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Complicate   Listen
adjective
Complicate  adj.  
1.
Composed of two or more parts united; complex; complicated; involved. "How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man!"
2.
(Bot.) Folded together, or upon itself, with the fold running lengthwise.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Complicate" Quotes from Famous Books



... to be of their making," said Grace firmly. "I'll never set foot on that land Mr. Jallow claims if I can help it. It might complicate legal matters." ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope

... so close that the traffic patterns almost interlocked, was busy Washington National Airport. Below him along the Anacostia River were two military airports; Anacostia, at which he would land, and Bolling Air Force Base. And to complicate matters slightly, Andrews Air Force Base was ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... oxidation and elimination. This not only encourages the retention of toxic agents and natural excretory materials by which specific fevers are protracted, but it greatly increases the number of cases of pneumonia that complicate the epidemic influenza, or la grippe, as it ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... situation, which lifts or glorifies a character, in itself not poetical. To realise this situation, to define, in a chill and empty atmosphere, the focus where rays, in themselves pale and impotent, unite and begin to burn, the artist may have, indeed, to employ the most cunning detail, to complicate and refine upon thought and passion a thousand-fold. Let us take a brilliant example from the poems of Robert Browning. His poetry is pre-eminently the poetry of situations. The characters themselves ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man! How passing wonder He who made him such! Who centred in his make such strange extremes! From diff'rent natures, marvelously mix'd! Connection exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguish'd link in being's ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... the position of any simple Hydra, so that the tentacles hang down from the margin, and let four tubes radiate from the central cavity to the periphery, and we have the lowest form of Jelly-Fish. Expand the cup of the Hydra to form a gelatinous disk, increase the number of tubes, complicate their ramifications, let eyes be developed along the margin, add some external appendages, and we have the Discophore. Elongate the disk in order to give the body an oval form, diminish the number of main tubes, and let ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... pocket he cared for; it was just one of his confounded principles not to be beaten by anything, not even an Army Form. I expressed some surprise that in the course of this tour of duty he had not managed to find his way to America for an hour or two, if only to complicate my business ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... few words as possible I told Kishimoto of my interview with Mr. Chalmers, and his promise not to come again nor to further complicate matters. ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... fact," she added coolly, "where the women of my race loved they usually found the way—rather unconventionally. There was, if I understood you, enough of divorce, of general indiscretion and irregularity to seriously complicate any family tree and coat of arms I might ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... asked me to determine the centre of gravity of a spherical sector. "The question is easy," I said to him. "Very well; since you find it easy, I will complicate it: instead of supposing the density constant, I will suppose that it varies from the centre to the surface according to a determined function." I got through this calculation very happily; and from ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... the simplest; but a more elaborate plan is to so arrange the figures that any form of the blocks will form a square sum of 34. See the annexed solution, which the ingenious in may still further complicate: ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... empirical deductions of the old Italian school. In dealing with children's voices, it is necessary to recognize only two registers, the thick, or chest-register, and the thin, or head-register. Further subdivisions will only complicate the subject without assisting in the practical management of their voices. Tones sung in the thick or chest-register are produced by the full, free vibration of the vocal bands in their entire length, breadth and thickness. The tones ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... exclamations of the princess)—"this death was so greatly to his advantage, that he soon consoled himself with the love of the attractive Bestuchef—this proud and intriguing woman who now, through the weakness of her husband, rules over Russia, and threatens by her plots and intrigues to complicate the history and peace of Europe. She is neither young nor beautiful; she is forty years of age, and you cannot believe that Trenck at four-and-twenty burns with love for her. But she adores him; she loves him with that mad, bacchantic ardor which the Roman ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... gradually developed. "The spirits of the dead," says Mr. Spencer, "forming, in a primitive tribe, an ideal group the members of which are but little distinguished from one another, will grow more and more distinguished;—and as societies advance, and as traditions, local and general, accumulate and complicate, these once similar human souls, acquiring in the popular mind differences of character and importance, will diverge—until their original community of nature becomes scarcely recognizable." So in antique Europe, and so in the Far East, were the greater gods of nations evolved ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... when it seemed as though she had put these other ugly happenings behind her, Kit Raynham, who for the last six months had been one of the little court of admirers which surrounded her, had seen fit to complicate matters by vanishing without explanation; while his mother, in an absurd maternal flurry of anxiety as to what had become of him, must needs write to her as though it inevitably followed that she was responsible for ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... the favourite Roche's Embrocation, are of use when the disease is on the decline, and may also be of service if bronchitis should occur to complicate the hooping-cough, but ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... to thy sad and silent home; Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; 10 Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... "To further complicate matters, the physician assured me that to deprive the invalid of his floral diversions would be to remove his remaining impulse ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... matters, he proved an awkward man where his affections were concerned, and he often came and sat by the girl's desk, evidently wishing to say something, and yet quite as evidently having nothing to say; and thus the situation became embarrassing. Jennie was a practical girl and had no desire to complicate the situation by allowing her employer to fall in love with her, yet it was impossible to go to him and ask that his attentions might be limited strictly to a business basis. The crisis, however, was brought on by Mr. Hardwick himself. One day, ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... the rumoured intention of Government to send thither large bodies of troops that had just returned from the Crimea. He thought it his duty to protest earnestly against any such proceeding, as likely, in the first place, to complicate the relations of Canada with the United States, and, in the second place, to arrest her ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... down in drops as large as half-crowns. I only wish my half crowns, or even my shillings, were as plentiful! But perhaps they will be, some day before long—who knows? I do hope Ellaline won't take it into her head to appear at the last minute before we get off, and complicate things. Not that I won't be equal to disposing of her if she does! But no! here is Young Nick, very meek and soapy. He has got his petrol. Emily Norton reluctantly puts down a twenty-year-old volume of Blackwood which she has ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... be hurt by the girl? Braybrooke's news had made him feel really angry. Yet he knew he had no right to be angry. He began to wish that he had never gone to Berkeley Square on that autumn afternoon, had never met the two women who were beginning to complicate his life. For a moment he thought of dropping them both. But had not one of them already dropped him? He would certainly not call again in Berkeley Square. If Lady Sellingworth did not ask him to go there he would not attempt to see her. He was not going to fight ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... only a prolonged, dull, unpleasant effect instead of a rapid, favorable, and well-defined one. If it is given in the form of a fluid extract or tincture, its operation can be more definitely measured and counted on, but the amount of alcohol required to dissolve it is sufficient often to complicate its effects very prejudicially, while in any case the immense proportion of inert rubbish, gum, green extractive, woody fibre, and earthy residuum is so great as to be a severe tax on the digestive apparatus—often seriously to derange the stomach of the well man who uses it, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... her away so palpable, that she despised herself for having hesitated. A longing for retaliation consumed her; she wished to hurt him before she left. At such times, however, unforeseen events invariably intruded to complicate her feelings and alter her plans. One evening at supper, for instance, when she seemed at last to have achieved the comparative peace of mind that follows a decision after struggle, she gradually became aware of an outburst from Hannah concerning the stove, the condition ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... would meet a woman whose youth, sprightliness, and humour would make his wife seem rather deficient by contrast, but the temporary dissatisfaction which such an encounter might arouse would be counterbalanced by his social position and a certain matter of policy. He could not complicate his home life, because it might affect his relations with his employers. They wanted no scandals. A man, to hold his position, must have a dignified manner, a clean record, a respectable home anchorage. Therefore he was circumspect in all he did, and whenever he appeared ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... they liked her because, in their own phrase, 'there was no nonsense about' this redoubtable woman. She hated shams and make-believes with a bitter and ruthless hatred. She was the heiress to at least five thousand a year, and knew it well, but she never encouraged her father to complicate their simple mode of life with the pomps of wealth. They lived in a house with a large garden at Pireford, which is on the summit of the steep ridge between the Five Towns and Oldcastle, and they kept two servants and a coachman, who was also gardener. Eva paid the servants good wages, and took care ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... Plague take the lot of them!... It makes me furious when I think what happened the other day—creating a scandal about things the public ought to be kept in ignorance of—ought never to hear of—never!... Those confounded meddlers complicate our ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... the war may complicate the architect's personal problem, it should simplify and clarify his attitude toward his art. With no matter what seriousness and sincerity he may have undertaken his personal search for truth and beauty, he will come to question, as never before, both its direction and its results. He is bound ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... but it does not follow that social equality is a necessary complement of legal equality. I say purposely legal equality, and not political equality, because political equality involves an equal right to every public station in life, and I trust we shall be wise enough not to complicate at once our whole system with new conflicting interests, before we have ascertained what may be the practical working of universal freedom and legal equality for two races, so different as the whites and negroes, living under one government. We ought to ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... consciousness. It competes doggedly with the new Environment for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred ways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier life, now complicate the new relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself in correspondence with two environments, each with urgent but yet incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world, a world whose inhabitants are deadly ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... necessity that makes any return to the imagined glories of other days an idle dream. Graham Wallas remarks that those who have eaten of the tree of knowledge cannot forget—"Mr. Chesterton cries out, like the Cyclops in the play, against those who complicate the life of man, and tells us to eat 'caviare on impulse,' instead of 'grapenuts on principle.' But since we cannot unlearn our knowledge, Mr. Chesterton is only telling us to eat caviare on principle." The binding fact we must face in ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... those who have been the willing slaves of their caprices. I have often made the effort to treat them where they have lived and to isolate them there, but I have rarely done so without promising myself that I would not again complicate my treatment by any such embarrassments. Once separate the patient from the moral and physical surroundings which have become part of her life of sickness, and you will have made a change which will be in itself beneficial and will enormously aid in the treatment which is to follow. ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... the Dukes of Clarence and Kent, had married. Of the Duke of Clarence we need say little more. He and his consort eventually reigned as William IV. and Queen Adelaide, and they had two children who died in earliest infancy, and did not further complicate the succession ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... alliance, puts itself at the head of the democratic party, foments in the middle classes the spirit of antagonism against the nobles and the rich, leads them to the assault on the citadels of aristocratic and democratic power. Hence the mad internal struggles that redden Rome with blood and complicate so tragically, especially after the Gracchi, the external polity. The increasing wants of the members of all classes, the debts that are their inevitable consequence, the universal longing, partly unsatisfied for lack of means, for the pleasures of the subtle Asiatic civilisations, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... due course, and brought with him Guthrie to stay. Howard thought, and was ashamed of thinking, that Jack had some scheme on foot; and the arrival of Guthrie was embarrassing to him, as likely to complicate an already too ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Captain Alvarado and she cared nothing for Don Felipe. Not that Don Felipe was disagreeable to her, or to any one. He was a Spanish gentleman in every sense of the word, handsome, distinguished, proud, and gallant—but she did not, could not, love him. To complicate matters still further de Tobar was Captain Alvarado's cherished companion ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... stirred, rose, came forward: a shape inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate the riddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in a common-place bonne's cap and print-dress. She spoke neither French nor English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding her phrases ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... assistant. "Don't complicate your diseases by adding heart trouble. Three times today I've caught you peeping at me through the crack of that door. Within fifteen seconds of the last peep I find you snoring. Therefore, ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... put that on for you?" said the latter with a sort of complicate expression, which however never lost its grace and ease. And then began another chase—but not of Faith this time,—perhaps Mr. Linden thought she needed rest. And the changes ran round the company, but never (as it happened) including ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... If I can see any chance of your success I will speak to Parkman; for, indeed, my dear child, I honor your motive, and share your hope; but unless I find more encouragement than I expect, I will not complicate matters by a futile attempt, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... United States. The Elevated systems in the large cities are the terrible result of an original notion which can only be called unfortunate. They must either depopulate the streets through which they run or utterly destroy the sensibility of the inhabitants; and they enormously increase and complicate the dangers of the traffic beneath them. Indeed, in the view of the unaccustomed stranger, every Elevated is an affliction so appallingly hideous that no degree of convenience could atone for its horror. The New York Subway is a masterpiece of celerity, and in ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... laughing, "our worthy father is fond of reading memoirs and delving into the musty archives of the castle. Everything relating to Thibermesnil interests him greatly. But the quotations that he mentions only serve to complicate the mystery. He has read somewhere that two kings of France have known the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... compulsory measures and taken redress into their own hands, all our difficulties with Mexico would probably have been long since adjusted and the existing war have been averted. Magnanimity and moderation on our part only had the effect to complicate these difficulties and render an amicable settlement of them the more embarrassing. That such measures of redress under similar provocations committed by any of the powerful nations of Europe would have been ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... them. When it comes into the message center, it is delivered to the addressee immediately, and for some reason, all messages reporting UFO's seemed to arrive between midnight and 4:00A.M. I was considered the addressee on all UFO reports. To complicate matters, the messages were usually classified and I would have to go out to the air base and ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... man at the wheel hurriedly summoned the captain to his side, and, with a look of terror and bewilderment, directed his attention to the compass, the needle of which no longer pointed to the north, but was dancing a mad dance, not remaining stationary for a single instant. To complicate the situation still further, the sun was suddenly obscured, absolute darkness invading both sea and sky. Only when the vivid lightning tore the dense clouds apart were those on board the Alcyon enabled ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... trembling there in the sunshine suggests to me another illustration. Passion, when we contemplate it through the medium of imagination, is like a ray of light transmitted through a prism; we can calmly, and with undazzled eye, study its complicate nature, and analyze its variety of tints; but passion brought home to us in its reality, through our own feelings and experience, is like the same ray transmitted through a lens,—blinding, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... ever so slightly in the Tube. And then he caught a vague, distant uproar. It would have been faint and confused at best but the Tube was partly blocked by Smithers' body, and there were the multiple bends further to complicate the echoes. It was no more than a formless tumult through which faint yells came occasionally. It drew nearer and nearer. Tommy heard Smithers stir suddenly, almost as if he had jumped. Then there were scrapings which could only ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... smiled, a little awkwardly, it seemed. "If anything, it would appear to complicate the problem still further," he replied guardedly. "Still, I am very glad to have it, and thank you for informing me so promptly. Miss Tredworth may rest assured that should we find it necessary to go still ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... Langhorne took it had served to complicate the case even further. While we had before been reasonably sure that Langhorne had the book, now we were ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... Henriette, with a slight frown. "How, Bunny? You know you are likely to complicate matters for all of us if you work on the side. What, pray, did ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs

... used to complicate these cyphers!' remarked Mr Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again. 'Now is this D. N. F.? It might ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... this shy sweet cousin had stolen in upon him and wrecked his 'life.' But bitter experience, that all persons above thirty-five were spoil-sports, prevented him. After all, he supposed he would have to go through with College, and she would have to 'come out,' before they could be married; so why complicate things, so long as he could see her? Sisters were teasing and unsympathetic beings, a brother worse, so there was no one to confide in. Ah! And this beastly divorce business! What a misfortune to have a name which other people hadn't! If only he had been called Gordon or Scott or Howard or something ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... dinner—love: an airy magical love.... If only people would not interfere. She had proposed to herself to give Charles his triumph and then to settle his foolish mundane affairs. She knew she could do it, if only Verschoyle and these others would not complicate them still further. As for Charles being sent away to Paris, that was nonsense, sheer nonsense, that he should be ruined because he had a worthless woman who could, if she chose, use ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... fever and diphtheria. No precautions have been taken with regard to sanitation. She is the child of rich people, but they have been wantonly neglectful, almost cruel in their negligence and ignorance. The mother, a young woman, is nearly certain to take the complaint and, to complicate everything, there is another baby expected before long. Now you understand. If you get into that house you are scarcely likely to go out of it ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade

... had had him since six months before her father died, and the decayed publisher had never guessed of him nor Sally confessed him; for the good, thoughtful daughter knew it would but complicate the old man's perplexities and cares to no purpose. To be sure, his joyful consent was certain; but so long as he lived, "the thing was not to be thought of," she said, and it was not wise to plant in his mind a wish with which her duty could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... hurry," said Corliss easily. Nevertheless, he realized that Sundown's presence in Usher was quite apt to be followed by a wire from the sheriff of Antelope which would complicate matters, to say the least. He shook hands with the two townsmen and assured them that the hospitality of the Concho was theirs when they chose to honor it. Then he turned to Bud Shoop. "Get the fastest saddle-horse in town and ride out to the ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... the Federal Amendment would be submitted in the spring and it was decided not to complicate ratification by introducing a Presidential suffrage bill. In February a bill providing that the Legislature should not act on the ratification of Federal Amendments until after they had been referred to the voters was introduced by Assemblyman Arthur N. Pierson ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... all their activities to secure the best advantage. These arrangements, agreements, understandings—what are they but laws? To live without law is to live alone. Every family is a miniature State with a complicate system of laws, a supreme authority and subordinate authorities down to the latest babe. And as he who is loudest in demanding liberty for himself is sternest in denying it to others, you may confidently go to the Maison Vaillant, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... or reads believe in the grand principle of equality of rights and chances for women, and if they see on our program the name of Douglass every thought will be turned toward the subject of amalgamation and away from that of woman and her disfranchised. Neither you nor I have the right thus to complicate or compromise our question, and if we take the bits in our teeth in one direction we must expect our compeers to do the same in others. You very well know that if you plunge in, as your letter proposes, your endorsement will be charged upon me and the whole association. Do ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... lips are often sealed, and my hands drop paralyzed. Not that they alter God's truth, or make the duty of protest against existing wrong any less incumbent: but they obscure the truth; they needlessly complicate the duty. ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... rapid Narratives of History, which involve a thousand Fortunes in the Business of a Day, and complicate innumerable Incidents in one great Transaction, afford few Lessons applicable to private Life, which derives its Comforts and its Wretchedness from the right or wrong Management of Things that nothing but their Frequency makes considerable, Parva si non fiunt quotidie, ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... these treaties, a duplicate sovereign over six hundred and twenty feudal barons, commanding above two hundred thousand armed retainers, governing a people wanting in reason and morality. The existence of the theocratic element served further to complicate the machinery of government at Yedo. It may be questioned whether the ministers of the tycoon were ever heartily in favor of an abandonment of the policy of exclusivism. It is probable that they yielded to the demands made upon them, as the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... known until now what Jane was; never seen until now that the gods in giving her genius had given her one passion the more, to complicate her, to increase tenfold her interest ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... I knew that African Mahometans never sold their caste or kindred into foreign slavery, unless their crime deserved a penalty severer than death. I reflected a while on the message, because I did not wish to complicate my relations with the leading chiefs of the interior; but, in a few moments, natural sensibility mastered every selfish impulse, and I told the envoy to hasten back on the path of the suffering brother, and assure him I would shield ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... runs darkly on into pain and sorrow—now Levy began to practise his vindictive arts; and the arts gradually prevailed. On pretence of assisting Egerton in the arrangement of his affairs, which he secretly contrived, however, still more to complicate, he came down frequently to Egerton Hall for a few hours, arriving by the mail, and watching the effect which Nora's almost daily letters produced on the bridegroom, irritated by the practical cares of life. He was thus constantly at hand to instil into ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... leaning back in his chair, while he puffed a mouthful of smoke, the Chueta added: "You are right. Let us kill the dead! Let us crush beneath our feet all useless obstacles, old things that obstruct and complicate our pathway. We live according to the word of Moses, to the word of Jesus, of Mohammed, or of other shepherds of men, when the natural and logical thing would be to live according to what we ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the fundamental needs of subsistence and defense, but this truism supplies no explanation of the particular mode of doing so that may be adopted. Those needs account for motion but not for direction. Human will, discernment, and purpose enter and complicate the situation in a way that makes theories of determinism appear absurd. No one has ever contended that Hamilton was prompted by an economic motive in giving up his law practice to accept public office. He did so against the remonstrances of his friends, whose ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... of money that he should use to pay his debts, which might become an accusation against which it would be difficult to defend himself. In any case, he must be ready to explain his position. And what might complicate the matter was, that Caffie, a careful man, had probably taken care to write the numbers of his bank-notes in a book, which ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... published by him would resemble "The Greater Glory" as closely as "Pendennis" resembles "Philip." And then there would be the deuce to pay. If he published it under his own name, he would render himself liable to the charge of having stolen a novel from the dead author of "The Greater Glory," and so complicate this already complicated web of literary theft; and if he threw sufficient dust into the eyes of Doria to enable him to publish under Adrian's name, he would be performing the task of the altruistic bees ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... went again to the home of Judge Strong. He had persuaded McGowan to let him act in the matter, for he feared that the Irishman's temper would complicate things and make it more difficult to secure Deborah's rights by creating some feeling in the community against the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... escutcheon are without a blot! What do I know of her antecedents or his? My mother spoke of some mystery in his past life; and there is a look of settled gloom in his face that nothing seems able to remove. Lord Ernest Strathmore, too—he must come to complicate matters. She is the most glorious creature the sun shines on; and if I don't ask her to be my wife, she will be my Lady Strathmore before the ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... include in the record cards items concerning the date of the settler's arrival in America, his naturalization status, and the degree of his knowledge of English at the time of his settlement on land. These few additional items would hardly complicate or burden the recording work ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... publish my observations upon this great central glacier for the first time in the present article, having omitted them in my contributions upon this subject to the scientific periodicals of the day simply because I thought best not to complicate my exposition of the facts concerning the parallel roads by considerations foreign to their origin, convinced as I was, from the manner in which the glacial theory was then received, that they would not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... element behind the whole British awakening? Will organised labour, an ancient sore on the British body, rise up and complicate these well-laid schemes for economic expansion? As with the question of practicability of the Paris Pact, there is ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... Jared some minutes to digest the information that had been flung at him so unexpectedly, and then anger and baffled hope swayed him. Joyce married to Jude would make his, Jared's, future no securer than it now was. Indeed it might complicate matters, for Jared had no belief in Jude rising above the dead level ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... reasons. In the first place, it can reach it as a rule through explanations only; and the explanation or the account of anything is always far more intricate than the apprehension of the thing itself. Take, for instance, the practice of the invocation of saints. This seems to many to complicate the whole relation of the soul to God, to be introducing a number of new and unnecessary go-betweens, and to make us, as it were, communicate with God through a dragoman. But the case really is very different. Of course it may be contended that ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... national, that shall, in its separate colleges and halls, prepare our youth for the various departments of life, may not consist with the spirit of our civil governments, and be guarded against the evils which have generally attended establishments so complicate, and of such numerous resort. However this may be judged, it will be found, I apprehend, the wisdom of our scattered institutions, to preserve their individuality, and remain true, as to their general regulations, to the purpose of their foundation. With respect, particularly, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... been shot I should think the servant had shot him, but he was not shot. You see, Captain, the case is not so easy. These bits of rock complicate it, and we must keep an eye ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... track of the murderer, and it was poor satisfaction to know that his only chance of escape lay in the punishment of an innocent man, who so strongly resembled him as to complicate matters to ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... the house stood. Their home was quite isolated, Alan thought with satisfaction. There was no other habitation nearer than Bay Head except a few negro shacks. With the girl's wings covered he could take her home and keep her there, in absolute seclusion, without causing any comment that might complicate things. ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... three causes which, as I have said, tend to complicate the Herzegovinian-Montenegrin question, private machinations have recently been the most successful, and consequently the most injurious to order and the general weal. The energy of some of the foreign ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... otherwise, should be urged until after the tension ceased; that every concession possible should be made to Spanish pride; and that, just as far as possible, everything should be avoided which could complicate the general issue with personal considerations. All of us knew that the greatest wish of the administration was to prevent the war, or, if that proved impossible, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... to solving a social problem which has perplexed the American people throughout the history of this nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution and (p. 022) should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the tremendous task of the War Department and thereby ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... his researches M. Tamman has been led to certain very important observations, and has met with fresh allotropic modifications in nearly all substances, which singularly complicate the question. In the case of water, for instance, he finds that ordinary ice transforms itself, under a given pressure, at the temperature of -80 deg. C. into another crystalline variety which is ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... slightly the external forms of the social traditions, but they will be likely to change profoundly their content and meaning. Of course other factors, individual competition, the formation of classes, and especially the increase of communication, all co-operate to complicate the whole situation and to modify the effects which would be produced by racial factors working ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... than a year longer the quarrel went on, the whole Church suffering from the results, and new points arising to complicate the issue. The danger that England would be placed under an interdict Henry met by most stringent regulations against the admission of any communications from the pope, or any intercourse with pope or archbishop. On the question which arose in the constant ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic to ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities and longer range delivery means, the ability for rogues to inflict pain will increase as will the ability to ratchet up the political risks. WMD can easily complicate our ability to influence positive and constructive behavior of possessors. Because of the threat of retaliation, WMD capabilities may become politically acceptable targets provided collateral damage to civilians is minimized. ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... he would—give!" and then to complicate matters Sandy rolled over in a huddled heap and fainted dead away! Bob, bereft and frightened, hovered over him, emitting yelps and howls that shattered ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... existence, trying to elucidate a clue? Well, it is the business of the Law to detect and punish crime. Let the Law do it in its own way, find its own clues, solve the mysteries given it to solve. Why should you complicate things? The official fellows could never do what you could do, if you were a detective. They haven't the brains or initiative or knowledge. And since you are not a detective, and can't devote yourself to this most delicate problem, if there be any ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the comparatively simple thing it was. Our relations one with another have been profoundly modified by the new agencies of rapid communication and transportation, tending swiftly to concentrate life, widen communities, fuse interests, and complicate all the processes of living. The individual is dizzily swept about in a thousand new whirlpools of activities. Tyranny has become more subtle, and has learned to wear the guise of mere industry, and even of benevolence. Freedom has become ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... "H'm! That does complicate matters for you some, doesn't it? Captain La Rue is down at your camp, isn't he? Why, I suppose Cameron knew him up at college, perhaps. Cap used to come up from the university every week last ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... to start for discussion the idea of an electoral representation of the nations upon these three bodies that must in succession set themselves to define, organize, and maintain the peace of the world. I do not wish to complicate the question by any too explicit advocacy of methods of election or the like. In the United States this college which elects the President is elected on the same register of voters as that which elects the Senate and Congress, and at ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... museum and found it brilliantly lit, but empty except for the cheerful company of the two mummies who also appeared to regard me with gleaming but doubtful eyes. So I sat down there in front of the fire, not even daring to smoke lest tobacco should complicate /Taduki/. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... with the grave quietness she wondered at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly complicate the situation. There would, at least, be one way out of the difficulty. You wouldn't find your position intolerable if I could make ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... to be reckoned with, sickness, childbirth, and the rearing of children, the hidden development of the character which so often grows away from what it once cherished, the baleful currents of outside influences, the attraction and repulsion of so-called friends and enemies all of which complicate the primitive simplicity of married life and forfeit the honeymoon Eden. Adam and Eve in the garden of the Creation can hear the voice of God whispering in the evening breeze; they can live without jars and ambitions, without suspicion and without reproaches. They have no parents, ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... "No, Myra, that would complicate matters, since it might necessitate my keeping Standish a prisoner here indefinitely in order to prevent him from denouncing me to the authorities. Give me your word of honour not to reveal my identity to Standish, and I will have him brought in here to strike a bargain for you in your presence. ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... find hands to execute in all branches of useful labor, it is likely to grow every year more difficult, as new departments of manufacture and trade divide the workers. The price of labor, even now higher in this country than in any other, will rise still higher, and thus complicate still more the problem of domestic life. Even if a reasonable quota of intelligent women choose domestic service, the demand will be increasingly beyond ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... state of Hester Prynne and her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, in the long years that follow their lawless passion. Their love story hardly concerns him at all. The interest of the novel does not depend on the development of the plot. No attempt is made to complicate the story by concealing the identity of Hester's lover or of her husband. The action takes place within the souls and minds of the characters, not in their outward circumstances. The central chapter of the book is named significantly: "The Interior of a Heart." The moral ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... unnecessary to complicate this story by relating all the prodigious trouble and the inventiveness stamped with genius, by which Rosalie achieved her end without allowing it to be suspected. It is enough to say that it was in obedience to her mother ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... of estimate lies in the fact, that courage and cowardice often complicate themselves with other qualifies, and so show false colors. For instance, the presence or absence of modesty may disguise the genuine character. The unpretending are not always timid, nor always brave. The boaster is not always, but only commonly, a coward. Were it otherwise, how ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... to that of St. Real's hero, we are not particularly concerned. The French Abbe's drift is to exalt the French princess and to give a telling picture of a pair of high-minded lovers who are brought to their death by a complicate intrigue begotten of jealousy, political hatred and religious fanaticism. After the death of Carlos the queen is poisoned and then, one after the other, all the conspirators meet with poetic justice. "Ainsi", the Abbe concludes, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... somewhere said by Johnson, that merely to invent a story is no small effort of the human understanding. How much more difficult is it to construct stories suited to the early years of youth, and, at the same time, conformable to the complicate relations of modern society—fictions, that shall display examples of virtue, without initiating the young reader into the ways of vice—narratives, written in a style level to his capacity, without tedious detail, or vulgar idiom! The author, sensible of these difficulties, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... anxiety in England at the time; and the problems and mysteries of those years, never unravelled to this day, never with any certainty to be unravelled at all, continued to perplex English statesmen and to complicate the situation in England for nearly nineteen years more. We shall have to follow them therefore in much greater detail than would a priori seem justifiable in a volume ostensibly dealing not with Scottish but ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... He believes that there are in our personalities hidden forces which, in the normal conduct of life, are not brought into action. They are no necessary part of our adjustment to our working environment; on the whole they complicate rather than simplify the business of living and they are best—though this is not his statement but the writer's conclusion from the whole matter—they are best left unawakened. What we are normally is the outcome of the adjustment of personality to those creative and shaping ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... must depend chiefly on the method of agreement, except in such cases as will be mentioned below where a change in policy has the same effect as an experiment. Here, however, one must not forget that in all matters human the incalculable clement of human nature enters to complicate all results, and that emotion ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... seriously complicate the screen and storm-window problem, and expert planning is necessary. The durability of screens depends mostly upon their care or abuse, but if it can be afforded, copper wire will usually last sufficiently longer to repay its additional cost. Metal ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... grow freely. In this work there are many details connected with the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as to present a series of settling basins, etc., a description of which would only complicate the conception. Through the larger part of the river works of contraction will not be required, but nearly all the banks on the concave side of the beds must be held against the wear of the stream, and much of the opposite banks ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... picture of the life beyond. They despise documents which cannot be proved, and they do not, in my opinion, sufficiently realise that a general agreement of testimony, and the already established character of a witness, are themselves arguments for truth. Some complicate the question by predicating the existence of a fourth dimension in that world, but the term is an absurdity, as are all terms which find no corresponding impression in the human brain. We have mysteries enough to solve without gratuitously introducing fresh ones. When solid passes ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... something further to complicate matters, and superinduce sickness in a delicate girl. To escape to the hills the good people of Arles could not follow a road, for the whole district between them and the range of Les Alpines was ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... "They would be of no use to us in a row and might even complicate matters. Call in the Zulus who are watching ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... me. At the time this note must have been given to the reporter, the President had an elaborate letter from me, in which I discussed the whole case, and advised against the very course he has pursued, but I don't want that letter or any other to be drawn out to complicate ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... jewel—he was rather complacently sure it was antique—attached to it in front. Mrs. Newsome's dress was never in any degree "cut down," and she never wore round her throat a broad red velvet band: if she had, moreover, would it ever have served so to carry on and complicate, as he ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... replied the girl steadily, "I should only fall in love with him again, and that would complicate matters." ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... scorn, yet felt vaguely exalted by it, as by the organ in St. Paul's, and strange tears of shame came to complicate her emotions further. She remembered how she had been exported from Poland to marry the unseen S. Cohn. Ah! how this new young generation was snapping asunder the ancient coils! how the new and diviner ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... sand-eel and shark,—in the Articulata, between the common crab and the Daphnia{479},—between the Aphis and butterfly, and between a mite and a spider{480}. Now the observation just made, namely, that selection might tend to simplify, as well as to complicate, explains this; for we can see that during the endless geologico-geographical changes, and consequent isolation of species, a station occupied in other districts by less complicated animals might be left unfilled, and be occupied by a degraded form of a higher ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... at all, it is often asked, should sexual intercourse be continued after fecundation has been clearly ascertained? This has not always been found an easy question to answer, for in the human couple many considerations combine to complicate the answer. Even the Catholic theologians have not been entirely in agreement on this point. Clement of Alexandria said that when the seed had been sown the field must be left till harvest. But it may be concluded that, as a rule, the Church was inclined to regard ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... in all the parts of Britain where Belgic names occurred, and still more that they were Germans, is an unsafe inference; safe, perhaps, if the two texts of Caesar stood alone, but unsafe, if we take into consideration the numerous facts, statements, and presumptions which complicate and oppose them. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... mixed with tribes. As a result, new relations and new industries, especially of trade, were established, and the new associations of tribe with tribe and of the Indians with Europeans led very often to the development of quite elaborate jargon languages. All of these have a tendency to complicate the study of the Indian tongues ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... bayonets under his nose. Halt! No fooling, Joseph Rouletabille, of "L'Epoque." A subaltern came from a guard-house and advanced toward him. Explanation evidently was going to be difficult. The young man saw that if he demanded to see the Tsar, they would think him crazed and that would further complicate matters. He asked for the Grand-Marshal of the Court. They replied that he could get the Marshal's address in Tsarskoie. But the subaltern turned his head. He saw someone advancing. It was the Grand-Marshal himself. Some exceptional service called him, without doubt, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... in to complicate the problems of population. Some nations, like Spain in the sixteenth and Ireland in the nineteenth century, have lost immensely through emigration. The cause of this was doubtless not that the nation in question was growing absolutely poorer, but that the increase of wealth or in accessibility ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... young woman looked even prettier than she had done on the eve of that manoeuvre and gave no sign of an awkward consciousness. She again so struck me as a charming clever girl that I was freshly puzzled to know why we should get—or should have got—into a tangle about her. People had to want to complicate a situation to do it on so simple a pretext as that Linda was in every way beautiful. This was the clear fact: so why shouldn't the presumptions be in favour of every result of it? One of the effects of that cause, on the spot, was that at the end of a very short time Archie proposed to her to ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James

... invest in a sample of each new golfing invention as soon as it makes its appearance. If you do you will only complicate and spoil your game and encumber your locker with much useless rubbish. Of course some new inventions are good, but it is usually best to wait a little while to see whether any considerable section of the golfing public approves of them before rushing ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... company are getting a good bargain as it is, and one which of themselves, they could not possibly secure from the government. I write you this note in case you should run across Colonel Thorp in town to-morrow, and inadvertently say something that might complicate matters. I have no doubt that we shall be able to close the ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... medium through which we reach the external facts he reports. The aim of criticism is to determine whether the author has reported the facts correctly. If he has given inexact information, it is indifferent whether he did so intentionally or not; to draw a distinction would complicate matters unnecessarily. There is thus little occasion to make a separate examination of an author's good faith, and we may shorten our labours by including in a single set of questions all the causes ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... in toil and poverty, he had never had the time to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to complicate his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of increasing his little fortune, he carried, every three months, to his notary, Cardot, his quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary had received about three thousand francs he invested them ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac

... 1848.—* * * Of other circumstances which complicate my position I cannot write. Were you here, I would confide in you fully, and have more than once, in the silence of the night, recited to you those most strange and romantic chapters in the story of ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... the Channel. The principal reason why this is so is to be found in the totally different status of political parties in the two countries. In Great Britain, while in later years small political groups have sprung up to complicate the situation, the political life of the nation is still confined very largely to the two great rival parties, which oppose to each other a fairly united front, and between which there is not likely to be anything like fusion or affiliation. In France, on the contrary, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... of the air of a clinical professor expounding to his class. "Just sit in the corner there, that your footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In the first place, how did these folk come, and how did they go? The door has not been opened since last night. How of the window?" He carried the lamp across to it, muttering his observations ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... payments are carried out. Nobody can deny that some improvement is possible in this respect, but it may very well be doubted whether, at the present moment, when very serious problems of rebuilding have inevitably to be faced and solved, it is advisable to complicate them by introducing this difficult question which, whenever it is raised, will require the most careful and ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... man but as a Moslem, then he divides the Moslem from the non-Moslem exactly as he divides the man from the camel. But even then he recognises the equality of men in the sense of the equality of Moslems. He does not, for instance, complicate his conscience with any sham science about races. In this he has something like an intellectual advantage over the Jew, who is generally so much his intellectual superior; and even in some ways his spiritual superior. ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... England and Scotland,—such are the heroes of a dark age. [Here is an example of suspended meaning, where the suspense intensifies the effect, because each particular is vividly apprehended in itself, and all culminate in the conclusion; they do not complicate the thought, or puzzle us, they only heighten expectation]. In such an age bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior. At Landen two poor sickly beings, who, in a rude state of society, would have been regarded as too puny to bear any ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... the sad product of his illness of body, to fight against his friend, to battle against his one chance of recovery? That would complicate matters. That—Isaacson clearly recognized it—would place him at so grave a disadvantage that it might render his position impossible. What had been the scene last night after he had left the Loulia? How had it affected the sick man? Again he seemed to hear that dreadful laughter, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... at best; I don't trust them. Of course such precautions would exonerate me from all blame and relieve my Government from any responsibility for injury to you, but, nevertheless, it would tend to complicate relations already strained. You see I am quite honest with you." The general allowed time for his words to sink in; then he sighed once more. "I wish you could find another climate equally beneficial to your rheumatism. It would ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... this not so. I have been over the whole ground again and again, since sunset. We—you and I—are powerless. This story is either true or false. If what we have read really happened, what could arise from our correspondence with the offender against honor and virtue? It would but complicate difficulties. If he is unjustly accused, he can prove it, and put his slanderers to shame without our promptings. Our interference would be an intimation ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... close to the anus, as a fistula-in-ano. Intestinal fistulae are sometimes met with in the abdominal wall after strangulated hernia, operations for appendicitis, tuberculous peritonitis, and other conditions. In the perineum, fistulae frequently complicate stricture of ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... they found no iconoclasm of this kind in her teaching. They came to scoff and stopped, not indeed to pray, but to listen very attentively to a theme which has so much to be said in its favour that it is a pity to complicate its advocacy by the introduction of an extraneous and most difficult question. So it was, however; with pale, earnest face, and accents more incisive than before, Praxagora said if Bible and religion stood in the way of Woman's Rights, then Bible and religion ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... complicate matters unduly, the recurrence of solar eclipses alone will first be dealt with. This limitation will, however, not affect the arguments in the slightest, and it will be all the more easy in consequence to show their application to the case of ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... crowded altars, tir'd Of Votaries, who for trite ideas thrown Into loose verse, assume, in lofty tone, The Poet's name, untaught, and uninspir'd, Indignant struck the LYRE.—Straight it acquir'd New powers, and complicate. Then first was known The rigorous Sonnet, to be fram'd alone By duteous Bards, or by just Taste admir'd.— Go, energetic SONNET, go, he cried, And be the test of skill!—For rhymes that flow Regardless of thy rules, their destin'd guide, Yet take thy name, ah! let the boasters know That with ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... his first wife, to be married to her after the Christian form, having made a satisfactory pecuniary arrangement with the second, who was a sister of the first. In this case there were no children to complicate settlement. After I had addressed the church upon their duty of doing more for the support of their pastor, even as I had betimes had to do before in white home missionary churches, the several responses were as decorous and assuring ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various

... people Sundays—I'll tell Mrs. Woodyard," and before she could reply he had slipped over to Conny. That lady glanced at Isabelle, smiled on Cairy, and nodded. What she said to Cairy was: "So you've got a new interest. Take care, Tommy,—you'll complicate your life!" But apparently she did not regard Isabelle seriously; for presently she was saying to her, "Mrs. Bertram wants me to bring you around with us this afternoon,—you'll ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... must be in condition to assume and discharge the obligation which such rights impose. When any power, insurgent or recognized, claims such right,—the right to fly its flag, to deal in hostility with the commerce of the world, to exercise dangerous privileges which may affect the interests and complicate the relations of other nations,—it must give to the world a guaranty that it is both able and willing to administer the system of maritime law under which it claims such rights and powers, by submitting its action to the regular and formal ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... Fernando, a child of nine, the situation was most perplexing for the queen-mother, who had been made regent, by the terms of her husband's will, until Fernando should become of age. A further matter which tended to complicate the situation was the fact that the marriage between Sancho and Maria had never been sanctioned by the pope, as the two were within the forbidden limits of consanguinity, and he had refused to grant his special dispensation. With this doubt as to her son's legitimacy, Maria ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... but as you keep at it, you will be able to picture yourself the way you want. You use the visual-imagery technique whether you think you are under hypnosis or not. These images become clear as you constantly hammer home these suggestions. This is the exact procedure necessary, and you needn't complicate it. ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... increased, but she was not agitated. She seemed to become gloomy, disapproving. 'I could not entertain such an idea at this time of life,' she said after a moment or two. 'It would complicate matters too greatly. I have a very fair income, and require no help of any sort. I have no wish to marry . . . What could have induced you to come on such an errand now? It seems quite extraordinary, if ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... who must go to work the moment she can obtain her working papers (about fourteen years of age) with an enlightened apprenticeship in some productive occupation. Such training cannot be obtained satisfactorily in the market. The immature workers are present there in such large numbers that they complicate the industrial problem by their poverty and inability, and thus tend to lower the wage. Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, says these untrained girls "enter industry at its most painful point, where the trades are already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman

... The rigging and arrangement of these praus contrasts strangely with that of European vessels, in which the various ropes and spars, though much more numerous, are placed so as not to interfere with each other's action. Here the case is quite different; for though there are no shrouds or stays to complicate the matter, yet scarcely anything can be done without first clearing something else out of the way. The large sails cannot be shifted round to go on the other tack without first hauling down the jibs, and the booms of the fore and aft ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... "I think you did splendidly. Sherlock Holmes couldn't have done better." I got up and walked to the end of the cockpit. "But good Lord!" I added, "this does complicate matters. You're absolutely certain it was McMurtrie ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... the cutaneous capillaries; or when any of them are previously affected with torpor, and the external or cutaneous capillaries are affected secondarily; other symptoms are produced, which render the paroxysms of fever still more complicate. Thus if the spleen or pancreas are primarily or secondarily affected, so as to be rendered torpid or quiescent, they are liable to become enlarged, and to remain so even after the extinction of the fever-fit. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... be pure forgery, or the police could have learned about it through the treachery of the servant she sent to the Embassy with it. It would be worthwhile to know. He headed toward the home of her father. If she were loyal to him—why it would complicate things considerably. But he felt it necessary to ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... dear." Carefully he dissected a sand-dab and removed the backbone. "I'd give a ripe peach to learn the identity of the scheming buttinsky who bought old Cardigan's Valley of the Giants," he said presently. "I'll be hanged if that doesn't complicate ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... to complicate the interpretations of my condition and I want above all things to cease dwelling so selfishly upon it. There is no need of looking for unaccountable voids, longings and the like. I have been unhappy and shattered ever since Mama died. My own nature gives ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff



Words linked to "Complicate" :   sophisticate, modify, refine, elaborate, involve, rarify, embrangle, alter, snarl, complexify, complication, snarl up, develop, change, perplex



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