"Accident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... past to me as if in separate pictures, this and that accident that befell us showing much more clear and bright than things quite as important which lie between. I remember but dimly all the sad time of our father's death and burial, the grief I myself felt, and all the bustle and stir about us, making those days cloudy to me; but all the more plainly ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... woman you may sorely need before this expedition is done. Second, you deny a human being who is just as eager as you are for life and the spice of adventure, just as hungry for excitement as you or any man here—you deny me all this, everything, just because a stupid accident of ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... they found the guard there, battering in the bank doors. Benito, fearing for the life of Tony, which if anyone took should be taken by him, rushed upon the sergeant of the guard, explaining with both lips and hands the remarkable accident which had precipitated ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by a side-door opening from the Quai Jemmapes upon a narrow courtyard a few steps lower than the Quai itself. Bourzat remained at this door to warn us in case of any accident, and to point out the house to those Representatives who might ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... of this accident, which came near being the death of all on board, was nothing but the drowsiness of the look-out men on the forecastles of both ships. The sailor who had the look-out on our vessel was terribly ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... that without doubt he had died of poison, and there was a thought of indicting the Duke of Northumberland for his murder: but it was relinquished on further inquiry; the poison, if the physicians were right, must have been administered by negligence or accident. The corpse was then buried (August 6) with the forms of the Church of England at Westminster Abbey; the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had so far been left at liberty, read the service; it was the last and saddest function of his public ministry which he was destined to perform. Simultaneously, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... hour before the sad group of men who stood outside anxiously waiting heard that he was so seriously injured that his life was in danger, and that he was still unconscious. Raspall was crying more for the accident than for his injured house, which was still smouldering, though the engine had at last put out the fire. His child was safe, but he felt almost guilty for rejoicing that her life had been spared. Binks and Clodd sat patiently on the fence opposite the vicarage talking in low tones. At last ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... the Japanese to the exposure of the unclothed body is an interesting fact. In the West such indifference is rightly considered immodest. In Japan, however, immodesty consists entirely in the intention of the heart and does not arise from the accident of the moment or the need of the occasion. With a fellow missionary, I went some years since to some famous hot springs at the foot of Mount Ase, the smoking crater of Kyushu. The spot itself is most charming, situated in the center of an old crater, said to be the largest ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... well what it is I like.' And then he went to bed. I listened hard,—not from idle curiosity, ma'am, as you, who know me, will believe, but just because it's becoming to know what he's about, as there might be an accident, you know, ma'am." "You are very good, Mrs Baxter, very good." "Thank ye, ma'am, for saying so. And so I listened hard; but he didn't go to his music, poor gentleman; and I think he had a quiet night. He doesn't sleep much at nights, poor gentleman, but he's very quiet; leastwise he ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... offered me a letter of introduction to you when he wrote me at the Bexley Sands Inn, you remember, but he added in a postscript that in case of accident he was not to be held responsible. Rather cryptic, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... you will be successful in all undertakings, especially large engagements. For a young woman to dream that some accident befalls her through cultivating hemp, foretells the fatal quarrel ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... have actually undermined the old wall of the fellows' garden, and am each morning in expectation of hearing that the big bell near the commons-hall has descended from its lofty and most noisy eminence, and is snugly reposing in the mud. Meanwhile accident put me in possession of a most singular and remarkable discovery. Our chambers—I call them ours for old association sake—are, you may remember, in the Old Square. Well, I have been fortunate enough, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... they were penates of the premises; but better acquaintance has convinced me that they never were gods, but the clayey representations of great men and noble dames. The stains of time are on them; some have lost a nose or an ear; and one has parted with a still more important member—his head,—an accident that might profitably have befallen his neighbor, whose curly locks and villainously low forehead proclaim him a Roman emperor. Cut in the face of the rock is a walled and winding way down to the water. I see below the archway where it issues from the underground recesses of our establishment; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the porch, and facing the assemblage. "Harry and I began to roam all over this property, as though to kill time. Out in Nevada, as it happens, we two and a friend of ours own a mine that seemed almost worthless. Almost by accident we discovered that we were working the mine just a little off from the real vein. Now, we didn't find that El Sombrero was being worked off the vein. What we did find was in that big strip of forest over to ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... good evidence; for, on a rocky islet to the southward of the worst part of the fall, a large schooner lay hove up on her beam-ends, with all her spars aloft and her sails half furled, as she had been abandoned by her crew. Our pilot informed me that the accident had occurred the day previous, and was by no means a rare example, the downward passage at the last of the ebb requiring great ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... having captured, it is said, 2000 horses, 400 camels, and a great number of goats and sheep, besides wounding a man. During the visit, which lasted from 8 A.M. to 2 P.M., the Sultan refused nothing but permission to cross the frontier, fearing, he said, lest an accident should embroil him with our Government. Lieutenant Speke gave them to understand that he visited their country, not as a servant of the Company, but merely as a traveller wishing to see sport. This of course ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... to deprecate his charging her with the extravagance of wasting a new gown on him, and he now perceived that the change lay deeper than any accident of dress. At the same time, he noticed that she betrayed her consciousness of it by a delicate, almost frightened blush. It was one of the compensations of Mrs. Lethbury's protracted childishness that she still blushed as prettily as at eighteen. Her body had been privileged not to outstrip her ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... terrible stadholder with an immense force was not creating invincible batteries, and that they should be all butchered in cold blood, according to proclamation, before the dawn of day. They therefore evacuated the place under cover of the night, so that this absurd accident absolutely placed Maurice in possession of the very fort—without striking a blow—which he was about to abandon in despair, and which formed the first great obstacle to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... than duns in his eyes. When at home he shut himself in his room for days together in so gloomy a frame of mind that even his brother did not venture to break in upon him: he even made a furtive attempt at suicide one night when his despondency reached its lowest depth; it was foiled by the accident of Paul's having unloaded the pistols and locked up the powder and balls some time before. He grew morbidly irritable, and resented Paul's remonstrances, which, we may be sure, were made with all the tact and consideration of natural ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... staircase; but it was not done by Mr. Cowper, though one of the company. Mrs. Clavering, Lord Chancellor Cowper's second wife, whom he married during the life of his first, was there too; they were so confounded with the accident, that they foolishly resolved to throw her into the water, thinking it would pass that she had drowned herself." This charming paragraph illustrates the vitality of scandal, and at the same time shows how ludicrously rumor and tradition mistell stories in the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Frenchman whose life Traverse had, partly by accident and partly by design, succeeded in saving, comprehended perfectly well how narrow his escape from death had been, and attributed his restoration solely to the genius, skill and boldness of his young ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... that division from him, make? The man had his work, his ideas—the children of his soul; and the woman had the children of her body. Each went his way and worked his life into the fabric of the world. Love! Love was but an episode, an accident of the few blossoming years of life. To woman there was the gift of children, and to man the gift of labor. She wondered if this feeling would increase as the years passed. Would she think more and more of the child she had had, the other man's child? And less ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... have met by accident," he said, at last, looking half-fearfully towards Brand. "Domiloff may have proposed things to Reist, but he would not listen, no, ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... Miss Du Prel realized that over two years had passed since she had seen Hadria, and moreover she had been seized with an overwhelming longing for a sight of country fields and a whiff of country air, so she had put a few things together in a handbag, which she had left at Craddock station by accident, and come down. Was there anyone who could go and fetch her handbag? It was such a nuisance; she laid it down for a moment to get at her ticket—she never could find her pocket, dressmakers always ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... in his secret soul, gave him the last solace to his conscience. All his future destiny was thus at the mercy of an accident most likely to happen. The second cause of his disquietude was the jealous hatred of Madame Campvallon toward the young rival she had herself selected. After jesting freely on this subject at first, the Marquise had, little by little, ceased even to ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... are kept, and never put them away soiled and wet. Keep the cutting edges sharp. There is as much pleasure in trying to run a dull lawnmower as in working with a rusty, battered hoe. Have an extra handle in stock in case of accident; they are not expensive. In selecting hand tools, always pick out those with handles in which the grain does not run out at the point where there will be much strain in using the tool. In rakes, hoes, etc., get the types with ferrule and shank one continuous piece, so ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... I said to her, to ask my wife such a question would be to insult her. If you were riding with him, it was an accident." As if my rude repulse of her overtures and my keeping away from her ever since would not have justified her ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... except for a lighted window or so the village showed not a sign of life; but I narrowly escaped an accident at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people stood with their backs to me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I do not know what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill, nor do I know if the silent ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... states." From Carthage, accordingly, were dispatched two brothers, who were named Philaeni,[215] and who traveled with great expedition. The deputies of the Cyrenians proceeded more slowly; but whether from indolence or accident I have not been informed. However, a storm of wind in these deserts will cause obstruction to passengers not less than at sea; for when a violent blast, sweeping over a level surface devoid of vegetation,[216] raises the sand from ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... No! Certainly not! But if it should happen naturally, by accident, I should not get up and run away. I'm not afraid of the man, as you seem to be. What can he do to me? And you have no idea how strangely you behave, and what ridiculous excuses you invent for me. The other day you insisted on my going in to look for a train in the ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... affrighted cattle rushed wildly over the adjacent meadows, the kine lowing piteously with distended udders for the accustomed hands of their milkers at eventide. Of the hundred and fifty dwellings fired, only two or three escaped by accident, one of which still remains; and four hundred women and children were left to wander in the snow or seek the temporary shelter of some remote farm-house or Indian wigwam in the woods. Some wandered for days in the adjacent dismal ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... "Accident?" he asked the conductor. "No, sah! Pine Cone station. I reckon the engineer come mighty nigh forgetting—he generally does at the end. The tracks stop here. You look mighty peaked; ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... confusion overcame her. She stopped an instant to laugh, then started back, then changed her mind and dashed wildly forward, with the inevitable result that she fell in an undignified heap on top of Betty and the dust-pan. The accident took place on the edge of the path where the crust was jagged and icy. Betty, who had gone head-first through it, emerged with a bleeding scratch on one cheek and a stinging, throbbing wrist. Fortunately ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... believe me, I am wholly at your service. If you had not been so good a horsewoman you might have met with a very serious accident." ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... that the presence in the movement of semi-Socialist or non-Socialist elements, which is both the cause and the effect of reformism and compromise, is a mere accident, or that there is any device by which they may either be kept out or eliminated—until the time is ripe. The presence of opportunists and reformists in all Socialist parties is as much an inevitable result at a certain stage of social evolution ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... himself last night had endorsed her views. Americans understood. And then her thoughts lingered about Billy and she caught herself wondering just how much he did mean about coming up the Nile again. For upon happening to meet Billy that morning—Billy had devoted two hours and a half to the accident of that happening!—he had joyously mentioned that he was trying to buy out another man's berth upon that boat. It wasn't so much his wanting to come that was droll—teasing sprites of girls with peach-blossom ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... told them, much later. And Mr. Prohack had decreed that Sissie must never know that they knew. She had stuck to the task during a whole winter, skidding on glassy asphalt, slimy wood, and slithery stone-setts in the East End, and had met with but one accident, a minor affair. The experience seemed to have had no permanent effect on her, but it had had a permanent effect on her father's attitude towards her,—her mother had always strongly objected to what she called the "episode," had shown only ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... pretty; and, in her postscript, she added, what of course outweighed all the rest of her letter, both in interest and importance, that she had recently been informed through a strange channel, and, as it were, by accident, that my mother's health was failing, seriously, and that, although not attacked by any regular disorder, nor in any immediate danger, it was not thought probable that she could live much longer. "In that case, Valerie," she continued, "for, although no one ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... cross, which he had formerly greatly desired. Now he was quite indifferent about it, and even more indifferent about his promotion, the order for which had still not arrived. Accompanied by Vanyusha he rode back to the cordon without any accident several hours in advance of the rest of the company. He spent the whole evening in his porch watching Maryanka, and he again walked about the yard, without aim or ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... an object are open to the State: first, it may create opportunities of work, which secure remunerative employment to all willing hands; secondly, it may insure the workman by legislation against every diminution in his capacity to work owing to sickness, age, or accident; may give him material assistance when temporarily out of work, and protect him against compulsion which may ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... course that Nick had selected for himself was the one that would take him past the hiding place where he had left Patsy; for it was no part of his plan that he should give the others even a chance of an accident of finding ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... they passed through it, was crowded with women discussing the accident, and every now and then a crowd would gather on the pavement and disperse again. To each and all the speakers, the one intolerable thing was the total disappearance of the poor lost one. No body—no ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his hand to grasp the arm that held the hatchet his foot struck an unseen coil of rope, and he plunged head foremost into Monkey. The latter pitched forward three or four steps and Jack landed on his hands and knees, an accident that probably saved him serious injury, for at the moment the terror-stricken Monkey turned and aimed a furious blow at whatever had ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... ship had been hauled off the ground, they had again suffered considerable disturbance for several days, in consequence of some heavy masses of ice driving into the bay, which dragged the anchors, and again threatened them with a similar accident. However, after the middle of July, no ice had entered the bay, and, what is still more remarkable, not a piece had been seen in the offing for some weeks past, even after hard ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... without endangering their friends. The sharp-shooters, dispersed around, were firing incessantly on each object that was exposed upon the battlement. The Castle was enveloped with smoke, and the rocks rang to the cries of the combatants. In the midst of this scene of confusion, a singular accident had nearly given the besiegers ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, was conducted by Le Maire and Schouten. They sailed from the Texel, on the 14th of June, 1615, with the ships Concord and Horn. The latter was burnt by accident in Port Desire. With the other they discovered the straits that bear the name of Le Maire, and were the first who ever entered the Pacific Ocean, by the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... muscles, strong and sinewy; capable of wonderful development—if given opportunity.... I have no doubt it can be done. Already I have succeeded with a dog,—a task less difficult than this, for in a man the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum, which is not the case with a dog. This gives a wide range for accident, with but one opportunity in a lifetime! In the cerebrum, the intellect and the affections; in the cerebellum, the senses and the motor forces; in the medulla oblongata, control of the diaphragm. In these two latter ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... At the same time you must realize that even the most suspicious circumstances may be explained away. While it does look as though your father had deliberately taken the poison, it may easily be established by an investigation that it was an accident—an accident of which even your ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... the hair over her temples to conceal the scars of her morning's accident and met Mrs. Westfield at ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... the custom of the service, and then this sort of accent in the mate's talk. Franklin did not seem to expect conversational ease from the new second mate. He made several remarks about the old, deploring the accident. Awkward. Very awkward this thing to happen on ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... advance along the only line now open—democratic internationalism. It is childish to claim for Americans or Britons virtues beyond those of other nations, or to believe in the superiority of one national culture to another; they are different, that is all. It is by accident that we find ourselves in this position of guardianship to the main line of human development; no need to pat ourselves on the back about it. But we are at a great and critical moment in the world's ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... This Humour of turning every Misfortune into a Judgment, proceeds from wrong Notions of Religion, which, in its own nature, produces Goodwill towards Men, and puts the mildest Construction upon every Accident that befalls them. In this case, therefore, it is not Religion that sours a Man's Temper, but it is his Temper that sours his Religion: People of gloomy unchearful Imaginations, or of envious malignant Tempers, whatever kind of Life they are engaged in, will ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... his new-found friends and of the slaves and neighbors, none of which enabled him to discover the slightest clue to the fugitives. So far as he could learn, the earth might have opened and swallowed them, and so when he had exhausted the sources of information in the region where the accident occurred, he determined ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... situation, brought to the attention of the hearer by means of the lines and then enforced by the aria, which the singer of greatest momentary importance had to sing. That these arias very soon degenerated into show pieces for virtuoso singers was an accident due to the popularity of the operatic stage, the development of the new art of singing, and a delight in the human voice as a musical instrument. It has no concern with our ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... him, refusing to be dispelled. It was as if an inner voice was warning him, telling him to rush down to the river bank and check that canoe ride at all costs. It occurred to him, for the moment, that this might be premonition of a disastrous accident, yet vaguely he sensed a plot, an obscure design that filled him with ghastly terror. Once more the man started ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... will turn me off from being your gazetteer. Do you know that I came to town to-day by accident, and was here four hours before I heard that Montreal was taken? The express came early this morning. I am so posthumous in my intelligence, that you must not expect any intelligence from me—but the same post ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Ambrose earnestly. "You should not despise these feelings that we have sometimes and cannot give a reason for. I saw Strange on my way here. I exchanged only half a dozen words with him, yet I am as sure as I can be that he was glad of the accident to your father and hopes to profit ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... was the victim of a plot set on foot by those about him, is not known. The official version of the story given by Darius states that he died by his own hand, and it seems to insinuate that it was a voluntary act, but another account affirms that he succumbed to an accident;* while mounting his horse, the point of his dagger pierced his thigh in the same spot in which he had stabbed the Apis of the Egyptians. Feeling himself seriously wounded, he suddenly asked the name of the place where he was lying, and was told it was "Agbatana" (Ecbatana). "Now, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... for special occasions are a prelude to the purely literary existence and the belligerent spirit of men like Platen and Immermann, who both, as it were by accident, found their way into the open of national poesy. The self-absorption in Werther, the delving after new poetical experiences and mediums of expression; the method of expression hovering between form and illusory improvisation—all this we find again in the strongest individualists, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to them. In vain did he seek one glance of respect or welcome amongst all these gloomy visages. As be approached the king's chamber, the courtiers and guards barred his entrance by turning their backs, and crowding together as if by accident, repulsed him: he entered the apartments of the queen, where the royal family's dinner was prepared. "Look to the dishes," cried voices, as though some public and well-known poisoner had been seen to enter. The indignant prince turned alternately pale and red, and imagined that ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Into the Gemonies, (I know not how, Or by what accident return'd.) the mother, The expulsed Apicata, finds them there; Whom when she saw lie spread on the degrees, After a world of fury on herself, Tearing her hair, defacing of her face, Beating her breasts and womb, kneeling amaz'd, Crying to heaven, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... out!' cried the old man. 'How can it be accident that brings to your door the only person in the world that can give you any tidings of the little girl? I saw a child to-day some miles from here who asked me to show her ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... will be the part assigned to chance and imperfect recollection in producing the variety of the poems. The variation, where there are different presentations of the same subject, is not produced by accident or the casual and faulty repetition of a conventional type of poem, but by a poetical ambition for new forms. Codex Regius is an imperfect monument of a time of poetical energy in which old forms were displaced by new, and old subjects refashioned ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... news of her in London, most likely, and he knew she would have the jewels on her, and came down when he got wind of the accident." ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... doubt, and that was why Tavy didn't mind a bit about the China Cat being taken from him and kept under glass. You may think that it was just any old stray white cat that had come in by accident. Tavy knows better. It has the very same tender tone in its purr that the magic White Cat had. It will not talk to Tavy, it is true; but Tavy can and does talk to it. But the thing that makes it perfectly certain that it is the White Cat is that the ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother and sister by selling books and papers on the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. He detects a young man in the act of picking the pocket of a young lady. In a railway accident many passengers are killed, but Paul is fortunate enough to assist a Chicago merchant, who out of gratitude takes him into his employ. Paul succeeds with tact and judgment and Is well started on the road to ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... "But when I was a small child I had an accident and had to be took to a hospital, and it wasn't until after that that anybody saw the eagle's claws on me. I considered that maybe it was like the mark the laundry puts on a handkerchief ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in all Creatures, otherwise, Number, is termed Number Numbred. And in our Soule, Number beareth such a swaye, and hath such an affinitie therwith: that some of the old Philosophers taught, Mans Soule, to be a Number mouyng it selfe. And in dede, in vs, though it be a very Accident: yet such an Accident it is, that before all Creatures it had perfect beyng, in the Creator, Sempiternally. Number Numbryng therfore, is the discretion discerning, and distincting of thinges. But in God the Creator, This discretion, in the beginnyng, produced ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... had frequently been foretold to the King that he would die in a carriage, and the prophecy had made so great an impression upon his mind, that he always endeavoured to conceal it under a show of gaiety, particularly when any accident occurred by which it appeared likely to be verified. In the year 1597, while he was travelling near Mouy, in Picardy, the coach in which he rode was tumbled down a precipice; while the danger incurred ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... brief struggle, to be followed by a sudden lift out of it into some serene sphere, where man will lead an angel's life, which knows no imperfection and therefore no growth. He refuses to make morality an accident in man's history and "to put man in the place of God," by identifying the process with the ideal; he also refuses to make man's struggle, and God's achievement within man, mutually exclusive alternatives. As I shall show in the sequel, movement towards an ideal, actualizing ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... from the diningroom, whence issued a great smoking and frying; and entering that apartment we find Mrs. Gray ready to receive us, and looking perfectly like a Princess who, by some accident, had a bowl of potatoes in her hand, which vegetables she placed on the table. Her husband 'was meanwhile cooking mutton-chops on a ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... covering when I reached them, and harder than ever to locate; but it also meant that I might float right over the worst of them if I hit off a lucky place.' Davies thumped the table in disgust. 'Pah! It makes me sick to think of having to trust to an accident like that, like a lubberly cockney out for a boozy Bank Holiday sail. Well, just as I foresaw, the wall of surf appeared clean across the horizon, and curling back to shut me in, booming like thunder. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... leave behind him any traces which might be of use to a rival. In spite of all he could say, the doctor was obliged to yield to the captain's will. Shandon was ready enough to blame this obstinacy, for, in case of accident, no ship could have put out to the aid ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... whilst they played at cards. Someone reminded him it was not fitting that God's Body should thus be seen so near to sailors, and therefore the Bishop, according to the custom of the Church in cases of accident or desecration, consumed the offended wafer, and peace ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... scene of the dismal solemnity. Brbeuf and his companions withdrew to the village, where, an hour before dawn, they were roused by a clamor which might have wakened the dead. One of the bundles of bones, tied to a pole on the scaffold, had chanced to fall into the grave. This accident had precipitated the closing act, and perhaps increased its frenzy. Guided by the unearthly din, and the broad glare of flames fed with heaps of fat pine logs, the priests soon reached the spot, and saw what seemed, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... conditions, conditions of health, each cell does its work without regard to the operations of its neighbors. But in the event of accident or disease, it is called upon to repair the organism. And in this it shows an energy and intelligence that "savor of creative power." With what promptness and vigor the cells apply themselves to heal a cut or mend ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton
... living generally on the land and only coming by accident into deposits suitable for preservation, cannot be expected to reveal anything like this sensible advance from form to form. They were, however, so numerous in the mid-Tertiary, and their bones are so well calculated to survive when they do fall ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... angry sarcasm] Dreadful. Appalling. Worse than death, as Ramsden says. [He comes to Octavius]. What would you not give, Tavy, to turn it into a railway accident, with all her bones broken or something equally respectable and deserving ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... until some time later, the Spanish ambassador in London had presented what was virtually a declaration of war, on the 16th. A messenger had been sent off on the same day from Madrid, ordering the cessation of intercourse with Gibraltar and, had he not been detained by accident on the road, he might have arrived during General Eliott's visit to the Spanish lines; a fact of which Mendoza had been doubtless forewarned, and which would account for his ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... not miss Mr. Noel's visit, but he answered that Mr. Noel he knew would excuse him, and turned to leave the room. As he did so he stepped on one of the kittens which cried out pitifully. It had been an accident, of course, but he might have shown some compunction, which he utterly failed to do. The little creature hopped away on three feet, and Mrs. Dallas, with pretty foreign words of pity, followed it and ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... that he may say he has been there, another because he never misses. This man goes to try what he can find, and that to discover what others find. Whatever diversion is costly will be frequented by those who desire to be thought rich; and whatever has, by any accident, become fashionable, easily continues its reputation, because every one is ashamed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... pass it by with a smile. Ah! many things have happened during the last three days. The acts of the Commune of Paris no longer allow us to take its declarations seriously, and we look upon its members as too mad—if not worse—to believe that by any accident they can be reasonable. These men have finished by rendering detestable whatever good there originally was ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... vord more, my lort, I peg," interrupted Duncan. "My lort is come, out of his cootness, to pring her a creat kift; for he'll pe hearing of ta sad accident which pefell her poor pipes one efening lately. Tey was ferry old, my lort, and ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... greatest Notices they are capable of. This is perhaps representing the Life of a very modest Woman, joined to a dull Fellow, more insipid than it really deserves; but I am sure it is not to exalt the Commerce with an ingenious Companion too high, to say that every new Accident or Object which comes into such a Gentleman's way, gives his Wife new Pleasures and Satisfactions. The Approbation of his Words and Actions is a continual new Feast to her, nor can she enough applaud her good Fortune in having her Life varied ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... when, as the horses were galloping along at a great rate, a crash was heard, and over went the carriage on its side;—one of the long poles of the tarantasse had broken. The travellers got out in dismay, not knowing how long this accident might delay them. As they looked out they saw some cottages ahead. A peasant standing at the door of one of them had observed the occurrence, and now came running up with his axe in his hand to ascertain ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... and although these are Roundabout Papers, and may wander who knows whither, I shall ask leave to maintain the upright and simple perpendicular. When this bundle of egotisms is bound up together, as they may be one day, if no accident prevents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from running, they will bore you very likely; so it would to read through "Howel's Letters" from beginning to end, or to eat up the whole of a ham; but a slice on occasion ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... flashes of beauty and grace, dazzling bits of color, haunting melancholy cadences in every chapter of Flaubert; but a charming book he never wrote. A total impression of charm he never gave—he never could give; because his total impression of life was not charming but atrocious. It is perhaps an accident, as has been suggested, that one can so readily employ Madame Bovary to illustrate that text on the "wages of sin." Emma, to be sure, goes down the easy and alluring path to disgrace and ruin. But that is only an incident in the wider meaning of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... work. That's why I lost the way to fairyland, little Princess. I buried myself under the 'shields and bracelets,' and I buried my talents, such as they were. For a while Somerled tried to deserve the great name he had chosen—but only for a little while. When by accident he grew rich, he began to wallow. Not a picture worthy of his boyish ambition has he painted for five years. What he has done have been 'potboilers.' He forgot that he was an artist, and wanted only to be a millionaire. Disgusting! ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was a meat-eating savage who, in roaming the forests and fields, forced by starvation to eat bark and plant and berry, came upon a stalk of grain that chewed with strange satisfaction. Perhaps through that accident he ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... myself. Still I could not be, for occasionally I met people, and certain prospects and necessities drove me to various publishing houses. One day as I was walking in some street near Broadway (not on it) in New York, I ran into my brother quite by accident, he as prosperous and comfortable as ever. I think I resented him more than ever. He was of course astonished, shocked, as I could plainly see, by my appearance and desire not to be seen. He demanded to know where I was living, wanted me to come then ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... attended them on shore in my boat, into which the chief ordered three hogs to be put, as a return for the presents he had received from me. I was now informed of an accident which had just happened, the relation of which will convey some idea of the extent of the authority exercised here over the common people. While Feenou was on board my ship, an inferior chief, for what reason our people on shore did not know, ordered all the natives to retire from the post we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Job's untoward accident, instead of mending his fortunes, had only added to his embarrassments—all owing to his being just a hundred pounds behind the mark, which, as he often said, the price he could have obtained for poor Selim would have ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... subsided, I necessarily saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my father-in-law's proposal. Thus, by the fatality which attended me at the very time I meant to reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and I was driven into defrauding a vast number of persons by the accident of being son-in-law to a great moralist. As Mr. Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed his mornings in speculations on virtue, I was made the active partner. I spent the day at the counting-house; and when I came home for recreation, my ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that the saint's apt choice of a text could have been mere accident. To Michael there was no such thing as chance. Nothing is unessential, ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... up the stores and transport on board H.M.S. Empress and the attendant collier. The aeroplanes flew by way of Dunkirk, where there was a slight haze and they landed. Lord Edward Grosvenor made a faulty landing, and crashed his Bleriot beyond all hopes of repair. This accident, which would have been treated as insignificant if it had occurred on the way out, proved important enough to delay the aeroplanes for three days at Dunkirk. During this time General Bidon, who commanded the French troops at Dunkirk, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... the narrow way along which Patricia was compelled to guide the flying car; but she thought nothing of this, for she could dimly discern the outlines of the roadway before her, and she believed she could follow it to the main highway, without accident. Morton had not lighted his lamps. There had been no opportunity to do so. But the road was an unfrequented one; and Patricia, as she fled away from Morton, through the darkness, thought only of making her escape, not at all of the dangers she ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... not an industrious student and knew only what I had found by accident, and I had found "nothing I cared for after Titian—and Titian I knew chiefly from a copy of 'the supper of Emmaus' in Dublin—till Blake and the Pre-Raphaelites;" and among my father's friends were no Pre-Raphaelites. ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... cursed with fear and dread—veritable slaves to superstition and bondage—all because of the simple fact that a certain percentage of all children born in this world have sustained some sort of an injury or "embryological accident" during the first days of fetal existence. For instance, take the common birthmark of a patch of reddened skin on the face, brow, or neck. As soon as the baby is born, the worried mother asks in anxious tones: "Doctor, is it ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... the maintenance of power in a single person; and the other is to show how ridiculously futile it is to refer to Prussia as an example of the success of social legislation. The state ownership of railroads, old-age pensions, accident and sickness insurance, and the like are one thing in Prussia which is a close corporation, and quite another in any community or country under democratic government. What takes place in Prussia would certainly not take ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... head, and exhorted them in a menacing mutter to show their gratitude by bringing up their children in fidelity to the democratic form of government, "which I have established for the happiness of our country." His front teeth having been knocked out in some accident of his former herdsman's life, his utterance was spluttering and indistinct. He had been working for Costaguana alone in the midst of treachery and opposition. Let it cease now lest he should become weary ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the intense curiosity which now inspired me to fathom the mystery of her singular remark, rendered me more anxious than ever to meet with her again. Several weeks passed without seeing the gratification of my wish; and I was becoming seriously ill with disappointment and defeated hope, when accident led me to encounter her once more. She would have avoided me, but I absolutely compelled her to stop. Seizing her ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... little better in his eyes than France herself. For the first of these antipathies he had some apology; since in addition to the aversion that was naturally produced by the history of the cisatlantic Republic, accident had thrown him in the way, in the West Indies, of ascertaining the frauds, deceptions, and cupidities of a class of men that never exhibit national character in its brightest and most alluring colors. Still, he was too upright of mind willingly to countenance ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hour. I determined to bend my course to the city. The scheme foremost in my mind was to apprentice myself to some mechanical trade. I did not overlook the evils of constraint and the dubiousness as to the character of the master I should choose. I was not without hopes that accident would suggest a different expedient, and enable me to procure an immediate subsistence without forfeiting ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... constant dread, though my father is brave and shrewd, while the king's officers are but lazy fellows with dull wits, who do not care to exert themselves, yet some unseen accident might place ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... nor of the sea, meeting the shark in his own element and worsting him, fearlessly enduring the thrust of the fatal spear when an accident of battle left him defenseless, the Marquesan warrior, as much as the youngest child, had an unutterable horror of their own dead and of burial-places, as of the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the Negroes could come and go as they pleased for they were free. Ike has been a member of several "Societies" but something has always happened to the President and Secretary or they ran off with the money so now he just has a sick and accident policy. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... was too careless, and felt suspicious, but he said: "I changed my plans. I thought it might look significant if I overtook the girls. One doesn't expect an accident to ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... criticism calls myths, which had grown up in the enthusiasm of those who honored him, and which form no part of real history. If then the reader fails to find some stories with which he is quite familiar in the history, he must not suppose that they are omitted by accident, but must give to the author of the book the credit of having used some discretion in the choice of ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... seems, were used until 1583, when a serious catastrophe put an end to one if not both of them. Stow, in his Annals, gives the following account of the accident: ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... to be any dropping overboard by accident in mine," replied Croyden. "What I've decided to do is this: I shall disappear. I have no debts, thank God! so no one will care to take the trouble to search for me. I shall go down to Hampton, to the little property that was ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... may be met with at night in Paris. Only those who have amused themselves by watching those effects have any idea how fantastic a woman may appear there at dusk. At times the creature whom you are following, by accident or design, seems to you light and slender; the stockings, if they are white, make you fancy that the legs must be slim and elegant; the figure though wrapped in a shawl, or concealed by a pelisse, defines itself gracefully ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... historical examination, particularly of single epochs and events, can make no difference to the fact that the course of history is governed by inner universal laws. Here also, in spite of the wished for aims of all the separate individuals, accident for the most part is apparent on the surface. That which is willed but rarely happens. In the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and interfere with each other, and either these ends are utterly incapable of realization, or the means are ineffectual. So, the innumerable conflicts ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... a great leader who is in no sense an "accident" (as Bonaparte was), a sporadic development in their midst, a spectacular growth on an exotic stem. They have, rather, a quintessential Frenchman of to-day, even more widely representative of his countrymen than ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... horses usually dragged the stage eighteen miles, when a fresh team was put on, and if no accident happened, the traveler would reach an inn about ten at night. After a frugal meal he would betake himself to bed, for at three the next morning, even if it rained or snowed, he had to make ready, by the light of a horn lantern or a farthing candle, for another ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... early snow they pitch tepee, family fires are lighted, and from this centre the trapper radiates. The man sets his traps, and if the couple is childless his wife makes an independent line of snares. Each individual traps for miles and days alone, and an accident in the woods means a death as lonely and agonising as that of the animal he snares. With blanket, bait, and bacon on a small hand-sled, silently the trapper trudges forward. The Northern Lights come down o' nights, and it is cold; ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... The newspapers all praise me as a hero. Hero, hell! I'm a pretty steady flier but so would plenty of chauffeurs be. This hero business is mostly bunk, it was mostly chance my starting to fly at all. Don't suppose it is all accident to become as great a flier as Garros or Vedrines or Beachey, but I'm never going to be a Garros, I guess. Like the man that can jump twelve feet but never can get himself to ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... in reality most important. The war when it came was due, not only to the failure of certain of the prominent men in the capitals of the Central Powers to adhere to principles to which for a long time they had held fast, but to the accident of untoward circumstances and the contingency that is inseparable from ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... examine closely those who have passed for being possessed, we shall not perhaps find one amongst them, whose mind had not been deranged by some accident, or whose body was not attacked by some infirmity either known or hidden, which had caused some ferment in the blood or the brain, and which, joined to prejudice, or fear, had given rise to what was termed in their case obsession ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... quite impossible that he could fall over the cliff by accident or the will of God on such a light night as this,' the pedestrian was saying. 'These two children I tell you of saw two men go along the path toward the waterfall, and ten minutes later only one of 'em came back, walking fast, like a man who wanted to get ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy |
