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Disaster   Listen
verb
Disaster  v. t.  
1.
To blast by the influence of a baleful star. (Obs.)
2.
To bring harm upon; to injure. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disaster" Quotes from Famous Books



... ending, many were the dark and doubtful days that came to Albany and to Rensselaerswyck. Rumors of defeat and disaster, of plot and pillage, filled the little city. Spies and Tories sought to work it harm. The flash of the tomahawk, of which Mistress Margery had so lightly jested, was really seen in the Schuyler mansion. And the brave girl, by her pluck and self-possession, had saved her father ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... arranged that Eugene should command the army of the Rhine, and that Marlborough and the Prince of Baden should command the army of the Danube on alternate days—an arrangement so objectionable that it is surprising it did not terminate in disaster. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... me well, and you shall see An excellent servant I will be; Let me once become your master, And you shall rue the great disaster! ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... example of the stage in those days, can scarcely be ascertained, but it is more than certain that they practically illustrated its principles. At least, the Sicilians were so fond of our author, that a few of the unfortunate survivors of the Syracusan disaster, were enabled to pick up a living by quoting such passages of our author as they had learned by heart. A compliment paid to few living dramatists in ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... necessarily broken in upon; but, for months, during fine weather, in many merchantmen, all hands are kept, throughout the day, and, then, there are eight hours on deck for one watch each night. Thus it is usually the case that at the end of a voyage, where there has been the finest weather, and no disaster, the crew have a wearied and worn-out appearance. They never sleep longer than four hours at a time, and are seldom called without being really in need of more rest. There is no one thing that a sailor thinks more ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... Start there was a fresh disaster. Everyone was in ill-humour. A quarrel broke out between the soldiers and seamen in Oquendo's galleon. He was himself still absent. Some wretch or other flung a torch into the powder magazine and jumped overboard. ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... find the Emperor at Lochias, for Hadrian had moved at mid-day to the Caesareum. The strong smell of burning in every room in the palace had sickened him and he had begun to regard the restored building as a doomed scene of disaster. The architect was waited for with much anxiety, for the rooms originally furnished for the Emperor in the Caesareum had been despoiled and disarranged to decorate the rooms at Lochias, and Pontius was wanted to superintend their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... no thought of this disaster; The Maginot Line could never fail. Then came the downfall of proud Paris; Oh, hear the people mourn ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... Malvinas) overfishing by unlicensed vessels is a problem; reindeer were introduced to the islands in 2001 for commercial reasons; this is the only commercial reindeer herd in the world unaffected by the Chornobyl disaster ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... protest of the Sunday School theorists "Why not distribute according to merit?" Here one imagines Jesus, whose smile has been broadening down the ages as attempt after attempt to escape from his teaching has led to deeper and deeper disaster, laughing outright. Was ever so idiotic a project mooted as the estimation of virtue in money? The London School of Economics is, we must suppose, to set examination papers with such questions as, ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... these correspond closely to the years in which he was busied with the affairs of America, India, and France successively. The first period was one of prophecy. He had studied the history and temper of the American colonies, and he warned England of the disaster which must follow her persistence in ignoring the American demands, and especially the American spirit. His great speeches, "On American Taxation" and "On Conciliation with America," were delivered in 1774 and 1775, preceding ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... land, and on his return had to submit to the jests of Guynemer, for at that age friendship is roughish. "Go there yourself," advised Heurtaux, "and you will see." Next day Guynemer went alone, but in his turn was forced down. After these two trials, which might have ended in disaster—but knights must amuse themselves—the five one-seated planes at Bapaume were methodically but ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, and its susceptibility to natural disaster. The international community's role of funding more than 60% of Nepal's development budget and more than 28% of total budgetary expenditures will likely continue as ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... evident that however reluctant the party might be, it really had to alternative but to accept Mr. Greeley. It had committed itself so fully to the Liberal movement that it could not now abandon it without certain disaster. Its only possible hope of defeating the Republican party lay in the Republican revolt, and the revolt could be fomented and prolonged only by imparting to it prestige and power. The Liberal leaders and journals did not hesitate to say that if it came ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... one, Whether quadruped or gun, Or a mother's wayward son Given to disaster, Harry's gun was rather quick; And it had a naughty trick,— It would snap itself, and kick ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... but not much, and his car skidded worse than at any time yet. It looked as if it was going over, and a cry from the spectators showed that they, too, anticipated this disaster. But, with a sharp wrench of the steering wheel, Noddy brought the car back toward the center ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... the Green Shutters had been a fact of his existence; it had never entered his boyish mind to question its continuance. But a weakening doubt stole through his limbs. What would become of him if the Gourlays were threatened with disaster? He had a terrifying vision of himself as a lonely atomy, adrift on a tossing world, cut ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... great machete, and one of them closely hugged a bottle full of spirits. After begging pardon for disturbing us, they built a smoky fire, near the drying negatives. Fearing that their drunken movements and the smoke would work disaster, I made them change their place of rest and fire, moving them to the other end of the room. There they built another fire, and, before morning, they had consumed three bottles of spirits. What with the firelight and smoke, the noisy laughter, the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... and distressed by the sudden and horrible disaster; and yet as an undercurrent to these first natural thoughts, there ran presently a distinct notion that he would have felt the grievousness of it more keenly had Madeleine perished in that cruel manner and her sister survived to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... Then something struck her sharply on the side and stopped her farther progress. She did not faint, though the pain in her side gripped her breath for a moment. For all her delicate ethereal appearance, she was a strong girl, and, like many timid people, found courage when a disaster had really happened. She could not move. She was pinned down among the short, stiff branches of a thorny shrub; but she screamed again as loud as she could—not a scream of terror, but a call for help. Then she lay and ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... happy in her mind, casts a keen glance round, for who knows what new delights may be somewhere within reach! "Ah!"—the deep-breathed sigh of content—is always a danger signal where this innocent child is concerned. I turn in time to avert disaster, and Chellalu, finding life ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... exercise of a little judgement. The penalty for non-appearance at a half-holiday game was a fine of sixpence. Constant absence was likely in time to lead to a more or less thrilling interview with the captain of cricket, but a very occasional attendance was enough to stave off this disaster; and as for the sixpence, to a man of means like Farnie it was a mere nothing. It was a bad system, and it was a wonder, under the circumstances, how Beckford produced the elevens it did. But it was the system, and Farnie availed himself ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... go elsewhere. It was your doing, this flood; you took the land, you neglected the dikes, you sent John Massey away who would have watched against such a disaster as this. You were afraid to face those men, below, and tell ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... he was convinced it was nothing, or, if anything, only a trifle of a collar-bone. Mr. White had, since the arrival of the surgeon, made an expedition of inquiry, and heard this verdict confirmed, with the further assurance that there was no cause for anxiety. The account of the damage and disaster below was new to him, as his partner had declared the stables to be certain to be empty, and moreover in need of being rebuilt; and he departed to find Mr. Stebbing ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... experience convinced her that to be merely a wife to one of Bob's vagrant disposition was not enough; that in order to keep his new self alive she must also be his sweetheart, his chum, and his partner. If she failed in any one of these roles disaster was bound to follow. But to succeed in them all, when there was no love to strengthen her, was by no means easy. Always she felt a great emptiness, and a disappointment that her life had been so crookedly fashioned: sometimes she even felt degraded, and wondered ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... fell to the managers, was assigned to Randolph. It was an unmitigated disaster for the cause in behalf of which it was pronounced. "I feel perfectly inadequate to the task of closing this important debate on account of a severe indisposition which I labor under," were Randolph's opening words, but even this prefatory apology gave little warning of the distressing ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... Potidaea, he deemed himself unsafe at home. He knows therefore, both that he is plotting against you, and that you are aware of it; and, supposing you to have intelligence, he thinks you must hate him; he is alarmed, expecting some disaster, if you get the chance, unless he hastes to prevent you. Therefore he is awake, and on the watch against us; he courts certain people, Thebans, and people in Peloponnesus of the like views, who from cupidity, he thinks, will be satisfied with the present, and ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... afternoon, he was plunged in a sort of stupor. He could not recover from the surprise and sense of outrage with which he had listened to Offitt's story. What was to happen to him he accepted with a despair which did not trouble itself about the ethics of the transaction. It was a disaster, as a stroke of lightning might be. It seemed to him the work had been thoroughly and effectually done. He could see no way out of it; in fact, his respect for Offitt's intelligence was so great that he took it for granted Andy had committed no mistakes, but that ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... scene, and the shouting of anxious voices crying for help; and presently the bells of St. Margaret's church close by, ringing with wild uneven peals through the darkness, aroused all far and near to knowledge of the disaster. For already the flames, fanned by a high easterly wind, and fed by the dry timber of the picturesque old dwellings huddled close together, had spread ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... Spanish ship. With a bound he reached the mast, and with a single blow with his sword cut the halyards which supported the main-sail. The sail fell at once. The Spaniards rushed to the spot to repair the disaster which threatened to delay their ship. The count and his followers, seeing the bulwarks of the Spanish vessel for the moment unguarded, poured in, and after a furious conflict captured the vessel. By this time twenty-four of the enemy's vessels had been taken, the rest were either sunk ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... came another bulletin from the Central Bureau. Neptune had a surface temperature of 3,000 deg. C, was defying all laws of celestial mechanics, and within three days would have left the solar system for ever. The results of such a disaster were unpredictable. The entire solar system was likely to break up. Already Uranus and Jupiter had deviated from their orbits. Unless something speedily occurred to check the onrush of the dark star, it was prophesied that the laws governing the planetary ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei

... did any sound issue from between them; but, without ceasing, broken phrases of thoughts came to him as clearly as when, in passing in a crowd, snatches of talk are carried to the ears. One man thought of his debts; another of the weather, and of what disaster it might bring to his silk hat; another planned his luncheon; another was rejoicing over a telegram he had but that moment received. To himself he kept repeating the words of the telegram—"No need ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... But it was not so. There are degrees of calamity. Dumfounded, stunned, aghast, Sabre would not have believed that conspiracy against him of all the powers of darkness could conceivably worsen his plight. They had shot their bolt. He was stricken amain. He was in the crucible of disaster and in its heart where the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... was quite sincere when she struggled against her husband's desire to bring him into the studio; I think she was frightened of him, though she knew not why; and I remembered how she had foreseen disaster. I think in some curious way the horror which she felt for him was a transference of the horror which she felt for herself because he so strangely troubled her. His appearance was wild and uncouth; there was aloofness in his eyes ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... something sufficiently serious to postpone to-day's ceremony. It was a dreadfully unworthy thought and Beatrice was covered with shame. And yet she knew that she would have been far happier in the knowledge of a disaster ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... implicated in the matter. Their old mistress and Madame Wang, seeing them make so much of the occurrence as to rush with precipitate haste to bring it to their notice, could not in the least imagine what great disaster might not have befallen them, and without loss of time they betook themselves together into the garden and came to see what the two ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... measure neutral ground. Riding over to the Douglas ranch was another matter entirely. Too keenly had he felt the cold animosity of Mother Douglas, the wild, impotent hate of old Scotty mouthing threats and accusations and vague prophecies of future disaster to the Lorrigans. He rode slowly out through the gate and took the trail made by the Devil's Tooth team when they hauled down the materials for the schoolhouse. The chunky roan climbed briskly, contentedly rolling the cricket in his bit. The ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... She cheated herself with no vain hopes. The process which had begun in Delia would go forward. One more defeat to admit and forget. One more disaster to ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... rebuke of a small-minded modernity, that it is very short-sighted to be indifferent to all that is historic. But it is as disastrously long-sighted to be interested only in what is prehistoric. And this disaster has befallen a large proportion of the learned who grope in the darkness of unrecorded epochs for the roots of their favourite race or races. The wars, the enslavements, the primitive marriage customs, the colossal migrations ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden storms which will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck with a short ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... hope was speedily dissipated. The North was indeed alike astonished and disappointed at the defeat of their army by a greatly inferior force, but instead of abandoning the struggle, they set to work to retrieve the disaster, and to place in the field a force which ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... disaster while acquiring the ingredients of the oatmeal poultice. The oatmeal and lemon were comparatively easy; the cook supplied them without much fuss. But she stuck at the honey. There were jars and jars of strained honey in the storeroom; but the windows were barred, and the key was in the ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... The thirty pounds of butter were never made. But My Lady, who was a mother herself, not only forgave Moll for spoiling her Yuletide festivities, but even told her, when she heard of the disaster, that she need not trouble about the rent until her ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... day of Kunersdorf and earlier, does not yet cease its sad company; but, on the contrary, for long months to come, is more constant than ever, baffling every effort of his own, and from the distance sending him news of mere disaster and discomfiture. It is in this Campaign, though not till far on in it, that the long lane does prove to have a turning, and the Fortune of War recovers its old impartial form. After which, things visibly languish: and the hope of ruining such a Friedrich becomes problematic, the effort ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... trouble than any chap of your size ever got into. I'm going to let you on to a thing that a fellow usually keeps quiet—I'm going to do it because I feel that it is my Christian duty not to be a party to the great disaster you are on the ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... experience had seemed to open a way which might, after long traveling and much uphill work, lead to this delightful chateau en Espagne. But the novel disaster quenched her courage for a time, for public opinion is a giant which has frightened stouter-hearted Jacks on bigger beanstalks than hers. Like that immortal hero, she reposed awhile after the first attempt, which resulted in a tumble and the least lovely of the giant's treasures, if ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... mouth all her features were, not to say more, good. As to her eyes, I should do injustice by any attempt to describe them. An object must be susceptible of calm and dispassionate contemplation if one would analyze it afterward without complete disaster. A very irresistible little piece of orientality she must indeed have been, perchance the reader will conclude. And yet, if the reader is a man and a brother—that is to say, a brother white man—I answer him he is altogether ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... expressed it. For the moment such an exercise would give him immense gratification. The final results would, no doubt, be disastrous; but then, all future results, as far as he could see them, were laden with disaster. He was still thinking of this, eyeing the man from under the newspaper, and telling himself that the feat would probably be too easy to afford much enjoyment, when Clara re-entered the room. Then he got up, acting on the spur of the moment got ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... into any details of our disaster. I do not know whether all writers of memoirs get shipwrecked or all survivors of shipwrecks write reminiscences, but I am certain that of all the countless memoirs I have read in the course of my life, ninety-nine out of every hundred contained one or more accounts of shipwrecks, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... fires of Ascalon subdued and confined. With the falling of the wind the danger of the disaster spreading to embrace the entire town decreased almost to safety, although the wary, scorched townsmen stood watch over the smoldering coals which lay deep where the principal ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... with it a variety of phenomena wholly distinct from those that accompany the larger storm. Many of the effects of one tornado are wholly absent in others, and the indications that in one case have been followed by a terrible disaster are not infrequently found at other times to presage merely a heavy ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... Mayday!" he said distinctly, hoping desperately that someone in the control cabin of the ship now in orbit would catch the true meaning of that ancient call of complete disaster. "Mayday—beetles—over ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... it in order to look at the finest spectacle of defiance I had ever seen—the Canon in his stall in the chancel singing the solo in the anthem with his beautiful voice, in the very teeth of disaster, as if nothing ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... of Hailes were explicit enough to show that another partition was at hand; but, so far as I can discover, they lifted not a finger to prevent it. The excess of Pitt's caution at this crisis enables us to gauge the magnitude of the disaster to the Polish cause involved by his surrender to the Czarina in the spring and summer of 1791. By a wonderful display of skill and audacity she emerged triumphant from all her difficulties, and now, while egging on the German Powers to war with France, planted her heel on the liberties of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... way in which Peter's strength seemed to strain, like a flood, away. It was, perhaps, a matter of nerves as much as physical strength—the boy was burning with the anxiety of it, whereas to Stephen this was no new experience. Peter saw it in the light of some horrible disaster that belonged, in all the world's history, to him alone. He came back at the end of one of his days, white, his eyes almost closed, his fingers twitching, his head hanging a little ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... the impossible; it crept upstream inch by inch, escaping disaster after disaster by the thinness of a dime. Since he had apparently not been born to drown, Val thought as he saw his headlight touch the tip of the landing, he would doubtless depart this ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstadt, but he did not see the least proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion, the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically gleeful sarcasm he would remark, "There, I said the whole affair would go to the devil!" Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their theory that they lose sight of the theory's object—its practical application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... known to my nurse and preceptor; with fear and trembling they went before the king, and said, 'Such is the state of the prince of the people of the world; we do not know how this disaster has suddenly and of itself fallen upon him, so that rest, food, and drink have all [on his part] been abandoned.' [On hearing these sad tidings] the king immediately came to the garden [where I resided], accompanied by the wazir, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... the light of a new flare, and as suddenly as he had come to object, he left, plunged back under the trees to seek his people, be beside them, comforting them when disaster ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... the Southland—and for the third time everything crumbled away in spite of him, while he was left for dead upon the field. He had done his best, as had other men, and had fared only the worst. It was a case of three times and out. The impatient North had no more use for names linked only with disaster. When, finally exchanged, he limped back to duty, they put him on courts, boards and other back-door business until the war was over, then sent him to the Pacific Slope, with the blanket brevet of March, 1865, and here he was, eight long years thereafter, "The ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... of shame and self-disgust swept over her. Her spirit awoke in dismay to an affection in ruins, to the immense undignified disaster ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... in the morning, everyone was asleep and they escaped just as they were. You may imagine in what a condition I find myself, in what misery, it is such that you will excuse my posting this letter without a stamp, but I have not a centesimo to send you the news of the disaster of Messina. On the post-card which you sent me you speak of coming in the autumn, but there will be no ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... their perspective, but have also set a gulf between themselves and those of another school, for whom world literature is more important than the literature of to-day, for whom erudition and interest in the past are not to be lightly dismissed as academicism. I can imagine no greater disaster to letters than a breach between the literary originator and the man of learning. Such a breach can only mean that learning is cast back upon itself, loses humanity, and becomes academic; and that the author who despises ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... him of the colony, namely Thessalos and Paraibates and Keleas and Euryleon; and these when they had reached Sicily with all their armament, were slain, being defeated in battle by the Phenicians and the men of Egesta; and Euryleon only of the joint-founders survived this disaster. This man then having collected the survivors of the expedition, took possession of Minoa the colony of Selinus, and he helped to free the men of Selinus from their despot Peithagoras. Afterwards, when he had deposed him, he laid hands himself upon the despotism ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... in London, and went everywhere, but the little house in March Square was the scene of a most strenuous campaign, every day presenting its defeat or victory, and every minute of the day threatening overwhelming disaster if something were not done immediately. Lady Charlotte had the smallest feet and hands outside China, a pile of golden hair above the face of a pink-and-white doll. Staring from this face, however, were two ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... empty air. Mrs. Falconer with alacrity arranged a party for Percy-hall, to show the count the scene of the shipwreck. She should be so glad to see it herself, for she was absent from the country at the time of the sad disaster; but the commissioner, who knew the spot, and all the circumstances, better than any other person, would show them every thing—and Sir Robert Percy, she was sure, would think himself much honoured by Count Altenberg's visiting ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... until the nature of the war and the urgency of the call were brought clearly home to them—but are now responding with alacrity. The brave deeds of their countrymen in France have proved the surest stimulus, and disaster, as, for instance, that reported to the Gordon Highlanders, at once raised the tide of recruits. This is a very typical and encouraging feature, showing that all that is wanted to convert interest into enthusiasm and to blow the embers into flame is that the case should be brought home by the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... lies the cause of disaster. Myself bids me go, my calm, reasoning part, The will is the man, not the poor, foolish heart, Which is ever at war with the intellect. So I silence its clamoring voices and go. Were I less my own master, I then ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the barbarians would never have been awed into humanity; without that prestige the place would have been swept off the face of the earth, till not one stone stood on another: and he who does not see what a disaster for humanity that would have been, must be ignorant that the civilization of Europe is the child of the towns; and also that our Teutonic forefathers were by profession destroyers of towns, and settlers apart from each ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... a true prophet—the twins had certainly waked their grandsire up a bit! The explanation was simple, the disaster great. They had tired of the quiet living-room and had also stolen out of doors. Animals never frightened them and they were immediately captivated by the goodly herd of cattle in the pasture. To open the gate was easy; easy, too, to let free from its small shed a ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... is a synoptical statement of the evidence, together with the judge-advocate-general's conclusions. The disaster, when it came, was a surprise to all. It was very well known to Generals Shenck and Milroy for some time before, that General Halleck thought the division was in great danger of a surprise at Winchester; that it was of no service commensurate with the risk it incurred, and that it ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... female equitation. Old Christy, too, is very waspish, having been sorely twitted by Master Simon for having let his hawk fly at carrion. As to the falcon, in the confusion occasioned by the fair Julia's disaster, the bird was totally forgotten. I make no doubt she has made the best of her way back to the hospitable Hall of Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne; and may very possibly, at this present writing, be pluming her wings among the breezy bowers ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... tempest of wind and rain demolished the tree, and the honey was all lost in the creek into which it fell. I happened along that way two or three days after the tornado, when I saw a remnant of the swarm, those, doubtless, that escaped the flood and those that were away when the disaster came, hanging in a small black mass to a branch high up near where their home used to be. They looked forlorn enough. If the queen was saved, the remnant probably sought another tree; otherwise the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... produces soldiers in abundance; innumerable horses neigh and paw the ground in the palace stables; and workmen could soon bend wood, melt copper, sharpen brass. The fortune of war is changeable, but a disaster may be atoned for. To have, however, wished for a thing which did not at once come to him, to have met with an obstacle between his will and the carrying out of that will, to have hurled like a javelin a desire which had not struck its mark,—that ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... course of a few hundred yards; these were caused by droves of mules which in wet weather had endeavoured to select a better line than the deeply-trodden mud in the central road. Fortunately the surface was now hard, and we cantered on, fully expecting some disaster to at least one of our vehicles. Upon our arrival we found a crowd of people yelling and shouting their utmost, while they were engaged in company with four oxen harnessed in dragging and pushing the blue ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... Juliette. Until the fatal day he saw her, he had lived like a sage. This, his first passion, burned him up; and, from the disaster, he saved ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... sharp command. "Now, attention! We are on a somewhat delicate business. A mistake might bring disaster. I am in command of this party and I must have absolute and prompt obedience. Mr. Cadwaller, it will be at your peril that you make any such move again. Let no man draw a gun until ordered by me! Now, then, cut out those ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... money." He added in an explanatory aside to Blanche: "For two or three generations we kept open house and a full stable in Ireland, on a revenue derived from rents which were rarely paid, and if I hadn't been too young when a disaster gave the creditors their chance. I'd have ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... sweet-scented pinewood fires till the stronger sun had melted the frost flowers on the panes. Spring had nearly come before Susannah divined that for the child's sake Halsey had been protecting her for months from the fear of a near disaster that was weighing ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... of keeping secret a ceremony of such importance. Then he had taken refuge in malevolent silence, big with chilling anger and violent resolutions. The duke's death, the check thereby administered to his insane vanity, had dealt the last blow; for disaster, which often brings together hearts that are ripe for a mutual understanding, consummates and completes disunion. And that was a genuine disaster. The popularity of the Jenkins Pearls suddenly arrested, the very thorough ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... no recognition from Columbus, either for his pecuniary aid or loyal support to him in time of disaster, and after the voyage was accomplished he sank out of sight for a while, to emerge again in 1494 or 1495. About that time, says a learned historian, "Ferdinand and Isabella began to feel somewhat disappointed at the meagre results obtained by Columbus. The wealth of Cathay and Cipango had ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... independent of the accidents of fate. "A noble heart struggling against adversity," says Seneca, "is a spectacle full of attraction even for the gods." Such for example is that which the Roman Senate offered after the disaster of Cannae. Lucifer even, in Milton, when for the first time he contemplates hell—which is to be his future abode—penetrates us with a sentiment of admiration by the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... to borrow is one of the results of borrowing. The disease produces the symptoms. The men who are enriched by borrowing are infinitely less in number than those who are ruined by it; and every disaster to the middle class swells the number and decreases the opportunities of the helplessly poor. Money in itself is valueless. It becomes valuable only by use—by exchange for things needful for life or ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... 1906 to return to San Francisco she little thought that she was moving towards one of the most dramatic incidents in her eventful life. All went as usual on the journey until they had passed Santa Barbara on the morning of the fateful day, April 18, when vague rumours of some great disaster began to circulate in a confused way among the passengers. Soon they knew the dreadful truth, though in the swift running of the train they themselves had not felt the earthquake, and it was not long before concrete evidence confirmed the reports, for at Salinas ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... young animal collector and trainer, of New York, sets sail for Eastern seas in quest of a new stock of living curiosities. The vessel is wrecked off the coast of Borneo and young Garland, the sole survivor of the disaster, is cast ashore on a small island, and captured by the apes that overrun the place. The lad discovers that the ruling spirit of the monkey tribe is a gigantic and vicious baboon, whom he identifies as Goliah, an animal at one time in his possession and ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... last night, says:—Considerable anxiety is being felt in the town respecting the fate of Sir Gilbert Carstairs, Bart., of Hathercleugh House, and Mr. Hugh Moneylaws, who are feared to have suffered a disaster at sea. At noon yesterday, Sir Gilbert, accompanied by Mr. Moneylaws, went out in the former's yacht (a small vessel of light weight) for a sail which, according to certain fishermen who were about ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... an ill wind that blows no one any good," says the proverb. Our disaster proved a bonanza to old Tommy Goss; he set his traps there all winter, near the frozen bodies of the horses, and caught marten, fishers, mink, "lucivees," and ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... that the evil influence of witches was exerted not only at times when they were refused favours, but that, at will, they could accomplish mischief. Thus I have heard it said of an old woman, locally supposed to be a witch, that her very presence was ominous of evil, and disaster followed wherever she went; if she were inclined to work evil she was supposed to be able to do so, and that ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... the ambassadors. Finlay, on the other hand, places this ballad in the days of James III., who married Margaret of Denmark. Here we have historic testimony of the voyage, but none of the shipwreck,—yet against any one of these theories the natural objection is brought that so lamentable a disaster, involving so many nobles of the realm, would hardly be suffered to escape the pen of the chronicler. Motherwell, Maidment, and Aytoun, relying on a corroborative passage in Fordun's Scotichronicon, hold with good appearance of reason that the ballad pictures what ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... behind us, there was Paul— Silent and soldier-like, with knapsack on And rifle on his shoulder, guarding me And marching on behind the ambulance. So all that dark and dreadful night we marched, Each man a captain—captain of himself— Nor cared for orders on that wild retreat To safety from disaster. All that night, Silent and soldier-like my wounded Paul Marched close behind and kept his faithful watch. For ever and anon the jaded men, Clamorous and threat'ning, sought to clamber in; Whom Paul drove off at point ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... reached the age of twenty-one. As for the person who had succeeded to his inheritance, she was to be left in peaceable possession for a reason which he gave—quite a romantic story, which I will tell you presently—until you came of age. He was very urgent on this point. If, however, any disaster of sickness or misfortune fell upon me, I was to act in your interests at once, without waiting for time. Children," the old man added solemnly, "by the blessing of Heaven—I cannot take it as anything less—I have been spared in health and fortune until this day. Now let me depart ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... market. Tax revenues come mainly from import duties. Economic development is hindered by dependence on relatively few commodity exports, vulnerability to natural disasters, and long distances from main markets and between constituent islands. The most recent natural disaster, a severe earthquake in November 1999 followed by a tsunami, caused extensive damage to the northern island of Pentecote ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... war service. She said: "It need not apply to the battle field alone, but we should help all those who need our help." So the American Red Cross passed an amendment to the effect that its work should apply to all suffering from fires, floods, famine, earthquake, and other forms of disaster. This amendment was finally adopted by ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... identification with Dickens,—when discussion, project, everything was swept away by a larger scheme, in its extent and its danger more suitable to the wild and hazardous enterprises of that prodigious year (1845) of excitement and disaster. In this more tremendous adventure, already hinted at on a previous page, we all became involved; and the chirp of the Cricket, delayed in consequence until Christmas, was heard then in circumstances quite other than those ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... the merest of suggestions, Mr. Savelli. Heaven knows we don't want to descend to personalities, and your retirement would be an unqualifiable disaster. But—you'll pardon my mentioning it—you began this discussion by asking me whether ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... tobacco in blossom. One of the bullocks broke his pack-saddle, and compelled us to halt." Only one small plug of tobacco to all that peck of troubles! The nicotian flower the sole object in the scene of disaster, on which the eye can rest with a sensation of relief. Stray cattle, sore backs, broken saddles! The combination of calamities can only be appreciated by those who have encountered it, in the desert, and when anxious to prosecute their march. For some time, these pleasant incidents ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... to unnerve and discourage those few of stouter hearts and more hopeful temperaments who had already begun the labor of restoration and reconstruction amid the embers of their desolated homes. In New York this feeling of hope and confidence, this determination to rise against disaster and to wipe out the evidences of its dreadful presence as quickly as possible, had especially manifested itself. Already a company had been formed and a large amount of capital subscribed for the ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... as the ancient,—and though his own soul was steadfastly set upon the faith he followed, he was compassionately aware of a strange and growing confusion in the world,—a combination of the elements of evil, which threatened, or seemed to threaten, some terrible and imminent disaster. This sorrowful foreboding had for a long time preyed upon him, physically as well as mentally; always thin, he had grown thinner and more careworn, till at the beginning of the year his health had threatened to break down altogether. Whereupon those who loved ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... reference to his health, Mr. Spencer wrote: "The opinions I have delivered here before you, and which you have the liberty to publish, are briefly these: (1) Socialism will triumph inevitably, in spite of all opposition; (2) its establishment will be the greatest disaster which the world has ever known; (3) sooner or later, it will be brought to an ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... them from the vessel itself), were driven back and stranded—or rather dashed to pieces—on the shores of the Ladrones and the Catanduanes, where they were destroyed. But few persons were able to escape, who only served, like the servants of Job, to carry the news of the disaster—which, following upon many other losses and misfortunes of war, was keenly felt and bitterly lamented. In one of these vessels, named "San Geronimo," went Father Pero Lopez de la Parra, a professed member of our Society, who after this long voyage and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... home passed without bringing Mr. Hersebom, but none of the other fishermen returned; so they hoped that they were all detained by the impassable state of the entrance to the fiord, and would not believe that he had personally met with any disaster. That evening was a very sad one at all the firesides where a member was missing. As the night passed without any of the absent men making their appearance, the anxieties of their families increased. In Mr. Hersebom's house nobody went to bed. They passed the long hours of waiting ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... unthinkable. He would maintain his will. He turned past the door of the parental bedroom like a shadow, and was climbing the second flight of stairs. They creaked under his weight—it was exasperating. Ah what disaster, if the mother's door opened just beneath him, and she saw him! It would have to be, if it were so. He held ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... to whom he was playing the friend in need when he sailed the catboat down upon the scene of the disaster. It was a chance to help two fellow beings and the boatman cared not who ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... all estates, real and personal, were to be taxed, those of the proprietaries not excepted." His amendment was, for not read only: a small, but very material alteration. However, when the news of this disaster reached England, our friends there whom we had taken care to furnish with all the Assembly's answers to the governor's messages, rais'd a clamor against the proprietaries for their meanness and injustice in giving their governor such instructions; ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... had past some time together, in such a manner that my honest friend might have thought himself at one of his silent meetings, the Quaker began to be moved by some spirit or other, probably that of curiosity, and said, "Friend, I perceive some sad disaster hath befallen thee; but pray be of comfort. Perhaps thou hast lost a friend. If so, thou must consider we are all mortal. And why shouldst thou grieve, when thou knowest thy grief will do thy friend no good? We are all born to affliction. I myself have my sorrows as well as thee, and most ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... West and the Muckluck as though all along they had looked for succour to come up-stream rather than down. But as the precious hours passed, a deep dejection fastened on the camp. There had been a year when, through one disaster after another, no boats had got to the Upper River. Not even the arrival from Dawson of the Montana Kid, pugilist and gambler, could raise spirits so cast down, not even though he was said to bring ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... study of their bodies revealed that only in a few instances had gun wounds been the actual cause of death. For the most part the wounds had been inflicted on corpses, presumably in an attempt to conceal the fact that disaster in another and unknown ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... streams of wounded which for days past had been pouring in; over the city hung a cloud of despondency and gloom, for the people, though kept in complete ignorance of the true state of affairs, seemed oppressed with a sense of impending disaster. ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell

... Battle-Field and Quarter-Deck; Examples of Youthful Courage in the storm of Combat; Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry in line of action—the tramp and onset; extraordinary fortitude under suffering; undaunted heroism in death; the roll of fame and story. Reminiscences of victory and disaster of Camp Picket, Spy, Scout, Bivouac and Siege, with feats of Daring, Bold and Brilliant Marches, Remarkable Cases of Sharp-Shooting, Hand-to-Hand Encounters, Startling Surprises, Ingenious Strategy, Celebrated Tactics, Wonderful Escapes, Comical and Ludicrous Adventures ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... given no sign of his impending arrival. Some gloomy foreboding weighed down Randall Clayton's soul with a fear of coming disaster. He felt how powerless he was in the hands of the cruel conspirators who had robbed ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... sleep for the crew that night. Everyone watched carefully, for the least false move may have meant instant disaster. Luckily the whale began to move on the surface of the sea against the wind, so that the ship, traveling in the opposite direction, had the wind behind it. Swiftly flew the ship before the breeze, but the fin seemed to have no end, although the whale was traveling fast, too. Three ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... is clear to take the necessary steps to call forth its young manhood to defend honor and existence, if vital decisions are postponed until too late, if we neglect to make ready for all probable eventualities, if, in effect, we give ground for the accusation that we are slouching into disaster, as if we were walking along the paths of peace without an enemy in sight, then I can see no hope; but if we sacrifice all we own and all we like for our native land, if our preparations are characterized by grip, resolution, and prompt readiness ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... loathing and detestation of her brother. She was a Coverly (such was the gist of her plaint) and the doors of Friar's Park were closed to her; the world knew nothing of her existence. In the event of the death of Sir Burnham, then Roger would inherit the property, and complete disaster would ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... forrayne countreys, they never sawe a more comely horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on more bravely in his charge." The feats performed at the Battle of the Boyne, in 1690, by the Irish horse-soldiers under Hamilton and Berwick were really wonderful, and well-nigh turned disaster into victory on that memorable day which decided the fate of nations as well as of dynasties. And surely those were fleet and stout-hearted steeds that, on August 12, 1690, carried Sarsfield and his chosen five hundred on their dare-devil midnight ride from the ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... instance, if a wealthy candidate were to threaten to raise all the rents, or to put up a statue of himself. But as verbally and grammatically expressed, it certainly would cover those general threats of disaster to the whole community which are the main matter of political discussion. When a canvasser says that if the opposition candidate gets in the country will be ruined, he is threatening the voters with certain consequences. When the Free Trader says that ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... which preceded the chamber of Madame de Saint-Simon. My daughter was rather unwell. Madame de Saint-Simon thought she was worse, and supposing it was I who had knocked, ran and opened the door. At the sight of her brother she ran back to her bed, to which he followed her, in order to relate his disaster. She rang for the windows to be opened, in order that she might see better. It so happened that she had taken the evening before a new servant, a country girl of sixteen, who slept in the little room. M. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... the earth, and the golf clubs, lying where they had fallen from the disputants' hands, now remained there as melancholy reminders of the double game—love and golf—which had so suddenly ended in disaster. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... in fear of some great disaster, as an expiation for these fatal effects of jealousy, Hamilton was not altogether so easy as he flattered himself he should be after the departure of Lady Chesterfield: he had only consulted the dictates of revenge in what he had done. His vengeance was satisfied; but such was far from being the ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... times over, how was it possible for the Leader of a great world-wide Mission to leave his Headquarters, year after year, for weeks and sometimes for months at a time, without involving great risk of disaster to ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... Phenix, Captaine, and an enemy, A guide, a Goddesse, and a Soueraigne, A Counsellor, a Traitoresse, and a Deare: His humble ambition, proud humility: His iarring, concord: and his discord, dulcet: His faith, his sweet disaster: with a world Of pretty fond adoptious christendomes That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he: I know not what he shall, God send him well, The Courts a learning ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... assure her of the overthrow of her usurpation. She expresses herself in a speech, the first words of which were, no doubt, designed by the poet to recall the celebrated traditional exclamation of Julian the Apostate, uttered at a moment of irretrievable disaster to his impious hopes,—"O Galilean, thou hast conquered!" ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... about 650 feet from the south abutment, heard nothing of it, the wind having carried the noise in an opposite direction. It was not until morning that they learned of the destruction of their work and the extent of the disaster. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... the fleet which was burnt in the harbour of Chalcedon, he would have annihilated the whole army of his opponent. As it was, the work of destruction continued incomplete; and while he was obliged to remain passive, the Pontic fleet notwithstanding the disaster of Cyzicus took its station in the Propontis, Perinthus and Byzantium were blockaded by it on the European coast and Priapus pillaged on the Asiatic, and the headquarters of the king were established in the Bithynian port of Nicomedia. In fact a select squadron of fifty sail, which carried ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... the cautious train is slower) until they have met and passed; the one failing to reach the half-way point between stations being required to back,—a dangerous expedient always,—an example of which operation was furnished at the disaster on the Camden and Amboy Railroad near Burlington; the delayed train further being subjected to the same rule in regard to all other trains of the same class it may meet, thus pursuing its hazardous and uncertain progress during the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... which sat a young woman, richly dressed in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him to belong to the same nation, walked up and down, wringing his hands, as if affected by some strange disaster. ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... the port of L'Araich, soon after which they gained a naval victory over the forces of Sidan, which was very disastrous to the Africans; for the Spaniards, besides other plunder, got possession of 3000 Arabic books, on theology, philosophy, and medicine. Sidan, however, notwithstanding this disaster, maintained his right to the crown. He was of a liberal and charitable mind. He protected and granted to the Christians various privileges; but he ordered that Christians of all sects, and denominations should live ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... prostrated him on the earth, he was unable to determine in his confusion, whether it had been inflicted by the fisherman's ghost or by Holden. It never crossed his mind that it might have come from any one else. On this subject he had mused during the whole time of his return from his nocturnal disaster, without being able to arrive at any conclusion. If in those witching hours, when the stars gleamed mysteriously through the drifting clouds, and the wind moaned among the bare branches, he was inclined to one opinion rather than to another, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... "you must never write to me, only send me the money to repay today's indebtedness. Our friendship, which we drifted into unconsciously, was a terrible mistake. It has ended in disaster, and it ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... recovered from the disaster of "Grevens fejde"; but while the towns had become more dependent on the central power, they had at the same time been released from their former vexatious subjection to the local magnates, and could make their voices heard in the Rigsdag, where they were still, though inadequately, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... invited to the Memorial Day exercises, installations, banquets, socials and yearly gatherings. I began when they marched away in 1861 and our concerts were many to supply the things they needed, when disaster overtook them, when they returned wounded. We visited the hospitals, buried the dead and brought comfort to the widow and orphan. My duty and loyalty is not finished until I have done what I can for every brave comrade that shouldered the gun and marched ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... the same port: their numbers were adequate to the defence of the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat inspired the disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but that disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when the son was urged by ambition and piety to visit the inheritance of his royal nephew, the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish banners warned him from the hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad was unanimously hailed as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... situation were too conspicuous, and the causes of ill feeling were too deeply laid, to be overcome by other than superior men. Notwithstanding a superficial improvement in Mexican conditions, it was becoming patent in the summer of 1865 that nothing short of a miracle could save all concerned from disaster and humiliation. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... with such needless strength, that all the toilette bottles garnishing the top were shaken off, and lay in fragments on the floor. She followed to note the disaster, and I took her down stairs, and watched over her like a dragon all that evening. I would not let Leonora go to the steamer with us, but compelled him to say farewell in my presence, I like a scene. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... with the Duke and others among us to the land of the infidels. On our way back, in Lombardy, our small force was overcome by disaster. But three of us escaped, I know not what happened to the others. Then it was, I decided to possess the land of the Sanscourt and told the Lady Jeanne that her husband wished and commanded that her daughter Helene marry me. But she would have none of this. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe

... chimed in the Clark boys, whose sensibilities had likewise been harassed; and with all the world against him Bill Lightfoot retired in a huff to his blankets. So the rodeo ended as it had begun, in disaster, bickering, and bad blood, and no man rightly knew from whence their misfortune came. Perhaps the planets in their spheres had cast a malign influence upon them, or maybe the bell mare had cast a shoe. Anyhow they had started off the wrong foot and, whatever the cause, the times were certainly ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... over the outlook, for it spelled much of disaster to the woman movement if she should be humiliatingly vanquished. Her friends championed her cause as best they could, vigorously, but not with the genuine enthusiasm they would like to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... anybody, no matter how much one might wish it. They simply expired as chance directed and their bodies were straightway cast into deep trenches to keep the rest from being aware of the extent of the disaster.—That was the fate of the natives. The foreigners were all driven out except the merchants, and even they had all their wares plundered. Also some shrines were despoiled. In the midst of most of these atrocities Antoninus ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... belonged to some desert tribe over whom the authority of Suleiman was but nominal. When summoned for any great effort, these children of the desert would rally to his armies and fight for a short time; but at the first disaster, or whenever they became tired of the discipline and regularity of the army, they would mount their camels and return to the desert, generally managing on the way to abstract from the farms of those on their route either a horse, cattle, or some other objects ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... Charles Frohman's make-up was his sense of humor. He mixed jest with life, and it enabled him to meet crisis and disaster with unflagging spirit and smiling equanimity. Like Lincoln, he often resorted to anecdote and story to illustrate his point. He summed up his whole theory of life one day when he said ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... to Sandy. He felt that it would to her, especially after he had told her all that had occurred since morning. That she would approve he had no doubt. Molly was true blue as her eyes. Altogether, Sandy considered the petering out of the Molly Mine far from being a disaster. And, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... where the bailie had been left suspended, and having relieved him from his horror, which the breaking daylight increased by showing him the fearful height at which he hung, he brought him to Jordanhill, who, laughing at his disaster, ordered him to be one of the guard appointed to conduct the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... Jerry, a premonition of further disaster in his mind and on the tip of his tongue, when from the east shore of Lost Island came wild cries of rage and chagrin. "Just what I thought!" exclaimed Jerry, by way of ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart



Words linked to "Disaster" :   disaster area, hardship, meltdown, calamity, visitation, destruction, tsunami, famine, act of God, plague, kiss of death, inevitable accident, adversity, tragedy, cataclysm, bad luck



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