"Disaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the secret; so she wept in silence and upbraiding herself fell to thinking, "Wherefore did I disclose this secret to him and beget envy and jealousy of Ali Baba? this be the fruit thereof and hence the disaster that hath come down upon me." She spent the rest of the night in bitter tears and early on the morrow tried in hottest hurry to Ali Baba and prayed that he would go forth in quest of his brother; so he strove to console her and straightway set out ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... insurrection at this critical moment by the negroes of the Southern States would have thrown every thing into confusion, and consequently it was to have prevented the choice of electors in the whole or the greater part of the States to the south of the Potomac. Such a disaster must have tended directly to injure the interests of Mr. Jefferson, and to promote the slender possibility of a second election of Mr. Adams." And, to be sure, the United-States Gazette followed up the thing with a good, single-minded party malice which cannot be surpassed in these ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the personal peculiarities or possibilities of a husband, that she had awakened almost with surprise one morning to the knowledge that she was miserable. It was not so much that her romance had met with open disaster as that it had simply faded away. This gradual fading away of sentiment, which she had accepted at the time as only one of the inevitable stages in the slow process of emotional adjustment, would perhaps have ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... circumstances, but when morning came they were in a terribly bad predicament. Not one of them carried a watch, or he might have known that it was about three o'clock, and very dark, when a worse disaster than the visit of the locusts took place. By five or six minutes past three it was all done completely, and it was the work of a ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... alike in this,—that each exhibits a set of characters struggling vainly to avert a predetermined doom; but in this essential point they differ,—that whereas the characters in melodrama are drifted to disaster in spite of themselves, the characters in tragedy go down to destruction because of themselves. In tragedy the characters determine and control the plot; in melodrama the plot determines and controls the characters. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... for Archie. His leg will be as strong as ever, and we'll make fifty dollars by our show. I call such a disaster an angel ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... ever in better condition to meet disaster, and none ever met it with braver hearts or with quicker and more resolute determination to survive ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... in the modern disaster largely arose from the facts that she thought England was simple, when England is very subtle. She thought that because our politics have become largely financial that they had become wholly financial; that because our aristocrats had become pretty ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... distils poison; the vine stores its juices, and so do the poppy and the upas. In like manner every thought and every action ripens its seed, each according to its kind. In the individual man, and still more in a nation, a just idea gives life, and progress, and glory; a false conception portends disaster, shame, and death. A hundred and twenty years ago a West Jersey Quaker wrote: "This trade of importing slaves is dark gloominess hanging over the land; the consequences will be grievous to posterity." At the North the growth of slavery was arrested by natural ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... deemed expedient that Her Highness should withdraw to Aumale, under the plea of ill-health, and thence proceed to England; and it was also by way of Aumale that she as secretly returned, after the fatal disaster of the stoppage, to discourage the impression of her ever having been ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of philanthropy with which the name of a woman is closely identified is that of caring for the wounded and destitute in time of war or disaster, and the woman is Clara Barton. Born in Massachusetts about 1830, she started in life as a school-teacher, but in 1854 secured a position in the patent office at Washington, where she remained until the opening of the Civil War. The sight of the suffering in the Washington ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... Hersebom, but none of the other fishermen returned; so they hoped that they were all detained by the impassable state of the entrance to the fiord, and would not believe that he had personally met with any disaster. That evening was a very sad one at all the firesides where a member was missing. As the night passed without any of the absent men making their appearance, the anxieties of their families increased. In Mr. Hersebom's house nobody went to bed. They passed the long hours of waiting seated in ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... evil to remain uncorrected from one generation to another? That is the question. Uncorrected evil multiplies itself, and the sum is a huge national disaster. I wish passionately that I had greater powers to make you see what to me is so plain. The mistake has been the muddle-headed thinking that sets apart these diseases from all other sicknesses of our bodies, obscuring the plain and comparatively simple question of cure with the entirely opposed ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... under the Constitution and under Congressional acts, to take measures necessary to avert a disaster which would interfere with the ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the disasters which threaten us in this life pass us by. So it was with the impending disaster of piling ice near the submarine. It ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... Qualitative Analysis served as a basis for ceaseless testing and study. George Pullman, who then had a small shop at Detroit and was working on his sleeping-car, made Edison a lot of wooden apparatus for his chemicals, to the boy's delight. Unfortunately a sudden change came, fraught with disaster. The train, running one day at thirty miles an hour over a piece of poorly laid track, was thrown suddenly out of the perpendicular with a violent lurch, and, before Edison could catch it, a stick of phosphorus ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... boat was about to leave the pier, a vision of her pale face and tear-filled eyes came to me. I heard her voice repeating, "I wish you would not go, Davy." The influence was so strong that I dashed down the gang-plank as it was being pulled in. The boat met with disaster, and many of the children were killed or wounded. These premonitions have also come to me, but I do not believe as I did when a boy that they are warnings from the dead, although I cannot explain them, and they are never wrong; the message is ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... by the self-styled Left Wing movement. I am one of the last men in the party to ignore or misunderstand the sound revolutionary impulse which animates the rank and file of this new movement, but the specific form and direction which it has assumed, its program and tactics, spell disaster to our movement. I am opposed to it, not because it is too radical, but because it is essentially reactionary and non-Socialistic; not because it would lead us too far, but because it would lead us nowhere. To prate about the dictatorship of the proletariat ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... almost everything is significant and can exert influence of some sort. The search for the more definite influences seems to have started in the question: "Who, or what, is to blame?"—for any illness, namely, or disaster, or untoward thing. From this centre the search for causal influences has spread. Hume and 'Science' together have tried to eliminate the whole notion of influence, substituting the entirely different DENKMITTEL of 'law.' But law is a comparatively recent invention, ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... end in disaster, Edgar; for if they obtain what they desire from the king—which they may do, seeing that his uncles are all away, and it will be difficult to raise any force of a sudden that would suffice to defeat them—what will they gain by it? Doubtless, as soon as Gloucester and Lancaster arrive in ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... escape by reason of superior speed, it would bring joy to the crew, but disaster to Clif, their helpless prisoner. If, on the other hand, a shot from the flagship should sink the Spanish boat, Clif perforce would share death with them. Little wonder that brave as he was, he struggled anxiously to free his arms and legs from ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... from the constant change from one factory to another, there is still a third manifestation of maladjustment of which one's memory and the Juvenile Court records unfortunately furnish many examples. The spirit of revolt in these cases has led to distinct disaster. Two stories will perhaps be sufficient in illustration although they might be multiplied indefinitely from my ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... come to be in Europe and of Europe, it was able to survive the terrible disaster of Angora in 1402. Though the Osmanli army was annihilated by Timur, and an Osmanli sultan, for the first and last time in history, remained in the hands of the foe, the administrative machinery of the Osmanli state was not paralysed. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... Emperor, in which Napoleon is portrayed as a Roman general. There was plenty of room to replace so much that had disappeared during the Revolution, and a vast quantity of decorative furniture was made during the few years which elapsed before the disaster of Waterloo caused the disappearance of a power which had been ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... party at the mouth of the tunnel and getting it started on its mission, while to rush men forward individually as they left the tunnel would inevitably result in confusion, disorganisation and possible disaster. Instructions were therefore that each party was to assemble in the nullah and move as quickly as possible on its objective as soon as it ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... life, had been caused by his having allowed himself to be deluded into imitating some pernicious example of activity and industry that had been set him by others. The trials to which he here alludes were three in number, and may be thus reckoned up: First, the disaster of being an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school; secondly, the disaster of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of becoming acquainted with a ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... where the Court was, in order to announce their arrival and ask for an audience, which was not immediately accorded. Charles held his Court with incredible gaiety and folly, in the midst of almost every disaster that could overtake a king, in the castle of Chinon on the banks of the Vienne. The situation and aspect of this noble building, now in ruins, is wonderfully like that of Windsor Castle. The great walls, interrupted and strengthened by huge towers, stretch ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... enjoy the full benefit of the strength which you are glad to interpose between you and destruction. Ireland has done much, but will do more. At this moment the only triumph obtained through long years of continental disaster has been achieved by an Irish general: it is true he is not a Catholic; had he been so, we should have been deprived of his exertions: but I presume no one will assert that his religion would have impaired his talents or diminished his patriotism; though, in that case, he must have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... entered and found seats as quietly as possible; for a strange and sorrowful hush brooded over the court-room. Until the bar assembled, it had not been realized how many were gone. The silence was that of a common overwhelming disaster. No one spoke with his neighbor; no one observed the vagrant as he entered and made his way to a seat on one of the meanest benches, a little apart from the others. He had not sat there since the day of his indictment for vagrancy. The judge took his seat, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and terror, or the imaginary emotions of the imaginary being he had offended. A modern man in the same predicament would probably not think of religion at all, at any rate in the earlier stages; he would say it was a case for deeper ploughing or for basic slag. Later on, if disaster followed disaster till he began to feel himself a marked man, even the average modern would, I think, begin instinctively to reflect upon his sins. A third characteristic flows from the first. The uncharted region surrounds us on every side and is apparently infinite; ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... fourth house," said Volktman, reluctantly, "is located in the eleventh house. Thou knowest to whom the position portends disaster." ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... postal system has not yet appeared; but he will find plenty of material. He will be able to depict the dangers a postman passes through in discharging his duty on the field, he will sing the praises of those who are injured in a railroad disaster, and yet continue ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... sons, or unless I consent to surrender my daughter to him; and he says that when he has her in his possession he will give her over to be the sport of the vilest and lewdest fellows in his house, for he would scorn to take her now for himself. That is the disaster which awaits me to-morrow, unless the Lord God grant me His aid. So it is no wonder, fair sir, if we are all in tears. But for your sake we strive for the moment to assume as cheerful a countenance as we can. For he is a fool who attracts a gentleman to his presence and then ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... entirely destroyed by an earthquake in June, 1770. The Inhabitants built the new town upon the edge of the gulf which had just swallowed up their old one, convinced that the same disaster would not recur in the same spot. But that region is peculiarly sensitive: the subterranean connections with the Mexican and South-American volcanic districts chronicle disturbances ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... an adverse grade, six miles were covered at the rate of 74.40 miles an hour; and from there on mile after mile flew past, and station after station, and still the speed showed 70 miles and upwards. Through Ashtabula, haunted with the memory of railway disaster, we burst, and on to Conneaut and Springfield; and, even against hope, hope grew again. Twelve miles from Springfield is the little town of Swanville, and here the high-water mark of 83.4 miles at the end of the last division was beaten; for the 6.2 miles from ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... howling most dismally. He lingered on the stair, extremely loth to face Miss Mary with a shame so plain upon his countenance as he imagined it must be. No way that he could tell the story of the Jean's disaster would leave out his sorry share in it. A quick ear heard him on the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... hastened to his carriage: and poor Morrice, frightened and confounded at the disaster he had occasioned, sneaked after him with much less ceremony. While Mr Meadows, wholly unconcerned by the distress and confusion around him, sat quietly picking his teeth, and looking on, during the whole transaction, with an unmeaning ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... because they wanted to plunder the Campbells. The force which had once seemed sufficient to decide the fate of a kingdom melted away in a few days; and the victories of Tippermuir and Kilsyth were followed by the disaster of Philiphaugh. Dundee did not live long enough to experience a similar reverse of fortune; but there is every reason to believe that, had his life been prolonged one fortnight, his history would have been the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... foreseen must succeed the political one. Happier than Prosper Merimee, than Alexandre Dumas, and others, she saw the dawn of a new era of prosperity for her country, whose vital forces, as she had also foretold, were to prevail in the end over successive ills—the enervation of corruption, of military disaster, and the "orgie of pretended renovators" at home, that signalized the first months ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the unapproachable Parsifal of eight-and-twenty turn into an incomparable Amfortas at fifty. For the actor, it often happens that the first sign of age is fatigue; in the singer's day, the first shadow is an eclipse, the first false note is disaster, the first breakdown is often a heart-rending failure that brings real tears to the eyes of younger comrades. The exquisite voice does not grow weak and pathetic and ethereal by degrees, so that we still love to hear it, even to the end; far more often it is suddenly flat or sharp ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... disaster, the troops gained ground. The reserve overthrowing everything in the valley, forced La Houssaye's dismounted dragoons to retire, and thus turning the enemy, approached the eminence upon which the great battery ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... war some have talked of spiritual manifestations that saved disaster in our great retreat. In that people may believe or disbelieve, but no person of intelligence fails to realize the power of thought, and love, and hope, and the spirit of women can be a great power to their men in arms. There are so many ways of giving and sending that none of us ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... disaster was very near to the children's sleeping berths; a very few yards off two women sat upon a box together, one was blown up into the air, the other driven she knew not whither; but late that night I came across her seeking a bed in Moville, and ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... deal handsomely with those of their force who had been patient... Mr. Ford did not stop there, he did not expect Starratt to take his word for anything. He reached for a pencil and pad and he went into a mathematic demonstration to show just how near the edge of financial disaster the firm of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. had been pushed. Starratt could not doubt the figures, and yet his eyes traveled instinctively to the bag of golf sticks in a convenient corner. Somehow, nothing in either Ford's argument or his sleek ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... any idea of finding him a profession. At the same time, she was anxious to make him capable of managing the Overton estate, and though she dared not send him to one of the ordinary agricultural colleges for fear of a repetition, on a larger scale, of the Cheltenham disaster, she thought that it might be possible to find a capable land-agent who would give him some kind of training and put up with his idiosyncrasy for the sake of a ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... was not much disturbed by such talk. Uncle Jabez had been prophesying disaster ever ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... counties had risen as one man in defence of the government, and not a single malecontent had dared to utter a whisper in favour of the invaders. Similar promises had been made in 1692; and to the confidence which had been placed in those promises was to be attributed the great disaster of La Hogue. The French King would not be deceived a third time. He would gladly help the English royalists; but he must first see them help themselves. There was much reason in this; and there was reason ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mistress, and a friend, A phoenix, captain, and an enemy, A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign, A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear: His humble ambition, proud humility, His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms, That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he— I know not what he shall:—God send him well!— The court's ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... time she mounts her Pegasus disaster follows for home duties are neglected. Learning of one of these lapses, her elder sister comes home. Betty storms and refuses to share the honors until she remembers that this means long hours free to devote to her beloved pen. She finally ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... noted above the birds that have noticeably decreased in numbers in North America are those on whose heads a price has been set by the markets. Let a demand once arise for the bodies or the feathers of a species, and immediately a war is begun upon it that, unless speedily checked, spells disaster for ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... irresistibly reminded of himself in minutes of turmoil, stared back, knowing in a flash of inspiration why the tale of the boulder had made him think of the crash of bouillon cups. The desire of the moment that marked men for disaster! The tongue-tied youngster there with his feet rooted to the ground and his face pale with agitation, was indeed something like himself. Kenny had a moment ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... that this battle, which was called the Battle of Pieter's Hill, and the surrender of General Cronje and his forces to Lord Roberts, both took place on the anniversary of the battle of Majuba Hill, made the whole of Buller's column feel that the ill memory of that disaster had been effaced. ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... and to neglect entirely the consumption of goods and human organic welfare. The lip-homage given by orthodox economics to the field of consumption seems to be inspired merely by the feeling that disaster might overcome production if workers were starved or business men discouraged. . . . So, while official economic science tinkers at its transient institutions which flourish in one decade and pass out in the next, abnormal and behavioristic psychology, physiology, psychiatry, are ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... really did spell disaster. Taking courage from the discovery of the young schoolmaster's use of money, the committee swore a warrant out for him before Judge Little. It was done very quietly; but Nelson's friends, who were on the watch for just such a move, were informed almost ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... mere windlestraws, beggary and desolation, was realized by that act alone. Nature is ready to do much; will of herself cover, with some veil of grass and lichen, the nakedness of ruin: but her victorious act, when she can accomplish it, is that of getting YOU to go with her handsomely, and change disaster itself into new wealth. Into new wisdom and valor, which are wealth in all kinds; California mere zero to them, zero, or even a frightful MINUS quantity! Friedrich's procedures in this matter I believe to be little less didactic than those other, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a deed of strife or disaster is more tragic when it occurs 'amid affections' or 'among people who love each other', no doubt the phrase, as Aristotle's own examples show, would primarily suggest to a Greek feuds between near relations. Yet some of the meaning is lost if one ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... Fuz almost tried to take the reins away from him before they had driven two miles from the house. He was firm, however, and they managed to reach the strip of woodland, some five miles inland, where they were to gather their load, without any disaster, but it was evident to Dab all the way, that his ponies were in unusually "high" condition. He took them out of the wagon while the rest began to gather their very liberal harvest of evergreens, and did not bring them near it again until all was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... was to be separated by the magnetic pull, or if it fell on sharp rocks and was split in twain, I am afraid none of us could do anything to save ourselves," the professor answered. "Still, if we were given a little warning of the disaster, I have means at hand whereby we might escape with our lives. But it would be ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... imperative though painful duty to relate to you the facts which have brought about the crowning disaster of which you have already been advised, by more rapid means and with such precautions as we were able to take; a disaster that completely overwhelms our souls already so cruelly tried. As you are aware, sir, a few weeks, a few days had been sufficient to enable Madame ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... dumb. Of course every one knew of my disaster and what came of it; but that a young girl should taunt me with it, and for no reason, seemed incredible. No one ever spoke of it to me, not even Mistress Ferguson, whose daily food was. the saying of things no one else dared to say. I rode ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... kindness to the one who helped you, at least be as ready as he was to do good to another. It is told of a great man that, wishing always to do good, he made it a rule never to stand looking at the effects of a disturbance, disaster, or accident unless he could do some good by ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... new social order. The capitalist system of production and distribution is doomed; capitalist appropriation of labor's product forces the bulk of mankind into wage slavery, throws society into the convulsions of the class struggle, and momentarily threatens to engulf humanity in chaos and disaster. ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... why. I am quite sad! I saw faces in the clouds, and those faces never appear to me except on the eve of some disaster—I think I must be ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... aside and stood peering gloomily into the dark waters, that reflected the exact shade of his own mind. Appreciating better than his youthful companions the full extent of the disaster that had befallen them, he could not, for the time being, summon up his usual fortitude or see any hopeful prospect. Now that the spies knew that they were discovered, he felt sure that they would never risk the sending of another ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... because of the social position of the Prince in Vienna, and was unknown by sight even to her hostess, the Duchess of Chiselhurst. Critically, she compared the chances of success with the chances of failure, and often it seemed that disaster was inevitable, unversed as she knew herself to be in the customs of grand society at one of its high functions, but nevertheless she was undaunted by the odds against her, and resolved to stake a career on ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... sound of the squire's shot not having reached him. Where the ball passed, not one of us precisely knew, but I fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have contributed to our disaster. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same instant a large private carriage, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, emerged quickly from the Vicolo dei Soldati, the third of the streets which meet the Via di Tordinona at the Orso. The driver, who owing to the darkness had not seen the disaster which had just taken place, did his best to stop in time; but before the heavy equipage could be brought to a stand Anastase had been thrown to the ground, between the hoofs of the struggling cab- horse and the feet of the startled ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... had past some time together, in such a manner that my honest friend might have thought himself at one of his silent meetings, the Quaker began to be moved by some spirit or other, probably that of curiosity, and said, "Friend, I perceive some sad disaster hath befallen thee; but pray be of comfort. Perhaps thou hast lost a friend. If so, thou must consider we are all mortal. And why shouldst thou grieve, when thou knowest thy grief will do thy friend no good? We are all ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... afflicted, and the yeares that wee have seene. You are going, you sat, upon the deuites, for returne of the afflicted land, (you do well to do soe,) and to try the instrumentall causes and occasions of the disaster and surpressal. Looke not too much upon second causes, the pryme and originall, and only cause, is God's just displeasure: for the causes of defeats in armys, they are harder to be found out than in any other of the actions of men, a word, a sound, the mooving or remooving of any body or ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... "What a child you are, Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... land of Marco Polo, as he hastened from point to point, from island to island. Already the Pinta under Martin Pinzon had gone off independently in search of a vague land of gold, to the vexation of the Admiral. A worse disaster was now to befall him. On Christmas Day, off the island of Hayti, the Santa Maria struck upon a reef and went over. Columbus and his crew escaped on board the little Nina. But she was too small to carry home the double ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... of the disaster not more than a dozen people were present, and they did not display any intense affliction at the catastrophe. Five or six were smoking and lounging about, discussing the probabilities of the miners being alive, yet showing no great inclination ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... pathetic her desire, To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer, Something to cling to, to uplift her higher From this low world of coward fear and care, Above disaster, that her will may be At one with God's, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... afraid, unformulated suspicion, unformulated dread, again dogging her. That Damaris was really ill, she did not believe for an instant. Damaris had excellent health. The maids exaggerated. They delighted in making mysteries. Uneducated persons are always absurdly greedy of disaster, lugubriously credulous.—Yes, on the whole she concluded to maintain her original attitude, the attitude of yesterday and this morning; concluded it would be more telling to keep up the fiction of disgrace—because—Theresa did not care to scrutinize her own motives ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... receding, Though I never looked enough ahead to ken the Inn of Fears; Still I knew your heart was near me, That your ear was strained to hear me, That your love would need no pleading To forgive me, but was pleading Of its self that, in disaster, I should run to you the faster And be sure that I was dearer ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... by unlicensed vessels is a problem; reindeer were introduced to the islands in 2001 for commercial reasons; this is the only commercial reindeer herd in the world unaffected by the Chornobyl disaster ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... but on this occasion so precipitate was their retreat that eleven corpses were left to lie where they had fallen in the struggle. Sullivan and his army had undisputed possession of the field. To Brant and to the men of the Six Nations this was a day of grief and disaster. The gates of their country were thrown open; their villages were left undefended; there was nothing to prevent the ravager from treading down and plundering the fair land of their fathers, the pride of a noble race, the gift of the ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... why our troubles, sorrows, losses, solitude should darken that sunshine. I know that that is hard, too, perhaps harder than the other. It is more difficult to have a sense of the sunshine of the divine Presence shining through the clouds of disaster and sorrow than even it is to have it shining through the dust that is raised by traffic and secular occupation. But it is possible. There is nothing in all the sky so grand as clouds smitten by sunshine, and the light is never so glorious as when it is flashed back from them and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a problem; reindeer were introduced to the islands in 2001 for commercial reasons; this is the only commercial reindeer herd in the world unaffected by the 1986 Chornobyl disaster ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... took place about the summer solstice at the time of full moon, on the very day on which in former times the great disaster befel the Fabii, when three hundred of that race were slain by the Etruscans. But this defeat wiped out the memory of the former one, and the day was always afterwards called that of the Allia, from ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... and essay no further in this perilous matter, lest disaster follow. It was reported to us that your powers could not attain unto their full ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... defeated him. This defeat gave the northern command to Massena and sent Jourdan {255} back to politics. When, some years later, the victor of Fleurus was again entrusted with the command of large armies, it was only to lead them to failure at Talavera, and to disaster at Vittoria. ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... the favorite game of ball of the North American Indians, known to-day, as it was in 1636, by the name of "lacrosse," was potent among them as a remedial exercise or superstitious rite to cure diseases and avert disaster; that it formed part of stately ceremonials which were intended to entertain and amuse distinguished guests; and that it was made use of as a stratagem of war, by means of which to lull the suspicions of the enemy and to ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... even if we shall not be able to find them, at least our way of return is secured: for that we should be worsted by the Scythians in fight I never feared yet, but rather that we might not be able to find them, and might suffer some disaster in wandering about. Perhaps some one will say that in speaking thus I am speaking for my own advantage, in order that I may remain behind; but in truth I am bringing forward, O king, the opinion which I found best for thee, and I myself will accompany ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... only two in a thin web of men strung out through centuries of time with orders to seek out that which did not fit properly into the pattern of the past: to locate the enemy wherever in history or prehistory he had gone to earth. Had the Reds been searching, too, and was this first disaster their victory? ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... in January, disaster came. Fire swept through "James Fort," consuming habitations, provisions, ammunition, some of the palisades and even Reverend Robert Hunt's books. This was a serious blow in the face of winter weather. With the help of Newport and his sailors, the church, storehouse, palisades, and cabins were partially ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... and the cry that announced the disaster were punctuated only by a breath. Then followed a babel of orders and the quick clanging of signal bells in the engine room. The sudden churning of the screws in the angry waters told that the steamer's engines ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... no anticipation of what is hanging over your head? no warning vision? Has nothing occurred in the convent to make you look forward to the future with anxiety? It is customary for pious souls to be informed by certain signs when any disaster menaces them." ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... which govern their motions were at this time still enshrouded in mystery, and when one of those erratic wanderers made its appearance in the sky it was beheld by the majority of mankind with feelings of awe and superstitious dread, and regarded as a harbinger of evil and disaster, the precursor of war, of famine, or the ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... I saw the humor of the thing, and that enabled us to save Will from disaster. There never was a man more respectful of women than Will. He would even get off the sidewalk for a black woman, and would neither tell nor laugh at the sort of stories that pass current about women in some smoking-rooms. His hair bristled. His ears stuck out on either side of his head. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... persistency, was prodigious. His courage to brave, and his fortitude to endure, were absolute. His loyalty to every cause in which he enlisted—his fidelity in every warfare in which he took up arms—were proof against peril and disaster. ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... taken into consideration the possible danger from the plague at the seaport. He told Cara only that Karyl would join the vacation party there and kept to himself the reservation that his coming probably meant disaster. Yet when they reached Cairo there was no ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... of the charge: "This affair occurred about 11 A.M., and a splendid victory had been gained,"—a judgment which lacked finality. In fact, had the separation of the wings of Sheridan's army been accomplished, as it was threatened, the result would have been utter disaster; just now, however, Upton's brigade, of which the Second Connecticut formed a large part, was brought up to the point of danger. The charge was checked, the enemy in turn driven back, and the ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... the archway itself that Privy Seal would see him instantly and with great haste and urgency. He asked only for news where Thomas Culpepper was, and ran, upon the disastrous hearing that Viridus had taken him up the privy stairway. And, in that darkness, thoughts ran in his head. Disaster was here. But what? Privy Seal called for him. He had no time for Privy Seal. Culpepper was gone to Kat Howard's room. Viridus there had taken him. There was no other room up the winding staircase to which he could go. Here was disaster! For whether ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... army reverted to Colonel Dunbar after the fall of Braddock; but he was several miles away, on the other side of the Monongahela, when the disaster occurred, in charge of the rear division and supplies. Hence the authority of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... reparation of which Carteret spoke been delayed, even by a little, its beloved recipient would no longer have found use for or profit in it. Damaris fought the black thought, as ungrateful and faithless. To fear disaster is too often to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... lobster-pots which we had set. We were delayed there by breaking our boom, in jibing. We should have been at home at noon; at seven in the evening we were not yet in sight. When we got in, rather crestfallen at our disaster, particularly as the boat was wanted for the next day, James met us at the pier. We were boys then, and his tongue was free. As he stood there on the shore, bare-headed, hastily summoned from his house, with his hair blowing in the wind, waving ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... state of things it is difficult for us to realize; but the monotonous tale of disaster and suffering is not yet complete. Beerbhoom was, to all intents and purposes, given over to tigers. "A belt of jungle, filled with wild beasts, formed round each village." At nightfall the hungry animals made their dreaded incursions carrying away cattle, and even ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... already been precipitated by it down a flight of steps, to the imminent risk of his neck. Undaunted, however, by this mishap, he had clung to it with wonderful tenacity, until it had again caused a disaster the noise of which had brought all parties into the room where ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... now was for the luncheon-hour rush: I could distract myself from the appalling disaster. That day I took rather more than my accustomed charge of the serving. I chatted with our business chaps, recommending the joint in the highest terms; drawing corks; seeing that the relish was abundantly stocked at every table. I was striving ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Spanish force with its large amount of treasure was a disaster which, after the Limenos had risen against the tyranny of San Martin and forcibly expelled him from their city, entailed the shedding of torrents of blood in Peru, for the Spaniards were thus enabled to reorganize a force which ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... fed in the Bowden barn, and we drove away and soon began to climb the long hill toward the wooded ridge. The road was new to me, as roads always are, going back. Most of our companions had been full of anxious thoughts of home,—of the cows, or of young children likely to fall into disaster,—but we had no reasons for haste, and drove slowly along, talking and resting by the way. Mrs. Todd said once that she really hoped her front door had been shut on account of the dust blowing in, ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... one of those who, some days before the disaster of Waterloo, had strongly urged the Emperor to order the execution of Fouche, the former ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... containing their father and mother and their adjoining neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, driven by Marian Thorne, the playmate and companion from childhood of the Strong girls, had become uncontrollable and plunged down the mountain in a disaster that had left only Marian, protected by the steering gear, alive. They had simply by mutual agreement begun using the street cars when they ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and Madame Wang, their object being to try and avoid being themselves implicated in the matter. Their old mistress and Madame Wang, seeing them make so much of the occurrence as to rush with precipitate haste to bring it to their notice, could not in the least imagine what great disaster might not have befallen them, and without loss of time they betook themselves together into the garden and came to see what the two cousins ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a sort of nullity, which more and more terrified Ursula. She felt there was something hopeless which she had to submit to. She felt a great sense of disaster impending. Day after day was made inert with a sense of disaster. She became morbidly sensitive, depressed, apprehensive. It was anguish to her when she saw one rook slowly flapping in the sky. That was a sign of ill-omen. And the foreboding ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... platoon, so that his form might not be crushed by the advance of horses' feet. The troopers had seen the fall of the lieutenant, and naturally enough, supposing that he was killed, were excited to new fury by the disaster, and rushed upon the enemy, who were crowding them on both sides. They fought with an impetuosity which the enemy could not withstand, and a large portion of the latter justified their record for that day ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... hear with every wish to judge them fairly and to see where any truth lay in them. But none the less I am sure that those words not unjustly represent a type of thought widely prevalent among even ministerial workers, and that it is a type of thought pregnant with disaster for Christian work. "Thou knowest not that thou art poor"; "I counsel thee, to buy of Me"; "I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... We were to be delayed five or six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a party who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping over the plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for some twenty-four hours, but at last he began to soften little by little, and finally ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... railroads and other sources of communication and of canals for the irrigation of the rice-fields—which the government contemplated prior to the outbreak of the distress, been completed, probably no reckless, sensational reports of "a disaster which had no parallel in the history of human misery" would have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... venereal diseases. With some who are born blind, the misfortune is due to the father's sins, the consequences of which transmitted themselves to the wife, and from her to the child. Weak-minded and idiotic children may frequently ascribe their infirmity to the same cause. Finally, what dire disaster may be achieved through vaccination by an insignificant drop of syphilitic blood, our own days ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... that Jim had won the Drilgo's faith? Why did Cain now look upon him, apparently, as his master? It was impossible to gauge the processes of the black man's mind, and at the moment Jim was in no mood to wonder. The stunning disaster that had overtaken him monopolized ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... perhaps for ever!" was the burden of this woe that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin. "Going away to India;" like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the stony monuments that ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Having offered, in 1831, to conduct an expedition to the north-west, he set out with fifteen convicts and reached the Upper Darling; but two of his men, who had been left behind to bring up provisions, were speared by the blacks, and the stores plundered. This disaster forced the company soon after to return. In 1835, when the major renewed his search, he was again unfortunate. The botanist of the party, Richard Cunningham, brother of the Allan Cunningham already mentioned, was treacherously killed ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... representation, by returning to witness the second; like M. de Lamartine and Madame de Girardin, who stuck to their first opinion, in spite of the general public reprobation of the piece. The approval of such persons as these would be consoling in any disaster. ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... valuable of the collection. Fortunately, a heavy boat-cloak caused the saddle to roll under his belly; and finding that he could not make way in consequence, he quietly waited for me about a quarter of a mile off. When I had remounted, I looked back to the scene of my disaster, and saw my two German friends busily employed in catching the chickens. I rode towards them, and they were, no doubt, in hopes that I had broken my neck, that they might have the sacking of me, also; for, as I approached, I observed them concealing ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... you are confusing the issue. We find certain grave defects in the American mind, defects which, if you had not had what Thomas Carlyle called 'a great deal of land for a very few people,' would long ago have involved you in disaster. You admit the mental defects, but you promptly shift the question to one of moral qualities, of practical energy, of subduing your wilderness, and so forth. You have too often absented yourself from the wedding ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... dropping on the farmers' heads, and the oak benches beneath offered gaps, the geography of which had to be carefully learnt by the substantial persons who sat on them, lest they should be overtaken by undignified disaster; when the rain poured in on the Communion Table and the wind raged through innumerable mortarless chinks, even the slowly-moving folk of the valley came to the conclusion that 'summat 'ull hev to be deun.' And by the help of the Bishop, and Queen Anne's ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mr. Chichester, turning at last. "You are unfortunate, but you have always met disaster—so far, with the fortitude of a gentleman, scorning ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the Albatross, who had seen the wreck of the Tonquin, in mentioning to us its sad fate, attributed the cause of the disaster to the rash conduct of a Captain Ayres, of Boston. That navigator had taken off, as I have mentioned already, ten or a dozen natives of New-itty, as hunters, with a promise of bringing them back ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... hung up in the house will bring me good luck; I mean that if anybody does believe this, then the hanging up of his horseshoe will probably bring him good luck. For if you believe that you are going to be lucky, you go about your business with a smile, you take disaster with a smile, you start afresh with a smile. And to do that is to be in ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... Blake saw Millicent frequently during those days. At first he felt that it was a weakness, as he had nothing to offer her except a tainted name; but his love was getting beyond control, and his resistance feebler. After all, he thought, the story of the Indian disaster must be almost forgotten; and Harding had a good chance for finding the oil. If he had not already started for the North, he would do so soon; but Blake had had no news from him since his ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... prophesy smooth things rather than unpleasant facts, but to do this in the face of obvious contradictions will lead to disaster in foretelling the future. ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... and the end of the disaster were successful raids on Italy. Alaric and his Visigoths (401-410 A.D.) shattered the prestige and destroyed the efficiency of the government which ruled in the name of the feeble Honorius. The Ostrogoths under Theodoric destroyed ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... the mere hut they had left behind, seemed a palace. For the first few days, indeed, Jovita was scarce at ease; to feel no necessity for heavy labor, to have food enough, to be so comfortable, seemed unnatural, as if it might finally bring disaster. But it was not so with Pepita. All the joy of youth, all its delights and expectations filled her heart. To be so near the great, grand city, to look forward to seeing all its splendors, to walk in its streets, to share in the amusements she had heard of—this was rapture. If she had been ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... truly do I know that when you have aught whereof to complain, you take not the moment of danger and disaster. And whatever has chanced to alienate your heart from me, the sound of the rebel's trumpet chases all difference, and marries your faith ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a fresh and lovely morning, although to the weather-wise the haze in the West foredoomed the end of the day to disaster. Ruth felt more cheerful as she crossed the railroad tracks and struck into the same street she had followed with the searching party the evening before. She could not mistake Doctor Davison's house when she passed it, and there was a fine big automobile standing before the ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... well-concerted attempt to surprise the Christian quarters by night, was driven across the mountains by the marquis of Cadiz, and compelled to retreat on his capital, completely baffled in his enterprise. There the tidings of his disaster had preceded him. The fickle populace, with whom misfortune passes for misconduct, unmindful of his former successes, now hastened to transfer their allegiance to his rival, Abdallah, and closed the gates against him; and the unfortunate ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott |
