The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the
choice of one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to be indubitably man's highest happiness.
One's own free unfettered
choice, one's own caprice, however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy--is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms.
Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first
choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny.
Lecount's legacy, and there is no point of attack in your late husband's
choice of an executor.
Some attention ought, therefore, to be paid to property in the
choice of those hands.
I have had no choice--sometimes no
choice in such events is possible.
When the Abyssins are engaged in a law-suit, the two parties make
choice of a judge, and plead their own cause before him; and if they cannot agree in their
choice, the governor of the place appoints them one, from whom there lies an appeal to the viceroy and to the Emperor himself.
"Otherwise," said he, "I shall have no
choice but to marry a certain merchant's daughter in Moscow, in order that I may keep my vow to deprive my nephew of the inheritance.--Then he pressed five hundred roubles into my hand--to buy myself some bonbons, as he phrased it--and wound up by saying that in the country I should grow as fat as a doughnut or a cheese rolled in butter; that at the present moment he was extremely busy; and that, deeply engaged in business though he had been all day, he had snatched the present opportunity of paying me a visit.
Moreover, a small but sufficient competency was mine, allowing me reasonable comforts, and the luxuries of a small but
choice library, and a small but
choice garden.
I do not suppose that you would deliberately form an absolute engagement of that nature without acquainting your mother and myself, or at least, without being convinced that we should approve of your
choice; but I cannot help fearing that you may be drawn in, by the lady who has lately attached you, to a marriage which the whole of your family, far and near, must highly reprobate.
There was another of the same place and qualifications who also sought her, and this made her father's
choice hang in the balance, for he felt that on either of us his daughter would be well bestowed; so to escape from this state of perplexity he resolved to refer the matter to Leandra (for that is the name of the rich damsel who has reduced me to misery), reflecting that as we were both equal it would be best to leave it to his dear daughter to choose according to her inclination- a course that is worthy of imitation by all fathers who wish to settle their children in life.
But it is alleged, that it might be employed in such a manner as to promote the election of some favorite class of men in exclusion of others, by confining the places of election to particular districts, and rendering it impracticable to the citizens at large to partake in the
choice. Of all chimerical suppositions, this seems to be the most chimerical.