"Calamity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficult for John to explain his defection to Mr. Clotworthy and to Tarleton. The only mitigating feature of the business was that the matter to be reported was only a concert. Both Mr. Clotworthy and Tarleton trembled when they thought of the calamity that would have befallen the paper if the forgotten report had been of a murder! They hardly dared contemplate such a devastating prospect. They invited John to think of another profession and wished him a very good morning. Tarleton quitted the room, leaving John ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... accomplished, dearly loved by her family and friends. But whether she, nevertheless, possessed capabilities of offending her companions in office at Court; whether her conduct in any respect rebuked theirs, and provoked dislike, suspicion, and a desire to find her in the wrong; whether the calamity was sheerly due to that mortal meanness in human nature, which tempts people not otherwise unworthy to receive the most unlikely and injurious evil report of their neighbour, on the merest presumptive evidence, the unhappy sequel remains ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the century there were a few notable instances of the power which a great preacher might yet command. We are told of Dean Kirwan, who had left the Roman for the English Church, that even in times of public calamity and distress, his irresistible powers of persuasion repeatedly produced contributions exceeding a thousand or twelve hundred pounds at a sermon; and his hearers, not content with emptying their purses into the plate, sometimes threw in jewels ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... on a short trip. Regretting that I could not take Kashi with me, I called him to my room before leaving, and carefully instructed him to remain, against all persuasion, in the spiritual vibrations of the school. Somehow I felt that if he did not go home, he might avoid the impending calamity. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... brought to them, without a license, that they might mercifully put it to death, and fifteen cents was the precise price for a drink of good whiskey. Just then there was another bang and another howl somewhere, and Satan trotted home to meet a calamity. Dinnie was gone. Her mother had taken her out in the country to Grandmother Dean's to spend Christmas, as was the family custom, and Mrs. Dean would not wait any longer for Satan; so she told Uncle Billy to bring him ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... infeliz adj. unhappy, wretched. infernal adj. infernal. infiel adj. faithless (one). infierno m. hell, infernal region. infinito, -a infinite, endless. inflamarse blaze. informe adj. ill-shapen, uncanny, inarticulate. infortunio m. misfortune, misery, calamity. infundir infuse, instill, inspire. ingls, -a English. Ingls m. Englishman. ingrato, -a ungrateful (one), ingrate. injuria f. insult. inmensidad f. immensity, vastness, infinity, unbounded greatness. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... wandered about weeping and disconsolate, lamenting their sad fate, or have imbittered the time by useless repining, or, perhaps, by venting their uneasiness in reviling the principal author of their calamity—poor, thoughtless Louis; but such were not the dispositions of our young Canadians. Early accustomed to the hardships incidental to the lives of the settlers in the bush, these young people had learned to bear with patience and cheerfulness privations that would have crushed the spirits ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... mist and soaked with dripping rain. Perhaps that is the greatest thing which poetry does for us, to reassure us, to enlighten us, to send us singing on our way, to bid us trust in God even though He is concealed behind calamity and disaster, behind grief and heaviness, misinterpreted to us by philosophers and priests, and horribly belied by the ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with Hellenes, better than themselves, they are in bondage to foreigners and slaves, whom they have admitted to their citadels. {16} Indeed, if you resolve to go to their aid, I may almost say that this calamity has been good for them; for, Rhodians as they are, I doubt if they would ever have come to their right mind in prosperity; whereas actual experience has now taught them that folly generally leads to manifold adversities; and perhaps they will be wiser for the future. This lesson, I feel sure, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... which he deliberately sacrificed his eyesight. Within a year after the publication of his book against Salmasius its foreseen result was complete. From henceforth Milton was dependent upon the eyes of others. He was only forty-four when overtaken by this calamity. Yet his courage seems never to have failed him. "I argue not," he tells Cyriack ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... wildly happy, but just at this moment a dreadful calamity befell him. Jennie had been talking about marriage more and more, and now she revealed to him a reason which made marriage imperative. She revealed it with downcast eyes, with blushes and trembling; and Peter was so overcome with consternation that he could not play the part that was expected ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... by her manner for some dire Calamity, it came upon them like a thunderclap. The awful calm manner of the chieftain's widow impressed them more than if she had thrown up her hands in wild despair and given way to ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... possession of the country; and the place where they first landed is called Troy; from whence also the name of Trojan is given to the canton; but the nation in general is called Veneti: that AEneas was driven from home by a similar calamity, but the fates leading him to the founding of a greater empire, he came first to Macedonia: that he sailed from thence to Sicily in quest of a settlement: that from Sicily he made for the Laurentine territory; this place also has the name of Troy. When the Trojans, having ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Power of the Universe has so constrained and ordered the uncertainties and perils of our lot, as not only to reconcile all its apparent contradictions with the ends of moral discipline and benefit, but to make even the darkness of calamity flash rays of brightness and of hope. Thus, along with an enlarged knowledge of men and things, he gives us the wisest counsel about our conduct and proceedings in the world, and also the most encouraging conclusions with regard to our final ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... made in the saddle, riding away from him in that slow canter; how well she sat, how she swayed at the waist as her nimble animal cut in and out among the clumps of sage. A mighty pretty girl, and as good as they grew them anywhere. It would be a calamity to have her sick. From the shoulder of the slope he looked back again. Pretty as any woman a man ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... of the startling scene of the abduction of the Earl of Evesham's daughter occupied but a few seconds. Cuthbert was so astounded at the sudden calamity that he remained rooted to the ground at the spot where, fortunately for himself, unnoticed by the assailants, he had stood when they first ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... took such a deep interest in your little entertainment," she said, "and was so pleased when it brought so much money. I know that every penny under the wise direction of the Red Cross will help to make some poor soldier more comfortable; or if some sudden calamity should come in this country, before it was sent away, your little fund might help ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... victim, caught him by the skirt of his jacket, and, in a few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield was thrust therein—a sad spectacle of the reverses of fortune. This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too stupefied by the suddenness of the calamity for the resistance he might otherwise have made—nay, for more than a few inaudible words—Mr. Stirn hurried from the spot, but not without first picking up and pocketing the half-crown designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been his first emotions, he had hitherto even almost forgotten. He ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... as it was, found the elder man all unprepared. Is any one ever ready for any dire calamity, however certainly expected? He paced up and down under the tall trees of the park and for a time did not answer. Then he paused and laid his hand upon the shoulder of the Boy with a tenderness of touch that proved better than any ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... to have considered this banishment as any very great calamity, since, far from interrupting his career of piracy and plunder, it only widened the field on which he was to pursue it. He accordingly increased the equipment and the force of his fleet, enlisted more followers, and set sail across the northern part of the ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... but the visitor to that spot finds it covered by the Artillery barracks. Walking through King Street, Westminster, you will not forget the great poet Edmund Spenser, who, a victim to barbarity, died there, in destitution and grief. Ben Jonson's terse record of that calamity says: "The Irish having robbed Spenser's goods and burnt his house and a little child new-born, he and his wife escaped, and after he died, for lack of bread, in King Street." Ben Jonson is closely associated with places that can still be seen. He passed his boyhood ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... the room in an agony of maternal anxiety. Peregrine Orme had suggested to her what she would feel if Noningsby were on fire; but could any such fire be worse than these pernicious love flames? He had also suggested another calamity, and as Lady Staveley remembered that, she acknowledged to herself that the Fates were not so cruel to her as they might have been. So she kissed her daughter, again assured her that she was by no means angry with ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... to Portsmouth was his full intention, but not until he had first delivered his freight and passengers in New-York; for, like all men bound up body and soul in the performance of an especial duty, he looked on a frustration of his immediate object as a much greater calamity than even a double amount of more remote evil. Besides, he felt a strong reliance on the liberality of the English authorities in the end, and had little doubt of being able to extricate himself and his ship from any penalties to which the indiscretion or ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... flagrant wrongs of our day have to do with the getting and spending of money; and the peril of the near future which looms now most menacingly on the horizon is the irritation of the wronged classes to the point of civil warfare and revolution. Such a calamity might, of course, be ultimately a means of great social advance; but it is a highly dangerous and uncertain method, involving great moral damage as well as great individual suffering, and to be averted by every possible means. The hope for averting it lies not only in ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... had not much in common, and even a calamity like the present failed to bring them together. The big boys mooned about and thought of their lost liberties, of the afternoons in the tuck-shop, of the yellow- backed novels under the trees, of the loafings down town, and wondered if they should ever be happy again. The little boys—some of them—wept ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... very high business ideals. To sell an article at more than it was worth, or to deceive the buyer as to quality in any way, he would have regarded as a calamity. He delighted in the thought that the men with whom he traded were his friends. That his prosperity had been the prosperity of the producing West, and also to the advantage of the consuming East, were great sources of satisfaction. To personal ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... as she welcomed the entering guest. "Ah, Miss Rose," he exclaimed, "blooming as ever, in spite of wintry days. Do you know I came very near going past your door?" He allowed the announcement of this providentially averted calamity to sink deep into her heart, while he bowed ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... should eye and act faith upon the promises of assistance and through-bearing, in the day of calamity; such as those—Isa. xliii. 2, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." And ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... the earthmen remained silent. The troubles of this civilization had been dumped into their laps already—in the form of a terrible calamity. It sounded almost as if some kind of life forms had broken through the domes from the outside! Perhaps there was more danger than could be imagined. One dome had been injured, if not destroyed, and ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... was hard to conclude, because there has been a want of uniformity among the States as to the cases triable by jury, because some have been so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial in certain cases, therefore the more prudent States shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It would have been much more just and wise to have concluded the other way, that as most of the States had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of liberty, those who had wandered, should be brought back to it: and to have established general right rather than general wrong. For I consider ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... received the first intimation of the heavy calamity which had befallen us by the wounding of Jackson. After having instructed his men to fire at everything approaching from the direction of the enemy, in his eagerness to reconnoitre the position of the Federals, and entirely forgetting his own orders, he had been riding with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... through an even severer ordeal. During another engagement 'she was exposed to the hearing of the whole action, and at last received the shock of her individual misfortune mixed with the intelligence of the general calamity; the troops were defeated, and Major Ackland, desperately wounded, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... were the dress-making preparations—Miss Pupford openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford went on with her preparations: and meanwhile no pupil ever went up-stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss Pupford's bedroom (when ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... Then a sea-wind, rising, blew destruction into further streets; and the conflagration spread from street to street, and from district into district, till nearly the whole of the city was consumed. And this calamity, which occurred upon the eighteenth day of the first month of the first year of Meireki (1655), is still remembered in Tokyo as the Furisode-Kwaji,—the Great Fire of the ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... and Annette too, instead of sitting there hum-drumming with her sewing, out of which nothing comes. Annette run quick, and see what it is all about—but come back in an instant-minute and tell me, poor soul, whom our Lord has smitten with calamity and sickness—nay, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... no need for me to enter into further details, nor to describe the grief which our tidings conveyed to mother and to daughter. Their long expectation of some calamity was not sufficient to prepare them for ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had come, as Mr. Parker surmised, straight off a wreck, the first to file into his office had assuredly salved from calamity a wonderful headgear. This was Mrs. Purchase, in a bonnet crowned with a bunch of glass grapes; and by the hand she led Myra, who carried one arm in a sling. The child's features were pinched and pale, and her eyes unnaturally bright. Behind followed Mr. Purchase and Tom Trevarthen, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... M—-, but nothing would ever induce me to witness it again. I am very glad that government has put a stop to it by force. You are aware that the custom arose from the natives attempting to avert any present or anticipated calamity, by devoting a child to propitiate the deity. On a certain day they all assembled in boats, with their victims, attended by their priests and music, and decorated with flowers. The gaiety of the procession would have induced you to imagine ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... why we must appear as we have always done. Suspicion is not proof. Margery's story, and more, may be true, and yet it may be that, three months hence, all, as regards ourselves, will be just as it has been. We must not, through a blind fear of one calamity, put ourselves in the way of another. Neither of us can look much at the future to-night; but we must not forget that there is a future. So it is still the old task which is before ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... peculiar to the Orientals had sustained Besso under his overwhelming calamity. He neither wailed nor moaned. Absorbed in a brooding silence, he awaited the result of the measures which had been taken for the release of Eva, sustained by the chance of success, and caring not to survive ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... back from sudden faintness. "Don't let her come near me," I panted, after a moment, "nor any of them, but, most of all, Sophie; remember—don't let her even look at me;" and with moaning, I turned my face down on the pillow. I had taken in about a thousandth fraction of my great calamity by that time. Every moment was giving to me some additional possession ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... is needless to insist on the vast field for this dice-cast or card-dealt calamity which opens itself in the ignorance, money-interest, and mean passion, of city marriage. Peasants know each other as children—meet, as they grow up in testing labor; and if a stout farmer's son marries a handless ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... sentiment, began to conjure nameless evils on account of her son. It might be true, as Abiram had hinted, that he had become a captive to some of the tribes who were hunting the buffaloe in that vicinity, or even a still more dreadful calamity might have befallen. So thought the mother, while silence and darkness lent their aid to the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... heard of the death of Gen. LEE with deep sorrow, and mourn it as a calamity to his family, his friends, his country, and ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... caused universal lamentation throughout the British Isles. It was treated as a public calamity. The British press, from the London Times to the remotest provincial newspaper, gave expression to the general sorrow in strains of unwonted eloquence; and in so doing recounted his great services to the cause of science, and ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... suffrage, and for making the influence of France felt and respected in matters of European concern, even at the risk of war. Guizot, on the contrary, clung to the English alliance, and he considered that a foreign war—for example, in defense of Mehemet Ali,—would be to France a great and needless calamity. Claiming to be a fast friend of representative government, Guizot nevertheless inflexibly resisted movements for the extension of popular rights,—movements which he believed would lead, if they were not withstood, to revolution and anarchy. On the one hand were the legitimists, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... Court of the Little Trianon. All others were excluded. Heavy silks and towering head-dresses were forgotten in the simple life of the Petit Trianon. Tiresome etiquette was banished, together with thoughts of international matters of portent and impending calamity. Occasionally, comedies were given, or groves and canal were illuminated in honor of a visitor of high degree—the Emperor Joseph of Austria (brother of the Queen), the King of Sweden, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... a calamity so unsparing and so dreadful, there was nothing to be said. The silent sympathy of help was all that could be offered to the woman who stood weeping ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... too,—one of a different kind. She had "kept company" with David Milliken for a little matter of twenty years, off and on, and Miss Avilda had expected at various times to lose her friend and helpmate; but fear of this calamity had at length been quite put to rest by the fourth and final rupture of the bond, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... total indifference to everything positive in matters of doctrine; and, in the end, of practice too. If continued, it would play the game of that sort of active, proselytizing, and persecuting atheism, which is the disgrace and calamity of our time, and which we see to be as capable of subverting a government, as any mode can be of misguided zeal for ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... disasters, to which a seafaring life is exposed; warning the devoted wretch of death and woe. No wonder then that Trunnion was disturbed by a supposed visit of this demon, which, in his opinion, foreboded some dreadful calamity. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... treaties, precedents, timely forms and requisite style. Their guide and counselor in foreign relations is Brissot whose pre-eminence is based on their ignorance and who, exalted into a statesman, becomes for a few months the most conspicuous figure in Europe.[2347] To whatever extent a European calamity may be attributed to any one man, this one is to be attributed to him. It is this wretch, born in a pastry-cook's shop, brought up in an attorney's office, formerly a police agent at 150 francs per month, once in league with scandal-mongers and black-mailers,[2348] a penny-a-liner, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ask, has been their uniform conduct during the whole course of the reign? They have been ever steady in their opposition, to whatever bore an ill aspect to the cause of freedom, and to the whole train of those political measures, that have terminated in calamity and ruin. They have been twice in administration. Prosperity and power are usually circumstances that prove the severest virtue. While in power how then did this ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... touched to the heart by the great ocean calamity and desiring to do what it could to lighten the woes and relieve the sufferings of the pitiful little band of men and women rescued from the Titanic, opened both its heart ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... virtue and happiness will reign in society. But this, and any similar maxim deduced from simple reason, raises an outcry—the church or the state is in danger, if faith in the wisdom of antiquity is not implicit; and they who, roused by the sight of human calamity, dare to attack human authority, are reviled as despisers of God, and enemies of man. These are bitter calumnies, yet they reached one of the best of men, (Dr. Price.) whose ashes still preach peace, and whose memory demands a respectful pause, when subjects ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... My art means everything to me, and I must keep myself in the best condition possible, to be ready when the call comes to sing. One cannot do both, you know; art and society do not mix well. I have never disappointed an audience; it would be a great calamity to be obliged to ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... occurred to him which promised to avert the calamity he most dreaded,—that is, the shark getting past him, and continuing on to the others. The thought found expression ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... stairs like a man possessed. Heavy with such a foreboding of calamity as I had not known for two years, I followed him—along the hall and out into the road. The very peace and beauty of the night in some way increased my mental agitation. The sky was lighted almost tropically with such a blaze of stars as I could not recall to have seen since, ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... their benefit. The instructor, Mr. Osborne, a young man, brother of one of the settlers, had lost his right leg and his left arm by a terrible railroad accident. He was a graduate of an Ohio college, and had been engaged in preparing himself for the ministry when the calamity occurred which rendered him unfit for the active duties of life. From choice rather than from necessity, he remained with his brother at the settlement, being ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... Poseidonis sent another tidal wave over Egypt. This too, was only a temporary calamity, but it brought the Divine Dynasties to an end, for the Lodge of Initiates had transferred ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... invade the territories of the Suessiones, who were put under the patronage of the Remi: and moreover, considering that not only his honour, but his interest was concerned, that such of his allies, as deserved well of the republic, should suffer no calamity; he again draws the eleventh legion out of quarters and writes besides to Caius Fabius, to march with his two legions to the country of the Suessiones; and he sends to Trebonius for one of his two legions. Thus, as far as the convenience of the quarters, and the management of the ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... as tapu (vulgarly Anglicized as taboo) and muru, laughable as they seem to us, tended to preserve public health, to ensure respect for authority, and to prevent any undue accumulation of goods and chattels in the hands of one man. Under the law of muru a man smitten by sudden calamity was politely plundered of all his possessions. It was the principle under which the wounded shark is torn to pieces by its fellows, and under which the merchant wrecked on the Cornish coast in bye-gone days was stripped of anything the waves had ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... loved to linger over and repeat these details, and his audience, we may feel sure, never tired of hearing them. But they knew that calamity was coming, and would overtake bride and groom before they had gone, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... her extreme youth, was taken with mumps, and withdrawn by the doctor's orders. Mrs. Milray had now not only to improvise another Spirit of Summer, but had to choose her from a group of young ladies, with the chance of alienating and embittering those who were not chosen. In her calamity she asked her husband what she should do, with but the least hope that he could tell her. But he answered promptly, "Take Clementina; I'll let you have her for the day," and then waited for the storm of her renunciations and denunciations ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... selfe, and behold, I fortuned to espy my companion Socrates sitting upon the ground, covered with a torn and course mantle; who was so meigre and of so sallow and miserable a countenance, that I scantly knew him: for fortune had brought him into such estate and calamity, that he verily seemed as a common begger that standeth in the streets to crave the benevolence of the passers by. Towards whom (howbeit he was my singular friend and familiar acquaintance, yet half in despaire) I drew nigh and said, Alas my Socrates, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... to be hoped that they may induce a weighty consideration of the source of the evil, and of the best means of its future prevention. We are convinced, that so long as a relation subsists between cause and effect, and the present policy of those states is pursued, so long the deprecated calamity is to be dreaded; and while we all revolt with horror from the anticipation of an organization on the part of the slaves, we conceive there is a certain state of degradation and misery to which they may be reduced, a certain point ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... resuming our western march, two miles brought us to Calamity Pond, where a lone monument marks the spot of David Henderson's death, by the accidental discharge of a pistol. Five miles from this point brought us to the "Deserted Village," or the Upper Adirondack Iron Works, with houses and furnaces ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... English folk of their rank and station, with what feeling would the announcement be received? Certainly not with a desire to redeem this ruffian from his bonds and place him in the honoured seat of his dead father. Such intelligence would be regarded as a calamity, an unhappy blot upon a fair reputation, a disgrace to an honoured and unsullied name. Let him succeed, let him return again to the mother who had by this time become reconciled, in a measure, to his loss; he would, at the best, be to her a living ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... his way back from the unsuccessful expedition against Louisbourg, received the news of the calamity at Fort William Henry. He returned too late to do anything to retrieve that disaster, and determined, in the spring, to take the offensive by attacking Ticonderoga. This had been left, on the retirement of Montcalm, with a small garrison commanded by Captain Hepecourt, who, during ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... right, Alexander," observed Swinton; "the ways of Heaven are inscrutably mysterious, and when we offer up prayers for the removal of what may appear to be a heavy calamity, we may be deprecating that which in the ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... but he was unable to overtake the mass of rushing fire. He shouted occasionally, in order to attract the attention of any sufferer; but no one responded to his call. Though he searched diligently, he was unable to find another survivor of the terrible calamity. ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... two dervishes, one of whom was in himself a calamity!—one who understood the world,—a man of deep design,—and of a wit so sharp that the shaitan in person was not fit to be his father. He was tall, thin, and strong. His eyes were like live charcoal, and his voice like a high wind. He never lost an opportunity ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... nothing either of them could say would make any difference to Clara, or turn her from the thing she was pursuing; but by speaking she might at least find out if Judge Buller himself were really her object. And Ella's wail of assured calamity, "Papa has always been so happy with me," touched her ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... army was destroyed, rendered Russian failure in the campaign inevitable. All the genius in the world, on that field of action, could not have done anything that should have compensated for so terrible a calamity. Zuerich saved France far more than did Marengo, and it is to be noted that it was fought and won by the oldest of all the able men who figure in history as Napoleon's Marshals. There were some of the Marshals who were older than Massena, but they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... evil beings whose proper home the Arali was, must convert even the human spirits into beings almost as noxious, for one or two passages appear to imply that they were afraid of ghosts, at least on one occasion it is threatened to send the dead back into the upper world, as the direst calamity that can ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... and women congregated in 1832! Something more than half of the people of the country were at the moment trying to elect the General to a second term as President, and something less than half were putting forth their best efforts to prevent such a "calamity." Three years of Jacksonian rule had seen the civil service revolutionized, the Cabinet banished from its traditional place in the governmental system, and the conduct of the executive branch given a wholly new character and bent. Internal improvements had been checked ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... not only be difficult but dangerous, if not altogether impossible. It was obviously evident that Mary Mahon had drawn her predictions from the same circumstances which led himself to similar conclusions; yet, notwithstanding all this, he felt that her words had thrown a foreshadowing of calamity and sorrow over his spirit, and he passed up to his own house in deep gloom and heaviness of heart. It is true he remembered that this same Mary Mahon belonged to a family that had been inimical to his house. She was a ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... distemper prevailed all Europe over; and our forefathers were by no means exempt, as appears by the large provision made for objects labouring under this calamity. There was an hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in London and Southwark, and perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... own part, it seemed to me as unreal as a nightmare that Captain Joseph Whidden actually had been shot dead by a band of Arab pirates. I was bewildered—indeed, stunned—by the incredible suddenness of the calamity. It was so complete, so appallingly final! To me, a boy still in his 'teens, that first intimate association with violent death would have been in itself terrible, and I keenly felt the loss of our chief mate. But Captain ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... his body became the victim of one calamity after another. Now his shoes pinched his feet and crippled him, and in a while he was seized with cramp pains in his breast, which bent him together twofold. But, as it was generally suspected by the corps that Jonathan was, at best, hen-hearted, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... large in nature an overwhelming proportion never develop at all. They dry up, are eaten by their enemies, find no suitable place or time for development and decay, or are overtaken by some other calamity. Of the animals which emerge from the remainder an overwhelming majority come to an untimely end within the first few days of life. Each has countless enemies which prey upon him, and these have scarcely devoured him before they themselves become the prey of some stronger creature. Until ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... gasping with terror. Tim, for it was none other, fell on his knees crying for mercy. "Whoever thou art," continued he, "come and help—help for one that's fa'n under a heavy calamity. Bad though he be, we maunna let him perish for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... uncle. 'It's the first time. Such a calamity never happened to me before. I'm an old man to begin.' Pushing up his spectacles again (for they were useless any longer to conceal his emotion), he covered his face with his hand, and sobbed aloud, and his tears fell down upon his ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... scito omnes fortes, ut mortem servituti anteponant, All brave men at arms (Tully holds) are so affected. [2193]Equidem ego is sum, qui servitutem extremum omnium malorum esse arbitror: I am he (saith Boterus) that account servitude the extremity of misery. And what calamity do they endure, that live with those hard taskmasters, in gold mines (like those 30,000 [2194]Indian slaves at Potosi, in Peru), tin-mines, lead-mines, stone-quarries, coal-pits, like so many mouldwarps under ground, condemned to the galleys, to perpetual drudgery, hunger, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... They retreated in disorder, abandoning their baggage and artillery, and throwing away their arms and accoutrements. The loss in this disastrous campaign was more than 900 men, of whom 600 were killed. This calamity spread terror throughout all the settlements as far as Pittsburg, and arrested for a time the migration ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Circumspection in calamity; mercy in greatness; good speeches in assemblies; fortitude in adversity: these are the self-attained ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... us! That would be a calamity!" exclaimed Captain Dinks; and, watching his opportunity, when the stern of the ship rose up in the air, he looked over the rail below. "It is really the case!" he said, in grave accents. "The rudder and rudder-post have both been carried away. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... dreary and death-like spirit which should breath in it. Upon the occasion we write of, nothing met you, go where you might, but suffering, and sorrow, and death, to which we may add, tumult, and crime, and bloodshed. Scarcely a family but had lost one or more. Every face you met was an index of calamity, and bore upon it the unquestionable impressions of struggle and hardship. Cheerfulness and mirth had gone, and were forgotten. All the customary amusements of the people had died away. Almost every house had a lonely and deserted look; for it was ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... evening I stole off to see her. I had no sooner set foot within the narrow court than it was apparent that something had gone wrong. There was a group of neighbors gathered round the door, conversing in a subdued tone, as if overtaken by a common calamity. They told me that my poor young friend was dying! Some one, at the very hour when I was in the shop of the unfeeling tailor, excusing the delinquency of his sick sewing-girl, had incautiously gone up into her chamber with the morning paper, and, in the absence of her mother, had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... visit which he was thus enabled to make, while recruiting himself among the good people of Taos, Kit Carson bent his way to his home at Rayado. He safely reached there and had but just dismounted at his own door, when he was informed of a recent calamity that had befallen himself and neighbors during his absence. It was the old story, viz. that the Indians had come in and boldly stole all the animals belonging to the settlement—At the time this ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... grouch," Pepper Sneed, seemed always to find some new objection to raise, or some dire calamity to predict. And as for Mr. Bunn, he made many protests at roles he ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... suggested, for he was disposed to believe that the widow had really lost her heart to her kind, eccentric champion), the result would probably be to confirm Malkin in his resolution of self-sacrifice. The man must be saved, if possible, from such calamity, and this would not be effected by merely demonstrating that he was on the highroad to ruin. It was necessary ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... which now amounted to at least seven thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... same truth by referring to a recent calamity in which eighteen men had been crushed by the fall of a tower. Their fate was not to be regarded as a sign of their special sinfulness, but as a warning to others that they would likewise suffer unless ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... Bryce hung up on the last call, a depressing sense of calamity, unsettlingly anti-climatic, began to press down on him. Pierce was talking about plans for the next week with an enthusiasm which should have ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... said, "ye are the victims of a terrible calamity that has robbed you at one cruel blow of your homes, and many of you of your families. But ye that have survived have duties to yourselves and to the future. In this hour of grief, despair not. There lies the fearful ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... delighted in the twelve-volume novels of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, it drove in coaches and six, at the rate of four miles an hour; when England luxuriated in those of Richardson, in eight, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlours, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of the Spectator, or a few pages of the Pilgrim's Progress, or a new sermon. To their unincidental lives, a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... and circulated over the country, as a thing "very meet and worthy to be remembered and made known unto the world." He began by considering the nature and greatness of the mischief of duelling. "It troubleth peace—it disfurnisheth war—it bringeth calamity upon private men, peril upon the state, and contempt upon the law. Touching the cause of it," he observed, "that the first motive of it, no doubt, is a false and erroneous imagination of honour and credit; but then, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... little distance from Versailles, and there he still remained. Recently his lucid intervals had become more frequent and prolonged; but trifles that sprang from his own mind, and which no care could prevent or detect, sufficed to renew his calamity in all its fierceness. At such times he required the most unrelaxing vigilance, for his madness ever took an alarming and ferocious character; and had he been left unshackled, the boldest and stoutest of the keepers would have dreaded to enter his ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... strange fires portend nations ruined and rulers overthrown, does it foretell my fate? I will think no more." (Alas! if by the Romans associated with the fall of Rienzi, that comet was by the rest of Europe connected with the more dire calamity of the Great Plague that so soon afterwards ensued.) As his eyes fell, they rested upon the colossal Lion of Basalt in the place below, the starlight investing its grey and towering form with a more ghostly whiteness; and then it was, that he perceived two figures in black ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... seven, which had experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which might alleviate the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial gardens were thrown open to the distressed multitude, temporary buildings were erected for their accommodation, and a plentiful supply of corn and provisions was distributed at a very moderate price. [29] The most generous policy seemed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... leads Rama to revisit the Dandaka forest, the scene of his former exile. The child of a Brahman dies suddenly and unaccountably. His body is laid at Rama's door. Evidently some national sin is the cause of such a calamity, and an aerial voice informs him that an awful crime is being perpetrated; for a Sudra, named Sambuka, is practising religious austerities, instead of confining himself to his proper vocation of waiting on the ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... in time to dress and to escort his sister to the church. It was not he, but Mrs. Durant, the companion and house-keeper, who first received a word of warning that things were not altogether as they should be. Others beside Lesley were scenting calamity in the air. Mrs. Romaine was to form one of the wedding-party. She made her appearance at a quarter to ten, beautifully dressed, but white to the very lips, and with a haggard look about her eyes. As soon as she entered the house she drew ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... that particular calamity. She herself looked wonderfully beautiful this evening. All three sisters were dressed very tastefully, and their hair was done with ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is a handicap to him, the poet's subjection to the mutability that governs the mundane sphere is less important, some persons would declare, in the matter of beauty and health than in the matter of sex. Can a poetic spirit overcome the calamity of being cast by Fate into ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... as to the method of promoting their welfare. The gentleman belongs to that school who believe that scarcity is a blessing, and that abundance should be prohibited by law. We belong to that school who believe that scarcity is a calamity to be avoided, and that abundance should be, if ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... enlightened enough to take a leading part in human affairs, to work towards the initiation and the organisation of this immense effort. In so far as the Great War of to-day acts as a spur to such effort it will not have been an unmixed calamity. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... was a mere heartbreaking scrap. She explained that our friend, abroad, had just settled down to it when interrupted by her mother's death, and that then, on his return, he had been kept from work by the engrossments into which that calamity was to plunge them. The opening pages were all that existed; they were striking, they were promising, but they didn't unveil the idol. That great intellectual feat was obviously to have formed his climax. She said nothing more, nothing to enlighten me as to the state of her own knowledge—the ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... latter, too, may regain their brightness and grow exultant if they are under prosperous conditions. As there is no evil however small but may cause him to groan under it, who has his heart undisciplined, so there is no calamity however great but may cause him to despair, who has his feelings in control. A laughing child would cry, a crying child would laugh, without a sufficient cause. 'It can be teased or tickled into anything.' A grown-up child is he who cannot hold ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... Lawrence Jewry, and the Deanery of Ripon, within a few years after his banishment from Cambridge. Preferment may not have brought him happiness, but it must have prevented his fortunes from being, as Pope says they were, "as low as they could be." He suffered indeed one calamity—a cruel one to a man of his pursuits and tastes: in the great fire of London the vicarage house of St Lawrence Jewry was burnt, and with it were destroyed his books and the collection of scientific instruments made during his residence at Oxford with the help of the ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... said ten thousand times; schools in which nothing was taught but what had been known for ages: such was the machinery provided for the government and instruction of the most enlightened part of the human race. That great community was then in danger of experiencing a calamity far more terrible than any of the quick, inflammatory, destroying maladies, to which nations are liable,—a tottering, drivelling, paralytic longevity, the immortality of the Struldbrugs, a Chinese civilisation. It would be easy to indicate many points of resemblance between ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to himself he looked about him and saw how great was the calamity that had befallen his army. For now there were left alive to him two only, Turpin the Archbishop and Walter of Hum. Walter had but that moment come down from the hills where he had been fighting so fiercely with the heathen that all his men were ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... those who feel them. I now heard a trampling over my head, and somebody calling through the hole with a loud voice in the English tongue. "If there be anybody below, let them speak." I answered I was an Englishman, drawn by ill fortune into the greatest calamity that ever any creature underwent, and begged by all that was moving to be delivered out of the dungeon I was in. The voice replied I was safe, for my box was fastened to their ship; and the carpenter should immediately come and saw ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... stayed with them until noon. He had been summoned just as he was sitting down to breakfast, and he had gone instantly, leaving Mary wringing her hands at the double distress of a dreadful calamity and Dr. Lavendar's going without his breakfast. When he saw William King ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... imperial crown" on, and "accorded it by favor" to Frederick, were mentioned, that monarch waited no longer, but collected a fresh army, and marched into Italy to chastise the pontiff, who, on hearing of his approach, and scared at the prospect of such a calamity, hastened to explain away his words as best he might. The emperor accepted his excuses, but as he was so far on the road, determined to attack Milan, whose inhabitants had increased the anger he already felt for them by rebuilding Tortona (which, as we know, he had totally ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... right to do wrong," said Bob. "Is it right to tell a lie that truth may come? Is it right to tell a lie to save any one from pain? Is it right to commit murder to save some one from an even greater calamity? That's nothing but the old Jesuit doctrine of the end justifying the means. But, Nancy, don't let's talk anything more about it. I am tired, weary of it! You love me, I love you. Can't you let me live my own ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... was the first Sally; she chose Susan Aurora, and Susan Aurora chose Hildegarde. Down went Hildegarde on the floor, and wept and wrung her hands so dramatically that the children paused in alarm, fearing that some real calamity had occurred. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... I met were the same faces I had passed by the thousand, stamped with the seal of the trail, seamed with lines of suffering, wan with fatigue, blank with despair. There was the same desperate hurry, the same indifference to calamity, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... strove to lighten his despondency, and at last, setting her woman's wit to work, hit on a plan whereby the threatened calamity might be averted. She set out to visit the wife of the rival architect, with whom she was intimate. The hostess greeted her effusively, and the ladies had a long chat over bygone times. More and more confidential did they become under the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... gracious Miss," said the caller, "that His Majesty would never permit a calamity so colossal to overtake his people, whose welfare he has continually and exclusively in his all-highest thoughts. Therefore you may take it from me as completely certain that war is ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... the roof. Bugle was answering bugle; and their tones were imperative and cruel, as if they were blown by evil spirits. It was impossible to avoid the feeling that the call was a PREDESTINED summons, full of the notes of calamity. She was weighed down by this sorrowful presentiment, because, as yet, neither experience nor years had taught her that PREDESTINED ILLS ARE ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... were carried through by an honest government in face of the most vehement opposition. Had the treaty been rejected, war with England would probably have followed, which would have been a profound calamity. While living in retirement, Hamilton was assailed by his Southern enemies, who were supported by their Northern allies, their object being to show that he had acted corruptly while at the head of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... turned back? Because the apostle of God said of him: 'If there were a prophet to be expected after me, it would be Omar, whose judgment agrees with the book of God.' The prophet said of him besides, 'If an [universal] calamity were to come from heaven upon mankind, Omar would escape from it.' Wherefore, if Omar prayed for thee, thou shalt not stay long for an answer from God." Abdallah told him that he had not spoken one ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... and the wind. Night-long, dream and reality mingle. You may wake from sleep to find yourself flying through a region where a forest fire has passed, a place of grey pine-trunks, stripped of foliage, occasionally waving a naked bough. They appear stricken by calamity, intolerably bare and lonely, gaunt, perpetually protesting, amazed and tragic creatures. We saw no actual fire the night I passed. But a little while after dawn we noticed on the horizon, fifteen miles away, an immense column of smoke. ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... melted from Bertha's countenance when the dull old nobleman was announced. She greeted him with an air of undisguised relief, as though she had been happily reprieved from an impending calamity. The lively warmth of her salutation attracted the marquis to her side, and he remained fascinated to the spot for the rest of the evening. The countess was too thoroughly well-bred to allow herself to look annoyed, or, even in secret, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... St. Nicholas' Church Spire; Dreadful calamity; Riots at the Theatre Royal; Half-price or Full Price; Incendiary Placards; Disgraceful Proceedings; Trials of the rioters; Mr. Statham, Town Clerk; Attempts at Compromise; Result ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... to stare at Stas lying there, with hatred but with a certain wonder that one small boy might have been the cause of their calamity and destruction. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he labored for the public good, the fortitude with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with his country and his fame." Notice the last sentence of a delightful essay by George William Curtis; one could easily ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... obliged to return to school, and following swift on the heels of this dire occasion came a yet more lamentable one when Uncle Frederick Dillingham was forced to go back to his ship and sail for China. The latter calamity entirely overshadowed the former and was a very real blow not only to Mulberry Court, where the captain had become an object of universal pride and affection, but also to the Harling family who had come to depend on his daily visits ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... was once greatly agitated. Loud groans and noises were heard; and crowds of people came from all parts to see what was the matter. While they were assembled in anxious expectation of some terrible calamity, out came ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... in the woods of Kamyaka. And, O exalted one, many Munis had come there to behold the high-souled Yudhishthira, dwelling in an ascetic asylum, clad in deer-skin and wearing matted locks. It was there, O king of kings, that I heard of the grave error committed by thy sons and the calamity and terrible danger arisen from dice that had overtaken them. Therefore, it is that I have come to thee, for the good of the Kauravas, since, O exalted one, my affection is great for thee and I am delighted with thee! O king, it is ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... by a heavy blow. She had not really believed that a calamity she so much dreaded, would overtake her, and the fact that it had, paralyzed her faculties. Thinking her in a fit of stubbornness Mrs. Atherton said no more, but busied herself in packing her scanty wardrobe, feeling occasionally a twinge of remorse as she bent over the little ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... quoth he, "that it is not as warm as it was, and my friend the Bear at my right hand (here the bear sitting on his hind legs nodded his head and growled,) tells me that it will grow much colder even. It would be a great calamity to all of us, and I have called you together that we may confer as to the best means of avoiding this severe cold that is to come, which my friend the Bear (another growl) calls by the name of winter. You are at liberty to ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... great depression and was haunted by a foreboding of calamity. She lived very quietly. In his "Storia della Pittura Veneziana," Zanetti writes of her at this time: "Much of interest may be written of this celebrated and highly gifted woman, whose spirit, in the midst of her triumphs and the brightest visions of happiness, was weighed down ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... alone, or calamity will overtake you; and what is much more important, they will be annoyed with me. I am too fat, alas! to be worried by bad boys. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... upon it," he added, "that, until fathers act thoroughly up to their duty, we shall see the sights we see in great cities, and hear the tales we hear in little villages, with death and calamity in our homes, and a legacy of sorrow and shame to the generations to come. I do aver," he exclaimed, becoming excited, "that, if it were not for the duty to my son, and the hope I cherish in him, I, seeing the accumulation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perverseness, for in these cases the Senate dissolves the marriage and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the guilty are made infamous and are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons, for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons when they need most the tender care of their consort, and that chiefly in the case of old age, which, as it carries many ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... it all, Harry," said the doctor's wife, and there was a tear in her eye, too, which was an unusual sight, for she was not an emotional woman. "I do not know as it was such a great calamity, after all, to lose Brindle just as we did, for Daisy is a finer cow than her mother was, and there has not been another chance since to get as ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... slowly. "Yes, there's Tressa." A chivalry he would never have acknowledged had been thrusting the girl more and more into the foreground. From the ordinary perils of isolation father and lover might defend her, but in the great calamity that Blue Pete knew was planned to overwhelm her two protectors she ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... before all things 'tis my desire to ask thee a question. 'Twas my wont to place an old copper lamp in such a part of my pavilion, what became of that same?" When the Princess heard these words she sighed and cried, "O my dearling, 'twas that very Lamp which garred us fall into this calamity!" Alaeddin asked her, "How befel the affair?" and she answered by recounting to him all that passed, first and last, especially how they had given in exchange an old lamp for a new lamp, adding, "And next day we hardly saw one another at dawn before we found ourselves ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... steps to Buffalo, skirting, for some distance, the shores of Lake Erie. At Cattaraugus they were the guests, for one night, of the Seneca Indians. They felt some anxiety in reference to their baggage, the loss of which, in those distant regions, would have been a serious calamity. The chief, perceiving their solicitude, said that he would be personally responsible for every article which might be committed to his care, but for nothing else. After a little reflection, the duke placed in his hands saddles, bridles, blankets, clothes, and money—every thing, except a beautiful ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... for the constant sound of the goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was—the one weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard it said that they had ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... duty and affection toward her majesty, and because, when so many veins of blood are opened, it is uncertain how they may be stayed, and what wilt be the event thereof.".... The hand ready on the block to be stricken off, he said often to the people: "Pray for me now my calamity is at hand." And so, with these words, it was ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... chair fifteen years, from 468 to 483; and such was the outlook presented to him in the East and West—an outlook of ruin, calamity, and suffering in those vast provinces which make our present Europe—an outlook of anxiety with a prospect of ever-increasing evil in the yet surviving eastern empire. There was not then a single ruler holding the Catholic faith. Basiliscus and Zeno were not ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... spirits, hitherto arming him with fortitude, began to forsake him. Taken captive once again upon the very brink of reaching his goal, poor Israel was on the eve of falling into helpless despair. But he rallied, and considering that grief would only add to his calamity, sought with stubborn patience to habituate himself to misery, but still hold aloof from despondency. He roused himself, and began to bethink him how to ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... and is only too apt to disregard the supposition of crude curiosity. He knows that it is only natural that people, forewarned by the scarcity of autographs of Shakespeare, should be anxious to safeguard posterity against a similar calamity. But that any author should have humour enough to see the absurdity of the autograph mania, this is what his fair clientele has not humour enough to understand. Anthony Hope—who, by the way, told me he had received a letter from an unknown lady, the object of which ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... mother when she received the terrible news. Of course the accident was the theme of conversation, and Rita was in deep trouble. Even Mrs. Bays was moved by the calamity that had befallen the man whose face, since his early boyhood, had been familiar in her own house. At first Rita made no ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... could ride down a hill on a bicycle; on that occasion she went to a hospital, now she's gone into a Sisterhood—lost all she had, you know, and gave the rest to Heaven. Still, you can't call it a sudden calamity; that occurred when poor dear Marion was born. The doctors said at the time that she couldn't live more than a fortnight, and she's been trying ever since to see if she ...
— Reginald • Saki
... cat—and cats of any kind are bad enough—and certainly he guessed that the cat under control of its master was one, and away from that questionable influence likely to be another, and very much worse, calamity. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... in a few days removing from their present habitation, to a haunt to which they were accustomed, in a distant county. If I did not propose to continue with them, it would perhaps be wrong to accompany them in this removal. The state of calamity to which my inexorable prosecutor had reduced me, had made the encounter even of a den of robbers a fortunate adventure. But the time that had since elapsed, had probably been sufficient to relax the keenness of the quest that was made ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... a superstition in Russia that if three lighted candles are placed upon a table some one in the room will die within a year. Everybody endeavors to avoid such a calamity. If you have two candles and order another, the servant will place the third on a side table or he will bring a fourth and make your number an ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... a long life, it may be no irremediable calamity if a Prince of great powers of mind and warm domestic affections is permitted by Providence to end his days in ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... it was hers for whose protection he had prayed. When she entered, she threw down her arms and doffed her hauberk and veil. So Hasan did the like and looking at his companion, saw her to be a grizzled old woman blue-eyed and big-nosed, a calamity of calamities, the foulest of all created things, with face pock-marked and eyebrows bald, gap-toothed and chap-fallen, with hair hoary, nose running and mouth slavering;[FN123] even as saith the like ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... interruption—no, I will not ask your pardon: it is never an interruption to bring good news from the King to his subjects. I will not weary you with a long presentation; I have only this message: you are all invited to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved from every possible calamity; you are all invited to come now. I am going to ask the Tennesseeans to sing one of ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... spent in Leghorn, he was in brilliant spirits, to him a sure prognostic of coming evil." I may add, that I have been on terms of intimacy with various persons who entertained a dread of finding themselves in good spirits, from a strong conviction that some calamity would be sure to befall them. This is a curious psychological question, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... distressing to all our fellow-citizens, must be peculiarly heavy to you, who have long been associated with him in deeds of patriotism. Permit us, sir, to mingle our tears with yours. On this occasion it is manly to weep. To lose such a man at such a crisis is no common calamity to the world. Our country mourns a father. The Almighty Disposer of human events has taken from us our greatest benefactor and ornament. It becomes us to submit with reverence to Him 'who ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... is temperamental. There is an impression that the man truly brave is he who can face sudden, unexpected misfortune or calamity without a tremor or a flicker to suggest his hurt. That is but a single phase and indicative of physical rather than moral qualities; or, perhaps, merely the callousness born of long exposure to danger. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... demonstrated possibilities that science has scarce dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with it animated a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand men. That two lives will be snuffed out is nothing to the world calamity that entombs in the bowels of the earth the discoveries that I have made and proved in the successful construction of the thing that is now carrying us farther and farther toward the ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... less able to profit by the meritorious features and at the same time withstand the weakening influences attendant upon the system. Indeed, I think its adoption in the secondary schools would be nothing short of a calamity. Another reason why I feel impelled to speak is that reference is made in Mr. Secor's article to the working of the system in the institution with which I am connected as "highly satisfactory." In justice to the ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... discovered that I was rapidly becoming snow blind. My eyes, which had been considerably injured already by the sharp sleet of the evening before, were further affected by the glare of the snow, and I was fast losing all distinctness of vision. I first learned the extent of this new calamity when endeavouring, with the earliest light, to look at my watch. It was a work of great difficulty to get it out of my pocket; and when this was done, I found that I could not tell the face from the back. The whole thing was hazy and indistinct, and I can only describe it as looking like an orange ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... the Christian Church, which subjected transgressors to various penalties. Consequently this mode of worship came into evil repute; and what was formerly considered a meritorious action, securing the cure of disease or future happiness, became a deed of evil, to be followed by some calamity. For this reason the primitive symbolism was reversed in many cases, such as "passing under a ladder," which is now considered unlucky; or in Eastern lands going between a wall and a pole, between two women or two dogs, which the Talmud forbids as ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... a conflict of arms, between the Union and one of its members, whether terminating in victory or defeat, would be but an alternative of calamity to all. In the holy records of antiquity, we have two examples of a confederation ruptured by the severance of its members; one of which resulted, after three desperate battles, in the extermination of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... procession there died in one hour's time fourscore of those who assisted at it. But St. Gregory did not forbear to exhort the people, and to pray till such time as the distemper ceased.[12] During the public calamity, St. Gregory seemed to have forgot the danger he was in of being exalted to the pontifical throne; for he feared as much to lose the security of his poverty as the most avaricious can do to lose their treasures. He had been informed that his letters to Constantinople had been intercepted; wherefore, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... thou art to lose? And is the present fortune dear unto thee, of whose stay thou art not sure, and whose departure will breed thy grief? And if she can neither be kept at our will, and maketh them miserable whom she at last leaveth, what else is fickle fortune but a token of future calamity? For it is not sufficient to behold that which we have before our eyes; wisdom pondereth the event of things, and this mutability on both sides maketh the threats of fortune not to be feared, nor her flatterings to be desired. Finally, thou must take in good part whatsoever ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... itself a most consolatory prospect; it at all events prevents the present good from being embittered with any dread of future evil; it permits the industrious man the tranquil enjoyment of the fruits of his labours, and rescues him from the necessity of hoarding up against the approach of gathering calamity, against the stormy season of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... surround you? Ye are pleased to think us beautiful, and it may be that we are; but remember that ye see us in one of our pleased, pleasant, and happy, moments. Wait till an accident or misfortune happens, till want or calamity come, or contradiction ensue, or some of the crosses which belong to human life, as clouds and tempests to the constitution of nature, assail us. But, if you think your love could survive the hurricanes which will visit your dwellings when we are stormy; if you can bear to see ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Mainwaring's young brother should contemplate his death with satisfaction. Nevertheless, some time afterwards Miss Macy remarked that it seemed hard that the happiness of one member of a family should depend upon a calamity to another. "As for instance?" asked Mainwaring, who had already forgotten the circumstance. "Why, if you had died and your younger brother succeeded to the baronetcy, and become Sir Robert Mainwaring," responded Miss Macy, with precision. This was the first ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte |
