"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inches, and is still falling. The meteorological character of the present season, as compared with that of several previous seasons, clearly shows the cause of the rise and fall of the lakes not to be periodical, as has heretofore been asserted, but entirely accidental. For several years the summers have been cloudy and cold, with a prevalence of easterly winds and rainy weather. The last summer has been excessively warm for the whole season, and of exceeding drought. When it is remembered that the amount of water evaporated over the surface of these ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... every love affair and greatly intensified one's natural desire for them, perfect trust, perfect loyalty, lifelong devotion. Much of the complex essentials of love were altogether hidden. One read these things, got accidental glimpses of this and that, wondered and forgot, and so one grew. Then strange emotions, novel alarming desires, dreams strangely charged with feeling; an inexplicable impulse of self-abandonment began to tickle queerly amongst the ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... says he, as we meets accidental on Broadway. "Still carrying the burning bush under your hat, ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... intimate and personal consideration. Her own feeling toward Fergus Derrick was friendship at first, and then she had suddenly awakened and found it something more. That had startled her, too, but it had not alarmed her till her eyes were opened by that accidental speech of Derrick's. After that, she saw what both Derrick and Joan were themselves ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the beginning of the eighteenth century that Gascoigne had invented and used telescopic sights for the purpose of making accurate astronomical observations. The accidental discovery of some documents which contained a description of his appliances was the means ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... second is unity. We have seen how St. Paul was led on to grasp the conception of one church universal manifested in all the local churches. Its unity is not purely accidental in that individuals have been forced to act together under pressure of chance circumstances. Nor is the ideal of unity adopted simply because experience teaches that "union is strength." Nor is it even based on the philosophical conception of the incompleteness ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... lawyers—every day for a while, then every week, then, toward the end of winter, less often, for he had less time now, and there was a new pressure which he was beginning to feel vaguely hostile to him in his business enterprises—hitches in the negotiations of loans, delays, perhaps accidental, but annoying; changes of policy in certain firms who no longer cared to consider acreage as investment; and a curiously veiled antagonism to him in a certain railroad, the reorganisation of which he had dared ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... that there is no true nor constant beauty, and for this reason it cannot evoke true nor constant love. That beauty, which is seen in bodies is accidental and transitory, and is like those which are absorbed, changed, and spoiled by the changing of the subject, which very often, from being beautiful, becomes ugly, without any change taking place in the soul. The reason then comprehends the truest beauty, through ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... extensive, and such as you little dream of, will straightway very rapidly come. Dim oblivion of Right and Wrong, among the masses of your population, will come; doubts as to Right and Wrong, indistinct notion that Right and Wrong are not eternal, but accidental, and settled by uncertain votings and talkings, will come. Prurient influenza of Platform Benevolence, and "Paradise to All-and-sundry," will come. In the general putrescence of your "religions," as you call ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... thrown it out of her mind; but it had been knocking ever since for admittance, and more than once she had almost let it in. Suppose Dave should not enlist under his right name? In such a case her chance of finding him was the mere freak of accidental meeting; a chance not to be banked upon in a country already swarming with its citizen soldiery. . . . And yet there was nothing ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... the party least implicated personally in the affair, and most likely to 'ave a cool and impartial view. That evidence is to the effect that the blow was accidental. There is no doubt, however, that the defendant used reprehensible language, and offered some resistance to the constable in the execution of his duty. Evidence 'as been offered that he was in an excited state of mind; and it is possible —I don't say that this is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not appear in time for Christmas acting; but Ireland, which now and then finds herself possessed of some accidental freedom, has no censor; and a play so beautiful and reverent, and so much in the tradition of the people, is sure to ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... Arla's whale-boat had been bushwacked at Sulu and had lost three men; of how the skipper discovered the cook stewing human flesh on the galley fire—flesh purchased by the boat's crew ashore in Fui; of how an accidental discharge of dynamite, while signalling, had killed another boat's crew; of night attacks; ports fled from between the dawns; attacks by bushmen in mangrove swamps and by fleets of salt-water men ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... adapt his house either to the physical or mental size of his family, but must accept what is possible with much the same feeling with which a family of robins might accommodate themselves to a wren's nest, or an oriole to that of a barn-swallow. But the fact remains, that all these accidental homes must, in some way, be brought into harmony with the lives to be lived in them, and the habits and wants of the family; and not only this, they must be made attractive according to the requirements of cultivated society. The effort toward this is instructive, and the pleasure ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... conspicuous party chief only three or four years. He had moved forward to unchallenged personal supremacy with a vigor and rapidity which in the political life of the United States have seldom been equaled. His sudden elevation was not the result of accidental circumstances of which he was the fortunate beneficiary. He was the conscious and masterful creator of his position. The sceptre of power in the Democratic party did not drop into his hands; he seized it, and wielded it ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the best part of the evenin', and I'd just settled down with Vee in a corner when the big hall clock starts to chime ten, and in through the draperies marches Aunty. It ain't any accidental droppin' in, either. She glances at me stern and suggestive and nods towards the door. So ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... applauded, but wasn't quite sure. Such a master as Kloster, and one of their own flesh and blood, is always applauded, but I think the irregularity, the utter carelessness of the music, its apparently accidental beauty, was difficult for them. Germans have to have beauty explained to them and accounted for,—stamped first by an official, authorized, before they can be comfortable with it. I sat in a corner ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... the being within,—its true image reflected and thrown out from the concave mirror."—With this may well be coupled Schlegel's remarks on the same point: "Form is mechanical when it is impressed upon any piece of matter by an outward operation, as an accidental addition without regard to the nature of the thing; as, for example, when we give any form at pleasure to a soft mass, to be retained after induration. Organic form on the contrary, is innate; it unfolds, itself from within, and attains its determinate character along with the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... whole country a scene of devastation and of misery.[***] She had no intention to conquer the kingdom, and consequently no interest or design to instigate the parties against each other; but this consequence was an accidental effect of her cautious politics, by which she was engaged, as far as possible, to keep on good terms with the queen of Scots, and never to violate the appearances of friendship with her, at least ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... strange to say that the Sawtooth country had not had a real "killing" for years, though accidental deaths had been rather frequent. One man, for instance, had fallen over a ledge and broken his neck, presumably while drunk. Another had bought a few sticks of dynamite to open up a spring on his ranch, and at the inquest which followed the jury ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... originally, as also why you were connected with them. There was, however, one circumstance, a purely fortuitous one, and which need not now be mentioned, which aroused my suspicions. From these reports and accidental circumstances, the same conclusion became evolved for me. I make this statement in all sincerity, for it was I who first implicated you with the matter. I do not in any way notice, the particulars notified on the articles ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... further sourge of danger. In few parts (if any) of the body is a blow more fatal than over what is popularly called the "pit of the stomach." In the quadruped this part is little exposed either to accidental or intentional injuries. In man it is quite open to both. A blow, a kick, a fall among stones, etc., may ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... an illustration of the simple and effectual means by which animals are brought into harmony with the rest of nature. That slight amount of variability in every species, which we often look upon as something accidental or abnormal, or so insignificant as to be hardly worthy of notice, is yet the foundation of all those wonderful and harmonious resemblances which play such an important part in the economy of nature. Variation is generally very small in amount, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... had much to do with the press will sympathise with MR. CHARLES KNIGHT in all that he has stated ("NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. iii., p. 62.) respecting the accidental—but not at first discovered—substitution of modern for moderate. If that word modern had not been detected till it was too late for an explanation on authority, what strange conjectures would ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Have you ever been surprised by anything? I don't know. You have said often in my hearing that you suspect every one. Have you suspected me? Sometimes when I have caught that sidelong squint of yours, that studied accidental glance which sees so much, I have felt almost sure that you were far from satisfied that Trehayne was the man he gave himself out to be. I have been useful to you. I have eaten your salt, and have served you as ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... the accidental encounter with Martin outside of the Academy of Music. Rufus began to hope that he had gone out of the city, though he hardly expected it. Such men as Martin prefer to live from hand to mouth in a great city, rather than go to the country, where they would have less difficulty ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... therefore, by experiments on as extensive a scale as possible, to ascertain whether the state in question were too commonly exhibited to be exceptional or idiosyncratic. Again, the two cases that I had witnessed coincided in characteristics; but could this coincidence be accidental? It might still be asked, 'Were the phenomena displayed uncertain, mutable, such as might never occur again; or were they orderly, invariable, the growth of fixed causes, which, being present, implied their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... to the following: adultery of one of the married parties, and the detection in the fact of the guilty party by mutual agreement, and failing such agreement, accidental detection. It must be admitted that the latter case is rarely met with in practice," said the lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch he paused, as a man selling pistols, after enlarging on the advantages of each weapon, might ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... licentiousness lays violent hands upon its life. Its weaknesses were full of fatal vigor, lust poisoned the humanity which it inspired, the soil of the buccaneer could raise nothing which was not exuberant with vengeance. Slave-Insurrection was a mere accidental episode in the closing scenes of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... to that emperor to whom Dante assigns so great a part in the Paradiso.[3] Lord Beaconsfield, with the levity in matters of scholarship which he sometimes displayed, once ascribed the phrase imperium ac libertas to a Roman historian. The voluntary or accidental error is nothing; but the conception of Roman Imperialism which it popularized is worth considering. It is false to the genius of Rome. It is not that the phrase nowhere occurs in a Roman historian; but no statesman, no Roman historian, not Sulla, not Caesar, nor Marcus, could ever have ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... laws. The same causes which govern the shaping of a tree are present in the leaf, settling its final outline, so that, however wandering and fantastic it may appear, there is not the smallest curve or serration which does not bear witness to a methodical development, and to every accidental circumstance which helped ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... that you gave me as a bridal token! Is there not a fatality even in symbols? Upon my wedding ring stands the cinerary urn that soon sepulchred my peace, my hopes. A mockery so exquisite could not have been accidental, and faithfully that grinning skeleton has walked with me. The ghastly coat ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "the best I can do is shet my eyes an' push along regyardless, like a cayouse in a storm of snow. But I don't guarantee no facts; none whatever! I never does bend myse'f to severe study of savages an' what notions I packs concernin' 'em is the casual frootes of what I accidental hears an' what I sees. It's only now an' then, as I observes former, that Injuns invades Wolfville; an' when they does, we-all scowls 'em outen camp—sort o' makes a sour front, so as to break 'em early of habits ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... girt about with a huge sword. Up till then the Christian arms had always been stayed at his door, but this time the King laid siege to Arcona, determined to make an end of him. Some of the youngsters in his army, making a mock assault upon the strong walls, discovered an accidental hollow under the great tower over which the Stanitza flew and, seizing upon a load of straw that was handy, stuffed it in and set it on fire. It was done in a frolic, but when the tower caught fire and was burned and the holy ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... advertising department is genuinely interested in declining "fraudulent and unworthy" copy, I would call their attention to the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which "cure" almost every disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian Secret", the other an "accidental discovery", both either fakes or dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it is "a positive cure for catarrh", in all its stages; to "Syrup of Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... Therefore I must very respectfully but very firmly ask you, at your very earliest convenience, to leave Dizful. I am quite willing to believe, however, that your interference with my arrangements was accidental. And I dislike to put you to any unnecessary trouble. So I shall be happy to compensate you, in marks, tomans, or pounds sterling, for any disappointment you may feel in bringing this particular lark to an end. Do you now understand me? How ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the space restricted, the figure enlarged until it fills its frame as a metope of the Parthenon is filled. The gesture is ever enlarged and given more sweep and majesty, the silhouette is simplified and divested of all accidental or insignificant detail. A thousand previous observations are compared and resumed in one general and comprehensive formula, and the typical has been evolved from the actual. What generations of Greek sculptors did in their slow perfectioning of certain fixed types he has done almost ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... when the Colonel was advancing to give him his hand, he turned and spoke to the Squire, who had at length finished his letter, so that no greeting was passed between them. At the time Harold did not know if this move was or was not accidental. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... soon killed a fine salmon. On his return homeward an incident befell him, which he afterwards related as ominous, though probably his heated imagination, joined to the universal turn of his countrymen for the marvellous, exaggerated into superstitious importance some very ordinary and accidental circumstance. ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... that were signs of things which gave evidence of wealth,—housekeepers, under-gardeners, extent of glass, valuable lace, diamonds, and all such things; and each one formed her speech so as to bring them all in, in the prettiest accidental manner possible.' ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I've been wondering," he agreed "Her excuse was plausible. She said that she had just heard why I had come with Gaines. I suppose it was half an hour that she spent endeavoring to convince me that Karatoff and Errol could not possibly have had any other connection than accidental with the ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... flows in a copious yet varied stream, strikingly pleasant to the ear, and with a charm that seizes and carries away even the reluctant hearer. Add to this a tall, commanding presence, a handsome face, long flowing hair, a streaming white beard—all of which may be thought accidental adjuncts and without significance, but they do wonderfully increase the veneration he inspires. There is no studied negligence in his dress, it is severely plain but not austere; when you meet him you revere him without shrinking away ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... he stepped out from his quaint desk, it was suddenly to be seen that the young man limped, on his left foot: that this limp was not accidental or temporary.... A lame doctor: so it was with him. And yet the fire with which he spoke was surely not ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... solid gold, which proved, on assay, to be of the purest quality. Every one was questioned as to what he had cast into the furnace, when there appeared no reason to suppose the transmutation could have been effected by such an accidental mixture of metals. At length it was remarked, that a dervish, accompanying the barber's son, had cast in a lump of ore, and immediately disappeared. Upon this the sultan summoned the youth to his presence, and inquiring after his companion, was informed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... kindness if you will take me as I am, and not ask me to talk about myself.' There was nothing sulky or ungracious in the expression of her wish to keep her own secret. A kinder and sweeter woman—never thinking of herself, always considerate of others—never lived. An accidental discovery made me her chief friend, among the men: it turned out that her childhood had been passed, where my childhood had been passed, at Shedfield Heath, in Buckinghamshire. She was never weary of consulting my boyish recollections, and comparing them with her ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... whole may promptly be rejected. The tendency to dyspeptic symptoms is apt to lead to much unwise changing of the diet, and everything tried falls in turn into disrepute, until perhaps all rational diets are abandoned, and some mixture of very faulty construction, because of its temporary or accidental success, becomes permanently adopted—a mixture perhaps so deficient in some necessary constituent that, if it is persisted with, permanent damage to the growth of the child results. We must pay less attention to changes of diet and explore our management of the child to try and ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... April 5, the marines were put in line and marched into the town under cover of the fleet; but as they marched in the rebels marched out. Acting Ensign J. B. Fairchilds was very seriously wounded by an accidental discharge of his own ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... dug. He unearthed a long wall. Upon this wall were inscribed many alphabetic characters. "872 characters have been examined, many of them duplicates, and a few imitations of animal forms, the moon, and other objects. Accidental imitations ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... eruption of the atmosphere had indeed almost thrown them off their balance and broken the blackened trees in the garden. Beyond, all sorts of accidental objects could be seen scouring the wind-scoured sky—straws, sticks, rags, papers, and, in the distance, a disappearing hat. Its disappearance, however, was not final; after an interval of minutes they saw it again, much larger and closer, like a white panama, towering up into ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... as men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfolded in ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... never was a gleam of revelation granted by any authorized prophet to speculative curiosity, whether pointing to science, or to the mysteries of the spiritual world. And the true argument on this subject would show that this abstinence was not accidental; was not merely on a motive of convenience, as evading any needless extension of labors in teaching, which is the furthest point attained by any existing argument; but, on the contrary, that there was an obligation of consistency, stern, absolute, insurmountable, which made it essential ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... he answers and says, I was personally acquainted with Thomas Jefferson before he became president of the United States, the precise length of time I do not recollect. The acquaintance did not extend beyond the common salutation upon meeting, and accidental conversation upon such meetings. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Durazzo wore on, diversified with occasional encounters, which Caesar details with the minuteness of a scientific general writing for his profession, and with those admiring mentions of each individual act of courage which so intensely endeared him to his troops. Once an accidental opportunity offered itself for a successful storm, but Caesar was not on the spot. The officer in command shrank from responsibility; and, notwithstanding the seriousness of the consequences, Caesar said that the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... visits to Sark in connection with the breaking-off of my engagement to Julia. But that had occurred in the spring, and the nine-days' wonder had ceased before my patient came to the island. Still, any accidental conversation might give her the information, and open up a favorable chance for her. I must not let her go across to Sark unknown ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... beach below; yet, modulated by distance, it formed the base, sustained and rythmic, into which there fell harmoniously that legato treble of murmur which makes us seem to hear the stillness, and that staccato note of some accidental sound softened to accord with the mood of the night. She needed the peace that she felt in the air, for her cheeks were wet with passionate tears and her lips still trembled. She could give utterance to her trouble now, she was free for hours from every ear, from every eye, hidden away from all ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... Men are becoming increasingly constructive and selective, less patient under tradition and the bondage of initial circumstances. As education becomes more universal and liberating, men will sort themselves more and more by their intellectual temperaments and less and less by their accidental associations. The past will rule them less; the future more. It is not simply party but school and college and county and country that lose their glamour. One does not hear nearly as much as our forefathers did of the "old Harrovian," "old Arvonian," "old Etonian" claim to ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... remained sufficiently deep to conceal our movements, and, as we had circled the picket lines, we could proceed with greater confidence. We were beyond the vigilance of sentinels, and could be discovered now only through some accidental encounter. I touched Le Gaire on the shoulder, and whispered in ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... was left of him, that little was certainly Ray Kennedy. His personality was as positive as ever, and the blood and dirt on his face seemed merely accidental, to have nothing to do with the man himself. Dr. Archie told Mr. Kronborg to bring a pail of water, and he began to sponge Ray's face and neck. Mr. Kronborg stood by, nervously rubbing his hands together and trying to think of ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... hastened away to spread the news. With the greatest difficulty the body was recovered, and conveyed to Shut-up Dubarry. The inquest that sat upon it rendered the simple verdict, 'Found Dead'; for whether the death were accidental or suicidal, or whether it resulted from the fall upon the rocks, or from the waters of the cascade, the Dogberries of that jury could ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... all the ladies I ever saw. Where then, my dearest, is the obligation, if not on my side to you?—But, to avoid these comparisons, let us talk of nothing henceforth but equality; although, if the riches of your mind, and your unblemished virtue, be set against my fortune, (which is but an accidental good, as I may call it, and all I have to boast of,) the condescension will be yours; and I shall not think I can possibly deserve you, till, after your sweet example, my future life shall become nearly as blameless ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... the brig went to New York, and from there on a long voyage to some foreign port. At last she had come to Boston; but the captain had no idea of letting John go even then. He meant to carry him away again, and would have done so but for the accidental meeting of the two ...
— The Nursery, No. 109, January, 1876, Vol. XIX. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Unknown
... the Highlands. It was the latter part of a calm, sultry day, that they floated gently with the tide between these stern mountains. There was that perfect quiet which prevails over nature in the languor of summer heat. The turning of a plank, or the accidental falling of an oar, on deck, was echoed from the mountain side and reverberated along the shores; and, if by chance the captain gave a shout of command, there were airy tongues that ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... therein than the patient himself, who, Indian-like, could hardly have manifested less concern in what was doing for his relief than had the wounded limb been hanging to some other man's shoulder, and he but an accidental spectator of ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... and Cambridge, leads us irresistibly to the conclusion that they were derived from monastic Customs, using the word in its technical sense, and monastic practice. The resemblances are too striking to be accidental. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... in general to those that have been already noted in the Biblical versions. Which Biblical account does the earliest Babylonian narrative resemble most closely? In what details do they agree? Are these coincidences merely accidental or do they point possibly to a common tradition? How far do the later Biblical and Babylonian accounts agree? What is the significance of these ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... storm, which lasted four days; the sky being so overcast that the sun hardly shone at all. It was very cold, and we were obliged to put on our great-coats, which we had entirely left off. Yet I think the cold was accidental, as it is often experienced elsewhere ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... world, as it were, as if he were always on the top of an omnibus or waiting for a train. Most of these chance acquaintances, of course, vanished into darkness out of his life. A few here and there got hooked on to him, so to speak, and became his lifelong intimates, but there was an accidental look about all of them as if they were windfalls, samples taken at random, goods fallen from a goods train or presents fished out of a bran-pie. One would be, let us say, a veterinary surgeon with the appearance of a jockey; another, a mild prebendary ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... success. The unity which I seek to attain in the development of the great phenomena of the universe, is analogous to that which historical composition is capable of acquiring. All points relating to the accidental individualities, and the essential variations of the actual, whether in the form and arrangement of natural objects in the struggle of man against the elements, or of nations against nations, do not admit of being p 50 based only on a 'rational ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... is more than I can tell your sublime highness. I don't suppose that half-a-dozen of your subjects, except themselves, are aware of the fact; and few even among the Christians know the secret. I only obtained the little knowledge I have by accidental circumstances, which put me upon the inquiry; and I was a long while before I could feel perfectly certain that they actually did the thing. How they did it, and why, I have never been able to learn. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... originated in the House of Representatives, "presenting the thanks of Congress to Samuel T. Washington for the service sword of George Washington and the staff of Benjamin Franklin, presented by him to Congress." This resolution (in consequence, doubtless, of a merely accidental omission) did not reach me until after the adjournment of Congress, and therefore did not receive my approval and signature, which it would otherwise promptly have received. I nevertheless felt myself at liberty and deemed it entirely proper to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... wooden stools, open at the fifty-first psalm, and the page blotted with weeping, as she read it preparatory to retiring for prayer. Her teacher could put her finger on no part of those large pages without touching a tear.[1] Still later, when news of the death of Munny, of Ardishai, by the accidental discharge of a gun, reached Miss Fiske in America, her first thought was, "Dear child, I shall never again break off your communion with Jesus;" for she remembered that when once she begged her to leave her closet and get rest for the Sabbath, her reply was, "O, I am so sorry that you ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... word, Miss Moore," he said genially, "you gave me quite a start at first. You are very like what a half-sister of mine used to be when a girl long ago. Of course the resemblance must be quite accidental." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... expansive force must at length have overcome the resistance opposed by the tenacity and weight of the overlying consolidated strata. It is reasonable to suppose that this result took place contemporaneously, or nearly so, on many spots, wherever accidental circumstances in the texture or composition of the oceanic deposits led them to yield more readily; and in this manner were produced those original fissures in the primeval crust of the earth through some of which (fissures of elevation) were intruded portions of interior ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... there are accidental or variable errors, due to slight momentary causes. Both constant and variable errors can be illustrated by a series of shots at a target. The variable error is illustrated by the scatter of {448} the hits, and ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... upon travellers. The small parties are unconnected with each other, and two parties never unite in the same cruise. The members of one party may be sometimes convicted and punished, but their conviction is accidental, for the system which has enabled us to put down the Thug associations cannot be applied, with any fair prospect of success, to the suppression of these pests ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to which I have referred Professor March informs us that "what the scholars want for historical spelling is a simple and uniform fonetic system, which shall record the current pronunciation." This assumption is not accidental, I think, nor is the spirit of the Pharisee confined to Professor March. Nearly all of the advocates of this special "reform" assume the prerogative of determining who are and who are not "scholars." In the same paper the professor says: "The scholars proper have, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... sunlight. And then, as if out of the heart of them all, came a figure immensely alive, the light focusing upon her as if she were the true meaning of the picture in which she appeared; as if this background were not accidental, but had been chosen and arranged for her with ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... An accidental find procures me, to begin with, the Splendid Phanaeus (P. splendidulus), who combines a coppery effulgence with the sparkling green of the emerald. One is quite astonished to see so rich a gem load its basket with ordure. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... heretofore, but also contributed his interest, and even promised the assistance of his purse, in procuring for him a lieutenancy, which he was then soliciting with all his power; whereas, if he had not been enabled, by a most accidental piece of good fortune, to lift himself into the sphere of an officer, he had all the reason in the world to believe that this gentleman, and all the rest of his wealthy relations, would have suffered him to languish in obscurity and distress; ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... matured and spiritualised Christianity, which reached its apex in the German mystics, lies in the soul of man, eager to shed everything which is subjective and accidental, and become spirit, profound, divine reality. Eckhart, the great perfecter of this European religion, deliberately and in direct contradiction to the dogma of his time, placed man above the "highest ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... the story of this Princess, told, day by day, in semi-accidental snatches, laid hold of Ivan's imagination. By degrees he began to enter into the life that was being laid bare before him with all the intimate understanding that is part of the Creator's gift. For many weeks after the departure ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... with the extraordinary affair that occurred about five days after. There was about a third of a mile beyond the village of Haroc a large but lonely hotel upon the London or Paris model, but commonly almost entirely empty. Among the accidental group of guests who had come to it at this season was a man whose nationality no one could fix and who bore the non-committal name of Count Gregory. He treated everybody with complete civility and almost in complete silence. On the few ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... English nation has authorized, by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such part of those judgments as savours of torture and cruelty: a sledge or hurdle being usually allowed to such traitors as are condemned to be drawn; and there being very few instances (and those accidental or by negligence) of any persons being embowelled or burned, till previously deprived ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... the people of England have not only not attended to, but seem to be utterly ignorant of, and that is, the difference between permanent power and accidental power, considered in a ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... appear in the index; being probably reserved for the second forth-coming enlarged edition. Meanwhile, it may not be uninteresting to remark that, like Magliabechi, (vide p. 86, ante) he imbibed his love of reading and collecting from the accidental possession of scraps and leaves of books. The fact is, Mr. Ratcliffe once kept a chandler's shop in the Borough; and, as is the case with all retail traders, had great quantities of old books brought to him to be purchased at so much per lb.! ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... general rule. Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines and the Moluccas, and the uncultivated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest countries, except a few small and unimportant tracts, due perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cultivation or accidental fires. To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... P. O'Reilly, USA (Retired), the man responsible for the discovery, was the principal guest of honor. Obviously moved by the acclaim from virtually every member nation, Gen. O'Reilly made a brief speech recapturing for a moment the accidental circumstances of 25 years ago that so ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon
... recently bared weeds of its bed. A day or two after there was an inquest; but the body was unrecognizable. Fish and flood had been busy with the millwright; he had no watch or marked article which could be identified; and a verdict of the accidental drowning of a ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... the coach, quite accidental, with this gentleman,' said Mrs. Wishaw, fanning a cheek and nodding at Mr. Goren. 'I'm an old flame of dear Mel's. I knew him when he was an apprentice in London. Now, wasn't it odd? Your mother—I suppose I must call ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... known how extremely important it was to approach operations upon the skull with the most absolute cleanliness. There are many hints of the same kind in other writers which show that this was no mere accidental remark, but was a definite conclusion derived from experience and careful observation of results. We find much more with regard to this same subject in the writings of the group of northern Italian surgeons and especially in the group of those associated with ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... by a shelf trail which sometimes has terrors for the unaccustomed. Several hundred persons make the ascent each summer without accident, including many women and a few children. The one risk is that accidental snow obscure the trail; but Longs Peak is not often ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... which have different qualities or forms are necessarily opposed to the constant propagation of these qualities and forms. We see that which in man, who is exposed to such different circumstances which influence individuals, prevents the qualities of accidental defects which they have happened to acquire from being preserved and ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Androvsky with the tremendous fires eternally blazing in the sun. She had a desire that he should hurt her in the passionate intensity of his love for her. Her nature, which till now had been ever ready to spring into hostility at an accidental touch, which had shrunk instinctively from physical contact with other human beings, melted, was utterly transformed. She felt that she was now the opposite of all that she had been—more woman than any other woman ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... fight either part or all the world for the little ones she nursed. But the old Skunk had had more than enough. She scrambled off down the canon. Her three young ones had tumbled over each other to get out of the way when they got that first accidental charge of their mother's battery. She waddled away, leaving a trail of blood and smell, and they waddled after, leaving an odour just ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... said, not in the least noticing Sir Philip's dissertation on Roman virtues—"my own belief is, that there is not a proper name in England, except a few intruded upon us by the Normans, which might not easily be traced to accidental circumstances in the history of the family or the place. Thus, in the case of Aylesbury, or Eaglestown, from which it is derived, depend upon it the place has been noted as a resort for eagles in old times, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... side of the harbour, a line of sea coast more than thirty miles long, we did not find two hundred acres which could be cultivated." Any approximation then in position between Botany Bay and the fabulous COSTE DES HERBAIGES must be considered as accidental. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... be imagined to exist; because it is discoverable by natural reason, and suitable to our natural constitution; because its fitness and wisdom are founded on the general nature of human beings, and not on any of those temporary and accidental situations in which they may be placed. It is with still more propriety, and indeed with the highest strictness, and the most perfect accuracy, considered as a law, when, according to those just and magnificent views which philosophy and religion open to ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... fellow-creatures. In fact, one of the greatest charms of a watering-place, to me, is the facility one enjoys of understanding the whole game, which is somewhat concealed in the city. Watering-place life is a full dress parade of social weaknesses. We all enjoy a kind of false intimacy, an accidental friendship. Old Carbuncle and young Topaz meet on the common ground of a good cigar. Mrs, Peony and Daisy Clover are intimate at all hours. Why? Because, on the one hand, Mrs. P. knows that youth, and grace and beauty, are attractive to men, ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... I said, "for having disturbed you at such an inconvenient time, and while you are engaged in these—these solemn rites; but I assure you, sir, it has been quite accidental. I happened to be walking here when I saw you coming, and thought it best to step out of the way until—well, until the funeral was over. The fact is, I met with a serious accident in the mountains over there. I fell down into a ravine, and a great heap of earth and stones fell on ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... all its variations of colour. The true shade of the Pampas grass, when long, is a light dusty green; when short, it is a bright fresh green. But it frequently happens that, owing to the numerous prairie fires, either accidental or intentional, nothing is visible but a vast expanse of black charred ground, here and there relieved by a few patches of vivid green, where the grass is once more springing up under the influence of ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... was the remembrance of Mrs. Ellsworth's latchkey, the keeping of which had been accidental at first. Afterward he had gaily regarded its possession as a gift from Providence. The way to Ruthven Smith's house was made clear by it; and better still, through it the dragon could be punished ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... circumference at the height of a man from the ground, and their lower branches would of themselves form trees such as many a trim and well-kept park could never boast of. At other times the original tree will have met with an accidental fracture when young, and after going up twenty or thirty feet from the ground, as an immense wooden column, will throw out three or four other trees from its summit, which will all shoot up parallel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... I do, Will." She blushed and dropped her eyes. Their fingers touched, but only for a moment. The touching of fingers is very innocent. Perhaps it was accidental. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various |
