"Unforeseen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... go. He made strong resolutions that the lovely maiden should never guess the existing state of affairs, but he might as well have attempted to stay the mighty waters of the ocean by his weak will. All in an unforeseen moment the words burst from his lips—the secret he had attempted to ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... to create any embarrassment to so consummate a deceiver. He described the danger of that vicious mistrust of our powers, that is the enemy of all generous and heroic action. He reminded his captive how recent were his purposes, and how many unforeseen incidents might be crowded into so eventful a moment. There were goblins, he said, ever ready to seduce the wanderer from his wished return; and he had been too much their prey not to have every thing to dread from the subtlety of their machinations. On the other hand, no character ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... encourage serious projects of colonisation by cutting off all hope of escape. With the more solid timbers and with beams cut from the trees, which in that neighbourhood sometimes attain an extraordinary height and size, the Spaniards built a new caravel to provide for unforeseen wants. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... instance take all possibilities into the account, but overlooked some, this must be ascribed not so much to the want of military penetration, as to his firm confidence in his good fortune, and in his ability to turn unforeseen accidents to his own advantage, or at least to render them harmless. Rarely has a general been so highly favoured by fortune for a long series of years as he. It is no wonder then that this confidence at length increased to such a degree as frequently ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... household thus were living on From day to day, to Michael's ear there came Distressful tidings. Long before, the time Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound In surety for his Brother's Son, a man Of an industrious life, and ample means, But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly Had press'd upon him, and old Michael now Was summon'd to discharge the forfeiture, A grievous penalty, but little less Than half his substance. This un-look'd-for claim At the first hearing, for a moment took More hope out of his life than he supposed That ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... this unforeseen event took every atom of fight out of both of us as completely as if we had ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... this book would be included in my "Collected Works" now in course of publication, but unforeseen delay in the date of publication has made this impossible. The selection of its contents was not made by me, but the choice has my approval and the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... among the Republicans at the start, because all the original Abolitionists in the State came into that party in 1860. Our success had been so rapid and unforeseen that the Democrats continued their opposition even after female suffrage was an accomplished fact; but the leaders were shrewd enough to see that another such election as the last would ruin their party in the State. So their trains were quietly laid, and the match was not applied until ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... unforeseen interruption prevented the maneuver from being the success it had been before. Garnet had turned the handle, and was just about to pull the door open, while Ukridge, looking like some modern and dilapidated version of Discobolus, stood beside him with his jug poised, ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... after this date, and mainly in London, altering, improving, and adding to the manuscript of the book. New lines of investigation would suggest themselves, new theories to be thought out, and the task would grow day by day by a very simple but unforeseen process of natural accretion. Hume thought it near completion in 1769; but towards the end of 1772, a couple of months after Smith's answer to Pulteney, he gives it most of another year yet for being finished. He writes from his new ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... reader be warned that the important thing is the constructive purpose, and not the means proposed for its realization. Whenever the attempt at its realization is made, it is probable that other and unforeseen measures will be found necessary; and even if a specific policy proposed were successfully tried, this would constitute merely an advance towards the ultimate end. The ultimate end is the complete emancipation of the individual, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... What unforeseen consequences however for himself and his friends, for Germany and for England, were destined to spring ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... as it had been, so that members on both sides might be induced to give their most studious attention to the subject before a measure, which must be so momentous, should be proposed to them. As had happened, the unforeseen division to which the House had been pressed on the Address had proved that the majority of the House was in favour of the great reform which it was the object of his ambition to complete. They were aware that they had been assembled at a somewhat unusual and inconvenient period ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... was only a boy. Men old in the business of life become accustomed to loss; accustomed to fingers snatching away the gain which they have almost reached up to; accustomed to the staggering blow delivered by the Unforeseen. Like gamblers, they learn finally to look with indifference on the mask that may disguise the angel, or the death; on the curtain of to-morrow that may cover an Eldorado or a tomb. They come to see that the eternal forces are unknowable, following laws unknowable, from the seed sprouting in ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... almost from first to last: in Othello, the doubtful conflict between contrary passions, though dreadful, continues only for a short time, and the chief interest is excited by the alternate ascendancy of different passions, the entire and unforeseen change from the fondest love and most unbounded confidence to the tortures of jealousy and the madness of hatred. The revenge of Othello, after it has once taken thorough possession of his mind, never quits ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... spring, on the day the first bluebird comes, the dog also decides whether the man shall go on alone or find a mate and bring her home for company. Each year the dog regularly has decided that they live as always. This spring, for some unforeseen reason, he changed his mind, and compelled the man, according to his vow in the beginning, to go courting. The man was so very angry at the idea of having a woman in his home, interfering with his work, disturbing his arrangements, and perhaps wanting to spend more money than he could afford, ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... political system powerless before the new conditions; and it transformed that system. It had found its military organization incapable of defending it; and it reconstructed that organization. It had found its educational system useless in the presence of unforeseen necessities; and it replaced that system,—simultaneously crippling the power of Buddhism, which might otherwise have offered serious opposition to the new developments required. And in that hour of greatest danger the national instinct turned back ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... and a common human impulse to have a hand in the ordering of their little world. In ten days Robert Grant Burns received a letter from Dewitt, president of the Great Western Film Company, which amply fulfilled those plans, and, as I said, opened the way for other events quite unforeseen. ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... dead. It was the end of that stage in Sally's life. After the funeral, Sally and her mother were quite without money. Everything was so wretched and unforeseen that the two were lost in this miserable new aspect of poverty and improvidence. For a time Mrs. Perce was good to them, and Mrs. Clancy would have been the same if Mrs. Minto had not stared through her ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... much as freedom to develop the ideas that were teeming in his mind. When he left Hamburg, however, he was destined never to return thither except as a visitor, and started on the long, roundabout way to an unforeseen new home in Vienna. He had been but little over a month in Paris when he learned of the death of the little son that Elise had borne him three years before. He was deeply grieved both for himself and for the despairing mother, to whom ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... that in all his experience nothing so horrible had ever occurred as this outburst by the woman who was Ethne's friend, nothing so unforeseen. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... presently impeded by a crowd of persons who surrounded a long cart or waggon, which had just been overturned, and had shot out a motley group of personages, who were being lifted on their legs, growling and howling at this unforeseen disaster. A hard-featured sailor, whose leg had been broken by the fall, brandished a splinter of the fractured limb, and swore—"That although his timbers were shivered, and he had lost a leg in the service, he would not be the last in the Ring, but he'd be d———d if he mount the rubbish-cart ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... knew, but I don't. I am clear knocked out by this new detail— this unforeseen necessity of working a subject down gradually from his condition of ancestor to his ultimate result as posterity. But I'll ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... determined, the discussion was suddenly brought to a close by an unforeseen and most melancholy event,—the death of the queen of Portugal, the unfortunate subject of it. That princess had possessed a feeble constitution from her birth, with a strong tendency to pulmonary complaints. She had early felt a presentiment that she should ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... proverb. Unforeseen coincidences may have greatly helped a man, yet if they have done for him only what possibly from his own abilities he might have effected for himself, his good luck will excite less attention and the instances be less remembered. That clever men should attain their objects ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... are so constituted that it is necessary to their happiness to live near some noble work of art or nature. A mountain is satisfactory to them because it is great and ever new, presenting itself every hour under aspects so unforeseen that one can gaze at it for years with unflagging interest. To some minds, to mine amongst others, human life is scarcely supportable far from some stately and magnificent object, worthy of endless study and admiration. But what of life in the plains? Truly, most plains are dreary enough, ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... Church is simple and consistent, as well as spiritual and sublime. The way of redemption it discloses is not an extempore provision of Supreme benevolence called forth by an unforeseen contingency, but a plan devised from eternity, and fitted to display all the divine perfections in most impressive combination. Whilst it recognises the voluntary agency of man, it upholds the sovereignty of God. Jehovah graciously secures the salvation of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... example of Sir Robert Peel, nevertheless deviates from the course he adopted by making itself the originator of reforms, not waiting to grant them to any popular pressure, nor to the pressure of unforeseen circumstances." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and repentance. And it is a very true proverb, 'Marry in haste and repent at leisure.' No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the same mind, and no unforeseen ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his chance. Buttoning his overcoat collar up to his chin and cursing the fact that his hat must stand out like a chimney-pot on a detached house, he sped on tiptoe down the cobbled way and close beneath the house-walls of Quadrant Mews. But, half-way in, he stopped, confounded by an unforeseen difficulty. How was he to identify the narrow entry of Number 9, whose counterparts doubtless communicated with the mews from every residence on four sides of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... through several rooms, when an unforeseen difficulty presented itself. Where is the sleeping-room of the duke? Which way must he turn, in order to find him? He stood there undecided, not daring to ask any of the attendants in the anterooms, lest perhaps they might suspect him and awaken the duke! He finally ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... only a few miles from Plassans. This news had just been brought by an express, who had succeeded in making his way into the town, and had been charged to get the gates opened for the column. There was an outburst of triumph. Macquart, especially, appeared to be delirious with enthusiasm. The unforeseen arrival of the insurgents seemed to him a delicate attention of Providence for his own particular benefit. His hands trembled at the idea that he would soon hold the Rougons ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... of soon being a free man. Now, after making himself a hermit in some things, after enduring countless torments and insults without resentment, in order to avoid the possibility of the scourge, here it was hanging over him for a thing utterly unforeseen,—a crime of which he was wholly innocent; but all that was naught. He saw that his case was hopeless; his solemn disclaimer was thrown in his teeth, and the boatswain's-mate stood curling his fingers through the "cat." ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... in reality is a different thing, and Elizabeth's sprang up from causes quite unforeseen, and from people whom she had never remembered. She had a calm, proud, self-reliant nature, but such natures are specially wounded by small stings; and Elizabeth brought home with her from her necessary daily investigations many a sore ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... lost ideal. For the iron hand of Russian despotism has already begun to close on Finland with its relentless grasp, and, in spite of former oaths and promises from the Russian Tsars, the future of Finland looks blacker and blacker as time goes on. Yet it is often the unforeseen that happens, and let us trust that this may be so in Finland's case, and that a brighter future may soon dawn, and the dark clouds that now are threatening may be once ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... had spoken with well-defined certainty of the success of the experiment. Nevertheless, after several days industriously spent in endeavouring to obtain by purchase the teeth of a newly-slain tiger, the details of the undertaking began to assume a new and entirely unforeseen aspect; for those whom he approached as being the most likely to possess what he required either became very immoderately and disagreeably amused at the nature of the request, or regarded it as a new and ill-judged form of ridicule, which they prepared to avenge by blows and by base ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... had a rather inconvenient habit, some of them, of springing brand-new proposals upon one without any warning, and they would without turning a hair raise questions the discussion of which was wholly unforeseen and had not been prepared for. A good deal of trouble was, for instance, caused on a certain occasion owing to the question of armament for Russia being brought up at one of the Chantilly Conferences which used to take place from time to time, without our having a delegate present ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... who seem not to believe in presentiments, have more than once been seized with an involuntary apprehension. This dread, this sadness, is the antecedent of the tempest. It announces regret, accident, and unforeseen distress. Nay, I think we thus are informed of dangers which menace one we love. I think there is a real link between souls which love each other, a mysterious tie, an invisible union, so powerful however, that how great soever the ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... obliged to leave her alone at the lago di Como. There they purchased the hotel of which we have spoken, and prepared to receive the court, and exhibit all the aristocratic luxury with which the Duke of Palma was so familiar. One circumstance, however, which had been entirely unforeseen, wrecked all their hopes. The best society of Paris, which is so lenient to some eccentricities, yet so rigid in its exaction of obedience to certain prejudices—the society to which, from rank and position, the Duke of Palma belonged, was rebellious. Among the nobles of the restoration ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... pretended that the country was not safely secured by ships of private parties, and that when they arrived alone by unforeseen accidents, they happened unexpectedly, to the ruin of the country; as well as the beaver fallen to a low price and which was restored only at the marriage of the king ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... the plan following the old house they had left in Connecticut as closely as possible, but still old Dick Buck stayed on in his log cabin. Every day he told Ezra Knight he was planning to move, but always some unforeseen event would arise to make it necessary for him to postpone his departure. The houses were not fifty feet apart, the back yard of the New England cottage serving as a front yard to the cabin. The days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months. Ezra grew impatient and ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... goddess, against an adversary with far superior talents. Everybody must acknowledge Prince Eugene's superiority of genius, when compared with the Duke of Marlborough; but Marlborough was always as fortunate in having continually unforeseen accidents in his favor, as Prince Eugene was unlucky to have them against him to thwart and cross the execution of the best-combined projects, which extorted admiration, and seemed to have only need of Fortune's standing neuter to be successful. The fate ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... degradation at the idea of uniting herself to a man in Martin Kelly's rank. She could not, however, be brought to tell her brother openly, and declare her determination; and Martin had, at length, come to the conclusion that he must carry her off, before delay and unforeseen changes might either alter her mind, or enable her brother to entice her out of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... off at the slightest alarm, which is often very distressing to those who love him; and some of those other spirits had chosen for their abode the Castle of Greifenstein and for their companions the persons who dwelt there. The unforeseen plays a very great part in our lives; for if it did not, we should most of us know exactly what to do at the right moment, and should consequently approach perfection at an unnatural rate. While Greif and his father were slowly ascending ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... as mentally, I might perhaps have had the strength to fulfil my intentions. I say perhaps; we cannot tell what might have been. And it is particularly in such cases as mine, when body and spirit are alike affected, that we are the most easily thrown out of balance by unforeseen influences, by some sudden wave of feeling, by the mood of another, by the interference of ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... immense effort of will that Brereton prevented an exclamation and a start of surprise. But of late he had been perpetually on the look-out for all sorts of unforeseen happenings and he managed to do no more than show ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... been thy passive instrument'— (As thus the old man spake, his countenance 1550 Gleamed on me like a spirit's)—'thou hast lent To me, to all, the power to advance Towards this unforeseen deliverance From our ancestral chains—ay, thou didst rear That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance 1555 Nor change may not extinguish, and my share Of good, was o'er the world ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... an iceberg in the very midst of the waters, melting not once, nor contributing a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And when bed-time came again, how clearly was it shown, that there is nothing certain in this changeful world. By some sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations lose power, communities are shattered, households well-constructed fall in pieces ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... deeply thoughtful as the coach drove back to St. James's Square. An unforeseen obstacle was placed in the way of her self-sacrifice, an obstacle so great that it did not seem possible to overcome it. Was Judge Marriott's absence of her uncle's contriving? It did not seem probable, but she was in the mood to connect ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises from the seemingly irrelevant. It is through the spirit of this principle, if not precisely through its letter, that modern science has resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen. But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most numerous and most ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Argonauts, as these fifty brave adventurers were called, had prepared everything for the voyage, an unforeseen difficulty threatened to end it before it was begun. The vessel, you must understand, was so long and broad and ponderous that the united force of all the fifty was insufficient to shove her into the water. Hercules, I suppose, had not ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... result of some deep and devilish purpose? As to that all speculation soon appeared to be a vain thing. Finally the two officers came to the conclusion that it wras left there most likely by accident, complicated possibly by some unforeseen necessity; such, perhaps, as the sudden need to get away quickly from the spot, or something of ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... heads beside our city shrines Ye sit 'neath shade of new-plucked olive-boughs. Our distant kin's resentment Heaven forefend! Let not this hap, unhoped and unforeseen, Bring war on us: for strife we ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... with all its wiles, they are always prepared for a stampede. It is the system they themselves follow, and are ever expecting to be practised against them. They accept the chances of attack—no matter how sudden or unforeseen—with all the coolness of a contest premeditated and prearranged. Even terror does not always create confusion in their ranks—for there are no ranks—and in conflicts with their own race, combinations that result from drill and discipline ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and feeling sometimes associated with place or person, sometimes regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen and departing unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all expression: so that even in the desire and the regret they leave, there cannot but be pleasure, participating as it does in the nature of its object. It is as ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Lamotte, I got extremely uneasy for fear that he would not fall into our power, knowing that he would go off, if he could not get into the fort in the course of the night. Finding that, without some unforeseen accident, the fort must inevitably be ours, and that a reenforcement of twenty men, although considerable to them, would not be of great moment to us in the present situation of affairs, and knowing that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... would be employed in purchasing the different articles, contained in a list delivered by Mr Laurens. That three millions would be given by instalments to Dr Franklin, for the payment of bills of exchange drawn by Congress. That a fourth million would be reserved for unforeseen emergencies, and particularly to pay for the supplies embarked in the ship Lafayette. That Count de Vergennes had been Dr Franklin's security for a part of those supplies, amounting to four hundred and seventeen ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... warned her, "don't let Keenan suspect who I am! Don't let him get a glimpse of you with me. My part now has got to be what you'd call 'armed neutrality.' If anything unforeseen turns up—and that can only be at Palermo or Gibraltar—I'll be watching near by to come to your help in some way—but, whatever you do, don't let ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... the fires to make a murky twilight of the ruddy glow—I thought to lead the mare quietly away up the stream and thus on to the foot of that ravine by which we hoped to climb to the old borderer's rendezvous on the plateau. But when all was ready and I sought to set this plan in action, an unforeseen obstacle barred the way. To keep the horses from straying up the valley an Indian sentry line was strung above the grazing meadow, and into this I blundered like any unlicked knave of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Monsieur Deschars ever allows himself" —is a sword of Damocles, or what is worse, a Damocles pin: and your self-love is the cushion into which your wife is constantly sticking it, pulling it out, and sticking it in again, under a variety of unforeseen pretexts, at the same time employing the most winning terms of endearment, and with the ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... in some unforeseen way—perhaps quite unconsciously—excite your anger," sighed Melissa. "Then you will be carried away by passion, and I shall ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I have incurred their hostility. Conspiring with those servants that have constant access to thee they covet the kingdom after thee by compassing thy destruction. Their plans, however, do not succeed in consequence of unforeseen circumstances. Through fear of those men, O king, I shall leave this kingdom for some other asylum. I have no worldly desire, yet those persons of deceitful intentions have shot this shaft at my crow, and have, O lord, despatched the bird to Yama's abode. I have seen this, O king, with eyes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... kept on. At that moment my spool ran out. I hurriedly loaded up again, and putting the first priceless spool in my case, I gave it to my man in a dug-out to take care of, impressing upon him that he must not leave it under any circumstances. If anything unforeseen happened he was to take ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... those which lift man nearest heaven, and make him thankful for the great gift of existence, are sometimes those which are unforeseen." ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... the ends were draped deftly across her shoulders; but before she turned to see who was coming along the road Spencer had recognized her. Thus, in a sense, he was a trifle the more prepared of the two for this unforeseen meeting, and he hailed it as supplying the answer to ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... 87. In order to provide for unforeseen deficiencies in the budget, a reserve fund may be authorized by the Diet to be expended upon ...
— The Constitution of Japan, 1946 • Japan
... industrial projects, is far in excess of those whose ideas and projects have actually any value whatsoever. When the Great Eastern, the largest ship of its time, had been built on the Thames by the celebrated engineer Brunel, its launching was attended with unforeseen and what seemed to be insuperable difficulties. Mr. Brunel's descendants have, I believe, still in their possession, a collection of drawings, sent him by a variety of inventors, and representing all sorts of devices by which ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... de Barral. She had taken all her measures against outside observation of her conduct; and I could not help smiling at the thought what a ghastly nuisance the serious, innocent Fynes must have been to her. How exasperated she must have been by that couple falling into Brighton as completely unforeseen as a bolt from the blue—if not so prompt. How she ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... left Aden on the 29th of October 1854, arrived at the capital of the ancient Hadiyah Empire on the 3rd January 1855, and on the 9th of the ensuing February returned in safety to Arabia, with the view of purchasing stores and provisions for a second and a longer journey. [8] What unforeseen circumstance cut short the career of the proposed Expedition, the Postscript of the present ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... there were many whose disappointment was bitter indeed when they learned that their loved ones were not on board. Often a ship brought letters instead of the expected wife and family; for at the last moment some unforeseen circumstance may have prevented the departure of the one so looked for and so longed for. In the confusion of landing we nearly lost our wits, and did not fully recover them until we found ourselves in our own new home in the then youngest State in ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... any unforeseen accident should delay your return here before my departure, I will bury one of the iron tanks and mark on the large tree at the smithy where ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... owing to an unforeseen circumstance (partly, even largely, connected with Beau) which had caused a great upheaval in her life, she had now not a human being belonging to her, except her maid Simpkins, of whom she would like to get rid ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... limit to their renewal did we not apply the mind's living fire to suppress them. For there come within its scope the questions of the essential simplicity of providence, of the order of fate, of unforeseen chance, of the Divine knowledge and predestination, and of the freedom of the will. How heavy is the weight of all this thou canst judge for thyself. But, inasmuch as to know these things also is part of the treatment ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... herself unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly irritable—from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawn away from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused by John's objection ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... courtiers saw at one blow the improper sources of their revenues in the financial administration cut off, and obsolete and ridiculous appointments, to which numerous pensions, were attached, reduced. "Acquisitions of posts, projects of marriage or education, unforeseen losses, abortive hopes, all such matters had become an occasion for having recourse to the sovereign's munificence," writes M. Necker. "One would have said that the royal treasury was bound to do all the wheedling, all the smoothing-down, all the reparation; and as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... account. Yet I was never a consenting party to wholesale murder, whatever else I was. The night before I sailed, Santos and the captain were aboard with me till the small hours. They promised me that every soul should have every chance; that nothing but unforeseen accident could prevent the boats from making Ascension again in a matter of hours; that as long as the gig was supposed to be lost with all hands, nothing else mattered. So they promised, and that Harris meant to keep his promise I ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... his wife. But he must protect his own self both by (means of) his wife and his wealth. The learned have enunciated the truth that one's wife, son, wealth, and house, are acquired with the intention of providing against accidents, foreseen or unforeseen. The wise have also said that all one's relations weighed against one's own self would not be equal unto one's self. Therefore, revered sir, protect thy own self by abandoning me. O, give me leave to sacrifice myself, and cherish thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... June 1737 thus brought Henry Fielding's career as political dramatist to a hasty conclusion; a conclusion quite unforeseen by the luckless author, as appears from his Dedication to the Historical Register, published almost at the moment when the Act became law: "The very great indulgence you have shown my performances at the little theatre these two last years," ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... most of the houses were empty, and the place looked desolate in the extreme—the whole of the inhabitants who received us on our landing amounting to about half-a-dozen Bugis and Chinese. Our captain, Herr Warzbergen, had promised to obtain a house for me, but unforeseen difficulties presented themselves. One which was to let had no roof; and the owner, who was building it on speculation, could not promise to finish it in less than a month. Another, of which the owner was dead, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... gallons of water, and one hundred pounds of fresh meat, the doctor got a total weight of twenty-eight hundred and thirty pounds. He could then take with him one hundred and seventy pounds of ballast, for unforeseen emergencies, and the balloon would be in exact balance with ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... of the bright future before her in that Australian trade for which she was specially built. Yet at this moment the Great Eastern is lying in her old berth in the Sloyne at Liverpool, and unless something else at present quite unforeseen takes place, she will once more play the undignified part of a floating music hall. It seems that although she was certainly sold, as we have stated, the transaction was not completed. Her owners then cast about for the next highest bidder, who at once ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... band of fugitives swept, so close together that their horses almost touched; and, unless some unforeseen accident occurred—a slip, a stumble, or a fatal shot—they would soon ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... following precisely the same practices, the nation demands that he be thrown into prison; the Press heaps contumely upon him; he has become an object of suspicion in the popular eye. This change, world wide and quite unforeseen, has ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... a plot may be frustrated by some groundless alarm or unforeseen mischance occurring at the very moment when the scheme is to be carried out. On the morning on which Brutus and his confederates were to slay Caesar, it so happened that Caesar talked for a great while with Cneus Pompilius Lenas, one of the conspirators; which some of the others observing, were in ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... he had no appetite for tobacco did not conclusively prove that he would never acquire one; nor did the fact that he had been told to let tobacco alone warrant that he would need no further watching—for an unforeseen temptation was ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... the two unforeseen happenings. The other was the snapping of the rotted rope, under the wrench of ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... of the four thousand pounds that Dr. Ferguson proposed to carry up with him. He took only two hundred pounds of ballast for "unforeseen emergencies," as he remarked, since otherwise he did not expect to use any, thanks to ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... peculiar possession of some divinely gifted individuals. Everyone can cultivate it. It is in you and needs vigorous stirring up as a condition of its awakening. There are some men who are born great; others are made so by certain unforeseen circumstances; a third class becomes great through conscious and ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... have an opportunity, in the event of any unforeseen difficulties occurring, of falling back upon the vessel conveying the party, she was not to quit the place where she might have been left by it until such a time had elapsed, from the departure of the expedition for the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... the views of General Caprara," said General Legnaney, the leader of the Spanish division. "If we march on, we leave our base of operations far behind, and render unforeseen calamities irremediable." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... magic fountain in the German myth, whose fairy tricklings, uncovered for a single night, burst into a curbless flood, that drowned the sleeping landscape ere the dawn. The small reactions of contrast in infinitesimal tints, are perhaps neglected or unforeseen, but their influence is fearfully apparent ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was exposed to no temptation. I had passed the feverish period of youth. No contagious example had contaminated my principles. I had resisted, the allurements of sensuality and dissipation incident to my age. My dwelling was in pomp and splendour. I had amassed sufficient to secure me, in case of unforeseen accidents, in the enjoyment of competence. My mental resources were not despicable, and the external means of intellectual gratification were boundless. I enjoyed an unsullied reputation. My character was well known in that sphere which ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... fountain for ever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight; and after one person and one age has exhausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar relations enable them to share, another and yet another succeeds, and new relations are ever developed, the source of an unforeseen and ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... conditions a reserve force, no tissue being worked to its full capacity. Meltzer has compared the reserve force of the body to the factor of safety in mechanical construction. A bridge is constructed to sustain the weight of the usual traffic, but is in addition given strength to meet unusual and unforeseen demands. The stomach provides secretion to meet the usual demands of digestion, but can take care of an unusual amount of food. The work of the heart may be doubled by severe exertions, and it meets ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... imperiously—to do something at once. To do what? Why, to get her out of the house as quickly as possible. He was desperately anxious to do that. I have told you he was terrified. It could not be about himself. He had been surprised and annoyed at a move quite unforeseen and premature. I may even say he had been furious. He was accustomed to arrange the last scene of his betrayals with a deep, subtle art which left his revolutionist reputation untouched. But it seems clear to me that at the same time ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... repeated his congratulations upon my acquittal by the court martial, and then asked me how much longer I thought it would be before I should again be fit for active service. I was happily able to assure him that, unless anything quite unforeseen happened, I hoped to be quite ready for duty in a fortnight, or even less if my services were urgently required, and I remember that I gave the answer with considerable eagerness, for there was a certain subtle something in the tone of the ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... I was at Eton (I don't refer now to the dinner-table) my Greek and Latin were of such a superior quality that had it not been for an unforeseen accident I would have carried off all the honours. The accident lay in this: I never went to school there except in dreams. How often, ah! how often have I imagined the delights of a collegiate education! What a world ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... friendship, kindness, love; when dawn still kept its brilliance, and the night its peace. I can, the soul said to itself, and I will; I will do all that is right—all that is natural. But soon resistance, difficulty, unforeseen, coming we know not whence, arrest us, undeceive us, and the human yoke grows heavy on our necks. Thenceforward we become merely sharers in the common woe. Hemmed in on all sides, we feel our faculties only to realise their impotence: ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Empire that bit of money still in circulation. Then at one stroke, in the second half of 37, when, preparations finished, it is time to put hand to the execution, the ancient historians without in any way explaining to us this sudden act, most unforeseen, make him depart for Antioch to meet Cleopatra, who has been invited by him to join him. For what reason does Antony after three years, all of a sudden, re-join Cleopatra? The secret of the story of Antony and Cleopatra lies ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... fever in his veins mounted daily as he saw his dream assuming concrete form. The many problems arising as the work advanced afforded him unceasing activity; the unforeseen obstacles which were encountered hourly required swift and certain judgment, taxing his ingenuity to the utmost. He became so filled with it all, so steeped with the spirit of his surroundings, that he had thought for nothing else. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... must have been deceived twenty times before we learn to give our confidence blindly, like a little child!... I know that we must have been perpetually deceived before we understand that nothing proves anything; that everything is unforeseen, inconsistent, and unexpected; and that we must just simply 'believe,' because it is good to believe and because it is sweet to offer to others what we ourselves ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... Cleopatra's pearls in her drink for wilful waste, the other items of it confirmed the previous opinion of the chief cook of the troop, and the precious ingredients were entrusted to his care. When they were well mixed, an unforeseen difficulty arose about a bag to boil it in; but that was met by the sacrifice of a haversack, and at last it was consigned to the gipsy kettle which was to bring it to perfection. If it were literally ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... acquired in the struggle for existence, as in that case they should also have stability; but since this is not possessed by the new organs, the presumption is that they do not possess the character of adaptation. They are therefore new organs that originated after an entirely unnatural and unforeseen interference with the normal vital functions and in consequence of a self-regulating activity of ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... Basil, his devotion to her, must be, though by no means humiliating, something of a coal of fire laid on Jack's traitorous head; and she saw at once that he was pleased, touched, but perplexed, by what must seem to him an unforeseen smoothing of her mother's path. He was there, she guessed, far more to see that her mother's path was made smooth than to try and straighten out their own twisted and separate ways. He had come for her mother, not for her; and Imogen did not ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... succeeded in getting through, but none returned; so that, until the signal lights were seen flashing from the distant hills, in the direction of Khelat-I-Ghilzai, the garrison were unaware of the steps which were being taken for their rescue. Even had unforeseen obstacles prevented the advent of either of the relieving columns, it is probable that the garrison of Candahar would finally have freed itself. Colonel Primrose had, at his disposal, a force more than double that ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... felt she would give a good deal to overhear what was going on. Possibly, if anything unforeseen had happened, she might get news of Tommy. For some moments she reflected desperately, then her face brightened. She went quickly along the passage to Mrs. Vandemeyer's bedroom, which had long French windows leading on to a balcony that ran the length of the flat. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... a dagger in Emmy's heart. She turned away swiftly lest Zora should see the pain in her eyes. The intensity of the agony had been unforeseen. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... North-western, Central, and Western India, inclusive of the Punjab and Kabul. Eastward, his authority extended to the banks of the Karamnasa. Beyond that river lay Behar and Bengal, independent, and under certain circumstances threatening danger. He had fully resolved, then, that unless the unforeseen should occur, the nineteenth year of his reign should be devoted to the conquest of Bengal and the states tributary to Bengal. Before setting out on the {116} expedition, however, he paid another visit to the tomb of the saint ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... intelligence and virtue of the generation which eagerly devoured them. That no rumour of the same kind has ever, in the present age, found credit among us, even when lives on which great interest depended have been terminated by unforeseen attacks of disease, is to be attributed partly to the progress of medical and chemical science, but partly also, it may be hoped, to the progress which the nation has made in good ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rapidly spread itself over the sky and water, surrounding us with an impenetrable fog. I apprehended danger; yet, before I could make the schooner snug to meet the squall, a blast—as sudden and loud as a thunderbolt—prostrated her nearly on her beam. The shock was so violent and unforeseen, that the unrestrained slaves, who were enjoying the fine weather on deck, rolled to leeward till they floundered in the sea that inundated the scuppers. There was no power in the tiller to "keep her away" before the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... consciousness of conscious or unconscious fear. This fear is very often the natural consequence of the reaction which, in melancholy natures, comes almost inevitably after a sudden and unexpected satisfaction or after a period in which the hopes of the individual have been momentarily raised by some unforeseen circumstance. It is by no means certain that hope is of itself a good thing. The wise and mournful soul prefers the blessedness of that non-expectancy which shall not be disappointed, to the exhilarating pleasures of an anticipation which may ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... Pierre Philibert, so unforeseen at the old Manor House, seemed to Amelie the work of Providence for a good and great end—the reformation of her brother. If she dared to think of herself in connection with him it was with fear and trembling, as a saint on ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... them that the amount would be quiet sufficient, in the event of nothing unforeseen happening, to last for some considerable time to come, I conducted them to the door, again repeating the promise that I would communicate with them so soon as I had anything to report. If I had only known then, that, at the very moment ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... year 1805, while President Jefferson was still the victim of his overmastering passion, and disposed to cultivate the good will of England, if thereby he might obtain the Floridas, unforeseen commercial complications arose which not only blocked the way to a better understanding in Spanish affairs but strained diplomatic relations to the breaking point. News reached Atlantic seaports that American merchantmen, which had hitherto engaged with impunity in the carrying ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Bureau Restant chez M. Vollant Patureau." This is what Chopin wrote above.] At the last-mentioned place the agency has been informed, and will forward it at once. You need not send me the receipt, we should require it only in case of some unforeseen reclamation. The correspondent in Chateauroux says that PAR LA VOYE ACCELERE [SIC] it will come from Paris in four days. If this is so, let him bind himself to deliver the piano at Chateauroux ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... that Emily is as innocent of suspicion as ever. But the chances, next time, may be against us. How do you know to what lengths your curiosity may lead you? Or on what shocking discoveries you may not blunder with the best intentions? Some unforeseen accident may open her eyes to the truth, before you can prevent it. I seem to ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... Island of Mocha, almost every day witnessed a struggle for supremacy between the raging ocean on the one side, and skilful seamanship and nautical science on the other. Capt. Porter, however, proved himself ready for every emergency. No peril of the deep was unforeseen, no ounce of prevention unprovided. The safety of his ship, and the health of his men, were ever in his thoughts; and accordingly, when the "Essex" rounded into the Pacific Ocean, both men and ship were in condition to give ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... reports from Ophir that we swing the miners' vote almost to a man unless something unforeseen breaks loose. Hetchy gives us a good word from Twin Buttes; and Griggs, up in the Carnadines, wires from Alkire that he has just completed an auto canvass of the High Line district. The ranchmen up that way have had a pretty bad scare. There was a threat made that the price of water was going to ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... An unforeseen event, however, disturbed this happy tranquillity, just at the very moment they began to taste its charms, which served to convince them how necessary it was to be guided ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... He intends, during the coming year, to make another trip to Europe, for the purpose of visiting all the countries mentioned in the titles of the second series; for he is not inclined to write about any country until he has seen it. If no unforeseen event intervenes to defeat his plans, the remaining volumes of YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD will ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic |
