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Evasion   /ɪvˈeɪʒən/  /ivˈeɪʒən/   Listen
Evasion

noun
1.
A statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth.  Synonym: equivocation.
2.
The deliberate act of failing to pay money.  Synonym: nonpayment.  "He was indicted for nonpayment"
3.
Nonperformance of something distasteful (as by deceit or trickery) that you are supposed to do.  Synonyms: dodging, escape.  "That escape from the consequences is possible but unattractive"
4.
The act of physically escaping from something (an opponent or a pursuer or an unpleasant situation) by some adroit maneuver.



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"Evasion" Quotes from Famous Books



... evasion was to be effected she knew not. The castle keys were never delivered to her, but always to Hardcastle, and she saw him take them; but she received from Ridley a look and sign which meant that she was to be ready, and when she left the hall she made ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... through the evasion, but by shrewd reading of the sanctimonious face, saw also the inward suspicion as clearly as if Darling had spoken it. His tone and ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... turns repulsed or encouraged, his feelings played upon, his nerves unstrung by the constant resistance; rolling himself at the feet of an immovable, determined woman, who with a supple opposition abandoned to his impassioned embrace only the cold little Parisian hands, so skillful in defense and evasion, while she imprinted on his lips the scorching flame of the enrapturing words:—"Oh! when you have ceased to be king, I shall be all yours—all yours!" She made him pass through all the dangerous phases of passion and coldness; and often at the theatre, after an icy greeting ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... regret if what I said on the subject of Canada being free from income tax gave the impression of being a suggestion for the evasion by wealthy men of taxation during the war. The fact that capital is not subject to income tax in Canada was, of course, well known to men of wealth. I thought it a point and a fact of sufficient importance as bearing upon our own taxation program to deserve to be made generally known. That ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn

... the girl awed the young man, for never before had he seen her so serious and determined. In most, of their previous interviews she had met his advances with evasion or sarcasm, but these Hurry had mistaken for female coquetry, and had supposed might easily be converted into consent. The struggle had been with himself, about offering, nor had he ever seriously believed it possible that Judith would refuse ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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, that was not a true word in his case!—accuse himself ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... of the truth that it came first to his lips in all cases. He could scarcely force it aside now with the evasion that availed him nothing. "I don't know as I've been doing anything ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... 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 ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... of blackmail, so effectual with the Highlanders, did not secure the border counties from these flippant fighters, and in sooth Normans were much too proud for any such evasion of a ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... professions or classes. And this I believe to be usually the case. For instances, we have to go no further than the comparison between the laws and the popular or professional sentiment on bribery at elections, on smuggling, on evasion of taxation, on fraudulent business transactions, on duelling, on prize-fighting, or on gambling. At the same time it must be confessed that, as laws sometimes become antiquated, and the leanings of lawyers are proverbially conservative, it occasionally happens that, on ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... cared for you—never cared, I mean to say, for your good." She also rose, with an air of having made a statement as final as it was clear and convincing. He laid his hand on her shoulder and looked steadily in her face. There was no evasion in her eyes, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... bull with its horns down, and nothing but a wall will stop him. (By the way: facing the wall, such gentlemen—that is, the "direct" persons and men of action—are genuinely nonplussed. For them a wall is not an evasion, as for us people who think and consequently do nothing; it is not an excuse for turning aside, an excuse for which we are always very glad, though we scarcely believe in it ourselves, as a rule. No, they are nonplussed in all ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... fancied; Bind and engage myself deep;—and lo, on the following morning It was all e'en as before, like losings in games played for nothing. Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance At the first step breaking down in its pitiful role of evasion, When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements, Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,— Stood unexpecting, unconscious. She spoke not of obligations, Knew not of debt,—ah, no, I believe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... without the Father. Again, if we confess him to be of one essence with the Father, we declare him the common possessor with the Father of the one essence which no creature can share, and thus ascribe to him the highest deity in words which allow no evasion or reserve. The two phrases, however, are complementary. From the essence makes a clear distinction: of one essence lays stress on the unity. The word had a Sabellian history, and was used by Marcellus in a Sabellian sense, so that it was justly discredited as Sabellian. ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... It would seem that an accusation is not rendered unjust by calumny, collusion or evasion. For according to Decret. II, qu. iii [*Append. Grat. ad can. Si quem poenituerit.], "calumny consists in falsely charging a person with a crime." Now sometimes one man falsely accuses another of a crime through ignorance of fact which excuses ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... which inspired him at times with a respect akin to awe? The absence of any coquetry in her attitude impressed him as the final proof of her inherent nobility; and yet there were instants when he admitted almost in spite of himself, that he would have relished the display of a little amorous evasion. Laura, he believed, was perfectly capable of a great emotion, but the great emotion, after all, he concluded humorously, was less conducive to his immediate enjoyment than ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... estimated by good judges that a large part of the spirits, and more than half the tobacco, consumed in England escape the duty. Several thousand seizures are made annually, and it has been testified before Parliament that not one evasion in sixteen is detected. If this be so in Great Britain, it is not surprising that the government has failed, in this country, with its sparse population, to collect a duty of 1000 per cent, or that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... military stores for the ruin of his native land, and especially of gunpowder, which the gallant Frenchmen were afraid of stowing largely in their flat-bottomed craft. And knowing that he owed his success to moderation, and the good-will of his neighbours towards evasion of the Revenue, he thought it much better to arrange his magazine than to add to it ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... the path to ascend to the summer-house. At the first sound of his footstep, a faint cry escaped Mildred; but when Wycherly entered the pavilion, he found her face buried in her hands, and Dutton tottering forward, equally in surprise and alarm. As the circumstances would not admit of evasion, the young man threw aside ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... not lie to me? Why did he not put me off the scent, as he might easily have done, with some shrewd evasion? I suspected I owed it to my luck in catching him at family prayers. For I know that the general impression of him is erroneous; he is not merely a hypocrite before the world, but also a hypocrite before himself. A more profoundly, piously conscientious man never lived. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... stability and beauty to a normal sexual intimacy, are as foreign to the masturbator as to the celibate. In a sense, therefore, masturbation is as complete a negative of the sexual life as chastity itself. It is, therefore, an evasion of, not an answer to, the sexual problem; and it will ever remain so, no matter how surely we may be convinced of its ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... 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; and they were perfectly satisfied, that he was either ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... shall have avenged the death of their prophet, Joseph Smith. And this ceremony is not a mere empty form of words. It is an oath, the spirit of which the Endowed carry into their daily life and all their relations with the Gentile world. In it lies the root of the evasion, and finally subversion, of Federal authority which occasioned the recent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... skeptic was sunk. This evasion was more disillusioning than downright confession. A moment the little boy regarded her, wholly in sorrow, with big eyes that blinked alarmingly. Then came his last shot; the final bullet which the besieged warrior will sometimes reserve ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... beyond his oft-tried powers of evasion. He stammered a disconnected tale of bad luck, wiping his face ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... statement of a fact which might easily have been otherwise, and the entire matter-of-factness of the assertion inspired Lawrence with a good deal of confidence, together with the cough which returned on the slightest movement, and would effectually prevent a noiseless evasion on the part of poor Wikkey. So once more he was lifted up in the strong arms and carried to a sofa in Lawrence's own room, where snugly tucked up in blankets, he soon fell asleep. His benefactor, after prolonged meditation in his arm-chair, likewise betook ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM

... they are antipodal to the West—the farthest removed in thought and life. They are also the most secretive, and find perennial delight in concealment and evasion. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... 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 ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... it. We have spoken of the division of labor with such lack of seriousness, that it is obvious that what we have said about the benefits which we have conferred on the people was simply a shameless evasion. ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... one of importance by reason of the fact that the decision handed down by the Supreme Court was an effective blow against the "peonage system," which is an evasion of the constitutional prohibition of slavery. The Alabama law provides, in effect, that the mere act of quitting work on the part of a contract laborer is conclusive evidence that he is guilty of the crime of defrauding ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... talking to him for quite a couple of hours, winning from him a complete account of his adventures, and in return relating to him how concerned every one had been on the discovery of his evasion, and how bitterly the doctor had been mortified on learning later on that the boat had been taken. Who were the culprits was known in the course of the day, with the result that, acting on the suggestion already alluded to, the doctor had gone down to the mouth of the river to wait the coming ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... opinions on political subjects and could defend them with a good deal of energy. On one occasion when Hawthorne was asked why he was a Democrat, he replied, "Because I live in a democratic country," which was, of course, simply an evasion; and such were the answers which he commonly gave to all interrogatories. His proclivities were certainly not democratic; but the greater the tenacity with which a man holds his opinions, the less inclined ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... The name was unwelcome at the time, especially because it was associated with the 'humanitarianism' then becoming widely taught in England. The implicated ministers, being charged with cowardly evasion, replied with warmth; they were, in fact, mostly Arians, and thus their views really were different from the English type. Moreover, again in contrast with the English, they expressed strong dislike of controversy; all they asked was to be left alone to proclaim the 'Simple Christianity' ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... use it will be to women. A man that denies the right of woman to the ballot must deny it to any body and all bodies. I affirm another thing. I affirm that the ballot is a natural right. To say that voting is an artificial thing is merely an evasion. If there is any such thing as natural rights in the world, it is the right of every person to have a voice in the government that he shall live under, and in the electing of the magistrate who shall make the laws by which he is to be governed. But they say women don't ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the Irish land question, and writers on it timidly allude to 'the historic past' as originating influences still powerful in alienating landlords and tenants, and fostering mutual distrust between them. But the time for evasion and timidity has passed. We must now honestly and courageously face the stern realities of this case. Among these realities is a firm conviction in the minds of many landlords that they are in no sense trustees for the community, but that they have an absolute power over their ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... substance with the accounts given above. The consequence of such diet was, "that the sons of the rich," says Mr. Quincy, "accustomed to better fare, paid for commons, which they would not eat, and never entered the hall; while the students whose resources did not admit of such an evasion ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... Hudson to notable guests. He had not desired the publicity of such an event, nor the opportunity it gave for an increase of the scandal secretly in circulation against his daughter. But the Ambassador and his wife were foreign and any evasion of the promised hospitality would be sure to be misunderstood; so the scheme was carried forward though with less eclat than ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... triumph of Parnellism is the triumph of conspiracy, and of conspiracy rendered the more base because it was masked under the appearance of a constitutional movement. Neither the numbers nor the composition of the ministerial majority are impressive. The tactics of silence, evasion, and ambiguity may aid in gaining a parliamentary victory, but deprive the victory of that respect for the victors on the part of the vanquished which, in civil contests at any rate, alone secures permanent peace. But ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... She let the palpable evasion pass. On the hurricane roof there was a new sight. The breeze was astern and moved so evenly with the boat as to enfold her in a calm. Looking up for the stars, one saw only the giant chimneys towering straight into the darkness and sending their ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... almost aghast. Involuntarily he started to rise to his feet, his eyes still fixed on hers, vehement denial on his parted lips, only to sink back into the chair again, convicted. There was no use attempting to deceive this cold, clear-headed woman. She knew. No lie, no evasion could meet that direct statement. For a long time they looked straight into each other's eyes, and at length his fell in ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... would have covered the whole field of human endeavour. Any one who had read his book, The Plain Man and his Wife and their Plainer Children, would remember that one chapter was devoted to the cause, evasion and cure of colds. He would not at the moment say more than that the work was procurable at all bookshops. He should like to address the meeting at fuller length, but as he was suffering from a very stubborn cold he must hurry back ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various

... oversensitive nature these primal emotions had a crudeness that was vulgar in its unrestraint. He beheld it all—the old wrong and the new hatred—in a horrid glare of light, a disgraceful blaze of trumpets. Here there was no cultured evasion of the conspicuous vice—none of the refinements even of the Christian ethics—it was all ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... same principle. The rubric, 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, ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... unity. All his various interests were inspired by one unconquered resolve, the aim of securing universally, alike in Church and in State, the recognition of the paramountcy of principles over interests, of liberty over tyranny, of truth over all forms of evasion or equivocation. His ideal in the political world was, as he said, that of securing suum cuique to every individual or association of human life, and to prevent any institution, however holy ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... of a policy of keeping up a dainty balance in a hurricane that it unmans the balancer, until at last the peacemaker resembles a juggler. A decade of compromise and evasion of difficulties had enfeebled the spirit of Prussia, until the hardest trial for her King was to take any step that could not be retraced. He had often spoken "feelingly, if not energetically," of the predicaments of his position between France, England, and Russia.[45] And, as in the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... down in his chair. He saw discovery and disgrace in prospect. In the total stoppage of his thoughts no way of escape or evasion suggested itself. At the outset he was to be ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... son, I am forced to tell thee thou art trifling with the Church. Miserable man! another evasion, and I leave thee, and fiends will straightway gather round thy bed, and tear thee down to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... intensely dislike, Mr Maine. If there is anything that annoys, irritates, or makes me dissatisfied with the men— the gentlemen under my command, it is evasion, shuffling, shirking, or prevarication." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... Government has in the many cases that have been reported of the arrest of our naturalized citizens for alleged evasion of military service faithfully observed the provisions of the treaty and released such persons from military obligations, it has in some instances expelled those whose presence in the community of their origin was asserted ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... hostess. He resolved then (I employ his own words) to quit the retreat which the boundless devotion of his tutelar angel had transformed into a paradise. He so little deceived himself as to the probable consequences of the step he meditated—the chances of safety after his evasion appeared so feeble—that before he put his plan into execution he made his last dispositions. In the pages then written, I behold everywhere the lively reflection of an elevated mind, a feeling heart, and a beautiful soul. I will venture ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... 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 must fairly and honestly be admitted that in this ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... in seven hours, I had to procure a passport for eight days. This document was destined to play an important part in my life for many years to come; for on several occasions and in various European countries it was the only paper I possessed to prove my identity. In fact, owing to my evasion of military duty in Saxony, I never again succeeded in obtaining a regular pass until I was appointed musical conductor in Dresden. I derived very little artistic pleasure or benefit of any kind from this occasion; on the contrary, it gave a fresh impetus to my hatred ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... spite of the horror that had come over him, felt no excitement. The whole situation was clear to him now, and there was nothing to be gained by argument, no possibility of evasion. Kao held the winning hand, the hand that put him back to the wall in the face of impossible alternatives. These alternatives flashed upon him swiftly. There were two and only two—flight, and alone, without Mary Josephine; and betrayal ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... Britain, to build ships on these smaller lakes, which, in case of need, could be passed through the canal into the great chain of lakes extending from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior. To this it was replied that such an evasion of the treaty was not especially creditable to those suggesting it, and that the main purpose of the bill really was to create a vast water power which should enure to the benefit of sundry gentlemen in Judge ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... was in fact but the excess of the joy of life, and everything did then fit. She couldn't stop for the joy, but she could go on for it, and with the sense of going on she floated again, was restored to her great spaces. There was no evasion of any truth—so at least Susan Shepherd hoped—in one's sitting there while the twilight deepened and feeling still more finely that the position of this young lady was magnificent. The evening at that height had naturally turned to cold, and ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... go thus for weeks without sight of one another. And that was David's aim—to escape attention. It was only his cunning at this game of evasion that ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... They could export food when crowded, and have ceased to import it when thinned. This, indeed, expresses his permanent views, though the facts were often alleged by his critics as a disproof of them. Was not the disproof real? Does not a real evasion lurk under the phrase 'tendency'? You may say that the earth has a tendency to fall into the sun, and another 'tendency' to move away from the sun. But it would be absurd to argue that we were therefore in danger of being burnt or of being frozen. To explain the law of a vital process, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... issued last spring: And in the next place by a plain statement of facts, given under the solemnity of an oath, leaving it at present for atheists and blasphemers, (for I am sure none others will) to ascribe greater moral certainty to a certificate carrying on the face of it miserable evasion, than to a history sanctioned by an ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... powerful than the Lord Lieutenant. Violence engendered violence. Every explosion of feeling on one side of St George's Channel was answered by a louder explosion on the other. The Clare election, the Penenden Heath meeting showed that the time for evasion and delay was past. A crisis had arrived which made it absolutely necessary for the Government to take one side or the other. A simple issue was proposed to the right honourable Baronet, concession or civil war; to disgust his party, or to ruin his country. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... difficulty. I have only succeeded here by making very wide bends, but of course 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 ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... to Falstaff's lyes only as such; and the objection seems to be, that he had not told them well, and with sufficient skill and probability. Indeed nothing seems to have been required of Falstaff at any period of time but a good evasion. The truth is, that there is so much mirth, and so little of malice or imposition in his fictions, that they may for the most part be considered as mere strains of humour and exercises of wit, impeachable only ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... and unashamed, the romantic emotions, and all that passionate vitality that dreams and builds and glorifies the human story: all this, forsooth, it has been deemed wrong even to speak of, save in colourless euphemisms, and their various drama has had to be carried on by evasion and subterfuge pitiably silly indeed in this robustly procreative world. Silly, but how preposterous, too, and no longer ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... correspondence with Francis of France, he was ordered to march into Munster and arrest that nobleman. But, though he obeyed the royal order, Desmond successfully evaded him, not, as was alleged, without his friendly connivance. The next year this evasion was made the ground of a fresh impeachment by the implacable Earl of Ormond; he was again summoned to London, and committed to the Tower. In 1530 he was liberated, and sent over with Sir William Skeffington, whose authority to some extent ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... this section of the country will be shaded unusually dark. To have company to dinner and not set pie before them would be considered a breach of an ancient and well-grounded custom: the best of puddings or other forms of dessert would be regarded only as an evasion. Pie was not out of place at supper; and the instance of one family comes to mind where steamed mince-pie for breakfast was eaten, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... out your evasion!" whispered Stewart at the wheel, as they drew up at the door: "Get out, and go and dress. I will take the car up to the garage ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... ladies. Occasional damage may accrue from habits early depraved, or a heart too early and too easily susceptible; but the injury so done is not, I think, equal to that inflicted by a Draconian code of morals, which will probably be evaded, and will certainly create a desire for its evasion. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... was a mere evasion. The pressure of the Imperialists had at last forced Clement to summon the cause to his own tribunal at Rome, and the jurisdiction of the Legates was at an end. "Now see I," cried the Duke of Suffolk as he dashed his hand on the table, "that the old saw is true, that there was never Legate ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... the extreme license permitted to the poets to adopt whatever style they pleased. Where all the doors stand wide open, there is no object in escaping; where there is but one door, and that one barred, it is human nature to fret for some violent means of evasion. How divine have been the methods of the Victorian lyrists may easily ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... man closed his eyes, and did not reply. Two hours before, the question would have stung him into some evasion or bravado. But the revelation contained in the question, as well as the tone of York's voice, was to him now, in his pitiable condition, a relief. It was plain, even to his confused brain, that York had lied when he had indorsed his story in the bar-room; it ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... of a coloured woman, until an opportunity offers of sending them to the north. He is fond of Clotilda,—tells her of the excitement concerning his business affairs, and impresses her with the necessity of preserving calmness; it is requisite to the evasion of any ulterior consequence that may be brought upon him. Every-thing hangs upon a thread-a political thread, a lawful thread-a thread that holds the fate of thirty, forty, or fifty human beings-that separates them from that ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... BARON. Without evasion, Sir, do you know the name of Baden? Was there ever a promise of marriage made by you to his daughter? Answer me plainly: or must I take a journey ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... dear Karl. It seems that the good God has still a little work for Stepan Lanovitch to do. I got away quite easily, in the usual way, through a paid Evasion Agency. I have been forwarded from pillar to post like a prize fowl, and reached Petersburg last night. I have not long to stay. I am going south. I may be able to do some good yet. I hear that Paul is ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... not always glad when we smile!— But the conscience is quick to record, All the sorrow and sin We are hiding within Is plain in the sight of the Lord: And ever, O ever, till pride And evasion shall cease to defile The sacred recess Of the soul, we confess We are not always ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley

... Mary. As I walked there rose behind me a cloud of misty disappointment, while before me there was nothing but dark uncertainty. What would Mary have to say to me? And how should I explain what would seem to her to be a cowardly evasion of ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... the educational plan of our public schools as the highest and most instructive of all morals—a fact I feel very much inclined to doubt. The claim put forward by public schools concerning the 'classical education' they provide seems to be more an awkward evasion than anything else; it is used whenever there is any question raised as to the competency of the public schools to impart culture and to educate. Classical education, indeed! It sounds so dignified! It confounds the aggressor and staves off the assault—for who could see to the ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... 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 so put it off. She is more than pretty, she is beautiful, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... form of words which would mean as little as possible. But Bunyan would not accept an evasion. He said that he would not force the people to come together, but if he was in a place where the people were met, he should certainly speak to them. The magistrate repeated that the meetings were unlawful. They would be satisfied if Bunyan would simply promise that he would not call such meetings. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... affection? shall I be your partner and you mine?" When I had heard these words, I replied, "How, dear lady, dare I presume, who am not worthy to be your servant, to arrive at such an honour?" Upon this, she said, "Young man, my words have no evasion in them; be not discouraged, or fearful of returning me an answer, for my heart is devoted to thy love." I now perceived, my lord, that the lady was anxious to marry me; but could not conceive on what account, or who could have given her ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... infinitely above that of his oppressors. So successful had he been in deceiving the champions of intolerance, that of all the great qualities displayed in that wonderful struggle, that which was most prized was the cunning of evasion. It left behind it an enduring and destructive influence. Dissimulation in political action began to be regarded as a public virtue, and long afterwards, when men sought to assert the dignity of truth, their candour was charged against them ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... them lay stress on the moral perplexities involved in arguing from the wasteful and relentless course of Nature to an estimate of the divine attributes. And both agree that the existence of evil is a serious difficulty; though Mansel's solution, or evasion, of it is by insisting that the ways of the unconditioned are necessarily for the most part unknowable, while Mill leans to the possibility that God's power or intelligence may be incomplete. Upon either hypothesis we must confess that our knowledge is imperfect and very fallible. Mr. Stephen ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... brutes; but he exposed himself to it by showing them the process before it was perfect, and seeing his ignorance of the common operations of making iron, laughed at and despised him; yet they will contrive by some dirty evasion to use his process, or such parts as they like, without acknowledging him in it. I shall be glad to be able to be of any use to him. Watts fellow-feeling was naturally excited in favour of the plundered inventor, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... drawback of the duties he had paid. Having now broken his voyage, as he claimed, he sailed to a French or Spanish port without danger of violating the British orders. The British admiralty courts soon declared that this was an evasion; that there had been in reality no "broken voyage." Then American traders began the practice of really landing the goods in some American port, while the vessel was overhauled and repaired, then continuing the voyage, ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... vividly conscious reticence of years; how the uncertainty he was insisting on as part of his own hope had always for Daniel been a threatening possibility of painful revelation about his mother. But the moment had influences which were not only new but solemn to Deronda; any evasion here might turn out to be a hateful refusal of some task that belonged to him, some act of due fellowship; in any case it would be a cruel rebuff to a being who was appealing to him as a forlorn hope under the shadow of a coming doom. After a few moments, he said, with a great effort ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... policy of telling the truth with the greatest possible frequency, and aware that evasion would avail them nothing, waited the fraction of a minute for Dorothy to speak. She was silent. He felt she had not committed herself or ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... firm. There was now no possibility of a journey to England. For a moment he debated whether, when he was at Hamburg, he could not slip over to London, but it would be dangerous. Further orders might come from his father, and the failure to acknowledge them would lead to evasion, and perhaps to discovery. He must, therefore, content himself with a written explanation to Mrs Caffyn why he could not meet her, and there should be one more effort to make atonement to Madge. This was what went to Mrs Caffyn, ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... eyes, frank and direct, met those of her friend without evasion. It was a heritage of her life in the open that in her relations with men she showed ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... It seemed to be her turn for evasion. "I presume," she continued, "that you know all the people in ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... further compromising his father's position. He hated his father's policy, but he loved the man who had trained him to love his country, and, above all, he feared him. It was a new and tragic variant on odi et amo, which drove Zygmunt Krasinski into a strange life of compromise, evasion, and sacrifice. To put it brutally, he was not a fighting man; so far as action went, he feared his father more than he loved his country, and there was a sting of truth in the bitter taunt addressed to him by his brother-poet ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... endeavoured to obtain a promise of her hand after Lady Lambton's decease, though to a man of his impatient and strong passions such a delay was worse than death; but Miss Mancel told him, by such an engagement she should be guilty of a mean evasion, and that she should think it as great a breach of honour as marrying ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... old man in years, he had occasionally an elfin, Puck-like perversity which was singularly boyish, at which times she felt it obligatory for her own self-respect to call him to order. Thus, whenever Tutt seemed to be incubating some evasion of law which seemed more subtly plausible than ordinary she made it a point to call it to Mr. Tutt's attention. Also, whenever, as in the present case, she felt that by following the advice given by the junior member of the firm a client was about to embark ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... invidious position, looked as if she would speak to Blunt from a distance; but in a moment the confident eagerness of her face died out as if killed by a sudden thought. I didn't know then her shrinking from all falsehood and evasion; her dread of insincerity and disloyalty of every kind. But even then I felt that at the very last moment her being had recoiled before some shadow of a suspicion. And it occurred to me, too, to wonder what sort of business Mr. Blunt could have had to transact with our odious visitor, of a ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... the landing of the tea and payment of the duty provided for; he knew that the Custom-house had been applied to in vain to obtain a clearance. His reference of the owner to the Custom-house was a mere evasion and pretext to gain time and prevent any decisive action on the part of the town meeting until the night of the 16th, when the 20 days after the entry of the ships would have expired, and the Collector could seize the cargoes for ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... invariable order, immutable as the constitution of ultimate units of matter. Order is not imposed upon Nature. Order is result. Physical science does not confuse these; it never mistakes nor denies specific function, organic progression, cyclical growth. It knows that there is no such thing as evasion, interruption, substitution. ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... the Chancellor with letters until the 30th, when Count Hatzfeld informed him that the Minister would listen to nothing more until Regnier could show full powers without evasion; that the matter must imperatively be conducted openly and above board; and that his Excellency hoped Regnier would be able to get clear of it with honour, and ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... him, on the question of capacity, to my last employer. The question of character remained. I told him what I have told you—and more. I warned him that there were difficulties in the way, even if he believed me. 'Here, as elsewhere,' I said 'I scorn the guilty evasion of living under an assumed name: I am no safer at Frizinghall than at other places from the cloud that follows me, go where I may.' He answered, 'I don't do things by halves—I believe you, and I pity you. If ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... "Democratic," but a belief in the justice, the convenience, and the necessity of ascertaining and loyally abiding by the lawfully-expressed Will of the Majority of the People. By using the phrase "lawfully expressed" I do not mean to suggest any pretext for evasion. On the contrary, I use the words in order to prevent and avoid evasion. A good many people who call themselves Democrats, or believers in the Popular Will, such, for example, as the leaders of the French Revolution, the apologists for the Russian Soviet, and the men from whose lips the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... preferred to let general and more or less abstruse rules govern conduct in sexual lines. Until recent years there have been few sermons in which common sexual problems have been presented so that the preacher's meaning has been clear to all. On the contrary, there has been universal mystery and evasion concerning the greatest ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... smiled that this little heathen's astuteness should beat him at his own game, yet in a measure her evasion of the question might be an answer to it. "There have been other strangers here ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Act, and for the prevention of evasion and collusion, I rely upon the factory inspectors, who will report anything that has come to their notice on their rounds and who will make themselves a channel for complaints. I rely still more upon the special peripatetic inspectors ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... we will forget the things you mention. I have no desire to remember them. When my rooms are finished, I shall be happy to see you; as I tell but the truth, you will not suspect me of evasion. I am furnishing the house more for you than myself, and I shall establish you in it before I sail for India, which I expect to do in March, if nothing particularly obstructive occurs. I am now fitting up the green drawing-room; the red for a bed-room, and the rooms over as sleeping-rooms. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... through the medium of a royal decree, 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 ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... his brother expelled the castle; but in April 1568 the faithful George planned her evasion of the guard and joyfully welcomed her on the shore of the lake. To her standard flocked the Catholic lords, and, safe at Hamilton, Mary, again a queen, swore vengeance upon her foes. On her way with her army ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... inquiries of the manager of the hotel, of course, but was brought up sharply when he asked me the names of my friends for whom I was asking. I got out of it somehow, some foolish evasion or other, and regarded my task as more difficult ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... failed to convince his hearers. Advice volunteered, even by those he most liked and relied on, was never well received, and when he asked counsel of them he required that it should be concise and definite, and resented hesitation or evasion. Without being in the ordinary sense of the term an excellent judge of character, he possessed, in a greater degree than any of his military associates, the faculty of judging how various circumstances (especially the events and vicissitudes ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... cunning hath no border,[198] Thy service for night's scapes is known commodious, And to give signs dull wit to thee is odious.[199] Corinna clips me oft by thy persuasion: Never to harm me made thy faith evasion. Receive these lines; them to my mistress carry; Be sedulous; let no stay cause thee tarry, Nor flint nor iron are in thy soft breast, But pure simplicity in thee doth rest. 10 And 'tis supposed Love's bow hath wounded thee; Defend the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... time, and not observing any disposition in his rider to get up and proceed further, he took him by the collar and shook him. This had little or no effect, for the farmer only gave a grumble of dissatisfaction at having his repose disturbed. The animal was not to be put off by any such evasion, and so applied his mouth to one of his master's coat-laps, and after several attempts, by dragging at it, to raise him upon his feet, the coat-lap gave way. Three individuals who witnessed this extraordinary ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... of 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 on ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... arise, that of all martyrdoms it is the most agitating—viz., where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurrying, flying, inappreciably minute chance of evading it. Sudden as the danger which it affronts must be any effort by which such an evasion can be accomplished. Even that, even the sickening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain,—even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case: viz., where the appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... these contributions under the control of third parties determined to confiscate the money subscribed by any member who might not find the organisation working to his advantage, is a rather long step! It covers all the distance between a cunning defensive evasion of the law, and an open aggressive violation of the law—not of the land only, but of common honesty. One of two things is clear: either these combinations are voluntary and "isolated," and intended, as Mr. Parnell ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... Newell hung the trophies of conquest. Preparations for the wedding were zealously pressed. Mrs. Newell knew the danger of giving people time to think things over, and her fears about her husband being allayed, she began to [87] dread a new attempt at evasion on the ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... or more ago? the moon, the sentinel and some sorrows? I would again stand where we stood on that night and again look up to the moon and the solemn sentinel, but not as we saw them then, with heartache and evasion." ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... evil spirits black or red. Here, as elsewhere, the profile of the grotesque disguise invariably shows either the Greek, or the hawk-nose strangely suggestive of Egyptian origin, and which, as a variation on human physiognomy, specially commended itself to Mohammedan thought as a skilful evasion of an inconvenient dogma. Elsewhere the spirit of concession to alien ideas is almost unknown, even flower and leaf being conventionalised on those architectural monuments of Islam which form the supreme expression of ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... time it is generally conceded that some measure of limitation is in most cases reasonable and necessary. The vitally important thing is that such necessary and reasonable limitation should be secured not by artificial evasion of the consequences of intercourse, but by self-control and deliberate temporary abstinence at certain periods from the intercourse of sex. [Footnote: It may be suggested that in cases of genuine perplexity it is advisable to consult, ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... souls, because these motions have no need of an external cause, coming as they do from our nature. But M. Bayle (Dictionary, art. 'Epicurus', p. 1143) aptly replies that all that which springs from the nature of a thing is determined: thus determination always remains, and Carneades' evasion is of ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... cold by being forced to sit 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 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... rubs elbows in Washington. Outwardly it is merely a city of evasion, of conventionalities, sated with the commonplace pleasures of life, listless, blase even, and always exquisitely, albeit frigidly, courteous; but beneath the still, suave surface strange currents play at cross purposes, intrigue is endless, and the merciless war of ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle

... Pounds, and that he, the said John Townsend, shall not nor will at any time during the said Term, if the said John Weeks shall so long run carriages of the aforesaid description, take in at the said Tavern or Coffee Room any Public Stage Coach or by way of evasion any Public Carriage whatsoever used as a public stage belonging to any person or persons whomsoever without the consent and approbation of the said John Weeks &c. in writing for that purpose first had and obtained under the penalty of two thousand ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... vain tried admonition and remonstrance, summoned the four masters to appear before him and answer for their stewardship. They were bold enough to set Wykeham at defiance, and availed themselves of all the subtleties of the law, and of all manner of evasion, by appeal and otherwise, to thwart and throw him. The upright bishop persisted—he called them to the severest account—had them fined, and till they made restitution, excommunicated—and finally restored the whole endowment to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various



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