"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mentioned by its technical—or even by its exact name; no clear picture was to be raised before the inner eye; nothing was to be left definite or vivid. We shall make a very great mistake if we suppose this conventional vagueness to have been accidental, and a still greater if we attribute it to a lack of cleverness. When Pope referred to the sudden advent of a heavy shower at a funeral ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... characters of the species, flexibility, (non-elasticity, etc.,) but of individuality and definite character in the case immediately observed, and are consequently most important and necessary ideas. So in a man, to be short-legged or long-nosed or anything else of accidental quality, does not distinguish him from other short-legged or long-nosed animals; but the important truths respecting a man are, first, the marked development of that distinctive organization which separates him as man from other animals, and secondly, that group of qualities which ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... formal. But one day Alfred was surprised by a letter beginning My dear Mr. Stanby. He asked himself if the my was intentional or accidental, and, after some reflection, began his letter 'My dear Miss Lawson.' A fortnight later he received a letter without the first line of usual address. This seemed to him significant, and he too omitted the first line, and in signing ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... ordered under the comprehensive system of the (never to be experienced) universe, and regard all things as the work of a supreme (unknowable) intelligence. These Ideas are necessary concepts; not accidental products nor mere fancies, but concepts sprung from the nature of reason; their use is legitimate so long as we remember that we can have a problematical concept of objects corresponding to them, but no knowledge of ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... sessions were held in the first year, one in 1570, and one in 1571. After its dissolution, no Parliament sat in Ireland for fourteen years—so unstable was the system at that time, and so dependent upon accidental causes for its exercise. The first sittings of Sidney's Parliament were as stormy as those of Sussex. It was found that many members presented themselves pretending to represent towns not incorporated, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... And, what is a wiser and better thing, Can keep the living from ever needing Such an unnatural, strange proceeding, By showing conclusively and clearly That death is a stupid blunder merely, And not a necessity of our lives. My being here is accidental; The storm, that against your casement drives, In the little village below waylaid me. And there I heard, with a secret delight, Of your maladies physical and mental, Which neither astonished nor dismayed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... breakfast and remained for two or three hours, when she returned, a servant bringing the baby with her. My daughter had packed up everything, and in half-an-hour they were on the road back, the baby with them in my daughter's arms. Now, you see, if it had not been for the accidental remark of the doctor's in your aunt's presence, she would have been completely deceived by Miss Barbara, and never would have known whose child it was; but your aunt kept her own counsel; indeed, she was afraid ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... purpose. On which account the Creator will neither appear to be unjust in distributing (for the causes already mentioned) to every one according to his merits; nor will the happiness or unhappiness of each one's birth, or whatever be the condition that falls to his lot, be deemed accidental; nor will different creators, or souls of different natures, be believed ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... been explaining how it was to us, and he tells me it was all accidental. He says we left him behind, and that he searched for us for long enough afterwards, till he was quite lost. It is an awkward place to miss your ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... honour of forming an acquaintance with this grand personage. He was of the middle height, between forty and forty-five years of age, rather inclined to corpulency, and had features strikingly like those of the Bourbons. It is very probable that this accidental resemblance may have led him to assume the character he did, and play so melancholy ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... necessary growth of a sense and love of the ludicrous, and a morbid sensibility of the assimilative power,—an inflammation produced by cold and weakness,—which in the boldest bursts of passion will lie in wait for a jeer at any phrase, that may have an accidental coincidence in the mere words with something base or trivial. For instance,—to express woods, not on a plain, but clothing a hill, which overlooks a valley, or dell, or river, or the sea,—the trees rising one above another, as the spectators in an ancient theatre,—I know no other ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... had done was a one-hundred-per cent failure. He had managed to come up with a few basic improvements, patented them, and licensed them out to various manufacturers. But these were purely an accidental by-product. Malcom Porter was interested in "basic research" and not much else, ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Jaw he went to Regina, which he reached that afternoon. Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan, but an accidental capital. Somewhere about 1880 it was decided to start itself in quite another place. Qu'Appelle, where there was a Hudson Bay Fort and the country was attractive, was the site chosen. And Qu'Appelle opened its mouth too wide—or, anyhow so the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... llanos of Cumana, Barcelona, and the Apure. It is a curious fact, that the isolation of several of these parties was so complete, that, for many months, they did not know of any other than themselves being in arms for the delivery of their country. It was only by their coming into accidental contact that they discovered that there was more than one patriot guerilla in existence.[3] Bolivar supplied some of them with arms, and at the same time augmented his own force to a thousand men. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... Florence; never again, he said to himself, would he see Valentine Charteris—Valentine, who had been the witness of his humiliation and disgrace. Sooner anything than that. He would leave the villa and go somewhere—he cared little where. No quiet, no rest came to him. Had his misfortunes been accidental—had they been any other than they were, the result of his boyish folly and disobedience, he would have found them easier to bear; as it was, the recollection that it was all his own fault drove ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... continued the colonel, "not to risk his life in another advance. An accidental shot might injure him, and I ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... moments of unpleasant reflection, supremely happy, thrilling to that accidental contact, paling at the narrow margins whereby her hair escaped conferring on him a delirium. He could stand at a window all day pretending interest in the monotonous hills and empty sea, only that he might keep her there too and indulge ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... in the furnace were all melted, to find them converted into a mass of solid gold, which proved, on assay, to be of the purest quality. Every one was questioned as to what he had cast into the furnace, when there appeared no reason to suppose the transmutation could have been effected by such an accidental mixture of metals. At length it was remarked, that a dervish, accompanying the barber's son, had cast in a lump of ore, and immediately disappeared. Upon this the sultan summoned the youth to his presence, and inquiring after his companion, was informed of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... glass of flowers standing near her, and just as she came to an end her arm moved and the glass was in a moment on the floor, shivered into twenty pieces. I happened to be watching her, and felt perfectly sure that the movement of her arm was not accidental, and that her intention was to conceal, by the apparent mishap, an emotion which was increasing and becoming inconvenient. At any rate, if that was her object it was perfectly accomplished, for the recitation was abruptly terminated, there was ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... should be none in the translation. Professor Blackie has, it is true, pointed out the "assonances, alliterations, and rhymes," which are found in more or less abundance in Ionic Greek.[A] These may of course be purely accidental, like the hexameters in Livy or the blank-verse lines in Mr. Dickens's prose: but accidental or not (it may be said) they are there, and ought to be recognised. May we not then recognise them by introducing similar assonances, etc., here and there into the ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... torture-chambers.[12] Yet, though the self-complacent magistrate has been the butt of the ages, Aristophanes and Shakespeare, and perhaps Flaubert, have alone revealed his essential nullity, because they alone have looked for something essential beneath the accidental. Nothing could be simpler than the character of Polonius; nothing could be more subtle. A rap here, a stab there, and the soul of a minister is exposed. We have come to see, we scarcely know how, that, if he ever had one, he has lost it. Some idea of the simplicity and subtlety ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... intelligence. Others have supposed that the ice might not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and might even be generally insecure for the treading of heavy and heavily-laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing notion is, that some accidental movements on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really having no reference to them or their plans, had been construed into certain signs that all was discovered; and that ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... awakening of the soul. From such awakening proceeds study of the Scriptures. From contemplation of the import of the scriptures, O king, one sees the value of penance. A person possessed of the knowledge of what is essential and what accidental, O king, is very rare,—he, that is, who seeks to undergo penances, impressed with the truth that the happiness one derives from the possession of such agreeable objects as spouses and children leads ultimately to misery.[1533] Penances, O child, are for all. They are ordained ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... tell the truth, in the same rooms in which the thousand and one things he was continually buying were piled up in vast heaps. There was no fixed place for his bed even. He slept where he could, or, rather, wherever an accidental sale had cleared a space for the time,—one night in a costly bed of the days of Louis XIV., and the next night on a lounge that he would have sold for a few francs. Just now he occupied a little closet not more ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... of Bowyer; but his name does not even appear in the index; being probably reserved for the second forth-coming enlarged edition. Meanwhile, it may not be uninteresting to remark that, like Magliabechi, (vide p. 86, ante) he imbibed his love of reading and collecting from the accidental possession of scraps and leaves of books. The fact is, Mr. Ratcliffe once kept a chandler's shop in the Borough; and, as is the case with all retail traders, had great quantities of old books brought to him to be purchased at so much per lb.! Hence arose his passion for collecting ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... his defence, to argue the thing out. And Tregellan sat for a long time without speaking, appreciating his purpose. It seemed more monstrous the closer he considered it: natural enough withal, and so, harder to defeat; and yet, he was sure, that defeated it must be. He reflected how accidental it had all been: their presence there, in Ploumariel, and the rest! Touring in Brittany, as they had often done before, in their habit of old friends, they had fallen upon it by chance, a place unknown of Murray; and the merest chance had held them there. They had slept at the Lion ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... the marine environment through the complete elimination of pollution by oil and other harmful substances and the minimization of accidental discharge of ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... witness the Lapps at their religious exercises. Pastor Hvoslef was ill, and the service consisted only of the reading of some prayers by the Lapp schoolmaster; added to which, the church is never warmed, even in the coldest days of winter. One cause of this may, perhaps, be the dread of an accidental conflagration; but the main reason is, the inconvenience which would arise from the thawing out of so many antiquated reindeer garments, and the effluvia given out by the warmed bodies within them. Consequently, the temperature inside the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... the follies of well-known fashionable women. What will be forgiven to Mrs. Well Known Uptown will never be forgiven to Miss Kansas. Society in this respect is very unjust—the world is always unjust—but that is a part of the truth of etiquette which is to be remembered; it is founded on the accidental conditions of society, having for its background, however, the eternal principles of kindness, politeness, and the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... circumstance as well as associated in the nature of their work. In London, in the relatively lucid air of Campden Hill, they dwell together, and their beautiful studios are side by side. However, there is a reason for commemorating Mr. Parsons' work which has nothing to do with the accidental—the simple fact that that work forms the richest illustration of the English landscape that is offered us to-day. Harper has for a long time past been full of Mr. Alfred Parsons, who has made the dense, fine detail of his native land familiar in far countries, amid scenery of ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... for a moment deny that Martin must have shared in the common belief of his time; but such things were not of the essence of his teaching, only the accidental accompaniments thereof. The prominent feature of the preaching of the early Franciscans was, as was that of St. Paul, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And in a book intended primarily for young readers ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... beauty and nobility, the members of which were rather to be generally noticed than particularly observed, there was, however, one individual who, both by the solitary occupation he had chosen and his accidental position in the room, was personally remarkable among the listless ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... ragged masses of life torn from their setting; he selects. And upon these trophies he sets to work with the full force of his imagination; he detects their significance, he disengages and throws aside whatever is accidental and meaningless; he re-makes them in conditions that are never known in life, conditions in which a thing is free to grow according to its own law, expressing itself unhindered; he liberates and completes. And then, upon all this new life—so like the old and yet so different, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... upon the practice of artists. It is, put shortly, that the artist has no concern with the public whatever, nor the public with the artist. There is no kind of necessary relation between them, but only an accidental one; and the less of that the better for the artist and ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... copulation. If persons perform not that act with all the bent and ardour that nature requires, they may as well let it alone; for frigidity and coldness never produces conception. Of the cure of this we will speak by and by, after I have spoken of accidental barrenness, which is occasioned by some morbific matter or infirmity in the body, either of the man or of the woman, which being removed they become fruitful. And since, as I have before noted, the first and great law of creation, was to increase and multiply, and barrenness is ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Lawrence, "my meeting with Mr Keswick at Midbranch was entirely accidental. When I arrived there, a few days ago, I had no reason to suppose that I should meet him. But I must ask you to excuse me from giving my reasons for wishing to find your cousin, and for coming to see him here. The matter ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... and it together, and have no right to complain afterwards that it will not acknowledge better-grounded claims. But if every painter of real power would do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse to be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success, there is indeed, whatever may have been thought or said to the contrary, true instinct enough in the public mind to follow such firm guidance. It is one of the facts which the experience of ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... following: adultery of one of the married parties, and the detection in the fact of the guilty party by mutual agreement, and failing such agreement, accidental detection. It must be admitted that the latter case is rarely met with in practice," said the lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch he paused, as a man selling pistols, after enlarging on the advantages of ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... are," replied Tremayne; "such a resemblance cannot be accidental. I remember in that queer double life of mine, when I was your unconscious rival, I used to interchange them until they almost seemed to be the same identity to me. There is some little mystery behind the likeness which we shall have cleared up before very long now. Natas told ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... all-alone-stone.' Every other moment, while you and Mr. Dobson were talking, she would cry 'oh! oh! o—o—oh!' and pull out her note-book, which was the cork-box in which she pinned her butterflies. She must have had a whole museum of ideas! The most accidental resemblance between words would suffice to start one: after it she would go, catch it, pin it down, and call it a correspondence. Now and then a very pretty notion would fall to her net, and often a silly one; but all were equally ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... two of his secretaries at the disposal of Baron de Nostitz to prepare under his direction the pamphlets with which Germany is flooded; but I cannot too often repeat," continued M. Gentz, "that the hatred against the French avowed by these various societies is simply an accidental thing, a singular creation of circumstances; since their prime object was the overthrow of the government as it existed in Germany, and their fundamental principle the establishment of a system of absolute equality. This is so true that the question has been earnestly debated amongst ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... it was written, Providence should bring to my hands (as it has done within these few days) what I assuredly believe to be a genuine copy of that very letter, which I had not the least reason to expect I should ever have seen, when I learned from his own mouth, amidst the freedom of an accidental conversation, the occasion and circumstances of it. It is dated from London, July 21, 1722, and the very first lines of it relate to a remarkable circumstance which, from others of his letters, I find happened several times; I ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... in common, because the separate bodies or grains, which before belonged to one or the other of you in severalty, have by consent on both sides been made your joint property. If, however, the mixture was accidental, or if Titius mixed the two parcels of corn without your consent, they do not belong to you in common, because the separate grains remain distinct, and their substance is unaltered; and in such cases the corn no more becomes ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... bringing such favourable accounts as greatly to lessen the distress of the family at Deane, though it will probably be a long while before Mrs. Harwood can be quite at ease. One most material comfort, however, they have: the assurance of its being really an accidental wound, which is not only positively declared by Earle himself, but is likewise testified by the particular direction of the bullet. Such a wound could not have been received in a duel. At present he is going on very well, but the surgeon will not declare him to be in no danger. . . . James ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Valley Forge, on the west side of the Schuylkill between twenty and thirty miles from Philadelphia, was selected for that purpose, and some time before day on the morning of the 11th of December (1777) the army marched to take possession of it. By an accidental concurrence of circumstances Lord Cornwallis had been detached the same morning at the head of a strong corps on a foraging party on the west side of the Schuylkill. He had fallen in with a brigade of Pennsylvania militia ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... buoyancy of youth and the almighty optimism of early love prevailed; she comforted herself with the fond illusion that this man was different from all others, that his regard was equal to her own, and that his love would rise above such accidental things as blood or breed or birth. And so she was in a happier frame of mind when the little company made their ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... fraud in a situation of trust which he had held in a French nobleman's family, he was in destitute and desperate circumstances, it occurred to Montreuil to provide for him by placing him in our family. Some accidental and frivolous remark of yours which I had repeated in my correspondence with Montreuil as illustrative of your manner, and your affected pursuits at that time, presented an opportunity to a plan before conceived. Desmarais came to England in a smuggler's vessel, presented himself ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... one of two theories is possible. The affair was not accidental; James did not fall into a panic and bellow 'Treason!' out of the window, merely because he found himself alone in a turret—and why in a secluded turret?—with the Master. To that theory the locked door ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... naturally secondary haemorrhage is a too frequent result. Wounds of these great vessels generally result in so rapid death from haemorrhage as to give no time for surgical interference. One case, however, is recorded,[5] in which the external iliac was cut in a lad of seventeen by an accidental stab, and in which Drs. Layraud and Durand, who were almost instantly on the spot, succeeded in stopping the bleeding by compresses, till Velpeau arrived, who tied the vessel ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... near Dublin, were distinguished playwrights, who began their respective careers in the seventeenth century. Farquhar left Trinity College, Dublin, as an undergraduate and became an actor, but owing to his accidental killing of another player he left the stage and secured a commission in the army. He soon turned his attention to the writing of plays, and was responsible in all for eight comedies. He has left us some characters that are very humorous and ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... no longer," she returned. "It reached me yesterday—roundabout and accidental, but by a person who had had it from one of the young man's own people—as a thing quite settled. I was only keeping ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... out-of-doors; in the park, it was, and he took us both to the Zoological Gardens, and gave us tea there. (Yellowish cake with white sugar icing over it has ever since suggested to me the pungent smell of monkey-houses and lions' cages.) The meeting was purely accidental, I believe. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... the person of the useful and ornamental domestic animal who is popularly supposed to furnish the material for sausages. The accidental discovery of a suspender-button, or the claw of a kitten, in the sausage, gave rise to some doubt as to the composition of this favorite edible; but statisticians usually admit that hogmeat forms the staple. Doctor KANE speaks in glowing terms of the excellence ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... few agreements, and there is very little evidence in support of a connection of any one of these dialects with its neighbours. The following correspondences may be purely accidental. ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... to drop heavily into place again, like curtains over a masterpiece. It was so that they rose and fell before Strange, her eyes meeting his in a look that no Argentine beauty could ever have bestowed, in that it was free from coquetry or intention, and wholly accidental. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... immediately upon The Dreamer's return to Fordham, and when he was still under the spell of the night at Providence, that the identity of the lady of the garden was revealed to him, in a manner seemingly accidental, but which he felt to be but another manifestation of the divinity that shapes our ends. Some casual words concerning the appearance and character of Mrs. Whitman, spoken by a casual visitor, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... of him, but his importance was Archducal, dynastic, purely accidental. Can there be in the world of real men anything more shadowy than an Archduke? And now he was no more; removed with an atrocity of circumstances which made one more sensible of his humanity than when he was in life. I connected that crime with Balkanic plots and aspirations ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... but wasn't quite sure. Such a master as Kloster, and one of their own flesh and blood, is always applauded, but I think the irregularity, the utter carelessness of the music, its apparently accidental beauty, was difficult for them. Germans have to have beauty explained to them and accounted for,—stamped first by an official, authorized, before they can be comfortable with it. I sat in a corner and cried, ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... while he was with Maggie. That would have been a little triumph for Angus, which Allan did not intend to give him. So he determined to remain where he was until they had either parted or gone away together. He was undoubtedly angry. It never struck him that the meeting might be an accidental one. He was certain that, for some reason or other, Maggie had an appointment with her well-known admirer; and he said bitterly to himself, "Like to like, why should I ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... Dr. Anster, "because the accidental mention of Toddington seems to authenticate the book: the name of Lady Henrietta Wentworth does not occur in it, and the persons in whose hands the book has been since it was purchased in Paris do not seem to have noticed the name of Toddington, ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... emphatic than in asserting that the individual as such has no value at all. "Our individualities," he says, "are but bubbles and clusters of foam upon the great stream of the blood of the species." "The race is the drama, and we are the incidents." "In so far as we are individuals . . . we are accidental, disconnected, without significance." And when we ask for what we should strive and labour, if not for the good of individual men and women, his answer is that we ought to work for the Species, for the Race, for what he calls a great physical and ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... two. It was hardly an English point of view, but—for his family had long been one of station—there was a hint of pride that struck her as rather fine about this renunciation. It was a risky thing to insist on being taken at one's intrinsic value, stripped of all accidental associations that might enhance it, but she thought he need not shrink from the hazard. Now and then he spoke with slightly injudicious candor, and sometimes too vehemently, but in essential matters he displayed an admirable delicacy of feeling and ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... divided into two classes. In one we shall place accidental and passing ideas created by the influences of the moment: infatuation for an individual or a doctrine, for instance. In the other will be classed the fundamental ideas, to which the environment, the laws of heredity and public ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... the student will recollect and apply the rule that the objective point (the heart, so to speak) of each motive is the first primary accent it contains; counting from these points, all irregularities of melodic extent become purely accidental and harmless. For illustration (the ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... Hamlet is brought back to Denmark by the chance of the meeting with the pirate ship. This incident has been therefore severely criticised as a lame expedient,[84] but it appears probable that the 'accident' is meant to impress the imagination as the very reverse of accidental, and with many readers it certainly does so. And that this was the intention is made the more likely by a second fact, the fact that in connection with the events of the voyage Shakespeare introduces that feeling, on Hamlet's part, of his being in the hands of Providence. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... according to his sensations, to his own peculiar experience, or to his suppositions, that he judges of things either well or ill; but whatever way be his judgment, it depends necessarily on his mode of feeling, whether habitual or accidental, and the qualities he finds in the causes that move him, which exist in despite ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution; ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... have been a more unaccountable proceeding on the part of Stanley Lake, and a more romantic situation, if Rachel and his lordship had not had before two or three little accidental rambles together in the grounds and gardens of Brandon. There was nothing quite new in the situation, therefore; and Rachel was for a moment indescribably ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... The media from the store-flasks are placed in glass test-tubes or small flasks, protected from contamination by cotton-wool plugs, and are sterilized by heat. For most purposes the solid media are to be preferred, since bacterial growth appears as a discrete mass and accidental contamination can be readily recognized. Cultures are made by transferring by means of a sterile platinum wire a little of the material containing the bacteria to the medium. The tubes, after being thus inoculated, are kept at suitable temperatures, usually either at 37deg ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... different frame of mind. Hewet was staring at the roof with his legs stuck out in front of him, for as he had never tried to make the service fit any feeling or idea of his, he was able to enjoy the beauty of the language without hindrance. His mind was occupied first with accidental things, such as the women's hair in front of him, the light on the faces, then with the words which seemed to him magnificent, and then more vaguely with the characters of the other worshippers. But when he suddenly perceived Rachel, all these thoughts ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... but a pretty little accidental impediment of speech like that, accompanied with a little graceful bob of the head, is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... up, not rock, not an accidental formation. It was round, a circle of dots, white pellets on the dead skin of the planet. A city? Buildings ...
— The Gun • Philip K. Dick
... the two symbolic pillars, from right to left, the two words [Symbols] and [Symbols] [Hebrew: יהו] and [Hebrew: בעל], IHU and BAL: followed by the hieroglyphic equivalent, [Hieroglyphic: ] of the Sun-God, Amun-ra. Is it an accidental coincidence, that in the name of each murderer are the two names of the Good and Evil Deities of the Hebrews; for Yu-bel is but Yehu-Bal or Yeho-Bal? and that the three final syllables of the names, a, o, um, make A.U.M. the sacred ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Catriona know James well; information as to his villanies is extant in Additional MSS. (British Museum). This is probably the latest ballad in the collection. It occurs in several variants, some of which, copied out by Burns, derive thence a certain accidental interest. In Mr. Stevenson's Catriona, the heroine of that name takes a thoroughly Highland view of the abduction. Robin Oig, in any case, was "nane the waur o' a hanging," for he shot a Maclaren at the plough-tail, before the Forty-Five. The trial of these sons of Alpen ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... object of our search. Down we sat at all events to sketch it, and meeting by good fortune a communicative young officer on the road, we learnt that this castle, called[12] Chateau la Serve, had in reality been the residence of the lords of St. Vallier; that many years ago it had been reduced by an accidental fire to its present state, and was finally wrested from the family at the Revolution. Of the present Chateau St. Vallier, and the estate annexed, they have remained in uninterrupted possession; and all admirers of the Gothic must rejoice that the ruin has been purchased by the commune ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... School rendered important service in educational progress by demonstrating the practicability of cultivating the habit of attention. The teachers in all classes and in all lessons throughout the school made ceaseless efforts to win and hold attention. This was not incidental or accidental, but was an integrate part of the educational plan, intelligently designed and deliberately pursued, with intent to train the pupils in the practice of concentrating their minds on the one thing before them until it ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... before Ball's murder was accidental, but the savageness of his temper led him to a quick compliance with that wicked proposition; but after the commission of that fact, he with his companions before mentioned went over in the packet ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... and I were thus estranged, Red Shirt and I continued friendly relations and associated together. On the day following my accidental meeting with him near the Nozeri river, for instance, Red Shirt came to my desk as soon as he came to the school, and asked me how I liked the new boarding house. He said we would go together for fishing Russian literature again, and ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... subterranean activity: this connection appears to be exceedingly vague. I have during the past year seen it stated that a severe shock in the northern parts of S. America coincided with one in Kamstchatka. Believing, then, that such coincidences are purely accidental, I neglected to take a note of the reference; but I believe the statement was somewhere in "L'Institut" for 1839. (479/2. "L'Institut, Journal General des Societes et Travaux Scientifiques de la France et de l'Etranger," Tome VIII. page 412, Paris, 1840. In a note on some earthquakes ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... unfortunate woman (being near the hour of confinement,) and the entire helplessness of the child, were hindrances to a rapid retreat; and fearing pursuit, the Indians thus inhumanly rid themselves of those incumbrances to their flight and left them to accidental discovery, or to become food for the beasts ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Goddess of Light above, combined massiveness with lightness. Other buildings were strikingly quaint and pleasing, especially those suggesting the old Southern Missions. All blended into the general scheme with scarcely a discord. This harmony was not accidental, but resulted from combined effort, each architect working at a general plan, yet not sacrificing his individual taste. It was an object lesson in massive architecture, showing how easily public edifices may be made beautiful each in itself, and to increase each other's ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... operated at this time to produce this great difference are shown in the reports and documents and in the detailed estimates. Some of these causes are accidental and temporary; while others are permanent, and, aided by a just course of administration, may continue to operate beneficially upon ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... to come, as it now probably would, in crashes of tins and bursting of bovril bottles. Again she had intended to have opened that door quite casually and innocently while she was being dummy, so that everyone could see how accidental the exposure was, and to have gone poking about the cupboard in Elizabeth's absence was a shade too professional, so to speak, for the usual detective work of Tilling. But the fuse was set now. Sooner or later the explosion must come. She wondered as they went out to commune ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... of the Long Vacation, in June, 1794, Coleridge went to Oxford on a visit to an old school-fellow, intending probably to proceed afterwards to his mother at Ottery. But an accidental introduction to Robert Southey, then an under-graduate at Balliol College, first delayed, and ultimately prevented, the completion of this design, and became, in its consequences, the hinge on which a large part of Coleridge's after ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... having a distant resemblance to groups which are the objects of mimicry, and which it is therefore advantageous to resemble. Such a variety will have a better chance of preservation; the individuals possessing it will be multiplied; and their accidental likeness to the favoured group will be rendered permanent by hereditary transmission, and each successive variation which increases the resemblance being preserved, and all variation departing from the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... could not be helped; perhaps there might occur some other occasion. Besides, there was his companion. She might possibly be alive; and if such should be the case she would doubtless be anxious to escape; she had, in an accidental way, come under his protection, and he must do everything he ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... elapsed since the accidental meeting, and Isabella was in doubt as to who the lady was that Henry was with in the carriage. Little, however, did she think that it was his wife. With a smile, Isabella met the young man as he entered her little dwelling. Clotelle had already gone to bed, but ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... route which brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different from those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of London, where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime. By the dim light of an accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were seen tottering to their fall, in directions so many and capricious that scarce the semblance of a passage was discernible between them. The paving-stones lay at random, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass. Horrible ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... main passage, waiting the result. At one time Mulford thought the channel would bring him out into open water again, on the northern side of the reef, and more than a mile to the eastward of the point where the ship-channel in which the Swash was plying commenced; but an accidental circumstance prevented his standing in far enough to ascertain the fact. That circumstance ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... was abundantly supplied, stock appearing to thrive extremely well; and we had an unusual luxury in a present of fresh butter, which was, however, by no means equal to that of Fort Hall—probably from some accidental cause. During the day we remained here, there were considerable numbers of miserable, half-naked Indians around the fort, who had arrived from the neighboring mountains. During the summer, the only subsistence of these people is derived from the salmon, of which they are ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... incredibly valuable, and he could not defend himself from astonishment at the casual manner it had come into his possession. It was as if Fate had thrust that clue into his hands. And after the manner of the average man, whose ambition is to command events, he began to mistrust such a gratuitous and accidental success—just because it seemed forced upon him. The practical value of success depends not a little on the way you look at it. But Fate looks at nothing. It has no discretion. He no longer considered it eminently desirable all round to establish publicly the ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... entered the dining-room, young de Buxieres noticed that covers were laid for five people; he began to wonder who the fifth guest could be, when an accidental remark of the clerk showed him that the unknown was no other than Claudet. The fact was that Manette could not bear the idea that her son, who had always sat at table with the late Claude de Buxieres, should be consigned ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is in his chameleonship that his greatest good fortune lies. He has only to change his habitat—his ASSOCIATIONS. But the impulse to do it must come from the OUTSIDE—he cannot originate it himself, with that purpose in view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can furnish him the initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a new idea. The chance remark of a sweetheart, "I hear that you are a coward," may water a seed that shall sprout and bloom and flourish, and ended in producing a surprising fruitage—in the fields ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is undoubtedly better to pay a pretty good price for budded trees of the kind you desire rather than incur the delay and the irregular growth of young trees budded or grafted in the field. There is also danger of an irregular stand from accidental injuries to new growth started in the field without the protection which it finds ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... this Wells party had been sort of a partner of Pyramid's back in the early days. Some sort of a buyers' pool for Eastern coal deliveries, I believe it was, that Hackett had got into accidental and nursed along until he found himself dividin' the cream of the profits with only half a dozen others. Then along came Pyramid with his grand consolidation scheme, holdin' out the bait of makin' Mr. Wells head of the new concern and freezin' out ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... physician who keeps such patients as do not wish to go to the hospital. I did not care to have him go to the hospital, because I was afraid the newspapers would get hold of the incident, and make a sensation of it. The whole thing was accidental; the young fellow realized that, and so, I thought, did the girls; at least, I never noticed anything in their behaviour to ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... importance of accidental wounds of joints—such, for example, as result from a stab with a penknife or the spike of a railing—lies in the fact that they are liable to be followed by infection of the synovial cavity. The infection may involve only the synovial layer ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... insight into human nature. There is no trace—nor is there, again, in the 'Duchess of Malfi'—of that development of human souls for good or evil which is Shakspeare's especial power—the power which, far more than any accidental 'beauties,' makes his plays, to this day, the delight alike of the simple and the wise, while his contemporaries are all but forgotten. The highest aim of dramatic art is to exhibit the development of the human soul; ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... Greek temple, built about thirty feet below the level of the street, and down to which we had to go as if we were entering a cellar. The house was full of columns, statues, flowers, paintings, candelabra, and servants in black dress-coats and short breeches; but everything about the place looked so accidental and ephemeral that the Comte de Saint-Brice, a very witty frequenter of the house, used to say,—"Whenever I visit the place, I am always afraid of finding the horses sold, the servants dismissed, the husband run away, the drawing-room closed, and the house razed." The Comte de Saint-Brice's fears ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... limited depth below the surface. The central parts of the stalactites retain their ordinary structure, and are after a time exposed to a general temperature rather above than below the freezing point; and thus they come to melt, the water escaping either by accidental fissures between some of the prisms, or by the extremity of the stalactite, or by some part of the surface which has chanced to escape the prismatic arrangement, and has itself ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... practice in order to make sure of the action, to proportion and adjust the parts of their machine, and to eliminate hidden defects. Experimental flight, he suggested, should be tried over water, in order to break any accidental fall; when a series of experiments had proved the stability of a glider, it would then be time to apply motive power. He admitted that such a process would be both costly and slow, but, he said, that 'it greatly diminished the chance of those ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... blight a Chinese-Japanese hybrid chestnut, 13 yrs. old, infected toward base with Chinese type of blight, i.e. in outer bark only. Right: sucker inarched in spring of 1946; left, inarched spring of 1950. (The black figure resembling an arrow, about half way up, is accidental, being a cluster of labels.) b. Grafted tree (the large tree of Japanese-American chestnut on Japanese stock); graft made in 1937 where finger is pointing; left: inarch of 1947, itself inarched near base in 1950; right, inarch of 1949. c. Japanese-American hybrid chestnut ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... fail to be born, or perish), in obstetrics, the premature separation and expulsion of the contents of the pregnant uterus. It is a common terminology to call premature labour of an accidental type a "miscarriage,', in order to distinguish "abortion', as a deliberately induced act, whether as a medical necessity by the accoucheur, or as a criminal proceeding (see MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE); otherwise the term "abortion'' would ordinarily be used when ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... allayed, and my weight was too much for her to endure longer. I rose, but again buried my face in the wide gash of that glorious cunt, and before rising completely, I licked up the delicious foam, and even ventured to give, as it were, an accidental lick to her little knob of a clitoris, for she was not much distinguished in that way; she shivered with excitement, when I touched it, and even pressed my head down upon it, when she ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... had much to do with the press will sympathise with MR. CHARLES KNIGHT in all that he has stated ("NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. iii., p. 62.) respecting the accidental—but not at first discovered—substitution of modern for moderate. If that word modern had not been detected till it was too late for an explanation on authority, what strange conjectures would ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... had ceased to care for; if it were to begin again, it must try to find out what the mass of mankind did care for, and why. Religion, politics, statistics, travel had thus far led to nothing. Even the Chicago Fair had only confused the roads. Accidental education could go no further, for one's mind was already littered and stuffed beyond hope with the millions of chance images stored away without order in the memory. One might as well try to educate ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... at the mayor's house, our accidental meeting under the arch, my discovery of the corpse some hours afterwards on my return from my patient, my professional belief that the deed must have been done a very short time, perhaps but a few minutes, before I chanced upon its victim. But, in that case, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... then, of what is classical in art or literature is that of the well-known tale, to which we can nevertheless listen over and over again, because it is told so well. To the absolute beauty of its form is added the accidental, tranquil charm ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Orinoco and the Nile, contrary to the direction of the Ganges, the Indus, the Rio de la Plata, and the Euphrates, flow alike from the south toward the north; but the sources of the Orinoco are five or six degrees nearer to the equator than those of the Nile. Observing every day the accidental variations of the atmosphere, we find it difficult to persuade ourselves that in a great space of time the effects of these variations mutually compensate each other: that in a long succession of years the averages of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... that by travelling two days and nights you are in the heart of Italy. Accidental villas among olive trees appear; and men-servants watering the cactuses. Black victorias drive in between pompous pillars with plaster shields stuck to them. It is at once momentary and astonishingly intimate—to be displayed before the eyes of ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the form and size of the breasts may be the result of causes unconnected with pregnancy. They may enlarge in consequence of marriage, from the individual becoming stout and fat or from accidental suppression of the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... in the Times that Lord Beauvayse was under orders for South Africa, mentioned his accidental discovery when writing to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... account he also heaved a sigh. "This was indeed," he observed, "a retribution in store for them! Their encounter was likewise not accidental; for had it been, how was it that this Feng Yuean took ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... radicalism."[105] That is, the "reformist" Turati denied that there is anything Socialistic about Bissolati's "ultra-reformist" faction. To this Bissolati answered that compromise and the political collaboration of the working people with other classes, was not to be reserved, as Turati had said, for accidental and extraordinary cases, but was "the very essence of the reformist method."[106] The revolutionaries, of course, agree with Bissolati that, if the Socialists hold that their prime function is to work for reforms favored by a large part of the capitalists, compromises and the habit of fighting with ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... will, that it suited them so to submit, and that in reality they were still quite independent. But in the peculiar eye of the Barnacle gander, who was leading, an observer with sufficient fancy might have deciphered a mild revolt against this triumph of the absurd, the accidental, and the futile; a passive yet Promethean spiritual ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... monuments and embellishments of Paris are executed from the plans of men of talent, yet some owe their origin to circumstances merely accidental. Of this ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... as a foreign and external Creator, working as a Potter on his clay; but it is irrational to "explain" a steadily unfolding movement, an ever-heightening procession of life, by "fortuitous variations," by "accidental" shifts of level, or even by a blind elan vital. If there is an increasing purpose and a clearly culminating drama unfolding in this moving flood of life, then there is some Mind that sees the way, and some Will that directs the ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... neither limited nor extended his individuality. Now he found himself completely taken possession of and made a part of something larger than himself, a carefully correlated and guarded system of ranks and rules and traditions. In retrospect the former school seemed as accidental and fleeting as a street crowd, while the new one was an institution with a jealously preserved and deeply revered history to which each new pupil was expected to add more lustre. But most remarkable of all seemed the fact that this collective body added ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... nineteen inches, and is still falling. The meteorological character of the present season, as compared with that of several previous seasons, clearly shows the cause of the rise and fall of the lakes not to be periodical, as has heretofore been asserted, but entirely accidental. For several years the summers have been cloudy and cold, with a prevalence of easterly winds and rainy weather. The last summer has been excessively warm for the whole season, and of exceeding drought. When it ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... swept away the groundwork of his passion, had stirred into new life all the slumbering pride of race and ancestry which characterized his caste. How much of this sensitive superiority was essential and how much accidental; how much of it was due to the ever-suggested comparison with a servile race; how much of it was ignorance and self-conceit; to what extent the boasted purity of his race would have been contaminated by the fair ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... that of the ass's ear. The aperture, through which the light now enters from its further end, and from a height of one hundred and twenty feet, was till lately not known to exist; it not being supposed that the Ear had any meatus internus corresponding with the external one. The accidental removal of a quantity of loose stones from above, revealed a narrow passage of from twenty to thirty feet in length, and opening directly into the cave. This internal opening is situated almost immediately over the amphitheatre, one hundred and twenty feet above the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... would distribute over chronological periods the voyages of discovery, both accidental and of set purpose, made by the Netherlanders on the mainland coast of Australia, it might be desirable so to adjust these periods, that each of them was closed by the appearance in this field of discovery and exploration, of ships belonging to ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... the exact position," he said. "In the first place this whole affair is accidental, resulting from the death of the junior senator. No one could foresee this event. We had arranged to put in John Harrington at the regular vacancy next year, and we are now very busy with a most important business here in London. If we were on the spot, as one of us could have been had we known ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... by the way of Aunce de Mere, under Cape Diamond. The first barrier to be surmounted was at the Pot Ash. In front of it was a block-house and picket, in charge of some Canadians, who, after making a single fire, fled in confusion. On advancing to force the barrier, an accidental discharge of a piece of artillery from the British battery, when the American front was within forty paces of it, killed General Montgomery, Captain McPherson, one of his aids, Captain Cheeseman, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the nerves, the discharging of the muscles, and all the subsequent mechanical motions of the organism. But we can present to our minds no picture of the process whereby consciousness emerges, either as a necessary link or as an accidental by-product of this series of actions. Yet it certainly does emerge—the prick of a pin suffices to prove that molecular motion can produce consciousness. The reverse process of the production of motion by consciousness is equally unpresentable to the mind. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... after-gun, he inquired after Captain Porter's health; the latter returned the inquiry, but warned Hilyar not to fall foul. The British captain then braced back his yards, remarking that if he did fall aboard it would be purely accidental. "Well," said Porter, "you have no business where you are; if you touch a rope-yarn of this ship I shall board instantly." [Footnote: "Life of Farragut," p. 33.] The Phoebe, in her then position, was completely at the mercy of the American ships, and Hilyar, greatly agitated, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... both are described as one of three notable prisoners of Britain, and both are called fathers of Cordelia or Creiddylad.[341] Perhaps the two were once identical, for Manannan is sometimes called son of Alloid ( Lludd), in Irish texts, as well as son of Ler.[342] But the confusion may be accidental, nor is it certain that Nodons or Lludd was a sea-god. Llyr's prison was that of Eurosswyd,[343] whose wife he may have abducted and hence suffered imprisonment. In the Black Book of Caermarthen Bran is called son of Y ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... subject of slavery; and that then it would be of the last importance that every Southern man should be true to his section. Thus the way has been prepared through three generations of instruction, for the precise event which is now upon us, flaunting its pretensions as a new and accidental occurrence. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... that shocked the world. A disaster in which it is impossible not to suspect the element of treachery. A disaster which if purely accidental, occurring to a hated ship in a port surrounded by men who were enemies at heart, was the most extraordinary coincidence in history. The story is brief. Not until this war is ended and the authority of the United States is ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Hungary; but seeing the clothes of sixteen crusaders, who had been empaled on the walls of Semlin. he attacked and stormed the city. He then marched to Nissa, where, at first, he was hospitably received: but an accidental quar rel taking place, he suffered a great defeat. Wilken, vol. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... was drowned. I was foreman of the jury at the inquest, and after hearing the evidence, which amounted to no more than the finding of the body soon after the event, the coroner expressed his opinion that it was a case of accidental death, with which I at once concurred. With some reluctance, the other jurymen agreed; they had, I imagine, as usual, made up their minds for a more sensational verdict, but scarcely liked to suggest it, and a verdict of accidental death was accordingly returned. Afterwards ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... in history than the unmistakable signs and proofs of preadaptation. Our life-occurrences are not disjecta membra—scattered, disconnected, and accidental fragments. In God's book all these events were written beforehand, when as yet there was nothing in existence but the plan in God's mind—to be fashioned in continuance in actual history—as is perhaps suggested in Psalm cxxxix. ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... out that the nebula occurs in a region rich in stars, and if it is not, like the great nebula in Argo, clustered around a remarkable star, it is found associated in a manner which I cannot look upon as accidental with a set of small-magnitude stars, and notably with the trapezium which surrounds that very remarkable black gap within the nebula. The fact that the nebula shares the proper motion of the trapezium appears inexplicable if the nebula is really far out in space beyond the trapezium. ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... in spite of the darkness, I thought I made out somebody following me. I stopped short, and some persons passed me. In two or three minutes I went on again, and I saw the same people, whom I could not have caught up if they had not slackened their pace. It might all be accidental, but I wanted to be sure about it. I left the road without losing my reckoning, feeling quite sure of finding my way when I ceased to be followed; but I soon felt sure that my steps were dogged, as I saw the same shadowy figures at a little distance off. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt |
