"Accident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... progressive stages of growth, a circumstance which was not without its practical lessons to the early naturalist. This similarity, too, was held all the more striking when it was observed how the life of plants, like that of the higher organisms, was subject to disease, accident, and other hostile influences, and so liable at any moment to be cut off by an untimely end.[1] On this account a personality was ascribed to the products of the vegetable kingdom, survivals of which are still of frequent occurrence at the present ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... into sloping lawns which stretch back away from the river till the eye is lost in their twists and turnings. Landscape beauty, as I take it, consists mainly in four attributes— in water; in broken land; in scattered timber, timber scattered as opposed to continuous forest timber; and in the accident of color. In all these particulars the banks of the Upper Mississippi can hardly be beaten. There are no high mountains; but high mountains themselves are grand rather than beautiful. There are no high mountains; but there is a succession of ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... my resentment. If it was not an accident, it deserves to heighten it. The very day on which your dismission was notified, I received an order from the treasury for the payment of what money was due to me there. Is it possible that they could mean to make any distinction between us? Have I separated myself from you? ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Sir, you are too kind," the young man modestly replied; "I have done nothing to merit your good opinion, though I am happy to have gained it. I rejoice that accident has so far befriended me as to bring me here on this festive occasion; and I rejoice yet more that it has brought me acquainted with a worthy gentleman like yourself, to whom my rustic manners prove not to be displeasing. I have too few friends to neglect any that chance may offer; and as I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... insane man was more sensible than most motion picture directors, for his scenery acted with him, and not according to accident or silly formula. I make these points as an antidote to the general description of this production by ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... "but since the man is dead, and cannot be brought to life again, and since the slayer had no malice in him, I cannot for the life of me see why he shouldn't get over it before long. Besides, it was the right man that was killed and not the wrong. Why should a man brood over a mere accident for ever? And ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... not come to be glorified. He had not come to be ministered unto, but to minister. But he had come on a distinct errand; and whatever be your doctrine of Christ's person, you must confess that he considered himself no accident of history; that he did not regard his life work as originating in his own choice; that his sense of a mission did not come as an afterthought to him, or grow clear as he advanced in life. He felt his special errand from the start. It was always before ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... a multitude of inconsistent reports of the circumstances of Colonel Gardiner's death, that I had almost despaired of being able to give my reader any particular satisfaction concerning so interesting a scene. But, by a happy accident, I have very lately had an opportunity of being exactly informed of the whole by that brave man, Mr. John Foster, his faithful servant, (and worthy of the honour of serving such a master,) whom I had seen with him at my house some years before. He ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... coral grows above the height of a few feet, we are compelled to suppose that these knolls have been formed by the successive growth and death of many individuals,—first one being broken off or killed by some accident, and then another, and one set of species being replaced by another set with different habits, as the reef rose nearer the surface, or as other changes supervened. The spaces between the corals would become filled up with fragments and sand, and such matter would probably ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... any consequence. At the end of this period, however, the gale had freshened into a hurricane, and our after-sail split into ribbons, bringing us so much in the trough of the water that we shipped several prodigious seas, one immediately after the other. By this accident we lost three men overboard with the caboose, and nearly the whole of the larboard bulwarks. Scarcely had we recovered our senses, before the foretopsail went into shreds when we got up a storm stay-sail, and with this did pretty well ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... was around there—this in case anything happened. Sixty feet, 70 feet—she was gathering great speed by then, but at 82 feet she stopped—a pleasant thing to see. And then, maybe to show it was no accident, she did it all over again. Did we feel any difficulty in breathing during all this? We did not, nor during the three to four hours we were under that morning. And let a man listen to these submarine enthusiasts telling how they can live three or four weeks on their compressed air, if they have ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... that we got left ashore by accident, when our craft sailed from Brest, and are going to rejoin her at Saint Malo, where she was going to put in. I think, perhaps, that that would be a better story than that we had run away. I don't know that the authorities interest themselves in runaway seamen from privateers but, ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... little wife. The Roberts family ain't on the cheap. Never forget that. You've gotta have the baby. That's your business, an' it's enough for you. My business is to get the money an' take care of you. An' the best ain't none too good for you. Why, I wouldn't run the chance of the teeniest accident happenin' to you for a million dollars. It's you that counts. An' dollars is dirt. Maybe you think I like that kid some. I do. Why, I can't get him outa my head. I'm thinkin' about'm all day long. If I get fired, it'll be his fault. I'm ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... to the Catholic Church and of a further payment of fifty thousand francs, he had been raised to the rank of Papal Marquis. He died relatively young. Had his life been spared, as it ought to have been, he might well have become a Papal Duke in course of time. He was carried off by an accident not of his own contriving—run over by a tramcar in Rome—before that further ducal premium was even expected to be paid. But for this, he ought to have died a Duke. He would have been ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... he said, turning to her, "that Charles was in Dantzig, much less that he was celebrating so happy an occasion. We ran against each other by accident in the street. It was a lucky accident that allowed me to make your acquaintance so soon after you have ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... seek to overtake the man, however, and would have kept on in her original direction, had she not heard a cry and a splitting crash toward the river bank. Some accident had happened, and when Nan heard the scream repeated, she was sure that the voice was ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... clerk replied. "You'd be running quick enough for the doctor if one of your kids or your old woman got sick or met with an accident, wouldn't you? The doctor's got to live same as the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... austere et grandiose, qui transporte l'imagination au temps de la poesie primitive, apparaisse cette mouche parasite, le monsieur aux habits noirs, au menton rase, aux mains gantees, aux jambes maladroites, et ce roi de la societe n'est plus qu'un accident ridicule, une tache importune dans le tableau. Votre costume genant et disparate inspire alors la pitie plus que les haillons du pauvre, on sent que vous etes deplace au grand air, et que votre ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... hypothesis that his death was only apparent. These are a specimen of the mode of exegesis adopted in this school, which is usually specifically called Rationalism. In this mode Jesus appeared to be merely a wise and virtuous man; and his miracles were merely acts of skill or accident. Paulus presented this as the original Christianity. The theory did not last long, save in the mind of its author, who lived until a recent period, to see the entire change of critical belief. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... accident in mental life, and since there is behind every action a force or group of forces, no smallest action is insignificant to the person ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... in the early spring of her second year at Vaucluse that the accident occurred. The poor lad who had taken her out in the boat was almost beside himself ...
— Different Girls • Various
... on a small table at the head of the coffin. The table had not yet been moved from the place where it stood near the centre of the room; but it stood there now alone, with a strange expression of being left by accident. Stephen bent over it, looking into the deep creamy cups, and thinking dreamily that Mercy's nature was as fair, as white, as royal as these most royal of graceful flowers, when the door opened and Mercy came towards him. He sprang to meet her with outstretched ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... uttered a sudden, sharp cry and pulled out his arm. His finger had been bitten almost to the bone by the hornlike beak of one of the birds. The pain of this alone would have been bad enough, but now it caused a still more serious accident. ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... of whom, when they noticed any of our men weary, took them up on their shoulders and carried them along. As soon as we got to the boats, we set sail to return to our pinnace, being afraid lest any accident might have happened in our absence. Our departure seemed to grieve these friendly natives, who followed us along the shore as far as they were able. We went so fast down the river, that we came to our pinnace on Monday the 4th October; and set off next ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... he met the children water-bearers flying to the scene of the accident. Not one of them bore a water-skin. The excited young Hebrews did not stop to question the sculptor, but ran on, and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... believe that the judgments of God are just—how do you account for the sufferings, the heartaches, the sorrows, the misery that come in the wake of those judgments? Here is a great railway accident that strikes down twenty people, renders some cripples for life, kills others. Here is a flood that sweeps away the property of good men and bad men. Is that just? What compensation is ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... that was next to the Consolacion in greatness, sailed so infirmly that mercy 'twas the seas were smooth. It was true accident. She had been known at Palos, Cadiz and San Lucar for good ship. But at Ercilla where we must stop on the Sovereigns' business, a storm had beaten her upon the shore where she got a great wound in her ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... "hollow" Laconia, would have found himself in a country carefully made the most of by the labour of serfs; a land of slavery, far more relentlessly organised according to law than anywhere else in Greece, where, in truth, for the most part slavery was a kind of accident. But whatever rigours these slaves of Laconia were otherwise subjected to, they [204] enjoyed certainly that kind of well- being which does come of organisation, from the order and regularity of system, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... steering of submarine torpedoes by means of gyroscopes, so that when deviated by any obstacle or accident from their set course they will actually return of themselves to that ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... Tzaritza, poison; I poisoned her, the lovely nun,—still I! Ah, yes, I know it: naught can give us calm, Amid the sorrows of this present world; Conscience alone, mayhap: Thus, when 'tis pure, it triumphs O'er bitter malice, o'er dark calumny; But if there be in it a single stain, One, only one, by accident contracted, Why then, all's done; as with foul plague The soul consumes, the heart is filled with gall, Reproaches beat, like hammers, in the ears, The man turns sick, his head whirls dizzily, And ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... won my prize, I felt much bolder, and without accident I reached my room. Sleep I could not; so, carefully closing the door, I spent the remainder of the night in cleaning my gun and getting ready for my excursion. I got out of the house without being perceived, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Extrinsicality.— N. extrinsicality[obs3], objectiveness, non ego; extraneousness &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]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... now was not accident," she said, in an unequal voice. "My father says it is best not to think too much of that—engagement, or understanding between us, that you know of. I, too, think that upon the whole he is right. But we are friends, you know, Giles, and ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... have never met with an accident. Glad to see you able to be down, for from what I heard I feared you had ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Since she had lived in Philip's house the man in him had begun to decay. She could not shut her eyes to this rapid demoralisation, and she knew well that it was the consequence of her presence. The deceptions, the subterfuges, the mean shifts forced upon him day by day, by every chance, every accident, were plunging him in ever-deepening degradation. And as she realised this a new fear possessed her, more bitter than any humiliation, more crushing than any shame—the fear that he would cease to love her, the terror that he ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sprawled forward on his knees. The automobile was almost upon him when strong hands jerked him safely to one side. Scrambling to his feet, Mitchell turned to look at the man whose strength and quickness had saved him from a nasty accident. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... enterprises instead of off the ports of the enemy enabled Grasse to sail from Brest unopposed. Rodney let slip a grand opportunity of baulking his plans off Fort Royal, and sent, perhaps was forced to send, Hood after him to America with an insufficient fleet. Partly through accident and partly through an error of judgment, Graves missed his junction with Hood. Grasse was consequently allowed quietly to enter Chesapeake bay, and Graves afterwards failed to use his ships to the best advantage. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... we had then! Smith shot me by accident in the leg with the farmer's gun—Smith himself got almost drowned in two different streams, and was once carried over a waterfall, and dashed against the stones. On all three occasions he was getting black in the face when pulled out. I fell ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... at the intelligence. The perfidy of the Scotchman was manifest. He had taken me into the fog to lose me, and while I was picturing his dismay at the accident which had separated us, and his anxiety on my account, the scoundrel was appropriating my trunks and valises. I hastened to confer with the proprietor of the hotel respecting the step which it would be best to take. He was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... son," cried he, as he descended; "what good or evil accident hath returned thee so soon to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... acquitted, not only from this circumstance, which went so conclusively to criminate another, but from the want of any other evidence against him than the fact of his being found in the bone-house instead of the Refuge, an accident that might well have happened to any other traveller in the storm, the baron resolutely prepared himself to redeem his pledge. It is scarcely necessary to add how much this honorable sentiment was strengthened by the unexpected declaration ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... voyage?" "We will travel with thee," answered they, "for we cannot bear to be parted from thee." So I divided my monies into two parts, one to accompany me and the other to be left in charge of a trusty person, for, as I said to myself, "Haply some accident may happen to the ship and yet we remain alive; in which case we shall find on our return what may stand us in good stead." I took my two sisters and we went a voyaging some days and nights; but ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... to shut my eyes to these doings, or, taking advantage of my position, to inform the police? My husband argued in this way:—If these people had been guilty of a crime, which could not now be ameliorated or averted, it would be a straining point for me to take advantage of what I had learnt by accident and to bring them to justice; but that as in this case a great national trouble might be averted, and many lives saved, by timely information, it was my duty to exert myself in the interests of the community by putting a check on their movements. ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... West of Port Essington. The time of high-water, at the full and change, was seven o'clock, when the tides rose from twenty to twenty-six feet. The cliffs forming it are of a reddish hue, from the quantity of iron the rocks in the neighbourhood contain. To commemorate the accident which befell me, the bay within Point Pearce was called Treachery Bay, and a high ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... was living. I am. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum, and have been living here for nine years and four months and almost a week. If you had known I was living all these years and had not made yourself acquainted with me, I would not now write you. But I heard, by accident, you did not know I had been born, so I am writing to tell you I was. It happened in Natchez, Miss. I know that much, but little more, except my father was an actor. I worship his memory. My mother was ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... of Reform which had been ascribed to causes quite inadequate to the production of such an effect. If ever there was in the history of mankind a national sentiment which was the very opposite of a caprice, with which accident had nothing to do, which was produced by the slow, steady, certain progress of the human mind, it is the sentiment of the English people on the subject of Reform. Accidental circumstances may have brought that feeling to maturity ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... driven off before any permanent injury was accomplished. The revolters did not wait after the attack, but set fire to the station and departed. He suggested that it might be as well to be ready for sniping, and for worse things, should accident force the train to come to a standstill between here and Krasnoyarsk. We arrived at the latter place, however, without incident on ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... name of RICHARD SMITH.[357] Such a bibliomaniac deserves ample notice, and the warmest commendation. Ah, my Lisardo! had you lived in the latter days of Charles II.—had you, by accident, fallen into the society of this indefatigable book-forager, while he pursued his book-rounds in Little Britain—could you have listened to his instructive conversation, and returned home with him to the congenial quiet and avocations ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... any whole is commonly said to be composed. The application of this principle to the doctrine of the Trinity landed him in tritheism, and he did not shrink from the reproach. Roscelin, a theologian by accident, was answered by Anselm who was primarily a theologian, and a dialectician by accident. If Roscelin was the founder of Nominalism Anselm identified Realism with the doctrine of the Church. But Anselm's Realism is not the result of independent thought. ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... nothing, and only want the little the law would give them? Oh, yes, we are accomplished—very indifferently, some of us—and have been better taught, though one sometimes wonders at the use we make of it; but was that education given us for our virtues, or thrust upon us by the accident that our fathers happened ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... skillful airmen, however, and they found it necessary to retire. Five British aviators made an attack on the German submarine base at Hoboken, southwest of Antwerp, and destroyed a submarine and wrecked two others. This raid was made without injury to the aviators, the only accident being the necessity of one of the aircraft to descend, which it did, only to find it had landed on Dutch territory and must be interned. The excellence of the Allies' flying was not confined to the English. Belgian and French airmen, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... thankful and satisfied. As Mr. Hastings was well acquainted with our manners and customs, he was always desirous, in every respect, of doing whatever would preserve our religious rites, and guard them against every kind of accident and injury, and at all times protected us. Whatever we have experienced from him, and whatever happened from him, we have written without ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the mas. Noun tuiteamas, an occurrence, accident, governed in the Gen. case by the improp. Prep. an d['a]il (Gram. p. 161), derived from the Verb tuit. ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... Parma, as always, had been true to himself and to his sovereign. "We expected," said he, "that the rebels would instantly attack us on all sides after the explosion. But all remained so astonished by the unheard-of accident, that very few understood what was going on. It seemed better that I—notwithstanding the risk of letting myself be seen—should encourage the people not to run away. I did so, and remedied matters a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the hideous treachery which Mrs. Lecount had imputed to her—she was guilty of knowing how his health was broken when she married him; guilty of knowing, when he left her the Combe-Raven money, that the accident of a moment, harmless to other men, might place his life in jeopardy, and effect her release. His death had told her this—had told her plainly what she had shrunk, in his lifetime, from openly acknowledging ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... by accident, that Mr. Pelham's servant was either mistaken or willfully deceived me. Wolff did not accompany your butler to ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be eventually discovered, it would afford the gravest suspicions of foul play; but that if he dragged it back again to the road and laid it with its face in the dust, against the rock with which the deed was done, it might pass for an accident. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... trousers of the Clown had not been soiled by his giant's swing accident, and Sidney had been careful not to get any spots of glue on his toy when he ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... first real lie which works from the heart outward, she should be tenderly chloroformed into a better world, where she can have an angel for a governess, and feed on strange fruits which will make her all over again, even to her bones and marrow.—Whether gifted with the accident of beauty or not, she should have been moulded in the rose-red clay of Love, before the breath of life made a moving mortal of her. Love-capacity is a congenital endowment; and I think, after a while, one gets to know the warm-hued natures it belongs to from the pretty pipe-clay counterfeits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... harem, they are fat, usually large of frame, but short-lived. The growth of hair on the head is often scant; on the face and body it is altogether missing. The voice is high, partaking of a treble quality. When through surgical operation or accident it happens that a man is deprived of the testicular glands in youth, early manhood, or even middle-age, the same changes follow as in the case of the eunuch, the hair on face and body disappears, the voice changes ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower
... a moment that the shock of the accident had made him silly, but before I could speak Joyce came out of the cabin carrying half ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... Jack then climbed up on a cliff and disappeared, endeavouring to see some familiar object, the falling snow having at last stopped. I stood in my tracks with the three animals and waited so long I began to be afraid that Jack had met with an accident. Just then I heard him descending. It was nearly dark. He could not see any sign of the region he had been in before. Snow and darkness puzzle one even in a familiar country. We then went back to the valley where the horse had wished to turn and followed it down, now believing ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... a flash. The Indian squaw was West. He had been rigged up in that paraphernalia to deceive any chance mountaineer who might drop into the valley by accident. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... impossible to explain. Oh, if you'd only do just what I advise—if you'd only go by me, and not want these long tedious explanations, how much better it would be! You see, Harry is giving this dinner on purpose so that Daphne shall meet Van Buren by accident. You know all about Van Buren, the Van Buren—the millionaire, who turns out to be a dear creature and quite charming! and has taken the greatest fancy to Harry, and clings on to him, and keeps on and on asking ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... some sort provided. Some of those who wished to share Miss Thorne's hospitality were not so particular as they should have been as to the preliminary ceremony of an invitation. They doubtless conceived that they had been overlooked by accident, and instead of taking this in dudgeon, as their betters would have done, they good-naturedly put up with the slight, and showed that they did so by presenting themselves at the gate ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... in the early Chiselhurst days he was chiefly interested in getting money, and except for his onslaught on the Beckenham house, bothered very little about his personal surroundings and possessions. I forget now when the change came and he began to spend. Some accident must have revealed to him this new source of power, or some subtle shifting occurred in the tissues of his brain. He began to spend and "shop." So soon as he began to shop, he began to shop violently. He began buying pictures, and then, oddly enough, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... their sons or grandsons and hiding away in here. But after one or two nearly died of shock—old ladies, I mean—he put me up, as to-day, to fooling hardier persons like yourself.—Oh, he had another accident. There was a Miss Coghlan, friend of Ernestine, a little seminary girl. They artfully stood her right beside the pipe that leads out, and Dick went off the high dive and swam in here to the inside end of the pipe. After several minutes, by the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... abandon the quantitative and qualitative regulation of the procreation of children to natural selection—that is to say to brutal chance, disease, famine or infanticide—at a time of human evolution when science contends with the greatest success against accident, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... that in consequent of extraordinary storms and hurricanes, no less than five sailors had died and twenty-one had been drowned in eighty-three vessels from that port. Upon this statement I determined to look into the muster-rolls of the trade there for two or three years together. I began by accident with the year 1769, and I went on to the end of 1772. About eighty vessels on an average had sailed thence in each of these years. Taking the loss in these years, and compounding it with that in the fatal year, three ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... native barley country. I am ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your business so far as this country side. I write you this on the account of an accident, which I must take the merit of having partly designed to. A neighbour of mine, a John Currie, miller in Carsemill—a man who is, in a word, a "very" good man, even for a L500 bargain—he and his wife were in my house the time I broke open the cask. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... "Please—Miss Plymouth Rock—never mention him again! I'm going to the fair, among strangers. And I shouldn't care to have them know about that accident that happened to ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Attendez, voici l'accident: son discours a fait que mes yeux se sont arretes dessus[19] vous plus attentivement ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... dragged back again, and buried in sand and water. We rose to renew our endeavours, but several times without success, for we could not obtain a firm footing. At last the Negroes, who had witnessed our accident, and who now came down in great numbers on the beach, laid hold of us as the sea threw us up, and dragged us beyond the reach of the waves. Worn out with fatigue we lay on the sand, waiting to ascertain what the savages ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... splendour, like London on the Lord Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a rule could make it, running on up hill and down hill, through city and through wilderness, to the Black River and the Shining Gate. He had found out, as most people would have said, by accident, as he would doubtless have said, by the guidance of Providence, where his powers lay. He had no suspicion, indeed, that he was producing a masterpiece. He could not guess what place his allegory would occupy in ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... entitled to vote? Many an honest and industrious artisan at present entitled to a vote will not come to the poll on account of the violence which—if not of the mobular party—he may be subject to; his family depend on his exertions for their daily bread—a broken limb, or any such accident happening to him, may bring the whole family to deep distress, if not to the workhouse. It appears by the Edinburgh Review of October, 1852, that at a previous general election, 40 per cent, of those possessing the privilege did not poll ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... nothing to fear now," said General Bisson, with a pleasant and proud smile. "It was no accident, but a decree of Fate, that caused us to meet here. I was ordered by my emperor to march with a column of four thousand men from Mantua to Ratisbon, and I am now on the road to the latter place. Hence, our route leads us through the gap of Brixen, and as a matter of course ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... with Daniel Lord, a very eminent lawyer in New York. One of his early triumphs was his opening of the celebrated Monroe-Edwards case. The eminent counsel to whom the duty had been assigned being prevented from attendance by some accident, Evarts was unexpectedly called upon to take his place. He opened the case with so much eloquence that the audience in the crowded court-room gave him three cheers when ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... never attempt to codify their conduct; they despise it as theorizing. What happens? This old-fashioned hand-to-mouth system of theirs invariably breaks down here and there. And then f Then they trust to some divine interposition, some accident, to put things to rights again. The success of the English is largely built up on such accidents—on the mistakes of other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... whom she had cared for ever since she had been a baby, see her twin sister Phyllis whom Miss Carter had brought up. Many years before Mrs. Page had insisted that the twins be separated, and because Phyllis bore her mother's name and Mrs. Page cruelly blamed her daughter-in-law for the tragic accident that had resulted in both parents' death, she had chosen to keep Janet with her. Thirteen years had passed, and neither of the girls had dreamed of the other's existence; perhaps they had dreamed, but they had never expected their dream to come true, ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... has found men dressing like women, doing women's work, and spending their time with members of that sex. Information concerning these individuals has always come by accident, the people seeming to be exceedingly reticent to talk about them. In Plate XXXVI is shown a man in woman's dress, who has become an expert potter. The explanation given for the disavowal of his sex is that he donned women's clothes during ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... his unfortunate accident, it is probable that the transformation from a water-breathing to an air-breathing animal would have accomplished itself imperceptibly. It is likely indeed, that, for a short period, while his gills were ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... unpromising a looking butler as any gentleman ashore would be at all likely to tolerate; but he had been with his present master, and in his present capacity, ever since the latter had commanded a sloop of war. All his youth had been passed as a top-man, and he was really a prime seaman; but accident having temporarily placed him in his present station, Captain Oakes was so much pleased with his attention to his duty, and particularly with his order, that he ever afterwards retained him in his cabin, notwithstanding the strong desire the honest ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... exhibition that night. The explosion took place at 11:30 P.M., but owing to the excitement occasioned by the novelty of such a thing as a "Negro School Exhibition," the crowd had gathered much earlier than announced. The programme was completed before 11 P.M., and by this accident the school and teacher were saved. The old wreck still remains a ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... salutation, and she waved a glove. He was as utterly confused as she could desire. She saw him rejoin his companion engineer near where lay the shoveller with the covered face, and the thought of the terrible accident depressed her. As she last saw Glover he was pointing at the faulty bank, and she knew that the two men were planning again for the ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... The latter in his enthusiasm devised an apparatus for finger gymnastics which he practised so assiduously that he strained one of his fingers and permanently impaired his technique, making a pianistic career an impossibility. Through this accident he was unable to introduce his own piano works to the public, so that the importance of the service rendered him by Clara, in taking his compositions into her repertoire, both before and ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... evincing the most extraordinary facility of hand, and displaying the most consummate knowledge of light and shadow. His free and playful point sports in picturesque disorder, producing the most surprising and enchanting effects, as if by accident; yet an examination will show that his motions are always regulated by a profound knowledge of the principles of light and shadow. His most admirable productions in both arts are his portraits, which are executed with unexampled expression and skill. For a full description of his prints, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... salt water, where his living is likely to be. If I can leave him a little bit, when I pass on, so much the better; but he ought to be ready to look out for himself. He'll be in no danger. But if he gets to know what a boat is, he'll go to it with his eyes open. Any one can have an accident, afloat or ashore. Just because my father ended the way he did is no signs we're all to end that way. Too much bawling around here! Give us ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the poet of 'those common things that our ordinary life consisteth of,' who will have of them an argument that shall shame that 'resplendent and lustrous mass of matter' that old philosophers and poets have chosen for theirs;—because the rare accident—the wild, poetic, unheard-of accident—which has brought a man, old in luxuries, clothed in soft raiment, nurtured in king's houses, into this rude, unaided collision with nature;—the poetic impossibility, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... was in sad disgrace with her mother; she had been absent from the farm for two days and had only returned that morning. Mrs. Malling had been distracted with anxiety and grief until the re-appearance of her daughter, and then, when she saw that she was well and that no accident had happened to her, she had flown into such a terrible passion that even Prudence had quailed before her. Never in her life had Alice seen the kindly old soul give way to such rage. No disparaging epithet had been too bad for her child, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... such thing—and we will blow them all up together. We must be near to knock on the head any stragglers, who are not killed at once by the explosion; and then, as no one will survive to say how the accident happened, it will be supposed her magazine caught fire; and we shall escape ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... familiarity by the immediate effect which they produced on the girl's face and manner. Whenever Maddalena so much as touched the young nobleman—no matter whether she did so by premeditation, or really by accident—Nanina's features contracted, her pale cheeks grew paler, she fidgeted on her chair, and her fingers nervously twisted and untwisted the loose ends of the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... about for some time, Mr. Harrison advised them to go and wash their faces, and said that they had better not play this game again, as some accident might occur: a match might get lighted and set fire to their clothes. He said he had been willing to let them try it once, for then they would not be frightened if any wicked or thoughtless person should play a trick ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... fall by accident on a warrior who is on a raid, it is considered a bad omen and the plans may be changed or delayed. In one instance the owner of a place marked for attack fastened dishes of water so that the marauders unwittingly ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... interests as these could meet from house to house, thus promoting the social life of the parish in no small degree. Young women might well share in the organizations that are literary and musical. The great vogue of the country singing-school a generation ago was no mere accident. ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... alarmed for the dog. He was an amusing chap, and we did not want any accident to happen to him. Hollis rushed into his room and procured a long pair of pincers, and the rest of us held the little miser while Hollis tried to relieve him of the cause ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... irons that Leonard Hust was filing away. He seemed to feel a strength that would have snapped them like pack threap. He was a man now, a free man, and not a thing of accident; a thing for the world to point at in scorn, not an abandoned child of shame. No, he felt nerved at once by this singular, this almost miraculous discovery, and could hardly restrain his impatience. Yet a shadow for a moment crossed over his brow, as he thought of that brother, who ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... he is a faithful fellow, and will nurse him well. When you go on board, Mr Daly, desire the first lieutenant to send Mesty on shore with Mr Gascoigne's and Mr Easy's chests, and his own bag and hammock. Good heavens! I would not for a thousand pounds that this accident had occurred. Poor foolish boys—they run in couples, and if one's in a scrape the other is sure to share it. Gentlemen, I return you many thanks for your kindness, and I must accept of your promised care for my unfortunate officers. I sail to-morrow ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... overspread the cheeks of Helen at this question, for it was delivered in a tone which insinuated that something more than accident had occasioned their meeting, but as innocence dictated, she answered, "I was in the chapel at prayers; Sir William Wallace entered with the same design; and at the moment he desired me to mingle mine with his, this assassin appeared ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of blood. He was one of four brothers who all met untimely deaths from accidents. This one was killed by the tiger, another was thrown from a vehicle and killed on the spot, the third was drowned, and the fourth shot by accident. ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... it was known that Major Heany had passed through Mafeking in time to join Dr. Jameson's force, and that, bar some extraordinary accident, Captain Holden must have met Dr. Jameson on his way, since he had been despatched along the road which Dr. Jameson would take in marching on Johannesburg; and if all other reasons did not suffice to assure the Committee that Dr. Jameson would not be relying on any assistance from ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... for England. I was on my way to the steamer when the accident occurred which detained ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... perhaps one of the most curious instances of elevation that ever occurred: a good sound lawyer, in leading practice at the Bar, never heard of in politics, no orator, a plain undistinguished man, to whom expectation never pointed, and upon whom the Solicitor-Generalship fell as it were by accident, finds himself Master of the Rolls in a few months after his appointment, by the sudden death of Leach, and in little more than one year from that time a peer and Chancellor. I fancy there were considerable difficulties in settling these appointments, and in satisfying disappointed ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... my company. But if Cousin and I could trail them unseen until they entered a small settlement at the head of the Bluestone, where they would be sure to pause before making for the head of the Clinch, we could pretend we were scouting far south and had met them by accident; then we could ride on ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... Gladstone's letters, already printed, show that they were not the beginning of the correspondence between him and the Dean. The accident which made them acquainted will be ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... told the boys that his brother was in bed. In that bed he lay for many weeks, and many were the visits the master paid him. This did much with the townsfolk to wipe away his reproach. They spoke of the affair as an unfortunate accident, and pitied the schoolmaster even ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... rupture, no organized division—that might happen no more. The mischief was individual now, and ambushing was more common. Certain men were looking for each other, and it was a question of "draw-in' quick 'n' shootin' quick" when the two met by accident, or of getting ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... hour of noon. Moses wore his Zouave cap, and his second-best summer clothes, and Mr. St. Clair wore a black alpaca coat, a blue neck-tie tied in a bow, a broad-brimmed straw hat, a white vest, and white trousers. Moses drove the horse, and they reached the mill without accident. While the miller was taking in the corn, Moses bought a roll of lozenges at a store near by, and as he came out with them a man passed that way, leading a small but valuable dog. Said this man to Moses, "I wish you would hold my dog while I step into ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was James doubled up, sticking twofold like a rotten in a sneck-trap, in an old chair, the bottom of which had gone down before him, and which, for some craize about it, had been put out of the way by Nanse, that no accident might happen. Save us! if the deacon had sate down upon it, pity on ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... at the retiring hour—though this is a little anticipating, for the evening is not yet over—escorted the doctor to the door of the room, and wished him a good night's rest, never imagining but that he enjoyed one. But had fire, or any other accident, burst open the room to public gaze in the lone night hours, Dr. West would have been seen at work, instead of asleep. Every drawer of the bureau was out, every paper it contained was misplaced. The doctor was evidently searching for something, as sedulously as he had once searched ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... at midnight, perhaps without even the hope of another meeting. I left her as the traveller parts from the flowers of the desert, to which he can never hope to return. But, wherever time, accident, or destiny may place me, the remembrance of that day will remain indelibly imprinted alike on my memory and heart. It is pleasing to pay homage to the fallen greatness of one like Hortense, who joins the rare gift of talents to the charms ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the invariable use of 'low tones' in decorating walls and ceilings, it betrays a sort of helplessness and lack of courage. Discords in sound, color and form are, indeed, always hateful, and they are sure to be produced when ignorance or accident strikes the keys. Yet, on the other hand, neutrality and monotone are desperately tedious, and it is better to strive and fail ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... 200, allusion is made to the dotted lines at some of the open turns in the engraved labyrinth. By some accident or mistake the dots have been omitted, but any one can understand where the stop hedges which the dotted lines indicated might be placed so as to give the wanderer in the maze, additional trouble to find ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson |
