This mother was so very old-fashioned that she believed that there was no career open to a girl beside marriage; the dreadful alternative was solitary old-maidenhood.

To accept such terms would have been both cowardly and suicidal, and the nation, therefore, driven to the sad alternative of war, determined rather to perish gloriously than pusillanimously to submit to be enslaved by the court.

" "If I refuse?" "You will subject me to the unpleasant alternative of blowing your brains out," said the other, coolly.

And who shall dare unconditionally condemn those who judged the former to be the better alternative?

Thus the painful alternative could not be discarded.

Five or six naked wretches of the Turcorory joined us at the watering place, much against my will, for I knew that we should probably be reduced to the disagreeable alternative of either seeing them perish of thirst before our eyes, or, by assisting them, running a great risk of perishing along with them.

I was willing to avoid the necessity of giving him such a repulse as might again throw us out of the coursea cruel alternative to be reduced to!

Then, perceiving no reasonable alternative, I bent down and kissed her.

The duchess was forced to adopt this bitter alternative; and the prince, after repeated refusals to mix again in public affairs, yielded, at length, less to the supplications of the stadtholderess than to his own wishes to do another service to the cause of his country.

Be careful never to taste soups or puddings till you are sure they are sufficiently cool; as, by disregarding this caution, you may be compelled to swallow what is dangerously hot, or be driven to the unpardonable alternative of returning it to your plate.

III If, however, the Peace Conference is really to secure peace and prove to the world a complete plan of settlement which all reasonable men will recognize as an alternative preferable to anarchy, it must deal with the Russian situation.

And a certain President of the Section for Mechanical Science in the British Association is, in Scripture phrase, "very bold," and declares that if a man, in his mental training, "has substituted literature and history for natural science, he has chosen the less useful alternative."

The difficulty now was to obtain the signature of the king, although he had promised it as the probable alternative of revolution,a great State necessity, which his ministers had made him at last perceive, but to which he reluctantly yielded.

To suggest a mere alternative of words; as, "NEGATIVELY, adv.

A lawbreaker was confronted with an ugly alternative.

" FROM FREDERICK DOUGLASS'S PAPER, 1853: "LEARN TRADES OR STARVE" These are the obvious alternatives sternly presented to the free colored people of the United States.

Thus it subjects him to the necessity either of resorting to empty threats, which must result only in incessant disputes, or of condescending to persuade and entreat, against which his habits at once rebel, or of complaining to a third partyan alternative more revolting if possible, than the former, since it involves the acknowledgment of a higher power than his own.

Then he had sought a glimpse of the reverse of the pictureof that which now seemed the sole alternative to that faith which he feareda glimpse only; yet full of significance.

By an ancient law she was subject, on discovery, at her father's option, to be punished with instant death or sold as a slave; and she saw no means of escaping this frightful alternative.

Hideous alternative.

These were not pleasant alternatives.

But the grammarian interprets his own meaning, by the following alternative: "OrHe spoke distinctly enough to be heard by the whole assembly.

It may have been a harsh and hard alternative, but I would not give my hand where my respect could not follow.

Beth thought a moment of the horrible alternative which she did not care to explain to Bedient.

The constant maintenance of a small squadron in the Mediterranean is a necessary substitute for the humiliating alternative of paying tribute for the security of our commerce in that sea, and for a precarious peace, at the mercy of every caprice of four Barbary States, by whom it was liable to be violated.