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Foregone conclusion   /fˈɔrgˈɔn kənklˈuʒən/   Listen
Foregone conclusion

noun
1.
An inevitable ending.  Synonym: matter of course.
2.
Something that is certain.  Synonyms: certainty, sure thing.






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"Foregone conclusion" Quotes from Famous Books



... in renewing the charter of the East India Company. Mill appeared as the advocate of the company, defended their policy, and argued against the demands of the commercial body which demanded the final suppression of the old trading monopoly of the Company. The abolition, indeed, was a foregone conclusion; but Mill's view was not in accordance with the doctrines of the thoroughgoing freetraders. His official experience, it seems, upon this and other matters deterred him from the a priori dogmatism too characteristic of his political speculations. Mill also suggested the formation of a legislative ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... belief of peaceable secession, they expressed their sentiments truly in the declaration that 'they would not remain in the Union, were a blank sheet of paper presented, and they permitted to write their own terms.' This declaration merely characterized the foregone conclusion. It was the evidence of a previous determination, merely withheld for a season, in order to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... alone 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. France ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... unlucky old trooper, who had risen from the lowest grades, 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 ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... returned in the election of 1637. The victory was a crucial one. The erratic Vane went off to England; Cotton returned to his first allegiance; and when the cause of all the trouble was cited to appear before the court in the fall of the same year, the decree of banishment was a foregone conclusion. Like Luther before the diet, Anne Hutchinson pressed for reasons—"I desire to know wherefore I am banished." It was in the spirit of the Roman Church that Governor Winthrop replied—"say no more; the Court knows wherefore, and ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... principles and policies. But disgusted Liberals either returned to the Republican ranks or stayed away from the polls, and many Democrats did likewise. Under these circumstances the reelection of Grant was a foregone conclusion. There was certainly a potential majority against Grant, but the opposition had failed to organize, while the Republican machine was in good working order, the Negroes were voting, and the Enforcement Acts proved a great aid to the ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... ended his story. He received praise from all sides and it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that he would get the prize. The majority thought it almost a pity that Clement had ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... thought went on in France during the middle of the eighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by historians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone conclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction and to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises, that the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical, and destructive. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... act in a manner directly opposite. I very assiduously laboured to make him promise, upon his honour, he would not seek redress by duelling; but in vain. He answered by evasion; with all possible desire to have obliged me, but with a foregone conclusion that it could ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... Tatyana Grigoryevna Zarubkin was one of the most looked-up-to of the ladies. She invariably played the most important part at all the regimental affairs—the amateur theatricals, the social evenings, the afternoon teas. If the captain's wife was not to be present, it was a foregone conclusion that the affair would ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... save her life if she thought the Squire was going to suffer. Now she wants him to put his hand into his pocket for a considerable amount; for the child cannot go to my brother without suitable clothes—that is a foregone conclusion. But, dear me! all women are selfish when it comes to mere pleasure, and Nora is no better than the rest. For my part, I admire dear Terence's downright method of asking for so-and-so, and getting it. Nora is deceitful. I am much ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... so complicated causes for disquietude saddened extraordinarily the venerable father, Vice-provincial Fray de San Geronimo. He, upon seeing his edifice being destroyed gradually in this manner, and that its ruin was a foregone conclusion by such measures, determined, notwithstanding his age, and the catastrophes that usually happened, to return to Espana, in order to solicit and promote the quiet of his reformed branch, and help for the preaching and conservation of the Indians, by communicating in person to the Catholic ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... it was a foregone conclusion that if the suicide theory was exploded, these men would ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... 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 ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... because their own ferocity and intractable indolence made it impossible that they should exist in its presence. Either the plastic energies of a higher race or the servile pliancy of a lower one would, each in its way, have preserved them: as it was, their extinction was a foregone conclusion. As for the religion which the Jesuits taught them, however Protestants may carp at it, it was the only form of Christianity likely to take root in their crude and ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... and aristocratic: Walter Scott, who is an aristocrat in principle, is popular in his writings, and is (as it were) equally servile to nature and to opinion. The genius of Sir Walter is essentially imitative, or "denotes a foregone conclusion:" that of Lord Byron is self-dependent; or at least requires no aid, is governed by no law, but the impulses of its own will. We confess, however much we may admire independence of feeling and erectness ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... Judiciary Committee wore fresh waistcoats, pinks in their buttonholes, and a genial air—and had not the least idea of granting the suffragists anything except a benignant hearing. The report of "ought not to pass" was a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... gone to all this trouble," spoke up the fair and spirited Mollie, "only for that silly letter my friend in Harmony wrote me, saying that it was a foregone conclusion Harmony would sweep the earth this year because their team had been terribly strengthened. In fact she gave me to understand that everything, even to the crepe, had been ordered for poor little new beginner Chester. It kept me awake most all last night; and ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... resolutions applied "with full force against the powers assumed by Congress" in passing acts to protect manufactures and to further internal improvements. That the Administration would meet with opposition in Congress, whatever its program might be, was a foregone conclusion. The only question was whether the diverse and mutually hostile factions which had followed the fortunes of Crawford, Calhoun, and Jackson could coalesce into a consistent opposition. The first test occurred when the Administration proposed ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... views, the same lofty Logos theory that is so abundantly set forth in the writings of Philo Judaus. He reports and describes the Savior in conformity with such a theological postulate. Possessed with the foregone conclusion that Jesus was the Divine Logos, descended from the celestial abode, and born into the world as a man, in endeavoring to write out from memory, years after they were uttered, the Savior's words, it is ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the better even of his buffoonery" (Letter to Balguy, dated "Inner Temple, 19th March, 1751.") That Fielding had not long before been dangerously ill, and that he was a martyr to gout, is fact: the rest is probably no more than the echo of a foregone conclusion, based upon report, or dislike to his works. Hurd praised Richardson and proscribed Sterne. He must have been wholly out of sympathy with the author of ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... reply, which he seemed to consider a foregone conclusion, he limped down the Kohl Markt towards the steps leading to the river, which in winter is ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... them. Nothing in the situation had changed. The fear that Madeleine had lost her love for Phil had never troubled him for an instant. Women's hearts did not beat that way. That Phil's future was assured once he got his feet under him was also a foregone conclusion. What Mr. Eggleston thought about it was another matter, and yet not a serious one. He might be ugly for a time—would be—but that was to be expected in a man who had lost his special capital, a son-in-law and considerable of his reputation at one blow. What had evidently ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... 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 who were at the convention were ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... probably have to advertise for them. As to the commuting gentleman: before his first ticket was all punched up, he would be ready to vow that the commuter's life is the only ideal existence. Having thus offered unattackable arguments, I deem a decision in our favour a foregone conclusion, and I take ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... present appearance of matters, this seemed not very difficult of accomplishment, as it was a foregone conclusion upon the part of the hunters that the savages would endeavor to ford the river at the point where they lay in ambush for them. It only remained for the Riflemen to bide their time, and, at the proper moment, rush upon and scatter them, and rescue ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... was in those days writing those vividly realistic, indeed photographic stories which fixed his place among American men of letters. He had already written 'Their Wedding Journey' and 'A Chance Acquaintance' when 'A Foregone Conclusion' appeared. For the reason that his own work was so different, and perhaps because of his fondness for the author, Clemens always greatly admired the books of Howells. Howells's exact observation and his gift for human detail seemed marvelous to Mark Twain, who with a bigger brush ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Encouragement. [1] [Footnote 1: Stewart Edward White, the author and big game hunter, has so entered into the spirit of archery, that he has become an expert shot with the bow after a year's practice. The use of fire-arms no longer appeals to him because it is a foregone conclusion just what will happen when he aims at an animal. He was considered by Col. Roosevelt to be the best shot that ever entered the African game ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... contributor to the best American papers and magazines, and was for a number of years editor of the Atlantic Monthly; an excellent journalist, poet, and critic, it is yet as a novelist—witty, graceful, and acute—that he is best known; "A Chance Acquaintance," "A Foregone Conclusion," "A Modern Instance," "An Indian Summer" are among his more popular ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... a lower figure," said Mr. Eastman promptly. "We must get command of trade again. Prices will come down,—that is a foregone conclusion. The abundant harvests have glutted the market, and living will be cheaper. The laborer can live on less; and, if we can manufacture at less cost, we shall ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... noticed that the examination was conducted in the form of questions put by the magistrate, Hathorne, based upon a foregone conclusion of the prisoner's guilt, and expressive of a conviction, all along on his part, that the evidence of "the afflicted" against her amounted to, and was, absolute demonstration. It will also be noticed, that, severe as was the opinion of her husband in reference ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... de Louis XVI. Precede par sa lettre d'envoi au President de la Convention. Imprime par ordre de la Convention Nationale. A Paris. De l'Imprimerie Nationale." Lamartine has censured Paine for this speech; but the trial of the King was a foregone conclusion, and it will be noted that Paine was already trying to avert popular wrath from the individual man by directing it against the general league of monarchs, and the monarchal system. Nor would his plea for the King's life have been listened to but ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... 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 ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... might by skill or luck get one jury to disagree, but acquittal was hopeless; and the prosecution could go on trying me until they found a jury sufficiently orthodox to ensure a verdict of guilty. It was a foregone conclusion. The prosecution played, "Heads I win, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... on to the corner, take stock of the woman, and come to a standstill before her. I smile, nod as to an acquaintance, and shape my words as if it were a foregone conclusion that ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... now a foregone conclusion, for the cowboys had solved the difficult problem of attack. Mushrooming out on either side at a distance of three hundred yards, they formed again in the shelter on either side and charged ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... Western nations. If Russia had succeeded in stemming the flood of adverse fortune in spite of this millstone round her neck, what might she not accomplish when free and untrammelled? All sections of the literary world had arguments to offer in support of the foregone conclusion. The moralists declared that all the prevailing vices were the product of serfage, and that moral progress was impossible in an atmosphere of slavery; the lawyers held that the arbitrary authority of the proprietors ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... England, and a British fleet gathered in Boston Harbour. On October 5 (New Style) this expedition arrived before Port Royal. The troops landed and laid siege once more to the much-harassed capital of Acadia. The result was a foregone conclusion. Five days later preliminary proposals were exchanged between Nicholson and Subercase. The starving inhabitants petitioned Subercase to give up. He held out, however, till the cannonade of the enemy told him that he must soon yield to ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... longed for active operations. About two weeks after the cessation of active operations, the official documents which announced his promotion to the rank of first lieutenant came down to the army; but this was a foregone conclusion. He had won his first bar by his scouting services, and his commission was expected for a fortnight before its arrival. It did not, therefore, cause him any surprise; and was so small an elevation, that his comrades hardly congratulated ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... this metaphysical inquiry seems perhaps to be involved in the very idea of criticism, and necessary for drawing the moral from the history; yet the independence of our historical inquiry ought to be sacrificed as little as possible to illustrate a foregone conclusion. It will be more satisfactory to present the evidence for a verdict without undue advocacy of a ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... Saunders cried, enthusiastically. "You did more with that speech than a dozen conventions of men and women could have done. You hit the nail square on the head. You won. The bill will pass like a flash. It is a foregone conclusion." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... hands of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and Ghirlandaio, as we shall see, under similar circumstances, placed him on the wrong side of the table. In either case, but particularly perhaps in Taddeo's picture, the answer to Christ's question, which Leonardo at Milan makes so dramatic, is a foregone conclusion. The "Crucifixion" on the end wall, at the left, is interesting as having been painted for the Porta S. Gallo (in the Piazza Cavour) and removed here. All the gates of Florence had religious frescoes in them, some of which still remain. The great bronze bishop ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... Others, like Beethoven and Olive Fremstad, work and rework their material in the closet until it approaches perfection, when they expose it. To say that there are bad actors following in the footsteps of both these types of geniuses is to be axiomatic and trite. It would be a foregone conclusion. Just as there are musicians who write as easily as Mozart but who have nothing to say, so there are other musicians who write and rewrite, work and rework, study and restudy, and yet what they ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... Hill and Ewell 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

... give him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... is a foregone conclusion. Tell her all, if you like; but let us be prepared for the answer. When she denies the right of your heart to choose its own mate, then rise up in the might of your womanhood and defy her. Tell her, "I love him, and be he rich or poor, I will share his fate;" tell her boldly, bravely, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... exchanged 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 an ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... 'foregone conclusion,'" she said, "it is a 'foregone conclusion' that if I HAD been here, I'd have picked the blackberries, and so I'd have had the first chance ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... other conditions Millicent Porthcawl's sharp wits could scarcely have failed to ferret out the truth. Even if Cynthia were present it was almost a foregone conclusion that the girl would have told how Fitzroy joined her. The luncheon provided for a missing aunt, the crest on the silver and linen, the style of the Mercury, a chance allusion to this somewhat remarkable chauffeur's knowledge of the South Downs and of Bournemouth, would surely have put ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... an overturned lantern should do the work. Every imaginable fear presented itself, because, having no active part in the fighting, I had nothing to distract me from self-criticism. It became almost a foregone conclusion after a while that the night's work was destined to be spoiled entirely by some oversight or stupidity ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... the smashing of their fists. But the end of the fight was a foregone conclusion. Jeter had a bruised jaw. Eyer's nose was bleeding and one eye was closed when the reception committee finally came to close quarters, smothered them by sheer weight of numbers, and made them prisoners. Jeter's right wrist was manacled to Eyer's left with a pair of ordinary steel ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks

... implied in the privilege of suffrage, or a stolid unconsciousness of the result which may depend upon its exercise in this particular election, did we not believe that it arose chiefly from the general persuasion that the success of the Republican party was a foregone conclusion. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... 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

... had been from the first a foregone conclusion. James having been fatally prejudiced against him before that royal pedant ever set foot in England, to which fact the secret correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil with James VI. of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... lesson of a great, a true, human and 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

... be asked, what these conditions are to be. And that is not to be answered in a breath. That they can have but one result, emancipation, is a foregone conclusion; but the mode of reaching it is not so easily determined. A cotton-loaded ship took fire at sea. It would have been easy to pump in water enough to drown the fire. But the captain said, "No," for that would swell the bales to such an extent as to open every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... a brief confusion To obstinate foregone conclusion, Prejudice, routed most dismally, Will quickly to Unreason rally. And so the one side would remark That for a grey 'twas wondrous dark; The other side did more than hint They never saw so light a tint; "Deep iron-grey!" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... not trouble himself much in regard to Lincoln's second election, for he saw that it was a foregone conclusion; but after Andrew Johnson's treachery in 1866, he felt there was a need of unusual exertion. When the November elections arrived, he told his classes: "Next Tuesday I shall have to serve my country and there will be no recitations." When Tuesday came we found ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... could not comprehend the apathy assumed by the factitious Mole. That the apathy was assumed Chauvelin was keen enough to guess. What it portended he could not conjecture. But that the Englishman would make a desperate attempt at escape was, of course, a foregone conclusion. It rested with Hebert and a guard that could neither be bribed nor fooled into treachery, to see that such ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... not feel any concern in the matter; with the forces now concentrated up there in the Yellowstone country, the result is a foregone conclusion. The Indians will simply be surrounded and starved ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... another deafening outburst, and Blaine was nominated amidst great enthusiasm. After I withdrew General Logan's name and cast the vote for Blaine the result was a foregone conclusion. ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... His human instrument. It is a thing we should be led to expect if it did not exist; as is fully proved by Paine's saying about its being written on the sun. How convincingly, then, is the truth forced home on us, when we do learn that there is an institution that exactly fulfils our foregone conclusion! ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... sup. The Latin word luscus, as well as the Italian losco, means, I believe, near-sighted; but it certainly means also a great deal more; and unless the word cernis (thou beholdest) is a mere form of speech implying a foregone conclusion, it shews that the defect was obvious ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... Egypt were pushing on toward Jerusalem and it seemed that it was only the question of time until the Holy City would fall. Once Turkish rule there had been broken, it was a foregone conclusion that the Ottomans would ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... 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

... him from Seffuriyeh. It was July, and the Crusaders were absolutely without water; the Saracens, with Lake Tiberias at their back, had abundance. The Crusaders, suffering terribly from thirst, nevertheless attacked. The result of the battle was a foregone conclusion. Here, at the Horns of Hattin, the Mount of Beatitudes, was the Crusaders' army destroyed and the power of the Christian completely crushed. Jerusalem itself, after a short, fierce struggle, fell in ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... paradise upon a rough New England farm is no pastime. But with the best intention, and much practical knowledge and industry and devotion, there was in the nature of the case an inevitable lack of method, and the economical failure was almost a foregone conclusion. But there was never such witty potato-patches and such sparkling cornfields before or since. The weeds were scratched out of the ground to the music of Tennyson or Browning, and the nooning was an hour as gay and bright ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... a lady whom she had seen but twice before in her life, who had promised to establish her in a good private family in Paris. And since Mrs. Hamilton Hicks had negotiated the arrangement, its success was a foregone conclusion. ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... the South, and indeed with the people of the whole country, divided between three parties, the election of a Republican candidate was a foregone conclusion. Following this came secession, with all the terrible disasters of a war in which the South could not have hoped to succeed if reason and common sense had ruled. If the South had fought for her constitutional rights in the Union and under ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... It was a foregone conclusion that he should decline their invitation, and he did so; but the mere occasion for doing it gave his mind an impetus in the direction in which he had been able hitherto to check it. He began again to think of the feminine, to dream of it, to long for it. For ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... is a foregone conclusion, Sire, in the Yndias more than in other regions, that he who shall govern uprightly will have many rivals; for those who generally come hither come with the desire to hoard up riches. That is the cause which draws them from their native place; but, as wealth ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... The assault had been resolute, as the casualties testify, "one regiment alone losing sixty-four men in as many seconds" (Wheaton); but the darkness, and uncertainty of our officers with regard to the position, made its failure almost a foregone conclusion. This was about daylight. "The force displayed by the enemy was sufficient to show that the intrenchments could not be carried except at ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... a moment, and held it there with tender kisses. Nor did Berkeley, to whom his mother communicated the fact, volunteer any comment to his sister. After what had passed, Thorne's proposal was not a surprise, and to them the girl's answer was a foregone conclusion. Poor child! the brother thought impatiently, the mother wistfully, how much bitterness would have been spared her could she ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... mouth and eyes convulsively, but only uttered a gasp, and Agatha proceeded calmly, "I am polite to him, which you never are. When he speaks to me I allow him to finish his sentence without expressing, as you do, a foregone conclusion that it is not worth attending to. I do not yawn and talk whilst he is singing. When he converses with me on art or literature, about which he knows twice as much as I do, and at least ten times as much as you." (Jane gasped again) "I do not make a silly answer ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... by the one passion of clannish allegiance to the family past. She knew that Rowan's attentions had continued so long and had been so marked, that her grandmother had accepted marriage between them as a foregone conclusion, and in letters had disseminated these prophecies through the family connection. Other letters had even come back to Isabel, containing evidence only too plain that Rowan had been discussed and accepted in domestic councils. Against all inward protests of delicacy, she had been forced ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... news of Wellington's defeat would reach London to-morrow, as it had already reached Paris and Brussels. The panic in the money market was a foregone conclusion: the quick rise in prices when the truth became known was equally certain. It only meant forestalling the arrival of Wellington's despatches in London by four and twenty hours, and one million would ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... he has any knowledge of it. Each district has a freigraf, or presiding judge, assisted by seven assessors, or freischoffen, who sit in so called judgment with him, but literally they merely record the sentence, for condemnation is a foregone conclusion." ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... foregone conclusion," she wrote; "and although I cannot think such a change will be for her permanent welfare, it is her present WISH, and who knows, indeed, if the change will be permanent? I have not allowed the legal ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... further than to show the mere possibility of the 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 still cherish the belief that there are eyes to see ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... have shrunk from doing what their Judgment told them was wrong; and, the thing once through Congress, Legislatures hastened to ratify in the feeling that ratification by the requisite number of Legislatures was manifestly a foregone conclusion. Thus at no stage of the game was there given to this tremendous Constitutional departure anything even distantly approaching the kind of consideration that such a step demands. The country was jockeyed and ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin

... 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 to straighten matters out if he were actually ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... 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 whom was Mr. Stearns. A well-organized plan was made to rescue him, conducted by a brave man from ...
— 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

... gazing at her miserably, filling his heart, his senses, for the last time, with a view of her soft and perfect loveliness. Then, in a kinder tone, "I hope you will be happy, and"—slowly—"he too, though that is a foregone conclusion." He pales a little here, and stops as though half choking. "Yes, he has my best wishes,—for your sake," he goes on, unsteadily. "Tell him so from me, though we have not been good friends ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... Sumner and Phillips were something more than self-seeking agitators, and many declared them true patriots. In every town and city, in every Northern State, political clubs sprang into being and their battle-cry was "Seward!" It seemed to be a foregone conclusion that Seward would be the next President. When the convention met, the first ballot showed one hundred seventy-three votes for Seward and one hundred two for Lincoln, the rest, scattering. But Seward's friends had marshaled their entire strength—all the rest was opposition—while ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... concern was with the discovery of Blair's murderer, and thereby the freeing of his sister's fiance. These accomplished he would consider the case of his own restored identity, if it were not by that time a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... return to Jacksonville I went by way of Bybee's ferry, on Rogue river, and learned that about three weeks previous to that time a band of two thousand head of sheep had crossed over the ferry, driven by two men. Now it was almost a foregone conclusion that some one had murdered McMahon and driven his band of sheep away, and when I returned to Jacksonville there was no little excitement about the city in regard to McMahon. Some of the business men ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... 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 ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... demanded Mr. Redmond, looking as though he had regarded such a disposition of the treasure as a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... at the head of the Managing Board of Trustees, the successful commencement of the Institution is a foregone conclusion. The Board is composed of some of the best men of the Nation—men, some of them unequalled in their various spheres. The United States will soon boast for its disabled defenders Institutions (for the present management ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Colonel Olcott, the President Founder of Theosophy, in 1907, Mrs. Besant became his successor. So far as the Indian vote was concerned, this was a foregone conclusion; since her avowed sympathy with Hinduism in all its forms had gained for her a strong place in ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... Eve was to come, and it was a foregone conclusion even in that early age that when she did appear she would want some one to hold her bouquet, open the door for her, button her gloves, tell her she was pretty and sweet and "I never saw a woman like you ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... the Commission on the League of Nations prior to its report of February 14 and with the few hours given to debating the substance and language of the Covenant, the inferior character of the document produced by the Commission ought not to be a matter of wonder. It was a foregone conclusion that it would be found defective. Some of these defects were subsequently corrected, but the theory and basic principles, which were the chief defects in the plan, were preserved with no ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... 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 my decision as to my son's future—it ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... that the international situation was not so simple as it seemed; that while the South had powerful friends abroad, it also had powerful foes; that the British anti-slavery party was a more formidable enemy than he had expected it to be; and that intervention was not a foregone conclusion. The task of an unrecognized ambassador being too annoying for him, Yancey was relieved at his own request and Mason was sent out to take his place. A singular little incident like a dismal prophecy occurred as Yancey was on his ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... for the elections, for which every preparation had been made by the government and the local authorities. It was at the beginning of the campaign, and the Bolsheviki had their own candidates in the field in many places. It was a foregone conclusion that the Constituent Assembly brought into being by the universal suffrage would be dominated by Socialists. There was never the slightest fear that it would be dominated by the bourgeois parties. What followed is best told in the exact language of a protest to the International ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... games would result was a foregone conclusion; and it is to be hoped that we shall have the privilege of meeting the readers of this volume in the pages of subsequent books, where some of those exciting happenings may be set down in an ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... loved her poet more than ever; she dreamed of a sublime statue of Marshal Montcornet. Montcornet would be the embodied ideal of bravery, the type of the cavalry officer, of courage a la Murat. Yes, yes; at the mere sight of that statue all the Emperor's victories were to seem a foregone conclusion. And then such workmanship! The pencil was accommodating and answered to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... stared through the window at the darkness. Jerry had the pictures and story and there seemed to be nothing else to do except to cover the hearing that would follow. The results were a foregone conclusion. Trawler skipper admits he ran ship aground while ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... had pronounced the 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

... no more than this, that every precaution had been taken to give the Maid the fairest trial. But at the same time a trial which is conducted under the name of the Inquisition is always suspect. The mere fact of that terrible name seems to establish a foregone conclusion; few are the prisoners at that bar who have ever escaped. This fact is almost all that can be set against the high character of the individuals who composed the tribunal. At all events it is no argument ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily understandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness, which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own expansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the superior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come then to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be supposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet he must be one: and oneness is the idea ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... serener air of contented industry than it wore that morning; but in spite of all this smooth outside it was a foregone conclusion with most of the men that Slocum, with Shackford behind him, would never submit to the new scale of wages. There were a few who had protested against these resolutions and still disapproved of them, but were forced to go with the Association, which had really ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... "million population" clubs. I have often heard him declare, when the ladies had left the dining-room, that there was positively no limit to our future growth; and, incidentally, to our future wealth. Such sentiments as these could not fail to add to any man's popularity, and his success was a foregone conclusion. Almost before we knew it he was building the new Union Station of which he had foreseen the need, to take care of the millions to which our population was to be swelled; building the new Post Office that the unceasing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... going to choose some other title than "Institut transformiste," which implies that the Institute is pledged to a foregone conclusion, that it is a workshop devoted to the production of a particular kind of article. Moreover, I should say that as a matter of prudence, you had better keep clear of the word "experimental." Would not "Biological Observatory" serve the turn? Of course it does not exclude ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... tramp was again under control, with a course shaped for land, which lay about ten miles to the S.S.E. It was, however, a foregone conclusion that unless help were speedily forthcoming the ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... life of self-sacrificing effort for the benefit of the vilest and roughest as the highest of privileges. With such a force at command, we dare to say that the accomplishment of this stupendous undertaking is a foregone conclusion, if the material assistance which the Army does ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... is a foregone conclusion that this measure, as one of a series of measures, is to be passed through this Congress regardless of all consequences. But the day that the President of the United States places his approval and signature to that Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and to this bill, he will have signed two acts more dangerous ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... encouraged his editor. Was he sure he was right? If he was, why not go ahead? Bok called his attention to the fact that a heavy loss in circulation was a foregone conclusion; he could calculate upon one hundred thousand subscribers, at least, stopping the magazine. "It is a question of right," answered the publisher, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... say; in other cases, their statements were exaggerated by the reporters. Yet enough remains, after every deduction, to render witches' confessions a very curious mental problem. Was it vision, or monomania, or nervous delusion, all influenced by foregone conclusion? or was it, as the mesmerists seem to hold, an instance of clairvoyance in a high degree? The case of Gaufridi is of this puzzling nature. Gaufridi was a French priest of licentious character, who ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... foregone conclusion that he would go. He knew it before he had read half the note. And when he finished it ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... body, of the respective merits of the two forms of worship. In that memorable discussion, which lasted a whole week, Symmachus, a senator, advocated the old system, and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, the new, which resulting, as a foregone conclusion, in the triumph of Christianity, a decree to that ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... noble speech on this occasion has been preserved for us by Tacitus. "Let them judge," he said, "without regard either for the imperial family or for the family of Piso." The admonition was useless, for his condemnation was a foregone conclusion, despite the absurdity of the charges. The enemies of Tiberius wished to force matters to the uttermost limit in the hope that the famous letters would have to be produced; and they acted with such frenzied hatred and excited public opinion to such a pitch that Piso ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... with remarking that the suit was a mistake in the first place, and that it was a foregone conclusion the government would be defeated. Also, he offered $5,000 to any one who could explain the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... first page of Diana's letter in his hand. The procedure after that was much the same as it had been two nights before, except that the Captain went alone on his search, and the result, with the evidence he held in his hand, was a foregone conclusion from the first. All inquiry terminated in the same answer. No one had set eyes on "Miss Poole" since the previous evening. The last person to speak with her was the stewardess, who, on finding she did not intend going to dinner, had ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... was David Lester's turn. It was a foregone conclusion that he couldn't take the scooter up, alone. Palefaced, he rode double. Ramos was careful this time. But on the downward curve before coming to rest, the change of direction made Lester grab Ramos' arm at a critical ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... prohibiting African slavery, was loudly cheered. In their speeches on taking the chair, both the temporary chairman, Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge of Kentucky, and the permanent chairman, William Dennison of Ohio, treated Mr. Lincoln's nomination as a foregone conclusion, and the applause which greeted his name showed that the delegates did not resent this disregard of customary etiquette. There were, in fact, but three tasks before the convention—to settle the status of contesting delegations, to agree upon a platform, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... so much, it was a foregone conclusion that he would have; and Miss Barrett was at last brought to consent to an engagement. But the difficulties were just begun. Mr. Barrett, adored as he was by his daughter, was more than a little tyrannical, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... alternately on the door and his watch. Perhaps the unwonted seriousness of his attitude struck him, but a sudden sense of the preposterousness of the whole situation, of his solemnly ridiculous acceptance of a series of mere coincidences as a foregone conclusion, overcame him, and he laughed. But in ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... friend the poet, however lonely he was, for preventing this man from registering his vote (the duty of every citizen); but perhaps it matters less, as it was a foregone conclusion, because the losing candidate, either through poverty or sheer madness, had neglected to subscribe to a single ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... men in 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 had been laid of ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... the pack-train from Blue Lick on the way to Charlestown was inevitable, and that the redcoats, invoked by both parties, would doubtless become embroiled with one or the other,—in short, bloodshed was a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... look only to the welfare of the country. In the old days it was a foregone conclusion that this alliance was to be formed. Now, you persist in averring that the late king was the chief conspirator in abducting her serene highness, aided by Arnsberg, whose successor I have the honor to be. I have never yet seen any proofs. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... discarded by the Sons of Liberty in the other colonies, whose assistance we may expect, upon emergencies, in case they find us steady, resolute and faithful." With men like these "to the fore," though independence was scarcely dreamed of, revolution was a foregone conclusion. ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... interest may be maintained up to the fall of the curtain. It may be that its disclosure would upset the conditions of some vast experiment which he is working out. Where would be the interest of a race if its result were a foregone conclusion? Where the passion of a battle if its issue were foreknown? What if we should prove to be somnambulists treading some dizzy edge between two abysses, and able to reach the goal only on condition that we are unconscious of the process? Perhaps the sanest view of the problem ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... heart of anyone who looks into them carefully. They had hardly the least show of justice. There was no regular charge or regular evidence, and no thought whatever of allowing the Accused to bring counter-evidence; the same persons were both accusers and judges; the sentence was a foregone conclusion; and the entire proceedings consisted of a series of devices to force the Accused into some statement which would supply a colourable pretext ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... order to complete the work of salvation. Abelard preached a similar doctrine, but carried away by the fervour of thought, arrived at conclusions which he was forced to recant ignominiously; for at the end of his chain of evidence he did not always find the foregone conclusion which should have been there. This system of a final and infallible knowledge of the world is the very foundation of ecclesiastical government. The priest alone has all knowledge, for he has the doctrine of salvation. Had it occurred to any man to ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... 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 of every man, but he was forced to flee from town to save his life. A prominent citizen ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... us consult a little.' 'Consult! Why should I consult? You have settled everything, you have agreed to everything. You do not come here to consult me; I understand all that; you come here to break a foregone conclusion to a weak and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... the United States, under which this Conference was called together. He said that he could assert, without fear of contradiction, that in those communications the President stated that it was believed to be a foregone conclusion that a prime meridian was desirable; that that was the basis on which the President acted in giving his invitation; that how he came to that conclusion he does not state—whether or not the proceedings at Rome had anything ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various

... planned for, he was incapable of. His idea of statesmanship was that his kingdom was a cask, into which he should insert a spigot and draw. This was government of an ideal order, Philip being judge. The divine right of kings was a foregone conclusion, antagonism to which was heresy. Here let us not blame Philip; for this was the temper of his era, and to have anticipated in him larger views than those of his contemporaries is not just. To this notion was his whole nature keyed. He commanded ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... the government long in taking a position. That it should be hostile was a foregone conclusion. Francis hated Lutheranism because he believed that it tended more to the overthrow of kingdoms and monarchies than to the edification of souls. He told Aleander, the papal nuncio, that he thought Luther a rascal and his doctrine ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... my part, Maximus Claudius, and you, gentlemen who sit beside him on the bench, I regarded it as a foregone conclusion that Sicinius Aemilianus would for sheer lack of any real ground for accusation cram his indictment with mere vulgar abuse; for the old rascal is notorious for his unscrupulous audacity, and, further, launched forth on his task of bringing me to trial in your court ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... time of his short attendance at University College that the choice of poetry as his future profession was formally made. It was a foregone conclusion in the young Robert's mind; and little less in that of his father, who took too sympathetic an interest in his son's life not to have seen in what direction his desires were tending. He must, it is true, at some time or other, have played with the thought of ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... middle-aged comrade downstairs and take your seat beside her with a flourish, as if you were playing Rudolph to her Flavia. Then for two hours, with your eyes blinded by candlelight and electricity, you eat recklessly as you grimace first over your left shoulder and then over your right. It is a foregone conclusion that you will have a headache by the time you have turned, with a sensation of momentary relief, to your "fair ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... returning from a long ride that had lasted all day, he had entered with the desire to make amends, to win her sweet and gracious forgiveness. She had forgiven him before. She had laughed with a sweet, elusive mockery and passed the matter by as of no importance. It had seemed a foregone conclusion that she would forgive him again, would reassure him, and set his mind at rest. But he had come back to an empty house—every door gaping wide and the beloved ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... theologian, whose certainty increases with the mystery and obscurity of his matter; his convictions admit of no qualification; his truth is sure as the axioms of geometry; he knows what he believes, for he has the evidence in his heart; if he enquire, it is with a foregone conclusion, and serious doubt with him is sin. It is in vain to point out to him the thousand forms of opinions for each of which the same internal witness is affirmed. The Mayo peasant crawling with bare knees ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... that he could give sufficed to affect the foregone conclusion that both the Bible and the Pilgrim, containing as they did matter that was offensive to the Queen, were worthy of condemnation, and, therefore, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... verdict was a 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 ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... to forecast the happenings of the next few hours. Murrell's friends would break jail for him, that was a foregone conclusion, but the insurrection he had planned was at an end. Hues had dealt its death blow. Moreover, though the law might be impotent to deal with Murrell, he could not hope to escape the vengeance of the powerful ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... all poor men loved and honored him—Judge Blackburn changed his mind and let him remain. At last the jury was empanelled, containing one man who had loudly proclaimed that he "didn't care what the evidence was, he would hang every d——d Irishman of the lot". In fact, the verdict was a foregone conclusion. The most disreputable evidence was admitted; the suppositions of women of lowest character were accepted as conclusive; the alibi for Maguire— clearly proved, and afterwards accepted by the Crown, a free pardon being issued on the strength of it—was rejected ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... words which sound wonderfully like the sad language of a real sufferer. Of course, if we believe that prediction is an absurdity, any difficulty will be lighter than the acknowledgment that we have prediction here. But, unless we have a foregone conclusion of that sort to blind us, we shall see in this psalm a clear example of the prophecy of a suffering Messiah. In most of the other psalms where David speaks of his sorrows we have only a typical foreshadowing of Christ. But in this, and in such others as lxix. ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... M'Cord 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 of mere ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... so wisely and well; not in the least as a note of warning. And all he said sank deep into Theodora's heart. She had never even dreamed of the plan which was now matured in Hector's brain—of going away with him. He, as really a lover, was not for her, that was a foregone conclusion. It was the fear of she knew not what which troubled her. She was too unsophisticated and innocent to really know—only that to be with him now was a continual danger; soon she knew she would not be able to control herself, she must ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... to His Majestu's Cabinet were masterpieces of political trickery, and their adoption was a foregone conclusion in spite of the Ministers who raised objections. The party had to win back favour somehow, and at any rate his were the best ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... towards the truth, danger to the moral fibre, danger to the progress of man? Take as a hint of it the way the Bible has been treated. People have said that the Bible was absolutely infallible: they have taken that as a foregone conclusion; and then, when they found out beyond question that the world was not created in six days, what have they done? Frankly accepted the truth? No, they have tried to twist the Bible into meaning something different ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... and onward. He was silent as an image, but his men roared like a river in flood and he made no effort to check them. He was like a man who has made up his mind to victory in any event. He seemed to be speculating three or four moves ahead of this one, and to hold this one such a foregone conclusion in his mind that it had ceased to interest. He was admirable, there was no doubt of that. In his own way, like an old boar sniffing up the wind for trouble, he could command a ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... that Buckingham was to die. The peers were summoned to try him on May 10th, under the presidency of Norfolk. The depositions of the witnesses against the Duke were read; there was no cross-examination; he denied the charges, but was not allowed counsel. The decision was of course a foregone conclusion. One by one the peers pronounced him guilty; he was condemned to death, and executed. No one was found to challenge the justice of the sentence, though on a review of the evidence it is almost incredible that any ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... stairs," said Jack, as they continued the study of the one-story plan, "is at least an interesting one. It seems to be accepted as a foregone conclusion that modern dwelling houses, even in the country, where the cost of the land actually covered by the house is of no consequence, must be two stories at least above the basement; but I doubt whether this principle in the evolution of domestic habitations ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... had been a foregone conclusion since the afternoon, but we all behaved as though we had not been anticipating this result for hours, as though any other figures but nine hundred and seventy-six would have meant something entirely different. "Nine hundred and seventy-six!" ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... conquest of Canada would be "a mere matter of marching." The final expulsion of England from the American continent he regarded as a matter of course. Cabinet ministers at Washington and rabid politicians looked upon the forcible annexation of Canada as a foregone conclusion. ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... differed, so that she herself scarcely knew why such and such a one had been chosen—men, for instance, like Cecil Reeve and Arthur Ensart—perhaps even such a man as James Allys, 3rd. Captain Dane, of course, had been a foregone conclusion, and John Lyndhurst was logical enough; also W. Grismer, and the jaunty, obese Mr. Welter, known in sporting circles as Helter Skelter Welter, and more briefly and profanely as Hel. His running mate, Harry Ferris had been included. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... much controversy has arisen over this term, it being contended that [Greek: logia] could not rightly be extended so as to include any records of the life of Christ: "It is impossible upon any but arbitrary grounds, and from a foregone conclusion, to maintain that a work commencing with a detailed history of the birth and infancy of Jesus, his genealogy, and the preaching of John the Baptist, and concluding with an equally minute history of his betrayal, trial, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... a place he has no right to occupy, and to associate on terms of equality with men of tastes and habits and ambitions totally above his own. It was in this spirit he remembered Nina's chance expression, 'I don't suppose you want money!' There could be no other meaning in the phrase than some foregone conclusion about his being a man of fortune. Of course she acquired this notion from those around her. As a stranger to Ireland, all she knew, or thought she knew, had been conveyed by others. 'I don't suppose you ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... fortunate opportunity. By my own advancement I was to be the means of helping my two school companions. Willie Hercus was to join the revenue cutter; Robbie Rosson was to go aboard the Falcon. As for myself, I may say that it was a foregone conclusion with me that I should ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton



Words linked to "Foregone conclusion" :   certain, surety, ending, moral certainty, inevitability, indubitability, uncertainty, slam dunk, quality, cert, predictability, ineluctability, inevitableness, indisputability, certainty, unquestionableness, finish, unavoidability, conclusion, uncertain, unquestionability



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