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Come upon   /kəm əpˈɑn/   Listen
Come upon

verb
1.
Find unexpectedly.  Synonyms: attain, chance on, chance upon, come across, discover, fall upon, happen upon, light upon, strike.  "She struck a goldmine" , "The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake"
2.
Take possession of.  Synonyms: enter upon, luck into.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Come upon" Quotes from Famous Books



... even if carried much farther than they are, would be mere trifles in the midst of so much kindness, hospitality, and intellectual pleasures of the highest order as we enjoyed under their roof, where hospitality is so abundant that they have often had twenty or thirty friends come upon them unexpectedly, when the family was much larger ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... a thin snow upon the hills, and the bleak wind presaged more; but the score of men sang lustily as they rode. Two days before they had come upon a dozen strayed Royalist plunderers, and had gained great store of food and drink—particularly drink. So all were well ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... mammals, and marked by a complete lack of certain salient mammalian characters. The first imbecility has already concerned us at length. One finds traces of it even in works professedly devoted to disposing of it. In one such book, for example, I come upon this: "What all the skill and constructive capacity of the physicians in the Crimean War failed to accomplish Florence Nightingale accomplished by her beautiful femininity and nobility of soul." In other words, by her possession ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... hanging over me for so long of not being cared for, of having no place of my own and being in everybody's way, seemed suddenly to have increased to an actual certainty. Hitherto, it now seemed to me, I had only been playing with the idea, and now as a sort of punishment had come upon me the reality of the cruel truth—grandmamma did not care for me any longer. She had got back the nephew who had been like a son to her, and he and his wife had stolen away from me all her love. Then came the mortification of remembering that I was living in Cousin ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... that he was still "master of the situation." Benedict's testimony could not be taken in a court of justice. The town itself was in his hands, so that it would institute no suit on Benedict's behalf, now that he had come upon it for support; for the Tom Buffum to whom Miss Butterworth had alluded was the keeper of the poor-house, and was ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... the front yard, and the flower beds, placed in red half-barrels, set upon short posts. In the flower beds we may find petunias, nasturtiums, geraniums, rose bushes and other flowering plants. Going around the house, we come upon the dairy, with its rack of cans and pans set out for the daily sunning and airing. Nearby is a well with its oaken bucket; at the barn we find the farmer, and he very kindly consents to go with us to answer questions. In the barn and sheds we find wagons, plows, harrows, seed drills, hoes, ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... or his doings, lay lax in his arms. She stared, gulping down horror; she looked like some shocked Addolorata come upon the body of her dead Son. And so, perhaps (since all good women mother their lovers or lords), she was face to face with her dead. Tears came to blot out her misery; she could not stay their fall. They anointed also the burning cheeks of young Grifone, and drove him outside himself with love. He ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... Chesapeake, are four large Beech trees, standing as of the corners of a Square, though not equidistant. Bisect this Square, by two lines drawn from the Corners. At a Point three hundred and thirty feet, North-by-North-East, from where these two lines intersect and at a depth of Six feet, you will come upon an Iron Box. It contains the Treasure. And I wish you (or whoever recovers it) Joy of it!—as much joy with it as I had ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... the case of that L20,—when, with brazen-faced indifference to her remonstrances, he started off to his club at two in the morning, when with impudent drollery he almost boasted of the hopelessness of his debts, a sickness of heart would come upon her, and she would weep hysterically, and lie the whole night without sleeping. But could he marry Miss Melmotte, and thus conquer all his troubles by means of his own personal beauty,—then she would be proud of all that had ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... usual salutation, and then continues: "If perchance I send a message to the King my Lord, do not thou refuse the request of my memorial. Lo! thrice has come upon me a year of storms (or tumults), and again a year of storms begins. My wheat is naught; the wheat for us to eat: that which was for sowing for my freemen is finished; their beasts, their herbs, the trees of their ...
— Egyptian Literature

... slow transitions, each stage of which may last for centuries, how could the much more complex ascending evolution possibly have taken place by sudden leaps? I regard this argument as capable of further extension, for wherever in nature we come upon degeneration, it is taking place by minute steps and with a slowness that makes it not directly perceptible, and I believe that this in itself justifies us in concluding that the same must be true of ascending evolution. But in the latter case the goal can seldom be distinctly ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her; wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God: and she replied, 'Be it unto me ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... new old friend. Her hand was fast in his, and her tongue ran very freely, for her heart was completely opened to him. He seemed as pleased to listen as she was to talk; and by little and little Ellen told him all her history; the troubles that had come upon her in consequence of her mother's illness, and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... we felt the cold severely. The lariats - made of raw hide - became rods of ice; and the poor animals, whose backs were masses of festering raws, suffered terribly from exposure. It was interesting to come upon proofs of the 'divide' within a mile of the most elevated point in the pass. From the Hudson to this spot, all waters had flowed eastward; now suddenly every little rivulet was making ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... nonsense on his part—has got himself into a serious scrape, I'm afraid. It is being kept quite within the family, and we hope to manage so that it will remain there, but it has terribly upset his father and his sister. But that, after all, is not so hard to bear as the other affliction that has come upon the Maddens. You remember Michael, the other brother? He seems to have taken cold that evening, or perhaps over-exerted himself. He has been seized with quick consumption. He will hardly last till ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... the morning, we anchored in Table Bay, in seven and a half fathoms, and moored a cable each way. As soon as the ship was secured, I sent an officer to wait on the governor, and to inform him of the business I was come upon: he very politely informed the officer, that there was great abundance of every thing to be had, and that I had nothing to do but to signify in writing the quantity of each article wanted, and directions would be ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... top shelf contained a quantity of jelly of domestic manufacture. Not a glass jar was broken. Indeed there have been some remarkable instances of the escape of fragile articles from destruction. In the debris near the railroad bridge you may come upon all manner of things. The water-tanks of three locomotives which were borne from the roundhouse at Conemaugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, a looking glass, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... regarded these strange doings with equanimity. At Akani Obio some of the chiefs were so alarmed that they left the town in the belief that misfortune would come upon them on account of the church. But when they saw the people throwing away their charms and flocking to the services and no harm befalling them, they returned. They were very angry when Onoyom put away his wives—he made ample provision for them—and took ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... us, only from within, Comes or can ever come upon us light Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight. No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win, No grace for guidance, no release from sin, Save of his own soul's giving. Deep and bright As fire enkindled ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the uses; and, first, let me give unto God the glory of his truth. If we have been deceived, surely he hath not deceived us; for he hath given us plain warning in his word, and hath not kept up from us the worst things which ever have or ever shall come upon his church. And now when the sword of the Lord hath gotten a charge against these three covenanting and reforming kingdoms, is this any other than the word of the Lord, that when Christ cometh into his temple, "Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... Village is one of the most extraordinary sights that all Europe can show. On the confines of the town of Ghent you come upon an old-fashioned brick gate, that seems as if it were one of the city barriers; but, on passing it, one of the prettiest sights possible meets the eye: At the porter's lodge you see an old lady, in black and a white ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... once that his past had come upon him somehow. She knew it at once from the tone of his voice, but she could make no guess as to the manner of it. She knew, too, that that heartquake was upon her—the one she had felt so glad to stave off that day upon the beach—and that self-command had ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... third tumbler there had come upon Greenacre a tendency to maudlin dignity and sensitiveness; he laid a hand on his friend's arm and looked at him ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... she was almost tempted at times to tell him frankly that she would spare him the intermediate steps, and meet him at the goal without further delay. It was not that she was prepared to love him, but she would make him an obedient wife. An immense weariness had somehow come upon her, and a sudden sense of loneliness. A vague suspicion that her money had done her an incurable wrong inspired her with a profound distaste for the care of it. She felt cruelly hedged out from human sympathy by her bristling possessions. "If I had had five hundred ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... much in various ways since they shook the dust of Columbia from their feet, but now a dire misfortune overtook them in the total absence of water. The waters of the swamps were poisonous, and their longing desire and hope was that they might soon come upon a spring or stream to slake their burning thirst, which threatened to unfit ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... softened, and he made willing to acknowledge, as Joseph's brethren did, "Verily we are guilty concerning our brother," before he will be compelled to add in consequence of Divine judgment, "therefore is all this evil come upon us." Pray also for all your brethren and sisters who are laboring in the righteous cause of Emancipation in the Northern States, England and the world. There is great encouragement for prayer in these words of our Lord. ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... having surmounted a low ridge, they came suddenly in sight of a herd of wildebeests or gnus, grazing quietly about a mile from them. Denis was about to dash forward, when Gozo called to him and advised him to make a circuit so as to come upon the herd on the lee side. Turning their horses' heads, therefore, they descended the hill they had just mounted, and keeping under its shelter, made their way northward. They were thus able to get round ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston

... not after me, lest some of my sorrows come upon her young head. Oh, no! name her not Beulah; let her be called Cornelia. I would not have her soul shrouded as mine has been." Beulah spoke vehemently, and, laying her hand on his ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... lower about you, circling with sinister squeaking cries;—perhaps for an instant your feet touch in the deep something heavy, swift, lithe, that rushes past with a swirling shock. Then the fear of the Abyss, the vast and voiceless Nightmare of the Sea, will come upon you; the silent panic of all those opaline millions that flee glimmering by will ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... evacuated by the enemy. At least half of the houses had been broken into, and all the shops and inns. The Germans had dragged chairs and tables to the roadside, and they must have been sitting there drinking and smoking when the news of the British advance, and orders to retire had come upon them. Everything seemed to show that the enemy had left at the shortest notice. He had not had time to perpetrate any of his well-known barbarities on the few inhabitants who had remained in their houses, and no attempt had apparently been made ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... that I was solitary and needed companionship. I had ceased to hope for yours. By-and-by a daughter was born. True to my old love, I named her Hetty, and pleased myself with the thought that she bore some resemblance to you. Since then, my wife has died, misfortunes have come upon me, and I found myself deprived of all my property. Then came yearnings for my native soil. I have returned, as you see, not as I departed, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... favour of books, Lady Florimel had burrowed a little in the old library at Lossie House, and had chanced on the Faerie Queene. She had often come upon the name of the author in books of extracts, and now, turning over its leaves, she found her own. Indeed, where else could her mother have found the name Florimel? Her curiosity was roused, and she resolved— no light undertaking—to read the poem through, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... end of one hundred years from the settlement of Massachusetts important changes had come upon the chain of colonies along the Atlantic seaboard in America. In the older colonies the people had been born on the soil at two or three generations' remove from the original colonists, or belonged to a later stratum of migration superimposed upon the first. The exhausting toil and privations ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... men had also appeared now in the darkened lower galleries of the opposite building, and were firing over the heads of their fellows below at the boiling confusion of people on the lower ways. The meaning of these things dawned upon him. The march of the people had come upon an ambush at the very outset. Thrown into confusion by the extinction of the lights they were now being attacked by the red police. Then he became aware that he was standing alone, that his guards and Lincoln were along the gallery ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... as feared God; and of these, were those Seventy, whom God by putting upon them Moses spirit, inclined to aid Moses in the Administration of the Kingdome: and in this sense the Spirit of God is said (1 Sam. 16. 13, 14.) presently upon the anointing of David, to have come upon David, and left Saul; God giving his graces to him he chose to govern his people, and taking them away from him, he rejected. So that by the Spirit is meant Inclination to Gods service; ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... come upon me all unseen: No sound of thunder fell upon my ear; No cloud arose to tell me it was near; But under skies all sunlit, and serene, I floated with the current of the stream, And thought life all one golden-haloed dream. When lo! a hurricane, with awful force, Swept swift upon its ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the SULTAN, laying down a book he had been reading when Our Representative entered, "that, when you were announced, I had just come upon a reference by your great Poet to your still greater Statesman. You know the line ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... come upon the outlaws by mere accident, and it is hard telling which was the most surprised. But Lauman was, perhaps, the quickest man with a gun in Valley County, else he would not have been serving his fourth term as sheriff. He got the drop and kept it while his deputy did the rest. It had been a ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... have taken umbrage at anything he had said? He conned his rough draft with solicitous care. It seemed new and strange and crude to him. He feared at each word to come upon the one that might have offended her. But no word, no phrase, nothing even of all that he had left unsaid sprang up before his horrified eyes to choke him with a sense of inadequacy, or ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... struck me as a most cruel and significant blow of fate; it was out of love and respect for her that I had turned away so resolutely from my youthful excesses, and it was to gain her sympathy that I had devoted special thought and care to my first great works. When the passions and cares of life had come upon me and driven me away from my home, it was she who had read deep down into my sorely stricken heart, and who had bidden me that anxious farewell on my departure from Leipzig. At the time of my disappearance, when the news of my wilful marriage ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... DEAR BOY: In the sudden blow which has come upon us all I cannot find words to write. You do not know what you have done. Your uncle William, after whom you were named, died in America. He left but one child, a daughter, the only grandchild of my father except you. And this daughter is the Miss Nina Saville ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... story of that wonderful Church. What a marvellous change had come upon it! It began in the quiet little valley of Kunwald: it ended in the noisy streets of Prague. It began in peace and brotherly love: it ended amid the tramp of horses, the clank of armour, the swish of swords, the growl of artillery, the whistle of bullets, the blare of ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... absorbed than either of her companions, in attempting to divine this mystery that had so suddenly come upon them. More than once she raised her hand, as an admonition for Teddy to preserve silence. Finally, however, his impatience got the better of his obedience, and ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... to her companion, and look him in the face, quite as easily as if she had been sitting beside him. They chatted together, and looked each other in the face, and the Greek scholar enjoyed driving very much until they had gone a mile or more on the main road, and had come upon an overturned wagon lying by the roadside. At this Hammerstein and the conversation suddenly stopped. The big black horse was very much opposed to overturned vehicles. He knew that in some way they were connected with disaster, and ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... wrapped so closely amongst the hills, the streams came gushing out of the limestone rocks, dry water, courses led him higher and higher up amongst the silent woods, which stretched away for miles on either hand. Sometimes he would come upon an open space, whence he could look down upon the broader valley beneath, with its quiet river flowing through the midst, reflecting white villages, forges, long rows of poplars, an occasional bridge, and here and there a long low island; ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... to be a city. In watching its struggles a hunger for a taste of the real city had come upon Emma McChesney. She had been out with her late Fall line from May until September. Every Middle-Western town of five thousand inhabitants or over had received its share of Emma McChesney's attention and petticoats. It had been a mystifyingly good season in a bad business ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... next division of selections we come upon the Beethoven faculty of diversifying a musical theme in the form of variations. The examples here given represent certain of the simpler phases of this part of his art, and if the student is ambitious in this direction he might read for himself the variations ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... out on the smiling sylvan glory of the scene, as the soft summer breeze caressed her cheeks, and the balsamic air filled her bosom with its gently penetrant vigors, she realized as never before the miracle of life, its goodness and sweet savors. She cried out against the hideous thing that was come upon her. The every fiber of her being flamed in revolt against the idea of death. Every atom of her clamored for life and love. And there were only shame and death for her choice. She took out the fairy crystal, and prayed to the sacred sign it bore, beholding it dimly though scalding ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... suggested, "to allow even truth to appear quite unclothed in the presence of a lady?" He smiled and took a short turn on the grass. "Look you, Master Mervale," said he, narrowing his pale-blue eyes to slits, "I have, somehow, a disposition to confidence come upon me. Frankly, my passion for the Lady Ursula burns more mildly than that which Antony bore the Egyptian; it is less a fire to consume kingdoms than a candle wherewith to light a contented home; and quite frankly, I mean to have her. The estates lie ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in the ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... mass of Japhetic races; its isolation is no longer possible; and, in the opinion of many, it is destined once again to become a spot illustrious and happy. The consideration of how that lustre and happiness are to come upon it is the only task ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... the others had begun to show their worriment. Not a trace had been found of boy or herd. The main hope of the foreman was that Tad might come upon a ranch or a town somewhere, in his course, and in that way get help to direct him back to camp. As for the cattle, he feared that they had become so split up that it would be well-nigh impossible to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin

... good thing too. Perhaps it was not, and is still in existence, with all its dangerous powers as ready for use as ever it was; and in that case the best I can wish my readers is, that they may be mercifully preserved from finding it anywhere, or if they are unfortunate enough to come upon it, that they may at least be more careful with it than Mr. Paul Bultitude, by whose melancholy example I trust they ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... Limoges the landscape, losing the graceful flow of the Vienne through the undulating meadows of the Limousin, which in certain places remind one of Switzerland, especially about Saint-Leonard, takes on a harsh and melancholy aspect. Here we come upon vast tracts of uncultivated land, sandy plains without herbage, hemmed in on the horizon by the summits of the Correze. These mountains have neither the abrupt rise of the Alpine ranges nor their splendid ridges; neither the warm gorges and desolate peaks of the Appenines, nor the ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... words of exhortation and encouragement, bidding them fear nothing whatever might come upon them in the future; to hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, and so to attain the heavenly crown. He was not eloquent, for he was but a young man newly come from college, with no great gifts. Yet not a soul there looked upon him, on his innocent, wondering eyes and his quivering ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... great civility, and even affection. Lady Beauchamp, said he, will be with us in a moment. I am afraid you will not meet with all the civility from her on the errand you are come upon, that a man of Sir Charles Grandison's character deserves to meet with from all the world. We have been unhappy together, ever since we had your letter. I long to see my son: your friendship for him establishes him in my heart. But—And then he cursed the apron-string tenure, by which, he ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... going was Pampeluna. I've already tried to find her there, but in vain. The fact is, things have been so disturbed about here that people have changed their abodes, and can no longer be traced; and so I have never come upon the track of Dolores. And I mention this to you, Talbot, so that if you should ever, by any chance, happen to meet her, you may tell her that you saw me, and that I had been hunting after her all through ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... had been attacked by a party of archers was evident; but whence they had shot, or how they had come upon the spot at the time, or whither they had gone, were mysteries that could not be solved. In the search which the authorities made, however, it was discovered that the house of the draper, Master Nicholas, was closed. Finding that ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... in her most candid tone, 'I do not know what I should have done but for Lily's kindness. Really, I cannot get on with my present allowance; being the eldest, so many expenses come upon me.' ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... picked would testify. Bounce told of having gone after a moose deer, and, failing to come up with it, was fain to content himself with a bighorn and a buck; and Big Waller asserted that he had suddenly come upon a grisly bear, which he would certainly have shot, had it not run away from him. Whereupon Gibault, wilfully misunderstanding, said, with a look of unutterable surprise, that he would never have believed it—no, never—had anybody else told him, that ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... worship for it.—Thou seest, thou wicked varlet, now, what's come upon thee; thou art to continue now, thou varlet; thou art ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... called out as a shadowy figure appeared on the edge of the light. Blake laughed, but his uneasiness did not desert him when he recognized Clarke. The fellow was not to be trusted, and he had come upon them in a ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... all to find that this was already a place of the dead! While Ailwin was holding one of the stones against one end of the excavation, and Oliver was striking and fixing it with the great hammer, Roger was emptying out soil from the other end. He exclaimed that he had come upon some large thing made ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... abreast of her, Elfgiva spoke pettishly: "You see fit to sing a different tune from what you did when you tried to hinder me from this undertaking. I should have brighter hopes if I had not given ear to your advice to send a messenger ahead. If I could have come upon him before he had time to work himself ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... preceding days, had fallen asleep, with his young brother watching beside him. Suddenly he felt himself shaken by the arm, and rousing up, he heard on all sides cries of "Kill! Kill!" and "To arms! To arms!" Grandval and his men, who had been sent to find out where the Camisards were, had suddenly come upon them. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... no cause for apologies. This place is a very good one," the stranger replied, laying down his heavy whip on the table of a stone-floored room, to which he had been shown. "You are a man of business, and I am come upon dry business. You can conjecture—is it not so?—who I am by this time, although I am told that I do not bear any ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... darker and darker gloom settled upon his spirit. Disease crept over both mind and body, he was tortured by pain, and when at length the pain left him he sank into torpor. It was not madness that had come upon him, but a dumb stupor. For more than two years he lived, but it was a living death. Without memory, without hope, the great genius had become the voiceless ruin of a man. But at length a merciful ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... we come upon heriots remitted because the heir was so very poor, and here and there fines and fees are cancelled causa miseri propter pestilentiam. Surely it is better to assume that this kind of thing was done, as our friend Bonington puts it, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... continental war. When the people of the United Kingdom are foolish enough to allow their little army to be ground to fragments between continental myriads, they will deserve all the misfortunes that will inevitably come upon them. ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... saw an omen in this. To their minds, punishment had come upon Laocooen for his words against the Wooden Horse. Surely, it was sacred to the gods; he had spoken blasphemy, and had perished before their eyes. They flung his warning to the winds. They wreathed the horse with garlands, amid great acclaim; and then, all lending a hand, they dragged it, ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody

... predecessors, yet one does not know how much significance should attach to this comment. He seldom offers clear, unmistakable information as to his difficulties and his methods of meeting them. It is peculiarly interesting to come upon such explanation of processes as appears at one point in Capgrave's Life of St. Gilbert. In telling the story of a miracle wrought upon a sick man, Capgrave writes: "One of his brethren, which was his keeper, gave him this counsel, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... love-talk. Also, when she took herself off each time, instead of hurrying frantically after her to the gate, he would walk slowly, even sedately, into his corner, the one nearest the house, and there watch her soberly till she disappeared indoors. Then—further evidence of the change that had come upon him—he would lie down in the warm sunlight and there fight flies, although before he had been given to worrying the family horse or irritating the brown ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... blinding ardency of his feelings, to urge Anna to break the engagement she had formed, this did not arise from any want of regard in his mind to the sacredness of the marriage relation. So suddenly had the intelligence of her contract with Miller come upon him, coupled with the admission that if his proposal had come a week earlier it might have been accepted, that for a time his mind did not act with its usual clearness. But, when the marriage of her he so idolized took ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James' ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... mysel' 'at wi' God's help I was the less lik'ly ever to tell a lee again; for that noo I un'erstude better hoo a temptation micht come upon a body a' at ance, ohn gien 'im time to reflec'—an' sae my responsibility was ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... they had come upon his camp. Located at the edge of some bank or beside some willow clump, where there was shelter from the wind, these camps told little or nothing of the man who had made them. Everything which might tell tales had been carried on or burned. Once only Johnny had found a scrap of paper. Nothing had ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... "why dost thou come to meet me? and for him whom I would have met here; neither from desire of his love nor for fear of danger from him had I appointed to meet him, but only to heal him, and to cure him from the sickness which had come upon him for his love of me." "It were more fitting for thee to come to tryst with me," says the man, "for when thou wast Etain of the Horses, and when thou wast the daughter of Ailill, I myself was thy husband. "Why," said she, "what name hast thou in the land? that is what I would demand ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... many men. His works are so many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the world that was in him. All his works seem, comparatively speaking, cursory, imperfect, written under cramping circumstances; giving only here and there a note of the full utterance of the man. Passages there are that come upon you like splendour out of Heaven; bursts of radiance, illuminating the very heart of the thing: you say, 'That is true, spoken once and forever; wheresoever and whensoever there is an open human soul, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... appeared the first Russian historian who can properly claim the title. His poems are almost forgotten: here and there we come upon a solitary lyric in a book of extracts. His History of the Russian Empire, however, is a work of extensive research, and must always be quoted with respect by Sclavonic scholars. Unfortunately, it only extends to the election of Michael Romanov. Karamzin was followed by ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... seen a nugget in its native state, was excitedly searching for pieces of gold. Ellen smiled to see her, with Loll at her heels, running hither and thither, expecting any moment to come upon large, brassy-looking lumps resting like eggs ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... the community after another has been plunged into poverty, misery, and ruin; while the sufferers, without any fault or folly of their own, have been hardly able to perceive from what hand these calamities have come upon them. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... see him again till occasion took me below, when I beheld him softly issue from Mr. Blake's private apartment. Meeting me, he smiled, and I saw that whether he was conscious of betraying it or not, he had come upon some clue or at the least fashioned for himself some theory with which he ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... for you, my dear," said Mrs. Markham, "until we saw you had a protector. Do tell me—what DID he say? He must have thought the danger great to have broken the Senor's orders and come upon deck? What did ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... they had now swallowed the dripping wood and all that it contained. It had always been supposed that he was good friends with Carfax, as good friends as he allowed himself to be with any one. No one had known in which direction he would take his walk; he had come upon Carfax entirely by chance. It might quite naturally be supposed that some tramp had attempted robbery. To the world at large Olva could have had no possible motive. But, for the moment, these thoughts were dismissed. It seemed to him just now immaterial whether he ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... to live till I lose the scent of my nostrils or the sight of my eyes," said the Scot. "Show me a living traitor, and here are my hand and my weapon; but when life is out, hatred should not live longer.—But here, I fancy, we come upon the village, where I hope to show you that neither ducking nor disgust have spoiled mine appetite for my breakfast. So my good friend, to the hostelrie, with all the speed you may.—Yet, ere I accept of your hospitality, let me know by what ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... I entertained for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means of that I hoped I should gain my point. I was persuaded that if I had come upon him with a direct proposal, "Sir, will you dine in company with Jack Wilkes?" he would have flown into a passion, and would probably have answered, "Dine with Jack Wilkes, Sir! I'd as soon dine with Jack Ketch." I, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... unenviable reputation of believing and openly advocating the strange and illogical theory that the Negro has no soul; the other is a minister of Southern birth, but of Northern education. Infatuated with the prospects of ultimate success, and having, it seems providentially, come upon a man who was a printer and owned an outfit, they talked with him, and he, needing work, was evidently smitten with the idea. Thoroughly understanding themselves, they sought a conference with a few representative colored men. I was among the first to be interviewed. ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various

... though rather high above the level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let myself down. But when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, and felt smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... and the pig fund might have had a chance, but David did not seem to think of reviving it. Perhaps his great vehemence had tired itself out; and maybe he was ashamed of the great disturbance he had made and all that had come upon Henry, and did not wish to think of it again, for St. Katherine's fair-day passed over without a word of ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... times of the nations; and there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and in the earth trouble of nations from the fear which the sea and its billows shall cause; leaving men frozen with terror of the things which shall come upon all the world; because the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then they shall see the Son of Man coming upon a cloud with great power and glory: when these things begin to happen, look ye, and raise your heads, for ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... answered and said: "Pray ye on my behalf to the Lord, that none of the things that ye have said may come upon me." ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead

... full, and the ranks of the militia were full. I am satisfied that we saw often as many as ten thousand militia in one day, posted at different points. They would frequently fight, if attacked in strong position, but could be dispersed by maneuvering. Had they come upon us as the fierce Kentucky Home-guards would have done, if collected in such numbers, we could not have forced our ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... richer than it was before. Now, all her hopes are gone, all her delusions swept away. She knows she will never sing again, and here in her hand she holds the cable message which forms the last in this series of dire misfortunes which have come upon her within the last two years. It is the message which tells her that her investments have failed and ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams

... sleds. Once he halted to watch some boys who were making a hole in the ice preparatory to using their fishing spears. Just as he concluded to start again, he found himself suddenly bumped into an old lady's lap. Her push-chair had come upon him from the rear. The old lady screamed; the servant who was propelling her gave a warning hiss. In another instant Ben found himself apologizing to empty air. The indignant old lady was ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick and weakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had reached and slung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped it at the ranch for the boys to attend to. It was impossible for McGuire to know or comprehend that, in the eyes of the cattleman, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... that had come upon her like a strong man armed, not as he had shown himself to her before—laughing and merry, playful and sweet.... This was no ephemeral, girlish passion, evoked by the beauty of gay, wanton, grey-green jewel-eyes and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... conscious of it in himself and in his neighbour. Meidanov read us his verses; and Malevsky praised them with exaggerated warmth. 'He wants to show how good he is now,' Lushin whispered to me. We soon broke up. A mood of reverie seemed to have come upon Zinaida; the old princess sent word that she had a headache; Nirmatsky began to ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... introduce the next division of our subject. Almost unawares we have come upon the analogy which exists between the blood of a living body and the circulating mass of commodities in the body-politic. We have now to trace out this analogy from its simplest to its most ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... then for the rain and cold! The moment we had been looking for had arrived. The whole force which had as yet landed stood under arms, and thus we were kept till it was found that the surprise had been caused by a patrol of Cossacks, who had come upon us unawares. Wet and chilled as we were the hours passed slowly by, though we kept up our spirits pretty well. So passed our first night of campaigning. The next morning a few companies were marched down ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... her wasted pains, and most pitiful of all for the pains she was at to conceal them. Thus, every day at midday she would carry her little one into the patio, and watch if its eyes should blink in the sunshine; but if Israel chanced to come upon her then, she would drop her head and say, "How sweet the air is to-day, and how pleasant to ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... these sights and sounds we discover men—Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante. We trace the thoughts and emotions of these men and find literature. And in literature, again, we come upon another manifestation of life. Literature is what it is because these men were what they were. They saw and felt life to be large and so wrote it down large; and because they wrote it thus, what they wrote endures. They stood upon the heights and saw the struggles ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson



Words linked to "Come upon" :   find, get, enter upon, regain, acquire



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