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Adversity   /ædvˈərsɪti/  /ədvˈərsɪti/   Listen
Adversity

noun
(pl. adversities)
1.
A state of misfortune or affliction.  Synonyms: hard knocks, hardship.  "A life of hardship"
2.
A stroke of ill fortune; a calamitous event.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Adversity" Quotes from Famous Books



... believed. As for Julius, he was nearly as bad as they were, but those last days in the wreck and the nine days in the boat had wrought a miracle in him. All the perversity and selfishness of character that had before distinguished him had gone, and he had come out of the fires of adversity and suffering purged, a new and a right gallant, manly boy—how manly I did not know until some time afterward, when it came out that, watching me and observing that I took a trifle less food and ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... saved who now suffer an ignominious and an early death; and many might be so much purified in the furnace of punishment and adversity, as to become the ornaments of that society of which they had formerly been the bane. The vices of mankind must frequently require the severity of justice; but a wise State will direct that severity to the greatest ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... patient subaltern almost deaf through the long day marches; and Crane and Wilkins, who are a good deal together at every halt, and consort more with Canker than other captains; and then there is the jolly element that ever clusters around Blake, whose spirits defy adversity, and whose merry quips and jests and boundless distortions of fact or fancy are the joy of the regiment. With Blake one always finds Merrill and Freeman and some of the jovial junior captains, and, of course, the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... and a quick thought flashed through his mind that some men are seen at their worst in adversity. He was ready enough to find excuses for Horner, for men are strange in the gift of their friendship, often bestowing it where they know ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... who may be called the goddess of Adversity, is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter (Il. [Greek: t.] 91: [Greek: presba Dios thugater Ate, he pantas aatai). Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the passage of Aeschylus which he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the benefit of man." ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... one of the sisters attaching Mr Enderby. Maria Young had not always been solitary, and lame, and poor. Her father had not been very long dead; and while he lived, no one supposed that his only child would be poor. Her youth passed gaily, and her adversity came suddenly. Her father was wont to drive her out in his gig, almost every summer day. One evening, the horse took fright, and upset the gig on a heap of stones by the road-side. Mr Young was taken up dead, and Maria was lamed ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... Southern leader was then in retirement, having resigned from the Senate the preceding year. By a coincidence worth nothing, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were all at that moment absent from the Senate, each having voluntarily retired. In later life, chastened by political adversity, they returned to the chamber where, before their advent and since their departure, there have been ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... in order, Mohammed now began to enjoy his power as the undisputed ruler of a large number of Arab tribes. But success has been the undoing of a large number of men who were great in the days of adversity. He tried to gain the good will of the rich people by a number of regulations which could appeal to those of wealth. He allowed the Faithful to have four wives. As one wife was a costly investment in those olden ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... month—that, pacing along Pall Mall, we paused, and turned to the left hand corner of St. James's Square, full of painful and un-English memories of the Asiatic court of the second Charles; the sovereign who had endured adversity without discovering that "sweet are its uses;" who had "suffered tribulation" without "learning mercy"—the king who makes us doubt if, as a people, we have any claim to what is called "national character"—for the change that came over England, within ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... citizen of Minnesota great pride to know that, under all phases and conditions of our territory and state, whether in prosperity or adversity, the school fund has always been held sacred, and neither extravagance, neglect nor peculation has ever assailed it, but it has been husbanded with jealous care from time to time since the first dollar was realized from it ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... Bruce reply, and clasp the young warrior to his heart; but it was only Nigel's ear that heard these whispers of despondency, only Nigel's eye which could penetrate the inmost folds of that royal heart. Not even to his wife—his Margaret, whose faithfulness in these hours of adversity had drawn her yet closer to her husband—did he breathe aught save encouragement and hope; and to his followers he was the same as he had been from the first, resolute, unwavering; triumphing over every obstacle; ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... her gentle and mournful voice urging its plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the claims and abilities of her son, disclosed at once the presence of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be. It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty, and, with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest necessaries of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... following terms:—"When, sir, you were silenced by restraint, overpowered by brutal force, and foreign bayonets were employed on your own soil to suppress truth and to bind upon your limbs and mind the shackles of slavery, we sympathized with you in your adversity. We hated the tyrant and loved the victim. And when, sir, after the semblance of a trial, you were condemned and hurried as a felon from your home, your country, and your friends, to a distant land, we ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... striking case, overlooked by PREMIER, of a Minister long struggling with adversity at the poll finding the door of House of Commons bolted and barred is familiar to Lord HALSBURY. Appointed Solicitor-General in 1875 HARDINGE GIFFARD did not take his seat till the Session of 1877. Crushed at Cardiff, left in the lurch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various

... am an old man and I have seen what altitudes the want of gold can abase, and what impossible things it makes possible. In any adversity ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... They were swept without a breathing pause down to the bottom. Those who have always been accustomed to prosperity have no reserve of experience or courage to enable them to recuperate from sudden and extreme adversity. In an amazingly short time the Cassatts had become demoralized—a familiar illustration of how civilization is merely a wafer-thin veneer over most human beings as yet. Over how many is it more? They fought after a fashion; they fought valiantly. But how would it have been possible not steadily ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... a Smivvle, sir," pursued that gentleman, "the hand of a Smivvle is never withdrawn either on account of adversity, plague, poverty, pestilence, or Jews—dammem! As for my friend Barrymaine; but, perhaps, you ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... of his parents (neither of whom, alas, survived to take pleasure in their darling's sudden fame). He had now migrated from Twickenham and taken rooms in Ryder Street. Had he ever shared with Braxton the bread of adversity—but no, I think he would in any case have been pleasant. And conversely I cannot imagine that Braxton would in ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... subsistence. That she had solicited the loan of money, to satisfy the demands of the Company, from every person that she imagined would or could assist her with any; but that the opulent would not listen to her adversity. She had hoped that the wardrobe sent to Lucknow might have sold for at least one half of the Company's demands on her; but even jewelry and goods, she finds from woful experience, lose their value the moment ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... won't think of giving up your hike just on account of me, fellows," said the poor Walter, weakly, showing a magnanimous spirit in adversity that made his chums feel all ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... to look upon Beulah as a place of hiding while adversity lasts," said Mother Carey. "We must make it home; as beautiful and complete as we can afford. One real home always makes others, I am sure of that! We will ask Mr. Harmon to write Mr. Hamilton and see if he will promise ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... cried the poet, "you are yet more to me—you are my one hope, my whole future rests with you. I thought that if you meant to make my successes yours, you would surely make my adversity yours also, and here we are going ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... the poets do not understand it. You can't go along sweeping a clear path for your feet with a bunch of flowers. What you need is a good, sound club. When a hairy shin impedes, whack it, or make a feint and a bluff. You'll be surprised how easily the terrifying hulks of adversity are charmed out of the highway ahead of you by a little impertinence, a little ginger, and a ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... daily and hourly reminders of the "great tribulation" through which the nation is passing. Of course, one ought not to wish it otherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet," but eminently salutary, are these "uses of adversity," for they prevent us from forgetting, even if we were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realities of the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, and in spite of all this, beauty retains its sway over "the common heart of man." Even ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... 1779, Dr. Smith continued indefatigable in mental applications; faithful in the discharge of official duties; and active for the interest of the society, through scenes of trouble and adversity. The board of Trustees elected him a member of their body. The church at the college, founded by my predecessor, intrusted with him, as pastor, their spiritual concerns, and were prospered under his prudent and pious ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... support her mother when there was no one else upon whom she could rely. Little by little their earthly possessions had passed away. Mrs. Redburn had never learned how to save money; and when the day of adversity came, her funds were soon exhausted. She had no friends to whom she dared reveal her poverty, and when want came to the door, she was too proud to beg. Hoping for better days, she had sold most of her best dresses, and those of Katy. The small sums raised by these sacrifices were soon used ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic

... nature of all human enjoyments; and equally weary of the glories and turmoils of this life, he began to cast his view toward that future existence, which it is so natural for the human mind, whether satiated by prosperity or disgusted with adversity, to make the object of its attention. Unfortunately, the spirit which prevailed in that age gave a wrong direction to his devotion: instead of making compensation to those whom he had injured by his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... ago, when he made that unlucky gamble in stocks—which killed him, they say. Well—life is certainly hard." And the doctor turned his mind to a new pair of horses he had been looking at in the afternoon, with a comfortable sense of a wind-guard or so, at the least, between himself and the gales of adversity. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... only to be brought out with the other heirlooms, and properly disposed of, to constitute the wearer en grande tenue. No doubt trade was still to be encouraged, and Spitalfields, in its chronic adversity, to be brought a little nearer to prosperity by the manufacture of sumptuous stuffs, in imitation of gorgeous old brocades, for a portion of the twelve hundred guests. But these motives were neither so urgent nor so ostensible, and perhaps the ball originated as much ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... delights me to hear you talk thus, and for a reason you little guess; for I am assured that one who can so heroically endure adversity, will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former, is not likely to be transported ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... character. It was a positive delight to hear his cheerful, ringing laugh. He was cordial in manner, and his frankness set everybody at their ease who had occasion to meet him, even for the first time. No one could be more faithful and consistent in his friendships, nor more firm in the hour of adversity. In fine, Henry Maudslay was, as described by his friend Mr. Nasmyth, the very beau ideal of an honest, upright, straight-forward, hard-working, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... like one of old Terborch's portraits, a harmony in tones so low as to be but a step removed from monochrome. Obviously a lady in spite of the worn and rusty dress, and something in the poise of the head and the set of the straight brows hinted at a spirit that adversity had hardened ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... to obey—to know what you want, to desire to succeed, to be willing to sacrifice self, to attain results, to smile at adversity, to be patient, truthful, honest, unselfish, sympathetic, in short to work hard every minute and all ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... beheaded, he exclaimed, "What an absurdity! but those Bourbons are incorrigible; would it not be much better to let such events as those sink as much as possible into oblivion, instead of endeavouring to perpetuate them. One would have thought," continued he, "that the adversity and exile which that besotted family had endured would have operated upon them as a lesson, but they will never benefit from any lessons; one, however, will be tried upon them very soon, if they do not mind ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... gloomy, and mourn for the "Pauvre France." "Nous sommes bien tombes." This is a good sign, but will it outlive a single gleam of success? Shall we not in that case have the Gallic cock crowing as lustily as ever? The French have many amiable and engaging qualities, and if adversity would only teach them wisdom, the country is rich enough to rise from the ruin which has overtaken it. M. Jules Simon has published a plan of education which he says in twenty years will produce a race of virile citizens; but this is a little long to wait for a social regeneration. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... and go on with your story, my good Mr. Draper!" said Madame de Bernstein, smiling, to whom he went to report proceedings. She was amused at the lawyer's anger. She liked her nephew for being insolent in adversity. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... by my position in society, and thorough knowledge of the English language, I was now and then of service to Englishmen THERE; in my adversity is there a generous-hearted Englishman HERE who would give me the hand and see that the government enjoins the restitution of the property I was robbed of at the Camp. Let the restitution come from a Board of Inquiry, ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions. In states there are often some obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear at first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend. The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Genius, exercise, and instruction. When asked the difference between the learned and the ignorant, he replied: "The same as between the living and the dead." "Knowledge," he said, "is an ornament in prosperity, and in adversity a refuge. Those who give children a good education, are much more their fathers than those who have begotten them; the latter communicate mere life to them; the former put it in their power to spend it comfortably." "Beauty," ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... the song, the ballad, and the epigram more available among a musical and song-loving people such as the English then were, and trusted to these to keep up the spirit of loyalty in the evil days of the royal cause, to teach courage in adversity, and cheerfulness in all circumstances, and to ridicule the hypocrites whom they could not shame, and the tyrants whom they could not overthrow. Though many thousands of these have been preserved in the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... he said. "Let me forget it, and wake to the new life that opens before me. A new life—born in a police cell, baptized in a criminal court, suckled in a prison, and trained in solitary adversity. That is the fate for which I have been reserved. I may be nearly fifty when I come out—a broken-down man, without reputation and without a hope. Truly, the dream is at an end; and oh, God of Heaven, make her forget me as though ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... more gorgeous a thousand-fold than that which now exists, yet not created in the day-dream of the prince, nor by the ostentation of the noble, but built by iron hands and patient hearts, contending against the adversity of nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank inquiry into the true nature of that wild and solitary scene, whose restless tides and trembling sands did indeed shelter the birth of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... more difficult to learn a language or a science in old age than in youth, so it is infinitely more difficult (if it be not impossible) to teach the science of the affections, and the language of the heart, to the old man whose youth has known nothing of either. Affliction and adversity teach oft-times sympathy and benevolence; but to do so they must have followed on happier times, and not have been a birth-portion. You may praise and respect "Uncle Johns," but you can not love them—neither can they ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... in gray with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... blows away the froth of fashion, for it is composed of delicate flowers that the first chill wind of adversity causes to wilt and droop and lose their fragrance. "Now the cool forenoon serenity of the ocean is no longer profaned." They have followed the siren voices of this bewildering region until they have arrived on some shoals that hint of a coming winter, and emerge with ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... phenomena when we say that this tower appears round from a distance but square near by; the intellectual in opposition to the intellectual, when to the one who from the order of the heavens builds a tower of reasoning to prove that a providence exists, we oppose the fact that adversity often falls to the good and prosperity to the evil, and that therefore we draw the conclusion that there is no providence. The intellectual is placed in opposition to 33 phenomena, as when Anaxagoras opposed the fact that snow is white, by saying that ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... the ruin of Italy, and to hurl curses on the head of the false servants who had betrayed their trust and yielded up the Castello to their master's foes. This, at least, may be said to Pistoia's credit—he did not forget his generous patron in the days of adversity; and when Pamfilo Sasso, the Modena bard who had basked in the sunshine of the Moro's favour, assailed the fallen duke in his verses, Pistoia rose up in defence of his old master, and fiercely ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... which makes the sound ones safe, and destroys the unsound. It is this struggle with all sorts of superstitions which makes science strong and sure, and her march irresistible, winning ground slowly, but never receding from it. It is this buffeting of adversity which compels her not to rest dangerously upon the shallow sand of first guesses, and single observations; but to strike her roots down, deep, wide, and interlaced into the solid ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... that which defiles, defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in [20] the process. Shakespeare writes: "Sweet are the uses of adversity." Jesus said: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; ... for so persecuted they the prophets ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... Delia Smith proposed. "Mr. Salome said 'very good' to her this morning; she must be proof against adversity." ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... the sad news earlier, and had been in to console them. Dr. McGarry had already called twice to see Granny, though he had not been sent for, and he had left her some new powders. Mrs. Sutherland had brought over a little book of poems on Strength in Adversity. Tilly Holmes had brought a dozen oranges from the store, and Mrs. Sinclair came in while Christina was there with a ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... wing, if not the whole army, was now in danger. It was at such times that the great spirit of the noble Sedgwick rose to the control of events. It seemed to require adversity to bring out all the grand qualities of his nature. We had witnessed his imperturbable bravery and determination on the retreat to Banks' Ford, his unsurpassed heroism at Antietam, when he kept the field after he was thrice wounded, was familiar to the nation, and now we were ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... importance in the American scene has been the inspiring proof of the great qualities of our fighting men. They have demonstrated these qualities in adversity as well as in victory. As long as our flag flies over this Capitol, Americans will honor the soldiers, sailors, and marines who fought our first battles of this war against overwhelming odds the heroes, living and dead, of Wake and Bataan and Guadalcanal, of the Java ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... relieved. "Of course," he said, "I did not know how that would be. But I own it did occur to me. The world is very censorious of poor Christine. Every one will say that she is the kind of woman who can't stick to a man in adversity. Yes, I assure you, Riatt, lots of these women who can't put down one of their motors without having nervous prostration will pillory Christine for breaking her engagement, unless—" ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... sorrows, these would not, we knew, linger long in the memory. Besides, on the Rock of Good Hope, and in the hut we were leaving, we had learned to know each other, and to love each other, and to be bound together by a strong bond of friendship, which, as it was formed in adversity, was not ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... originally, we gathered; but adversity and the snow had made him non compos vocis. The adversity consisted of the stranded San Salvador Opera Company, a period of hotel second-story work, and then a career as a professional palmist, jumping from town to town. For, like other professional palmists, every ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... France and Spain spread turmoil upon the high seas during the greater part of the eighteenth century. Yet with an immense tenacity of purpose, these briny forefathers increased their trade and multiplied their ships in the face of every manner of adversity. The surprising fact is that most of them were not driven ashore to earn their bread. What Daniel Webster said of them at a later day was true from the beginning: "It is not, sir, by protection and bounties, ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... thee, take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... which must have moved him profoundly. How fortunate, he declared, that they should have arrived before it was too late! For it was plain to be seen that these Garvins were good people who had been broken by adversity . . . . The boy had struck him particularly—a lovable, merry little fellow whose clothes, Mr. Bentley observed, were always neatly mended, betokening a mother with self-respect and character. He even spoke of Garvin: adversity, worry, the heat, constant ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... my readers that my hands did actually touch the bones of those murdered patricians, and the contents of their cinerary urns. They did not, however, because the spell of adversity seems to have pursued the Calpurnii even into their tombs, and there is reason to believe that their last repose was troubled by persecutors, who followed them to their graves. Their cippi were found broken into fragments, their names half erased, and their ashes scattered ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... For fifty years he has stood square to adversity with a smile on his face. Could I ever achieve that? Already I cry out on poverty; because I want an unencumbered field for ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... Sally Ashton learned to appreciate for the rest of her life Aunt Patricia's value, learned to understand why Mrs. Burton cared for her so devotedly and considered her a tower of strength in adversity. In this uncertain world in which we live there are fair weather and foul weather friends. Miss Patricia belonged to the number who not only fail to strike other people when they are down, but who ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

... his thousands, prosperity hath killed his ten thousands; therefore adversity is to be preferred. The one deceives, the other instructs; the one miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity and so much commend ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... imparted some consolation to the Lady Margaret's breast, now torn with anxiety and solicitude. Her grief was not lightened because her own misfortunes were avenged in Henry's adversity, but because the chances of peace were increased by Rodolph's success. She was now incapable of relishing revenge. The feudal antipathies so long nourished and so early instilled as to be almost a part of her existence, were entirely, eradicated. From the evening of her interview with Father ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... Dick." Major Verney's genial voice was sympathetic as a woman's. "Remember that what the Colonel refused in prosperity he's not likely to take in adversity. Sit down here by the fire until ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... heiress. The feeling of all the court was with her,—as he could well perceive. But in all that speech not one single word was said of the friend who had been true to the girl and to her mother through all their struggles and adversity. The name of Thomas Thwaite was not once mentioned. It might have been expedient for them to ignore him, Daniel, the son; but surely had there been any honour among them, any feeling of common honesty towards folk so low in the scale of humanity as tailors, some word would ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... not, it is true, searchers for the North Pole. That quest—which has written in its history as many tales of heroism, self-sacrifice, and patient resignation to adversity, as the poets have woven about the story of chivalry and the search for the Holy Grail—was begun only in the middle of the last century, and by an American. But for three hundred years English, Dutch, and Portuguese explorers, and the stout-hearted American whalemen, had ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... she could not live, and there was no prospect of one. If by great good luck she could obtain three, they might not stay and the dismal struggle would begin again. Lodging-house keepers are not the heroines of novels and poems, but if endurance, wrestling with adversity, hoping in despair, be virtues, the eternal scales will drop in favour of many underground basements against battlefields. At last, after one or two pressing notices from landlord and rate- collector, Mrs. Mudge and Miss Everard were informed that Russell House was to be given up. She and Helen ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... gently. "After all, it may be but a blessing in disguise. God sends all our trials for some good and wise purpose. Our heaviest afflictions are often, nay, most times, Koosje, means to some great end which, while the cloud of adversity hangs over us, we are ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... strong pillar on which we leaned so trustingly could vibrate and shake, and what would become of us if it were prostrated to the earth; the lonely column of fidelity and truth, to which we clung so adhesively; the sheet anchor which had kept us from sinking beneath the waves of adversity? I had scarcely realized Peggy's mortality before, she seemed so strong, so energetic, so untiring. I would as soon have thought of the sun's being weary in its mighty task as of Peggy's strong arm waxing weak. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... was the Mayflower; those men and women who crowded her decks were that little handful of God's own wheat which had been flailed by adversity, tossed and winnowed till every husk of earthly selfishness and self-will had been beaten away from them and left only pure seed, fit for the planting of a new world. It was old Master Cotton Mather who said of them, "The ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... which one feels constantly before God, though it shows itself also in such a person's conduct in the presence of others, in soft speech, low voice, and modest behavior generally, in prosperity as well as adversity. The truly humble man practices patience and forgiveness; he does good to mankind and judges them favorably; he is contented with little in respect to food and drink and the needs of the body generally; he endures misfortune with resignation; is not spoiled by praise, nor irritated ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... may be at war. Friendliness between neighbours is one of the natural things of life. In the case of individuals how beautifully it shows between two dwellers in the same street or townland. They rejoice together in prosperity; give mutual aid in adversity; in the ordinary daily round work together in a spirit of comradeship; at all times they find a bond of unity in their mutual interests. Consider, then, the sundering of their friendship by some act of evil on either side. The old friendship is turned ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... in the automobile, while it accompanied us. But, alas! this proved to be one of those melancholy cases where the effort to relieve hardship well endured results only in showing that those who endure the adversity cannot stand even a slight prosperity. The woman proved a querulous traveller in the auto, complaining that she was not made as comfortable as apparently she had expected; and after one day the husband ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... his name. But the grand-nephew of Urban VII, seated between sublime Fanny Hafner, in pale blue, and pretty Alba Steno, in bright red, opposite Madame Maitland, so graceful in her mauve toilette, had in no manner the air of a man crushed by adversity. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... it.... My brother's power to console is something peculiar and wonderful. I have seen him at deathbeds and funerals, where it would seem as if hope herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace of Heaven and change despair to trust. He has not had less power in his own adversity.... ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... original cloth. The stringless breeches gaped wide open at the knee; the long woollen stockings looked as if they had been set up at some time for a target. Israel looked suddenly metamorphosed from youth to old age; just like an old man of eighty he looked. But, indeed, dull, dreary adversity was now in store for him; and adversity, come it at eighteen or eighty, is the true old age of man. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... evils from which he has mercifully delivered us. In Hom. 8, p. 319, he teaches, that no disposition of our souls contributes more effectually to our sanctification, than that of returning thanks to God under the severest trials of adversity, a virtue little inferior to martyrdom. A mother who, without entertaining the least sentiment of complaint at the sickness and death of her dearest child, thanks God with perfect submission to his ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... erring. The Founder of our religion, whose spirit should pervade our laws, and animate those who enact and those who enforce them, by His teaching and His example, has admonished us to deal with all the victims of adversity as the children of our common Father. With this duty performed, we may confidently hope that for long ages to come our country will continue to be the home of freedom and ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... and support! we will worship him with a monastic strictness; abjuring all worldly toys, to centre every thought and action there. Proud of calamity, we will enjoy the wreck of wealth; while the surrounding gloom of adversity shall make the flame of our pure love show doubly bright. By Heavens! I would fling all goods of fortune from me with a prodigal hand, to enjoy the scene where I might clasp my Lydia to my bosom, and say, the world affords no smile to me but here—[Embracing her.] ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... that will expressed? What is the organization welded by adversity which, in this crisis, supersedes even the Soviet Constitution, and stands between this ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... even wickedly, exaggerated, but nevertheless it did us good. He knows the British character very imperfectly who does not see that the qualities in which it is unsurpassed among the races of mankind are those with which it meets adversity and confronts the darkest night. Within a few days of the report that our soldiers were falling back from Mons, the old cry "Your King and country need you" went through the land with a new thrill, and hundreds of thousands of free men leapt to the ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... changed it all. A few hours before he had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the same theme was here. Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its spoiled child and favourite. He had not learned yet the arts of defence against adversity. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... when I set myself to work doggedly, as Dr. Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man that I ever was, neither low-spirited nor distrait. In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... the artistic world followed in the wake of one of Manet's companions in adversity at the Salon des Refuses—JAMES M'NEILL WHISTLER, who left Paris and settled with his mother in Chelsea in the late 'sixties. That he should have existed for fifteen whole years without breaking forth into strife ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... those noble spirits with whom his soul had lived so long, and whom he so much loved and honoured. No man knew better than the king did, the character of those who professed the Religion, their virtue, valour, resolution, and patience in adversity. Their numbers had increased in war, their virtues had been purified by affliction, they had never changed their position, whether battles had been won or lost. Should ever an attempt be made to take up arms against them within his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the confinement was growing irksome in the extreme; and the Doctor, after his daily visit, gave Singh permission to come down into the grounds if he liked. But the boy did not like. A glance at his companion in adversity revealed a disappointed look, and as soon as the Doctor was gone he picked up one of the books with which they ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... lacking—a temple for his God. Jerubbaal had had a sanctuary at Ophrah, and Saul had secured the services of Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh: David was no longer satisfied with the ephod which had been the channel of many wise counsels during his years of adversity and his struggles against the Philistines. He longed for some still more sacred object with which to identify the fortunes of his people, and by which he might raise the newly gained prestige of his capital. It so happened ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... exalted misfortune. These reveries he was permitted to enjoy, undisturbed by queries or interruption; and it was in many a winter walk by the shores of Ullswater that he acquired a more complete mastery of a spirit tamed by adversity than his former experience had given him; and that he felt himself entitled to say firmly, though perhaps with a sigh, that the romance of his life was ended, and that its real history had now commenced. He ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... prosperity had made you forget yourself and me. Then Mrs. Veal reminded Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did her in former days, and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort, in particular, they received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, which was the best, she said, on that subject ever written. She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, the two Dutch books which were translated, written upon ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... arguments and so the latter dropped into prophecy. He prophesied, after the manner of the Oriental seer, that the land would be laid waste and misery entailed upon Israel, should the suicidal policy be adopted. But he held out a hope for a brighter future after the clouds of adversity had rolled by. A new and wise prince would arise who would bring Israel to her former glory. That prince would be born of a young mother and his name would be Immanuel, which means "God with us." All this had reference to things of a reasonably near future and ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... one of them a man whose arm had been cut off because he was a Christian, and who had been left as dead. His recovery was marvellous. That was a memorable Sunday to me and to those to whom I ministered. My morning subject was, "In the day of adversity consider" (Eccles. vii. 14); and in the evening, Christ stilling the storm (Matt. ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... deprived Charles the Tenth of the throne of France, like all other great and sudden changes, proved the ruin of many individuals, more especially of many ancient families who were attached to the Court, and who would not desert the exiled monarch in his adversity. Among the few who were permitted to share his fortunes was my father, a noble gentleman of Burgundy, who at a former period and during a former exile, had proved his unchangeable faith and attachment to the legitimate owners of the crown ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... forget the syndic and the widow Vandersloosh, whom we left in confinement at Amsterdam. We left Mynheer Krause smoking his pipe, and showing to those about him how great a great man always proves himself when under adversity. The widow also, had she performed in public, would have been acknowledged to have been a great, woman. She could not but lament the present, for she was on the floor of a dungeon, so she occasionally wrung her hands; but she looked forward to the future, and ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... truth deep and wide, that a brother is born for adversity. The spirit of kin and clan, rooted in remote heredity, outlives other and livelier attachments. It not only survives rude blows, but its true virtue is only extracted by the pestle of tribulation. Having broken with her lover, and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... with sincere indignation, and was perhaps unconscious himself of experiencing that nameless, shadowy satisfaction which Rochefoucauld says we find in the adversity of our best friends. Certainly Richard looked very seedy in his suit ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... us see him present, lets us commune respectfully and lovingly with him, and fills us with desire and affection for him.... Would you escape from every ill? Never lose this recollection of God, neither in prosperity nor in adversity, nor on any occasion whichsoever it be. Invoke not, to excuse yourself from this duty, either the difficulty or the importance of your business, for you can always remember that God sees you, that you are under his eye. If a thousand times ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... eventually compelled him to leave Keilhau. Now whenever Froebel was under the pressure of outward difficulty, he always sought for help from within, and from his inward contemplation derived new courage and new strength to face his troubles. Out of such musings in the present time of adversity the long-awaited reply to Krause at length emerged. The disputative part, interesting in itself, does not here concern us. We pass at once to the brief sketch of his life contained in later parts of the letter, omitting what is not autobiographical. The earlier ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... act of uniformity that strove to bring all men to his own particular way of thinking and worship), and both agreed in a hearty contempt for the mean and paltry King, who had made such lavish promises in the days of his adversity, only to cancel them the moment he had the power, and fling himself blindly into the arms of the dominant ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... He loveth thee with his hands, that will help thee in time of necessity, by giving some alms-deeds, or with any other occupation of the hand. He loveth thee with his body, that will labour with his body, or put his body in danger to do good for thee, or to deliver thee from adversity: and so forth, with the other members of his body. And if thy neighbour will do according to these sayings, then thou mayest think that he loveth thee well; and thou, in like wise, oughtest to declare ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer

... that in the frank way of this Saxon which won me, half Scot though I am, and therefore prone to be cautious with men. He took it with a steady grip, and smiled, while Dalfin clapped his broad shoulder, and hailed him as a friend in adversity. ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... her head drooped on his shoulder as its natural resting-place. Her father was a man who had lived long enough to have encountered many reverses of fortune, and they had left him, as I am apt to believe long adversity usually does leave its prey, somewhat chilled and somewhat hardened to affection; passive and quiet of hope, resigned to the worst as to the common order of events, and expecting little from the best, as an unlooked-for incident in the regularity of human afflictions. He ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... marvel! I'm glad adversity hasn't soured you; but you know that you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running about ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... question it. She didn't care. She loathed their excited, silly, hurrying suspicion; but she didn't care. It was she who had drawn them and led them on to this display of incomparable idiocy. Like her brother Nicholas she found that adversity was extremely ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... eighty-one years as long as the silver and gold were allowed to fly side by side; but when in 1873 the wings were clipped from the silver and the legal tender breath shut off, then the gold had to do all the work; it being too weak to do so, adversity came. ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... sprinkled it with grey. His nose well set, but not declining or bending. His mouth moderately large, his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest. Not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... a vagabond of the seas, a true Orang-Laut, living by rapine and plunder of coasts and ships in his prosperous days; earning his living by honest and irksome toil when the days of adversity were upon him. So, although at times leading the Sulu rovers, he had also served as Serang of country ships, and in that wise had visited the distant seas, beheld the glories of Bombay, the might of the Mascati ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... intervals, containing accounts of the gradual decline of the prince's health, so as to prepare her for the inevitable stroke. Isabella, however, who through all her long career of prosperous fortune may be said to have kept her heart in constant training for the dark hour of adversity, received the fatal tidings in a spirit of meek and humble acquiescence, testifying her resignation in the beautiful language of Scripture, "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... very remarkable; but the spirit of his conduct, and the rapidity of his motions, were altogether without example. In the former campaign we were dazzled with the lustre of his victories; in this we admire his fortitude and skill in stemming the different torrents of adversity, and rising superior to his evil fortune. One can hardly without astonishment recollect, that in the course of a few months he invaded Moravia, invested Olmutz, and was obliged to relinquish that design, that he marched ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... prisoner came fearlessly up behind Richardson in the dark, and shot him in the leg. The prisoner's brave and protracted defiance of an adversity that for years had left him little to depend upon for support but a wife who sometimes earned scarcely anything for weeks at a time, is evidence that he would have appeared in front of Richardson and shot him in the stomach ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... hate cometh virtue, of such feebleness cometh strength, and of such displeasaunce cometh pleasaunce. This holy hate maketh a man meek, and to feel meek things of himself. It maketh him patient in adversity, temperate in prosperity, and setteth him in all honesty of virtue, and maketh him to be loved both of God and man. And where this holy hate is not, there is inordinate love, which is the stinking canal ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... where two persons meet, and voluntarily make choice of each other without principally regarding or neglecting the circumstances of fortune or beauty. These may still love in spite of adversity or sickness. The former we may in some measure defend ourselves from; the other is the common lot of humanity. Love has nothing to do with riches or state. Solitude, with the person beloved, has a pleasure, even in a woman's mind, beyond ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... honorable? When I allowed you to use me like an old shoe? But now you are my superior—and now I can't strive to be honorable any longer. Do you know that this adversity will also change our economic relations? I cannot think of painting any more, but must give up my life's dream and ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... false, and known at the time to be so by his mother, the Padshah Begum; with whom they both lived. Afzul-mahal, though of humble birth and pretensions, maintained a fair reputation among those who knew her best in a profligate palace, and has continued to maintain the same up to the present day in adversity. In prison and up to the hour of her death, which took place some time after that of Moonna Jan himself, the old Begum declared that she had seen the boy born, and had never lost sight of him; and that the story of his not being the son of Nuseer-od Deen, was got up to ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... improved him greatly. The iron grey of his hair, the keen brightness of his face, the erect, and soldierly carriage of his person made him a striking figure. His wife, ten years his junior, was one of the most attractive women in Chicago. Her girlish beauty had refined under the blasts of adversity; years had not been unkind to her. In a way, she was the leader of a certain set, but her social ambitions were not content. There was a higher altitude in fashion's realm. Money, influence and perseverance were her allies; ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... of the King of Navarre, named Prince Alarino, had just then revolted: Caesar then took command of the army which Jean d'Albret was sending out against him, followed by Michelotto, who was as faithful in adversity as ever before. Thanks to Caesar's courage and skilful tactics, Prince Alarino was beaten in a first encounter; but the day after his defeat he rallied his army, and offered battle about three o'clock in the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... him joy upon every happy occasion—even amidst all the politer congratulations of his other friends—seemed to the dean mournfully wanting. This derogation from his felicity he was resolved to resent; and for a whole year these brothers, whom adversity had entwined ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... that from the very beginning I more than made my expenses. In fact my prospects for a brilliant career as a lawyer seemed most flattering. The predictions were many that an uncommon future lay before me, but, alas, I could stand prosperity no better than adversity. My appetite grew to such a craving for stimulants that it tortured me. It had slumbered for weeks, as it has since, only to make itself manifest in the end with the force of a hurricane. While it had appeared to sleep it was gathering strength. At the time it dragged me down I was boarding with ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... may await us in our journey together, even to the wreck of all earthly hopes, I know that he will rise superior to them—and oh! to think that I may be by his side to support him in adversity as well as to share in his prosperity and glorious fate, for which God enable me to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... surrounded on all sides by enemies, and most anxiously waiting for supplies. But as affliction may strengthen the understanding, as gold is tried by fire, and virtue may be confirmed in weakness, these things are suffered to happen; since adversity (as Gregory testifies) opposed to good prayers is the probation of virtue, not the judgment of reproof. For who does not know how fortunate a circumstance it was that Paul went to Italy, and suffered so dreadful a shipwreck? But the ship of his heart remained unbroken ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... seduced by prosperity; adversity will find me above the reach of its attacks. I have many times given peace to nations, even when they had lost all. On a part of my conquests I have erected thrones for kings ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... their relations to the detriment of dividend, become critical, carping and impossible to please, though the directors and management may be as innocent as themselves, and as powerless to stem the tide of adversity. At shareholders' meetings Mr. Burns was splendid. He rose after the critics had expended their force, or if the storm grew too violent, intervened at its height, and with facts and figures and sound ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... from the moment Phillip Lawson uttered these words he was a richer man, though he knew it not. He had to drink deeper of the dregs of adversity ere he shall have cause ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... session Mr. Grey brought forward a motion for parliamentary reform. He observed, in reply to the objection, that this was not the proper time for reform, that it would be equally rational in times of prosperity and adversity, in times of peace and war. He remarked:—"Whatever evils did, or might threaten the nation, there was no preventive so certain, no safeguard so powerful, as an uninterrupted house of commons, emanating ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... literature is not the most curious part of it; greatly differing, in this respect, from the generality of men of letters, whole Lives are only the histories of their works. Besides, Grotius's prudence on all occasions, his modesty in prosperity, his patience in adversity, his steadiness in his duty, his love of virtue, his eagerness in the search of truth, and the ardent desire which he constantly maintained for uniting Christians in one Faith, distinguish him so advantageously from most other Scholars, that his Life may be proposed as a ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... mildly, "we must remember that their suffering had worn upon them very much. Only exceptional natures remain stanch in adversity, which completely overthrows the weak. Let us rather ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... Fletcher was qualified to discharge the duties of a clerk, and secured his appointment to a clerkship in the Treasury Department, on a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. It was an income which Fletcher would once have regarded as wholly insufficient for his needs; but adversity had made him humble, and he thankfully accepted it. He holds the position still, discharging the duties satisfactorily. He is glad to claim the Hon. Harry Walton among his acquaintances, and never sneers at him now ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... dancing-man would come and take her from him the next minute. "I express the hope, because I myself like and admire him very much indeed. He is a splendid fellow, and one of those instances of a good man struggling with adversity. Are you fond of poetry, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... however, never accepted in the Western or Latin Church, which was gradually separating from the Eastern or Greek Church whose natural head was Constantinople.[28] Although the powers to which Leo laid claim were not as yet even clearly stated and there were times of adversity to come when for years they appeared an empty boast, still his emphatic assertion of the supremacy of the Roman bishop was a great step toward bringing the Western Church under a ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... kept his eye anxiously on them. Now was the time to prove whether the spars were sound, and, if they were sound, whether the rigging had been properly set up, and if that also was sound throughout. A ship, like a human being, is best tried in adversity; it is not in smooth seas and with gentle breezes that her qualities can be proved, any more than the nature of a man can be ascertained if all goes smoothly and easily with him. Therefore, let no one ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston

... but I do not more wonder at finding a man in this age who can be a friend to adversity, than that Fortune should be so much my friend as to direct you to me; for she is a lady I have not been much ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... two hundred thousand slaveholders, or men holding slaves sufficient to fairly rank among those whose interests are seriously allied to 'the institution.' Possibly the chances of war have still further diminished this number; it would be strange indeed, if between runaways and the sacrifices which adversity brings, and which fall most heavily on men of moderate means, the number of slaveholders has not been reduced. In such times negroes are sold at any price. This small number of slaveholders will understand ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of Nonconformity, with which we must couple Scotch Presbyterianism, its partner in fundamental doctrine, its constant ally in the conflict, and fellow-sufferer in the hour of adversity, to English religion, morality, industry, education, philanthropy, science, and to the English civilization in general, would be a most important and instructive chapter in English history, but we are hardly ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... ridges and occasionally overturning, the carriage where I sat appeared the perfection of locomotive skill. How sweet is pleasure after pain. Sunshine is brightest in the morning, and prosperity has a keener zest when it follows adversity. To be truly enjoyed, our lives must be chequered with light and shadow, ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... of September 1932 the League held a meeting to which Gilbert came "as peacemaker." In the course of his speech he remarked that he had often said harsh things of America in the days of her prosperity but that in these days of adversity we might learn much from that country. He instanced the saying he had heard from a business man on his recent visit, "There's nothing for it but to go back to the farm," and noted the fact that America still had this large element of family farms as a basis for ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... enchanted, hidden spot in the human soul, fastened with seven locks, which no one and nothing but that picklock, bitter adversity, can open. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... their case, with chivalrous loyalty, as in the former with republican enthusiasm. It has often been remarked of the Scottish character, that the stubbornness with which it is moulded shows most to advantage in adversity, when it seems akin to the native sycamore of their hills, which scorns to be biassed in its mode of growth even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weather-side to the storm, and may be broken, but ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the worship of God. The Bible was officially condemned and publicly burned; its perusal by the people was accounted a crime worthy of death. Poor Scotland! how ruinously overwhelmed beneath the briny waters of adversity. ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... movement of a troop of horse over the plain eager for the combat."—Id., Lat. Gram., p. 296. "He [, the Indian chieftain, King Philip,] was a patriot, attached to his native soil; a prince true to his subjects and indignant of their wrongs; a soldier daring in battle firm in adversity patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering and ready to perish in the cause ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... gradual regeneration from his besetting weakness. He falls in love with his cousin Mary—the only unselfish member of the family, by the bye—and quarrels about this love affair with his grandfather, and so passes into the hard school of adversity. There he learns much. Specially valuable is the teaching which he gets as a settler in the swampy backwoods of the United States in company with Mark Tapley, jolliest and most helpful of men. On his return, he finds his grandfather seemingly under the influence ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... abundantly true that these same nations have on many occasions passed through periods of great distress from failures widespread and panics severe, but it must also be borne in mind that these very bankruptcies are more often the abuse of prosperity than the product of adversity. Over-confidence in men and things has resulted in speculation and precipitated bankruptcy. And if it be urged that to the undue expansion of credit is traceable the greater number of our financial disasters, it may be said with still greater ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various

... a marvel and I'm glad adversity hasn't soured you; but you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running about with paint samples, but there's something pathetic in ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... your adversity Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... set; to draw hard breath over plough, hoe, and spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray,—these are the things which make men happy; they have always had the power to do this, and they always will. The world's prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things, but upon iron or glass, or electricity ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... only cloud in the otherwise clear sky of Ralph's happiness. He would have to leave Bachelor Billy alone. But he had fully resolved that the man who had so befriended him in the dark days of his adversity should not fail of sharing in the blessings ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... thank ye, Mr. Mowbray—I knew you would see the thing right. To tell you the truth, I should not have cared much to come a-begging for your acquaintance and cousinship, and so forth; but that I thought you would be more tractable in your adversity, than was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... came over me, an odd feeling not easy to explain, that I was not a young man of leisure, but some one else, one of my ancestors of earlier days, used to encounters with adversity or risk. Calmly and much to my own surprise, I stood and estimated the chances as though I had been used to such things ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... to throw light upon Roman life in the last days of the Republic in an extremely vivid fashion. Cicero as a man, in spite of his self-importance, the vacillation of his political conduct in desperate crises, and the whining despondency of his times of adversity, stands out as at bottom a patriotic Roman of substantial honesty, who gave his life to check the inevitable fall of the commonwealth to which he was devoted. The evils which were undermining the Republic bear so many striking ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... friend, but that he was compelled to conceal his sentiments: each exculpated himself, and threw the blame on others: all apologized to me, and professed to be my most devoted humble servants. My popularity, my power, and my prosperity were now at their zenith, unfortunately for me; because my adversity had not lasted long enough to form and season my character. I had been driven to exertion by a mixture of pride and generosity; my understanding being uncultivated, I had acted from the virtuous impulse of the moment, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts it and will ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... depressed; look upon her without scorn, converse with her without contempt: like you, she is an orphan, though not like you, an heiress;—like her, you are fatherless, though not like her friendless! If she is awaited by the temptations of adversity, you, also, are surrounded by the corruptions of prosperity. Your fall is most probable, her's most excusable;—commiserate her therefore now,—by and by she may ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... termed, are in closer sympathy with nature. Life and death, prosperity and adversity, are to them as natural effects as the sunshine and ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... poor, afflicted persons that are by divine permission under the direful influence of Satan's malice. There is a divine precept enjoining the practice of such duty: Heb. xiii. 3, 'Remember them that suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.' Let us, then, be deeply sensible, and, as the elect of God, put on bowels of mercy towards those in misery (Col. iii. 12). Oh, pity, pity them! for the hand ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... his departure, the prince of Orange laid siege to Maestricht; but meeting with an obstinate resistance, he was obliged, on the approach of Schomberg, who in the mean time had taken Aire, to raise the siege. He was incapable of yielding to adversity, or bending under misfortunes: but he began to foresee that, by the negligence and errors of his allies, the war in Flanders must necessarily have a very ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... be said of this war, as the master mind of all the ages said of adversity, that "its uses are sweet," even though they be as a precious jewel shining in the head of an ugly and venomous toad. While the world-war has brutalized men, it has as a moral paradox added immeasurably ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... many circumstances of that kind concur in uniting two young souls by one and the same sentiment. The friendship of Ginevra for Luigi and that of Luigi for Ginevra made more progress in a month than a friendship in society would make in ten years. Adversity is the touchstone of character. Ginevra was able, therefore, to study Luigi, to know him; and before long they mutually esteemed each other. The girl, who was older than Luigi, found a charm in being courted by a youth already so grand, so tried by fate,—a youth who ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... just yield to requests without looking into them, without seeing what your siller is going to do, you may be ruining the one you're trying to help. There are times when a man must meet adversity and overcome it by his lane, if he's ever to amount to anything in this world. It's hard to decide such things. It's easier just to give, and sit back in the glow of virtue that comes with doing that. But wall your conscience let you do sae? Mine ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... watching from the home of Mr. Parker for their return, also dreamed dreams and saw visions, and in them her "dear children" were fulfilling the bright prophecies of the present. She saw them stronger because of adversity, braver because of success, and ennobled by all their experiences; and she deemed herself happy in her capacity of chaperon ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham



Words linked to "Adversity" :   bad luck, extremity, catastrophe, tough luck, affliction, nadir, victimization, disaster, adverse, ill luck, hard knocks, misfortune, ill-being, low-water mark, distress



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