"Disastrous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passengers sailed for Cape Town on what proved to be my last voyage (excepting the return trip) as a ship-master. We had rough weather most of the way out, and a long passage, but nothing occurred which would interest you now. The season was a disastrous one to shipping on that route, and before leaving the Cape I had the vessel thoroughly overhauled, and was fortunate enough to secure three or four good seamen to make up a full crew. My first officer was an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Stock Exchange," the "Mining Board," the now obsolete "Petroleum Board," and the "Government Board." All sorts of stocks are bought and sold in this building. "Erie" and "Pacific Mail" are the most attractive to the initiated, and the most disastrous ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... for them to hold the rest of the Louisiana territory. If his fierce and irritable vanity had been touched he might, through mere wayward anger, have dared the Americans to a contest which, however disastrous to them, would ultimately have been more so to him; but he was a great statesman, and a still greater soldier, and he did not need to be told that it would be worse than folly to try to keep a country when he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... believe her mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches, without weakening or too much disheartening; and, in that case, the longer she lives the better she will grow. A hopeful point in all her writings is the scarcity of false French sentiment; I wish I could say its absence; but the weed flourishes here and there, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that was the reason why they intended to print on the notes "Proletariat of all lands, unite," so that the counter-revolutionaries, unable to tolerate money bearing that hated phrase, should be forced to a step disastrous for themselves. ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... this undertaking, these were not, however, without remedy, nor once to be compared with such as attend the slightest reformation in public affairs. Large bodies, if once overthrown, are with great difficulty set up again, or even kept erect when once seriously shaken, and the fall of such is always disastrous. Then if there are any imperfections in the constitutions of states (and that many such exist the diversity of constitutions is alone sufficient to assure us), custom has without doubt materially smoothed their inconveniences, and has even managed to steer altogether clear of, or insensibly ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... have his share in the philanthropic enterprise, and demurred considerably to the proposal; he yielded, however, after a time, to Servadac's representations that in the event of the expedition proving disastrous, the little colony would need his services alike as governor and protector, and overcoming his reluctance to be left out of the perilous adventure, was prevailed upon to remain behind for the general good of the community ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... some weeks after the citizens of London had seen their gallant king, at the head of such forces as were collected in haste in the metropolis, depart from their walls to the encounter of the rebels. Surprising and disastrous had been the tidings in the interim. At first, indeed, there were hopes that the insurrection had been put down by Montagu, who had defeated the troops of Robin of Redesdale, near the city of York, and was said to have beheaded their leader. But the spirit of discontent was only fanned by ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Alkali Dick was haled before a respectable magistrate by a serious policeman, and fined as if he had been only a drunken coster. A later attempt at Paris to "incarnadine" the neighborhood of the Champs de Mars, and "round up" a number of boulevardiers, met with a more disastrous result,—the gleam of steel from mounted gendarmes, and a mandate to ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the Northern Nut Growers' Association came upon my intellectual horizon. From it I have learned how to graft the walnut, the pecan and other hickories, and I have again started in on the English walnut, using the Mayette, Franquette, and several of the eastern seedlings. After the usual disastrous failures at top-working, I was this June in such a large condition of hope that I was in serious need of being hooped to keep myself down to normal size. Such artificial aids to the maintenance of normal size ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... evacuations every day. There are few persons who have not suffered at some period of their lives from constipation of the bowels. Inattentive to the calls of nature, or a neglect to regularly attend to this important duty, sooner or later, produces disastrous results. Furthermore, it is essential to the comfort of every individual, for, when this function is not performed, there is derangement of the mental as well as of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... under a general shout of acclamation from those who had fought under them. It was answered by a universal cry of joy from De Lacy's army, which rung so wide, as might even yet have startled such of the Welsh fugitives, as, far distant from this disastrous field of flight, might have ventured to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Disastrous floods can scarcely occur on the St. John's, St. Croix, Penobscot, Kennebec, Androscoggin, Saco, Piscataqua, Merrimack, Connecticut, or Hudson Rivers, except from damming of the ice in winter or springtime (and that cause ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... "I can be satisfied with the mossgrown bark which has grown tender beneath the caress of the snows and which wintry dawns have made fragrant. More than once have I satisfied my hunger with it during these disastrous days when the briars have turned into rose-colored crystals, and when the agile wagtail utters its shrill cry toward the larvae which its beak can no longer reach beneath the ice along the banks. I shall continue to gnaw these barks. For, Oh Francis, ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... they had suffered cruel hurt, after a retreat unmolested it is true, but none the less disastrous and involving the loss of all their siege train, several of the leaders were, like the Maid, inclined to attempt a new assault. Others would not hear of it. While they were disputing, they beheld a baron coming towards them and with him ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... individual competitions in the green fields, which our schools and universities have developed to such perfection. In classes which have small opportunities for physical exercises, vicarious athletics, with not a little betting, are a disastrous substitute. But the soul is dyed the colour of its leisure thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." This is why no change in the curriculum can do much for education, as long as the pupils imbibe no respect for intellectual values at home, ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... His scenes are commonly 'road-side inns, hunts, fights;' but along with an inclination to adopt a higher class of actors—knights and ladies, instead of peasants—there is a more refined treatment and a dash of tenderness and melancholy—the last possibly born of his own disastrous fortunes. In his love of horses and dogs, as adjuncts to his groups, he had as great a fondness for a special white horse, as Paul Potter had for black ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... not without first gaining possession of the letter. It would be impossible to bear the strain, especially with the accompaniment of the dread of its being discovered and placing information which might prove disastrous to his father in the hands of ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... had increased with years and assumed a very dangerous form. He became indiscreet, and, more disastrous still, he told lies! The very dead—the honored and irreproachable dead—were not even safe in their graves. It was his ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... vessel became practically unmanageable and wallowed in the midst of the sea.[716] Though they had labored through the night they had progressed less than four miles on their course; to turn and run before the wind would have been to invite disastrous wreck; their sole hope lay in their holding the vessel to the wind by sheer power of muscle. Jesus, in His place of solitary retirement, was aware of their sad plight, and along in the fourth watch,[717] that is, between three and six o'clock ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... ignominy about that period. A deed of infamous injustice and cruelty had been perpetrated, and the perpetrators, instead of being punished, had received applause and promotion; so if the British expedition to Sebastopol was a disastrous and ignominious one, who can wonder? Was it likely that the groans of poor Parry would be unheard from the corner to which he had retired to hide his head by "the Ancient of days," who sits above the cloud, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... only immediate course of action open seems to be to seek, if possible, to diminish the frequency of war by subduing nations which start wars and, by the organization of a League to Enforce Peace; to avoid war-provoking conquests; to diminish as much as possible the disastrous effects of war when it does come, and to work for the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge which will eventually make possible the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... dead! In hospitals—as in the best of well-regulated families—mistakes will sometimes happen. The report which had proved so disastrous to our poor hero referred to another woman who had died. A messenger had been at once sent, by the young surgeon before mentioned, to tell Jack of the error; but when the messenger arrived the boy had flown—as already described. Indeed, it was he whom Jack ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... I prithee not so loud. But you alone Are cognizant of my disastrous state. My name is good. Perchance I may obtain A temporary loan to tide me through. But if my losses come to other ears Before my kinsmen and my ship arrive A bankrupt's ending stares me in the face. Wait, wait Antonio, surely he will come, My cousin Issachar ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... victory over General Hawley at the battle of Falkirk, and of the jealousies and machinations of Secretary Murray and the Irish Prince's advisers, particularly O'Sullivan and Sir Thomas Sheridan, against Lord George Murray and the chiefs, I can here make no mention, but come at once to the disastrous battle of Culloden which put a period to our hopes. A number of unfortunate circumstances had conspired to weaken us. According to the Highland custom, many of the troops, seeing no need of their immediate ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... ten racers, numbered by lot, were dispatched between eight o'clock and twenty minutes past. Unless there was some disastrous accident, some of these machines would surely arrive at the goal by eleven o'clock. The others followed ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... commenced to eagerly take out, one at a time. He was careful how he handled them, as though fearful lest he might toss the silver watch out, to land on the floor with disastrous results. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... others sought to diminish the leak by stretching a sail across the gap, while the passengers hurried, some one way, and some another, as if in a state of frenzy. To seek assistance from the propeller, even if she might not be in as disastrous a condition as themselves, was out of the question; for both vessels being under full headway at the moment of the collision, she was now again enveloped in fog. Oh, God! must it be thus? no escape for these three hundred beings? ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... fright at the sight of the pistol Sir Richard had produced, had forestalled what he supposed to be the baronet's intentions by firing instantly upon him, with this disastrous result. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... lads were eating they had to give further details of the disastrous flight. Doctor Wallington ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... reference of course to hymns only. It cannot escape the attention of any one that the modern church music has for one chief differentiation the profuse employment of pathetic chords, the effect of which is often disastrous ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... all such practices, instead of being encouraged, should be discouraged; and all experienced and intelligent students of psychical research warn those who "dabble" in the subject against the repeated and promiscuous indulgence in such practices—because of the dangerous, even disastrous, effects upon the mind, ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... owing in part to national temperament. But similar effects have been wrought, by similar causes, among the slower and cooler English, with whom commercial disturbances have been as numerous and as disastrous as among the French, only that they have been distributed over wider spaces of time, and controlled by the more sluggish and conservative habits of the nation. Some twenty years before Law made his approaches to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... less than a minute. The negro was now roused into a condition of maniacal fury; he gnashed his teeth like a wild beast, and brandished his knife, while uttering fearful threats. The issue of the contest would probably have been disastrous, but for the opportune arrival of assistance. Hearing the tramp of horses' hoofs upon the road, the negro desisted from his attack, and sprang into the forest. A couple of horsemen turning the corner of the road, our travellers ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... and home in the Highlands did this disastrous, though glorious intelligence, bring desolation and mourning; and amongst those on whom it brought these dismal effects, was M'Pherson ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... in a pound of butter." Many cleverish trainers, and still more ambitious backers of the "Corinthian Jay" species, have had a shy, professionally or monetarily, at the "Woolwich Whopper," and invariably with disastrous results. The "W.W.," though big enough in all conscience, is not of sound constitution, nor of the true wear-and-tear sort, is very difficult (and expensive) to train, and when brought fairly up to the scratch is certain to go bang to pieces after the first few rounds, if ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... of South Australia was undertaken to test Wakefield's theory; but instead of turning their land to good account the colonists left it idle, hoping to sell at a high price. The result was disastrous. ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... under the pressure of the events they indicate, after a residence in Italy of so many years that the present triumph of great principles is heightened to the writer's feelings by the disastrous issue of the last movement, witnessed from "Casa Guidi Windows" in 1849. Yet, if the verses should appear to English readers too pungently rendered to admit of a patriotic respect to the English sense of things, I will not excuse myself on such grounds, nor on the ground of my attachment to ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... victory went up from the revolutionists when they saw the havoc caused by the awful bomb. The yellow-haired girl returned again, and brought another, which, after some ten minutes or so, was similarly hurled against the troops, with equally disastrous effect. ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... pillow-slips, spreads, table-cloths, and napkins. This finished, they buckled down to "fancy starch." It was slow work, fastidious and delicate, and Martin did not learn it so readily. Besides, he could not take chances. Mistakes were disastrous. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... a half we walked briskly and talked along lines usually self-revealing; and by the time the hotel was again reached I was quite satisfied concerning a complicated situation that needed skilful steering to avoid a dangerous and disastrous smash-up. ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... girls, whose proper mates will perish in camp-hospitals or on Southern battle-fields, would avoid their doom of forlorn old-maidenhood. But, no doubt, the plan will be pooh-poohed down by the War Department; though it could scarcely be more disastrous than the one on which we began the war, when a young army was struck with paralysis through the age ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... with the eye of prejudice.[16] It took a different view of the enterprise of the foreign speculator and merchant; this it regarded with an air of easy indifference. Their wealth was a pillar on which the State might lean in times of emergency, but, until the disastrous effects of commercial enterprise on foreign policy were more clearly seen, it was considered to be no business of the government either to help or to hinder the wealthy and enterprising Roman in his dealings with the peoples of the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... when growing, when they are in the infancy of vegetation, as when they have attained maturity and are fit for the sickle. Some other expedient, therefore, would still be necessary to guard against those inundations which may happen at such disastrous periods; and there is but one that will be found sufficient at all times and under all circumstances. It is to encourage by artificial means, the growth of corn so far beyond what is necessary for the bare purposes of food, that in years of scarcity, whether arising from flood or drought, these ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... might venture to say so, some of their lecturers, though primed with the right lecture, might not be such experts that they could answer every question, and plainly failure to satisfy a questioner might be disastrous. But questions could be written and replies given at the next lecture. He thought, smiling, that some of them ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... suggestion then made was that there should be a policy of distinct customs and excise for Ireland as apart from Great Britain. This would involve a customs barrier between the two islands. The inconvenience of such a course would be immeasurable and disastrous under modern conditions. It would certainly come sooner or later under Home Rule, but it would be a reversal of the policy of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... failure, from having read before the most elect assembly of the country a poem which would hardly have served the careless needs of an informal dinner after the speaking had begun; he took the whole disastrous business lightly, gayly, leniently, kindly, as that golden temperament of his enabled him to take all the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pad-nag, who ambled placidly along, without so much as hinting at an outbreak into a canter; a performance that, as it seemed, might have been attended with disastrous consequences to his rider. Our hero noticed, that the trio of undergraduates who were walking before him, while they passed others, who were evidently dons, without the slightest notice (being in mufti), yet not only raised their hats to the stout gentleman, but also separated ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... tower. His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than Archangel ruined, and th' excess Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone Above them all th' Archangel: but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... entertainer's birthday, and that the whole circle of the neighbouring nobles and gentlemen had been for the last month invited. There were to be private theatricals, followed by a ball and supper. The whole country continued to pour in. Full of my disastrous intelligence, my first enquiry was for the noble host; he was not to be seen. I was at length informed under the seal of secrecy by his secretary, that some information of popular movements within a few miles, having ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... hereditary in the family of the basket-maker. It belonged to his wife. She might not be competent, but the office was hers, anyway. Her pay was not high—25 cents for a boy, and half as much for a girl. The girl was not desired, because she would be a disastrous expense by and by. As soon as she should be old enough to begin to wear clothes for propriety's sake, it would be a disgrace to the family if she were not married; and to marry her meant financial ruin; for by custom the father must spend upon feasting and wedding-display ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... channels, once made, will be enlarged by the permeating water, and a mere cupful of water forced into a dyke by the great pressure of a heavy column has an expansive power quite out of proportion to the quantity forced in. Colossal dykes have been burst in this way with disastrous effects. Indeed, it is only a question of time, and I would not guarantee your dyke twelve hours. It is full, too, with the ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Antelope—he who had been believed the favorite of the gods of war. It was suggested by some envious ones that perhaps he had recognized the strongly entrenched position of the three tribes, and believing the battle would be a disastrous one, had set out for home without making his report. But this supposition was not deemed credible. On the other hand, the idea was entertained that he had reentered the village, was detected and slain; and therefore the enemy was on the lookout when ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... was then in Japan and must shortly rejoin his Indian regiment. Besides, if Bertram were blameless, it would be a cruel blow for him to find that his father had suspected him of a shameful deed, while if he were guilty, something must be done. This would probably lead to a disastrous change in their relations and compel Bertram to leave the army. Though the suspense was hard to bear, Challoner, as Mrs. Chudleigh had foreseen, was beginning to feel afraid to learn the truth and ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... and they were still pulling at no great distance from the Maud for the shore. Louis appeared at the door of the pilot-house very promptly; for he imagined that his presence before the wounded man was not agreeable to him, and that it emphasized in his mind the disastrous failure of his expedition to ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... General Scott told him, Cameron, that he, Scott, never in his life was more pained than when a Virginian reminded him of his paramount duties to his State. I take note of this declaration, as it corroborates what a year ago I said in this diary concerning the disastrous ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... on his friend, told him instead, going into all the details of the conspiracy that had now proved so disastrous. Doctor Barnes frowned in resentment ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... that I shall speak for many other Europeans in this matter, that what we feared most in the United States was levity. We expected mere excitement, violent fluctuations of opinion, a confused irresponsibility, and possibly mischievous and disastrous interventions. It is no good hiding an open secret. We judged America by the peace headline. It is time we began to offer our apologies to America and democracy. The result of reading endless various American newspapers and articles, of following the actions ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... have ensued? Or if he had triumphed, all France would have exclaimed against him as sanguinary and selfish, a bad prince, a scourge to the nation, and ere many months a new insurrection would have made an end. Victory would have been more disastrous than exile. He had done well to abdicate, and were the crisis to recur, he would not act otherwise. He had abandoned power (of which he was accused of being so greedy) as soon as he understood that he could no longer hold it to the advantage ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... incapable of doing anything to advance his own fortunes. The de la Barcas had once possessed great wealth in land in the country, and, I have heard, descended from an ancient noble family of Spain. During the long, disastrous wars this country has suffered, when it was conquered in turn by England, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and the Argentines, the family became impoverished, and at last appeared to be dying out. The last of the de la Barcas was Basilio, and the evil destiny which had pursued all of that ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... He was at least keeping them straight. And in the circumstances straightness was to be preferred to distance. Soon after leaving Little Hadley he had become ambitious and had used his brassey with disastrous results, slicing his fifty-third into the rough on the right of the road. It had taken him ten with the niblick to get back on to the car tracks, and this had ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... had passed away since the disastrous ride, and Forester being none the worse for his mishap, Mr Huntingdon allowed Walter to exercise him occasionally, accompanied by Dick, who had been fully restored to favour. It was on a lovely summer afternoon that the two ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... of Essling was disastrous in every respect. Twelve thousand Frenchmen were slain; and the source of all this trouble was the destruction of the bridges, which could have been prevented, it seems to me, for the same accident had ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... centuries before had dwelt in Cuzco, again determined to make the attempt to reestablish themselves there. An earthquake, which ruined many buildings in Cuzco, caused rivers to change their courses, destroyed towns, and was followed by the outbreak of a disastrous epidemic. The chiefs were obliged to give up their plans, although in healthy Tampu-tocco there was no pestilence. Their kingdom became more and more crowded. Every available square yard of arable land was terraced and cultivated. The men were intelligent, well organized, and ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... that was trained on Earth, would result in an instant change taking place in my body as it lay in the laboratory, and this would be disastrous. It was only the regenerating properties of the super-radium current that kept it in a state acceptable to my return, and the delicate mechanism of this instrument was regulated so as to keep the current exactly in position, as long as that part of the Earth's ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... O'Neale took Roscrea, and, as Carte says, "put man, woman, and child to the sword, except Sir George Hamilton's lady, sister to the Marquis of Ormond, and some few gentlewomen whom he kept prisoners." No family suffered more in those disastrous times than the house of Ormond. Lady Hamilton died in August, 1680, as appears from an interesting and affecting letter of her brother, the Duke of Ormond, dated Carrick, August 25th. He had lost his noble son, Lord ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... falling among us—and there were some narrow escapes. She calmly forced her way down the pier for nearly a hundred yards, literally crunching and smashing it up into fragments, and sweeping the whole away. I looked back on the disastrous course, and saw the whole clear behind us! As we gazed on this sudden wreck, I am ashamed to say there was a roar of laughter, for never was a surprise of so bewildering a character sprung upon human nature. The faces of ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... fellow-citizens of the North. They ruled in Congress, dominated over the press and the pulpit, and, ambitious to extend their dominion, demanded larger territory for the extension of the slave system. When this was refused, they set up an independent standard and brought on the war. The end was disastrous to the South. The capitalists were well-nigh ruined and the slaves ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... the men devoted to them, was no easy matter, and it was not wonderful that the campaigns in Virginia marked few successes for the Federals. At length the long series of failures ended with a second, and for the Federals, disastrous, battle of Bull Run. This was followed two days later by the battle of Chantilly, after which the whole Federal ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... price; and American manufacturers seemed too busy in providing goods for home use to seriously try for business in Asia—they booked orders coming practically unsought, that was about all. The Chino-Japanese conflict of a dozen years ago, although disastrous to China's army, stimulated the absorbing power of the Chinese for goods of western manufacture, and Germany sold her wares ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... the market may be a calamity as disastrous as the French retreat from Moscow; but it hardly lends itself to lively treatment, and makes a trifling figure in the morning papers. We may struggle as we please, we are not born economists. The individual is more affecting ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... song, done by any one less subtly, less completely, and less sincerely an artist, would lead us, I am afraid, into something more disastrous than even the official concert, with its rigid persons in evening dress holding sheets of music in their tremulous hands, and singing the notes set down for them to the best of their vocal ability. Madame Georgette Leblanc is an exceptional artist, and she has made an art ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... amendments taken one by one gained wide acceptance among economists. But when it came to embodying them in a general theory of economics, many economists have balked.[33] Most of the American texts in economics and much of our teaching show disastrous effects of this confusion and irresolution. The newer concepts, guardedly admitted to have some validity, appear again and again in the troubled discussions of recent textbook writers, which usually end with a rejection, "on the whole," of the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... once obeyed, and standing huddled together, awaited further developments. Most of the men had no heart for any opposition, even if they had the opportunity. They had been promised plenty of rum, a good time, and no end of fun with the Loyalists. Such a disastrous outcome as this had been far from their minds. The Indians now realised that they had been led into a trap, and their hearts were full of rage, more against their leaders than their captors. But Flazeet and Rauchad were not in ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... him, he would lie, betray, overreach, change sides, and think it no sin. He was the sharpest of men. Sharp practice, in our modern sense of the word, was the very element in which he floated. Any scholar knows it. In the grand times of Marathon and Salamis, down to the disastrous times of the Peloponnesian war and the thirty tyrants, no public man's hands were clean, with the exception, perhaps, of that Aristides, who was banished because men were tired of hearing him called the Just. The exciting cause of the Peloponnesian ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... that he had a fire ship, which he would tow as close as possible to the fleets of his enemies, both to draw their fire and kindle a more disastrous one. What appeared to be its crew were logs of wood, placed upright between the bulwarks, each log surmounted by a hat. As to fire, it is recorded that Teach, or Blackbeard, now and then shut himself into his cabin and burned sulphur to prove to his crew that he was ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... of age at the death of that prince [567], and as soon as that event was made public, he went out to the cohort on guard between the hours of six and seven; for the omens were so disastrous, that no earlier time of the day was judged proper. On the steps before the palace gate, he was unanimously saluted by the soldiers as their emperor, and then carried in a litter to the camp; thence, after making a short speech to the troops, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... you are, dear!" John Martin said. "Wonderfully attractive! and none knows it better than yourself. But in this case you must think of consequences—consequences that might be disastrous to us all! Confound it all, who's this? What on earth does ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... suicide. Another is the juvenility of Mildred:—a serious infraction of dramatic law, where the mere tampering with history, as in the circumstances of King Victor's death in the earlier play, is at least excusable by high precedent. More disastrous, poetically, is the ruinous banality of Mildred's anticlimax when, after her brother reveals himself as her lover's murderer, she, like the typical young Miss Anglaise of certain French novelists, betrays her incapacity for true passion by exclaiming, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... citizens increased, the restrictions were defended with even more vigor. In Massachusetts, the great Webster upheld the rights of property in government, saying: "It is entirely just that property should have its due weight and consideration in political arrangements.... The disastrous revolutions which the world has witnessed, those political thunderstorms and earthquakes which have shaken the pillars of society to their deepest foundations, have been revolutions against property." ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... of some length in the summer of 1826 to London and Paris for materials. The feat was accomplished by a rigid system of 'so much per day'—by dint of which, no doubt, an amount of work, surprising to the inexperienced, can be turned out with no necessarily disastrous consequences. But Scott, disgusted with society, and avoiding it from motives of economy as well as of want of heart, disturbed hardly at all by strangers at Abbotsford, and not at all in the lodgings and furnished ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... Belmont, Chairman of the National Committee, opened the proceedings with a violent speech. "Four years of misrule," he said, "by a sectional, fanatical, and corrupt party have brought our country to the very verge of ruin. . . . The past and present are sufficient warnings of the disastrous consequences which would befall us if Mr. Lincoln's re- election should be made possible by our want of patriotism and unity." In still more explicit terms he went on to picture the direful effects of that catastrophe. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... till he came to lie in his coffin would he show a more ghastly countenance; and trembling herself almost to the point of falling, she caught him by the arm and sought to read in his face what had happened. Something disastrous she was sure; something which he had feared and was partially prepared for, yet which in happening had crushed him. Was it a pitfall into which the poor little lady had fallen? If so—But he is speaking—mumbling low words to himself. Some of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... The disastrous period of the Hyksos domination in Egypt has left but one trace at Knossos, but that is of peculiar interest, for it is the lid of an alabastron bearing the name of the Hyksos King Khyan. It cannot be said that we know any of the Hyksos Kings, but Khyan is the one whose relics are ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... 1184 building operations were continued, but the records available do not tell about anything of much interest for the next two or three years. Then in 1186-1187 a catastrophe occurred—the cathedral was again burnt. But this time the effects of the fire were much more disastrous than had been the case in 1114. So extensive was the destruction that the entire roofing, as well as the internal flat ceiling, was gone; and though we can glean no certain knowledge from documentary evidence, it appears probable that the eastern section of the building suffered ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... to admit that the people at the table were most kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest, and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained enough not to apologize for what ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... disastrous word struck heavily on the ear of Kunda; shuddering, she sat down. During the night she had frequently contemplated this step, and these words from Hira's mouth seemed to confirm ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... though he no doubt assumed it. Dispersal to a distance is, so to speak, an accidental incident in the life of a species. Lepidium Draba, a native of South-eastern Europe, owes its prevalence in the Isle of Thanet to the disastrous Walcheren expedition; the straw-stuffing of the mattresses of the fever-stricken soldiers who were landed there was used by a farmer for manure. Sir Joseph Hooker ("Royal Institution Lecture", April 12, 1878.) tells us that landing on Lord Auckland's Island, which was uninhabited, "the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Experience has taught us that if complete latitude is given to eccentrics and incompetents, if, in the words of Professor SODDY, F.R.S., the destinies of the country are entrusted to people of archaic mental outlook, the result is bound to be disastrous and chaotic. But if you treat them as lunatics, there is a strong presumption of their mending their ways and proving valuable factors in the economic reconstruction of the Empire and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... pushed ourselves through this brush, and stumbled over rolling stones, all the while enveloped by the whirling dust, the everlasting Peking dust, straight from the Gobi Desert. All this was very disastrous to our personal appearance, and at the end of two hours we were all reduced to pretty much the same level: really, there wasn't much difference between the beautiful Americans, those attired in Gillard's ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... nothing to do but lie on his back and think of his ailments. For twenty years he had worked in an iron foundry, where his muscles were as active as his brain was passive. Now that the case was reversed, the result was disastrous. From an attack of rheumatism a year ago he had developed an amazing number of complaints, all of which finally fell under the head ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... a question whether science has fully discovered those laws of hereditary health, the disregard of which causes so many marriages disastrous to generations yet unborn. But much valuable light has been thrown on this most mysterious and most important subject during the last few years. That light—and I thank God for it—is widening and deepening rapidly. And I doubt not that, in a generation or two more, enough will ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... give detailed instructions for culture. No one could be more firmly convinced that a treatise on that subject is needed, for no one assuredly has learned, by more varied and disastrous experience, to see the omissions of the text-books. They are written for the initiated, though designed for the amateur. Naturally it is so. A man who has been brought up to business can hardly resume the utter ignorance of the neophyte. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... profoundly, the chief actor in the trial. Burke entered upon the impeachment of Warren Hastings at the zenith of his great career, at the moment of his greatest glory. The rise and progress of the French evolution exercised a profound, even a disastrous, effect upon him. For once his fine intellect failed to discriminate between the essentials and the non-essentials of a great question. His horror at the atrocities of the Revolution blinded him to all ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... about this matter of propinquity! For he was a dog of fixed ideas, things stamped on his mind were indelible; as, for example, his duty toward cats, for whom he had really a perverse affection, which had led to that first disastrous moment of his life, when he was brought up, poor bewildered puppy, from a brief excursion to the kitchen, with one eye closed and his cheek torn! He bore to his grave that jagged scratch across the eye. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... The disastrous events which had so effectually prevented Mr. Williams from prosecuting his voyage to the Indies were matters of deep regret to the worthy merchant, and his brow was continually clouded with care. Julia ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... all other internationalists, takes it for granted that America can no longer defend herself, without "allies," whom we must buy with foreign aid. He does imply that our present network of permanent, entangling alliances is not working well; but he never hints that we should abandon this disastrous policy and return to the traditional American policy of benign neutrality and no-permanent-involvement, which offers the only possible hope for our peace and security. Rather, Mr. Barnett would just ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... me, oft inuited me: Still question'd me the Storie of my life, From yeare to yeare: the Battaile, Sieges, Fortune, That I haue past. I ran it through, euen from my boyish daies, Toth' very moment that he bad me tell it. Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances: Of mouing Accidents by Flood and Field, Of haire-breadth scapes i'th' imminent deadly breach; Of being taken by the Insolent Foe, And sold to slauery. Of my redemption thence, And portance in my Trauellours historie. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Harvest.—In connexion with the present late and disastrous harvest, permit me to contribute a distich current, as an old farmer observed to-day, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... hope of hearing, if I return safe to New Zealand at the end of November, that this disastrous war is over. I fear that the original error has been overlaid by more recent events, forgotten amongst them. The Maori must suffer, the country must suffer. Confession of a fault in an individual is wrong ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... prolonged periods of alternate freezing and thawing, is disastrous to the plants on dry soils, possessed of an excess of moisture, when not covered with snow. They are gradually drawn up out of the soil and left to die on the surface. In some instances, the destruction ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... the enemy's country there had been no Bothwell Bridge. And, indeed, we shall find him seriously taken to task by the more extreme of the party as a backslider from the good cause for his endeavour to avert that disastrous affair. ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... at spring tides and which receives a river at its upper end. He termed it Kannoeuck Kleenoeuck. He has never been farther north himself than Marble Island, which he distinguishes as being the spot where the large ships were wrecked, alluding to the disastrous termination of Barlow and Knight's Voyage of Discovery.* He says however that Esquimaux of three different tribes have traded with his countrymen and that they described themselves as having come across land from a northern sea. One tribe who named ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... famine, there would go hurrying a generous consignment of the "Aglaia" at its "nothing" price. It was given away cautiously and judiciously, but it was freely given, and not a penny could the hungry ones pay for it. There got to be a saying that whenever there was a disastrous fire in the poor districts of a city the fire chief's buggy reached the scene first, next the "Aglaia" flour wagon, and then the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... not end at that. The lubras' methods of washing had proved most disastrous to my meagre wardrobe; and the resources of the homestead were taxed to the utmost to provide sufficient patching material to keep the missus even ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... poured out his thanks to his tutor for his instruction, which had been given so judiciously that, while he was conscious of improving at every stroke, he did not feel that the other was asserting any superiority over him; and so, though more humble than at the most disastrous period of his downward voyage, he was getting into a better ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Assembly would become merely a collection of bewildered and nervous individuals turning themselves into amateur detectives, and, incidentally, the laughing-stock of the world. The League might never recover such prestige as it has, after such a disastrous session. Mark my words; there will be further attempts on the persons of prominent delegates. Whether they will be successful attempts or not is a question. Who is responsible for them is another question. You say (and I am half with you) our friend of the Secretariat, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... seldom commented on the confidences that were made to her. She saw that Hester, always delicate, was making an enormous effort under conditions which would be certain to entail disastrous effects on her health. The book was sapping her strength like a vampire, and the Gresleys were evidently exhausting it still further by unconsciously strewing her path with difficulties. Rachel did not know them, but she supposed they belonged ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the harbour is formed by a hill about 1500 feet high, which Captain Fitz Roy has called after Sir J. Banks, in commemoration of his disastrous excursion which proved fatal to two men of his party, and nearly so to Dr. Solander. The snow-storm, which was the cause of their misfortune, happened in the middle of January, corresponding to our July, and in the latitude of Durham! ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... "And why, if sanitation is your business, do you take no radical measures with regard to this horrible disease? Why do you not have it reported, never mind who gets it, as scarlet fever, smallpox, and other diseases—all less disastrous to the general health of ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... intersected by many lucid streams, between the Roanoke and the Neuse rivers. Here they fixed their abode, and became the ancestors of the powerful Tuscarora nation. In the early part of the eighteenth century, just before its disastrous war with the colonies, this nation, according to the Carolina surveyor, Lawson, numbered fifteen towns, and could set in the field a force ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... of true affection have they turned to bitterness! How hard they sometimes make all duties! How painful they make all daily life! How they kill the sweetest and warmest of domestic charities! The misery caused by other sins is often much deeper and much keener, more disastrous, more terrible to the sight; but the accumulated pain caused by ill-temper must, I verily believe, if added together, outweigh all other pains that men have ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... Christian era, Cestius Gallus made his disastrous expedition by the Valley of Ajalon, Beth-horon and Gibeon. Titus, after the surrounding country had been subjugated, moved his army up to Jerusalem by Gophna (Jufna) and Bethel, and so through Bireh, from the north-west and north. The ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... escaped the consequences naturally to be expected from the punishment inflicted upon him by the apprentices, being so rheumatic that he could scarcely walk, while a violent cough, with which he was occasionally seized, and which took its date from the disastrous day referred to, and had never left him since, threatened to shake his feeble frame in pieces; this, added to the exasperation under which he was evidently labouring, was almost too much for him. Three months seemed to have placed ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... trouble with the Apaches was brought about by a far more foolish cause than the first, and it was much more disastrous. ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... of slips from papers published in Missouri, to show the extent to which this factious opposition to the government has been carried. The effect already produced is but natural, and the ultimate effect will be disastrous in the extreme, unless a strong ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... they were in private life. The Widow Jequier's husband, for instance, had been a pasteur who had gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not really the keeper of a Pension for Jeune Filles, but had drifted into it owing to her husband's disastrous descent from pulpit into cellar— understudy for some one who had forgotten to come on. The Postmaster, too, had originally been a photographer, whose funereal aspect had sealed his failure in that line. His customers could never smile and look pleasant. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... informed also by the turnkey, that the father was resisting to the utmost of his power the efforts of the mother to get into the cell. He probably saw too clearly that in the excited condition in which she still remained, the scene might prove disastrous, as affecting either life or reason; and, if I could judge from what I myself felt in spite of the blunting effects of a long acquaintanceship with misery in its various phases, there was good reason for his fears. The scene ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... naturally toward a material philosophy—toward a deification of the body, a faith in the fugitive allurement of the senses, and because of his earlier initiation he had taken Laura's intellectual radiance as the shining of a virtually disembodied spirit. His own senses had led him, he recognised now, to disastrous issues; his love for Connie had been the prompting of mere physical impulse, and he had emerged from it with a feeling of escaping into freedom. Too much Nature he had learned during those months of mental apathy is in its way quite ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... dive for fear of getting wet hair spoils much of the sport of swimming. Each moment of hesitation makes her more convinced that perhaps, after all, she had better not try that dive, because she probably would not be able to do it anyway. The lack of confidence is disastrous. I have known girls who could swim perfectly well in the shallows but could not keep up at all in water out of their depth. And yet they have not been touching the bottom in the shallow water, ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... opponent was Dangle, a clever senior, reputed to be Clapperton's toady and man-of-all-work. It was felt that if he were secretary, there would be a strong Modern bias given to the clubs, which in the opinion of the Classic partisans would be disastrous. ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... the vanquished. Even the retiring party of the women and children were scattered by the conquerors; and the sun had long sunk behind the rolling outline of the western horizon, before the fell business of that disastrous defeat was entirely ended. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... moment had arrived in the case of the Tsar. It had arrived in the case of Kerensky. It has not arrived in the case of the Soviet Government for certain obvious reasons. For one thing, a collapse of the Soviet Government at the present time would be disconcerting, if not disastrous, to its more respectable enemies. It would, of course, open the way to a practically unopposed military advance, but at the same time it would present its enemies with enormous territory, which would overwhelm ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... and decision. It was bitter to quit Armine and all his joys, but in truth the arrival of his family was very doubtful: and, until the confession of his real situation was made, every day might bring some disastrous discovery. Some ominous clouds in the horizon formed a capital excuse for hurrying Henrietta off to Ducie. They quitted Armine at an unusually early hour. As they drove along, Ferdinand revolved in his mind the adventure of the morning, and endeavoured to stimulate himself ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... to offer you marriage. Mrs. Jarvis told me so in her last letter. Elizabeth,—do you at all comprehend what a disastrous thing ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... herself, poor thing. Once she was quite distinguished as a local magazine writer, but...well, you know...all people do not have the good fortune to have their genius universally recognized, and the results are sometimes disastrous. We are so proud to welcome you to-night, Miss Dwight, and—and—your charming friends. I am Jane Upton Halsey." She appeared to think no further ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... grass which, he had twisted into a torch, and when a bull came near he hove it at his head. The flaming mass caught on his horns, and certainly had the effect of making him turn tail, and rush bellowing off from the rock; but it had another effect, and a most disastrous one, on which we had not calculated. Galloping on, the animal very soon freed himself from his burning head-dress by sending it into the middle of a ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... to be rather tedious. The contempt which a genuine old family ghost has for mere parvenus and impostors is not to be expressed in mere words apparently, for Mauth-hounds of prodigious size and blackness, with white birds, and other disastrous omens, now began to display themselves profusely in the Haunted Chamber. Accustomed as I had become to regard all these appearances as mere automatic symptoms, I confess that I heard with pleasure the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... existing evils, and prevent the disastrous consequences otherwise resulting therefrom, we would build up the "American party" upon the principles ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... to grant me a patent was, at that period, very disastrous. It was especially discouraging to have made a long voyage across the Atlantic in vain, incurring great expenditure and loss of time, which in their consequences also produced years of delay in the prosecution of my enterprise ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... on the Hercegovinian insurrection of the following year, the results of which were disastrous in a high degree to Montenegro. Even the famous Mirko, the father of Prince Nicolas, after sixty battles, could do no more, and the Convention of Scutari (1862) brought the war to a close. It was settled that Mirko, as the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... colour would pass slowly from his cheeks, and strange little gasping breaths would come from him; his body would stiffen and his hands clench. If he was angry the colour in his face would darken and his eyes half close, and it was then that he did, indeed, seem in the possession of some disastrous thraldom—but he was angry very seldom, and only with certain people; for the most part he was a happy child, "as quiet as a mouse." He was unusual, too, in that he was a very cleanly child, and loved to be washed, and took the greatest care of his clothes. ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... much involved any disastrous turn would leave him hopelessly in debt. And besides—her thoughts took a more uneasy turn—she felt it was going to put him in danger. Reedy Jenkins and his Mexican associates would be very bitter over Bob's getting the Red Butte—and ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... Ticonderoga, which is the point really threatened, is abandoned without support to the troops of the line and their general. It would even be wished that they might meet a reverse, if the consequences to the colony would not be too disastrous." ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... one of the chiefs who took part in this disastrous battle of Louvaine and was one of the fortunate few who lived to return to their native land. Apparently it was not the last of his expeditions, his wife, Queen Thyra, taking care of the kingdom in his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... my son!" John of Leyden trembled and started toward her, his arms outstretched, but Mathison, knowing the disastrous effect such an acknowledgment would have upon the crowd who believed him of holy origin, said in a low ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... be a climax to so many aspirations of my life that I am forced to record it as one of the most important of all my working years. No event of any consequence in the country, social or political, or disastrous, happened, that my name was not available to the ethical phase of its development. Newspaper squibs of all sorts reflect this fact in some way. Here is ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Comyn the field of Falkirk would have been ours, for had the horse charged when the English were in confusion round our squares they had assuredly been defeated. Moreover, your efforts have retrieved that disastrous field, and have driven the ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Sea), apparently a misnomer. It is the port of the Fajaa da Ovelha (Ewe's landslip), whose white tenements we see perched on the estreito, or tall horizon-slope. The large harbour-town is backed by a waterfall which may prove disastrous to it; its lands were formerly famous for the high-priced ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... I have argued it. He believes in casting his bread upon the waters. I sincerely hope he won't have to cast himself after his bread, one of these days. Providence with a banking account. Believe in Providence once you have secured enough to live on. I should consider it disastrous to believe in Providence BEFORE. One can never ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... indeed disastrous for Quebec, though they were not to know it until months afterward. Most of the emigrants Captain Kirke despatched back to France, some of the least valuable vessels he burned, and sailed home with his trophies, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... is without incident or adventure worth recording, unless it be an occasional disastrous collision. No such calamity befell this train. Our travelers talked, dozed, eat, and drank a little through their twenty-four hours' journey. At noon they reached Philadelphia, at eve New York, at midnight Springfield, and the next ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... instant; but an assembly, if the cry of the moment goes with it, however hastily raised or artificially stirred up, thinks itself and is thought by every body, to be completely exculpated, however disastrous may be the consequences. Besides, an assembly never personally experiences the inconveniences of its bad measures until they have reached the dimensions of national evils. Ministers and administrators see them approaching, and have to bear all the annoyance and trouble ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... it. You leave it open to me to think so. I don't seriously contemplate your ever being forty. In fact your being thirty is one of those melancholy and disastrous events that need not actually occur. It's very tactful of ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... English sway turned out so unjust and disastrous to Ireland, reflects no blame on Adrian, than whom no one would have more deplored the evil, and striven against its true causes, than he. Rather ought he, from the spirit of his brief,—the only fair test to apply to him,—to be regarded as the head of that ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... Prussia has just compelled Daun to raise the siege of Dresden, in spite of his (the King's) late most disastrous defeat by the same general at Bochkirchen, which had taken place on ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... been promised to the captives. The facts are that both British and French used the Indians as allies regardless of their savage practices, but that the French, as at Fort Duquesne, showed less ability to restrain the savages after a victory. In the following summer—1758—Montcalm inflicted a most disastrous defeat at Ticonderoga on fifteen thousand British and colonial troops, led by General Abercrombie. The French force numbered only four thousand French and Indians. The English attempted to carry the works by assault, without the aid of artillery, and were mowed down by ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... O'Faley's thumb was so visible, and the snuff so palpable, and the effort to brush it from the wet paper so disastrous, that Miss O'Faley let the matter rest where it was. King Corny put silver into the boy's hand, bidding him not be too much of a rogue; the boy, smiling furtively, twitched the hair on his forehead, bobbed his ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... on the wings of meditation borne, Let fond remembrance turn, and turn to mourn; Slowly, and sad, her pinions sweep O'er the rough bosom of the boist'rous deep To that disastrous, fatal coast Where, on the foaming billows tost, Imperial Catherine's navies rode; And war's inviting banners wide Wav'd hostile o'er the glitt'ring tide, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... selfish incontinence which ultimately falls in burdens on others than the offenders, and which turns the family into a scene of squalor and brutishness, producing a kind of parental influence that is far more disastrous and demoralising than the absence of it in public institutions can possibly be. If the propagation of children without regard to their maintenance be either a virtue or a necessity, and if afterwards the only alternatives are their maintenance ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... that had to be laboriously smashed. It was heroic labor—sometimes they spent an hour making sixty yards—and Lisle's face grew anxious as well as determined. Game had been very scarce; the deer would not last them long; and disastrous results might follow a continuance of their present slow progress. When, utterly worn out, they made camp on slightly firmer ground toward four o'clock in the afternoon, Lisle strode off heavily toward the bordering hills, while Jake pushed on to prospect ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... that they would assail my head, and I could not help feeling how fearful would be my position if they did so. At last I determined to try the effect of my rifle, which I had not loaded after my last shot—a neglect which might have proved extremely disastrous had any savage beast appeared. I loaded with shot. In consequence of my shouts and cries, and repeated blows made at the birds, they retired once more to a short distance. The next time they approached I fired into their midst, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... children in this respect; few who have not looked especially into the matter have any idea of the prevalence of harmful habits. Sex abuse has been called "the disease of civilization"; and where it takes firm root, it is exceedingly disastrous to the life of a nation, not only destroying, directly or indirectly, individuals, but so weakening the stock that the ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquet by giving him away. It is the nurse who gives the doctor away in private, because every nurse has some particular doctor whom she likes; and she usually assures her patients that all the others are disastrous noodles, and soothes the tedium of the sick-bed by gossip about their blunders. She will even give a doctor away for the sake of making the patient believe that she knows more than the doctor. But she dare not, for her livelihood, give the doctor away in public. And ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... they do it's generally pretty disastrous. A woman who felt she was less than the dust and rust and weeds and all that rot wouldn't be much good to a man who had to do his job, for she wouldn't do ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... is too full of nautical terms for us to understand; and, as it only relates to the state of the weather, the condition of the vessel, and the perverseness of the lieutenant, it is of no particular advantage to us in the explanation of the wreck, for we already know the why and wherefore of the disastrous event. But Mr. Ingram does not precisely state the number of persons lost. Was it ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne |
