"Coincidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remembered the room that was his prison. He had been taken there as a sightseer when a child. It was in the Beauchamp Tower; and—strange coincidence—there was the bear and ragged staff of Warwick, still visible, cut deep into the old ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... The coincidence is not accidental. Magna Carta was wrested from a king humiliated by his submission to the Pope, and the University Charter was given to redress an act of violence on the part of the Oxford citizens, who had been stimulated in their attack on the 'clerks' ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... of suspicion? Mr. Furnival's law chambers were in Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, close to Chancery Lane, and Lady Mason had made her appointment with her son within five minutes' walk of that locality. And was it not in itself a strange coincidence that Lady Mason, who came to town so seldom, should now do so on the very day of Mr. Furnival's sudden return? She felt sure that they were to meet on the morrow, but yet she could not declare even to herself that it ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... more than three hundred, and the last more than four hundred miles, in length.* And these lines, though broken by numerous irregularities, especially on the north-west coast, are yet sufficiently distinct to indicate a probable connexion with the geological structure of the country; since the coincidence of similar ranges of coast with the direction of the strata, is a fact of very frequent occurrence in other parts of the globe.** And it is observable that considerable uniformity exists in the specimens, from the different places in this quarter of New Holland which ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... sentiment of Scotland easily favoured that doctrine of Divine displeasure which seemed probable to Reid and his friends. In our day, however, we are less certain of being able to interpret the "judgments of God"; and if we regard it as a remarkable coincidence, it is as far as we may safely go. Coincidences of some kind are a ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... seemed to take fresh courage at the question, and we could see that he was anxious for us to answer in the affirmative. Had we done so, the commissioner would have been staggered with the coincidence, and our dismissal ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... deaths of those criminals called tyrants and revolutionaries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals. It is to something of all this that Victor Hugo wishes to open men's eyes in "Les Miserables"; and this moral lesson is worked out in masterly coincidence with the artistic effect. The deadly weight of civilisation to those who are below presses sensibly on our shoulders as we read. A sort of mocking indignation grows upon us as we find Society rejecting, again ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... celebrated Sabine city, Cures, from which the united Romans and Sabines called themselves Quirites. He was the son of Pomponius, an honourable citizen, and was the youngest of four brothers. By a miraculous coincidence he was born on the very day on which Romulus founded Rome; that is, the tenth day before the Calends of May. His naturally good disposition had been so educated by sorrow and philosophic pursuits, that he rose superior not merely to commonplace vices, but even to the worship of brute force, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... "So you tried not to, of course. And anytime you did it again, or thought you did, you blamed it on coincidence. Or luck." ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... This had brought her into contact with a few of the more favoured sisters, and among them she had recognised in Sister Mary of the Crucifix the daughter of the nobleman who had been her aunt's landlord at Treviso. Fulvia's name was not unknown to the handsome nun, and the coincidence was enough to draw them together in a community where such trivial affinities must replace the ties of nature. Fulvia soon learned that Mary of the Crucifix was the spoiled darling of the convent. Her beauty and spirit, as much perhaps as her family connections, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... coincidence, (if it shall prove to be no more,) that the Gypsies, a race of wanderers, peculiar by reason of the very characteristic that would have resulted from the Hussite oath, made their first appearance in Europe at this very period,—between 1418 and 1427,—and in those very countries in which the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... touch on the strange happenings of coincidence. Circumstantial evidence convicts many offenders, but it has hanged many an innocent man before to-day. I could tell you a very remarkable case in ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... these migratory little creatures, which may be termed domestic grasshoppers, are very capricious and uncertain, as are their departures; and it is, I should think, for this reason, that they are believed to be cognizant of the ongoings of human life. We can easily suppose, for instance, that the coincidence of their disappearance from a family, and the occurrence of a death in that family, frequently multiplied as such coincidences must be in the country at large, might occasion the people, who are naturally credulous, to associate the one event with the other; ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... even allowing the centre of perception to be double, I can see no good reason for supposing this indefinite lengthening of the time, nor any analogy that bears it out. It seems to me most likely that the coincidence of circumstances is very partial, but that we take this partial resemblance for identity, as we occasionally do resemblances of persons. A momentary posture of circumstances is so far like some preceding one that we accept it as exactly the same, just as we accost a stranger occasionally, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... elevation. Such words executed themselves. To connect, though but for denial or for mockery, the ideas of Jesus and the Messiah, furnished an augury that eventually they would be found to coincide, and to have their coincidence admitted. It was an argumentum ad hominem, and drawn ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... never to pass her house in Delamere Terrace." Although not prone to superstition, he had noted in July 1863 a dream of Miss Barrett in which she imagined herself asking her dead sister Elizabeth, "When shall I be with you?" and received the answer, "Dearest, in five years." "Only a coincidence," he adds in a letter to Miss Blagden, "but noticeable." That summer, after wanderings in France, Browning and his sister settled at Audierne, on the extreme westerly point of Brittany, "a delightful, quite ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... series of accidents, by which the doom of some lovely or aspiring spirit comes upon it by the slow drift of misfortune. Tess, Grace, Eustacia, Jude—it is clear enough to what joys and sorrows their natures make them liable. But the master prepares for them trivial error, unhappy coincidence, unnecessary misfortune, until it is not surprising if the analytic mind insists that he is laboring some thesis of pessimism to be worked ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... day when the decree was passed, and reached Brundisium on the morrow. It happened to be the day on which the foundation of the colony was celebrated, and also the birthday of Tullia, who had come so far to meet her father. The coincidence was observed by the towns-people with delight. On the eighth the welcome news came from Rome, and Cicero set out for the capital. "All along my road the cities of Italy kept the day of my arrival as a holiday; the ways were crowded with the ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... thrilling day in the forest near Wabinosh House when he had stopped to look at Minnetaki's footprints in the soft earth through which she had been driven by her Woonga abductors, and he remembered, too, that she was the only person at the Post who wore heels on her moccasins. It was a queer coincidence! Could Minnetaki have been here? Had she made that footprint in the snow? Impossible, declared the young hunter's better sense. And yet his blood ran a little faster as he touched the delicate impression ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... me it was just a coincidence. Timmy hadn't seen that problem before and it should have been miles over his head anyway, yet he gave it a quick glance, spotted the error, changed the limits of an integration and put Jerry on the right track. ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... no coincidence is more impressive in the late experience of a Union soldier in Virginia than the associations then and there awakened by the recurrence of the anniversary of the birth of her noblest son and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... who, exasperated by everlasting injustice, were always ready for revolt? It was not seen in the districts where wealth and enjoyment reigned. It would there have seemed purposeless, degrading and truly monstrous. And it was a tragical and terrible coincidence that the bomb-thrower, driven mad by want, should be guillotined there, in the very centre ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... than ever now to say what I was trying to say, and she gave me small opportunity. "Why? Why?" she resumed, and suddenly her voice took on a gravity which her mischievous eyes belied. "My dear Page, do you believe in the instrumentality of coincidence?" ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... "Coincidence. No doubt there are bluffs on the coast of Africa that look something like a man's head, and plenty of people who speak bastard Arabic. Also, I believe that there are lots of swamps. Another thing is, Leo, and I am sorry to say it, but ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... is such knowledge of future events is a fact and not a theory. Experience testifies to the fact that there are certain people who are able to foretell the future, not as a matter of accident or through a chance coincidence, but as a regular thing. Diviners these are called, or fortune tellers. This power is even better authenticated in prophecy, which no one denies. We can also cite many instances of dreams, in which a person sees a future event with all its particulars, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... the windows of the Maypole Inn, gave such of its frequenters as chanced to be there at the moment an undeniable reason for prolonging their stay, and caused the landlord to prophesy that the night would certainly clear at eleven o'clock precisely,—which by a remarkable coincidence was the hour at which ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... opinion concerning the literary acquisitions of our immortal Dramatist; and remember how I congratulated myself on my coincidence with the last and best of his Editors. I told you, however, that his small Latin and less Greek would still be litigated, and you see very assuredly that I was not mistaken. The trumpet hath been sounded against "the darling project of representing ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... convinced Hone does not seem to us in itself as very convincing. Hone's recognition of the room was but some confused memory of an analogous place. Knots are not uncommon in deal shutters, and the discovery of the knot in the particular place was a mere coincidence. But, considering that Hone was a self-educated man, and, like many sceptics, was incredulous only with regard to Christianity, and even believed he once saw an apparition in Ludgate Hill, who can ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... singular coincidence people managed to confound my fate with that of a certain M. de la Vaquerie, who had also made a dismal failure with a drama, Les Funerailles de l'Honeur. His friends gave a banquet, to which I was invited, and we were ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... disputes, to confound accent with quantity in our language.[489] This charge, however, there is reason to believe, is sometimes, if not in most cases, made on grounds rather fanciful than real; for some have evidently mistaken the notion of concurrence or coincidence for that of identity. But, to affirm that the stress which we call accent, coincides always and only with long quantity, does not necessarily make accent and quantity to be one and the same thing. The greater force or loudness which causes the accented syllable to occupy more time than any ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... for our observations that hour of the night at which the Milky Way skirts our horizon. This is nearly the case in the evenings of May and June, though the coincidence with the horizon can never be exact except to observers stationed near the tropics. Using the figure of the grindstone, we at its centre will then have its circumference around our horizon, while the axis will be nearly vertical. The points in which the latter intersects the celestial sphere ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... at home. While Derues, alias Desportes, alias Mme. de Lamotte, was masquerading in Lyons, events had been moving swiftly and unfavourably in Paris. Sick with misgiving and anxiety, M. de Lamotte had come there to find, if possible, his wife and child. By a strange coincidence he alighted at an inn in the Rue de la Mortellerie, only a few yards from the wine-cellar in which the corpse of his ill-fated wife lay buried. He lost no time in putting his case before the Lieutenant of Police, who placed the affair ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... each other, the exact spots where such a party had been overthrown and such another victorious; every village had its sure traditions printed on the minds of its inhabitants, and, by consulting the annals of the nation, the coincidence was often remarkable. How is it, therefore, that they were so universally at fault with respect to the Danes? A partial explanation has been given which is in itself a proof of the tenacity of Irish memory. It is known that the Tuatha de Danaan were ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... they met people from home—the McGanums. They laughed, shook hands repeatedly, and exclaimed, "Well, this is quite a coincidence!" They asked when the McGanums had come down, and begged for news of the town they had left two days before. Whatever the McGanums were at home, here they stood out as so superior to all the undistinguishable strangers absurdly hurrying past that the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of Athens were for the most part small and mean; that the streets were crooked and narrow; that the upper stories projected over the roadway; and that staircases, balustrades, and doors that opened outwards, obstructed it;—a remarkable coincidence of description. I do not doubt at all, though history is silent, that that roadway was jolting to carriages, and all but impassable; and that it was traversed by drains, as freely as any Turkish town now. Athens seems in these respects to have been below the average cities of its time. "A ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... South, but had little of that far South about him save the dress he wore. He was too cold, too precise, too free from sudden emotion to be of the Gulf Coast State that sent him to the capital. Prescott often reflected upon the odd coincidence that the opposing Presidents, Lincoln and Davis, should have been produced by the same State, Kentucky, and that the President of the South should be Northern in manner and the President of the North Southern ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcade came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fenced the province-house from the public street. It was an awkward coincidence that the bell of the Old South was just then tolling for a funeral; so that, instead of a gladsome peal with which it was customary to announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe was ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... exception was the "Little Alicia," and it was the coincidence of the name, rather than the eloquence of its impoverished owner, that first attracted Ford. From first to last he did not know the exact location of the mine. It was somewhere in the hills back of Copah, and Grigsby, the prospector who had discovered and ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... not much attend to what his friend said, his attention being attracted to the tone—to something in the tone of the young lady, and also to her coincidence in his remark that the name appealed to some early recollection. He had been taxing his memory, to tell him when and how the name had become familiar to him; and he now remembered that it had occurred ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Graves and Greaves. The name Woodruff, Woodroffe is too common to be referred to the plant woodruff, and the fact that the male and female of a species of sand-piper are called the ruff and reeve suggests that Woodruff may have some relation to wood-reeve. It is at any rate a curious coincidence that the German name for the plant is Waldmeister, wood-master. Another official surname especially connected with country life is Pinder, also found as Pinner, Pender, Penner, Ponder and Poynder, the man in charge of the pound or ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... singular," he continued, bending forward confidentially. "Since the arrival of these two ladies several strangers have been observed about the place, some of whom have endeavoured to procure lodgings. They spoke French, but they were not Frenchmen or Englishmen. True, this may be a coincidence, but one can never tell. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... This farther coincidence of opinion not only induced me to persevere in my plan, but afforded me a degree of grateful satisfaction, and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... commands passed unheeded. The people were thronging up the street, elbowing each other, treading on each other's toes, yelling, booing, forgetful of all save the strange coincidence that, on this evening of all others, the banquet in honor of Clive, the Indian hero, had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a live Indian in ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... at least a rather curious coincidence, which used to be regarded as proving that the play was not written till after the Summer of 1594. I refer to Titania's superb description, in ii. 1, of the strange misbehaviour of the weather, which she ascribes to the fairy bickerings. I can quote ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... has been praised also by Johnson for the happy coincidence and coalition of the tragic and comic plots, and Sir Walter Scott said of it, in his edition of Dryden's ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... strange coincidence. The ladies of Rome frequently go to the church of the Capuchins, as Corona had done, to seek the aid and counsel of Padre Filippo, but Corona had never met Donna Tullia there. Madame Mayer did not profess to be very devout. As a matter of fact, she had not found it convenient ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... of St. Catherine for the Capuchin Church of Cadiz, Murillo fell from the scaffold, and soon died from his injuries: he was buried in the Church of Sta. Cruz, and it is a sad coincidence that this church and that of San Juan, at Madrid, in which Velasquez was interred, were both destroyed by the French ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... agreement among themselves as to the terms to be imposed on Germany were so great that it was almost exactly four months before the terms of peace were laid before the delegates from Germany. A singular coincidence is to be noticed. It was almost four years to a day from the sinking of the Lusitania. That act of piracy was one of the acts that roused America and led to our intervention. The sinking of the ship ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... upon a small islet, whence, after many months of hardship and privation, the skipper had been rescued by a sandal-wood trader and conveyed to Singapore. He there joined the barque, homeward bound, the hospitable skipper gladly offering him a passage home, and, by a singular coincidence, had arrived in the river only an hour or two ahead of his own ship. He was full of pride and delight at the way in which Ned had outwitted the pirates at last and run away with the ship; and could find no words in which to express ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... do agree on some point, it is only to tell us that human reason, of which God is the author, is depraved; but what is the purport of this coincidence in their opinions, if it be not to tax the Deity with imbecility, injustice, and malignity? For why should God, in creating a reasonable being, not have given him an understanding which nothing could corrupt? They reply to us by saying "that the reason ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... "A strange coincidence, indeed!" said the captain, with a laugh. "That is precisely my situation." He bent his head a little closer. "I am on duty this morning," he added. "Secret work ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... find in a Sandwich Island paper which some friend has sent me from that tranquil far-off retreat. The coincidence between my own experience and that here set down by the late Mr. Benton is so remarkable that I cannot forbear publishing and commenting upon the paragraph. The Sandwich Island ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and then on comparing the numbers on the coupons the old man discovered that by a coincidence his berth adjoined the one which had been ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... Jack. He realized that by a strange coincidence his falling bomb and that of the other rear plane had exploded simultaneously, making the ground vibrate, and completely destroying anything that had been ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... cara diva, keep up your music, exercise your voice, practise. I am enchanted with the coincidence of employments and hours by which, though separated by the Alps, we live by precisely the same rule. The thought charms me and gives me courage. The first time I undertook to plead here—I forget to tell you this—I fancied that you were listening to me, and ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... with such a trivial matter it would not have purred so civilly at parting, and I should not have known how to justify myself by explaining that the church of St. Magnus was more illustriously connected with America through that coincidence ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Baroness had too vivid a recollection of their last (and only) visit to England since their marriage. By a curious coincidence that also was three ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... I think of it again, I believe my brother did say she was 'devilish old'—a strange coincidence. Still she is a fine model of a boat. What d' ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... By a singular coincidence they adopted precisely the same device as the more militant French Protestants laid before Calvin in August 1559-March 1560. The Scots and the Protestant French represented that they were illegally repressed by foreigners: ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... long a secret in resentment for the ungrateful return to his former services, the incorrigible wickedness of the Queen, and even the blind uxorious confidence of Cymbeline, are all so many lines of the same story, tending to the same point. The effect of this coincidence is rather felt than observed; and as the impression exists unconsciously in the mind of the reader, so it probably arose in the same manner in the mind of the author, not from design, but from the force of natural association, a particular ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... and gazing silently at the stone-breakers. Although he took no notice of my presence, I now began to wonder whether he had deliberately followed me from Broughton, or whether his presence in this shady part of the road was merely a chance coincidence. It was quite possible that he had hidden himself while I was in the coffee-shop, watched me from its door, and set forth in my wake. If this were the case, his purpose seemed scarcely doubtful, for he had certainly seen me receive the money for my ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... itself three stages, in which Fetishism, Polytheism, and Monotheism successively prevail. The chief social characteristics of the Polytheistic period are the institution of slavery and the coincidence or "confusion" of the spiritual and temporal powers. It has two stages: the theocratic, represented by Egypt, and the military, represented by Rome, between which Greece stands in a rather embarrassing ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... outposts. Wagon Hill West was held by two squadrons, about 70 men, of Natal troopers—the Imperial Light Horse; Wagon Hill proper by a half-battalion of infantry. It happened, however, by fortunate coincidence, that it had been decided {p.240} to mount that night a naval gun upon Wagon Hill West. This, with an escort of engineer troops, a half company of infantry, and some seamen—in all sixty rifles—had reached ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... make of the story than to discuss whether any kind of known Mediterranean fish could swallow a man. If we believe in miracles, the question need not trouble us. And miracle there must be, not only in the coincidence of the fish and the Prophet being in the same bit of sea at the same moment, but in his living for so long in his strange 'ark ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... when he came here and made this house his headquarters. I had not met my cousin since I was a little child, and when he arrived on the scene took a great dislike to him. He began at once to pay me hateful attentions, and to question me eagerly with regard to Uncle Edward and his ways. By a curious coincidence, he had known this house before he went to India, having stayed here as a boy. He showed particular interest in the oval gallery, and encouraged Uncle Edward to talk of Siva, although he saw that the subject excited ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... slowly forward to my own position at the head of the troop, wondering at the strange coincidence which had placed Edith Brennan's name upon Colgate's lips. Her memory had been brought back to me with renewed freshness by his chance words, and so strongly did it haunt me as to be almost a visible presence. As I swung my horse ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... turned to the advertisement pages. She knew that life was full of what the unthinking call coincidences; but the miracle of Ashe having selected by chance the father of Aline Peters as an employer was too much of a coincidence for her. Suspicion ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... The coincidence of the Christian names had naturally struck the novelist, but no suspicion of the truth had crossed a mind too skilled in the construction of dramatic situations to dream of stumbling into one ready-made. It was thus with a heart as light ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... says. "By a coincidence this dog was being taken to Birmingham, packed in a hamper exactly similar to the one you put your baby in. You've got this man's bull-pup, he's got your baby; and I wouldn't like to say off-hand at this moment which of you's feeling the madder. ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... sage after duly worshipping him, and taking his permission, repaired to the city of Varanasi, and having reached there, that famous prince did as he had been told, and remembering the words of Narada, he placed a corpse at the gate of the city. And by coincidence, that Brahmana also entered the gate of the city at the same time. Then on beholding the corpse, he suddenly turned away. And on seeing him turn back, that prince, the son of Avikshit followed his footsteps with his hands clasped together, and with the object ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... principle 'wealth' as something distinct from the facts denoted by the man's being rich. It antedates them; the facts become only a sort of secondary coincidence with the ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... great rendezvous for swell invalids and nature lovers," Cologne told her, "and of course, it may be a mere coincidence. I even ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... know who have done the same), And have felt 'ere I see the daylight's end, Her letter must come—and her letter came. I have run indoors with the happy thought That something pleasant was going to be, And—coincidence strange!—my eye has caught The sight of the ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... faces of those who passed by, afraid lest his own senses gave him false intelligence, and that he had really assumed some frightful and revolting shape. It was curious that, partly by his own fault, and largely, no doubt, through the operation of mere coincidence, he was once or twice strongly confirmed in this fantastic delusion. He came one day into a lonely and unfrequented byway, a country lane falling into ruin, but still fringed with elms that had formed an avenue leading to the old manor-house. It was now the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Here we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... exclaimed it out aloud, so great was her astonishment. The next moment she wondered how on earth she had failed to recall this astounding coincidence before. Most likely it was due to the fact that her first impression of Lady Clifford had been overlaid by subsequent ones. What was it she had thought as she listened to the subdued, eager voice? There was no question about it—she ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... whose formation they have contributed, might furnish satisfactory evidence as to their origin, their starting-point, and the course by which they have wandered so far from the sea. [Footnote: Forchhammer, after pointing out the coincidence between the inclined stratification of dunes and the structure of ancient tilted rocks, says: "But I am not able to point out a sandstone formation corresponding to the dunes. Probably most ancient dunes have been destroyed by submersion before the loose sand became cemented ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he blackened the tip of his nose. "It's rather a curious coincidence, really. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... island of Cuba to hunt the maroon negroes. Bryan Edwards volume 1 page 570.) Civilization, or slow national demoralization, merely prepare the way for future events; but to produce great changes in the social state there must be a coincidence of certain events, the period of the occurrence of which cannot be calculated. Such is the complication of human destiny, that the same cruelties which tarnished the conquest of America have been re-enacted before our own eyes in times which we suppose to be characterized by vast progress, information ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the habit of conducting experiments may not be aware of the coincidence of circumstances necessary for their being managed so as to prove perfectly decisive; nor how often men engaged in professional pursuits are liable to interruptions which disappoint them almost at the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... if addressing a meeting, "this cannot be coincidence; we are undoubtedly and unquestionably in the presence of a spirit or of several spirits. That they understand Latin, we see; and, from what they say, they may have known death. Time may show whether they have been terrestrials like ourselves. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... do not occur when they are, and by hypothesis ought to be, expected. The explanations are found after the event, and that is regarded as causation which is really coincidence. ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... want to pry into your affairs,' I said viciously. 'I was only interested in the coincidence that we should meet here ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... coincidence. In the present condition of affairs, this mysterious note could refer only to one thing—the missing ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... was made by them to that end. The question of the treaty ratification was warmly discussed in Washington. A week before the vote was taken it was doubtful whether the necessary two-thirds majority could be obtained. It was a remarkable coincidence that just when the Republican Party was straining every nerve to secure the two or three wavering votes, the first shots were exchanged between a native and an American outpost in the suburbs of the capital. Each side accuses the other of having precipitated hostilities. However that may be, this ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... for his office of introduction but was stayed by the look of amusement in his friend's face, and by the amazed recognition in that of My Lady. He stepped back with an exclamation, partly of chagrin. He saw that this recognition was no coincidence, so far as the man was concerned, though the woman had been surprised in a double sense. He resented the fact that Kingsley Bey had kept this from him—he had the weakness of small-statured men and of diplomatic people who have reputations for knowing and doing. The man, all ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... many of these jewels are fetched from the mines of other poets: great as Milton's obligations, to Nature were, his obligations to books were greater. But he has made all his own by the alchemy of his genius, and borrows little but to improve. The most remarkable coincidence is with a piece certainly unknown to him—Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso," which was first acted in 1637, the year of the publication of "Comus," a great year in the history of the drama, for the "Cid" appeared in it also. The similarity ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... By a happy coincidence a party of three in the Club-House Hotel—a retired army captain, his wife, and a lady companion—were anxious to take a trip to Africa. We agreed to go together, and had scarcely made up our minds, when another retired captain, who habitually resided ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... period—CHARLES FOX and WILLIAM PITT, second son of Lord Chatham.[1] Eloquence is the only one of our brilliant qualities that does not seem to have degenerated rapidly—but I shall leave debates to your nephew, now an ear-witness: I could only re-echo newspapers. Is it not another odd coincidence of events, that while the father Laurens is prisoner to Lord Cornwallis as Constable of the Tower, the son Laurens signed the capitulation by which Lord Cornwallis became prisoner? It is said too, I don't know if truly, that this capitulation and that of Saratoga were ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... impending danger to Sidney obsessed him. If Carlotta would do that, what would she do when she learned of the engagement? And he had known her before. He believed she was totally unscrupulous. The odd coincidence of their ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Physiology," which became at once a profitable enterprise. For a time there seemed to be little hope of his escaping from the burden of this success and becoming an inventor, when, by a most happy coincidence, two of his pupils brought to him exactly the sort of stimulation and practical help that he needed and had not ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... was much larger than this. Orm addresses it to Walter, his brother in the flesh as well as spiritually: the book seems to be written in an Anglian or East Anglian dialect, and it is at least an odd coincidence that the names Orm and Walter occur together in a Durham MS. But whoever Orm or Ormin was, he did two very remarkable things. In the first place, he broke entirely with alliteration and with any-length ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... population had already tripled itself, and the increase showed no sign of ceasing. When the Thetis touched at Valparaiso, the English frigate, the Blonde, commanded by Lord Byron, grandson of the explorer of the same name, whose discoveries are narrated above, was also at anchor there. By a singular coincidence Byron had raised a monument to the memory of Cook in the island of Hawaii, at the very time when Bougainville, the son of the circumnavigator, met by Byron in the Straits of Magellan, was laying the foundation-stone ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... who was no fool, recognized the stranger as the business manager of an insurance paper about half whose space was given to articles highly eulogistic of certain insurance companies whose advertisements, by some singular coincidence, invariably appeared further on in the publication. From the position of the two Jimmy deduced that the conversation was not likely to be terminated very soon, and dashed back to Mr. O'Connor with that intelligence. The Vice-President was still studying ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Harcourt's grocery at Sidon. This suggestion was the more fatefully indicated by the fact that half a dozen men were seated around a stove in the centre, more or less given up to a kind of philosophical and lazy enjoyment of their enforced idleness. And when to this was added the more surprising coincidence that the party consisted of Billings, Peters, and Wingate,—former residents of Sidon and first citizens of Tasajara,—the resemblance ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... uncomprehended forces which can be made the subject of actual experiment. Nay, more, the very fact that in this special direction experiment turns out to be possible, is in itself an augury that we are on a true scientific track; for it involves a remarkable coincidence between a theoretical conclusion ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... Monterey, we could get no armored ship out before the two Spanish armored vessels arrived; and if they had the same speed which they maintained to Suez—ten knots—it was doubtful whether the Monterey would anticipate them. It may be mentioned here, as an interesting coincidence, that the same day that word came that Camara had started back for Spain, a telegram was also received that the Monterey had had to put back to Honolulu, for repairs to the collier which accompanied her. This, of course, was news ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... remained silent for a moment, like a sharpshooter who deliberates before deciding in what direction he will renew his fire; then, seeming to make up his mind, he said, "Have you remarked a very singular coincidence, monseigneur?" ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with that, closing the door behind him; and we heard his step go softly down the staircase. I gazed at Simon, and he at me, with all the astonishment and awe which it was natural we should feel in presence of so remarkable a coincidence. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Major A—— also said that he was commanding that Battalion, and it was full of strange officers, but I expect they are doing all right. I fancy our German friends are finding the war longer than they thought. A curious coincidence is that we are opposed to the 25th German Infantry Brigade, that, of course, being our own number. So far we have not received Princess Mary's boxes. We shall get them in time, and I shall let you know later on about ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... Miss Mapp," he said in his high falsetto. "Blow me, if it isn't our mutual friend Miss Mapp. What a 'strordinary coincidence." ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... pressure normal to the chord the drift proper would have been 17 X 98/.98. The travel of the centre of pressure made it necessary to put sand on the front rudder to bring the centres of gravity and pressure into coincidence, consequently the weight of the machine varied from 98 lbs. to 108 lbs. in the different tests 17 lbs., so that, although the higher wind velocity must have caused an increase in the head resistance, the tangential force still came within 1 lb. of overcoming ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... man's eyes, and now that he knew who he was—and had been—he determined that whatever other adventurer might set the world aflame, the Modern Skobeleff should not do it if he and his Royal ally on the Higher Plane could prevent it. His coming had been a curious coincidence, possibly a consequence of obscure causes; but, for some reason or other, he felt himself beginning to look with a more favourable eye on Commander Mark Merrill—perhaps because he was the impersonation of uncompromising hostility ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... disproportionate carving in nose, mouth and chin, accompanied by weak eyes and unexpectedness of forehead, may tend to make the Evil One but languid in his desire for the capture of its human exemplar. This may help account for the otherwise rather curious coincidence of frightful physiognomy and preternatural goodness in this world of sinful beauties[B]. Under such a theory, Mr. DIBBLE'S easy means of frightening the Arch-Tempter into immediate flight, and keeping ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... fit auditors of moral philosophy," because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience?' [And our Poet, we may remark in passing, seems to have been struck with that same observation; for by a happy coincidence, he appears to have it in his commonplace book too, and he has not only made a note of it, as this one has, but has taken the trouble to translate it into verse. He does, indeed, go a little out of his way in time, to introduce ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Note the titular coincidence. The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch; here we have our lieutenant of Antichrist also named from that town. The anti-Christian Germans got into Florence upon Sunday morning; the Guelphs fought on till Wednesday, which was Candlemas;—the Tower of ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... of Ojeda himself. The following are the words of the record: "In this voyage which this said witness made, he took with him Juan de la Cosa and Morego Vespuche [Amerigo Vespucci] and other pilots." [300] Secondly, from the coincidence of many parts of the narrative of Vespucci with events in this voyage of Ojeda. Among these coincidences, one is particularly striking. Vespucci, in his letter to Lorenzo de Medici, and also in that to Rene or Soderini, says, that his ships, after leaving the coast of Terra Firma, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Coincidence is odious, tells on the nerves. I never felt it more so than a week later, when I read in the 'Pioneer' the announcement of the death of my old friend Fry, Superintendent of the School of Art in Calcutta. The paragraph in which the journal dismissed poor ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a schoolboy. Love in its Extasy, described ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... of his brother's arrival at Bussorah, of his marriage, and of the birth of his son; and when he compared them with the day of his own marriage, and the birth of his daughter at Cairo, he wondered at the exact coincidence which appeared ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Robin, "I guess I won't. Let's go and have some fun. They are all that way. You can't depend on any of them. Never trust one of them. I believe that creature has been engaged as much as twice since I left. By a singular coincidence," he added, "I have been married twice myself—but, of course, that's different. I'm a man, you know, and—well, it's different. We won't dwell on it. Let's go and dance. But wait a minute first." He took a little ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a patronizing moralist." Moreover, the life of society depends upon the general glow of the party, rather than the prominence of an individual, so that a brilliant talker will seek to bring out "the coincidence which strengthens conviction, or the dissent which sharpens sagacity, rather than individual experiences, which ever seem to be egotistical. In agreeable society all egotism is to be crushed and crucified. Even a man who is an oracle, if wise, will suggest, rather than seem to instruct. In a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... that they are afterwards discovered to be no breach of the law of uniformity has no bearing at all on the Revelation to which they belong. The miracle would in that case consist in the precise coincidence in time with the purpose which they served, or in the manner and degree in which they marked out the Man who wrought them from all other men, or in the foreshadowing of events which ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... for anniversaries. If that be so, the incidence of events has given him something to ponder over during the last three years. Three notable schemes conceived by himself and carefully designed to strengthen his position, have by a curious coincidence matured upon dates of certain interest in Transvaal history. All three have failed disastrously. The first anniversary of the Reformers' sentence day was the occasion of the Reformers giving evidence before the Industrial Commission, which so strongly justified their case. The ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... a book with the very interesting observations which I made in Nashville. And here I call attention to a very strange coincidence which this recalls. During the previous year I had often expressed a great desire to be in some State during its transition from Confederacy to Unionism, that I might witness the remarkable social and political paradoxes and events which would result, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... coincidence that the dream should have occurred to him, at this moment. He at once announced his readiness to surrender; but his forty companions did not see the matter in the same light. The moment Josephus left them, the Roman soldiers ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... between the orders. On the contrary, it bears the stamp of a reforming legislator like the constitutions of Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus; and it has evidently been produced under Greek influence. Particular analogies may be deceptive, such as the coincidence noticed by the ancients that in Corinth also widows and orphans were charged with the provision of horses for the cavalry; but the adoption of the armour and arrangements of the Greek hoplite system was certainly no accidental coincidence. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... what is the Armenian word for apricot, and whether there is any reason to believe that the Arabic words for apricot and peach, are of Armenian and Persian origin? If it is so, the resemblance of the one to praecox, and of the other to persicum, will be a curious coincidence, but hardly more curious than the resemblance of [Greek: pascha] with [Greek: pascho] which led some of the earlier fathers, who were not Hebraists, to derive [Greek: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... fairy story. Neither need it be set lightly down as a curious coincidence. I know the charm that the old man said. I cannot give it here. It will only work successfully if taught by man to woman or by woman to man; nor do I pretend to say that it will work for every one. I believe it to be a personal and wholly incomprehensible gift, but that such a gift ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Bethlehem. "Zerubbabel," he says, "is rightly said to have been born at Bethlehem, because he was of the family of David which had its origin there." This is, in like manner, repeated by the Rationalistic interpreters, in order to avoid the too close coincidence of the prophecy with the actual history of Christ, e.g., by Paulus and Strauss (both, in their "Life of Jesus"), and by Hitzig. It is remarkable, however, that, in order the more securely to attain this object, some have gone so far even as to follow the example of several ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... By a curious coincidence the battalion we were to relieve were the 1st Munster Fusiliers, the battalion who had given us our first lesson in trench warfare, when we had been attached to them for a few days after our arrival at Gallipoli. We found ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... the Jesuits and the religious orders of the last year had many causes, and had probably long been seething, and waiting for something to open the floodgates. That something came in the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, and the coincidence, accidental or otherwise, of the production of Galdos's play of Electra. The marriage was a love match; the two young sons of the Count of Caserta, who were nephews of the Infanta Isabel on her husband's side, had been constantly ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... been following our inspection tour at shadow's-length, interrupted. I suspected that his timing was no mere coincidence. ...
— My Father, the Cat • Henry Slesar
... next day it seemed to have been worked.... Was it the prayer that did it?... Was it any one's prayer?... Was it any one's faith?... Was it—God?... Had faith and prayer and God anything to do with it?... Do things happen by coincidence and chance?... or is there a Mind that directs them?... ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... I hope not," said Lord Ashiel earnestly. "I have got her to promise to come to Scotland, and in a few days I may get some definite clue as to which of them it is. It is a very odd coincidence that both the girls bear names so much like that of my poor wife's." He paused reflectively, and then added, "In the meantime you will go on with your inquiries, will ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... others, each according to his ability. The time of this celebration of the work about the temple also fell upon the day of the king's inauguration, which the people customarily observed as a festival. The coincidence of these anniversaries made the festival ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... conservatism, and an arrangement which leaves the fate of England in the hands of Englishmen may be favourable to reform, but is fatal to revolution. Has this fact arrested the attention of Gladstonians? I know not. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the least defensible portion of an indefensible policy should, while it threatens ruin to England, offer temporary salvation to the party who rally round ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... his mutilated body to his lair and lie down and die." The venerable representative of compromise was making his exit from one door of the stage, the masterful representative of conscience, his entrance through the other. Was the coincidence accident or prophecy? Were the bells of destiny at the moment "ringing in the valiant man and free, the larger heart, the kindlier hand, and ringing out the darkness of the land"? Whether accident or prophecy, Sumner's entrance into the Senate was into ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... difficulty. The circumstances possibly contributing are as follows: fermentation of the hay, insufficiency of water, overheated stable, a chill from exercise after the gale—I think all these may have had a bearing on the case. It can scarcely be coincidence that the two ponies which have suffered so far are those which are nearest the stove end of the stable. In future the stove will be used more sparingly, a large ventilating hole is to be made near it and an allowance of water is to be added to the snow hitherto ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... reliefs and hollows-which the foot has shaped on the inner surface of its sole. Comparing the empirical results of this examination with those based on the anatomical data above given, and finding a general coincidence in them, he constructs his last in accordance with their joint teachings. Theoretically, Mr. Plumer is on somewhat dangerous ground. If the arches of the foot are made to yield like elliptical springs, why support them? But we subject them to such unnatural conditions by pressure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... he said, following her out of the room. Through the door in the hall leading to the basement he called "Hssst!" several times, as though assisting the cat's departure, till by some strange coincidence the butler ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
