"Miracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... throat, was running from one to another, whilst a yellow cat of Cornelis Lachtleven's rode about on a Delft horse in blue pottery of 1489. Meanwhile the brilliant light shed on the scene came from three silver candelabra, though they had no candles set up in them; and, what is the greatest miracle of all, August looked on at these mad freaks and felt no sensation of wonder! He only, as he heard the violin and the spinet playing, felt an ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... at the risk of seeming a coxcomb, I will say that I look upon my happiness as a kind of miracle, something abnormal and exceptional. Yes! the more I see what marriage is, the more I look back with terror at the risk I ran. I am like those who, ignorant of the dangers they have unwittingly gone through, turn pale when all is over, amazed at ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... some neglected aspects of freedom and his philosophical vindication of the doctrine which puts it in a new position of prominence and security. 'Life is Creation.' 'Reality is a perpetual growth, a Creation pursued without end.' 'Our will performs this miracle.' 'Every human work in which there is invention, every movement that manifests spontaneity brings something new into the world. In the composition of the work of genius, as in a simple free decision, we create what no mere assemblage ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... face and all his body pressed to the rock, commending himself to God and groping with his hands, if perchance he might find aught to cling to. But as it pleased God, who suffereth not His servants to be tempted above that they are able to bear, suddenly by a miracle the rock to which he clung hollowed itself out in fashion as the shape of his body.... But that which the demon could not do then unto St. Francis ... he did a good while after the death of St. Francis unto one of his dear and pious brothers, who was setting ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... sainted Bishop Gudmund Arason, my father-brother. Now the blessed bishop has revealed himself to me in a dream and announced that at this very hour he would make known his glory and power, right here in the church, through a miracle on Illugi, a wretched blind man. I wish much that Kolbein should behold it, so that he might repent of his ill deeds against this holy man. A miraculum ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... the light; empurpled banners flame afar, and the low thunder of marching hosts thrills with the thunder of the sea. Athwart his own path, screening a face of fire, he throws cloud masses, masking his trained guns. And then the miracle is done. The host passes with roar too vast for human ear and the sun is set, leaving the frightened moon ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... graciously upon the project, for during the next four weeks she coaxed back to earth warm, golden days from the fast fleeing Indian summer. The magic touch of sunshine and fresh air flooded Nat's cheek with healthy color and as if by miracle, strength returned to the delicate ankle; as for Peter he became swarthy as a young Arab. So delighted was Mrs. Jackson in watching the transformation in her two boys that she was quite unaware that a soft pinkiness was stealing into her own face. A vacation had seemed ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... betrayed reticence in crediting the miracle. Yet this blackened figure must have prevailed over the prince or the latter would not have so mysteriously ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... mild, until the Cistercians and Saint Bernard stiffened its discipline toward 1120. Even then the Church showed strong leanings toward secular poetry and popular tastes. The drama belonged to it almost exclusively, and the Mysteries and Miracle plays which were acted under its patronage often contained nothing of religion except the miracle. The greatest poem of the eleventh century was the "Chanson de Roland," and of that the Church took a sort of possession. At Chartres we shall find Charlemagne and Roland dear to the Virgin, and ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... have a sneaking appreciation of the mystery and beauty of a ship in full sail on the open sea, an appreciation I scarcely cared to reveal to an engineer. He stood by my side on the upper deck, his corn-cob in his hand, imperturbably observant, a miracle of detached respectability. And he ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... of the cradle as the cocoon or chrysalis in which, as by a miracle (for here natural and supernatural seem one and the same), the caterpillar has undergone his transformation and emerging spreads his wings and forthwith takes his flight a full-grown butterfly with all its senses and ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... dear to part with her niece. She had staked a portion of her existence upon the child. She was attached to her by her anxiety and her sacrifices. She had disputed possession of her with disease and had won the day; the girl's life was her miracle. And yet she realized that she could never take her to mademoiselle's apartments; that mademoiselle, at her age, with the burden of her years, and an aged person's need of tranquillity, could never endure the constant noise and movement of a child. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... goodness!" I muttered gratefully, and being still half dazed, I brought some of my Court tricks into that chamber by taking her hand and carrying it towards my lips. But ere I had imprinted the intended kiss upon her fingers—and by some miracle they were not withdrawn—my eyes encountered hers again. I paused as one may pause who contemplates a sacrilege. For a moment she held my glance with hers; then I fell ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... empiricism—what his motives were for overturning those two main pillars of religion—the doctrines of the freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul (in his view the hope of a future life is but the expectation of the miracle of resurrection)- this philosopher, himself a zealous and pious teacher of religion, could give no other answer than this: I acted in the interest of reason, which always suffers, when certain objects are explained and ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... gold, and put it into the furnace, unless he meant to make a god? Perhaps he had told the people the same story, as priests in all lands have been apt to claim a miraculous origin for idols. And he repeats it now, as if, were it true, he would plead the miracle as a vindication of the worship as well as his absolution. But the lie is too transparent to deserve even an answer, and Moses turns silently ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... hurts in such ambulances as had managed to get up, a few on camel-back, while the remainder were actually carried in stretchers by their unwounded comrades. That these men with their heavy loads ever managed to lift their feet out of the mud was a miracle. I do not know what system of reliefs was adopted, but by the time the wounded were safely brought in, a whole battalion must have taken its turn merely to carry its own ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Letitia, and in that poor thing he had visited yesterday, half-grown, half-colored, in bed for the last year with hip-disease? Was it to be supposed that this healthy young girl, with life throbbing all over her, could, without a miracle, be good according to the invalid pattern ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... was accomplished, but nearly trebled in the accomplishment, and if there is one man who can claim to have arisen as a Moses from among the people and achieved this miracle it is Major-General Sir Sam Hughes, at that time known generally as Sam Hughes, the ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... when a rabble gathered about the sentry at the custom-house in State Street. He became frightened and called for help, Captain Preston turned out the guard, the mob pelted them, and they fired on the people without warning. A terrific outbreak was averted by a species of miracle, but the troops had to be withdrawn, and Preston and his men were ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... extraordinary occurrence that had taken place. Even the cure, the magistrate, and the doctor rushed into the street to hear the news, and a pretty uproar there was. "Said I not truly that Wise Peter was in league with the Evil One?" exclaimed one, "for only thus can the miracle of a spring of wine be accounted for." "True, true!" cried the listeners; "a wizard he must be; and that of ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... told me that he was no nearer than Lyons, and so I put the thought from me, and the hope with it, for, travelling in that leisurely, indolent fashion that was characteristic of his every action, it would be a miracle if His Majesty should reach Toulouse before the week was ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... access, and of tender dispositions; but as soon as ever they are married, they become like so many Lucretias: in France, the women are great coquettes before marriage, and still more so afterwards; but here it is a miracle if a young lady yields to any proposal but that of matrimony and I do not believe you yet so destitute of grace as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... possess the soul of Fettes. He peered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger than at first. All over the country-side, and from every degree of distance, the farm dogs accompanied their passage with tragic ululations; and it grew and grew upon his mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some nameless change had befallen the dead body, and that it was in fear of their unholy burden that ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Red Jacket, and the forty or fifty top men had reached the shore. By the wriggling activity which is a riverman's alone, they succeeded in pulling themselves beyond the snap of death's jaws. It was a narrow thing for most of them, and a miracle for some. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... miracle to me by what fate it has come about that this single Disputation of mine should, more than any other, of mine or of any of the teachers, have gone out into very nearly the whole land. It was made ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... the thwart with the haft of his paddle and they glided on, past the lower end of the town with its new houses and gardens, past a street car that moved like a noisy miracle with nothing to pull it, being evidently animated by some devil enchained, past Filmer's dock where years before Shingwauk and Naqua used to bring mink and otter and marten for trade; past other docks newer and larger and a town ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... "and men have no wish to die for the sake of an embrace—remember your reputation! II faut souffrir pour etre fatale. Look at your salary, sweetie—and you have had nothing to do but hold your tongue! Ah, was anything ever heard like it? A miracle ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... cause for other accusations calculated to keep up this hatred; such as the desecration of the consecrated host, the mutilation of the crucifix. Tradition informs us of a miracle which took place in Paris in 1290, in the Rue des Jardins, when a Jew dared to mutilate and boil a consecrated host. This miracle was commemorated by the erection of a chapel on the spot, which was afterwards replaced by the church and convent ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... a mirage: it was a miracle," muttered the young man to himself. "Forty miles at least, and it seemed scarcely three hundred yards! ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... miracle is not what you call logical proof, but I believe that you did see the Moa, and a still more ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... seems a miracle to me that one with your antecedents can regard the situation in any way save ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... mounted was of some hard ringing wood unknown in the north. It was a foreign weapon, and if the shaft were of lance wood, the sounds it gave out when brandished or shaken would be accounted for at once without a miracle.] ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... any way sure o' that," she observed. "When a man's too good for a woman it's what we may call a Testymen' miracle. For the worst wife as ivir lived is never so bad as a bad 'usband. There's a suthin' in a man wot's real devil-like when it gits the uppermost of 'im—an' 'e's that crafty born that I've known 'im to be singin' hymns one ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Captain, remained on board, resolving to trust their fortunes to the jolly-boat at the stern. "We lowered it without difficulty, although it was only by a miracle that we prevented it from swamping as it touched the water. It contained, when afloat, the captain and his wife, Mr. Wyatt and party, a Mexican officer, wife, four children, and ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... discovery! The transport of waking to it, and waking refreshed! The swift and sudden miracle that it seemed! I shall never, never forget it, still less the sickening thrill of fear which was cruelly quick to follow upon my joy. The cottage was still as the tomb. What if ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... fractured, and said, that she had only twisted her ankle, which would merely prevent her from dancing for a few days. The countess pitied herself for having such terribly weak nerves—congratulated herself upon her daughter's safety—declared that it was a miracle how she could have escaped, in falling down such a narrow staircase—observed, that, though the stairs in London were cleaner and better carpeted, the staircases of Paris were at least four times as broad, and, consequently, a hundred times as safe. She then reminded Emilie of an anecdote ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Restoration of 1814, the still greater miracle of Napoleon's return in 1815, the portents of a second flight of the Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by surprise at the age of sixty-seven. At that ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... his head between his braced forefeet, and then he whirled as if on a peg and darted back the other way. He bucked criss-cross, jumping from side to side, and he interspersed this with samples of all his other kinds of bucking thrown in. That the doctor stuck on the saddle was a miracle beyond belief. Of course he pulled leather shamelessly throughout the contest, but riding straight up is a good deal of a myth. Fancy riding is reserved for circus men. The mountain-desert is a place where men stick close to utility ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... of learning, of sweetness, and of gentle wit was Rabbi Thalmann, and unappreciated by his congregation. He stuck to the Scriptures for his texts, finding Moses a greater leader than Roosevelt, and the miracle of the Burning Bush more wonderful than the marvels of twentieth-century wizardy in electricity. A little man, Rabbi Thalmann, with hands and feet as small and delicate as those of a woman. Fanny ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... his lies. Their variety was indeed admirable, but apart from that they shocked me not a little, for I could not but see that as ready a way as any of discrediting true religion is to overcredit it; and that, where people believe in a miracle, to give them a glib hundred is to tempt them to infidelity. Because it might be true, as I undoubtedly believe it to be, that St. Francis of Assisi floated between pavement and rafters, that were ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... I was. Here's St. James's cockle to wit—Santiago as they call him there, and show the stone coffin he steered across the sea. No small miracle that! And I've crossed France, and looked at many a field of battle of the good old times, and thought and said a prayer for the brave knights who broke lances there. But as I was making for St. Martha's cave in Provence, I met a friar, who told me of ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Houghton, Wisconsin, who was a British major until America entered the war, distinguished himself by personally leading a unit of New York men. According to them he escaped death repeatedly as by a miracle. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... lawgiver, drew very largely from the rabbinical legends in his composition of the Kuran, every verse of which is considered by pious Muslims as a miracle, or wonder (ayet). The well-known story of the spider weaving its web over the mouth of the cave in which Muhammed and Abu Bekr had concealed themselves in their flight from Mecca to Medina was evidently borrowed from the Talmudic legend of David's flight from the malevolence of ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... the boys one day when he met them on the street, "is a wonderful thing for those of us that can see, but for the blind it is a miracle. You boys have done an admirable thing in your kindness to Adam McNulty, and I hope that, not only individuals, but the government itself will see the possibilities of so great a charity and ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... entombment; the one was a torture to His physical frame, which to the limited perception of those who watched Him 'die,' as they thought, appeared like a dissolution of the whole Man,—the other was the mere rest and silence necessary for what is called the 'miracle' of the Resurrection, but which was simply the natural rising of the same Body, the atoms of which were re-invested and made immortal by the imperishable Spirit which owned and held them in being. The whole life and so-called 'death' of Christ was and is a great symbolic lesson to mankind of ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... faith!" he said calmly. The sadness of the misunderstood idealist grieved his features. "Have you forgotten the miracle of Cana?" From his pocket he took a card and ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... an architect, or, at least, a carpenter, to execute such work. Not at all. With a tape-line with which to take some measurements, and a bit of board in place of a rule, his inexperienced colleague had soon accomplished the miracle. Father Absinthe's respect for Lecoq was thereby greatly augmented. It is true that the worthy veteran had not noticed the explosion of the young police agent's vanity, nor his return to his former modest ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... assailed from without and within with temptations to fail in their duty; and before those they fell. Most of them were under unbelief, and they would not obey; but when addressed by Moses, or any other servant of the Lord, while a wonder or miracle was wrought and duty was enjoined, testifying to the duty of giving obedience when God commands, however soon they might forget, they said, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient."[408] ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... now with terror. She tried to think calmly, because she knew that unless a miracle happened she would die alone here—the most horrible of all deaths. And then her eye caught the gleam of something upon the tool chest in the shadows beyond—the teeth ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... exclaimed Mark, "now I recognize you as the disciples of the miracle-worker who restored to me the light of my eyes. How have I deserved that he should choose my house before all others that are in Jerusalem in which to celebrate the Passover? Oh, fortunate man that I am, that it should be my house which he honors with his presence. Come, dear friends, I ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... conception has flowered in the best, and happiest, and most prosperous nation on the globe,—cannot their children show a faith as serene, a courage as brave? One thing is certain, the European experiment has failed, while ours is a miracle of success—and most successful when most consistently worked out. In such circumstances, shall we exchange this for that, and go back from the nineteenth ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... should displease their constituents, they risked their heads by this irregularity. After sealing, all parties embraced with great cordiality. Temple cried out, "At Breda, as friends: here, as brothers." And De Wit added, that now the matter was finished, it looked like a miracle. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... boy himself, he escaped with only a scratch or two and a few bruises, but that he escaped with his life or with sound limbs was almost a miracle; and, as his big-hearted uncle picked him up, he hugged the lad as one snatched from the very jaws of death. Willard was somewhat awed by the narrowness of his escape, and it was observed that his face wore an expression a shade graver than ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... fine young ram," he cried, "and it's nothing short of a miracle that the wolves haven't got it, and its ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... blessed, less accursed! It is work for a God. . . . Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or heart's-blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble, fruitful Labour, growing ever nobler, will come forth—the grand sole Miracle of Man, whereby Man has risen from the low places of this Earth, very literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders, Prophets, Poets, Kings: . . . all martyrs, and noble men, and gods ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... to have her as a moon in the heavens and to think of her creatively. A swarm of images rushed about her and away, took lustre and shade. She was a miracle of greyness, her eyes translucently grey, a dark-haired queen of the twilights; and his heart sprang into his brain to picture the novel beauty; language became a flushed Bacchanal in a ring of dancing similes. Lying beside a bank of silvery cinquefoil against a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... like the one incomparably lovely dialogue of Dorothea with her attendant angel. But there is the charm of a curious simplicity and sincerity in Rowley's straightforward and homely dramatic handling of the supernatural element: in the miracle of St. Winifred's well, and the conversion of Albon into St. Alban by "that seminary knight," as the tyrant Maximinus rather comically calls him, Amphiabel Prince of Wales. The courtship of the princely Offa, ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... my mind that the miracle of sunrise occurred every morning, and was not a rather belated alternation of illumination, following the quenching of Broadway's lights. And the moon I found was as dependable as when I timed my Himalayan expeditions by her shadowings. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... he invited the attendance of Kobad, and in his presence appeared to hold converse with the fire itself, which the Persians viewed as the symbol and embodiment of divinity. The king accepted the miracle as an absolute proof of the divine authority of the new teacher, and became thenceforth his zealous adherent ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... the village dancing and making merry some two hundred metres away, her father—implacable, as she well knew, where her conduct was concerned—and this madman ready to kill to satisfy his lust of vengeance and of hate—she felt that indeed, unless Heaven performed a miracle, here was the beginning of an awful, ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and to some senses inevitable, that Mr Hardy should have crowned his work as a poet in his old age by a series of love poems that are unique for power and passion in even the English language. This late and wonderful flowering has no tinge of miracle; it has sprung straight from the main stem of Mr Hardy's poetic growth. Into 'Veteris Vestigia Flammas' is distilled the quintessence of the power that created the Wessex Novels and 'The Dynasts'; all that Mr Hardy has to tell us of life, the whole of the truth that he ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... has always been celebrated with the greatest joy, and accounted the Queen of Festivals. Many curious customs are associated with this feast, some of which represented in a rude, primitive way the Resurrection of our Lord. There was an old Miracle Play which was performed at Easter; for we find in the churchwardens' books at Kingston-upon-Thames, in the reign of Henry VIII., certain expenses for "a skin of parchment and gunpowder for the play on Easter Day," for a player's coat, stage, ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... I think," she said, as one remaining calm before a miracle. "And he only has three neckties, but I saw him several times in each of them. He must have kept changing and changing. ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... at last, after so many years, quit of a monarch who had so long imposed his law upon them, and who had escaped from them by a species of miracle at the very moment in which they counted upon having subjugated him, contained themselves with much more decency than the French. The marvels of the first three quarters of this reign of more than seventy years, and the personal magnanimity of this King until then so successful, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Her eyes were shining with excitement. "Don't you see? It's Providence. When I asked you to come here, I had just got the idea. I knew I could rely on you. And then by a miracle this robbery of the Romney takes place at a house not two miles away. It removes the last chance of the poor old man suspecting anything and having his feelings hurt. Why, it's the most wonderful compliment to him. Think! One ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... very wounds. The passion by which he had profited had rushed back after its ebb, and now the tide of tenderness, arrested for ever at flood, was too deep even to fathom. Stransom sincerely considered that he had forgiven him; but how little he had achieved the miracle that she had achieved! His forgiveness was silence, but hers was mere unuttered sound. The light she had demanded for his altar would have broken his silence with a blare; whereas all the lights in the church were for her too great ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... and long-suffering amongst them it would be odd indeed if the gay and critical French nature did not rebel, and seek some outlet in apathy or bitter criticism. The miracle is that they go on and on holding fast. Easily depressed, and as easily lifted up again, grumble they must and will; but their hearts are not really down to the pitch of their voices; their love of country, which with them is love of ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... wives, highly pleased at the attention paid them by the strangers, were won over at once. The whole party, when assembled in the hut, watched with the most indescribable astonishment the proceedings of the negro—himself a living miracle—as he manipulated a machine which, in separate compartments, cooked steaks and boiled tea, coffee, or anything else, by means of a spirit lamp in a few minutes. On first tasting the hot liquids they looked at each ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... be? Why should you have remembered me? You were a young girl, then, as I say, and I already a man of middle age. You saw me once, for perhaps two minutes. It would have been a miracle had I remained in your memory for as long as a ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... touch has yet to be added to the apathy of the sage. He was impervious to wonder. No miracle of nature could excite his astonishment—no mephitic caverns, which men deemed the mouths of hell, no deep-drawn ebb tides—the standing marvel of the Mediterranean dweller, no hot springs, no spouting jets ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... glad to get under cover behind a pile of cordwood, from which place of security they fairly riddled the house with bullets. How the Canadians in this old frame building escaped the deadly missiles is a miracle, for, strange to say, none were injured, although exposed to a perfect hail-storm of bullets which crashed through the thin boards, lath and plaster, in all directions. After this gallant band had fired their last round of ammunition, ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... tapped the table and, looking far out through the darkened window, smiled the gentle smile of one who has watched the ever-recurrent miracle of humanity, the struggling birth of the man out of the dirtied, hopeless ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... puppy. She could ride to hounds like a Maenad and she could sit for hours perfectly still, steeping handkerchief after handkerchief in vinegar when Leonora had one of her headaches. She was, in short, a miracle of patience who could be almost miraculously impatient. It was, no doubt, the convent training that effected that. I remember that one of her letters to me, when she was about sixteen, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... Caleb. Life is a miracle. I feel young again. This is home; and yet I am a prisoner. You said the host were assembling; he can have no chance. Think you, Caleb, he has any chance? I hope he will die. I would not have him taken. I fear their tortures. We will die too; we will all die. Now ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... had just fallen. News was at once forthcoming; the event had obviously caused no small local excitement. It was two days since the falling of the chimney, which happened towards evening, when the gale blew its hardest. Mr. Spicer was at that moment sitting before the fire, and only by a miracle had he escaped destruction, for an immense weight of material came down through the rotten roof, and even broke a good deal of the flooring. Had the occupant been anywhere but close by the fireplace, he must have been crushed to a mummy; as it was, only a few bricks struck him, inflicting ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... to make an end, I have only one word more to say; In the church, in honor of Easter day Will be presented a Miracle Play; And I hope you will have the grace to attend. Christ bring us at last to his felicity! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... upon the railroads; fuel almost prohibitively high; food scarce; and always talk of the war—of nothing, absolutely nothing but the war and its horrors. That France has held so long under this curse proves the miracle of her divine courage! As we sat under the shrouded torches in the inn courtyard and considered what life really means to the men and women of St. Dizier, once more we wondered how we at home would react under the terrific ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... luck!" he began, but paused, seeing the girls. "I'm in for a bit of lunch before the matinee, and I can only say 'howdy.' Going to take in the miracle play at the Globe,—finest thing in town, they say. See you later, perhaps," and he bowed to them all, vaguely including the three ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... these who filled the House with Members listening intently to a speech on internal affairs of India, It was Mr. G. who performed the miracle. No one expected to find him in this galley; being there, the banks were rapidly crowded with a throng lost in admiration of his strong, swift, graceful stroke. Difficult to say which the most admirable, the lofty height, far above the littleness of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... for some days, but had still gone on with her work, and sought no medical advice or help. At length, as she was going to bed one night, she fainted on the stairs. The stairs were very steep, and the point at which she lost her consciousness was a most dangerous one, and it seemed a miracle that she had not fallen back to the bottom and been killed. But somehow she fell only a step or two. My eldest son heard there was something the matter, and ran to see what it was. There he found his poor, darling mother apparently dead, in the middle of the steep and winding staircase. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... clean them with the same down. As an ornament for the child, they adorn the board with beads, which they also put on its neck, however small it may be. At night they put it to bed, entirely naked, between the father and mother. It may be regarded as a great miracle that God should thus preserve it so that no harm befalls it, as might be expected, from suffocation, while the father and mother are in deep sleep, but that rarely happens. The children have great freedom among these tribes. The fathers and mothers ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... their hands. Taking my seat in one of the carriages, in a few moments the train started and I was on my way to Aix. The relief was unspeakably great. An instant before it seemed as if nothing short of a miracle could save me from a French guard-house, and now, by the simplest combination of circumstances, in which a restaurant and baggage-room bore an important part, I had passed unchallenged. I remember that I enjoyed the scenery and views along the route from Culoz to Aix more than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... scuffles of the subway? Do we expect great things to come to pass without corresponding suffering? Some day a great poet will be born in the subway—spiritually speaking; one great enough to show us the terrific and savage beauty of this multitudinous miracle. As one watches each of those passengers, riding with some inscrutable purpose of his own (or an even more inscrutable lack of purpose) toward duty or liberation, he may be touched with anger and contempt toward individuals; but he must admit the majesty ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... what you have done for the family. I have not forgotten that it was you that gave the timely warning of the approach of Nat Turner and his column. By so doing you probably saved the lives of the household. On another occasion you saved the life of my darling babe by a miracle wrought in your own way. Aunt Barbara, I would not give you and your nostrums, such as 'Cider Berry Juice,' 'Sweet Flag,' 'Taters' 'Sugar Rags' and 'Black Jack' for all the doctors in Christendom." "Missus, I'm glad dat you tink so ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... might take which side of the street he liked. When they got to the top, it was found that Mr. Fox had seen thirteen cats, and the prince not one. The royal personage asked for an explanation of this apparent miracle; Mr. Fox said, "Your royal highness took, of course, the shady side of the way, as most agreeable; I knew that the sunny side would be left for me, and cats ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... passionate triumph and thankfulness, after the full accomplishment of their deliverance from the Egyptians. That deliverance had been by the utter death of their enemies, and accompanied by stupendous miracle; no human creatures could in an hour of triumph be surrounded by circumstances more solemn. I am not going to try to excite your feelings about them. Consider only for yourself what that seeing of the Egyptians "dead ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... girl did not voluntarily knock at the convent door she should be forced to enter, not only for her own sake but also Sir Heinz Schorlin's. Nothing could rouse the ire of every true Christian more than the thought that a noble knight, for whose conversion Heaven had wrought a miracle, could turn a deaf ear to the summons for the sake of a girl scarcely beyond childhood. To place convent walls between the pair would therefore be a work pleasing in the sight of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be intelligible beyond the footlights. Star after star, whose services had cost $1,000 each for one hour, appeared without commanding the slightest attention. At last there was a hush and every eye was fixed on the stage. Stuart looked up quickly to see what miracle had caused the silence. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... religious, has views more advanced. He dotes on respectability. He tried to instil it into me and, alas! how vainly! I was as the blind, the light was withheld and continued to be until, well, until a miracle occurred. You appeared, I was healed, I saw and I saw but ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... sooth,' remarked the Lord of Joinville, on hearing this, 'it is truly marvellous; and, to perpetuate the memory of this miracle, I vow to have it painted on the windows of my chapel at Joinville, and also on the windows of the church at Blecourt;' and, on reaching home, the noble seneschal ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... something happened: something that was like the kindling of spirit into flame ran between them—a transforming magic that only one knew for the Divine Miracle that changes the ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... upon poor Ramrod, and though he made a gallant and desperate struggle to reach land with the aid of his arms alone, he felt that only by a miracle could he do so. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... composition can be fairly estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any serious claim on behalf of seventeen-syllable poems "would be absurd." But what, then, of Crashaw's famous line upon the miracle at the ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... out of the ambulance, and approached; he had a pipe in his mouth; he was a small man, not more than five feet tall. I felt as though in the presence of a miracle. ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Jack, old fellow," exploded Eph, as they sat in the snug security of their little cabin, "don't you dare think of anything else until you tell us how you brought a seeming miracle about." ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... consoling visions. In prison he is surrounded by pariahs and criminals, and the sight of all this human suffering turns him again towards God, towards the religion of Love, the religion of pity for mankind. And now he wants to return to the country to tell of the miracle that has taken place in him, and to save souls ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... on Friday the King was much better. The miracle which the physicians had said could alone save him seemed accomplished. Great quantities of ether-quantities much greater than are usually given-had apparently restored him, and all were in good spirits, when, feeling ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... sons of Israel, after they had left Egypt, were those which forbid murder, adultery, theft, and false witness, since without those laws their communion or society could not subsist? and yet these laws were promulgated by Jehovah God upon Mount Sinai with a stupendous miracle: but the cause of their being so promulgated was, that they might be also laws of religion, and thus that the people might practise them not only for the sake of the good of society, but also for the sake of God, and that when they practised them from a religious notion for the sake of ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... suspects a machine-gun or an observation post amid the tumble-down buildings. Hardly one brick remains upon another. And yet—the sorrowful Figure is unbroken. The Body is riddled with bullets—in the glowing dawn you may Count not five but fifty wounds—but the Face is untouched. It is the standing miracle of this most materialistic war. Throughout the length of France you will ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay) |
