"Calamity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... havoc with the people's wits than did my sudden appearance in their midst. Good Aunt Betsy, I am sorry to say, fell the entire length of the cellar stairs, spraining her ankle, bruising her elbow shockingly, and, direst calamity of all, in her estimation, breaking the dish of charlotte russe she was holding in her hand. There is a wedding in progress, I learned from mother, and it seems very meet that I should come at this time, making, in reality, a double wedding, when I can truly claim my bride," and Mark kissed ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... twitch, and his chest and left leg shook (of themselves). And indicating evil his left eye contracted spasmodically. Thereupon, O Bharata, the intelligent Yudhishthira the just, inferring some great calamity (to be imminent), asked Draupadi, saying, 'Where is Bhima?' Thereat Panchali said that Vrikodara had long gone out. Hearing this, that mighty-armed king set out with Dhaumya, after having said unto Dhananjaya, 'Thou shouldst protect Draupadi.' And he also ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the pang of suspecting that our revered President, so stanch against the Rebels, so unflinching for the Slave, is in danger of lowering his lofty crest before the rampant British lion! In view of such a calamity, one can only say in the words of that distinguished British citizen who, living in England in the full light of the nineteenth century, must be supposed to have reached ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... that blow has fallen, I shall regard myself as free of my cares. And now, with that prospect before me, I would avert the calamity if I could. And yet I have done my best ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... sudden spasm of memory, but at that very instant my thoughts flew back to my boyish days at Beachampton, and my attempt to blow up Dr Hellyer and the whole school with gunpowder on that memorable November day, as I have narrated. The present calamity seemed somehow or other, to my morbid mind, a judgment on my former wicked conduct—the reflection passing through my brain at the instant of the explosion with almost ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that the interests of employers and employees are irreconcilably opposed, not identical, is false, Socialist rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. As soon as a calamity threatens capital—for instance, a rise in raw cotton or a cotton famine—masters and men are seen to be in the same boat and devise combined measures for meeting the difficulty. The doctrine of the Class War is opposed to common ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... From off the tossing of these fiery waves, There rest, if any rest can harbour there, And reassembling our afflicted Powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our Enemy, our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire Calamity, What reinforcement we may gain from Hope, 190 If not what resolution from despare. Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes That sparkling blaz'd, his other Parts besides Prone on the Flood, extended ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... and imagine what they said. She felt extremely uneasy. If this unforeseen calamity had lifted her suddenly in the family estimation, it would appear to be drawing Royal ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... The Doctor admired such humility as little as it deserved. "Richling, reduce the number of helpless orphans! Dig out the old roots of calamity! A spoon is not what you want; you want a mattock. Reduce crime and vice! Reduce squalor! Reduce the poor man's death-rate! Improve his tenements! Improve his hospitals! Carry sanitation into his workshops! Teach the trades! Prepare the poor ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... why my thoughts should grow more gloomy by reason of the difficulties of mastication. I once read the story of an Englishman who hanged himself because they had brought him his tea without sugar. There are hours in life when the most trifling cross takes the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which makes the object small or great according to the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had for the lending, and ready to step into at a day's notice," said Lord Lackington, with his queer smile, like the play of sharp sunbeams through a mist. "That's the worst of our class. The margin between us and calamity is too wide. We risk too little. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... walk. I had to climb up on one side as best I could and descend on the other with the help of trees and vines. Thus, fighting my way along, I was overtaken by the sudden tropical night, and I had to stop where I was for fear of falling into some hole. A fall would have been a real calamity, as nobody would ever have found me or even looked for me on that lonely coast. I therefore sat down where I was, on the corals where they seemed least pointed. I did not succeed at all in making a fire; the night was quite dark and moonless, and a fine rain penetrated ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... lost to the power of human vision that they exhibit those pantomimic feats which give them their name, and which are marked by a tumbling over-and-over process, which suggests the idea of their having suddenly become giddy, been deprived of their self-control, or overtaken by some calamity. This acrobatic propensity in these pigeons has been ascribed by some to the absence of a proper power in the tail; but is nothing more than a natural habit, for which no adequate reason can be assigned. Of this variety, the Almond Tumbler is the most beautiful; and the greater the variation ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... such a temperament, when he suddenly sprang up as if in fear. And fear had in fact seized him. Suppose he forgot those belongings on the rack? Suppose, sublimely careless, he descended from the train and left them there? What a calamity! And similar misadventures had happened to him before. It was the cheese that disquieted him. No one would be sufficiently unprincipled to steal the coffin, and he would ultimately recover it at the ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... even to Tennyson. In the mightiest chorus of King Henry V. we hear the pealing ring of the same great English trumpet that was yet to sound over the battle of the Baltic, and again in our later day over a sea-fight of Shakespeare's own, more splendid and heart-cheering in its calamity than that other and all others in their triumph; a war-song and a sea-song divine and deep as death or as the sea, making thrice more glorious at once the glorious three names of England, of Grenville, and of Tennyson for ever. From the affectation of cosmopolitan indifference not AEschylus, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... decided on its own merits, and not at the dictation of the writers of scare heads. Even if I don't gain my end, it will be a good thing, for once, for the public to consider dispassionately how far a private calamity should be allowed to affect a career of public usefulness, and the next man who goes through what I am undergoing may have cause to thank me if no ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... from the unsuccessful expedition against Louisbourg, received the news of the calamity at Fort William Henry. He returned too late to do anything to retrieve that disaster, and determined, in the spring, to take the offensive by attacking Ticonderoga. This had been left, on the retirement ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... Lord President of the Council, attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed Chairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871 saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United States. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent mark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward no Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it could show the sanction of his honoured name. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... worthy man one is overcome with a great anger. What he meant was that if the war went on he might be broken, and that was a calamity which he could not be expected to face. We thought of all those fellows in France—British, Australians, Canadians—cheerfully offering their lives for an ideal at which this worthy citizen shied because it might cost him his ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... was spoken of by hundreds as a testimony to the truth of the system. Now it is supposed by Budhists that even an unconscious departure from truth may rouse jealous nature to award punishment. In the case of pregnant women this would involve the unborn offspring in the calamity. Hence women in that condition do not take an ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... under the plea of duck-shooting, or some other equally plausible pretence, nothing was more easy of accomplishment. Under these circumstances of doubt, the general secession of the Yankees, as they were termed, which had first been regarded as a calamity, was now looked upon as a blessing; and if regret eventually lingered in the minds even of those who had been most forward to promote their introduction into the country, it arose, not because the many had departed, but because the few ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the President of the United States is equal to a command, and may not be declined. Other engagements must be broken for it, and only grave calamity or illness should excuse one, the excuse being frankly stated instead of ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... mad panic of utterly selfish fear, and others became numbed and callous, or snatched at any animal gratification during their last moments. Many soldiers crowded round the fires and stood stunned and confounded by the awful calamity; many broke into the officers' marquees and sought for drink, or devoured the food which the rightful owners had left when the drums beat ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... it can possibly be avoided; another pads his clothing lest he injure himself in falling. Many decline to share the occupations and pleasures of others through fear of possible wet feet, drafts of air, exhaustion, or other calamity. Such tendencies, though falling short of hypochondria, pave the way for it, and, in any event, gradually narrow the sphere ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... with a single voice, was cursing the perpetrator of it. Since the telegraph first began to stretch itself wider and wider about the earth, larger and increasingly larger areas of the world have, as time went on, received simultaneously the shock of a great calamity; but this is the first time in history that the entire surface of the globe has been swept in a single instant with the thrill of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wish to palliate the calamity," exclaimed the king. "The enemy is here, and you know it. He is dogging every step of ours; he is listening to every word of mine, and watching every movement. An inconsiderate word, an imprudent step, and the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... they gone, than, calming my spirits by earnest and devout prayer, which alone supports my mind, and even preserves my senses, in deep calamity, I ran over the letter, which was dated the fourth day after the wound, and acknowledged that three incisions had been made in the leg unnecessarily by an ignorant surgeon, which had so aggravated the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... journal of the House, and a resolution was adopted, on the 24th of May, setting apart the 1st of June as a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation; in which the divine interposition was to be implored, to avert the heavy calamity threatening destruction to their rights, and all the evils of civil war; and to give the people one heart and one mind in firmly opposing every injury ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and those fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots, the unhappy people began to revile AEgeus, complaining that he, although the author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but endured to see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate offspring, while he made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... The calamity was irretrievable. The darkness of the night deceived every man in that army, not one of whom doubted that the enemy was there. Some of the terrified soldiers fled back to their camps, and, even there, mistaken for Turks, they were assaulted with sabre and musket, and frightful was ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... no less painful a task than the writing of a letter to Lady Eversleigh, to inform her of the calamity which had taken place— of the terrible realization of her worst fears. Captain Copplestone's varied and adventurous life had never brought him a severer or more painful duty, but he was not the man to shirk or defer it, because it involved ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... ruined and rulers overthrown, does it foretell my fate? I will think no more." (Alas! if by the Romans associated with the fall of Rienzi, that comet was by the rest of Europe connected with the more dire calamity of the Great Plague that so soon afterwards ensued.) As his eyes fell, they rested upon the colossal Lion of Basalt in the place below, the starlight investing its grey and towering form with a more ghostly whiteness; and then it was, that he perceived two figures in black robes ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... on Easter Monday, April 17, 1786, that occurred the fall of the western tower of the cathedral, causing much injury. The west front of the church was destroyed, and also a great part of the nave was seriously injured. The Bishop died eighteen months after this calamity. The see was next occupied for six weeks only by the Hon. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... sentiments, emotions. It's exhausting. War is a terrible thing, Taney. It worries me day and night. Think of the lives! And yet we need this war, we need it for the good of the nation. And now that we're ready, it would be a calamity if— ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... woman—strangely large, dark, luminous, indistinct and unmoving. For a quarter of a second or so, for an instant, it seemed to him that in these unliving eyes was impressed an expression of keen, mad hate; and the chill of terror, some vague premonition of an ominous, inevitable calamity flashed through the student's brain. With difficulty tearing the supple arms of Jennie away from him, and pushing her away, he said, laughing, having ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Perry, "we might proclaim to the world your gallant conduct; but for any report of this matter to get abroad would be disastrous, a dire calamity, as you can see. The camp day begins early, and it would be best for you to return to Huddleston and keep silent as ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... That 'mid all faults the good have loved us still, And quickening with redoubled energy To do or suffer. The three friends of Job Who in the different regions where they dwelt Teman, and Naamah and the Shuhite land, Heard tidings of his dire calamity, Moved by one impulse, journey'd to impart Their sorrowing sympathy. Yet when they saw Him fallen so low, so chang'd that scarce a trace Remained to herald his identity Down by his side upon the earth, they sate Uttering no language save the gushing tear,— ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... always agreeable to have a nasal version of the march in 'William Tell,' 'Home, sweet Home,' or 'La Donna e mobile,' under one's window at meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker hours of headache, surely the nation which cries aloud over this as a national calamity must enjoy no common share of Fortune's favour, and have what the Yankees call ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... hundred and sixty pages of the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques," as well as five hundred volumes of the first and second dizain, which had cost him four francs each. He thus lost 3,500 francs, and to add to the calamity, did not receive the sum of 6,000 francs which in the ordinary course of events would have been due to him at the end of the year, when but for this disaster he would have handed over the third dizain to Werdet and ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... Mixer's assertion that the woman's sole aim was to "make a monkey" of the Honourable George. If she were right, a mesalliance need not be feared, at which thought I felt a great relief. That she should achieve the lesser and perhaps equally easy feat with the poor chap was a calamity that would be, I fancied, endured by his ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Lord Ormond and the Lords of the Council of Ireland wrote to Bludworth expressing their hearty sorrow at the calamity that had befallen the citizens of London, who had shown so much humanity and kindness to the Protestants of Ireland in the late rebellion. They desired to assist the city in its distress, but money was so scarce in Ireland that they were compelled to ask the city to accept the greater part ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... surmounted with a balustrade of quatrefoils. But, unfortunately, nothing more can now be said of the building, than is supplied by the plate in question. It had, in its earlier time, repeatedly suffered from the effects of fire; and a similar calamity completed its ruin, during the month of June, 1814. The lower part of the walls and the gothic portal are all that are left standing, to attest the original size and magnificence ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... no voice in framing the institutions under which they were to live, and the question of negro suffrage would thus have been settled by the President, if he had lived and been able to maintain this policy, while no doubt was felt that this calamity had now been averted and the way opened for the radical policy which afterward involved the impeachment of Johnson, but finally prevailed. It was forgotten in the fever and turbulence of the moment, that Mr. Lincoln, who was never an obstinate man, and who in the matter of ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... Mrs Wilfer. ''Twere unjust to visit upon Mr and Mrs Boffin, a calamity which was doubtless a dispensation.' These words were rendered the more effective by a serenely ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... to write with tolerable freedom before any one knew that I could join two letters; and I well remember my father's surprise, not unmixed with annoyance, when he accidentally took up a letter which I had been writing to a distant relation, giving a circumstantial account of some domestic calamity which had no existence but in my brain; related with so much pathos too, that my tears had fallen over the slate whereon this my first literary attempt was very neatly traced. He could not forbear laughing; but ended with a grave shake ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... and partly because there is a good deal of honest feeling for me among plain simple people who wish leadership, but who will not accept leadership unless they believe it to be sincere, fearless, and intelligent. I most emphatically do not wish the nomination. Personally I should regard it as a calamity to be nominated. In the first place, I might very possibly be beaten, and in the next place, even if elected I should be confronted with almost impossible conditions out of which to make good results. In the tariff, for instance, I would have to face the fact that men would keep ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... my Lord Deleroy with a shrug of his shoulders, "a lady who is over-wrought and hangs to some common fellow, like one who kisses the feet of a wooden saint that she thinks has saved her from calamity!" ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... blame, reproach, accusation, slander: fault, crime, sin, injustice, : strife, enmity, anger, contention, dispute, AO, CP: hurt, injury, calamity, misery. [wrgan] II. ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... refused the elementary starting-ground from which you and I may reason; not if it be granted that man has a soul, which it is the object of this life to enrich and develop for another. We know from my uncle what William Losely was before this calamity befell him—a genial boon-companion—a careless, frank, 'good fellow'—all the virtues you now praise in him dormant, unguessed even by himself. Suddenly came CALAMITY!—suddenly arose the SOUL! Degradation of name, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... understand how I had been so long in rendering them the justice they deserved, but they were the innocent daughters of a noble family, and the lucky chance which had thrown them in my way ought not to prove a calamity for them. I was not vain enough to suppose that they loved me, but I could well enough admit that my kisses had influenced them in the same manner that their kisses had influenced me, and, believing this to be the case, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which had promised such splendid fruit in other directions. Mr Dillon went to Swinford again and he and his associates did everything in their power to stir up a national panic and to spread the impression that the Purchase Act was a public calamity, "a landlord swindle," and that it would lead straight to ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... and nought-availing stubbornness, oppose so inevitable and necessary a condition? This is the high-way of morality, and our general home: Behold what millions have trod it before thee, what multitudes shall after thee, with them which at that same instant {20} run. In so universal a calamity (if Death be one) private complaints cannot be heard: with so many royal palaces, it is no loss to see thy poor cabin burn. Shall the heavens stay their ever-rolling wheels (for what is the motion of them but the motion of a swift and ever-whirling wheel, which twineth ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... a mission mad enough to measure up with the antics of the frantic citizens of Jerusalem. It will not be even a glorious defeat. You will be swallowed up in an immense calamity too tremendous to offer publicity to so infinitesimal a detail as the death of one Philadelphus Maccabaeus. Agrippa has deserted the city and when a Herod lets go of his own, his own is not worth the holding. The city is torn between factions as implacable ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... they all certainly were, it was not pride, but dread, which kept them thus apart from their neighbors. The family had suffered for generations past from the horrible affliction of hereditary insanity, and the members of it shrank from exposing their calamity to others, as they must have exposed it if they had mingled with the busy little world around them. There is a frightful story of a crime committed in past times by two of the Monktons, near relatives, from which the first appearance of the insanity was always supposed to date, but it is needless ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... But every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race by the savage incursions of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor. Then followed the Crusades, the first three inflicting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... Batch was not going to let her retrieve it by shining as a consoler. I hasten to add that this resolve was only sub-conscious in the good woman. Her grief was perfectly sincere. And it was not the less so because with it was mingled a certain joy in the greatness of the calamity. She came of good sound peasant stock. Abiding in her was the spirit of those old songs and ballads in which daisies and daffodillies and lovers' vows and smiles are so strangely inwoven with tombs and ghosts, with murders ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... whole trunk-cover blazed up with a roar like that of a great beast in pain. It was sudden and for the instant terrible, but the snow-laden leaves still left on it failed to take fire, and what in summer would have been a calamity was at ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... creature under sky Man without understanding doth appear, For all this world's affliction he thereby, And Fortune's freaks is wisely taught to bear; Of wretched life the only joy is she, And the only comfort in calamity; She arms the breast with constant patience, Against the bitter throes of Dolour's darts, She solaceth with rules of sapience, The gentle winds in midst of worldly smarts: When he is sad, she seeks to make him merry, And doth refresh his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... most certain of all to challenge the attacks of malice. Of the great pulpit orator, Fra Egidio of Viterbo, whom Leo made a cardinal on account of his merits, and who showed himself a man of the people and a brave monk in the calamity of 1527, Giovio gives us to understand that he preserved his ascetic pallor by the smoke of wet straw and other means of the same kind. Giovio is a genuine Curial in these matters. He generally begins ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... them—were interred; and where the victims of the Plague reposed by scores. Even Gethin had not escaped the ravages of that fell scourge; and, what was very singular, had suffered from it twice over; for, on the occasion of an ordinary burial having taken place many generations after the first calamity, in the same spot, the disease had broken forth afresh, and scattered broadcast in the little hamlet ancient death. The particulars of the catastrophe, so characteristic of this home of antique legend and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... son. This man Potts was not ruined. He seemed to have grown possessed of a colossal fortune. When I reproached him with being the author of my calamity, and insisted that be ought to share it with me, the scoundrel laughed ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... basis for the operations which in a single month represent a sum twice the amount of our national debt. The harpies who gather around the Gold Rooms in their mad shoutings are at the same time shouting 'Death to the republic!' They unsettle all values, and are, as a mass, a public calamity, and should be dealt with as such. As with gold, so with stocks, and no nation can long afford to let its future hang upon the will of a mass of unprincipled men who daily bleed its ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... on the way, however, to see Edna Johnson, knowing that she would be interested in what had occurred since he last saw her and learning that but for her the Belgian army in Louvain might have suffered a terrible calamity. ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... them, they continued to have some consideration for me. I was able to talk of foreign cities and could tell stories, and I was, besides, under the immediate protection of Heriot. But now the shadow of a great calamity fell on me, for my dear Heriot announced his intention of leaving ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... opened; but some women of the people who heard him threw themselves at his feet, entreating him to desist.—"You see very well," said they, "our good angel! that it is certainly on account of these Jews who reside here that we have suffered this fire, it is they who bring calamity upon us, and if you set them at liberty all the water in the sea will not extinguish the flames." And they besought Oswald to let the Jews be burnt with as much eloquence and tenderness as if they were soliciting an act of clemency. This was not the effect of natural cruelty, but of a superstitious ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... quietly made his arrangements accordingly. The summer was very pleasant to him. He devoted himself with his usual ardor to his books, but gave much of his leisure to Ida, who began to feel the approach of a calamity that gradually extinguished the light in her eyes. She was already suffering—although not anticipating a serious result—a pressure in the forehead, and a gradual impairing of vision, without pain. Under its shadow, that ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... personal unbosomings. Some imp housed in him—some wayward, wilful, mocking Irish devil—bidding him hold back, remain cool, dry-eyed, in face of others' joys and pains. Hence the break with Purdy was a real calamity. The associations of some five-and-twenty years were bound up in it; measured by it, one's marriage seemed a thing of yesterday. And even more than the friend, he would miss the friendship and all it stood for: this solid base of joint experience; ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... hazard upon the waters of an unquiet, mist-blinded sea. He was conscious of a deep-seated preoccupation regarding some matter, which he was alike unable to forget or to define. Formless images perplexed his vision. Formless thoughts pursued one another, as with the hurry of rumoured calamity, through his mind. A desolating apprehension of things insufficiently developed, of the inconclusive, the immature, the unattained, of things mutilated, things unfinished, born out of due time and incomplete, oppressed his fancy. Even the events ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a certain day the leg shall be bared and men shall be called upon to bow in adoration, but they shall not be able" (Koran, lxviii. 42). "Baring the leg" implies a grievous calamity, probably borrowed from the notion of tucking up the skirts and stripping for flight. On the dangerous San Francisco River one of the rapids is called "Tira-calcoens" take off your trousers (Highlands of the Brazil, ii. 35). But here the allusion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity in which every species of misery is involved; as it sets the general safety to hazard, suspends commerce, and desolates the country; as it exposes great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Indian as he has hitherto been is on the point of passing away. His life has been lived under conditions thru which our own race past so many ages ago that not a vestige of their memory remains. It would be a veritable calamity if a vivid and truthful record of these conditions were not kept. No one man alone could preserve such a record in complete form. Others have worked in the past, and are working in the present, to preserve parts of the record; but ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Mr. Bassett, which I regarded as a calamity, proved one of the most fortunate events in ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... when they die go to Scheveningen; but my heaven is elsewhere. To go thither is, however, no calamity, so long as one chooses the old road. It is being there that so lowers the spirits. The Oude Scheveningen Weg is perhaps the pleasantest, and certainly the shadiest, road in Holland: not one avenue but many, straight as a line in Euclid. ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the Huns; and more than twelve years afterwards, the name of Edecon is honorably mentioned, in their unequal contests with the Ostrogoths; which was terminated, after two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the Scyrri. [120] Their gallant leader, who did not survive this national calamity, left two sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle with adversity, and to maintain as they might, by rapine or service, the faithful followers of their exile. Onulf directed his steps towards Constantinople, where he sullied, by the assassination ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... is not God's will. I do not mean that yours is not real, or that any man's is not real, but I do mean that nothing can happen to any of God's children—no matter how evil the intention of the person who does it, or how seemingly meaningless the calamity that causes it—which is not in some way the sacrament of God's love to us, and His call upon our highest energies. In a true and real sense, therefore, it is God's own doing and meant for our greater glory; . . . I believe in the infinitude ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... and courteous knight, and had already experienced the magnanimity of his spirit, having been relieved by him when besieged by the Moors in her husband's fortress of Arcos. To the duke, therefore, she applied in this moment of sudden calamity, imploring him to furnish succor to her husband. The event showed how well noble spirits understand each other. No sooner did the duke receive this appeal from the wife of his enemy than he generously forgot all feeling of animosity and determined to go in person to his succor. He immediately ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... of springtime to bloom for them again and again, and attracted such a circle of admirers that, as we read the records of their lives, set forth in the letters they received and wrote, we forget poverty, forget calamity, and behold only the radiant, smiling faces of loving, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... author of peace, concord, and quietness, be preached where war is proclaimed, sedition engendered, and tumults appear to rise? Shall not His Evangel be accused as the cause of all calamity which is like to follow? What comfort canst thou have to see the one-half of the people rise up against the other; yea, to jeopard the one to murder and destroy the other? But above all, what joy ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... interpretation of part of ver. 2., chap. ii. Habakkuk. It appears to me probable that a person reading the vision might be struck with awe, and so "alarmed by it" as not to be able "to fly from the impending calamity" in the way which your correspondent imagines. I prefer Archbishop Newcome's explanation:—"Let the characters be so legible that one who hastily passeth on may read them. This may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... the Author was, to visit those parts of the country in which the Famine had raged with the greatest severity. On such occasions he not only had the advantage of examining the localities, but of conversing with persons whose knowledge of that awful Calamity made them ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Rico to Spain, after she is once in our possession, is as much beyond the power of the President and of Congress as it was to preserve the peace with Spain after the destruction of the Maine in the harbor of Havana. From that moment the American people resolved that the flag under which this calamity was possible should disappear forever from the Western hemisphere, and they will sanction no peace that ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... finds his wife assiduously engaged in the household duties of his family. And it soothes the mind of the lunatic during the lucid intervals of the aberration of his intellects, and tends more than anything else to restore him to reason. In fact, there is no calamity that is incident to man, but that female constancy will assuage. Whether in sickness or health, in prosperity or poverty, in mirth or sadness, (vicissitudes which form the common lot of mankind in their pilgrimage through this life;) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... you are puzzled," he began, using the language of the Llotta with an accent that softened its harsh gutturals, "over the calamity that has befallen you. And it is not to be wondered at. But your own danger is as nothing compared with the danger that now threatens our whole solar system. It is to explain that and to ask your cooperation in warding off the holocaust that ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... distinguished abilities and application in his profession of a banker, is at once a good companion, and a good Christian; which I think is saying enough. Yet it is but justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous illness, he was watched with the anxious apprehension of a general calamity; day and night his house was beset with affectionate inquiries; and, upon his recovery, Te deum was the universal chorus from the hearts of ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... an hour Roswell and his party reached the house. The schooner was then less than half a mile from the spot, still setting in, along with the outer field, but not nipped. So far from being in danger of such a calamity, the little basin in which she lay had expanded, instead of closing; and it would have been possible to handle a quick-working craft in it, under her canvass. An exit, however, was quite out of the question; there being no sign ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Tunbridge Wells, where she did not see above forty people of a night at cards. My lord refused to see his sister; and the Countess in mourning, as we have said, waited upon one of her patronesses, a gracious Princess, who was pleased to condole with her upon the disgrace and calamity which had befallen her house. For one, two, three whole days the town was excited and amused by the scandal; then there came other news—a victory in Germany; doubtful accounts from America; a general officer coming home to take his ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the race. Individuals with sex are tolerated only as necessary evils. Here is an instance of the most powerful of all passions voluntarily suppressed for the benefit of the community at large. It vanishes whenever unnecessary; when necessary after a war or a calamity of some kind, it is called into existence again. Certainly it is not wonderful that such a fact should have set moralists thinking. Of course if a human community could discover some secret way of effecting the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... little Jack, almost fiercely, "you've killed our mamma." And as he thus spoke he stepped boldly out and faced his father, seeming to have lost all fear in the presence of the calamity that had befallen them; and then he and Nanny escaped from the house and ran over to Tremaine's. When they reached there Nannie, who had outrun her brother, burst into the door and said in a ghastly whisper, which appeared all the more horrible because of her pallid face, over which ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... of Health or Salvation. Under this title pictures and churches have been dedicated after the cessation of a plague, or any other public calamity.[1] ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... career, if we may give it that name, was concerned, the calamity which had fallen upon his wife had in some strange manner explained and justified it. The younger son of a country gentleman of good family, he had, by the death of his elder brother, come into the title, the estate, and the sufficient means bequeathed by his father. ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... be a calamity," exclaimed the professor, "but I imagine the ice beneath her was too thick to release her, even with such a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... already, and previously to any act of mine, rifled of their contents, which was dignified by the title of Summer Palace of the Chinese Emperor. But when I had satisfied myself that in no other way, except, indeed, by inflicting on this country and on China the calamity of another year of war, could I mark the sense which I entertained, which the British army entertained—and on this point I may appeal to my gallant friend who is present here this evening, and who conducted ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... only to exalt the nobler qualities of others. In such epochs, evil as well as good is exaggerated. A great social convulsion shakes up the lees which underlie society, forgotten because quiescent, and the stimulus of calamity brings out the extremes of human nature, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... factory, and icecream is included in the daily bill of fare here, and iced water is supplied without limit, but lately the machinery has only worked in spasms, and the absence of ice is regarded as a local calamity, though the water supplied from the waterworks is both cool and pure. There are two good photographers and two booksellers. I don't think that plateglass fronts are yet to be seen. Many of the storekeepers employ native "assistants;" but the natives show little aptitude for mercantile ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... struggle before that iron frame and splendid intellect had been levelled with the dust. This much leaked out afterwards, as such things will leak out, and then the Sultana took Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so lovingly around his neck ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... given, the bells of twenty-three churches announced the dismal tidings; but for some time the people looked upon the report as a hoax, and it was not until after the lapse of an hour that the city was fairly roused to a sense of the impending calamity. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... Bute," said he, "is a sore calamity. We could ill spare him. But as concerning the matter of the Western Isles, the time has come for speedy action, and we must look to you, Sir Piers, and to you, Earl Kenric, for the help that we now need. We are about ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... indulgences are only a set of buffoons who deceive old apple-women. Another fool says that the preaching friars committed fearful abominations at Berne, and one day put poison into the consecrated elements. A great calamity has happened! A thief has stolen three hundred florins, which the preachers had gained by the sale of indulgences. The people who gave the money are in sad trouble to know whether they still have absolution—they need not be alarmed, they have as much as they had before they gave their money ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the house, that her father, falling with a frost-loosened rock, had received his fatal injury. Out of the pure idleness of despondency it occurred to the girl that, from the point at which she had now arrived, she might obtain a new view of the small landslip which had caused the calamity. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is, perhaps, the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared for the principal dramatis personae; and so far we have only the calamity of the Plague, not in its scenes of turbulence, but kept down under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that, were the two principal figures obliterated, we should say the scene is yet but a preparation, awaiting the master figures to mark ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... recent times counted a whole series of consuls, was known throughout Rome. The crowds needed only a name. Once, when four hundred slaves of the prefect Pedanius Secundus were sentenced, Rome reached the verge of rebellion and civil war. What would happen to-day in view of a dreadful calamity surpassing almost everything which Rome had undergone in the course of eight centuries? Whoever calls the quirites to arms, thought Vinicius, will overthrow Nero undoubtedly, and clothe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... name is to kindle in the minds of those who knew him a host of pleasant and affectionate remembrances. He was the man above all others fitted by his cast of mind and literary powers to make a stand, if a stand could be made, against the calamity of the times. He was gifted with a high and large mind, and a true sensibility of what was great and beautiful; he wrote with warmth and energy; and he had a cool head and cautious judgment. He spent his strength and shortened his life. Pro Ecclesia Dei, as he understood ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... is a large package for a small sum! Some dealers didn't like the trade-mark. It was changed. It then turned out that the first trade-mark was really what was wanted. Then the cheese man fell desperately ill, which was a calamity, as neither the Book of Common Prayer, an aeroplane, nor a Latin Grammar is what you need in such ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... I daresay I shall be able to avoid the calamity, though there will seem to be a presumption about it that will not make ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... unto you, I will make known my words unto you.' I say, hear this voice, O silly one, and turn and live, thou sinful soul, lest he make thee hear that other saying, But, 'because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... choice and rare and precious, and yet still to be a blind prig or vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and labelled and forced on us by others, this indeed should be accounted the very calamity and ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Turkey, under the guidance of the new and younger elements, might eventually have emerged triumphant against the dark forces of fanaticism and reaction. But it was not to have that opportunity. The solidarity of all the Turkish subjects, especially in European Turkey, would be nothing less than a calamity to all the Balkan States. There would be no "oppressed" brothers to rescue, consequently no pretext for that territorial expansion which they had all counted on to take place some day in the future. There could be no Greater Hellas, a Byzantine Empire reestablished, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... world must suffer. Why, David within this iron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities that science has scarce dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with it animated a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand men. That two lives will be snuffed out is nothing to the world calamity that entombs in the bowels of the earth the discoveries that I have made and proved in the successful construction of the thing that is now carrying us farther and farther toward the eternal ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... never raised his head. Benji was there that loved his sister so. Across the unblinded window strove a moon that fought with mass on mass of fierce, submerging clouds as it might be a soul that rose through infinite calamity to God. That child was in much torment. That child was in delirium and often cried aloud. That child burned with a fever, incredible, at touch of her poor flesh, to think that human flesh such flame could hold and not incinerate. That child in her delirium moaned ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... on it, as beads; and men, and events, and life, come to us, only because of that thread; they pass and repass, only that we may know the direction and continuity of that line. A book or statement which goes to show that there is no line, but random and chaos, a calamity out of nothing, a prosperity and no account of it, a hero born from a fool, a fool from a hero,—dispirits us. Seen or unseen, we believe the tie exists. Talent makes counterfeit ties; genius finds the real ones. ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... brightly burning the sacred fire supposed to have been kindled by the rays of the sun, and to have been brought by AEneas when he founded his kingdom in the new land of Italy. The extinction of this fire would have been regarded as the gravest public calamity, foreboding disaster. Its flames were intended to represent the purity of the goddess, thus emphasising the mystic aspect of another physical property of fire—its purifying power. "Our God" (said the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews) ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... Groby sincerely. A few hours earlier the tragic end which had befallen his parrot would have presented itself to him as a calamity; now it arrived almost as a polite attention on the part ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... to associate themselves with a thousand evanescent memories of days when we have been happy beyond the power of calamity or disappointment. They associate themselves with those half-physical, half-spiritual trances—when, suddenly in the outskirts of a great city perhaps, or on the banks of some inland river, we have remembered the long line of breaking surf, and the murmurs and the scents of the sea. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... no doubt in Upton, when the people saw their rector again, that he knew full well the calamity that had befallen him. No one ventured to speak to him of it; but their very silence was a measure of the gravity of his trouble. His friend Warden told him more accurately than any one else could have done, how it had gradually come about, and ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... indifference of many people, with whom I discourse. Some are afraid of a proclamation, others shrug up their shoulders, and cry, "What would you have us do?" Some give out, there is no danger at all. Others are comforted that it will be a common calamity and they shall fare no worse than their neighbours. Will a man, who hears midnight robbers at his door, get out of bed, and raise his family for a common defence, and shall a whole kingdom lie in a lethargy, while ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... himself. The case was adjourned. The next day Monsieur Robert Darzac was released on bail, while Daddy Jacques received the immediate benefit of a "no cause for action." Search was everywhere made for Frederic Larsan, but in vain. Monsieur Darzac finally escaped the awful calamity which, at one time, had threatened him. After a visit to Mademoiselle Stangerson, he was led to hope that she might, by careful nursing, one day ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... the game over they were in peril of being beaten, which would cover them with shame. It was bad enough to have lost to Chester in baseball, but to have to yield the supremacy of the gridiron to the same town would be a calamity indeed. ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... their laurels. Neal saw all this with a lofty indignation; he deplored the degeneracy of the times, and thought it hard that the descendant of such a fighting family should be doomed to pass through life peaceably, whilst so many excellent rows and riots took place around him. It was a calamity to see every man's head broken but his own; a dismal thing to observe his neighbours go about with their bones in bandages, yet his untouched, and his friends beat black and blue, whilst his own cuticle ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... procession which was formed, and in which a certain image of gold, made in honor of him, was borne, the bearer of it stumbled and fell, and the image was thrown upon the ground. This was a very dark presage of impending calamity. Then a great number of vultures and other birds of prey were seen for a number of days before the battle, hovering over the Roman army; and several swarms of bees were found within the precincts of the camp. So alarming was this ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... common sort of people, who are very much addicted to rambling in the fields, would make this house the customary walk, to divert themselves with the objects to be seen there, and to make what they call sport with the calamity of others, as is now ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... heard the war-whoop she must run to them and she should not be killed but be protected. The foolish woman believed and kept the secret. Early in the morning the war cry was heard, and she ran to the Ottawas to be protected, but she was the first one to be slain. It was indeed a terrible calamity for the Mush-co-desh. At the begining of the noise of massacre, the chief of the Mush-co-desh ran forward and screamed loud as he could, saying, "O! My father, Saw-ge-maw, what is the cause of your coming upon us so suddenly with death, as we have never wronged your race?" "Have you ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... his words remained impressed upon the mind of the anxious parent. He lost his lady while his boy was still in infancy. This calamity, I think, had been predicted by the Astrologer; and thus his confidence, which, like most people of the period, he had freely given to the science, was riveted and confirmed. The utmost care, therefore, was taken to carry into effect the severe and almost ascetic ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... surprising, indeed, that the trees had escaped. Had they caught fire, a large portion of the forest, if not the whole of the woods on the island, might have been burned. We were thankful we had escaped such a fearful calamity. On our way we found the apparently dead body of a pirate. I was going up to him, when Mr Thudicumb called ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... they were not restrained even by the presence of their officers from expressing them. Their fears, we imagined, had been principally excited by the interpreters, St. Germain and Adam, who from the outset had foreboded every calamity; and we now strongly suspected that their recent want of success in hunting had proceeded from an intentional relaxation in their efforts to kill deer in order that{33} the want of provision might compel us to put a period ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... ran back to pick up her ribbons and dress for dinner, feeling somehow very happy after all, that there was something she could do for dear Grandpapa to help him bear this great calamity. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... plenteous isle of Cyprus about two years ago, when its inhabitants enjoyed all the felicity that is granted to mortals, and who now sees them exiled from it, or captive and wretched, how would it be possible not to mourn over its calamity? But let us talk no more of these thing's, for which there is no remedy, and speak of your own, for which I would fain find one. Now I entreat you, by what you owe me for the good-will I have shown you, and for the fact that we are ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... command came from her to remove the worn-out piece, and soon its tricks, and every lesser thing, were forgotten in the crushing calamity which befell us in the sickness and death ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... read the Diary without perceiving the strange bitter-sweet, at the moment of his greatest calamity, of the fact that Sir William Forbes, who rendered him invaluable service at his greatest need, was his successful rival thirty years before, and the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... amidst a vast throng of neophytes, and all the Spanish dignitaries that could be gathered together. But the mission had enjoyed its beautiful church only a few years when it suffered a most awful calamity. One Sunday morning, when the church was crowded with Indians at mass, there was heard in the hush of prayer, a distant noise, like the sound of a great rush of stormwind, which, a moment later, reached ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... gnarly-headed and subtle-minded old judge came to his rescue, and he determined not to fail without a fight. He shingled himself with deeds of trust and sales under fraudulent judgments or friendly liens, to delay if they did not avert calamity. Then he set himself at work to effect sales. He soon swallowed his wrath and appealed to the North—the enemy to whom he owed all his calamities, as he thought. He sent flaming circulars to bleak New England health-exhibits ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... trampling of feet, the voices of men and women and children, the sound of the wind and of the water, and those formless noises which are the more terrifying because it is impossible to tell whence they arise, filled the air on every side, and told Fenton that some serious calamity had ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... to them, "do you condemn the tears which I shed for my friend? I have seen you in similar cases, roll upon the sand and stones. I have seen your eyes bathed in tears. Do you suppose our souls are not possessed of the same feelings with yours? Deceive not yourselves. In this common calamity we are all brothers and friends." I could not say more to them. I found it impossible to remain long in the presence of these beings, who had the human shape, but were more ferocious than the most formidable and ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... was as fruitless as that among the milliners' rooms. No forget-me-nots could be found, and Marie fell exhausted into a chair, desolated at what she felt to be an awful calamity. ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... began, was the reward which Al Bidwell had named, that is,—the glorious enjoyment of fully quenching his terrific craving, but, if that craving diminished, the future bliss must shrink in a corresponding ratio, and that was a calamity to make a man like ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... conscious of decadence in it; from infancy to old age the world looks, they imagine, the same; the grass as green, the sky as blue as ever, and the scarlet verbenas in the grass just as scarlet. The man lives in his sight; it is his life; he speaks of the loss of it as a calamity great as the loss of reason. To see spectacles amuses and irritates him at the same time; he has the monkey's impulse to snatch the idle things from his fellow's nose; for not only is it useless to the wearer, and a sham, but it is annoying ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... that he was about to learn of a new calamity, he broke the seal, and opening the coarse cafe paper, was shocked ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong; For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, Not all Calamity's hugest waves confound, Who seems a promontory rock, That compassed round with turbulent sound, In middle ocean meets ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... to keep off fever,' said Quilp, 'this is the way to keep off every calamity of life! We'll never leave off, all the time we stop here—smoke away, you dog, or you shall ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... folks shoot each other thus, and were they not half savages. The shooting case reminds us of a traveller's story which we heard at a dinner table abroad. A gentleman and esquire of strict veracity, like Mr. Welby, related, in order to shew how common was the calamity of the coup de soleil, or stroke of the sun, in the Island of JAVA, that sitting once in the house of an opulent merchant of Batavia, drinking a cool glass of Madeira after dinner, with the merchant's wife in the room, the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... this devoted wife and mother called upon to suffer a far deeper calamity than any she had yet experienced. On the night of the 20th July, 1788, the family were alarmed by hearing the horses and cattle running tumultuously around the station, as if suddenly frightened. Colonel Anthony Bledsoe, who was then at home, rose ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... help him very much. This interested her, and we discussed it and the character of his face quite fully. The impression I then formed of this most unfortunate lady was only deepened by the pleasant acquaintance she permitted, down to the time of the national calamity, which unsettled her ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... misfortune to misery. Bonaparte, it seems, took the trouble to hate a mere peasant; the vine-dresser was torn from his vine, the laborer from his furrow, the mason from his scaffold, the weaver from his loom. Men accepted this mission of causing the immense public calamity to fall, morsel by morsel, upon the humblest walks of life. Detestable task! To crumble a catastrophe upon the little and on ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... of mourning and of grief, both in Boulogne and the camp. The inhabitants and soldiers covered the beach, searching anxiously among the bodies which the waves incessantly cast upon the shore; and the Emperor groaned over this terrible calamity, which in his inmost heart he could not fail to attribute to his own obstinacy. By his orders agents entrusted with gold went through the city and camp, stopping the murmurs which were ready ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... advanced to sovereign jurisdiction and independence. The force of imperial sovereignty was insufficient to restrain such powerful dependants; or to preserve the unity and tranquillity of the empire. The most furious private wars, accompanied with every species of calamity, were carried on between the different princes and states. The imperial authority, unable to maintain the public order, declined by degrees till it was almost extinct in the anarchy, which agitated the long interval between the death of the last emperor ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... grown impatient for some destination; more often I was sorry that the voyage drew so early to an end; and never once did I lose my fidelity to blue water and a ship. It is plain, then, that for me my exile to the place of schooners and islands can be in no sense regarded as a calamity. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imagination, and if we believe it to represent the facts, we cannot but watch with the deepest sympathy this gallant struggle of an intellectual race to preserve its planet from the effects of advancing age and death. We may, indeed, wonder whether our own humanity, confronted by such a calamity, could be counted on to meet the emergency with equal stoutness of heart and inexhaustibleness of resource. Up to the present time we certainly have shown no capacity to confront Nature toe to toe, and to seize her by the shoulders and turn her round when she refuses ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... supplies renders it necessary to send others at once. The faithful missionaries at this important station must not suffer. The friends of our Alaska mission who have so generously contributed to its support will not forget this additional financial necessity coming in this strange and unexpected calamity. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various
... obey its precepts, will become like unto thee. They, too, will foreknow what things shall happen, and in what month and on what day or in what night. All will be manifest to them—they will know and understand whether a calamity will come, a famine or wild beasts, floods or drought; whether there will be abundance of grain or dearth; whether the wicked will rule the world; whether locusts will devastate the land; whether the fruits will drop from the trees unripe; whether boils will afflict men; whether wars will prevail, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... sorry to hear that Sir Robert Peel apprehends further differences of opinion in the Cabinet, at a moment of impending calamity; it is more than ever necessary that the Government should be strong ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... Then the clockmaker came, and, after a great deal of talking and examining, he put the bird somewhat in order, but he said that it must be very seldom used as the works were nearly worn out, and it was impossible to put in new ones. Here was a calamity! Only once a year was the artificial bird allowed to sing, and even that was almost too much for it. But then the bandmaster made a little speech full of hard words, saying that it was just as good as before. And so, of course, it ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... he was gone, while Mrs Harrel and Cecilia were upon the stairs, they were startled by a violent knocking at the door: Cecilia, prepared for some calamity, hurried her friend back to the drawing-room, and then flying out of it again to enquire who entered, saw to her equal surprize and relief, Mr ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the state of nerves the team was in, this in itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the surroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... everything he had was covered with mortgages. Caesar worked like a slave, and his family toiled along with him. At last the crash came; he was driven out of his home; the farm and all had been lost for the price of a pair of horses. Right on the heels of this calamity, Caesar learned that his eldest daughter—a beautiful, dark-eyed girl—had been seduced by a lawyer—the agent of the money-lender—and would in a few months become a mother. Then all the devil that lay hid in the depths of the man's nature broke ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know that all the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to see the state of affairs. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... sorrow; but, on further talk, I found that he referred only to the failure, and had heard nothing about the other rumor. It cannot, therefore, be true; for Bennett lives in his neighborhood, and could not have remained ignorant of such a calamity. There must be some mistake; none, however, in regard to the failure, it having been announced in ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the chief, "that some calamity was going to happen to me" (for, being more composed, he began to talk to the other Indians who sat with him in his teepee, somewhat after the manner and in the spirit of Job's friends). "I saw Unk-a-tahe, the great fish of the water, and it showed its horns; and we know that that ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... was able to do so. The Plague had still spread, but so slowly that people began to hope that the City would be spared any great calamity, for they were well on in July, and in another six weeks the heat of summer would be passed. Some of those who had gone into the country returned, more shops had been opened, and the panic had ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... violent opposition of our masses to strict sanitary measures in cases of epidemics, and the lively protests which are provoked here on some occasions by other provisions tending to end some public calamity, thinking they see in this disposition of mind an indication of our incapacity to ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... with a murderer, she was about to quit his house, leaving all her property behind her; because, if the honour of the Bastarnays was stained, it was not she who had brought the shame about; because in this calamity she had arranged matters as best she could; finally, she added a vow to go over mountain and valley, she and her son, until all was expiated, for she knew how ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... several times to signify that he takes upon himself all the misfortunes which are to happen to the child. Then he presses the knuckles of his hands against the sides of his own head till they crack, which is a lucky omen, averting calamity. If the knuckles do not crack at the first attempt, it is repeated two or three times. When a man sneezes he will say 'Chatrapati,' which is considered to be a name of Devi, but is only used on this occasion. But some say nothing. After yawning they snap ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... strongly faced with stone, a precaution very necessary to prevent the danger of inundations, from which some parts of this country are constantly suffering. The Yellow River so very frequently overflows its banks, and brings so much peril and calamity to the people, that it has been called "China's Sorrow;" and the European trade at Canton has been very heavily taxed for the damage occasioned ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... with the Christian grot there was throughout the North another form of temple, dedicated to very different gods, namely, the trees from whose mighty stems hung the heads of the victims of Odin or of Thor—the horse, the goat, and, in time of calamity or pestilence, of men. Trees and not grots were the temples of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... receded farther and farther behind him, and the sea drew nearer, and the shores of the country which held Isabel Bretherton, it was but natural that even the grip upon him of this terrible and startling calamity should relax a little, and that he should realise himself as a man seeking the adored woman, his veins still beating with the currents of youth, and the great unguessed future still before him. He had left Marie in the grave, and his life would bear the ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... says, "During all the time he spent in Leghorn, he was in brilliant spirits, to him a sure prognostic of coming evil." I may add, that I have been on terms of intimacy with various persons who entertained a dread of finding themselves in good spirits, from a strong conviction that some calamity would be sure to befall them. This is a curious ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... to be gratified, then is the whole universe a cruel lie; its wonderful arrangement from star to flower, its careful adaptation of means to ends, the provision for the satisfaction of every sense, an arrant fraud, a colossal falsehood. If there be no God, then is creation a calamity; if there be a God and no immortality for man, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... be no recriminations," I responded; "let us stand shoulder to shoulder in this calamity,—isn't there a story called 'Calamity Jane?' We might live at the inn, and give her the cottage for a summer residence, but I utterly refuse to be parted from our cat and ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... boasted that they would carry it by ten thousand. Though the issue was one of such vital importance, there seemed so little hope of success, that the Republicans were disposed to give it up without making an effort. And no resistance to this impending calamity was made until Anna Dickinson went into the State, and galvanized the desponding loyalists to life. She spent two weeks there, and completely turned the tide of popular sentiment. Democrats, in spite of the scurrilous attacks made on her by some of their leaders ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... with a little scorn. She knew that Constance's desire for Dr. Stirling was due simply to the need which she felt of telling some one about the great calamity that had happened to them that morning. Constance was utterly absorbed by it, in the most provincial way. Sophia had said to herself at the beginning of her sojourn in Bursley, and long afterwards, that she should never get accustomed to the exasperating provinciality of the town, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... not to tell the sad news to Lady Fernborough. The telegraph outstrips the ocean liner, and a newspaper, with tidings of the great calamity, was in Aunt Ella's hands long before the arrival of the broken-hearted wife and disconsolate sister. The invitations were countermanded, and days of sorrow followed instead of the ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin |
