"Coincidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blessed the citadel of Solitude, where he had fought the good fight and won it, and invited him to take up the breast-plate of faith that now fell off his own shrunken body, Clement said within himself: "Heaven itself led my foot hither to this end." It struck him, too, as no small coincidence that his patron, St. Bavon, was a hermit, and an austere one, a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... before this coincidence was accepted as certainly more than an accident by the old-fashioned astronomers, who want rigid proof for every new theory. But the last doubts have long vanished, and a connection has been further traced between violent outbursts of solar activity ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... at Paris in 1895, and what he later described with such bewildering exactitude in his "Inferno" and "Legends," all this is here presented in dramatic form, but a little toned down, both to suit the needs of the stage and the calmer mood of the author. Coincidence is law. It is the finger-point of Providence, the signal to man that he must beware. Mystery is the gospel: the secret knitting of man to man, of fact to fact, deep beneath the surface of visible and audible existence. Few writers ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... as I was on board, I asked the name of the vessel, when I was surprised to find she was called the 'Portaferry of Portaferry.' Although the name was not that borne by the vessel of which I had dreamed, it must be considered at least a remarkable coincidence. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... for the people that, on this occasion, their interests coincided with those of their princes. To this coincidence alone were they indebted for their deliverance from popery. Well was it also for the rulers, that the subject contended too for his own cause, while he was fighting their battles. Fortunately at this date ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... temperament, then, comprises some of the substantial psychological elements that go to make a believer in creeds and an observer of devout forms, the chief point of coincidence being the belief in an inscrutable propensity or a preternatural interposition in the sequence of events. For the purpose of the gambling practice the belief in preternatural agency may be, and ordinarily is, less closely formulated, especially ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the three of them refused to enlighten me further as to the history, identity or character of either Mr. or Mrs. Pless, but of course I knew that I was entertaining under my roof, by the most extraordinary coincidence, the Count and Countess of Something-or-other, who were at war, and the child they were fighting for with motives of an ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... odd,' said Challoner; 'yes, certainly the coincidence is strange. I am myself reduced ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the formal titles to some of them) told in the first person by Jeremiah himself,(39) while from 604-3 onwards the biographical narratives are much more numerous and, except in three of them,(40) the Prophet appears only in the third person. This coincidence of the first appearance of Baruch as the Prophet's associate with the start of a numerous series of narratives of the Prophet's life in which he appears in the third person can ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... fruitful source of disputes, to confound accent with quantity in our language.[489] This charge, however, there is reason to believe, is sometimes, if not in most cases, made on grounds rather fanciful than real; for some have evidently mistaken the notion of concurrence or coincidence for that of identity. But, to affirm that the stress which we call accent, coincides always and only with long quantity, does not necessarily make accent and quantity to be one and the same thing. The greater force or loudness which causes the accented syllable to occupy ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... not terrible grounds of suspicion? Mr. Furnival's law chambers were in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, close to Chancery Lane, and Lady Mason had made her appointment with her son within five minutes' walk of that locality. And was it not in itself a strange coincidence that Lady Mason, who came to town so seldom, should now do so on the very day of Mr. Furnival's sudden return? She felt sure that they were to meet on the morrow, but yet she could not declare even to herself that it ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... evenings and attend revival meetings with them. But all that had happened long ago—five years ago, when she was a little thing of ten. One forgets much in five years. So she felt no stir of memory and no presentiment of a coincidence ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... on the part of Grayson. Most eccentric man," he continued. "Danby tells me—now really what a coincidence! Sir James, by all that is singular! Ah, my dear Sir James, I was thinking about you. Ah, Edgar, my ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... is the anniversary of Pio Nono's return to Rome from Gaeta, that refuge of destitute sovereigns. It is also, by a strange coincidence, the anniversary of the day on which his Holiness and General Goyon narrowly escaped being killed by the falling of a scaffold, from which they were inspecting the repairs at the church of St Agnese. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... accustomed circulation. This tendency towards contraction spreads and induces further withdrawal of deposits, thus requiring the banks to reduce their loans; and so runs on and on to increasing discomfort and uneasiness until panic is speedily produced. The practical coincidence and significance of our tariff changes and panics is shown by an extract below from an article written by the translator in October-November, 1890, predicting the recent panic which was hastened somewhat by the Baring collapse. ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... June 7, 1610, the cabins were stripped of such things as were of value, and the whole company went on shipboard and started down the river—only to meet, next day, in Hampton Roads, a new expedition headed by the new governor, Lord Delaware, himself! By this slight thread of coincidence was ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... world of grace that our most valuable observations and inquiries relate to certain critical points in the life—as conversion and sanctification; points which may sometimes, like the freezing and boiling points of a material substance, approach almost, if not quite, to coincidence, but which, like them, may be ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... claims to teach them with fidelity and clearness unsurpassed by living man.' No one, I think, can doubt his perfect sincerity. The 'hints' probably suggested some of the quotations and arguments in my brother's defence'; but there is no close coincidence. Dr. Williams cordially expressed his satisfaction with his ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... coincidence at least," said Mrs. Enderby; "but, dear Reine, try to compose your thoughts. You must not jump too hastily at conclusions. At the end of fourteen years it will be very difficult to find evidence to prove or disprove what you imagine may ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... lay dying, appointed one of his nephews, a child barely three years old, to succeed him, in the vain hope that she would thus enjoy a further spell of power until the child should be of age. But on the following day the Empress Dowager also died; a singular coincidence which has been attributed to the determination of the eunuchs and others that the Emperor should not outlive his aunt, for some time past seen to be "drawing near the wood," lest his reforming spirit should again jeopardize their ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... rose more strongly in the closed room, and from the handkerchief Philip's eyes turned to the face of Eileen Brokaw looking at him from out of Gregson's sketch. It was a curious coincidence. He reached over and placed the picture face down. Then he loaded his pipe, and sat smoking, his vision traveling beyond the table, beyond the closed door to the lonely black rock where he had come upon Jeanne and Pierre. Clouds of smoke rose about him, and he half closed his eyes. ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... a proces verbal of their interview, while Brederode stormed like a madman, and abused the Duchess for a capricious and unreasonable tyrant. He ended by imprisoning La Torre for a day or two, and seizing his papers. By a singular coincidence, these events took place on the 13th, 24th, and 15th of March, the very days of the great Antwerp tumult. The manner in which the Prince of Orange had been dealing with forty or fifty thousand armed men, anxious ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... history of their neighborhood; they could tell what clans had succeeded each other, the exact spots where such a party had been overthrown and such another victorious; every village had its sure traditions printed on the minds of its inhabitants, and, by consulting the annals of the nation, the coincidence was often remarkable. How is it, therefore, that they were so universally at fault with respect to the Danes? A partial explanation has been given which is in itself a proof of the tenacity of Irish memory. It is known that the Tuatha de Danaan were not only skilful ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the Quartos and omitted in the Folios, at the end of the play. He did not take the trouble to compare the text of the Quarto with that of F4. When any emendation introduced by him in the text coincides with the reading of F1, as sometimes happens, we are convinced that it is an accidental coincidence. Being, however, a man of natural ability and taste he improved the text by some happy guesses, while, from overhaste and negligence, he left it still deformed by many palpable errors. The best part of the work is that with which his experience of the ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... By a singular coincidence Marshall took his seat as Chief Justice at the opening of the first term of Court in Washington, the new capital, on Wednesday, February 4, 1801. The most beautiful of capital cities was then little ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... inhabitants can remember the winter of 18— "when we had snow to the top of the fence posts," it is a wise precaution to have an emergency supply of canned foods on hand. In February, 1934, we were snowbound for three days but lived in comfort, thanks to a minimum reserve supply and, by a happy coincidence, liberal marketing done the morning the storm began. Several neighbors took to snowshoes and skis and so made their way to the nearest store to replenish essentials like milk, meat, eggs and the like. Winter ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... the Louvre offers a daily denial to those who are so little clear-sighted as to believe in silly nonsense which gratuitously insults our kings and queens. The H or Henri and the two C's of Catherine which back it, appear to represent the two D's of Diane. The coincidence may have pleased Henri II., but it is none the less true that the royal monogram contained officially the initial of the king and that of the queen. This is so true that the monogram can still be seen on the column of the Halle au Ble, which was built by Catherine alone. It ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... with an odd, superstitious wonderment at the colonel, as if overcome by this not very remarkable coincidence. The colonel, overlooking or totally oblivious to its somewhat uncomplimentary significance, simply said, "Go on. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said Morton, unable to refrain from taking some interest in a story which seemed to bear a singular coincidence with his own. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to confess that my hands shook as I hung up the receiver. A brick house, she had said; the Wells house was brick. And so were all the other houses on the street. Vines in the back? Well, even my own house had vines. It was absurd; it was pure coincidence; it was—well, ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a curious coincidence that only a year or two afterwards a man named Probert, who had given King's evidence upon which the notorious Thurtell and Hunt were convicted of the brutal murder of Weare and executed, was also released, and within a year ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... bore at the top, in large print, a few verses on the same subject by this very man, Robert Trewe. Both of them had, in fact, been struck by a tragic incident reported in the daily papers, and had used it simultaneously as an inspiration, the editor remarking in a note upon the coincidence, and that the excellence of both poems prompted ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... know her," the girl cried. "She came into the dining-room here before dinner quite by accident. I thought she was some adventuress at first. But her face was too good and pure for that. I asked her who she was, and she said she was the Slave of the Bond. Is this a coincidence, or is there something deeper beyond? I don't know what ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... afford a peculiarity of effect not to be equaled in any other species of painting. Internal views of cathedrals also, where windows of stained glass are introduced, have a beautiful effect. The great point to be attained is, a happy coincidence between the subject and the effect produced. The fine light should not be too near the moon, as its glare would tend to injure her pale silver light. Those parts which are not interesting, should be kept in an undistinguishing gloom; and where the principal ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... appurtenances thereunto belonging. His present visit was in mere perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit was made on the day after the night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another and very different purpose. His presence now was not of his own choosing: he had been ordered to accompany his superior and at the moment ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... Greaves. The name Woodruff, Woodroffe is too common to be referred to the plant woodruff, and the fact that the male and female of a species of sand-piper are called the ruff and reeve suggests that Woodruff may have some relation to wood-reeve. It is at any rate a curious coincidence that the German name for the plant is Waldmeister, wood-master. Another official surname especially connected with country life is Pinder, also found as Pinner, Pender, Penner, Ponder and Poynder, the man in charge of the pound or pinfold; cf. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... was upon the incident of his meeting with Barbara, and the odd coincidence of his coming upon her father at Sentinel Rock, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... coincidence that I may venture to point out. It is history repeating itself. More than three hundred years ago the ancestors from whom my father drew his name and blood were French Protestants, who had been compelled ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... is—well, nearer to Puntal—and less observant than Paris." He laid another on the marble table-top with its sulphur head close to the first, so that the two radiated from a common center like spokes from a hub. "Regard that as a coincidence of the arrival of the Count Borttorff from the other direction, but at the same time, and at the precise season of the coronation and marriage of the King." He looked at the two matches, then successively laid ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... pretensions, better or worse, to come a little nearer to the verity, eloquence is attractive as an example of the magic of personal ascendency;—a total and resultant power,—rare, because it requires a rich coincidence of powers, intellect, will, sympathy, organs, and, over all, good-fortune in the cause. We have a half-belief that the person is possible who can counterpoise all other persons. We believe that there may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... been absent just one year. Just one year to-day, as I live—let me see! yes!—this is October the tenth. You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called this day year, to bid you good-bye. And by the way, it does seem something like a coincidence, does it not—that our friend, Captain Smitherton, has been absent exactly a year also, a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a singular coincidence that the writers of two of the most brilliant records of travel of their time should have been law students in Barry Cornwall's office. Kinglake, the author of "Eothen," and Warburton, the author of "The Crescent and the Cross," were at one period both engaged as pupils ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... a curious lot of miscellanies, apparently derived from Darlaston Hall, near Stone, Staffordshire, an imperfect, but very large and clean, copy of the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, by Caxton, was adjudged to Mr. Quaritch at L1020, a second one, by an unparalleled coincidence presenting itself at the same place of sale a few months later, only four leaves wanting, but not so fine, and being knocked down at L1800 to the same buyer. The Asburnham Chaucers and other works from the same press were (with one or two exceptions) so poor, that it was surprising that ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... snow, felt amused by the affectation of sensual luxury as he ate iced cakes and languidly watched the people. He could only see two or three men, one of whom he had noticed at the hotel and afterwards passed in the street. This was probably a coincidence, but it might have a meaning, and he moved back behind the arch that cut off his corner. When he next looked about, the fellow had gone. There were, however, a number of pretty, fashionably-dressed girls, and he remarked ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... By a curious coincidence the Ethiopic sway, or extension of influence over Egypt by the great monarchy of the south, exactly synchronized with the development of Assyrian power in south-western Asia, which bordered Egypt upon the north; and thus were brought into hostile ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... lived he felt he should have been a better man and not led away against his higher nature by the chance of falling in with bad companions. Aunt Jane thought her resemblance to Chris's aunt a remarkable coincidence and an opportunity for appealing to his better self which should be improved. She wanted to improve it by untying his hands, because he had sprained his wrist in his childhood and it was sensitive. He had sprained it in rescuing a ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... on the stopping of the chaise afforded the peculiar genius of Handy Andy an opportunity of making a glorious confusion, by driving the political enemy of the sitting member into his house, where, by a curious coincidence, a strange gentleman was expected every day on a short visit. After Andy had driven some time, he turned round and spoke to Mr. Furlong, through the pane of glass with which the front window-frame of the chaise ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Tour related to me her dream, which was exactly similar; and, as I had never observed in either of those persons any propensity to superstition, I was struck with the singular coincidence of their dreams, which, I had little ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... me here, Lee," the gentle old voice was saying. "Perhaps not such a coincidence. On this great Inner Surface of gentle light and gentle warmth—with Nature offering nothing against which one must strive—there must be many groups of simple people like these. They have no thought ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... struck into the latter and travelled it for half a mile, they saw a long distance ahead someone walking toward them, also leading a horse. In a land where men saddle a mount to ride a few hundred yards, the singular coincidence excited their curiosity. They wondered why the fellow walked, as doubtless he was wondering the same thing of them. But as they drew nearer they perceived the pedestrian to be not a man but a woman; and when they met Bryant recognized in her ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... quite dark without. The door leading to Professor Maxon's campong, left unlatched earlier in the evening by von Horn for sinister motives of his own, was still unbarred through a fatal coincidence of forgetfulness on the part ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... enameled door and found inside there what he did find—if this small sequence of incidents had not occurred as it did and when it did, or if only it had been delayed another twenty-four hours, or even twelve, everything might have turned out differently. But fate, to call it by its fancy name—coincidence, to use its garden one—interfered, as it usually does in cases such as this. And so here ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... take some messages from Judkins, and Larry's mind raced feverishly. Dick Sherwood was the victim Maggie and Barney and Old Jimmie were so cautiously and elaborately trying to trim! It seemed an impossible coincidence. But no, not impossible, after all. Their net had been spread for just such game: a young man, impressionable, pleasure-loving, with plenty of money, and with no strings tied to his spending of it. That Barney should have made his acquaintance was easily explained; to establish ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... daggers ready. Attendants came in to remove Caesar's chair. It was announced that he was not coming. Delay might be fatal. They conjectured that he already suspected something. A day's respite, and all might be discovered. His familiar friend whom he trusted—the coincidence is striking!—was employed to betray him. Decimus Brutus, whom it was impossible for him to distrust, went to entreat his attendance, giving reasons to which he knew that Caesar would listen, unless the plot had been actually betrayed. It was now ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... heart overflowed,—a common coincidence even with older and better boys than Jimmy, and the tears came to his eyes. At last, when the plate was cleared, he rose, and went to the place where the new-comer lay. He bent over the little puff in the bedclothes, and ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... singular coincidence, these were the very words which Mr. Tenant employed when he went to consult his friend Dr. Chellis. As Hiram differed totally from Mr. Tenant, so did the drygoods jobbing merchant from the Doctor. Both were first-rate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... sherbet, and kicked off one shoe impatiently. Was I dreaming? or had I been speaking aloud, really putting the questions he answered so quickly and appositively? Pshaw! a coincidence. I called the servant and ordered my hookah to be refilled. Isaacs sat still, immovable, lost in thought, looking at his toes; an expression, almost stupid in its vacancy, was on his face, and the smoke curled slowly up in lazy wreaths from his ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping thoughts. On the other hand, few would suppose that the laws of nature were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living permitted, for the purpose of saving ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... but during all pauses in the game the conversation went back to the same topic, and when the rubber was over they who had been playing it lost themselves for ten minutes in the allurements of the interesting subject. It was so singular a coincidence that the lady should have gone to Nuncombe Putney of all villages in England, and to the house of Mrs. Stanbury of all ladies in England. And then was she innocent, or was she guilty; and if guilty, in what degree? That she had been allowed to bring her baby with her was considered to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... herself that even in stories no author would dare—not even the veriest amateur scribbler—would presume to affront intelligent readers by introducing such a coincidence as this appeared ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... much in favor of this. In a certain number of cases tumors do develop at the site of injuries. The coincidence of injury and tumor is apt to be overestimated because of the strong tendency to connect succeeding events. Tumors are not most common on those parts of the body which are most exposed to injury. They are rare, for instance, on the hands and feet, and very rarely do they appear ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... had been more of a passing phase (even as Schopenhauer is lost in the chain of ethical sages) but for its strange coincidence with the Wagnerian music. The accident of this alliance gave it an overwhelming power in Germany, where it soon threatened to corrupt all the arts, banishing idealism from the land of its special haunts.[A] The ultimate weakness of the Wagnerian ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... I used to call him, had a mother, but no father—his father died when Jack was an infant. I've often fancied that there was a delicate bond of union between us here. He had a mother, but no father. I had a father, but no mother. Strange coincidence! I think the fact helped to draw us together. I may be wrong, but I think so. Jack was on a visit to us at the time, so I had only to cross the passage to ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... given to the public a version of an American legend, which, in a principal feature, bears some likeness to the following transcript of a popular Irish one. It may, however, be interesting to show this very coincidence between the descendants of a Dutch transatlantic colony and the native peasantry of Ireland, in the superstitious annals of both. Our tale, moreover, will be found original in all its circumstances, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... a minute or two, but aside from the coincidence, Wilbur could not see that there was anything strange in that. They worked busily for a few moments, girdling the infected trees, and also girdling some small useless trees near by, because, as the hunter explained, when the beetles flew ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... conspiracy of Catiline. Since, however, Augustus is on all hands admitted to have been born a. d. IX. Kal. Octobr. and mention of Catiline's conspiracy was first made in the senate a. d. XII. Kal. Nov. (Cicero, Against Catiline, I, 3, 7), the claim of coincidence is evidently based ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... financier, and then on comparing the numbers on the coupons the old man discovered that by a coincidence his berth adjoined the one which ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... scratch; screw; shrags, the end of sticks or furze (Halliwell); to shred (A.-S., screadan, but which must be a secondary form of the verb). That the shrew-mouse is called in Latin sorex, seems to be an accidental coincidence. That is said to be derived from [Greek: urax]. The French have confounded the two, and give the name souris to the common mouse, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various
... the Doctor exclaimed, delightedly. "That is a coincidence, isn't it? I sometimes think that when two minds are, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their absence other admirers appear upon the scene, a squire and a farmer being rivals for Margaret's hand. Quarrelling over the matter, they put it to the test of a duel and kill each other. By an unhappy coincidence their absent sons are looking into Bacon's magic crystal at that very time, and, seeing the fatal consequences of the conflict, turn their weapons hastily against each other, with the result that their fathers' fate becomes theirs. Margaret remains loyal to Lacy, but mischief ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... hallucinations, and he was extremely annoyed at what had taken place. Twice in the last eight days he had been the subject of a waking dream, and now he was confronted with what seemed an odd counterpart of his vision in actual fact. It was no doubt a mere coincidence, but it was a very disagreeable one. Of course if he saw the old trinket described by Violetta, the chances were that it would be quite different from the setting of the stone which the dead woman wore; ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... at a hundred and sixty yards is not by any means an unprecedented feat, but that two players should have done it in succession was at least a rather remarkable coincidence. It was a severe disappointment to the King, who had serious doubts of his own ability ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... me in red letters in the surface cars, pursued me in the elevated and underground, accompanied me out into the country and back again to the city, greeted me each morning in the daily paper and in my daily mail, each week or each month in the periodical, the coincidence of a familiar package on a drug-store counter seems to be providential and therefore irresistible. I know that I ought to be examined by a physician, but I am busy and not unwilling to gamble for my health; it cannot kill me and there is a chance ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... thrown them down the hatchway, and probably killed one, or both, but they leaped over it without difficulty. They differ in intellectual vigour; the perceptions of one are more acute than those of the other, and there is a corresponding coincidence in moral qualities. He who appears most intelligent is somewhat irritable in temper, while the other's disposition ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... stage of her reflections that a shadow fell across her and she looked up. For a moment the coincidence failed to strike her, and then with a surprised little laugh she ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... by an odd coincidence, there was a piteous howling heard, followed directly after by a shot and then ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... singular coincidence, and a coincidence probably not due to natural causes, that some five per cent bonds, having fifteen years to run, should be at par, and that other five per cent bonds that might run thirty years should fall below par in the same market. In the three months from August to December, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... not confirmed by other writers, as we find it is. Bresciani's recent work is almost entirely devoted, as we have already observed, to the task of tracing numerous customs still existing among the Sardes to their eastern origin. We may find future opportunities of noticing some in which the coincidence is most striking. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... are the best cleaning products available in the world today, I most sincerely believe. They are that exactly, and nothing more than that exactly. So you will have to find another explanation for your twos and twos, which I admit are a rather spectacular run of coincidence, though not beyond the bounds ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... friends for a whole year with anecdotes of the deceased, an extraordinary coincidence happened. He met a young girl of eighteen, with fair hair, and a striking resemblance to his late wife, as she had been at fourteen. He saw in this coincidence the finger of a bountiful providence, willing to bestow on him at last the first one, the well-beloved. He fell in love ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... with the same axis as his tentative oval. Mars now appeared too slow at the apses instead of too quick, so obviously some intermediate ellipse must be sought between the trial ellipse and the circle on the same axis. At this point the "long arm of coincidence" came into play. Half-way between the apses lay the mean distance, and at this position the error was half the distance between the ellipse and the circle, amounting to .00429 of a radius. With these figures in his mind, Kepler looked up the greatest ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... the question was sent to Parliament for decision. After a stormy debate of several hours in the Lower House the policy of the Government was upheld by 330 votes to 87: on the following day the Senate endorsed this decision by 158 votes to 37. By a coincidence which was too extraordinary not to have been artificially contrived, the long-awaited German reply arrived on the morning of this 10th March, copies of the document being circulated wholesale by German agents among the Members of Parliament in a last effort to influence their ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... fresh courage at the question, and we could see that he was anxious for us to answer in the affirmative. Had we done so, the commissioner would have been staggered with the coincidence, and our ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... cattle are driven in the belief that they will thus be protected from contagious and other diseases, and in these practices protective fumigation originated. That such different nations should have had the same idea of fixing the purification by fire on St. John's Day is a remarkable coincidence, which perhaps can be accounted for only by its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... coincidence of circumstances and wonderful combination of causes which gradually prepared the people of this country for independence; when we contemplate the rise, progress, and termination of the late war, which gave them a name among the nations of the earth, we are with you unavoidably ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... the first moment of meeting, a strong bond of mutual attraction drew them together. If kept long apart, both became nervous and restless. When again united, they were quickly at peace with themselves and all the world. By a strange coincidence, as it transpired; Rita's parents lived in a house just across the street, almost in the front of the one occupied by the Gerrish family. Through the children, the parents soon became intimate friends. As Gilbert had never cared to play with boys of his ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... thinking that if it had been so easy for Madame Patoff to throw herself over the balcony, just when he was not looking, it was after all not so very improbable that Alexander might have slipped away from his brother in the dark. The coincidence of the two cases was remarkable. As for Madame Patoff, he did not doubt for a moment that she had intended to commit suicide by throwing herself down the precipice. According to his theory, all her calmness of yesterday and this morning, succeeding the great excitement of her meeting ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... sublimest conceptions of human character, a fudge; the details of human history for three hundred years, a melodramatic, incredible fiction; and what cannot now be found anywhere else recorded, a dream; accidental coincidence he speaks of as detected dishonesty; imaginary resemblance, as guilty adaptation; a style suitable to the subject, as plagiarism; occasional inspiration he calls a lie; translation, a forgery; and ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... have read it, at any rate. Or till I ask you for it again—which I don't think I shall. You say that you used to see volumes like this on your father's bookshelves. I should not wonder if you had seen this very book there. It is a strange coincidence that I should have had it in my possession for some time, and yet never noticed until this morning, when I took it down to bring to you, that it had your name ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... deposits which have common characteristics, and which constitute a metallogenic province; also to groups of the same geologic age, which indicate a metallogenic epoch (pp. 308-309). The association with igneous rocks in one place might be a coincidence but its frequent repetition can hardly be so explained. A zonal arrangement of minerals about intrusives is often noted. Geologic evidence often shows the processes of ore deposition to have been complete before ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... Scott, like Swift and Shakespeare, like Thackeray and Fielding, never hesitated at a touch of grim humour even though it might border on grotesque, he himself would probably not have missed the coincidence of— ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... association on the visualizing power of the brain. A member of the Psychical Society, to whom I sent the contemporary record, classified it as "a visual hallucination," and I don't know that there is anything more to be said about it. But the pathetic coincidence remains still to be noted—we did not know it till afterward—that the seer of the vision was sleeping in Dorothy Wordsworth's room, where Dorothy spent so many sad years of death-in-life; and that in that very corner by ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mentioned here that Fossey has shown reason for holding that the true reading of the name is Adamu. It thus becomes plausible to hold that "Adam'' in Gen. ii.-iii. was originally a proper name, and that it was derived from Babylonia. More probably, however, this is but an accidental coincidence; both adam and adamu may come from the same Semitic root meaning "to make.'' Certainly Adamu (if it is not more convenient to write "Adapa'') was not regarded as the progenitor of the human race, like ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... favoured sisters, and among them she had recognised in Sister Mary of the Crucifix the daughter of the nobleman who had been her aunt's landlord at Treviso. Fulvia's name was not unknown to the handsome nun, and the coincidence was enough to draw them together in a community where such trivial affinities must replace the ties of nature. Fulvia soon learned that Mary of the Crucifix was the spoiled darling of the convent. Her beauty and spirit, as much perhaps as her family connections, had given her this ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a more striking coincidence; if Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters. Please return me the MS., which he does not say he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal. So ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... intrigues themselves. The word came into common usage in English during the reign of Charles II. to describe the committee of the privy council known as the "Committee for Foreign Affairs," which developed into the cabinet. The invidious meaning attached to the term was stereotyped by the coincidence that the initial letters of the names of the five ministers, Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, who signed the treaty of alliance with France in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... placed side by side, on end. This sufficiently protected them from the rain, but excluded the light, so that they had been obliged to light a candle, and Ernest had been reading to his mother in a book of voyages that had formed part of the captain's small library. It was a singular coincidence, that while we were talking of the savages on the way home, they were also reading of them; and I found my dear wife much agitated by the fears these accounts had awakened in her mind. After soothing her terrors, I returned to the fire to dry myself, and to enjoy ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... it until Black Doctor Arnquist turned the collar and cuff over to me." He looked suspiciously at Tiger. "You must have known a lot more about that interview than you let on. Or, was it just coincidence that ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... off-shoot of the luetic heredity. As far as it is now from my thoughts to put down a descent from syphilitic parents as a regular and indispensable etiological determination of the neuropathic constitution, I nevertheless maintain that the coincidence observed by me is not accidental and not ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... and though there were only a few lines in it, she treasured up the little scrap of paper very tenderly, for, such as it was, it was her first love letter. He had given her an address in the small town to which he was bound, and she noticed, with a slight wonder at the coincidence, that it was the same place where he had first seen her. She had written to him, and now there had come a pause. She had nothing ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... marked a great advance over that of Lully, the Italian, of the century before. Rameau aimed at clearness of diction and was one of the first to attempt to give individuality to the different orchestral instruments. By some strange coincidence, his first opera had much the same dramatic situation that all the early operas seemed to have, namely, a scene in the infernal regions. Rameau's operas never became the foundation for a distinctly French opera, for at the time of his death (1764), ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... go on considering Majendie," said Quarles. "Now, when he took up the knife and imitated my action of stabbing the air with it I made a discovery. He did so with his left hand. Since my first mental note concerned a left-handed man the coincidence is surprising. The sailor in his pantomime had used the right hand. Majendie's action was unexpected, and for a time I did not see its significance. But let us suppose for a moment that Majendie did throw the bag of stones away. He might argue that some one might possibly see the ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... Colonel," said the apothecary, strangely struck with the coincidence of this accusation with little Pansie's complaint, "I know not what you mean. My sight is pretty well for a man of my age. We near- sighted people begin to know our best eyesight, when other ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... host's lodge, took down my rifle, walked out a mile or two on the prairie, saw an old bull standing alone, crawled up a ravine, shot him and saw him escape. Then, quite exhausted and rather ill-humored, I walked back to the village. By a strange coincidence, Reynal's prediction had been verified; for the first persons whom I saw were the two trappers, Rouleau and Saraphin, coming to meet me. These men, as the reader may possibly recollect, had left our party about a fortnight before. They ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... and now that he knew who he was—and had been—he determined that whatever other adventurer might set the world aflame, the Modern Skobeleff should not do it if he and his Royal ally on the Higher Plane could prevent it. His coming had been a curious coincidence, possibly a consequence of obscure causes; but, for some reason or other, he felt himself beginning to look with a more favourable eye on Commander Mark Merrill—perhaps because he was the impersonation of uncompromising hostility to everything that ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had made it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline—at the singular coincidence involved in the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my figure of the scarabus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was connected directly with the war between the Hellenes and the Persians, and with that between the Sicilians and Carthaginians; but whether the Romans were or were not allies of the victors of Salamis and of Himera, there was at any rate a coincidence of interests as well ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... "Certainly the coincidence is remarkable," answered Winter. "But do not forget that the two occurrences took place at least a hundred and thirty miles apart within less than three hours of one another. I will swear that no motor yet built would cover those roads inside three ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... delaying the inquiry from what country the wanderers have arrived. How agreeably was I surprised, when Father Paul came to me with the intelligence that these gentlemen were both Austrian subjects. What a singular coincidence! So far from my native country, I was thus suddenly placed in the midst of my own people. Father Paul was a native of Vienna, and the two counts, Berchtold and Salm ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... the whole family took to studying the marine lists in the daily papers; and when everybody else had looked them over, the last one of the family did it again with extra care; lest by some singular coincidence the letters forming the City of Pride might have escaped the eyes so keen set to find them. The paper grew better than a novel. It furnished a great deal of matter for conversation, besides; for all ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... authors is indisputably true; but the charge of plagiarism, which is raised upon it, is not to be allowed with equal readiness. A coincidence of sentiment may easily happen without any communication, since there are many occasions in which all reasonable men will nearly think alike. Writers of all ages have had the same sentiments, because they have in all ages had the same objects of speculation; the interests and passions, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... sped down the road, "it was a happy coincidence for me that led the anti-renters to the patroon's ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... estimate of how entirely the popularity of the balloon was now reestablished in England, from the mere fact that before the expiration of the year Coxwell had been called upon to make thirty-six voyages. Some of these were from Glasgow, and here a certain coincidence took place which is too curious to be omitted. A descent effected near Milngavie took place in the same field in which Sadler, twenty-nine years before, had also descended, and the same man who caught the rope of Mr. Sadler's ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... a singular coincidence, that Norway in these days, when it has brought the Consular question to a climax, has begun to carry out a general rise in the Fiscal rates; the mercantile interests of "the land of Free Trade" Norway evidently do not lie so ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... us in itself as very convincing. Hone's recognition of the room was but some confused memory of an analogous place. Knots are not uncommon in deal shutters, and the discovery of the knot in the particular place was a mere coincidence. But, considering that Hone was a self-educated man, and, like many sceptics, was incredulous only with regard to Christianity, and even believed he once saw an apparition in Ludgate ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... theories of life, when rudely assailed at Paris, moved their champions to an enthusiasm scarcely less keen than that of the Jacobins. Britons who fraternized with the new hierophants were counted traitors to their King. Moreover, by a most unfortunate coincidence, the British Government publicly announced its resolve to support the Dutch Republic on the very day when the French Convention passed the first of its subversive decrees. Thus, national pride came sharply into conflict. Neither side ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... was written before I was aware that Margaret, as will be seen hereafter, had used the same symbol to describe Madame Sand. The first impulse, of course, when I discovered this coincidence, was to strike out the above passage; yet, on second thought, I have retained it, as indicating an actual resemblance between these two grand women. In Margaret, however, the benediction of their noble-hearted sister, Elizabeth ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... pure coincidence that the focus of his thoughts happened to be located in about the same volume of space that his eyes seemed to be focused on. If Brian Taggert and Senator Gonzales had been in the room below, his eyes would still be ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... not connected in any way with my family," Ughtred answered. "The resemblance between us is merely a coincidence—to which it seems I owe ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... mystery to Jack. He realized that by a strange coincidence his falling bomb and that of the other rear plane had exploded simultaneously, making the ground vibrate, and completely destroying anything that had been ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... extracting an invitation. In a high state of indignation he threatens to prosecute the men who avoid being his hosts for entering into an unlawful combination like that of "the oil dealers in the Velabrum." Incidentally it is a rather interesting historical coincidence that the pioneer monopoly in Rome, as in our day, was an oil trust—in the time of Plautus, of course, an olive-oil trust. In the "Trickster," which was presented in 191 B.C., a character refers to the mountains of grain which the dealers had in their warehouses.[105] Two years later the "corner" ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... understanding that it was to be drunk only when it could be carried under the Thames, having been opened and enjoyed by the company, to the health of Her Majesty and the infant Prince. It was remarked, too, as a singular coincidence, that a seal on one of the corks bore the impress of the Prince of Wales's feathers, a circumstance that caused some merriment. The engineer, Sir I. Brunel, appeared highly gratified at the happy result of his past anxiety ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... interests.' The complete subordination. I use the adjective advisedly. Party interests are not only the first thought of politicians in England, but, too often, the last and only thought." All this is sheer nonsense. The coincidence of party aims with the real interests of the people which the British Parliament has displayed since the Reform Act of 1832 has never been even remotely approached by any other country. Two causes have contributed to this great result; first, the ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... only a coincidence, but at this time the plotters at Harmony observed that the censorship on their ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... or merely coincidence which at this same hour led Mrs. Solomon Black, frugally inspecting her supplies for tomorrow morning's breakfast, to discover that ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... Miss Mapp," he said in his high falsetto. "Blow me, if it isn't our mutual friend Miss Mapp. What a 'strordinary coincidence." ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... the ancient and long-venerated gods of the Egyptians was a deity named Serapis. He had been, among other divinities, the object of Egyptian adoration ages before Alexandria was built or the Ptolemies reigned. There was also, by a curious coincidence, a statue of the same name at a great commercial town named Sinope, which was built upon the extremity of a promontory which projected from Asia Minor into the Euxine Sea. Sinope was, in some sense, the Alexandria of the north, being the center and seat of a great portion ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... "Yes, a very curious coincidence," he continued, with the same knowing look. "Of course, you are aware that your cousin Everard King was the next heir to the estates. Now, if it had been you instead of him who had been torn to pieces by this tiger, or whatever it was, then of course he would have been Lord Southerton ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... merchants, of Bradford—des noms bien idylliques! What mortal could have a more ludicrous name than Onions, unless it were Pickles, or Pickled Onions? And then for Onions to rob Pickles! Could there be a more incredible coincidence? As a coincidence it is nearly sublime. No story-writer would dare to present that fact or those names in his fiction; neither would be accepted as possible. Meanwhile Olivia ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... state, that on the very day that Michael's draft of five thousand pounds applied for honourable reception at the counter of his most respectable establishment, by a curious coincidence another demand for double that amount appeared there likewise; not in the shape of cheque or written order, but in that of a request, personal and oral, proceeding from the proud and high-born lips of Walter Bellamy, Esquire, lord of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... presently they came to tell me that my mother was better—they found me in the state which I have described, and in a fever besides. The favourable crisis must have occurred just about the time that I performed the magic touch; it certainly was a curious coincidence, yet I was not weak enough, even though a child, to suppose that I had baffled the evil chance ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... in all the open, fertile districts where the Teutonic element has intermingled with the native population. Because wealth happens to be concentrated in the fertile areas of Teutonic occupation, it is again assumed that this coincidence demonstrates either a peculiar acquisitive aptitude in this race or else a superior ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... urged his pony to a brisk walk, never pausing until fully two hundred yards were placed behind him. Then, when he looked back and listened, he was convinced his fears were groundless, and it was a simple coincidence that the signals which startled him were emitted at the moment of the slight mishap ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... TELEGRAPHED it to me struck me uneasily. That I should have received it at the hotel where his wife and Professor Dobbs were both staying, and where I had had such a singular experience, seemed to me more than a mere coincidence. An instinct that the message was something personal to Enriquez and myself kept me from imparting it to Mrs. Saltillo. After worrying half the night in our bizarre camp in the redwoods, in the midst of a restless festivity which was scarcely the repose I had been seeking ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... established, not only by his election as general, but by the messages of invitation which he received in private from his friends, he sailed home, and entered Piraeus on the very day of the festival of the Plunteria, (3) when the statue of Athena is veiled and screened from public gaze. This was a coincidence, as some thought, of evil omen, and unpropitious alike to himself and the State, for no Athenian would transact serious business on such ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... father into the silent land. The death of the Prince Louis Napoleon at the hands of savage Zulus was severely felt by the still strong Bonapartism of France; but Englishmen, remembering the early melancholy death of the heir of the first Napoleon, were struck by the fatal coincidence, while they could honestly deplore the premature extinction of so much youth, gallantry, and hope-fulness, cast away in ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... are familiar. The commentators on Suetonius agree with Paley in considering the whole affair as a juggle between the priests, the patients, and, probably, the emperor. But what will, perhaps, strike the reader as most remarkable, is the singular coincidence of the story with the accounts given of several of the miracles of Christ; whence it has been supposed, that the scene was planned in imitation of them. It did not fall within the scope of Dr. Paley's argument to advert to this; and our own brief illustration must be strictly confined within the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... welcome reappearance of Mr. Wesley H. Porter's neat little journal after a year's absence. "A Story", by David H. Whittier, possesses a tragical plot whose interest is slightly marred by triteness and improbable situations. Of the latter we must point out the strained coincidence whereby four distinct things, proceeding from entirely unrelated causes, give rise to the final denouement. The culmination of the aged father's resolve to kill his enemy, the conditions which make possible the return of the son, the presence of the enemy's hat and coat under the wayside tree, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... killed or wounded, how can the affair be kept secret in this gossiping city of Rome? And what remarks it will call forth! It is evident that these two boys have quarrelled only on account of the relations between Madame Steno and Maitland. By what strange coincidence? Of that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... monuments date from the tenth century. No language can give an idea of its first impression. At one end one sees innumerable masses of grey weather-beaten stones in every grotesque angle of incidence and coincidence, but all rude and mean, covered with mystic Hebrew letters and half-buried amid long grass, nettles, and weeds. The place looks exactly as if originally a collection of dunghills or, perhaps, of ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... character of his hero; while the dark uncertainty of his fate removed all possibility of shocking the audience by glaring offence against the majesty of historical truth. The subject has, therefore, all the advantages of a historical play, without the detects, which either a rigid coincidence with history, or a violent contradiction of known truth, seldom fail to bring along with them. Dryden appears from his preface to have been fully sensible of this; and he has not lost the advantage of a happy subject by treating it with the carelessness he sometimes allowed ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... than of the fact that I was likely to go to Yorkshire, the county of Charlotte's birth, the county where she was now staying. I reminded myself that it was the largest shire in England, and that of all possible coincidences of time and place, there could be none more unlikely than the coincidence that would bring about a meeting between Charlotte ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... could have brought them. It seemed unreasonable to believe that the cries of the birds and the monkeys should have summoned them, and yet, if not, it was indeed a remarkable coincidence. His judgment told him that the death of a single bird in this forest which teemed with birds could scarce be of sufficient moment to warrant that which followed. Yet even in the face of reason and past experience he found that the whole ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Ladrones, and in Otaheite, whose manners are thus licentious, should be considered as a distinct confraternity, called by a particular name; and that this name should be the same in both places: this singular coincidence of custom, confirmed by that of language, seems to furnish an irrefragable proof of the inhabitants of both places being the same nation. We know, that it is the general property of the Otaheite dialect, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... [Jeeringly.] Turquoise and emeralds! Hers! A coincidence, perhaps. Very likely. I'll give ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... difficulty is rather in accounting for the strange coincidence by which the shafts of Apollo split us exclusively along certain lines of class and of economics. I cannot understand why all solicitors did not leave off soliciting, all doctors leave off doctoring, all judges leave off judging, all benevolent ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... which these words were uttered proved her to be in earnest, and I could not but wonder at the strange coincidence of this request with my secret wishes; it having been a question with me for some time how I was to gain free access to this house without in any way compromising either its inmates or myself. I did not know then that Mr. Gryce had been the one to recommend me to ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... fraternity was rather demoralized, and the discipline was very lax. It was found out a couple of days afterward that there were three night operators at Louisville. One of them had gone over to Jeffersonville and had fallen off a horse and broken his leg, and was in a hospital. By a remarkable coincidence another of the men had been stabbed in a keno-room, and was also in hospital while the third operator had gone to Cynthiana to see a man hanged and had got left by ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... depends, and which cannot be expressed in intelligible language but only comprehended by living intuition. In many different ways he endeavors to lead the reader on to a vision of the inexpressible, or to draw him up to it, and to develop fruitfully the principle of the coincidence of opposites, which had dawned upon him on his return journey from Constantinople (De Visione Dei, Dialogus de Possest, De Beryllo, De Ludo Globi, De Venatione Sapientiae, De Apice Theoriae, Compendium). ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... simplicities of the Gospel of St. Mark. That the development should have been on the same lines in all essential matters of symbol and (in the most important respects) of doctrine, modified only by Eastern habits of thought and environment, is a miracle of coincidence which cannot be paralleled in the world unless it be granted that Christianity filtering along the great trade routes of an earlier world joined hands with Buddhism in many unsuspected ways and places. Evidence is accumulating that this is ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... came into his dark eyes. She had been thinking, all the way down the road, how she should greet him if indeed he turned out to be that one man in the world. Calmly, yes. She was sure now that Morgan knew and suspected nothing. It was simply a coincidence that they should be coming to the adobe of this old love of hers. The long arm of fate had reached out and snatched her into this ring. She knew that Gilbert could meet the situation as seemingly unconcerned as she. There was nothing at all ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... the gentlemen there and its environs; we were forty-nine in number, and it was the anniversary of the capture of Detroit. I was invited, without their remembering the day of the month—it was a curious coincidence. The clergyman, who was of the party, made allusion during divine service next morning to Isaac, and to my being in the church. I mention these particulars, that you may fully judge of the kindness of all. After the service, three fine young farmers came up to me and wished ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... island was seen by Captain Cook and, by a remarkable coincidence of ideas, received from him the same name, but I cannot with certainty reconcile the situation of some parts of the coast that I have seen to his survey. I ascribe this to the various forms in which land appears when seen from ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... wisdom, which he judges necessary for the preservation of our State; deeming you one of the rare and sage counsellors of the age." It is true that this admiration was in part attributed to the singular coincidence of Barneveld's views of policy with the King's own. Sully, on his part, was a severe critic of that policy. He believed that better terms might have been exacted from Spain in the late negotiations, and strongly objected to the cavilling and equivocal language of the treaty. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... entrails smoking. We made a half-loop around them and then struck straight for the chateau which was the brigade headquarters. Neither of us spoke now. We were thoughtful, calculating the chance of getting to that red-brick house between the shells. It was just dependent on the coincidence of time and place. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... man, one spring, plowed a pocket-book and $30 in greenbacks under, and by a singular coincidence the next spring it was plowed out, and, though rotten clear through, was sent to the Treasury, where it was discovered that the bills were on a Michigan National Bank, whither they were sent ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... Jesus. I was careful not to tell you of my wish, dear Mother, yet you said to me, in the middle of our conversation: "When you come to us, little one, you will be called 'Teresa of the Child Jesus.'" My joy was great indeed. This happy coincidence of thought seemed a special ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... broken columns. The guide said that any lady who would take three drinks from the Giant's Well, then sit in this chair and think of any gentleman for whom she had a preference, would be married before a twelvemonth. I asked him if it would answer as well for gentlemen, for by a wonderful coincidence we had each drank three times at the well! He said it would, and thought he was confirming ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... whose fate, had he known of it, might perhaps have deterred him from facing like calamities. Chatterton had "perished in his pride" nearly ten years before. As Crabbe thus recalled the scene of his own resolve, it may have struck him as a touching coincidence that it was by the Leech-pool on "the lonely moor"—though there was no "Leech-gatherer" at hand to lend him fortitude—that he resolved to encounter "Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty." He was, indeed, little better equipped ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... selection, especially as natural selection cannot operate in our complicated civilisation, where at every turn the poetry of life dashes itself against the dead wall of prose. The miracle has happened. Edwin loves Angelina, and by a strange coincidence Angelina also loves Edwin. But then come the countless questions of income, position, family. Adam and Eve were the only couple that started free from relatives. Else, perhaps, had their garden not been "Paradise." All later lovers have had to consult other people's tastes as well as their ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... obvious desire of Mr. Veal to throw discredit on the story of his sister's appearance rather inclines us to believe in Mrs. Bargrave's story, who could have had no conceivable motive for inventing such a fiction. The argument is finally clenched by a decisive coincidence. The ghost wears a silk dress. In the course of a long conversation she incidentally mentioned to Mrs. Bargrave that this was a scoured silk, newly made up. When Mrs. Bargrave reported this remarkable circumstance to a certain ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the way I feel!" Lemuel was proud of the coincidence. He said, to commend himself further to Miss Carver, "I have just been ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... may err," replied Hadrian. "But this time I have not deceived myself. A heavy misfortune threatens me. It is a strange, terrible and extraordinary coincidence!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Warde Hollister noticed something, and without speaking indicated it to one or two others. It was a trifling coincidence and held his glance and thought for but a second. On an end of fallen beam which protruded from the wreckage sat a robin with head cocked sideways ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... before their minds the virgin announced by prophecy, raised up for the deliverance of the kingdom, marked with a sign, who was then making her humble entrance into the town. Perhaps more than one applied what that passage of Scripture says of the Holy Nation to the realm of France, and in the coincidence of that liturgical text and the happy coming of the Maid found occasion for hope. Laetare, Jerusalem! Rejoice ye, O people, in your true King and your rightful sovereign. Et conventum facite: and come together. Unite all your strength against ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... son, unaccountably absent for the first time from the household ceremonies of the Feast of Dedication. What was he doing—outside the Ghetto gates—in that great, dark, narrow-meshed city of Rome, defying the Papal law, and of all nights in the year on that sinister night when, by a coincidence of chronology, the Christian persecutor celebrated the birth of his Saviour? Through misty eyes she saw her husband's face, stern and rugged, yet made venerable by the flowing white of his locks and beard, as with the supernumerary taper he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
