"By design" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are not accustomed to leave their exterminating work unfinished. The house which they have plundered they are careful to level with the ground. This not only their revenge, but their caution, prescribes. Fire may originate by accident as well as by design, and the traces of pillage and murder are totally obliterated by ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... he found the owner of the umbrella struggling on tip-toe, with a countenance expressive of violent animosity, to look down upon the steam-boats; from which he inferred that she had attacked him, standing in the front row, by design, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Booth, 'it was not through negligence, but by design, that I gave no spirit to that ludicrous bounce of Morat. I know very well, that a laugh of approbation may be obtained from the understanding few, but there is nothing more dangerous than exciting the laugh of simpletons, who know not where ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... jingle of the splinter-bars and harness as the horses rattle along the dismal road. Cruikshank, to save his life, could draw neither a horse, a tree, or a pretty woman; when he did so it was rather by accident than by design. "Phiz" (with all his faults) could draw all three, and impart to them a grace, a beauty, and a poetry peculiar to himself. Look at that etching of Carker in his Hour of Triumph, where Edith, after using the villain as a tool to revenge ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... day, after Dame Pridgett had washed the baby, she left the basin on a chair beside her while she rubbed the salve on the child's eyes. One day she managed to upset the basin with her elbow as though by accident, though really by design. She gave a cry and bent over to pick up the basin, and as she did so, unseen by her mistress, she rubbed her right eye with the finger that still had some ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... for example, that Matanzas was by no means the out- of-the-way place he had considered it; on the contrary, after meeting Rosa once by accident, twice by design, and three times by mutual arrangement, it had dawned upon him that this was the chief city of Cuba, if not, perhaps, the hub around which the whole world revolved; certainly it was the most agreeable of all cities, since it contained everything that was necessary for man's happiness. Yet, despite ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... began now to grow uneasy. I was unable to account for his detention. Was not some treachery designed? I went to the door, and found that it was locked. This heightened my suspicions. I was alone, a stranger, in an upper room of the house. Should my conductor have disappeared, by design or by accident, and some one of the family should find me here, what would be the consequence? Should I not be arrested as a thief, and conveyed to prison? My transition from the street to this chamber would not be more rapid than my passage hence ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... answered the Frenchman. "She fell in with our consort, La Nymphe of forty guns, and engaged her bravely for three hours. For which side victory would have declared is doubtful, when we appeared in sight. Just then, awful to relate, whether by design or not I cannot say, she blew up with a loud explosion, wounding and killing many on board La Nymphe. Not one man escaped ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... shivered all over. His eyes encountered other eyes fixed immovably upon him. It was that remarkable portrait which he had bought in the Shtchukinui Dvor. All this time it had been covered up, concealed by other pictures, and had utterly gone out of his mind. Now, as if by design, when all the fashionable portraits and paintings had been removed from the studio, it looked forth, together with the productions of his early youth. As he recalled all the strange events connected with it; as he remembered that this singular portrait had been, in a manner, the cause of his ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... all right. It would have been hard for a stranger to believe that he was aiming at respectability; to the eye, he was already there. He was tall and spare, and walked perfectly erect, not without spring despite his age. His clothing was as far from that of a gambler as you could have taken it by design: a black double-breasted suit with a thin vertical stripe, a gray silk tie with a pearl stickpin just barely large enough to be visible at all, a black Homburg; all perfectly fitted, all worn with proper casualness—one might almost say a formal casualness. It was only when he opened his ...
— One-Shot • James Benjamin Blish
... by accident but by design that an aristocratic class was created in French Canada. The perpetual contrast between the English and the French systems of colonisation was but the difference between natural evolution and artificial construction. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... called evidence sufficient to support the fact if there were nothing to counterbalance it. But suppose the people cannot find the body, would it not be thought that the body might possibly have been conveyed away by design of some who might have occasion to keep it a secret? But a guard is placed to watch the grave; but a guard might be bribed. The one we have account of was bribed, according to the story; and if they could be bribed by the chief priests and rulers, why ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... there was some very sharp fighting, and some of our artillery was posted thereabout. Presently a German aeroplane came overhead, circling round in reconnoissance; but it was out for more than that. Suddenly it began to drop bombs and, whether by design or otherwise, they exploded in the middle of a field hospital. One of my friends, a young doctor, was wounded in the left arm by a bullet from one of these bombs, but I don't know what other casualties there were. The ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... without visible marks of anger and change of countenance, or agreeable ones, without sudden bursts of joy and expansion of countenance, is at the mercy of every artful knave or pert coxcomb; the former will provoke or please you by design, to catch unguarded words or looks by which he will easily decipher the secrets of your heart, of which you should keep the key yourself, and trust it with no man living. The latter will, by his absurdity, and without intending it, produce the same discoveries of which other ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... softly. Two or three women sat by the chimney, and another by a low bed, covered with a torn patchwork counterpane, spelling out a chapter in the Bible. We paused for a moment to hear what she was reading. Had the book been opened by chance, or by design? It was the story of David and Bathsheba. Moans came from the bed, but the candle in a bottle, by which the woman was reading, was so placed that we ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... year of 1914, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, for the truth may never be known, the review had a different aspect. There was no gaiety. The number of ships assembled this time was greater than ever before—216 actual fighting ships passed slowly ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... next day he was on the lookout for the backslider. Several times in the course of the day he saw him, but Martin always managed to avoid him, more by design than accident, as Bert thought. At last, however, after the last recitation period, he cornered him in a secluded corner ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... of the outrageous Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act our people have been discovering the concealed meanings and purposes which lay hidden in it. They are discovering item by item how deeply and deliberately they were deceived and cheated. This did not happen by accident; it came about by design, by elaborated, secret design. Questions put upon the floor in the House and Senate were not frankly or truly answered, and an elaborate piece of legislation was foisted on the country which could not possibly have passed if it had been ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... make Jim feel himself, that night, the honored guest, the person of most importance in their world. It was an heirloom—the Mason china—quaint and curious, and most highly prized. There was a superstition—how originated none knew—that the breakage of a piece, whether by design or accident, foreboded misfortune to the house of Mason. Very carefully it was always kept, being only used on rare occasions when special honor was intended. During the civil war it had lain securely hidden in a heavy box under the brick ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... where they could; into it, and with the result of death or mutilation, when they could not. What proportion cleared the trench is nowhere stated. Those who did closed up and went down upon the enemy with such divinity of fervour (I use the word divinity by design: the inspiration of God must have prompted this movement for those whom even then He was calling to His presence) that two results followed. As regarded the enemy, this 23d Dragoons, not, I believe, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... these: What are we? what was our origin? what is our destination? Whence came this stupendous fabric of Nature? Is it self-existent and eternal? or did it come into being at some definite time? If not eternal, how was it produced? by chance or by design? by inevitable fate or by spontaneous will? Whence the order which pervades it, and the beauty by which it is adorned? Whence, above all, the evil, moral and physical, by which it is disfigured and cursed? And, in reply to these thoughtful questionings, various theories ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... experience in a very short period. I am no longer irresolute and pliable. What is the power you retain over my fate I am unable to discover. You may destroy me; but you cannot make me tremble. I am not concerned to enquire, whether what I have suffered flowed from you by design or otherwise; whether you were the author of my miseries, or only connived at them. This I know, that I have suffered too exquisitely on your account, for me to feel the least remaining claim on your part to ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... to allowances which are paid by the Inland Revenue to pensioners under the paymaster for the northern district of Inverness. I believe that such pensioners do receive payment of their pensions in goods. Of course that may be done by consent of the pensioners themselves. I don't say that it is done by design of the merchants, but I am aware ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... on either side of the brook were filled with troops, the French on the right and the Prussians on the left. The firing had ceased, a few shots were still heard from time to time, but they were evidently by design. We looked at each other as if to say, "Let us breathe awhile now, and we ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... thus, Angela, partly by accident and partly by design. You will remember when you began to come here some ten years since—you were a little thing then—and I had offered to give you some teaching, because you interested me, and I saw that you were running wild in mind and body. But, when I had undertaken the task I was somewhat ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... was lodged in the perforated part, and consequently left in contact with the cellular membrane. This practice was attended with the same ill success as the former. Although it is very improbable that any one would now inoculate in this rude way by design, yet these observations may tend to place a double guard over the lancet, when infants, whose skins are comparatively so very thin, fall under the ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... set Florence was in an uproar. The passions which had been roused the day before had been smouldering through that quiet morning, and had now burst out again with a fury not unassisted by design, and not without official connivance. The uproar had begun at the Duomo in an attempt of some Compagnacci to hinder the evening sermon, which the Piagnoni had assembled to hear. But no sooner had men's blood mounted and the disturbances had become ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... that as his store was on the most direct way to her home Dixie would naturally drive past it on her return, so he went to the front, taking pains to stand back a few feet from the entrance that his position might not appear to be by design. He was glad that Cahews and Pomp were busy in the rear, and he became conscious of the hope that no stray customer would interrupt him at what seemed such a grave and important moment. Time passed, and still ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... less did he stand and gaze, as they danced together, clearly the handsomest and best-matched couple in the room—matched so admirably evidently by design and forethought. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... uncomfortable indeed. Was it by design or chance that he thus dogged my steps? If he was aware of my presence, why didn't he speak to me at once? 'Why did he steal round, making no sign, like a particularly unpleasant phantom? Maybe it wasn't Sailor Ben. I peeped at him slyly. There was no mistaking that tanned, genial ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... always the cause or the instruments of mischief, either by design or neglect), had left standing near the window a pail nearly filled with dirty water, from the wash-hand basins, &c. Ned and I looked at each other, then at the pail, then at the admiral. Ned thought of his Maria: I of my false introduction. Without ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... by design," she replied instantly; and there was an undercurrent of meaning in it which he was not slow to notice; but he disregarded her first attempt to justify, however vaguely, her murderous treatment ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on the right hand, conveyed the waters of the Nahar-Malcha into the river Tigris, at some distance above the cities. From the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or accident. By the indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad and deep channel was speedily prepared for the reception of the Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed impetuously into their new bed; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... musket, now between his finger and thumb, but always in some uncouth and awkward fashion—contributed in no small degree to the absurdity of his appearance. Stiff, lank, and solemn, dressed in an unusual manner, and ostentatiously exhibiting—whether by design or accident—all his peculiarities of carriage, gesture, and conduct, all the qualities, natural and artificial, in which he differed from other men; he might have moved the sternest looker-on to laughter, and fully provoked the smiles and whispered ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the friendship stated to exist between him and Bedr el Gemaly must have come readymade from heaven, or—its opposite. I guessed the nature of the "decent old chap's" illness. But I should have been glad to know whether it had been produced by design or accident. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Mrs. Copley; and the result of the discussion was that the decision and management of their movements was finally made over to him. Whether it happened by design or not, the good lady's head was quite confused among the different plans suggested; she could understand nothing of it, she said; and so it all fell into Lawrence's hand. I think that was what he wanted, and that he had views of his own to ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Firando[362]. Fernan Mendez Pinto in his travels assumes the merit of this discovery to himself; pretending that he came to the island of Tanixima, by which I suppose he meant Taquixima, not by stress of weather, but by design, in the service of a pirate who had relieved him and his companions when cast away, naming Christopher Borallo and Diego Zeymoto as those who accompanied him. In both relations three names are mentioned ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... it was here, he was last seen; from this point a keen detective would naturally work up the case. Then might not the undertaker return for the candlestick, probably not left by design? Or, again, might not M. Dorine send fresh wreaths of flowers, to take the place of those which now diffused a pungent, aromatic odor throughout the chamber? Ah! what unlikely chances! But if one of these things did not happen speedily, it had better never happen. How long could he keep life ...
— A Struggle For Life • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... life."—"Do you think these suffer voluntary or involuntary?"—"I cannot tell."—"That is strange: every one can judge."—"I must be silent."—"They accuse you of hurting them; and, if you think it is not unwillingly, but by design, you must look upon them as murderers."—"I cannot tell what to think of it." This answer was considered as very aspersive in its bearing upon the witnesses, and she was charged with having called them murderers. Being hard of hearing, she did not always take in the whole import of ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Engineering: By Textbook, by Lecturing, by Design, by Laboratory, by Memoir." Professor C. F. Allen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An excellent presentation, and discussion by others. Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, Vol. VII, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... of the Third Corps—even though procured by design from their thoughtless and open soldier's nature—is, however, much more sweeping and important. To the world at large it is a general condemnation of every thing which can be said in criticism of Hooker. It will reach far and wide, and in this light I desire to say what I do. The resolutions ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Borrow received from Earl Street the originals of his letters to the Bible Society, and when he was eventually called upon to return them he retained a number, either through carelessness or by design. It was evidently understood that there should be no reference to any contentious matters. Borrow set to work with the aid of his "Country Amanuensis" to transcribe such portions of the correspondence as he required. The ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... course, again to be found the cloven-hoof: by all means no teleological principle! But why in the world should we not accept a teleological principle, since it is clearly evident that the whole world of life is permeated by teleology, that is, by design and finality? Why not? Forsooth, because then belief in God would again enter and create havoc in the ranks ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... had haunted him in their meek appealing tenderness ever since. He did not meet her anywhere by accident, and he did not try to meet her by design. He only thought of her constantly. But what had he to do with the banker's wealthy heiress, the future mistress of Lone? If he were so unwise as to seek her acquaintance, the world would be quick to ascribe the most mercenary ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... in these latter days stern with her almost to harshness. And although I have ever disdained eavesdropping and couching in covert places to hear the foregatherings of my betters (which some honourable persons in the world's reckoning scorn not to do), it was by Chance, and not by Design, that, playing one wintry day in the Withdrawing-room adjoining the closet where my Grandmother still sat among her relics, I heard high words—high, at least, as they affected one person, for the lady's rose not above ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... The same may be said of its use in connection with wood and wicker, or with vessels of other materials. Forms of vessels so derived may be said to have an adventitious origin, yet they are essentially copies, although not so by design, and may as readily be placed under the ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes |
