"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have not been misinformed, elections under the former government were septennial. This particular example is brought into view, not as a proof of any peculiar merit, for the priority in those instances was probably accidental; and still less of any advantage in SEPTENNIAL elections, for when compared with a greater frequency they are inadmissible; but merely as a proof, and I conceive it to be a very substantial proof, that the liberties of the people can be in no danger from BIENNIAL elections. The ...
— The Federalist Papers
... How infinitely is the knowledge increased in interest, when we consider the probability of such being the materials of the whole of the bodies of space, and the laws under which these everywhere combine, subject only to local and accidental variations! ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... plan totally distinct from any thing previously in use. Instead of being, as in ordinary cases, a large vessel closed on all sides, with the exception of the valves and steam conductors, which a high pressure or accidental defect may burst, it is composed of a succession of welded iron pipes, perhaps forty in number, screwed together in the manner of the common gas-pipes, at given distances, extending in a direct line, and in a row, at equal distances from a small reservoir ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... result in such a performance as this varies from day to day, and is accidental, or whether it is constant and fundamental, can be determined by repeating the experiment from day to day. This repetition will also show whether ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... indignation that blazes and burns, as when Carlyle exclaims, in the presence of selfishness and wrong: "Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice but an accidental one, here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is as sure as death! In the center of the world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldest days, dwells ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... was not with them when Jesus came.' No reason is assigned. The absence may have been purely accidental, but the specification of Thomas as 'one of the Twelve,' seems to suggest that his absence was regarded by the Evangelist as a dereliction of apostolic duty; and the cause of it may be found, I think, with reasonable probability, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... house either to the physical or mental size of his family, but must accept what is possible with much the same feeling with which a family of robins might accommodate themselves to a wren's nest, or an oriole to that of a barn-swallow. But the fact remains, that all these accidental homes must, in some way, be brought into harmony with the lives to be lived in them, and the habits and wants of the family; and not only this, they must be made attractive according to the requirements of cultivated society. The effort ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... to lend his moral support to his ministers so long as no constitutional question was involved, or until there had been the expression of the will of the nation, deliberately formulated, and not by the accidental votes which in the Italian Chamber are oftener the result of conspiracies or panics than of any question involving a political measure. Parliamentary government in Italy is a caricature of the form, demanding for its ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... marine environment through the complete elimination of pollution by oil and other harmful substances and the minimization of accidental ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... is standing candidate for the City of London on an accidental vacancy; but his premature alarm last year has had a sinister effect. In short, those riots have made mankind sick of them, and give him ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the box-like summit cap by a shelf trail which sometimes has terrors for the unaccustomed. Several hundred persons make the ascent each summer without accident, including many women and a few children. The one risk is that accidental snow obscure the trail; but Longs Peak is not often ascended ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... originally, as also why you were connected with them. There was, however, one circumstance, a purely fortuitous one, and which need not now be mentioned, which aroused my suspicions. From these reports and accidental circumstances, the same conclusion became evolved for me. I make this statement in all sincerity, for it was I who first implicated you with the matter. I do not in any way notice, the particulars notified on the articles found at the old woman's. That, and several ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... not make it mean champion or advocate or defender, has no right whatever to any of those meanings, and almost certainly owes them to the mistaking of the first syllable (representing Greek [Greek: pr[^o]tos] "first") for [Greek: pro] "on behalf of"—a mistake made easy by the accidental resemblance to antagonist. "Accidental", since the Greek [Greek: ag[^o]nist[^e]s] has different meanings in the two words, in one "combatant", but in the other "play-actor". The Greek [Greek: pr[^o]tag[^o]nist[^e]s] means the actor ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... the Accidental Accompaniments of the Empire was a clever man—keen, genial, subtle, two-edged, a gentlemanly and not thorough disciple of Machiavel; able to lead parliamentary forlorn hopes and plant flags on breaches, or to cover retreats with brilliant skirmishing; deft, ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... for the purchase of this uncertainty, I must sacrifice all the remaining comforts of my life. I believe Mr. Falkland to be virtuous; but I know him to be prejudiced. He would never forgive me even this accidental parley, if by any means he should come ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... as you do, Chebron, that the accidental killing of a cat is a deadly offense against the gods, I should say denounce yourself at once, but I do not so ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... this be true of a stanza, a line, a word here or there, inserted as an afterthought, is there use or sense in printing a number of trifling or, apparently, accidental variants? Might not a choice have been made, and the jots and tittles ignored ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with Chief Big Bill," he suggested. "No, I wouldn't make that move if I was you, Mr. Macy. This old gun is liable to go off accidental in your direction and she spatters like hell. That's the idee. Be reasonable. Not that I give a hoot, but a man hadn't ought to let his impulses run away with his judgment, as the ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained there until morning. The governor of this castle, who was one of the enraged lords, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... this from their proximate causes. Some of their names in common language are taken from the remote cause, as worms, stone of the bladder; others from the remote effect, as diarrhoea, salivation, hydrocephalus; others from some accidental symptom of the disease, as tooth-ach, head-ach, heart-burn; in which the pain is only a concomitant circumstance of the excess or deficiency of fibrous actions, and not the cause of them. Others again are taken from the deformity occasioned in consequence of the unnatural fibrous motions, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... after this accidental dialogue, chance made me auditor of what passed between my ancestor and Sir Joseph Job, another celebrated dealer in the funds, in an interview that took place in the house of the former in Cheapside. As the difference was so PATENT, as the French express it, I ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... want you to become a coward, for I as much abhor a dastardly spirit as any boy in your school can possibly do; but I would wish you to convince them that you merited not that appellation, by showing through the whole of your behaviour, a resolution that despised accidental pain, and avoided revenging an affront for no other reason than because you were convinced it shewed a much nobler spirit to pardon than to resent. And you may be assured, my dear, few are the days that pass without ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... to him was the fretful, querulous voice of an old, bedridden woman as he lifted the latch and opened the door of a poor house upon the ramparts, which had no entrance into the street; and where he lived alone with his mother, cut off from all accidental ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... named Benyowski, seized a small vessel and put to sea. Touching at Japan and Loo Choo to obtain water and provisions, the party reached the Portuguese colony of Macao in safety. There were no nautical instruments or charts on the ship, and the successful result of the voyage was more accidental than otherwise. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... much alike as peas in a pod; all except John Moore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! His marrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell in love with him while he was attending her when she had typhoid, when his back was turned as it were, and it was simple kindness in him that made him marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There's not a woman in this town who could ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... way. This afforded time for the fugitives, racing their swift mules at full speed, to reach the opening of the valley, when Velasquez wheeled and halted, for the pursuers were close at hand. A conflict ensued in which many of the horsemen were slain, and the young kaana received an accidental wound of which he retains the scar. It must suffice to say, that the party eventually secured their retreat without loss of life; and by break of day they were on a mountainous ridge many leagues from Iximaya. In about fourteen days, they reached ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... possibility of grief. He had himself gone through labours and adventures that would have killed a dozen men, and had never been conscious even of alarm about himself; and the idea of a life quenched in its beginning by so accidental a matter as a draught in a nursery seemed to him something incomprehensible. When he had heard of a child's death he had been used to say that the mother would feel it, no doubt, poor thing; but it was a small event, that scarcely ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... of Windsor was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of Thomas Allyn, also of Windsor. An inquest was held, and Thomas was indicted in the following December. He plead guilty, and at the trial the jury found the fact to be "homicide by misadventure." Thomas was fined L20 ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... met the pair daily, and the meetings were no longer accidental; he waited on the hill-side till he saw them ascending from the town, and then made his way to the bench. He enjoyed the quiet friendliness of their manner. The old gentleman talked willingly enough, though with ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business, careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... such a trial as hardly any slender contrivance, excepting always the valves of the heart, was ever subjected to. It has rattled for years over the cobble-stones of a rough city pavement. It has climbed over all the accidental obstructions it met in the highway, and dropped into all the holes and deep ruts that made the heavy farmer sitting over it use his Sunday vocabulary in a week-day form of speech. At one time or another, almost every part of that old wagon ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... drowned, and his box of papers, including his precious journal, was lost. Undoubtedly his daily record of the voyage would have been very valuable, for he was a man of scholarship as well as of practical ability. But its accidental loss gave the greater fame to Marquette, whose account was printed. In recent years, however, he has been recognized as an equal partner with the noble priest ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... "May have been accidental. Anyway, better take my lead as long as you're doubtful. Rolfe is looking after him now, and we'll keep him in view between us. But my advice is, show him that we trust him. Won't do to anticipate trouble ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... way on indifferent subjects, never once alluding to Olive's departure. He did so now, however, but carelessly, as if with an accidental thought. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... gleam of revelation granted by any authorized prophet to speculative curiosity, whether pointing to science, or to the mysteries of the spiritual world. And the true argument on this subject would show that this abstinence was not accidental; was not merely on a motive of convenience, as evading any needless extension of labors in teaching, which is the furthest point attained by any existing argument; but, on the contrary, that there was an obligation of consistency, stern, absolute, insurmountable, which ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Something about this accidental spelling awakened his interest very sharply—it was an odd coincidence. He lit some candles, and hurriedly examined the line. The first thing which struck him was that the four letters which went to make up the word "dead" were about ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... some exhausting illness. With slow difficulty she rose to her feet, and, setting her hands to her sides, gasped out, "My coals are done." He made a note, and said, I'll send you some more." Her other wants were regularly seen to on a certain day every week. Ours was an accidental visit. We now turned up to another nook of the court, where my companion told me there was a very bad case. He found the door fast. We looked through the window into that miserable man- nest. It was cold, gloomy, and bare. As Corrigan says, in the "Colleen Bawn," "There was nobody in—but ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... which the Europeans have entailed upon some of the natives of the South Seas, is the accidental introduction among them of that enemy of all repose and ruffler of even tempers—the Mosquito. At the Sandwich Islands and at two or three of the Society group, there are now thriving colonies of these insects, who promise ere long to supplant altogether the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... of some of these giants of the forest are eighteen feet in circumference at the height of a man from the ground, and their lower branches would of themselves form trees such as many a trim and well-kept park could never boast of. At other times the original tree will have met with an accidental fracture when young, and after going up twenty or thirty feet from the ground, as an immense wooden column, will throw out three or four other trees from its summit, which will all shoot up parallel to each other into the air and form a little forest of themselves. Very frequently, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... cows, held out the right hand of fellowship to the pig, and even hinted that a pair of pink-eyed Himalayan rabbits might arrive—unexpectedly—from town some day. We were just considering whether in this fertile soil an apparently accidental remark on the solid qualities of guinea-pigs or ferrets might haply blossom and bring forth fruit, when our governess appeared on the scene. Uncle George's manner at once underwent a complete and contemptible change. His interest in rational topics seemed, "like a fountain's sickening pulse," ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... movements. Those who have seen this very man creep into the mansion house at night and wander cautiously from room to room, as if to fix a plan of the dwelling in his mind, will understand that his visit, which seemed so purely accidental, had its object; but no one could have discovered, by look or movement, what ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... tribe, who are now supposed to be in league with the Druses, against the Government. Including this party, only six persons have succeeded in reaching Palmyra within a year, and two of them, Messrs. Noel and Cathcart, were imprisoned four days by the Arabs, and only escaped by the accidental departure of a caravan for Damascus. The present party was obliged to travel almost wholly by night, running the gauntlet of a dozen Arab encampments, and was only allowed a day's stay at Palmyra. They were all disguised as Bedouins, and took nothing with them but ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... to be a mere fling or freak, what is to be thought of a man who evidently sets Cicero, as a writer, if not as a thinker, above Plato? It would be not only possible but easy to follow this up with a long list of critical enormities on De Quincey's part, enormities due not to accidental and casual crotchet or prejudice, as in Hazlitt's case, but apparently to some perverse idiosyncrasy. I doubt very much, though the doubt may seem horribly heretical to some people, whether De Quincey really cared much for poetry as poetry. He liked philosophical poets:—Milton, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... persisted in passing the dark hours so near to the Whately home my burden of anxiety and responsibility was doubled. In silent faithfulness he kept sentinel watch. I dared not tell Marjie, for I knew it would fill her nights with terror, and yet I feared her accidental discovery of his presence. Jean was doing more than this, however. His promise to be good seemed to belie Father Le Claire's warning. In and out of the village all that winter he went, orderly, at times even affable, quietly refusing every temptation to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... lust] Gypsy is here used both in the original meaning for an Egyptian, and in its accidental sense ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... things were purely accidental I felt sure, yet I did not care to have them repeated. And for a long while there was neither sound nor sun-glitter from him. Then, without even a glance or a word for me, the Mohican quietly dropped back from the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... into despair. From this despair arises an 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 for even the lowest ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... stillness that had settled while we gazed and the file of warriors, reining, gazed, gripped and fairly hurt. I cursed the youth. Would to God he had stayed at home—God grant that mangy wolf died by trap or poison. Our one chance made the sport of an accidental view-halloo, when all the wide ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... sentinel till the carriage should arrive; then she could run down and prepare her uncle for his innocent and accidental visitor. It would not be prudent to let him receive the information from a servant, or without the accompanying explanation. This it was that made her so unnaturally firm when the little idle B pressed her to waste ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... that time, for somebody happened to scrape the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that the cutting of the yellow hair by Iris had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... chance—or mischance—the artist, in depicting the disagreeable man, drew a portrait of the actual original that was positively startling in its likeness. No one who knew him opened the magazine without saying at once, "Why, here's a portrait of So-and-so." And yet the likeness was absolutely accidental. Black assured me that the artist knew nothing of the original disagreeable man, and had never even seen him. It was all a freak of ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... and looking both sheepish and gratified, Tom suddenly bolted, leaving the elder lady to enlighten the younger at length, and have another laugh over this new sort of courtship, which might well be called accidental. Nan was deeply interested, for she knew Dora, thought her a nice little thing, and predicted that in time she would make Tom an excellent wife, since she admired and 'appreciated' ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... in which I can express it is that in consciously trying to work with God, not man, as our employer, things happen to us which, to the best of our foresight, would not have happened otherwise. Often they seem accidental, and possibly we ascribe them to accident till the coincidences become too numerous to explain by coincidence and nothing more. It constantly happens to myself, for instance, to find the whole solution of some tangled financial ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... at the moment the gun was discharged and could hardly believe his own eyes. He knew the success was accidental, and hoped it would not encourage Tim to ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... in any other way, it would have been a different thing. It was the fussy, sentimental, inconsiderate interest in one thrown into purely accidental and necessarily painful prominence—the vulgarization of an unspeakable tragedy—that my soul abhorred. I confess that I regarded it from my own unique and selfish point of view. What was a thrilling matter to the world was ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... writer's nerves all night. A somewhat similar feeling comes over one who walks the narrow path down the centre of the machinery compartment of a submarine. He seems hedged about by mysterious apparatus a touch of which, or even an accidental jostle may release powerful and even ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... "The accidental digging up of a skeleton, and the unwary and emphatic declaration of Aram's accomplice that it could not be that of Clarke, betraying a guilty knowledge of the true bones, he was wrought to a confession of their deposit. The learned homicide was seized and arraigned, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Carolyn Wells. All the Way by Water. Elizabeth Stancy Payne. Altar of Friendship, The. Blanche Upright. Amateur Gentleman. Jeffery Farnol. Amateur Inn, The. Albert Payson Terhune. Anabel at Sea. Samuel Merwin. An Accidental Accomplice. William Johnston. Ancestor Jorico. William J. Locke. And They Lived Happily Ever After. Meredith Nicholson. Angel Esquire. Edgar Wallace. Angel of Terror. Edgar Wallace. Anne of the Island. L. M. Montgomery. Anne's House of Dreams. L. M. Montgomery. Annihilation. Isabel Ostrander. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... misfit. In him, as in all of us, there is an infinite complexity—good and ill together. No one who has faithfully examined his own life can doubt how trifling a weight turns the scales for or against us. An accidental meeting, a casual friendship, a phrase in a book—and the current of life takes a definite direction this way or that. There are no doubt people in whom the elements are so perfectly adjusted that the balance is never in doubt. Their character is superior to circumstance. But they are ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... violet-coloured domino is easily understood: being in a sky-blue domino I was mistaken for the Count d'Ossore. I was myself led into the mistake by the Marquis Albert having the same Christian name as my English friend. The second meeting with the Count Rodolph, in the black domino, was accidental. The next walk had been appointed as the place of meeting with the Carbonari Felippo and his companions; but Count Rodolph, perceiving me examining my stiletto by the light of the lamp, presumed that ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the Palmer tire, and we see what that has led to. The other is the bicycle with the patched Dunlop. Before we start to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of Orchids,' in which I showed how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... some one who had been living in Palo Duro Canon with the outlaws? Or was this meeting an accidental one? The odd thing about it was that there was no sign of her horse. She had come on foot, in a country where nobody ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... It will be said that entails exist in Scotland and in England. Yes; but this Session a law has passed, or is passing, to modify the system as it has heretofore existed in Scotland; and in England many of its evils have been partially overcome by the extraordinary, and, to some degree, the accidental extension of manufacturing industry among the people. In Ireland there are no such mitigations; a code of laws exists, under which it is impossible for the land and the people to be brought, as it were, together, and for industry to live in independence and comfort, instead ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... 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 between us ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... Concord carefully and correctly defines: "Everything that is must be either substantia, that is, a self-existent essence, or accidens, that is, an accidental matter, which does not exist by itself essentially but is in another self-existent essence and can be distinguished from it." "Now, then, since it is the indisputable truth that everything that is, is either a substance ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... missing kinsman; he remembered how this protector—whom he had at once instinctively loved—transferred him to the house of this new-found relation, who treated him kindly and sent him to the Jesuit school, but who never awakened in him a feeling of kinship. He dreamed again of his life at school, his accidental meeting with Susy at Santa Clara, the keen revival of his boyish love for his old playmate, now a pretty schoolgirl, the petted adopted child of wealthy parents. He recalled the terrible shock that interrupted this boyish episode: the news of the death of his ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... slumberer, as the loiterer had been before, was the subject of observation to the accidental passengers. Two men entered the porch in company. One was a somewhat slight made, but alert-looking man, by name Lysimachus, and by profession a designer. A roll of paper in his hand, with a little satchel containing a few chalks, or pencils, completed his stock in trade; ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... honour of his own talents and his country's benefit [Footnote: See Mr Knight On the Apple-tree.]. It is well known to gardeners that the cabbage tribe are liable to sport thus in their progeny; and to some accidental occurrence of this nature we are indebted for the very ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... put his father right as to his riding with the butcher's boy being entirely accidental; but his sobs prevented his speaking articulately, and they had nearly arrived at home before Mr. and Mrs. Danvers could exactly understand how the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of the words "common defense" and "general welfare" in this admirably written paragraph could hardly have been accidental, or have been due to any other cause than a juxtaposition of those ideas in the minds of the Constitution's framers. And what more natural connection can there be between any two ideas than between those of ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... 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 ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... asked him for a new copy of Horace, that the translation of "Poeta nascitur non fit" was "a nasty poet for nothing fit"—a remark which I took in high dudgeon. His repugnance to "the humanities" had, also, much increased of late, by an accidental bias in favor of what he supposed to be natural science. Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him for no less a personage than Doctor Dubble L. Dee, the lecturer upon quack physics. This set him off at a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... containing his Gaelic is very remarkable, and is much founded on by Mr Campbell. But the history of literature affords various instances of the preservation of a book depending on one solitary MS. The case of the great Niebelungen-Lied—unknown for centuries, and brought to light through the accidental discovery of a MS.—is quite in point; and to come nearer home, two years ago, only one perfect copy of the first Gaelic book ever printed, Bishop Carewell's translation of John Knox's liturgy, was in existence. It may ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... the coach, quite accidental, with this gentleman,' said Mrs. Wishaw, fanning a cheek and nodding at Mr. Goren. 'I'm an old flame of dear Mel's. I knew him when he was an apprentice in London. Now, wasn't it odd? Your mother—I suppose I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... are absolutely transparent when in the water, and one can only know of their presence by accidental ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... farewell of me was peculiar: she took my hand in her two, turned it palm upwards, and spat on it. I do not know whether this is a constant form of greeting among the Fan; I fancy not. Dr. Nassau, who explained it to me when I saw him again down at Baraka, said the spitting was merely an accidental by- product of the performance, which consisted in blowing a blessing; and as I happened on this custom twice afterwards, I feel sure from observation ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the avoidance of what is to its disadvantage, neither does it hand down the modification leading to the adoption of what is to its advantage. However lively the impression made upon the mother, the accidental leaves no trace in the offspring. Chance plays no part in the genesis of ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... and in better facilities for internal communication, he declared, had rapidly brought these two systems into close contact, and collision was the result. "Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... real difference between success and failure is that success succeeds. This being frankly admitted at the outset, I will allow myself to assert that there are three sorts of success. Success A is the accidental sort. It is due to the thing we call chance, and to nothing else. We are all of us still very superstitious, and the caprices of chance have a singular effect upon us. Suppose that I go to Monte Carlo and announce to a friend my firm conviction that red ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... lifting a whole city home to supper, is a giant with a falsetto voice. The large-sounding, the poetic-sounding, is not characteristic of the modern spirit. In so far as it exists at all in the modern age, either in its machinery or its poetry, it exists because it is accidental or left over. There was a deep bass steamer on the Mississippi once, with a very small head of steam, which any one would have admitted had poetry in it—old-fashioned poetry. Every time it whistled ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... due weighing of its consequences. It has assuredly led to unexpected results. The statesmen who meant merely to give Home Rule to Ireland have stumbled into the making of a new constitution for the United Kingdom. What wonder that their workmanship betrays its accidental origin. It has no coherence, no consistency; nothing is called by its right name, and words are throughout substituted for facts; the new Parliament of Ireland is denied its proper title; the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is nominally saved, and is really destroyed; and ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... individual variations will occasionally occur, 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 favoured ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... change which then traversed the continent of Europe. But on a closer examination this view is scarcely borne out by facts, and the coincidence of the two epochs of change appears to be little more than accidental. The general unity that runs through the history of the more advanced continental states is indeed stronger than appears to a superficial reader of history; but this correspondence of tendency does not always ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... many that the first three-color printing press ever built was expressly designed and built for Arbuckle Bros. Then there is a sunny first-aid hospital on top of the Pearl Street warehouse where a physician is ever ready to relieve sudden illness and accidental injuries. On the eleventh floor there is a huge dining room where the Brooklyn clerical forces get their noonday lunches. This feeding of the inner man (and woman) is matched by the power-house where twenty-six large steam boilers must be fed their quota of coal. In ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... from the Kenton, New York, Chronicle, an upstate weekly, and the news story told how Judge Sam Baker had vanished on a fishing trip to a nearby lake. Accidental drowning had been the verdict but, as yet, the body ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... weigh a resolution in the two balances, and examine an idea under the two lights, if we wish to minimize the chances of error by taking the average of our daily oscillations. Our inner life describes regular curves, barometical curves, as it were, independent of the accidental disturbances which the storms of sentiment and passion may raise in us. Every soul has its climate, or rather, is a climate; it has, so to speak, its own meteorology in the general meteorology of the soul. Psychology, therefore, cannot be complete so long as the physiology of our planet is itself ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... entirely destroyed, and there was an immense loss in plate, jewels, costly stuffs, and sumptuous armor of the luxurious nobles. The fire at first had been attributed to treachery, but on investigation it proved to be entirely accidental. The queen on retiring to her prayers had ordered her lady in attendance to remove a light burning near her couch, lest it should prevent her sleeping. Through heedlessness, the taper was placed in another part of the tent near the hangings, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... your urine, and the hypostasis, [303] Thick and obscure, doth make your danger great: Your veins are full of accidental heat, Whereby the moisture of your blood is dried: The humidum and calor, which some hold Is not a parcel of the elements, But of a substance more divine and pure, Is almost clean extinguished and spent; Which, being the cause of life, imports ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... which each such unit measures. The origin of the pendulum is traced to Galileo's observation of a hanging lamp in a church at Pisa continuing to vibrate long and with singular uniformity, after any accidental cause of disturbance. Hence he was led to investigate the laws of the phenomenon, and out of what, in some shape or other, had been before men's eyes from the beginning of the world, his powerful genius extracted the most important results. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... what the idea of progress through the scientific control of life is likely to mean and ought to mean to Christianity. If this modern idea is not intelligently guided in its effect upon our faith and practice, it will none the less have its effect in haphazard, accidental, unguided, and probably ruinous ways. If one listens, for example, to the preaching of liberal ministers, one sees that every accent of their teaching has been affected by this prevalent and permeating thought. The God they preach no longer sits afar like ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... added to sacred literature, and this is the accidental discovery by Nicolas Notovich of a Buddhist history of a phase of Christ's life left blank ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... at rare intervals, some glimpse into the inner sanctuary does reach the eyes of ordinary mortal men without; some slight accidental peep into those mysteries from whence all corruption has been so thoroughly expelled; and then, how delightfully refreshing is the sight, when, perhaps, some ex-member, hurled from his paradise like a fallen peri, reveals the secret of that ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... assembled, was called [Greek: basileios stoa], and it is an accredited theory, though it is by no means proved, that we have here the origin of the later basilica. It is difficult to see why this was called "royal" except for some special but accidental reason such as can in this case be divined. There are other instances in which a term that becomes specific has been derived from some one specimen accidentally named. "Labyrinth" is one case in point, and "basilica" may be another. It is true that we do not know what was the shape of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... meeting with his cousin after his return to Paris was accidental. He had rather put off visiting her, and one night, entering a crowded room, he found himself standing behind a girl's light figure and staring at an abundance of reddish-brown hair. When, almost immediately ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to try and get at the reason for this wide-spread, deep-rooted, fear of beauty: for some reason there must surely be. Such instinctive feelings, on so broad a scale, are not accidental. And so soon as one begins to analyse the attitude of religion towards beauty, the reason is not far ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... impression, or make such wild and reckless statements, I am utterly unable to imagine. As a matter of fact, the fleet never tried or intended to injure the castle, and all the damage done to it was probably accidental. I have no doubt that Admiral Sampson might have reduced the fortress to the condition that the correspondent so graphically describes,—I saw him destroy the stone fort of Aguadores in a few hours, with only three ships,—but he discovered, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... than appears from experience in the conduct of men." Indeed, his fundamental position of the Deity's benevolence is rested upon this foundation, that "pleasures only were intended, and that the pains are accidental consequences, although the means of producing pleasures." The same recourse to accident is repeatedly had. Thus, "the events to which we are exposed in this imperfect state appear to be the accidental, not natural, effects of our frame and condition." Now can any ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... her face As sunlight masks the barren sea; A fitful, accidental grace Which time shall ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... It may have been accidental but it is interesting to note that the first public statement of Mr. Byron Newton, appointed by the Administration to succeed Mr. Malone as Collector of the Port of New York, was a bitter denunciation of all woman suffrage whether by ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognises what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to the human mind unless they can be traced to their causes, and thus a chain of events followed link by link to see why some happening was so fruitful in results, and to search for the relation of apparently isolated and accidental incidents. ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... dinner was an accidental gathering. Rahal knows well that I have no will to dine with Mistress Brodie. Dost thou want her here, as ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... be defended if I should say that I do suppose God has given to all mankind equal gifts and capacities, in that He has given them all souls equally capable; and that the whole difference in mankind proceeds either from accidental difference in the make of their bodies, or from ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... either for the calf or the family. She is sent where she should have gone years before—to the butcher. The disappointed owner in future buys the cheapest animals that come to hand. If pedigree be ignored, and the sire be of doubtful antecedents, except in an accidental case, the progeny will be at the best of medium quality; but by ordinary precaution such loss ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... helped the orphan out of his accidental and very unwelcome bath, which, though it had drenched him, had ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... left openings.' He further said, 'that from the density of the smoke they could see nothing, and that the first intimation they had (the Barfleur) of passing through the enemy's line was, from receiving fire on both sides.' He gave another reason for supposing it was altogether accidental, which was, that no attempt was made or order given by signal to double on the enemy, and that the advantage gained by passing through the line was never made use of when my father took possession of the Ville de Paris, and received Count de Grasse's sword, and afterward conveyed ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... exposed, that entitles a colour to the character of permanency; and it is the not-so-enduring which attaches to it rightly the opposite character of evanescence: while a pigment may obtain a false repute for either, by accidental preservation or destruction under unusually favourable or ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... taste will not account for the entrance of animal-feeding crustaceans. Perhaps small aquatic animals habitually try to enter every small crevice, like that between the valve and collar, in search of food or protection. It is not probable that the remarkable transparency of the valve is an accidental circumstance, and the spot of light thus formed may serve as a guide. The long bristles round the entrance apparently serve for the same purpose. I believe that this is the case, because the bladders of some ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... enormous stones, as if by some giant's hand; but at one time the expulsive force was greater than usual, and this block, like the falling keystone of a ruined arch, has slipped down to the ground and blocked up the way. It is only an accidental obstruction, not met by Saknussemm, and if we don't destroy it we shall be unworthy to reach the ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... man who wins his wealth in this way is increasing at the same time the wealth of his State. His money merely represents the abundance of goods at his disposal. In Turkey the coin itself is the thing of value, and wealth is nothing but the accidental accumulation of money within the possession of an individual. The very high rate of interest, which is here legally 20 per cent, is far from indicating any great activity of capital. It only indicates ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... The coroner and the press call it accidental death, but I—may God forgive me for saying it—I know better! He left word where none could find it but me, that you knew the truth, and he bade me ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... containing which other acts are rescued from utter passivity and unconsciousness. Impure feeling ranges between two extremes: absolute want and complete satisfaction. The former limit is reached in anguish, madness, or the agony of death, when the accidental flux of things in contradiction has reached its maximum or vanishing point, so that the contradiction and the flux themselves disappear by diremption. Such feeling denotes inward disorganisation and a hopeless conflict of reflex actions tending toward dissolution. The second limit is reached ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Weezee village," he tells us, "there are few sounds to disturb the traveller's night rest. The horn of the new-comers, and the reply to it from a neighbouring village, an accidental alarm, the chirping of crickets, and the cry from a sick child occasionally, however, broke the stillness. At dawn the first sounds were the crowing of cocks, the lowing of cows, the bleating of calves, and the chirruping of sparrows (which might have reminded ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... was only too glad to take orders from the other chum at such a time as this, although he too knew considerable about caring for gunshot wounds, broken bones, and such accidental happenings as are apt to occur ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... doubtless in perfect good faith, as being those to which the writer alludes. But Miss Browning has recognized them as her father's own impromptu epigrams, well remembered in the family, together with the occasion on which they were written. The substitution may, from the first, have been accidental. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Barclay has, probably in part, from accidental circumstances, come to be relegated to a position among the English classics, those authors whom every one speaks of but few read. That modern editions of at least his principal performance have not appeared, can only be accounted for by the great expense ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... 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 to the kitchen in presence of these ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... interview with Field-Marshal Hindenburg and General Ludendorff brought about by any particular person or persons—either by yourself, by the Imperial Chancellor, or by the Foreign Office; or was it purely accidental? ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... been but one specimen of the familiar countenance, he might have passed over the resemblance as accidental; but a repetition meant more. Knight thought anew of Smith's hasty words earlier in the day, and looked at the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... how he had grappled with Isom in an endeavor to prevent him turning the gun against him; told of the accidental discharge of the weapon; ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... without flinching and then his eyes shifted and sought the floor. "I'll bet," said Gilmore's cool voice, "I'll bet you what you like I could put my hand on the man who did the murder!" and as he spoke he reached out and by an apparently accidental gesture, rested his hand on Langham's shoulder. "You wouldn't like to risk any money on that little bet, eh, Marsh?" He sank back in his chair and applied himself to his cigar in silence, but his eyes ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... a prodigy. She was vastly superior to the men who surrounded her, most of whom were pedants, or sophists, or bigots; dignitaries indeed, but men who exalted the accidental and the external over the real and the permanent; men who were fond of quibbles and sophistries, jealous of each other and of their own reputation, dogmatic and positive as priests are apt to be, and most positive on points ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... and the frogs chanting their good-night song, through the gathering twilight shades, across the main road and up the lighthouse lane. Kyan, his mind filled with fearful forebodings, was busily trying to think of a reasonable excuse for the "accidental" imprisonment of his sister. John Ellery was thinking, also, but his thoughts ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Soc., 1864, p. 29. It was in later years moved to the west bank. The grandfather whom I, for short, call Wakawa, died the death of a brave in battle against the Ojibways (commonly called Chippeways)—the hereditary enemies of the Dakotas. Wakinyan Tanka—Big Thunder, was killed by the accidental discharge of his own gun. They were both buried with their kindred near the "Wakan Teepee," the sacred Cave—(Carver's Cave). Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta, the last of the Little Crows, was killed July 3, 1863, during ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... resolved that we will look for human perfection neither exclusively in the Old World nor exclusively in the New—neither among Catholics nor Protestants, among Whigs or Tories, heathens or Christians—that we have laid aside accidental differences, and determined to recognise only moral distinctions, to love moral worth, and to hate moral evil, wherever we find them;—even supposing all this, we have not much improved our position—we cannot ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... were matured, one of which had to be abandoned because the British had timely notice of it by the treachery of an American general, a second because the other generals disapproved the attempt, and, on the authority of Humphreys, "the accidental intervention of some vessels prevented [another] attempt, which was more than once resumed afterwards. Notwithstanding this favorite project was not ultimately effected, it was evidently not less bold in conception or feasible in accomplishment, than ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... that Fortune is a cause. Now of causes, some are causes by themselves, and others by accident. Thus for example, the proper cause by itself of an house or a ship is the art of the mason, the carpenter, or the shipwright; but accidental causes are music, geometry, and whatever else may happen to be joined with the art of building houses or ships, in respect either of the body, the soul, or any exterior thing. Whence it appears, that the cause by itself must needs be determinate and one; but the causes by ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... you for this magnificent reception, and while I cannot take to myself any share of the compliment thus paid, more than that which pertains to a mere instrument, an accidental instrument, perhaps I should say, of a great cause, I yet must look upon it as a most magnificent reception, and as such most heartily do thank you for it. You have been pleased to address yourself to me chiefly in behalf of this glorious ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... extinguishers in the real sense of the word," went on the other man behind the screen. "It must have been some accidental combination of them. But in spite of that we put it all over Josephus Baxter ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... heathen forefathers of the European peoples the most popular and widespread fire-festival of the year was the great celebration of Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day. The coincidence of the festival with the summer solstice can hardly be accidental. Rather we must suppose that our pagan ancestors purposely timed the ceremony of fire on earth to coincide with the arrival of the sun at the highest point of his course in the sky. If that was so, it follows that the old founders of the midsummer rites had observed the solstices ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... into trouble; and consequently he was always in some scrape or other. He was old enough, certainly, to know better, and pleasant enough, in other respects, to be liked very much by all who knew him. He was full of fun, perfectly fearless, and bore an accidental scratch or tumble like a man. But, dear me! what a heedless, careless little scamp! That very morning, before school began, his mother had sent him into the garden to gather vegetables. He cut the ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... pain of loss and the pain of sense constitute the very essence of the punishment of Hell, theologians teach that there are other sufferings called accidental. The reprobate never experience v.g. the least real pleasure nor are they ever free from the hideous presence of one another. After the Last Judgment the lost souls will also be tormented by union with their bodies, a union bringing about a fresh increase of punishment. ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... This encounter must appear purely accidental, for Madame Orme is very peculiar, very suspicious; and if she imagines we planned this excursion to meet her, or left Naples with the intention of joining her party, the chances are that I as well as ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the accidental encounter with Martin outside of the Academy of Music. Rufus began to hope that he had gone out of the city, though he hardly expected it. Such men as Martin prefer to live from hand to mouth in a great city, rather than go to the country, where they would have less difficulty in earning ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... usen to talk about how fer they could kill a deer; now it's how fer they kin kill a man. I hev knowed the time when a man would 'a' been druv out o' the county fer drawin' a knife ur a pistol; 'n' ef a feller was ever killed, it was kinder accidental, by a Barlow. I reckon folks got use' to weepons 'n' killin' 'n' bushwhackin' in the war. Looks like it's been gittin' wuss ever sence, 'n' now hit's dirk 'n' Winchester, 'n' shootin' from the bushes all the time. Hit's wuss 'n stealin' ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... it secret until it is safe to give, until mankind has expanded to the stars and has new worlds to populate, or until, even without that, he has reached a state of civilization where he can avoid overpopulation by rationing births to the number of accidental—or voluntary—deaths. ...
— Hall of Mirrors • Fredric Brown
... concerned. Impromptu meetings were held at every house in turn to discuss the coming event, and the latest bits of information regarding it were retailed with embellishments proportionate to the imagination of the accidental narrator. Not a soul in Joppa but knew every proposed feature of the entertainment better than the hosts themselves. The old people said it would be damp and rheumatic and would certainly be the death of them. The young people said it would be divine, and quite worth dying for. The people who ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... manufactory of the beads called Roman Pearl, which is well worth seeing once. The beads are cut from thin laminae of alabaster, and then dipped into a composition made of the scales of a fish (the Argentina). When a perfect imitation of pearl is intended, they can copy the accidental defects of colour and form which occur in the real gem, as well as its brilliance, so exquisitely, as to deceive ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... undefinable sense of some unrecognized quality in the woman he loved. He had once or twice detected it in a tone of her voice, in a remembered and perhaps even once idolized gesture, or in the accidental lapse of some bewildering word. With the generosity of a large nature he had put the thought aside, referring it to some selfish weakness of his own, or—more fatuous than all—to a possible diminution ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... own country." Those most familiar with great men usually are least able to appreciate their greatness; "Familiarity breeds contempt," because men are so apt to judge one another by false standards and by that which is accidental and external and because so frequently men do not know those whom they think they know the best. This same stupid lack of appreciation shadows human lives to-day, and makes us fail to realize the worth of our friends and the value ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... that the servant was guilty, but I knew, too, that for accidental wounding he would have been punished by indefinite confinement in a Turkish prison, as if he had shot the boy intentionally. The refusal of the pasha to permit me to judge the case, as I had a right to do, he being my protg, left me only the responsibility of the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... diseases the organisms are carried to the joint in the blood-stream, and they lodge either in the synovial membrane or in one of the bones, whence the disease subsequently spreads to the other structures of the joint. Organisms may also be introduced through accidental wounds. It has been shown experimentally that joints are among the most susceptible parts of the body to infection, and this would appear to be due to the viscid character of the synovial fluid, which protects organisms from bactericidal ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... once a thing's done, no one ever knows how it happened. Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; The inaccuracy of thought! The ignorance of humanity! To show how very little control of our possessions we have—what an accidental affair this living is after all our civilization—let me just count over a few of the things lost in one lifetime, beginning, for that seems always the most mysterious of losses—what cat would gnaw, what rat would ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... Accidental causes have given frequent occasions to mistakes, which, when we consider, we cannot be surprised if sometimes good men have been deceived by false memoirs. As to authors of wilful forgeries, we have no name harsh enough to express, nor punishment equal to their crime. But the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... engineer's apprentice. Even the boss at the top is mechanical, for it is just like an ordinary hexagon nut. Then, notice the dimensions, as shown on my drawing. The parts A and B, which just project beyond the blade, are exactly similar in diameter—and such exactness could hardly be accidental. They are each parts of a circle having a diameter of 10.9 millimetres—a dimension which happens, by a singular coincidence, to be exactly the calibre of the old Chassepot rifle, specimens of which are now on sale at several shops in London. Here ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... clothed; but it is a significant fact that the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet are quite naked, like the inferior surfaces of all four extremities in most of the lower animals. As this can hardly be an accidental coincidence, the woolly covering of the foetus probably represents the first permanent coat of hair in those mammals which are born hairy. Three or four cases have been recorded of persons born with their whole bodies and faces thickly covered with fine long hairs; and this strange condition ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... comprehended since then by various soi-disant defenders—became in effect the 'occasional cause' (in the phrase of the logicians) of the entire subsequent philosophic scheme of Kant—every section of which arose upon the accidental opening made to analogical trains of thought, by this memorable effort of scepticism, applied by Hume to one capital phenomenon among the necessities of the human understanding. What is the nature of Hume's scepticism ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... whispering to one another words something after this style: that it is a general fact that, owing to the present frantic exploitation of the scholar in the service of his science, his education becomes every day more accidental and more uncertain. For the study of science has been extended to such interminable lengths that he who, though not exceptionally gifted, yet possesses fair abilities, will need to devote himself exclusively to one branch and ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... with her desire any distant spectator might well have fancied the meeting accidental, though he poured forth a flood of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... merely accidental, we look at the essential characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for instance, lie more or less in the same plane, they revolve round the Sun and rotate on their own axis in the same direction—a series of coincidences which cannot be accidental, and for which the theory would account. Again the rate of cooling would of course follow the size; a small body cools more rapidly than a large one. The Moon is cold and rigid; the Earth is solid at the surface, but intensely hot within; Jupiter ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a flea-bite. Doctor Livesey patched it up with plaster, and pulled my ears for me into ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not in the fine arts alone that this false correctness is prized by narrow-minded men, by men who cannot distinguish means from ends, or what is accidental from what is essential. M. Jourdain admired correctness in fencing. "You had no business to hit me then. You must never thrust in quart till you have thrust in tierce." M. Tomes liked correctness ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Minerva-like, complete, and highly developed, in the Nile Valley. In this sheltered, fertile spot, neolithic man first raised himself above his kindred races of the Mediterranean basin, and it is suggested that by the accidental discovery of copper Egypt "forged the instruments that raised civilization out of the slough of the Stone Age" (Elliot Smith). Of special interest to us is the fact that one of the best-known names of this earliest period is that of a physician—guide, philosopher and ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... 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 the boy left to himself would go more rapidly through Burke than through Thucydides, might not his pace be retarded by a well-directed cross-examination; with this advantage, that the length of attention might be graduated according to the importance of the subject, and not according to the accidental difficulty ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... coincidence, I could hardly think it purely accidental, Mrs. Hepburn and her niece came up to the table upon which ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... of these books, one after another, there has been some departure from the traditional canons of romance; but taking each separately, one would have feared to make too much of these departures, or to found any theory upon what was perhaps purely accidental. The appearance of "Quatrevingt-treize" has put us out of the region of such doubt. Like a doctor who has long been hesitating how to classify an epidemic malady, we have come at last upon a case so well marked that our uncertainty is at an end. It is a novel built upon "a sort of enigma," which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my accidental lot, though not born a Highlander (which may be an apology for much bad Gaelic), to reside, during my childhood and youth, among persons of the above description;—and now, for the purpose of preserving some idea of the ancient manners of which I have witnessed the almost ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the lake and caught the little canoe on the crest of a wave, right under the garboard streak. I went overboard like a shot; but I kept my grip on the paddle. That grip was worth a thousand dollars to the "Travelers' Accidental" and another thousand to the "Equitable Company" because the paddle, with its line, enabled me to keep the canoe in hand and prevent her from going away to leeward like a dry leaf. When I once got my nose above water and my hand on her after stem, I knew ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... Arthur Twemlow had suggested this change of plan to the girls? Or had the girls already noticed with the keen eyes of youth that she and Arthur Twemlow enjoyed each other's society, and naively wished to give her pleasure? Would Arthur Twemlow, but for the accidental encounter on the Marsh, have passed by her home without calling? If she remained, what conclusion could not be drawn? If she persisted in going, might not he want to come with her? She was ashamed of the preposterous ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... and taught his sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, [25] reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... my attendance, I was merely treated as if an accidental visitor. Sweet queen !,;z-she seems as fearful of employing me as I am myself of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay |
