"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from Chaucer, obsolete words and forms, such as the inflectional ending in -en, which distinctly contribute to his romantic effect. His constant use of alliteration is very skilful; the frequency of the alliteration on w is conspicuous but apparently accidental. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Christian and popular literature of the Middle Ages," to any of those more pretentious explanations which seek to express the true inwardness of romantic literature by analysing it into its elements, selecting one of these elements as essential, and rejecting all the rest as accidental. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Fleury and Mrs. Gilmer,—an accidental and not very welcome encounter of the fashionable belligerents; though since Mrs. Gilmer had received the much-desired invitation to Madame de Fleury's ball, she had affected to lay down her arms, and Madame de Fleury pretended to ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... accidental and frequent meetings of Walter and Mary, and their delightful rides and walks, were interfered with just as they began to grow into a habit. There arrived at Clifford Hall a formidable person—in female eyes, especially—a beautiful heiress. Julia Clifford, great-niece and ward ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... called "The Transcendentalist" will naturally be looked at with peculiar interest, inasmuch as this term has been very commonly applied to Emerson, and to many who were considered his disciples. It has a proper philosophical meaning, and it has also a local and accidental application to the individuals of a group which came together very much as any literary club might collect about a teacher. All this comes out clearly enough in the Lecture. In the first place, Emerson explains that the "new views," as they are called, are ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... one shot," replied Seaton. "They might afterwards claim that it was an accidental discharge. Unless they make it very plain that they're playing the part of pirates, we'd better take the best of care not to put ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... body of the book, however, consists of a succession of incidents and teachings which follow each other in unstudied fashion like a collection of annals. This impression is not compromised by the recognition, at some points, of accidental displacements, like that which has placed xiv. 30, 31 before xv. and xvi., or that which has left a long gap between vii. 23 and the incident of v. 1-9, to which it refers. The theme of the gospel is the self-disclosure of Jesus. This seems to have determined the evangelist's ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... 'I' or 'we' occasionally acts the part of 'one.' The following sentence presents a curious alternation of 'we' with 'one'—possibly not accidental (George Eliot): 'It's a desperately vexatious thing that, after all one's reflections and quiet determinations, we should be ruled by moods that one can't calculate on beforehand.' By the use of 'we' here, a more pointed reference is suggested, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... merely because it is a fragment. (Only the first part of the intended trilogy was written.) Goethe had now convinced himself that the function of art is to present the typical. Accordingly the characters appear as types of humanity divested of all that is accidental or peculiar to the individual. The most of them have not even a name. The consequence is that, notwithstanding the splendid verse and the abounding wisdom of the speeches, the personages do not seem ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... as the queen arose to crown the victor, Thomas Seymour, her handkerchief, embroidered with gold, fell from her hands, and that the earl, after he had taken it up and presented it to the queen, had thrust his hand for a moment, with a motion wholly accidental and undesigned, into his ruff, which was just as white as the small neatly-folded paper which he concealed in it, and which he had found in the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... marine environment through the complete elimination of pollution by oil and other harmful substances and the minimization of accidental discharge of ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... recently acquired by chance. He knew all the Sunday's tones of voice; and he also was well aware that the Sunday's brain was not on the whole better stored than his own. Further, the Sunday was satisfied with his bit of accidental knowledge. Edwin was not. Edwin wanted to know why, if the clay for making earthenware was not got in the Five Towns, the Five Towns had become the great seat of the manufacture. Why were not pots ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... culpability or innocence, implies a refinement of juridical conception equally foreign to Rome before the Lex Aquilia, and to England when trespass took its shape. I do not know any very satisfactory evidence that a man was generally held liable either in Rome /4/ or England for the accidental consequences even of his own act. But whatever may have been the early law, the foregoing account shows the starting-point of the system with which we have to deal. Our system of private liability for the consequences of a man's own acts, that is, for ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... stone, have also been found in country-houses. On the whole the general result is clear. Latin was employed freely in the towns of Britain, not only on serious occasions or by the upper classes, but by servants and work-people for the most accidental purposes. It was also used, at least by the upper classes, in the country. Plainly there did not exist in the towns that linguistic gulf between upper class and lower class which can be seen to-day in many cities of eastern ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... noticed, was discovered and defeated. The circumstance furnished an opportunity favourable to his views; and the re-establishment of "kingship" was mentioned in the house, not as a project originating from him, but as the accidental and spontaneous suggestion of others. Goffe having expressed[a] a hope that parliament would provide for the preservation of the protector's person, Ashe, the member for Somersetshire, exclaimed, "I would add something more—that he would be pleased to take upon him the government according ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... genuinely interested in declining "fraudulent and unworthy" copy, I would call their attention to the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which "cure" almost every disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian Secret", the other an "accidental discovery", both either fakes or dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it is "a positive cure for catarrh", in all its stages; to "Syrup of Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical constituent is ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... been accidental, as the reader will at once infer. Jaspar's passion, and the danger which he thought the young officer's presence menaced, had prompted him to an act which was not attended with his usual prudence, and the failure was likely to place him in a more uncomfortable position than his former ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... James. "He was partly right. Physical courage is more or less accidental. In battle one takes one's chance. One soon gets used to shells flying about; they're not so dangerous as they look, and after a while one forgets all about them. Now and then one gets hit, and then it's ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... feeling was strengthened by an event which, though merely accidental, was not unnaturally ascribed to the perfidy of the King. The Bishop of Winchester announced that, in obedience to the royal commands, he designed to restore the ejected members of Magdalene College. He fixed the twenty-first of October for this ceremony, and on the twentieth went down to Oxford. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the life of this fascinating character are interesting as showing the influence of the accidental in ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... the moment he had assured himself of the superscription of most of the missives it contained. This restlessness became therefore his temporary law; he knew he should recognise as soon as see it the best place of all for settling down with his chief correspondent. He had for the next hour an accidental air of looking for it in the windows of shops; he came down the Rue de la Paix in the sun and, passing across the Tuileries and the river, indulged more than once—as if on finding himself determined—in a sudden pause before the book-stalls of the opposite quay. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... different names among neighboring people. The pete-ma of the Omaguas is, no doubt, the pety of the Guaranos; but the analogy between the Cabre and Algonkin (or Lenni-Lennope) words which denote tobacco may be merely accidental. The following are the synonymes in five languages: Aztec or Mexican, yetl; Huron, oyngona; Peruvian, sayri; Brazil, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... circumstances been trained to great skill in the use of fire-arms. The gun, however, proved a fatal instrument in the hands of one of the Doctor's sons, a young man of great promise, who was killed by the accidental explosion of one. Nevertheless, Dr. Beecher has five sons, all (like himself) in the ministry! He has a maiden daughter, who has distinguished herself by her literary attainments and active benevolence. The excellent and accomplished ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... furnishing of the rooms and the costumes, Vassilyev realized that this was not lack of taste, but something that might be called the taste, and even the style, of S. Street, which could not be found elsewhere—something intentional in its ugliness, not accidental, but elaborated in the course of years. After he had been in eight houses he was no longer surprised at the color of the dresses, at the long trains, the gaudy ribbons, the sailor dresses, and the thick purplish rouge ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cork up and send by mail across the ocean to anybody you know there. And then he can uncork it, and out will come all you have said in your very words and voice, with the sniffles and sneezes that might have got in accidental. So that if one of the Old Testament Egyptians that they've been diggin' up lately had had one of these boxes with him it might have been uncorked and people could have heard in his own voice just who he was and what was his personal opinion of Moses and his brother Aaron. ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... study which he afterward seems to have developed into his well-known Boy and Bird; a Cupid-like figure, holding a bird closely against its breast. These exercises, however, seem to have been, as it were, accidental, and had little or no effect in leading him to the practice in which he afterward ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... that a day or two before the ceremony, which was fixed to take place very shortly after the foregoing conversation, Marcia's rheumatism suddenly became acute. The attack promised, however, to be only temporary, owing to some accidental exposure of herself in making preparations for removal, and as they thought it undesirable to postpone their union for such a reason, Marcia, after being well wrapped up, was wheeled into the church ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... demonstrate, better than any direct argument, its radical and irrevocable decay. The theologic school has generally no other method of explaining this decomposition of the old system than by causes merely accidental or personal, out of all reasonable proportion with the magnitude of the results; or else, when hard driven, it has recourse to its ordinary artifice, and attempts to explain all by an appeal to the will of Providence, to whom is ascribed the intention of raising a time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... letter with the picture he had made of her. It belonged more to him than to her because he had created it—the man's part—while she had merely offered the accidental cause,—the woman's share. And further she wished to torture him always with this evidence of what once had been in him; not with her face,—that doubtless had already faded from his mind. But no other one had he fixed eternally by his art as he ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... rare moments of unpleasant reflection, supremely happy, thrilling to that accidental contact, paling at the narrow margins whereby her hair escaped conferring on him a delirium. He could stand at a window all day pretending interest in the monotonous hills and empty sea, only that he might ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... labourers engaged and their families, and ever since they have served as a refuge for the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. Workmen and peasants have taken shelter under vaults similar to those of the ancient Assyrians. Sometimes we cut through the accidental accumulations of centuries, where the clay, far from having been carefully put in place, had rather lost many of its original qualities. Even there, however, the roof of our galleries remained suspended without any signs of instability, as if to bear witness that the ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... colonel had received from my clerk, and that the colonel was to have rewarded him handsomely if he had sent you into the other world. I suspect, after this, that the fowling-piece going off in the cover was not quite so accidental as was supposed. However, the colonel is out of your way now, and the old lady has received such a shock, that there is no fear of her altering the will; indeed, if she attempted it, I doubt if it would be valid, as she is now quite gone in her intellect. I ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Harcourt. Marvell had some kind of a stumble, and mine was only a thrust; and the thing was accidental. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... friendliness had not escaped him and it had occurred to him that their frequent meetings were not entirely accidental. Past experiences had taught him the significance of certain signs, and when Dr. Harpe appeared with her hair curled and wearing a lingerie waist, the fact which roused the risibilities of her friends stirred in him a feeling which resembled ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... sooner than he expected. It arose out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained there until morning. The governor of this castle, who was one of the enraged lords, was ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... elapsed since Sally's first interview with young Arthur Grafton, (for such his name proved to be,) and during that time matters had assumed a very different character. One or two meetings seemingly accidental, led to an intimacy growing between them, which was not easily to ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... person I had seen at Church Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period, could I be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some accidental points of resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... way in which I can express it is that in consciously trying to work with God, not man, as our employer, things happen to us which, to the best of our foresight, would not have happened otherwise. Often they seem accidental, and possibly we ascribe them to accident till the coincidences become too numerous to explain by coincidence and nothing more. It constantly happens to myself, for instance, to find the whole solution of some tangled financial problem hanging on the chance turning ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... By the accidental insertion of another clause in the constitution under consideration, Section 1, of Article VII., any foreign born woman, naturalized previous to January, 1870, was given the right to vote. So that Illinois was ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Volunteers," "The Post Office has been captured by the Sinn Feiners," "Soldiers and police are being shot at sight," "Larkin's Citizen Army are firing on women and children," but, for the most part, these rumours were discredited as impossible, at most being put down as some accidental clash between military and civilians, and it was only as people rushed into the street and heard the stories of the encounters first-hand that they began to realize that anything ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... the latter concluded, with some slight asperity in his manner, "that the circumstance to which I have alluded was accidental and ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... doubtfully, "the best I can do is shet my eyes an' push along regyardless, like a cayouse in a storm of snow. But I don't guarantee no facts; none whatever; I never does bend myse'f to severe study of savages, an' what notions I packs concernin' 'em is the casual frootes of what I accidental hears an' what I sees. It's only now an' then, as I observes former, that Injuns invades Wolfville; an' when they does, we-all scowls 'em outen camp-sort o' makes a sour front, so as to break 'em early ...
— How The Raven Died - 1902, From "Wolfville Nights" • Alfred Henry Lewis
... is the important point. Some, at any rate, of the details—the relations of that Henri II., with whom, it seems, we may not connect the very queer, very rare, but not very beautiful faience once called "Henri Deux" ware,[279] with his wife and his mistress; his accidental death at the hands of Montgomery; the history of Henry VIII.'s matrimonial career, and the courtship of his daughter by a French prince (if not this French prince)—are historical enough to present a sharp contrast with the cloudy pseudo-classical canvas of the Scudery romances, or the mere fable-land ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... touch the enchanted food, just as Childe Rowland finally refuses. And ultimately the bespelled heroine is liberated by a liquid, which is applied to her lips and finger-tips, just as Childe Rowland's brothers are unspelled. Such a minute resemblance as this cannot be accidental, and it is therefore probable that Milton used the original form of "Childe Rowland," or some variant of it, as heard in his youth, and adapted it to the purposes of the masque at Ludlow Castle, and of his allegory. Certainly no other folk-tale in the world can claim so distinguished ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... of set purpose? Had he observed anything—any little subtle thing—which had told him how the land lay? Was he conceivably speaking as the husbands friend? Was his speech accidental or designed? Whatever it might be, and it was certainly enough to discomfit the listener greatly, it was not enough to shake his faith in Gertrude. When he found time to think about it, he marvelled that so shrewd a man as Ralston should have formed so mistaken ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... hard or Hunterial initial sore. Some of these cases rapidly gained in flesh, with an evident increase in the redness of their blood, increasing in vigor and strength with a very perceptibly less tendency to attacks from accidental or ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... constitutional differences of judgment or of sensibility, which may be all equally right as against any philosophic attempts to prove any one of them wrong. And a lecturer who is possibly aware of not having made the choice which was absolutely best, may defend himself upon the ground that accidental advantages of a personal kind, such as previous familiarity with the subject, or preconformity of taste to the characteristic qualities of the author selected, may have qualified him to lecture on that ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... he said that the affair was much talked of and misrepresented at Jehol; and that the Chinese, naturally timid, and suspicious of strangers, could not believe that no injury was intended to them, and that the explosion was accidental. A child had been wounded by the fall of some of the ruins of the alcove, which were thrown with great violence into a neighbouring house: the butt end of one of my pistols was found in the street, and had been carried to the magistrate by the enraged populace, as evidence of our evil designs. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the rarest of nests is that of the eagle, because the eagle is one of the rarest of birds. Indeed, so seldom is the eagle seen that its presence always seems accidental. It appears as if merely pausing on the way, while bound for some distant unknown region. One September, while a youth, I saw the ring-tailed eagle, the young of the golden eagle, an immense, dusky ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... companion; and as the bird generally fell, he thought he had an equal claim to the honor. He was fond of warring with crows and birds of the larger sort, and invariably went provided with small balls fitted to the bore of his fowling-piece for such accidental rencontres. He had another habit, which was not a little annoying to John, who had several times tried in vain to break him of it—that of shooting at marks. If birds were not plenty, he would throw up a chip, and sometimes his hat, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... it frequently occurs in Indian literature, will undoubtedly move the laughter of Englishmen unacquainted with Sanskrit, especially if they happen to belong to that class of readers who revel their attention on the accidental and remain blind to the essential. But a certain measure of fidelity to the original even at the risk of making oneself ridiculous, is better than the studied dishonesty which characterises so many ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... enthusiast, in conclusion, throw a handful of lilies on the grave of the martyr of the love of books,—the poet Albert Glatigny. Poor Glatigny was the son of a garde champetre; his education was accidental, and his poetic taste and skill extraordinarily fine and delicate. In his life of starvation (he had often to sleep in omnibuses and railway stations), he frequently spent the price of a dinner on a new book. He lived to read and to dream, and if he bought books he had not the wherewithal ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... shrug with his shoulder, which is the bossolo di non sinceri. Good! You will admire Sandys for telling you, that grotta di cane is a miracle: and I shall be laughed at, for assuring you, that it is nothing else but such a damp (continued by the neighborhood of certain sulphur mines) as through accidental heat does sometimes happen in our coalpits. But ingratitude must not discourage an honest man from doing good. There is not, I say, such a tongue-tied generation under heaven as your Italian, that you should not wonder if he makes signs. But our people must have something in ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... led her into the library again, drew her to a seat upon his knee, and softly smoothing back the hair from her forehead, said in kind, fatherly tones, "I am not displeased with you, daughter. I understand that it was quite accidental, and I am sure my little girl is entirely above the meanness of intentionally listening to what is evidently not meant for her ear. And in fact, now that I think of it, I am not sorry that you know ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... I say will receive scant attention. It only serves to stimulate Emile to further interest in Sophy, through his desire to find reasons for his fancy. The unexpected coincidence in the name, the meeting which, so far as he knows, was quite accidental, my very caution itself, only serve as fuel to the fire. He is so convinced already of Sophy's excellence, that he feels sure he can ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... home he thought with pleasure how his circle of friends appeared to be widening. He who was poor, and could only do good by seizing accidental occasions, he who had, in his own opinion, nothing to recommend him to the notice of his superiors, had gained friends whose present kindness was delightful to him, and on the steadiness of whose regard there was every reason to rely. He and his sister agreed, before they separated for the ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... Miltoun unfolded, if but little, the trouble of his spirit, lying that same afternoon under a ragged tamarisk hedge with the tide far out. He could never have done this if there had not been between them the accidental revelation of that night at Monkland; nor even then perhaps had he not felt in this young sister of his the warmth of life for which he was yearning. In such a matter as love Barbara was the elder of these ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... orthodoxy." "Some Lutherans cherished exorcism with a kind of passionate fondness." "In the sixteenth century exorcism was alternately defended in one place and disapproved in another; and in the latter half of the eighteenth, attention was again directed to the subject partly by accidental circumstances, and partly also by the great changes in the department of theology. The result has been that exorcism has been entirely abolished in different individual towns; and in several countries. This, for example, was the case in Regensburg in 1781, in Hamburg in ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of the European races over the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... of a stanza, a line, a word here or there, inserted as an afterthought, is there use or sense in printing a number of trifling or, apparently, accidental variants? Might not a choice have been made, and the jots and tittles ignored ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... rather an unusual nature took place in the house of a respectable innkeeper in Ireland. The parties concerned were, a hen of the game species, and a rat of the middle size. The hen, in an accidental perambulation round a spacious room, accompanied by an only chicken, the sole surviving offspring of a numerous brood, was roused to madness by an unprovoked attack made by a voracious cowardly rat on her unsuspecting ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... safety for his rival, he rose abruptly and paced the floor in painful thought. He was, indeed, in an agony of diplomacy. It was clear that Syme's inspired impudence was likely to bring him out of all merely accidental dilemmas. Little was to be hoped from them. He could not himself betray Syme, partly from honour, but partly also because, if he betrayed him and for some reason failed to destroy him, the Syme who escaped would be a Syme freed from all obligation of secrecy, a Syme who would simply walk to the ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... off and on, in the main passage, waiting the result. At one time Mulford thought the channel would bring him out into open water again, on the northern side of the reef, and more than a mile to the eastward of the point where the ship-channel in which the Swash was plying commenced; but an accidental circumstance prevented his standing in far enough to ascertain the fact. ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... commenced his labors in New England only in 1646. Hence Dr. Clay remarks that "the Swedes may claim the honor of having been the first missionaries among the Indians, at least in Pennsylvania."[36] "It was, in fact, the Swedes who inaugurated the peaceful policy of William Penn. This was not an accidental circumstance in the Swedish policy, but was deliberately adopted ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... must tell you), which more or less kept by me continually, stopped quite some six weeks ago, and I have thus more reasonable hopes of being really and essentially better than I could have with such a symptom loitering behind accidental improvements. Weak enough, and with a sort of pulse which is not excellent, I certainly remain; but still, if I escape any decided attack this winter—and I am in garrison now—there are expectations of ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... meeting with Mr. Plummer came about in quite an accidental and easy way—Mr. Crayon saw to that—and the Easterner was deferential, as became one who had so little experience of the West, who, in case he was presumptuous, was likely to be reminded that Idaho ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... saw, with the most abominable distinctness, although at the time in profound darkness, every article of furniture and accidental arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you know, is incidental to ordinary nightmare. Well, while in this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... their country an assurance of success in the mighty struggle which they began. Their names are held in grateful remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled their duty not from the accidental impulse of the moment; their action was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time. The light that led them on was combined of rays from the whole history of the race; from the traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world's morning; from the heroes and sages of republican Greece ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... never survived the operation. We have seen, as M. de Reaumur, a few males protrude them spontaneously, even some of the parts inverted, but at that moment they died, and were unable to retract the parts which a pressure, most likely accidental, had forced out. Thus it is improbable that the male organs protrude by turning out of themselves in copulation; and the details which follow prove incontestibly, that it is otherwise. Had not Swammerdam ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... the number of pure artists is small: few souls are so finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative feeling, untainted by the allurements of accidental suggestion. The voice of the critical conscience is still and small, like that of the moral: it cannot entirely be stifled where it has been heard, but it may be disobeyed. Temptations are never wanting: some immediate and temporary ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... that Mr. Lee had no alternative in reporting to the commandant his discovery "down the road," but she had believed herself of sufficient value in that officer's brown eyes to induce him to at least postpone any mention of that piece of accidental knowledge; and though, in her heart of hearts, she knows she respects him the more because she could not prevail against his sense of duty, she is stung to the quick, and, womanlike, has made him ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... course with the Russian battleships for more than an hour, still apparently unsupported. The range was about five miles. At 11.20 the Russians opened fire on them. Semenoff says that it was the result of a mistake. "The 'Orel' fired an accidental shot (which she immediately reported by semaphore). Unable, with smokeless powder, to tell by which of the leading ships it had been fired, the fleet took it as a signal from the 'Suvaroff' and opened fire. Of the whole fleet the fire of the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... which, if not in itself serious, was at least concerned with a serious enough subject, the unsatisfactory nature of human riches; and from that highly moral discussion have I been lured, by the accidental sight of the word "telephone," into the writing of matter which can have the effect only of exciting to frenzy all critics of the New Humour into whose hands, for their sins, this book may come. Let me forget my ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... of writing-paper. On its rough surface Foyle had noted a slight sheen, unusual enough to attract his attention. Even he would not have noticed it but for the angle in which he had happened first to look at it when he took it from Green. It might be an accidental fault in the manufacture of the paper. Yet, trivial as it seemed, it was unusual, and one of the chief assets in detective work is not to ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Venner" embodies many interesting features in this connection. Admitting such inoculation may secure immunity, recent experiments in the action of this as well as kindred poisons give no grounds for believing it at all universal or even common, but as depending upon occult physiological or accidental phenomena. For instance, the writer and his father are equally proof against the contagion and inoculation of vaccination and variola, in spite of repeated attempts to secure both, while their respective mothers suffered terribly with smallpox at periods subsequent to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... in the meal that he anticipated, in an admirably accidental manner, the casual remark she had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... necessity and freedom. The divided returns through trinity to unity. In alchemy we have the symbol REBIS, the hermaphrodite with the two heads. The ancient symbol was later conceived, by purposive concealment or by more accidental interpretation, as the letter Y, just as the symbol of the three lines [Symbol: fire] or [Symbol: fire with a line coming out top pointing left] and the like gradually appears to have become an A, as it is found frequently in the catacombs. Keller refers (l. c., p. 14) also especially ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... only between the good; hence it is not possible for anyone to have many real friends. Of the conventional forms, that which is born of intellectual sympathy is more enduring than what springs from sexual attraction; while what comes of utility is quite accidental. The former may develop into genuine friendship if there be virtue in both parties. Companionship is a necessary condition, in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... was generous and of honest conscience, and but for the sake of her truer lover, she would mentally have allowed the world to lash and abuse her, without a plea of material purity. Could it be named? The naming of it in her clear mind lessened it to accidental:—By good fortune, she was no worse!—She said to Redworth, when finally dismissing him; 'I bring no real disgrace to you, my friend.'—To have had this sharp spiritual battle at such a time, was proof of honest conscience, rarer among women, as the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that between the first and second story there was a sort of plinth seven feet in height which corresponded to the foundation platform below the first story. It appears to me, as it did to Loftus, that the slope which now separates the two vertical masses of brickwork "is accidental, and owes its existence to the destruction of the upper portion of the second story." Taylor mentions only two stories, and evidently considers the slope in question to be ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... with the established opinion about Shakespeare is not the result of an accidental frame of mind, nor of a light-minded attitude toward the matter, but is the outcome of many years' repeated and insistent endeavors to harmonize my own views of Shakespeare with those established amongst all civilized men of the ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... in December there was a drum at Colonel Philipse's town house, which Margaret did not attend. She had mentioned, as reason for absenting herself, a cold caught a few nights previously, through her bare throat being exposed to a chill wind by the accidental falling of her cloak as she walked to the coach after Mrs. Colden's rout. As the evening progressed toward hilarity, I observed that Tom Faringfield became restless and gloomy. At last he approached me, with a ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... The accidental rhyme in this passage is the only blemish that has been objected to in the address, and it is ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... emotion which in that moment he experienced, but by which he refused to be possessed. It sprang entirely from the consciousness that she was his mother; as if, all things considered, the more or less accidental fact that she had brought him into the world could establish between them any real bond at this time of day! The motherhood that bears and forsakes is less than animal. He had considered this; he had been given ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... any means deserve such a reputation," said I, refastening my pack, "for the shot was entirely accidental; so I pray you, good sir, to let the negroes know that, as I have no desire to go under a false flag, as my friend ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... it would mean that peculiarly tasteless and saltless nature of actions and speeches done and delivered by persons who are born dull, or who are mentally exhausted, or are absent-minded, or very shy, but who, in spite of natural or accidental disadvantages are determined to make themselves agreeable. The standard of banality differs indeed for every woman, and with every woman for almost every hour of the day, and men of the world who husband their worldly resources are aware of the fact. Angelina at three in the afternoon, fresh ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... and size of the breasts may be the result of causes unconnected with pregnancy. They may enlarge in consequence of marriage, from the individual becoming stout and fat or from accidental suppression of ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... "Hand and glove." The translator's coincidence with Miss Swanwick here was entirely accidental. The German is "thou and thou," alluding to the fact that intimate friends among the Germans, like the sect of Friends, call ...
— Faust • Goethe
... consolation in his art, and as soon as he could stand and move about with his crutches he threw his whole pent-up energy into his work. The accidental discovery of the red glass had unexpectedly given him an empty crucible with which to make an experiment of his own, and while the materials were fusing he attempted to obtain the new colour in the other two, by dropping pieces of copper into ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... constantly the victim of mishaps, in the shape of missing and defaced books, ink mysteriously spilt or strangely adulterated, and, though I could never trace them to any definite hand, they seemed too systematic to be quite accidental; still I made no sign, and hoped thus to disarm my ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... commissioner to the installation of a new NONO (I think in Spiti). The term here corresponds so precisely with the explanation which Marco gives of None as a Count subject to a superior sovereign, that it is difficult to regard the coincidence as accidental. The Yuechi or Indo-Scyths who long ruled the Oxus countries are said to have been of Tibetan origin, and Al-Biruni repeats a report that this was so. (Elliot. II. 9.)[2] Can this title have been a trace of their rule? Or is ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... ran to the right or left. They also pretended to draw a good or bad omen from the most trifling actions or occurrences of life, as sneezing, stumbling, starting, numbness of the little finger, the tingling of the ear, the spilling of salt upon the table, or the wine upon one's clothes, the accidental meeting of a bitch with whelp, etc. It was also the business of the augur to interpret dreams, oracles, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... all events to sketch it, and meeting by good fortune a communicative young officer on the road, we learnt that this castle, called[12] Chateau la Serve, had in reality been the residence of the lords of St. Vallier; that many years ago it had been reduced by an accidental fire to its present state, and was finally wrested from the family at the Revolution. Of the present Chateau St. Vallier, and the estate annexed, they have remained in uninterrupted possession; and all admirers of the Gothic must rejoice that the ruin has ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... receives more nourishment, the imagination is stimulated, and ideas flow more rapidly, but it is doubtful if the power of close reasoning be not always diminished. It is useful for reviving mental power, when from accidental circumstances, such as want of food, &c., it has been exhausted, but it should never be relied upon as an aid to continuous effort or ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... an accidental chill laid the foundations of an exhausting, though happily quite painless, malady, Yule's strength had gradually failed, although for several years longer his general health and energies still appeared unimpaired ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the words "common defense" and "general welfare" in this admirably written paragraph could hardly have been accidental, or have been due to any other cause than a juxtaposition of those ideas in the minds of the Constitution's framers. And what more natural connection can there be between any two ideas than between those of common defense ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... "It isn't really," he said. "After all, we can't figure it's the work of one person: it's too widespread for that. And it's silly to assume that everything's accidental." ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... simplest and most effectual means of relieving pain is by the use of hot water, externally and internally, the temperature varying according to the feelings of the patient. For bruises, sprains, and similar accidental hurts, it should be applied immediately, as hot as can be borne, by means of a cloth dipped in the water and laid on the wounded part, or by immersion, if convenient, and the treatment kept up until relief is obtained. If applied at once, the use of hot water will generally prevent, ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... lesson of this parable is that unequal faithfulness in the use of the same opportunities results in unequal retribution and reward. Unequal faithfulness, I say, because, of course, in both parables it is presupposed that the factor in producing the profit is not any accidental circumstance, but the earnestness and faithfulness of the servant. Christ does not pay for results; He pays for motives. And it is not because the man has made a certain number of pounds, but because in making them he has shown a certain amount ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... but a pretty little accidental impediment of speech like that, accompanied with a little graceful bob of the head, is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... a preliminary to marriage is practically more valuable than a marriage license. Since many entirely innocent young girls to-day suffer from disease, incurred either through hereditary or accidental infection, a would-be husband may be said to be quite as much entitled to protection as his bride-to-be. Prohibitive physical defects are also ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... will forgive me for having tried to help you even in this accidental way, before I knew how strong were your objections to help from me. Nobody knows this but myself. Even Mr. Dodd thinks my father advanced the money. The ten dollars the rascal would have kept, but ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... a conference in his room. He sat up in his arm-chair, and said, with a greater degree of satisfaction than he had for a long time evinced, "It was easy to discover that this visit of Fink's was not exactly accidental, nor occasioned by his friendship for Mr. Wohlfart, as the young men both made it appear: you two pretended to be wiser than I; but I was right after all, and the visit concerns us more ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... determine the conditions under which Snarley would be at his best, and, whatever arrangements were made, his animal shyness might spoil them all. To take him by surprise was known to be dangerous; and we had already found to our cost that the attempt to deceive him by the pretence of an accidental meeting was pretty certain to end in disaster. How Mrs. Abel succeeded in bringing the thing off I don't know. There may have been bribery and corruption (for Snarley's character had not been formed from the fashion-books of any ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... set back of the masonry at the middle string-course, this church, therefore, supplies no evidence for an intentional widening of the structure from the ground upwards. Any further widening than that at the middle string-course was accidental, due to the nature of the materials employed, not to the device of the builder, and was allowed by the architect because unavoidable. Such irregularities are inherent in the Byzantine methods ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... accidental and doesn't hurt your catch," replied Chase. "If the other fellow is running and can't stop ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... could get such an erroneous impression, or make such wild and reckless statements, I am utterly unable to imagine. As a matter of fact, the fleet never tried or intended to injure the castle, and all the damage done to it was probably accidental. I have no doubt that Admiral Sampson might have reduced the fortress to the condition that the correspondent so graphically describes,—I saw him destroy the stone fort of Aguadores in a few hours, with only three ships,—but he discovered, almost as soon as he reached ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... that the approaching riders were unfriendly in their purpose and, without pausing to weigh reasons, she quickly scrambled through this accidental passage, not ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... good faith, as being those to which the writer alludes. But Miss Browning has recognized them as her father's own impromptu epigrams, well remembered in the family, together with the occasion on which they were written. The substitution may, from the first, have been accidental. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... particularly against us at the start," said Edmund. "Only he was for treating us with less consideration than Ala was disposed to show. But after the first accidental shooting, and the drubbing that Juba gave him, naturally his prejudices were aroused, and he could hardly be blamed for thinking us dangerous. Then, when he found himself defeated, and his wishes ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... given in the Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society (1829), chiefly known to modern readers by one of Macaulay's essays. Southey was as assailable as Mill. His political economy is a mere muddle; his political views are obviously distorted by accidental prejudices; and the whole book is desultory and disjointed. In a dialogue with the ghost of Sir Thomas More, he takes the opportunity of introducing descriptions of scenery, literary digressions, and quaint illustrations from his vast stores ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... he pulled himself up sharply, and declared himself a madman for raving on the street in broad daylight over the mere accidental meeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He—the uncrowned king of a to-be-glorious throne! He—the affianced husband of the Princess Elodie of—Hell! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and the Park trees heard ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... duties of watching and warding were as familiar as any of their more ordinary occupations, and whose courage, nevertheless, tempered by age and experience, was not likely to engage in any rash adventure or accidental quarrel. These men maintained a constant and watchful guard, commanded by the steward, but under the eye of Father Aldrovand, who, besides discharging his ecclesiastical functions, was at times pleased to show some sparkles of his ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... reader should be inclined to blame the accidental possessor of these letters for doing what this story must perforce put on record, and to say that his action disgraced the Earldom of Ancester, let it remind him what the facts were that were already in his lordship's possession, and ask him whether ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... uncreasing the note. Indubitably he had made a terrific and everlasting impression upon Mr. Bryany. He was sending Mr. Bryany out of the Five Towns a different man. He had taught Mr. Bryany a thing or two. To what brilliant use had he turned the purely accidental possession of a hundred-pound note! One of his finest inspirations—an inspiration worthy of the great days of his youth! Yes, he had had his hour that evening, and it had been a glorious one. Also, ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... someone else's sense of freedom from danger and repressing our own conviction that for us a certain danger, more or less remote, exists, we are putting great pressure upon ourselves. At times of ill-health or accidental worry, a sleepless night may bring us an agonising succession of imaginative pictures, those very pictures which we have attempted to banish from our daily life. If we have still greater power of repression these grim images, forbidden throughout every ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... Pompeian, says of Cicero that "he bore none of his calamities as a man should, except his death"; and "Lucan denounces his perverse impolicy." Mr. Merivale, in a note, observes that it can hardly be accidental that Tacitus, in his historical works, never mentions him, and adds, "The most glowing tribute to Cicero's merits is the well-known passage in Juvenal, and this is written in the spirit of a Marian, or anti-oligarch." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... spring rains in September to April. From May the absence of rain, together with the night frosts, shrivel up the herbage, giving the country a pale-brown aspect. This continues until the return of spring, varied with large expanses of black, caused by accidental or intentional grass fires, and here and there a few green spots in specially ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... select a school in a community of average social status, a school attended by all or practically all the children in the district where it was located. In order to get clear pictures of age differences the tests were confined to children who were within two months of a birthday. To avoid accidental selection, all the children within two months of a birthday were tested, in whatever grade enrolled. Tests of foreign-born children, however, were eliminated in the treatment of results. There remained tests of approximately ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... in the appraisal of works more or less imperfect, I have endeavoured to discover what the qualities in a poem are, which may be deemed promises and specific symptoms of poetic power, as distinguished from general talent determined to poetic composition by accidental motives, by an act of the will, rather than by the inspiration of a genial and productive nature. In this investigation, I could not, I thought, do better than keep before me the earliest work of the greatest genius that perhaps human nature ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... our system in order to account plausibly for the peculiar ellipses of the others. That is to say, they felt the influence of this seventh planet; its attractive force was realized, but where it was they could not tell. Its discovery by Herschel was quite accidental. He was sweeping the heavens for comets when this star came within his vision. Others had seen it, too, but had classified it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... to the animal in the cave. Determined to explore the mystery of the "hole" in the hill. Trip to the hills. Difficulty in finding the "hole." Accidental discovery of a rock. The "hole" found. Indication that it was made by man. Why plants flourish around holes and stones. Moisture and heat. Object of cultivating plants. Lead and silver ore. Zinc. Working with their ore furnace. Putting metals to work. Labor-saving ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... weighs over one hundred pounds. It is made with one end flattened, upon which it will stand, and in the early types its accidental discharge is rendered practically impossible by a sort of peg called a safety pin, which must be removed before the bomb is dropped. The use of depth bombs against the U-boats made fighting in the German submarines so dangerous and so much to be dreaded, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... to admit that it's an escapade—an accidental escapade," Barry qualified carefully. "But I don't know any way out of it—unless we all stand together," he said slowly, "and all pretend that you got lost alone and found alone. That's very simple, really, and I think perhaps it would make ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... deepening the outlines of this humorous antithesis, while it made the crack-brained philosopher more and more of a burlesque unreality, continually added new touches of life and nature to the lineaments of the simple-minded soldier; and it was by this curious and half-accidental process that there came to be added to the gallery of English fiction one of the most perfect and ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... her face As sunlight masks the barren sea; A fitful, accidental grace Which time ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... conjectured by Hupfeld, a surrender of the fruit of the land has been construed into a surrender of tbe land itself—a general fallow year (Leviticus xxv. 4). The misunderstanding, however, is not accidental, but highly characteristic. In Exodus xxiii. the arrangement is made for man; it is a limitation, for the common good, of private rights of property in land,—in fact, for the benefit of the landless, who in the seventh ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... and on the 17th of September he occupied a position between the Black Prince and Guienne. The first intimation that either the Black Prince or the King of France had of their close proximity to each other was an accidental meeting between a small foraging force of the English and three hundred French horse, under the command of the Counts of Auxerre and Joigny, the marshal of Burgundy, and the lord of Chatillon. The French hotly pursued the little English party, and on emerging from some ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... do not know them. That comes from no more, of course, than the usual fault of an early impression. That fault gives a mould to the mind, and our latest thoughts, which we try to make reasonable, betray that accidental shape. It may be said that I looked into this window while still soft. The consequence, everybody knows, would be incurable in a boy who saw sextants for the first time, compasses, patent logs, sounding-machines, signalling gear, and the other secrets of navigators. And not only those things. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... the cavalry by a sudden manoeuvre had closed in on their rear. However, Suetonius Paulinus did not immediately give the signal for his infantry to charge. He was by nature dilatory, and preferred cautiously reasoned measures to accidental success. He kept on issuing orders about filling up the ditches, clearing the fields and extending the line, convinced that it was soon enough to play for victory when he had taken every precaution against defeat. This ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. And the greatest makers of literature are those whose vision has been the widest, and whose feeling has been the most intense. Your own fragment of insight was accidental, and perhaps temporary. *Their* lives are one long ecstasy of denying that the world is a dull place. Is it nothing to you to learn to understand that the world is not a dull place? Is it nothing to you to be led out of the tunnel on to the hill-side, to have all your senses ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... accidental death of his parents, James Holden ran off to the home of his grandparents. Puzzled and concerned, they called me as the child's guardian. I went there to bring him back to his home. I arrived the following morning and it was during that session ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... woman far too young and too pretty for his deserts. And, besides this, there was a certain amount of vague, shifting foreign society, nobles on the loose, and young men on their grand tour, who mostly considered that a visit to the Palazzo Muti, or at least a seemingly accidental meeting and introduction in the lobby of a theatre or the garden of a villa, was an indispensable part of their sight-seeing. Such people as these were the guests of the Palazzo Muti; and, together with a few Jacobite hangers-on, constituted the fluctuating little Court of Louise, Queen ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... and least dramatic form, when Hamlet is brought back to Denmark by the chance of the meeting with the pirate ship. This incident has been therefore severely criticised as a lame expedient,[84] but it appears probable that the 'accident' is meant to impress the imagination as the very reverse of accidental, and with many readers it certainly does so. And that this was the intention is made the more likely by a second fact, the fact that in connection with the events of the voyage Shakespeare introduces that feeling, on Hamlet's part, of his being in the hands of Providence. The repeated expressions ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... as soon as I hollered at him. I wish he'd done it earlier in the game. We might have saved a lot of good timber. As it was, we couldn't do much. Every time the wind changed, it would break out in a new place—too often to be accidental. Damn him!" ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... palace. On that account, certain persons also took opportunity to say, and not with any good intention, that the governor had incurred excommunication—although he was so far from that, and this was so accidental a case that it could not have been foreseen in the order that was issued so many days previously. The relation of the fathers of St. Dominic charges that accident to the governor, unjustly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... 1839 Brevet Major Noel, Sixth Infantry, was severely wounded (serving in the Florida War at the time) by the accidental discharge of his own pistol. He left his company February 16, 1839, and has ever since been absent from his regiment, the state of his wound and great suffering rendering him utterly incapable of performing any kind of duty whatever; ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... longitude of the mesa. The latitude, on one slip of paper, was to be carried by one boy and the longitude, on another piece, was to be in the possession of the other. This was a precaution against accidental revelation of ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... to pervade the old buildings when the girls came, and nature and art took turns. There were peepings and whisperings, much stifled laughter and whisking in and out; not to mention the accidental rencontres, small services, and eye telegrams, which somewhat lightened the ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... arises in the first place the question: Are the vapours of the acid of nitre naturally red? I beg leave to raise this question here because I believe there are people who advance the redness of this acid as a distinguishing characteristic. The colours of the acid of nitre are accidental. When a few ounces of fuming acid of nitre are distilled by a very gentle heat, the yellow separates itself from it and goes into the receiver, and the residuum in the retort becomes white and colourless like water. This acid has all the chief properties of acid of nitre, ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... have no more resemblance to Malay than to Papuan, and the darkness of skin and hair would forbid the idea of Dutch intermixture. Listening to their conversation, however, I detected some words that were familiar to me. "Accabo" was one; and to be sure that it was not an accidental resemblance, I asked the speaker in Malay what "accabo" meant, and was told it meant "done or finished," a true Portuguese word, with its meaning retained. Again, I heard the word "jafui" often repeated, and could see, without inquiry, that its meaning was ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... can be imagined to exist; because it is discoverable by natural reason, and suitable to our natural constitution; because its fitness and wisdom are founded on the general nature of human beings, and not on any of those temporary and accidental situations in which they may be placed. It is with still more propriety, and indeed with the highest strictness, and the most perfect accuracy, considered as a law, when, according to those just and magnificent views which philosophy and religion open to us of the government of the world, it is received ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to this a better colouring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to regard as the heart of spirituality? When we have eliminated the accidental characters with which varying traditions have endowed it, what is it that still so definitely distinguishes its possessor from the best, most moral citizen or devoted altruist? Why do the Christian saint, Indian rishi, Buddhist arhat, Moslem S[u]fi, all seem to us at bottom ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... is not to its oxygen or to any of its gaseous constituents that the air owes this property, but to minute particles suspended in it, which are the germs of various low forms of life, long since revealed by the microscope, and regarded as merely accidental concomitants of putrescence, but now shown by Pasteur to be its essential cause, resolving the complex organic compounds into substances of simpler chemical constitution, just as the yeast-plant converts sugar into alcohol and carbonic ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... study might have acquired a fair general acquaintance with universal literature. But while concise and masterly summaries are required, many scholars love to wander in never-ending disquisitions, and the consequence is that the greater number of readers acquire only a fragmentary and accidental knowledge of books. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... woman who had met Freda at the country junction had shown, by her questions, that she knew much about the disputed property. And her manner had been, in a way, rather threatening. It was too unusual to have been accidental, at ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose |
