"Accident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Frenchman whose life Traverse had, partly by accident and partly by design, succeeded in saving, comprehended perfectly well how narrow his escape from death had been, and attributed his restoration solely to the genius, skill and boldness of his young physician, and was grateful accordingly with all a ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... devotee, sounded the true note of Teaism when he wrote that the greatest pleasure he knew was to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet thoroughly, and is thus humour ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... for it wrought on her The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night, To help to take her from her borrow'd grave, Being the time the potion's force should cease. But he which bore my letter, Friar John, Was stay'd by accident; and yesternight Return'd my letter back. Then all alone At the prefixed hour of her waking Came I to take her from her kindred's vault; Meaning to keep her closely at my cell Till I conveniently could send to Romeo: But when I came,—some ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... can no longer ask British statesmen, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" That the plan adopted by the Government is the better of the two at present mooted I shall endeavour to show. In the first place, it is a mere accident that Trinity College has continued so long the sole College in the University of Dublin, Chief Baron Palles, in a very able note appended to the report, disentangles from a number of legal decisions and statutory declarations ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... limit they drop sheer away; elsewhere they stand up on end, zigzag in lacets each more hair-raising than the last, or fill to demoralization with loose boulders and shale. A fall on the part of your horse would mean a more than serious accident; but Western horses do not fall. The major premise stands: even the casual tourist has no real reason for fear, however ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... whisky, etc., some of which are used more in one country than in another. In fact, almost every class of people known has an alcoholic beverage that has come to be regarded as typical of that class. Alcoholic fermentation is supposed to have been discovered by accident, and when its effect became known it was recognized as a popular means of supplying a beverage and some stimulation besides. Under stimulating beverages come tea, coffee, and cocoa. These are in common use all over the world, certain ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... wanted to hear more about him, and how he got on, and whether the evil spirits troubled Saul again after David had harped them out. But nothing more came; and the old gentleman droned on about other things till poor Ben felt that he must either go to sleep like the Squire, or tip the stool over by accident, since "nestling" was forbidden, and relief of some sort ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... necessary for giving them a bed and bandages. Do you suppose the good Samaritan ever asked the wounded Jew's name, and that the Levite did not excuse himself because the thieves had taken the poor man's card-case? Do the directions, 'In case of accident,' in your ambulance rules, read, 'First lay the sufferer on his back and inquire his name and family connections'? Besides, you can call one 'Ned' and the ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... foulness was ingrained; that the Ethiopian could change his skin, or the leopard his spots, as soon as he; that he had never yet looked purity in the face; that the fall which disgraced him in his own eyes was but the necessary outcome of his character—that it was no accident but an unavoidable result; that his true nature had but disclosed itself, and appeared—as everything hid must be known, everything covered must be revealed. Even to begin the purification without which his moral and spiritual being must perish eternally, he must dare to look on himself as ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... margin, or be uncomfortable in every thing in life. Our plan for a day, for a week, for our lifetime, must have it,—margin for change of purpose, margin for interruption, margin for accident. Making no allowance for these, we are fettered, we are ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Epistles is accessible to the Latinless reader. For the bursts of poetry are brief and rare, issuing from amid what Horace often reminds us are essentially plain prose essays in conversational form, their hexametral garb an unpoetical accident. Two versions present themselves to the unclassical student. The first is Conington's scholarly rendering, hampered sometimes rather than adorned by its metrical shape; the other is the more recent construe of Dean Wickham, clear, ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... to shoot," said the suave voice of the doctor; "the lights went out, quite by accident, I assure you, and you and your friends have no ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... hardly believe their eyes—those five who had seen the accident, but it was true. Mary Jane had not been hurt a bit—not more than a half-dozen scratches—only stunned by her fall. She got up in a few minutes, and with her mother's help (and how good it did seem to have her mother there ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... driver, unable to control his fiery steeds, would be thrown to the ground, and, not quick enough to cut the reins that encircled him with the bill-hook that he carried for the purpose, would be dragged to his death. Such an accident would not stop the onrushing of the other competitors, and at last the victor would step from his car, mount the spina, and receive the sum of money that had been offered as ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... nothing but the brass plate between decks to remind me that I had once been a gentleman. In a former book, describing a former journey, I expressed some wonder that I could be readily and naturally taken for a pedlar, and explained the accident by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I must now take a humbler view; for here I was among my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every advantage of speech and manner; and I am bound to confess that I passed for nearly anything you please ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as far back as the reign of James I; though he shows his lack of true perception when he ascribes the true inwardness of the Reformation to the greed of the monarch for the spoils of the clergy. At bottom what mainly impresses him is the immense influence of personal accident upon events. Intrigue, a sudden dislike, some backstairs piece of gossip, here is the real root of great changes. And when he expresses a "thorough contempt" for the kind of work scholars such as Scaliger and Petavius had achieved, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... by the hundreds; and most important of all, a mysterious five-hundred dollar rose-colored cat. Then comes the lamentable accident to Lady Victoria's aristocratic tail; the operation; the over-dose of chloroform; the funeral. There is a laugh ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... for an hour yet. And there would be preparations to make. He must repack the saddle-bags with feed for Billy, food for himself and a possible stranger, restoratives, and a simple remedy or two in case of accident. These were articles he always took with him on long journeys. He considered taking his camping tent but that would mean the wagon, and they could not go so rapidly with that. He must not load Billy heavily, after the miles he had already ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... month of August) and never grows big but in the Sea; and there to an incredible bigness in a very short time; to which place they covet to swim, by the instinct of nature, about a set time: but if they be stopp'd by Mills, Floud-gates or Weirs, or be by accident lost in the fresh water, when the others go (which is usually by flocks or ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... made sail from the sloop-of-war, at the time he was here afore, and is not expectin' to find us here. No—no—he thinks we are beatin' up toward Key West this very minute, if, indeed, he has missed us at all. 'T is possible he believes the boat has got adrift by accident, and has no thought of our bein' out ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... police all over, and that's 'ow they get their way and do as they like. I could see 'im in my mind's eye talking to the guv'nor, and letting out little things about broken glasses and such-like by accident. I drew back to let 'im pass, and I was so upset that when that little rat of a landlord follered 'im ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... you would do it," said Arthur. "Had it been the result of accident, of course you would have hastened to declare it, any ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... inadequate supplies of potable water; air and water pollution; deforestation; radiation contamination in the northeast from 1986 accident at ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... ["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the midst of Fortune's heap."—Juvenal, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... The Dolphin came cruising in search of us down the coast after capturing the second slaver and settling all her business at Zanzibar; and, on her putting in to Majunga, of course we went on board, reporting the accident that had happened to the pinnace. The excitement had borne us up to then; but, soon after we found ourselves once more in the old ship, the whole lot of us broke down and went raving mad, being out of our minds for weeks. Magellan and the others recovered out there, but I was invalided ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in in a panic, and as they were lifting the bony frame from the floor Edwards arrived. With his assistance they got ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from accident,—that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr. Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient that ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... him," she was saying to herself as she sat by the fire. "There would have been no necessity for his leaving England again had he done so. It cannot be because I am rich and he poor, surely? He is not the sort of man to let such a mere accident as that stand in the way if he really cared for me. No, it is that he does not care for me except as a sort of sister. But still—he said he had kept his last evening for me—at least he cares ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... of London, his house in Bread-street was burnt, before which accident foreigners have gone out of devotion, says Wood, to see the house and chamber where he was born. Some time before he died, he sold the greatest part of his library, as his heirs were not qualified to make a ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... across his frontier in the direction of the territories of the King of Bokh[a]r[a]. He objected that it was a long journey from C[a]bul to Balkh merely to pick up "rubbish;" and though the actual danger was only for a short space, yet, if any accident happened, if, as he declared was highly probable, we were seized and carried into slavery, he should have to answer to the British Government. His horsemen too would be an insufficient protection against an attack from the numerous hordes of thieves who infested the desert, and would surely ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... as an officer, apply himself to his duties, and forget the wild desires of his nature, which were well enough in time of war, but not suited to his new condition as an officer; but, poor fellow I he was killed by an accident, which probably saved him from a slower but ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... rights of my birth, and entitled to the rank and reception which my ancestors obtained. I was, however, embarrassed with many difficulties at my first re-entrance into the world; for my haste to be a gentleman inclined me to precipitate measures; and every accident that forced me back towards my old station, was considered by me as an ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... for I believed he loved God, and I wished everybody to love Him. God had already made use of me to win three monks. The eagerness he had to see me again led him to come to our country-house, which was only a half-league from the town. Providence made use of a little accident that happened, to give me the means of speaking to him; for as my husband, who greatly enjoyed his cleverness, was conversing with him, he felt ill, and having gone into the garden, my husband told me go look for him lest anything ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... could not prove. "Now we don't claim we have any right to be on your property, and we don't intend to stay here any longer than we can help. But we do claim the right, in common decency, to ask if you have seen anything of Tom. There may have been an accident; there may have been foul play; and there may be international complications in this business. If there are, those involved won't get off as easily as they think. I'd advise you to keep a civil tongue ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... us in what point any particular mechanism is most likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it is at this point that the accident occurs. The workman should see to it that this part should never give way; then find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives logically at the perfect result ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... suddenly he died; and then Caesar, profiting by the interest in Rome for Gallic affairs, had the mission previously entrusted to Metellus given to himself and took up both Metellus's office and his plan. Here you see at the beginning of this story the first accident,—the death of Metellus. An historian curious of nice and unanswerable questions might ask himself what would have been the history of the world if Metellus had not died. Certainly Rome would have been ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... stunned, but had happily clung to a stanchion, where Reuben had found him. Paul hauled him up, while Reuben again dived in search of some one else. He was gone for some time, and Paul began to fear that some accident had happened to him. At length his voice was ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... killed a body by accident, the body of his little boy. She is murdering a soul deliberately, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... descended, partly flying, partly falling, partly sliding flown the baluster—a whirl of superheated hair, swirling skirts, and wide, appealing eyes of delf blue. Amidon caught her in his arms, and sought to place her gently on her feet: but in the pure chance and accident of the encounter, her arms had fallen about his neck, and she hung upon him ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... retire as an exile from the district of Brecheinoc into England, or to some other parts of his diocese. Meanwhile, Mahel, being hospitably entertained by Walter de Clifford, {47} in the castle of Brendlais, {48} the house was by accident burned down, and he received a mortal blow by a stone falling from the principal tower on his head: upon which he instantly dispatched messengers to recal the bishop, and exclaimed with a lamentable voice, "O, my father and high priest, your saint has taken ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... to love Florence; but that the glare of the candle had been too bright for him and he had scorched his wings. After all, as to that embrace of which he had thought so much, and the memory of which was so sweet to him and so bitter—it had simply been an accident. Thus, writing in his mind that letter to Florence which he knew, if he were an honest man, he would never allow himself to write, he reached Lady Ongar's door without having arranged for himself any ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... Milburn over carefully, to see if any wound or sign of violence, whether by accident or an enemy, appeared upon him, and finding none, and he all the time wandering in his sleep, she climbed the ladder and peeped into the garret, to see if his servant might be there. Samson's bed, as she supposed it was, had not been disturbed, and so, descending, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... not come by chance. War is not the result of accident. There is a definite cause for war, especially a modern war. The war that began in Europe can readily be accounted for. For the last forty years, under this international capitalist system, this exploiting system, these various nations of Europe have been preparing for the ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... extrinsicality[obs3], objectiveness, non ego; extraneousness &c. 57; accident; appearance, phenomenon &c. 448. Adj. derived from without; objective; extrinsic, extrinsical[obs3]; extraneous &c. (foreign) 57; modal, adventitious; ascititious[obs3], adscititious[obs3]; incidental, accidental, nonessential; contingent, fortuitous. implanted, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... fascinations of the two. For though he was tall, and strong, yet strange! his body and his limbs were rounded, and delicately shaped, and slender, with soft and tender hands and feet that were almost too small, even for a girl: and as he moved, he fell as if by accident into attitudes that as it were imitated unconsciously the careless grace of Shri[16], caught unaware when she thinks that there is nobody to look at her, and carved by a cunning sculptor in stone upon a temple wall; so that the eyes of all followed him as if ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... without accident. They were favored with warm, bright days, clear, starlit nights; and on as lovely an afternoon as was ever known in ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... Possession, Action, Passion. The Metaphysical, so derived, that group our thoughts, are twelve in number: (1) as regards quantity, Totality, Plurality, Unity; (2) as regards quality, Reality, Negation, Limitation; (3) as regards relation, Substance, Accident, Cause and Effect, Action and Reaction; (4) as regards modality, Possibility and Impossibility, Existence and Nonexistence, Necessity and Contingency. John Stuart Mill resolves the categories into five, Existence, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the blossoms are shedding their pollen, and giving hay-fever to those who enter the fields. It must be cut then, wet or fine, or the quality and aroma of the hay passes away beyond recovery. Perhaps it is an accident that most of our meadow flowers are white or yellow. The two most striking exceptions are from foreign soil, the purple-blue lucerne and the crimson sainfoin. But yellow is not the universally predominant hue of the flowers of grasses, for in Switzerland and the Italian Alps the hayfields ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... dealt with the forsaken merman, the church of Brou, and Tristram and Iseult. The presence of such motives, such mythology, and such Christian and chivalric color in the work of Arnold does not disturb the simple unity of its feeling, which finds no solvent for life, whatever its accident of time and place and faith, except in that Greek spirit which ruled in thoughtful men before the triumph of Christianity, and is still native in men who accept the intellect as the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... won't say harsh enough to believe, for they can't believe it—that when he attacked Ussher in his sister's defence, Macdermot was only carrying into execution a premeditated plan of murdering him! Premeditated indeed, when it was plain to every one, that it was by the merest accident that he happened to be in the avenue at the time. People might just as well say that it was he who cut off the attorney's foot the other day, though he was in gaol at the time. I must say," continued the Counsellor, "that should the poor young man fall a victim to the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... I can understand how this comes about," he was saying, just as if he might have had a revelation as he prayed there. "It is no accident, but the hand of a special Providence. Our petitions have been heard, and this is the answer; so the last few years of our lives may be made happy by the sight of our own flesh and blood. My poor service has come up as a memorial before Heaven. And let ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... for very different reasons. One goes that he may say he has been there, another because he never misses. This man goes to try what he can find, and that to discover what others find. Whatever diversion is costly will be frequented by those who desire to be thought rich; and whatever has, by any accident, become fashionable, easily continues its reputation, because every one is ashamed of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... watering. By midsummer offshoots will begin to push through the soil. The removal of these will throw all the strength of the plant into one stem. To insure its safety a strong stake will be required, which should be firmly driven into the ground, and rise six or seven feet above it. In case of an accident at any time to the central stem the hope of flowers for that year is gone, and it is therefore worth some pains to prevent a mishap. The tying must be done with judgment, and as the plants increase in size an occasional inspection will save ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... great railway accident occurred just outside London that led to the death of sixty people, many of them Immortals. Its effect on public imagination was profound. All dangerous enterprises became invested with a terrible radiance. Men asked themselves if, in face of ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... "Yes, yes, an accident—I understood as much from your letter," says Madame, dismissing that part of the subject with a wave of her ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... accident am I indebted?" Grandjon-Larisse replied in an acid tone, for war had given his temper an edge. "Were not my reasons for surrender sound? I eschewed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tribunals to be impaired. In cases in which declaratory bills have been made, where by violence and corruption some fundamental part of the Constitution has been struck at, where they would damn the principle, censure the persons, and annul the acts,—but where the law has been by the accident of human frailty depraved or in a particular instance misunderstood, where you neither mean to rescind the acts nor to censure the persons, in such cases you have taken the explanatory mode, and, without ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the physician. "I do not wonder, boy, that one so unaccustomed to such sanguinary events should be terrified. But who is the unfortunate victim of this tragical and fatal accident—or was he murdered ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... sort. To be sure there had been a great many of them, which was a common failing in Packingtown; but they had worked hard, and the father had been a steady man, and they had a good deal more than half paid for the house. But he had been killed in an elevator accident in Durham's. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... and this would be prejudicial rather than useful, since, in such a case, if there resulted a re-enforcement of the effects produced, it would be at the expense of the reproduction of the timbre, the harmonics of the diaphragm being capable of coinciding only through the merest accident with those of the sounds that were setting in play the fundamental sound of the diaphragm. This is what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... zeal, or some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily, striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... cast calm but inquiring glances at each other, to learn if either had sustained any injury by the fire; for both well knew that no cry or exclamation would, in such a moment of necessity have been permitted to betray the accident. A few large drops of blood were trickling down the shoulder of the Sagamore, who, when he perceived that the eyes of Uncas dwelt too long on the sight, raised some water in the hollow of his hand, and washing off ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... while she was speaking, perhaps by the enumeration of her points of inferiority. She turned her bright eyes towards Greif with a look of curiosity, as though wondering whether she had hit the mark, as indeed she had, by a pure accident. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... not a single personal note in the whole thing, no reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one human being ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... books brought over by John Winthrop the younger, was a volume containing the Greek testament, the Psalms, and the English Common Prayer, bound together, to which happened an accident, which was gravely described by the Governor in his daily ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... which was continually copied from every point of view. The expert artist would draw it rather more crooked than it really was, in order that there might be no question that he had not drawn it crooked by accident. This sketch was usually negotiated from the three steps in front of Miss Mapp's front door. Opposite the church-and-chimney-artists would sit others, drawing the front door itself (difficult), and moistening their pencils at their cherry lips, while a little further down the street was another ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... true, and it is owing to an accident," said the inspector. "These people were taken up because they had no passports, and ought to have been sent back to their native government; but the prison there is burnt, and the local authorities ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the trees in a primeval forest, reflecting a primitive and precarious condition of human society. I take polytheism to have been, in this earliest stage, the wild growth of superstitious imagination, varied indefinitely by the pressure of circumstance, by accident, by popular caprice, or by the good or evil fortunes of the community. In this stage it can now be seen among barbarous tribes—as, for instance, in Central Africa. And some traces of it still survive, under different pretexts and disguises, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... days. The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... these words unfolded to the King and Queen this most foul treason: "Know, then, my dread sovereign Lord the King, that my father, by a strange accident, digging in the ground, found out King Ermerick's great treasure,—a mass of jewels infinite and innumerable; of which being possessed, he grew so proud and haughty, that he held in scorn all the beasts of ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... bargaining. Yet he was perceiving an opportunity. There were no Mexicans at work on the project; one and all they had held off. Likewise they refused to sell him grain and hay, which necessitated the hauling of feed from a distance. But now this accident to the boy might prove a heaven-sent chance to break ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... utmost abandonment and dejection. The moisture rose to Walden's eyes,—he knew the great tragedy of his friend's life—all comprised in one brief, romantic episode of the adoring love, and sudden loss of a beautiful woman drowned by accident in her own pleasure-boat on the very eve of her marriage with him,—and be knew that just as deep and ardent as the man's passion had been, so deep and ardent was his sorrow—a sorrow that could never be consoled. And John sat silent, deeply ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... just listens to what he says must be done and she writes it out. Sometimes he goes days without speaking to her directly. But really it's pretty bad! It's like a war with no enemy to fight except spies! And the things they do! They've been known even to booby-trap a truck after an accident, so anybody who tries to help will be blown up! So everything has to be done in a certain way or everything will ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... to know something about Greek literature must have produced within a few years a pioneer bold enough to make the attempt, if the accident of a schoolmaster needing text-books in the vernacular for his scholars had not brought it about. The man who thus first clothed Greek poetry in a Latin dress, and who was always gratefully remembered ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... you silly! I never was proud to come in that old marble door! I was always mad, away down inside, that I had to work here. I had to go crawlin' and askin' fer a job, an' take all their insults, an' be locked in a trap. Take it from me, there's goin' to be some awful accident happen here some day! If a fire should break out how many d'you s'pose could get out before they was burned to a crisp? Did you know them winders was nailed so they wouldn't go up any higher 'n a foot? Did you know they 'ain't got 'nouf fire-escapes to get half of us out ef anythin' ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... his return to Sparta, seems to have been acquitted of any definite charges; but he continued his correspondence with Persia, and an accident at length afforded convincing proofs of his guilt. A favourite slave, to whom he had intrusted a letter to the Persian satrap at Sardis, observed with dismay that none of the messengers employed in this service had ever returned. Moved by these fears, ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... "It was an accident. My hat blew off, a Fife fisherman got it for me. I liked the man, and went back to ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... quite like other people," she said to me when I had closed the book; "you know I was a mere infant in my nurse's arms, when that accident happened." I nodded, for I had heard the sad details from Uncle Geoffrey; how an unbroken pair of young horses had shied across the road just as the nurse who was carrying Miss Ruth was attempting to cross it; the nurse had been knocked down and dreadfully injured, and her little charge ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tree on which the flag is placed is cut—DIG ONE FOOT, S.) We then bade farewell to the Indian Ocean, and returned to Charles Creek, where we had again great difficulty in getting the horses across, but it was at last accomplished without accident. We have passed numerous and recent tracks of natives to-day; they are still burning the country at some distance ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... document signed by the consignees of a cargo, binding themselves to pay a certain proportion of general average that may from accident arise against them. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... day was over. Not another axle, not another, not another. He laid his head against the chute and shut his eyes.... Presently he staggered to his feet and walked blindly to the stairway. At the bottom stood Malcolm Lightener, not there by accident, but with design to test Bonbright's metal to the utmost. He placed himself there for Bonbright to see, to give Bonbright opportunity ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much disordered by the accident of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... the mole-hill, and went down on his knees. The King fell off, and broke his collar bone. The bone was set; and he returned to Kensington in his coach. The jolting of the rough roads of that time made it necessary to reduce the fracture again. To a young and vigorous man such an accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of William was not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt that his time was short, and grieved, with a grief such as only noble spirits feel, to think ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... robber gang, and in providing hospitality for the delayed passengers. In fact, but for the timely warning of Yuba Bill by Mr. Tarbox, the coach might have crashed into the tree at that dangerous point, and an accident ensued more disastrous to life and limb than the ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... birds are not consulted in the hope of obtaining favourable omens; but rather special events are regarded as of evil omen; such are any outbreak of fire in the house, any fatal accident to any member of the house, the repeated crying of the muntjac (the barking deer) about the house. In one instance known to us the attractive daughter of a Kenyah chief had three times been compelled by series of bad omens to break ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... despise these feelings that we have sometimes and cannot give a reason for. I saw Strange on my way here. I exchanged only half a dozen words with him, yet I am as sure as I can be that he was glad of the accident to your father and hopes to ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... where Pemberton had chosen his position to receive us, whether taken by accident or design, was well selected. It is one of the highest points in that section, and commanded all the ground in range. On the east side of the ridge, which is quite precipitous, is a ravine running first ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... that we insist on precisely twelve degrees draw from a neutral plane for locking faces for lever pallets. What we do insist upon, however, is a "safe and sure draw" for a lever pallet which will hold a fork to the banks and will also return it to such banks if by accident the fork is moved away. We are well aware that it takes lots of patient, hard study to master the complications of the club-tooth lever escapement, but it is every watchmaker's duty to conquer the problem. The definition of "lock," in the detached lever escapement, ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... What an accident! Through a Jew, dealing in photographs I secured a picture of my ideal. It is a small reproduction of Titian's "Venus with the Mirror." What a woman! I want to write a poem, but instead, I take the reproduction, and write on it: ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... Rezin, were famous for their bowie-knife, as well as for their bold fighting qualities. The knife was an accident. The first one had been invented by Rezin from a finely-tempered blacksmith's file, for a hunting-knife, in Louisiana. When hammered and drawn into shape it had a blade five and one-quarter inches long and one and one-half inches ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... that I want you to be sure to remember, I have saved for the last. No matter what kind of accident happens, keep your wits about you and keep cool. Be calm and think what it is best to do, instead of letting yourself be frightened. Of course, get some one to help you as soon as you can and, if need be, call for help as loud as your lungs will let you. ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... my age by Mr. William Cookesley, a name never to be pronounced by me without veneration. The lamentable doggerel which I have already mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to mouth among people of my own degree, had by some accident or other reached his ear, and given him a curiosity to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... nature intended me for a schoolmaster, and it is just an accident that I have taken to soldiering. I flatter meself that no one looks after his subalterns more sharply than I do. My only fear is that I am too severe with them. I may be mild in my manners, but they know me well enough to tremble if I ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... man through others, according to the measure of his capacity and education. But neither does this affect the testimony, whether written or oral, which he knows by experience to be trustworthy. He cannot escape from the laws of his own mind; and he cannot escape from the further accident of being dependent for his knowledge on others. But still this is no reason why he should always be in doubt; of many personal, of many historical and scientific facts he may be absolutely assured. And having such a mass of acknowledged truth in the mathematical and physical, ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... the old action of debt covered part of the ground of contract only by accident. It was really an action to recover any property that was not land; for the remedy of a dispossessed owner of chattels, afterwards known as detinue, was only a slightly varying form of it. If the property claimed was a certain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... had much social experience, may be permitted to lose sight of the more negligible of the conquests she has made as a girl of eighteen. She had asked him to dinner, and placed him honorably at her right; but words could not have made it plainer than it was that he was but an accident to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... Lydgate, deprecatingly. "It was a fatal accident—a dreadful stroke of calamity that bound me to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... he named two or three persons we have seen when with him; but he did not mention Lord Orville, and I would not ask him, lest he should think me curious. Perhaps, if he stays here some time, he may speak of him by accident. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... vicinity of the accident Rad had got to the switchboard. The electricity was shut out ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... coasting cable, it parted in the middle of its length, being chafed by the rocks. By this accident we lost the other half, together with the anchor, which lay in forty fathoms water, without any buoy to it. The best bower-cable suffered also by the rocks; by which a judgment may be formed of this anchorage. At ten o'clock we got ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... and unconscious in a single carriage that had been sent rolling down the incline on the line where the outgoing mail train could not fail to collide with it. The inference is clear. Some one wished to make an end of him—in a railway accident. But the plan was a curiously stupid one, for nothing could satisfactorily explain Major Counsellor's presence there, since it was well known to the British Legation in Revonde that he ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... reasons is certainly the peculiar accident that has placed the seat of government upon the Potomac. To the thoughtful visitor to the United States this hiding away of the central government in a minute district remote from all the great centres of thought, population and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... represented Tennessee in the House for fourteen years, serving twice as Speaker. Having declined the re-election to Congress, he was chosen Governor of his State. His nomination to the Presidency had been brought about by accident. Immediately after his inauguration, Polk appointed James Buchanan as his Secretary of State. Polk in his inaugural address suggested a settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute with England on the line of 54 deg. 40'. The Democratic ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... protect them? The paralysis—the dead palsy—of the government in this whole struggle is that this class of men will do nothing for the government, nothing for themselves, except demanding that the government shall not strike its open enemies, lest they be struck by accident! ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the way of consumpt; and should you commence distiller again, this is the native barley country. I am ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your business so far as this country side. I write you this on the account of an accident, which I must take the merit of having partly designed to. A neighbour of mine, a John Currie, miller in Carsemill—a man who is, in a word, a "very" good man, even for a L500 bargain—he and his wife were in my house the time I broke open the cask. They keep a country public-house and sell ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... admission of the little raccoon to his Family, MacPhairrson met with an accident. Coming down the long, sloping platform of the mill, the point of one of his crutches caught in a crack, and he plunged headlong, striking his head on a link of heavy "snaking" chain. He was picked up unconscious and carried to the nearest cabin. For several days his stupor was unbroken, and the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... archebiosis as well as growth to crystallisation; but on this view a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to its humble conditions of life by a happy accident; and this I cannot believe. That observations of the above nature may easily be altogether wrong is well shown by Dr. B. having declared to Huxley that he had watched the entire development of a leaf of Sphagnum. He must have worked with ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... coast of Spitzbergen, or they might be here in the next valley, or north or south where we could not penetrate. On the other hand, they may be in Novaya-Zemlya, or in some region of the far north never yet penetrated by others. Feeling all this has made me think that it will be by accident we shall meet our friends more than by searching; but we shall go on searching all ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... the Gypsy kept a mule, a most extraordinary animal, which was employed in bringing water to the house, a task which it effected with no slight difficulty; it was reported to be eighteen years of age; one of its eyes had been removed by some accident, it was foundered, and also lame, the result of a broken leg. This animal was the laughing-stock of all Tarifa; the Gypsy grudged it the very straw on while alone he fed it, and had repeatedly offered it for sale at a dollar, which he could ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... WILLIAM. Forgive me, If I, in wit and virtue your disciple, Seem to instruct my master. Accident Lifts me where I survey a broader field Than wise men stationed lower. I spy peril, Fierce flame invisible from the lesser peaks. God's time is now. Delayed truth leaves a lie Triumphant. If you harbor any secret, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... possess those faculties in which she is deficient, never suspected, and concerning which no hint ever reached me, until the whole truth burst suddenly upon me last night at the funeral of my sire. Moreover, had accident revealed to Nisida the existence of the connection between my father and your sister, signor, she would have imparted the discovery to me, such is the confidence and so great is the love that exists ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... extremely fond of sitting and looking on; but I do not care about taking part in anything. There are some people who cannot even witness a cab accident without wanting to be the horse or the man who is sitting on the horse's head. They walk round the prostrate animal and give advice; and if they are allowed to help in any way, they are quite happy. If such people watch a game of any sort, they always wish they were taking part in it. I once ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... complained to Mother. So Mother asked Chris why he was so naughty about having his face washed, and he said, quite gravely, "I do think it would be such pity if the water got into my head again by accident." Mother did not know he had ever heard about it, but she said, "Oh, Chris! Chris! that's one of your excuses." And he said, "It's not my 'scusis. She lets a good deal get in—at my ears—and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a cribriform, or spongy bone, to let odours pass on to the brain. Amongst the organs of these sensations the chief are double, to preserve to one side what the other might happen to be defective in by any accident. These two organs of the same sensation are symmetrically placed either on the forepart or on the sides, that man may use them with more ease to the right or to the left or right against him—that is to say, towards the places his joints direct his steps and all his ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... far in the opposite direction, from the neighborhood of Sand. And it happened, that from them Maren and Ditte could make inquiries about Soerine and Lars Peter. They had not seen Ditte's father for some time, and he might easily have met with an accident, being on the roads night and day in all sorts of weather. It was fortunate that Ditte met children from those parts, who could assure her that all was well. Soerine had never been any good to her mother, although she was ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... agreed to pay an indemnity for American lives lost. The negotiations concerning the Lusitania continued to drag on, but otherwise relations between Germany and the United States had reached the point where peace could be maintained if no further accident or ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... (Such was, and always remained his attitude, where the other sex was concerned, one not without inconvenience in a practical world of disillusions.) No, it was that confounded flower which brought about this pure accident—as though Nature, which designs such accidents, had not always a flower, or something equally serviceable, up ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... know how many years ago,' said Dirkovitch, facing the mess, 'but he says it was very long ago in a war. I think that there was an accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... This must be the crack passenger engine of which Dyke had told him, the one delayed by the accident on the Bakersfield division and for whose passage the track had been opened all the way ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... I have myself to think of as well as you. For both of us it is necessary that you cross the frontier as soon as possible. In two hours we start. I am going as far as Breslen on my own affairs, and, in case of accident, an escort is to accompany my carriage, which will be closed. I have made the most of the dangers to myself, and have demanded that my person shall be well guarded. You will go with me, and for your journey from Breslen I have made ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... appearances which should compromise her character and so wound her delicacy as to take away the courage for return; he has even wrought upon her affection for you as his master-weapon: a skilfully contrived story of some accident that had befallen you, had wrought upon her—to the sudden and silent leave of home. But he has failed. At the first suspicion of his falsity, her dignity and virtue shivered all his malice. She shudders at the bare thought of that fiendish scheme which ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... no accident when you kick a four-year-old kid down a flight of stairs. Well, anyhow, they both write me that Tom Braddock is in New York and actin' terrible ugly. He's layin' for Bob Grand. As luck would have it, the Colonel is off attendin' the races along the spring circuit, and Ernie says he won't be back ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... Then, finding that Dr. Hunter was not within, he actually went on to London, where Dr. Sandys, who had attended him ever since his would, forced him to go to bed, and to remain there till his own return. Thus my darling had no one to protect her, when, an hour or so after the accident, my mother suddenly appeared. Spies had been set on me by Mar, and so soon as they had brought intelligence of my movements she had hurried off from Ranelagh, in full dress, just as she was, to track and surprise me. My uncle, having ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of some sinister fate, and came again, exquisite and fresh as ever, and then was interrupted by a high note like a clarion; and while Diaz held that imperious, compelling note, he turned his face slightly from the piano and gazed at me. Several times since the first time our eyes had met, by accident as I thought. But this was a deliberate seeking on his part. Again I flushed hotly. Again I had the terrible shudder of joy. I feared for a moment lest all the Five Towns was staring at me, thus singled out by Diaz; but it was not so: I had the wit to perceive that no one could remark me as the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... seeks you out, except the damp. Your impressions, you have to fight for them. What you see or hear seems of accident. The sort of people you have read of your whole life, and are most intimate with in fiction, you must surprise. They no more court observance than the birds in whose seasonable slaughter society from the ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... sleeves tucked up, was busily employed in attending to the wounded men, while Loraine was assisting Sybil and Mrs Mackintosh in calming the fears of poor Effie, who, not seeing Allan Keith among those who had just arrived, had feared that some accident had happened to him. He soon, however, with his active horsemen, having driven the enemy to a distance, arrived unhurt, and his appearance ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... arrangement for this purpose formed one of the instructions on board of the floating light, but happily no instance occurred for putting it in practice. The hearth or fireplace of the cook-house was built of brick in as secure a manner as possible to prevent accident from fire; but some of the plaster-work had shaken loose, from its damp state and the tremulous motion of the beacon in stormy weather. The writer next ascended to the floor which was occupied by the cabins of himself and his assistants, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with one of those subterfuges by which we voluntarily deceive ourselves, she thought: "He will be consoled for my death, if he ever learns what I was." But why should he ever learn it? She would take care to die so that it should be thought an accident. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... witnessed an accident to a woman by a street car, in spite of his humanitarian instincts will run around the corner for fear of being called as a witness. The man who hears at night the call of "Police! Police!" in the street, jumps out of bed and begins to put on his clothes, but thinks better ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... therein had lain all his security; thereby had "Beauty of the Brigades" been buried beyond all discovery in "Bel-a-faire-peur" of the 2nd Chasseurs d'Afrique. When, on the Marseilles rails, the maceration and slaughter of as terrible an accident as ever befell a train rushing through the midnight darkness, at headlong speed, had left himself and the one man faithful to his fortunes unharmed by little less than a miracle; he had seen in the calamity the surest screen from discovery ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... there, Sir, dedicate all my time to my first duties; happier far, than once I could have hoped to be! And if, by any accident, and misunderstanding between you, you should part by consent, and you will have it so, my heart shall be ever yours, and my hopes shall be resumed of being an instrument still for your future good, and I will receive your returning ever-valued ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the mayor presented at length the strange case. "If a new moon appears," he declared, "we may be reassured, but to avoid the possibility of further accident, we will place a spacious roof over the fountain." This wise decision was adopted to the general satisfaction, and such was the authentic origin of the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... have visited Pergamon, and, when designing his buildings in Rome, have copied what he had seen there? Again, in B.C. 157, Crates of Mallus, a distinguished grammarian, was sent from Pergamon as ambassador to Rome, and, being laid up there by an accident, gave lectures on grammar, in the course of which he could hardly have failed to ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark |
