"Catastrophe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the Stores now, as you can see," he said, in a desperate attempt to be humorous, for she was in a dangerous mood. Only once before had he seen her so, and he could feel the air charged with catastrophe. "And I'm eating humble pie in season now at nothing a dish," he added. "I really am; and it gives me ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the delinquent "fine feathers" to blow in. By eight, he was a little more than uneasy, but it didn't help any. Suddenly, on the domestic horizon appeared a weird-looking creature! A human being, apparently in a state of frenzy over some terrible catastrophe. It was the tailor! "Here," he whispered, almost in tears, as he handed something to the outraged head of the State, "these ain't yours, but you'll have to wear 'em; ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... town on both sides of the river was very serious, and, as it turned out, weeks elapsed before the waters entirely subsided. The extent of the Danube inundations in 1876 was far greater than the flood of 1838; the latter was localised to Buda-Pest, where, from the suddenness of the catastrophe, the sacrifice of life was far greater than at present. But on this occasion the mischief was wide spread indeed. From Passau to Orsova the banks of the Danube were more or less flooded. The havoc below Pest was wellnigh incalculable. The river had in places spread itself ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... discover the cause of the present situation the moment she chose to do so; but, for the first time, perhaps, a woman recoiled before a secret. Human life is sadly fertile in situations where, as a result of either too much meditation or of some catastrophe, our thoughts seem to hold to nothing; they have no substance, no point of departure, and the present has no hooks by which to hold to the past or fasten on the future. This was Mademoiselle de Verneuil's ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... rejected poetry, had not caused him such misery as this. He had loved a young lady, and had been accepted;—and then the young lady had jilted him. At this time of his life he was about thirty; and as to the outside world, he was absolutely dumfounded by the catastrophe. Up to this period he had been a sportsman in a moderate degree, fishing a good deal, shooting a little, and devoted to hunting, to the extent of a single horse. But when the blow came, he never fished or shot, or hunted again. I think that the young lady would hardly have treated him so ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... the act itself which has determined public feeling. The preponderating sentiment is sincere and genuine sympathy—- sorrow for the chief of a great people struck down by an assassin, and sympathy for that people in the trouble which at a crisis of their destinies such a catastrophe must bring. Abraham Lincoln was as little of a tyrant as any man who ever lived. He could have been a tyrant had he pleased, but he never uttered so much as an ill-natured speech.... In all America there was, perhaps, not one man who less ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... stand the life, the climate, the inconveniences, the absence of what she was accustomed to. She was dead tired of it all. I can understand that. And I—I didn't know what to do about it. . . . So we drifted; and the catastrophe came very quickly. Let me tell you something; a West Pointer, an Annapolis man, knows what sort of life he's going into and what he is to expect when he marries. Usually, too, he marries into the Army or Navy set; and the girl ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... whole scene of his trials to a catastrophe. Sophia Hopkins, the niece of Mrs. Causton, wife of Thomas Causton, Esq., chief magistrate of the place, had been a pupil to him to learn French, was a professed convert to his ministry, and become a member of the Church. Her beauty, accomplishments, and manners, were fascinating; ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... turned the corner of the street, when, looking anxiously in the direction of his homestead, he saw a column of smoke. It was directly over the spot where he knew his house to be situated. He guessed at a glance what had happened. The frightful catastrophe he foreboded had befallen. Taddy had set the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... to reform is commonly regarded as having led to the fall of the constitutional monarchy. I should attribute that catastrophe much more to the prevalence of the military spirit, which the peaceful policy of Louis Philippe disappointed, and to which even the conquest of Algeria failed (as its authors deserved) to give a sufficient vent. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... horror that no philosophy, birth, nor training can resist—one of those weights beneath which all humanity bows shuddering; cast over him a stifling dream, where only the soul can act, and the limbs refuse their offices; have him pushed along by Fate to the lowering, ruinous catastrophe; and you see the dramatic chainwork of a part which he who would enact Hamlet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... The landlords and the farmers of Ireland were divided into two political camps, and, instead of uniting for their common welfare, each attempted to cast upon the other the burden of the economic catastrophe. To sum up in the ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... whom she had tacitly devolved so great a responsibility, went forward to the promenade in front of the saloon, in hopes of learning something more of the catastrophe from the people whom he had already ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... The catastrophe—for to me it was no less a thing—had come upon me so suddenly that I was fairly stunned. From sheer force of habit I went over to the church and knelt before the altar; but I could not pray; I could only kneel there dumbly. I heard the screech of the three o'clock express ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lasted seven weeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father in Amsterdam. Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm both themselves and their foes in a common catastrophe, the Hollanders had at last compelled their haughty enemy to fly from a position which he had so ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... between masts and ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible mist. "What had happened? What was to ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... quarrel between Charles and Parliament had been put to the arbitrament of the sword, and the distinction of Cavalier and Roundhead to a certain extent superseded that between Anglican and Puritan. In 1645 came the catastrophe of Naseby, then the long series of futile negotiations ending in the execution of the king at Whitehall in 1649. From the general confusion emerged the commonwealth, "without any king or House of Lords," the church organized on Presbyterian lines, the spirit of Puritanism dominating, although ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... then! Imagine this weapon to be ten times stronger and the animal ten times more powerful, launch it at a speed of twenty miles per hour, multiply its mass times its velocity, and you get just the collision we need to cause the specified catastrophe. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... where I had sat down, and the other boatman began talking earnestly to Tardif in his patois, of which I did not understand a word. Tardif's face was very grave and sad, indescribably so; and, before he turned to me and spoke, I knew it was some sorrowful catastrophe he had to tell. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... "was churlish enough to refuse. I would not have come now only that I felt I might be in time to avert the most awful catastrophe that has yet fallen ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... my knowledge of his resourceful nature had not prepared me for such an ignoble catastrophe, but I added that all the more his ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... We were now given some food, which we badly wanted, and while we were eating we saw in the far distance a single man coming hurriedly along the edge of the Barrier ice from the direction of the catastrophe party and towards our camp. Gran went off on ski to meet him, and when he arrived we found it was Crean, who had been sent off by Bowers with a note, unencumbered otherwise, to jump from one piece of ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... that day to cross 'the Forth.' He had not hurried particularly, however, thinking we were not travelling North till the next day, no letters having been forwarded to him. Thus ended happily what might have been a great catastrophe, and compelled us ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... whence the resolution had come that he was not, in any case, to see Maggie; she did not know what catastrophe she anticipated from their meeting. She was simply resolved, as though acting under the blind orders of some other power, that Maggie should not see him and that he should leave ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... city was destroyed, or rather, buried, but this catastrophe was probably brought about by an earthquake. And another great idol, one of clay, was found, perhaps a rival of Quitzel, but it was this clay image which was thrown down and broken, ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... we may not have to face yet another complication in our problem. Suppose our patient falls in love with dainty little Nurse Rosemary, where will Jane be then? I fear the desert would have to open its mouth and swallow her up. We must avert such a catastrophe. Could not Rosemary be induced to drop an occasional H, or to confess herself as rather "gone" ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... apparent intellectual disorder, although careful investigation would frequently discover a concealed delusion, and the greatest difficulty exists in obtaining a certificate of lunacy from two medical men. They shrink from the responsibility. Nothing is done. Prolonged misery or a terrible catastrophe is the result. To avoid this, there might be a power vested in the Commissioners in Lunacy to appoint, on application, two medical men, familiar with insanity, to examine a person under such circumstances. Their certificate that he or she ought to be placed under ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... were, at first, only allowed during Carnival, and on particular occasions called Charivaris, and they were usually made the pretext for the practice of the most licentious follies. These masquerades had a most unfortunate inauguration by the catastrophe which rendered the madness of Charles VI. incurable, and which is described in history under the name of the Burning Ballet. It was on the 29th of January, 1393, that this ballet made famous the festival held in the Royal Palace of St. Paul in Paris, on the occasion of the marriage ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... it represent the world's civilization that if all man's other works were, by some unspeakable catastrophe, blotted out the records here established by the assembled nations would afford all necessary standards for the rebuilding of our ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... serene, and pleasing countenance rejoice him; for experience teaches us that this is most certain; but whether such sensations of grief or pleasure are produced by the apprehension of the patient observing his motions and qualities in his physician, and drawing from thence conjectures of the end and catastrophe of his disease; as, by his pleasing look, joyful and desirable events, and by his sorrowful and unpleasing air, sad and dismal consequences; or whether those sensations be produced by a transfusion of the serene or gloomy, aerial or terrestrial, joyful or melancholic spirits ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... empire, and their city, have long since disappeared; their crimes, and the despotism which they exercised over the tribes they had conquered, are all forgotten in the terrible catastrophe that extinguished their national existence. Three hundred years of servitude in the indiscriminate mass of Indian serfs has blotted out every feeling of nationality. A few vagabonds among them still claim royal descent, and, by virtue of their blood or their imposture, pretend to exercise, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and burnt feathers. "Impossible!" would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would be responded there; ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Prince Maurice ordered the mines to be sprung, when the north ravelin was blown into the air, and some forty of the garrison with it. Two of them came flying into the besiegers' camp, and, strange to say, one was alive and sound. The catastrophe finished the sixty-five days' siege, the breach was no longer defensible, the obstinacy of the burghers was exhausted, and capitulation followed. In truth, there had been a subterranean intrigue ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... several observers noted that, at times, very large areas on the surface of Mars had been so obscured by a yellowish veiling that all details were entirely blotted out. The announcement of this fact gave rise to sensational statements that a terrible catastrophe had occurred on the planet. The explanation is, however, very simple—seasonal mists arising from the canals, with the addition of clouds of sand particles in the upper air, as the result of desert sandstorms, caused a temporary obscuration of certain parts of the planet ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... himself, while pursuing an enemy of whom he could obtain no information; and when the tidings were brought her by a joyful bearer, open-mouthed, its effect was such that she fell like one who had been shot. She and Sir William had literally been made ill by their hopes and fears, and joy at a catastrophe so far exceeding all that they had dared to hope for. Their admiration for the hero necessarily produced a degree of proportionate gratitude and affection; and when their barge came alongside the VANGUARD, at the sight of Nelson, Lady Hamilton sprang up the ship's side, and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... with his "Fudge," have caused as much harmless mirth as has ever been caused by matter packed into so small a number of pages. The latter part of the tale is unworthy of the beginning. As we approach the catastrophe, the absurdities lie thicker and thicker; and the gleams of pleasantry ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with all my haste I was not in time to avert what was impending: the arrow had been drawn; it must now fly. I could almost doubt the power of Providence (and certainly His will) to stay the issue of events; and it is a strange thought, how many of us had been storing up the elements of this catastrophe, for how long a time, and with how blind an ignorance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was characteristically readjusting her point of view upon her future. She had schemed for a certain thing; she had taken the first great step towards the realization of her scheme; and then she had suddenly come upon catastrophe. And now her thoughts began to turn away from London. The London thoughts were dying with the London hopes. "All that is useless now." That was what her mind was saying, bitterly, but also with decision. Schooled by a life filled with varying experiences, Mrs. Armine had learnt one lesson very ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... was any indication of his feelings, there could not possibly be any love lost between them; and noticing that one of the fellow's eyes seemed swollen, the idea thrust itself into Cuthbert's mind, ridiculous as it might seem, that possibly Owen might have had something to do with that catastrophe. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... of impotent violence; so in Macbeth, that imaginative bias which lays him open to the temptation of the weird sisters is suggested from time to time through the whole tragedy, and at last unmans him, and brings about his catastrophe in his combat with Macduff. This is what I call ideal and imaginative representation, which marks the outlines and boundaries of character, not by arbitrary lines drawn at this angle or that, according to the whim of the tracer, but by those mountain-ranges of human ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... bit of a shock," said Ronnie, busy with a well-devised salad; "still, I don't see why there should be domestic storms when he comes back. You are hardly responsible for the catastrophe that has happened." ...
— When William Came • Saki
... dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as by a parity of situation are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My very ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... handling of a huge liner, he lacked the iron nerve that is essential to the man who has to risk his life in a steel box that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, offers no means of escape in the event of a catastrophe. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... reformers preached more or less in the wilderness; for few had ears to hear. God's hour was assuredly winging its flight, but it would not come till the Church was almost in extremis; till decay of faith following on decay of morals threatened her very existence. The catastrophe was hastened by the fatal pouring of the new wine of the later Renaissance into the old, now worn-out bottles of Mediaevalism, thereby paganising Rome and corrupting the College of Cardinals to so large an extent, that the ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... an earthly companion (he was a widower), a most worthy Christian woman, who tenderly ministered to his needs until Father called him home, little more than a year following the earthquake and fire of that great city. Concerning that catastrophe he ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... replied at once that the event was well known. As they related it, the occurrence became natural and intelligible. It formed, indeed, a not unimportant link in the chain of events which led to the establishment of the confederacy. The catastrophe, for such it truly was, took place not at the great assembly which met for the formation of the league, but at one of the Onondaga councils which were convened prior to that meeting, and before Hiawatha had fled to the Caniengas. The council was ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... of Cathay!" he cried sibilantly, "in what have I sinned that this catastrophe has been visited upon my head! Learn, my two dear friends, that the sacred white peacock, brought to these misty shores for my undying glory has been lost to me! Death is the penalty of such a sacrilege; death shall be my ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... that Lyell, for others, as for myself, was the chief agent for smoothing the road for Darwin. For consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic world. The origin of a new species by other than ordinary agencies would be a vastly greater "catastrophe" than any of those which Lyell successfully ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... inhabitants who did not find death in the destruction of their dwellings went with the garrisons to seek refuge against the destroying scourge and the barbarity of the Turks in the towns and the castles which the catastrophe had spared. But torrents of rain, snow, and a glacial temperature killed the women and the children on the road. As to the men, they fell into the power of Orkhan's soldiers, who were awaiting their passage. Thus the Ottomans found a powerful auxiliary in the warring elements. From ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... embrace, hastened from the room and abruptly left the house. He slept at his lodgings; and the next morning he was horror-struck on hearing that Sarah Stout's body had been found drowned in the mill-stream behind her old home. That catastrophe had actually occurred. Scarcely had the young barrister reached the Market Place, when the miserable girl threw herself into the stream from which her lifeless body was picked on the following morning. At the coroner's inquest which ensued, Spencer Cowper gave his evidence with extreme caution, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... have heard.) 'Well, the inventor of that explosive has naturally been wanted ever since by all the heads of police in Europe. But the most curious—or perhaps the most natural part of my story is, that our hero, after the catastrophe, grew disgusted with himself and his comrades, acquired, in a fit of revulsion, quite a conservative taste in politics, which was strengthened greatly by the news he indirectly received of the great wealth and respectability of his brother, who had had no communion ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... sat down on the edge of the sand, her fore-feet in the water, and was mouthing her woe. That this concerned him, Jerry knew, for her grief tore sharply, albeit vaguely, at his sensitive, passionate heart. What it presaged he knew not, save that it was disaster and catastrophe connected with him. As he looked back at her, rough-coated and grief-stricken, he could see Terrence hovering solicitously near her. He, too, was rough-coated, as was Michael, and as Patsy and Kathleen had been, Jerry being the one smooth-coated ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... teaching pure morality and religion. How will such a man, if he has the least feeling, bear to see his pupil become a slave, perhaps to the grossest vices; and to reflect with a great degree of probability that this catastrophe has been owing to his own inactivity and improper indulgence? May not all human characters frequently be traced back to impressions made at so early a period, that none but discerning eyes would ever suspect their existence? ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... specially, I suspect, that last one, ought to lead the young student up to the great and complex question—How were these islands re-peopled with plants and animals, after the long and wholesale catastrophe of ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... money to lay out on Knipp, 20s., and I abroad to White Hall to visit Colonell Norwood, and then Sir G. Carteret, with whom I have brought myself right again, and he very open to me; is very melancholy, and matters, I fear, go down with him, but he seems most afeard of a general catastrophe to the whole kingdom, and thinks, as I fear, that all things will come to nothing. Thence to the Palace Yard, to the Swan, and there staid till it was dark, and then to Mrs. Lane's, and there lent her L5 upon L4 01s. in gold. And then did what I would with her, and I perceive ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sufferings had no retreat and no shelter; when conjugal infelicities were scarcely a reproach; when divorces were granted on the most frivolous pretexts; when men became monks from despair of finding women of virtue for wives; and when everything indicated a rapid approach of some grand catastrophe which should mingle, in indiscriminate ruin, the masters and the slaves of a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... much as possible of the water that was pouring in through the open seams, otherwise the leak would gain upon us so rapidly that the ship would settle from under us long before we were ready to face such a catastrophe. I therefore at once set about the formulating of my plans and carrying them into effect. First of all, while one gang kept the pump-brakes clanking and the clear water spouting out upon our streaming deck, I got another gang to work at launching the guns overboard ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... town of Rathfillan, and indeed the parish at large, were in a state of agitation, and tumult, and sorrow, as soon as the melancholy catastrophe had become known. The neighbors and tenants flocked in multitudes to learn the particulars, and ascertain his state. About eleven o'clock Harry mounted his horse, and, in defiance of the interdict that had been laid upon him, proceeded at a rapid pace to Mr. Goodwin's house, in order to ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Looking at the catastrophe, the subject of railway mismanagement is somewhat too serious for a joke, and we have only drawn attention for an instant to the errors of the past in order to draw a warning for the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... position the very opposite of that hitherto occupied by them; and, instead of trusting everybody, put no faith in any one. This conduct ultimately recoiled upon themselves; their shares fell in value; some of them became bankrupt, while the others had a hard struggle to avoid that catastrophe; and the public lost all confidence in banks and bankers. The worst part of the tale remains to be told; namely, that many widows and orphans, whose all was invested in bank shares, were utterly ruined and reduced to destitution by the ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... bring back the English nation to the fold of the Catholic Church and, as a means to that end, to make himself independent of Parliament by accepting subsidies from the French king, were bound to end in catastrophe. This was more especially the case as Louis XIV had, at the very time of King James' accession, after having for a number of years persecuted the Huguenots in defiance of the Edict of Nantes, taken the step of revoking that great instrument of religious ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... partie la plus ingrate, la plus uniforme, la plus inutile, quoi qu'elle soit la plus connue. La vritable histoire est couverte par le voile des temps" (p. 7). Boulanger however was not to be daunted and on the firm foundation of the fact of some ancient and universal catastrophe, as recorded on the surface of the earth and in human mythology, he proceeds to inquire into the moral effects of the changes in the physical environment back to which if possible the history of antiquity must be traced. Man's defeat in his struggle with ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... matter to be taken on faith. His paternal heart was slightly perturbed by a railing that ran round the top of the stairs. This railing, he feared, was so built that small and impetuous children would assuredly fall headlong through it, and we discussed means of thwarting such catastrophe. But upstairs we found the room that caused our guest to glimmer with innocent cheer. It had tall casement windows looking out upon a quiet glimpse of trees. It had a raised recess, very apt for a bust of Pallas. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... in this story, or why should "Uncle Pete," as Jerry called him, have lost his mind over the catastrophe? Uncle Pete must be really mad or they would not have shut him up in ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... Pani Sniatynska had been staying with my aunt, she too would have been terror-stricken, and I should have seen her without her gloves, and her hair in disorder. No, in regard to that I cannot delude myself any longer. Aniela knew very well that her departure would be to me a more dangerous catastrophe than a wound on my head or the loss of an arm or leg; and yet she did not hesitate a moment. I was perfectly aware that it was all her doing. She wanted to be near her husband, and what would become of me ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... I drank tea with Johnson at Dr. Taylor's, where he had dined. He entertained us with an account of a tragedy written by a Dr. Kennedy, (not the Lisbon physician.) 'The catastrophe of it (said he) was, that a King, who was jealous of his Queen with his prime-minister, castrated himself[672]. This tragedy was actually shewn about in manuscript to several people, and, amongst others, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... store-house, where I placed it all safely away in the upper chamber. The pathway was so narrow in places that the deviation of a few inches would have caused donkey, load, and cart, to be precipitated scores of feet down the abrupt slope into the sea beneath. To avoid this catastrophe I had to take a pick-axe and shovel, and devote a whole day to widening it in parts, making this, the main path to the top of the island, nowhere ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... sigh of relief from the authorities of Magdalen, when they saw the last of John Lyly, M.A., in 1575. He however, quite naturally, saw matters otherwise. It would seem to him that the College was suffering wrong in losing so excellent a wit, and accordingly he heroically took steps to prevent such a catastrophe, for in 1576 we find him writing to his patron Burleigh, requesting him to procure mandatory letters from the Queen "that so under your auspices I may be quietly admitted a Fellow there." The petition was refused, Burleigh's sense of propriety overcoming ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... winding, wooded stretches, kindly places; and there are arching alders along the way to provide a seclusion yet more tender. In the moonlight 'tis a path of enchantment—a way (as I know) of pain and high delight: of a wandering hope that tantalizes but must in faith, as we are men, be followed to its catastrophe. I have suffered much of ecstasy and despair upon that path. 'Tis ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... such catastrophe! You are no such marvel among men that a kitchen-wench will break her heart for you. She will be sorry for herself, no doubt; but it will be nothing more than she expected, and will only confirm her opinion of you: she knows well enough the risk ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... shy, had risen. His eyes dilated at the woman's speech. He looked for a catastrophe as the natural result of her taking such a tone with this man who was the terror of his household and of all Grenoble. Instead, the Lord Seneschal's meekness left ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... frozen, and scarcely able to walk or move, standing near him. But there she stood, upon the narrow icy way over the dam, and from appearances of the snow and planks of the little bridge, the faithful mare had pawed, scraped, and endeavored by various means to rescue her master. The manner of the catastrophe was evident; the old man had become sleepy, and frozen, and while the poor mare was feeling her way over the icy and snow-covered bridge, her master had slipped off into the frozen dam, and no doubt she would have dragged him out, could she have reached ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... were used until 1583, when a serious catastrophe put an end to one if not both of them. Stow, in his Annals, gives the following account ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... damages to pay; and had not Ellen caught the tea-urn, as it was tipping over, there would, in all probability, have been a doctor's bill into the bargain. The letter was eagerly read—it was from my uncle's legal adviser, who had witnessed the catastrophe, informing me, that all dispute as to the succession was at an end by the tragical event that had taken place, and that he had put seals upon everything, awaiting my arrival or instructions. The solicitor, as he presented the letter, said that he would take his leave, and call again in an ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... people who were guillotined, as if you thought I could have saved their lives. Were you not present when my son and I met, after the time of the Terror? Did you not hear my first words to him, when he told me of the catastrophe? Were they not 'Charles, I love you; but if I thought you had let those two unfortunates, who risked themselves to save me, die without risking your life in return to save them, I would break my heart rather than ever look at you or speak ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... second time with great threatnings to fetch him; the Chorus yet remaining on the place, Manoa returns full of joyful hope, to procure e're long his Sons deliverance: in the midst of which discourse an Ebrew comes in haste confusedly at first; and afterward more distinctly relating the Catastrophe, what Samson had done to the Philistins, and by accident to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... and still more reduced in terror by the fall of a portion of it, was not available to him as a form explanatory of the catastrophe; and even the slopes of the Righi on the left are not, in reality, as uninterrupted in their slope as he has drawn them; but he felt the connection of this structure with the ruin amidst which he stood, and brought the long lines of danger clear against the sunset, and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... his strength was gradually coming back to him, and secretly rejoicing that he bore this terrible blow so stoically, I felt that we might now converse about the catastrophe which ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... the castaways can go out to it on a raft, or float of some kind, and carry off every thing they want—and singularly enough, although the vessel is always on the point of going to pieces, that catastrophe never takes place, until every thing which can be of ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... became known that St. Germain had gone by Emden and had embarked for England, where he had arrived in safety. In due time we shall hear some further details concerning this celebrated impostor; and in the meanwhile I must relate a catastrophe of another kind, which was near to have made me die the death ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... told him at the moment of our arrival last night; but from the little outward emotion displayed by him, I should be tempted to infer he had almost anticipated some such catastrophe." ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... helped to seat herself in fatal proximity to my unfortunate friend. Talk of a powder magazine and a lighted match!—well, there you have the situation as I felt it, though I was powerless for the moment to avert a catastrophe. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... scattering bottles, wood, and tins from the basket, all of which went careering down the side of the valley with the mule, leaping, bounding and rattling and creaking in a way which drove the poor beast nearly frantic with fear, the catastrophe being in no wise bettered by the shouts of Andregg and the dismal brayings of the donkey, which seemed to be frantic in the endeavour ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... resounded with the hoof-beats and the tramp of marching hosts, with the rattle of arms and the rumble of artillery. Of such a war, once begun, no man could predict the end. But the world realized that it was a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions, a failure of civilization in its stronghold, ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... which must have contained many tons. The shock it gave the water drove it in breakers to some distance, and we partook of the motion, as we rolled for at least ten minutes before the swell subsided. The other waterspout passed some distance astern. In this gulf some years ago a dreadful catastrophe occurred to a West Indiaman homeward bound, caused by one of the sucking clouds or waterspouts. Several had formed very near her, one of them so near that the master of her was afraid to fire as it might endanger the vessel. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... smashed 'em" rang in his ears. How did the catastrophe affect him? By the light of the lantern he held were his features visible, relaxing to a singular smile—the smile the man of determined spirit wears when he reaches a juncture in his life where this determined spirit is to feel a demand on its strength, when the strain is to be made, and the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... captain, however, promptly annihilated me by demanding categorically whether I had ever seen the spanker-boom jammed with the foretopsailyard, with the wind abeam. I replied meekly that I believed such a catastrophe had never occurred under my immediate observation, and as he turned to Bush with a smile of commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to inspect the pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned provisions, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... action in the first campaign, and had the result been against them, we could certainly have achieved our object in half the time. In the end, of course, they failed to prevent the conquest, but during all the time the catastrophe was postponed France had abundant opportunity of gaining offensively elsewhere territory which, as she at all events believed, would have compelled us to give up ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... tell them what's up!" gasped Mr. Santley, and turned to run back into his office to spread the news of the catastrophe by telephone. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... their own careers, have, for various reasons, and with widely varying purity of motive, headed or joined in separatist movements. Many of these men were actuated by high-minded, though narrow, patriotism; and those who, in the culminating catastrophe of all the separatist agitations, appealed to the sword, proved the sincerity of their convictions by their resolute courage and self-sacrifice. Nevertheless they warred against the right, and strove mightily to bring about the downfall and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... ought not to name*, but who I trust knows how much I esteem the elevation of his character and conduct, said to me: "If you remain, he will treat you as Elizabeth did Mary Stuart:—nineteen years of misery, and the catastrophe at last." Another person, witty but unguarded in his expressions, wrote to me, that it was dishonorable to remain after so much ill-treatment. I had no need of these recommendations to wish, passionately wish, to depart; from ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... fumbled landing in the jungle had been a catastrophe, it had granted him his only weapon. He was believed to ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... become lieutenant to his brother when in Cilicia, having left Caesar for the purpose. He afterward went with his brother to the Pharsalus, assuring the elder Cicero that they two would still be of the same party. Then the great catastrophe had come, when Cicero returned from that wretched campaign to Brundisium, and remained there in despair as at some penal settlement. Quintus followed Caesar into Asia with his son, and there pleaded his own cause with him at the expense of his brother. Of Caesar we must all ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... whereabouts of our new game. F. and I, separating, had made the place by different routes, and just as I had caught sight of one enormous monster, F. and the shikaree appeared, just on the point of walking into his jaws. Having, by great exertion, prevented this catastrophe, we massed our forces, and taking off our hats, just as if we were stalking an unpopular landed proprietor in Tipperary, we crept up to within sixty yards of the unsuspicious monster, and fired both together. With a howl and a grunt, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... an' say, 'Is it right that our dear boys should be let go free in such a dreadful city, what with the awful drink, and gamblin' and worse than that, dear brethren. No, we will petition the Minister of Defence to stop the dwedful catastrophe, to put the pubs outer bounds, an' ter never have any wet canteens in the camps. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the troop now drew their swords. A bloody catastrophe seemed impending, when the Bourgeois Philibert, seeing the state of affairs, despatched a messenger with tidings to the Castle of St. Louis, and rushed himself into the street amidst the surging crowd, imploring, threatening, and compelling them to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of Mary Stuart—a sad but inevitable portion of the vast drama in which the emancipation of England and Holland, and, through them, of half Christendom, was accomplished—approached its catastrophe; and Leicester could not restrain his anxiety for her immediate execution. He reminded Walsingham that the great seal had been put upon a warrant for her execution for a less crime seventeen years before, on the occasion ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... grown into a conscious desire, based on the self-knowledge and experience gained from loving and looking after the first child. We have had a real taste of the joys of home and family building, and now nothing short of economic catastrophe is likely to stop us from building higher. I assume, of course, that the mother did not encounter any severe difficulties in giving birth to her first child. If she was in good medical hands, she probably did not, though certain unusual formations of the pelvis may have made her ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... convent in the morning, and in an interview with Sister Agatha informed her that in the evening she would probably be called to the sick bed of Ellen. Mr. Stowe bade us good-bye and sailed in the Havana steamboat at noon, that his presence at the catastrophe might not seem suspicious. At sunset I bade farewell to dear little Ellen, who was indeed as pale as death, and in an hour afterward was on board the ship, where I found every thing in readiness for a hasty ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... think, the bravest thing I ever did. I felt, in doing it, as one feels who has nerved himself to enter fire. And when the thing was done, the ease of it surprised me. There followed no catastrophe such as I expected. Before my glance, grown suddenly so very bold, her own eyes drooped and fell away as was her habit. She spoke thereafter without looking at me, in that cold, emotionless voice that was peculiar to her always, ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... who passed through the earthquake there must be a shuddering horror never to be forgotten, a black mark passing athwart their lives and cutting them into two parts—that before and that after the catastrophe. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... prevent the escape of gas, which rushed through a large rent in the silk. By lightening the car of all the articles which it contained, the passengers had been able to prolong their suspension in the air for a few hours. But the inevitable catastrophe could only be retarded, and if land did not appear before night, voyagers, car, and balloon must to a ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... the human catastrophe. Why did the Creator scatter his sexual attraction so anomalously that it is so rarely reciprocated, each lover pursuing so often another who flies him for a third, as in Midsummer Night's Dream, an imbroglio oddly enough found in a little poem identical in the ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... Polly's week of housekeeping might have ended, nor how substantial her castle in the air might have grown, had not a catastrophe occurred to her of a double and ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... of our operations during seven successive summers. To any persons thus qualified to judge it will be plain that an occurrence of this nature was at all times rather to be expected than otherwise, and that the only real cause for wonder has been our long exemption from such a catastrophe. I can confidently affirm, and I trust that on such an occasion I may be permitted to make the remark, that the mere safety of the ships has never been more than a secondary object in the conduct of the expeditions under my command. To push forward while there was any open water to ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... first, these agents do not seem as forceful and extraordinary as a single terrible catastrophe, the slow results thus gained are even more impressive. For what an appalling lapse of time must have been necessary to cut down and remove layers of sandstone, marble, and granite, thousands of feet in thickness; to carve the mighty shrines ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... becoming a vast desert, and with the end of all things certain to arrive in a comparatively near future, pictures to us what must as inevitably be the fate of our own world ages hence, unless it come to an untimely end by some catastrophe. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... most literatures appears as a catastrophe appears in New England as a relief. Energy has run low in the calm veins of such women, and they have better things to do than to dwell upon the lives they might have led had marriage complicated them. Here genre ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... watch; it had stopped. It was early in the morning when the Indians had attacked us. The sun had not now risen any considerable height in the eastern sky. This made me feel sure that one whole day, if not more, had passed since the catastrophe, and that if I would preserve my life I must push on to overtake the travellers. I had left my snow-shoes in the camp, so that I had great difficulty often in making my way over the snow in some of the spots where it lay most loosely. More than once I sank ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... denominations. Last year when a high dignitary of the Church came to call upon me, imagine my dismay when I saw during our interview Snap, with evil designs, crawling under the furniture to nip his lordship's legs. I was only just in time to prevent the catastrophe! ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... the low Clatsop plains. Only the tide and his failing strength were opposed to these; would they enable him to hold his own? He set his teeth harder than ever, but it was all in vain, and directly the catastrophe came. His strength wavered, the boat veered round, a sudden gust and roll of water took it broadside, and over she went, keel up, more than a ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... on yet, the chevalier thought that, instead of remaining on the Place du Carrousel, he would do better to turn the four hours which he had before him to the profit of his love. Moreover, the nearer he approached to the catastrophe, the more need he felt of seeing Bathilde. Bathilde had become one of the elements of his life; one of the organs necessary to his existence; and, at the moment when he might perhaps be separated from her forever, he did not understand how he could live a single day ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... shocks of this catastrophe began in the heat of summer, at the time of the annual summer fair, which this year was unbelievably brilliant. Many circumstances contributed to its extraordinary success, multitudes, and the stupendousness of the deals concluded during it: the building in the vicinity of three new ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... middle of September all the Polish party left the Spa for Paris, where I promised to rejoin them. I only stayed for Charlotte's sake; I foresaw a catastrophe, and I would not abandon her. Every day Croce lost heavily, and at last he was obliged to sell his jewellery. Then came Charlotte's turn; she had to give up her watches, ear-rings, her rings, and all the jewels she had. He lost everything, but this wonderful girl ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the rifle had overwhelmed her, and the suddenness of the catastrophe had almost killed her. She had struggled in the water for a long time, and had called to me in vain. Now she was quite exhausted, and lay in my arms trembling and sobbing. I spoke to her encouragingly, and wrapped her in my coat, and rubbed ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... had gone out of himself too, which she had told him was there. And he had dreamt that it was true. But that would come when the details of misery were realised by him one by one, as after some hideous explosion it is not possible to see at once in the wreck made by the catastrophe all the ghastly confirmations of disaster that come to light with the days. The first days were not the worst, either for him or for Rachel, as each one of them afterwards secretly found. For though life had come to a standstill, had stopped dead, with a sudden shock that ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... impending crash with his heart cold within his breast; for after all he was but a lad, and the strongest men might have viewed the catastrophe with a ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... There is not a vexing toss of the sea, not a cloud in the sky. Is not catastrophe dead, and the arrows of tragedy spilled? Peace broadens into deep, perfumed dusk towards Arabia; languor spreads towards the unknown lands of the farthest south. No anxious soul leans out from the casement of life; the time is heavy with delightful ease. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... how you speak, Ezra. There are limits to what I will endure from you, though I make every allowance for your feelings at this sudden catastrophe, for ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sort of help. I will not attempt to tell you now all that this involves in connection with my deeper feelings and intentions; for I only send you this interim scribble as an excuse for delaying the letter I had already begun; and which nothing less than this catastrophe would have prevented me finishing. I hope to finish it in a few days. I am not sure whether I shall then be back in Beaconsfield; but if so it will ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... of our common Empire; for I have gone upon the principle that it is far better to distribute the blame all round than to try and make the Sinn Feiners the scapegoats of faults which each party contributed towards the catastrophe. ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard |
