"Misfortune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she said, "I am only the Duchess of Rose Petals, but through my misfortune I am causing a great deal of misery to my dear, dear niece, Queen Amy of the Island of Roses." Here she shed a few tears, then shaking her ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... pains to confide to anyone who would listen to her that she thought Lola Elster the rudest, slangiest person she had ever had the misfortune to meet. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of the plans for their defence, and for falling back upon them in an orderly and systematic manner. It has been said that these plans could not have been made known beforehand to the Subordinate Commands for fear they should fall into the hands of spies. That would have been a small misfortune ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... was, on this account, seized and thrown into prison, and this very circumstance procured for him during his subsequent career no small renown and the reputation for wonderful powers and the glory which he loved. When, then, he had been put in bonds, the Christians looked upon these things as a misfortune and in their efforts to secure his release did everything in their power. When this proved impracticable, other assistance of every sort was rendered him, not occasionally, but with zeal. From earliest dawn old women, widows, and orphan children were to be seen waiting beside the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... knelt beside Burlingham, holding one of his hot hands. She was remembering how she had said that she would die for him—and here it was he that was dying for her. And her heart was heavy with a load of guilt, the heaviest she was ever to feel in her life. She could not know how misfortune is really the lot of human beings; it seemed to her that a special curse attended her, striking ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... fortune as a serious misfortune, and even envying those whose daily toil can alone bring them the necessaries of life; for, have they friends—they are true friends—there is no selfishness in the bond which unites them—while she, unhappy child that she is, owes to her rank and riches her thousand friends ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... at Eton 'but I was so terrefied at the report of the severe discipline there that I was sent back to Lewes, which perverseness of mine I have since a thousand times deplored.' In that same year (1637) Evelyn had the misfortune to lose his mother, then only in the 37th year of her age. Having been 'extremely remisse' in his studies at school, he made no great mark during his University career. His application was not assiduous, while his tutor, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... recollecting some of his own companions who had perished in the storm. At that moment he beheld Palinurus, his pilot, who fell overboard and was drowned. He addressed him and asked him the cause of his misfortune. Palinurus replied that the rudder was carried away, and he, clinging to it, was swept away with it. He besought Aeneas most urgently to extend to him his hand and take him in company to the opposite shore. But the Sibyl rebuked him for ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... Mr. Wilks. "Faithful ain't no word for it. He's a sticker, that's wot 'e is, and it's my misfortune that 'is mother takes after 'im. I 'ave to go out afore breakfast and stay out till late at night, and even then like as not she ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... a dash below decks, followed by Dr. Sterling, and, a few seconds later, by Jim, who saw in the yacht's misfortune another opportunity to satisfy his ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... affection. He feels that men born in ignorance as in the house of an enemy, and condemned to struggle with error and passions through endless centuries, should be spared the supreme cruelty of a hope for ever deferred. He knows that our best hopes are irrealisable; that it is the almost incredible misfortune of mankind, but also its highest privilege, to aspire towards the impossible; that men have never failed to defeat their highest aims by the very strength of their humanity which can conceive the most gigantic tasks but leaves them ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... too kind," said that young gentleman, laying his hand on his heart, while Ormiston scowled darkly—"more especially as I've the misfortune to be ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... old-time, boyish infatuation for her. To prevent possible developments of this passion for a portionless girl from interfering with his career, she had left him, to lose herself in the fog. If her present situation were a misfortune, it had arisen from her abnormal, and, as it had turned out, mischievous consideration for his welfare. But scruples of the nature which she had displayed were assuredly numbered amongst the virtues, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... gentleman of rank, but on his way was taken prisoner by pirates, who, deeming him a person of great distinction, held him at a high ransom. For six weeks Caesar remained in their hands, waiting until his ransom should be paid. He was in no respect downcast by his misfortune, but took part freely in the games and pastimes of the pirates, and, according to Plutarch, treated them with such disdain that whenever their noise disturbed his sleep he sent orders to them to keep silence. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... poverty as a club to force him into a position which would be dishonorable was inconceivable in a man as well born as his antagonist, but it was true: he could hardly refrain from telling him so. He had missed, it may be said, seeing another side—his visitor's sympathy for him in his misfortune. That, unfortunately, he did not see: fate often plays such tricks ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... excess of indiscriminating kindliness. But it is an amiable fault after all; and, besides, more discrimination may sometimes be required to discover the hidden good lurking in a fellow-creature than to perceive and deride his more obvious absurdities and defects. It would no doubt be a very great misfortune to see our belongings as they appear to the world at large, and the fay who should "gie us that giftie" ought indeed to be banished from every christening. Let us ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... then address'd. Friends! ask we now the stranger, if he boast Proficiency in aught. His figure seems Not ill; in thighs, and legs, and arms he shews Much strength, and in his brawny neck; nor youth Hath left him yet, though batter'd he appears With num'rous troubles, and misfortune-flaw'd. Nor know I hardships in the world so sure To break the strongest down, as those by sea. 170 Then answer thus Euryalus return'd. Thou hast well said, Laodamas; thyself Approaching, speak to him, and call him forth. Which when Alcinoues' ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... "The Cub-Slut's" part had made her feared; so that nobody durst provoke her in the slightest degree. Besides, her history and her misfortune were known and people knew that she was not a vicious woman, but rather a ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... of thought, he had the one relentless monster still before him. All things looked black, and cold, and deadly upon him, and he on them. He found a likeness to his misfortune everywhere. There was a remorseless triumph going on about him, and it galled and stung him in his pride and jealousy, whatever form it took: though most of all when it divided with him the love and memory of his ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... to enter it, than they are now afraid to go out of it. And truly we want not remembrances and representations of our misery every day, in that children come weeping into the world, as it were bewailing their own misfortune, that they were brought forth to be sensible subjects of misery. And what is all our life-time, but a repetition of sighs and groans, anxiety and satiety, loathing and longing, dividing our spirits and our time between them? How many deaths must we suffer before death come? For the absence or ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... trouble if I had not been present. Judging by his looks, he appeared to regard me with intense hatred. I had interfered with some of his schemes before, and from the particular attention he bestowed upon me, I came to the conclusion that he considered me the author of his present misfortune. ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... Hugh, reflecting on the development of Christianity, that perhaps it was not too much to say that the Pauline influence had been to a great extent a misfortune; it was true that in a sense he had resisted the Jewish tyranny, and moreover that his writings were full of splendid aphorisms, inspiring thoughts, generous ideals. But he had formalised Christianity for all that; he had linked it closely to the Judaic system; he was ultimately responsible ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as nursery and parlour. In the dull light of a stove and an oil lamp four or five women are seated with babies on their knees. They have the meek look of those who doom themselves to acceptance of misfortune, the flat, resigned figures of the overworked. Their loose woolen jackets hang over their gaunt shoulders; their straight hair is brushed hard and smooth against high foreheads. One baby lies a comfortable bundle in its mother's arms; one is black in the face after a spasm of coughing; one ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... conceived any suspicion of the young man beyond that which he might have shared with Jackeymo, viz., that Randal's interest in the father was increased by a very natural and excusable admiration of the daughter. But the Italian had the pride common to misfortune,—he did not like to be indebted to others, and he shrank from the pity of those to whom it was known that he had held a higher station in his own land. These scruples gave way to the strength of his affection for his daughter and his dread of his foe. Good men, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... wife of the foregoing; a pretty little American woman who married Dumay while he was on a journey to America on behalf of his patron and friend Charles Mignon, during the Restoration. Having had the misfortune to lose several children at birth, and deprived of the hope of others, she became entirely devoted to the two Mignon girls. She as well as her husband was thoroughly attached to that ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... a prisoner, though melancholy, was not undignified; he paid no allegiance, he met the men of his own rank, nor was he of a kind to whom poverty, the chief thorn of his misfortune, brought dishonour. ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... eye would have seen that he was hardly more than a prematurely old boy. Lines traced a network around his eyes, but they were whimsical lines such as come from persistent laughter—the sort of laughter that insists on expressing itself even in the face of misfortune. His open mackinaw collar revealed a carelessly knotted scarf decorated with a large black pearl, and as he drew off a glove she noticed that his brown hand was slender and that one finger wore a heavily carved ring, from whose quaint setting glowed the cool, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... time allows no circumstance, lady, therefore know this was but a device to remove your husband hence, and bestow him securely, whilst, with more conveniency, I might report to you a misfortune that hath happened to monsieur Brisk — Nay, comfort, sweet lady. This night, being at supper, a sort of young gallants committed a riot, for the which he only is apprehended and carried to the Counter, where, if your husband, and other creditors, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... the day when the mast blew down, was known in wireless circles as Black Sunday. All had worked keenly to make the "wireless" a success, and the final event was considered to be a public misfortune. However, the honours were to be retrieved during ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... body else, that the management in the late fight was bad from top to bottom. That several said this would not have been if my Lord Sandwich had had the ordering of it. Nay, he tells me that certainly had my Lord Sandwich had the misfortune to have done as they have done, the King could not have saved him. There is, too, nothing but discontent among the officers; and all the old experienced men are slighted. He tells me to my question (but as a great secret), that the dividing of the fleete did proceed first from a proposition ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... go to Manila to harm the Filipinos who have the misfortune to become infatuated with the malicious vanity of those who have surrounded themselves with a cloud of superstition and all the inventions of falsehood. It was necessary that Americans should protect themselves, or yield the country to the destructiveness of barbarism, and they have defended ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... were hardly settled, when Neb was admitted with the bag. The poor fellow had been in tears; for he not only felt for me, but he felt for the disgrace and misfortune which had alighted on the whole Clawbonny stock. He had yet to learn that the place itself was gone, and I shrank from telling him the fact; for, to his simple mind, it would be like forcing body and soul asunder. All the negroes considered themselves as a part of Clawbonny, and a ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... a loan may be required before the close of your present session; but this, although deeply to be regretted, would prove to be only a slight misfortune when compared with the suffering and distress prevailing among the people. With this the Government can not fail deeply to sympathize, though it may be without the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... remembrance of what was due to me! You masters of logic should advert to this phenomenon in human speech, before you arraign the usage of us dramatic geniuses. Imagination is a good blood mare, and goes well; but the misfortune is, she has too many paths before her. 'Tis true I might have imaged to myself, that you had trundled your frail carcass to Norfolk. I might also, and did imagine, that you had not, but that you were lazy, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... guest, as he took the seat assigned to him. "I can't say that I have a very fierce appetite after the misfortune that has befallen me; but I am none the less indebted to you ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... do now that I am blind," she said, at the last, "for I can't help being a care and a trouble to everybody, everywhere I go now. But godmother says people won't mind that much if I'll only be pleasant and cheerful about my misfortune, and not let it cast its shadow on other lives any more than I can help. I haven't said anything about it yet to her, but if there is enough money in the bank that papa left to educate me with, I want ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... entire city. Also, we did not want to go into town except under pressure of dire necessity, because we thought that the population was greatly perturbed and that it might take revenge on any foreigners which they might consider spiteful onlookers of their misfortune, or ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... me as a mere jester. This was not the usual reciprocal-admiration trick: I believe he was sincere, and felt indignant at what he thought was a vulgar underestimate of me; and I had the same feeling about him. My impulse to rally to him in his misfortune, and my disgust at 'the man Wilde' scurrilities of the newspapers, was irresistible: I don't quite know why; for my charity to his perversion, and my recognition of the fact that it does not imply any general depravity or coarseness of character, came to me through reading and observation, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... before Christmas and is continued until a week afterwards. In the villages the custom of "lucky birds" still survives. The boy who first reaches any house on Christmas morning is called a "lucky bird," and unless great misfortune is courted some small coin must be given to that boy. On New Year's Day the same process applies to girls, but they have no particular designation. Badger-baiting in the castle is still remembered, but at the present ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... each other only in whispers as he passed, gazing at him in silent sympathy. No one attempted to console him in so great an affliction, nor did the good marques speak ever a word, but, shutting himself up, brooded in lonely anguish over his misfortune. It was only the arrival of Don Alonso de Aguilar that gave him a gleam of consolation, rejoicing to find that amidst the shafts of death which had fallen so thickly among his family his chosen friend and ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... subtle stings misfortune flings Can give me little pain When my narcotic spell has wrought This quiet in my brain: When I can waste the past in taste So luscious and so ripe That like an elf I hug myself; And ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... man's true mood should be sorrow—not flinging the blame on others, or on fate, or circumstances; not regarding his sin as misfortune or as ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... articles which filled the Northern papers, upon the disastrous termination of this expedition, prophetically declared the true misfortune which would result to Morgan himself from his ill-success to-wit: the loss of his unexampled prestige—hitherto of itself a power adequate to ensure him victories, but never to be recovered. This writer more sagacious, as well as more fair than ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... hour, when she had forgotten it. What did it mean? She recalled that she had had dark presentiments before in her life, and they had always come in the form of this sudden mental invasion, as if some malignant homeless spirit exulted in being the first to hint at the misfortune ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... prison, then along behind, and back; so they had only the time taken by him from the corner to the end of the lane, and back, to work. They were so annoyed at this that one night, when the sentry came to be relieved, he was found stabbed to the heart and, as this misfortune happened just after he went on duty, the men managed to file one of the bars that night. Curiously enough, the same accident happened two nights later; just as I had arranged, with a Spaniard who had enlisted ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... Dorsenne, "but my visit has another motive, dear friend," said he, in a still lower tone. "I have been seeking for you for more than an hour, that you might aid me in rendering a great service to several people, in preventing a very great misfortune, perhaps." ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... that ever befell in the New Forest was this strange murder or misfortune which cost the Red King his life. It haunts the whole forest, and rightly understood fills it with meaning and can never have been or be far from the thoughts of anyone who wanders there, even as I have done in the excellent ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... deprived—namely, gravity. Whether this was owing to the fact that water had been employed as the means of conveying the injury, I do not know. But it is certain that she could swim and dive like the duck that her old nurse said she was. The way that this alleviation of her misfortune was discovered, was as follows. One summer evening, during the carnival of the country, she had been taken upon the lake, by the king and queen, in the royal barge. They were accompanied by many of the courtiers in a fleet of little boats. In the middle ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... and imploring the hastening of light, as men pray continually without reason for things that can but come in a due order. I still went forward a little, because when I sat down my loneliness oppressed me like a misfortune; and because my feet, going painfully and slowly, yet gave a little balance and rhythm to the movement of ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... village was tapu, and lived loathed and utterly apart. Sick persons were often treated in the same way, and inasmuch as the unlucky might be supposed to have offended the gods, the victims of sudden and striking misfortune were treated as law-breakers and subjected to the punishment of Muru described in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... among thousands who go down inarticulate into the depths, They die and make no sign, or, worse still, they continue to exist, carrying about with them, year after year, the bitter ashes of a life from which the furnace of misfortune has burnt away all joy, and hope, and strength. Who is there who has not been confronted by many despairing ones, who come, as Richard O—— went, to the clergyman, crying for help, and how seldom have we been ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... of his appearance, so unusual to him, gave her a presage of misfortune. She followed him into ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... these arrangements (for we must here go back a little), there had been one gigantic difficulty of conscience in one party, of feeling in another, to surmount. Mrs. Leslie saw at once that unless Alice's misfortune was concealed, all the virtues and all the talents in the world could not enable her to retrace the one false step. Mrs. Leslie was a woman of habitual truth and strict rectitude, and she was sorely perplexed between the propriety ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... toil in the fields and in the house, well fitted to work,—in short, good for everything; and when you had given her to me, and I took her, we did not place it among our promises that I should go and forget about her if I had the misfortune to ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... course of our digging we had had the misfortune to make two or three serious rents in the thin canvas of the tent, and the drift was not long in finding a way through these when the tent was up again. To conclude my day's work I had, therefore, a longish tailor's job, while the other two men were digging out a good feed for the dogs, who had ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... I replied laughingly. "I will tell it to you when the time begins to drag; but I tell you now it is through no fault of yours that I am here. No one is to blame for my misfortune but myself." Then I continued bitterly, "Unless it be the good God who ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... her head. She had a pretty smile—the frank smile of a woman who had been admired, and who has too long felt the certainty of being able to please, to be utterly subjugated by any worldly misfortune. ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... unseemly sights that I have ever had the misfortune to witness, what I now saw was the most shameful. I pushed and shouldered my way through a riotous mob of soldiers and teamsters which choked the highway; loud, angry voices raised in reproach or dispute assailed ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Florimel, but for the thought of meeting Caley, her fine spirits would have laughed the weather to scorn. Malcolm was merry. His spirits always rose at the appearance of bad weather, as indeed with every show of misfortune a response antagonistic invariably awoke in him. On the present occasion he had even to repress the constantly recurring impulse to break out in song. His bosom's lord sat lightly in his throne. Griffith ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... would be plunged in gloom by this decision, even if he didn't try to break it. To my surprise, however, he not only made no objection, but encouraged the idea. He wouldn't wish to sacrifice us on the altar of his misfortune, he said. We must go on, dine at Cuneo, and he would meet us at the hotel there, which he could easily do, as, when once his automobile was itself again, it would travel at more than twice the speed of ours. "Especially ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... but having been, as he conceived, unjustly Broken for hot words that passed between him and the Captain,—this took place at Gibraltar,—had deserted, and hid himself on board a Merchant Brig bound for Tangier. At last, being fond of a Roving Life (and having the misfortune to kill the Captain of the Merchant Brig in a dispute concerning some Bullocks they were shipping), he had turned Mussulman; and after living some time among the Buccaneers of the Riff, had come to Algiers, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... abuse heaped upon them as a class was unjust and often malicious. The large proportion, and notably those who remained in Congress beyond two years, were men of character and respectability, in many cases indeed of decided cleverness. But their misfortune was that they had assumed a responsibility which could be successfully discharged only by men of extraordinary endowments. If any considerable number of them had been gifted in a high degree as orators, they would have had great advantages ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... moisture, and super-abounding heavy vegetation. In the thick shade grow giant ferns of tropic luxuriance. The rhododendron thrives, its black glossy leaves a symbol of richly nourished power. The devil's club flaunts aloft its bright berries, and poisonously wounds whomsoever has the misfortune even to touch its great prickly leaves, nearly as big as an elephant's ear; if there be a malignant old rogue of the vegetable kingdom, this is he, sharing with the wait-a-bit thorn of Africa an evil eminence. Many new plants meet the eye, a wealth of berries—the ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... ran after them to beat them, she had fallen down; her cap was awry, and her dress covered with mud; they called out that she was tipsy (as often happens to those poor old "grizzling" people in the country who have met misfortune). ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... one of gold, the boy, the child, lifeless! He had bedewed the ground with the water of his eye and with the foam of his lips. His body was motionless, his heart did not beat, and his muscles were relaxed." Then Isis sent forth a bitter cry, and lamented loudly her misfortune, for now that Horus was dead she had none to protect her, or to take vengeance on Set. When the people heard her voice they went out to her, and they bewailed with her the greatness of her affliction. But though all lamented on her behalf there was none who could bring back ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... could have gone inside and drunk a dram. No doubt a dram would have quieted her hunger. Ah! what a number of drams she had drunk in her time! Liquor seemed good stuff to her after all. And from outside she watched the drunk-making machine, realizing that her misfortune was due to it, and yet dreaming of finishing herself off with brandy on the day she had some coin. But a shudder passed through her hair as she saw it was now almost dark. Well, the night time was approaching. She must have some pluck and sell herself coaxingly if she didn't wish to kick the bucket ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the morrow the hair was caked so fast about his neck that it could only be freed by shearing it. But this Eric would not suffer. None, he said, should shear his hair, except Gudruda. Thus he had sworn, and when he broke the oath misfortune had come of it. He would break that vow no more, if it cost him his life. For sorrow and his ill luck had taken so great a hold of Eric's mind that in some ways ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... been all right if I'd been ass enough to play into his hands and gone blowin' me nose and grizzlin', and whinin' about my misfortune, and let him go gassin' about the sadness of it and all that. But because I kept my end ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... arrived about three o'clock, and found only Mrs. Spotswood at home, who received her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. I was carried into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses, the largest of which came soon after to an odd misfortune. Amongst other favorite animals that cheered this lady's solitude, a brace of tame deer ran familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a stranger. But unluckily spying his own figure in the glass, he made a spring over the tea-table that stood under it, and shattered the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... away sadly. "I am afraid you can be of no use, Mr. Bashwood—but I am obliged to you for your offer, all the same." He stopped, and considered a little, "Suppose she should not be ill? Suppose some misfortune should have happened?" he resumed, speaking to himself, and turning again toward the steward. "If she has left her mother, some trace of her might be found by inquiring at ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... to speak with you about General Haverill's son, Frank. I should like you to carry a message to Charleston for me, as soon as it is light. It is a sad errand. You know too well the great misfortune that has fallen upon ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... pelting him pretty liberally on all sides. After awhile he slipped up and fell, but in his fall his face was downward, when lo! the girls discovered that he had a hole in his pants. Too good-natured to appear to see his predicament, no notice was seemingly taken of his misfortune; but as the officers were about going off to bed that night, the married lady said ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... land. This, however, is the source of very little annoyance to him. Men, when they are acquiring property, think much of such things, but they who live where their ancestors have lived for years, do not feel the misfortune. It never occurred to either Mr or Miss Thorne that they were not sufficiently private, because the world at large might, if it so wished, walk or drive by their iron gates. That part of the world which availed itself of the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... dissatisfaction with his habitat, are feared by the people; but I could not ascertain what was the nature of the injuries by the ghost to themselves of which they were afraid, nor could I hear of any actual instance of a disaster or misfortune which had been attributed to the machinations of such a ghost. When sleeping in their dark enclosed houses, however, the people fill up all openings by which the ghost might enter (this does not apply to the emone, the entrance openings of which are not closed ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... dubiously. Although apparently unaffected by any sentimental consideration of his father's misfortune, the spectacle of the blackened ruins of the homestead had evidently shaken his preconceived plans. "It wasn't there in MY time," he ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... too light-hearted, just as was the religion of ancient Greece. But the Talmud tells us of a class who in the early part of the first century were known as 'lovers of sorrow.' These men were in love with misfortune; for to every trial of Israel corresponded an intervention of the divine salvation. This is the secret of the Jewish gaiety. The resilience under tribulation was the result of a firm confidence in the saving fidelity ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... could learn would necessarily find its way to the mind of the boy. "Pray take in hand," he writes, "some book which requires attention and study. You will, I fear, lose the habit of study, which would be a greater misfortune than to lose your head." He praised, too, the ease, good-sense, and sprightliness of her letters, and said truly that her style, at its best, was not inferior to that ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... of that sympathy which misfortune inspires, by your generous feelings, and by your honor as a gentleman, I entreat you to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... so, what moral would such a story exemplify beyond the vulgar one of pecuniary improvidence? And yet surely this was not the cause of the Duke's being thrown from his horse. Meantime, Pope well knew that the whole was a ridiculous fable. The Duke had the misfortune to be fatally injured in a fox-chase. In such an extremity, naturally, his servants carry him into the house nearest at hand, which happens to be an alehouse—not 'the worst,' since there was no other; nor was it possible that, to a man of his distinction, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... another misfortune of people in love; they always think highly of the beloved object, and lowly of themselves, such a dismal ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... will explain myself. You had conceived causeless prejudices against me: you seemed inclined to impute to me a misfortune that was not, could not be, greater to you than it was to me. I knew my own innocence: I knew that I was rather an injured man, in having hopes given me, in which I was disappointed, not by my own fault: whom shall an innocent and an injured man fear?—Had I feared, my fear might have been ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... run in such small old grooves that they hold legal forms not a means, but an end; these will cry out against this proceeding as tyrannical. No doubt, too, that under the present palaver of the "sensationist" caste, the old ladies of both sexes have come to regard crime as mere misfortune: these will lament this proceeding as cruel. But for this act, if for no other, an earnest man's heart ought in these times to warm toward the great statesman. The man had a spine. To his mind crime was not mere ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... until he is wounded and forced to withdraw to his tent. His chief fault is his overweening haughtiness, due to an over-exalted opinion of his position, which leads him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks. But his family had been marked out for misfortune from the outset. His kingly office had come to him from Pelops through the blood-stained hands of Atreus and Thyestes, and had brought with it a certain fatality which. explained the hostile destiny which pursued him. The fortunes of Agamemnon have formed the subject of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that Man does not have his fair play either; his energies are repressed and distorted by the interposition of artificial obstacles. Ay, but he himself has put them there; they have grown out of his own imperfections. If there is a misfortune in Woman's lot, it is in obstacles being interposed by men, which do not mark her state; and, if they express her past ignorance, do not her present needs. As every Man is of Woman born, she has slow but sure means of redress; yet the sooner a general justness of thought makes ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... formidable alliances; and these alliances were the offensive and defensive armor in which they trusted, but they were also their peril. Close alliance with one savage clan involved war with its enemies. It was an early misfortune of the French settlers that their close friendly relations with their Huron neighbors embattled against them the fiercest, bravest, and ablest of the Indian tribes, the confederacy of the Six Nations, which held, with full appreciation ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... men there," the sheik said. "I thought it as well not to bring all, for had misfortune happened, the women and children would have been left without protectors; but there is surely no occasion for Hassan to go yet. In three days he might be there, and be back in another three, and though I hope to mend quickly, ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... upon it that the 'absolute Atheist,' if virtuous, is so by accident not design; that he can neither love truth, justice, nor his neighbour, except by sheer luck, and that, if bad as his principles, would cut the throat of every man, woman, and child who might have the misfortune to fall in his way. They argue as if none can think good thoughts or purposely perform good acts unless so far eaten up by superstition as always to keep in view the probable rewards, or equally probable ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... may appear very presumptuous, I shall deduce from their own histories many truths, with which they were totally unacquainted, and give to them an original, which they certainly did not know. They have bequeathed to us noble materials, of which it is time to make a serious use. It was their misfortune not to know the value of the data which they transmitted, nor the purport of their ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... trio! Of all her wondrous beauty nothing remained but her fine eyes, dimmed and sunken. The only thing faithful to her was misfortune. ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... was, like his royal brother, named Robert. The Christian name of the latter had been John until he was called to the throne; when the superstition of the times observed that the name had been connected with misfortune in the lives and reigns of John of England, John of France, and John Baliol of Scotland. It was therefore agreed that, to elude the bad omen, the new king should assume the name of Robert, rendered dear to Scotland by the recollections of Robert Bruce. We mention this to account for the existence ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... broad and swift Mississippi, Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen. It was a band of exiles: a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together, Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune; Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay, Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas. With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician Onward o'er ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... find that you place good sense above good faith, Mr. Bascombe; but I am obliged by your good opinion, which, as I read it, amounts to this—that I am one of the greatest humbugs you have the misfortune ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... province in 1684, he expected to return speedily, but he did not see that pleasant land again until 1699. The fifteen intervening years were filled with contention, anxiety, misfortune, and various distresses. ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... was L1,300. The king of Bavaria followed his example by ordering a still finer instrument for the same purpose; and the king of France, with a liberality still more patriotic, has had executed in his own capital, an achromatic telescope, surpassing them all in magnitude and power. What a misfortune it is to English science, that the name of the most accomplished prince who has as yet occupied the throne of Charles I. does not appear in the list of sovereigns, who have been thus rivalling each other in the patronage of astronomy! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... speech by joining in the congratulation of the address on the birth of another princess, and the happy recovery of her majesty. Here, however, he said, his courtly complaisance must end; for he could not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. He could not concur in a blind and servile address, which approved, and endeavoured to sanctify, the monstrous measures that had heaped disgrace upon us, and had brought ruin to our very doors. The present moment, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... guests to dine with the master, they do not consider the guests at all, thus causing the poor master of the house great shame; [208] and it is necessary for him to excuse himself by the poor instruction that the devil gave them in this matter. No misfortune can be greater to him than to offend against his civility; and in a manner that seems good to them, for doubtless they are so persuaded by the devil. It is also their custom, when there is company, for all to go to the kitchen and leave the master ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of misfortune began to separate, and on the evening of the 3rd of June, the joyful cry of "the flag's up" resounded in ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... the history of most great men, a seemingly great misfortune proved to be a turning point in his career. The position he had temporarily filled with such credit to himself and profit to the students was claimed by its regular occupant, and, despite the opposition of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... had a long and wearisome tramp, urged on by their captors, who at the slightest suggestion of hanging back made threatening gestures with the points of their spears. To the wonder of his party, this last misfortune had seemed to act like a stimulus to Mark, and though slowly, he had kept on as well as he could and had only broken down twice; but now this was the third time, and after what Dan muttered to Buck was "a crackling jabbering," their captors made preparations for lighting a fire, and some of ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... was said that whoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty years. Now when a young knight named Conrad von Geisberg heard this, he said that if the castle were his he would destroy that chamber, so that no foolish person might have the chance to bring so dreadful a misfortune upon himself and afflict such as loved him with the memory of it. Straightway, the company privately laid their heads together to contrive some way to get this superstitious young man to sleep in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bowker, thinks I, more or less— Charge fate for our bad luck, ourselves for success, An' give fortune the blame for all our distress, As Jim Bowker, he said. Ef it hadn' been for luck an' misfortune an' sich, We might a-been famous, an' might a-been rich. It might be jest so; I dunno; Jest so it might been, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... confusion. Had any moral delinquency of his own been implicated in the remark, he might have found means to steel himself against its consequences; but, as is only too often the case, he was far more ashamed of a misfortune over which he had no possible control, than he would have been of a crime for which he was strictly responsible in morals. Sir Gervaise smiled at Sir Wycherly's knowledge of law terms, not to say of Latin; and turning good-humouredly ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and patience which long misfortune had tried so cruelly and had never conquered yet, seemed now to have suddenly failed her. Insensible to all Marian's attempts to soothe and amuse her, she sat, with her neglected drawing pushed away on the table, her eyes resolutely cast down, her fingers twining and untwining themselves ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Count de Saint-Simon served in our Revolutionary War in the French army, while very young, and ended a life of misfortune and poverty in 1825, a month after the publication of his "Nouveau Christianisme" (Woolsey's "Communism and Socialism," p. 107). For a fuller account, see R. T. Ely's "French and German Socialism," p. 53; A. J. Booth's ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... an anecdote that applies continually to the modern representative system in every country which has the misfortune to support it. No one needs to be reminded of such a truth. We know in England how the one strong feeling in the elections of 1906 was the desire to get at the South African Jews and sweep away their Chinese labour from ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... Leave you to a prison! No: fallen as you see me, I'm not that wretch. Nor would I change this heart, overcharged as 'tis with folly and misfortune, for one most prudent and most happy, if ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... future course, like the past, Walter Gay, From wreck and misfortune be free: your sorrows and care fade into the air, Or vanish like foam on the sea, Walter Gay, Or vanish like foam on ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... these events shall become in ourselves—in other words, on their spiritual part, on what is radiant, undying within them. There are thousands of men within whom this spiritual part, that is craving for birth in every misfortune, or love, or chance meeting, has known not one moment of life—these men pass away like a straw on the stream. And others there are within whom this immortal part absorbs all; these are like islands that have sprung up in the ocean; for they have ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... misfortune. Rich as he was, his estate was all undeveloped, and nothing but the personal labor of the owner could make it of value. For twenty years or more he was the slave of his estate. He could not travel ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... khabar si-polan[4] yang sakit kalmarin itu? He has quite recovered his former health— Sudah sihat balik saperti sedia lama. Thanks to the favouring influence of your good fortune, we are free from all misfortune and sickness— Dengan berkat tuah tuah tulong tiada-lah satu apa-apa ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... as I always do after a great misfortune, that the shock at first is nothing to the quiet grief afterwards, when one really begins to understand what ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... Princess Amelia was slowly sinking away, and that my lord must hasten to receive the last sighs of his daughter. I unfortunately had not time to take any precautions. I entered the saloon; his royal highness perceived my paleness. "You have come to acquaint me of some misfortune." ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Davenant was rallied by another hand, on account of this accident, as if it had been a jest that could never die; but what is more extraordinary, is, that Sir William himself could not forget the authoress of this misfortune, but has introduced her in his Gondibert, and, in the opinion of some critics, very improperly. He brings two friends, Ulfinore the elder, and Goltho the younger, on a journey to the court of Gondibert, but in this ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... eager that he stumbled over some object lying on the floor, and pitched headlong against the wall, bruising his bald head, and causing him to curse, with all an Englishman's spleen, at his mishap, while he did not forget to allude to his wife in his prayers as the cause of his misfortune. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Heavens! what a cad you must think me! I have a faculty for being stupid when you are around, you know. It's my misfortune. But—behold my generosity!—I shall have a talk with the purser, Miss Curtis, and get him to change my place for me. Some good-natured person will consent to make ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... parallel, at the head of his Covering-Party [most exposed place of all], and stay his whole twenty-four hours there [Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg is Covering-Party today; I hope, in his post during this thunder!]: Taken the Place can and must be! We have the misfortune, That a stupid Engineer who knows nothing of his art has the direction; and a General without sense in Sieging has the command. Everybody is at a NON PLUS, it appears! Not all our Artillery can silence that Front-fire; not in a single place can Thirty stupid Miners ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and beyond a certain limit misfortune makes me laugh. But there's no reason why I should stand this!" The key and padlock idea was rejected ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... a man ought to have the courage to strike out for what he wanted; that the ship-wrecked who got desperately ashore was a better man than the hanger-back; that a great misfortune was a great compliment. It measured the resistance of the man. Destiny would not send artillery against a weakling. It was sometimes finer to fight when the lights were all out; I would not understand that, men never did until they were about through ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... of our employees has recently lost his eyesight, let us ask ourselves why, when he came to us and urged us to let him continue to sell our goods, we told him that, although he had been a faithful worker, and we were exceedingly sorry for his misfortune, we could not retain his services, because competition was so great, and so many unexpected things happened, and we felt we could not entrust our business to any one who did not possess all his faculties. We meant to be very kind, ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... table, with her eye-glasses trained on Oliver, half concealed by a huge china "compoteer" (to quote the waitress), and at present filled with last week's fruit, caulked with almonds, sat Mrs. Southwark Boggs—sole surviving relic of S. B., Esq. This misfortune she celebrated by wearing his daguerreotype, set in plain gold, as a brooch with which she fastened her crocheted collar. She was a thin, faded, funereal-looking person, her body encased in a black silk dress, which looked as if it had been pressed and ironed over night, and her hands in ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... house, to make one of a stupid party. And the party which sat down to dinner was certainly dreary enough, consisting only, besides the host himself, of Mrs. Elton, Hugh, and Harry. Lady Emily had had exertion enough for the day, and had besides shared in the shock of Euphra's misfortune. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... endeavored to show what are the aims and objects of the Republican party; and if they cannot be tolerated—if such principles cannot be sustained by the people of any section of this country—it is the misfortune of that people. They are the principles that ought to be sustained by all people that are fitted for civil liberty; they are the principles on which this Government was founded; they were baptized in the best blood of this nation; they were cherished by ...
— Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do - Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio • Cydnor Bailey Tompkins
... daily. Every evening at nine o'clock the chapel bell tolled the exact number of them, just as Great Tom at Christ Church, Oxford, nightly rings out the number of the students. Being for the most part aged men, soured by misfortune and failure, they are naturally enough often hard to please and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... man," Miss Templeton said. "I thought he looked very ill the last time I saw him. And he came here solely to benefit you! Well, you have a good deal to answer for, and your face is not only your own misfortune, but other people's too. But it will never do for your father to see Mr. Davenport. He went off in a very bad temper this morning, and if he comes back and finds him here, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... the bargain, had considered himself to be in luck's way. But such property, as he well knew, was, by its nature, precarious and liable to sudden changes. He had been fortunate, and the purchasers had been the reverse Of that he had no doubt, though probably the man had exaggerated his own misfortune. When he had been given to understand how bad had been the fate of these old companions of his in the matter, with the feelings of a liberal gentleman he was anxious to share with them the loss. Had Crinkett come to him, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... one runs to see the flames destroying a dwelling, Or a poor criminal led in terror and shame to the scaffold. All the town has been out to gaze at the sorrowing exiles, None of them bearing in mind that a like misfortune hereafter, Possibly almost directly, may happen to be their own portion. I can't pardon such levity; yet 'tis the nature of all men." Thereupon rejoin'd the noble and excellent pastor, He, the charm of the town, in age scarce more than a stripling:— (He was acquainted ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... everything, and madly superstitious, and saw omens everywhere: at meals the crossing of knives and forks, the number of the guests, the upsetting of a salt-cellar: then there must be a whole ritual to turn aside misfortune. Out walking she would count the crows, and never failed to watch which side they flew to: she would anxiously watch the road at her feet, and when a spider crossed her path in the morning she would cry out aloud: then she would wish to go ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... secured by mats from the pollution of his feet. Prospero led him into a backroom, where he told him he always breakfasted when he had not great company. After the visitor had endured one act of insolence after another, he says:—'I left him without any intention of seeing him again, unless some misfortune should restore his understanding.' Rambler, No. 200. See post, May 15, 1776, where Johnson, speaking of the charge of meanness brought against Garrick, said, 'he might have been much better attacked for living with more splendour than is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... history) the number of believers was greatly lessened; for some retired to other islands, where the war was not so cruel, others were taken to Jolo in dire captivity, and others surrendered their lives to so great a weight of misfortune. Notwithstanding that, in the year 1738, when father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio printed his first volume, it appeared by trustworthy documents that Ours administered seven thousand five hundred ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various |
