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Adverse   /ædvˈərs/  /ˈædvˌərs/  /ədvˈərs/   Listen
Adverse

adjective
1.
Contrary to your interests or welfare.  Synonyms: inauspicious, untoward.  "Made a place for themselves under the most untoward conditions"
2.
In an opposing direction.  Synonym: contrary.  "A contrary wind"



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"Adverse" Quotes from Famous Books



... do not merely try to pick out the bad. Who knows but that Sharpe may have his good points like others? But, to return to our theme—the vexed question as to which should be your occupation in life. As you have decided against the church and the law, giving me your reasons for coming to an adverse conclusion in each instance, pray, young gentleman, tell me what are your objections to the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... fellowship; no tutorship leading hereafter to livings, stalls, and deaneries. Poverty began already to stare him in the face, when the only friend who, having shared his prosperity, remained true to his adverse fate,—a friend, fortunately for him, of high connections and brilliant prospects—succeeded in obtaining for him the humble living of A——. To this primitive spot the once jovial roisterer cheerfully retired—contrived to live contented upon an income somewhat ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... while, the bark on the roof failing to do its duty, we were now and then so completely deluged, that there was no resource but to catch up the breakfast or dinner and tuck it under the table until better times—that is, till fair weather came again. In spite of all these little adverse occurrences, however, we enjoyed ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... the Detroit, or Narrow St. Lawrence, before the light of day had vanished, observing islands, &c., and arrived safely at Windsor, at Iron's Inn, at ten p.m., having experienced the pleasures of an adverse gale ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... have called forth—to determine or regulate the application of the murderous and desolating apparatus with which by philosophy and science they have been provided. With a like perversion of things, and the same mischievous reconcilement of forces in their nature adverse, these revolutionary impulses and these appetites of barbarous (nay, what is far worse, of barbarized) men are embodied in a new frame of polity; which possesses the consistency of an ancient Government, without its embarrassments and weaknesses. And at ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... It did not present itself to him, notwithstanding his respect for law and usage, as a proper refuge for dignified grief. It appeared rather as an unclean and sinister cavern where men and women are haled by adverse fate to writhe ridiculously in the presence of uncompromising truth. It should not be allowed. That woman! Five . . . years . . . married five years . . . and never to see anything. Not to the very last day . . . not till she coolly went off. And he pictured to ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... to his conscience as a grave digger, Mr. Barney Bree had made an unusually deep sepulcher, and it was near sunset before Mr. Doman, laboring with the leisurely deliberation of one who has "a dead sure thing" and no fear of an adverse claimant's enforcement of a prior right, reached the coffin and uncovered it. When he had done so he was confronted by a difficulty for which he had made no provision; the coffin—a mere flat shell of not very well-preserved redwood boards, apparently—had ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... the excellent wisdom of him that built Mansoul, that the walls could never be broken down, nor hurt, by the most mighty adverse potentate, unless the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... to establish positive verification of these views? How are we to do away with the danger of illusion? The proof will in this case result from a criticism of adverse theories, along with direct observation of psychological reality freed from the deceptive forms which warp the common perception of it. And it will here be an easy task to resume Mr Bergson's reasoning in a ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy

... had also another way of reducing my creative pressure. Occasionally, from sheer excess of emotion, I would burst into verse, of a quality not to be doubted. Of that quality the reader shall judge, for I am going to quote a "creation" written under circumstances which, to say the least, were adverse. Before writing these lines I had never attempted verse in my life—barring intentionally inane doggerel. And, as I now judge these lines, it is probably true that even yet I have never written a poem. Nevertheless, my involuntary, almost automatic ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... is our belief that the lapse of time has probably destroyed the title. There is no annexed trust, on William's part, to hold for his brother's use, and the length of undisputed, or what we lawyers call adverse, possession—something like an hundred years or more—seems to make it impossible for my friends to oust the present holder. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... intense emotion, dissipation, or exhausting diseases render them insane. Drinking alcoholic beverages is the most potent factor in the production of insanity. Mental strain, overwork, and worry come next. Adverse conditions, bereavement, business troubles, etc., rank third, equally with heredity. The arterial diseases of old age, epilepsy, childbirth (generally in the neurotic), change of life, fright and nervous shock, venereal diseases, sexual ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... complaining of his {adverse} fortune, Aesop, for the purpose of consoling him, invented ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... he had until then believed, a series of fortuitous and independent circumstances. No, it was manifestly the effect of an adverse will pursuing a definite object with prodigious ability and incredible boldness, attacking him, Lupin, in the recesses of his safest retreats and baffling him with blows so severe and so unexpected that he did not even know against ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... life-time, but if a debtor fails to send in his check on the very day he begins to worry and fear lest he fail to receive it. His wife has given him four children, but at the coming of the fifth he is sure something extraordinarily painful and adverse is going to happen. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... see it in Byron,—what other European poetry possesses that like the English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehement reaction against the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, their manifold striving, their adverse destiny, their immense calamities, the Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercing regret and passion,—of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, Macpherson's Ossian, carried in the last century ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... diminished. I believe if Canada now, by a friendly separation from this country, became an independent state, choosing its own form of government—monarchical, if it liked a monarchy, or republican, if it preferred a republic—it would not be less friendly to England, and its tariff would not be more adverse to our manufactures than it is now. In the case of a war with America, Canada would then be a neutral country; and the population would be in a state of greater security. Not that I think there is any fear ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... twenty-two, and it seemed probable that she knew her own mind; in any case, she was of a character which would only be driven to obstinacy by adverse criticism. Godwin learnt that his aunt Emily (Miss Cadman) regarded this connection with serious disapproval. Herself a shopkeeper, she might have been expected to show indulgence to a draper's assistant, but, so far from this, her view of Mr. Cusse was severely scornful. She ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... slaughter. The commissariat arrangements were most deficient: my friend Colonel Gutierrez Soto, who commanded the expedition, was so inadequately supported by the War Department that, yielding to despair, and crestfallen by reason of the open and adverse criticism of his plan of campaign, he ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... it with an assertion of the importance of commerce, saying: "The fortune of every Citizen is interested in the success thereof; for it is the constant source of wealth and incentive to industry; and the value of our produce and our land must ever rise or fall in proportion to the prosperous or adverse state of trade." ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... and many of the wells had been destroyed or damaged by the retreating enemy. In the hills the troops had to endure heavy rains and piercingly cold winds, with mud a foot deep on the roads and the earth so slippery on the hills that only donkey transport was serviceable. Yet despite all adverse circumstances the infantry and yeomanry pressed on, and if they did not secure all objectives, their dash, resource, and magnificent determination at least paved ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... saw one of the Canary islands, called Palma, and so came to the island of Madeira; and then adverse winds drove me to the Azores, but Antonio de Noli stayed at Madeira, and, catching the right breeze, he got to Portugal before me, and begged of the King the captaincy of the island of Santiago, which I had found, and the King gave ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... they urged, was thoroughly un-Roman and hostile, while Lugdunum was a Roman colony,[133] contributing men to the army and sharing in its victories and reverses. They besought them in the event of adverse fortune not to leave their city to the fury ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... was sorry also to break my connection with the firm which owned her and who were pleased to receive with friendly kindness and give their confidence to a man who had entered their service in an accidental manner and in very adverse circumstances. Without disparaging the earnestness of my purpose I suspect now that luck had no small part in the success of the trust reposed in me. And one cannot help remembering with pleasure the time when one's best efforts were seconded by ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... at the platform end of the building instead of passing straight up through the crowd as was his custom, was aware of a curious influence at work from the first moment—an influence adverse if not directly hostile that reached him he knew not how. He heard a vague murmur as Juliet and Saltash followed him, and sharply he turned and drew Juliet to his side. In that instant he realized that she was the only woman in ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... is a tradition that the Portuguese monarch and his advisers thought rather more of Columbus's ideas at first; and attempted secretly to put them into execution; but the pilot to whom they entrusted the proposed voyage lost heart as soon as he lost sight of land, and returned with an adverse verdict on the scheme. It is not known whether Columbus heard of this mean attempt to forestall him, but we find him in 1487 being assisted by the Spanish Court, and from that time for the next five years ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... before giving a hint of her heart's condition. She was the same old comrade to us, she confided to us her adverse opinions of other people, laughed with us, and often at us (when it was like as not that she herself had made us ridiculous), told us her little secrets, let us share her gaiety and her dejection alike, teased us, soothed us, made us serve her, and played the spoiled beauty with us to the full ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... and respected official of the bank, who had deliberately planned and assisted in this robbery of his best friends, I had no words of palliation for his offenses; but for "Tod" Duncan, the weak and tempted victim of designing men and adverse circumstances, I experienced a sense of sympathy which I ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... as to the news of Philadelphia, and wrote even such adverse criticism of the General as he heard, which Washington "gratefully" acknowledged. But one criticism Reed did not write was what he himself was saying of his general after the fall of Fort Washington, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... and so one day declined to go with him. They had not had a ride for a fortnight, the weather having been unfavourable; and now when a morning broke into the season like a smile from an estranged friend, she would not go! He was annoyed—then alarmed, fearing adverse influence. They were ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... and irrational. The laity had no ambition to take upon themselves the burdens of the clergy. On the 27th there was a long discussion;[519] on the 3rd of December the bill was carried, but with an adverse minority of a hundred and twenty-six, against a majority of a ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... they did not relish the idea of a man who had picked up his experience in Newcastle coal-pits appearing in the capacity of a leading engineer before Parliament, and attempting to establish a new system of internal communication in the country. The directors could not disregard the adverse and conflicting views of the professional men whom they consulted. But Mr. Stephenson had so repeatedly and earnestly urged upon them the propriety of making a trial of the locomotive before coming to any decision against ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... subscribe to your views. It is now about twenty years since I first undertook this inquiry, and constantly have I been endeavouring to add some new light ever since. I once answered an opponent in my present brother canon, Dr. Wordsworth, but since that time I have never replied to any adverse views—but have only looked to see if I could find anything either to show that I was wrong or to strengthen my convictions that I was right. And I have found the wisdom of this, and have had the satisfaction ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... to your adverse worldly circumstances," says Dr. Talmage to young men, "that you are on a level now with those who are finally to succeed. Mark my words, and think of it thirty years from now. You will find that those who are then the millionaires ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... bad as that, sir," he protested, seemingly anxious to shield his officer from adverse criticism. "You see it's a double parlor, with a wall an' foldin' doors atween, an' the women are all in the rear room. Of course, it's almighty dark back there, an' they has to lie pretty close, but blamed if I know of any better place for them. This ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... to become socially adjusted. If, on the other hand, the temporarily dependent person is simply a victim of circumstances, there is, then, also, the need of wise charity in order to overcome those adverse circumstances without impairing the character of the individual who is helped by destroying ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood

... influence exercised on the remuneration of an employment by the uncertainty of success in it. If the chances are great of total failure, the reward in case of success must be sufficient to make up, in the general estimation, for those adverse chances. Put your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to one if ever he makes such proficiency as will ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Cary's wounds had healed quickly while plenty of good food had done the rest. His eyes may not have been bright with hope but at least they were clear with health and his straight back and squared shoulders showed that the man's fighting spirit had not left him even under the adverse decision of a court-martial. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... suffered greatly in the loss of their distinguished cavaliers; for it is the noblest spirits who venture most, and lay themselves open to danger; and the Moslem soldiers had instructions to single out the leaders of the adverse host. All this is said to have been devised by the perfidious Bishop Oppas, who had secret communications with the enemy, while he influenced the councils of the king; and who trusted that by this skirmishing warfare the power of the Christian troops would ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... perfect power, these must be laid over each other, so that each may support the one below it. I use the word below advisedly: we have to strike down. The lowest feather is the one that first meets the adverse force. It is the ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... Stoic. He describes an ideal man, then clasps the ideal to his bosom as his own, in the person of his friend. Only a great man could so worship another, choosing him for such qualities; and hereby Shakspere shows us his Hamlet—a brave, noble, wise, pure man, beset by circumstances the most adverse conceivable. That Hamlet had not misapprehended Horatio becomes evident in the last scene of ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... of which the other forms may be developed, and finally, its defect as a definition may be detected by generalizing it into a higher formula, as a power which, during its continuance, resists or subordinates heterogeneous and adverse powers. Now this holds equally true of chemical relatively to the mechanical powers; and really affirms no more of Life than may be equally affirmed of every form of being, namely, that it tends to preserve itself, and resists, to a certain extent, whatever is incompatible ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... during these libidinous spells that dark, sinister thoughts assailed him,—the notion of how useless his life was, the certainty of an adverse fate,—and as he considered the vagabond, abandoned existence that awaited him, his soul walked with bitterness and sobs ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... discover how much Mr. Churchill owes to the element injected into American life by Theodore Roosevelt.... Like him Mr. Churchill has habitually moved along the main lines of national feeling—believing in America and democracy with a fealty unshaken by any adverse evidence and delighting in the American pageant with a gusto rarely modified by the exercise of any critical intelligence. Morally he has been strenuous and eager; intellectually he has been ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert

... Forced by these adverse circumstances to attempt much more than twice his present force would have encouraged the hope of doing successfully, Washington decided that he must place himself between the enemy and Philadelphia, and at the same ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake

... Who handled barrows and pickaxes, Tamping irons and broadaxes, And paid no Corporation taxes; Who, without license onward carried All kinds of trade, but getting married; Stout, sinewy, and hardy chaps, Who'd take and pay back adverse raps, Nor ever think of such a thing As squaring off outside the ring, Those little disagreements, which Make wearers of the long robe rich. Such were the men, and such alone, Who quarried the vast piles of stone, Those mighty, ponderous, cut-stone blocks, With which Mackay built up the Locks. ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... between her and her nephew, and on the other hand I did not see how our intercourse could be made more pleasant by any endeavors of mine, for I was ignorant of the art of ingratiating myself with persons whom I felt adverse to me, and I must avow that I had also a certain degree of pride which prevented me from making advances when unfairly treated. I had always lived in an atmosphere of confidence, love, and goodwill,—perhaps ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... come to wonder the less at this adverse judgment when we have considered two instances of the effects which the highest types of civilization have had upon the masses of mankind who were brought under its sway. Take ancient Egypt and ancient Athens. Go back to the building of the pyramids. ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit

... of August, the States expressed their readiness to agree to a long truce, provided, the adverse party 'would so absolutely acknowledge them for free countries, as that it should not be questioned after the expiration of the truce, that otherwise they could ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... Surratt, who was supposed to stand next to Booth in the conspiracy, but who escaped from the country and was not discovered until a year or so later, when he was found to have enlisted in the papal guards at Rome. He was brought home and tried twice. On the first trial, notwithstanding the adverse rulings and charge of the judge, only a minority of the jury were convinced of his guilt. On the second trial he ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... Birdwood's orders at Anzac on the 25th of April, they would have been swept back in hopeless confusion. They would not have known enough about the niceties of the game to play it successfully under such adverse conditions. The framework would not have ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... there when the good confraternita at Genoa paid my ransom. Having learnt to speak il Tedesco, and being no longer able to fit out a vessel, I made my venture beyond the Alps; but, alas! till this moment fortune has still been adverse. My mules died of the toil of crossing the mountains; and, when with reduced baggage I came to the river beneath there—when my horses fell and my servants fled, and the peasants came down with their ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is played with 2 bones or Sticks about the Size of a large quill and 2 inches long passing from one hand to the other and the adverse party guess. See description before mentioned. The nations abov at the falls also play this game ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... often classed with the Slavs. They hotly resent this inclusion, however, for they are distinct racial strains of ancient lineage. An adverse fate has left the Lithuanian little of his old civilization except his language. Political and economic suppression has made sad havoc of what was once a proud and prosperous people. Most of them are now ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... urgent desire to return northwards, was not seconded by weather. Despite an ugly gale, the Sinnr boldly attempted giving the slip to Arabia on April 16th, but she was beaten back before she reached El-Muwaylah. After another stormy day, we again got up steam; and, fighting hard against adverse winds and waves, greatly to the distress of the unfortunate mules and gazelles, we reached Suez ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... wonderful resource, who is not only an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses. My experience is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr. Roberts may be ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... sea trout, I find on inquiry that there is no sign of H. yet, and that dinner will not be ready for at least another hour. I therefore amuse myself by going through my daily record, to tot up the gross returns. We are very curiously fashioned, inside as well as out, and although, considering the adverse circumstances which I have not failed to describe, I ought to be contented, I find myself grieving. Will the reader guess for a moment why? I will save his time by stating that it is because upon adding up the daily jottings of my notebook, ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... Once, indeed, it turns aside for a moment, forced from its course by opposing mountains, but it struggles bravely through them, and immediately resumes its straightforward march. Behold, thought I, an emblem of a good man's course through life; ever simple, open, and direct; or if, overpowered by adverse circumstances, he deviate into error, it is but momentary; he soon recovers his onward and honorable career, and continues it to the ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... opibus disparibus. Nam Metello virtus militum erat, locus adversus, Jugurthae alia omnia praeter milites opportuna. Denique Romani, ubi intelligunt neque sibi perfugium esse neque ab hoste copiam pugnandi fieri (et jam diei[289] vesper erat) adverse colle, sicuti praeceptum fuerat, evadunt. Amisso loco Numidae fusi fugatique; pauci interiere, plerosque velocitas et regio hostibus ignara tutata sunt.[290] Interea Bomilcar, quem elephantis et parti copiarum pedestrium praefectum ab Jugurtha ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)

... frequent large migrations of Flemings during several centuries. Sometimes calamities due to the harshness of nature, sometimes persecutions and wars, sometimes adverse economic conditions, impelled companies of people from the Low Countries to cross the North Sea and try to make homes for themselves in a land which, despite intervals of distraction, offered greater security and a better reward than did the place whence they came. England derived much ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... shall I do!" One thing she must have, or be miserable; how was she to make it her own. As soon as she turned her face from that cottage room and what was in it, she must meet the full blast of opposing currents; unfavourable, adverse, overwhelming. Her light was not strong enough to stand that blast, Eleanor knew; it would be blown out directly;—and she left in darkness. In a desperate sense of this, a desperate resolve to overcome it somehow, a despairing powerlessness to contend, she sat at the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... fished and so did Anthony; and Jan, herself, could throw a fly quite prettily. Yet, your true fisherman is born, not made; it is not a question of environment, but it is, very often, one of heredity; for the tendency comes out when, apparently, every adverse circumstance has ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... Adverse fate barricades the shore which the vessel is on the point of approaching, by dangerous breakers, and interrupts the bond between the dearest friends, which is just about to be cemented eternally. It was this fate which, at the very time when Jacobi ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... adverse weather, but at length reached port, and Herbert had scarcely put foot on shore, when he beheld young Jack, the object of his deadly hate, walking coolly down the street ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... alike. Thus Don entered by the gate of St. Pancras, Flamby by the smoky portal of London Bridge; and, on the following morning, Yvonne Mario stood upon a platform at Victoria awaiting the arrival of the Folkestone boat-train. She attracted considerable attention and excited adverse criticism amongst the other ladies present not only because of her personal charm but by reason of her dress. She wore a coat of black coney seal trimmed with white fox, and a little cap of the same, and her high-legged boots had white calf tops. Her complexion alone doomed her to the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... Adverse winds made the little voyage across the Channel a business of four days. On the evening of the last we landed at Dover. Within thirty miles of that town was my mother's retreat; and I resolved, before I sought a reconciliation with Gerald or justice against Montreuil, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in quieting them for the time by giving them better food, and we continued on our course, meeting with such a series of adverse gales that it was forty-one days before we sighted the island of Rurutu in the South Pacific. By this time the crew and steerage passengers were in a very angry frame of mind; the former were overworked ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... by fortune without being endowed with much talent, so, on the contrary, there is an infinite number of able men who are persecuted by an adverse and hostile fortune; whence it is clearly manifest that she acknowledges as her children those who depend upon her without the aid of any talent, since it pleases her to exalt by her favour certain men who would never be known through their own merit; ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... constant, never-failing presence? There are those who feel within themselves the power of living fullest lives, of sounding every chord of the full diapason of passion and feeling, yet who have been so hemmed around, so shut in by adverse and narrowing circumstances, that never, no, not once in their half-century of years which stretch from childhood to old age, have they been free to breathe out, to speak aloud the heart that was in them. Ever the same wasting indifference ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... tell thee true, Or [of] any human creature with me should begin Any communication pertaining to sin. And I promise thee, where—thou art present, While I live, by my will I will be absent. [Exit. CAL. Lo! out of all joy I am fallen in woe, Upon whom adverse fortune hath cast her chance Of cruel hate, which causeth now away to go The keeper of my joy and all my pleasance. Alas, alas, now ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... and Self-Conceit in her mind,—a happy state, which made her equally alive to her own faults and to the excellences of others; and, last, by her truly prodigious aptitude for polite learning. I have often been told that but for adverse circumstances Mrs. Greenville must have proved one of the most learned, as she was one of the wittiest and best-bred, women of her Age and Country. In the languages, in all manner of fine needlework, in ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... said the cooler voice. "I haven't been stealing in car-load lots from the company that hires me; I have merely been buying a little disused scrap from you. You may say that I have planned a few of the adverse happenings which have been running the loss-and-damage account of the road up into the pictures during the past few weeks—possibly I have; but you are the man who has been carrying out the plans, and you are the man the courts will recognize. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... very rich soil; and the remark is often heard from Indian planters that "tea and malarious fevers flourish together." Experience has shown however that the tea plant possesses a wonderful power of accomodation to adverse conditions. In China and in the United states, it has been taught to put up with a comparatively sterile soil, dry mountain air, at heights in China reaching 6,000 feet above sea level, and occasional temperatures as low as 12 to 10 degrees Fahr., ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... he said, rising; "there must be some one here whose influence is adverse. I cannot hear ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... are themselves great magicians. They make the familiar demons, whose services they command, pass as an inheritance to their children, that they may make use of them to overcome the demons of other families who are adverse to their own. They often make use of a certain kind of drum for their magical operations; for instance, if they wish to know what is passing in a foreign country, one amongst them beats this drum, placing upon it at the part where the image of the sun is represented, a quantity of pewter rings ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... of the sphere in which the thought and conduct of the many are necessarily controlled by the authority of the few, the spirit of such books as his 'Essay on the Government of Dependencies' are those of a mind wholly adverse to democratic theories, and intensely mistrustful of popular judgments. He was not fascinated by what he describes as 'the splendid vision of a community bound together by the ties of fraternity, liberty, and equality, ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... goes to prove that great joy will utterly overbear the adverse influence of physical troubles, especially if those troubles are without, and do not touch the seats of life within. Minnie's love, expressed as it was in her own innocent, truthful, and straightforward way, rendered his body, big though it was, almost incapable ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... under the patent which enabled the first lord to take immediate action in matters that concerned the public safety. It is not surprising that this peculiar feature of admiralty administration should have attracted adverse criticism, and have led some minds to regard the Board as "a fiction not worth ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... general prosperity of the times. He was a youth of ardent disposition, and very handsome in person: pride kept him from bettering his estate by the profession of merchandise, yet more keenly did he feel the obscurity to which adverse fates had reduced him, that in his lot was involved the fortune of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... argument a somewhat wider issue appears. He seeks to show not only that the difficulties in the systems of natural and revealed religion have counterparts in nature, but also that the facts of nature, far from being adverse to the principles of religion, are a distinct ground for inferring their probable truth. He endeavours to show that the balance of probability is entirely in favour of the scheme of religion, that this probability is the natural conclusion from an inspection of nature, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... bar which divides the two tables is called the "bar point," not because it is next the bar, but because it bars the two adverse men in your home table from running away with double sixes if you can "make ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger

... council was assembled against council, and their jarring and contradictory decrees spread perplexity and confusion throughout the Christian world. In the fourth century alone there were thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favor, and seventeen for the semi-Arians—in all, forty-five. Minorities were perpetually attempting to use the weapon which majorities ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... nations: Yet so, that the lustre of them was spread abroad, and reflected brightly on your native country. You were then an honour to it, when it was a reproach to itself. When the fortunate usurper sent his arms to Flanders, many of the adverse party were vanquished by your fame, ere they tried your valour.[3] The report of it drew over to your ensigns whole troops and companies of converted rebels, and made them forsake successful wickedness, to follow an oppressed and exiled virtue. Your ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... pecuniary advantages were the profits of an extensive domain which seems to have been attached to the royal office, and not to have been the private property of the individual. Thus, Homer represents Telem'achus as in danger not only of losing his throne by the adverse choice of the people, but also, among the rights of the crown, the domains of Ulysses, his father, should he not be permitted to succeed him.[Footnote: See the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... Personally, I know of nothing more interesting than watching the story grow gradually from mere outline into a dramatic whole. It is the same pleasure, I imagine, which is felt over the gradual development of a beautiful design on a loom. I do not mean machine-made work, which has to be done under adverse conditions in a certain time and which is similar to thousands of other pieces of work; but that work, upon which we can bestow ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... service can I be in this painful thraldom, in which the animal functions are in a manner suspended, and the spiritual, or intellectual, blinded by the secret sympathy that unites mind to matter? There is likely to be blood spilt between yonder adverse hosts of heathens; and, though but little desiring the office, it would be better that I should employ myself in surgical experiments, than in thus wasting the precious moments, mortifying both soul ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... silenced. The warning voice of my mother, to whom I had opened my heart, sharpened the admonitions of mine; and when Wildbad brought me only relief, by no means complete recovery, I left the decision to the physician. It was strongly adverse. Under the most favourable circumstances years must pass ere I should be justified in binding any woman's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... "consider this in relation to the point at issue. Emerson asserts that circumstance can always be conquered. But is not circumstance, to a large extent, created by these destroyers, as I have called them? Has not the strongest soul to count with these, who weave the web of adverse conditions, whose dead weight has to be carried, whose work of destruction has to be incessantly repaired? Who can dare to say 'I am master of my fate,' when he does not know how large may be the share of the general burden that will fall ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... made great exertions for the success of the project, which, however, was not officially proposed, because it was too adverse to the prevailing notions of the day, and seemed too early a violation of the constitution of the year III., which, nevertheless, was violated in another way a ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... driven from the field. Ramesses, informed of this disaster, endeavoured to cross the river to the assistance of his beaten troops; but, before he could effect his purpose, the enemy had anticipated him, had charged through the Orontes in two lines, and was upon him. The adverse hosts met. The chariot of Ramesses, skilfully guided by his squire, Menna, seems to have broken through the front line of the Hittite chariot force; but his brethren in arms were less fortunate, and Ramesses found himself separated from his army, behind the front ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... through the process of selection form a segregated group in city areas popularly called "breeding places of crime." The tribe of Pineys, Tin Town, The Village of a Thousand Souls, are communities made up by adverse selection of feeble-minded individuals, outcasts of the competitive struggle of intelligent, "high-minded" communities. The result is the formation of a criminal type and of a feeble-minded caste. These slums and outcast groups are in turn isolated ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Village." On May 26, 1770, it appeared, published at two shillings. Its success was instant and decisive. By August 16, a fifth edition had appeared. When Gray heard the poem read, he exclaimed, "This man is a poet!" The judgment has since been affirmed by hundreds of thousands of readers, and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory and delightful poem than "The Deserted Village" was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... a pretty one, despite the careworn expression in her eyes and the tired lines in her face. She was dressed in the ordinary garments of the street, in no way suggestive of the circus. There was an unmistakable air of gentle breeding about her, patient under the strain of adverse circumstances, but strong and resolute in the power to meet them without flinching. This woman, you could see at a glance, was not born to the circus and its hardships; she came of another world. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... and, a flood of light having been thrown upon his past career, he finds himself for two nights blazoned in enormous letters on the posters of the evening papers, and is compelled, in the end, to submit to an adverse verdict, and to retire, "it may be for years or it may be for ever," from the open practice of a profession in which he had so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various

... women, who had been a servant in a Persian family, started a demand which gave rise to some discussion; it was, that I ought to give something for sheer baha, or milk money, as is the custom throughout Persia. Our party said this was not usual among the Armenians; the adverse party contended it was; in short, words were running high, when I requested my mother not to make any difficulty, but to offer ten piastres more; which being agreed upon, the whole was amicably adjusted to the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... interrogation already suggests that the author comes to a negative conclusion. It is, perhaps, not without interest to set forth the reasons advanced by the English connoisseur and to submit them to adverse criticism. ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... established county gentleman's style of paper, in the agricultural interest. Whereupon the Squire mounted his political hobby in such sort and with such abusive violence, especially as to the local representatives of the adverse party, that Felix could not help feeling that if such were indeed the opinions of his own side, he should certainly be on the other. One good effect was the sparing him any more personal catechising. Mr. Underwood shouted himself weary, without requiring any reply save what Mr. Staple's ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... creations of a powerful but vague imagination, forms which resemble a Norwegian mountain, distinct in itself by its glittering snows and icy rocks, but which shrouds its head in a perpetual mist, except when some adverse wind with its indiscreet blowing, displays it in all its nakedness, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... conventions generally put forth. I do not desire to interfere with your "free speech." I desire only to secure for myself the liberty of treating public questions in accordance with my own convictions, and not being made responsible for the adverse convictions of others. I can not, therefore, print this programme without being held responsible for it. If you advertise it, that is not in my ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... neighbourhood of Geronium the Romans encamped at a distance of six miles from the Carthaginians. Here the usual difference of opinion at once arose between the Roman consuls, who commanded the army on alternate days. Varro wished to march against the enemy without delay, while Emilius was adverse to risking an engagement in a country which, being level and open, was favourable to the ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... uprooting, that I would compare it; and even then the balance of gain in well-calculated resource, fixed yet stimulating ideals, I hold to be in our favour—and this in opposition to much argument in an adverse spirit from many and influential quarters. Indeed, it is a remark which more than once I have been led to make in print: that if a foreigner were to inquire for the moral philosophy, the ethics, and even for the metaphysics, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey



Words linked to "Adverse" :   unfavourable, adversity, contrary, unfavorable



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