"Fatal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that river-fish are sometimes stifled, even in their own element, by muddy water during floods, it can not be doubted that the periodical discharge of large bodies of turbid fresh water in the sea may be still more fatal to marine tribes. In the "Principles of Geology" I have shown that large quantities of mud and drowned animals have been swept down into the sea by rivers during earthquakes, as in Java in 1699; and that indescribable multitudes of dead fishes have been seen floating on the sea ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... not known of any difficulty between his wife and Miss Smith, or any other of the family, and could attribute the cool calculating murder of his wife to no other cause than the little difference of opinion that was expressed a few days previous to the fatal deed! Sanford Griffin succeeded in bringing this case before the court. But the charge of the judge to the jurors was, "You must bear in mind that Miss Smith was the weaker party, and if the shooting was in self-defense, it would be justifiable homicide." The jury so returned ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... take up the outside sheet, and find the whole of page 4, taken up by a report of last night's Parliamentary debates. On the opposite page (9) the first three columns contain a full report of the inquest in connection with a fatal railway accident on a suburban line. Then comes a list of eighty-seven school-buildings to be erected or completed at a cost of L25,000. Three deputations take up nearly half, and the Russell Street fire ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Strange Story,' shall be complied with. It is purely and simply this: Many novels, most of them, in fact, treat of the World; the rest may be divided into those vaguely attempting to describe the works of the Flesh and the Devil. This division of subjects is fatal to their force; there was need to write a novel embracing them all; therefore 'A Strange Story' was penned. Mrs. Colonel Poyntz personated the World, Doctor Fenwick the Flesh, and Margrave, alias Louis Grayle, certainly, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... at the head, Leveled his deadly aim; their fatal hands No second stroke intend; and such a frown Each cast at th' other, as when two black clouds, With heaven's artillery fraught, came rolling on Over the Caspian, there stand front to front, Hovering a space, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... in the streets and at the stations, commenting on events with an optimism sure of the first news of the war. Two things were beyond all discussion. The bayonet was the secret of the French, and the Germans were shuddering with terror before its fatal, glistening point. . . . The '75 cannon had proved itself a unique jewel, its shots being absolutely sure. He was really feeling sorry for the enemy's artillery since its projectiles so seldom exploded even when well aimed. . . . Furthermore, the French troops had entered ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... light until long after the real coins had been sold, and I gather that she has already done her work successfully in general houses. Then, impressed by her excellent references and capable manner, my housekeeper engaged her, and for a few weeks she went about her duties here. It was fatal to this detail of the scheme, however, that I have the misfortune to be blind. I am told that Helene has so innocently angelic a face as to disarm suspicion, but I was incapable of being impressed and that ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Suffice it to remark of this weapon, with which, by the by, I never saw a decent shot made, that the detente is simple and ingenious, and that the "Ebe" or dwarf bolt is always poisoned with the boiled root of a wild shrub. It is believed that a graze is fatal, and that the death is exceedingly painful: I doubt both assertions. Most men also carry a pliable basket full of bamboo caltrops, thin splints, pointed and poisoned. Placed upon the path of a bare-footed ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... realise the necessity for consistently attributing the same meanings to the symbols. Do not be tempted to change their interpretation for what may seem a more probable, or pleasant, prediction for your client. It is a fatal mistake. ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... difficulties in the application of Mr. Hare's scheme are almost insuperable, but it is not worth while pursuing the subject, since it is now admitted by recent advocates that the faddist argument is fatal. This is an admission that Mr. Hare completely neglected the factor of human nature. Professor Nanson writes:—"Hare proposed that there should be only one electorate, consisting of the whole State. It is unfortunate that this proposal was made. There can be no doubt ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... wonder that her tears fell fast, wrung from her with the pain of this double wound; for Helen, though quiet and undemonstrative, had fine feelings and unsounded depths of passion in her nature, and the fatal attraction she felt for Armand Gervase was more powerful than she had herself known. Now that he had openly confessed his infatuation for another woman, it seemed as though the earth had opened at her feet and shown her nothing but a grave in which to ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... age he would have had a clearly defined and respectable position had he contented himself with being the general of the senate, for which he was from the outset destined. With this he was not content, and so he fell into the fatal plight of wishing to be something else than he could be. He was constantly aspiring to a special position in the state, and, when it offered itself, he could not make up his mind to occupy it; he was deeply indignant ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... clock on the staircase told its monotonous click-clack, in that soothing way which more marked the quiet of the house than disturbed with any sense of sound. Leonard still slept that renovating slumber, almost in her arms, far from that fatal pursuing sea, with its human form of cruelty. The dream was a vision; the reality which prompted the dream was over and past—Leonard was safe—she was safe; all this loosened the frozen ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the same, some mischief was afoot at one of the rear window's—the one into which Jethro Juggens had fired that very day with fatal effect. The disturbance was transferred from the ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... once across, he had only to change his name and write for money to be forwarded to that name, and turn to work until the thing was covered up and forgotten. He rose to his feet in his full strength again, and intensely and agreeably excited with the danger, and possibly fatal termination, of his adventure, and then there fell upon him, with the suddenness of a blow, the remembrance of the little child lying on the dirty ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... be seen, which is after all not so very different from Addison's, allowing for the distance in time and place, and for Scott's livelier imagination.[49] Scott had his laugh at Mrs. Radcliffe, and in his reviews of Hoffmann's "Tales" and Maturin's "Fatal Revenge" [50] he insists upon the delicacy with which the supernatural must be treated in an age of disbelief. His own management of such themes, however, though much superior to Walpole's or Mrs. Radcliffe's, has not the subtle art of Coleridge. The White Lady ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Many fatal mistakes in the choosing of friends come from unfit haste. We would better take time to know our possible friends, and be sure that we know them well, before making the solemn ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... and the unquenchable fire for the consuming of the chaff: and the heart trembles. Then we are led to the brink of the precipice, and compelled to see the point at which the primrose-path we are travelling ends in the fatal abyss. Then our faith in our hereditary position and privilege is shattered by the iconoclasm of the preacher; and we are levelled to the position of stones which are lapped by the Jordan, but are insensible to ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Allegri and Titian, and to have traced in thought Beauty's self to her hidden source; but behold our ill-judged artist plunging now, with equal assurance and courage, into that tumultuous sea of English eighteenth-century political strife. The result was this time fatal to his peace, and probably even to his life. John Wilkes was not a very safe man to attack carelessly, nor yet likely to remain quiescent under this treatment; and Hogarth's print of the "Times," published in September of 1762, provoked a very savage rejoinder in No. 17 of the North Briton. ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... rack of pain Grow faint or fierce, and pray and curse by turns; That Hell's temptations, clad in Heavenly guise And armed with might, lie evermore in wait Along life's path, giving assault to all— Fatal to most; that Death stalks through the earth, Choosing his victims, sparing none at last; That in each shadow of a pleasant tree A grief sits sadly sobbing to its leaves; And that beside each fearful soul there walks The dim, ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... and revealing by every line of his countenance the absorbing interest with which he regarded the issue. The verdict of the jury fell upon him with the bewildering shock of an avalanche. He was stunned, stupified, amazed; he could hardly believe that he had heard the fatal words aright, and that "guilty" had been the verdict returned. He guilty! he whose life was studded by good deeds as stars stud the wintry sky; he guilty, whose kindly heart had always a throb for the suffering and the unfortunate, whose hand was ever extended to shield ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... faces in the clouds, which vanish almost as soon as they are discerned. Both Imagination and Fancy naturally express themselves, often and effectively, through the use of metaphors, similes, and suggestive condensed language. In painful contrast to them stands commonplaceness, always a fatal fault. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... shall be done in the fiftieth, where some dreadful discovery or anagnorisis (i.e. recognition of identity) takes place within the compass of a single line or two; as, for instance, in the Oedipus Tyrannus, at the moment when Oedipus by a final question of his own, extorts his first fatal discovery, viz. that he had been himself unconsciously the murderer of Laius?' True, he has no reason as yet to suspect that Laius was his own father; which discovery, when made further on, will draw with it another still more ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... anxiety with irritation. She felt as if some fatal fascination confined her in Fairbridge and especially did she feel that she must be present at the annual meeting. Margaret never for one minute formulated to herself why she had this fierce desire. She knew in a horrible way at the back of her brain, but she kept the knowledge ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sister-in-law, and for whom the kind and considerate arrangements were suggested, was a sister of Mr. John Forster, and a lady highly esteemed by Charles Dickens. The illness from which she was then suffering was a fatal one. She died in this same year, a few ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... my turn now. His turn may come later. I explained to him that any excitement or sudden recognition immediately after the operation might prove fatal or disastrous, and he took himself off. But I consider that Phoebe's father ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... or even without detection. For a Confirmation hereof we need to recur no further back than a few months, when undoubtedly the Accounts and Letters carried by Mr. Rob[in]son would have been attended with very unhappy if not fatal effects, had not this Town been so attentive as to have Contradicted those false accounts by the depositions of many credible persons under Oath. But it cannot be supposed that a Community will be so Attentive but upon the most ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... than I could ever have expected to be. But, nevertheless, one feels—feels crippled by such an arrangement. It is quite impossible, you know, for instance, that—that—that I should do a great many things." His courage failed him as he was about to make the fatal announcement. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... whereas your Butler looks after the other servants, and you look after him; at least, I hope you do. From this it follows that the Boy flourishes only in the free atmosphere of bachelordom. If master marries, the Boy sometimes becomes a Butler, but I have generally seen that the change was fatal to him. He feels a share at first in master's happiness on the auspicious occasion, and begins to fit on his new dignity. He provides himself with a more magnificent cumberbund, enlarges the border of gold thread ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... this hour. Both—besides the band of kindred genius—had that of profound admiration, then a rare feeling, for the poetry of Wordsworth. In the course of this part of his life he visited Ireland, and was introduced soon afterward to OPIUM—fatal friend, treacherous ally—root of that tree called Wormwood, which has overshadowed all his after life. A blank here occurs in his history. We find him next in a small white cottage in Cumberland—married—studying Kant, drinking laudanum, and dreaming the most ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... six months, he found his parent in tears one night, and she explained the fatal situation that had arose with respect to her ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... Severus in Britain for the rest of his life. He incessantly watched over its progress, and not till it was completed turned his steps once more (A.D. 211) towards Rome. But he was not to reach the Imperial city alive. Scarcely had he completed the first stage of the journey than, at York, omens of fatal import foretold his speedy death. A negro soldier presented him with a cypress crown, exclaiming, "Totum vicisti, totum fuisti. Nunc Deus esto victor."[305] When he would fain offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, he found himself by mistake at the dark temple of Bellona; ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... Late on the fatal wedding-day his first idea, when he was himself again after the discovery in the summer-house, was to get back his passage-money, to abandon his wife and his stepson, and to escape to America in a French steamer. He ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... in a circle, like a puppy after its own tail: but originality rises at each revolution and so reaches on and up, in progress like a spiral. So to-day the teacher fosters originality, shaping it with kindly criticism or helpful suggestion, but never damning it with a fatal "don't." Education's maxim to-day is "Do; ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... too late to grumble over incompati- 59:24 bility of disposition. A mutual understanding should exist before this union and continue ever after, for decep- tion is fatal to happiness. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... haunted Sir Edward's mind at this time. One was that the enemies of Great Britain would assemble enough votes in Congress to place an embargo upon the shipment of munitions from this country. Such an embargo might well be fatal to Great Britain, for at this time she was importing munitions, especially shells, in enormous quantities from the United States. The other was that such pressure might force the Government to convoy American cargoes with American warships. Great Britain then could stop ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Horace thus warns Leuconoe against reading the Babylonian numbers to learn the time of her death,—he does not imply their promise of previous happiness; and the continually deceptive character of the Delphic oracle itself, tempted always rather to fatal than to fortunate conduct, unless the inquirer were more than wise in his reading. Byron gathers into the bitter question all the sorrow of former superstition, while in the lines italicized, just above, he sums in the briefest and plainest English, ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... of thought I snatched a cimeter from the hands of one of the guards, and plunged it in his breast. Of all that happened afterwards, my recollection is very confused. I was rudely seized, and hurried to prison. My father was coming to meet me, when he was informed of the fatal deed. I remember that my coolness, or rather stupor, was in strong contrast with the violence of his emotion. He accompanied me to prison, and continued with me ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... from the time of the doom pronounced by his physicians until its fulfilment, Wemyss Reid so demeaned himself that none could have penetrated his secret. He was as gay and high in spirit, as strenuous in work, as thoughtful for others, as ever; so that those who knew the fatal truth could not bring themselves to believe it. He was at work for the Nineteenth Century the day before he was taken with his final attack. But he himself, cheerful and smiling, never lost the certainty that death hung over ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... traversing in this history a perfectly practicable parachute had become an accomplished fact. The early form is well described by Mr. Monck Mason in a letter to the Morning Herald in 1837, written on the eve of an unrehearsed and fatal experiment made by Mr. Cocking, which must receive notice in due course. "The principle," writes Mr. Monck Mason, "upon which all these parachutes were constructed is the same, and consists simply of a flattened dome of silk or linen from 24 feet to 28 feet in diameter. From ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Turk seldom condescended to notice such vulgar demonstrations; he was a noble-looking creature, somewhat resembling a small lioness; but although he was gentle and quiet in disposition, he had upon several occasions been provoked beyond endurance, and his attack had been nearly always fatal to his assailants. He slept at night outside his master's door, and no sentry could be more alert upon his watch than the faithful dog, who had apparently only one ambition—to protect, and ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to an old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality, and the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam's case. In his youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the locked-up wealth of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been, in his desert home, like Robinson ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... messenger,'" she quoted saucily, seating herself on the rail of the piazza in the sunshine, and looking so piquant that Maurice felt resolution and resentment oozing out of his mind with fatal rapidity. ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... his side, and with breathless suspense Rob and Brazier waited for the next phase in the exciting episode, for they were in momentary expectation of the jaguar, if such it was, reaching the tree, climbing up, and a fierce battle between the two savage creatures ensuing, with a result fatal to their companion, unless in the darkness, while they were engaged in a deadly struggle, he could contrive to direct a fatal blow at the bigger ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... animals, not provided with any special weapons for fighting, engage in desperate conflicts during the season of love. Two male hares have been seen to fight together until one was killed; male moles often fight, and sometimes with fatal results; male squirrels engage in frequent contests, "and often wound each other severely"; as do male beavers, so that "hardly a skin is without scars." (1. See Waterton's account of two hares fighting, 'Zoologist,' vol. i. 1843, p. 211. On moles, Bell, 'Hist. of British Quadrupeds,' 1st ed., ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... July, the king asked Dr. Mercado if his sickness was likely to have a fatal termination. The physician, not having the courage at once to give the only possible reply, found means to evade the question. On the 1st August his Majesty's confessor, father Diego de Yepes, after consultation with Mercado, announced to Philip that the only issue to his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Tree (Constance,) and everybody else on the stage—some time afterward at the Park. Some of the Bowery actresses were remarkably good. I remember Mrs. Pritchard in "Tour de Nesle," and Mrs. McClure in "Fatal Curiosity," and as Millwood in "George Barnwell." (I wonder what old fellow reading these lines will recall the fine comedietta of "The Youth That Never Saw a Woman," and the jolly acting in it of Mrs. Herring and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Some one has frightfully, irretrievably blundered. The accusation, the trial, the conviction, the sentence to death in the electric chair—all a dream. He takes his wife in his arms and kisses the child. Yes, here is happiness. It was a dream. Then—at a sign from the prison warden the fatal current ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... her bonnet and shawl, and arranged her hair, looking into the mirror with eyes that evidently saw nothing. Then she knelt before the fire, warming her ice-cold hands on which the two- weeks' familiar ring seemed to shine with a fatal glitter. She kept moving it up and down with a nervous habit that she ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... an entire alphabet. But just now I had no time to extend my experiments, needing all my time to make sure and acquire skill in what was already achieved. I must insure against the chance of mistake; for when we were applying our invention to the acquisition of money, any error would necessarily be fatal. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... which at first naturally occurred to him, he no longer entertains. The trusting Chilian skipper would scarce give credit to such an atrocious scheme. And if he did, in all likelihood it would result in his taking some rash step, which would but quicken their action, and bring sooner on the fatal catastrophe. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... of which the consequences were much more pernicious to himself, and fatal to the success of his undertaking, was his abandoning his original resolution of marching immediately against Tyrone, and spending his first efforts in the suppression of a minor revolt in Munster:—an attempt in which he encountered a resistance so much more formidable than he had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... knowest their boundaries. 9 Thou who annihilatest falsehood, who dissipatest the evil influence 10 of wonders, omens, sorceries, dreams, evil apparitions, 11 who turnest to a happy issue malicious designs, who annihilatest men and countries 12 that devote themselves to fatal sorceries, I have taken refuge in thy presence. 13 ...[1] 14 Do not allow those who make spells, and are hardened, to arise; 15 Frighten their heart...[2] 16 Settle also, O Sun, light of the great gods. 17 Right into my marrow, O Lords of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... there reached me the tidings that ye from the true Christians that ye once were have become heretics, like unto the Saracens, that ye have abolished true religion and worship and have turned to a superstition corrupt and fatal, the which in your zeal to maintain and to spread abroad there be no shame nor cruelty ye do not dare to perpetrate. You defile the sacraments of the Church, tear to pieces the articles of her faith, overthrow ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... looking back upon his life, and quite conscious of some fatal element in the moment which had just gone by. It struck him as a kind of moral tale. Some men would say that God had once more, and finally, offered him "a place of repentance"—through this strange and tardy apparition of his ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... heaven's sake, put up that pistol!" hoarsely whispered Leach. "Such resistance will be fatal evidence against us. Better open the door and put a ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... from its massive ruins. It is singular, by the way, that it was twice captured by men of the name of Lilburn, or Lilleburn, once in the reign of Edward II., once as I have related. On looking over historical records, we are surprised to find how often certain names have been fatal to certain spots; and this reminds me, by the way, that we boast the origin of the English Sibyl, the venerable Mother Shipton. The wild rock, at whose foot she is said to have been born, is worthy ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... greater prudence; but in this part of our government neither Venice nor any nation that makes use of mercenary forces is for our instruction. A mercenary army, with a standing general, is like the fatal sister that spins; but proper forces, with an annual magistrate, are like her that cuts the thread. Their interests are quite contrary, and yet you have a better proveditor than the Venetian, another strategus sitting with an army standing by him; whereupon ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... to be maintained towards the too complaisant spouse of an honorable friend? That is a problem will puzzle weak men without end. Of that fatal and fateful dilemma when a wife or a husband falls victim to the wiles of another, there are, for the delinquent, two and only two horns (and it is a moot question upon which it is preferable to be impaled): Flight—either from the victor ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... sir," said Ambrose. "'Tis a priest for a dying man I seek;" and in reply to the instant question, where it was, he explained in haste who the sufferer was, and how he had received a fatal blow, and was begging for the Sacraments. "And oh, sir!" he added, "he is a holy and God-fearing man, if ever one lived, and hath been cruelly and foully entreated by jealous and wicked folk, who hated him ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their lawlessness the rude instinct of the duello swayed them. The officer of the law recognized the principle as well as its practical advantage in a collision, but he hesitated to sacrifice one of his men in an attack on the barn, which would draw the fire of McKinstry at that necessarily fatal range. As a brave man he would have taken the risk himself, but as a prudent one, he reflected that his hurriedly collected posse were all partisans, and if he fell the conflict would resolve itself into a purely partisan struggle without a single unprejudiced witness to justify his conduct ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... also before the next general election, and no candidate starting of sufficient originality of character, and, what was still more fatal, the victuallers having failed to raise a PUBLIC PURSE, which was as stimulating a bait to the independent candidates for Garrat, as it is to the independent candidates for a certain assembly; the borough of Garrat has since remained vacant, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... fatal morning, for instance, when Lillian Cowperwood had received that utterly destructive note, like a cannonball ripping through her domestic affairs, she had been walking like one in a trance. Each day ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... of fatal accident.] Upon receiving notice from the owner, lessee or agent that a fatal accident has occurred at a mine, the chief inspector of mines shall go, or order one of the district inspectors of mines to go, at once to the mine at which such accident occurred, inquire ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... for at those fatal words, Colonel Kelmscott's face, fiery red till then, grew instantly blanched and white with terror. "Oh, what have I done?" the unhappy man cried, seeing his son's eyes read some glimpse of the truth too clearly in his look. "Oh, what ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... there came, Both horse and knight it took, And laid them senseless in the dust; So fatal was the stroke. ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... xiv. 13. It is but at the best a superfice, an external garb drawn over the countenance, no cordial nor solid thing. It is not heart joy, but a picture and shadow of the gladness of the heart in the outward countenance; and whatever it be, sorrow, grief, and heaviness follow at its heels, by a fatal inevitable necessity. So that there is this difference between the joys and pleasures of the world, and dreams in the night; for the present there is more solidity, but the end is hugely different. When men awake out of a dream, they are not troubled with ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... a quick glance over the mountaineer's shoulder. He could not resist one more look in Tad's direction. But that look was fatal. With a roar the fellow wheeled like ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... in politics, he was most bitterly opposed to the practice, almost universal in the South, of cheating the negro out of his right to vote. He preached that it was unjust to the negro and fatal to the ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... Man of Honour, it is greatly to be fear'd, that upon your demanding Satisfaction of him, a Battle will ensue, which, between two Persons who value their Honours a Thousand Times more than their Lives, will probably be fatal to one, if not to both; you are therefore earnestly desired by the King himself, that for his Sake you would make some Alteration in the Manner of taking that Satisfaction which you ought to receive; and the Marshals of France have not only given it under their Hands, that ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... children are in a better state to receive religious instruction than others. A teacher of observation will soon perceive this, and act accordingly; if, however, the thing is overdone, which it may be, and which I have seen, then the effect is fatal. Hypocrisy will take the place of sincerity, and the heart will ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... insects of a day, through the centuries during which they have been stretching out their distorted limbs nearer and nearer to each other. Thick fibrous shoots spring out from their trunks, awakening in the memory long-forgotten stories of huge hairy giants, enemies of mankind even as the "double-fatal" yew itself was supposed to be in other days. The bark stands in distinct layers, the outer ridges mouldering away, like the fragments of a wall of some ruined castle. The tops are fresh and green, but all below in ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... engaging woman, with whom it was no more than a canting shibboleth. Of course it helped to disillusionize him, and he began even to see that Gertrude was not as beautiful as he had once believed her to be. This is almost a fatal symptom in the history of love's decay, unless the perception be attended, as it is in happy cases, by the perception of new beauties whose presence more than atones for the absence of the old. And Paul did not find new beauties. Gertrude ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... A neighbour oak, with which its roots were twined, In falling wrenched them with such cruel force, That though we covered them again with care, Its beauty withered, and it pined away. So, could we look into the human breast, How oft the fatal blight that meets our view, Should we trace down to the torn, bleeding fibres Of a too trusting heart—where it were shame, For pitying tears, to give contempt or blame." ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... however, are bound together by more than ideals. They are a real community bound together also by the ties of self-interest and self-preservation. If they should fall apart, the results would be fatal ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... secured the safety of the Dundee column while traversing the dangerous Biggarsberg passes, withdrew his force to Ladysmith. We have no means of ascertaining the losses of the Boers, but they were probably slight. On our side we lost 109 killed and wounded, of which only 13 cases were fatal. Of this total 64 belonged to the Gloucesters and 25 to the troops raised in Natal. Next day, as already narrated, the whole British army was re-assembled once more at Ladysmith, and the campaign was to enter ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very important to get the army away from Vera Cruz as soon as possible, in order to avoid the yellow fever, or vomito, which usually visits that city early in the year, and is very fatal to persons not acclimated; but transportation, which was expected from the North, was arriving very slowly. It was absolutely necessary to have enough to supply the army to Jalapa, sixty-five miles in the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... in this year his father died of a cancer in the stomach, aged forty-five; the same disease which was destined, at a somewhat later period of life, to prove fatal to himself. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... to make his pain more torturing, he was in love. A young girl of his own age had been destined for him by his parents and by hers, and she was to become his wife at once if—if—and ever uppermost to cloud all his prospects came that fatal if—if he should draw a lucky number at the conscription. But what if he should not? How could he ask her to wait for him seven years? or how, indeed, could he expect that her friends would allow her to do so? They were poor people, as he knew, and it was but natural that they should wish to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... efforts of all kinds it would have required, in every direction, and under every form, by the tribune and by the newspaper, by the book and by the spoken word, to succeed even in shaking the universal prejudice in favor of these four fatal institutions! How many to succeed in overthrowing them! to exhibit the evidence to the eyes of all, to overcome selfish, passionate or unintelligent resistance, thoroughly to enlighten public opinion, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... condition of large tracts of land for the master, and the exclusion of the small farmer from contact and from competition. The example of the latter's manual industry and his consequent thrift and prosperity, must ultimately prove fatal to the entire slave system. It may not have been Mr. Johnson's design to injure the institution of slavery by the advocacy of the homestead policy; but such advocacy was nevertheless hostile, and this consideration did not stay his ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the river. After deliberating for some time whether they should dispatch us at that moment or not, they carried us back to goal. Others of the prisoners were obliged to perform the like Office to another approver. After every species of insult and tyranny to us in prison, the fatal day at length arrived (Wednesday the 20th of June,) when the total extermination of the prisoners (namely 500) and all the Protestant inhabitants of the town, man, woman and child, was openly avowed to be their ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... been, from that fatal hour eight months gone down to this, the inclination to confess. He had often read about it, and once he had incorporated it in a story, that invisible force which sent men to prison and to the gallows, when a tongue controlled would have meant liberty indefinite. As for himself, ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... run, and it was madness to stay and confront the thing. What, then, could he do? The sun had slid down the sky and the red of another swift dusk was heralding the short night before he shook his head somberly and gave the fatal riddle up. ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... cursed thee with the temptation of prosperity, not yet rooted from thy mind its native benevolence? I return in part thy liberal contribution; this," taking one guinea, "doubles my expectations; I will not, by making thy charity distress thee, accelerate the fatal ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... old trees, like brave old men, Must feel at last the fatal stroke, That dashest them to earth again, Tho' ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... and gives vent to her tears. Like one burdened with sorrow she commences humming an air, that even in this dark den floats sweetly through the polluted atmosphere. "Well, I am what I am," she sighs, having paused in her tune. "That one fatal step-that plighted faith! How bitter to look back." Her bony fingers wander to her lips, which she commences biting and fretting, as her countenance becomes pale and corpse-like. Again her reason takes its flight. She staggers to the drenched ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... painful. The crack in the Englishman's helmet had let most of the air out, and his own blood pressure had done the rest. He would carry the marks for days. A few more moments, and all air and all heat would have been gone, with fatal results. Fortunately, bubbles didn't shatter easily when cracked. To destroy ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... received much attention from the military authorities. A non-dependable factor in war is worse than useless. A mistake may be made in tactics, but when ascertained may be retrieved and, perhaps, turned to good account. Non-dependability is fatal, as many a commander would not know how to act, and in war, ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... towards it. All my nerves were quivering with anguish as if in a supreme protest against the imminent slaughter. Already I felt the terrible creature's hot breath as it opened wide its greedy jaws; already my trembling flesh felt the fatal touch of ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... which certainly kept the place at a temperature higher than might have been agreeable on that hot September night. Kneading troughs were ranged round the walls, and in the centre, like an altar-tomb, was the fatal "board" where, however, I sought in vain for the traces of perspiration or tears. All was scrupulously clean. In common phrase, you might have "eaten your dinner" ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... whose name has come down to history as George Washington, was trying to stem the tide of defeat. It was the fateful day when old General Braddock of the British army received his first and fatal lesson in Indian warfare. Says an old Pennsylvania ranger who was also ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... allowance for what they did not and could not know, for a sudden accident was always possible. And the two men discussed the case as if they been in consultation at the bedside of a patient, weighing the pros and cons, each stating his views and prognosticating a fatal termination, in accordance with the symptoms as defined by the ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... money" which was commonly supposed to be one of the principal evils of the day. In 1785 and 1786 paper money parties appeared in almost all the States. In some of these the conservative element was strong enough to prevent action, but in others the movement had to run its fatal course. The futility of what they were doing should have been revealed to all concerned by proposals seriously made that the paper money which was issued should depreciate at a regular rate each year until it ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... denying the fact that young Guy had been a thorn in his side almost ever since his arrival in the country. The pity of it was that he possessed such qualities as should have lifted him far above the crowd. He had courage, he had resource. Upon occasion he was even brilliant. But ever the fatal handicap existed that had pulled him down. He lacked moral strength, the power to resist temptation. As long as he lived, this infirmity of character would dog his steps, would ruin his every enterprise. And Burke, whose stubborn force made him instinctively impatient of such weakness, lay and contemplated ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Taylor is worth preserving in extenso as an illustration of that spirit in the Irish journalism of the day, against which Mr. Rolleston and his friends protest as fatal to independence, manliness, and truth. I simply cite the original attack made upon Mr. Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the comments made upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... old habit overcame him. In the midst of the contest he paused to adjust his glasses. The movement of his arm was fatal. His spoon tipped and his egg rolled gently to ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... become a widower and having enlisted again at the first rumor of war, brought the inexhaustible reserve, the stock of eternal rejuvenation which the earth keeps; Jean, the humblest, the staunchest soldier at the final downfall, swept along in the terrible and fatal storm which, from the frontier to Sedan, in sweeping away the Empire, threatened to sweep away the country; always wise, circumspect, firm in his hope, loving with fraternal affection his comrade Maurice, the demented child of the people, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... he received tidings of an event which showed that his expedition to the Amazon had been even more fatal to his interests than he had imagined. A revolution had taken place during his absence, which had changed the whole ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the ceiling, a faint light filtered in through the dark panes. And in that glimmer of light I could see our little errand girl lying on the floor on a mat, both arms behind her tousled head; she was sound asleep, breathing rapidly and the fatal door was just behind her head. I stepped across the mat, across the girl ... who opened that door? ... I don't know, but there I was in my aunt's room. There was the little lamp in one corner and the bed ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater, when the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity; ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... is obscene or child pornography and in preventing minors from viewing material that is harmful to minors, or with respect to the state's interest in preventing library patrons generally from being unwillingly exposed to offensive, sexually explicit material, this imprecision is fatal under the First Amendment. Cf. Reno, 521 U.S. at 874 ("[T]he CDA lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech."); League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. at 398 ("[E]ven if some of the hazards at which [the ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... done in thirty years, to be a power among nations, is a marvel, a wonder, and almost a miracle. That she should have done it at all, is the greatest mistake ever committed by a civilized nation, and it is irrevocable, as its results are to be fatal and lasting. But upon the good reality of unity, the deadly dream of military greatness descended as a killing blight, and the evil vision of political power has blasted the common sense of a whole people. It is one thing to be one, as a united family, each working ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... by a Priest, not, however, in black, and a party of soldiers. The time of execution of the whole five did not exceed five minutes. Of all situations in the world, I can conceive of none half so terrible as that of the last Prisoner. He saw his companions ascend one after another, heard each fatal blow, and saw each Body thrown aside to make room for him. I shall never forget his countenance when he stretched out his neck on the fatal board. He shut his eyes on looking down where the heads of his companions ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... did her best to wean him from the fatal habit. She even ventured to abstract his brandy bottle and dilute its contents. On being detected, she underwent a personal correction which was not soon forgotten. The poor creature, indeed, underwent every sort of humiliation from her worthless husband, which she bore in silence, hoping that ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... son of seven mothers could not read, he took the fatal message cheerfully, and set off to find the white ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... towards that fatal epoch so adroitly called the "second youth," the more her distrust increased. She affected to present herself in the most unfavorable light, and played her part so well that the last wooers hesitated to link their fate to that of a person whose virtuous ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... deeds committed by Jake and his men was one which led them into serious trouble and proved fatal to their chief. Coming to a village, or small town, one night they resolved to have a regular spree, and for this purpose encamped a short way outside the town till it should be quite dark. About midnight the outlaws, to the number of eight, entered ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... importance. As to how he had come by his death I could only guess. But I suspected the horseman I had seen galloping back towards Brest in the morning twilight had had something to do with it. The highwayman had met the traveller, and shots had been exchanged—the one fatal, the other telling enough to send the bandit flying. The poor wounded fellow had had strength enough to turn his horse into the wood and cling to his seat. How long he had stayed thus, slowly bleeding to death, I could ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... rude peasant. Jupiter is my father, and I am lord of Delphos and Tenedos, and know all things, present and future. I am the god of song and the lyre. My arrows fly true to the mark; but, alas! an arrow more fatal than mine has pierced my heart! I am the god of medicine, and know the virtues of all healing plants. Alas! I suffer a malady that ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... spinal cord," he explained quietly. He was as pale as the Major. "Any other wound, even fatal,—it's death struggles would have—I hate ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... doubt what the answer to this question should be? As it is fatal deliberately to steer on to the work of other composers, so it is no less fatal deliberately to steer clear of it; music to be of any value must be a man's freest and most instinctive expression. Instinct in the case of ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... As usual, when perversity defends, the pleading reached the judge too late. Her pressure became irksome, he thought of the devilfish tightening its rings till fatal, and, by an effort, irresistible while gentle, he disengaged himself from her arms. They dropped inert by her panting sides as if broken. But only for an instant her ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... in the time of the Restoration. It commences with a fatal duel, and shows a new phase ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... fatal fairness, had its way with him. Resolutely he slurred over in his own mind the consequences to himself, and set himself to the old, old task of renunciation. Then, in his loneliness and bitterness, there came to him thoughts unworthy of him, conclusions unsupported ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... unfeeling, faithless, ungrateful, and insensible to shame or reproach." The Earl of Cromarty says that subsequent to the treaty agreed upon between Middleton and Leslie at Strathbogie, "Seaforth joined the King at Stirling. After the fatal battle of Worcester he continued a close prisoner until the Restoration of Charles." He was excepted from Oliver Cromwell's Act of Grace and Pardon in 1654, and his estates were forfeited, without any provision being allowed out of it for his wife and family. He supported the King's cause ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... of persons worthy of keeping a place in history. We have already had the story of this king's unfortunate crusade from 1147 to 1149, the commencement at Antioch of his imbroglio with his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the fatal divorce which, in 1152, at the same time that it freed the king from a faithless queen, entailed for France the loss of the beautiful provinces she had brought him in dowry, and caused them to pass into the possession of Henry II., King of England. Here was the only event, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... feeble condition of Colonel —— added tenfold to the anxiety of his family, for, although he persisted in doing his duty, it was certain that continual exposure and fatigue might at any time prove fatal. Insidious disease was even then gnawing at his vitals; but, Spartan-like, he folded above the dreadful agony the robe of manly courage and dignity, which hid it from even those who knew him best. Amid all the darkness ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... joy. His curse had told. And the great hulking bully that had dared to cuff him was flat on his back with the rest. When O'Grady fully realized what he—he—had done his breast heaved proudly. He ran over to see the fatal placard fastened on one of the Grindstone's great polished columns, and then tramped on down the avenue of ruin with the step and mien of a conqueror. All this devastation was due to him—whatever the foolish newspapers, groping in the dark, might say. He alone was the Thunderer; ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... settled conviction; the course of feeling is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward. Easelmann thought—and perhaps rightly—that Alice needed only time to become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any precipitation might be fatal to his friend's hopes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... and with means defendant; For England his approaches makes as fierce As waters to the sucking of a gulf. It fits us then to be as provident As fears may teach us out of late examples Left by the fatal and neglected English ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition] |
