"Precedent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under the muzzle of the ordinance; you're a loafer.' One of these ''fishal functionaries' justifies extreme physical means in 'captivating obstropolous vagroms' both by reason and distinguished precedent: 'Wolloping is the only way; it's a panacea for differences of opinion. You'll find it in history books, that one nation teaches another what it didn't know before by wolloping it; that's the method of civilizing savages; the Romans put the whole world to rights that way; and what's right on the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... said: "Sire, may it please your Majesty, whose eyes can see so far, to appreciate this innovation in all its terrible consequences. By striking to-day dissolution and death into the first abbey of your kingdom, do you not fear to leave behind you a great and sinister precedent? . . . What Louis the Great has looked upon as possible will seem righteous and necessary to your successors; and it will happen, maybe, before long, that the thirst for conquests and the needs of the State (those constant and familiar ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... before, the pole-star toward which this earnest and clever woman aimed. With such a mind as hers the topic under consideration becomes for the time supreme. Solemnly insisting on a renunciation of all possibility of merit as a condition precedent to faith, she proceeded to exalt belief itself into the most meritorious of acts. This sort of paradox is common ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... sensational fiction, a too promiscuous "clearing the ground" by syncope and suicide. Another is the juvenility of Mildred:—a serious infraction of dramatic law, where the mere tampering with history, as in the circumstances of King Victor's death in the earlier play, is at least excusable by high precedent. More disastrous, poetically, is the ruinous banality of Mildred's anticlimax when, after her brother reveals himself as her lover's murderer, she, like the typical young Miss Anglaise of certain French novelists, betrays her incapacity for ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... one day during a hunt for a wounded rabbit. Investigation proved the mine to be of no great depth, and, thanks to the pumps of the Silver Stream, as dry as a bone. A company of reliable small boys was formed with exceeding caution and a fine observance of rule and precedent; for Dick Haddon did nothing by halves, and forgot nothing that might give an air of reality to the creations of his ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... fighting for the Faith and abstinence from what is forbidden.' (Q.) 'Why dost thou stand up to pray?' (A.) 'To express the devout intent of the slave submitting himself to [or acknowledging] the Divinity.' (Q.) 'What are the conditions precedent of standing up to pray?' (A.) 'Purification, covering the privy parts, the avoidance of soiled clothes, standing on a clean place, fronting [the Kaabeh,] a standing posture, the intent[FN212] and the magnification of prohibition.'[FN213] (Q.) 'With what shouldest thou go forth thy house ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... the people who are the soundest directors of a nation's policy," Furley pronounced. "High politics becomes too much like a game of chess, hedged all around with etiquette and precedent. It's human life we want to save, Julian. People don't stop to realise the horrible tragedy of even one man's death—one man with his little circle of relatives and friends. In the game of war one forgets. Human beings—men from the toiler's bench, ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this be copied out And keep it safe for our remembrance: Return the precedent to these lords again; That, having our fair order written down, Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes, May know wherefore we took the sacrament, And keep our faiths ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... but he preferred to shield himself behind the judgment of the Lords. The Lords, he said, had decided that the matter was too frivolous for their own consideration; and without their permission, he might not set a precedent of responsibility to the Commons by answering ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... determined followers of precedent, every one keeps his nose close by the heels of his predecessor. The delicate point, therefore, of the whole operation is keeping the first mule straight. The first mule in our party, who rejoiced ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... however, on the other hand, have anticipated, that in proportion to the strength of character required for the effort, and to the absence of distracting sentiments, whether respect for precedent, or affection for ideal beauty, would be the energy exhibited in the pursuit of the special objects which the youths proposed to themselves, and their success ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... laughed, as he replied:—"Why, it would not do to hang men limply for being guilty of a little piracy. Some of our leading chiefs might object to the precedent. But I will gladly aid you in looking for Signor Zappa; and if you catch him, of course you will be at liberty to treat him as you think fit. To be frank with you, I do not think you will find him unprepared in his strong-hold, and he will not yield up his ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... from her bed and took her seat by the open window, according to precedent. She had seen herself, during the evening, sitting there looking out on to the moonlit garden, asking herself quietly, "What am I going to do?" weighing the pros and cons, stiffening her mind, and her courage. And she tried now to come ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... wide-flung enterprises imply of commercial push and audacity, Boston, at the time Addicks discovered gas there, was one of the most trusting wealth-investing communities in the world. She had her simple rules of business conduct which years of usage had consecrated into all-powerful precedent, but her brokers and capitalists, however fearful of all things quick or tricky, had never previously figured as candidates for what in Western parlance are ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... said his friend philosophically, as he handed him a glass; "there, take this. I wonder if Mrs. Trap—Trapper, or whatever her name is, thinks we are going to dress for dinner. Neither my sister nor Miss Carolan will, and I'm sure I'm not going to establish a bad precedent." ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Following the precedent of the first and second books in the matter of local colour, the scene of this third book, relating to villas and the "small deer," which were there reared, is laid in the villa publica at Rome, and the characters of the dialogue are selected for ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... say why, but that creature fascinated her. The longer she looked at him the more intensely he interested her. Not that she was one bit afraid of him, as she might reasonably have expected to be, according to all womanly precedent. On the contrary, she felt an overwhelming desire to take him up in her own hands and stroke and fondle him. He was so lithe and beautiful; his scales so glistened! At last she stretched out one dainty gloved hand ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... reported, is probably owing to the fact that the judges gave no reasons; and the omission is the more to be regretted, as a report of it would have put the question at rest, and prevented much unpleasant excitement. Still, the judgment is not the less authoritative as a precedent. Standing as the court of last resort, that tribunal bore the name relation to this court that the Supreme Court does to the Common Pleas; and as its authority could not be questioned then, it cannot be questioned ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it ever should be. If the first king of any country was by election, ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... little as possible of isolation and mystery. In Byron's time it was an inn, and it is rather a curious reflection that "Cain" and the "Vision of Judgment" should have been written at an hotel. The fact supplies a commanding precedent for self-abstraction to tourists at once sentimental and literary. I must declare indeed that my acquaintance with Ravenna considerably increased my esteem for Byron and helped to renew my faith in the sincerity of ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... or precedent in Mr. Hayne's case would he not practically be saying that he endorsed the views of the court-martial as opposed to those of the department commander, General Sherman, the Secretary of War, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... vessels of the skin are very active during the lavoratory process; such soap must not, therefore, be used except by the special advice of a medical man. Probably these soaps will be found useful for internal application. The precedent of the use of Castile soap (containing oxide of iron) renders it likely that when prejudice has passed away, such soaps will find a place in the pharmacopoeias. The discovery of the solubility, under certain conditions, of the active alkaloids, quinine, ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... brilliant beyond precedent this career had been. He entered the diplomatic service of the Czar, and for several years was attached to the legations at Vienna, London, and Paris. Created a Baron before his twenty-fifth birthday for the wonderful ability ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... session Wilson broke the precedent established by Jefferson in 1801, and read his message personally to Congress, instead of sending it in written form to be read by a clerk. In substance the message expressed the President's conviction that the appearance of the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... the venerable priests, "but that was so long ago, and bears so little resemblance to our case, that it will not serve as a precedent. Heading a band of vagrants in pursuit of plunder, you have overrun our country, caused the death of our good king, and made the priesthood to be scoffed at, which is a crime meriting death. Having set yourself up for a ruler adds no small injury to the insults you have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... heard from my wife only two days before this. At that time she was quite sick, but was thought to be improving. With a heart filled with sadness I now prepared for my journey home. The warden was absent, and the deputy warden said, "There was no precedent for permitting a prisoner to go home on a visit, as such a thing had never occurred before in the history of the State, but," continued he, "if you will give me your word that you will return to the prison I will let you go." I told him to set the time for my return and ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... began improving the minds of her girls to the extent of three full annual subscriptions for Josephine, Adelaide, and Madeline respectively; and that triplet of fair students, who, separately or conjointly, were at all times competent to the establishment of a precedent for the graceful charities of Hendrik good society, handsomely led off with a ten-dollar investment in "fountain" pens, "cream-laid assembly note," motto-wafers, Blessington envelopes "with crest and initial," ivory tablets, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... then in the Christmas holidays with one year just closing and the other opening, each with its unclaimed appropriation. I suggested that to the powers that were, but they threw up their hands: that would have been irregular and quite without precedent. Oh, for irregularity enough to throttle precedent finally and for good! It has made more mischief in the world, I verily believe, than all the other lawbreakers together. At the very outset it had wrecked my hopes of getting the first school playground in New York planted in the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... easy, before we invite our Prince to resume the sceptre of his ancestors, as it would prevent the mistakes into which his father fell, from a misconception of the bounds of sovereign power, derived from the arbitrary precedent set by the House of Tudor. But our divisions prevent us from claiming those advantages which would result from wisdom, moderation, and unanimity. We fly to the King as to a healer of our dissensions. A keen feeling of our sorrows and offences has raised the ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... explains the difference I have pointed out between the Biblical and the Talmudic commentaries. For the Biblical commentaries there had been no precedent, and if they possess the merit of originality, they also illustrate the errors of a man who tries his powers in a field of work devoid of all tradition. For the Talmudic commentaries, on the contrary, ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... with a sudden apprehension in his throat, "yesterday our labours dissolved in air through the very doubtful precedent of allowing one to testify what he had had the intention to relate. Now we are asked to allow a tomb-haunter to call a parricide to disclose that which he himself is ignorant of. ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... extravagant, but which I do see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the bottom of it." It may nevertheless be suspected, with some confidence, that the construction of his real meaning was not far wrong which assumed it as the condition precedent to his illimitable faith, that the people, even with the big P, should be "governed." It was his constant complaint that, being much in want of government, they had only sham governors; and he had returned from his second American visit, as he came back from his first, indisposed to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... inconvenience may be easily avoided by choosing a wider and longer course, which may be again enlarged and varied by going one way, and returning another. This is not without a precedent; for, not to inquire into the practice of remoter princes, the procession of Charles the second's coronation issued from the Tower, and passed through the whole length of the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... blame for this and how they first got in I do not know. But I understand that they first of all built a private college of their own close to Oxford, and then edged themselves in foot by foot. If this is so they only followed up the precedent of the recognised method in use in America. When an American college is established, the women go and build a college of their own overlooking the grounds. Then they put on becoming caps and gowns and stand and look over the fence at the college athletics. The ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... constitutional ground for the exclusion of women from the ballot-box in the State of New York. No barriers whatever stand today between women and the exercise of their right to vote save those of precedent and prejudice, which refuse to expunge the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of the year,' said the young gentleman, 'I lunch at two, and dine at eight. This gives me two long divisions of the morning, for any in-door and out-door purposes. I hope you will partake with me. You will not find a precedent in ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... the great Rajput bard, sang of the marriage of Prithwi Raj, king of Delhi, that the bride's father emptied his coffers in gifts, but he filled them with the praises of mankind. A lakh of rupees [291] was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for similar occasions. "Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled," Colonel Tod wrote, [292] "and the aristocratic Rajputs submit to republican simplicity, the evils arising from nuptial profusion will not cease. Unfortunately those who should check it find their interest in stimulating it, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... ring arrived as we were at tea a few days later, and I had a sudden overwhelming fear that Celia would not be pleased. I saw that I must explain it to her. After all, there was a distinguished precedent. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... genius of Paganism. The true gospels were taught by sensible images, and many of the ceremonies employed in celebrating the heathen mysteries were observed in the institutions of Christ, which soon in their turn obtained the name of mysteries, and served as a melancholy precedent for future innovations, and as a foundation for that structure of absurdity and superstition which deformed and disgraced the church." Rutter's History of the ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... same time giving her subjects an example of unjustifiable partiality. A week had not elapsed, since six men had been executed in the Plaza de Bivarrambla, on account of the same offence for which Don Lope stood condemned. With this melancholy precedent, even the most sanguine in their expectations began to droop, and the death of Gomez Arias was looked upon ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Show me a single precedent." Bradshaw rose up in a passion: "Sir, we do not sit here to reply to your questions. Plead to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... five-year term; election last held 14 April 2002 (next to be held in April 2007); after the first legislative elections, the leader of the majority party was appointed prime minister by the president, suggesting a precedent for the future election results: Kay Rala Xanana GUSMAO elected president; percent of vote - Kay Rala Xanana GUSMAO 82.7%, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... weather, but I only caught fragments of it. All the signs were propitious, and as it had been a fine harvest under similar conditions before, people said it would be fine this time. But, unlike the law, the weather acknowledged no precedent, and nobody could tell, though folk now thought they knew everything. How all things had changed since the Queen ascended the throne! Not long since Hilary was talking with a labourer, an elderly man, who went to the feast in Overboro' town on the day of the coronation. The feast was held ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... to all the inconveniences I have just now stated; and the act itself was esteemed so highly detrimental and injurious to the royal prerogative, that it was repealed by statute 16 Car. II. c. 1. From thence therefore no precedent can be drawn. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... haughtiness for dignity: his study is his toilet, and his mind, like his face, is a vacuity neither sensible, intelligent, nor agreeable. He has few associates, for few will accept him for a companion. With his superiors in rank, his precedent honorary distinction yields him no consideration; with his equals, it places him upon too familiar a footing; while with his inferiors, it renders him tyrannical and unbearable. His mornings, between school hours, are spent in frequent change of dress, and his afternoons ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... seems to have an undeniable freshness of outlook on the Roman alphabet. He treats it with a freedom and variety and a certain disregard of precedent—induced, perhaps, by his schooling in Blackletter—that often produces delightful, though sometimes, be it added, direful results. But if the extreme and bizarre forms be thrown aside the designer may obtain suggestions of great benefit and value from ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... the burden of villain tenure. This fact makes emphasis upon the payment of money as the distinguishing feature of the changed relations between landlord and tenant in this period misleading. There was every precedent for requiring a money payment in the place of services not wanted. When, therefore, a great many services were simply allowed to lapse, it is an indication that it was impossible to exact the payment. It makes little difference whether the services were commuted ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... answer. Here was a problem for the solution of which he found no precedent in all ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation, and implore the blessing of Heaven on our undertaking. They embrac'd the motion; but, as it was the first fast ever thought of in the province, the secretary had no precedent from which to draw the proclamation. My education in New England, where a fast is proclaimed every year, was here of some advantage: I drew it in the accustomed stile, it was translated into German, printed in both languages, and divulg'd ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... that the man is as dangerous as you say," he remarked, "it is certainly creating a new precedent for you to bring him into the bosom of your family. Is it conversion, bribery, or poison that you ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nevertheless very great when she told me that you had offered her your hand, and that she, young and inexperienced as she is, had, without consulting me, ventured to accept you. Such a thing, my dear sir, is against all precedent. The whole of society would be subverted, and all parental authority destroyed, were I as a father to allow what you do me the honour of proposing to take place. I am, I repeat, deeply grateful to you for the inestimable service you have rendered me, but I must ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... economy on the other, but observing that juste milieu which good sense dictated, and the spirit of our republican institutions demanded, succeeded in overcoming all prejudice against the new form of municipal government, and in establishing a precedent, which, followed by succeeding mayors, has saved the city millions of dollars of needless expense, and has served as a worthy example to many other cities ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... an old rule. Nobody knew when it first came into vogue. Mr. Eames, bibliographer of Nepenthe, had traced it down to the second Phoenician period, but saw no reason why the Phoenicians, more than anybody else, should have established the precedent. On the contrary, he was inclined to think that it dated from yet earlier days; days when the Troglodytes, Manigones, Septocardes, Merdones, Anthropophagoi and other hairy aboriginals used to paddle across, in crazy canoes, to barter the produce of their savage African glens-serpent-skins, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Tientsin, and told never to do such rash and indiscreet things again. That means the end of any attempts to control. For the Boxer partisans in Peking allege that the soldiers actually hit and killed a good many men, which is quite without precedent, and is upsetting all plans. On such occasions it is always understood that you fire a little in the air, warwhoop a good deal, and then come back quietly to camp with captured flags and banners as undeniable evidences of your victory. This has been the old method of making ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... experiments in tragi-comedy, but, in general, classical comedy was pure comedy—the prose comedy of manners—and classical tragedy admitted no comic intermixture. Whether tragedy should be in rhyme, after the French manner, or in blank verse, after the precedent of the old English stage, was a moot point. Dryden at first argued for rhyme and used it in his "heroic plays"; and it is significant that he defended its use on the ground that it would act as a check upon the poet's fancy. But afterward ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the tale runs, the Governor looked——He certainly did establish a precedent at that dinner. Mockers say that Judge Pat McCarran ran a close second, because his Excellency is lean and lank, while Judge McCarran would make two of him one way, and almost half of him the other, and because what happened to Governor ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... beneath the superficialness and mock-mystery of the medical science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft and running a hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. Especially did he devote himself to these plants; and under his care they had thriven beyond all former precedent, bursting into luxuriance of bloom, and most of them bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, in two or three instances, had the sort of natural repulsiveness that the serpent has in its beauty, compelled against its will, as it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... too, in a great age, when Rome had nearly conquered the world; when Roman senators and generals had more power than kings; when Grecian arts and literature were copied by the imperial Romans; when the rich and fortunate were luxurious and ostentatious beyond all precedent; when life had reached the highest point of material splendor, and yet when luxury had not destroyed military virtues or undermined the strength of the empire. The "eternal city" then numbered millions of people, and was the grandest capital ever ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... with Seor Posada, who observes that the vice-queens alone had the privilege of the entree, and seems to hesitate a good deal as to the advisableness of granting a permission which might be considered a precedent for others. However, I think he is too amiable to resist our united entreaties. I hold out as an argument, that C—-n, being the duplicado of the queen herself, my visit is equal to that of the vice-queen, which argument ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... forms, reproduced from old models, which the artist was bound to follow. It would seem, indeed, that while in the representation of animals and of men of inferior rank, Assyrian artists were untrammelled by precedent, and might aim at the highest possible perfection, in religious subjects, and in the representation of kings and nobles, they were limited, by law or custom, to certain ancient forms and modes of expression, which we find repeated ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... intention to study law, what a raising of hands there was, what a loud regretting that she had not a mother. But since she had not settled in Westville, and since she had not been actively practising in New York, the town had become partially reconciled. But this step of hers was new, without a precedent. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... precipice. 160 But though the ancients thus their rules invade, (As kings dispense with laws themselves have made) Moderns, beware! or if you must offend Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end; Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need, And have at least their precedent to plead. The critic else proceeds without remorse, Seizes your fame, and puts ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... you have been uniformly successful with the cases he's put you on. I hope," the young father entreated, "that you'll follow your usual precedent." ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... for example, what follows: 'I will give the inhabitants ten guineas for the head of every deserter belonging to the volunteers of Ireland; and five guineas only if they bring him in alive.' No amount of provocation or of precedent in his enemies, no degree of youthful ardour in himself, are at all adequate to excuse these most blamable words. When, however, he was called upon to vindicate them, Lord Rawdon declared that many of his threats ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... believed to be unique: but many precedents for plunging the reader in medias res, as does the surviving text, might be found in the modern short story of the artist in style. As M. Boissier points out Varro might have cited the beginning of the Odyssey as a precedent ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... Gloucester and the antient nobility with a jealousy, that the queen intended to exclude them from the administration, and to govern in concert with her own family. It is not improper to observe that no precedent authorized her to assume such power. Joan, princess dowager of Wales, and widow of the Black Prince, had no share in the government during the minority of her son Richard the Second. Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry the Fifth Was alike excluded from the regency, ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... of Russia, or cost the Grand Seignior of Constantinople his head. Can it be possible, therefore, that it has been reserved for a republican Government, in a land boasting of its free institutions, to set the first precedent of this kind? Our city councils, our courts of justice, every department of Government are approached by petition, however unanswerable, or absurd, so that its terms are respectful. None go away unread, or unheard. The life of every individual is a perfect ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the council: "We have found a precedent. We find that one hundred and ninety years ago a like case confused the council of that day. They finally agreed that she must submit to two ordeals with wild beasts of the jungle. If she survived she was ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... then, that the Columbiad must be cast on the soil of either Texas or Florida. The result, however, of this decision was to create a rivalry entirely without precedent between the different towns of ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... In Cyrene, they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... sufficient for an author of sixteen, not only to be able to copy the poems of antiquity with judicious selection, but to have obtained sufficient power of language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of versification which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has since had ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... figure by drawing the others much smaller. On a scroll which St. John holds are the words, "Hic est discipulis qui testimonii perhibet." The arrangement of Pilate's superscription—"Hic est Nazaren IHC rex judaeor"—is unusual but not without precedent. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... and sharp, merciless and logical veracity with which he discriminates between the solemn judgment of a tribunal and a stump speech from the bench,—the startling narration of decisions and statutes, practice and precedent, condensed into a few of the closing pages of the Oration, with which the discussion read by Chief Justice Taney in the famous case of Dred Scott is confronted and exposed,—are among the greater merits of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... tortured. That night had little sleep for him, and the marvels of Carlin—face and voice, laugh, heart, hand—grew upon him contrary to all precedent. This was a battle against all the wild animals rolled into one; most terribly, a battle because there seemed such a beauty about the yearning which the girl awoke ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... equipment for initiating the career of the human race was that peculiar faculty which made them human—the capacity of man for binding time; we know that they actually did that work of initiation, without any guidance or example, maxim or precedent; and we know that they were able to do it just because the power of initiation—the power to originate—is a ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... be almost broken by parting with it, while the worldly interests of the child would also be materially injured by the removal. Above all, the revealing of the child's locale would be a violation of a 'professional obligation,' and would be initiating a very dangerous precedent in matters of this kind; and so Mrs.——'s lips were sealed, and to this day the real mother knows naught of her own child; would not even be able to recognize her offspring, if they were to meet face to face in the streets of ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... happiness my station is new, and, if I may use the expression, I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely an action the motive of which may not be subject to a double interpretation. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent. If, after all my humble but faithful endeavors to advance the felicity of my country and mankind, I may indulge a hope that my labors have not been altogether without success, it will be the only real compensation ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent: ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... opinion of contemporaries, including Lord John's own closest political allies. That a Minister should run away from a hostile motion upon affairs for which responsibility was collective, and this without a word of consultation with a single colleague, is a transaction happily without precedent in the history of modern ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... past, that the problem becomes very involved); in the case of an innocent man sacrificed to the preponderating interests of his country; and in the iniquitous war of the Transvaal. It is true that the phenomenon is not altogether without precedent. Man has always endeavoured to justify his injustice; and when human justice offered him no excuse or pretext, he found in the will of the gods a law superior to the justice of man. But our excuse or pretext of to-day ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... authoritative in the eyes of the whole nation, and charged with the duty of ascertaining the actual state of things in Ireland and the wisest line of economic development. Such an undertaking will amount to a unification of Irish life altogether without precedent. It will draw the great personalities of industry for the first time into the central current of public affairs. It will furnish them with a platform upon which they will have to talk in terms of the plough, the loom, and the ledger, and ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... of this new era to England: a man of might, of judgment, and of forecast; the first truly English monarch in sympathy and purpose who had occupied the throne since the Conquest: liberal beyond all former precedent in religion, he sheltered Wiclif in his bold invectives, and paved the way for the later encroachments upon the papal supremacy. With the aid of his accomplished son, Edward the Black Prince, he rendered England illustrious by his foreign wars, and removed what remained ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... whole, and in connection with notorious facts, these statements are fair examples of manifest tendencies, which certainly are not on the decline. And if a great and spreading popular cultus, encouraged and urged on beyond all former precedent, is in danger of being developed by its warmest and most confident advocates into something of which unreason is the lightest fault, is there not ground for interfering? Doubtless Roman writers maybe quoted by Dr. Newman, who felt that there was a danger, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... always in public, could not fail to be very much affected by any rash or unjust decision. In doubtful cases such courts, from their anxiety to avoid blame, would naturally endeavour to shelter themselves under the example or precedent of the judges who had sat before them, either in the same or in some other court. This attention to practice and precedent, necessarily formed the Roman law into that regular and orderly system in which it has been delivered down to us; and the like attention has had the like effects upon ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... arbitration. The refusal prevents such degradation of a noble reform to an ignoble end as would make arbitration the refuge, not of those who wish to avoid war, but only of those who have preferred war and been beaten at it. The American precedent should thus become a powerful influence for promoting the cause of genuine international arbitration, and so for the preservation ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... sixth hour." Long before this David had mentioned morning and evening and noon as fitting hours of prayer, and one psalmist, in his enthusiasm, had even gone so far as to declare seven times a day to be not too often for giving God thanks. There was also the precedent of Daniel opening his windows toward Jerusalem three times a day. As the love for order and system grew year by year stronger in the Christian Church, the laws that govern ritual would be likely to become more stringent, and so very probably it came to pass. For aught we know to the contrary, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... are right. But it would be as well to turn up Shaw and Dunlop for a precedent before you make any row about it. Besides, it may be rather difficult to establish that you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... of their income was a remarkable phenomenon, without explanation or precedent—that it could happen at all within the space of five years seemed almost an intended cruelty, conceived and executed by a sardonic God. When they were married seventy-five hundred a year had seemed ample for a young couple, especially ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... of classification and subdivide the parts of speech. The inflection of words, being distinct from their classification, makes a separate division of the work. If the chief end of grammar were to enable one to parse, we should not here depart from long-established precedent. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... whatever things are related to one another as precedent and consequent, are distinct. But command naturally precedes the commanded act. Therefore they ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... very seriously of the lack of precedent for the step which we were considering and of what my people in Derby, Conn., would say when they learned that a Traprock had married a Filbert. Swank replied with some heat that he didn't believe that anything could be said in Derby that hadn't been said already and Whinney was much ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... testimonial to the Wenuses was also started by the same journal, in accordance with the precedent furnished by the similar treatment of the Graces, and an animated controversy raged in its correspondence columns with reference to mixed bathing at Margate, and its effect on ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... work of the Supreme Court in constitutional interpretation has, for all but special students, fallen into something like obscurity owing to the luster of Marshall's achievements and to his habit of deciding cases without much reference to precedent. But these early labors are by no means insignificant, especially since they pointed the way to some of Marshall's most striking decisions. In Chisholm vs. Georgia, * which was decided in 1793, the Court ruled, in the face of an assurance in the "Federalist" to the ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... ascended the throne. His father was evidently a difficult person to live with; not only his extravagance and erratic habits, but also a thoroughly unjustified suspicion of his elder son, must have caused the latter a great deal of misery. Instead of following the precedent of the P[vr]emysls in dynastic disputes, Charles wisely abstained from open opposition to John, although the people's affection had been transferred from father to son. Added to this there were the usual troubles caused by the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... the only result was that Jerusalem refused communion with the other Eastern patriarchate. Justinian himself,—at a time when there was at Constantinople an envoy from Rome, Pelagius,—issued a long declaration condemning Origen. A synod was summoned, which formally condemned Origen in person—a precedent for the later anathemas of the Fifth General Council—and fifteen propositions from his writings, ten of them being those which Justinian's edict had denounced. The decisions were sent for subscription to the patriarchs ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... his hand, the fact struck him that the relative was of precisely the same shade of complexion as himself. Could he set him down as he had many a mere red-blooded person and thereby perhaps establish a precedent that might result in his own mortification? Yet could he stretch a shade—or several shades—and set him down as "white"? No, there was the oath of office, and the government that administered it had been found long-armed and Argus-eyed. Long ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... and not be influenced by sentimental nonsense. She listened as a parent, really very fond of this beautiful creature for which she was responsible, and painfully conscious of a bias towards sentimental nonsense, which taxed her respect for her official adviser. She referred to her historical precedent—her own early experience—with a confidence akin to that of the passenger in sight of Calais, who dares to walk about the deck because he knows how soon it will be safe to say he was always a ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and ideas, 11-12; the mind can only compound the materials derived from outward or inward sentiment, 13 (cf. 53); all ideas resolvable into simple ideas copied from precedent feelings, 14; deficiency in an organ of sensation produces deficiency in corresponding idea, 15-16; suspected ideas to be tested by asking for the impression from which it is derived, 17 (cf. 49); idea of reflection, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... human laws were equally confused, so that at the time the laity rashly attempted to administer sacred things, to use filth instead of holy oil, to baptize, and to do much else foreign to the Christian religion. The clergy likewise went beyond their sphere—a precedent which cannot be cited as law. Neither was it regarded unjust to dissolve sacrilegious marriages which had been contracted to no effect in opposition to vows and the sanction of fathers and councils; as even today the marriages ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... only be maintained by the observance of laws; and if no account were made of the rights of the sovereign, it could less be expected that any regard would be paid to the property and freedom of the subject: that it was never too late to correct any pernicious precedent; an unjust establishment, the longer it stood, acquired the greater sanction and validity; it could, with more appearance of reason, be pleaded as an authority for a like injustice; and the maintenance of it, instead of favoring public tranquillity, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... higher? In the first place, we must frankly acknowledge the hard facts of the case, and, as far as possible, put to one side theories. We are confronted by a condition, as far as I read and study, absolutely new in the history of mankind, where we have no exact precedent to guide us. The underlying practical fact is this: there must be separation not from but in the Church between the two races, for the growth of the Church among white men and black men, and ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... Slave law, which made us a nation of kidnappers, derived its authority from the New Testament. Paul had established a precedent by returning a ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... he said. "The precedent once established, all must perish by its edict—even those which may not be grotesque or bestial—even this perfect one," and he touched again the vat, "and thus you would rid yourself of rival suitors. But no!" he went on in a high, trembling voice. "I shall not be led to thus compromise myself, ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... classic orders, they varied it considerably to suit their purposes, using familiar motives in new ways, securing classic effects with detail of their own conception, and at times departing far from all precedent. For the most part their achievements displayed that good taste and restraint combined with a novelty and an ingenuity which have given our best Colonial architecture its principal ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... is the more interesting to us now, because it is the precedent to which Titian himself refers, when he first offers his services to ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... of Lombardy from the democratic republicans that follow Mazzini. In truth, the Government of Vienna needs their estates; and, imitating the example of the French Convention, and furnishing another precedent for Socialism when it shall come into power, it seized them without any colour of right or form of law. Another branch of the scourging tyranny of Austria is the system of forced loans. Some of the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... to call into being this nation, they undertook a task for which there was but little encouraging precedent. The development of civilization from the earliest period seemed to show the truth of two propositions: In the first place, it had always proved exceedingly difficult to secure both freedom and strength in any Government; and in the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... goodness. Upon this is founded that saying, That the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their people: for when their successors, managing the government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent, and make them the standard of their prerogative, as if what had been done only for the good of the people was a right in them to do, for the harm of the people, if they so pleased; it has often occasioned contest, and sometimes public disorders, before the people could ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... manners," said Jones, when Murdoch had left the room. "They may seem unnecessary, or even absurd, but they are sanctioned by custom, and, you know, civilization is built on custom. The poet speaks of a freedom which 'slowly broadens down from precedent to precedent.' Precedent is custom. Never defy custom, or you will find her your master. Humor her, and she will be your slave. Now I think I shall leave, while you try and tune yourself to the atmosphere of these surroundings. I need hardly warn you that ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... farmyard under my windows is the barn where my Catholic men are having High Mass, and where in half an hour, if alive, we shall have our service too. There was a good precedent for stables, I believe, 1915 years ago, so we do not view it as incongruous, but I understand that High Mass is unusual, and no doubt a great honour to the Regiment. I hear that our leave does not come off till January 6th. That puts me into the trenches ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... drawne Less he finds of difference between them and other men Lord! in the dullest insipid manner that ever lover did Nan at Moreclacke, very much pleased and merry with her Not had the confidence to take his lady once by the hand Out of my purse I dare not for fear of a precedent Plague, forty last night, the bell always going Pretty to see the young pretty ladies dressed like men So to bed, to be up betimes by the helpe of a larum watch This absence makes us a little strange instead of more fond What silly discourse we had by ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... profitable posts in every department of industry, literature, science, and art. In the church, too, behold the spirit of freedom at work. Within the past year, the very altar has been the scene of well-fought battles; women claiming and exercising their right to vote in church matters, in defiance of precedent, priest, or Paul. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was finally agreed that Tito should be supported in a Greek chair, as Demetrio Calcondila had been by Lorenzo himself, who, being at the same time the affectionate patron of Politian, had shown by precedent that there was nothing invidious in such a measure, but only a zeal for true learning and for the instruction of the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... long the Salvation Army, the Volunteers of America, hundreds of every nationality and creed, labored strenuously in making preparations to feed the hungry, clothe the shivering, and care for the sick. When the morning dawned fair and balmy beyond all precedent for this season of the year, the scene in the vast amphitheatre baffled description, over which the heavenly host rejoiced as never before. The united bands of the city discoursed sweet music from the balcony, from steaming cauldrons the multitudes were fed to repletion with ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... libraries, especially if they have courage to meddle with big volumes, sometimes find curious things—for all gems are not collected in caskets. In searching through the solid pages of Hatsell's Precedents in Parliament for something one doesn't find, it is some consolation to alight on such a precedent as the following, set forth as likely to throw light on the mysterious process called "naming a member." "A story used to be told of Mr Onslow, which those who ridiculed his strict observance of forms ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... contorted in every muscle by his excess of rage. His features grew livid,—his eyes became almost blood-red, and his teeth met on his drawn-in under-lip in a smile of intense malignity. Baffled again!—and by this 'king,'—the crowned Dummy,—who had cast aside all former precedent, and instead of amusing himself with card-playing and sensual intrigue, after the accepted fashion of most modern sovereigns, had presumed to interfere, not only with the Church, but with the Government, and now, as it seemed, had acted as a spy on the very secrets of a so-called prison 'confession'! ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... of La Louve increased the influence of La Goualeuse; and at present, a thing almost without a precedent, hardly any of the prisoners address her familiarly; the greater part respect her, and even offer to render her any little service that can be rendered among prisoners. I asked some of the prisoners who slept in the same ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... mind was deeply moved. The perils of such a precedent were evident enough to any thinking man. Although the unwearied exertions of Bright, Roebuck, and other leading Radicals, could not arouse the people to that state of unreasoning excitement in which these demagogues delight, yet the tone of the press and the spirit of the public meetings gave ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lionlike temptation springing ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... on-rush of winter, then it is that the rangeland takes on a certain intoxicating unreality, and range-wild blood leaps with desire to do something—anything, so it is different and irresponsible and not measured by precedent ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... him just as Bud bad yielded, would have seemed to Alpine still more unlikely; because no Indian had ever kidnapped a white child in that neighborhood. So much for the habit of thinking along grooves established by precedent ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... a traveller said a good thing, he would give him back his purse again. It is true that he took people's money more by force than fraud; and the law (being used to the inverse method) was bitterly moved against him, although he could quote precedent. These things I do not understand; having seen so much of robbery (some legal, some illegal), that I scarcely know, as here we say, one crow's foot from the other. It is beyond me and above me, to discuss these subjects; and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... great dedication of the new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpassed all previous efforts, being marked by the assembling of an illustrious group of men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which made the festival altogether beyond precedent. On that occasion there came to Pittsburgh, as the guests of the Institute, from France, Dr. Leonce Benedite, Director Musee du Luxembourg; Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Member of the French Senate and of the ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... of precedent," said Law, "let me see. Well, then, I will take one gem, only one. Here, Henri, is the diamond which I brought with me when I came to Paris years ago. It was the sole jewel owned then by my brother and myself, though we had somewhat ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... possibility of scandalising itself and the Wesleyan community. Bishop Colenso must not be approved beneath those roofs. Evidently Edwin had been more persuasive than he dreamt of; and daring beyond precedent. He had meant to carry his resolution if he could, whereas, it appeared, he ought to have meant to be defeated, in the true interests of revealed religion. The chairman kept referring to his young friend the proposer's brilliant ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... endeavoured to swallow the information suavely by the help of a classical precedent, and said, with a gracious smile, "Then I perceive we must have played the part of AEneas and Anchises—" But before he had got so far, the idea had been quite too much for Dermot, who cried out, "Pick-a-back! With ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that a nurse of a century ago would have been familiar with a vastly more extensive array of duties and cautions. As we go back in time and culture, action becomes more restricted. Where the effects of any line of conduct are unknown, adherence to precedent is all-important; every part of the life must be administered according to a complicated system of rules, while common prudence is considered ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... which usually characterized such prayers, and most of all those which had been written for the days of fasting during the war.[1045] They were, too commonly, examples of the bad custom, scarcely to be extenuated by long established precedent, of clothing in the outward form of adulation of powers that be, what was ordinarily meant for nothing worse than expressions of patriotic loyalty. Another frequent fault of these special prayers was uncharitableness. Gilbert ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... danger was not so near as that of loneliness—of a pervading silence without precedent in her experience, as if its master's soul in flitting had, whatever Scripture may say, taken something out of the house with it. 'Lizabeth had known this kitchen for a score of years now; nevertheless, to-night it was unfamiliar, with emptier corners and wider intervals ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shall have no mercy. A flood of Rabelaisian banter was poured upon the head of the unhappy nobleman. He was attacked in his pride, his tenderest place. It is impossible not to wish that Howe had shown more moderation. He had, of course, precedent on his side. Nothing which he wrote was so bad as the language of Queen Elizabeth to her councillors, or of Frederick the Great to Voltaire. He was neither more savage than Junius, nor more indecent than Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in his attacks on King ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... the memory of those who were privileged to witness it. The wedding ceremony, which was performed in the temple, was immediately followed by the crowning of Dick as King, in strict accordance with Uluan precedent and usage; and thereupon Dick entered upon his new duties as a practically despotic monarch with the zest and thoroughness which had always characterised his actions, yet with a discretion and moderation which speedily lifted him to the zenith of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... it might have survived, for the hill people had "the habit of standing." They had set a precedent of fertility and hardihood and the will to live for a matter of centuries.... But there had come influences over which not even the carefully nurtured stubbornness of 300 years could prevail.... The railroad and the concrete highway and ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... approaching in its favor, he apparently found himself without standing for opposition. At any rate, the papers won instant appreciation from his editor and publisher, and from the readers of their periodical, which they expected to prosper beyond precedent in its circulation. But those were days of simpler acceptance of the popular rights of newspapers than these are, when magazines strictly guard their vested interests against them. 'The New York Times' and the 'St. Louis Democrat' profited by the advance copies of the magazine sent them to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to be asked for the whole he decides, following precedent, is to be the present market-value of the wine; as to the second question, he ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... hand impatiently. "Let's drop him," he said. "Dropping one's biographer isn't without precedent. As soon as any man ever got to know Napoleon well enough to write him up he sent him to the front, where he could get a little lead ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... thing being done. In the first place, by what name it is proper that that which has been done should be called. In the next place, who have been the chief agents in, or originators of that action; and last of all, who have been the approvers and the imitators of that precedent and of that discovery. In the next place, whether there is any regular usage established with regard to that case, or whether there is any regular rule bearing on that case, or any regular course of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... one another's heels. Though Penton had gone on frequent walks with Darrie, after his day's work,—chiefly because Hildreth had not wanted to go on walks with him herself, or had not wanted to accompany them both—yet she and I seized on the precedent Penton and Darrie had set, and we were abroad most of the time ... roaming idyllically in the fields, the woods ... passionate ... mad with the new love that had come to us ... unseeing, in our absorption in each ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the Rigsraad stepped into the king's place. Moreover, an elective monarchy implied that, at every fresh succession, the king was liable to be bound by a new Haandfaestning, or charter. The election itself might, and did, become a mere formality; but the condition precedent of election, the acceptance of the charter, invariably limiting the royal authority, remained a reality. This period of aristocratic rule, which dates practically from the accession of Frederick I. (1523), and lasted for nearly a century and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... instrument to be cancelled in his presence, had torn off the seal with his own hand, and had, both by message under his sign manual, and with his own lips from his throne in full Parliament, distinctly promised the two Houses that the step which had given so much offence should never be drawn into precedent. The two Houses had then, without one dissentient voice, joined in thanking him for this compliance with their wishes. No constitutional question had ever been decided more deliberately, more clearly, or ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... calls of my country." He referred to the "kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of England his head and another his throne." Such language, publicly spoken, was new. His argument was, to Englishmen, irrefutable. No precedent, no English statute, could stand against the Constitution. "This writ, if declared legal, totally annihilates" the privacy of the home. "Custom-house officers might enter our houses when they please, and we could not resist them. Upon bare suspicion they could exercise this wanton power.... Both ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... advocate, after having occupied the court for an hour, during which time he had shown a most minute and accurate knowledge of the matter in dispute, gave the whole question a new aspect. During the second hour that his argument was continued, in which precedent after precedent, not before introduced, were brought forward, bearing a direct application to the case under review, the court exhibited the most marked attention. When he concluded, all present saw hope ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... to await instructions. And Edward Henry was placed in a new quandary. He knew not whether the small bedroom in the suite was for a child, or for his wife's maid, or for his valet. Quite probably it would be a sacrilegious defiance of precedent to put a valet in the small bedroom. Quite probably Wilkins's had a floor for private valets in the roof. Again, quite probably, the small bedroom might be, after all, specially destined for valets! He could not decide, and the most precious thing in the universe to him in that ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... thing, and you are the whole thing. He counts us partakers of His nature. "Apart from Me ye can do nothing." The husband and the wife, and many more figures contribute to this marvelous Christ teaching, which has no parallel, no precedent in any other teaching under the sun; that Christ is the life of His people, and that we are absolutely linked with and dependent upon Him. All other systems teach how much man is and may become. Christianity shows how a man must lose all he is if he would come into ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... certain lines within the suburbs of the city of Manila, to which you promise to retire your troops, and name as conditions precedent: First, protection to your shipping by the United States Navy, and the free navigation of your vessels within the waters in United States occupation; second, restitution to your forces of all positions which are now occupied by your troops, in the event that treaty stipulations between the United ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... and the simile of the chain comprehends the revolutions of the heavens in the number and rank of those things which happen conditionally. But concerning these things I will not much contend, to wit, whether they should be called conditional, or rather conjoined with Fate, the precedent cause and commander of Fate being ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... King's dispensing with it; which Sir Robert Howard and others did expressly repeat often: viz., "that no King ever could do any thing which was hurtful to his people." Now the Lords did argue that it was an ill precedent, and that which will ever hereafter be used as a way of preventing the King's dispensation with acts; and therefore rather advise to pass the Bill without that word, and let it go accompanied with a petition to the King that he will not dispense with it; this being a more civil way to the ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Appeal is deduced, in the Historical Introduction, as a natural and logical consequence, from Henry VIII.'s Supremacy. Undoubtedly it is scarcely possible to overstate the all-grasping despotism of Henry VIII., and if a precedent for anything reckless of all separate rights and independence should be wanted, it would never be sought in vain if looked for in the policy and legislation of that reign. So far the editors are right; the power over religion ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... wife has become rather foolishly fond of me. So she is not, as one might say, quite reasonable about me. No, sir; it is the fashion of women to discard civility toward those for whom they suffer most willingly; and whom a woman loveth she chasteneth, after a good precedent." ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... bestirred themselves to throw off the Mexican yoke. On July 1,1823, a Congress declared the region an independent republic under the name of the "United Provinces of Central America." In November of the next year, following the precedent established in Mexico, and obedient also to local demand, the new republic issued a constitution, in accordance with which the five little divisions of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... classic precedent and romantic freedom[132]" that constitutes his supreme importance, not only in Elizabethan literature, but even in the history of subsequent English drama. From Lyly we may trace the current of romanticism, through Shakespeare, to ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... obnoxious finery, came up and joined them. She was scarcely sated—I blush to the very point of my pen during the manuscription—when the confabulation assumed a character directly antipodial to that which marked the precedent dialogue. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... disgusted with those very flavours in the productions of their own country which have yielded infinite delectation to their faculties, when imported from another clime; and d—n an author in despite of all precedent and prescription;—who extol the writings of Petronius Arbiter, read with rapture the amorous sallies of Ovid's pen, and chuckle over the story of Lucian's ass; yet, if a modern author presumes to relate the progress of a ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... lost skill!" replied Ebert. "We never fired a torpedo at all last trip, and it looks as if we are following that precedent this time." ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... almost every ancient tyrant. We find that they almost all come at last to some terrible end. The man who usurps a throne by violence seems, in all ages and among all nations, very sure to be expelled from it by greater violence, after a brief period of power; and he who poisons or assassinates a precedent rival whom he wishes to supplant, is almost invariably cut off by the poison or the dagger of a following one, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... victory of Pinkey, he formed partisans among the discontented nobles, won from his brother the affections of the young king, and believing every thing ripe for an attack on his usurped authority, he designed to bring forward in the ensuing parliament a proposal for separating, according to ancient precedent, the office of guardian of the king's person from that of protector of the realm, and for conferring upon himself the former. But he discovered too late that he had greatly miscalculated his forces; his proposal was not even ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... for the lady of the Manor. The clergyman of her own parish,—a man, who by all accepted rule and precedent ought to have been after her at once, asking for subscriptions to this fund and that fund, toadying her for her position, and begging for her name and support, had not even noticed her absence from divine service on Sundays! She did not know whether to be relieved or dissatisfied. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... they were not sea-proof, to wish wearily that the first half of it were over. Rosalie was not weary, but she began to be bewildered. As she had never been a clever girl or quick to perceive, and had spent her life among women-indulging American men, she was not prepared with any precedent which made her situation clear. The first time Sir Nigel showed his temper to her she simply stared at him, her eyes looking like those of a puzzled, questioning child. Then she broke into her nervous little ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... photoplay terminology is, even yet, only in process of formation. The terms given and defined in Chapter III are the terms in common daily use in the majority of studios, but there is no ancient precedent to compel any writer to adhere to any of these terms if he is in the habit of using others. There is too great a disposition on the part of amateur writers to split hairs over the correct ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... of smiles, pleasant words, kindly interests in "friends," and ceaseless doles of finery and physic, Cornelia had established such a hold upon the affections of the staff, that her wish already took precedent of her aunt's law. Mary mentally condemned half the contents of the silver cupboard to neglect, the while she ironed out foaming ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... precedent,' said Blanche, blushing a little, but still grave. 'We have had some experience, you know. Our corps was one of the earliest enrolled, and Hector managed it almost entirely. It was the reason we have not been able to come here sooner, but we thought it right to be foremost, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great men who strove to convert others to their ideas and to dictate belief and conduct. But there was a breathing spell in which, comparatively speaking, men were not alike, but individual, and in which their motives and ideas revelled in a freedom from ancient precedent. In this era of flux the modern drama found its panorama of novel and varied experience making and ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... blindfold, she knew not whither. Never to her, whose spiritual sense was ever so clear and strong, had come the possibility of such a mind as Harold's, a mind whose very eagerness for truth had led it into scepticism. His doubts must be wrestled with, not with the religion of precedent—not even with the religion of feeling—but by means of that clear demonstration of reason ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to please, her armies being accustomed to prosperity, and the Irish prosecution not answering her expectation, and her wonted success; for it was a good while an unthrifty and inauspicious war, which did much disturb and mislead her judgment; and the more for that it was a precedent taken out of her ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... when everybody knew at once that he was guilty of stealing the chickens in question, or would have been if he had known of their accessibility? What rapture was there in insisting that a case in an Alabama court eight years before furnished an exact precedent in the matter of a mechanic's lien ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... bishop's chair, looking very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr Slope standing on the hearthrug, persuasive and eager, just as the archdeacon used to stand; but on the sofa they also found Mrs Proudie, an innovation for which a precedent might be in vain be sought in all the annals ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... This being the exact number called to surrender by the terms of the armistice, it would appear the allied conference was fully informed to that effect, and thereby was enabled to strip Germany of the last of these vessels, whose record of murder and piracy at sea is without any precedent whatever ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... precedent pleases me. (Aside.) I only wish I may see your head stroked down with a slipper;[110] but ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... him with eagle-like intentness and a puzzled frown. His face said plainly that Kenny's mood was without precedent and therefore strategical. It behooved him to get to the bottom of it at once and be ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... and superintend our games with the strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving |
