"Calamitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some of whom were even killed by his agents. Exasperated beyond endurance, the people of Possavina rose en masse, and although the movement was put down without difficulty, it doubtless paved the way for the discord and rebellion which has been attended with such calamitous results. This is precisely one of those cases which has brought such odium on the Turkish government, and which may so easily be avoided for the future, always providing that the Porte be sincere in its oft-repeated protestations of a desire for genuine reform. Ali Pacha was at ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... forward on the military turf and run him for the generalissimoship against the great Washington. But though they were not able to prosper him in this mad attempt, yet they so far succeeded as to get him the command of the army of Carolina, where his short and calamitous career soon caused every good patriot to thank God for continuing to his servant Washington, the ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the Man of narrow Circumstances acts and speaks, is so feelingly set forth in a little Book called the Christian Hero, [1] that the appearing to be otherwise is not only pardonable but necessary. Every one knows the hurry of Conclusions that are made in contempt of a Person that appears to be calamitous, which makes it very excusable to prepare ones self for the Company of those that are of a superior Quality and Fortune, by appearing to be in a better Condition than one is, so far as such Appearance shall not make ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Many of the calamitous efforts of the tremendous revolution which has passed over the Southern States still remain. The immeasurable benefits which will surely follow, sooner or later, the hearty and generous acceptance of the legitimate results ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... his breath and there burst upon him a perception of the results to which he was being committed by this calamitous reading. And also simultaneous the outbreak of the class into cachinnations of delight, severely repressed by the perplexed ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... new form of government as he had been under the old; and Dr. Jorissen admitted with equal frankness that "the change was inevitable, and expressed his belief that the cancellation of it would be calamitous." ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... necessity of the Government, destined to become the central object and pivotal point of the whole contest. Having once been placed in this position, and fixed in it by the inveterate enmities of prolonged war, it must from that time abide the arbitrament of arms. Two years of fierce and calamitous war seem to have brought the South to this alternative: either to restore the Union with immediate freedom to the slaves, or to accomplish its dissolution, with a doubtful and troubled continuance of the system for an uncertain ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "Vendredi-Saint," Bode sees fit to alter in a rather extraordinary way, by changing the personnel and giving it quite another introduction. He inserts here a brief account of Walter Shandy, his disappointment at Tristram's calamitous nose and Tristram's name, and his resolve to perfect his son's education; and then he makes the visit to M'lle Laborde, as narrated by Eugenius, an episode out of Walter Shandy's book, which was written for Tristram's instruction, and, according to Bode, was delivered ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Nor did the calamitous consequences of this event thus terminate. It seems to have sown deeply the seeds of ambitious discord in the family of Henry. The young prince, after a visit to France with his consort, formally demanded of his father some substantial share of the royal power with whose ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... Lord Percival, not however without some difficulty. Lord Percival had declared he did not understand I.O.U.'s in an affair of that kind. He had always thought that gentlemen did not play for stakes which they could not pay at once. This was not said to Gerald himself;—or the result would have been calamitous. Nidderdale was the go-between, and at last arranged it,—not however till he had pointed out that Percival, having won so large a sum of money from a lad under twenty-one years of age, was very lucky in receiving substantial ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... knows that such follies are often more calamitous than the ambition of kings; and that intolerance and bigotry have been infinitely greater curses to mankind than ignorance and error. Better any error than persecution! Better any opinion than ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... without a word of explanation, the officer in command led his captives into the town. They were too much overwhelmed by their calamitous circumstances to pay much attention to anything, yet they could not help observing that greater crowds of people than usual were hurrying through the streets, and that every one wore, more or ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... and heated air upon the excited brain. The deaths of Salmon P. Chase of Portland, uncle of our present Chief Justice, and of Ezekiel Webster, the brother of our great statesman, are memorable examples of the calamitous effects of the errors dwelt upon; and yet, strange to say, nothing efficient is done to mend these errors, and give the body an equal chance with the mind in the pressure ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... write in German was M. E. Kuh, whose tragic fate has been pathetically told by Berthold Auerbach in his Dichter und Kaufmann. The burden of this modern Jewish poetry is, of course, the glorification of the loyalty and fortitude that preserved the race during a calamitous past. Such poets as Steinheim, Wihl, L. A. Frankl, M. Beer, K. Beck, Th. Creizenach, M. Hartmann, S. H. Mosenthal, Henriette Ottenheimer, Moritz Rappaport, and L. Stein, sing the songs of Zion in the tongue of the German. And can Heine be forgotten, he who in his Romanzero has so melodiously, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... wish, for the moral interest of mankind, that it were possible to obtain a minute account of the services rendered to the calamitous spirit of many a forsaken individual by the singular charity of HOWARD. What could be more instructive than to observe how his Beneficence encreased by its exertion and success; while his desire of befriending the wretched became, as it were, the vital spirit that gave strength and duration ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... seemed the glories of his German campaigns, the triumphs of Ulm, of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Wagram. Napoleon's disasters in Russia, in 1812, were imputed by his admirers to the elements; his reverses in Germany, in 1813, were attributed by them to treachery: and even those two calamitous years had been signalised by his victories at Borodino, at Lutzen, at Bautzen, at Dresden, and at Hanau. His last campaign, in the early months of 1814, was rightly cited as the most splendid exhibition of his military genius, when, with a far inferior army, he ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... himself did conflict and Polyaenus with others, while others of them were the deaths of Neocles and Agathobulus. And this we mention not to disparage them, knowing very well that Pherecydes and Heraclitus, both very excellent persons, labored under very uncouth and calamitous distempers. We only beg of them, if they will own their own diseases and not by noisy rants and popular harangues incur the imputation of false bravery, either not to take the health of the whole body for the ground of their content, or ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... continued drain on the population, caused by the late destructive wars, compelled him to recruit his forces among the tribes of the barbarians, and a change was thus made in the character and discipline of the Roman army, which in a later age produced the most calamitous consequences. The exuberant zeal, which led him to persecute the Arians and the pagans, occasioned some terrible convulsions, which distracted the empire, and were not quelled without bloodshed. He, however, preserved the integrity of the empire, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... flocked in from the adjacent country, and who, all sought a guide for their opinions in the faces of the principal townsmen, also for the most part proprietors of the surrounding districts. They saw that something calamitous was on foot, and resorted accordingly to the only remedy open to the ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... Mrs. Piozzi maintained that 'mercy was totally abolished by French maxims; for, if all men are equal, mercy is no more.' Piozzi's Synonymy, i. 370. Johnson, in 1740, described slavery as 'the most calamitous estate in human life,' a state 'which has always been found so destructive to virtue, that in many languages a slave and a thief are expressed by the same word.' Works, v. 265-6. Nineteen years ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... tints of Orient, Such as Turkish rugs adorn, Would be better for our eyes— Now upon the pavement bent Since such blazers have been worn. Say, has Paris sent to us Dyes so dreadfully defined? Do the tyrant modistes bring Colours so calamitous, Mixed in ways more fearful still, In this strangely sunny spring? Oh, before thou mak'st us ill, Take away that glare of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... number of sickly and helpless persons of all ages, but chiefly children, are thrown upon the state to be provided for. If this were to occur in a small community it would be fatal. In a great state it is not more felt than a calamitous war, or an adverse commercial treaty. But it requires a continued attention as great as that which those more noisy calamities are able to ensure for themselves while ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... manoeuvre as she lay alone absorbed in her interminable games of patience (and though it must have plunged her in despair from the first moment of its realisation, from the first of those little unforeseen facts, the first word of calamitous news, whose accents can never afterwards be expunged from the memory, everything that bears upon it the imprint of actual, physical death, so terribly different from the logical abstraction of its possibility) ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Many of the calamitous effects of the tremendous revolution which has passed over the Southern States still remain. The immeasurable benefits which will surely follow, sooner or later, the hearty and generous acceptance of the legitimate results of that revolution have ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... master of all. If it is true that the French abandoned Napoleon in 1814, it was not because we were tired of Napoleon or discontented with his government, but because the nation was exhausted, discouraged, and demoralized by an uninterrupted succession of calamitous wars. The people would still have been delighted to obey him, but they had neither strength ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... present war in Europe, the calamitous effect of which we view with grave concern, we, on our part, have entertained hopes of preserving the peace of the Far East by the maintenance of strict neutrality, but the action of Germany has at length compelled Great Britain, our ally, to open hostilities against ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... shall be done, unless the calamitous situation of the slaves shall at least be alleviated, what is America to expect? Can she think that the repeated insults to Divine Authority will pass off with impunity? Or can she suppose, that men, who ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... France, cannot be accurately judged of in the present moment of irritation and disorder; but whatever government that country may ultimately assume, it may surely be hoped that their experience of unsuccessful and calamitous war has been sufficient to incline them to peace; that they will learn to measure their national glory by a better standard than mere victory or noise; that they will reflect on the true objects, both of political ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... with that of shells, and in this respect, again, I should like to dwell upon the importance of keeping up our coal supplies in this country. It is the basis of all our high-explosives, and if there were a shortage for any reason the consequences would be very calamitous. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... fatal oath. When he reached home, his wife and children received him with all the demonstrations of perfect joy. But he, instead of returning their caresses, wept so bitterly, that his family apprehended something calamitous had befallen him. His wife enquire reason of his excessive grief and tears; "We are all overjoyed," said she, "at your return; but you alarm us by your lamentations; pray tell us the cause of your sorrow." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... sort of country empiric, a character which, even in his best days, he was fond of assuming. It is remarkable, that, instead of informing me of these circumstances, that I might have had the relative of my late wife taken such care of as his calamitous condition required, Mr. Ratcliffe seems to have had such culpable indulgence for his irregular plans as to promise and even swear secrecy concerning them. He visited Sir Edward often, and assisted in the fantastic task he had taken upon him of constructing a hermitage. Nothing they appear ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... of affairs in South Africa which have arisen in consequence of the differences between the Governments of South African Republic and Her Britannic Majesty, which constitute a threatening danger for bringing about hostilities, the calamitous effect of which would be incalculable for all white inhabitants of South Africa, being bound to the South African Republic by the closest bonds of blood and alliance and standing in most friendly relations towards Her Majesty's Government, fearing ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various
... feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for decadence, and no less for idiocy.... Kant became an idiot.—And such a man was the contemporary of Goethe! This calamitous spinner of cobwebs passed for the German philosopher—still passes today!... I forbid myself to say what I think of the Germans.... Didn't Kant see in the French Revolution the transformation of the state from the inorganic form ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... He will relent—he will relent for the sake of his own Cooleen Bawn. The laws against Catholics are now relaxed, and I am glad of it. But I have one consolation, my dear girl, that I am trusting myself to a man of honor. We will proceed directly to the Continent;—that is, if no calamitous occurrence should take place to prevent us; and there, after our nuptials shall have been duly celebrated, I will live happy with Reilly—that is, Connor, as happy as absence from my dear father will permit me—and Reilly will live happy, and, at least, free from the persecution of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... news. The sacrificial fires which have been made ready in anticipation of the event are set alight throughout the city. The play naturally falls into three divisions. The first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders, Clytemnestra, and a Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and of the calamitous return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second comprehends the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall upon the house and the murder of the King; the third the conflict ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... signifies the near approach of calamitous influences. If others eat them, your surroundings will be unpleasant and disagreeable to your fancies. A friend says: "Apricots denote that you have been wasting time over trifles or small things ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... This calamitous event was more than the feeble frame of Anastasia could endure. She rapidly failed, and on the 7th of August, 1560, she expired. The grief of Ivan was heartrending, and never was national affliction manifested in ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... to effect a reunion and reconciliation with our brethren of the South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to point out to you how it may be effected. Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us the issue of this great struggle. Bloody—calamitous —I fear it will be. May we so conduct it if a collision must come, that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts and who will judge our every act. We must not yield to resentments, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... was excessive; and that it had been proved before more than one Committee that the taxes imposed upon the people of India were onerous to the last degree. These subjects were discussed in 1853, at which time, in my opinion, the change now proposed ought to have been effected. Subsequently the calamitous events of 1857 and 1858 occurred; and the nation came at once to the conclusion—a conclusion which I think no disinterested person could resist—that it was impossible that India and its vast population could any longer be retained under the form ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... title of a hell-afloat, it was always in consequence of the officers not knowing their duty, or not doing it. Pride, arrogance, and an utter disregard for the feelings of those beneath them in rank, was too prevalent among the officers of the service, and was the secret of the calamitous events which occasionally happened ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... heard his story. He told it with all brevity on the station platform. First assuring her of Edith's safety, he made a clean breast of the Bailey Harbor visit, but skipped discreetly all that had occurred between that calamitous excursion and his meeting ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... mission to Venango (1754) Colonel Washington was sent in command of a small force in the same direction; but by reason of the greatly superior strength of the enemy, the expedition resulted in a calamitous retreat. By a singular coincidence, the compulsory evacuation of the English stronghold—"Fort Necessity," as it was called—occurred on the Fourth of July, 1754—a date afterward made forever glorious in great measure by the inestimable services of the young ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... the two fell into a dispute as to what was the medium of communication in the great lady's salon. However, all the colleagues agreed in considering that Wohlfart had taken an exceedingly bold and mysterious step, and one pregnant with calamitous consequences. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... charge may be seen in Philopater Iren. i. 150-160; Clarendon, viii. 68. Oxford, 1726. It is evident that the conduct of Rinuccini in breaking the first peace was not only reprehensible in itself, but productive of the most calamitous consequences both to the cause of royalty and the civil and religious interests of the Irish Catholics. The following is the ground on which he attempts to justify himself. Laying it down as an undeniable truth that the Irish people had as good a right to the establishment ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... remarks of Sir John Sinclair, in the House of Commons, deprecating war as a great evil, and calling on ministers to propose an immediate peace, Mr. Pitt says,—"He began with deploring the calamities of war, on the general topic that all war is calamitous. Do I object to that sentiment? No. But is it our business, at a moment when we feel that the continuance of that war is owing to the animosity, the implacable animosity, of our enemy, to the inveterate and insatiable ambition of the present frantic government ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... men a juster cause of grief than when they receive hurt and damage where they may justly expect for favour and good will; and not without cause, though without reason, have many, after they had fallen into such a calamitous accident, esteemed this indignity less supportable than the loss of their own lives, in such sort that, if they have not been able by force of arms nor any other means, by reach of wit or subtlety, to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... combined genius, method, memory, literature, prudence, deliberation, and industry. He had performed exploits in war which, though calamitous for the republic, were nevertheless mighty deeds. Having for many years aimed at being a king, he had with great labour, and much personal danger, accomplished what he intended. He had conciliated the ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... be outwitted by the Oriental—it was the second time for me, too; it would be calamitous to lose Burke. The day dragged along, and when each succeeding minute brought no news of him my anxiety increased by leaps and bounds. Before nightfall, every available man in the department was scouring the city for ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... thoroughness of treatment as to give to the whole both beauty and worth beyond the sum of these qualities exhibited in the several parts. Vigilant waiting in the Lord's cause, and the dangers of unreadiness are exemplified in the story of the virgins; diligence in work and the calamitous results of sloth are prominent features of the tale of the talents. These two phases of service are of reciprocal and complementary import; it is as necessary at times to wait as at others to work. The ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of those who have not, therefore, it will be only proper that I should enter into some account of it. And this is indeed the more necessary, as with the hope of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I design here to give a history of the calamitous events which have so lately occurred within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt that the duty thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my ability, with all that rigid impartiality, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... brief interval the Congress of the United States resumes its annual legislative labors. An all-wise and merciful Providence has abated the pestilence which visited our shores, leaving its calamitous traces upon some portions of our country. Peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority have been formally declared to exist throughout the whole of the United States. In all of the States civil authority has superseded the coercion of arms, and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... millions sterling; and if we add to this what Redi's idea, in Pasteur's hands, has done for the wine-grower and for the vinegar-maker, and try to capitalise its value, we shall find that it will go a long way towards repairing the money losses caused by the frightful and calamitous war of this autumn. And as to the equivalent of Redi's thought in life, how can we over-estimate the value of that knowledge of the nature of epidemic and epizootic diseases, and consequently of the means of checking, or eradicating them, the dawn of which ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... false, that is of the nature of a disastrous compromise, for the time being making it easy for both parent and child, but making things unutterably more difficult later on in life when both (or perhaps the child alone) must face the calamitous consequences of this failure early to inculcate the principles of self-control and self-mastery on the mind and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... law, which are generally the lowest, and the natives, unable to keep their bargains without considerable injury or endangering the subsistence of their numerous families, implore the favor of the magistrate, petitioning him to lay their calamitous situation before the superior government, in order to have the payment of their tribute in kind remitted, and offering to pay it in money. This is the precise moment when, as his own profits depend on the misery of the province under his command, he endeavors ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... Hu, Han Hsin, Chou Tzu, Ch'eng Tzu, Chu Tzu and Chang Tzu were ordained to see light in an auspicious era. Whereas Ch'i Yu, Kung Kung, Chieh Wang, Chou Wang, Shih Huang, Wang Mang, Tsao Ts'ao, Wen Wen, An Hu-shan, Ch'in Kuei and others were one and all destined to come into the world during a calamitous age. Those endowed with extreme benevolence set the world in order; those possessed of extreme maliciousness turn the world into disorder. Purity, intelligence, spirituality and subtlety constitute the vital spirit of right which pervades ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... an assistant necessary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradually, and he performed his duty till (1712) he was seized by a fever of such violence and continuance, that from the feebleness which it brought upon him he never perfectly recovered. This calamitous state made the compassion of his friends necessary, and drew upon him the attention of Sir Thomas Abney, who received him into his house, where, with a constancy of friendship and uniformity of conduct not often to be found, he was treated for ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Histrio-Mastix was, in fact, so big and so complex a thicket of confusion, that it had been licensed without examination by the licenser, who perhaps trusted that the world would have as little inclination to peruse it as he had. The calamitous discovery of the sting in the tail must surely have been made by a Hebrew or an Oriental student, who mechanically looked for the commencement of the Histrio-Mastix where he would have looked for that ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... is it the case, Sarah, not perhaps to the extent carried on by this mistaken girl; but still, the disappointment is as great, although the consequences are not so calamitous. Among the higher classes, how often do young men receive encouragement, and yield themselves up to a passion, to end only in disappointment! It is not necessary to plight troth; a young woman may not have virtually committed herself, and yet, by ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... disappointments, and protracted hopes, the heroes return to their homes—such as war had spared—to recount their adventures and sufferings, and reconstruct their shattered States, and mend their broken fortunes—a type of war in all the ages, calamitous even to conquerors. The wanderings of Ulysses have a peculiar fascination, since they form the subject of the Odyssey, one of the noblest poems of antiquity. Nor are the adventures of AEneas scarcely ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... reply, that the fulfilment of those calamitous events predicted in the Gospels may safely be referred, as it usually is, and by the best Biblical scholars, to the destruction of Jerusalem. Concerning the visions of the Apocalypse, sublime as they are, I speak with less hesitation, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... committed. I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized; but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, one is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitous a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "double dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as it leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; and when we see it deformed and degraded, we must look for the influence which has been its bane. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... written more than he did. He comprised, in twenty volumes, an account of all the various wars carried on in successive periods with the German tribes. Besides this, he wrote a Natural History, which extended to seven books. He fell a victim to the calamitous event which occurred in Campania. For, having the command of the fleet at Misenum, when Vesuvius was throwing up a fiery eruption, he put to sea with his gallies for the purpose of exploring the causes of the phenomenon close on the spot [986]. But being ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and now Mrs. Bunce came upstairs, bringing Mr. Low with her. Mrs. Bunce had not heard of the tragedy, but she had at once perceived from the barrister's manner that there was some serious matter forward,—some matter that was probably not only serious, but also calamitous. The expression of her countenance announced as much to the two men, and the countenance of Mr. Low when he followed her into the room told the same story still more plainly. "Is anything the matter?" said ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... quickly putrified, so that it was indispensably necessary to bury it a few hours after dissolution. It is remarkable, that the birds of the air fled away from the abode of men, for none were to be seen during this 174 calamitous period; the hyaenas, on the contrary, visited the cemeteries, and sought the dead bodies to devour them. I recommended Mr. Baldwin's[135] invaluable remedy of olive oil, applied according to his directions; several Jews, and some Muselmin[136], were induced to ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... than pliant and artful When the misery and degradation of Florence and the foul outrage which he had himself sustained recur to his mind, the smooth craft of his profession and his nation is exchanged for the honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the calamitous times and abject people among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces of Brutus, and the sword of Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be transported back to the days when eight hundred ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... perceived on looking back over my previous adventures, I had been no better than a mad young fool, following after a will-o'-the-wisp to my own hurt and destruction. And though I cannot say that that ill-starred and calamitous love of mine for Marian, which had haunted me since I first saw her in the tavern of the "Three-decker" at Yarmouth, was abated at this time, yet I think I did now begin to perceive how evil an influence it had exerted over my life, and to gradually bring myself ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... enterprises struggled earnestly for an outcome. On the surface, the truth seemed plain enough: it was quite clear to both parties that the extraordinary chain of coincidence was not entirely due to Providence. There was something of design behind it all. The staggering part was the calamitous way in which chance had handled their ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... commotion aboard, with half a dozen racing up the rigging and making signs at those below. It was plainer than words that they had seen the cemetery and were struck of a heap, which was no wonder considering how new and calamitous it looked, with them rows on rows of neat little headstones and nicely ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... never lived, I'd have killed Marnark with some other knife somebody else made. And what's more, you can't know the results of your discoveries. All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of an immediate situation, so you can't say whether the long-term results will be beneficial or calamitous. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... important that I put it in a chapter by itself. Put in a sentence it is this: Only real love offers a basis for a happy marriage, and real love is something more than physical attraction. If all young men and women knew that and would be strong enough to act upon it, there would be very few calamitous ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... better, not only winking at, but actually encouraging, these premature manifestations of passion in their children. They may yet learn, by bitter experience, the folly of their course, unless they make the discovery in time to avert the calamitous results which threaten the future of their children, ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... their distress, when the condition of the city of London was so truly calamitous, just then it pleased God—as it were by His immediate hand to disarm this enemy; the poison was taken out of the sting. It was wonderful; even the physicians themselves were surprised at it. Wherever they visited they found their patients better; either they had sweated kindly, or the ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... of the princes was more equitable than the accusation adduced by the priests and prophets; for according to the law of Moses no man could be punished for predicting the most calamitous events, provided he persevered in the assertion that he spoke in the name of Jehovah. The divine legislator denounced the penalty of death against every prophet who should speak in the name of any false god, or who should speak in the name of Jehovah that which he was not commanded to ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... maintain a steady competition of substantial bidders at market, all would have been safe. But the long succession of years of stunted crops, of reduced prices, the general prostration of the farming business, under levies for the support of manufacturers, &c, with the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper medium, have kept agriculture in a state of abject depression, which has peopled the western States by silently breaking up those on the Atlantic, and glutted the land-market, while ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... too. The city filled 'em with awe and they made no pretense to the contrary. About all they did that day was to buy picture cards and a few drinks. They was afraid to wander very far from the hotel for fear they'd get run over or arrested or fall into the new subway or something calamitous like that. Of course New York was looking as usual, the streets being full of tired voters tearing up the car-tracks and digging ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... powerfully on native society, and lead to the formation of a large, strong Christian community. The sufferings of the people afflicted by famine were deplored, they were regarded with deep pity; everything was done which could be done to relieve them, but it was hoped that out of this calamitous state of affairs would be evolved, through the overruling of Providence, a signal moral and spiritual benefit to the people generally. Here was a large band of boys and girls taken out of native society, cut off from idolatrous training and associations, and made over in the most ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... stairway into the plaza, accompanied by a train of his attending priests, to raise the fainting spirits of the terrified multitude, who, with pallid faces upraised to Heaven or crouched upon the bare ground in attitudes of supplication, implored mercy from on high. And inasmuch as calamitous events, such as the appearance of comets, earthquakes or pestilences, are usually the signal for great moral reforms, doubtless many a promise of a purer life was registered in that hour of terror by those self-accused by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... the sect of regulation, that this may be true, and may be safely committed to the convention of the farmer and the labourer, when the latter is in the prime of his youth, and at the time of his health and vigour, and in ordinary times of abundance. But in calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and with the pressure of a numerous offspring, the future nourishers of the community, but the present drains and blood-suckers of those who ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... intelligence from different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or false. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by the double of every thing once lost—his children remain the same in number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... freedom? Every one hoped that then he should live his own life, and the fetters, Binding the various lands, appeared their hold to be loosing,— Fetters that had in the hand of sloth been held and self-seeking. Looked not the eyes of all nations, throughout that calamitous season, Towards the world's capital city, for so it had long been considered, And of that glorious title was now, more than ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... will never risk another experiment. It's rather calamitous, isn't it? When one stops to consider her youth, beauty and all the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... thou wishest, wherever thou findest the opportunity out of doors: this one object I except, to my thought a reasonable boon. But if thy evil mind and senseless rutting push thee forward, scoundrel, to so great a crime as to assail our head with thy snares, O wretch, calamitous mishap shall happen thee, when with feet taut bound, through the open entrance ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... however, was not yet completed; for even while La Salle was getting succour for his company on the Illinois, a letter arrived from Tonty telling him of the mutiny of the garrison and the wilful destruction of Fort Crevecoeur with all it held. The calamitous news would have killed the spirit of any one less courageous than La Salle; but the bold explorer, whose whole life was a long grapple with adversity, prepared with all haste to return to the rescue of Tonty, who, he hoped forlornly, had survived the mutinous treachery. By the 10th ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... other nations on our western frontiers, Christians, like themselves, did not hesitate to fall upon this disorderly rabble; and immense piles of bones, in wild passes and unfrequented deserts, attest the calamitous defeats which extirpated these ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... lord, too late to offer any thing by way of defence or vindication; nor can we expect from your lordships, in this court, but the sentence which the law requires you, as judges, to pronounce against men of our calamitous condition. But we are also persuaded, that as mere men, and out of this seat of rigorous justice, you are susceptive of the tender passions, and too humane not to commiserate the unhappy situation ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... carried water thither for their drink, and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of one another. Those others were nine hundred and sixty in number, the women and children being withal included in that computation. This calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... this terror; it confirms your sisters' fears, and your own shame. From your infancy I have predicted that some fatal catastrophe would befall you. I never loved you like my other children—I never had the cause: you were always unlike the rest—and I knew your fate would be calamitous; but the very worst of my forebodings did not come to this—so young, so guilty, and so artful! Tell me this ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... whole of this time every creditor is suffering to an extent which he cannot measure; and every bargain is rendered uncertain in its advantage, by the continually changing value of the medium through which it is conducted. This calamitous course has actually been run in several countries: in France, it reached nearly its extreme limit during the existence of assignats. We have ourselves experienced some portion of the misery it creates; but by a return to sounder principles, have happily escaped the destruction and ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... had greater occasion than Macedonia to congratulate herself on the favour of the ruling power; and the Philhellenes of Rome might well be of opinion that the calamitous effects of the war with Perseus were disappearing, and that the state of things in general was improving there. The bitterest abettors of the now dominant party, Lyciscus the Aetolian, Mnasippus the Boeotian, Chrematas the Acarnanian, the infamous Epirot Charops whom honourable ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... place, kings should never let themselves be taken in battle any more than their archetype in the game of the Grecian chief Palamedes. But from this, it appears the captivity of its king is a most calamitous and horrible evil to fall on the populace. If it had been a queen, or even a princess, what worse fate? But I believe the thing could not happen again, except with cannibals. Can there ever be a reason for imprisoning the flower of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Mr. Horry"; but Gen. Marion, as commanding officer, is entitled to the credit of it. The news of the defeat of Gen. Gates now became public, and repressed all joy upon this occasion; no event which had yet happened, was considered so calamitous. An account of it will be given in his own words. Extract of a letter, from Gen. Gates, to the president of congress, dated Hillsborough, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... my conversation to Dr. Blackwell; the other all his to me, to which I only gave negative or affirmative answers as laconically as I could, except asking him how Mrs. Logan did. He seemed disposed to be very polite, and while Dr. Blackwell and myself were conversing on the late calamitous fever, offered me an asylum at his house, if it should return or I thought myself in any danger in the city, and two or three rooms, by way of accommodation. I thanked him slightly, observing there would be no ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... what turn the Jews themselves give to this prophecy.* There is good proof that the ancient Rabbins explained it of their expected Messiah: but their modern expositors concur, I think, in representing it as a description of the calamitous state, and intended restoration, of the Jewish people, who are here, as they say, exhibited under the character of a single person. I have not discovered that their exposition rests upon any critical ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... marriage. The sound of war had been heard, but it was at such a distance as to enhance our enjoyment by affording objects of comparison. The Indians were repulsed on the one side, and Canada was conquered on the other. Revolutions and battles, however calamitous to those who occupied the scene, contributed in some sort to our happiness, by agitating our minds with curiosity, and furnishing causes of patriotic exultation. Four children, three of whom were of an age to compensate, by their personal and mental progress, the cares of which ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... minutely the skill and activity of those robust and hardy men, who were seen in all directions upon the tops of houses, &c. near the calamitous scene, giving information to those below; and he was astonished to see the rapidity with which ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... while he, with the main army, advanced on Cairo, the metropolis of Egypt, where the sultan resided. Near Mansourah, the Crusaders became perplexed by the intricacy of the canals, and a hasty dash across one of these, made by the king's brother, the Count of Artois, with 2,000 men, led to a calamitous result. Mansourah was apparently deserted, and the count's troops, who preceded their comrades at some distance, commenced pillaging the houses. The inhabitants, who were only concealed, showered down stones from the roofs; and at the same moment, a large body of the sultan's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... is, with what it has been not long since, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family—all but poor Anne, an impoverished and embarrassed man, I am deprived of the sharer of my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk down my sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the heart that must bear them alone. Even her foibles were of service to me, by giving me things to think of beyond ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... of this sketch is not bald narration of historic fact, but examination of antecedent germinal conditions; not to recount calamitous events familiar to students of that faulty civilization, but to trace, as well as the meager record will permit, the genesis and development of the causes that brought them about. Historians in our time have left little undone in the matter of narration of political and military ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... sides one hears that this is so, yet here again it is too often the case that an "unknown God" is sought, and from want of proper direction not always found. In a recently published memoir of one of the many splendid young fellows by whose death the world has been made poorer during this calamitous war, there is this moving passage: "I know that many hearts are turning towards something, but cannot find satisfaction in what the Christian sects offer. And many, failing to find what they need, fall back sadly into vague uncertainties ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... importance,—the very words and gestures and action. Would she not fly into his arms, or at least expect that he should open his own? That must be avoided. There must be no embracing. And then he must at once proceed to explain all the evils of this calamitous passion;—how he was the husband of another wife; how she was the wife of another husband; how they were bound by honour, by religion, and equally by prudence to remember the obligations they had incurred. He must beg her to be silent while he said ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... had been cut off short in their infancy. David's vigorously written pages, marred by frequent scratchings and erasures, far outnumbered Alix's. He was in the midst of Chapter Three of a novel entitled "The Phantom Singer" when the calamitous interruption came. Alix's work had progressed to Chapter Five. Inspection revealed the further fact that she was thrifty. She had written on both sides of the sheets, while the prodigal David confined himself to the inexorable "one side of the sheet only." There were unmistakable indications ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Farwell told him the calamitous news and explained the problem under discussion. "We'd play Sykes, only he hasn't been here a month yet, and Sam won't ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... living three years after the battle of Flodden, and that consequently he was alive when she was married to the Earl of Angus.* As the king's body had never been found, this assertion could not be disproved, though there was no reasonable doubt as to James having fallen on that calamitous day. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... events noted in this history for the last two hundred years, and followed the fluctuations of public opinion depending on prosperity or misfortune, will have anticipated that, in the present calamitous state of the country, all eyes were turned toward the family whose memory was revived by every pang of slavery, and associated with every throb for freedom. The presence of the Prince of Orange, William IV., who had, on the death of his father, succeeded to the title, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... not in those times a poem of more general dignity or elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclusion, with which the common criticism of that age was satisfied, whatever lighter pleasure ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... the Meeting for Sufferings, as representing it, recommended to the quarterly meetings to distribute a work, written by Anthony Benezet, in America, called A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short Representation of the calamitous State of the enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions. This book was accordingly forwarded to them for this purpose. On receiving it, they sent it among several public bodies, the regular and dissenting ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... departed. When he reached the corner he stopped suddenly and regarded his shadow on the snow. "Matt McCarthy, yer a damned fool! Who iver heard iv a Welse not knowin' their own mind? As though ye'd niver had dalin's with the stiff-necked breed, ye calamitous son iv misfortune!" ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... few months of marine disasters of the most tragic nature, involving great loss of human life, has produced intense emotions of sympathy and sorrow throughout the country. It may well be doubted whether all these calamitous events are wholly attributable to the necessary and inevitable dangers of the sea. The merchants, mariners, and shipbuilders of the United States are, it is true, unsurpassed in far-reaching enterprise, skill, intelligence, and courage by any others in the world. But with the increasing ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... quickly draw his veil over such a scene, and cover it with oblivion would be the natural wish of every British and Irish heart, were it not that scenes still more disgraceful to both countries and more calamitous to one of them have succeeded—scenes which force the mind to revert with regret to those days of poverty and peace, when, as there existed little wealth to excite avarice, and little spirit to aggravate ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... was not a long one, but it contained at least the calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation. The Colonel found himself in a rather uncomfortable place—no $1,200 salary forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor and creditor—once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion of the world—combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... to the desert, bones are scattered about it, it is the most menacing and calamitous waste of all the deadly places that have been inclement to man. It flatters the Hohenzollerns with visions of victory now because they are doomed by it and are about to die. When their race has died the earth ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... talking about, Sabrina? It would have been a world's wonder and a black, burning shame if my girl had gone after her lad in such a calamitous time. No, no, Christina Binnie isn't the kind of girl that shrinks in the wetting. When her time of trial came, she did the whole of her duty, showing herself day by day a witness and a testimony ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... at the opening of the war, is very little realised outside France. It lasted some three weeks. It was preceded by the calamitous French reverse at Morhange, where, on August 20th, portions of the 15th and 16th Corps of the Second Army, young troops drawn from south-western France—who in subsequent actions fought with great bravery—broke in ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... least that I have striven for a grand object," said Scharnhorst, "and I have left nothing undone in order to attain it. Many changes had to be made, and many evils eradicated, when the king, after the calamitous days of Tilsit, placed me at the head of the commission which was to reorganize the whole Prussian army. We had to work night and day, for it was incumbent upon us to arrange a new system of conscription, organize the levies, draw up ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... mention of it. This worthy remarks on the slovenly condition and inadequate superintendence of our museums, and especially of that of Gresham College; but those who recollect the state of our great national museum forty years since will not be surprised at this, or at the calamitous destruction of Tradescant's specimen of the Dodo. That the bird was extinct above 150 years ago I think we may conclude from the notices I have extracted from La Roque, and the letter of the Jesuit Brown. Mr. Strickland has done good service to the cause of natural science by his ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... pasturage? On a natural system of diet we should require no spices from India; no wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is rifled, and which are the causes of so much individual rivalship, such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes. In the history of modern times, the avarice of commercial monopoly, no less than the ambition of weak and wicked chiefs, seems to have fomented the universal discord, to have added stubbornness ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... there in the same place on the following morning, attentive to the slightest noise, and subjecting the passers-by to the closest examination. The day that was now beginning was a market-day. Although in these calamitous times the peasants rarely risked themselves in the towns, Corentin presently noticed a small man with a gloomy face, wrapped in a goatskin, and carrying on his arm a small flat basket; he was making his way in the direction of Mademoiselle de Verneuil's house, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... Governor Longden came Sir Henry Turner Irving, a personage who brought to Trinidad a reputation for all the vulgar colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... Rodolph was a marked man, and an object of determined revenge, to all who had shared in the conflict. The spot where it took place was named the First Encounter, in memory of the event, and long retained that name: and the consequences of this first combat proved to be equally calamitous to the savages, and to their more civilized foes, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs. The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised ...
— The Federalist Papers
... commemorated her virtues and her tastes. Such, indeed, was the friendly intercourse between Shenstone and Utrecia, that in Elegy XVIII., written long after her death, she still lingered in his reminiscences. Composing this Elegy on the calamitous close of Somerville's life, a brother bard, and victim to narrow circumstances, and which he probably contemplated as an image of his own, Shenstone tenderly recollects that he used to read ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... decayed, undone; on the road to ruin, on its last legs, on the wane; in one's utmost need. planet-struck, devoted; born under an evil star, born with a wooden ladle in one's mouth; ill-fated, ill-starred, ill-omened. adverse, untoward; disastrous, calamitous, ruinous, dire, deplorable. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... abhorred it, and encouraged those who wanted to profit by such an example. It doesn't matter much, socially, what undisciplined people like Bartley and Marcia Hubbard do; but if a man like Ben Halleck goes astray, it's calamitous; it 'confounds the human conscience,' as Victor Hugo says. All that careful nurture in the right since he could speak, all that life-long decency of thought and act, that noble ideal of unselfishness and responsibility to others, trampled ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... others, the squire only laughed at the effeminate appetite of the speaker, and inclined to think him an excellent fellow for jesting so good-humouredly on his own physical infirmity. But Lucy had the tact of her sex, and, taking pity on the earl's calamitous situation, though she certainly never guessed at its extent, entered with so much grace and ease into the conversation which he sought to establish between them, that Mauleverer's gentleman, who had hitherto been pushed aside by the zeal of the gray-headed butler, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whole emphatically on the side of the town. He was on the side of bricks and mortar. He was a citizen; and, after all, a citizen means a man of the city. His strength was, after all, in the fact that he was a man of the city. But, after all, his weakness, his calamitous weakness, was that he was ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... pick and shovel the fragments were exhumed and pieced together in the presence of the pallid spectators; and had the next shell fallen on or near the same spot (as sometimes happened) the results would have been more calamitous. Many persons had an idea that they were safer in the streets than in houses where the additional danger of flying furniture was ever present. Several exciting escapes were witnessed in the Market Square, and shells fell thickly in the vicinity ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... rebels in the palace cannot be very comfortable, for they say that the air is infected by the number of unburied dead bodies lying there; indeed there are many lying unburied on the streets, which is enough to raise a fever, to add to the calamitous ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... immediate vicinity, and that the Welsh were only permitted to pass the river without opposition, that their retreat might be the more effectually cut off, and their defeat, with a deep river in their rear, rendered the more signally calamitous. But even while he clung to this hope, the monk's heart sunk within him, as, looking in every direction from which the expected succours might arrive, he could neither see nor hear the slightest token which announced ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... statesmen, 'My doctrines on the slavery question are those of my ancestors, modified by themselves, as they were in an act of Confederation. In this one respect they left society in the political condition in which they found it. A reform would have been fearful and calamitous. A political revolution with one class was morally impracticable. Consulting a wise humanity, they submitted to a condition in which Providence had placed them. They settled the question in the deep foundations of the Constitution.' Would you then, sir, destroy ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... season, however, some fires happen among them, and hundreds of families are frequently burned out before its progress can be arrested. This, however, is not anything like so calamitous an event for them as such an occurrence would be to the poor of Europe, for as the chief cost of a nipa house consists in the labour of erection, after such a misfortune, they are soon replaced by their own personal labour—for whatever their usual trade or occupation ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... hard one—game scarce and hunting difficult; and toward the end of February the pack drew in toward the settlements, in the hope of more abundant foraging. Fate promptly favoured the move. Some sheep, and a heifer or two, were easily killed, with no calamitous result; and the authority of the leaders was somewhat discredited. Three of the young wolves even went so far as to besiege a solitary cabin, where a woman and some trembling children awaited the return of the man. For two hideous ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... fall, keeping the city to their right. And jackals and vultures and ravens and other carnivorous beasts and birds began to shriek and cry aloud from the temples of the gods and the tops of sacred trees and walls and house-tops. And these extraordinary calamitous portents, O king, were seen and heard, indicating the destruction of the Bharatas as the consequence of thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... thought, and may be compared to that of a convicted cashier beset by recollections of the bank he had pillaged—there are some thoughts to which one closes the mind. George had seen Eugene only once since their calamitous encounter. They had passed on opposite sides of the street, downtown; each had been aware of the other, and each had been aware that the other was aware of him, and yet each kept his eyes straight ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... mass of our population has not sufficient surplus laid by to last over thirty days of such a calamitous interval. All the unearned increment of national prosperity the "System" has captured and capitalized. Not only have the people been deprived of the profits of their labor, but this capitalized prosperity is the stern instrument by which ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... this incident, and had the prospect of dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the most sensible manner. Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first husband by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her jealousy; and after ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... legion. His materials improve both in number and quality. The fourth century, though a period of frightful anarchy and disaster if compared to a settled epoch, is a period of relative peace and order when compared to the third century. The fifth was calamitous beyond example; but ecclesiastical history comes to the support of secular history in a way which might have excited more gratitude in Gibbon than it did. From Constantine to Augustulus Gibbon is able ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... Mere truth-telling had never seemed to her a weighty matter of the law. And she was now grown expert in lies. But Tarrant's message disturbed her gravely. Something unforeseen must have happened—something, perhaps, calamitous. She passed a ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... act of penance, the chapel having been founded by his father, James the Third. Such a journey, with a few attendants, he appears to have made in August 1513, or only one month previously to his setting out on his calamitous expedition, when he ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... was scarfed, she was soft and steady; as in the past, sweetness and strength breathed from her. She was competent to deal with most calamitous situations and to make them bearable, to make them even graceful. She could do what she would with situations: Amabel felt that of her now as she had felt it ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and lived as if all his desires were fulfilled so long as he had opportunities of self-development, he might be said to have insured himself against every catastrophe. Little could harm him. Whatever occurred, instead of exclaiming, "How calamitous!" he would simply ask, "What fresh opportunities do these strange circumstances present for enlarged living? Let me add this new discipline to what I had before. Seeking as I am to become expanded into the infinite, ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... officers, almost all taken by Marlborough's wing, besides 34 pieces of cannon, 26 standards, and 90 colours; Eugene took 13 pieces. The killed and wounded were 14,000 more. But the total loss of the French and Bavarians, including those who deserted during their calamitous retreat through the Black Forest, was not less than 40,000 men,[14] a number greater than any which they sustained till the still ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... may be calamitous, the reasons for acquiring instruction are multiplied and strengthened. Are you an honest man? You will spare neither labor nor sacrifice to gain a competent knowledge of your duty. Are you a man of honor? ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... aspiration, there are many who believe, with reason, that the country is not ripe for the adoption of European institutions, that the foundations on which to construct them do not yet exist, and that any attempt to introduce them would lead only to calamitous results; while there is even a large party which contends that, far from needing them, Russia is happily situated in being exempt from the struggles and the storms, the wars of classes and of factions, that have attended the course of Western civilization, and in being left free to work out her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... ferocity. This system had interwoven itself with our commercial existence so closely, as to require the most sagacious policy to eradicate it; at the same time it was the highest consideration for our magnanimity to interfere for that being whose thraldom and calamitous state had so long contributed to our wealth and commercial prosperity, before ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... all had gone well with the fortunes of Boethius; but now, perhaps about the middle of 523, there came a great and calamitous change. We must revert for a few minutes to the family circumstances of Theodoric, in order to understand the influences which were embittering his spirit against his Catholic—that is to say, his Roman—subjects. The year before, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... calamitous mistake the note which I wrote you yesterday was never delivered. Figgis has just found it in the pocket of his overcoat. I shall certainly dismiss him unless you plead for him. Can ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... thing that those others down-stairs should see him and hear him, and that she could not. Why, oh, why, had she gone to bed so early to-night of all nights? She was ready to cry with the passion of a disappointment that seemed, not a little thing, but something crushing and calamitous, a loss for which she never could be repaid. She could imagine Justin and Lois meeting the kind glances of those gray eyes, smiling when he did. He was beautiful when he smiled! She was within a few yards of him, but convention, absurd yet maddening, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various |
