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More "Coincidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my Demeter for the lady-students at Somerville College, I re- membered the first line of Caradoc's soliloquy, and made some use of it. On the other hand the broken line I have read her eyes in my 1st part of Nero is proved by date to be a coincidence, and not a reminiscence.—Caradoc was to 'die impenitent, struck by the finger ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... amity and friendship with that new world whose treasures were now opening to them. In conclusion, he admitted in their full extent the reasons which had been given by the noble lords for their several resignations, and the statements which they had made in accounting for that remarkable coincidence; but he could not help expressing his surprise that government had been able to go on so long, being conducted, as it now appeared, by ministers who did not think proper to communicate with one another upon the most important ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... present Insurrection bears to the former Revolution would demand an essay. The relations between them, however, whether stated briefly or at length, would be found to be simply relations of difference, without one single point of resemblance, much less of coincidence. We can make but the briefest reference to the points of contrast and unlikeness between the two things, after asserting that they have no one common feature. It might seem evasive in us to suggest to our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... names of Ob, or Pythia; according to the not unusual custom for the priest or priestess of any god to take the name of the deity they served. See Selden, De Dis Syris, Synt. 1. c. 2. It is a curious coincidence, that as the Witch of Endor is called "Oub," and the African sorceress "Obi," from the serpent-deity Oub, so the old English name of a witch, "hag," bears apparent relationship to the word hak, the ancient ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... with her brother. They had sat talking together long after sunset, and had let the darkness steal on them insensibly, as people will who are only occupied with quiet, familiar conversation. Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose was lighting the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... in the habit of conducting experiments may not be aware of the coincidence of circumstances necessary for their being managed so as to prove perfectly decisive; nor how often men engaged in professional pursuits are liable to interruptions which disappoint them almost at the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... not a metaphysical thinker, to do justice to the depth and originality of his creative power; for his imagination includes everything which at a given moment a human being can think or feel, and often finds itself, therefore, at some point to which other minds have reasoned their way. The coincidence occurs most often with German lines of thought, and it has therefore been concluded that he has studied the works in which they are laid down, or has otherwise moved in the same track; the fact being that he has no bond of union with German philosophers, but the natural tendencies ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered, and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. We accordingly went—and there I readily engaged ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... odd coincidence, that the mystery of Cecil's parentage was cleared up shortly after Elisabeth's false alarm on that score; and his paternal grandfather was discovered in the shape of a retired shopkeeper at Surbiton of the name of Biggs, who had been cursed with an unsatisfactory son. When in due ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... finish this passage; for some seconds her voice was broken by sobs. There was indeed a fatal coincidence between the fears of General Simon and the sad reality; and what could be more touching than these outpourings of the heart, written by the light of a watch fire, on the eve of battle, by a soldier who thus sought to soothe the pangs ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... So, strange coincidence! while Lucien was drawn into the great machinery of journalism, where he was like to leave his honor and his intelligence torn to shreds, David Sechard, at the back of his printing-house, foresaw all the practical consequences of the increased activity of the periodical press. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... forgotten to wipe off. My mysticism does not go so far as to create belief in the intervention of mysterious powers through omens, signs, or predictions. Yet, though not superstitious myself, I am able to enter the train of thought of a superstitious man, and consequently observe the singular coincidence of this fact. It seemed to me strange that in the carriage where I dreamed about the beginning of a new life some other life had perhaps breathed its last; also that with bloodstained hands I had been ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... IT is a coincidence worthy of note, and heretofore unremarked by historians, that, as in the hour of birth of the National Flag there was given to posterity the name of a great Revolutionary hero, the hour of birth of the Confederate Battle Emblem immortalized the name ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... spiritual garden). His experiments, social and economic, are a part of its cultivation and for the harvest—and its transmutation, he trusts to moments of inspiration—"only what is thought, said, and done at a certain rare coincidence is good." ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... at the hands of savage Zulus was severely felt by the still strong Bonapartism of France; but Englishmen, remembering the early melancholy death of the heir of the first Napoleon, were struck by the fatal coincidence, while they could honestly deplore the premature extinction of so much youth, gallantry, and hope-fulness, cast away in ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... to me that Life is God 194:1 and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will. Review- 194:3 ing this brief experience, I cannot fail to discern the coincidence of the spiritual idea of man with the ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... her. Young blood is prone enough to adventure; the merest spark will set it akindle. I should like to have known that girl. She must have been very clever. Because, of course, she couldn't have foreseen, even by the surest instinct, the coincidence that brought Harber and Barton together. Yes, there is a coincidence in it. It's precisely upon that, you see, that Harber hangs ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... that Rhoda, without speaking, continued to watch him, "the coincidence of Mr. Wrent's stay with that of Mr. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... probably in few Members' hands; it needed a few corrections[15], and was worthy of a thousand times wider circulation than it had had; therefore a new edition from the MS. was added to this volume. Relying on Members reading it for themselves, Ihave not in the notes indicated all the points of coincidence and difference between this Boke and Russell's. It is of wider scope than Russell's, takes in the duties of outdoor officers and servants as well as indoor, and maybe those of a larger household; it has also a fyrst Boke ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... criminologist in Europe, who now lay dead and mutilated in an East-End mortuary? The telephone message which had summoned Dunbar away had been too opportune to be regarded as a mere coincidence. Mlle. Dorian was, therefore, an accomplice ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... "What a singular coincidence," said Tremaine, stroking his fine, white, pointed mustache, of which he was very proud. "I call it very remarkable that this savage should have told the story of that old tragedy the very night when the only survivor of ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... enterprises of the brothers, Landers, and especially of Richard, whose narrative of his third voyage we are now relating, have fixed the admiration of their country. This feeling was probably greatly enhanced, as the prospect of utility is certainly much enlarged by the remarkable coincidence of these gallant efforts, with the application of the navigating powers of steam. There might have been generations of Landers, with lives devoted to the cause, the sole reward of which would have been the discovery of a river's source and termination, but now there was combined with ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... ample fortune, and of unexceptionable character, should happen to set his heart upon her, and the only way to make him happy was to give up her weeds and go into those unbecoming colors again for his sake,—why, she felt that it was in her nature to make the sacrifice. By a singular coincidence it happened that a gentleman was now living in Rockland who united in himself all these advantages. Who he was, the sagacious reader may very probably have divined. Just to see how it looked, one day, having bolted her door, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... a copy of this paper before the end of the month, and was astonished to find that Leverrier's theoretical place for the planet was within 1 deg. of the place Adams had assigned to it eight months before. So striking a coincidence seemed sufficient to justify a Herschelian sweep for a week or two. But a sweep for so distant a planet would be no easy matter. When seen through a large telescope it would still only look like a star, and it would require considerable labor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... profitable inscription to the effect that the poorer pilgrims, "who have come unprovided with either money or wine, should be jolly well contented to find the water so fine." There is also a famous echo farther up the lake, which repeats six syllables with accuracy. It is a strange coincidence that there are just six syllables in the name of "der heilige Wolfgang." But when you translate it into English, the inspiration of the echo seems to be less exact. The sweetest thing about St. Wolfgang was the abundance of purple cyclamens, clothing the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Dolcoath, and during April and May I was engaged in correspondence with Sir H. Davy (President of the Royal Society), Mr Herschel, and Dr Young (Secretary of the Board of Longitude) about the loan of instruments and pendulums. On Apr. 23rd I was practising pendulum-observations (by coincidence); and about this time repeatedly practised transits with a small instrument lent by Mr Sheepshanks (with whom my acquaintance must have begun no long time before) which was erected under a tent in the Fellows' Walks. On my quires I find various schemes ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... am coming to your father to be coached," continued the young man. "It is a funny coincidence, don't you think so? I am glad you came to that ball, Miss May. It makes me feel that I know you. I don't like starting off afresh, all at once, among people I ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... By an unfortunate coincidence, the St. James's Hall premiere clashed with another attraction elsewhere. This was the confirmation that evening of the dusky King of Bonny by the Bishop of London. Still, a considerable number managed to attend both items; and, of the two, the ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... they can't be interested in the treasure. It would be simply too much coincidence for them even to ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... once been washed or the bed changed. The result, even with my experience, appalled me. But while there is life in a young patient there is always hope, and we at once set to work on our Augean task. By the strangest coincidence it was an inky dark night outside, with a low fog hanging over the water, and the big trap boat, with a crew of some six men, among them the skipper's sons, had been missing since morning. The skipper had stayed home out of sympathy for ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... stage of her reflections that a shadow fell across her and she looked up. For a moment the coincidence failed to strike her, and then with a surprised little laugh she ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only one who had achieved an entire new suit. But it was of funereal black cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other by a tall white hat, and cravat ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... ears for music that all evolutions seemed to come to them by nature. At once, despite all hostile influence, the negro regiment became one of the lions of the South; and strangers visiting the department, crowded out eagerly to see its evening parades and Sunday-morning inspection. By a strange coincidence, its camp was pitched on the lawn and around the mansion of Gen. Drayton, who commanded the rebel works guarding Hilton Head, Port Royal and Beaufort, when the same were first captured by the joint naval and military operations under Admiral DuPont and General ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... were supplied with something quite different. You see, I know no fewer than thirty unfortunate women in the West End of London alone who are simply helpless slaves to various drugs, and I think it more than a coincidence that upon their dressing-tables I have almost invariably found one or more of ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... does, too. When I first heard the news of the murder over the telephone this morning, I had a kind of intuition that we should discover in it a thread leading back to this mesh of espionage. Is it merely a coincidence that a hair, resembling Nur-el-Din's, is found adhering to the straps with which Barbara Mackwayte was bound? I can't ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... git de quicker at de varmint's throat wid his fo'parts. Back falls Injun, wid a kick an' a yell; off goes gun, wid a kick an' a bang, the bullet a-whizzin' right 'twix' our noses. "Ouch!" ses I. "Ugh!" says Black Thunder. [Audience: "I yi!" "Oho!" "U-gooh!" See Glossary. It may have been a coincidence, but just here Grumbo fetched the stump a ratifying rap ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... be a mere coincidence, but since their departure shells have fallen less frequently in this part of the town, though a great many have passed close over the Town Hall, on which a Red Cross flag floats, denoting its use as a refuge for sick and wounded, and the ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... said Richard, "as showing she attached importance to the affair herself. It was a most curious coincidence, to say the least of it. But what is this Flying Dutchman, of which you also spoke? I did not know he ever came so far out of his proper latitude ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... that the elaboration of the historical motive of the passover is not earlier than Deuteronomy, although perhaps a certain inclination to that way of explaining it appears before then, just as in the case of the maccoth (Exodus xii. 34). What has led to it is evidently the coincidence of the spring festival with the exodus, already accepted by the older tradition, the relation of cause and effect having become inverted in course of time. The only view sanctioned by the nature of the case is that the Israelite custom of offering the firstlings gave rise to the narrative ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... it bears the stamp of a reforming legislator like the constitutions of Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus; and it has evidently been produced under Greek influence. Particular analogies may be deceptive, such as the coincidence noticed by the ancients that in Corinth also widows and orphans were charged with the provision of horses for the cavalry; but the adoption of the armour and arrangements of the Greek hoplite system was certainly no accidental coincidence. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... period has itself three stages, in which Fetishism, Polytheism, and Monotheism successively prevail. The chief social characteristics of the Polytheistic period are the institution of slavery and the coincidence or "confusion" of the spiritual and temporal powers. It has two stages: the theocratic, represented by Egypt, and the military, represented by Rome, between which Greece stands in a rather embarrassing and ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... given diagrams, that the movement is more strongly pronounced in radicles when they first [page 72] protrude from the seed than at a rather later period; but whether this is an accidental or an adaptive coincidence we do not pretend to decide. Nevertheless, when young radicles of Phaseolus multiflorus were fixed vertically close over damp sand, in the expectation that as soon as they reached it they would form circular furrows, this did not occur,—a fact which ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... fortunate coincidence Dr. Martin had learned that a patient of his at Big River was in urgent need of a call, so, to the open delight of the others and to the subdued delight of the doctor, he was to ride with them ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... repeated this assurance more than once. They talked of it so profoundly that it drove everything else for the time out of his head—his duty to Mr. Locket, the remarkable sacrifice he had just achieved, and even the odd coincidence, matching with the oddity of all the others, of her having reverted to the house again, as if with one of her famous divinations, at the very moment the trumpery papers, the origin really of their ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... Deva Raya heard of Ismail Adil's arrival on the river-bank while he himself was in camp at Raichur, fifteen miles away; and that he advanced and gave battle nine miles from the river, in the end driving the enemy across. But taking the two narratives as a whole, there are too many points of coincidence to leave any doubt in the mind that each chronicler is writing ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... commenced to regard me more attentively than ever, as though to observe the effect of his words on me. I could not refrain from starting when I heard him utter the name of Clarimonde, and this news of her death, in addition to the pain it caused me by reason of its coincidence with the nocturnal scenes I had witnessed, filled me with an agony and terror which my face betrayed, despite my utmost endeavours to appear composed. Serapion fixed an anxious and severe look upon me, and then observed: 'My son, I must warn you that you are standing with foot raised ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... race." Upon such symbolism are based most of the practices of divination and the great pseudo-science of astrology. "It is an old story, that when two brothers were once taken ill together, Hippokrates, the physician, concluded from the coincidence that they were twins, but Poseidonios, the astrologer, considered rather that they were born under the same constellation; we may add that either argument would be thought reasonable by a savage." So when a Maori fortress is attacked, the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Mr. Hope has gone down the mine expressly to inspect old workings. Is it not a strange coincidence? Now if such an accident was to befall Mr. Hope, it's my belief Mr. Bartley would ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... skill in the use of the harpoon, the rum and water, the sealskin tobacco-pouch with the coarse tobacco—all these pointed to a seaman, and one who had been a whaler. I was convinced that the initials 'P.C.' upon the pouch were a coincidence, and not those of Peter Carey, since he seldom smoked, and no pipe was found in his cabin. You remember that I asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could get these ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chin, accompanied by weak eyes and unexpectedness of forehead, may tend to make the Evil One but languid in his desire for the capture of its human exemplar. This may help account for the otherwise rather curious coincidence of frightful physiognomy and preternatural goodness in this world of sinful beauties[B]. Under such a theory, Mr. DIBBLE'S easy means of frightening the Arch-Tempter into immediate flight, and keeping himself ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... trip in Europe in 1875-76, I spent some weeks in London and visited Parliament frequently to study the proceedings and see and hear its leading men. By a strange coincidence at my very first visit, made at the invitation of the late Sir William Vernon Harcourt, after I had sent in my card and was ushered into the inner lobby, I saw a man, evidently a member, rushing out into ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... little better; the storm shook him and roused him and did him good. And it was a coincidence in the history of these two lovers that just as Susan under Mr. Eden's advice was applying the healing ointment of charitable employment to her wound, George, too, was finding a little comfort and life from the little bit of good he ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... sort to funk a public apology. If it wasn't that it could only be that he was to be offered his place on the team again. Don sighed. That would be beastly, for he would have to tell more fibs, and brand new ones, too, since not even a blind man would believe him ill now! It was something of a coincidence that Don should run across Walton in the corridor a few minutes later. Don was for passing by with no recognition of the other, but Walton, with a smirk, placed himself ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Hist. eccles., i. 123, 124. The singular coincidence is no invention of the Protestants. It is confirmed by a contemporary pamphlet by the "king-at-arms of Dauphiny" (Paris, 1559), Le Trespas et Ordre des Obseques, ... de feu de tresheureuse memoire le Roy Henry deuxieme, etc., ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... maps anterior and posterior to the treaty of 1783; and that the first article of the said treaty specifies by name the States whose independence is acknowledged; but that this mention does not imply (implique) the entire coincidence of the boundaries between the two powers, as settled by the following article, with the ancient delimitation of the British Provinces, whose preservation is not mentioned in the treaty of 1783, and which, owing to its continual changes and the uncertainty ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... who were coming from England might require a guide, John Yeardley went to meet them at Rotterdam. His journey, and the singular coincidence of Martha Savory's concern with his own, are described in a letter to his brother, written after his return ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... By a curious coincidence she returned home the clay following Wilberforce Kingsnorth's electrical speech, invoking Providence to interpose in the settlement of the Irish difficulty. It was the one topic of conversation throughout dinner. And it was during that dinner that ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of squirting tobacco juice on clean ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... these entertainments are enough to disturb anybody. While admiring the great achievements of modern science in this direction, I wished devoutly, at that particular moment, that flying had never been invented; and it was something of a coincidence, I say, that stumbling in this frame of mind down one of the unspeakable little side-streets in the neighbourhood of the University, my glance should have fallen upon an eighteenth-century engraving in a bookseller's window which depicted a man raised above the ground without any visible means ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... I remember the time you turned up just when I wanted you to help me capture Happy Harry and his gang, and now, by, a strange coincidence, I'm ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... laughed, for Mr. Bright's assistant, like the Assistant Magistrate, had a name of infinite possibilities. A comic fate had thrown him and Jack Darling together in the same Station, and they were provocative of fun in more senses than the coincidence ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... but because they are human, and are born of just such experiences as those who hear or read what I say are like to have had in greater or less measure. I find myself so much like other people that I often wonder at the coincidence. It was only the other day that I sent out a copy of verses about my great-grandmother's picture, and I was surprised to find how many other people had portraits of their great-grandmothers or other progenitors, about which they ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... be a cause of rejoicing, especially to our Tariff Reformers, who regard the increase in exports as the index of national prosperity. As for the second—the export of bullion—would you believe it, it is only a coincidence, but it is an amusing coincidence, there are actually six million pounds' worth more gold in the country now, than there were at the beginning of the year before the Budget was introduced. The active and profitable investment ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... sky, with several huge balloons in its path. It would be a miracle if Combs got through without hitting one of them, even if each balloon was lighted. But he had seen only one light; so had Lieutenant Jackson. That would mean all the rest of the balloons were unlighted—an unbelievable coincidence. ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... biggest one he ever saw, but I took very little notice of the ship until in tacking across her wake, I noticed her name in gold letters across the stern—'Duncan McDonald.' Now that is my own name, and was my father's; and try as I would, I could not account for this name as a coincidence, common as the name might be in the highlands of the home of my ancestors; and before the staunch little steamer had gotten a mile away, I ordered the boat to follow her. I intended to go aboard and learn, if possible, something ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... applauded by our ladies. They unite in the opinion that the "energies of the men ought to be principally employed in the multiplication of the human race," and in this they promise an ardent and active co-operation. Thus, then, is established the point of universal coincidence in political opinion, and thus is verified the prophetic dictum, "we are all republicans, we are all federalists." I hope the fair of your state will equally testify their applause of this sentiment; and I enjoin it on you to manifest your patriotism and your attachment to the administration ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... assigning a greater or less value to the separate writings of the New Testament, and in leaving every one to do the same. He relied on their internal value more than tradition; taking the word of God in a deeper and wider sense than its coincidence with the Bible. ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... platform immediately. By a coincidence as surprising as pleasant it appeared that Hatchet-nose and the curate were also alighting. The three walked away together; and the Complete Sportsman was left to share with the quiet couple a compartment in which there was now ample room ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... up the appointment of Director of Military Training about six months after mobilization. That two out of the four Directors on the General Staff within the War Office should have practically the same name, was something of a coincidence. Lord Methuen, who was then holding a very important appointment in connection with the home army (with which I had nothing to do), was ushered into my room one day. He had scarcely sat down when he began, "Now I know how tremendously busy all you people are, and I won't ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Ophir was on the east coast of Africa, somewhere near Delagoa Bay, in the neighbourhood of the Limpopo and Sabia rivers. It should be mentioned that the name of the "black but comely" queen was Sabia, which may or may not be a coincidence, but it is certainly true that the rivers of this district have produced gold from prehistoric times ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and by the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and co-ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's wrongs, the movement of troops into Prussia—undertaken ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... would well forth, as they had done once before. She checked them with all her might, but remembering how little it had helped her then, her powers of resistance gave way, she was almost sobbing when the very word was used in the song. The coincidence was too superb, it swept all emotion aside, she could have laughed aloud instead. She was sure of everything, everything now. It thus happened that the last line in its literal sense, in its jubilant sympathy, came to her ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... observe the date of the letter, wherein he blames the season, and the dates of those received from London, or those he addressed thither. The coincidence between them will show clearly that when he called himself melancholy, and accused the season, it occurred precisely on the day when he was most wearied and overwhelmed by a host of other disagreeable things. For instance, Murray, whose answers on several ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... financier, and then on comparing the numbers on the coupons the old man discovered that by a coincidence his berth adjoined the one which ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... incident of his meeting with Barbara, and the odd coincidence of his coming upon her father at Sentinel Rock, that his thoughts ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... not have understood; she must have been innocent of any knowledge of the trouble she had brought to men who were such good friends of hers and to each other. It seems to me as though my finding that coin is more than a coincidence. I somehow think that the daughter is to help undo the harm that her mother has caused—unwittingly caused. Keep the medal and don't give it back to me, for I am sure your friend has kept his, and I am ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... it to say, I have never intended to quote the language, or borrow the thoughts of an author, without giving his name; and in matters of fact or opinion, I have cited authorities not only when I have been indebted to them for the suggestion, but whenever, in a case of coincidence of views, I thought the authorities would be of ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... coincidence happened while we were there, concerning the gown Mrs. Jimmie was to be painted in. The baroness's brother, Count Georg Brunow, was an authority on dress, and, as he designed all the gowns for his cousin, who was ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... provoke a smile, to say nothing of extracting an invitation. In a high state of indignation he threatens to prosecute the men who avoid being his hosts for entering into an unlawful combination like that of "the oil dealers in the Velabrum." Incidentally it is a rather interesting historical coincidence that the pioneer monopoly in Rome, as in our day, was an oil trust—in the time of Plautus, of course, an olive-oil trust. In the "Trickster," which was presented in 191 B.C., a character refers to the mountains of grain which the dealers had in their warehouses.[105] Two years later ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... said Sir Robert, shrugging his shoulders. "One takes one's line and there's an end. Personally I believe that we are overstrained with the fearful and anxious work of this flotation, and have been the victims of an hallucination and a coincidence. Although I confess that I came to look upon the thing as a kind of mascot, I put no trust in any fetish. How can a bit of gold move, and how can it know the future? Well, I have written to them to clear it out of the office ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... A happy coincidence enabled me at last to begin this work. While my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, was with me, our friend Miss Frances Lord, on our earnest invitation, came to America to visit us. She landed in New York the 4th of August, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... a coincidence! Are these newly decorated walls really ancient with memories?" I looked around my simply furnished ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the lights is not conclusive evidence that human beings were there. It might have been a mere coincidence." ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Franco-British boundaries in the Holy Land led the PRIME MINISTER to observe that the territory delimited was "the old historic Palestine—Dan to Beersheba." It was, of course, a mere coincidence that the next Question on the Paper related to the destruction of calves, though not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... and the harm which their conduct did to the British Government. The act which I am going to relate would never have been committed by any genuine English officer, no matter under what provocation. There is also a detail which must be noticed: by a strange coincidence all the victims of oppression were, with but few exceptions, men of means, whom, therefore, it was worth while to plunder. The story is that a certain Mr. Schoeman, a man of wealth and position residing on Vlakteplaats, ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... theory of the intimate relation between temperature and crime, it may be urged that the greater prevalence of crimes of blood in hot latitudes is a mere coincidence and not a causal connection. This is the view taken by Dr. Mischler in Baron von Holtzendorff's "Handbuch des Gefaengnisswesens." He says the real reason crimes of blood are more common in the South ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... the fate of the young princes so long a secret in resentment for the ungrateful return to his former services, the incorrigible wickedness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious confidence of Cymbeline, are all so many lines of the same story, tending to the same point. The effect of this coincidence is rather felt than observed; and as the impression exists unconsciously in the mind of the reader, so it probably arose in the same manner in the mind of the author, not from design, but from the force of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of fact they had not really seen him? Men have been very positive and very sincere about things wherein we should have conceived mistake impossible, and yet they have been utterly mistaken. A strong predisposition, a rare coincidence, an unwonted natural phenomenon, a hundred other causes, may turn sound judgments awry, and we dare not assume forthwith that the first disciples of Christ were superior to influences which have misled many who have had better chances ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... not this occur to me sooner? Why did I not ask for his first name, and a description of him? If this man and Edward Percy should be one and the same! Pshaw! the name is not an uncommon one, and it may be only a coincidence. But your face is a bad one, Edward Percy, and I shall know it when ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Delphine and I, automatically, like marionettes, the one from pleasure, the other from surprise. Had he seen? Had he noticed? The light blue eyes stared coolly ahead. For pure callous indifference their expression could not have been beaten. Coincidence! Nothing more. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a curious coincidence that only a year or two afterwards a man named Probert, who had given King's evidence upon which the notorious Thurtell and Hunt were convicted of the brutal murder of Weare and executed, was also released, and within a year convicted of ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... have come back exactly north; and what is better still, we fall upon this great discovery of Cape Saknussemm. I mean to say, that it is more than surprising; there is something in it which is far beyond my comprehension. The coincidence is unheard of, marvelous!" ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... "I can't get over our meeting in the street here in this place, just the day we both came—the strangest coincidence! I could hardly believe my eyes. And then to drive back to her rooms with her and find myself telling her all I've been doing, just as if I had known her always—I'm sure, though, I feel as if I had. I do want to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... diseases, and in these practices protective fumigation originated. That such different nations should have had the same idea of fixing the purification by fire on St. John's Day is a remarkable coincidence, which perhaps can be accounted for only ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his features upon memory, as well as they could be observed in the yellow light of the sickly lamp; but yet, every few moments Phil cast an eager glance at the door. I grant I was less confident that Falconer's presence was mere coincidence, than I had appeared, and I was in a tremble of apprehension for what Madge's coming ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... priests saw the danger of it. They acted promptly,[2] and in order to combat the proposition of Pilate, they suggested to the crowd the name of a prisoner who enjoyed great popularity in Jerusalem. By a singular coincidence, he also was called Jesus,[3] and bore the surname of Bar-Abba, or Bar-Rabban.[4] He was a well-known personage,[5] and had been arrested for taking part in an uproar in which murder had been committed.[6] A general clamor was raised, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... Catholic and Protestant authorities to the Linnaean system and ideas, see Alberg, Life of Linnaeus, London, 1888, pp. 143-147, and 237. As to the creation medallions at the Cathedral of Upsala, it is a somewhat curious coincidence that the present writer came upon them while visiting that edifice during the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... occasion when the foundation stone was laid, with the understanding that it was to be drunk only when it could be carried under the Thames, having been opened and enjoyed by the company, to the health of Her Majesty and the infant Prince. It was remarked, too, as a singular coincidence, that a seal on one of the corks bore the impress of the Prince of Wales's feathers, a circumstance that caused some merriment. The engineer, Sir I. Brunel, appeared highly gratified at the happy result of his past anxiety and arduous ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Janet replied, with additional annoyance that Elfrida should have subjected herself to such an insinuation. Janet had a thoroughgoing dislike to Golightly Ticke. On her way back in the omnibus she reflected on the coincidence, however, and in the end she did not mention it ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... southward to the shores of New England. There are vague indications that these beginnings of Christian civilization were extinguished, as in so many later instances, by savage massacre. With impressive coincidence, the latest vestige of this primeval American Christianity fades out in the very year of the discovery of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... back to his car Casey studied the peculiar features of the meeting. He had been thinking about yellow-haired women—well! But of course, she was married, and therefore not to be thought of save as a coincidence; still, Casey rather regretted the existence of Jack dear, and began to wonder why good-looking women always picked such dried-up little runts for husbands. "Show actors by the talk," he mused. "I wonder now if she don't ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... It was a remarkable coincidence that for some years the two deaneries of London were both held by brilliant men of letters and by men with the strongest theological sympathy. A feeling of warm personal affection united Milman and Stanley, ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... precept may be noted. It was not coincidence merely, but related cause and effect, that Ferdinand Foch was one of the ablest military writers of the twentieth century before he won immortality on the field of war, that the elder von Moltke was as skilled ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... noteworthy points of coincidence here to which we would draw attention. It was just because this old shaft was so well concealed that Maggot had chosen it as a place in which to hide his tubs of smuggled brandy; it was owing to the same reason ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... under a constant pressure, or of the increase of pressure in a constant volume of a gaseous body, we obtain a scale very near the absolute, which almost coincides with it when the gas possesses certain qualities which make it nearly what is called a perfect gas. This most lucky coincidence has decided the choice of the convention adopted by physicists. They define normal temperature by means of the variations of pressure in a mass of hydrogen beginning with the initial pressure of a metre of mercury at 0 ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... have appeared in Germany since 1830 proves the coincidence of Byronic influence with ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... the teams, saved their guns and used them to effect. At six o'clock on Friday morning the rearguard entered camp at Rietfontein. Our casualties—killed, wounded and missing, are 640, while it is stated and believed that the enemy's losses were even more severe. It seems a strange coincidence that exactly this time a year ago at home in dear old England we were going through the black Stormberg and Colenso week, and Christmastide was coming ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... been absent just one year. Just one year to-day, as I live—let me see! yes!—this is October the tenth. You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called this day year, to bid you good-bye. And by the way, it does seem something like a coincidence, does it not—that our friend, Captain Smitherton, has been absent exactly a year ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... twelfth century, showed that the prophecy was about to be accomplished. It is not, of course, our meaning, that the ominous flight of birds, the prophetic interpretation, and its almost literal fulfilment, were any thing more than an accidental coincidence; but, it must be confessed, that it was one of the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... Andrews, "So you tried not to, of course. And anytime you did it again, or thought you did, you blamed it on coincidence. Or luck." ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the coincidence; "eight to a fraction—I and my seven ministers. Come! what ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... exclaimed the skipper in a tone that made every one laugh who heard, all but Masters; the coincidence was so comical after what Captain Applegarth had said only a minute before. "Not another 'ghost- ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... with the future, it may be made to appear (though some astronomers dissent from this prediction) that, as solar tidal action still continues, the day must finally exceed the month, and lengthen out little by little towards coincidence with the year; and that the moon meantime must pause in its outward flight, and come swinging back on a descending spiral, until finally, after the lapse of untold aeons, it ploughs and ricochets along the surface of the earth, and plunges to ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... and half-superstitious uneasiness that this coincidence awakened in Mulrady's unimaginative mind, he was almost on the point of disclosing his good fortune to the driver, in order to prove how preposterous was the parallel, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... Ruins of Karnstein?" he said. "Yes, it is a lucky coincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there to inspect them. I have a special object in exploring. There is a ruined chapel, ain't there, with a great many ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had more than once spoken—of that dread of some enemy pursuing him, which had darkened the organist's latter days. Yet to read these things set out in black and white, after what had happened, might well give rise to curious thoughts. The coincidence was so strange, so terribly strange. A man following with a hammer—that had been the organist's hallucination; the vision of an assailant creeping up behind, and doing him to death with an awful, stealthy blow. And the reality—an end sudden and unexpected, a blow on the back ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... least singular circumstance connected with these institutions is their coincidence with those of the North American Indians, which are thus stated ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... exciting the suspicion of the police. He told them that in order to return to France he had availed himself of the papers of a poor fellow who had died in his arms at Surinam from yellow fever. By a singular coincidence this young fellow's Christian ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Sedley had become engaged to Mr. Hazelton she went with her father and mother to Cacouna, where they had a summer residence. By a strange coincidence, Grandison also chose Cacouna at which to spend his holidays, and combined business with pleasure by giving occasional concerts at the St. Lawrence Hall, which hotel had just been erected, and was the fashionable resort of those people from Montreal and Quebec who could manage to exchange ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... as a coincidence that the plays were published in folio the year of Mrs. Shakespeare's death. Some change among the leases, or the termination of the connection with his family through the death of his widow, may have ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Horace made a narrow escape from being killed by the fall of a tree, and, what to him was a great aggravation of the disaster, upon his own beloved farm (Odes, II. 13). He links the two events together as a marked coincidence in the following Ode (II. 17). His friend had obviously been a prey to one of his fits of low spirits, and vexing the kindly soul of the poet by gloomy anticipations of an early death. Suffering, as Maecenas ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Excuse not thyself, Antagoras; we dismiss all charge against thee. On the other hand, Gongylus will doubtless seem to you to have accounted for his appearance near the precincts of the temple. And it is but a coincidence, natural enough, that the Persian prisoners should have chosen, later in the night, the same spot for the steeds to await them. The thickness of the wood round the temple, and the direction of the place towards the east, points out the neighbourhood as the very one in which the fugitives would ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... artillery crossed the Alps by that route in 1815. And lastly this route, which only leads over two mountain ridges, has been from the earliest times the great military route from the Celtic to the Italian territory. The Carthaginian army had thus in fact no choice. It was a fortunate coincidence, but not a motive influencing the decision of Hannibal, that the Celtic tribes allied with him in Italy inhabited the country up to the Little St. Bernard, while the route by Mont Genevre would have brought him at first into the territory of the Taurini, who were from ancient ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of Western Europe, as in the Spanish and Scandinavian peninsulas, the coincidence of language and nationality is stronger than it is in France, Britain, or even Italy. No one speaks Spanish except in Spain or in the colonies of Spain. And within Spain the proportion of those who do not ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... as occasionally happens in March, a loud peal of thunder was heard. This coincidence threw the prophet almost into a frenzy, and the poor people were all of a tremble. Face-the-Wind believed that the prayer was directly answered, and though weakened by fasting and unfit for the task before him, he was encouraged ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Strange coincidence, as he, on this day, came leaning on his staff and with considerable strain, as far as the street for a little relaxation, he suddenly caught sight, approaching from the off side, of a Taoist priest with a crippled foot; his maniac ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... impartiality is a virtue to all the world except him. There will always be a onesidedness; either the conception or the embodying of it halts, is only partially realized; some incompleteness, some mystery, some apparent want of coincidence between form and meaning is a necessity to the artist, and if he does not find it, he will invent it. Hence the embarrassment of some of the English Pre-Raphaelitists, particularly in dealing with the human form. They have no hesitation in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... "From a singular coincidence of circumstances, it was in this house, where I now write, that I first read the poems in my early youth, with an ardent credulity that remained unshaken for many years of my life; and with a pleasure ...
— Fragments Of Ancient Poetry • James MacPherson
... with his hat lifted from his shiny head, her old enemy, Captain Barstow. Fortunately she had not stopped. She drove quickly on, just acknowledging his salute. It needed but this meeting to confirm her fears. It was not coincidence which had brought Captain Barstow on their heels to Weymouth. He had come with knowledge ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... be only fancy on the part of Ossaroo. Out of the thousands of storks, that annually make their migration from the plains of Hindostan to the northward of the Himalaya Mountains, it would have been a rare coincidence if the two that for years had performed the office of scavengers in the shikaree's native village, should be identical with those now hovering above his head—for it was while they were yet upon the wing that Ossaroo ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... by a festive luncheon-party to which Colonel Baden-Powell and all his Staff were invited. By a strange and fortunate coincidence, a turkey had been overlooked by Mr. Weil when the Government commandeered all live-stock and food-stuffs at the commencement of the siege, and, in spite of the grilling heat, we completed our Christmas dinner by a real English plum-pudding. In the afternoon a ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... a mere chance coincidence that this remark of Geordie's came at a moment when it made more easy of introduction to Grace that part of the parable story which she was full of eagerness to tell to her first scholars? She desired that it might prove to them not merely a pleasant tale, which had ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... In the case of L. S. there is no denying that some messages proved to be not true—especially in the matter of time they were quite unreliable. But on the other hand, the numbers which did come true were far beyond what any guessing or coincidence could account for. Thus, when the Lusitania was sunk and the morning papers here announced that so far as known there was no loss of life, the medium at once wrote: "It is terrible, terrible—and will have a great influence ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... advice, in fact, corresponded to an inward thirst, and had, moreover, a coincidence to back it. In one of the Manchester papers two or three mornings before he had seen the advertisement of a farm to let, which had set vibrating all his passion for and memory of the moorland. It was a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the placing of these hemicycles in the garden, and they were executed from Robespierre's designs; but I suppose I am the only person who ever saw the games played that were expected to be played before them. It was a curious coincidence that the little livid-green man was also there, leaning against a tree and looking on with a half sneer. It seemed to me an odd classic revival, but then Paris has spasms of that, at the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Moon continued his exposition. "What is the meaning of this queer coincidence about colours? Personally I cannot doubt for a moment that these names are purely arbitrary names, assumed as part of some general scheme or joke. I think it very probable that they were taken from a series of costumes— that Polly Green ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... just returned home; my wife was in the sick-room, and I had entered it with two or three oranges:—'Oh, now I remember,' I suddenly exclaimed, just above my breath; 'the picture in Mr Renshawe's room! What a remarkable coincidence!' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... little too much of a coincidence in connection with the fact that Miss Torrance and I were known to be good friends, and the time she left Cedar. As the cattle-men have evidently found out, I have crossed the bridge at about the same time ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... which came to an end with the death of Dr. Thorold in 1895. The episcopal changes then made resulted in the translation of Dr. Davidson to the See of Winchester, and the appointment of Dr. Edward Stuart Talbot to Rochester. By a happy coincidence, the parish church at Leeds, from which he was transferred, bore the same dedication as that of the Collegiate Church whose completion it was his good fortune ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... information, a deliberate act of theft; the sublimest conceptions of human character, a fudge; the details of human history for three hundred years, a melodramatic, incredible fiction; and what cannot now be found anywhere else recorded, a dream; accidental coincidence he speaks of as detected dishonesty; imaginary resemblance, as guilty adaptation; a style suitable to the subject, as plagiarism; occasional inspiration he calls a lie; translation, a forgery; and the whole, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... notorious "Letters from the Cape," addressed to Lady Clavering and variously attributed to an Englishman, Las Cases, and even Napoleon himself, there is noted a curious coincidence with regard to the two Franco-Austrian alliances. Both marriage contracts were signed under somewhat similar circumstances, and in both cases fetes were held in honour of the event. At the marriage fete of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette a calamity occurred ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... and intended to be there herself to give the meeting the semblance of coincidence, and to offer them the hospitality of her house before she was inspired with the excuse that would permit her an exit that left them alone together; but she found herself in the slums of Harlem by an Italian baby's bedside at that hour, and decided that even to telephone would be superfluous, ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... authorities it is derived from the old English game of rounders (q.v.), several variations of which were played in America during the colonial period; according to other authorities, its resemblance to rounders is merely a coincidence, and it had its origin in the United States, probably at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, when it is said, Abner Doubleday (later a general in the U.S. army) devised a scheme for playing it. About the beginning of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the trade "the mercantile." The hatter had assured him that it had been originally made for Mr. Morten Garman, but that it was unfortunately just a trifle too small. The hat, however, exactly fitted Torpander, and dear as it was, he bought it; and he could not help noticing the coincidence, that he was that day wearing a hat which Morten Garman had rejected. He had also bought a coat for the occasion, not quite new, it is true, but of a most unusual light-brown hue. The trousers were the worst part of the costume, but the coat was long enough, in a great measure, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... those whose judgment was worth having that place among the foremost English novelists which he has ever since retained and is ever likely to retain. "The Pickwick Papers" opened a new era in the history of English novel-writing. By a curious coincidence, the proposal of a young art student to furnish illustrations for Dickens's books being declined by the author, led the young art student to believe that he had mistaken his vocation in trying to illustrate ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... It was a coincidence that none of the other girls appreciated, for none of them had talked much with the young fellow who had saved Ann Hicks from the wrecked car at Applegate Crossing. Even Ann herself had not become as friendly with the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... magnificence, for there were gathered all the sovereigns and princes who were his allies and who furnished the levies that swelled his Grand Army to six hundred thousand men. Here Marie Louise, like her husband, felt to the full the intoxication of supreme power. By a sinister coincidence it was here that she first met the other man, then unnoticed and little heeded, who was to cast upon her a fascination which in ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... in your eye. By virtue of the power adherent to the assistant aide-de-camp of a prince, we hereby authorize you to do all things that may be necessary for the accomplishment of our purpose, and, when your task is over, you will, by a curious coincidence, find five guineas under yon candlestick. Life, William, is ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... more so than the Winnebago, which is the most harsh and guttural language in America. The Narcotah sounds to an English ear, like the Chinese, and both in this, and in other respects, the Sioux are thought to present many points of coincidence. It is certain that their manners and customs differ essentially from those of any other tribe, and their physiognomy, as well as their language, and opinions, mark them a distinct race of people. Their ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure I must ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... know," said Gertrude, walking restlessly about. "I cling to a persistent faith in my dream, too—but every time bad news comes it fails me. Then I tell myself 'mere coincidence'—'subconscious memory' and ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... read it, at any rate. Or till I ask you for it again—which I don't think I shall. You say that you used to see volumes like this on your father's bookshelves. I should not wonder if you had seen this very book there. It is a strange coincidence that I should have had it in my possession for some time, and yet never noticed until this morning, when I took it down to bring to you, that it had your name on ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... less rigidly strict grandparents had let her stay up evenings and attend revival meetings with them. But all that had happened long ago—five years ago, when she was a little thing of ten. One forgets much in five years. So she felt no stir of memory and no presentiment of a coincidence to come. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... unite in the opinion that the "energies of the men ought to be principally employed in the multiplication of the human race," and in this they promise an ardent and active co-operation. Thus, then, is established the point of universal coincidence in political opinion, and thus is verified the prophetic dictum, "we are all republicans, we are all federalists." I hope the fair of your state will equally testify their applause of this sentiment; and I enjoin it on you to manifest your patriotism and your attachment to the administration by ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... unobserved to mingle with the white ants, especially in the shade or under a dusky sky, much to the advantage of its own appetite. But the termites would soon begin to observe the visits of their suspicious friend, and to note their coincidence with the frequent mysterious disappearance of a fellow-townswoman, evaporated into space, like the missing young women in neat cloth jackets who periodically vanish from the London suburbs. In proportion ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... intelligible language but only comprehended by living intuition. In many different ways he endeavors to lead the reader on to a vision of the inexpressible, or to draw him up to it, and to develop fruitfully the principle of the coincidence of opposites, which had dawned upon him on his return journey from Constantinople (De Visione Dei, Dialogus de Possest, De Beryllo, De Ludo Globi, De Venatione Sapientiae, De Apice Theoriae, Compendium). ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... by this strange coincidence, he took leave abruptly of the fair Yolande and her devoted old uncle, and hastened to the masked lady's box. But, prompt as his movements had been, he was too late—the nest was empty—the bird had flown. The lady, whoever she might be, had vanished, and the suspicious husband was left in considerable ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... By an odd coincidence, all three of the factories which are situated near me produce only articles which are in demand ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... would-be bridegroom is not in his first youth—why, she is prepared to make the best of it. In this connection it is perhaps not uninstructive to note that Signor Odoardo is in comfortable circumstances, and is himself a widower. What a coincidence! ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... She's not mine, and I don't want her; it seems funny to me that I once thought of her vaguely in that sort of way. Now, I feel rather disturbed that she is coming here, though I don't quite see why I should worry, and yet I wonder if it is a coincidence ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... principle 'wealth' as something distinct from the facts denoted by the man's being rich. It antedates them; the facts become only a sort of secondary coincidence with the ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... our observations that hour of the night at which the Milky Way skirts our horizon. This is nearly the case in the evenings of May and June, though the coincidence with the horizon can never be exact except to observers stationed near the tropics. Using the figure of the grindstone, we at its centre will then have its circumference around our horizon, while the axis will be nearly vertical. The points in which ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... politeia], twenty-three are found in the papyrus. Of those not found in the papyrus, the majority appear to have come either from the beginning of the treatise, which is wanting in the papyrus, or from the latter portion of it, which is mutilated. The coincidence, therefore, is as nearly as possible complete. It may also be regarded as established by internal evidence that the treatise was composed during the interval between Aristotle's return to Athens in 335 B.C. and his death in 322. There are two passages which give ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... "Rather a coincidence," he observed. "Seems I am going to see you to-night at dinner. That was Miss Geraldine Conyers who just rang up—asked me if I'd like to meet her brother again before he goes off. He is spending the ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... moment Warde Hollister noticed something, and without speaking indicated it to one or two others. It was a trifling coincidence and held his glance and thought for but a second. On an end of fallen beam which protruded from the wreckage sat a robin with head cocked sideways watching the stricken, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... is exposed to temptations of which another is ignorant; and in this case he needs much sympathy, which he seldom meets with; while they, who are severe on him are liable to be baffled in another way, which, for want of coincidence in habit, temperature, and situation, he is equally prone to disregard. Thus Christians are often led reciprocally to censure, suspect, or dislike each other, on those very grounds which would render them useful ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... By an unhappy coincidence, the Emperor had come to Fontainebleau, and had decided to conduct manoeuvres for several hours, under a blazing sun. My poor brother, compelled to run without rest, his arm dragged down by the weight of his heavy musket, was overcome by the heat ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... isn't a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.) For listen to this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he has given it to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. Did you ever hear of such a funny coincidence? She still calls him 'Master Jervie' and talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be. She has one of his baby curls put away in a box, and it ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... overcome during the ceremony, experienced a natural reaction, talking cheerfully throughout the long drive. He recounted many anecdotes of Eskew, chuckling over most of them, though filled with wonder by a coincidence which he and Flitcroft had discovered; the Colonel had recently been made the custodian of his old friend's will, and it had been opened the day before the funeral. Eskew had left everything he possessed—with the regret that it was ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... it was a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, a head seen too frequently for coincidence. It developed into a too-persistent footstep in ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... on conscience in dogs; on the coincidence of the races of man with zoological provinces; on the number of species of man; on the courtship of the land-snails; on the brightness of the colours of male fishes during the breeding season; on the frontal protuberance of the males of Geophagus ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... minor portion of their product that goes for export at lower than the domestic price in order to dispose of it without depressing local prices. They do not need to conspire, for there can be perfectly coincident action to meet the same economic currents. Such coincidence has much greater possibilities of general influence with a few concerns in the field than if there ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... his Evidences of Christianity, most readers are familiar. The commentators on Suetonius agree with Paley in considering the whole affair as a juggle between the priests, the patients, and, probably, the emperor. But what will, perhaps, strike the reader as most remarkable, is the singular coincidence of the story with the accounts given of several of the miracles of Christ; whence it has been supposed, that the scene was planned in imitation of them. It did not fall within the scope of Dr. Paley's argument to advert to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... how weak! But I couldn't help it. I didn't wait to go home. I wrote a few lines in the cab, and sent off the packet, registered, in time I hoped, to catch the post—but after all, it didn't. Coming out from the post office, there was Godensky again, in his motor-brougham. That could have been no coincidence. A horrid certainty sprang to life in me that he'd followed my cab from the Foreign Office, to see where I would go. Why couldn't I have thought of that danger? I have always thought of things, and guarded against them; yet this time, this time of all others, ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... you talking about Italy? Didn't you say you had an idea of going to Italy? Well, it's a droll coincidence! Why, this very morning, I was teasing Henri to take me to Naples! Just fancy, for ten years now I have been dreaming of seeing Naples! Every spring he promises to take me there, but he never ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... connexions of causes and effects, to which you have just referred, make superstition less to be wondered at, particularly amongst the vulgar; and when two facts naturally unconnected, have been accidentally coincident, it is not singular that this coincidence should have been observed and registered, and that omens of the most absurd kind should be trusted in. In the west of England, half a century ago, a particular hollow noise on the sea-coast was referred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... Lagarde) were yet destined to meet, and resume the unfinished consultation at the point where it had been broken off. Persons, happy in the possession of "sound common sense," who declared the prediction to be skilled guesswork, and the fulfillment manifest coincidence, ridiculed the idea of finding Doctor Lagarde as closely akin to that other celebrated idea of finding the needle in the bottle of hay. But Bervie's obstinacy was proverbial. Nothing shook his confidence in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the double continent of America show each the coincidence of an ethnic realm with an isolated continent. In contrast, when we come to the Old World triad of Europe, Asia and Africa, we find three races, to be sure, but races whose geographical distribution ignores the boundaries ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... in his preface to the "Faery Queen," was led to observe the striking coincidence, the absolute similarity of character, between Spenser's Rosalinde and his Mirabella. "If the 'Faery Queen,'" quoth he, "is a moral allegory with historical allusions to our poet's times, one might be apt to think, that, in a poem written on so extensive a plan, the cruel Rosalinde would be in some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... papers arrived next morning, it was seen that the situation was even worse than had at first been suspected. Not only had the Germans effected a landing in Essex, but, in addition, no fewer than eight other hostile armies had, by some remarkable coincidence, hit on that identical moment for launching their ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... ironical, was characterized by a degree of liberality. The priests saw the danger of it. They acted promptly,[2] and in order to combat the proposition of Pilate, they suggested to the crowd the name of a prisoner who enjoyed great popularity in Jerusalem. By a singular coincidence, he also was called Jesus,[3] and bore the surname of Bar-Abba, or Bar-Rabban.[4] He was a well-known personage,[5] and had been arrested for taking part in an uproar in which murder had been committed.[6] A general clamor ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... think it best to make an explanation to you as to a certain coincidence which might possibly be misunderstood unless explained. I find that your husband and I are to be opponents at Silverbridge. I wish to say that I had pledged myself to the borough before I had heard his name as connected with it. I have very old associations ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... apparently derived from Darlaston Hall, near Stone, Staffordshire, an imperfect, but very large and clean, copy of the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, by Caxton, was adjudged to Mr. Quaritch at L1020, a second one, by an unparalleled coincidence presenting itself at the same place of sale a few months later, only four leaves wanting, but not so fine, and being knocked down at L1800 to the same buyer. The Asburnham Chaucers and other works from the same press were ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... seen in the night, I refrained from speaking of the blazing eyes and made my way to the bathroom wondering if some chance reflection might not have deceived me and the presence of a woman's footmarks at the same spot be no more than a singular coincidence. Even so the mystery of their presence there ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... distinction, which embarrassed her not at all. It is a great thing to be young and pretty, and to give pleasure, and to know it. And it is a thing no less great to have a tranquil heart, sound and serene, which can find happiness in the harmonious coincidence of its desires and its fate. The lonely flower of her life had unfolded its petals: but she had lost some of the calm music of her Latin soul, fed by the light and the mighty peace of Italy. Quite naturally ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... once a pleasure and a surprise; the first because she was a most charming young lady, and the latter because she was the original of the picture shown me a few months before by Christopher Gault. I did not mention the coincidence, however, but proceeded directly to the business in hand. Miss Cecilia was an exceedingly sensible and intelligent young lady and I could get more needed information in ten minutes from her than in half an ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... I easily found the direction he had taken; and, after waiting several days to prevent any suspicious coincidence in the time of our departure, I one night, soon after midnight, crept from my bed and followed him. I overtook him at a village some twenty miles distant, where he was remaining a day or two, and easily procured an engagement with him, since I desired nothing but to serve him and be taught the mechanical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... interpretations of the phenomena were founded on the actual occurrence of certain events at certain times when the conditions indicated actually existed. A single occurrence might suffice for predicating a connection between the event and the phenomenon. The coincidence would constitute an observation, but the omen would naturally gain additional force if it was based on a repeated observation of the same phenomenon on the same day of the same month. But such a case would be rare, and the effort of the astrologers ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... account of it makes it quite evident to my mind that he saw nothing but ice. I believe that Wilkes's antarctic continent will some day be penetrated by ships, which will sail for hundreds of miles farther south. All that is wanted is a favorable season. But mark the coincidence between Ross's report and More's manuscript. This must have been written at least three years ago, and the writer could not have known anything about Ross's discoveries. Above all, he could not have thought of those two volcanoes unless he ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... drowsy invocation of the bumble-bee, she saw approaching her the gallant fellow who had been pierced through the heart by a Soudanese spear in eighteen eighty-five. He was dark and handsome, and, by a trick of coincidence, was dressed in loose knickerbocker suit, just as he was when he had walked up that very avenue to say his last good-bye. She remained for a moment tense, passively awaiting co-ordination of her faculties. Then clear ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... sank into his chair again, completely overwhelmed. The coincidence between the doctor's deposition and M. Casimir's testimony was too remarkable to pass unnoticed. Further doubt seemed impossible. "Ah! this is most unfortunate!" faltered Wilkie. "What a pity! Such difficulties never assail any one but me! What am I to do?" And in his distress he glanced from ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... evidence of travellers for facts and customs which he himself was afterwards to see. Often, in 1839, pleasant remembrances of these days of youthful study were suggested by what we actually witnessed; and in the essay referred to I find an interesting coincidence. He writes: "What a refreshing sight to his eye, yet undimmed with age, after resting forty years on the monotonous scenery of the desert, now to rest on Zion's olive-clad hills, and Lebanon, with its vine-clad base and overhanging ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant saying of Lord Beaconsfield's, one of the most fascinating in history. By a curious coincidence the wildest legend on the subject, and the correct explanation of the problem, were offered to the world in the same year, 1801. According to this form of the legend, the Man in the Iron Mask was the genuine Louis XIV., deprived of his rights in favor of a child of ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... diverse and incommunicable images. Interlocutors speaking prose, on the contrary, pelt and besiege one another with a peripheral attack; they come into contact at sundry superficial points and thence push their agreement inwards, until perhaps a practical coincidence is arrived at in their thought. Agreement is produced by controlling each mind externally, through a series of checks and little appeals to possible sensation; whereas in poetry the agreement, where it exists, is ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... on the same day and hour which gave birth to the princess Elizabeth, a son was born to this "bold bad man," who received the name of Robert, and was known in after-times as earl of Leicester. It was believed by the superstition of the age, that this coincidence of their nativities produced a secret and invincible sympathy which secured to Dudley, during life, the affections of his sovereign lady. It may without superstition be admitted, that this circumstance, seizing on the romantic imagination of the princess, might produce a first ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... which they stated that they could offer us the whole passenger accommodation of the ship Lammermuir. I went direct to the ship, found it in every way suitable, and paid the cheque on account. As above stated, the funds deemed needed had been already in hand for some time; but the coincidence of the simultaneous offer of the ship accommodation and this munificent gift—GOD'S ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my ship acquaintance who abhorred "griddle cakes." I imagined he would be somewhat surprised at that meeting. It was an odd coincidence. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the child's eyes lifted to it—the lips half-parted, the eager question and swift demand—that he should tell her of Athens and the Parthenon—and the same love and the wonder that dwelt in his own heart for the city of his birth. It was a strange coincidence that the child should have come to him. Perhaps she was the one soul in the great, hurrying city who could care. They did not understand—these hurrying, breathless men and women—how a heart could ache for something left behind across the seas, a city ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... of the steeds, as can well be imagined; and yet it possesses a degree of spirit, worthy of a better age. The shields of the riders are oblong; their tilting spears pointless; their conical helmets terminate in a nasal below, like the figures in the Bayeux tapestry. "This coincidence," as has been observed elsewhere[4], "is interesting, as deciding a point of some moment towards establishing the antiquity of that celebrated relic, by setting it beyond a doubt, that such helmets were used anterior to the conquest; for it is certain, that ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... a very slender line, a hair or some similar substance, was passed through the barrel. This line was then drawn tight, and the workman, looking through, turned the barrel round so as to bring the line into coincidence successively with every portion of the inner surface. If there existed any concavity in any part of this surface, the line would show it by the distance which would there appear between the line ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... exception was the "Little Alicia," and it was the coincidence of the name, rather than the eloquence of its impoverished owner, that first attracted Ford. From first to last he did not know the exact location of the mine. It was somewhere in the hills back of Copah, and Grigsby, the prospector ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Providence to bring to light a great crime. It seemed strange that of all nights in the year I should have chosen that one; it seemed strange that after keeping the woman's face living in my memory for so long I should so suddenly meet it in life. There was something more than mere coincidence in this; yet it seemed a horrible thing to do, to come under the roof of my dearest friend and ruin his ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... gunroom was full of the accident, the fellows all thinking more of poor Dick Popplethorne when dead, for the moment at least, than they had ever done while he was living; and I, myself, could not help remembering the strange coincidence of his laughing over Mr Jellaby's yarn about the marine as we were sailing down Channel only a few days before and being especially merry over the young sentry's mistake in calling out "Dead boy" when the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in a pensive and sentimental mood, usually caused by the magnificent sunsets. From our table we commanded a splendid view of those crimson-tinted peaks in the far distance, and the mysterious purple gloom which, like a rich robe, covered the intervening hills. By some strange coincidence the subject of music came up, and P. bitterly lamented the absence of that gentle muse from such grand surroundings. I don't believe there is a piano in the country except at the girls' school at Cetinje. The Scotchman had suggested the gusla as a substitute, and had been met ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... She could not have understood; she must have been innocent of any knowledge of the trouble she had brought to men who were such good friends of hers and to each other. It seems to me as though my finding that coin is more than a coincidence. I somehow think that the daughter is to help undo the harm that her mother has caused—unwittingly caused. Keep the medal and don't give it back to me, for I am sure your friend has kept his, and I am sure he is still your friend at heart. Don't ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... isn't a queer thing," he said. "Did you ever see such a coincidence? This letter is from Professor Uriah Snodgrass, and listen to what he says: 'Dear Mr. Slade, or Ned. I write thus as I want one of you to read it in a hurry, and one of you may be away from home. You remember the last I saw of you and your chums (this part is for Ned) was in Florida. ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... had described was the man's own house in Baghdad; so the wayfarer returned thither and, digging underneath the fountain in his garden, discovered a great treasure. And thus Allah gave him abundant fortune; and a marvellous coincidence occurred. And a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... ungrateful return to his former services, the incorrigible wickedness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious confidence of Cymbeline, are all so many lines of the same story, tending to the same point. The effect of this coincidence is rather felt than observed; and as the impression exists unconsciously in the mind of the reader, so it probably arose in the same manner in the mind of the author, not from design, but from the force of natural association, a particular train ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death—is, that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the Nativity of the Virgin may have replaced a pagan festival; the coincidence of the Midsummer festival with the summer solstice implies that the founders of the festival regulated their calendar by observation ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Creakety-crack!" Why should he come in to call the doctor out of his pew when the case is not urgent? Cannot the patient wait twenty minutes, or is this the cheap way the doctor has of advertising? Dr. Camomile had but three cases in three months, and, strange coincidence, they all came to him at half-past eleven o'clock Sunday morning, while he was in church. If windows are to be lowered, or blinds closed, or register to be shut off, let it be before ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... me more entire satisfaction than the coincidence of your judgment with mine in the opinion of the essential importance of our commerce and the absolute necessity of a maritime defense. What is it that has drawn to Europe the superfluous riches of the three other quarters of the globe but a marine? What is it that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... you're up to!" Smith raised his voice in bewilderment and despair. "I don't know what possesses you to act this way. People don't experience miracles in New York cross-town cars. The wildest stretch of imagination could only make a coincidence out of this. There are trillions of girls in cross-town cars dressed just like ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... The suspicion wasn't a certainty. This mother and daughter were always together. What was to befall the one might anywhere—anywhere—befall the other. But a like fate, in an equally near future, was in store for that other lady. The coincidence was curious, very. Here we all were together—here, they and I—I who was narrowly to escape, so soon now, what they, so soon now, were to suffer. Oh, there was an inference to be drawn. Not a sure inference, I told myself. And always I ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... a farewell birthday party, he being nearly a year old. She was going to ask the children of all her friends. But getting a hint of the event her friends hastily arranged a Tom Thumb wedding for charity, and then assured Beatrice it was merely a coincidence that the two things interfered with each other, wasn't it a shame? Realizing that this dominating note was not a social asset Beatrice hastily sided in with her father and ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... ambitious "School of Vocal Physiology," which became at once a profitable enterprise. For a time there seemed to be little hope of his escaping from the burden of this success and becoming an inventor, when, by a most happy coincidence, two of his pupils brought to him exactly the sort of stimulation and practical help that he needed and had not up to this ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the ministry which from the accidental coincidence of the initial letters of the names of five of its members with those which make up the word was known as the Cabal. But the word Cabala, or Cabal, had as yet none of the odious meaning which after events ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... theory of the interposition of Providence, and Father Donovan was evidently struggling to acquire a similar feeling, although he seemed to find some difficulty in the contest. He admitted that this robbery appeared but even justice; still he ventured to hope that Jem Bottles would not take the coincidence as a precedent, and that he would never mistake the dictates of Providence for the desires of his ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... taken the notion and he had acted upon it immediately. He had heard of mental telepathy, and here was a working illustration of it. However, he gave no thought to its bearing on his presence at the Lazy Y beyond skeptically assuring himself that it was a mere coincidence. In any event, what did it matter? He was here; that was ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... away, when the crew are startled with a sound which proves to be a hail from another vessel. They ask for hands, and are answered with a demand for like assistance. The one crew is too few to spare them, and the other is too blind to go. 'At the commencement of this horrible coincidence,' continues the boy, 'there was a silence among us for some moments, like that of death. It was broken by a fit of laughter in which I joined myself; and before our awful merriment was over, we could hear, by the sound of the curses which the Spaniard shouted against ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... mind, the instant the clergyman announced himself; but the coincidence of our being on the way to the same part of the country, seemed to strike him as forcibly as it did myself. What Mary thought of the matter, I had ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mabel was married to Sir Hubert, we cannot take it upon us to say. At any rate, we prefer the Scotch poet's description, as somewhat the more pithy, and graphic, and intelligible of the two. The coincidence, however, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... curious—a sort of coincidence, I suppose, one would call it—that this peaceful sleep came to poor Auntie just at the moment at which Bernard, on his way home, espied by the light of the flaring gas-lamp the yellow poster with its "fifty francs reward" ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... turned the corner of that fashionable thoroughfare before alluded to, I met a small boy eating a banana. There was nothing remarkable in that, but as I neared McGinnis's Court I presently met another small boy, also eating a banana. A third small boy engaged in a like occupation obtruded a painful coincidence upon my mind. I leave the psychological reader to determine the exact co-relation between the circumstance and the sickening sense of loss that overcame me on witnessing it. I reached my room—the bananas ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... by a thousand new impressions. So it chanced that for nearly six years I heard no word of Stott and his supernormal infant, and then chance again intervened. My long period of sorrow came to an end almost as suddenly as it had begun, and by a coincidence I was once more entangled in the ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... general evidence of the significance of gregariousness as no mere late acquirement is the remarkable coincidence of its occurrence with that of exceptional grades of intelligence or the possibility of very complex reactions to environment. It can scarcely be regarded as an unmeaning accident that the dog, the horse, the ape, the elephant, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of anxiety which she could not shake off, Branwen had gone out that evening to cool her fevered brow in the woods, just a few minutes before the prince entered them. It was a strange coincidence; but are not ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... strange coincidence nobody happened to have any gold with them, it was decided to make shift with ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... friendship with that new world whose treasures were now opening to them. In conclusion, he admitted in their full extent the reasons which had been given by the noble lords for their several resignations, and the statements which they had made in accounting for that remarkable coincidence; but he could not help expressing his surprise that government had been able to go on so long, being conducted, as it now appeared, by ministers who did not think proper to communicate with one another upon the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and claims to teach them with fidelity and clearness unsurpassed by living man.' No one, I think, can doubt his perfect sincerity. The 'hints' probably suggested some of the quotations and arguments in my brother's defence'; but there is no close coincidence. Dr. Williams cordially expressed his satisfaction ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... slightly clouded. "This is, indeed, a happy coincidence," said he. "It was my intention to ask an interview with you to-morrow, and now you come forward voluntarily to meet my wishes. At ten in the morning I shall be with you, and I also have something ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... every effort to escape, throwing overboard all her boats, anchors, cables, and spare spars. [Footnote: Letter of Capt. Brine to Vice-Admiral Tyler, July 12. 1814.] Her commander, Captain Parker, had died, and she was in charge of Lieut. N. J. Nicholson. By a curious coincidence, on the same day, July 12th, H. M. cutter Landrail, 4, [Footnote: James, vi, 436: his statement is wrong as regards the privateer.] of 20 men, Lieut. Lancaster, was captured by the American privateer Syren, a schooner mounting ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... then on comparing the numbers on the coupons the old man discovered that by a coincidence his berth adjoined the one which ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... 'horrid boarding-school.' What I was about to say was that I propose to send you a lady who will teach you here at home, who will be a friend and companion to you and whom you will be sure to love. It is rather a curious coincidence that just the other day I was talking to a lady who is anxious to procure just such a position as this with you, and I am rather inclined to think that she would be willing to come here and undertake it. At all events, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... than I could endure. The coincidence was too crushing. I bent down my head on my arms and cried silently, bitterly. I hated Jane in my heart for even suggesting it. Yet I couldn't deny to myself for a moment the strength and suggestiveness ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... a trip in Europe in 1875-76, I spent some weeks in London and visited Parliament frequently to study the proceedings and see and hear its leading men. By a strange coincidence at my very first visit, made at the invitation of the late Sir William Vernon Harcourt, after I had sent in my card and was ushered into the inner lobby, I saw a man, evidently a member, rushing out into this lobby, and, to quote from my journal written ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... before the two Spanish armored vessels arrived; and if they had the same speed which they maintained to Suez—ten knots—it was doubtful whether the Monterey would anticipate them. It may be mentioned here, as an interesting coincidence, that the same day that word came that Camara had started back for Spain, a telegram was also received that the Monterey had had to put back to Honolulu, for repairs to the collier which accompanied her. This, of course, was news then ten days old, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... selection cannot operate in our complicated civilisation, where at every turn the poetry of life dashes itself against the dead wall of prose. The miracle has happened. Edwin loves Angelina, and by a strange coincidence Angelina also loves Edwin. But then come the countless questions of income, position, family. Adam and Eve were the only couple that started free from relatives. Else, perhaps, had their garden not been "Paradise." All later lovers have had to consult other people's tastes as well as their own, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... "And is it any different in your world?" he said sneeringly. "Is it merely coincidence that the best positions in the Sov-world are held by Party members, and that it is all but impossible for anyone not born of Party member parents to become one? Are not the best schools filled with the children of Party members? Are not only Party members allowed to ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... call attention to the remarkable coincidence of Poly's story following so close upon their own talk together. He suspected that Peter would want to sit up and thrash ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... synopsis and the most coherent recollection are, so far, to be found in Polynesian traditions. It is probably in vain to inquire with whom the legend of an evil spirit and his operations in Heaven and on earth had its origin. Notwithstanding the apparent unity of design and remarkable coincidence in many points, yet the differences in coloring, detail, and presentation are too great to suppose the legend borrowed by one from either of the others. It probably descended to the Chaldeans, Polynesians, and Hebrews alike, from a source or people ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... were upon this tow. He tugged excitedly at his beard. "Well, by George, what a coincidence!" he exclaimed. He turned to the mate, his bright eyes snapping. "Look, Briggs! Do you know her? By George, do ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
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