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Foregone   /fˈɔrgˈɔn/   Listen
Foregone

adjective
1.
Well in the past; former.  Synonyms: bygone, bypast, departed, gone.  "Dreams of foregone times" , "Sweet memories of gone summers" , "Relics of a departed era"



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"Foregone" Quotes from Famous Books



... person to explain how his meaning should be pictorially carried out. This sort of arrangement, however, did not suit the independent and somewhat impracticable spirit of the artist, and the result was almost a foregone conclusion. These two men of genius inevitably clashed; and the connection between Charles Dickens and Cruikshank was ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... after me, and with some reluctance, foreboding a repulse, asked whether he should have the pleasure to dance with me. His manner and the foregone circumstances made me guess his question before he spoke. My answer was—'I have just made a promise to myself that I will dance with Mr. Clifton.' It was true: the thought had passed ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... ever more assiduous than he to liberate himself from them, and the terms which suggested them. Calling Dr. Whewell to his aid in 1833, he endeavoured to displace by others all terms tainted by a foregone conclusion. His paper on Electro-chemical Decomposition, received by the Royal Society on January 9, 1834, opens with the proposal of a new terminology. He would avoid the word 'current' if he could.[2] He does abandon the word 'poles' as applied to the ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... after many hours of gun shopping, attended by the constant click of a taxicab meter, I assembled such an imposing arsenal that I was nervous whenever I thought about it. With such a battery it was a foregone conclusion that something, or somebody, was likely to get hurt. I hoped that it would be ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... It must be kept constantly in mind that we had no militia organization that bore any appreciable proportion to the greatness of the country's need, and that at any rate the policy of relying upon volunteering at the beginning was adopted by the government. It was a foregone conclusion that popular leaders of all grades must largely officer the new troops. Such men might be national leaders or leaders of country neighborhoods; but big or little, they were the necessity of the time. It was the application of the old ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... had had their bout the day before, it was a foregone conclusion that Longstreet's time to measure strength was near at hand, and the men braced themselves accordingly ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... and varieties of murder, or why murder itself should be considered so eminently sublime and poetical. It is good at the end of a tragedy; but, then, it is good because it is the end, and because, by the events foregone, the mind is prepared for it. But these men will have nothing but fifth acts; and seem to skip, as unworthy, all the circumstances leading to them. This, however, is part of the scheme—the bloated, unnatural, stilted, spouting, sham sublime, that ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... so he was overjoyed to learn what she felt. In addition to what the president had said, he had heard from Father Chavigny that he had told her the Sunday before that it was very unlikely she would escape death, and indeed, so far as one could judge by reports in the town, it was a foregone conclusion. When he said so, at first she had appeared stunned, and said with an air of great terror, "Father, must I die?" And when he tried to speak words of consolation, she had risen and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... inevitable decline? Or is decline indeed inevitable at all? Might a nation go on being great for ever? If so, are we that nation? If not, have we yet arrived at the moment when retrogression becomes a foregone conclusion? These are momentous questions. Dare I try, under the mimosas on the terrace, ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... making Venuses, Cupids, Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other marble progeny of dreamwork, or rather frostwork: it was all a vapory exhalation out of the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on the dull window-panes of to-day. Gifted with a more delicate power than any other man alive, he had foregone to be a Christian reality, and perverted himself into a Pagan idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our present world, it would be exceedingly difficult to define. And, loving and reverencing the pure material in which he wrought, as surely this ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is a foregone conclusion: the Senoussi is too strong for us. All the same I am determined to press the matter to an issue, if only to have a clean cut precedent as to whether we do have a first call on troops in Egypt or whether it is the other way about. We want these ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... consideration, not merely from the utilitarian, but from the scientific and humane point of view. But the answer is not a foregone conclusion. There is a case for studying the civilization of Ancient Greece which can be summed up in ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... opinions may yet be shown to be mistaken too, but at present I cannot conceive how. When Speke discovered Victoria Nyanza in 1858, he at once concluded that therein lay the sources of the Nile. His work after that was simply following a foregone conclusion, and as soon as he and Grant looked towards the Victoria Nyanza, they turned their backs on the Nile fountains; so every step of their splendid achievement of following the river down took them further and further away from the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... more than willing to give his fair percentage, a judicious hint from him was generally taken quietly and for the time discreetly obeyed, and it was a foregone conclusion that our "nigger hunt" would only involve the captured with general discomfiture; but the Red Lilies being a stronghold of the tribe, and a favourite hiding-place for "outsiders," emergencies were apt to occur "down the river," and we rode out of camp with rifles unslung and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my little grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims; they are obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone sooner or later; and perhaps the sooner the better. "My love to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... and he only became Paul the converted when that Son was revealed in him.... Christ is in every man.... All may call upon God as a reconciled Father. Human beings are redeemed, not in consequence of any act they have done, of any faith they have exercised; their faith is to be grounded on a foregone conclusion; their acts are to be the fruits of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... flat morocco case. The fifth brought a wonderful epistle, full of startling pieces of news, none of them true. On the sixth appeared a long narrow box containing a fountain pen. Then came Mr. Howells's "A Foregone Conclusion," which Katy had never seen; then a box of quinine pills; then a sachet for her trunk; then another burlesque poem; last of all, a cake of delicious violet soap, "to wash the sea-smell from her ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn; Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... had become tired of the griefs of Jamaica, and reconciled itself to her wretchedness as a foregone conclusion, when the events of last October lent a fresh and terrible interest to her history. An insurrection, including in its purpose the murder of every white man on the island, has been quenched in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... stood, waiting for their slow brains to act, but there was only a foregone answer. The keeper drank first, as ranking his tender; the other followed; and they handed the flask—not the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... the true sense of these words; it was the official recognition of a state of things which had long ceased to be a secret. The moral superiority of the new doctrines over the old religions was so evident, so overpowering, that the result of the struggle had been a foregone conclusion since the age of the first apologists. The revolution was an exceedingly mild one, the transformation almost imperceptible. No violence was resorted to, and the tolerance and mutual benevolence so characteristic of the Italian race was adopted as the ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... some freak of chance the first-born of the Vallincourts of Coverdale had been, for eight successive generations, a boy. Indeed, by this time, the thing had become so much a habit that no doubts or apprehensions concerning the sex of the eldest child were ever entertained. It was accepted as a foregone conclusion, and in the eyes of the family there was a certain gratifying propriety about such regularity. It was like a hall-mark of ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... perceptible, because it might be thought no proof of their beauty that they needed long attention in order to be discerned. But I think this much at least is deserving of our notice, as confirmatory of foregone conclusions, that the forms which in other things are produced by slow increase, or gradual abrasion of surface, are here produced by rough fracture, when rough fracture is to be the law of existence. A rose is rounded by its own soft ways of growth, a reed is ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... cautious. But he got from her the fact, to him before unknown, that she was the niece of his main antagonist, and, being a gentleman, so redoubled his attentions and his courtesy that Mrs. Plodgitt made up her mind that it was a foregone conclusion, and seriously reflected as to what she should wear on the momentous occasion. But that night poor Carmen cried herself to sleep, resolving that she would hereafter cast aside her wicked uncle for this good-hearted Americano, yet never once connected her innocent penmanship ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... as in times foregone, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck'd and gather'd into one The life that ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... lonesomeness at his home-coming; the touching of hands on the old log; the sympathy between them from the first, and at the end asked herself, honestly, who was most to blame. She had done wrong to permit him to kiss her the night under the pine-tree, but she would not have foregone the memory of it for all the world ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... passionate love. To him, at present, Juliette represented the perfect embodiment of his most idealistic dreams. She stood in his mind so far above him that if she proved unattainable, he would scarce have suffered. It was such a foregone conclusion. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... regiment of women at his command. My dear fellow, in Paris everything is known, and a man cannot be a fop there gratis. You, who have only one woman, and who, perhaps, are right to have but one, try to act the fop!... You will not even become ridiculous, you will be dead. You will become a foregone conclusion, one of those men condemned inevitably to do one and the same thing. You will come to signify folly as inseparably as M. de La Fayette signifies America; M. de Talleyrand, diplomacy; Desaugiers, song; M. de Segur, romance. If they once forsake their own line people ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... knew Jackson and his political managers expected them to accept the anomalous electoral results of 1825 as expressing the real will of the nation, and it was a foregone conclusion not only that the General would again be a candidate, but that the campaign of 1828 would at once begin. The defeated Senator remained in Washington long enough to present himself at the ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... foregone conclusion; and though the learned lawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrous fees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not to hold out the smallest hope of being able to save ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... Fishwick really entered into the horror of the girl's position, realised the possible value of minutes, or felt genuine and poignant grief at what had occurred. On the decision of one of these two the freedom of the other now depended, and the conclusion seemed foregone. Ten minutes earlier Mr. Fishwick, carried away by the first sight of Sir George, and by the rage of an honest man who saw a helpless woman ruined, had been violent enough; Soane's possession of the fan—not then known to him—was ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... speculate upon that point; but to my mind the fact of his asking you to run away with him argues a foregone conclusion. A man rarely comes to that until he has established a right to make the request. All I know is, that I saw you on your knees by your lover, and that you were candid enough to acknowledge your affection for him. This knowledge is quite sufficient to influence ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... said collection and enforcement of the said two per cent were to be insisted upon, it would be a foregone conclusion that the inhabitants would abandon the said trade and commerce, and would not make the said investments, for the reasons stated above. That has proved to be so on the occasions on which the said collection has been discussed with some warmth—and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... of mine, for I am speaking of conversation only; but most Members of Parliament will agree that he is the best companion that can be found for the last weary half-hour before the division-bell rings, when some eminent nonentity is declaiming his foregone conclusions to an audience whose whole mind is fixed on the chance of finding a ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... between the four Presidential candidates was rendered almost a foregone conclusion by the decision of the Democrats. Lincoln in deference to the usual and seemly procedure took no part in the campaign, nor do his doings in the next months concern us. Seward, to his great honour, after privately expressing his bitter chagrin at the bestowal of what was his due upon ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... looks when this pitiful story was unfolded in gasps. It was a foregone conclusion that they would go, for never had the Outdoor Chums rejected ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... In alluding to her, Carlo bit his lip; he did not proceed until surrounding murmurs of satisfaction encouraged him to continue a sort of formal eulogy of the lady, which proved to be a defence against foregone charges, for Corte retracted an accusation, and said that he had no fault to find with the countess. A proposal to join the enterprise was put to Merthyr, but his engagement with the Chief in Rome saved him from hearing much of the marvellous facilities ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... alcohol is had recourse to for the purpose of overcoming feelings of debility, the more it will be required, and by constant repetition a period is at length reached when it cannot be foregone, unless reaction is simultaneously brought about by a temporary total change of the ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... his palace holds his court, His messengers move to and fro, Each of his mission makes report, And takes the royal orders,—Lo, Some slow before his throne appear And humbly in the Presence kneel: "Why hath the Prince not been brought here? The hour is past; nor is appeal Allowed against foregone decree; There is the mandate with the seal! How comes it ye return to me Without him? ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... soul. An afternoon highly adventurous—an afternoon on which he had permitted himself to be insulted, with worse than impunity to the insulter, by the childish daughter of that chit Susan—an afternoon on which he had raised his hat to Mrs. Prockter—a Saturday afternoon on which he had foregone, on account of a woman, his customary match at bowls—this afternoon was drawing to a close in a manner which piled ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... Jacques had acted weakly. He would not have done what Jean Jacques had done, had Jean Jacques spoiled his home. He would have sprung the lever; but he was not so mean as to despise Jean Jacques because he had foregone his revenge. This master-carpenter had certain gifts, or he could not have caused so much trouble in the world. There is a kind of subtlety necessary to allure or delude even the humblest of women, if she is not naturally ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... thought of his twins on his mind, and all his wife had once been accustomed to, he quickly realized the necessity of green vegetables in his menage. So he promptly flew to the task of arranging a cabbage patch. The result was a foregone conclusion. He dug and planted his patch. Nor was it until the work was completed that it filtered through to his comprehension that he had selected the only patch in the neighborhood with a heavy underlay of gravel ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... a German?" asked the magistrate pointedly. The accused pondered. "Would you call him a Bosche?" persisted the magistrate. "I never meant to call him 'a Bosche,'" the accused said in an unguarded moment. The magistrate pounced on him. He had found the range. After that the result was a foregone conclusion. The duel ended in the accused tearfully admitting he thought he must have been drunk, and throwing himself on the ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... in Germany as in England, who saw in Sterne's works only a mine of vulgar suggestion, arelation sometimes delicate and clever, sometimes bald and ugly, of the indelicate and sensual, is a foregone conclusion. Undoubtedly some found in the general approbation which was accorded Sterne's books a sanction for forcing upon the public the products ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... for several weeks had flattered himself that I had quite forgotten or foregone the desire of leaving Devereux Court for London. Good easy man! he was not a little distressed when I renewed the subject with redoubled firmness, and demanded an early period for that event. He managed, however, still ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... presence here is known, that those at the mine would be able in some way to communicate with the dozen or more rascals over at the river. And there would always be a pretty strong chance of our being waylaid while on the road back to the boats. If any one found our trail that would make it a foregone conclusion. And so I thought we'd be wise to start ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... the country possessed of sufficient education and business experience to admit of their being entrusted with the charge of public affairs; and where all the offices were necessarily in the hands of a small number of persons, it was a foregone conclusion that irregularities should creep in, and that cliquishness and favouritism should prevail to a greater or less extent. When Lieutenant-Governor Hunter arrived, in 1799, he found that certain objectionable practices had become common, and that the foundation ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... dwindled age of men, reported of successional mankind, is true of the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'Tis a punctum stans. The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring cheers not, nor winter heightens our gloom, Autumn hath foregone its moralities, they are hey-pass re-pass [as] in a show-box. Yet as far as last year occurs back, for they scarce shew a reflex now, they make no memory as heretofore—'twas sufficiently gloomy. Let the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... you how it was; But this I know: it came to pass Upon a bright and breezy day When May was young; ah, pleasant May! As yet the poppies were not born Between the blades of tender corn; The last eggs had not hatched as yet, Nor any bird foregone its mate. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... she heard at Alexandria that the Mukaukas was lately dead, she regarded the game as won. Now they were in Memphis, Orion was sitting before her, and the young man had invited her and her following of above twenty persons to stay in his house. It was a foregone conclusion that the travellers were to accept this bidding as prescribed by the laws of hospitality, and preparations for the move were immediately ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... be sent for," Tallente went on. "That, of course, is a foregone conclusion. Nora, I wish you'd make him see that it's his duty to form a Government. There isn't any reason why he should pass it on to me. I can lead in the Commons if he wants me to, so far as the debates are concerned. We are altering ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... protected by a twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the worn-out bamboo matting—ah, it was then, then that one would have foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... disposed to assert the genuine principle of the laws; in which we can, as a body, have no other than an enlarged and a public interest. We have no common cause of a professional attachment, or professional emulations, to bias our minds; we have no foregone opinions, which, from obstinacy and false point of honour, we think ourselves at all events obliged to support. So that with our own minds perfectly disengaged from the exercise, we may superintend the execution of the national justice; which from this circumstance ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... a mock trial, but the facts of the case were not brought out, as the men who were with Cannon were too drunk to remember what had happened the previous night. It was a foregone conclusion that the poor woman was to be hanged, and the leaders of the mob would brook no interference. A physician examined Juanita and announced to the mob that she was in a condition that demanded the highest sympathy ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... must remember that "force of character is cumulative, and all the foregone days of virtue work their health into this." The task need not be begun afresh each morning; yesterday's strokes are still there, and to-day's efforts will make the carving deeper ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... (but wherefore I know not), lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... began to take the famous shoot trophies. Time came when this sort of thing was no longer a gamesome event, but a foregone conclusion. His rifle work was a revelation of genius—like the work of a prodigious young pianist or billiardist in the midst ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... wee lassie of less than eight, acted like magic upon the heart of the desolate boy, who had known no home ever since his mother passed over to the Far Beyond; he then and there mentally vowed that he would settle this business before he turned in that night; and it was already a foregone conclusion as to what his decision must be—he could not bear the thought that he would never see this little ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... Tabasco, where Grijalva had found the natives friendly, Cortes found that the Yucatans had resolved to oppose him, and were presently assembled in great numbers. The result of the fighting, however, was naturally a foregone conclusion, partly on account of "the astonishment and terror excited by the destructive effect" of the European firearms, and the "monstrous apparition" of men on horseback. Such quadrupeds they had never seen before, and they concluded that the rider with his horse formed ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... which Gothard was carrying at the time of the arrest (which reduced the number of the other sacks to two) or whether there were three without the last. The debate ended in favor of the first proposition, the jury considering that only two sacks had been used. They appeared to have a foregone conviction on that point, but Bordin and Monsieur de Grandville judged it best to surfeit them with plaster, and weary them so thoroughly with the argument that they would no longer comprehend the question. Monsieur de Grandville made it appear that experts ought to have been sent to examine ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... pondered deeply, and the result was, that, upon the whole, we were inclined to come to an opinion that the words he so uttered were but the result of the mental disturbance that at such a moment might well be supposed to be ensuing in the mind, and that they related really to no foregone fact any more than some incoherent words uttered by a man in a dream ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... of the War.—The foregone conclusion was soon reached. General Taylor might have delivered the fatal thrust from northern Mexico if politics had not intervened. Polk, anxious to avoid raising up another military hero for the Whigs to nominate for President, decided to divide the honors by sending General Scott ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... of one hundred and thirty years old, whose history is most dubious. His evidence for the absence of the slightest approximation to the simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering to the theologian, though it loses its value when we know it is in the interests of his foregone conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man. The Nampe image, the oldest relic yet discovered, "revolutionizes our conception of this early palaeolithic age," being a "more artistic and better representation of the human form than the little idols of many comparatively ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... battle has been fought; and to repent and be saved, because our final destiny was decided before time was. Surely, if this life have any bearing on another, we are running a race, the issue of which is undecided until death; and ours is a real struggle, not merely the acting out of a foregone conclusion, not the dramatic representation of a past event. What would you think of a modern Greek praying zealously that Mohamed II. should not have taken Constantinople? Or of a Roman of to-day besieging heaven with prayers that Rome should not have been taken ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... regularity, his hermit-like frugality, his idiotically mechanical labor, allowing his mind to remain neuter or to work on his own lines, seeming to us to hint at an expectation of some stroke of good luck, or at some foregone ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac

... inspired teaching. Yet Jesus said, "No; leave the dead to bury their own dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God." Discipleship seems severe in its demands if even a sacred duty of love to a father must be foregone that the man might go instantly to his work as ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... despairingly why he had been so short-sighted as to choose three unknown quantities in such an important event, leaving to Dan those whose worth was a foregone conclusion. Then his sporting blood rose. If no one ever attempted anything new, it would be a pretty slow old world. And if he had not the courage to try Spot out, his pet might remain an ordinary, commonplace dog to the end of his days; a condition that would be ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... swear it wasn't that. I didn't want to kill him. But he forced me. As I had to go after these two men it was a foregone conclusion about Wright. It was premeditated. I have ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... were in the style called "English," as quite decidedly, also, were his cross-barred trousers of balloony build; nor, although thus flinging himself for diversion into the vortex of the lower crowd, had he foregone the luxury of tan-colored kid gloves and patent-leather shoes. He was a bright boy, and precocious as a lady-killer; for, already, before we had left far behind us the pleasant slopes of Bay Ridge, with its peeping villa-parapets ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... of some works is stylistic; a technical preoccupation stands them instead of some robuster principle of life. And with these the execution is but play; for the stylistic problem is resolved beforehand, and all large originality of treatment wilfully foregone. Such are the verses, intricately designed, which we have learnt to admire, with a certain smiling admiration, at the hands of Mr. Lang and Mr. Dobson; such, too, are those canvases where dexterity or even breadth of plastic style takes the place of pictorial nobility ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his house, whither he found that the money had foregone him, and on the morrow Jaafer presented himself before the Khalif and acquainted him with what had passed and that he had appointed Abdulmelik's son governor of Egypt and had promised him his daughter in marriage. Er Reshid approved ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... may be under palace roof, Princely and wide; No pomp foregone, no pleasure lost, No wish denied; But if beneath the diamonds' flash Sweet, kind eyes hide, A pleasant place, a happy ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... been to college never entered her head. There was something in his speech and manner that made it a foregone conclusion. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... beast, for so Fluff regarded him, stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump. Fluff glanced round. The wicket-keeper had a grim smile on his lips, for his billet was no easy one. Cosmo Kinloch at short slip looked as if it were a foregone conclusion that Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff faced the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... so sure of thet." Joel Quimber's tone implied obstinate conviction that his modestly expressed doubt was a foregone conclusion. "Champ's a devil of a feller when it comes to puttin' through anything. He's a chip off the old block. He'll put through more 'n his mother can git out if he gits in any thicker with them big ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... acted upon the suggestion; went to the door of the swinging crocodile, knocked, and knocked again; had the door opened to him as if in surprise by an apparently sleepy man. Announced the motive of his coming as if it were a foregone conclusion that hasheesh could be smoked in that house by the initiated. His disguise was not suspected. It never was, when he played the Egyptian; and when asked who had sent him, he had the inspiration ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... with a sharpness of tone and a rigidity of facial muscle which, considering the handsome compliment I had just paid her, argued, I was afraid, a foregone conclusion. "You always have recourse to some folly of that sort whenever I am desirous of entering into a serious consultation ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... concern yourself—he is by this time," said Lord Dalgarno, "playing at hustle-cap and chuck-farthing with the most blackguard imps upon the wharf, unless he hath foregone his old customs." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... come, where I have told thee Thou shalt behold the people dolorous Who have foregone the ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri

... while I am relating it;" and giving the results at the last trial, he says: "This Court of Oyer and Terminer, happy for the country, sat no more." Its proceedings were arbitrary, harsh, and rash. The ordinary forms of caution and fairness were disregarded. The Judges made no concealment of a foregone conclusion against the Prisoners at the Bar. No Counsel was allowed them. The proceedings were summary; and execution followed close upon conviction. While it was destroying the lives of men and women, of respectable ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... dismally at each other, and Rilla, who was feeding Jims a Morganized diet from a carefully sterilized spoon, laid the said spoon down on his tray, utterly regardless of germs, and said, "Oh, dear me," in as tragic a tone as if the news had come as a thunderbolt instead of being a foregone conclusion from the preceding week's dispatches. They had thought they were quite resigned to Warsaw's fall but now they knew they had, as ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... told you Had all along been of this crone's devising, Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you, There was a novelty quick as surprising: 470 For first, she had shot up a full head in stature, And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered, As if age had foregone its usurpature, And the ignoble mien was wholly altered, And the face looked quite of another nature, 475 And the change reached too, whatever the change meant, Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement: For where its tatters ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... had selected Mr. Taft as his successor he made no indication as to the vice-presidency. Of course, the nomination of Mr. Taft under such conditions was a foregone conclusion, and when the convention met it was practically unanimous for Roosevelt's choice. Who was the best man to nominate for vice-president in order to strengthen the ticket embarassed the managers of the Taft campaign. The Republican congressmen ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... expressions of human experience and yet be literally true as well, provided we assume (what is assumed throughout in Christianity) that the world is made for man, and that even God is just such a God as man would have wished him to be, the existent ideal of human nature and the foregone solution to all human problems. Nevertheless, Christian dogmas are definite,[2] while human inspirations are potentially limitless; and if the object of the two is identical either the dogmas must be stretched and ultimately abandoned, ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... should betray the desire to others. But Hetty's face had a language that transcended her feelings. There are faces which nature charges with a meaning and pathos not belonging to the single human soul that flutters beneath them, but speaking the joys and sorrows of foregone generations—eyes that tell of deep love which doubtless has been and is somewhere, but not paired with these eyes—perhaps paired with pale eyes that can say nothing; just as a national language may be instinct with poetry unfelt by the lips that use it. That look ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... flat. Slowly, because in the lexicon of his daily life there was no such word as "perhaps." There are no surprises awaiting a man who has been married two years and lives in a flat. As he walked John Perkins prophesied to himself with gloomy and downtrodden cynicism the foregone conclusions of ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... domestic calamity, which, for its connection with that famous personage in Barnaby, must be mentioned here. The raven had for some days been ailing, and Topping had reported of him, as Shakspeare of Hamlet, that he had lost his mirth and foregone all customary exercises; but Dickens paid no great heed, remembering his recovery from an illness of the previous summer when he swallowed some white paint; so that the graver report which led him to send for the doctor came upon him unexpectedly, and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... him one distraction which he would willingly have foregone: he passed long exhausting hours in Commandant Dumoulin's office. He found the commandant detestable. Dumoulin was hot-blooded, noisy, unmethodical, always in a state of fuss and fume! He would begin his interrogations calmly, would weigh his words, would be logical, but little by ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... would be well worth your pains. But it is by no means a foregone conclusion that a blank refusal would be persisted in. Germany must be aware that the honor of England is now so bound up with the complete redemption of Belgium from the German occupation that to keep Antwerp and Brussels she must take Portsmouth and London. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... mention, but much more pronounced, by men of the party, and Mr. Arthur's nomination previous to the assembling of the next Presidential Convention seemed a foregone conclusion. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... disquiet in her bosom. Never did evenings seem to pass with more downright dullness to any one party in the world. If Edgerton spoke to her, which he did not frequently, his address was marked by a trepidation and hesitancy akin to fear—a manner which certainly indicated anything but a foregone conclusion between them; while her answers, on the other hand, were singularly cold, merely replying, and calculated invariably to discourage everything like a protracted conversation. What was said by Edgerton was sufficiently harmless—nor harmless merely. It was most ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... lived the original and redoubted Blue Beard, the dreaded hero of our nursery romance; and, doubtless, I enjoyed the same lovely and peaceful prospect, though with somewhat different feelings, as "Sister Anne" some centuries foregone. ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... taken was a foregone conclusion, but how to keep the engines running at that high speed without attention—for it was evident that no man could live for many minutes in the poisonous fumes—was a more difficult problem. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... States Government. France had already put forth her hand to control Mexico, and although in England the Union had warm friends who still hoped for its success, the general impression was that its defeat might be considered a foregone conclusion. Financial ruin also seemed inevitable. The Northern army was costing the nation two million dollars a day. The Hon. Mr. Dawes, in a speech in Congress, had declared it "impossible for the United States ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell

... cultivate her refractory memory. She listened with pleasure to social conversation, but she could contribute nothing brilliant. Her religious notions and home-grown prejudices were antagonistic to the complete emancipation of her intelligence. Finally, a foregone conclusion against her had stolen into Theodore's mind, and this she could not conquer. The artist would laugh, at those who flattered him about his wife, and his irony had some foundation; he so overawed the pathetic young creature that, in his presence, or alone ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... hang John Brown was a foregone conclusion. The Moloch of Slavery would have nothing less. His friends exerted themselves to secure the best counsel which could be induced to undertake the formality of a defense, foremost among ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... shipping will be absolutely at their mercy, and they will simply have to take them over to France and Germany and load them up with men and horses, and bring them over as if they were coming to a picnic. But, of course, with the airships to help them the thing's a foregone conclusion, and to a great extent it is our own fault. I thoroughly agree with what Lady Margaret says about conscription. If we had had it only five years ago, we should now have three million men, instead of three hundred thousand, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay, as if ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... door of power to the many. The only things a New-Englander was ever locked out of were the jails. It is quite true that our Republic is the heir of the English Commonwealth; but as we trace events backward to their causes, we shall find it true also, that what made our Revolution a foregone conclusion was that act of the General Court, passed in May, 1647, which established the system of common schools. "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers in Church and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, it ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... Madame de Beaumont, who died there of consumption, at the beginning of the winter of 1803. George Sand, in her turn, was to have a similar experience. When Chopin was convicted of consumption, "which," as she writes, "was equivalent to the plague, according to the Spanish doctors, with their foregone conclusions about contagion," their landlord simply turned them out of his house. They took refuge in the Chartreuse monastery of Valdemosa, where they lived in a cell. The site was very beautiful. By a wooded slope a terrace ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... of large dispersive power. About one-third of the visible gamut of the solar radiations (A to b) is covered by it; it includes 3,200 lines, and is over ten metres long.[1655] The grating is an expensive tool in the way of light. Where there is none to spare, its advantages must be foregone. They could not, accordingly, be turned to account in stellar spectroscopy until the Lick telescope was at hand to supply more abundant material for research. By the use thus made possible of Rowland's ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... her wants the social visit was forborne, and home made the one thought, until the cheek grew pale, and the eye dim for sleeplessness. The sickness of her daughter poured new waters into a cup, that seemed already filled with cares. To clothe and adorn her, every personal comfort was cheerfully foregone. That she might enjoy the best mental and moral culture, this mother discharged daily those services, which ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... defendant a hopeless paranoiac; the prosecutor had, at a previous trial, openly declared the same to be his own opinion; and the evidence was convincing. At the time it was rendered, the verdict was accepted as a foregone conclusion. To-day the case is commonly cited as proof of the gullibility of juries and of the impossibility of convicting a rich man of ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... effect would they have, if any, on our thoughts about religion? What is their practical tendency? The least dubious effect would be, I hope, to prevent us from accepting the anthropological theory of religion, or any other theory, as a foregone conclusion, I have tried to show how dim is our knowledge, how weak, often, is our evidence, and that, finding among the lowest savages all the elements of all religions already developed in different degrees, we cannot, historically, say that one is earlier than another. This point of priority ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... Most men, when they repent, oblige their friends to share the bitterness of that repentance. But he had held an inquest and passed sentence: mene, mene; and condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given trouble enough; had earned misfortune amply, and foregone the right ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the town, where it sizzled along a singing wire past the drooping fences, the sagging bleachers, and the weedy riot of what had been a pleasure-ground. A few dim lines in the grass marked the ghost of a baseball diamond, a circular track, and foregone tennis-courts. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... it is a foregone conclusion. More things than years go to the formation of character, Miss O'Shaughnessy, and if you will allow me to say so, you seem to me very young ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... fought with credit, and even, at times, commanded his regiment, during the war; but war records could not save him when he wouldn't save himself, and he had to go. The court was ordered, and the result was a foregone conclusion. The colonel, his adjutant, and Major Stannard were to drive to town during the afternoon and take the east-bound train, leaving Major Waldron in command of the post; but before guard-mounting a telegram was received which was sent from department ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... existence of such planetary systems surrounding the single stars. If those stars did not originate in a manner quite unlike the origin of the sun, then the existence of planets in their neighborhood is almost a foregone conclusion, for the sun could hardly have passed through the process of formation out of a rotating nebula without evolving planets during its contraction. And so, notwithstanding the eccentricities of the double stars, we may ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... Jerome vital truths are not to be foregone on account of scandal. Now God's commandments are vital truths. Since, therefore, fraternal correction is a matter of precept, as stated above (A. 2), it seems that it should not be foregone for fear of scandalizing ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... dragged back into the world he had sought to leave. The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads when the case was brought in. Impossible, they said. Throat, windpipe, jugular, all but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful. As it was such a foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods and done things which made them, even in their professional capacities, shudder. And ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... was about six pounds heavier in the line than the team captained by Louis Whipple, who played at quarter, and about the same weight behind the line. It was a foregone conclusion that the first would win, but whether the second would score was a mooted point. Joel felt a bit nervous, now that he was in his first game of consequence, but forgot all about it a moment later when the whistle blew and Greer, the big first eleven ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... bring added pressure upon Alice to name an early date for their wedding. He seemed to have overlooked the fact that as yet she had not given him her formal consent, but as the event was apparently accepted by her father and Eleanor and Covington himself as a foregone conclusion, the girl took no definite exceptions to his attitude. He was, of course, aware of the family complications, and, in expressing his sympathy, explained that he could be of much greater assistance in helping ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... in by his brothers and sisters. He was doing brilliantly at College, and as a better preparation for his life's work had decided on a four-years course—taking the Tripos in two parts, in both of which it was a foregone conclusion that he would ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... minutes before Rupert arrived with Lord Fairholm and his friend Dillon, somewhat changed the aspect of affairs, for their cheerful faces showed that from some cause, at which the rest were unable to guess, they by no means regarded the death of their comrade as a foregone event. As they alighted and gave their horses to the orderlies who had followed them, their acquaintances gathered round them full of expressions of indignation and regret at the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... lazily, as though the matter were too much a foregone conclusion to discuss. "Should ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... been so often interrupted here. Of course there will be drawbacks. Books, society, equal talk, the English countryside which you love so well, and, if I may use the expression, so intelligently; they will all have to be foregone in a measure. But fortunately there is no difficulty about money, and money will give you back some of these delights. You will still see your real friends; and they will come to you with the intention of giving and getting the best of themselves and of you, not in the purposeless ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... no end in the next few rounds by following Acton's advice, his good efforts seemed wasted. The lout's face was as hard as a butcher's block. Acton saw that Bourne was visibly tiring, and that it was an almost foregone conclusion that in the end he would be beaten. He could hardly stall ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... At last the foregone giant lay down to die. A tardy touch of feeling induced Louis to write him a letter. He would not read it. "I will hear no more about the King," he said; "let him at least allow me to die in peace. My business now is with the King of kings. If," he continued, unconsciously, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... chiselled features steeped in a meek resignedness, though much too high colored, as though it had just been borne in upon her that this world is all a fleeting show, for man's illusion given, and such felicity as culling fragrant hay by the side of that manly form must e'en be foregone by her, that I could have taken a handle of a rake and given her such a punch among her blue ribbons that her classic features would have frantically twined themselves around one resounding howl—but I didn't. I simply remarked to Jone, with a statuesque ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... owl had stolen two eggs. But it was Ebie Farrish's good angel. He resolved that he would go seldomer to the village public o' nights, and that he would no more find cakes and ale sweet to his palate. It was a foregone conclusion that on Saturday night he would be there, yet what he heard and saw on Grannoch Bridge opened his sluggish eyes. Of a truth there was that in the world which had not been there for him before. It is to Jess Kissock's credit, that when Ebie was most impressed by the stillness ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... have hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but for the apparently unexpected revelation that she couldn't play. He had received the news of a clue to his long-lost son without emotion, but lately he seemed to look upon it as a foregone conclusion, and one that necessarily solved the question of companionship for Flip. "In course, when you've got your own flesh and blood with ye, ye can't go foolin' around with strangers." These autumnal blossoms of affection, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... pamphlets of news' was put forth in 1680. Vigorous action against recalcitrants followed, and with such pliant tools as those perjured wretches, Scroggs and Jeffreys, for judge and prosecutor, convictions and the 'extremest punishment of the law' became a foregone conclusion. Doubtless there were many vile scribblers who deserved to have the severest penalties inflicted upon them, but no discrimination was used, and good and bad alike experienced the vengeance of 'divine right.' The aim of the abandoned monarch and his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... enemy—no desire to injure one of them, excepting him of whom I have spoken—there was something so wild, so thrilling, in the excitement of thus entrapping man, the highest of all animals, that I could not have foregone the inhuman sport. I had no intention that it should be inhuman. I well knew what would be their treatment as prisoners of war; and I had given orders that not a shot should be fired nor a blow struck, in case they threw down their arms and yielded without resistance. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... to Blake's shoulders, but he realized that their enormous numbers and hook-taloned hands would make the result of the battle almost a foregone conclusion. The fact that the headless things were without eyes was no handicap to them. The swift certainty of their movements proved that they had a sense of sight of some kind that was in every ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells

... Stony Mountains of which men told fables? Have you found the great unicorn or the mammoth or the mastadon which Mr. Jefferson said you were likely to meet? Have you found the dinosaur or the dragon or the great serpents of a foregone day? Suppose you have. What do they weigh with me—with you? Are they so much to you as you thought they would be? Is the taste of all your triumphs so sweet as you ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... the last chorus is among the most beautiful of his lyrics. The imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as poets love to dwell upon, the Regeneration of Mankind—and that regeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from which it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past virtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley

... which, I hope, answered the intended purpose. We say at sea, "When you have no decency, sham a little;" and I verily believe I should have beheld my poor mother in her coffin with less regret than I could have foregone the gay and lovely scenes ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... had taken in the whole of that restful picture so welcome to his sore need. It was a good sized room, lined with books, which had evidently seen good service, many of them had been bought with the price of foregone meals, almost all of them embodied some act of denial. Above the mantel piece hung a little oil painting of a river scene, the sole thing not strictly of a useful order, for the rest of the contents of this study were all admirably adapted for working purposes, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... scar, tracing its origin to an antecedent alternative, will remain as the signet of that limitation under which the Divinity works— the limitation, namely, of Destiny, or the fixed issue of present effect from foregone cause; such cause having been perpetually directed and re-directed by recurring operation of individual Free-will, exercised, independently, by those emanations from the Moral Centre which, by courtesy, we call ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... (paternity) 166. V. be past &c. adj.; have expired &c. adj., have run its course, have had its day; pass; pass by, go by , pass away, go away , pass off, go off; lapse, blow over. look back, trace back, cast the eyes back; exhume. Adj. past, gone, gone by, over, passed away, bygone, foregone; elapsed, lapsed, preterlapsed[obs3], expired, no more, run out, blown over, has-been, that has been, extinct, antediluvian, antebellum, never to return, gone with the wind, exploded, forgotten, irrecoverable; obsolete &c. (old) 124. former, pristine, quondam, ci-devant[Fr], late; ancestral. foregoing; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Jane was admitted to all these. She was strong and active, but she lacked the skill of her friend Harriet. The latter's playing in basketball and tennis was a revelation to the guardians who had never known a high school girl who could play such an even and skilful game. It was a foregone conclusion that Harriet was in a fair way to earn more beads by her accomplishments in the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... he found fault with the new addition to his army, and one day not long afterwards he charged the whole regiment with cowardice in the face of the enemy. A drumhead court martial was held on the spot, and the verdict was a foregone conclusion. The culprits were found guilty in a body and sentenced to immediate execution. Then Keith possessed himself surreptitiously of the family hammer, and when his mother came to investigate the noise he was making the whole offensive ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman



Words linked to "Foregone" :   past, foregone conclusion, bypast, bygone, departed, gone



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