"Avert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commanded the entire spectacle. But it was no coward's death that he beheld. Soon perceiving and recognizing the monarch before whom he had witnessed so good a profession, the tailor fixed his gaze upon him, nor would he avert his face, however much the king ordered that his position should be changed. Even in the midst of the flames he still continued to direct his dying glance toward the king, until the latter, abashed, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Pen," said the Vicar; and in the sententious pause that followed, I felt that I would offer any gifts of gold to avert or postpone the solemn, inevitable, hackneyed, and yet, as it seemed to me, perfectly appalling statement that "the Pen ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... into theological discussions; and persons whose condition allows not of exact researches should be content with instruction on faith, without being disturbed by the objections; and if some exceeding great difficulty should happen to strike them, it is permitted to them to avert the mind from it, offering to God a sacrifice of their curiosity: for when one is assured of a truth one has no need to listen to the objections. As there are many people whose faith is rather small and shallow to withstand such dangerous tests, I think one must not present them with ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... passed to such pleasant platitudes as John's description of the manner in which Greenwood broke up the radical meeting in the market-place; but in both hearts and below all the sweet intercourse there lay a sense of tragedy that nothing could propitiate or avert. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... of fear. But on this scene depends the whole subsequent action. Mime tries to frighten Siegfried, and finds it impossible. He wants the Nibelung's ring to rule the world: Siegfried is the only man to get it; and after he has got it, Mime will avert the Wanderer's prophesied disaster by poisoning him. He tells the history of Sieglinda also, and Siegfried knows he is the hero. He will have no patching of the sword: that sword was Wotan's and subject to his will; he grinds it to powder, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... or a lion, do you scare the animal into it, or do you lure him with a tempting bait? I have laid the trap; he and his friend will walk into it. I am not a police officer. I make no arrests. My business is to avert political calamities, without any one knowing that these calamities exist. That is the real business of a secret agent. Let him dig up his fortune. Who has a better right? Peste! The pope will not crown him in the gardens of ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... "man of blood and iron," the man with the mailed fist and the iron heel, I much apprehend, will not be satisfied with tearing down the emblem of the physical Body of Christ, but to slake his bloodthirsty spirit he will want to go on to belabour His Mystical Body no less. God avert it! ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... States, and with them a considerable number of the central ones, rallied around their ancient banner by the very approach of peril, will make common cause with the slave Confederacy? In such a case, how avert the chances of a direful conflict? Will the United States carry patience with respect to the aggressors, the fear of giving a signal of ruin, deference to the counsels lavished on them perhaps, so far as to refuse to return a violent attack, and to consent ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... all by the tails, anyhow," laughed Thugut, "for have not we got the list of the names here? Ah, my dear little count, perhaps you thought I would have gone in my generosity so far as to tear this list, throw the pieces away, and avert my head, like the pious bishop who found a murderer under his bed, permitted him to escape, and averted his head in order not to see the fugitive's face and may be recognize him on some future occasion? I like to know the faces of my enemies, and to find out their names, and, depend upon it, I shall ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... instantly and violently rang, so that they should be admitted with as little delay as possible, while he stood disconcerted, and fearing he showed it, by the prompt occurrence of an encounter he had particularly sought to avert. It ministered, moreover, a little to this sensibility that Miriam appeared to have come somewhat before her time. The incident promised, however, to pass off in a fine florid way. Before he knew it both the ladies had taken possession of Biddy, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... fair question whether I and some other American Professors do not teach quite enough that is useless already. Is it not well to remind the student from time to time that a physician's business is to avert disease, to heal the sick, to prolong life, and to diminish suffering? Is it not true that the young man of average ability will find it as much as he can do to fit himself for these simple duties? Is it not best to begin, at any rate, by making sure ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said the Palmer, "is prisoner, I should rather say slave, to the great Soldan, taken in a battle in which he did his duty, though unable to avert the defeat of the Christians, with which it was concluded. He was made prisoner while covering the retreat, but not until he had slain with his own hand, for his misfortune as it has proved, Hassan Ali, a favourite of the Soldan. The cruel pagan has caused ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... as if in fear of the thrust which he was now powerless to avert. A scornful smile passed over the pale features ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... part down, among the smaller rocks and broken fragments. About an hundred years ago, one vast block fell from above, and buried under it the hospital, and all the sick and their attendants; and where it still remains, a dreadful monument, and memento, to all who dwell near it!—I should fear (God avert the day!) that the smallest degree of an earthquake would bury all the convent, monks, and treasure, by ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... the middle-aged observer.[200:1] With so many of them there is a kind of forced levity, a self-consciousness that prevents them from being either simple or serious. All the clever ones seem to think that by talking in generalizations, you can avert the plain issues of life. Their conversation is full of meaningless remarks, such as "the bondage of sex," "the superstition of chastity," "freedom in the marriage bond," "the sacrifice of women," "stifling convention," and so on, which ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... Helge's wife was wearing the magic ring that Ingeborg had been forced to give up, Frithiof tried to wrest this from its wearer, and in doing so caused the queen to drop into the fire an image of the god Balder. In the effort to avert this disaster Halfdan's wife let fall a second image, and immediately the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... principles. Life as a whole must run its course or reach its high-water mark, the same as life in its particular phases. Man has arrived and has universal dominion; all things are put under his feet. The destiny of life upon the globe is henceforth largely in his hands. Not even he can avert the final cosmic catastrophe which physicists foresee, and which, according to Professor Lowell, the beings upon Mars are ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... She knew that in the shadow of the immediate future red tragedy lurked. She had done her best to avert it and had failed. The very men she was trying to ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... the bitterness of despair rose in her heart. Against the uprooting of their feebleness her whole nature cried out, and the sacrifice that had been offered her in the milk-house days before, seemed but a small price to pay to avert the tragedy. Doubt of herself and her motives assailed her, and she quivered in every nerve when she thought that thus she had failed them. What! Was she to save herself and let the sorrow fall on their bent shoulders? Was it too late? Her heart answered her that it was, for her ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Wallace's colour deepened; and that, in biting off a thread, she profited, by the occasion, to avert her face in such a manner, that Bulstrode, in particular, could ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... appetite.' Once he had thought the stones valueless, like other merquisite. He had been convinced of his error by the refiner, who was willing to go and be 'hanged there if he prove not his assay to be good.' To avert suspicion that he meant to become a runagate, Ralegh was ready not to command, but to ship as a private man. He repeated his strange offer to be cast into the sea if he should persuade a contrary course. The cost would be no more than L5000. 'Of that, if the Queen's ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... constant movement, transport, and the selection of new landing grounds, but, in the words of Sir John French, "It was the timely warning aircraft gave which chiefly enabled me to make speedy dispositions to avert danger and disaster. There can be no doubt indeed that even then the presence and co-operation of aircraft saved the very frequent use of cavalry patrols and detailed supports." The Royal Flying Corps was an important factor ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... affection to form ambitious hopes of her daughter's future. It was barely possible that some turn in events might one day yield an opening for their consent; but meanwhile prudence dictated secrecy, in order to avert the most pressing danger, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... went with a band of warriors to Fort Frontenac. There he learned that peace would be concluded between Onontio and the Onondagas—in other words, that the Iroquois would soon be free to attack the Hurons and their allies. To avert this threatened destruction of his own people, he set out with his warriors and lay in ambush for a party of Onondaga chiefs who were on their way to Montreal. Having killed one and captured almost all the rest, he announced to his Iroquois prisoners ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... the Kiel Canal was finished, and so the effective strength of the German Fleet doubled, the first excuse would be taken to bring on the "inevitable" world-war. Therefore, I held that preparation for war was absolutely necessary. Adequate preparation might indeed avert war. The German Emperor wanted not so much war as victory, and the more we were prepared the more we should be able to say that we would not allow the conquest of Europe by arms, though we were quite ready to let Germany conquer by good trading, if she could. The British people, as a whole, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... how he still wickedly retains it. But now he has beset my realm with a great fleet and a great multitude of warriors, and proposes, if his power equal his unrighteous design, to blot out the English tongue from the face of the earth." To avert this peril, Edward summoned not only a full and representative gathering of magnates, but also two knights from every shire and two burgesses from every borough. Moreover, the lower clergy were also required to take part in the assembly, the archdeacons and deans in person, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... "injurious to its rights and derogating from its dignity[205]." It appears, therefore, that Seward, defeated on one line of "policy," eager to regain prestige, and still obsessed with the idea that some means could yet be found to avert domestic conflict, was, on April 27, beginning to pick at those threads which, to his excited thought, might yet save the Union through a foreign war. He was now seeking to force the acceptance of the second, and alternative, portion ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... ran by the roadside, and from which Carnegie emerged covered with mud and raging with fury. Such an insult could only be wiped out with blood; and, drawing his sword, Carnegie rushed at his tormentor. The Earl, in order to avert a tragedy, imprudently threw himself between the two antagonists, with the intention of diverting the blow. Carnegie's sword entered his body, passing clean through it; and he fell to the ground a dying man. ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... measure through our own imprudence that disease and debility are incurred, and one remedy is to be found in knowledge. Once let the mass of the people be instructed in their own frames; let them understand clearly that disease is not an accident, but has fixed causes, many of which they can avert, and a great amount of suffering, want, and consequent intellectual depression will be removed.—I hope I shall not be thought to digress too far, when I add, that were the mass of the community more enlightened on these points, they would ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... better keep himself very quiet for the next few days, prosecuting his studies with zeal, and not showing himself much in the streets. It was to be hoped that the flight of Garret, when known, would avert further peril from Oxford; but as Dalaber had certainly been his closest comrade and companion during his visit, it behoved him to have a care that he excited ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hymn—"where only man is vile," and he was vile—with all power of compensation taken from him. To some was given the chance of making reparation. For him there was no chance. He could do nothing to mitigate the injury he had done. She whom he had wronged must suffer for him and he was powerless to avert that suffering. His helplessness overwhelmed him. O Hara San, little O Hara San, who had given unstintingly, with eager generous hands. His face was set as he turned from the window and, starting to pull off his torn shirt, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... heard this terrible prophecy their hearts sank within them, and Anchises, lifting his hands to heaven, besought the gods to avert this grievous doom. Thus, full of sad forebodings, they returned ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... man. For example, from time to time the gods used to warn the King of Uganda that his foes the Banyoro were working magic against him and his people to make them die of disease. To avert such a catastrophe the king would send a scapegoat to the frontier of Bunyoro, the land of the enemy. The scapegoat consisted of either a man and a boy or a woman and her child, chosen because of some mark or bodily ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... leading points on which such explanation will naturally turn, are the line of conduct to be followed previous to the commencement of hostilities, and with a view, if possible, to avert them; and the nature and amount of the forces which the. Powers engaged in this concert might be enabled to use, supposing such ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... and kind-hearted woman, and all accounts concur in saying that she exercised the power that she acquired over the mind of the king in a very humane and praiseworthy manner. She was always ready to interpose, when the king contemplated any act of harshness or severity, to avert his anger and save his intended victim, and, in general, she did a great deal to soften the brutality of his character, and to protect the innocent and helpless from the wrongs which he would otherwise have often done them. These ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... is a conventional fiction: she can avert an attack by a look; she can terminate a ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... homes. Feeling deep concern for these poor people, and for all who suffer either from employers or from defects of government, we trust that "The Red Conspiracy" will not only help toward remedying many of the evils that now weigh heavily upon the working class, but help to avert the far more dreadful evils that would result from the adoption of Socialism, Bolshevism, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... power of this House to the control of gentlemen who have proclaimed that under any circumstances, or in any event, they would dissolve the union of these states. For this reason we would be wanting in our duty to our God and our country, if we did not avert such a result of this contest. I regard it as the highest duty of patriotism to submerge personal feelings, to sacrifice all personal preferences and all private interests, to the good of our common country. I said here a few days ago, and I always stood in the position, that when ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... intrigues began and were carried on, breaking the harmony which had previously existed, and preparing for the disastrous consequences which soon afterwards ensued. Gillespie exerted himself to the utmost of his power to avert the coming calamities which he anticipated, by striving to prevent the commission of crimes which provoke judgment. His influence was sufficient to restrain the Church from consenting to countenance the weak and wicked movements ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... scarcely any attempt to staunch the blood, which might have continued to flow for a considerable time had not a diversion occurred. (It is well known that the dignity will only bleed while you watch it. Avert your eyes, and it instantly dries up.) The diversion, apparently of a trifling character, had, in truth, an enormous importance, though the parties concerned did not perceive this till later. It consisted ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... think it needless to worship the former, as he is incapable of doing evil. The people of Java, of the Moluccas, of the Gold Coast, the Hottentots, the people of Teneriffe and Madagascar, and the Savage Tribes of America, all worship and strive to avert the anger and propitiate the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... foreshadowed. Opimius bade the senators see to their arms, and enjoined each of the members of the equestrian centuries to bring with him two slaves in full equipment at the dawn of the next day.[719] But an attempt was made to avert the immediate use of force by issuing a summons to Gracchus and Flaccus to attend at the senate and defend their conduct there.[720] The summons was perfectly legal, since the consul had the right to demand ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... hear you rightly? Will you preserve my friends?—will you avert the cruel arm of power, and make the virtuous happy? my tears must thank you. [Taking ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... to avert it by proposing and recommending to the legislatures of the several States the remedy for existing evils which the Constitution has itself provided for its own preservation. This has been tried at different critical periods of our ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... might be constrained to invert very gently but very firmly the bowl of chrysanthemums over Sir Philip's head, or kick him in an improving manner. He had a ridiculous belief that Sir Philip would probably take anything of the sort very touchingly. He scrambled in his mind for some remark that would avert this possibility. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... fascination. It had advanced a full quarter of a mile. Like fog before a cloud-piercing searchlight, the age-old rock was dissolving before the ray. At this rate America's doom would be sealed in a week. And I, alone among these thousands, was helpless to avert the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Juan's were thrown away on the Senora. More and more closely she watched Alessandro; and the very thing which Juan had feared, and which he had thought to avert by having Alessandro his temporary substitute, was slowly coming to pass. The idea was working in the Senora's mind, that she might do a worse thing than engage this young, strong, active, willing man to remain permanently in her employ. The possibility of an Indian's being so born and placed ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... wisdom of doing this. If he told what he knew, and set Jennings on the track, it might be that a scandal would arise implicating Mrs. Octagon. Not that Cuthbert cared much for her, but she was Juliet's mother, and he wanted to avert any trouble likely to cause the girl pain. A dozen times on the journey Cuthbert altered his mind. First he thought he would tell Jennings, then he decided to hold his peace. This indecision was not like him, but the case was so perplexing, and such serious issues were ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents, and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not ourselves say that Congress ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... blundered. In seeking to subject Bonaparte to the same rules as had been imposed on all French generals since the treason of Dumouriez in 1793, they were doubtless consulting the vital interests of the Commonwealth. But, while striving to avert all possibilities of Caesarism, they now sinned against that elementary principle of strategy which requires unity of design in military operations. Bonaparte's retort was unanswerable, and nothing more was heard ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Yadavas and leaving behind only the elders, the women and children, escorts them to Prabhasa, a town inland, assuring them that by proper worship they may yet avert their fate. At Prabhasa the Yadavas bathe and purify themselves, anoint the gods' statues and make offerings. They appease the Brahmans with costly gifts—'thereby countering evil omens, gaining the road to happiness and ensuring rebirth ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... we see throughout creation each marvel fulfilling its pre-ordered fate—no wandering from its orbit—no variation in its seasons—and yet imagine that the Arch-ordainer will hold back the tides He has sent from their unseen source, at our miserable bidding? Shall we think that our prayers can avert a doom woven with the skein of events? To change a particle of our fate, might change the destiny of millions! Shall the link forsake the chain, and yet the chain be unbroken? Away, then, with our vague repinings, and our blind demands. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... words the queen trembled, and she took from her head the ribbon with which she happened, in woman's fashion, to be adorning her hair, and proffered it to the enraged old man, as though she could avert his anger with a gift. Starkad in anger flung it back most ignominiously in the face of the giver, and began again in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... save thee from the griefs to which our flesh is heir, But I can arm thee with a spell, life's keenest ills to bear. I may not fortune's frowns avert, but I can with thee pray For wealth this world can never give nor ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... if you have the desire with my consent, then, as my wife is a foolish woman of our class, she could not quite comprehend your words of yesterday's date. Therefore my quarters might be let for six rubles to the Regimental Adjutant, without the stables; but I can always avert that from myself free of charge. But, as you desire, therefore I, being myself of an officer's rank, can come to an agreement with you in everything personally, as an inhabitant of this district, not according to our customs, but can maintain ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... general clamour. Deanie's fellow workers, poor little souls, denied their childish share of the world's excitements, gazed with a sort of awful relish. Only Johnnie, speeding down the room away from it all, was doing anything rational to avert the catastrophe. The child hung on the slowly moving belt, inert, a tiny rag of life, with her mop of tangled yellow curls, her white, little face, its blue eyes closed. When she reached the top, where the pulley was close against the ceiling, her brains would be dashed ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... ethical objection to Shinto is that both good and evil Kami are to be respected. "Just as the Mikado worshiped the gods of heaven and of earth, so his people prayed to the good gods in order to obtain blessings, and performed rites in honor of the bad gods to avert their displeasure.... As there are bad as well as good gods, it is necessary to propitiate them with offerings of agreeable food, with the playing of harps and the blowing of flutes, with singing and dancing, and with whatever else is likely ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... forced at last to reimbark.[277] Captain Speakman, who took part in the affair, also sent Winslow an account of it, and added: "The people here are much concerned for fear your party should meet with the same fate (being in the heart of a numerous devilish crew), which I pray God avert." ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... plant, he would be apt to regard in the same way; and very possibly also construct for himself frightful idols of some kind, calculated to produce upon him a vague impression of their being alive; whose imaginary anger he might deprecate or avert with sacrifice, although incapable of conceiving in them any one attribute of exalted intellectual ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... Among the throng of girls he runs rudely enough, but one alone distances him; and these two little neighbors, that were so close just now, have learned to respect each other's personality. Or who can avert his eyes from the engaging, half-artful, half-artless ways of school-girls who go into the country shops to buy a skein of silk or a sheet of paper, and talk half an hour about nothing with the broad-faced, good-natured shop-boy. In the village they are on a perfect ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... say, but I recollect no instance in which he did not pay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition of the inexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, which even repentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine an atonement for Faust's trespass against one human soul in his benefactions to the race at large; but it is ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... suffering. I am not for mortal love. True, I cannot see beyond, but Fear meets me on the threshold. The hour I gave myself to you would bring you an evil I dimly realise. I cannot foretell, and I cannot avert it; but it is there. It lurks like a hidden foe where our lives should join... No, no!—do not tempt me. Happiness is not for me, as we count it ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... magistrate, and interrogated. He professed to be in the service of a rich merchant who would arrive in a day or two, and, thus escaping, returned to his master, and advised him to hasten away; but Richard was too unwell to proceed, and remained at the inn, doing all in his power to avert suspicion—even attending to the horses, and turning the spit in the kitchen. His precautions were disconcerted; the page, going again to Vienna, imprudently carried in his belt an embroidered hawking-glove, which betrayed its owner to be of high rank; and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in many other parts of the coast, such as Sussex and Kent. It was a time when the Cornish used to thank God for wrecks; and if they did not actually lure vessels to destruction on their cruel coasts, which it may be feared they did sometimes, they at least did nothing to avert the disasters which, to their mind, were sent by a merciful providence. There was even a proverb that it was unlucky to rescue a drowning man—widespread, for Scott mentions it in the "Pirate"; the bad luck which these coast-folk ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... which death presented itself to the minds of the crew of the Queen Charlotte, who now anxiously turned their eyes to their captain and officers, in the hope that, as on former occasions, their example and assistance might enable them to avert the threatened danger. ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... superscription of this psalm, it dates from one of the darkest hours in David's life. His fortunes were never lower than when he fled from Gath, the city of Goliath, to Adullam. He never appears in a less noble light than when he feigned madness to avert the dangers which he might well dread there. How unlike the terror and self-degradation of the man who 'scrabbled on the doors,' and let 'the spittle run down his beard,' is the heroic and saintly constancy of this noble psalm! And yet ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... avert it by taking orders? Parents do not demand that a house-master should be a clergyman, yet it reassures them when he is. And he would have to take orders some time, if he hoped for a school of his own. His religious convictions ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... and Ireland was excited and disturbed by the famous book of John Toland, a sceptical Irishman, entitled Christianity not Mysterious (London, 1696). Its author was born in Londonderry in 1670, and was endowed with much natural ability, but this did not avail to avert the calamities which pursue indiscreet and reckless writers. He wrote his book at the early age of twenty-five years, for the purpose of defending Holy Scripture from the attacks of infidels and atheists; he essayed to prove that ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... to produce more and more spectacles from his pockets until the table began to gleam and flash all over. Thousands of eyes were looking and blinking convulsively, and staring up at Nathanael; he could not avert his gaze from the table. Coppola went on heaping up his spectacles, whilst wilder and ever wilder burning flashes crossed through and through each other and darted their blood-red rays into Nathanael's breast. Quite overcome, and frantic with terror, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... that form but a disguise, beneath which all the passions of hell were raging in the brain and in the heart of a fiend. Such were the ideas that flashed through my imagination; and I involuntarily closed my eyes, as if this action could avert the malignity that appeared to menace me. But dreadful thoughts still pursued me—enveloping me, as it were, in an oppressive mist wherein appalling though dimly seen images and forms were agitating; and I again opened my eyes. The lady—if an earthly being she really were—was gone. I rose from ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... cavern-mouth, Obnoxious to beholders, hard by Rome, And said,—nor he a bad man, no, nor fool,— Only a man, so, blind like all his mates,— 'Here skulk in safety, lurk, defying law, The devotees to execrable creed, Adoring—with what culture ... Jove, avert Thy vengeance from us worshippers of thee!... What rites obscene—their idol-god, an Ass!' So went the word forth, so acceptance found, So century re-echoed century, Cursed the accursed,—and so, from sire to son, You Romans cried, 'The offscourings of our race Corrupt within the ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... would insure the defeat of the project for silver monometallism, from which England, who was so largely our creditor, would suffer, in the beginning almost as much as we would, and perhaps much more, and would avert the panic and confusion in the business of the world, which would be brought about by the success of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... into the dory. The fish had struck on. The tough cord sung against the gunnel, and at times it was all the skipper could do to bring up his prize, for the great cod darted here and there, dove, rushed, and struggled to avert ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... afraid. In the midst of my mental struggles I discovered that even if I succeeded in thinking happy things I should still have to go back to school after all, and the knowledge that thought could not avert calamity was like a bruise on my mind. I pinched my arms and legs, with the idea that immediate pain would make me forget my fears for the future; but I was not brave enough to pinch them really hard, and I could not forget the motive ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... work would be lost unless a fresh supply could be obtained; the ruling fiction of a new Noachian deluge might prove a deadly reality instead of, as now, a theoretical contingency under conditions which engineering skill might avert. The Sappers and Miners who were roused from their beds to make good a dynamited embankment and block the relentless Thames did not work with a more untiring zeal to baffle a real enemy than did Dave and Dolly to keep out a fictitious one, and hypothetically save ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... impending. There was time enough even then—for it was but the 16th December—to place full powers in the hands of the state-council, of Norris, or of Hohenlo, and secretly and swiftly to secure the suspected persons, and avert the danger. Leicester did nothing. How could he acknowledge his error? How could he manifest confidence in the detested Norris? How appeal to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion, and at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... beneficent career, at the age of fifty-five (57?), Caesar, whose frank and fearless spirit disdained suspicion or precaution, was assassinated by a knot of rancorous, perfidious aristocrats, whom he had pardoned and promoted. Their purblind spite was powerless to avert the inevitable advent of monocracy. What they did effectually extinguish for more than a century, was the possibility of amnesty, conciliation, and mutual confidence. Careless as usual of historical truth, the great English poet has ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... was speedily known to all the servants of the Chateau. She did not often visit them, but when she did there was a hurried recital of an Ave or two to avert any harm, followed by a patronizing welcome and a rummage for small coins to cross her hand withal in return for her solutions of the grave questions of love, jealousy, money, and marriage, which fermented secretly or openly in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... undaunted, and had soon laid his enemy low. Great praise then was given to the Cid—so great that the knights of Castile were jealous and plotted to kill him. But the Moorish kings whom he had captured and released warned him in time to avert ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... another candidate. In 1899 these differences resulted in a calamitous and unjustifiable action, the bombardment of native villages for several successive days by English and American war-ships. As a matter of urgent necessity, to avert worse things, new negotiations were set on foot between the three powers, with the result that England withdrew her claims in Samoa altogether, America was satisfied with the small island of Tutuila with its fine harbour of Pago-pago, while the two ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "that we possessed the power of doing anything we wished, was at first amusing enough, but their importunities went so far that they became annoying. They applied to us for charms to avert wars and other national calamities, to make them rich, to prevent the crocodiles from carrying off the people, and for the chief of the fishermen to catch a canoe-load of fish every day, each request being accompanied with some sort of present, such ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... wickedness. But when, on the contrary, you have before you a good man, a just man, who has considered deeply a question which you allow to be full of difficulty; who regrets, but cannot, being human, avert the miseries which to some unhappy individuals follow from the very wisdom of his rule,—what can you do? What is to be done? Individual benevolence at haphazard may balk him here and there, but what have you to put in the place of his well-considered scheme? Charity which makes paupers? ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... In order to avert this calamity, all goats were diligently chased from the banks of the Neda. One day, Theoclos observed a fig tree growing on the river-side, and its branches dipped into the stream. The interpretation of the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the tribes offer a horse, a dog, a spear, or an arrow, as the case may be. Over the Mandan mystery lodge used to hang the skin of a white buffalo, with blue and black cloth of great value. These were intended as a sacrifice or an offering to the good and evil spirits, to avert their anger and to ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... do help us—please do," implored Ailsa, after the first greetings were over. "Lady Chepstow is almost beside herself with dread and anxiety over the inexplicable thing, and I have persuaded her that if anybody on earth can solve the mystery of it, avert the new and appalling danger of it, it is you! Oh, say that you will take the case, say that you will save little Lord Chepstow and put an end ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... plan of perpetually establishing itself through secession and the formation of a slave nation. It includes a history of the secession of eleven Southern States, and the formation of "The Confederate States of America"; also what the North did to try to avert the Rebellion. It was written to show why and how the Civil War came, what the conquered lost, and ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... yet when the blow falls in the immediate neighbourhood, one must feel the reflex of the shock. While sympathy for Sylvia keeps the thing ever present, like a weight upon the chest, I find myself wondering if anything could have been done to avert the disaster, and we all rove about in a half unsettled condition. Half a dozen times a day Lavinia Dorman starts up with the determination of calling upon Sylvia, but this morning decided upon writing her a letter instead, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... painting when his wife is in a state of gestation, as it would result in the loss of the life of the child. This medicine man, however, came, feeling that he possessed ample power within himself to avert such calamity by administering to the child immediately after its birth a mixture in water of all the sands used in the painting. As I have given but little time to the study of Navajo mythology, I ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... mast of our ship sprouted out, sent forth several branches, and bore fruit at the top of it, large figs, and grapes not quite ripe. We were greatly astonished, as you may suppose, and prayed most devoutly to the gods to avert the ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... the nature and mode of cure of that most dreadful of maladies, hydrophobia. The value of his discovery was greater than could be estimated by its present utility, for it showed that it might be possible to avert other diseases besides hydrophobia by the adoption of a somewhat similar method of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... of his attentions, and the congratulations of her friends, the time passed quickly; not so quickly, however, as to avert the plan by which the Fates were to bring her to a knowledge ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... "(and may God avert the omen!) the same ruin may be accomplished still earlier, and by more potent causes. Her nobles enervated by luxury, her lower classes sunk in vice and ignorance, and both the one and the other decaying in piety ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... 'Que es bravo ese toro! ('Ah, the admirable bull!') The whole scene produced the most unbounded delight; the greater the horror, the greater was the shouting, and the more vehement the expressions of satisfaction. I did not perceive a single female avert her head or betray the slightest symptom of ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... occupied in passing promiscuously from one to the other. Miss Mackenzie wished with all her heart that he would seat himself somewhere with his face turned away from her, for she found it impossible to avert her eyes from his eye. But he was always there, before her sight, and she began to feel that he was an evil spirit,—her evil spirit, and that he would be too ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... Zephoranim! ..." and his voice shrilled with terrific emphasis through the vaulted chamber ... "The days of recompense are come upon thee,—swift and terrible as the desert-wind! ... The doom of Al-Kyris is spoken, and who shall avert its fulfilment! Al-Kyris the Magnificent shall fall.. shall fall! ... its beauty, its greatness, its pleasantness, its power, shall be utterly destroyed.. and ere the waning of the midsummer moon not one stone of its glorious buildings ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... on that day, when Honore Grandissime had advised the Governor-General of Louisiana to be very careful to avoid demonstration of any sort if he wished to avert a street war in his little capital, Clemence went up one street and down another, singing her song and laughing her professional merry laugh. How could it be otherwise? Let events take any possible turn, how could it ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... problems of manoeuvring, of rules of the road, of the judgment of the men in command, away from their possible errors and from the points the Court will have to decide, if we ask ourselves what it was that was needed to avert this disaster costing so many lives, spreading so much sorrow, and to a certain point shocking the public conscience—if we ask that question, what ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... poor child had set her heart on going to the Turn-ball to-morrow. Would I kindly overlook the informality of his request, and without telling the young lady of his share in the proceeding, offer her my escort to the ball? Would I be responsible for her and bring her home in good season? And to avert Fraulein Pfeifer's possible suspicions, would I come and dine at his house to-night and ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... may say that only by meeting M. Rokoff's just demands may you avert the most unpleasant consequences to your wife and child, and at the same time retain your own life ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... concerns not Syracuse only, but Sparta also: for if Syracuse falls—and fall she must, if left without support—all Sicily will be under the heel of Athens; then will come the turn of Italy, and after that you will soon have the enemy at your own doors. Now learn what you must do, if you would avert all the evils which I have foretold. You must send a fleet to Sicily at once, with hoplites who can row the ships themselves, and serve in the army as soon as they land, and with them a Spartan commander, to organize the fighting men of Sicily, and compel ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... seriously considered revoking it; but this would have necessitated the admission of his initial error, and he lacked the courage to carry out his better judgment. So, with a shrug of his mental shoulders and a cynical reflection that good luck might perhaps avert the results of his imprudence, he let ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... wait for him, and that she loved him like an elder sister, he grew calm and said, "I will be satisfied with that." The cousins seldom met in after-life, but preserved a tender affection for each other, which served to avert a lawsuit and rupture that threatened to grow out of a business disagreement between the two branches of the family. In 1852, Clelia came to Paris to be present at Alfred's reception by the French Academy. He had great confidence in her taste and judgment, and the last time they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... protested against the more heinous crime that is now in course of perpetration in South Africa. And the very vehemence with which I had in times past pleaded the cause of the People against the Peers would intensify the earnestness with which I would endeavour to avert the exploitation of a legitimate desire to end the Second Chamber by the unscrupulous conspirators of assassination and of dynamite. Hence it is that I seize every opportunity afforded me of enabling the doomed Dutch to plead ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... heavy rains caused a partial inundation of the line, the embankment of which yielded to the accumulated mass of water, and traffic to Dagupan was temporarily suspended. The total outlay on the line far exceeded the company's original calculation, and to avert a financial collapse fresh capital had to be raised by the issue of 6 per cent. Prior Lien Mortgage Bonds, ranking before the debenture stock. The following official quotations on the London Stock Exchange will show the public appreciation ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... office just in time to avert a quarrel between the Coal King and his attorney. In her presence both men resume their normal reserve ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... began to feel horribly cold and hopeless. I have been in danger a good many times in my life, but almost always when I could warm the sense of peril by action; but here I felt for a moment as if my time had come, and as if nothing I could do could avert it. The fancy fairly sickened me; and what with the chill of immersion, the sickening taste of the nauseous water, and my own sense of feebleness as a swimmer, I was on the edge of giving up; but all of a sudden, as I have felt more than ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... rending planks and timbers was mingled with the piercing cries of the female passengers and the gruff shouting of the men, as they staggered to and fro, vainly attempting to do something, they knew not what, to avert their doom. ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... time was impossible, though the driver did his best. The brave hearts of the firemen sank within them as they felt they must drive over the little body. Bystanders raised their arms and shrieked as they witnessed an impending catastrophe which they could do nothing to avert. No human help could avail, and it must needs be that the engine of mercy, on its way to save life, must sacrifice the life ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... anyone either for the manner of his entrance or what rooms he may enter. Laura, who at first had made a quick movement forward, as if to bar his further progress, fell back, terrified. Putting her coat, bag and umbrella down on a chair, she stood, dazed and trembling, powerless to avert the crisis which she realized was at hand. Madison, who had watched the broker's actions with amazement, suddenly grew rigid as a statue. His square jaw snapped with a determined click, and one hand slipped stealthily into his hip pocket. No one ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... and gods which make so much of early existence a veritable nightmare. The journey commences in a world in which the "supernatural" is omnipresent, in which man's chief endeavours is given to win the good will or avert the anger of the ghosts and gods to whom he has himself given being. And the end, the last stage of the pilgrimage, is a world in which mechanical operations take the place of disembodied intelligences, or of supernatural powers. From a world in which the gods are ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... was, of course, kept informed of what was going on. Such an attempt on the mother's part would only be another trial added to those Hulda was already obliged to endure, and he was anxious to avert it if possible. Joel mentioned the ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... mechanically to watch her. It was always an exquisite pleasure to see her dance. He left her with a curious sense of farewell in his mind. Fate was coming fast, he knew; he could not doubt that for a moment. He was not the man to avert it. No one could avert it. It was part of the tragedy that, pity her as he might, he could not really wish to avert it. He would give no warning. Some other hand must write "Mene Thekel Phares" on the wall of her ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the deed was done, the great problem with Elizabeth was, of course, to avert the consequences of the terrible displeasure and thirst for revenge which she might naturally suppose it would awaken in Scotland and in France. She succeeded very well in accomplishing this. As soon as she heard of the ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... count. "Art thou not sufficiently humiliated? Dare to breathe a word in his favor, and it shall go hard with thy minion. Punishment thou canst not avert; say but a word, and that punishment becomes death; for he is mine, soul and body, to have and to hold, to head or to hang—my vassal, my slave! What ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... of the judgment day! avert that calamity! Let us see the quick flash of the cimeter that slays the sin but saves the sinner. Strike, omnipotent God, for the soul's deliverance! Beat, O eternal sea! with all thy waves against the barren ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to this plant, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... which followed, in many ways similar to that which the 'wise Walpole' tried to avert in 1739, was hardly less impolitic than immoral. It alienated Holland, it sanctioned French aggression on Flanders (xii. 7), it ended by giving Mazarin and Lewis XIV that supremacy in Western Europe for which England had ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... the time being slowly and inexorably decided. And as soon as the climax is reached, and the weakening of one side or the other begins, nothing but the entry of some new and unexpected factor can avert the inevitable end. When Russia broke down in 1917, it looked for a time as though such a new factor had appeared. It prolonged the war, and gave Germany a fresh lease of fighting strength, but it was not sufficient to secure victory. She did her utmost ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
