"Previous question" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came on yesterday, and was lost, on the previous question, by 221 to 169. This division very far exceeded my expectations, and, indeed, I believe those of most people, considering the popular nature of the question, and the many personal considerations which induced people to ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... the internal improvements needed for the development of the West brought him in opposition to a powerful element in his own party. Adams, writing in his diary under date of April 17, 1844, says: "The Western harbor bill was taken up, and the previous question was withdrawn for the homunculus Douglas to poke out a speech in favor of the constitutionality of appropriations for the improvement of Western rivers and harbors. The debate was continued between the conflicting absurdities of the Southern Democracy, ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... in other States), so as to limit it to nations with which France was at war. This proposal—obviously designed to soothe the apprehensions of Pitt—displeased the "patriotic" majority, which disposed of it by carrying the "previous question." After this the decree of 19th November could no longer be treated as a meaningless effervescence of Gallic enthusiasm; and, when taken with the disloyal addresses presented by certain English clubs on 28th November, its reaffirmation produced ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... being Loamsnire men, Mr. Casson had the laugh strongly against him, and wisely fell back on the previous question, which, far from being exhausted in a single evening, was renewed in the churchyard, before service, the next day, with the fresh interest conferred on all news when there is a fresh person to hear it; and that fresh hearer was Martin Poyser, who, as his wife said, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Victorian. It is even to be feared that the interpolations of the clowns have sometimes crept into and disfigured the Shakespearean text, much to the puzzlement of the commentators. Often as Hamlet's reforming speech has been recited, it has been generally met and nullified by someone moving "the previous question." At the same time, while there is an inclination to decry perhaps too strenuously the condition of the modern stage, it is fair to credit it with a measure of amendment in regard both to rant and gag. Of late ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook |
