feeling; presentiment, premonition; rule of thumb; superstition; astrology[obs3]; faith (supposition) 514. sophistry, paralogy[obs3], perversion, casuistry, jesuitry, equivocation, evasion; chicane, chicanery; quiddet[obs3], quiddity; mystification; special pleading; speciousness &c. adj.; nonsense &c. 497; word sense, tongue sense. false reasoning, vicious reasoning, circular reasoning; petitio principii[Lat], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... not be speedily loosened. They also watched as, with no pretense of concealment, she stuffed into her saddle-hags a parcel done up in heavy brown paper, and made conspicuous by the bank's red sealing wax. Then, still scornful of evasion, she mounted and rode away as straight-shouldered and militant a figure ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... the King, attended only by "Jockie Hart, a yeoman of the stable," and another "secret servant," escaped in the stillness of the night into the freedom of the sleeping country. It is said by one authority to have been in June that this evasion was made, but in June there is scarcely any night at all in Scotland, and the brief darkness could scarcely have served as a screen for the fugitives; probably it was earlier in the year, when the night was more to be ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... odious examination of the tax-gatherers it may expose them to much unnecessary trouble, vexation, and oppression": to which may be added that the restrictive regulations to which trades and manufactures are often subjected, to prevent evasion of a tax, are not only in themselves troublesome and expensive, but often oppose insuperable obstacles to making improvements in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... something suppressed in this—a mean evasion—for he could not easily have told Mr. Edgcrton, without a blush, that, instead of the mercantile establishment, he would have made me a bricklayer's hodman. But this, it seems, Edgerton had found out for himself. His reply, however, was calculated to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... dangerous—she pulled the trigger far too early—and Undine the most selfish of the three. The three are disagreeable, but the trio is transitional in type. Each girl is a compromiser, Undine being the boldest; she did a lot of shifting and indulged in much cowardly evasion. Vulgarians all, they are yet too complex to be pinned down by a formula. Old wine in these three new bottles makes for disaster. Undine Spragg is the worst failure of the three. She got what she wanted for she wanted ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... to lie. He might have dodged the question, but he was quick enough to see that evasion would make the ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... Reilly, "and in a truly Christian spirit. Were it not for the shelter and protection which I myself received from one of them, my mangled body would probably be huddled down into some obscure grave, as a felon, and my property—which is mine only by a necessary fiction and evasion of the law—have passed into the hands of Sir Robert Whitecraft. I am wrong, however, in saying that it could. Mr. Hastings, a generous and liberal Protestant, took it in his own name for my father, but gave me a deed of assignment, placing ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of the working-class movement. Lenin speaks highly of the book in this relation, but takes Plechanoff severely to task for his failure properly to set forth the Marxian concepts of the State, and for his total evasion of the form the State must take during the time it is in the hands of the workers. When writing on the "Vulgarisation of Marx by the Opportunists," in his ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... "and, moreover, I am aware, notwithstanding your evasion, Ursula, that marriages and connections now and then occur between gorgios and Romany chies; the result of which is the mixed breed, called half and half, which is at present travelling about England, and to which the Flaming Tinman belongs, otherwise called ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Kenelm, with a polite and politic evasion of that question, "if your daughters are like their mother, you can't say that they ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... countess for the second time had sought her son. Her stern, grave face, her angry eyes, the repressed pride and emotion that he saw in every gesture, told him that the time for jesting or evasion had passed. ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... questions 'arising,' they say, 'out of the answer just given? They don't spare a syllable, and take up five times as much of the Sitting as Members who put their questions on the Paper, and are not allowed to read them. You don't mean to say that such a transparent evasion ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... and accepted cost of a liberal public policy deliberately adopted for a justifiable end. But much of the matter which enjoys the privileged rate is wholly outside of the intent of the law, and has secured admission only through an evasion of its requirements or through lax construction. The proportion of such wrongly included matter is estimated by postal experts to be one-half of the whole volume of second-class mail. If it be only one-third ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... over her face, and then retreating left it pale again, but she was too proud to deny the charge. She would not utter an untruth nor an evasion even on so delicate a subject. There was an armed truce of silence between them for a few minutes, till the evil genius of the Secretary rose and he felt again that desire to subject her will ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... more deeply than before. He had been speaking for his mother from his own point of view, and now he hardly knew what to say, for he was not good at evasion. But he told the truth, if not all the truth. "We feel very grateful to you for the means of support, and a chance in life when the world was very dark. You have since ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... with my hat off close to a window in the Hall, Sir W. Pen and I to the Castle Tavern hard by and got a lobster, and he and I staid and eat it, and drank good wine; I only burnt wine, as my whole custom of late hath been, as an evasion, God knows, for my drinking of wine (but it is an evasion which will not serve me now hot weather is coming, that I cannot pretend, as indeed I really have done, that I drank it for cold), but I will leave it off, and it is but seldom, as when I am in women's company, that I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys |
