"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... try and get at the reason for this wide-spread, deep-rooted, fear of beauty: for some reason there must surely be. Such instinctive feelings, on so broad a scale, are not accidental. And so soon as one begins to analyse the attitude of religion towards beauty, the reason is ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... tenant of the cellar from the threatened deluge. She was comfortably cared for by a fellow-countrywoman, and a regular dispensary physician sent for. Wonderful to relate, the shock of the cold bath had accomplished one of those accidental cures, of which many are recorded in the history of rheumatic disorders; and in a few days, the sufferer was on her legs again. Furthermore, her sickness had proved the means of interesting several benevolent individuals in her ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... of English historians, was attracted to Ireland by a noble sympathy for the fallen which he shared with very few of his fellow-countrymen. We are told that he sympathized with the spirit of Irish nationality. "A State," he would say, "is accidental; it can be made or unmade; but a nation is something real which can be neither ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... and trying to move off on his hind limbs. He gave the jug up without spilling a drop, all the time making an apologetic grunting chuckle he often used when found out in any mischief, and which meant, "I know I have done wrong, but don't punish me; in fact, I did not mean to do it—it was accidental." Whenever, however, he saw he was going to be punished, he would change his tone to a shrill, threatening note, showing his teeth, and trying to intimidate. He had quite an extensive vocabulary of sounds, varying from a gruff bark to a shrill whistle; and we ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... of long narrow blocks measuring about 20 x 160 metres (fig. 14, plan A), with a second row of shorter blocks of the same width and about half the length (plan B). These blocks have been much marred and curtailed by the inevitable changes of town life, but their symmetry cannot be accidental, and if they date back, as is quite possible, to Roman days, they may be put beside the Sixth Region of Pompeii which contains two ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... trying to find a hotel I made a midnight exploration of the capital of Hungary on foot, all sleeping, all apparently dead and without a spark of night life. There were no trains, no flocking crowds, but only occasional pedestrians and the accidental clatter of a horse-cab now and then. And the Danube rolled through the stillness silently. I fell in with a late-going working man coming off a day shift. He piloted me to the "Ritz," home of Allied Commissions and delegates of all kinds. That there should be a ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Burns confesses that his Jacobtism was merely sentimental "except when my passions were heated by some accidental cause," and a tour through the country where Montrose, Claverhouse, and Prince Charles had fought, was cause enough. Strathallan ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... yesterday came into this world, and will perchance to-morrow depart out of it. Apart from your duties as a Tsar, of which that old man is now speaking, you have more immediate duties not by any means to be disregarded; human duties, not the duties of a Tsar towards his subjects, which are only accidental, but an eternal duty, the duty of a man in his relation to God, the duty toward your own soul, which is to save it, and also, to serve God in establishing his kingdom on earth. You are not to be guarded in your actions either by what has been or what will be, ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed any virtues) were useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their calamities to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and was awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were amused by comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the emperor was an object of contempt: his feasts and buildings exceeded the examples of royal luxury: ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... friendships and resolutions of this group of men, and from that time dates the definite foundation of the Impressionist school. For thirty years it continued to produce without interruption an enormous quantity of works under an accidental and inexact denomination; to obey the creative instinct, without any other dogma than the passionate observation of nature, without any other assistance than individual sympathies, in the face of the disciplinary teaching of the ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... setting forth the materials of a light but elegant repast. It was now evident to the ladies that their arrival at this place of refuge and delight, neighboring so closely the bare mountain-side, was not so accidental as they had imagined, and they united in thanking L'Isle for his foresight, and ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... carts going up and down the road. So impertinent—and yet the house "did," for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings honestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all these suggested the accidental, the temporary; while Windy Corner seemed as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature's own creation. One might laugh at the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling over this Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from the Miss Alans. These ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... state. The universal church is only visible in its fruits; the established church in its external arrangement, which it must receive from the state, or subject to its approval. The universal church is unchangeable, eternal; the established church variable, accidental. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... about the peasant, as I know him, and about people of lowly culture in general so far as I have learnt to know about them, is that the ethics of amity belong to their natural and normal mood, whereas the ethics of enmity, being but 'as the shadow of a passing fear,' are relatively accidental. Thus to the thesis that human charity is a by-product, I retort squarely with the counter-thesis that human hatred is a by-product. The brute that lurks in our common human nature will break bounds sometimes; but I believe ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... sharpening and deepening the outlines of this humorous antithesis, while it made the crack-brained philosopher more and more of a burlesque unreality, continually added new touches of life and nature to the lineaments of the simple-minded soldier; and it was by this curious and half-accidental process that there came to be added to the gallery of English fiction one of the most perfect and delightful portraits that ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... thing, Can keep the living from ever needing Such an unnatural, strange proceeding, By showing conclusively and clearly That death is a stupid blunder merely, And not a necessity of our lives. My being here is accidental; The storm, that against your casement drives, In the little village below waylaid me. And there I heard, with a secret delight, Of your maladies physical and mental, Which neither astonished nor dismayed me. And I hastened hither, ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... our women have an exceptional position—quite a good enough one for an election cry for the Woman's Suffrage! Ah, yes! I have been in England," he added, with a merry twinkle in his little black eyes. "But you must realise that the unique position of woman with us is somewhat accidental. It is not the result of philosophical or moral conviction on the part of our men; it has been the natural outcome of circumstances, and a question of expediency rather than of ethics. So it was not really a 'test paper' for us at all! Our frequent wars in the past have taken the ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... Shorty's yellow hair stuck through a hole in his hat, and how old and battered were Shorty's overalls. Shorty had been glad to take a little accidental pay for becoming the bearer of the letter which he had delivered to the Virginian. But even that sum was no longer in his possession. He had passed through Drybone on his way, and at Drybone there had been a game of poker. Shorty's money was now in the pocket of Trampas. But ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... himself a fine example of the type that he admired most. Probably only two persons in the world had the power of causing him annoyance, but both of these, by an irony of fate that it seemed scarcely possible to consider accidental, were closely connected with him, for one was his sister, the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... unexampled; the acquisition by one member of so many high-grade novices that a special publication is required properly to introduce them to the United. "To a Critic of Shelley," by Helen H. Salls, is a long piece of beautiful blank verse, marred only by one accidental rhyme. Miss Salls is evidently one of those few really powerful poets who come all too seldom into Amateur Journalism, startling the Association with impeccable harmony and exalted images. The present poem grows even more attractive ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... legitimate working of the great chattel principle. It is no accidental result—it is the fruit of the tree. You cannot constitute slavery without the chattel principle—and with the chattel principle you cannot save it from these results. Talk not then about kind and christian masters. They are not masters of the ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... opposite direction? Another fire. And what these charred and blackened walls we stand before? A dwelling where a fire has been. It was more than hinted, in an official report, not long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly accidental, and that speculation and enterprise found a field of exertion, even in flames: but be this as it may, there was a fire last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager there will be at least one, to-morrow. So, carrying that with us for ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... were quartered, was burned down, but the houses occupied by myself, Generals Howard and Logan, were not burned at all. Many of the people thought that this fire was deliberately planned and executed. This is not true. It was accidental, and in my judgment began with the cotton which General Hampton's men had set fire to on leaving the city (whether by his orders or not is not material), which fire was partially subdued early in the day by our men; but, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fourteen, on the thirteenth day of the month, and I have for many years resided at No. 13 in a certain street in Westminster. In spite of the popular prejudice attached to this numeral, I am not conscious of having derived any particular ill-fortune from my accidental association with it. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... each time their heads came up for an instant the bullets splashed around them, they kept on untouched until they reached the center of the stream. They were still within musket range, but the distance was sufficient to render them pretty safe except against an accidental shot. They looked back and saw the Sepoys had many of them entered the river up to their shoulders, to shoot the swimmers: others on horseback had ridden far out, and were cutting down those who, unable to swim far, made again toward shallow water; ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... contiguous drills, and then sowing the produce of these. At the second harvest I carefully select such ears as differ from both varieties, and at the same time seem by their quality of grain and the shortness of their straw to be the best suited to my wishes. It has been, no doubt, to the accidental contact of distinct varieties that we owe the numerous kinds now known to agriculturists, and which differ from each other in colour, quality, yield, and comparative value in the various districts in ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... it would be right, proper, or expedient for her to give information of that secret interview between Mr. Fabian and Mrs. Stillwater, to which she herself had been an accidental and most unwilling witness, on that warm night in September, in the hotel parlor ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... individual, how well we know that a sober moderation of action, an appropriate gravity of demeanour, belong to the mature period of life; a change from the wanton wilfulness of youth, which may be ushered in, or its beginning marked, by many accidental incidents: in one perhaps by domestic bereavements, in another by the loss of fortune, in a third by ill health. We are correct enough in imputing to such trials the change of character, but we never deceive ourselves by supposing that it would ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cozy look; the masses of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain reference to the glow of color, Margaret noticed, wondering if it were accidental. Looking up, she saw the girl's brown eyes fixed on her face. They were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... whispered in a pretty loud voice, and the persons who ought not to have any idea of what is said are expected to be reasonably hard of bearing. If I named all The Teacups, some of them might be offended. If any of my readers happen to be able to identify any one Teacup by some accidental circumstance,—say, for instance, Number Five, by the incident of her burning the diamond,—I hope they will keep quiet about it. Number Five does n't want to be pointed out in the street as the extravagant person who makes use of such expensive ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... who had jilted Miss Mary, and the various burlesque actresses at the Shoreham Gardens who had captivated Ginger's susceptible heart. While listening she suddenly became aware that she had never been so happy before. Now all she had endured seemed accidental; she felt that she had entered into the permanent; and in the midst of vague but intense sensations William showed her the pigeon-house with all the blue birds dozing on the tiles, a white one here ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... apart from special circumstances favourable to error. Similarly, in the case of belief, true belief was held to be that which men in general, or in the long run, or on the average, hold true, as distinguished from what the individual under variable and accidental influences holds true. And even in the case of introspection we found that true cognition resolved itself into a consensus or agreement as to ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... their good-night song, through the gathering twilight shades, across the main road and up the lighthouse lane. Kyan, his mind filled with fearful forebodings, was busily trying to think of a reasonable excuse for the "accidental" imprisonment of his sister. John Ellery was thinking, also, but his thoughts ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... combination of causes could have a definite number of different consequences, however small that number might be, and that among these the occurrence of the actual consequence was, in the old sense of the word, accidental, no observation would ever ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... end, and from a height of one hundred and twenty feet, was till lately not known to exist; it not being supposed that the Ear had any meatus internus corresponding with the external one. The accidental removal of a quantity of loose stones from above, revealed a narrow passage of from twenty to thirty feet in length, and opening directly into the cave. This internal opening is situated almost immediately over the amphitheatre, one hundred and twenty feet above ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the nobles;* but if we take the provinces separately we find great variations from this average. In five provinces the serfs were less than three per cent., while in others they formed more than seventy per cent. of the population! This is not an accidental phenomenon. In the geographical distribution of serfage we can see reflected the origin and history of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... very remarkable, and is much founded on by Mr Campbell. But the history of literature affords various instances of the preservation of a book depending on one solitary MS. The case of the great Niebelungen-Lied—unknown for centuries, and brought to light through the accidental discovery of a MS.—is quite in point; and to come nearer home, two years ago, only one perfect copy of the first Gaelic book ever printed, Bishop Carewell's translation of John Knox's liturgy, was in existence. It may be, then, that when Macpherson destroyed ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... interest himself in my patient's case, and the result was that Alspaugh joined the regiment, and so far has found it difficult to get away from it. It's the unexpected that happens, the French say, and there is a bare possibility that he may do the country some service by the accidental ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... continued in this state for two or three weeks, during all which time the new city was a general place of resort for the people of all the surrounding country. Of course a great many agreeable acquaintances would naturally be formed between the young men of the city and their visitors, as accidental circumstances, or individual choice and preference brought them together; and thus, without any directions on the subject from Romulus, each man would very naturally occupy himself, in anticipation of the general seizure which he knew was coming, ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... celebrated French scientist, an authority on the subject of heredity. You doubtless know something of the subject, how certain traits appear in families generation after generation. Accidental traits, if repeated for two or three generations, often become inherent traits. To show you to what a strange extent this is true, I will call your attention to the case of the ducal house of Bethune ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... observation window in the back of the vehicle, and ascertained that the gray car was stealing along quietly about a hundred yards in the rear, he began to believe that its presence both at Waterloo and outside Mr. Forbes's residence could not be wholly accidental. When he had watched its persistent treading on his heels along Piccadilly its intent became ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Alberoni was due mainly to the character and policy of the two ministers of France and England, who agreed in wishing a general peace. The policy and reasons of the French regent are already known. Moved by the same reasons, and to remove an accidental offence taken by England, Dubois obtained for her the further concession from Spain, additional to the commercial advantages granted at Utrecht, of sending a ship every year to trade in the West Indies. It is said that this ship, after being anchored, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... shall next consider is, in some of its versions, legendary in its nature, and might more properly, perhaps, have been treated in chapter IV. Its legendary character, however, is only accidental, and it really belongs to the class of stories discussed in the present chapter. The story in general maybe termed "The Thankful Dead," from the most important episode in it. The hero shows some respect to a corpse ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... cottage at a late hour, looking very sad and gloomy. The next morning his body was found in a freshwater cistern which had been built in a hollow between the rocks. There were some who thought that his death might have been accidental, but old Doctor Bowditch said, "My friends, there was only too much reason for it." Of all the wrecks on that dangerous coast was not this the most piteous and tragical! William Hunt narrowly missed being one of the greatest of painters. Though some of his portraits ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... How accidental soever this insurrection might appear, there is reason to suspect that some great men, in combination with the popular leaders in England, had secretly instigated the Covenanters to proceed to such extremities,[*] and hoped for the same effects that had forty years before ensued from the disorders ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... consider them in their reciprocal relations. Then they constitute for us reality, the whole of reality and the only object of human knowledge. The world is but an assembly of present, past, and possible sensations; the affair of science is to analyse and co-ordinate them by separating their accidental from their constant relations. ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... over the two symbolic pillars, from right to left, the two words [Symbols] and [Symbols] [Hebrew: יהו] and [Hebrew: בעל], IHU and BAL: followed by the hieroglyphic equivalent, [Hieroglyphic: ] of the Sun-God, Amun-ra. Is it an accidental coincidence, that in the name of each murderer are the two names of the Good and Evil Deities of the Hebrews; for Yu-bel is but Yehu-Bal or Yeho-Bal? and that the three final syllables of the names, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... get such an erroneous impression, or make such wild and reckless statements, I am utterly unable to imagine. As a matter of fact, the fleet never tried or intended to injure the castle, and all the damage done to it was probably accidental. I have no doubt that Admiral Sampson might have reduced the fortress to the condition that the correspondent so graphically describes,—I saw him destroy the stone fort of Aguadores in a few hours, with only three ships,—but he discovered, almost as soon ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... the lesson for the day, boys, I wish to refer to an incident that happened here yesterday morning, which must be fresh in your memories. I mean the accidental discovery of the lost examination paper for the Nightingale Scholarship. I hope you will not draw hasty conclusions from what then occurred. The boy in whose book the paper was found is present here, and has assured me on his honour he never saw the paper before, and is quite ignorant ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... victor, Thomas Seymour, her handkerchief, embroidered with gold, fell from her hands, and that the earl, after he had taken it up and presented it to the queen, had thrust his hand for a moment, with a motion wholly accidental and undesigned, into his ruff, which was just as white as the small neatly-folded paper which he concealed in it, and which he had found in the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... does not favourably receive Lightfoot's arguments regarding an alteration of the name of Sichem, nor his conjectures as to the relation of the place mentioned in the Talmud to Sichem, which he thinks is "very doubtful," and he seems to incline rather to an accidental corruption of Sichem into Sychar, although he feels the great difficulties in the way of such an explanation. Ewald condemns the "Talmudische Studien" of Delitzsch as generally more complicating than clearing up difficulties, and his views as commonly incorrect, and, whilst agreeing with him ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... with this accidental meeting. Had heard Mr. Venner's name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle was well, and his charming cousin,—was she as original as ever? Had often admired that charming creature he rode: we had had some fine horses. Had never got over her taste ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... ages make men of action. Theirs was a time of wide conquests recently achieved by right of might alone, and left to whomsoever should be mightiest. It was a time when the individual had suddenly found that no accidental defects—lack of birth, or property, or allies—need prevent him from exploiting for himself a vast field of unmeasured possibilities, so he had a sound brain, a stout heart and a strong arm. As it would be again in the age of the Crusades, in that of the Grand Companies, and ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... as the heroes sought the golden fleece. The place of Uranus had been mapped for nearly one hundred years by these accidental observations. On applying the law of universal gravitation, a slight discrepancy was found between its computed place and its observed place. This discrepancy was exceedingly slight. In 1830 it was only 20"; in 1840,190"; in 1884, 2'. Two stars that were ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... more than a merchant, and probably not as much. A physician is confined in a different way, but more closely than a teacher: he can never leave home: he knows generally no vacation, and nothing but accidental rest. ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... assay, to be of the purest quality. Every one was questioned as to what he had cast into the furnace, when there appeared no reason to suppose the transmutation could have been effected by such an accidental mixture of metals. At length it was remarked, that a dervish, accompanying the barber's son, had cast in a lump of ore, and immediately disappeared. Upon this the sultan summoned the youth to his presence, and inquiring ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... says, "easy to understand how survival of the fittest may result in progress starting from such functionally produced gains, but impossible to understand how it could result in progress if it had to start in mere accidental structural increments due to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... saw was a mere accidental circumstance; nor was it of his seeking. It was the fault of the Chicasaw, I can ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... construction could be put upon it, even by the most ill-natured and malicious witnesses? The college grounds were free to all; this meeting was evidently accidental and all that had passed thereat was a few words with the boy, which Arthur would be sure to repent at once; nor did ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... chance. He knew all the Sunday's tones of voice; and he also was well aware that the Sunday's brain was not on the whole better stored than his own. Further, the Sunday was satisfied with his bit of accidental knowledge. Edwin was not. Edwin wanted to know why, if the clay for making earthenware was not got in the Five Towns, the Five Towns had become the great seat of the manufacture. Why were not pots made in the South, where the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... poppies in her hands, in the immortal Seventh Idyll of Theocritus. Our Kernababy, I said, is a stunted survival of our older 'Maiden,' 'a regular image of the harvest goddess,' and I compared [Greek]. Next I gave the parallel case from ancient Peru, and the odd accidental coincidence that there the maize was styled ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... flowers of various kinds of orchids are very remarkable for the peculiar forms which they take. Some of them have a great resemblance to bees, flies, or butterflies, and this resemblance is at times so great that we wonder whether it is only an accidental likeness, or whether it serves some useful purpose. One of the oddest shapes which any plant takes, however, is that of the leaves of the pitcher-plant; and in this case naturalists, who have studied the plant carefully, are able to show us ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... to which he adds, in explanation, "probably the name of the goldsmith." {143} At the foot of an earlier print of this relic, the inscription is given thus—FERARE GOD—and till the appearance of Mr. Scott's version, I had considered the former word as an accidental error of the engraver, instead of FEARE; which would present a moral motto, suiting the SOBRII ESTOTE round the lid.—As Mr. Nichols, in his recent interesting work on Pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... answer you quite as clearly. Nothing accidental has happened in my cellars. You may come and see them, if you have any doubt about it. And you need not ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... because it could not be foreseen, is followed by want, care, and tribulation. If this is to be mended I must be relieved from the necessity of counting upon these receipts, and be placed in a position which will enable me to look upon them as an accidental increase of resources, which I can employ in adding certain comforts to my existence, and which I am able to dispense with without interfering with my sufficient and settled income, as soon as I find it desirable to withhold my ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... An accidental merit, thinks the reader? No, reader, you may believe me, it is by no means altogether such. Nay, I rather think, could we look into the Account-Books of the Recording Angel for a course of centuries, no part of it is such! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... might not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and 5 might even be generally insecure for the treading of heavy and heavily laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing notion is that some accidental movements on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really 10 having no reference to them or their plans, had been construed into certain signs that all was discovered, and that the prudence of the Western chieftains, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... last night after he had been there? It was in ruins, my dear sir—absolute dashed ruins. It was positively littered with broken china and tables that had been bowled over. Don't tell me that was just an accidental collision in the dark. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the two crimes allowed Juve to make further inductions. He reckoned that it was not by chance that Dixon had met Josephine at the "Crocodile" two nights before, while the presence of both Chaleck and Loupart in that establishment was still less accidental. And already he felt pleased at the thought that he knew almost to a certainty the villains to whom this fresh crime must be ascribed. They had wanted to get rid of Dixon, that was sure, and by a process still unknown to Juve, but which he would soon ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... I didn't. Once I didn't do nothin' else but remember. I got over that. It's only accidental to circumstances pertainin' to the fact that I remember now. You never seen me cry in ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... history, dread of the consequences, or those cold forms which protect the fortunate would probably have interposed to prevent either from learning much of the other's character.—I say not this, Sigismund, as by thy eye I see thou wouldst think, in reproach for any deception, for I well know the accidental nature of our acquaintance, and that the intimacy was forced upon thee by our own importunate gratitude, but simply, and in explanation of my own feelings. As it is, we are not to judge of our situation by ordinary rules, and I am not now to decide on your pretensions ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... causes by the authors of documents is limited to the interconnection of the accidental facts observed by them; these are, in truth, the causes which are known with the greatest certainty. Thus history, unlike the other sciences, is better able to ascertain the causes of particular incidents than those ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... found to be about 6 per cent. stronger than when cut across the grain. Repeated piling and welding was found to increase the tenacity of the iron, but the result of welding together different kinds of iron was not found to be favorable. The accidental overheating of a boiler was found to reduce the ultimate or maximum strength of the plates from 65,000 to 45,000 lbs. per square inch of section, and riveting the plates was found to occasion a diminution in their strength to the extent of one third. These results, however, are not precisely the ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... affair the distinctive character of the inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shown more in relief than perhaps in any national transaction since the establishment of the constitution. It is, perhaps, accidental that the combination of talent and influence has been the greatest on the slave side. The importance of the question has been much greater to them than to the other side. Their union of exertion has been consequently ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... Cornwallis commanded the Canada, a mutiny broke out in the ship, on account of some accidental delay in paying the crew. The men signed a round robin, wherein they declared that they would not fire a gun till they were paid. Captain Cornwallis, on receiving this declaration, caused all hands to be called on deck, and thus addressed them: "My lads, the money cannot be paid ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... that I am by no means regretful; he was not wanted, as the event proved abundantly. The worst was that he was annoyed by the number of judicious observers and miserable comforters who told him I was horribly changed and ought to be taken back to Italy forthwith. I knew it was nothing but an accidental attack, and that the results would pass away, as they did. I kept quiet, applied mustard poultices, and am now looking again (tell dear Mr. Martin) 'as if I had shammed.' So all these misfortunes are strictly historical, you are to understand. To-night we are going to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... feudal system, will demonstrate, better than any direct argument, its radical and irrevocable decay. The theologic school has generally no other method of explaining this decomposition of the old system than by causes merely accidental or personal, out of all reasonable proportion with the magnitude of the results; or else, when hard driven, it has recourse to its ordinary artifice, and attempts to explain all by an appeal to the will of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... city is rather accidental. I had no expectation of attracting any uncommon attention. I am travelling for my health, without the least wish of exciting the people in such times of high political feeling. I do not wish to ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... of power. That golden age, however, had passed. People had gotten into the habit of fancying that, because certain men had grown very, very rich through their own genius for money-making, supplemented perhaps by accidental favors from law and public officials, therefore politics in some way might possibly concern the private citizen, might account for the curious discrepancy between his labor and its reward. The impression was growing that, while the energy of the citizen determined ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... touch the surface of the real mystery. The sun, the human beings on the mountain, and the mists are all parts of one material universe: the transient phenomenon we witnessed was but the effect of a chance combination. Is, then, the anthropomorphic God as momentary and as accidental in the system of the world as that vapoury spectre? The God in whom we live and move and have our being must be far more all-pervasive, more incognisable by the souls of men, who doubt not for one moment of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... not know whether there was a lintel, or whether they terminated in an open angle, like the doorways of Yucatan. I have seen openings showing the peculiar so-called "aboriginal arch" of Yucatan on a small scale, and I also have seen that an accidental "knocking-out" of one or two stones from the walls produced a hole or gap very similar in shape to the doorways at Uxmal and other pueblos of Southern Mexico, though of course on a small scale. It is self-evident that, the coincidence being accidental, ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... still "sub judice."[194] In a subsequent discussion of the question he has somewhat modified his opinion, and is inclined to deny that definite impressions on the pregnant woman's mind can cause similar defects in the foetus; they are "accidental coincidences," but he adds that a few of the cases are difficult to explain away. At the same time he fully believes that prolonged and strongly marked mental states of the mother may affect the development ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the last—he was kind Courage; without which, men are as the standing straw Evil is half-accidental, half-natural Fascinating colour which makes evil appear to be good Had the luck together, all kinds and all weathers Hunger for happiness is robbery If one remembers, why should the other forget Instinct for detecting veracity, having ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... He resolved, however, to sift the matter further, and to bide his time. Meanwhile his manner must indicate no trace of his dark surmises and bitter thoughts. Deception, in its two great branches, simulation and dissimulation, was easy to him. His habitual reserve and gloom would divest any accidental and momentary disclosure of his inward trouble of everything suspicious or unaccountable, which would have characterized such displays and eccentricities in ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... man for whom the actual world does not exist—in the converse of Gautier's phrase. His distinction is wholly personal. He lives evidently on a high plane, dwells habitually in the delectable highlands of the intellect. The fact that his work is almost wholly decorative is not at all accidental. His talent, his genius, if one chooses, requires large spaces, vast dimensions. There has been a good deal of profitless discussion as to whether he expressly imitates the Primitives or reproduces them sympathetically; but really he does neither, he deals with their subjects ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... more shining than fierce, but everywhere equal and constant: in Lucan and Statius it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted flashes: In Milton it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force of art: in Shakspeare it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns everywhere ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... evidence the subtraction of any single item is of less importance than the addition of a new one. Supposing it to be shown that some of the allusions which are thought to be taken from our Gospels were merely accidental coincidences of language, this would not materially affect the part of the evidence which could not be so explained. Supposing even that some of these allusions could be definitely referred to an apocryphal source, the possibility would be somewhat, but not so very much, increased ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... with them. It is therefore certain that Fortune is a cause. Now of causes, some are causes by themselves, and others by accident. Thus for example, the proper cause by itself of an house or a ship is the art of the mason, the carpenter, or the shipwright; but accidental causes are music, geometry, and whatever else may happen to be joined with the art of building houses or ships, in respect either of the body, the soul, or any exterior thing. Whence it appears, that the cause by itself must needs be determinate and one; but the causes by accident are never ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... us believe that he possessed not only the most acute powers of observation, but that he also enjoyed the faculty of "inductive reasoning," independent of any mechanical training, many of his performances being entirely voluntary, and the result of causes dependent upon accidental circumstances alone: for instance, when lost from observation, he would noiselessly withdraw from his point, hunt up his master, and induce him, by peculiar signs, to follow him to the spot where he ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... his father right as to his riding with the butcher's boy being entirely accidental; but his sobs prevented his speaking articulately, and they had nearly arrived at home before Mr. and Mrs. Danvers could exactly understand how the accident ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... singular exception among the people of her country; some abnormal product, an accidental grace, a growth of luxuriant richness in a deadly soil, or, at least, is she not like Jenny Lind among singers? Surely we shall not look upon her like again. It would be difficult to find even here at the ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... extraordinary auroras with extraordinary commotions in the physical condition of our globe merely accidental? or are these phenomena due to a common cause? The latter supposition is not improbable, but the question can be fully settled only by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... men and the women who have lived beyond ten years." The causes of death he would place in the following order: gradual cardiac failure; uremia; apoplexy; some complicating acute infection; angina pectoris; accidental causes; acute edema of the lungs and cachexia. An early occurrence of myocardial weakness shows a 50 percent probability that death will be caused by cardiac insufficiency. Heart pains comprise another important indicator of future cardiac ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... dress and manifested an expectant interest. The impression Bryant had gained at the first accidental meeting at Perro Creek, of her good looks, of her vitality and irrepressible spirits, was heightened. As he recollected his feeling of pique at her visit with Charlie Menocal to the ruined pueblo, he realized that he had indulged in a bit of senseless, unwarranted ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he was doing me the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... painful humiliation in the reflection, that a citizen of mature years, with as good natural and accidental means for preferment as have fallen to the share of most others, may pass his life without a fact of any sort to impeach his disinterestedness, and yet not be able to express a generous or just sentiment in behalf of his fellow-creatures, without laying himself open to suspicions that ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Mr. Loth-to-stoop again, 'But, sir, may not my master, and great Lord, by letters, by passengers, by accidental opportunities, and the like, maintain, if he shall deliver up all unto thee, some kind of old ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... awake, and looking up towards the ceiling had what sounds like a hypna-gogic hallucination, of a cloud which changed rapidly in colour, shape, and size, and alarmed her greatly. Then she felt her clothes pulled off, but thought this might be accidental, and tucked them in. Then she was sure they were pulled off again, and screamed to the other maids. Neither dared go to her, her screams were so terrifying; but they finally opened the door of communication between the rooms, and Carter went to fetch the temporary ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... the Nile, and setting out alone discovered Victoria Nyanza, which he maintained was the source of the river, but which Burton questioned; on his return he published in 1863 an account of his discovery, which he was about to defend in the British Association when he was shot by the accidental discharge of his gun while ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... better, I would be almost forced to believe it was accidental," he thought. "But in that case they would have come to my assistance, instead of taking the sloop ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... he termed it, and could not he induced to understand that the animal was endowed with rare instinct; and even when we related how he had sought us out on the night that Black Darnley had murdered his master, he tried to argue that it was purely accidental; but even while we debated, the bays of the hound grew louder and nearer as the scent became fresher, and while we were listening attentively, as the animal searched along the edge of the woods for a trail, I thought I heard the report of firearms, but ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... went upstairs. She liked the clasp, and she liked the gracious feeling which had sent it; but what really occupied her more than either was a distressed fear that she had offended Tom Fenton. He never came to the farm now. The only hope she had of seeing him lay in an accidental meeting. ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... her face As sunlight masks the barren sea; A fitful, accidental grace Which time ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... tap was repeated; it was no accidental noise. Susannah laid the child in its cradle and went nearer the ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... very willing to defer to Cora's opinion, for he had, more than once, found her judgment sound. And, in a great measure, this was her affair, since she had been invited first by the Robinsons, and Jack himself was only a sort accidental after-thought. ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the verge of the city, amid regions very different from those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of London, where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime. By the dim light of an accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were seen tottering to their fall, in directions so many and capricious that scarce the semblance of a passage was discernible between them. The paving-stones lay at random, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... train strolled into an accidental-looking station with an air of one who says, "Let's sit down for a bit—what?" and Horace sprang to the window ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... the walk to the inn, except an accidental remark of Nicholas, that it appeared to him that his ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the casual modification tending towards the avoidance of what is to its disadvantage, neither does it hand down the modification leading to the adoption of what is to its advantage. However lively the impression made upon the mother, the accidental leaves no trace in the offspring. Chance plays no part in the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... adopted to give euphony to the name of an inn, or whether there is a latent and spontaneous leaning to such a method of association, from some cause or other connected with perceptions of personal comfort afforded at such establishments. Accidental or intentional, this form of association is very common. There is no tavern in London better known than The Elephant and Castle, a designation that would sound equally well if the two substantives were transposed. Even the loftiest symbols ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... and talent, for want of the proper means. In military matters these things are never considered. Success is the only criterion—a good rule, upon the whole, though in many instances it works great injustice. Good and deserving men fall, and accidental heroes rise in the scale, kicking their less fortunate brothers ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... passionate fondness." "In the sixteenth century exorcism was alternately defended in one place and disapproved in another; and in the latter half of the eighteenth, attention was again directed to the subject partly by accidental circumstances, and partly also by the great changes in the department of theology. The result has been that exorcism has been entirely abolished in different individual towns; and in several countries. This, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... stones look altogether too regular to be accidental," was her conclusion. Notwithstanding her belief in a superintending Deity, she had an idea that much of this world was made by hazard, or perhaps by the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Nevertheless, the principle of the art was developed in the sacristy of Haarlem, and we might hesitate whether to attribute the honor of it to Koster or Gutenberg, if its invention had not been with one the mere accidental discovery of love and chance, and, in the other, the well-earned victory of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... feeling was strengthened by an event which, though merely accidental, was not unnaturally ascribed to the perfidy of the King. The Bishop of Winchester announced that, in obedience to the royal commands, he designed to restore the ejected members of Magdalene College. He fixed the twenty-first of October for this ceremony, and on the twentieth ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... protested Bill Adams. "He took it accidental, you being otherwise engaged; an' I stuck to the creatur', thinkin' as how you ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rogue in alliance with criminals. Even while we write this statement one of these disclosures has been made to a startled public. Accident unmasked a millionaire, a man who has posed before the public for twenty years, and this accidental discovery led to the positive proof that this same man has been a systematic criminal for years; and even after having acquired a million he continued his evil criminal game until exposure came, as it is always sure to come and overtake the ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... provoking; but a pretty little accidental impediment of speech like that, accompanied with a little graceful bob of the head, is very ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... English, on the contrary, fancied themselves in a very good position, as they were possessors of a sea-port by which they could receive succours from New York, and communicate with the different parts of the coast. An accidental, but a very fortunate circumstance, increased their security. Whilst Lafayette, full of hope, was writing to General Washington that he foresaw he could push Lord Cornwallis into a situation in which it would be easy for him, with some assistance from the navy, to cut ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... hard, plumb through. He's rustled everythin' from a bunch of ponies to the mail-bags, an' is nothin' but a hold-up who needs hangin' every hour. Whatever takes him to where I lays by my bayonet-bush I never knows. He don't disclose nothin' on that p'int afterward, an' mebby he tracks up on me accidental. ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a flea-bite. Dr. Livesey patched it up with plaster, and pulled my ears for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various |
