"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jaw he went to Regina, which he reached that afternoon. Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan, but an accidental capital. Somewhere about 1880 it was decided to start itself in quite another place. Qu'Appelle, where there was a Hudson Bay Fort and the country was attractive, was the site chosen. And Qu'Appelle opened its mouth too wide—or, anyhow so the version ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... laid down as a general rule that their confidence in and obedience to a government will commonly be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration. It must be admitted that there are exceptions to this rule; but these exceptions depend so entirely on accidental causes, that they cannot be considered as having any relation to the intrinsic merits or demerits of a constitution. These can only be judged of by general principles and maxims. Various reasons have been suggested, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... original predispositions, the more clearly we shall see that this development is not inevitable, is not a process which works itself out independently according to mysterious, ruthless laws which we cannot understand. For instance, the effect of an original predisposition may be destroyed by an accidental shock. A young man with an inherited tendency to alcohol may develop into a stern teetotaller through the shock caused by seeing his drunken father strike his mother; whereas, if his father had chanced to be affectionate in ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... and other savage tribes are now known to have been only measles. At first, pathologists were inclined to receive these reports with some degree of skepticism, and to regard them either as travelers' tales, or as instances of exceptional and accidental virulence in that particular tribe, the high death-rate due to bad nursing or ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... south-west corner next to Tattershall, until it was blown down by a gale, and, the particular tree being shortly afterwards felled, the bird never returned. Drainage and the destruction of trees by the woodman’s axe, or by accidental fires, have so dried the ground as to reduce greatly the numbers of certain birds of aquatic or semi-aquatic habits. The coot “clanking” in the sedgy pools is no more heard. The moor-hen with those little, black, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... to admit that it's an escapade—an accidental escapade," Barry qualified carefully. "But I don't know any way out of it—unless we all stand together," he said slowly, "and all pretend that you got lost alone and found alone. That's very simple, really, and I think perhaps it would make things easier ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... all the business. I have been rather sick and have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However, you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appetite, peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up, pitched ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... similar prophecy, or rather intimation, was once more in circulation; for it was obvious that there was room left for the portrait of only one more emperor,—a circumstance which, though seemingly accidental, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... more nourishment, the imagination is stimulated, and ideas flow more rapidly, but it is doubtful if the power of close reasoning be not always diminished. It is useful for reviving mental power, when from accidental circumstances, such as want of food, &c., it has been exhausted, but it should never be relied upon as an aid to continuous ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... enchanted me far beyond what I expected; they are so swift that they cease to seem so; you can think only of their beauty. The fountain beyond the Moss Islands I discovered for myself, and thought it for some time an accidental beauty which it would not do to leave, lest I might never see it again. After I found it permanent, I returned many times to watch the play of its crest. In the little waterfall beyond, Nature seems, as she often does, to have made a study for some larger design. She delights in this,—a ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... political principles. Consciously or unconsciously its framers drew largely from the principles, forms, and practices of American government prior to the Revolution. The analogy between the Colonial and Territorial governments of America is too striking to be dismissed as accidental. The relation of the United States to the Territories has always been of a Colonial character. In the history of Territorial government the Ordinance of 1787 stands as the Magna Charta of the West. But the Great Ordinance like the Great Charter was in many respects crude, incomplete, ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... the advantage of studying in an academy; but all Rome, and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, were to him an academy. On the site of the Capel la Sistina he immediately from a dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and individual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which improves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... consideration of fifty years, I have concluded may, and ought to be, all straight streets, from every extremity, to the opposite, whatever be the form of the outermost boundary of the city or town.—These conclusions would most probably have passed off in silence, but for an accidental fancy arising in my mind, on reading lately in the Psalms, "Jerusalem is a city that is in unity with itself." This text awakened my dormant ideas on the proper formation of streets, and anticipating the reunion of the Jews, I began the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... therefore, as either designed or accidental violations of treaties and the laws of nations afford JUST causes of war, they are less to be apprehended under one general government than under several lesser ones, and in that respect the former most favors the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... directing, and assisting his men at their work. Pikes were got ready by the thousand, and ingeniously stowed away until they should be wanted; rockets, hand-grenades, and other deadly missiles were carefully prepared; but an accidental explosion, which occurred on the 16th of July, in one of these manufactories situate in Patrick-street, was very near leading to the discovery of the entire business, and had the effect of precipitating the outbreak. The government at this time had ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... honor of their nations, and that if the United States puts its interests in the path of this great struggle, she ought to know beforehand that there is danger of very serious misunderstanding and difficulty. So that the very uncalculating, unpremeditated, one might almost say accidental, course of affairs may touch us to the quick at any moment, and I want you to realize that, standing in the midst of these difficulties, I feel that I am charged with a double duty of the utmost difficulty. In the first place, ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... marvelled at this, so universal had been the gossip about my visits to Sark in connection with the breaking-off of my engagement to Julia. But that had occurred in the spring, and the nine-days' wonder had ceased before my patient came to the island. Still, any accidental conversation might give her the information, and open up a favorable chance for her. I must not let her go across to Sark ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... believe either that a bird like a pigeon should be able to apprehend any ideal so different from itself as a peacock, and make towards it, or that man, having wished to breed a bird anything like a peacock from a bird anything like a pigeon, would be able to succeed in accumulating accidental peacock-like variations till he had made the bird he was in search of, no matter in what number of generations; much less can we believe that the accumulation of small fortuitous variations by "natural selection" could succeed better. We can no more believe the above, ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... gang pretty well, I can assure you. You would have been found dead, and your man dead too most likely, and the circumstances attending your death would all have pointed to suicide, or perhaps to accidental death. But we've not much time ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... be driven here, it was probable they went away again as soon as ever they could, seeing they had never thought fit to fix here upon any occasion; that the most I could suggest any danger from, was from any casual accidental landing of straggling people from the main, who, as it was likely, if they were driven hither, were here against their wills, so they made no stay here, but went off again with all possible speed; seldom ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... fatigued at the end of the rehearsal; for nothing drains one's vitality so rapidly as scolding. A bit of humorous repartee, then, especially in response to the complaints of some lazy or grouchy performer; the ability to meet accidental mishaps without anger; even a humorous anecdote to relieve the strain of a taxing rehearsal—all these are to be highly recommended as means of oiling the machinery of the rehearsal and ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... Jurgis got a chance through an accidental meeting with an old-time acquaintance of his union days. He met this man on his way to work in the giant factories of the Harvester Trust; and his friend told him to come along and he would speak a good word for him to his boss, whom he ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... word stipulatio signified the striking of a bargain, which was done by placing two straws, stipes, one across the other. The same mode is practised to this day in the Isle of Man, existing, in all probability, from a period earlier than the foundation of Rome itself. Is the coincidence accidental or traditional? If the latter, what a history it tells of the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... is not a mere extrinsic or accidental advantage, which is ours to-day and another's to-morrow, which may be got up from a book, and easily forgotten again, which we can command or communicate at our pleasure, which we can borrow for the occasion, carry about in our hand, and take into the market; it is ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... at a table where they were working at their tapestry, a stone thrown from the courtyard passed through the window bars, broke a pane of glass, and fell into the room. The queen's first idea was to believe it accidental or an insult; but Mary Seyton, turning round, noticed that the stone was wrapped up in a paper: she immediately picked it up. The paper was a letter from George ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lips met, the contact was so slight as to seem accidental; it was the mere timorous promise of a future kiss. And both were glad of the something that had ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... prisoners of Britain, and both are called fathers of Cordelia or Creiddylad.[341] Perhaps the two were once identical, for Manannan is sometimes called son of Alloid ( Lludd), in Irish texts, as well as son of Ler.[342] But the confusion may be accidental, nor is it certain that Nodons or Lludd was a sea-god. Llyr's prison was that of Eurosswyd,[343] whose wife he may have abducted and hence suffered imprisonment. In the Black Book of Caermarthen Bran is called son of Y Werydd or "Ocean," according to M. Loth's interpretation of the ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... this reason she believed more firmly than ever in the older philosophy of life. She looked on Mark's personality with such suspicion that she gradually withdrew herself from his influence. Hideously disturbed by his audacity of thought, she had even gone so far as to tell Tatiana Markovna of this accidental acquaintance, with the result that the old lady told the servants to keep a watch on the garden, but Volokov came from the direction of the precipice, from which the watchmen were effectually kept away by their superstitious fears. Mark himself had noted Vera's distrust, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... contemplation of the great mystery of existence. The parallel between these legends and the Christian version of the marvels attending the birth of Jesus is so close as to preclude the possibility of its being altogether accidental. There must have been a connection somewhere, and indeed there is no need to think otherwise, for nothing is to be gained or lost by ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... will be said that entails exist in Scotland and in England. Yes; but this Session a law has passed, or is passing, to modify the system as it has heretofore existed in Scotland; and in England many of its evils have been partially overcome by the extraordinary, and, to some degree, the accidental extension of manufacturing industry among the people. In Ireland there are no such mitigations; a code of laws exists, under which it is impossible for the land and the people to be brought, as it were, together, and for industry to live in independence and comfort, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Rotterdam and educated in the city of Gouda, I ran continually across Erasmus and for some unknown reason this great exponent of tolerance took hold of my intolerant self. Later I discovered Anatole France and my first experience with the English language came about through an accidental encounter with Thackeray's "Henry Esmond," a story which made more impression upon me than any other book in ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... the formative the true poet always engrafts and increases upon himself, and thence upon his reader; the crude, the local, the accidental, he translates into a new tongue. It has been urged against Whitman that he expresses our unripe Americanism only, but serious readers of him know better than that. He is easy master of it all, and knows when his foot is upon solid ground. It seems to me that in him we ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... dachshund. He probably weighed between eight and ten pounds, had a bullet head, almost no ears, and atrocious whiskers. Also he had a bushy tail and snapping little eyes that seemed to bore clean through whatever he looked at. To Miki his accidental presence was a threat and a challenge. Besides, Oochak looked like an easy victim if it came to a fight. So he pulled back ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... emblazonry, could only see the design distorted and confused; here crowded, there scattered, at another place superposed. The groupings due to our position were mixed up with those which were real. Could we suppose that each luminous point had no relation to the others near it than the accidental neighborship of grains of sand upon the shore, or of particles of the wind-blown dust of the desert? Surely every star from Sirius and Vega down to each grain of the light dust of the Milky Way had its present place in the heavenly pattern from ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... of the words "common defense" and "general welfare" in this admirably written paragraph could hardly have been accidental, or have been due to any other cause than a juxtaposition of those ideas in the minds of the Constitution's framers. And what more natural connection can there be between any two ideas than between those of common defense and general ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... man, it is a double dignification of that person:] and so, if this Antiquitie of Angling (which, for my part, I have not forc'd) shall, like an ancient Familie, by either an honour, or an ornament to this vertuous Art which I both love and practise, I shall be the gladder that I made an accidental mention of it; and shall proceed to the justification, or rather ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... squirmings of the next few minutes, Tarzan's hold was loosened a dozen times until finally an accidental circumstance of those swift and everchanging evolutions gave him a new hold with his right hand, which he realized ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... warned by his friends not to go into hospital, where his twelve gold teeth, which he had acquired in the United States, might prove his undoing. He did, as a matter of fact, die there, and the overdose of morphia—witnessed by the well-known architect, Matejorski of Prague—may have been accidental, and the Austrians who took his teeth out may have thought it foolish to leave so much gold in a corpse. Another Bocchesi who underwent the same treatment was one Risto Lije[vs]evi['c]. Perhaps the Austrians do not deny these incidents, and considering ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... The parish is not the centre of the universe. The tendency of the uneducated mind is to isolate itself from the interests of others, and to look at all matters from a purely selfish point of view. The parish is an accidental collection of individual souls in a particular diocese. The diocese is an aggregation of separate parishes scattered through an assigned area. The members of the Church in a particular parish and diocese are members of the Holy Catholic ...
— Churchwardens' Manual - their duties, powers, rights, and privilages • George Henry
... must have softened the Doctor's displeasure at his elopement, had they come to hand; but they were confided to the care of Monthault, and, either through forgetfulness or treachery, were never forwarded. It was therefore only from the vague testimony of an accidental passenger that the family knew Eustace had taken the road to Bristol; and, from his being in company with Major Monthault, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... his wide contact and association with the leading spirits of the times in Europe and America. All combined to teach him to know himself and the universal verities of man and society, to distinguish the invisible and enduring substance of life from its merely accidental and ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... any of the other social relations. No man was a firmer or more indefatigable friend. I know not that he ever lost one; and a few with whom, during the energetic middle stage of life, from political differences or other accidental circumstances, he lived less familiarly, had all gathered round him, and renewed the full warmth of early affection in his later days. There was enough to dignify the connexion in their eyes; but nothing to chill it on ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... Courthorne, but the latter smiled. "The visit has nothing to do with me. It is probably accidental, but I fancy Stimson knows me, and it wouldn't be advisable for him to see us both together. Now, I wonder whether you could make ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... she had boggled, by surprise, into the acknowledgment that she knew anything whatever about the matter, felt herself in a problematical position. She did not know whether his question had been accidental or not; it sounded as if he knew; possibly he had put it as a feeler to discover whether she knew. In which case the subject became rather difficult; she did not know whether to dissemble, nor how much to dissemble, nor how ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... undisturbed; his temper is even and unruffled, whether in action or solitude. He comes with a relish to all those goods which nature has provided for him, tastes all the pleasures of the creation which are poured about him, and does not feel the full weight of those accidental evils which ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... and looking both sheepish and gratified, Tom suddenly bolted, leaving the elder lady to enlighten the younger at length, and have another laugh over this new sort of courtship, which might well be called accidental. Nan was deeply interested, for she knew Dora, thought her a nice little thing, and predicted that in time she would make Tom an excellent wife, since she admired and 'appreciated' ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... all shiny tiles on which nothing could be either drawn or carved. Then for an instant there hung and broke above him like a high wave the whole horror of scientific imprisonment, which manages to deny a man not only liberty, but every accidental comfort of bondage. In the old filthy dungeons men could carve their prayers or protests in the rock. Here the white and slippery walls escaped even from bearing witness. The old prisoners could make a pet of a mouse or a beetle strayed out of a ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... as in process in fig. 167. Taking it through by the aid of a thick needle would make too large a hole. Thread can be knotted into the eye of the needle if for any reason it is required to be quite safe from accidental unthreading. The neatest way of doing this is to pass the needle through the centre of the thread and draw it tight; this is a useful trick for any unskilled worker with needles and thread, for re-threading ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... influence of the sexes be reciprocal, yet that of the ladies is certainly the greatest. How often may one see a company of men, who were disposed to be riotous, checked at once into decency by the accidental entrance of an amiable woman; while her good sense and obliging deportment charms them into at least a temporary conviction, that there is nothing so delightful as female conversation, in its best form! Were such conviction ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... under the same or under other names by most metaphysicians to the present day, viz., between what were called essential, and what were called accidental, propositions, and between essential and accidental ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... faith and hope, of imagination and desire; and men are high or low as they partake more or less of this true life. By this standard, and by no other, reason requires that we form an estimate of human worth. To be a king, to have money, to live in splendor, to meet with approval from few or many,—is accidental, is something which may happen to an ignorant, a heartless, a depraved, a vulgar man. The most vicious and brutal of men have, again and again, held the most exalted positions, and as a rule cringing and lying, trickery and robbery, or speculation and gambling, have been and are the ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... party in possession, the so-called Family Compact group, posed as the only friends of Britain. They had never possessed more than an accidental majority in the Lower House, and, since Durham's rule, it seemed likely that their old supremacy in the Executive and Legislative Councils had come to an end. Yet as their power receded, their language became the more peremptory, and their contempt for other groups the ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... about chance and fortune and accident, we speak every day of things happening, as if by the sheerest contingence, without warning or previous knowledge; and so it is with reference to ourselves, and to all the world perhaps: but with reference to divine Providence it is not so; there is nothing accidental, nothing unforeseen with respect to God. "Without Thy counsel and Providence, and without cause, nothing cometh to pass in the earth,"(95) says the Imitation. But what does this mean, "God provides?" It means that the will of the omnipotent Father directs and governs everything. "Providence," ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... accidental insertion of another clause in the constitution under consideration, Section 1, of Article VII., any foreign born woman, naturalized previous to January, 1870, was given the right to vote. So that Illinois was the first State in the Union, since the time when ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... native and patriotic Porto Ricans who hold liberty dearer than life, to join them and accomplish the overthrow of the Spanish government and the death of the governor and his officials. The plans of the conspirators were so carefully laid that had it not been for the accidental discovery of Castillo's letter, they would unquestionably have ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... nose, and resembling nasal catarrh. In the early stage it is 'coryza', or nasal catarrh; but the affection rapidly extends, and seems to attack the mucous membranes generally, determined to some particular one, either by atmospheric influence or accidental causes, or constitutional predisposition. The fits arise from general disturbance of the system, or from the proximity of the brain to the early ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... of the master, for in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder, as in the first instance. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, not intentional, nor extending to life or limb, a mere accidental hurt, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places. One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal. The other and accidental, and comparatively slight injury—of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of the jury at the inquest, and after hearing the evidence, which amounted to no more than the finding of the body soon after the event, the coroner expressed his opinion that it was a case of accidental death, with which I at once concurred. With some reluctance, the other jurymen agreed; they had, I imagine, as usual, made up their minds for a more sensational verdict, but scarcely liked to suggest it, and a verdict of accidental death was accordingly returned. Afterwards I ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... said James (wiping his cane with his cambric handkerchief), and his sword clattered deliciously (I cannot think this was accidental), which made my mother sigh. Like the man he was, he followed up his advantage with a comparison that made me ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... merely an exception or an extreme. Insanity, like forgetfulness, is simply a quality which enters more or less into all human beings; and for practical purposes it is more necessary to know whose mind is really trustworthy than whose has some accidental taint. We have therefore reversed the existing method, and people now have to prove that they are sane. In the first village you entered, the village constable would notice that you were not wearing on the left ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... had forgotten the incident immediately in the press of continuous business. But with the news of his death the remembrance of that momentary interview returned, and with it the instant conviction that that accidental death ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... scrupulous regard to justice and humanity, and have an unquestionable proof of the great advancement made by the Egyptians in the most essential points of civilization. Indeed, the Egyptians considered it so heinous a crime to deprive a man of life, that to be the accidental witness of an attempt to murder, without endeavoring to prevent it, was a capital offense, which could only be palliated by bringing proofs of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... at Paris as well as at Rheims, with rejoicings both popular and magnificent. But in the condition in which France was during the thirteenth century, amidst a civilization still so imperfect and without the fortifying institutions of a free government, no accidental good fortune could make up for a king's want of personal merit; and Louis VIII. was a man of downright mediocrity, without foresight, volatile in his resolves and weak and fickle in the execution of them. He, as well as Philip Augustus, had to make war on the King of England, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to know your name, and how you come to take your pleasure over these lands belonging to the burgh of Perth; although, natheless, I will answer for them, it is not their wish to quarrel with a gentleman, or stranger for any accidental trespass; only it is their use and wont not to grant such leave, unless it is duly asked; and—and—therefore I desire to know ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... first time sprang up from the north-east. As we advanced apace towards our station our hopes began to revive, for though the customary season of the arrival of the galleon at Acapulco was already elapsed, yet we were by this time unreasonable enough to flatter ourselves that some accidental delay might, for our advantage, lengthen out her passage beyond its usual limits. On the 26th of January, being then to the northward of Acapulco, we tacked and stood to the eastward, with a view of ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... irresolution of a man who pushes metaphysics into the supernatural world. Dark prophecies accumulated omens over his head; men united in considering him born to disastrous destinies. Whenever he had sought to wrestle against hostile circumstances, some seemingly accidental cause, sudden and unforeseen, had blasted the labours of his most vigorous energy,—the fruit of his most deliberate wisdom. Thus, by degrees a gloomy and despairing cloud settled over his mind; but, secretly sceptical of the Mohammedan creed, and ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... admirably delineated the grandeur of Italian scenery, and invariably chose to represent it when the clouds forboded a storm, or when other accidental effects of nature added to the sublimity of the occasion. We generally experience a kind of awe while contemplating his works; and this feeling is excited by the chef d'oeuvre before us. Several students have attempted it in oil; and Messrs. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... wholly accidental," cried he, "for we neither of us know the woman, who could not have any right or authority for the prohibition." Then yet more anxiously pursuing Cecilia, "why," he continued, "do you thus move off?—Why leave the ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... son of Hercules and Astyochia. Having left his native country, Argos, in consequence of the accidental murder of Liscymnius, he was commanded by an oracle to retire to Rhodes. Here he was chosen king, and accompanied the Trojan expedition. After his death, certain games were instituted at Rhodes in his honour, the victors being rewarded with ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... be satirists or torture-chambers.[12] Yet, though the self-complacent magistrate has been the butt of the ages, Aristophanes and Shakespeare, and perhaps Flaubert, have alone revealed his essential nullity, because they alone have looked for something essential beneath the accidental. Nothing could be simpler than the character of Polonius; nothing could be more subtle. A rap here, a stab there, and the soul of a minister is exposed. We have come to see, we scarcely know how, that, ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... to notice the superstitions respecting sorcerers, which in that country are so intimately connected with the very idea of death. When an individual life is taken away by open violence, then, as we have seen, it is avenged upon the supposed murderer, or his relatives. But when death occurs from accidental or natural causes, it is usually attributed to the influence of sorcery, and not unfrequently is it revenged upon some connexion of the parties believed to have practised that art. So that, generally speaking, the death of one human being involves that of another, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... for him the cleavage of the world was between labour and capital instead of man and woman; his philosophy was stern and naturalistic; the universe—the origin of which he did not discuss—just an accidental assemblage of capricious forces over which human intelligence was one day to triumph. Squatting on the lowest step, his face upturned, by the light of the arc sputtering above the street he looked like a yellow frog, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... proved, on assay, to be of the purest quality. Every one was questioned as to what he had cast into the furnace, when there appeared no reason to suppose the transmutation could have been effected by such an accidental mixture of metals. At length it was remarked, that a dervish, accompanying the barber's son, had cast in a lump of ore, and immediately disappeared. Upon this the sultan summoned the youth to his presence, and inquiring after his companion, was informed of the place of his residence, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... inquired after Captain Porter's health; the latter returned the inquiry, but warned Hilyar not to fall foul. The British captain then braced back his yards, remarking that if he did fall aboard it would be purely accidental. "Well," said Porter, "you have no business where you are; if you touch a rope-yarn of this ship I shall board instantly." [Footnote: "Life of Farragut," p. 33.] The Phoebe, in her then position, was completely at the mercy of the American ships, and Hilyar, greatly ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... differentiate the objective from the subjective, he should establish relationships between natural objects which resemble animals and the animals themselves; that he should even ultimately imitate these animals for the sake of establishing such relationships, using such accidental resemblances as his motives, and thus developing a conventionality in all art connected with his worship. It follows that the special requirements of his life or of the life of his ancestors should influence him to select as his favored ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... knees were bent, and it seemed to walk on the very edge of the hoof—on tip-toe, if I may venture such an expression. My young friend thought that the lameness proceeded from original malformation, I am rather of opinion that it was accidental, and that the poor creature was wretchedly foot-sore. However that might be, the pain and difficulty with which it took every step were not to be mistaken; and the distress and fondness of the mother, her perplexity as the flock passed gradually out of sight, the effort with which the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... address of her brother's, without understanding the reasons for its secrecy, came into his mind. A still more vague hope, that he might meet her before she found her brother, upheld him. It would be an accidental meeting on her part, for he no longer dared to hope that she would seek or trust him again. And it was with very little of his old sanguine quality that, travel-worn and weary, he at last alighted at Skinner's. But his half careless ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... and man began to use his invention for the purpose of its increase. He learned how to plant seeds which were ordinarily believed to be sown by the gods, and to till the soil and raise fruits and vegetables for his own consumption. This was a period of accidental agriculture, or hoe culture, whereby the ground was tilled by women with hoes of stone, or bone, or wood. In the meantime, the increase of animal food became a necessity. Man learned how to snare and trap animals, to fish and to gather shell-fish, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... fourth, which, at least as regards the greater names of literature, is perhaps the smallest of all—comprises those who may almost be said to drift into literary work and literary fame, whose first production is not merely tentative and unoriginal, but, so to speak, accidental, who do not discover their real faculty for literary work till after a pretty long course of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... Jerseys was accidental; you had it not even in contemplation, or you would not have sent a principal part of your forces to Rhode Island beforehand. The utmost hope of America in the year 1776, reached no higher than that she might not then be ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... good fortune a communicative young officer on the road, we learnt that this castle, called[12] Chateau la Serve, had in reality been the residence of the lords of St. Vallier; that many years ago it had been reduced by an accidental fire to its present state, and was finally wrested from the family at the Revolution. Of the present Chateau St. Vallier, and the estate annexed, they have remained in uninterrupted possession; and all admirers of the Gothic must rejoice that the ruin has been purchased ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... accidental interlocking of antlers,—due to the fact that an animal can push forward with far greater force than it can pull back,—I have never seen, heard or read of a wild animal having been killed outright in a fight over the possession of females. Fur seal and Stellar ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... favor of our Lord's Messiahship. The people could plainly see the agreement between the life and teachings of Christ and what John had said they would be. The agreement was too exact and uniform to be accidental. This led many to believe on him. They alleged that all things whatsoever John spake of this man were true; and they came unto him. In this they showed their wisdom. How they hung upon his words! How their hearts did ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... into people's thoughts. Whom is the crusade against, and what is its object? Where is the enemy and what is there dangerous about him? In the first place, the materialistic movement is not a school or tendency in the narrow journalistic sense; it is not something passing or accidental; it is necessary, inevitable, and beyond the power of man. All that lives on earth is bound to be materialistic. In animals, in savages, in Moscow merchants, all that is higher and non-animal is conditioned by an unconscious instinct, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... slightly for several years, but as Enid had been so much abroad with Mrs. Caldwell, he had never met her until that accidental encounter in Biarritz. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Portugal laurels and American junipers, be it remembered that they remained untouched amidst the general havoc: hence men should learn to ornament chiefly with such trees as are able to withstand accidental severities, and not subject themselves to the vexation of a loss which may befall them once perhaps in ten years, yet may hardly be recovered through the whole course of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... can be distinguished, which the individual man, as well as the whole race, must of necessity traverse in a determinate order if they are to fulfil the circle of their determination. No doubt, the separate periods can be lengthened or shortened, through accidental causes which are inherent either in the influence of external things or under the free caprice of men: but neither of them can be overstepped, and the order of their sequence cannot be inverted either by ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the introduction of the carbide into the water. It is necessary in this case that the carbide shall have been previously reduced to powder. The funnel, 11, is then closed by a cover, 21, in order to prevent any accidental escape of the gas. The carbide falls into the generator, the bottom of which is open. The latter enters a tank into which flows a current of water, escaping through the waste pipe, 19, in carrying along the lime formed. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... sleeping. As she lay asleep, I was again haunted by the likeness to some one I had seen before; but I was unable to trace it to its source nor did I trouble my head in the matter, since resemblances are so frequently accidental and baffling. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... the town. I was fortunate enough to take the left-hand circuit, by accident, and thereby escaped the fate which befel a great portion of those who went to the right, and who were blown up, along with some of the third division, by the accidental ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... feared that as President he would be dictatorial, though not perhaps arbitrary like Jackson. He would have been a happier man if he had not so eagerly coveted a prize which it seems is unattainable by mere force of intellect, and is often conferred apparently by accidental circumstances. It is too high an office to be sought, either by genius or services, except in the military line; but even General Scott, the real hero of the Mexican war, failed in his ambitious aspirations, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... north as far as southern Kansas and southwestern Missouri to spend the summer and rear their families. In winter they go as far south as Costa Rico. Restricted as their habitat is, it is curious to note that they are "accidental" in a few unexpected places, such as Key West, Fla., Norfolk, Va., and also in several localities in New England, Manitoba, and Hudson Bay Territory. Prof. W. W. Cooke, of Colorado, says they are "rare, if not accidental," in that state. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... daughter's beauty and popularity, as happily as the big cat lying on the sunny side of the bunk-house. He found all sorts of excuses for invading where his presence was little wanted while Zen's finery was being displayed for admiration. Y.D. always pretended that such invasions were quite accidental, and affected a fine indifference to all this "women's fuss an' feathers," but his affectations deceived at least none of ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... other motives than the one she acknowledged? She had insisted, almost unfeelingly as it might have seemed, on the abstract rightness of what she had done, on the fact that, ideally speaking, her act could not be made less right, less justifiable, by the special accidental consequences that had flowed from it. Because these consequences had caught her in a web of tragic fatality she would not be guilty of the weakness of tracing back the disaster to any intrinsic error in her original motive. Why, then, if this was her real, her proud attitude ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' in which I showed how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... the Countess justice,' Lord Montbarry persisted. 'There are not half a dozen lines more that I can make out! The accidental breaking of his jar of acid has burnt the Baron's hands severely. He is still unable to proceed to the destruction of the head—and the Countess is woman enough (with all her wickedness) to shrink from attempting ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... also been reported as well as gas-producing[13] forms allied to the colon bacillus. Such findings are, however, due in all probability to accidental invasion. Most investigators report the absence of the distinctively lactic-acid group ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... honeycombing, and possibilities that invariably came to nothing. Now again we would come upon a rock of this kind that seemed for a second to hint at mysterious markings made by the hand of man, but they proved to be nothing but some decorative sea-fossilisation, making an accidental pattern, like the marking you sometimes come across on some old weathered stone on a moor. Nothing that the fondest fancy could twist into the likeness of a compass ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... and there is more evil than good." That is, everything is disgusting; there is nothing to live for, and the sixty-two years I have already lived must be reckoned as wasted. I catch myself in these thoughts, and try to persuade myself that they are accidental, temporary, and not deeply rooted in me, but at ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the slavery that offered itself to the eyes of the Prophets and Apostles; a normal servitude, of right, based upon a native and indestructible inferiority was not then in question, but an accidental servitude among equals, to which the chances of war had given birth, and which emancipation suppressed entire. Quite different is the slavery which depends on race, and which, it may be said, supposes a malediction; do what one will, this ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... that epic and lyric poetry admit not of any such precise division into two opposite species, as the dramatic does. The ludicrous epopee has, it is true, been styled a peculiar species, but it is only an accidental variety, a mere parody of the epos, and consists in applying its solemn staidness of development, which seems only suitable to great objects, to trifling and insignificant events. In lyric poetry there are only intervals ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... &c. 57; accident; appearance, phenomenon &c. 448. Adj. derived from without; objective; extrinsic, extrinsical[obs3]; extraneous &c. (foreign) 57; modal, adventitious; ascititious[obs3], adscititious[obs3]; incidental, accidental, nonessential; contingent, fortuitous. implanted, ingrafted[obs3]; inculcated, infused. outward, apparent &c. (external) 220. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... utter the wild cackle of a daw or a magpie, a strange sound of derision. At such times Miss Frost's heart went cold within her. She dared not realize. And she chid and checked her ward, restored her to the usual impulsive, affectionate demureness. Then she dismissed the whole matter. It was just an accidental aberration on the girl's part from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly the qualities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she was taught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined creature of her governess' desire. But ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... we to regard as the heart of spirituality? When we have eliminated the accidental characters with which varying traditions have endowed it, what is it that still so definitely distinguishes its possessor from the best, most moral citizen or devoted altruist? Why do the Christian saint, Indian rishi, Buddhist arhat, ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... Mr. Wharton, that the death of his son might, by hastening his own, leave his remaining children without a protector. But notwithstanding Miss Peyton had complied with her brother's wish to profit by the accidental visit of a divine, she had not thought it necessary to blazon the intended nuptials of her niece to the neighborhood, had even time been allowed; she thought, therefore, that she was now communicating a profound secret to the negro, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Stephanie cordially, and turned quietly to a portfolio of drawings at her elbow. She had let her fleeting glance rest on Neville for a second; had divined in a flash that he was enduring and not courting their examination of this picture; that, somehow, her accidental discovery of it had displeased him—was even ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... familiarity with the lot of the feeble. To one who considered life and humanity in any other than their familiar and vulgar aspects, he would have presented a touching picture of a noble nature, enduring with pride, blunted by habit; while to him, who regards the accidental dispositions of society as paramount laws, he might have presented the image of dogged turbulence and discontent, healthfully repressed by the hand of power. A heavy sigh struggled from the chest of the old man, and, stroking down the few hairs ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... such an alarm," he said, "have caused Miss Effingham to betray an incognito of mine, that I fear you find sufficiently absurd. It was quite accidental, I do assure you; as much so, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... don't mean that;—I did not mean to put that into my confession;—it did occur to me as possible," she went on, hanging her pretty head, and playing nervously with the folds of her dress in a manner which had the accidental effect of causing it to leave uncovered an additional inch of silk stocking—"it did occur to me as possible that the Marchese Lamberto might come to me sooner than the time named for the meeting with the impresario;—for ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... and heroic uncle of mine, while bravely upbearing his gorgeous silken banner (a gift of the beautiful and all-accomplished ladies of Seaport) in a well-contested sham fight, receive, from the accidental discharge of a field-piece, an honorable and soldier-like wound, and of which he ever after boasted louder, and took more pride in, than the bravest veteran in Grant's gallant army of the scars and injuries received at the siege of Vicksburg? And no wonder at that, perhaps. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Each of these inherited the early undivided Church in solido as its own possession. Each branch was identical with that early undivided Church, and in the unity of that Church it had unity with the other branches. The three branches agreed together in all but their later accidental errors. Some branches had retained in detail portions of apostolical truth and usage, which the others had not; and these portions might be and should be appropriated again by the others which had let them slip. Thus, the middle age belonged ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman |
