"Calamity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... piled the more infectious Cheon's chuckle became, until nothing short of a national calamity could have checked our flow of spirits. Mishaps only added to our enjoyment, and when a bottle of hop-beer went off unexpectedly as the Quiet Stockman was preparing to open it, and he, with the best ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of the kirk was not humbled. Though their predictions had been falsified, they were still the depositaries of the secrets of the Deity; and, in a "Short Declaration and Warning," they announced[a] to their countrymen the thirteen causes of this national calamity, the reasons why "God had veiled for a time his face from the sons of Jacob." It was by the general profaneness of the land, by the manifest provocations of the king and the king's house, by the crooked and precipitant ways of statesmen in the treaty ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... actions he was continually performing. Many families (in Ravenna principally) owed to him the few prosperous days they ever enjoyed. His arrival in that town was spoken of as a piece of public good fortune, and his departure as a public calamity; and this is the life which many attempted to asperse as that of a libertine. But the world must at last learn how, with so good and generous a heart, Lord Byron, susceptible, it is true, of the most energetic passions, yet, at the same time, of the sublimest ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... King. "Let me implore grace for the poor wanderer. The joyous science, as they call it, which they profess, mingles sadly with the distresses to which want and calamity condemn a strolling race; and in that they resemble a king, to whom all men cry, 'All hail!' while he lacks the homage and obedient affection which the poorest yeoman receives from his family. Let the wanderer remain undisturbed, father; and let her sing if she ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... about his bed watching his every move, poor Mrs. McDonald repeated to us, amid heart-racking sobs, the dire calamity that had overtaken her happy family since our departure. That Helen, the pet of the family and of the rough section men, had disappeared from her home, leaving not a trace. Further questioning elicited from ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... consequents of the first transgression upon all mankind. The effect is twofold,—sin and misery, or sin and death. The subject is universal in both,—"all men," the whole world. Behold what a flood of calamity hath entered at a small cranny—by one man's transgression! May it not be said of sin in general, what the wise man speaks of strife,—"the beginning of" sin "is as when one letteth out water?" Therefore ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... in a few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield was thrust therein—a sad spectacle of the reverses of fortune. This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too stupefied by the suddenness of the calamity for the resistance he might otherwise have made—nay, for more than a few inaudible words—Mr. Stirn hurried from the spot, but not without first picking up and pocketing the half-crown designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been his first emotions, he had hitherto even almost forgotten. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... for two years, but I reckon I've got a crop now." The cotton looked tall and rich, and we praised it. He curtsied low, and then bowed almost to the ground, with an imperturbable gravity that seemed almost suspicious. Then he continued, "My mule died last week,"—a calamity in this land equal to a devastating fire in town,—"but a white man loaned me another." Then he added, eyeing us, "Oh, I gets along with white folks." We turned the conversation. "Bears? deer?" he answered, "well, I should say there were," and he let fly ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... in adverse circumstances. The latter, too, may regain their brightness and grow exultant if they are under prosperous conditions. As there is no evil however small but may cause him to groan under it, who has his heart undisciplined, so there is no calamity however great but may cause him to despair, who has his feelings in control. A laughing child would cry, a crying child would laugh, without a sufficient cause. 'It can be teased or tickled into anything.' ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... ninety or eighty or sixty livres. The result was that capitalists feared to embark their means in business. Enterprise received a mortal blow. Demand for labor was still further diminished; and here came a new cause of calamity: for this uncertainty withered all far-reaching undertakings. The business of France dwindled into a mere living from hand to mouth. This state of things, too, while it bore heavily upon the moneyed classes, was still more ruinous ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... wish'd. To die, to sleep— To sleep; perchance to dream! Ay, there's the Rub. For in that sleep of Death what Dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this Mortal Coil, Must give us pause—There's the Respect That makes Calamity of so long Life; For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of Time, Th' Oppressor's Wrongs, the proud Man's contumely, The Pangs of despis'd Love, the Law's Delay, The Insolence of Office, and the Spurns That patient Merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his Quietus ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "By the calamity of last April I lost my little all in this world, and have no soul left who can make any corner of this world into a home for me any more. Bright, heroic, tender, true, and noble was that lost treasure of my heart, who faithfully ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... monk, "war is indeed a calamity. Alas! that Russia hath offended God by entering upon it. But thou, in thy wisdom, must put an end to it. The Holy Virgin appeared to me in a dream, and told me we must conclude peace. I come to inform ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... of Mr. Delancy did not again wander from the truth. But the shock received when it first came upon him with stunning force had taken away his keen perception of the calamity. He was sad, troubled and restless, and talked a great deal about the unhappy position of his daughter—sometimes in a way that indicated much incoherence of thought. To this state succeeded one of almost total silence, and he would sit for hours, if not ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... conscious of doing the will of God. (5) Strategic centers are the most fruitful fields of mission work. (6) False religious beliefs are less tolerant than the true. (7) God may save a whole company for the sake of one man. (8) No matter what calamity comes to us we may in the midst of it be a source of blessing ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... nearly always called forth some anecdote from her listeners about the Red Cross work in America, and to her great surprise she found five persons among them who had met Clara Barton in some great national calamity of fire, ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... woes, a life of tears, The silent tomb, eternal night, to find More sweet, by far, than the ethereal light, These things were not by heaven's gracious law Imposed on you. If ancient legends speak Of sins of yours, that brought calamity Upon the human race, and fell disease, Alas, the sins more terrible, by far, Committed by your children, and their souls More restless, and with mad ambition fixed, Against them roused the wrath of angry gods, The ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... Plague Year," Defoe assumed with his accustomed ease and skill the character of a plain, blunt London shopkeeper. He described with such apparent accuracy the observations of a man who had lived in the scene of that terrible calamity, giving curious incidents, anecdotes, statistics, after so methodical a manner, that it was long before any doubts were cast on the authenticity of the journal. It was a work of imagination, but so matter-of-fact, that it is difficult to believe the author had any imagination, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... Her hands seemed thin, and her fingers toyed nervously with her spoon in a manner that betrayed concealed agitation. Outwardly, however, I detected no extraordinary signs of either grief or anxiety. She spoke calmly, it was true, in the tone of one upon whom a great calamity had fallen, but that was only natural. I did not expect to find her bright, laughing, and light-hearted, like her ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... impatient of that drooping sickness and faint-fits of a pining languishment, should abandon and prostitute herself to the embraces of another man, and not only then not help and assist me in my extremity and need, but withal flout at and make sport of that my grievous distress and calamity; or peradventure, which is worse, embezzle my goods and steal from me, as I have seen it oftentimes befall unto the lot of many other men, it were enough to undo me utterly, to fill brimful the cup of my misfortune, and make me play the mad-pate reeks of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the Land Act, while they occasioned some fretting and exasperation among the land-owners, who are in the habit of regarding every effort of legislation for the benefit of their tenants with a fixed sense of calamity, failed entirely to satisfy the more aggressive and eager of the Irish Parliamentary party. The Land Act had not taken its place upon the statute book before a meeting of representative Irishmen was called in Dublin with the view of framing some scheme of Home Government, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... the mind of man can attain to no certainty regarding the most important of all his interests, the destiny of his immortal soul. He knows well—for every sickness, and sorrow, and calamity declares it, and quick returning troubles will not allow him to forget—that the Ruler of the world is offended with him; and conscience tells him why. The sense of guilt is common to the human race. This is, indeed, "the inspiration which knows no sect, no country, no religion, no age; which is ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... amusing. It is of particular interest as showing how much a blind man may accomplish both for himself and others, that the loss of sight may be borne with cheerfulness as well as resignation, and that the sufferer by such a calamity is sure of kindness and sympathy from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Thus, notwithstanding the indispensable need of iron, the extension of the manufacture, by threatening the destruction of the timber of the southern counties, came to be regarded in the light of a national calamity. Up to a certain point, the clearing of the Weald of its dense growth of underwood had been of advantage, by affording better opportunities for the operations of agriculture. But the "voragious iron-mills" were proceeding to ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... punishment of some sin known or concealed. To interfere, therefore, was in some way to defeat the justice of God. Pestilences were inscrutable providences; they were the wrath of God made manifest. In the face of so stupendous a calamity anything man might do was not only futile ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was—the one weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... fighting- men. Then he halted in mid-field, with no coward's heart, and cried out, "Where is Jamrkan? Let him come out to me, that I may make him quaff the cup of disgrace and rid of him earth's face!" Hardly had he made an end of speaking, when forth rushed Jamrkan, as he were a calamity of calamities or a piece of a mountain, cased in steel. He was a mighty huge[FN10] Amalekite; and he crave at Gharib without speech or salute, like the fierce tyrant he was. And he was armed with a mace of China steel, so heavy, so potent, that had he smitten a hill he had ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... with a vengeance. One gets pretty well used to high winds, in the West. There used to be days at a time when that unending high wind would make me think something was going to happen, filling me with a vague sense of impending calamity and making me imagine a big storm was going to blow up and wipe Casa Grande and its little coterie off the map. But we've had a real wind-storm, this time, with rain and hail. Dinky-Dunk's wheat looks sadly draggled out and beaten ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... cold. Many smaller streams and ponds froze solid, though the depth of the beaver pond prevented this calamity. When spring came at last and the ice broke up, the water began to rise. Higher and higher it came, fed by the melting ice and snow toward its source. The homes of the muskrats, some distance farther upstream, were flooded, many of the occupants being drowned and others driven for refuge ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... his own calamity distinctions between right and wrong began to fade away, and he found his hatred of the Negro race assuming a more violent form than that manifested by the native Southerner. In his heart there was the harking ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... Mariner, and being of an adventurous disposition he had gained his parents' consent to make the voyage. Of all those that sailed with us he and I only survived to reach England and tell the story of that fateful venture, and I have heard that Mr. Mariner wrote a book giving an account of the awful calamity that befel our ship, but that few people credited the strange story ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... necessitated by an event which took place on St. Paulinus' Day, October 10th, of the year 1323. For on that day a calamity such as had never before happened befell the church. The celebration of Mass at an altar of the Blessed Virgin was just over, a great multitude of people, men and women, still being in the church, when two of the Norman piers of the main arcade on the south side fell outwards one after ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... Besides being very sorry for the poor man, the tailor and his wife were very much frightened on their own account, for if the police came to hear of it the worthy couple ran the risk of being thrown into prison for wilful murder. In order to prevent this dreadful calamity they both set about inventing some plan which would throw suspicion on some one else, and at last they made up their minds that they could do no better than select a Jewish doctor who lived close by as the author of the crime. So the tailor picked up the hunchback by his head while ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... intention, but not until he had first delivered his freight and passengers in New-York; for, like all men bound up body and soul in the performance of an especial duty, he looked on a frustration of his immediate object as a much greater calamity than even a double amount of more remote evil. Besides, he felt a strong reliance on the liberality of the English authorities in the end, and had little doubt of being able to extricate himself and his ship from any penalties to which the indiscretion or cupidity of his subordinates ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... nominally 2-1/2 per cent, payable in cash on a three, or as some say a five, yearly settlement. But, according to certain officials, there has been no settlement since 1875. Land lying fallow for a season pays the same tax as land in cultivation, unless it is unproductive through flood or calamity (read earthquake here). The Government tax is calculated on the capital value of the land, taking a measure of about 11,000 square feet or a quarter of ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... assistance, either in attempting to save our goods, or preventing the flames spreading to our corn. By this time, the neighbours were alarmed, and came running to our assistance; but all they could do was to stand, like us, spectators of the calamity. My goods, among which were the notes I had reserved for my daughters' fortunes, were entirely consumed, except a box, with some papers that stood in the kitchen, and two or three things more of little consequence, which ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... private and tame, but also all wild and savage beasts be under her protection. And considering that all bodies in the heavens, the earth and the seas, be by her increasing motions increased, and by her diminishing motions diminished: as weary of all my cruell fortune and calamity, I found good hope and soveraigne remedy, though it were very late, to be delivered from all my misery, by invocation and prayer, to the excellent beauty of the Goddesse, whom I saw shining before mine eyes, wherefore shaking off mine Assie and drowsie sleepe, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... how public and private devotion to the mother of God was held in times of calamity and distress, and how these prayers were heard, and help was granted. Thus originated the exalted titles which Catholics give to the Blessed Virgin, such as Help of ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... curious calamity befell. A girl who had left the school for another at the end of the previous week, returned on the Thursday, explaining that her parents had decided to keep her in the old school. An indignant heart-cry broke through all ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... of things is the more extraordinary, because the great parties which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom are known to be in a manner entirely dissolved. No great external calamity has visited the nation; no pestilence or famine. We do not labour at present under any scheme of taxation new or oppressive in the quantity or in the mode. Nor are we engaged in unsuccessful war, in which our misfortunes might easily pervert ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... has gone to Soma-tirtha to propitiate Destiny, which threatens his daughter Sakoontala with some calamity; but he has commissioned her in his absence to entertain all guests ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... reciting the great actions of their ancestors, to awaken in them a spirit of glorious emulation. The other class are devotees of the Mahomedan faith, who travel about the country, singing devout hymns, and performing religious ceremonies, to conciliate the favour of the Almighty; either in averting calamity, or insuring success to any enterprise. Both descriptions of these itinerant bards are much employed and respected by the people, and very liberal contributions are made ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... thinner and more thin, until she seemed like a beautiful spirit gliding into the saloon, leaning on her mother's arm, and followed by Pauncefort, who had now learnt the fatal secret from, her mistress, and whose heart was indeed almost broken at the prospect of the calamity ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... we look to countries Christian or heathen, we find the state of literature there as little satisfactory as it is in these islands; so that, whatever are our difficulties here, they are not worse than those of Catholics all over the world. I would not indeed say a word to extenuate the calamity, under which we lie, of having a literature formed in Protestantism; still, other literatures have disadvantages of their own; and, though in such matters comparisons are impossible, I doubt whether we should be better pleased if our English Classics ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... had been by her manner for some dire Calamity, it came upon them like a thunderclap. The awful calm manner of the chieftain's widow impressed them more than if she had thrown up her hands in wild despair and given way to the ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... all the year round on the Riviera. These people came to make inquiry about what would be done to them if France did declare war suddenly against Great Britain. Would they be given time to leave the country? Fifteen years later the calamity of a sudden interruption of a peaceful existence, basking in the sun, did fall upon foreigners, but statesmen had shuffled the cards around, and this time the civilians caught in the net were Germans and Austrians. The Napoleonic principle still held. Italy ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... Dahcotah chiefs—he is fifty years old and has two wives, but these two have given a deal of trouble; although the chief probably thinks it of no importance whether his two wives fight all the time or not, so that they obey his orders. For what would be a calamity in domestic life to us, is an every ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... associate themselves with a thousand evanescent memories of days when we have been happy beyond the power of calamity or disappointment. They associate themselves with those half-physical, half-spiritual trances—when, suddenly in the outskirts of a great city perhaps, or on the banks of some inland river, we have remembered the long line of breaking surf, and the murmurs and the scents of the sea. They associate ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... navigation, and this evening it was in its element, as with every storm it presented one boiling, seething mass of foam. The inhabitants of the island saw the frail small boat from the ship securely inside the bar, and prophesied some dire calamity should the captain and the two sailors venture to return to the ship that night. But the captain and his companions, having secured sufficient provisions, decided (as far as I can remember the story), even ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... vacant," said the woman, brightening up, for the calamity of the day had robbed her of her tenants, "to any one who can pay ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... I can frankly say is largely due to our having secured the services of Mr. Philip Ogilvie as our assayer, but I regret to have to tell you all that, although he has returned to England, he is not likely to be present to-day. A very serious domestic calamity which ought to claim your deepest sympathy is the cause of his absence, but his report in detail I shall now have the pleasure ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... opportunity nor the inclination to call in the foreigner, but now there was the war, and it was easy for any party of violence to get their opponents crushed and themselves into power by an alliance with one of the belligerents. This recrudescence of class-war brought one calamity after another upon the states of Greece—calamities that occur and will continue to occur as long as human nature remains what it is, however they may be modified or occasionally mitigated by changes of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... solitary wilds of his deserts, rather than in civilised life, helplessly to tremble for a subsistence precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature! Every man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and plague on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which, in the hour of my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand without at the same time pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the world calls ye, and such ye think yourselves ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... not to war during that time, and all cause of passion was kept far from him. Then one day at broad noon the sky darkened, and the gloom of night seemed to spread over the world, and all the people feared, and looked for some calamity. Conor called to him his chief druid, namely Bacarach, and inquired of him as to the cause ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... to know of this calamity. Each day that does not give you tidings of the missing children lessens the chance of your ever recovering them. I must say their disappearance ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... Groby sincerely. A few hours earlier the tragic end which had befallen his parrot would have presented itself to him as a calamity; now it arrived almost as a polite attention on ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... vicious would by no means be determined alone by the personal advantage or disadvantage of each moral agent individually considered. Indeed, an action is often virtuous in proportion to the greatness of the personal calamity which the author willingly draws upon himself by daring to perform it. It is because an action produces an overbalance of pleasure or pain to the greatest number of sentient beings, and not merely because its consequences are beneficial or injurious to the author of that action, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... responsibility, though almost any one who saw him just then might have deemed him one. No, indeed! He was doing what none but a faithful and experienced railroad man would have thought of doing under the circumstances; doing his best to avert further calamity by warning approaching trains from the west of the danger before them. He ran half a mile and then placed the torpedoes, which, with a brakeman's instinct, he still carried ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... voice that never failed to soothe, however grotesque its misinterpretations, "lay yo' head on me; an' lay it heavy: dass what I'm use-en to. Blessed is de pyo in haht; she shall res' in de fea' o' de Lawd, an' he shall lafe at heh calamity." ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... of the most sacred engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. The Empress Queen had the faults as well as the virtues which are connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit. There was no peril which she was not ready to brave, no calamity which she was not ready to bring on her subjects, or on the whole human race, if only she might once taste the sweetness of a complete revenge. Revenge, too, presented itself to her narrow and superstitious mind in the guise of duty. Silesia had been wrested not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that the two principal figures in that affair parted each other's company fully realizing that hostilities were at hand. To say that Harrison was bound to sit helplessly in his capital while his enemies gathered a force sufficient to overwhelm him, and all without a move on his part to avert a calamity, but illustrates the foolishness of the whole contention. Immediately on the breaking up of the council, Tecumseh departed with a portion of his braves to organize and cement a federation of the tribes; Harrison, in the meantime, ordering an additional body of troops under Captain ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... had the feeling that a great loss, a great calamity, had befallen me, but I was still smarting at his too candid criticism, all the more because in my heart I acknowledged its truth. And that night, lying awake, I repented of the cruel retort I had made, and resolved to ask his forgiveness and leave it to him ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... always at hand to stimulate the imagination, the penitence, and the devotion of the believer. That anything whatever should break in upon the sacred absorption of these days would have seemed to him beforehand a calamity to be shrunk from—nay, a sin to be repented. He had put aside all business that could be put aside with one object, and one only—to make ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... love-stories. There ain't many bits of business come our way but what, if you sift 'em to the bottom, you find a petticoat. You remember the Oriental bloke that always asked, 'Who is she?' when he heard of a fight, or a fire, or a mad bull broke loose, or any trifling calamity of that sort; because, according to his views, a female was at the bottom of everything bad that ever happened upon this earth. Well, sir, if that Oriental potentate had lived in our times, and been brought up to the detective line, I'm blest if he ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... change in the character. In this way the sudden presentation of vice, in attractive forms, may give paramount sway to passions which had previously shown no signs of mastery; and, in like manner, a signal experience of peril, calamity, deliverance, or unexpected joy may call forth the religious affections, and invest them with enduring supremacy over a soul previously surrendered to appetite, inferior desires, or ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... and a second time by the Gauls, about a century and a half before Fabius was born. On the latter occasion the city was burned to the ground, and the capital saved only by the payment of an immense ransom. By such a calamity it is manifest that the most valuable documents must have been dispersed or destroyed, and the part that escaped thrown into great disorder. The heroic songs might indeed have been preserved in the memory of the public reciters; but there is little necessity ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... The calamity affected Polly, on the other hand, very much like a tonic. She felt the necessity of "bracing" to meet the fresh responsibilities that seemed waiting for her in the near future; and night and day, in sleeping and waking, resting and working, a plan ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... that worthy man one is overcome with a great anger. What he meant was that if the war went on he might be broken, and that was a calamity which he could not be expected to face. We thought of all those fellows in France—British, Australians, Canadians—cheerfully offering their lives for an ideal at which this worthy citizen shied because it might cost him his fortune. Suppose it did, suppose ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... into his face. Blake feared that the memories would return to betray him at the last moment. That would mean that he would be left naked of the reputation he had guarded so jealously—and a far worse calamity—that his rebellious nature would finally triumph. One defeat, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... elements which surround you? Ye are pleased to think us beautiful, and it may be that we are; but remember that ye see us in one of our pleased, pleasant, and happy, moments. Wait till an accident or misfortune happens, till want or calamity come, or contradiction ensue, or some of the crosses which belong to human life, as clouds and tempests to the constitution of nature, assail us. But, if you think your love could survive the hurricanes which will visit your dwellings when we are stormy; ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... her wet clothes, had a slight attack of her strange trouble, croup. Poor dear Mrs. Jimmie! However, Jimmie's repentance was so deep and sincere, he was so thoroughly scared by the extent of the calamity, so deeply sorry for our ruined clothes, apart from his anxiety over his wife, that we finally forgave him and took him into our favour again, to escape his remorseful attentions to us. So one day late, but on a better day, we took ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... avert and perhaps more pernicious than all those political usurpations put together. The burdensome and partly unfortunate wars, and the exorbitant taxes and task-works to which these gave rise, filled up the measure of calamity, so as either to deprive the possessor directly of his farm and to make him the bondsman if not the slave of his creditor-lord, or to reduce him through encumbrances practically to the condition of a temporary ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... somehow that this apparent calamity upon the river had been the "open sesame" for him to enter upon a new and perhaps delightful experience; rather a rough introduction perhaps, but then he knew only such in the ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... went to heaven, the young man became very unruly because of gambling and other vices. And the rascals came together, and ruined him. Association with scoundrels is the root from which springs the tree of calamity. ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... right to be proud of the achievements of the colored troopers in the late Spanish-American war. They were the representatives of the whole race in that conflict; had they failed it would have been a calamity charged up to the whole race. The race's enemies would have used it with great effect. They did not fail, but did their duty nobly—a thousand hurrahs for the colored troopers of the ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... was her mortifying loss of Calais (see p. 487), which the French, by an unexpected attack, snatched out of the hands of its garrison (1558). The unfortunate queen did not live out the year that marked this calamity, which she most ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... day, it will have worn as deep a track as one which has passed through it once a week for twenty years. This accounts for the ages we seem to have lived since the twelfth of April last, and, to state it more generally, for that ex post facto operation of a great calamity, or any very powerful impression, which we once illustrated by the image of a stain spreading backwards from the leaf of life open before us through all those which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... I., 47. "Just as in ordinary times one tries to elevate oneself, so does one strive in these times of calamity to lower oneself and be forgotten, or atone for one's inferiority by seeking ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and the prowess of her chivalry. The Abencerrages were her favorite heroes; she felt a woman's admiration of their gallant courtesy, and high-souled honor; and it was touching and inspiring to hear the praises of that generous but devoted race, chanted in this fated hall of their calamity, by the lips ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... records thirty-one imitations. How many have had their patriotism strengthened by Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, the verse which is aptly found in modern Rome on the monument to those who fell at Dogali. How many have been supported and comforted in calamity and sorrow by the poet's immortal words of consolation ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... in the midst of a herd of gazelles. All are seized by the same fear, because all are exposed to the same danger. But birds, whose wings can carry them at will afar from the furnace, preserve greater presence of mind, and profit by the public calamity and general anxiety to make a successful hunt and copious feasts. One may see the birds of prey flying in front of the fire and seizing easy victims. Certain birds of Africa are the most furious hunters during a fire. Legions ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... Lucia felt much soft-hearted sympathy for both Miss Bassett and her guest. She could not help wondering how Miss Belinda became responsible for the calamity which had fallen upon her. It really did not seem probable that she had been previously consulted as to the kind of niece she desired, or that she had, in a distinct manner, evinced a preference for ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with work and interests, appeared long until she came. I saw but little of the outside world. Dale, my sister Agatha, Sir Joshua Oldfield, and Campion were the only friends I met. Dale was ingenuously sympathetic when he head of the calamity. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... he confusedly adopted, and languages which he imperfectly knew. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed. Desdemona, "[Greek: dysdaimonia]," "miserable fortune," is also plain enough. Othello is, I believe, "the careful;" all the calamity of the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother, Laertes; and its signification is once ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... have held their course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune's darts; we can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, sitting composed in the holy evening of man's life, in the clear shining after rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse, like villainous roadside ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pavement. Nor was this all: for the wind, finding itself somewhat imprisoned in the narrow receptacle it had thus abruptly entered, made so strenuous an exertion to extricate itself, that it turned Lady Waddilove's memorable relic utterly inside out; so that when Mr. Brown, aghast at the calamity of his immersion, lifted his eyes to heaven, with a devotion that had in it more of expostulation than submission, he beheld, by the melancholy lamps, the apparition of his umbrella,—the exact opposite to its legitimate conformation, and seeming, with its lengthy stick and inverted ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... place, nothing could have saved the couple. Melville secured some consolation from the belief that, if such an awful calamity had overtaken his parents, the Sioux would give evidence of the fact. That is to say, they would have taken possession of the horses and enough of the property for the lad to see them on the first survey ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... the air, as the two sisters descended the stairs hand in hand, which foreboded calamity. The pastor had given out from the pulpit last Sunday that he would positively receive no invalids at his house; and he had solemnly charged every one to refrain from bringing their sick to his daughter. He had repeated ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... I once was scornfully proud, seems to me now, if not a calamity, something I would not choose if life were ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... love of Heaven, Freddy, before you let Rod go out of the house, give him a dose of veronal and pack him off to a quiet room up-stairs to sleep around the clock! The way he looks now, he's a proclamation of calamity across ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... within a few minutes was, out at the garage in her motoring dress. A mechanic was working over her racing car in front of the garage, the racing car that was just recovering from recent calamity in the international race. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... among the dearest brood Calamity will oft intrude, And fairest hopes prevent; How quick can desolation's storm With horrid agonies deform, ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... to consider principles of the first magnitude and which may result in the shedding of innocent blood. One of the objects of this meeting is to prevent so dire a calamity. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... became sharper; his spirits, hitherto arming him with fortitude, began to forsake him. Taken captive once again upon the very brink of reaching his goal, poor Israel was on the eve of falling into helpless despair. But he rallied, and considering that grief would only add to his calamity, sought with stubborn patience to habituate himself to misery, but still hold aloof from despondency. He roused himself, and began to bethink him how to be extricated from ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... she had known it was her royal father she stood before, all the words she spoke were of her own sorrows; but her reason for so doing was, that she knew nothing more wins the attention of the unfortunate than the recital of some sad calamity to match their own. The sound of her sweet voice aroused the drooping prince; he lifted up his eyes, which had been so long fixed and motionless; and Marina, who was the perfect image of her mother, presented to his amazed sight ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... I crave leave to estop your disfavor—which were affliction and calamity—by "defining my position" in the words of one of yourselves, who has said of me (though with reprehensible exaggeration, believe me) that I hate woman and love women—have an acute animosity to your sex and adoring each individual ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... subdued pain of his natural grief, hushed by that fatigue and exhaustion of both body and mind which a long strain produces, was not out of accord with the calm of nature. But very different was the harsh note of the new calamity, which had struck not the house in which the tragedy was being enacted, but this one, which lay bare and naked in the last light of the sinking sun. So young and so careless! So young, so wasteful of life and all that life had to give, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... more than a month from the date of his letter, Lincoln was compelled to surrender Charleston, and the whole country south of Virginia seemed about to fall into the hands of the enemy. Could he have foreseen that calamity, his apprehensions might have been changed to despair; ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... with him towards the house. 'Your life has been an example of patience and fortitude, except in this one particular which has often given me great pain. It is enough to know that you were cruelly involved in the calamity which deprived me of an only brother, and Emma of her father, without being obliged to suppose (as I sometimes am) that you associate us with the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the prelude to hard resolutions, and that where he could not win as the turtle, he could take his prey like a vulture;'—or some such words of anger. Now, Roland, I have twice before dreamed of this man, and on each occasion a heavy calamity ensued, and that on the following day. I dreamed of him the night before our uncle died. I dreamed a second time, and the next day he produced and recorded the will that robbed us of our inheritance. I dreamed of him again last night; and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... will tell me all about it soon, thank God!" were the last words she uttered as she turned her eyes gratefully on the loving strangers who had found and cared for her in the dark day of her calamity. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... would think, That the Convention go forth in a body; ascertain with its own eyes whether it is free or not. Lo, therefore, from the Eastern Gate of the Tuileries, a distressed Convention issuing; handsome Herault Sechelles at their head; he with hat on, in sign of public calamity, the rest bareheaded,—towards the Gate of the Carrousel; wondrous to see: towards Henriot and his plumed staff. "In the name of the National Convention, make way!" Not an inch of the way does Henriot make: "I receive no orders, till the Sovereign, yours and mine, has been obeyed." The Convention ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... was covered by the sacred wood, in the midst of which rose the druidical dolmen. It was there that those barbarians offered sacrifices to Esus, their God of war, sacrifices which, in times of public calamity, were human victims. ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... exempted. The owner in fee and life tenant, the occupier, whether of large or of small holding, whether under lease, or custom, or agreement, or the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act—all without distinction have been involved in a general calamity.'' The two most prominent causes assigned for the depression were bad seasons and foreign competition, aggravated by the increased cost of production and the heavy losses of live stock. Abundant evidence was forthcoming as to the extent ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Morini, and some other private persons known to Heliobas. A few people attended it on foot, and these were chiefly from among the very poor, some of whom had benefited by Zara's charity or her brother's medical skill, and had heard of the calamity through rumour, or through the columns of the Figaro, where it was reported with graphic brevity. The weather was still misty, and the fiery sun seemed to shine through tears as Father Paul, with his assistants, read ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... told us that it caused the hair and the nails to fall off, and the flesh to rot from the bones; that it spread a universal terror and consternation among them, so that the sick were abandoned by their nearest relations, lest the calamity should spread by contagion, and left to perish alone in such misery as till then had never been known among them. We had some reason, however, to hope that they had found out a specific to cure it: During our stay upon the island we saw none in whom it had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Or, "fall a victim to passion through some calamity," "commit a breach of chastity." Cf. Aristot. "H. ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... combatants, and the man would not be likely to suspect it. Come what may, the fight must not take place for thirteen years. And in order that I may still better preserve my health and strength to avert the calamity during that period, I will increase my number of chews to forty-two to each ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... in talking to her pupils once said, 'The greatest calamity that can befall a woman is never to have a child. The next greatest calamity is to have one only.' From my professional experience I am happy to testify that more women seek to overcome causes of sterility than to obtain knowledge of limiting the size of the family or means to destroy the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... was agreeable to him. He had grown almost desperate, and felt as if any change in the current of her life and feelings might save her from some strange paroxysm of dangerous mental exaltation or sullen perversion of disposition, from which some fearful calamity might come to herself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if Nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of affliction is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats on the whole species, we are falling foul ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... each imagination could form took vivid shape in the minds of all, when they saw his face. So white and woe-begone he looked—so weary and unutterably sorrowful, that all anticipated the news of some heavy and irreparable calamity, from which he only had escaped alone ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... before, and she had also seemed strangely delicate. Perhaps, or perhaps not, she felt the crisis was approaching. It is probable that when the mind has been strained for a long time, and the heart and body suffered much, one sees a calamity vaguely, and cannot define it; appreciates it, and does not know it. She came to Marion's room about a half-hour before they were to start for the church. Marion was already dressed and ready, save for the few final touches, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... . It was with deep regret that I learned from you and from Mr. Linton of the calamity which had befallen you on New Year's day. Such disasters seem common in Australia, like blizzards in Canada, and I presume every settler is liable to them. In your case your loss, being partly covered by insurance, will not, Mr. Linton assures me, be crushing, although it seems to me very severe. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... seen him coming and had tried to catch him as he flew out the door, hoping to get some more definite news of the calamity which had stirred the village, but he was gone before she could reach ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... exposed, they had a whole tempest of trouble in their hearts. As yet they knew not the Scriptures that He must rise again from the dead; and this collapse of the cause in which they had embarked their all for time and for eternity was a bewildering calamity. They had trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel, and that He would live and reign over the redeemed race forever. And there He was, perishing before their eyes in defeat and shame. Their faith was at the very last ebb. Or say, rather, it survived only in the form of love. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... after having borne him a son and a daughter—a son, who did not long survive his mother; and a daughter, who became afterwards Mrs. Dormer of Oxfordshire. From under this calamity Waller, yet only thirty years of age, rebounded with characteristic elasticity. He came back, nothing both, to the society he had left, and was soon known to be in quest of a fair lady, whom he has made immortal by the sobriquet of Saccharissa. She was the eldest daughter ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... events have caused the profoundest impression throughout the world." President Roosevelt said, "I have never in my experience in this country known of a more immediate or a deeper expression of the sympathy for the victims and of horror over the appalling calamity ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... She knew him to be a gallant and courteous knight, and had already experienced the magnanimity of his spirit, having been relieved by him when besieged by the Moors in her husband's fortress of Arcos. To the duke, therefore, she applied in this moment of sudden calamity, imploring him to furnish succor to her husband. The event showed how well noble spirits understand each other. No sooner did the duke receive this appeal from the wife of his enemy than he generously forgot all feeling of animosity and determined to go ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Scripture language. Is ours like it? Have we not got to think of a visitation of God as a simple calamity? If a man die suddenly and strangely, he has died by the visitation of God. But if he be saved from death strangely and suddenly, it does not occur to us to call that a visitation, and to say with Scripture, 'The Lord ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... A serious calamity threatens the Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, which abounds in plenty of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... alone. At first there was a blank—the faces about me had no meaning for me—the people when they spoke could scarcely make me understand. I was mad in a way, but not mad enough to be insensible to sorrow. I felt the fearful calamity that had fallen upon me, but nothing else. I told myself every hour of the day that he was dead—dead; cruelly cut off in the midst of his happy life by me whom he loved—I could not have suffered more had I been guilty," the Tenor broke off. "This lasted—I hardly know ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... They could travel through the skies, or over earth or ocean, with the rapidity of lightning, often riding in gorgeous golden chariots drawn by horses of immortal breed. They were greatly feared by men, and when any disaster occurred,—if lives were lost by earthquake, or shipwreck, or any other calamity,—it was attributed to the ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... who were about to contend for their loved ones, for the prizes in Salamis? 36. Such a multitude of the enemy surrounded them from all sides that the least of their impending dangers was the prospect of death, and the greatest calamity was what they expected to suffer in subjection to the victorious barbarians. 37. Doubtless through their trials they frequently pledged one another, and probably commiserated their own fortunes, knowing how few were their own ships and seeing many of ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias |
