"Calamitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Byron's ardour, and may partly excuse the causes of his personal inactivity. I say personal, because he had written to London to accelerate the attempt to raise a loan, and, at the suggestion of Colonel Stanhope, he addressed a letter to Mavrocordato respecting the inevitable consequences of their calamitous dissensions. The object of this letter was to induce a reconciliation between the rival factions, or to throw the odium, of having thwarted the loan, upon the Executive, and thereby to degrade the members of it in the opinion ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... They sat and listened to the illustrious bard Who sang of the calamitous return Of the Greek host from Troy, at the command Of Pallas. From her chamber o'er the hall The daughter of Icarius, the sage queen Penelope, had heard the heavenly strain, And knew its theme. Down by the lofty stairs She came, but not alone; there followed her Two ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... purpose of this sketch is not bald narration of historic fact, but examination of antecedent germinal conditions; not to recount calamitous events familiar to students of that faulty civilization, but to trace, as well as the meager record will permit, the genesis and development of the causes that brought them about. Historians in our time have left little undone in the matter of narration of political ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... committed. I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized; but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, one is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitous a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "double dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as it leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; and when we see it deformed and degraded, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... suppose not," said the bishop, re-seating himself, and shading his face with his hands. Mr Harding sat down with his back to the further wall, playing to himself some air fitted for so calamitous an occasion, and the archdeacon said out his say standing, with his back to the ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... of this country are gloomy, but the situation of all Europe is calamitous beyond all former examples. At what time, and in what manner, and by what means, the disasters which are come, and seem to be coming on mankind, may be averted, I know not. Our own people have been imprudent, as I think, and are now smarting under ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... 'and having been born on the Douglas lands, he well knew the claim he had to my fidelity. He gave me this packet, and conjured me to lose no time in conveying it to you. The task was difficult; and, as in these calamitous seasons we hardly know whom to trust, I determined to execute ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... too late to offer any thing by way of defence or vindication; nor can we expect from your lordships, in this court, but the sentence which the law requires you, as judges, to pronounce against men of our calamitous condition. But we are also persuaded, that as mere men, and out of this seat of rigorous justice, you are susceptive of the tender passions, and too humane not to commiserate the unhappy situation of those, whom the law sometimes, perhaps—exacts—from ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... the slow aggravation of a man's ruin through a series of outbreaks, differing in no way one from another, save in their increasing violence. Claes, the excellent and prosperous young burgher of Douai, pillar of the old civic stateliness of Flanders, is dragged and dragged into his calamitous experiments by the bare failure (as he is persuaded) of each one in turn; each time his researches are on the verge of yielding him the "absolute," the philosopher's stone, and each time the prospect is more shining than before; success, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... slavery question are those of my ancestors, modified by themselves, as they were in an act of Confederation. In this one respect they left society in the political condition in which they found it. A reform would have been fearful and calamitous. A political revolution with one class was morally impracticable. Consulting a wise humanity, they submitted to a condition in which Providence had placed them. They settled the question in the deep foundations of the Constitution.' Would you then, sir, destroy the fabric, by undermining ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... barbarous nations from "the populous north"—not the faintest echo had aroused the slumbering West in the cradle of her existence. Not a thrill of sympathy had shot across the Atlantic from the heroic adventure, the intellectual and artistic vitality, the convulsive struggles for freedom, the calamitous downfalls of empire, and the strange new regenerations which fill the pages of ancient and mediaeval history. Alike when the oriental myriads, Assyrian, Chaldean, Median, Persian, Bactrian, from the snows of Syria to the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... he reached home, his wife and children received him with all the demonstrations of perfect joy. But he, instead of returning their caresses, wept so bitterly, that his family apprehended something calamitous had befallen him. His wife enquire reason of his excessive grief and tears; "We are all overjoyed," said she, "at your return; but you alarm us by your lamentations; pray tell us the cause of your sorrow." "Alas!" ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the strained state of affairs in South Africa which have arisen in consequence of the differences between the Governments of South African Republic and Her Britannic Majesty, which constitute a threatening danger for bringing about hostilities, the calamitous effect of which would be incalculable for all white inhabitants of South Africa, being bound to the South African Republic by the closest bonds of blood and alliance and standing in most friendly relations towards Her Majesty's Government, fearing that should a war break out ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various
... British government they took up arms in his Majesty's service, and, relying on the justice of their cause and the support of their Sovereign and the British nation, they have persevered with unabated zeal through all the vicissitudes of a calamitous and unfortunate war.... That whatever stipulations may be made at the peace for the restoration of the property of the Loyalists and permission for them to return home, yet, should the American Provinces be severed from the British Empire, it will be impossible for those who have served his ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... Scriptures, is inspired of God and is useful for doctrine, etc." Bishops Moberly and Wordsworth, Archbishop Trench, and others of the Revision committee, disclaimed any responsibility for the rendering. Dean Burgon pronounced it "the most astonishing as well as calamitous literary blunder of the age." It was condemned by Dr. Tregelles, the only man ever pensioned by the British ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... Gumbo with a portmanteau of his master's clothes, who flung himself, roaring with grief, at Harry's feet: and with a thousand vows of fidelity, expressed himself ready to die, to sell himself into slavery over again, to do anything to rescue his beloved Master Harry from this calamitous position. Harry was touched with the lad's expressions of affection, and told him to get up from the ground where he was grovelling on his knees, embracing his master's. "All you have to do, sir, is to ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have gone will scarcely permit any observer to see enough in detail to enable him to form anything like a tolerable judgment on the final result, as it may respect the nations in general. But, as to France, I have no doubt in saying that to her it will be calamitous. Her conduct has made it the interest of the great family of mankind to wish the downfall of her present government; because its existence is incompatible with that of all others within its reach. And, whilst I see the dangers that threaten ours from her intrigues and her arms, I ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... blind Under England's cloudless skies; Low-toned tints of Orient, Such as Turkish rugs adorn, Would be better for our eyes— Now upon the pavement bent Since such blazers have been worn. Say, has Paris sent to us Dyes so dreadfully defined? Do the tyrant modistes bring Colours so calamitous, Mixed in ways more fearful still, In this strangely sunny spring? Oh, before thou mak'st us ill, Take away that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... access of insanity; and how Pitt then promised that he would not again raise it during the reign. Pitt's conduct on this occasion is, and probably always will be, differently judged. There can be but one opinion of its calamitous effect ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... of wheat at one time floating down the stream during a flood, some of them being covered with pigs and poultry, who had thus vainly sought safety from the rising of the waters. The consequences of this unexpected disaster were very calamitous, and before the ensuing harvest could be begun, wheat and Indian corn attained an equal value, and were sold at 1l. 8s. or 1l. 10s. per bushel. Even eleven years afterwards, when a similar overflow, though not equal to "the great flood," occurred, prices were raised enormously, and but ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... history of that parish, Mr. Elmes, the architect, discovered a few days since, that, although the church was destroyed, the records were left uninjured. He has accordingly brought to light a series of vestry books from 1653, embracing regular accounts and entries of the calamitous fire, and the proceedings of the parish authorities during that eventful period, till the re-opening of the church for public worship; together with register books of baptisms, burials, &c. from 1587, nearly eighty years before the fire, continued ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... Rand with a sudden, transfiguring brightness of mien. "I thank you, Mr. Rand. Miss Dandridge is an angel, and I'm the happiest of men. Will you tell Mrs. Rand so, with my best regards?" He hesitated a moment, then went on: "No sign of rain! This weather is calamitous! I hope that Roselands has not suffered as Greenwood ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... early part of the Peninsular campaign of 1809, these hopes were brilliantly fulfilled. Wellesley moved against Soult at Oporto, and, by a dextrous crossing of that river in his rear, compelled him to beat a calamitous retreat on Spain, with the loss of all his cannon and stores. The French reached Lugo an armed rabble, and were greeted there with jeers and execrations by the men of Ney's corps. The two Marshals themselves took up the quarrel, and so fierce were the taunts of Ney that Soult drew his sword and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... well as the external relations of the United States, we discover equal cause for contentment and satisfaction. While many of the nations of Europe, with their American dependencies, have been involved in a contest unusually bloody, exhausting, and calamitous, in which the evils of foreign war have been aggravated by domestic convulsion and insurrection; in which many of the arts most useful to society have been exposed to discouragement and decay; in which scarcity of subsistence has imbittered other sufferings; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... in anticipation of the event are set alight throughout the city. The play naturally falls into three divisions. The first introduces the Chorus of Argive elders, Clytemnestra, and a Herald who tells of the hardships of the siege and of the calamitous return, and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with Cassandra, and his welcome by the Queen; the second comprehends the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall upon the house and the murder ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... events on the active part of the population of France, cannot be accurately judged of in the present moment of irritation and disorder; but whatever government that country may ultimately assume, it may surely be hoped that their experience of unsuccessful and calamitous war has been sufficient to incline them to peace; that they will learn to measure their national glory by a better standard than mere victory or noise; that they will reflect on the true objects, both of political and military ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... close of this calamitous period," says Lingard, in his "History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church," "the Anglo-Saxon church presented a melancholy spectacle to the friends of religion: 1. The laity had resumed the ferocious manners of their pagan forefathers. 2. The ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... captured by the forces of the Fourth Crusade and made the seat of a Latin kingdom. Consequently, it is not surprising to find that the Chora, like other churches of the ravaged city, was in a deplorable condition at the close of those calamitous days. Nothing seemed to have been done for the repair of the church immediately upon the recovery of the capital in 1261. The ruin which the Latin occupants of Constantinople left behind them was too great to be removed at once. The first reference to the Chora ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... most alarming and most anxious; altogether, there is so much inflammable matter all around us that it makes one tremble. Still, the events of Monday must have a calming and salutary effect. Lord John Russell's remarks about Europe, and the unfortunate and calamitous policy of the Government of the poor King of the French are most true. But is he not even most to be pitied for being the cause of such misery? (Though perhaps he does not attribute it to himself), for, to see all his hopes thus destroyed, his pride humbled, his children—whom he loves ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... most calamitous mistake the note which I wrote you yesterday was never delivered. Figgis has just found it in the pocket of his overcoat. I shall certainly dismiss him unless you plead for him. ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... and the same favourable sentiments of you, which I now discover in you towards him. I cannot, therefore, help regretting very sincerely, that the Roman State has so long been deprived of the benefit of his advice, and of your Eloquence;—a circumstance which is indeed calamitous enough in itself; but must appear much more so to him who considers into what hands that once respectable authority has been of late, I will not say transferred, but forcibly wrested."—"You certainly forget," said Atticus, "that I proposed, when we began the conversation, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... angrily throwing down his pen, in very few words refused their request, winding up his reply with these memorable words—remarkable not only for the fallacy of his then opinions, but also in connection with the calamitous event of the next day—"Gentlemen, I supported the scheme of the railway between Liverpool and Manchester as an experiment, but as long as I have the honour to hold a seat in parliament, I will never consent to see England ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... present war in Europe, the calamitous effect of which we view with grave concern, we, on our part, have entertained hopes of preserving the peace of the Far East by the maintenance of strict neutrality, but the action of Germany has at length compelled Great Britain, our ally, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... from India; no wines from Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those multitudinous articles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is rifled, and which are the causes of so much individual rivalship, such calamitous and sanguinary national disputes. In the history of modern times, the avarice of commercial monopoly, no less than the ambition of weak and wicked chiefs, seems to have fomented the universal discord, to have added stubbornness to the mistakes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... certain states appears to be insensible to his extreme wretchedness, and almost affects with a depraved taste the cause of his misfortunes? The negro, who is plunged in this abyss of evils, scarcely feels his own calamitous situation. Violence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude gives him the thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride in the servile imitation of those who oppress him: his understanding is degraded ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the Christian Hero, [1] that the appearing to be otherwise is not only pardonable but necessary. Every one knows the hurry of Conclusions that are made in contempt of a Person that appears to be calamitous, which makes it very excusable to prepare ones self for the Company of those that are of a superior Quality and Fortune, by appearing to be in a better Condition than one is, so far as such Appearance shall not make ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... I only gave negative or affirmative answers as laconically as I could, except asking him how Mrs. Logan did. He seemed disposed to be very polite, and while Dr. Blackwell and myself were conversing on the late calamitous fever, offered me an asylum at his house, if it should return or I thought myself in any danger in the city, and two or three rooms, by way of accommodation. I thanked him slightly, observing there would be ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... with the serpent-touch of dire disease, then will Job become as others. Profit in goodness gone, his goodness will "fade as doth a leaf." This is evil's pessimistic philosophy, and Job, on whom calamitous circumstances pile as Dagon's temple on Samson's head; Job, trusting where he can not see, and making his appeal to God, whose ways are hid,—is the lie given to Satan's prophecies, and the vindication of God's confidence in Job. Job has been as one sold into servitude for ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... powerfully on native society, and lead to the formation of a large, strong Christian community. The sufferings of the people afflicted by famine were deplored, they were regarded with deep pity; everything was done which could be done to relieve them, but it was hoped that out of this calamitous state of affairs would be evolved, through the overruling of Providence, a signal moral and spiritual benefit to the people generally. Here was a large band of boys and girls taken out of native society, cut off from idolatrous training and associations, and made over in the most plastic season of ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... difficult to know how to address the Abbe to-day, is it not, Monsignor? For of course he is no longer an Abbe—no longer a priest of Holy Church! Helas! When anybody takes to telling the truth in public the results are almost sure to be calamitous!" ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... and August were calamitous to the allied armies at Varna; not from battles, but from pestilence, which was fearful. On the 26th of August it was determined to re-embark the decimated troops, sail for the Crimea, and land at some place near Sebastopol. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... can't know the results of your discoveries. All you can see is a thin film of events on the surface of an immediate situation, so you can't say whether the long-term results will be beneficial or calamitous. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... own origin and history, was an indispensable basis for all right and lasting social construction. What colossal harm has been wrought, for instance, by the fairy-tale of the Fall, and all its theological consequences! Yet, age after age, the Invisible King did nothing to shake its calamitous prestige. Of late it is true that the progress of knowledge has seemed no longer slow, but amazingly rapid; but that is because the amount of energy devoted to it has been multiplied a hundredfold. Each new step is still a very short one: it ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... at this incident, and had the prospect of dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the most sensible manner. Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first husband by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... of Charles Fox's debts. It has been well said of Carlisle, that each fresh instance of prodigality in Fox "affected his generous heart with anxiety for the character, the health, and the happiness of his friend before he found time to compute and lament its calamitous influence on his own fortunes."(119) Selwyn's solicitude for the welfare of his friend urged him, as we see in the following letter, to something like impatient expostulation on his forbearance and ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... British officers in America. Some of them had been men of high birth and station who treated the young colonial officer with due courtesy. When, however, he had served on the staff of the unfortunate General Braddock in the calamitous campaign of 1755, he had been offended by the tone of that leader. Probably it was in these days that Washington first brooded over the contrasts between the Englishman and the Virginian. With obstinate complacency Braddock had disregarded Washington's ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... inquire what turn the Jews themselves give to this prophecy.* There is good proof that the ancient Rabbins explained it of their expected Messiah: but their modern expositors concur, I think, in representing it as a description of the calamitous state, and intended restoration, of the Jewish people, who are here, as they say, exhibited under the character of a single person. I have not discovered that their exposition rests upon any critical arguments, or upon these in any other than ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... not with this once thy glorious champion, The image of thy strength and mighty minister. What do I beg? How hast thou dealt already? Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn His labours, for thou canst, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... natural phenomenon was a demonstration of the occult. No matter that the advanced science of his time explained rainfall, unusual heat or cold, over-fruitful or unproductive years, pestilence and sudden death, eclipses, comets and meteors,—he believed them to be the direct results of sorcery. Calamitous as the effects may have been upon other people, he had ever escaped harm from these sources. It was not strange that in time he ceased to fear miracles, and the demonstrations of Moses were not so terrifying, inasmuch as they did ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... have not, therefore, it will be only proper that I should enter into some account of it. And this is indeed the more necessary, as with the hope of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I design here to give a history of the calamitous events which have so lately occurred within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt that the duty thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my ability, with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... spider, began to work the heavy bow across the long strings. He had rehearsed it to perfection. In performance, something happened. His artist's nerve had gone. His fingers fumbled impotently for the stops. His professional experience saved a calamitous situation. With an acrobat's stride he reached the stage, telescoped fiddle and bow to normal proportions, and after a lightning nod to the chef d'orchestre, played the Marseillaise. At the end there ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the memorable and fatal expedition to Walcheren, commanded by the renowned Lord Chatham, the elder brother of Pitt, who, from his fondness for lying in bed, had obtained the nick name of the late Lord Chatham. This was a most calamitous undertaking, and reflected the highest disgrace upon the characters of those who planned it, as well as of those who were selected to carry it into execution. I recollect that at the time it was confidently asserted that the redoubtable Commander, Lord Chatham, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... completed; for even while La Salle was getting succour for his company on the Illinois, a letter arrived from Tonty telling him of the mutiny of the garrison and the wilful destruction of Fort Crevecoeur with all it held. The calamitous news would have killed the spirit of any one less courageous than La Salle; but the bold explorer, whose whole life was a long grapple with adversity, prepared with all haste to return to the rescue of Tonty, who, he hoped forlornly, had survived the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... men a juster cause of grief than when they receive hurt and damage where they may justly expect for favour and good will; and not without cause, though without reason, have many, after they had fallen into such a calamitous accident, esteemed this indignity less supportable than the loss of their own lives, in such sort that, if they have not been able by force of arms nor any other means, by reach of wit or subtlety, to stop ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for decadence, and no less for idiocy.... Kant became an idiot.—And such a man was the contemporary of Goethe! This calamitous spinner of cobwebs passed for the German philosopher—still passes today!... I forbid myself to say what I think of the Germans.... Didn't Kant see in the French Revolution the transformation of the state from the inorganic form ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... materials with which it must be filled. That Time should quickly draw his veil over such a scene, and cover it with oblivion would be the natural wish of every British and Irish heart, were it not that scenes still more disgraceful to both countries and more calamitous to one of them have succeeded—scenes which force the mind to revert with regret to those days of poverty and peace, when, as there existed little wealth to excite avarice, and little spirit to ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... little more than the paper on which they are printed. During the whole of this time every creditor is suffering to an extent which he cannot measure; and every bargain is rendered uncertain in its advantage, by the continually changing value of the medium through which it is conducted. This calamitous course has actually been run in several countries: in France, it reached nearly its extreme limit during the existence of assignats. We have ourselves experienced some portion of the misery it creates; but by a return to ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... Magazine writer's remedy for "a condition compared with which none is so deeply calamitous; no distress so truly miserable; no object so deserving of compassion, and none so worthy of redress," was a really effective Bill for the regulation of ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... superintendence of our museums, and especially of that of Gresham College; but those who recollect the state of our great national museum forty years since will not be surprised at this, or at the calamitous destruction of Tradescant's specimen of the Dodo. That the bird was extinct above 150 years ago I think we may conclude from the notices I have extracted from La Roque, and the letter of the Jesuit Brown. Mr. Strickland has done good service ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... flocked in from the adjacent country, and who, all sought a guide for their opinions in the faces of the principal townsmen, also for the most part proprietors of the surrounding districts. They saw that something calamitous was on foot, and resorted accordingly to the only remedy open to the ignorant and the ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... without a word of explanation, the officer in command led his captives into the town. They were too much overwhelmed by their calamitous circumstances to pay much attention to anything, yet they could not help observing that greater crowds of people than usual were hurrying through the streets, and that every one wore, more or less, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Prelude. I think the poem is saved by its picturesqueness, but that otherwise the story up to the point reached is too purely repellent. I have the sequel quite clear in my mind, and in it the mere passionate frailty of Aloyse's first love would be followed by a true and noble love, rendered calamitous by Urscelyn, who then (having become a powerful soldier of fortune) solicits the hand of Aloyse. Thus the horror which she expresses against him to her sister on the bridal morning would be fully justified. Of course, Aloyse would confess her fault to her second lover whose love would, nevertheless, ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... fears, and your own shame. From your infancy I have predicted that some fatal catastrophe would befall you. I never loved you like my other children—I never had the cause: you were always unlike the rest—and I knew your fate would be calamitous; but the very worst of my forebodings did not come to this—so young, so guilty, and so artful! Tell me this instant, are ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... into tears. Carl patiently essayed a comforting word of advice and followed Dick indoors to seek relief in less calamitous showers. Before he did so, however, he read ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... the people, that he soon succeeded in stirring up a dreadful rebellion. He armed the peasants; they murdered the nobility, and desolated the whole land. The noble Minister fell a victim to his revenge; and Robertus, the friend of liberty, the champion of the oppressed, is the author of the calamitous war of the peasants, which by degrees will spread over the whole of Germany, and will ravage it. Murders, assassinations, robberies, and sacrilege are now committed with impunity; and thy noble hero stands at the head of a furious rabble, and threatens to make Germany ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... Rebel could never know adversity. The fire which consumes his dwelling is a personal boon, as he can readily explain. So is a devastating flood, or a widespread pestilence. The events which narrow-minded mudsills are apt to look upon as calamitous, are only "blessings in disguise" to every supporter and friend of the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... Jaquez, trembling, "I was going to tell your Highness, that since the calamitous misfortune of my young Lord, God rest his precious soul! not one of us your Highness's faithful servants—indeed we are, my Lord, though poor men—I say, not one of us has dared to set a foot about the castle, but ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... from banks; notes are returned on the issuers in exchange for specie; bankers raise their rate of discount, and withhold their customary advances; merchants refuse to renew mercantile bills. At such times the most calamitous consequences were formerly experienced from the attempt of the law to prevent more than a certain limited rate of interest from being given or taken. Persons who could not borrow at five per cent had to pay, not six or seven, but ten or fifteen per ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... effect a reunion and reconciliation with our brethren of the South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to point out to you how it may be effected. Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us the issue of this great struggle. Bloody—calamitous —I fear it will be. May we so conduct it if a collision must come, that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts and who will judge our every act. We must not yield to resentments, nor to the spirit of vengeance, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... overtaken by the enemy and killed, or were swept away by the current of the Tiber. [Footnote: That this was a terrible defeat is proved by the fact that the sixteenth of July was afterward held unlucky (ater, black), and no business was transacted on it. Ovid mentions it as "the day to which calamitous Allia gives a name in the calendar," and on which "tearful Allia was stained with the blood of ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... to remain a degraded class in this country. If educated any where, they must be educated in Africa. We must take them in their ignorance, and just released from bondage, and translate them to another continent on the wings of the wind. Delay would be injurious to ourselves, and calamitous to them. They must go in large bodies—by thousands and tens of thousands annually—till the whole be expelled from our shores. For it seems, according to the logic of colonizationists, every individual tainted with ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... third part of the stars of heaven.' This alarm I naturally and freely expressed to the man upon whom I most relied, your father. On the occasion to which I refer he replied to me with some admission that they were calamitous; 'but,' he said, 'pray remember an important compensation, in the influence which the English mind will bring to bear upon the Church of Rome itself. Should there be in this country any considerable amount of secession to that Church, it cannot fail to operate sensibly in ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... and evidently just? That whilst the two former died in their beds, after a life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time, as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy. (Mivart's "Genesis ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... system of the world is calamitous and bad; it ought to be remedied; but war, which tries to swindle a more fortunate and able competitor for the benefit of the inexpert or the lazy, makes this vicious system worse; it enriches a few, and ruins ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... the destination of exported coal have since the beginning of this year been withheld. England is presumably desirous of saving the French and Italians the further distress of reading for the future in black and white the calamitous decline in their coal supply. The serious nature of this decline, even up to the end of 1916, may be seen from ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... to the sturdy good health of our people, the invasion by this enemy of mankind—and a terrible enemy the smallpox then was—did not prove directly calamitous. The baby was the only one seriously sick, and she made a rapid recovery, as indeed did all the others who were attacked. There were not more than a dozen cases from first to last and not one suffered much more than inconvenience, and not one had a pit ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... him was a letter from her, hailing in his name the hope of seeing me at Montreux, in Switzerland, whither I was going in the expectation of finding them. The letter broke off in the middle, and ended with the news, calamitous to me, as to all who knew him, of his death. At the time when I visited them at Manchester, he had accepted some Professorship in the then newly established ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... an angle of "forty-five." To leap forward and catch him in my arms was the work of an instant. On each of these occasions, after setting him upright, I used to give him a tender hug, to indicate my regret at having been so inattentive, and my sympathy with him in his calamitous circumstances. ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... an answer to the Marquis of Buckingham's letter of resignation meets entirely with my sentiments. If I thought any alteration necessary, it would be by more explicitly stating the allusion to his very commendable conduct, during my late calamitous illness, which would render the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... of Glen Fruin were very calamitous to the family of Macgregor, who had already been considered as an unruly clan. The widows of the slain Colquhouns, sixty, it is said, in number, appeared in doleful procession before the king at Stirling, each riding upon a white palfrey, and ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... along from pew to pew throughout the body of the church. An echo of it reached the Bishop, and so confused him that he haltingly repeated the obnoxious line. Every local eye turned as by intuition to where the calamitous Tisdale sat, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Claude, I can't git the storm door open. We're snowed in fas'." She looked like a tramp woman, in a jacket patched with many colours, her head tied up in an old black "fascinator," with ravelled yarn hanging down over her face like wild locks of hair. She kept this costume for calamitous occasions; appeared in it when the water-pipes were frozen and burst, or when spring storms flooded the coops ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... war, which was declared in 1672, the object of which seems to have been the annihilation of the United Provinces as an independent state, a century sooner than Providence had decreed that calamitous event, met with great opposition in England, and every engine was put to work to satisfy the people of the truth of the Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury's averment, that the "States of Holland were England's eternal enemies, both by interest and inclination." Dryden, with the avowed intention ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... art or the pursuit of their intrigues. Bernard Sicart de Marvejols has left us a vigorous satire against the crusaders who came for plunder, and the clergy who drove them on. The greatest poet of this calamitous time is Peire Cardenal. His work falls within the years 1210 and 1230. The short notice that we have of him says that he belonged to Puy Notre Dame in Velay, that he was the son of a noble and was intended for an ecclesiastical career: ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... the voice of a flood! Its resurgent dirge will move a new-born babe to frightened wailing, and stirs in strong men a vague uneasiness that roots in the vast and calamitous experience of the race. Call of hungry waters, patter of driving rain, sough of the weird wind, it requires good company and a red-coal fire to offset their moanings of eternity. Yet though the fireless tropics could not supply one, and she lacked the other, the storm voices ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... your Lordships a part of Mr. Holt's evidence, by which it is proved that Mr. Hastings was duly advertised of all these miserable and calamitous circumstances. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs. The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the magnitude of their loss, and before they have become in a manner either reconciled to it, or indifferent to their fate, they roam in an inquiring manner, in and out of the hive, and over its outside as well as inside, and plainly manifest that something calamitous has befallen them. Often those that return from the fields, instead of entering the hive with that dispatchful haste so characteristic of a bee returning well stored to a prosperous home, linger about ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... VEXATIOUS AND WORSE-THAN USELESS QUARANTINE AND CORDON REGULATIONS AGAINST CHOLERA; that he did so before the nature of the disease was so fully understood; admits that those regulations have been found, after full experience, to have produced consequences more calamitous than those arising from the disease itself ("plus funeste encore que les maux que provenaient de la maladie elle-meme.") He kindly makes excuses for still maintaining a modified quarantine system at certain points, ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... difficulty. Lord Percival had declared he did not understand I.O.U.'s in an affair of that kind. He had always thought that gentlemen did not play for stakes which they could not pay at once. This was not said to Gerald himself;—or the result would have been calamitous. Nidderdale was the go-between, and at last arranged it,—not however till he had pointed out that Percival, having won so large a sum of money from a lad under twenty-one years of age, was very lucky in receiving substantial ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... laws against Catholics are now relaxed, and I am glad of it. But I have one consolation, my dear girl, that I am trusting myself to a man of honor. We will proceed directly to the Continent;—that is, if no calamitous occurrence should take place to prevent us; and there, after our nuptials shall have been duly celebrated, I will live happy with Reilly—that is, Connor, as happy as absence from my dear father will permit me—and Reilly will live happy, and, at least, free from the persecution ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... they stood pleading,—victims of the fearful pressure of poisonous and heated air upon the excited brain. The deaths of Salmon P. Chase of Portland, uncle of our present Chief Justice, and of Ezekiel Webster, the brother of our great statesman, are memorable examples of the calamitous effects of the errors dwelt upon; and yet, strange to say, nothing efficient is done to mend these errors, and give the body an equal chance with the mind in the pressure of ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... again in England resuming his prosperous practice. Then occurred the accident which hindered all further pursuit of his art. Reading an account of a calamitous fire, he was so impressed with the idea of showing his household and pupils the proper mode of effecting their escape, in the event of such an accident befalling his own house, that he ascended with them to the top storey, and ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... queen's rooms that no one could enter them but by order. The same etiquette is observed when the princes are with the queen as when the king is there-no interruption whatever is made. I now, therefore, lost my only consolation at this calamitous time, that of attending ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... certainly, as well as probably the more genuine talent, of the two) would be grossly unfair in dealing with Emile Zola. One may think his principle demonstrably wrong, and his practice for the most part a calamitous mistake. One may, while, if indeed it concerned us, clearing him of the charge of doing any moral harm—such harm would be as likely to be done by records of Bedlam, or the Lock Hospital, or a dipsomaniacs' home—put on the wrong side ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Mrs. Piozzi maintained that 'mercy was totally abolished by French maxims; for, if all men are equal, mercy is no more.' Piozzi's Synonymy, i. 370. Johnson, in 1740, described slavery as 'the most calamitous estate in human life,' a state 'which has always been found so destructive to virtue, that in many languages a slave and a thief are expressed by the same word.' Works, v. 265-6. Nineteen years later he wrote of the discoveries of the Portuguese:—'Much knowledge ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... am very poor—for I know nothing, understand nothing. It is not a calamitous condition until it is realized. Then..." He threw out his arms, and let them fall again. His face she observed ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... event still more calamitous to human liberty, was a wicked confederacy, between the two systems of tyranny above described.—It seems to have been even stipulated between them, that the temporal grandees should contribute every thing in their power to maintain ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... but one of many able leaders who planned the Second Revolt. And we to-day, looking back across the centuries, can safely say that even had he lived, the Second Revolt would not have been less calamitous in its outcome than ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... this day was extremely calamitous. We were obliged to take the course of the sea, running right before it, and watching with the utmost care, as the least error in the helm would in a moment have been our destruction. The sea was continually breaking all over us; but, as we suffered ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... war had been heard, but it was at such a distance as to enhance our enjoyment by affording objects of comparison. The Indians were repulsed on the one side, and Canada was conquered on the other. Revolutions and battles, however calamitous to those who occupied the scene, contributed in some sort to our happiness, by agitating our minds with curiosity, and furnishing causes of patriotic exultation. Four children, three of whom were of an age to compensate, by their personal and mental progress, the cares of which they had been, at ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... of man! whose life is a span, Protracted with sorrow from day to day; Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay! Attend to the words of the sovereign birds, Immortal, illustrious lords of the air, Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye, Your struggles of misery, labor, and care. Whence you may ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... he remained for a while in that state of silent uncertainty which follows the receipt of calamitous news. The servant having finished his report had joined his three companions, and Don Mariano ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... present, therefore, no change was made in the administration; but when, in the spring of the following year, Mr. Perceval was murdered, the necessity for a new arrangement which this strange and calamitous atrocity forced upon the Regent—who by this time had come into possession of his full authority—led to his making offers of the conduct of affairs to more than one prominent statesman, all of them, as is somewhat remarkable, being peers. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... insolent, ignorance, and virtuous, because gracious, knowledge, so direct, and in so parallel elements, as in this instance. In general, the analysis is much more complex. It is intensely difficult to indicate the mischief of involuntary and modest ignorance, calamitous only in a measure; fruitful in its lower field, yet sorrowfully condemned to that lower field—not by sin, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... detached way she wondered why Hozier did not return. The prayers and curses of the men surrounding her fell unheeded on her ears. Where was Hozier? What was he doing? Why did he not come to her? She felt a strange confidence in him. If he had not been struck down by that calamitous shell he would have saved the ship—assuredly he would have devised some means of saving their lives! Perhaps, even now, he was attempting some desperate expedient! . . . The thought nerved her for an instant. Then a rending, grinding noise was followed by a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... This calamitous event was more than the feeble frame of Anastasia could endure. She rapidly failed, and on the 7th of August, 1560, she expired. The grief of Ivan was heartrending, and never was national affliction manifested in a more sincere and touching manner. Not only the whole court, but almost the entire ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... several days, and still there was no news. Was it possible, she asked herself, that this unknown traveller, and his calamitous fate, should pass on into perfect oblivion and leave matters as they were before? For a cloud would hang over her and her children as long as Roland was the object of pursuit. While he was a fugitive criminal, of interest to the police officers of all countries, there ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... down his favorite path through the grove, he saw that the waters had borne away every vestige of fencing around his cherished ten-acre lot. The highest part of the fence had been under water many feet on that calamitous night, and with the loss of the rails had gone down another of the earthly props on which he had leaned for his daily ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... the calamitous consequences of this event thus terminate. It seems to have sown deeply the seeds of ambitious discord in the family of Henry. The young prince, after a visit to France with his consort, formally demanded of his father some substantial share of the royal ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... States of the Union to incorporate Texas among the slave-holding States. Calhoun, who as early as 1836 had demanded the annexation of Texas on behalf of the interests of Southern slavery, was invited to join Tyler's Cabinet as Secretary of State. The office had been rendered vacant by the calamitous explosion of a new monster gun on the U.S.S. "Princeton," killing Secretary of State Upshar and Secretary Gilmer of the Navy in the immediate vicinity of President Tyler. Calhoun entered office on March 6, and on April 12 the Texan treaty ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... sensation than a thought, and may be compared to that of a convicted cashier beset by recollections of the bank he had pillaged—there are some thoughts to which one closes the mind. George had seen Eugene only once since their calamitous encounter. They had passed on opposite sides of the street, downtown; each had been aware of the other, and each had been aware that the other was aware of him, and yet each kept his eyes straight forward, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... to some persons but folly, and to others but mere boasting, to point to this young man, as any fruit of, or recompense for, the costly and calamitous Arctic expeditions. But others may not think it all in vain, if thereby one soul has been saved, and an example left to a few young men, of thankfulness and kindness to men, duty and devotion towards God. Such was Erasmus Augustine Kallihirua, once a poor benighted Esquimaux, but brought out of ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... results were as calamitous in Ireland as in other countries. No country can progress under such circumstances. The test of government is the condition of the people governed. Judged by this criterion, it is no exaggeration to say that Ireland as a whole went backward for at least seventy years after ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... was a friend of Mr. Nicholson's; he was well acquainted with the tale of John's calamitous disappearance from Edinburgh; and putting one thing with another, hasted with the first word of this scandal, not to the police, but to his friend. The old gentleman had long regarded his son as one dead; John's place had been taken, the memory of his faults had already ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thou of ascetic wealth, soon after her lord had left her, Jaratkaru went to her brother. And she told him everything that had happened. And the prince of snakes, hearing the calamitous news, spake unto his miserable sister, himself more ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... And does that One, in the majesty of everlasting vitality and resistless peace, ever see how we run after the painted butterflies of our desires and fall down the dark precipice? And if He sees and hears the wavering, calamitous life of all creatures, and especially of the most beautiful and the most helpless, does He ever sigh and weep, as we do when we see a dead child or a moth's wing ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... information we received, relative to the custom of tattowing, we were inclined to think, that it is frequently intended as a sign of mourning on the death of a chief, or any other calamitous event. For we were often, told, that such a particular mark was in memory of such a chief, and so of the rest. It may be here too observed, that the lowest class are often tattowed with a mark, that distinguishes them as the property ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... now these apposite reflections occur to me with a sufficient ease, but that upon the true occasion for them they were absent. So, too, at the first meal in the new house, there was none of that desirable sense of setting up a family altar, but a calamitous impression of irretrievable upheaval, in honor of which sackcloth and ashes seemed the only wear. Yet even the next day the Lares and Penates had regained something of their wonted cheerfulness, and life had begun again ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... equality told, and inspiriting freedom? Every one hoped that then he should live his own life, and the fetters, Binding the various lands, appeared their hold to be loosing,— Fetters that had in the hand of sloth been held and self-seeking. Looked not the eyes of all nations, throughout that calamitous season, Towards the world's capital city, for so it had long been considered, And of that glorious title was now, ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... winking at, but actually encouraging, these premature manifestations of passion in their children. They may yet learn, by bitter experience, the folly of their course, unless they make the discovery in time to avert the calamitous results which threaten the future of their children, ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... after the calamitous time is past, when the good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by the double of everything once lost—his children remain the same in number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor children, really had ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... mode, which for want of money has been substituted for supplying the army, by assessing a proportion of the productions of the earth, has hitherto been found ineffectual, has frequently exposed the army to the most calamitous distress, and from its novelty and incompatibility with ancient habits, is regarded by the people as burthensome and oppressive, has excited serious discontents, and, in some places, alarming symptoms of opposition. This mode has besides many particular inconveniences, which contribute ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... and assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously, I shall rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently L4 the same was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn here my daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse languages, I know the philological neology and archaiology, the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... of the Wu-ist priests are endowed with magical properties which are considered to enable the wearer to control the order of the world, to avert unseasonable and calamitous events, such as drought, untimely and superabundant rainfall, and eclipses. These powers are conferred by the decoration upon the dress. Upon the back of the chief vestment the representation of a range of mountains is ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... of this harvest, even the process of moving into the new house, are obscured in my mind by the clouds of smoke which rose from calamitous fires all over the west. It was an unprecedentedly dry season so that not merely the prairie, but many weedy cornfields burned. I had a good deal of time to meditate upon this for I was again the plow-boy. Every day I drove away from the rented farm to the new ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... My self the total Crime, or to accuse My other self, the partner of my life; Whose failing, while her Faith to me remaines, I should conceal, and not expose to blame 130 By my complaint; but strict necessitie Subdues me, and calamitous constraint, Least on my head both sin and punishment, However insupportable, be all Devolv'd; though should I hold my peace, yet thou Wouldst easily detect what I conceale. This Woman whom thou mad'st to be my help, And gav'st me as thy perfet gift, so good, So fit, so acceptable, so Divine, That ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... 1845 the earthquake came. Newman was received into the Roman communion. Of this step Mr. Gladstone said that it has never yet been estimated at anything like the full amount of its calamitous importance. The leader who had wielded a magician's power in Oxford was followed by a host of other converts. More than once I have heard Mr. Gladstone tell the story how about this time he sought from Manning an answer to the question that sorely perplexed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the patience of a cat watching a mouse Corentin was there in the same place on the following morning, attentive to the slightest noise, and subjecting the passers-by to the closest examination. The day that was now beginning was a market-day. Although in these calamitous times the peasants rarely risked themselves in the towns, Corentin presently noticed a small man with a gloomy face, wrapped in a goatskin, and carrying on his arm a small flat basket; he was making his ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac |
