"Accidentally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... immediately after the departure of a stranger calling himself the Count von Rettel, and detailing from memory, very circumstantially and fully, the substance of a certain conversation to which I had been accidentally a witness, and which I have myself ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... will allow me to pet him a little, we may induce a change in his behaviour." He drew near and laid his head upon the pony's mane, accidentally brushing with his moustache the warm little hand upon the reins. Its owner drew it away, while an expression of absolute pain crossed her face. "I don't know what you can think of me," she said contritely. "I lost one of my gloves in reaching ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... well as less breakage. Another ounce of prevention for the latter is considered by many to be the sink lined with monel metal. It is fairly soft and yielding so that a cup or plate is not readily shattered if accidentally dropped in it. With porcelain sinks, one may use a rubber mat designed for the purpose ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... would be followed. In order to mislead the savages, he took to the water and swam about a half-mile down-stream before he landed upon the opposite side. But it seemed that fate was against him. The savages in pursuing him had separated somewhat. Kent's ruse one of them accidentally discovered, and apprised his companions. They collected and immediately took the right trail. The first intimation the ranger had of his danger was the whistling of a bullet a few inches from his head, as he was nearing the bank; and when his feet rested upon land, his unwearied ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... from yore own head, by thunder, when it swelled up like a balloon with self-conceit! That there gas-head of yourn'll take yuh right up amongst the clouds some day, and you won't need no flyin' machine, neither! Skyrider—is—right!" Accidentally Johnny had touched Bud's self-esteem in a tender spot. "And that's no kidding, either!" he clinched his meaning. "Punch a hole in yore skelp, and I'll bet that big haid of yourn would wizzle all up like them red balloons they ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... time for them to reach it. The Victoria was bending to the force of the hurricane, and dragging along the car, the latter grazing the sand. Had any portion of the ballast been accidentally thrown out, the balloon would have been swept away, and all hope of recovering ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Frigg especially suggests that she was, among the Northmen, a formidable rival to the Virgin. When he repeats a legend of the Gods, he transforms them into mortal heroes, and when, as often happens, he refers to them accidentally as Gods, he invariably hastens to protest that he does so only because it had been the custom. He describes Thor and Odin as men versed in sorcery who claimed the rank of Gods; and in another passage ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... made for happiness, but whose life, though prematurely ended, had had time since then to become entangled in tragedy. I had often, since I left Hungary, wondered what had become of her; but not till some years later did I learn, quite accidentally, what her story and her end had been. I was told few details, but these sufficed to enable me, by a mere use of the imagination, to reconstruct it, and see in it certain general meanings. Of this reconstructive process the result ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... it to me," I replied, with polite interest. "But don't you think it seems a most unlikely thing for a stranger to do? Perhaps some of your own horses or cattle trod on a match that Mr. Q—— had accidentally dropped ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Marquis Berghen, had been prevented from setting forth at the same time, by an accident which, under the circumstances, might almost seem ominous. Walking through the palace park, in a place where some gentlemen were playing at pall-mall, he was accidentally struck in the leg by a wooden ball. The injury, although trifling, produced go much irritation and fever that he was confined to his bed for several weeks. It was not until the 1st of July that he was able to take his departure from Brussels. Both these unfortunate nobles thus went forth to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... who in a skirmish with some of the Norman Lords, carried them all prisoners into Normandy, where Arthur soon disappeared: the Britons assert that he was murdered by his uncle; and the Normans that he was accidentally killed in endeavouring to escape. The death of their favourite Prince stung the Britons to madness, as in him centered their last hope of regaining independence: an ardent imagination led them to believe their future destiny connected with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... Mr. Birket courteously. He was accidentally allied to the Clintons, and in his own path of life had striven, not without success, to make himself worthy of the alliance. He came to see them, two old ladies who had lived all their long lives in a small country village, had hardly ever been to London, and never out of England, who had been ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... is an imprisoned Epic, nay an imprisoned Psalm and Prophecy," says Sauerteig there. I wish, from my soul, he had DISimprisoned it in this instance! But he only says, in magniloquent language, how grand it would be if disimprisoned;—and hurls out, accidentally striking on this subject, the following rough sentences, suggestive though unpractical, with which ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... learned that he was raised, as he called it, in the Western States of America; that he had spent much of his life as a hunter and trapper, though he was a man of some little substance; that having accidentally seen an advertisement in the paper, stating that if the heirs of the late Josiah Flint, of Barnet, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, would apply to Messrs. Grub and Gull, Fleece Court, Chancery Lane, London, they would hear of something to their advantage, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my professor—he had not given me lessons, but about that time, accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand, examined me first, found ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... couldn't understand exactly. You know people always roar if they have nothing particular to say, but if it is interesting they whisper. I distinctly heard the word 'floating.' I don't know whether it's one of his regular organs, or something he swallowed accidentally." ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and what Castile's if this usurper had been allowed to remain for a long time in power is a matter for conjecture, but Alvaro's dreams of success were soon shattered. Through some whim of fate it happened that the young king was accidentally killed one morning as he was at play in the courtyard of the palace, and Berenguela, as the only lawful heir, became the Queen of Castile in her own right. In this trying moment, clear-headed as usual, she gave further proof of her ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... ever in the largest proportion, designedly planted there by human art, and if we were well acquainted with vegetable emigration, we should probably be able to show that man has intentionally transferred fewer plants than he has accidentally introduced into countries foreign to them. After the wheat, follow the tares that infest it. The woods that grow among the cereal grains, the pests of the kitchen garden, are the same in America as in Europe. [Footnote: Some years ago I made a collection of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... William, Prince of Guienne, mortgaged his principality to England that he might raise money to do this; but when about to embark for the purpose of taking possession of this property, William II., the royal note-shaver, while hunting, was shot accidentally by a companion, or assassinated, it is not yet known which, and when found by a passing charcoal-burner was in a dead state. He was ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... not credit the story that Barker, accidentally witnessing the operations of an eminent organ-builder (Bishop, of London) who was erecting an organ in his neighborhood, determined on following that occupation, and placed himself under that builder for instruction in the art. It seems to be admitted, however, that after spending most of the intervening ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Richard always spoke of as Andy, she felt a little perplexed as to what would be appropriate. Richard had talked very little of him—so little, in fact, that she knew nothing whatever of his tastes, except from the scrap of conversation she once accidentally overheard when the old captain was talking ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... of artificially induced development of eggs, not fertilised, are very few. The first known came accidentally to notice. Female silkworm moths reared in confinement sometimes lay eggs when kept apart from the male, and these have been found to hatch, and give rise to caterpillars, which were not reared to maturity. Other moths bred by collectors behaved in the same ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... was marching from Puebla, feeling his way towards the capital in fear and trembling. At Rio Frio a sentinel's gun having accidentally gone off, the whole army were thrown into the most ludicrous consternation and confusion. Near Oyotla the general's brow cleared up, for here he was met by commissioners from the government, Generals Orbegoso and Guyame. In a moment the quick apprehension of Santa Anna saw that ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... critical, the deliberations were in the open air, and under the eyes of a threatening party of seventy riflemen accidentally present from Washington County across the stream. Bradford, who instinctively felt that he had placed himself beyond the pale of pardon, and to whom there was no alternative to revolution but flight, pressed an instant decision and rejection of the written terms of the commissioners. In ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... the interdict on speaking during the funeral obsequies, or if anyone passed by the chief's wife while she was taking a bath, or if, while the chief was passing by the house of any timava, some dust accidentally fell on him. Or they were made slaves because of other reasons, as tyrannical, as trivial, such as are natural for those who have not the light of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... dear Lorrequer," ("dear Lorrequer!" dear me, thought I; cool certainly, from one I have ever regarded as an open enemy)—"My dear Lorrequer, I have just accidentally heard of your arrival here, and hasten to inform you, that, as it may not be impossible your reasons for so abruptly leaving your detachment are known to me, I shall not visit your breach of discipline very ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... He found no one. Accidentally colliding with the table in the kitchen, he searched its top and discovered thereon a kerosene lamp. Lighting it with fingers that trembled, he looked ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... they had been made before the hills, would never have been much wiser. All through these solemn passages and gorges, they are discussing hotels, champagne, wine, and cigars. I presume they would do the same thing at the gates of the Celestial City, if they should accidentally find themselves there. It is one of the dark providences that multitudes of this calibre of mind find leisure and means to come among these scenes, while many to whom they would be an inspiration, in whose souls they would unseal ceaseless fountains of beauty, are forever excluded ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it accidentally went off," said the doctor, looking contemptuously at the Nubian knife I had thrown on the table. Then while wiping his hands: "I would bet there is a woman somewhere under this; but that of course does not affect the nature ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... knife-grinder's wheel, and Spikeman followed him without looking back; he heard a rustling, nevertheless, among the bushes, which announced to him that his manoeuvres had succeeded; and, as soon as he was about fifty yards from the road, he took the wheel from Joey, desiring him to look back, as if accidentally. Joey did so, and saw Miss Mathews ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... Christian system, resting upon the Old and New Testaments; thirdly, the Mahometan system, resting confessedly upon the Koran. The very meaning, therefore, of styling these systems, by way of honorable distinction, religions of the book, is, not that accidentally they had written vouchers for their creed, whereas the others had only oral vouchers, but that they severally offer to men's acceptance a large body of philosophic truth, such as requires and presupposes a book. Whereas the various religions ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... was a table covered with pens, paper, half-burnt manuscripts, and an ink-pot; beside it was a sofa. The valet told us that these manuscripts contained the history of the last Prussian war, and the king had been so annoyed by their accidentally getting burnt that he had resolved to have no more to do with the work. He probably changed his mind, for the book, which is little esteemed, was published shortly after ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily's handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me—a deep conviction that these were not common ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... come upon by chance, or the digging out of graves accidentally discovered, is a very natural form of robbery for the natives to indulge in, and one which commends itself to the sympathies of all those not actively concerned in its suppression. There are very few persons even in western countries who would ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... export of salt fish they had spoken, but of the observances of the Sabbath. Dan had listened, pen in hand, his thoughts suspended, and had heard them devote many minutes to the question whether a man should dip himself in the nearest brook if he had accidentally touched a pig. He had heard them discuss at length the grace that should be used before eating fruit from a tree, and whether it were necessary to say three graces after eating three kinds of fruit at one meal. He had heard one ask if a sheep that had been killed with a ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... that Rustem was at this time in progress between Iran and Sistan, hunting for his own pleasure the elk or wild ass, and he accidentally fell in with the refugees, who made an attempt to avoid him, but, unable to effect their purpose, thought proper to oppose him with all their might, and a sharp contest ensued. Both parties becoming fatigued, they rested awhile, when Rustem asked Barzu how he had obtained his liberty. "The ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... see note on Book VII. stanza ciii. Procris was accidentally slain by her husband, Eriphyle was killed by her son Alcmaeon, Evadne threw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, and Laodamia also died with her husband. For Pasiphae, see note ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... all certain that the latter is limited by the interest of the organism sheltering it. It appears, on the contrary, in many circumstances, to spread and extend far beyond that organism in which it is domiciled, one would say, accidentally and provisionally. It likes to show, apparently, that it is in relation with all that exists. It declares itself, as often as possible, universal and impersonal. It has but a very indifferent care, as we have seen in the matter of apparitions ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... looked at each other for a few seconds. Stangrave longed to say, "You intend to shoot me? Then try at once;" but he was ashamed, of course, to make use of words which he had so accidentally overheard. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... valuable articles, I am sure, we have lost, which were two quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most particular account of his own life, from his earliest recollection. I owned to him, that having accidentally seen them, I had read a great deal in them; and apologizing for the liberty I had taken, asked him if I could help it[1234]. He placidly answered, 'Why, Sir, I do not think you could have helped it.' I said that I had, for once in my ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... admiration, under cover of which they hurry her to her seat. Such is the stuff palmed off on us, varied as it is by glees, screamed out by four voices all in different keys; solos, squeaked out by stout gentlemen, and roared by pale lanky lads of eighteen; duets by young ladies, who accidentally set out on discordant notes, and don't find out the mistake till they come to the finale; with occasionally a psalm crooned by worthy sexagenarians, guiltless alike of ear and voice, but who, seeming to think it a duty to add their mite to the inexpressible ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of gold-fish she had accidentally upset ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... upon their methods; I can state that now. The mental state which they reach systematically I reached accidentally. The solitude, the absorbedness, the lying in a bed month by month, the gazing upon a fixed point hour by hour—these are all self-evident facts with me, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... compulsion dared any longer sail on, but undertook to return even without his passenger's consent. Then the latter revealed himself, as if by this act he should stop the storm, and said, "Be of good cheer: you carry Caesar." Such a disposition and such a hope he had, either accidentally or as the result of some oracle, that he felt a secure trust in safety even contrary to the appearance of things. Nevertheless, he did not get across, but after struggling for a long time in ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... the man. Often it used to puzzle and annoy her to find that as they sat arguing in the brisk, everyday atmosphere of office or merchandise room the air between them would suddenly become electric, vibrant. They met each other's eyes with effort. When their hands touched, accidentally, over papers or samples they snatched them back. Fanny found herself laughing uncertainly, at nothing, and was furious. When a silence fell between them they would pounce upon it, breathlessly, and smother it ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... not be definitely concluded that the little parasite may not, at some time, be taken up by the blood and transplanted from a furuncle when it is developing to another part of the body, where it may be accidentally lodged, may develop and produce a new furuncle. I am convinced that if, in cases of furuncular diathesis, not merely a few drops but several grams of blood from the general circulation could be placed under cultivation frequent successful growths would be obtained. [Footnote: This prediction ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... Topaz," broke in the man from there, "I could show you a whole cemetery full of people that got killed accidentally. Talking about mangling folks up! why, when Berry Rogers turned loose that old double-barrelled shot-gun of his ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... accidentally happened upon some Greek books, and am busy day and night secretly copying them out. I shall be asked why I am so delighted with Cato the Censor's example that I want to turn Greek at my age. Indeed, most excellent Father, if in my boyhood I ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Ages (p. 419. 1st ed.), he concludes his interesting extract from the scribe Otloh's account of himself by saying:—"One would like to know what books they were which Otlohnus thus multiplied; but this, perhaps, is now impossible." I have it accidentally in my power to identify two at least of the number; and if it was his universal practice to subscribe his name, as he does in these instances, a search into the principal repositories of MSS. would, no doubt, give a large ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various
... scored his face and hands. Like a hare hunted by the hounds he fled; away from his own guilty action, away from the woman he loved, to the river which would sweep him swiftly, painlessly to rest and forgetfulness. But would it? He had stumbled accidentally into the path which led towards the cottage where he lodged, and turned his head as he ran to take one last glance at the light which glimmered in the window. He could see the river now; he was nearing the brink. There was but one field between him and it, when he became ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... do not wish you to be amiable, but honest severity itself. That you stumbled upon me accidentally in your present mood is my good fortune. Tell me the faults in my picture in the plainest English, and I will gratefully accept your invitation; for the hospitality at your cottage is so genial that bread and cheese would ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... have been developed at an extremely remote period, and we can know nothing positively about their manner of development. Mr. Mivart asks: "Is it conceivable that the young of any animal was ever saved from destruction by accidentally sucking a drop of scarcely nutritious fluid from an accidentally hypertrophied cutaneous gland of its mother? And even if one was so, what chance was there of the perpetuation of such a variation?" But the case is not here ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... from the fact that he had accidentally put his hand on the button and lit up the spectacle of the room. At sight of it he could have laughed. Nothing but the big library table and one of the heavy arm-chairs stood on its legs. One of the windows had a gash like a grin on its prim countenance, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... missing diamonds in a breast pocket of his coat; but we wanted your evidence to establish the fact. I have also recognized him as the alleged reporter who interviewed me yesterday morning, and who was accidentally left alone for a minute with the leather bag in my office. The moment I discovered that the diamonds were missing I suspected that he must have taken them, but thought it best to keep my suspicions ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... with lowering skies, is a very fine view. Here lie the old kings of Bohemia—one of them apparently "Good King Wenceslas." Here at a little distance are the mysterious walls with sentries posted at the gates—walls curiously and accidentally associated in the minds of thousands ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... the name Barras was accidentally substituted for Henriot, in connection with the insurrectionary movement for rescuing Robespierre. Barras led the troops ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... boy brought salvation. He informed Dr. Hirsch Janow that a great scholar and a pious man was accidentally fallen into miserable straits; and lo! in a trice the good-hearted man had sent for Maimon, sounded his scholarship and found it plumbless, approved of his desire to celebrate the sacred festivals in Posen, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... having killed a native youth, well known in the settlement*; but it appearing to the court that he had been accidentally shot, they were acquitted. The natives certainly behaved ill, and often provoked the death which they met with; but there was not any necessity for wantonly destroying them, a circumstance which it was feared had but too often occurred. On the acquittal of these prisoners, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the telephone he had accidentally pushed aside a book. Beneath it was a slip of paper on which had been penciled a note. He read it, without ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... take place. When this has been ascertained to be satisfactory, the surfaces may be wiped gently with some soft, absorbent material which will take away any superfluous particles of oil that may have been accidentally left in the process of rubbing. If there should be some uneven, clotted, or rough parts observable, a small ball or dabber made in the same way as the preceding, but used with spirit and oil instead of varnish, will work these down to a proper condition. For the dead surfacing, ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... "I learned it quite accidentally, young lady. Please don't think that the knowledge came from a premeditated prying into ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... quietly, "he is overboard. I blame myself for it, partly. It was early this morning. I was holding him up in my arms to look at an iceberg and, quite accidentally I ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... gratification; and that, in fact, the intelligent naturalist is indulged with a sense of beauty, and an accession of knowledge in almost every production of nature. We cannot avoid quoting the example in the writer's own words. The subject was a block of coral, accidentally brought up by a fish-hook from the bottom of one of the anchorages. Nothing could have been less promising, and any one but a naturalist would have pronounced it to be nothing but a piece of rock, and have flung it into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... MAUGHAM, who recently intrigued and perhaps just a little scandalised the town with a most engagingly flippant and piquant farce all about an accidentally bigamous beauty, certainly shows courage in launching so serious a discussion as The Unknown. And in the silly season too. I see that in a quite unlikely interview (but then all modern interviews are unlikely) he defends his right to discuss religion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... Flash Jack Redmond. They had broken the news to the old man when young Ted was thrown from his horse and killed. They had broken the news to the old man when the unexpected child of his old age and hopes was accidentally burnt to death. So the old man knew how ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... Basin's remaining scenic and natural and historic wealth, nearly all of it associated to some degree with a part of the river system, much has stayed intact or has come back to good condition, accidentally or by someone's forethought. Well over a million acres are in public ownership of some kind, about a fifth of this being dedicated primarily to scenic preservation and public enjoyment as parks and recreation areas. These range ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... the Kashmir gate, from which point the first and second practically became one. Nicholson, being accidentally separated from his own column for a short time, pushed on with Campbell's past the church, in the direction of the Jama Masjid, while the amalgamated column under Jones's leadership took the rampart ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Ingram was speedily made aware of all that had happened. Lavender went home at the appointed hour to luncheon, accompanied by his three acquaintances. He had met them accidentally in the forenoon, and as Mrs. Lorraine was most particular in her inquiries about Sheila, he thought he could not do better than ask her there and then, with her mother and Lord Arthur, to have luncheon at two. What followed on his carrying the announcement ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... accidentally against the wall, appeared to catch, as it were, the faintest echo of a sound. I thought that I heard vague, incoherent and distant voices. I quivered all over ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... answered; "I was watching the ship yonder, and only caught sight of it accidentally, after it had become fully formed. I should really like to witness ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Khou, which being instructed, should have known better. To take another ancient instance, in his Philopseudes Lucian introduces a kind of club of superstitious men, telling ghost stories. One of them assures his friend that the spectre of his late wife has visited and vexed him, because he had accidentally neglected to burn one of a pair of gilt shoes, to which she was attached. She indicated the place where the shoe was lying hidden, and she was pacified. Lucian, of course, treats this narrative in a spirit of unfeeling mirth, but, if such tales ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... duty to society, but I once knew an eastern man to turn loose a rattlesnake that he had photographed, in the observance of his principle never to kill an animal whose picture he had taken. Subsequently it was gravely reported that one of the restive horses of the outfit had "accidentally" killed that ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... that should you accidentally wound an enemy you would take him home and nurse him back ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... commander-in-chief, such an opportunity, pushed home by a "band of brothers," would at the least have wiped out these rear ten ships of the allies; nor could the remainder in the van have redeemed the situation. As for the method of attack, it is worthy of note that, although adopted by Mathews accidentally, it anticipated, not only the best general practice of a later date, but specifically the purpose of Rodney in the action which he himself considered the most meritorious of his whole career,—that of April 17, 1780. The decisive signal given by him on that occasion, as explained ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... remarkable for their power of drawing affection or were signalized by their enjoyment of the boon. Many a rare character, otherwise long ago consumed in the alembic of time, will long continue to be fondly singled out and studied. So when the famous Marchioness of Salisbury was accidentally burned to death, the Skeleton was known as hers only by the jewels with which ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... to account. Vautrin, who is an open enemy of society, is simply De Marsay in revolt. The weapons with which he fights are distinguished from those of greater men, not in their intrinsic wickedness, but in their being accidentally forbidden by law. He is less of a hypocrite, and scarcely a greater villain than his more prosperous rivals. He ultimately recognises the futility of the strife, agrees to wear a mask like his neighbours, and accepts the congenial duties of a police agent. The secret of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... for a time, if it suits your pecuniary resources best. And you need not depend on any charm or mystic power for your success—if you do, I cannot avoid the unfavorable prediction of a failure. It is true that a few have accidentally prospered for a few years; I say accidentally, because when they have no true principles of management, it must be the result of accident. It is a saying with some, that "one man can't have luck but few years at once," and others none at all, although he tries the whole routine of charms. Nearly ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... bankiva; the result was that the wing-bones in all the breeds (except the Burmese Jumper, which has unnaturally short legs) are slightly shortened relatively to the leg-bones; but the decrease is so slight that it may be due to the standard specimen of G. bankiva having accidentally had wings of slightly greater length than usual; so that the measurements are not worth giving. But it deserves notice that the Silk and Frizzled fowls, which are quite incapable of flight, had their wings ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... philanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion accidentally associated with political and social abuses. Everything gave way to the zeal and activity of the new reformers. In France, every man distinguished in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave birth to works in which the fundamental principles of the Church were attacked with argument, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... who, with another from Russia accidentally lodging beside him, got burned to death in Sweden, courting that unspeakable Sigrid the Proud,—was third cousin or so to Tryggve, father of our heroic Olaf. Accurately counted, he is great-grandson of Bjorn the Chapman, first of Haarfagr's sons whom Eric Bloodaxe made away ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... title of 'Army of Reserve'. By this artifice the honour of the Constitution was saved. The First Consul had not violated it. If he had marched to the field, and staked everything on a chance it was merely accidentally, for he commanded only an "Army of Reserve," which nevertheless he had greeted with the title of Grand Army before he entered upon the campaign. It is scarcely conceivable that Bonaparte, possessing ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... me, it might be accidentally, yet it did not appear so, and she laughed merrily. It needed no skill to measure the meaning of her laugh, and I did not blame her for it. She had waited for years to avenge the kiss that I gave Cydaria in the Manor Park at Hatchstead; but was it not well avenged when I stood humbly, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... those whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly not the least of these requisites, is a president who, less by his social position, which he may claim by inheritance, or by fortune, which may have been adventitiously won, and may be again accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best part of those who unite in the doing of it. Such a president I think we have found in our chairman of to-night, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... aim at Bedouins who are not visible, and draw their knives and make savage passes at other Bedouins who do not exist. I am in deadly peril always, for these spasms are sudden and irregular, and of course I cannot tell when to be getting out of the way. If I am accidentally murdered, some time, during one of these romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr. Grimes must be rigidly held to answer as an accessory before the fact. If the pilgrims would take deliberate aim and shoot at a man, it would be all right and proper—because that man would not be in any danger; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... praise, marking out particular merits in his friend's work; and Dorothea felt that she was getting quite new notions as to the significance of Madonnas seated under inexplicable canopied thrones with the simple country as a background, and of saints with architectural models in their hands, or knives accidentally wedged in their skulls. Some things which had seemed monstrous to her were gathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning: but all this was apparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... he will often pronounce words correctly without any idea of what they mean and far more frequently than you imagine he will receive a wrong impression by confusing words like zeal and seal of similar sound and totally different meaning. A teacher accidentally found out that her class supposed that the "kid" which railed at the wolf in Aesop's fable was a little boy, and I have had a child tell me that he saw at Rouen the place, where Noah's ark was burned, ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... horoscope of Mahommed the Sultan in my hand, then certainly as the stars perform their circuits, being set thereunto from the first morning, they must respond to me; and then, find I Mars in the Ascendant, well dignified essentially and accidentally, I can lead my Lord out ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the party of Romero Robledo. What the exact politics of that variation of Conservatism might be, it is difficult, I might almost say impossible, for a stranger to say. If you were told nothing about it, and took it up accidentally to read of current events, you would certainly suppose it to be independent, with a decidedly Liberal tendency. Still ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... profanity on shocking the strictly conscientious ears of your household. This is bad—and yet it is but a mild form of this morbid affection, which, in its most intense degree, torments the sufferer from fever, (or one stunned by some sudden and violent grief,) when certain sounds, words, or tunes, accidentally determined, thrill through the head with the steadiness and vehement action of the piston of a steam-engine—beat, beat, beat!—every note seeming to fall on the excited brain like the blow of a hammer; while, as the fever and pain increase, the more rapidly and heavily do those torturing notes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... be some way of cutting that beam," he pondered audibly, "but I don't know enough about their system to do it, and I'm afraid to monkey around with things too much, because I might accidentally release the screens we've already got out, and they're stopping altogether too much stuff for us to do without ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... imaginary Field-Marshal or somebody on the left, and they were told to turn the head smartly to the left, at the same time bringing the right hand up to the salute.... "Sa-lute!" Reginald Arbuthnot Wilkins whizzed his head round to the left, but accidentally brought the wrong hand up. There was a crash as his left thumb met his left eye-ball, and Reginald was in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... that the Loyall London is launched at Deptford. Having talked thus much with Sir G. Carteret we parted there, and I home by water, taking in my boat with me young Michell and my Betty his wife, meeting them accidentally going to look a boat. I set them down at the Old Swan and myself, went through bridge to the Tower, and so home, and after ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Thomas Hill by name, he also performed a similarly kind office, comparing him in A Parallel in the Manner of Plutarch with the famous linguist Magliabecchi. Spence was made Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1728, and held the post for ten years. His end was a sad one. He was accidentally drowned in a canal in the garden which he ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Under these circumstances, for the first time, he entered the city of Geneva, then but recently delivered from the yoke of its bishop and of the Roman Church. He had intended to spend there only a single night.[407] He was accidentally recognized by an old friend, a Frenchman, who at the time professed the reformed faith, but subsequently returned to the communion of the Church of Rome.[408] Du Tillet was the only person in Geneva that detected ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... placid admiration, from a recess, upon a brilliant tableau of beautiful women and celebrated men that had accidentally arranged itself before me, Dalton ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... comparison of various parallel passages (we have shown that the only method of discovering the true sense of a passage out of many alternative ones is to see what are the usages of the language), for this comparison of parallel passages can only accidentally throw light on a difficult point, seeing that the prophets never wrote with the express object of explaining their own phrases or those of other people, and also because we cannot infer the meaning of one prophet or apostle by the meaning of another, unless ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Chickahominy river, he imprudently left his companions, and, while alone, was seen and pursued by a party of savages. He retreated fighting, killed three Indians with his own hand, and probably would have regained his boat in safety, had he not accidentally plunged into a miry hole, from which he could ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... drunken crew were reeling about the place, one of them accidentally stumbled upon the secret underground passage leading to the famous grottoes. These grottoes and the underground connection from the chateau were built in the fifteenth century. They are a half mile away, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... those tickets, I'll take care of them; and Thompson, if the newspaper fellows come here to-night, say that the young lady fell over the wharf accidentally, and has gone home to ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... wits sharpening by his success, "although those boughs seem to be broken accidentally, yet all are caught in amongst other twigs so that each one points in the same direction—the way we are going. What does it mean, Charley, if it ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... connection between Dantzic and Nancy, he was obliged to stop at Berlin. M. Hirtz, whom he met accidentally, told him that the scientific societies of the city were preparing an immense banquet in his honor; but ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... but dream, even when he tries to think; and will be of a weak and fickle, but obstinate and self-opinionated, intellect. His whole exhaustive logic will consist in clothing in exact and reiterated assertions the heterogeneous order in which ideas are arbitrarily, accidentally, and spontaneously associated in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he thought, with perfect skill, and the certainty of their securing their end. These papers were to have been taken from the envelope, and found in the garret just at the right moment, either by Cynthia herself or one of the other members of the family, who was to be led on, as it were accidentally, to the discovery. The right moment must be close at hand. He was to offer his hand—and heart, of course—to Myrtle, and it was to be accepted. As soon as the decision of the land case was made known, or not long afterwards, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Gentlemen and Ladies of the County of Otsego, N. Y., delivered on the 30th September, 1830, by Hayden Waters, a man of color.' The proceedings of the colored inhabitants of Virginia, incorporated into this Address, are those referred to on page 8 as having been accidentally mislaid. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... completed, before Jane knew any thing of the matter. The mother and daughter went out one morning to make a call upon a friend, at whose house the prospective husband of Jane, by previous appointment, was accidentally to be. It was a curious interview. The friends so overacted their part, that Jane immediately saw through the plot. Her mother was pensive and anxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations. The young gentleman ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... truths in occurrences that are as commonplace as the fall of an apple, or the disturbance of a hanging lamp. Trifles are full of meaning to them, because their minds are already prepared to arrive at certain conclusions by means of antecedent reflections. Simple and familiar incidents, thus accidentally associated with the history of grand discoveries, are the channels through which the accumulating waters at length descend, rather than the rills which feed the swelling of their floods. The orchard at Woolsthorpe, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... fine wire drainer so that nothing solid will go into the trap and plug the pipes. The Girl Scout uses boiling water, and plenty of it, to flush the sink. She takes pains that no grease gets into the drain to harden there. When grease is accidentally collected, soda and hot water will wash it away, but it should ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... conscious reasoning, whether it is, or is not, the result of previous experience. It is "instinct" which leads a chicken just hatched to pick up a grain of corn; parental love is said to be "instinctive"; the drowning man who catches at a straw does it "instinctively"; and the hand that accidentally touches something hot is drawn back by "instinct." Thus "instinct" is made to cover everything from a simple reflex movement, in which the organ of consciousness need not be at all implicated, up to a complex combination ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... great sympathy and commiseration towards other persons and even towards irrational animals, is illustrated in the case of Tameriane the Great. In his Life, written by himself, he speaks with the greatest sincerity and tenderness of his grief at having accidentally crushed an ant; and yet he ordered melted lead to be poured down the throats of certain persons who drank wine contrary to his commands. He was manifestly sincere in thinking himself humane, and when speaking ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... little heads of light."—Perhaps you or one of your correspondents would help me to the whereabouts of some thoughtful lines which I recently came across, in a volume which I accidentally took up, but the name of which has completely skipped ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... glance of the baron, had wandered restlessly about the room and fell now upon the picture of Watteau; upon the loving, happy pair, who were tenderly embracing under the oaks in the centre of that enchanting landscape. This group, upon which the eye of the princess accidentally rested, was an eloquent and decisive answer to her question—an answer made to the eyes, if not the ears of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... wager, however," said I, in a kind of off-hand way, not wishing exactly, ye observe, to be seen in the business, "that it will have been running away with beef-steaks, mutton-chops, sheep feet, or something else out of the booth; and some of his prentice laddies may have come across its hind-quarters accidentally with the cleaver." ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... before termination of the Session." The Session, note. Not the life of Parliament, nor anything to do with so disturbing a thing as Dissolution. Kept this up through long business statement; only at conclusion accidentally stumbled on the word, and then regarded the prospect as so uninteresting and immaterial, that he could not come nearer to its contemplation than an interval of seven days. Not before the end of one week, and not after the middle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... answered the Colonel with deliberation, "is an indictable offence, therefore I make no such challenge. I have made a suggestion, and if that suggestion falls in with your views as," and he bowed, "I hope it may, we might perhaps meet accidentally abroad in a few days' time, when we could talk this ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... he declared that the imprudent man is one who hath not made a covenant with his eyes! I accidentally lifted my head, which until then I had kept down, and beheld before me, so close that it seemed that I could have touched her—although she was actually a considerable distance from me and on the further side of the sanctuary railing—a young woman of extraordinary ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... boat was lashed so that no mortal could get her clear, and the little craft was used as a sort of lumber-closet. Glenn had noticed some steel rails in the boat, and he guessed that these specimens of railway plant were accidentally left out until the hatches had been ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... gained the good will of his landlord and the boarders, and to that circumstance he owed his first chance in the city. His landlord mentioned his fruitless search for work to an acquaintance who happened to call that Sunday afternoon. That acquaintance, who was a shoemaker, had accidentally heard that printers were wanted at ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... they become accidentally confined (less than two stools in the four-and-twenty hours), and the infant is suckled, the mother may ascertain whether an aperient taken by herself will render her milk of a sufficiently purgative quality to act upon ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... I saw these headlines: CHATTANOOGA DOCTOR ATTAINS EMINENCE. The article stated that a very remarkable invention for the removal of foreign particles from the lungs or bronchial tubes, such as might be accidentally swallowed, had been successfully demonstrated before a national medical society, and had been written up in the American Medical Journal; it was said that the discovery had brought great honour to the doctor in the world ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... from this most unseasonable compliment, which, with many of the same sort that were frequently, though accidentally made, intimidated her from the confession she had planned and finding nothing but censure was likely to follow the discovery, she at length determined to give it up wholly, unless any connection should take place ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... second call for volunteers come up, dogged if he didn't up and hire another one. One of your grandpa's brothers skipped off to Canada so's he wouldn't have to serve, and the other,—his name was George Washington Thane, by the way,—accidentally shot two of his fingers off while his company was in camp down at Crawfordsville, gettin' ready to go down and meet Morgan's Riders,—and that let him out. I admit it takes right smart of courage to accidentally shoot your fingers off, specially when ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... who had thus conversed with Alexander Wilmot was a Mr. Swinton, who, as he had accidentally observed, was a naturalist; he was a person of some independent property, whose ardor for science had induced him to engage in no profession, being perfectly satisfied with his income, which was sufficient for his wants and to enable him to follow ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... the Chinese printed in Capt. Calthrop's first edition is evidently a similar version which has filtered through Japanese channels. So things remained until Sun Hsing-yen [1752-1818], a distinguished antiquarian and classical scholar, who claimed to be an actual descendant of Sun Wu, [36] accidentally discovered a copy of Chi T'ien-pao's long-lost work, when on a visit to the library of the Hua-yin temple. [37] Appended to it was the I SHUO of Cheng Yu-Hsien, mentioned in the T'UNG CHIH, and also ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... seizure, by Henry, of the heir to the Scottish throne—James, a boy of nine years old. He had been put aboard-ship by his father, the Scottish King Robert, to save him from the designs of his uncle, when, on his way to France, he was accidentally taken by some English cruisers. He remained a prisoner in England for nineteen years, and became in his prison a student and ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... unusual a sight, I ought to say that a strolling organ man, with a monkey, had been in the village that day. He had stopped in the shed behind the school-house to eat his dinner. Accidentally, he had fallen asleep; and his monkey, being of an inquisitive turn, had got loose, and was exploring on his own account. He carried a part of his chain upon his neck all the while, and somehow or other he had climbed up to the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... was enduring extreme agony. But directly the old badger recovered from her fit of temper, she sought to make amends by petting and soothing the frightened cub, and trying to remove the trap. Finally, after half an hour's continuous effort, she accidentally found that the trap was connected by a chain with a stake thrust into the ground. Quickly, with all the strength of her muscular fore-paws, she dug up the soil at the end of the chain, and then, with powerful teeth, wrenched the stake from its position. Dragging the cruel trap, the ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... had shortly afterwards to mourn Captain Speke's untimely death, from his gun accidentally going off while at shooting. His gallant companion, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... very program was used to produce the second, sorted list from the first list. The first hack at it had a {bug}: GLS (the author) had accidentally omitted the '@' in front of 'F^B', which as anyone can see is clearly the {Wrong Thing}. It worked fine the second time. There is no space to describe all the features of TECO, but it may be of interest that '^P' means 'sort' and 'J' is an idiomatic ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Thus, when we accidentally pick up something hot, it is instantly dropped. A nerve impulse passes from the nerves of touch in the fingers to the brain, which at once hurries off its order along another set of nerves for the hand to drop the burning object. These examples, so common in daily life, may be multiplied ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... are from 112 to 120 miles distant from the sea, there are skippers who in clear weather have seen them while sailing along the coast. All the reaches, creeks, headlands, and islands, bear the names which were accidentally given them in the first instance: as Antonis Neus (Anthony's Nose) a headland and high hill in the Highlands, because it has a sharp edge running up and down in the form of a man's nose; Donderbergh (Thunder Hill), because it thundered there frightfully at the time ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... with heavy guns, which, as well as all their stores, had to be carried overland hundreds of miles through the wilderness, were obliged to settle quarrels that occurred among the men, the most serious being one that arose from a sentinel's accidentally killing a shipwright, whose companions instantly struck work in a body. What was more serious, they had to contend with such constant and virulent sickness that it almost assumed the proportions of a plague. During the winter it was seldom that two thirds ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of laughter at this moment, occasioned by one of the firemen having accidentally turned the branch or delivery pipe full on the faces of the crowd and drenched some of them. This was followed by a loud cheer when another fireman was seen to have clambered to the roof whence he could ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... very scarce on board, and I had only brought one book with me. It was Howard Pemberton's Bible. I found it in the coat I had taken accidentally on the morning I left Blackrock school, and I never parted with it, hoping I might be able to restore it some day, for I found it was a sacred relic given to him by his father, and bearing in its cover his portrait and a copy of the dying words he ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not penetrable.' The road from Wigan to Preston he calls 'infernal,' and 'cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... solicited the honour of his company at dinner, but for the unfortunate state of his household affairs. The register signed, and the fees paid, and the pew-opener (whose cough was very bad again) remembered, and the beadle gratified, and the sexton (who was accidentally on the doorsteps, looking with great interest at the weather) not forgotten, they got into the carriage again, and drove home ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... go off accidentally. You said so yourself. This is going to be the purest accident. Can't you see it in the papers? "The deceased's ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... story well in mind, and it did not take long to give the master of the Hall all of the details. In the midst of the conversation, Fred let drop accidentally that the three unworthy ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... glass, the man next to him accidentally jostled his arm. He shook the wine from his sleeve and spoke his mind. It was not a nice word, but one customarily calculated to rouse the fighting blood. And the other man's blood roused, for his fist landed under the wolf-skin cap with force ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... which had passed so drearily for Christopher, had cast their shadows also over the lives of Alan and Felicia Tremaine. When Willie was a baby, his nurse accidentally let him fall; and the injury he then received was so great that, as he grew older, he was never able to walk properly, but had to punt himself about with a little crutch. This was a terrible blow to Alan; and became all the greater as time went on, and Felicia had no other children ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... Again, he may take alarm—always presuming he is the man—and fly. I tell you what, Ware, you bring Mrs. Benker down, and take her into the grounds of the Priory. I will arrange that Franklin, without suspecting her or us, shall meet her, accidentally, at some place where we can hide. Then we can overhear if he is the ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... boy still refused to work out his articles, but wandered about the town in search of casts and books on art. He bought a fine copy of Albinus at his father's expense, and in a fortnight, with his sister to aid, learnt all the muscles of the body, their rise and insertion, by heart. He stumbled accidentally on Reynold's Discourses, and the first that he read placed so much reliance on honest industry, and expressed so strong a conviction that all men are equal in talent, and that application makes all the difference, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... two of the rioters killed. It was deemed advisable to close all the Roman Catholic chapels except the royal chapels and those belonging to foreign ambassadors.(1630) Another sign of the times was the fact that the sceptre belonging to the statue of Queen Mary set up in the Royal Exchange had either accidentally fallen or (as was more probable) had been forcibly struck out of her hand.(1631) On the 7th December the mayor issued a precept to the aldermen of each ward for a careful search to be made in the city for ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... follow when an ink has made a blur on one part of the paper and not on another that the paper has been tampered with. A drop of water accidentally let fall on the blank page will frequently affect the sizing in that place, and, besides, all papers are not evenly ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... arms or to extort evidence, and excited the bitterest feelings of revenge by outrages on women, cutting the petticoats from the backs of girls who showed any sign of sympathy with rebellion, such as wearing, it might be accidentally, a green ribbon. Men were commonly tortured by floggings of fearful severity, or by half-hanging. In imitation of the French republicans, the rebel party cut their hair short, and it was a pastime with the soldiers to torture "croppies" by fixing a covering lined with hot pitch, a ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... sword, and by a blow over the face forced the other to retire, and so with the assistance of his friends, who now came up, made his escape. Again, in Britain, when some of the foremost officers had accidentally got into a morass full of water, and there were assaulted by the enemy, a common soldier, whilst Caesar stood and looked on, threw himself into the midst of them, and after many signal demonstrations of his valor, rescued the officers, and beat off the barbarians. He himself, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... put his mind (so to speak) at a hill at which it would break down. I have walked a mile along the road with a respectable Scotch farmer, talking of country matters; and I have concluded that I had hardly ever conversed with a shrewder and more sensible man. But having accidentally chanced to speak of a certain complicated political question, I found that quoad hoc my friend's intellect was that of a baby. I had just come upon the four-mile descent which would knock up the horse which for ordinary work ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... perfect Manhood, the invisible yet distinct union of both Godhead and Manhood, in the person of her Lord. Now Leo showed what miracle could be achieved by the irresistible might of weakness. Attila's god was a naked iron sword of gigantic size, which had been accidentally found by a herdsman and presented to him, but which he palmed off on his nation as the authentic sword of the Scythian war-god. Yet he was easily overawed by the majesty of religion. He scorned the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... who have accidentally discovered this power of the sub-conscious mind to work out problems, and to render other valuable service to its owner, have been led to suppose that the aid really came from some other entity or intelligence. Some have thought that the messages ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... down with a gesture of impatience, and got up; and then, as if ashamed of his irritability, he took it again, and gave it back to her. In doing so his hand accidentally touched hers. ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... relief was to be sent to the eight individuals who were left behind, nearly worn out with fatigue and exhaustion. This party consisted of the leader; Jackey Jackey, a faithful and intelligent native; and three of the strongest of the men. One of the latter accidentally shot himself, and the other two became so weak, that they also were left at an encampment, with as large a supply of provisions as could be spared. After incredible hardships, Mr Kennedy and his companion reached Escape River, twenty miles from Cape ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... he talked it over, and hit upon a plan. He was to say, when the ship came, that he had but five casks of oil; all his trade had been sold for cash, and the cash—a thousand dollars—represented by a bag of copper bolts picked up on the reef from an old wreck, was to be taken off to the ship and accidentally dropped overboard as it was being passed up on deck. This was Lannigan's idea, and Tariro straightway tied up the bolts in readiness ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... evils, or imputed evils, have accidentally come to my knowledge, which I will not now particularize, as I hope that with the assistance of the Resident they may be in part corrected: one, however, I must mention, because it has been verified by ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... position, the religious devotee hopes for personal favors from the unseen powers. These are on different planes of value, they are estimated differently by different persons, but they all centre in the individual, and if society benefits it is only indirectly or accidentally. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... which the rich mould, said to be three or four feet deep, eminently fits it; and the lots each with a narrow frontage at the bank of the river, extends back two miles into the prairie. All is at a dead level. John Omand had asked us to dine at his house; but accidentally passing it without recognizing it from his description, we select a fair representative of the common class of houses, and ask for dinner. It is a log-cabin, like all of this class (some far better ones have walls of stone) with a thatched roof ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... It was quite cold. He tried to turn over the body, but relinquished that effort. The cause of death was obvious enough. Kirski had stabbed himself with one of the tools used in his trade; either he had deliberately lain down on the floor to make sure of driving the weapon home, or he had accidentally fallen so after dealing himself the fatal blow. Apparently he had ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... sir, whilst this old quack was trafficking with alchemy, and trying to discover the elixir vital, or the philosopher's stone, or some other myth like that, he accidentally found out a method whereby common wood charcoal may ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... of this unfortunate event was never clearly known; but it was conjectured that the gunner might have let fall some powder near the fore-magazine, which accidentally igniting, had communicated with the magazine itself. The gunner had been suspected of stealing the powder, and on that day he is said to have been intoxicated, and was probably less careful than usual. He was amongst ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... the boat was tacitly dropped by all parties concerned, and only when Hugh accidentally heard that the Sherwoods were preparing to return to the States did his reserve break down, and it was to Mrs. Gurney alone he expressed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... a long red cloak to his costume, so as to envelope his figure and cover his arm, for fear of accidentally running across Harkaway or Harvey, or in fact, ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... we found he was an Englishman, of the name of S——: English, that is, in all except the place of his birth, for his whole education had been English, as were his parents and all his family; but it came out, accidentally I believe, on his trial, that he had been born at Buenos Ayres, and having joined the patriots, this brought treason home to him, which he was now led forth to expiate. Whilst his fellow—sufferers appeared crushed down to the very earth, under their intense ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the warriors who surrounded him as his council of war. The vacant space in the middle of the tent was strewn with martial weapons, separating the representatives of the two nations one from the other; and thus accidentally, yet palpably, typifying the fierce hostility which had sundered in years past, and was still to sunder for years to come, the people of the North and ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... of the speech—of which a few emphasised words, such as blessings, health, prosperity, etcetera, were heard—was lost in a burst of continuous cheering, which suddenly terminated in an uproarious shout of laughter when Le Rue accidentally knocked the neck off a bottle of beer, whose contents spouted directly and violently into ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... patriots must support him, and instead of exposing the wretched faults, mistakes, often ill-will of his administration, must defend the administration against the attacks of the Copperheads, who try to destroy or disorganize the administration on account of that atom of good that it accidentally carries out on its own hook. And thus the patriots must suffer and bear patiently abuses heaped on them by the treasonable or by the stupid press, by intriguers and traitors; and patriots cannot make even the slightest attempt ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... burst out into groans and lamentations. "What is the matter with you?" cried the host, in alarm. "Ah," replied his guest, "my feelings overcame me. My poor father, when dining with a friend who had cups like yours, lost his life, by accidentally swallowing one." ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... creature was among entirely new surroundings (for I dipped it from a pond in a tablespoon full of water which I had poured into a saucer), we will appreciate the fact that the water-louse evinced conscious determination and no little memory. It probably discovered the hydra accidentally; it then, as soon as it had secured its prey, swam away, seeking some spot where it could eat its food without molestation. But when it sought the hydra again and swam back to its sheltering mud heap, it showed that it remembered the route to and from its ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... felt cheap. The camp had been a trap. The two kids Bat and Walt had come upon the other crowd accidentally, and had told about us and that maybe we were trailing them, and they all had ambushed us. We ought to have reconnoitered more, instead of thinking about stalking. We ought to have been more suspicious, ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin |
