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More "Accident" Quotes from Famous Books



... limit they drop sheer away; elsewhere they stand up on end, zigzag in lacets each more hair-raising than the last, or fill to demoralization with loose boulders and shale. A fall on the part of your horse would mean a more than serious accident; but Western horses do not fall. The major premise stands: even the casual tourist has no real reason for fear, however ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... whisky, etc., some of which are used more in one country than in another. In fact, almost every class of people known has an alcoholic beverage that has come to be regarded as typical of that class. Alcoholic fermentation is supposed to have been discovered by accident, and when its effect became known it was recognized as a popular means of supplying a beverage and some stimulation besides. Under stimulating beverages come tea, coffee, and cocoa. These are in common use all over the world, certain ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... wanted to hear more about him, and how he got on, and whether the evil spirits troubled Saul again after David had harped them out. But nothing more came; and the old gentleman droned on about other things till poor Ben felt that he must either go to sleep like the Squire, or tip the stool over by accident, since "nestling" was forbidden, and relief of some sort ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... necessary for giving them a bed and bandages. Do you suppose the good Samaritan ever asked the wounded Jew's name, and that the Levite did not excuse himself because the thieves had taken the poor man's card-case? Do the directions, 'In case of accident,' in your ambulance rules, read, 'First lay the sufferer on his back and inquire his name and family connections'? Besides, you can call one 'Ned' and the ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... foulness was ingrained; that the Ethiopian could change his skin, or the leopard his spots, as soon as he; that he had never yet looked purity in the face; that the fall which disgraced him in his own eyes was but the necessary outcome of his character—that it was no accident but an unavoidable result; that his true nature had but disclosed itself, and appeared—as everything hid must be known, everything covered must be revealed. Even to begin the purification without which his moral and spiritual being must perish eternally, he must dare to look on himself as ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... margin, or be uncomfortable in every thing in life. Our plan for a day, for a week, for our lifetime, must have it,—margin for change of purpose, margin for interruption, margin for accident. Making no allowance for these, we are fettered, we are ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... Epistles is accessible to the Latinless reader. For the bursts of poetry are brief and rare, issuing from amid what Horace often reminds us are essentially plain prose essays in conversational form, their hexametral garb an unpoetical accident. Two versions present themselves to the unclassical student. The first is Conington's scholarly rendering, hampered sometimes rather than adorned by its metrical shape; the other is the more recent construe of Dean Wickham, clear, ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... to shoot," said the suave voice of the doctor; "the lights went out, quite by accident, I assure you, and you and your friends have no ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... hardly believe their eyes—those five who had seen the accident, but it was true. Mary Jane had not been hurt a bit—not more than a half-dozen scratches—only stunned by her fall. She got up in a few minutes, and with her mother's help (and how good it did seem to have her mother there ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson

... driver, unable to control his fiery steeds, would be thrown to the ground, and, not quick enough to cut the reins that encircled him with the bill-hook that he carried for the purpose, would be dragged to his death. Such an accident would not stop the onrushing of the other competitors, and at last the victor would step from his car, mount the spina, and receive the sum of money that had been offered as ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... nothing but the brass plate between decks to remind me that I had once been a gentleman. In a former book, describing a former journey, I expressed some wonder that I could be readily and naturally taken for a pedlar, and explained the accident by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I must now take a humbler view; for here I was among my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every advantage of speech and manner; and I am bound to confess that I passed for nearly anything you please ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as far back as the reign of James I; though he shows his lack of true perception when he ascribes the true inwardness of the Reformation to the greed of the monarch for the spoils of the clergy. At bottom what mainly impresses him is the immense influence of personal accident upon events. Intrigue, a sudden dislike, some backstairs piece of gossip, here is the real root of great changes. And when he expresses a "thorough contempt" for the kind of work scholars such as Scaliger and Petavius had achieved, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... by the hundreds; and most important of all, a mysterious five-hundred dollar rose-colored cat. Then comes the lamentable accident to Lady Victoria's aristocratic tail; the operation; the over-dose of chloroform; the funeral. There is a laugh ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... for an hour yet. And there would be preparations to make. He must repack the saddle-bags with feed for Billy, food for himself and a possible stranger, restoratives, and a simple remedy or two in case of accident. These were articles he always took with him on long journeys. He considered taking his camping tent but that would mean the wagon, and they could not go so rapidly with that. He must not load Billy heavily, after the miles he had already ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... month of August) and never grows big but in the Sea; and there to an incredible bigness in a very short time; to which place they covet to swim, by the instinct of nature, about a set time: but if they be stopp'd by Mills, Floud-gates or Weirs, or be by accident lost in the fresh water, when the others go (which is usually by flocks or ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... made sail from the sloop-of-war, at the time he was here afore, and is not expectin' to find us here. No—no—he thinks we are beatin' up toward Key West this very minute, if, indeed, he has missed us at all. 'T is possible he believes the boat has got adrift by accident, and has no thought of our bein' out ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... police all over, and that's 'ow they get their way and do as they like. I could see 'im in my mind's eye talking to the guv'nor, and letting out little things about broken glasses and such-like by accident. I drew back to let 'im pass, and I was so upset that when that little rat of a landlord follered 'im ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... you would do it," said Arthur. "Had it been the result of accident, of course you would have hastened to declare it, any ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... inadequate supplies of potable water; air and water pollution; deforestation; radiation contamination in the northeast from 1986 accident at ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... ["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the midst of Fortune's heap."—Juvenal, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... The Dolphin came cruising in search of us down the coast after capturing the second slaver and settling all her business at Zanzibar; and, on her putting in to Majunga, of course we went on board, reporting the accident that had happened to the pinnace. The excitement had borne us up to then; but, soon after we found ourselves once more in the old ship, the whole lot of us broke down and went raving mad, being out of our minds for weeks. Magellan and the others recovered out there, but I was invalided ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson

... The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in in a panic, and as they were lifting the bony frame from the floor Edwards arrived. With his assistance they got ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from accident,—that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr. Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient that ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... him," she was saying to herself as she sat by the fire. "There would have been no necessity for his leaving England again had he done so. It cannot be because I am rich and he poor, surely? He is not the sort of man to let such a mere accident as that stand in the way if he really cared for me. No, it is that he does not care for me except as a sort of sister. But still—he said he had kept his last evening for me—at least he cares ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... of London, his house in Bread-street was burnt, before which accident foreigners have gone out of devotion, says Wood, to see the house and chamber where he was born. Some time before he died, he sold the greatest part of his library, as his heirs were not qualified to make a ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... across his frontier in the direction of the territories of the King of Bokh[a]r[a]. He objected that it was a long journey from C[a]bul to Balkh merely to pick up "rubbish;" and though the actual danger was only for a short space, yet, if any accident happened, if, as he declared was highly probable, we were seized and carried into slavery, he should have to answer to the British Government. His horsemen too would be an insufficient protection against an attack from the numerous hordes of thieves who infested the desert, and would surely ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... as an officer, apply himself to his duties, and forget the wild desires of his nature, which were well enough in time of war, but not suited to his new condition as an officer; but, poor fellow I he was killed by an accident, which probably saved him from a slower but ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... rights of my birth, and entitled to the rank and reception which my ancestors obtained. I was, however, embarrassed with many difficulties at my first re-entrance into the world; for my haste to be a gentleman inclined me to precipitate measures; and every accident that forced me back towards my old station, was considered by me as an ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... for I believed he loved God, and I wished everybody to love Him. God had already made use of me to win three monks. The eagerness he had to see me again led him to come to our country-house, which was only a half-league from the town. Providence made use of a little accident that happened, to give me the means of speaking to him; for as my husband, who greatly enjoyed his cleverness, was conversing with him, he felt ill, and having gone into the garden, my husband told me go look for him lest anything ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... could not prove. "Now we don't claim we have any right to be on your property, and we don't intend to stay here any longer than we can help. But we do claim the right, in common decency, to ask if you have seen anything of Tom. There may have been an accident; there may have been foul play; and there may be international complications in this business. If there are, those involved won't get off as easily as they think. I'd advise you to keep a civil tongue ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... us in what point any particular mechanism is most likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it is at this point that the accident occurs. The workman should see to it that this part should never give way; then find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives logically at the perfect result ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... suddenly he died; and then Caesar, profiting by the interest in Rome for Gallic affairs, had the mission previously entrusted to Metellus given to himself and took up both Metellus's office and his plan. Here you see at the beginning of this story the first accident,—the death of Metellus. An historian curious of nice and unanswerable questions might ask himself what would have been the history of the world if Metellus had not died. Certainly Rome would have been ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... stunned, but had happily clung to a stanchion, where Reuben had found him. Paul hauled him up, while Reuben again dived in search of some one else. He was gone for some time, and Paul began to fear that some accident had happened to him. At length his voice was ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... killed a body by accident, the body of his little boy. She is murdering a soul deliberately, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... descended, partly flying, partly falling, partly sliding flown the baluster—a whirl of superheated hair, swirling skirts, and wide, appealing eyes of delf blue. Amidon caught her in his arms, and sought to place her gently on her feet: but in the pure chance and accident of the encounter, her arms had fallen about his neck, and she hung upon him ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... retire as an exile from the district of Brecheinoc into England, or to some other parts of his diocese. Meanwhile, Mahel, being hospitably entertained by Walter de Clifford, {47} in the castle of Brendlais, {48} the house was by accident burned down, and he received a mortal blow by a stone falling from the principal tower on his head: upon which he instantly dispatched messengers to recal the bishop, and exclaimed with a lamentable voice, "O, my father and high priest, your saint has taken ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... to love Florence; but that the glare of the candle had been too bright for him and he had scorched his wings. After all, as to that embrace of which he had thought so much, and the memory of which was so sweet to him and so bitter—it had simply been an accident. Thus, writing in his mind that letter to Florence which he knew, if he were an honest man, he would never allow himself to write, he reached Lady Ongar's door without having arranged for himself any ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... Milburn over carefully, to see if any wound or sign of violence, whether by accident or an enemy, appeared upon him, and finding none, and he all the time wandering in his sleep, she climbed the ladder and peeped into the garret, to see if his servant might be there. Samson's bed, as she supposed it was, had not been disturbed, and so, descending, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... not come by chance. War is not the result of accident. There is a definite cause for war, especially a modern war. The war that began in Europe can readily be accounted for. For the last forty years, under this international capitalist system, this exploiting system, these various nations of Europe have been preparing for the ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing

... extrinsicality[obs3], objectiveness, non ego; extraneousness &c. 57; accident; appearance, phenomenon &c. 448. Adj. derived from without; objective; extrinsic, extrinsical[obs3]; extraneous &c. (foreign) 57; modal, adventitious; ascititious[obs3], adscititious[obs3]; incidental, accidental, nonessential; contingent, fortuitous. implanted, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... fascinations of the two. For though he was tall, and strong, yet strange! his body and his limbs were rounded, and delicately shaped, and slender, with soft and tender hands and feet that were almost too small, even for a girl: and as he moved, he fell as if by accident into attitudes that as it were imitated unconsciously the careless grace of Shri[16], caught unaware when she thinks that there is nobody to look at her, and carved by a cunning sculptor in stone upon a temple wall; so that the eyes of all followed him as if ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... without accident. They were favored with warm, bright days, clear, starlit nights; and on as lovely an afternoon as was ever known in ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... Possession, Action, Passion. The Metaphysical, so derived, that group our thoughts, are twelve in number: (1) as regards quantity, Totality, Plurality, Unity; (2) as regards quality, Reality, Negation, Limitation; (3) as regards relation, Substance, Accident, Cause and Effect, Action and Reaction; (4) as regards modality, Possibility and Impossibility, Existence and Nonexistence, Necessity and Contingency. John Stuart Mill resolves the categories into five, Existence, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the blossoms are shedding their pollen, and giving hay-fever to those who enter the fields. It must be cut then, wet or fine, or the quality and aroma of the hay passes away beyond recovery. Perhaps it is an accident that most of our meadow flowers are white or yellow. The two most striking exceptions are from foreign soil, the purple-blue lucerne and the crimson sainfoin. But yellow is not the universally predominant hue of the flowers of grasses, for in Switzerland and the Italian Alps the hayfields ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... dealt with the forsaken merman, the church of Brou, and Tristram and Iseult. The presence of such motives, such mythology, and such Christian and chivalric color in the work of Arnold does not disturb the simple unity of its feeling, which finds no solvent for life, whatever its accident of time and place and faith, except in that Greek spirit which ruled in thoughtful men before the triumph of Christianity, and is still native in men who accept the intellect as the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... won't say harsh enough to believe, for they can't believe it—that when he attacked Ussher in his sister's defence, Macdermot was only carrying into execution a premeditated plan of murdering him! Premeditated indeed, when it was plain to every one, that it was by the merest accident that he happened to be in the avenue at the time. People might just as well say that it was he who cut off the attorney's foot the other day, though he was in gaol at the time. I must say," continued the Counsellor, "that should the poor young man fall a victim to the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... I can understand how this comes about," he was saying, just as if he might have had a revelation as he prayed there. "It is no accident, but the hand of a special Providence. Our petitions have been heard, and this is the answer; so the last few years of our lives may be made happy by the sight of our own flesh and blood. My poor service has come up as a memorial before Heaven. And let ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... for very different reasons. One goes 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 of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... watering. By midsummer offshoots will begin to push through the soil. The removal of these will throw all the strength of the plant into one stem. To insure its safety a strong stake will be required, which should be firmly driven into the ground, and rise six or seven feet above it. In case of an accident at any time to the central stem the hope of flowers for that year is gone, and it is therefore worth some pains to prevent a mishap. The tying must be done with judgment, and as the plants increase in size an occasional inspection will save ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... great railway accident occurred just outside London that led to the death of sixty people, many of them Immortals. Its effect on public imagination was profound. All dangerous enterprises became invested with a terrible radiance. Men asked themselves if, in face of ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... "Yes, yes, an accident—I understood as much from your letter," says Madame, dismissing that part of the subject with a wave of her ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... accident am I indebted?" Grandjon-Larisse replied in an acid tone, for war had given his temper an edge. "Were not my reasons for surrender sound? I eschewed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... tribunals to be impaired. In cases in which declaratory bills have been made, where by violence and corruption some fundamental part of the Constitution has been struck at, where they would damn the principle, censure the persons, and annul the acts,—but where the law has been by the accident of human frailty depraved or in a particular instance misunderstood, where you neither mean to rescind the acts nor to censure the persons, in such cases you have taken the explanatory mode, and, without ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the physician. "I do not wonder, boy, that one so unaccustomed to such sanguinary events should be terrified. But who is the unfortunate victim of this tragical and fatal accident—or was he murdered ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... sort. To be sure there had been a great many of them, which was a common failing in Packingtown; but they had worked hard, and the father had been a steady man, and they had a good deal more than half paid for the house. But he had been killed in an elevator accident in Durham's. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... and this would be prejudicial rather than useful, since, in such a case, if there resulted a re-enforcement of the effects produced, it would be at the expense of the reproduction of the timbre, the harmonics of the diaphragm being capable of coinciding only through the merest accident with those of the sounds that were setting in play the fundamental sound of the diaphragm. This is what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... zeal, or some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily, striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... cast calm but inquiring glances at each other, to learn if either had sustained any injury by the fire; for both well knew that no cry or exclamation would, in such a moment of necessity have been permitted to betray the accident. A few large drops of blood were trickling down the shoulder of the Sagamore, who, when he perceived that the eyes of Uncas dwelt too long on the sight, raised some water in the hollow of his hand, and washing off ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... while she was speaking, perhaps by the enumeration of her points of inferiority. She turned her bright eyes towards Greif with a look of curiosity, as though wondering whether she had hit the mark, as indeed she had, by a pure accident. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... not a single personal note in the whole thing, no reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one human being ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... books brought over by John Winthrop the younger, was a volume containing the Greek testament, the Psalms, and the English Common Prayer, bound together, to which happened an accident, which was gravely described by the Governor in his daily ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... which was continually copied from every point of view. The expert artist would draw it rather more crooked than it really was, in order that there might be no question that he had not drawn it crooked by accident. This sketch was usually negotiated from the three steps in front of Miss Mapp's front door. Opposite the church-and-chimney-artists would sit others, drawing the front door itself (difficult), and moistening their pencils at their cherry lips, while a little further down the street was another ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... true, and it is owing to an accident," said the inspector. "These people were taken up because they had no passports, and ought to have been sent back to their native government; but the prison there is burnt, and the local authorities ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... the trees in a primeval forest, reflecting a primitive and precarious condition of human society. I take polytheism to have been, in this earliest stage, the wild growth of superstitious imagination, varied indefinitely by the pressure of circumstance, by accident, by popular caprice, or by the good or evil fortunes of the community. In this stage it can now be seen among barbarous tribes—as, for instance, in Central Africa. And some traces of it still survive, under different pretexts and disguises, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... days. The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... these words unfolded to the King and Queen this most foul treason: "Know, then, my dread sovereign Lord the King, that my father, by a strange accident, digging in the ground, found out King Ermerick's great treasure,—a mass of jewels infinite and innumerable; of which being possessed, he grew so proud and haughty, that he held in scorn all the beasts of ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown

... bargaining. Yet he was perceiving an opportunity. There were no Mexicans at work on the project; one and all they had held off. Likewise they refused to sell him grain and hay, which necessitated the hauling of feed from a distance. But now this accident to the boy might prove a heaven-sent chance to break ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... utmost abandonment and dejection. The moisture rose to Walden's eyes,—he knew the great tragedy of his friend's life—all comprised in one brief, romantic episode of the adoring love, and sudden loss of a beautiful woman drowned by accident in her own pleasure-boat on the very eve of her marriage with him,—and be knew that just as deep and ardent as the man's passion had been, so deep and ardent was his sorrow—a sorrow that could never be consoled. And John sat silent, deeply ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... just listens to what he says must be done and she writes it out. Sometimes he goes days without speaking to her directly. But really it's pretty bad! It's like a war with no enemy to fight except spies! And the things they do! They've been known even to booby-trap a truck after an accident, so anybody who tries to help will be blown up! So everything has to be done in a certain way or everything will ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... to know something about Greek literature must have produced within a few years a pioneer bold enough to make the attempt, if the accident of a schoolmaster needing text-books in the vernacular for his scholars had not brought it about. The man who thus first clothed Greek poetry in a Latin dress, and who was always gratefully remembered ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... you silly! I never was proud to come in that old marble door! I was always mad, away down inside, that I had to work here. I had to go crawlin' and askin' fer a job, an' take all their insults, an' be locked in a trap. Take it from me, there's goin' to be some awful accident happen here some day! If a fire should break out how many d'you s'pose could get out before they was burned to a crisp? Did you know them winders was nailed so they wouldn't go up any higher 'n a foot? Did you know they 'ain't got 'nouf fire-escapes to get half of us out ef anythin' ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... his return to Sparta, seems to have been acquitted of any definite charges; but he continued his correspondence with Persia, and an accident at length afforded convincing proofs of his guilt. A favourite slave, to whom he had intrusted a letter to the Persian satrap at Sardis, observed with dismay that none of the messengers employed in this service had ever returned. Moved by these fears, ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... "It was an accident. My hat blew off, a Fife fisherman got it for me. I liked the man, and went back to ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... quite like other people," she said to me when I had closed the book; "you know I was a mere infant in my nurse's arms, when that accident happened." I nodded, for I had heard the sad details from Uncle Geoffrey; how an unbroken pair of young horses had shied across the road just as the nurse who was carrying Miss Ruth was attempting to cross it; the nurse had been knocked down and dreadfully injured, and her little charge ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... tree on which the flag is placed is cut—DIG ONE FOOT, S.) We then bade farewell to the Indian Ocean, and returned to Charles Creek, where we had again great difficulty in getting the horses across, but it was at last accomplished without accident. We have passed numerous and recent tracks of natives to-day; they are still burning the country at some distance ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... document signed by the consignees of a cargo, binding themselves to pay a certain proportion of general average that may from accident arise against them. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... day was over. Not another axle, not another, not another. He laid his head against the chute and shut his eyes.... Presently he staggered to his feet and walked blindly to the stairway. At the bottom stood Malcolm Lightener, not there by accident, but with design to test Bonbright's metal to the utmost. He placed himself there for Bonbright to see, to give Bonbright opportunity ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much disordered by the accident of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... the mole-hill, and went down on his knees. The King fell off, and broke his collar bone. The bone was set; and he returned to Kensington in his coach. The jolting of the rough roads of that time made it necessary to reduce the fracture again. To a young and vigorous man such an accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of William was not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt that his time was short, and grieved, with a grief such as only noble spirits feel, to think ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... robber gang, and in providing hospitality for the delayed passengers. In fact, but for the timely warning of Yuba Bill by Mr. Tarbox, the coach might have crashed into the tree at that dangerous point, and an accident ensued more disastrous to life and limb than the ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... birds are not consulted in the hope of obtaining favourable omens; but rather special events are regarded as of evil omen; such are any outbreak of fire in the house, any fatal accident to any member of the house, the repeated crying of the muntjac (the barking deer) about the house. In one instance known to us the attractive daughter of a Kenyah chief had three times been compelled by series of bad omens to break ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... 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 ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... where Pemberton had chosen his position to receive us, whether taken by accident or design, was well selected. It is one of the highest points in that section, and commanded all the ground in range. On the east side of the ridge, which is quite precipitous, is a ravine running first ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... that we insist on precisely twelve degrees draw from a neutral plane for locking faces for lever pallets. What we do insist upon, however, is a "safe and sure draw" for a lever pallet which will hold a fork to the banks and will also return it to such banks if by accident the fork is moved away. We are well aware that it takes lots of patient, hard study to master the complications of the club-tooth lever escapement, but it is every watchmaker's duty to conquer the problem. The definition of "lock," in the detached lever escapement, ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... What an accident! Through a Jew, dealing in photographs I secured a picture of my ideal. It is a small reproduction of Titian's "Venus with the Mirror." What a woman! I want to write a poem, but instead, I take the reproduction, and write on it: ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... Rezin, were famous for their bowie-knife, as well as for their bold fighting qualities. The knife was an accident. The first one had been invented by Rezin from a finely-tempered blacksmith's file, for a hunting-knife, in Louisiana. When hammered and drawn into shape it had a blade five and one-quarter inches long and one and one-half inches ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... that I want you to be sure to remember, I have saved for the last. No matter what kind of accident happens, keep your wits about you and keep cool. Be calm and think what it is best to do, instead of letting yourself be frightened. Of course, get some one to help you as soon as you can and, if need be, call for help as loud as your lungs will let you. ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson

... my age by Mr. William Cookesley, a name never to be pronounced by me without veneration. The lamentable doggerel which I have already mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to mouth among people of my own degree, had by some accident or other reached his ear, and given him a curiosity to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... nature intended me for a schoolmaster, and it is just an accident that I have taken to soldiering. I flatter meself that no one looks after his subalterns more sharply than I do. My only fear is that I am too severe with them. I may be mild in my manners, but they know me well enough to tremble if I ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... man through others, according to the measure of his capacity and education. But neither does this affect the testimony, whether written or oral, which he knows by experience to be trustworthy. He cannot escape from the laws of his own mind; and he cannot escape from the further accident of being dependent for his knowledge on others. But still this is no reason why he should always be in doubt; of many personal, of many historical and scientific facts he may be absolutely assured. And having such a mass of acknowledged truth in the mathematical and physical, ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... the old action of debt covered part of the ground of contract only by accident. It was really an action to recover any property that was not land; for the remedy of a dispossessed owner of chattels, afterwards known as detinue, was only a slightly varying form of it. If the property claimed was a certain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... had much social experience, may be permitted to lose sight of the more negligible of the conquests she has made as a girl of eighteen. She had asked him to dinner, and placed him honorably at her right; but words could not have made it plainer than it was that he was but an accident to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... Lydgate, deprecatingly. "It was a fatal accident—a dreadful stroke of calamity that bound me to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... he named two or three persons we have seen when with him; but he did not mention Lord Orville, and I would not ask him, lest he should think me curious. Perhaps, if he stays here some time, he may speak of him by accident. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... vicinity of the accident Rad had got to the switchboard. The electricity was shut out ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... coasting cable, it parted in the middle of its length, being chafed by the rocks. By this accident we lost the other half, together with the anchor, which lay in forty fathoms water, without any buoy to it. The best bower-cable suffered also by the rocks; by which a judgment may be formed of this anchorage. At ten o'clock we got ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... and unconscious in a single carriage that had been sent rolling down the incline on the line where the outgoing mail train could not fail to collide with it. The inference is clear. Some one wished to make an end of him—in a railway accident. But the plan was a curiously stupid one, for nothing could satisfactorily explain Major Counsellor's presence there, since it was well known to the British Legation in Revonde that he ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... reasons is certainly the peculiar accident that has placed the seat of government upon the Potomac. To the thoughtful visitor to the United States this hiding away of the central government in a minute district remote from all the great centres of thought, population and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... represented Tennessee in the House for fourteen years, serving twice as Speaker. Having declined the re-election to Congress, he was chosen Governor of his State. His nomination to the Presidency had been brought about by accident. Immediately after his inauguration, Polk appointed James Buchanan as his Secretary of State. Polk in his inaugural address suggested a settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute with England on the line of 54 deg. 40'. The Democratic ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... protect them? The paralysis—the dead palsy—of the government in this whole struggle is that this class of men will do nothing for the government, nothing for themselves, except demanding that the government shall not strike its open enemies, lest they be struck by accident! ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... the way of consumpt; and should you commence distiller again, this is the native barley country. I am ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your business so far as this country side. I write you this on the account of an accident, which I must take the merit of having partly designed to. A neighbour of mine, a John Currie, miller in Carsemill—a man who is, in a word, a "very" good man, even for a L500 bargain—he and his wife were in my house the time I broke open the cask. They keep a country public-house and sell ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... admission of the little raccoon to his Family, MacPhairrson met with an accident. Coming down the long, sloping platform of the mill, the point of one of his crutches caught in a crack, and he plunged headlong, striking his head on a link of heavy "snaking" chain. He was picked up unconscious and carried to the nearest cabin. For several days his stupor was unbroken, and the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... archebiosis as well as growth to crystallisation; but on this view a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to its humble conditions of life by a happy accident; and this I cannot believe. That observations of the above nature may easily be altogether wrong is well shown by Dr. B. having declared to Huxley that he had watched the entire development of a leaf of Sphagnum. He must have worked with ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... coast of Spitzbergen, or they might be here in the next valley, or north or south where we could not penetrate. On the other hand, they may be in Novaya-Zemlya, or in some region of the far north never yet penetrated by others. Feeling all this has made me think that it will be by accident we shall meet our friends more than by searching; but we shall go on searching all ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... the Gypsy kept a mule, a most extraordinary animal, which was employed in bringing water to the house, a task which it effected with no slight difficulty; it was reported to be eighteen years of age; one of its eyes had been removed by some accident, it was foundered, and also lame, the result of a broken leg. This animal was the laughing-stock of all Tarifa; the Gypsy grudged it the very straw on while alone he fed it, and had repeatedly offered it for sale at a dollar, which he could ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... WILLIAM. Forgive me, If I, in wit and virtue your disciple, Seem to instruct my master. Accident Lifts me where I survey a broader field Than wise men stationed lower. I spy peril, Fierce flame invisible from the lesser peaks. God's time is now. Delayed truth leaves a lie Triumphant. If you harbor any secret, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... possess those faculties in which she is deficient, never suspected, and concerning which no hint ever reached me, until the whole truth burst suddenly upon me last night at the funeral of my sire. Moreover, had accident revealed to Nisida the existence of the connection between my father and your sister, signor, she would have imparted the discovery to me, such is the confidence and so great is the love that exists ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... extremely fond of sitting and looking on; but I do not care about taking part in anything. There are some people who cannot even witness a cab accident without wanting to be the horse or the man who is sitting on the horse's head. They walk round the prostrate animal and give advice; and if they are allowed to help in any way, they are quite happy. If such people watch a game of any sort, they always wish they were taking part in it. I once ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand

... complained to Mother. So Mother asked Chris why he was so naughty about having his face washed, and he said, quite gravely, "I do think it would be such pity if the water got into my head again by accident." Mother did not know he had ever heard about it, but she said, "Oh, Chris! Chris! that's one of your excuses." And he said, "It's not my 'scusis. She lets a good deal get in—at my ears—and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... a cribriform, or spongy bone, to let odours pass on to the brain. Amongst the organs of these sensations the chief are double, to preserve to one side what the other might happen to be defective in by any accident. These two organs of the same sensation are symmetrically placed either on the forepart or on the sides, that man may use them with more ease to the right or to the left or right against him—that is to say, towards the places his joints direct his steps and all his ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... far in the opposite direction, from the neighborhood of Sand. And it happened, that from them Maren and Ditte could make inquiries about Soerine and Lars Peter. They had not seen Ditte's father for some time, and he might easily have met with an accident, being on the roads night and day in all sorts of weather. It was fortunate that Ditte met children from those parts, who could assure her that all was well. Soerine had never been any good to her mother, although she was ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... agreed to pay an indemnity for American lives lost. The negotiations concerning the Lusitania continued to drag on, but otherwise relations between Germany and the United States had reached the point where peace could be maintained if no further accident or ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... (Such was, and always remained his attitude, where the other sex was concerned, one not without inconvenience in a practical world of disillusions.) No, it was that confounded flower which brought about this pure accident—as though Nature, which designs such accidents, had not always a flower, or something equally serviceable, up ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... know how many years ago,' said Dirkovitch, facing the mess, 'but he says it was very long ago in a war. I think that there was an accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... This must be the crack passenger engine of which Dyke had told him, the one delayed by the accident on the Bakersfield division and for whose passage the track had been opened all the way ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... I have myself to think of as well as you. For both of us it is necessary that you cross the frontier as soon as possible. In two hours we start. I am going as far as Breslen on my own affairs, and, in case of accident, an escort is to accompany my carriage, which will be closed. I have made the most of the dangers to myself, and have demanded that my person shall be well guarded. You will go with me, and for your journey from Breslen I have made ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... appearances which should compromise her character and so wound her delicacy as to take away the courage for return; he has even wrought upon her affection for you as his master-weapon: a skilfully contrived story of some accident that had befallen you, had wrought upon her—to the sudden and silent leave of home. But he has failed. At the first suspicion of his falsity, her dignity and virtue shivered all his malice. She shudders at the bare thought of that fiendish scheme which ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... no accident when you kick a four-year-old kid down a flight of stairs. Well, anyhow, they both write me that Tom Braddock is in New York and actin' terrible ugly. He's layin' for Bob Grand. As luck would have it, the Colonel is off attendin' the races along the spring circuit, and Ernie says he won't be back ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... Then, finding that Dr. Hunter was not within, he actually went on to London, where Dr. Sandys, who had attended him ever since his would, forced him to go to bed, and to remain there till his own return. Thus my darling had no one to protect her, when, an hour or so after the accident, my mother suddenly appeared. Spies had been set on me by Mar, and so soon as they had brought intelligence of my movements she had hurried off from Ranelagh, in full dress, just as she was, to track and surprise me. My uncle, having ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of some sinister fate, and came again, exquisite and fresh as ever, and then was interrupted by a high note like a clarion; and while Diaz held that imperious, compelling note, he turned his face slightly from the piano and gazed at me. Several times since the first time our eyes had met, by accident as I thought. But this was a deliberate seeking on his part. Again I flushed hotly. Again I had the terrible shudder of joy. I feared for a moment lest all the Five Towns was staring at me, thus singled out by Diaz; but it was not so: I had the wit to perceive that no one could remark me as the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... seeks you out, except the damp. Your impressions, you have to fight for them. What you see or hear seems of accident. The sort of people you have read of your whole life, and are most intimate with in fiction, you must surprise. They no more court observance than the birds in whose seasonable slaughter society from the ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... sleeves tucked up, was busily employed in attending to the wounded men, while Loraine was assisting Sybil and Mrs Mackintosh in calming the fears of poor Effie, who, not seeing Allan Keith among those who had just arrived, had feared that some accident had happened to him. He soon, however, with his active horsemen, having driven the enemy to a distance, arrived unhurt, and his appearance ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston

... arrangement for this purpose formed one of the instructions on board of the floating light, but happily no instance occurred for putting it in practice. The hearth or fireplace of the cook-house was built of brick in as secure a manner as possible to prevent accident from fire; but some of the plaster-work had shaken loose, from its damp state and the tremulous motion of the beacon in stormy weather. The writer next ascended to the floor which was occupied by the cabins of himself and his assistants, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with one of those subterfuges by which we voluntarily deceive ourselves, she thought: "He will be consoled for my death, if he ever learns what I was." But why should he ever learn it? She would take care to die so that it should be thought an accident. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... witnessed an accident to a woman by a street car, in spite of his humanitarian instincts will run around the corner for fear of being called as a witness. The man who hears at night the call of "Police! Police!" in the street, jumps out of bed and begins to put on his clothes, but thinks better ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... therein had lain all his security; thereby had "Beauty of the Brigades" been buried beyond all discovery in "Bel-a-faire-peur" of the 2nd Chasseurs d'Afrique. When, on the Marseilles rails, the maceration and slaughter of as terrible an accident as ever befell a train rushing through the midnight darkness, at headlong speed, had left himself and the one man faithful to his fortunes unharmed by little less than a miracle; he had seen in the calamity the surest screen from discovery ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... there, Sir, dedicate all my time to my first duties; happier far, than once I could have hoped to be! And if, by any accident, and misunderstanding between you, you should part by consent, and you will have it so, my heart shall be ever yours, and my hopes shall be resumed of being an instrument still for your future good, and I will receive your returning ever-valued ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... the mayor presented at length the strange case. "If a new moon appears," he declared, "we may be reassured, but to avoid the possibility of further accident, we will place a spacious roof over the fountain." This wise decision was adopted to the general satisfaction, and such was the authentic origin of the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... have visited Pergamon, and, when designing his buildings in Rome, have copied what he had seen there? Again, in B.C. 157, Crates of Mallus, a distinguished grammarian, was sent from Pergamon as ambassador to Rome, and, being laid up there by an accident, gave lectures on grammar, in the course of which he could hardly have failed to ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... if you're going to score heavily. That's how Harley made good years ago. Read the story of his life. See the chances he took. He throttled combinations a dozen times as strong as his. Some people say he was an accident. Don't you believe it. Accidents like him don't happen. He won because he was the biggest, brainiest, most daring and unscrupulous operator in the field. That's why I'm going to ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... on whose deck he awaited her coming, Pierrot saw the apparently causeless accident which had befallen the gem, and watched with dry lips and burning eyes the vain endeavors of the search. His hands trembled and his heart was bitter against the girl for a few moments; but as the boat drew near, and he caught the misery and fathomless self-reproach on her averted face, ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... much that I heard at after. Some dread accident had happed him, at after which his sight had departed, and his hair had gone white in a few weeks. He had counted himself so changed that none should know him. I doubt if he should not have been hid safe enough from any eyes ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... is because of their rareness, or an accident of my observation, or a characteristic trait, I cannot tell, yet I have never known two of these birds to be singing at the same time in the same locality, rivalling each other, like the Wood-Thrush or the Veery. Shooting one from a tree, I have observed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... good. To Nanda. All the same," she continued, "it's an awfully superficial thing of you not to see that her dreariness—on which moreover I've set you right before—is a mere facial accident and doesn't correspond or, as they say, 'rhyme' to anything within her that might make it a little interesting. What I like it for is just that it's so funny in itself. Her low spirits are nothing more than her features. Her gloom, as you call it, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... wheelprints 'stead o' footprints, that's all. Come an' see. I was chasin' butterfly down near Vinegar Creek an' I ran on it by accident, I did." ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo

... to keep: shared it so ingenuously that I never thought to ask myself how or why they could be more expensive, after the first outlay, than azaleas or gardenias. And meanwhile I was laboriously and impatiently gathering some comprehension of the ordinary plants. It was accident which broke the spell of ignorance. Visiting Stevens' Auction Rooms one day to buy bulbs, I saw a Cattleya Mossiae, in bloom, which had not found a purchaser at the last orchid sale. A lucky impulse tempted ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... say, Willis, had there really been an accident, and you had been on board, you would not have felt ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... and the jaded writer, as any one may see for himself, all tend to fall at once into the production of bad blank verse. And here it may be pertinently asked, Why bad? And I suppose it might be enough to answer that no man ever made good verse by accident, and that no verse can ever sound otherwise than trivial when uttered with the delivery of prose. But we can go beyond such answers. The weak side of verse is the regularity of the beat, which in itself ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and wearily, as if every step were a pain to him, and he avoided the light. His coat was torn and his garments were mud-covered. He murmured of a "slight accident" to Mrs. Tanner, who met him solicitously in a flowered dressing-gown with a candle in her hand. He accepted greedily the half a pie, with cheese and cold chicken and other articles, she proffered on a plate at his door, and in the reply to her query as to where he had been for dinner, and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... Pirate, A man of Claudio's yeares: his beard, and head Iust of his colour. What if we do omit This Reprobate, til he were wel enclin'd, And satisfie the Deputie with the visage Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio? Duke. Oh, 'tis an accident that heauen prouides: Dispatch it presently, the houre drawes on Prefixt by Angelo: See this be done, And sent according to command, whiles I Perswade this rude wretch ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... family still remain to be described. The second child had been christened Madeline, and had been a great beauty. We need not say had been, for she was never more beautiful than at the time of which we write, though her person for many years had been disfigured by an accident. It is unnecessary that we should give in detail the early history of Madeline Stanhope. She had gone to Italy when seventeen years of age, and had been allowed to make the most of her surpassing beauty in the saloons of Milan, and among the crowded ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... working towards this consummation for some time, devoutly wished it and considered the time opportune for such a move. He believed it to be of vital importance to "the Cause" and its future. In October he had met with an unfortunate accident, having fallen from his binder and so injured his foot in the machinery that amputation was necessary; he was in no condition to undertake new and arduous duties in organizing a publishing proposition as he was still suffering greatly from his injury. On the verge of a nervous ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... to be strongly sugared. June, an orphan child, was looked after by nigger servants, and by one, Mammy, in particular. She possessed a house and a valley; and a young man prospecting in the latter met with an accident and was discovered by the child. Hence complications, and the removal of June from her home to be educated with some cousins. Then poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck. But the clouds began to lift when June discovered that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various

... her. He kept close at her heels; for he knew there was water underneath the ice, and he meant to be near at hand, should any accident happen. I am glad to say, that, after a good frolic on the ice, they reached home ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... taught Fletcher to write love: and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. It is true, the scholar had the softer soul; but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue and a passion essentially; love is a passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident: good nature makes friendship; but effeminacy love. Shakespeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher a more confined and limited: for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... the grave. For half an hour he sat gazing upon the tired, pretty face and the lithe young figure of the sleeper. He found himself dreaming, although he was wide awake—never more so. It occurred to him that he would be immensely pleased to hear that Havens's reason for failing her was due to an accident in ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon

... about THAT:' and not even the sage Lord Burleigh in his nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman of might who has made the passage (as everybody on board has found out already; it's impossible to say how) thirteen times without a single accident! There is another passenger very much wrapped-up, who has been frowned down by the rest, and morally trampled upon and crushed, for presuming to inquire with a timid interest how long it is since the poor President ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... property, Eve. He did not know it had been stolen. I did. But Mike Clinch would not have believed me if I had told him that the case of jewels in his possession had been stolen from a woman.... Quintana stole them. By accident they came into your father's possession. I learned of this. I had promised this ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... does it over, to show us we needn't think it was an accident and he can't do it as often as he pleases," whispered Malcolm. Mr. Dovesky glanced at the boy ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... again for a long time. One evening he heard by accident that she was seriously ill, and had not been acting for some weeks. He went to see her, although she had forbidden it. She was not at home: but when she heard who it was, she sent and had him brought back as he was going down the stairs. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... mean!" the girl hastened to protest. "I think it must be worlds better than being sick, or hurt in an accident, or any of those dreadful, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... with me. (Takes a little paper bag of tea out of one of the slippers and crosses to MISS CAREY.) If I had struck him with the vase, I could understand his calling me "Vixen" (Beginning to weep again.)—but I only flung it at him, 'cause I cracked it by accident in the morning, and I didn't want him to find it out. He was always calling me "butter-fingers." (Sits at opposite side ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... track. The reason he was so late was because all through the night there were times when the solid earth shook and trembled under him, and the engineer was afraid that at any moment the rails might spread apart and an accident happen to his passengers. So he moved the ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... you see, come under the authority of the commanding officer of the ship. It has to be so, because in case of accident he would be the person responsible for sending out distress calls and answering them. The radio man couldn't just grab the power. There has to be one ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... gone to New Orleans to live, and he heard rumours that she was very unhappy, that her husband was a spendthrift and a rake. Scarcely a year after her marriage Montague heard the story of his death by an accident while driving. ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... readers may remember a story which got abroad many years ago that a certain M. Babinet, a scientific Frenchman of note, had predicted a serious accident soon to occur to the planet on which we live by the collision with it of a great comet then approaching us, or some such occurrence. There is no doubt that this prediction produced anxiety and alarm ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... miserable. His cheeks flushed, and a slight sigh escaped his lips as he sat crouched there in the corner with one small hand supporting his chin. No one heeded him, for all were too much excited over the accident to take any ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... a picture of Kit and Kat digging worms. You see they did just as their mother said, and did not step on the young cabbages. They sat on them, instead. But that was an accident. ...
— The Dutch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... The landing occurred without accident, and Marie Caroline scaled the rocks, along a path which tried the nerves even of the boldest smugglers, till she reached a temporary hut which had been reared to afford her shelter. The vigilance, however, of the ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... other admirers into tribulation. "The moral of Hoffman's fall," said the Nation, "is that respectable citizens must give up the notion that good can be accomplished by patting anybody on the back who, having got by accident or intrigue into high official position, treats them to a few spasms of virtue and independence.... Had Hoffman held out against the Erie Ring he would have had no chance of renomination, all hope of the Presidency would ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... sword between his legs, was reading a number of letters, as he twisted his mustache. D'Artagnan uttered a welcome full of pleasure when he perceived his friend's son. "Raoul, my boy," he said, "by what lucky accident does it happen that the ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... happiness to be able to see you again, and to hear your voice," continued the Count. "I am here in Naples only as a matter of accident, and it may be that my stay here will be short. I was at a table in the rear with a friend when I espied you sitting here. Is it permitted that I bring my friend over ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... not both cling to the rope and lend the unfortunate victim of the accident a hand. Nor was there a tree or bush to which he might tie ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... Darkies' Frolic" was the last item but one in the first half of the programme, and the performers were naturally ruffled by their unexpected accident, Miss Beasley suggested that they had better have the interval at once, and soothe their feelings with cakes and cocoa before resuming the entertainment. The little spread on the wood-carving bench looked attractive; the Stores had sent ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... the sophistry illuded her; she was sensible only of the menace his words distilled. She saw herself tricked and trapped, meshed in a web of damning circumstance; everything was against her—appearances, the hands of all men, the cruel accident that had placed the necklace in her keeping, even her parentage. For she was the daughter of a notorious thief, a man whose name was an international byword. Who would believe her protestations of innocence—presuming that the police should ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... murmured Tom, without removing the glass from before his eyes, "you would have arrived just in time, sir, to turn out of the camp a man who wasn't fit to be in charge. Yet it was only accident, sir, that led me to suspect what might be in ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... fancies to worry me, I kept away from my messmates as much as I could; and when by accident I encountered either of my superiors, I saw that they looked—or I fancied they ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... lament of Miss Webster, that Emilie would not have noticed it, but that she appeared so miserable, and she therefore kindly said, "I am afraid Betsey does not wait on you nicely, Miss Webster, she is so very young. I had no idea of this accident, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... the potato disease is rather an effect than a cause, and appears to have been designed to prevent members enfeebled by accident or otherwise from propagating their species by putting such members out of existence. Ozone, supposed to be a peculiar form of oxygen, is exhaled from every part of the green surface of plants in health, and effectually repels ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot

... the newspapers announced the accident to the Deutschland, whose boiler had burst, obliging the steamboat ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... become very rich by conquering the Peruvians, and plundering their towns, that is, taking away all the gold and silver he found: and Atabalipa supposed that, as he was the chief of the Spaniards, he must be the cleverest of them too; but one day he happened to find out by accident, that Pizarro could neither read nor write, and this discovery made him think so meanly of his conqueror, that from that moment he treated him with great contempt, saying that Pizarro, though a general, could not be a person of any consequence in his own country; since his ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner

... we would sooner be found with a copy of Marcus Aurelius than with a copy of Marie Corelli. I used to know a man who carried always with him a Russian novel in the original; not because he read Russian, but because a day might come when, as the result of some accident, the "pockets of the deceased" would be exposed in the public Press. As he said, you never know; but the only accident which happened to him was to be stranded for twelve hours one August at a wayside station in the ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne

... met the children water-bearers flying to the scene of the accident. Not one of them bore a water-skin. The excited young Hebrews did not stop to question the sculptor, but ran on, and were swallowed up ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... concerning the birth of a child, a boy, who would arrive in the following year in the month of February. The lady did hear such news, and in February, 1897, a boy was born to the lady's sister in India. The same lady was told that on a certain date, while travelling, she would meet with an accident to the right leg. She fell between the platform and the footboard while getting into a train, and suffered severe abrasion of the right leg, together with a serious muscular strain which laid her up for several days. Previous to that the lady was to be surprised ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial

... "My brother George knew a fellow who went over to Austria or Prussia, or some of those places, and dropped into a very good thing there, quite by accident. It was connected with one of the embassies, I think; five or six hundred a year, and ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... proof of virginity, so is the absence of the hymen no absolute proof that the girl has had sexual relations, She might have been born without any hymen, or it might have been ruptured by vaginal examination, by a vaginal douche, by scratching to relieve itching, or by some accident. ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... openly understood that we should then break up and go and squander our proportions of the spoil; and this made every man greedy of a little more, so that our decision was delayed from day to day. What finally decided matters was a trifling accident, such as an ignorant person might suppose incidental to our way of life. But here I must explain: on only one of all the ships we boarded, the first on which we found women, did we meet with any genuine resistance. On that occasion we had two men killed and several injured, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... weapons, the intelligence of thyself, O king, the humility of the twins, the friendship, from earliest years, between Vasudeva and the wielder of Gandiva, and the affection of the people for you all, that young man burnt with envy. In early age he made friends with king Duryodhana, led by an accident and his own nature and the hate he bore towards you all. Beholding that Dhananjaya was superior to every one in the science of weapons, Karna one day approached Drona in private and said these words unto him, 'I desire to be acquainted with the Brahma weapon, with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... her brother-in-law, Elly, her grown-up nephew Richard ... the whole town, which, of course, would hear the news at once.... Herr Rupius! No, in good truth, she was not intended for such things! How childishly and clumsily, after all, she had set about it, so that only the slightest accident was needed to betray her. Had she, then, failed to give the least thought to all these things? Had she only been obsessed with the idea of seeing Emil once more, and for that had hazarded everything ... her good ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... commotion from his perch on the bar. In the very midst of the clamor towered the melancholy Alexander P. Dill, and he was endeavoring to explain, in his quiet, grammatical fashion. A lull that must have been an accident carried the words clearly across ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... children: quite so. Afterwards we did our best, and married. No one knows; no one has ever guessed; and the proof would be hard to trace. In case of accident, I give you Port Royal ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the bed, rubbing the little white mark on her finger where the ring had been, and staring through the window at the church as if she were hypnotised. All sorts of dark and cloudy thoughts were trooping around her. Perhaps Prosper had met with an accident, or he was sick; or perhaps the suspicions and unjust reproaches with which he had sometimes wounded her lately had grown into his mind, so that he was angry with her and did not want to see her. Perhaps some one had been telling lies to him, and made ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... magic circle. Edgar Poe, the son of Irish strolling players, called "The Virginia Comedians," settled in the South and was educated in England. By an odd coincidence, it now appears that he actually was a native, as it were by accident, of Boston itself. In the words of the Psalmist, "Lo! there was he born!" This Gentile poet, such was the then state of American literature, could not arrive on earth elsewhere than in the Jerusalem ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... Don't worry! It might be worse! Not the first time I've had an accident. It's only one propeller, and I can easily make another," said Mr. Sharp, in his quick, jerky sentences. He had allowed some of the gas to escape from the container, making the ship less buoyant, so that it remained ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton

... What then? And how was "Black Bart" involved? Why should he be sufficiently interested to swear out a warrant, and then assist in his arrest? There must be something to all this not apparent upon the surface—some object, some purpose shrouded in mystery. No mere quarrel, no ordinary feud, no accident of meeting, no theory of commonplace robbery, would account for the deed, or for the desperate efforts now being made ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... let my mother and Maisie know of my safety—at once. I must let Mr. Lindsey know, too. I knew what must have happened there at Berwick. That monstrous villain would sneak home and say that a sad accident had happened me. It made me grind my teeth and long to get my hands at his lying tongue when I thought of what Maisie and my mother must have suffered after hearing his tales and excuses. But I did not want ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... supplies of potable water; air and water pollution; deforestation; radiation contamination in the northeast from 1986 accident at ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... In vain she endeavoured to get free. The hide rope which had caught her was strong enough, as Sandy affirmed, "to hold a seventy-four," and she was quickly, in spite of her bellowings and kickings, hauled up to "the bail;" while Hector, much frightened and excessively angry at his accident, picked himself up, and ran to the paling towards which Harry was ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston

... of 'Old Nick' from these beings, as spirits extremely familiar to the Teutonic mind. On fine sunny days the nixies may be seen sitting on the banks of rivers, or on the branches of trees, combing their long golden locks. Previous to a drowning accident the nixies can be seen dancing on the surface of the water. Like all sea and river spirits, their subaqueous abode is of a magnificence unparalleled upon earth, and to this they often convey mortals, who, however, complain that the splendours of the nixies' palaces are altogether spoiled ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... rich and ingenious carving: a monument to Sir Edward Horsey; and the spot where the second daughter of King Charles was buried: she died while the family were prisoners at Carisbrooke—and it was only by accident in the year 1793 that the vault was discovered.—ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, built a few years ago on the south side of the town, at the foot of Montjoy's, is a conspicuous object in most points of view: and though plain in appearance, is very convenient in its interior ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... railway station the Boers could be seen swarming out of the buildings in which they had spent the night. The little Natal guns, firing with obsolete black powder, threw a few shells into the station, one of which, it is said, penetrated a Boer ambulance which could not be seen by the gunners. The accident was to be regretted, but as no patients could have been in the ambulance the mischance was not a ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... this condition to an automobile accident which happened to him on June 2, 1908. Even before this accident he had been a trifle nervous on account of overwork. In the automobile accident he had been thrown out, and had been thrown a distance of ten or fifteen yards. The automobile, which was at high speed, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... speed of the engine until the boat was moving at less than half speed. But even this did not save her from an accident which came a short ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope

... what happened, old man," he added. "It was an accident, and I was to blame. I thought you were dead when I dashed out of the cabin after this young ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... Intensely occupied by business, he was reluctant to go; but to gratify Josephine, yielded to her urgent request. It was necessary for his carriage to pass through a narrow street. A cart, apparently by accident overturned, obstructed the passage. A barrel suspended beneath the cart, contained as deadly a machine as could be constructed with gun-powder and all the missiles of death. The coachman succeeded in forcing his way by the cart. He had barely ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... not deliberate long before testing the practicability of this plan. The tanner Thoresen's house was reached without accident, although he barely escaped being detected by a small boy who was amusing himself throwing snow-balls at the chimney. It was a slow and wearisome mode of locomotion—pushing himself forward on his belly; but, as long as the streets were deserted, it ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... approval. But the quarrel did not last long. Each scoundrel needed the help of the other. Still, Chunerbutty judged it safer to remove himself from the Rajah's house and find a lodging elsewhere, lest any deplorable accident might occur to him ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... As the season advanced he ceased to lodge in his old quarters. I would rap and find nobody at home. Was he out on a lark, I said, the spring fever working in his blood? After a time his drumming grew less frequent, and finally, in the middle of April, ceased entirely. Had some accident befallen him, or had he wandered away to fresh fields, following some siren of his species? Probably the latter. Another bird that I had under observation also left his winter-quarters in the spring. This, then, appears to be the usual custom. The wrens and the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... beer-drinking could not be charged to the butties. The miners themselves, in their own fellowships, were devoted to it; and the compulsion of friends was as severe as the compulsion of butties. Every approach to recreation, every act of mutual providence against accident or disease, began and ended in beer. The day a man entered the pit's company, he paid 1s. for footing-ale, and the doggy saw that no churl escaped. When a lad was old enough to have a sweetheart he was toasted with the 'nasty' shilling. The sins of the married men were washed away in half-a-crown's ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... Mind, I don't say that; I expressly say that he's a devilish gentlemanly fellow,' said Mr. Smangle. 'But I think, perhaps, if somebody went down, just to see that he didn't dip his beak into the jug by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he came upstairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run downstairs, and look after that gentleman, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... moderate drinkers is only what we would naturally expect to find in the light of the most recent knowledge regarding its effects upon the human organism, not only in the direct causation of disease, but in lowering the defense to disease and increasing the liability to accident, and ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... hardly thinking, but simply gazing vaguely, breathing in the beauty of the evening in a state of delicious contentment; Jeanne had one hand on the seat and her neighbor's finger touched it as if by accident; she did not move; she was surprised, happy, though embarrassed at this ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... supported her, and had agreed that it was time now to give Mr. Cecil Burleigh a new opportunity of urging his suit, and the coy young lady a chance of comparing him with those whom her affection and imagination had invested with greater attractions. There was feminine diplomacy in this, and the joyful accident that appeared to Bessie a piece of spontaneous kindness and good-fortune was the result of a well-laid and well-matured plan. However, as she remained in blissful ignorance of the design, there was no shadow forecast upon her pleasure, and she prepared for a fortnight's absence ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... weeks come to an end. Lanfranc had gone to Canterbury. The Conqueror, assured by trusty reporters of the death of Wilfred, rejoiced that so satisfactory an accident had befallen, sparing all publicity and shame to one he could but admire, as he ever admired pluck ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... uncertain, unhappy expression, which travelled from one to the other. Suddenly pushing his wineglass from him, it broke, and the wine was spilt on the tablecloth, and at the slight noise caused by this little accident the countess started up from her chair; and for the first time they looked at each other. Then, in spite of themselves, in spite of the irritation of their nerves caused by every glance, they continued to exchange looks, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... didn't hit the door by accident," put in Billy. "That was a tip to the prisoner that some one was coming. Did you see how quickly the ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... unfortunate youth held by the end of a rope, which he caught hold of in his fall; but the rapidity with which the frigate sailed, soon forced him to let go; a signal was made to acquaint the Echo with this accident; that vessel was at a considerable distance, and we were going to fire a gun to second the signal, but there was not one loaded, however we threw out the life buoy.[9] The sails were clewed up, and the ship hove to. This manoeuvre was long; we should have ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... You go everywhere in these days. I suppose Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the entree of the de Bassompierre apartments: it seems 'my son John' attended missy on the occasion of her accident—Accident? Bah! All affectation! I don't think she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her airs. And now there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something about 'auld lang syne,' and what not. Oh, how stupid ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... in her grandest parliamentary voice, "it was by accident that I interrupted the proceedings of what I take to be an official meeting. Have I your permission to withdraw? I am Miss Shelby's guest, Miss Mathers, and I can easily await her greetings until the ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... this correspondent favour us with another copy of his Queries, which were received and intended for insertion, but have apparently been omitted by some accident? ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various

... his loud laments and melancholy prognostications concerning the high price of the necessaries of life and the products of labor. With all his others, I deny this fact; and I again call upon him to prove it. Take average and not accident, the grand and first necessary of life is cheap in this country; and that too as weighed, not against labor, which is its true counterpoise, but against money. Does he call the price of wheat at this day, between 32 and 40 shillings per quarter in London dear?[64] ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... possibly find a dissonant note in the ascending phrase, with a repeated culminating note. (This note would, then, be more than an indication; it would receive an adjective form from the accident, assuming in the musical phrase the value that an adjective would have in a logical phrase.) Its intensity, therefore, would be greater than that of the highest repeated note, and it would ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... from pesticide use; southern part of the country contaminated with fallout from 1986 nuclear reactor accident at Chornobyl' ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... restrain him from excesses. As parish-magistrate, it was Abonyi's duty to oppose the cartwright, and when the latter scorned and rebelled against the authorities, Abonyi had been fully justified in compelling the cartwright to respect his orders, even by forcibly handcuffing him. For the unfortunate accident which resulted in the loss of a human life, Abonyi could not be held responsible, and he therefore requested ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... they went. They design for Anarodgburro: Turn out of the way to avoyd the King's Officers: Forced to pass thro a Governours Yard. The Method they used to prevent his Suspition of them. Their danger by reason of the Wayes they were to pass. They still remain at the Governors to prevent suspition. An Accident that now created them great fear: But got fairly rid of it. Get away plausibly from the Governor. In their way, they meet with a River, which they found for their purpose. They come safely to Anarodgburro: ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... had gone partly over her; one leg was broken. She was carried to the accident ward at St. Thomas's Hospital ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... keystone which held the arch, and there was great rejoicing, for the people said: "The house is finished." Some there were who would have lifted the beam and built the arch, but unless the Master had been in the house, always some accident would occur and the ...
— The Strange Little Girl - A Story for Children • V. M.

... a hard ford," he said, "but I followed the trail some distance on the other side, and they seem to have made the passage without any bad accident." ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the worthy antiquary says-"I congratulate the little Parisian dog, that he has fallen into the hands of so humane a master. I have a little diminutive dog, Busy, full as great a favourite, and never out of my lap: I have already, in case of an accident, ensured it a refuge from starvation and ill-usage. It is the least we can do for poor harmless, shiftless, pampered animals that have amused us, and we have spoilt." A brother antiquary, on reading this passage, exclaimed, "How could ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... sometimes make mistakes on the right side . . . by accident," he added grimly. "I suppose one of these has gone to the Strawberry Bank. I must send Zyarulla off at once to get my traps together. It means ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... "he has been living in seclusion on his vast estates near the Caspian Sea—ruling a kingdom greater than many a European principality. But have you never met the prince?" To Sonia Turgeinov. "He used to be a patron of the arts, according to report, before the sad accident ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... generosity. At this he was overjoyed, not so much because the reward was great, as because he had won his contention. And when the king learnt from him about the wager he had laid, he rejoiced that he had been lavish to him more by accident than of set purpose, and declared that he got more pleasure from the giving than the receiver from the gift. So Ref returned to Norway and slew his opponent, who refused to pay the wager. Then he took the daughter of Gaut captive, and brought her ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... the docks in St. Nazaire, more or less under the eyes of an American sentry who stood nearby. One group of four Germans were engaged in carrying what appeared to be a large wooden packing case. Casually, and as if by accident, the case was dropped ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... cart to the tower, full of straw, as soon as it was dusk on the day of the accident, and in this I was driven to Devizes. From there I telegraphed to my bankers and they sent a special messenger to me with an abundance of money and a new cheque-book; from that time forth I was my own ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... impatience, that he felt the agony his wound was causing, or that he feared the death which must be its result; at the same time the perspiration streaming from his forehead, cheeks, and neck, showed the terrible pain he was suffering. Dango, who came up, inquired how the accident had occurred, when he was told that the young Veddah had just passed a wild buffalo in the cover, scarcely noticing it, when the animal rushed out at him from behind, knocked him down, and gored him from the groin upwards, as he fell. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... LET.—A Scotch Laird, who has, by some accident in celebrating Her Majesty's Jubilee, managed to set fire to his entire property, the whole of which, after smouldering for a season, has since burst into a violent conflagration, which he can neither diminish nor control, would be willing to let it at a comparatively low rental to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... the library of the University of Leyden, and included in Huygens's papers, that Lippershey was probably the first to invent a telescope and to describe his invention. The story is told that Lippershey, who was a spectacle-maker, stumbled by accident upon the discovery that when two lenses are held at a certain distance apart, objects at a distance appear nearer and larger. Having made this discovery, he fitted two lenses with a tube so as to maintain them at the proper distance, and thus ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... and dissolution. The ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary system; the interest of active men in the State is a foundation perpetual and infallible. However, some circumstances, arising, it must be confessed, in a great degree from accident, prevented the effects of this influence for a long time from breaking out in a manner capable of exciting any serious apprehensions. Although Government was strong and flourished exceedingly, the Court had drawn far ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... arrived at Pylos with his forces, he found Demosthenes engaged in active preparations for an attack on the island. For his troops were growing impatient, and clamouring to be led into action, and a happy accident had recently occurred, which greatly increased the prospect of success. Till quite lately Sphacteria had been covered with a dense growth of underwood, and Demosthenes knew by his experience in Aetolia that an ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... he only passes, he is not suffered to be at any expense for food, accommodation, or carriage for his merchandise or baggage: but it is otherwise, if he is permitted to make any residence in one place above three days, unless occasioned by sickness, or any unavoidable accident. If anything is lost in this district,—for instance, a bag of money or other valuables,—the person who finds it hangs it upon the next tree, and gives notice to the nearest chowkey, or place of guard, the officer of which orders ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... divisions in which we may group our fellow-men, the one having the first claim upon us by virtue of its greater need is the poor. The causes of poverty are accident, sickness, inability to secure work, laziness, improvidence, intemperance, ignorance, and shiftlessness. Those whose poverty is due to the first three causes are ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... livelihood, and after sojourning there for a considerable space, he married a young woman, with the consent of her parents, and seemed to be now established in a state of peace and security, if it were possible for a guilty soul to know either security or peace. A trivial accident, in which no man but Masson would have had a hand, proved the instrument by which he was drawn to suffering that cruel death which his companions had before undergone, and he ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... consequently had important bearings upon their conduct. It is solemnly recorded in the Commons' Journals that during the discussion of the statute against witchcraft passed in the reign of James I., a young jackdaw flew into the House; which accident was generally regarded as malum omen to the Bill.[1] Extraordinary bravery on the part of an adversary was sometimes accounted for by asserting that he was the devil in the form of a man; as the Volscian soldier ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... mild) and Bobby (fast wides); for Dick, having been ordered by the captain not to strain himself by trying to bowl, is not going to try. It is extremely doubtful whether Bobby will approve of my action, while if he or Phyllis should, by an unlucky accident, get me out, I should never hear the last of it. In this case, however, there must be added to Bobby's prospects the possibility of getting ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... "it would hurt him to know, that is all. I came to London two years ago because I was going to have a baby. It was never born, because I was in an accident a few months ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... fashion, and the particular influence of Mr. Browne, models of old gardens are in this country still scarcer in nature than in painting; and therefore what good parts there may be in such gardens, whether proceeding from original design, or from the changes produced by time and accident, can no longer be observed; and yet, from these specimens of ancient art, however they may be condemned as old fashioned, many hints might certainly be taken, and blended with such modern improvements as really deserve the name."—"Were my ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... escaped a storm which threatened her with destruction. These impressions, which were not unknown to the duke, increased the regret he felt at his departure from Sienna; and he accused fortune of having, by an unexpected and unaccountable accident, deprived him of the sovereignty of Tuscany. The same circumstance changed the disposition of the pope; for although he had previously refused to receive any ambassador from Florence, he was now so mollified as to be anxious to listen to any overtures ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... KAMPSTUHL was declined solely because the Colonel had an old score to settle with Gen. GRANT for something in the way of a court-martial that happened near Tricksburg. He swore that he would get square with the author of that business sometime, and when the mission was offered to him (by accident, for Gen GRANT had forgotten all about the court-martial), he got up a sepulchral voice, and said, "Ha, ha! R-e-e-e-vendge at last!" and then wrote a bitter letter ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various

... knows I have been well coached in Mrs. Devar's antecedents by your Aunt Susan. George, I am surprised that a man of your sound commonsense should permit yourself to be humbugged so egregiously.... Yes, yes, I am aware that an accident led you to take Simmonds's place in the first instance, but can't you see that the Devar creature must have gone instantly on her bended knees—if she ever does pray, which I doubt—and thanked Providence for the chance that ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... o'clock in the morning and a dense crowd turned out to see them start. For thirty miles they kept abreast; then the Oregon gained half a length and in passing the other boat bumped into her, damaging her wheelhouse. It was said at the time that the disaster was not wholly an accident. Certainly there were grounds for suspicion. As you may imagine, the calamity roused the rage of the competing boat. But the commander of the Oregon was undaunted by what he had done. All he wished was to win the race and that ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... "unless they stumble on it by accident," then colored under the look of surprise, almost of reproof, in the younger officer's face. It was not good that a post commander's instructions to his men at arms should be slightingly spoken ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... the gale, was begun, Mr. Fluxion was sent forward. Bitts was placed in the fore rigging, Peaks in the main, and Leach in the mizzen, to see that the young tars did not needlessly expose themselves, and that they used all proper precautions to avoid an accident. All the ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... 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 hard chase, he ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... He was thrown to the ground, and several people falling upon him he sustained a fracture of one of his ankles. He was immediately conveyed to the hospital, and we are glad to learn is doing well. Several other persons were also injured, but not seriously. Beyond this no accident occurred. ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen

... the Lord of Moorlands went into town to spend an hour or so with Kate—and he was a frequent visitor prior to his accident—that his old manner returned. He loved the girl dearly and was never tired of talking to her. She was the only woman who would listen when he poured ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... as this Marcel delayed the start of the return journey to the last possible moment. And Keeko set no obstacle in the way. She asked no margin of time for accident by the way. She was prepared to accept all chances. The last moments before the permanent freeze up must see her back at her home. For the rest this wild, uncouth land was a radiant garden of delight ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... not different really, and you can believe wonderful things as easily as anybody else. For instance, you will be able to believe this story quite easily, for though it didn't happen to you, that was merely an accident. It might have happened, quite easily, to you or any else. As it happened, it happened ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... for suicidal purposes with nitrate of silver are in most cases prevented from the fact that this salt has such a disagreeable metallic taste as to be repulsive; cases therefore of poisoning are only liable to occur by accident or by the willful administration of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... of genius. While his touch in poetry grew constantly more sure and masterly, his power as a draughtsman threatened to leave him altogether. He was to have drawn one of the frontispieces in the "Germ," but, although he toiled with a design, he could not make it "come right." At last a happy accident put him on the true track, and revealed his proper genius to himself. He began to make small drawings of poetical subjects in water-colors—most of those which I have seen are not more than twenty inches by twelve—over which he labored, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... colonies—that is, those north of Maryland—the Negro slave existed, but only casually, and, as it were, as a sort of accident. Slavery was legal in all the colonies—even in Pennsylvania, whose great founder had been almost alone in that age in disapproving of it. As for the New England Puritans, they had from the first been quite enthusiastic ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... secondly, whether be himself was invariably drunk at that time of night, because, if it were his normal state, I should be safer with him drunk than sober. Being satisfied on these points, I got in, and was driven home without accident or adventure; except, indeed, that the cabman drew up and opened the door for me to alight at a vacant lot on Stratford Road, just as if there had been a house and home and cheerful lighted windows in that vacancy. On my remonstrance he resumed the whip and reins, and reached Boston ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... And this is the special wonder of love-tales: that though they may end unhappily in a thousand ways, and happily in only one, yet that one will vanquish the thousand as often as the desires of lovers run in tandem. But there is one accident you have left out of count, and it is the worst stumbling-block I know of in ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... with Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle and others, against the life of the good King Robert. She confessed her offence, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment within her own castle. Constant tradition affirms that it was set on fire and burnt to the ground, whether as the result of accident or a successful siege. One story tells how the Earl tried to save his wife, but failed from the irresistible power of the flames. The castle became a ruin, and was never re-built. Actual observation, after more than 500 years, has confirmed ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... I was not to let you know. His poor son! he never recovered the accident. Two or three of Mr Shookers's teeth fastened in his head. He has been dead these five weeks: a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... 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 by ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... course of time forgot it. Years later I fell in love really. I sat down to write her a love-letter that should imprison her as by some subtle spell. I would weave into it the love of all the ages. When I had finished it, I read it through and was pleased with it. Then by an accident, as I was going to seal it, I overturned my desk, and on to the floor fell that other love-letter I had written seven years before, when a boy. Out of idle curiosity I tore it open; I thought it would afford me amusement. I ended ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome

... here this good day. He comes to see the things of Japan under the governance of our gracious Emperor. I, having made myself quite pure and clean, open the door of gracious eyes that they may look upon those who are here. May Dr. Robertson Scott be protected during night and day, no accident happening wherever he may go. Dr. Robertson Scott goes everywhere in this country; he may cross a hundred rivers and pass over many hills. May there be no foundering of his boat, no stumbling of his horse. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... not know your history or your parentage," he went on. "Such knowledge is unnecessary. It is obvious that your position at the present moment is the result of an accident." ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... 1856.—How true it is that our destinies are decided by nothings and that a small imprudence helped by some insignificant accident, as an acorn is fertilized by a drop of rain, may raise the trees on which perhaps we and others shall be crucified. What happens is quite different from that we planned; we planned a blessing and there ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... execution at the Greve, and in consequence of that execution, a riot. We happened by accident, to be in the riot; and in this riot we were obliged to have recourse to our ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... this invaluable parent about three years before had been the only grief that Hannah Colson had known. But as her father, although loving her with the mixture of pride and fondness, which her remarkable beauty, her delightful gaiety, and the accident of her being by many years the youngest of his children, rendered natural, if not excusable, had yet been the only one about her, who had discernment to perceive, and authority to check her little ...
— The Beauty Of The Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... may be mentioned, in crossing the river on their way home, were upset, and seven of them were drowned, including their chairman, J. Campbell, who was reported to have made threats against Smith. The latter thus reports the accident in his autobiography, "The angel of God saw fit to sink the boat about the middle of the river, and seven, out of the twelve that attempted to cross were drowned, thus suddenly and justly went they to their own place ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... roused up; the sledges harnessed; and the instant the sea was firm enough to sustain them, the party started. Sakalar's intention was to try forced marches in a straight line. Fortune favored them. Not an accident occurred for days. At first they did not move exactly in the same direction as when they came, but they soon found traces of their previous journey, proving that a plain of ice had been forced away at least ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... testimony of their good behaviour and soundness in religion, and such as had been servants to the king's Majesty, either decrepit or old; captains either at sea or land; soldiers maimed or impotent; decayed merchants; men fallen into decay through shipwreck, casualty of fire, or such evil accident; those that had been captives under ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... country. Among other powers, he quoted the father of Honora's schoolmate, Mr. James Wing, as authority for this prophecy. He sat next to Susan, who maintained her usual maidenly silence, but Honora, from time to time, and as though by accident, caught his eye. Even Mr. Holt, when not munching his dried bread, was tempted to make some inquiries about ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... next day Denis contrived to accomplish that feat without any such accident when he called in at the Joyces' to ask was his grandmother there—which she was not, nor indeed likely to be. Failing to find the old woman, he postponed his quest for the present and stayed talking to Theresa, who, as it happened, was ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... comprises individuals who break the law, not because of any natural depravity, nor owing to distressing circumstances, but by mere accident. They may ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... knew Sultan's feet were sure, and that unless an accident which could not be avoided took ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor









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