"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then, as now, atheistic in their tendency. They mocked the consciousness of mankind. They annihilated faith and Providence. At best, they made all things subject to necessity, to an immutable fate, not to an intelligent and ever-present Creator. But Cicero, like Socrates, believed in God and in providential interference,—in striking contrast with Caesar, who believed nothing. He taught moral obligation, on the basis of accountability to God. He repudiated expediency as the guide in life, and fell back on the principles of eternal right. As an ethical writer he was profounder ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... no that was so, I thought it was very providential I had fell in long o' this young mate, and we got to be fast friends. And we laid a plot that we should say nothing about it, and he would take me to his aunty's, and I should go by the name of my first husband, Wright, and lay low and say nothing, for fear my colonel should find me out ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... decomposition and decay of the grain that the implanted germ is quickened into life—ascends into the bright light, the warm sunshine, the refreshing presence of showers and dews. In this way it fulfils its providential purpose of yielding to the sower the more munificent life which he is ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... her poor little imagination is dazzled. It is providential that she has four years to wait! Unless, indeed, there is a reaction, and she marries either a broken-down ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... go on your way rejoicing; that you are enabled to thank Him who is the giver of every good gift, spiritual, temporal, and providential, for blessings to yourself and your ministry. I do not doubt but you often meet with circumstances which are not pleasing to nature; yet, by the blessing of God, they will be all profitable in the end. They are kindly designed ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... sail taken down, and the oars taken out. Pulling then towards the reef during the intervals of the heaviest seas, in three minutes we were in smooth water—a nearer approach showed us the beach of a well-sheltered cove in which we anchored for the rest of the night. We thought Providential Cove a well-adapted ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... morning following she told me of the comfort she had experienced during the night. This must sustain my faith in future.—My husband has this week declined business. Thou God of love, still guide our path. Let us not 'miss our providential way;' but draw us nearer to Thyself.—Taking tea with a neighbour, whose salvation I have long desired, I felt it my duty to speak plainly with her on the subject; and was greatly encouraged by the inward voice of the Spirit, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... her mother a letter that had come from Doctor Smythe that morning announcing his return at the end of the week. It was providential that Mary should have proposed going, as it would have been awkward otherwise to get her out of the house in time; and Elinor was anxious that she should be taken at ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had been a better farmer and less interested in books, especially in his yellow-backed law-books, the eking might not have been so continuous; and if his good wife had not been snatched away, at untimely thirty-five, by one of those accidents which we call providential, leaving a forty-year- old father alone with a five-year-old boy, her good sense would undoubtedly have made times easier with the Squire. As it was, his sister came to be mother in this little home. Good, steadfast Aunt Fannie she was, a woman without a vision, who ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... knavery, some artful artlessness, into the young man's ear. Bertie does not acknowledge that his inspiration has come in such a questionable fashion. He says to himself, "It will do: I feel it will do. Isn't it providential? Just when I was in despair!" This is a more suitable sentiment for an organist, no doubt, for what possible business can Dan Cupid have at St. Sylvester's? Louder and louder yet pours the great stream of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... to have led us on to be, perhaps humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world. For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... the odd stroke of luck by which he was to gain a small fortune. Characteristically, his thoughts turned now more than ever to his Bermuda scheme. "This providential event," he wrote, "having made many things easy in my private affairs which were otherwise before, I ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... my little chain companion within an inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact," Jacques Collin went on. "I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats. Was not this providential, as you say?—So I perceived a remote possibility of doing good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead of mischievous, and I ventured to confide in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... fixes up these things in next to no time with a special license. Luckily I'm a British subject. I never thought much about it before, but it simplifies matters; and I'll have been living in this parish a fortnight to-morrow. That's providential, for it seems that legally it must be a fortnight. I've been up since it was light, learning the ropes and beginning to work them. Even ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... them to retain even the shadow of a hope? No! What was their sole remaining chance? That a vessel should appear in sight off the rock? But they knew only too well from experience that no ships ever visited this part of the Pacific. Could they calculate that, by a truly providential coincidence, the Scotch yacht would arrive precisely at this time in search of Ayrton at Tabor Island? It was scarcely probable; and, besides, supposing she should come there, as the colonists had not been able to deposit a notice pointing ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... doing right, father," she said tenderly "Till now I have had my doubts. No other young heart is wronged by my taking this step; I have never been engaged, and it now seems providential, as I could not then have gone to your assistance without injuring myself and another; and your debts are too great for any but this man to settle them. Your life has been one long sacrifice for me, and not a cloud has darkened ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... favor of the English? By what providential circumstance did the Americans escape? What were the prison ships? Who were the Hessians? Tell the story of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... quite tender and devout over these meditations. Phil was not a conceited fellow, by any means, but he had been so often told by women that their love for him had been a blessing to their souls, that he quite acquiesced in being a providential agent in that particular direction. Considered as a form of self-sacrifice, it was not without ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... interruption, he suddenly slipped his garter from his leg, and, laying violent hands on the poor woman, endeavoured to perpetrate that dreadful and detestable fact which we have before commemorated, and which the providential appearance of Jones did so ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... them," he said. These words were repeated to Amalie Sieveking and stirred her to make the endeavor to fulfill her own long-cherished wishes, which were those of Stein. Just at this time, in 1831, the cholera broke out in her native city. She took this as a providential opening, by means of which deaconesses could begin their work, and went at once to one of the cholera hospitals, offered her services as a nurse, and at the same time issued an appeal for sister-women to join her. But no one ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... attempted to reinstate the old pagan goddess, Chance. It is said that he supposes variations to come about "by chance," and that the fittest survive the "chances" of the struggle for existence, and thus "chance" is substituted for providential design. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. The Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential part in filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; from farm and factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight for unity; from fields without number produce to sustain a nation on trial poured forth in abundance; enormous ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... Far from it; he is as high and as keen, as removed from softness and mawkishness, as ascetic and as reverential, as any bishop among them. He is as superstitious (as men now talk), as fanatical, as formal, as Athanasius or Augustine. Certainly, there seems something providential in the place which Origen holds in the early Church, considering the direction which theories about it are now taking; and much might be ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... know the reason why. Wot a card to play at the inquiry! Owner's niece on board—bound to South America for the good of 'er health. 'Oo even 'eard of a man sendin' 'is pretty niece on a ship 'e meant to throw away? It's Providential, that's wot it is, reel Providential! I do believe ole Verity 'ad a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... their true colours, and one of his first steps, when peace was restored, was to clear the ground as far as possible round the settlement, that future villainy might not find a shelter in the woods for its transactions. To this truly providential circumstance, perhaps, many of the colonists afterwards ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... that Denzil Quarrier should be their prospective candidate. Tobias was eager to back out of the engagement into which he had unadvisedly entered. Denzil's arrival at this juncture seemed to him providential—impossible to find a better man for their purpose. At eight o'clock an informal meeting was held at the office of the Polterham Examiner, with the result that Mr. Hammond, the editor, subsequently penned that significant paragraph which ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... occasion, hung straight and stiff like pendant icicles nigrescent; her sparkling black eyes looked apparently into vacuity, while they were really beholding the acme of all her hopes. She was thinking in that supreme moment of her life how very providential it was that she had thrown overboard Mr. Freeman Clarke. Whether he was picked up or whether the sharks devoured him, it occurred not to her to care. That she was about to become the fourth wife of the ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... "what do you mean? What has our providential rescue to do with altering your feelings toward me? You are but unstrung—tomorrow you will ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not, and if he were he would plead a providential indisposition rather than miss driving with her to ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... carried away by the Captain's reasoning; "if the surface of the sea is solidified by the ice, the lower depths are free by the Providential law which has placed the maximum of density of the waters of the ocean one degree higher than freezing-point; and, if I am not mistaken, the portion of this iceberg which is above the water is as one to four ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... enough, 't would serve." I collected fire-wood, and there I was, ready for my pan, and the afternoon was yet young, and the sap was drip-drip-dripping from all the spouts. I could begin to boil next day. I felt that I was being borne along on the providential wave that so often floats the inexperienced ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... force in that. But you can't be idle. You are too strong and fine to be beaten so. Do you know, I think it was providential that you were defeated." She turned to him now, and there was something in the nearness of her face that awed him. "Your letters to me told me more than you knew. I read beneath the lines; I saw how nearly the atmosphere of Congress ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... shadow of it, which he can see in a looking-glass, even that he perforce sees a rebours. You can't deny it's rum. But if I had a face as long as yours, I solemnly believe, I should deem it likewise providential." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... has already been pointed out, a long three weeks after the declaration of war before the forces of the Orange Free State began to invade Cape Colony. But for this most providential delay it is probable that the ultimate fighting would have been, not among the mountains and kopjes of Stormberg and Colesberg, but amid those formidable passes which lie in the Hex Valley, immediately to the north of Cape Town, and that the armies of the invader would ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reached Stuart Mordaunt's ears he became intensely interested. Anything that would convert Jim, and make a model Christian of him would be providential on that plantation. It would save the overseers many an hour's worry; his horses, many a secret ride; and the other servants, many a broken head. So he again went down to labor with Parker in the interest ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... on this passage homeward; and he fondly believed that his sincere intent to return the dollar to Captain Bolt had changed his luck—that his painful friction with Mr. Smart's fist was a providential happening; but Providence had ordered otherwise, and in this manner: The steamer captain, ahead of his reckoning while approaching the coast in thick fog, ran his ship at full speed onto the sands of Cape Cod. He was unable to back off; a rising ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... spring from? The only faint suspicion of it, indulged at first, that Charley had been rescued in some providential manner, and conveyed to a house of shelter, had had time to die out. A few houses there were, half-concealed near the river, as there are near to most other rivers of traffic, which the police trusted ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... told to Ganymede and Aliena how Orlando had saved his life: and when he had finished the story of Orlando's bravery, and his own providential escape, he owned to them that he was Orlando's brother, who had so cruelly used him; and then he told them of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... an established fact. It is at least quite certain that in the ivth century (if not long before) there existed a known Lectionary system, alike in the Church of the East and of the West. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 348,) having to speak about our LORD's Ascension, remarks that by a providential coincidence, on the previous day, which was Sunday, the event had formed the subject of the appointed lessons;(339) and that he had availed himself of the occasion to discourse largely on the subject.—Chrysostom, ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... He has been going on so. Rogers came to tell me, and I went up to the corridor, and asked him to unlock his door and let me in, but he wouldn't. Perhaps it was providential that he didn't unlock the door, for he ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... of that isolated point in the middle of the sea, as by a providential favor, that had restored confidence to Dick Sand; if he was going all the time at the caprice of a hurricane, which he could not subdue, at least, he was no ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... my 'new' dress, and all the other things Aunt Mary sent by express last week. And father's new suit case his men presented him with when he left the factory—wasn't that providential?" asked Tavia. ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... of all grace! how oft have I grieved Thee! resisted Thy dealings, quenched Thy strivings; and yet art thou still pleading with me! Oh! let me realize more than I do the need of Thy gracious influences. Ordinances, sermons, communions, providential dispensations, are nothing without Thy life-giving power. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." "No man can call Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Church of the living God! is not this one cause of thy deadness? My soul! is not this the ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... embarrassingly denuded condition. Just fancy! Was it not perfectly shocking?" (The clergyman's voice was full of delicious horror.) "But, after all," he resumed with a beaming smile, "it was most scriptural, you know, quite like a Providential confirmation ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... who have striven to do their duty by the people of this country, and done it to the satisfaction of the people and of their Gracious Sovereign. The interests of India and England are identical, and the Hindus of the Punjab regard British Rule as a Providential gift to this country—an agency sent to raise the people in the scale of civilization. Anything that is done to guarantee the continuance of the present profoundly peaceful condition of the country ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... have no illusions left; I had tasted of all things except the one fruit for which I have no longer teeth. Yes, I found myself disenchanted with the world at the very moment when I was forced to leave it. Providential, was it not? like all those strange insensibilities which prepare us for death" (she made a gesture full of pious unction). "All things served me then," she continued; "the disasters of the monarchy and its ruin helped me to bury myself. My son consoles ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... may be, or perhaps accidentally; but he had killed him! As Mr. Slocum passed from page to page, following the dark thread of narrative that darkened at each remove, he lapsed into that illogical frame of mind when one looks half expectantly for some providential interposition to avert the calamity against which human means are impotent. If Richard were to drop dead in the street! If he were to fall overboard off Point Judith in the night! If only anything would happen to prevent his coming back! ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Andrew paying a nocturnal visit, with some gulls' eggs for his sweetheart. This would have been a mean enough act, but it seems a small thing beside the cruel and murderous deed he would have committed but for the providential presence and prompt action of Fred Harcourt ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... abandoned, then the question arose whether the work itself should not be. Whether his convictions were not clear or his moral courage not sufficient, he went on with the novel. It was finished, but never published. Providential hindrances prevented or delayed the sale and publication of the manuscript until clearer spiritual vision showed him that the whole matter was not of faith and was therefore sin, so that he would neither sell nor print the novel, but burned it—another significant step, for it was ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... affair had ended so happily. For their own parts, they had reason to feel the most unspeakable pleasure at its favourable termination, and they offered up internally to their merciful Creator, a prayer of thanksgiving and praise for his providential interference in their behalf. It was indeed a narrow escape, and it was happy for them that their white faces and calm behaviour produced the effect it did on these people; in another minute their bodies would have been as full of arrows ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... here, and finds brain and body rest and refreshment in the tumbling waves. This noon, in the height of a tremendous thunder storm, I bumped against his burly figure in the roaring crest, and, after the first shock had passed, determined to utilize the providential coincidence. The water was warm, our clothes were in the bathing houses, and comfort was more certain where we were than anywhere else. The Colonel is an expert swimmer and as a floater he cannot be beaten. He was floating when we bumped. Spouting a pint of salt water ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and his family. His heart (and his mother's too, as we may fancy) melted within him at the thought of so much good feeling and good nature. Let Pen's biographer be pardoned for alluding to a time, not far distant, when a somewhat similar mishap brought him a providential friend, a kind physician, and a thousand proofs of a most touching and surprising kindness and sympathy There was a piano in Mr. Sibwright's chamber (indeed this gentleman, a lover of all the arts, performed himself—and exceedingly ill too—upon the instrument); and had had a song dedicated ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... individuality impels, and that if he is faithful to his genius the world will listen in due time. This power of personality lies at the basis of all genuine literature, teaching faith in the soul, faith in a providential ordering of the world, and overturning all agnostic ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... various other suchlike heads, however, other examples will arise; for I see him now as fairly afraid to recognise certain anxieties, fairly declining to dabble in the harshness of practical precautions or impositions. The effect of his attitude, so little thought out as shrewd or as vulgarly providential, but in spite of this so socially and affectionally founded, could only be to make life interesting to us at the worst, in default of making it extraordinarily "paying." He had a theory that it would somehow or other always be paying enough—and this much less by any poor ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... he gently soothed her; "yes, my child—thank Heaven first of all! for there was something strangely providential in the seemingly dire misfortune that was the cause of our being taken to Havana. For if we had not gone thither, we should never have found the negroes; and if we had not found them, it would have been difficult, or impossible, to ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... for a few days, and suddenly recovered their sight. But then there was no Ananias, no confirming revelation to another. This it was that justified St. Paul as a wise man in regarding the incident as supernatural, or as more than a providential omen. N. B. Not every revelation requires a sensible miracle as the credential; but every revelation of a new series of 'credenda'. The prophets appealed to records of acknowledged authority, and to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a providential arrangement—I mean this youthful incapacity of grasping the consolations brought by Time. For, after all, life, being there, has to be lived; and maybe life would be lived in a half-hearted fashion did we ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... country, and had been almost uniformly victorious. Can it be supposed that they could have effected anything against all India, ruled by so consummate a statesman as Hyder Ali? There seems to have been something providential in the events that caused them to pass from traders to conquerors, at the only time when such a transition could be made either with safety or success. That their career of conquest has been occasionally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... into my mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... is adequate to accomplish, and carry the mind from comparison to comparison in estimating its immense amount; still the cost, thus considered as involving the pecuniary resources of the country, is a mere item of the aggregate, when the loss of time, waste of providential bounty, neglect of business, etc., incident to the consumption of this one article, are ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... him. A new ray of hope had crossed the Major's mind. His meeting with Thurnall might he providential; for he recollected now, for the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... resolutions last? Just as long as no temptation came in the way; as long as there was no excitement to sin, no means of gratifying appetite. My good intentions were traced in the sand. I was very soon as thoughtless and as profane as ever, although frequently checked by the remembrance of my providential escape; and for years afterwards the thoughts of the shark taking me by the leg was accompanied by the acknowledgment that the devil would have me in like manner, if I ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... then, if I cannot myself attempt to get through, may be a bottle thrown into the lagoon might be carried out during the last few minutes of the ebb. And might not this bottle by chance—an ultra-providential chance, I must avow—be picked up by a ship passing near Back Cup? Perhaps even it might be borne away by a friendly current and cast upon one of the Bermudan beaches. What if that ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... she whispered, glancing at the door and window, to see that none might be within sight or hearing. "I never thought of him; I only fancied Anne might be sending me some bit of news concerning her own affairs. Good Heavens! How fortunate—how providential that papa did not see the paper fall; and that you did not persist in your ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... would perhaps have been the most difficult to be brought into order when differences arose; but an accident, which the Emperor might have termed providential, reduced the high-spirited Count of Vermandois to the situation, of a suppliant, when he expected to hold that of a dictator. A fierce tempest surprised his fleet after he set sail from Italy, and he was finally ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... premisses this eminent logician builds up his own narrow conclusions with remorseless rigour. Our author in his first part adopts this same narrow basis, and truly enough finds no resting-place for Christianity upon it, as indeed there is none for any theory of a providential government. But at the conclusion he tacitly and (as it would seem) quite unconsciously assumes a much wider standing-ground. If he had not done so, he himself would have been edged off his footing, and hurled down the precipice. A whole pack of 'pursuing wolves' [29:1] is upon him, ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... your coming here just now is most providential. Reggie Forsyth is not bored at all, far ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Capricieuse, under full sail. She had come straight from South America and put in at Ningpo after her long voyage, all unconscious of the terrible events passing there. Was ever an arrival more providential? I greatly doubt it; for had she not appeared in this miraculous fashion, who knows what would have come to the handful of white men left in ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... is, that Syria will revert to the Jewish nation by purchase, and that the facility exhibited in the accumulation of wealth, has been a providential and peculiar gift to enable them, at a proper time, to re-occupy their ancient possessions by the purse—string instead of ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... guardian was so well known in the great city, and delighted that she had met a charioteer so minutely familiar with his house of business, FLORA stepped readily into the providential hack, which thereupon instantly began Rocking-Chair-ing, Old-Shoe-ing, and Gliding. Any one of these celebrated processes, by itself, might have been desirable; but their indiscriminate and impetuous ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... thanks to heaven on your behalf! Oh, my son! my son; but that such things as these are Providential, I should tremble to see you so happy! So I will not presume to congratulate! I will ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... my brother, lived unforgiven? Fifteen, twenty, forty, sixty years? Lived through great awakenings, lived through domestic sorrow, lived through commercial calamity, lived through providential crises that startled nations, and you are living yet, strangers to God, and with no hope for a great future into which you may be precipitated. Oh, would it not be better for us to get our nature ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... knew what thoughts I have had about having to do without things sometimes, she could never love me enough to make this sacrifice. I suppose it was providential; God had a hand in it. But that is the strange part, that He should reward me ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... thronged within me, and which led me, with an almost unwise alacrity, to seek solitude in the back- garden, were not moral at all, they were intellectual. I was not ashamed of having successfully—and so surprisingly—deceived my parents by my crafty silence; I looked upon that as a providential escape, and dismissed all further thought of it. I had other things ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... over her restless couch; and again the scream of terror in the dark, silent midnight would summon her friends around her. Deep and fervent the prayer that was poured forth from that sad and breaking heart that some providential circumstance would enable her to make the change she had no long premeditated. That change is at hand. Her mother's prayer is still pleading for her before the throne of God; he who cast an eye of mercy on the erring Magdalen had already written the name of ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... providential loneliness of the road, there were one or two terrors that could not be disposed of so summarily. The worst of all was a heavy miller's cart which one could hardly crush to silence in one's handkerchief; but it went so slowly, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... stamped with such force and conviction, in speaking of this providential vengeance, that Louise looked at him with ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... jingled merrily, and the company joined their own joyous notes to them and sang the songs that were to be given at the concert. The woods rang with their gay voices as they passed old Sandy McLachlan's place. Sandy still held possession, and was looking forward hopefully to some providential interference in the springtime. ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... dismal storm. Our purses were almost flat, and my box from home failed to arrive. To get up an appetite for dinner that night we went for a walk in a joy killing blizzard. I wanted to die and planned to do so. The only reason I did not jump off of a pier was the providential intervention of several stiff cocktails. (I am theoretically a prohibitionist, but grateful to the enemy for having saved my life.) The black cloud that shut out all sunlight was our ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... embarrassing at first, proved in the end providential—a timely clearance for a more congenial craft—since the women of the State had organized a Woman's State Temperance Society, and advertised a Convention to meet the following week at Delavan, the populous shire town ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was to throw some obstacle between Minnie and that "dreadful person" who claimed her as his own, and had taken such shocking liberties. She did not know that Girasole was in Rome, and now accepted his arrival at that opportune moment as something little less than providential. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... any rate, to get put in the way of prosperity early may make his talents available. It is odd that his first name should be Thomas. Besides, I do not think your mother could get on without you. And, Felix,' he lowered his voice,' I believe that this is providential. Not only as securing his maintenance, but as taking him from Ryder. Some things have turned up lately when he has been reading with me, that have dismayed me. Do you know what ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in thought she had bound herself to the mast while sailing past the Sirens. Through sympathy, also, from childhood, with the tragi-comedy of many lives around her, she had gained experience of the laws and limitations of providential order. Gradually, too, she had risen to higher planes of hope, whence opened wider prospects of destiny and duty. More than all, by that attraction of opposites which a strong will is most apt to feel, she had sought, as chosen companions, persons of scrupulous reserve, of modest coolness, and ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... States, Germany, and Great Britain had seemed to develop equal claims in Samoa. There had been clashes from time to time, in which good sense had generally prevailed; but in one case a cyclone which destroyed the German and American vessels of war in the main port of the islands seemed providential in preventing a worse ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... excellent work. Galen is the great representative of this school, and he came in the century after St. Luke. A physician educated in Greek medicine at that time, then, would be in an excellent position to judge critically of the miracles of healing of the Christ, and it would seem to have been providential that Luke was ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... relieved by his reflections, "thy ready wit hath at last returned; but by St. Paul! what hath become of that varlet Richard? 'Tis more than likely the open door of some pot house spoke more strongly to him than my command, and 'tis most providential if my surmise be true; I must have been mad indeed to trust the rogue on such a mission. Small doubt but that he heard all which transpired here last night, for he hath a most willing ear to listen, and a tongue given to wag. 'Twould be a heaven-sent deed if something ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... development of the insect germ into the caterpillar, and the butterfly; in the hatching of the egg into the chicken; and in the growth of the infant into the man. We observe also a divine development of society, an advance of civilization, a providential guidance of history, and a fall and disorder among mankind, with a process of redemption, medical, educational, political and religious, for the human race. The whole process, therefore, of the creation, natural history, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... enter the navy. He was compelled to give up all ambition in that direction and to take up the study of theology. At this writing he is a popular preacher, who will always believe it was a most providential thing for our country that turned him aside from blocking the entrance of George Dewey to the Naval Academy ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... something to watch. He can raise a question as to whether the procedure itself is right, if its normal results conflict with his ideal of a good life. [Footnote: Cf. Chapter XX. ] But if he tries in every case to substitute himself for the procedure, to bring in Public Opinion like a providential uncle in the crisis of a play, he will confound his own confusion. He will not follow any train of ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... song to his seductive repertoire, left a new sting in her soul. She had been influencing somebody or something all her life. She had been educating and directing and benefiting till she was forced to be grateful to that providential generosity that caused new wickedness and ignorance to spring constantly from this very soil she had cleared; for if one reform had been sufficient she would long since have been obliged to leave the little village for larger fields. She had ministered to ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... added to the celestial commotions of the night. It was a moment of extreme peril, for the old grass was plentiful and sufficiently dry to burn. It is probable that the whole camp would have been destroyed but for a providential deluge of rain which fell at the time and ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... Victoria Station into the stir of London again, on leave from Flanders, must give as near the sensation of being thrust suddenly into life from the beyond and the dead as mortal man may expect to know. It is a surprising and providential wakening into a world which long ago went dark. That world is strangely loud, bright, and alive. Plainly it did not stop when, somehow, it vanished once upon a time. There its vivid circulation moves, and the buses are so usual, the people so brisk and intent on their own concerns, the ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... than that! I'm willing to divide my magnificent profits with you. You will have furnished the picture and I the verses. It's wonderful, Letty,—it's providential! You just are a Christmas card to-night! It seems so strange that you even put the lighted candle in the window when you never heard my verse. The candle caught my eye first, and I remembered the Christmas customs we studied for the church ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with the spirit of freedom swept in on the first fresh breezes of the Revolution. Yet it is not to be doubted that the Transylvania Company, through the courage and moral influence of its leaders, made a permanent contribution to the colonization of the West, which, in providential timeliness and effective execution, is without parallel ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... or left her; she laid ten eggs, and hatched chickens from them; from this little brood we raised a stock, and soon supplied all our neighbours with fowls. We prize the breed, not only on account of its fine size, but from the singular, and, as we thought, providential, manner ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... It struck her as providential that she should be the instrument of his initiation. Some girls would not have known how to manage him. They would have over-emphasized the novelty of the adventure, trying to make him feel in it the zest of an escapade. But Lily's methods were more ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... you have always religiously kept the secret of your tortures; and it was only a providential accident that revealed them to me. But I learned every thing at last. I know that she whom I love exclusively and with all the power of my soul is subjected to the most odious despotism, insulted, and condemned to the most humiliating privations. And I, who would give my ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... for he begins to ail, to go into consumption, to go out of his mind, and to degenerate, and nowhere do we find so many puny, neurotic wrecks, consumptives, and starvelings of all sorts as among these darlings. They die like flies in autumn. If it were not for this providential degeneration there would not have been a stone left standing of our civilization, the rabble would have demolished everything. Tell me, if you please, what has the inroad of the barbarians given us so far? What has the rabble brought with it?" Rashevitch assumed a mysterious, frightened expression, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... detail the story of my happy Brooklyn pastorate; for that is succinctly given in the closing chapter of this volume. Our home-life here for the past forty-two years has been a record of perpetual providential mercies and unfailing kindness on the part of my parishioners and fellow townsmen. Brooklyn, although removed from New York (for I cannot yet twist my tongue into calling it "Manhattan") by a five minutes' journey on the East River Bridge, is a very different town in its political and social aspects. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... under her protection. It was the long-expected deliverance,—it was salvation! At this news the missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their knees, gave thanks to God for this providential and almost ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... mistress! And yesterday, for a moment, I almost dreamed of kneeling with her at the Holy Sepulchre! I must get out of this city as quickly as possible; I cannot cope with its corruption. The acquaintance, however, has been of use to me, for I think I have got a yacht by it. I believe it was providential, and a trial. I will go home and write instantly to Fitz-Heron, and accept his offer. One hundred and eighty tons: it will do; ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... me was a providential thing, for which all may be thankful," said Wildschloss gravely; "yet it is no small thing to lose the hope of so many years! However, young Baron, I have grave matter for your consideration. Know you the service ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up to their incomes, and partly from their folly in imagining that they can subsist in idleness upon usury, will at last compel the sons and daughters of English families to acquaint themselves with the principles of providential economy; and to learn that food can only be got out of the ground, and competence only secured by frugality; and that although it is not possible for all to be occupied in the highest arts, nor for any, guiltlessly, to pass their days in ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... providential thing for them that Eddie had procured a situation with Mr. Gurney; and that Allie, though she was so young, was able to turn her musical accomplishments to account, and give instruction in music to several pupils. They, by their united ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... the range of grace. My Lord, I say again, that, as a conscientious man, and as far as mere human reason—which is at best but short-sighted—enables me to judge, I am truly cheered in spirit by this, I trust, providential change in the agency of your property. My Lord, in my various correspondence, I generally endeavor to make it a rule not to forget my Christian duties, or, so to speak, to cast a single grain of the good seed into the hearts of those to whom I am ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... struck him so forcibly that he could not refrain from falling into a reverie upon his fortunes. It was wonderful, all wonderful, very, very wonderful. There seemed indeed, as Glastonbury affirmed, a providential dispensation in the whole transaction. The fall of his family, the heroic, and, as it now appeared, prescient firmness with which his father had clung, in all their deprivations, to his unproductive patrimony, his own education, the extinction ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... It would be providential, Daddy," Janice declared, smiling. "You say yourself that Providence ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... previous search, and smarting under the sense of their intolerable wrongs, the party regarded this as a providential deliverance of their arch-enemy into their hands. Here was the chief cause of all their woes, the man who, more almost than any other, had been instrumental in the persecution and ruin of many families, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought that the Lord needed just such a young man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already called home. His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived. Each man found complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the reasoning ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... the wars of their gods, who won for them territory, and presided over their national fortunes. To all that way of thinking the Apostle opposes the conception, which naturally follows from his fundamental declaration of the one Creator, of His providential guidance of all nations in regard to their place in the world and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... for Ujiji. Dangerous journey through forest. The Manyuema understand Livingstone's kindness. Zanzibar slaves. Kasongo's. Stalactite caves. Consequences of eating parrots. Ill. Attacked in the forest. Providential deliverance. Another extraordinary escape. Taken for Mohamad Bogharib. Running the gauntlet for five hours. Loss of property. Reaches place of safety. Ill. Mamohela. To the Luamo. Severe disappointment. Recovers. Severe marching. Reaches Ujiji. Despondency. Opportune arrival of Mr. Stanley. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... identity. As it was evidently an ACCIDENT, which, in that rude community—and even in some more civilized ones—conveyed a vague impression of some contributary incapacity on the part of the victim, or some Providential interference of a retributive character, Burnt Ridge gave itself little trouble about it. It is unnecessary to say that Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves and Josephine much more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied from the first that ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... our mountain countrymen mentally and spiritually bound. God has graciously widened the fields. The Indian missions present their claim, for wherever a pagan Indian tribe remains there may the gospel be carried quickly and without personal harm. The providential call has been heard also, and answered by this Association, for the Chinese within our borders and the Eskimo on the Alaskan coast. The work of this Association may well be the glory of the churches. God has done His part. He has opened the fields, He has richly ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 9, September, 1896 • Various
... pierced the main artery. But I have checked the bleeding—it was a providential thing that I was at hand to do it—and if you keep absolutely still, it won't burst out again. I am telling you this because it is necessary for you to know what a serious matter it is. Any exertion might bring it on again, and then I can't say what would happen. You have lost a good ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... wonderful!" cried Ruth, smiling again at the boy. "It was awfully rash of you, Aggie, but it was providential this—this—You haven't told me ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... three shelves of books, and the books were thoroughbred Scotch! He afterwards died of the plague, of which visitation one-half of the whole people of the city, 200,000 in number, were carried off. I took it into my pleasant head that the plague might be providential or epidemic, but was not contagious, and therefore I determined that it should not alter my habits in any one respect. I hired a donkey, and saw all that was to be seen in the city in the way of public buildings—one handsome mosque, which had been ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... to rustle over the heads of these two men, as they lay side by side. Neither had the least suspicion that they were here re-united by strange and providential circumstances—that twenty years before, they had lain side by side—then lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean, just as now by the whispering murmurs ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... parasang or two, did not only betray itself to me as a sham, but also turned my mind and soul to the sham I had shouldered for years. From the peddling-box, therefore, I turned even as I did from atheism. Praised be Allah, who, in his providential care, seemed to kick me away from the door of its temple. The sham, although effulgent and alluring, was as brief as a ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... line drawn from east to west, a tangent at the lowest point of the Zoological Gardens formed the southern boundary of my wanderings. Once I spied in the distance that very kind soul, Mrs. McMurray, and rushed into a providential omnibus, so as to avoid recognition. My History remained untouched. The glamour of the Renaissance had vanished. For occupation I read the Neo-Platonists, Thaumaturgy, Demonology and the like, which I had always found a fascinating although futile study. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... acquired the habit of pious turns of speech in the frequentation of professedly religious men, of whom there were many in Belarab's stockade. As a matter of fact, he reposed all his trust in Lingard who had with him the prestige of a providential man sent at the hour of need by heaven itself. He waited a while, then: "What is the message I am ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... providential, sir, that this young gentleman should be thrown over his horse's head at our very gate, and that he should turn out to be the son of my old schoolfellow and friend?" asked the wife. "There is something more than accident in such cases, depend upon ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hope of later inspiration. It was the same way with his various studies of feminine heads. Finding that he was never able to finish anything, he soon became resigned, like one who pants with fatigue before an obstacle waiting for a providential interposition to save him. The important thing was to be a painter . . . even though he might not paint anything. This afforded him the opportunity, on the plea of lofty aestheticism, of sending out cards of invitation and asking light women to his studio. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... had impressed Bunyan so deeply, it is inconceivable that he should have made no more allusion to his military service than in this brief passage. He refers to the siege and all connected with it merely as another occasion of his own providential ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... existed a providential collocation of the most favorable conditions in which humanity can be placed for securing its highest natural development. Athenian civilization is the solution, on the theatre of history, of the problem—What degree of perfection can ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... her slowly, carefully, the details of that desperate journey northward, of their providential meeting on the Little Big Horn, of the papers left in his charge, of Hampton's riding forward with despatches, and of his death at Custer's side. While he spoke, the girl scarcely moved; her breath came in sobs and her hands ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Grandison received the appointment of organist to —— Church, Chicago, and, together with his wife and family, left Montreal for the Western city, leaving Mr. Hazelton in undisturbed possession of his wife; the latter, instead of rejoicing at this providential release from temptation, fretted at the loss of her paramour, attributing, however, her fitful humor ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... that Agesilaus had commenced his advance and was already at Pellene. (4) Accordingly he passed the word of command (5) to his troops to take their evening meal, put himself at their head and advanced straight upon Sparta. Had it not been for the arrival (by some providential chance) of a Cretan, who brought the news to Agesilaus of the enemy's advance, he would have captured the city of Sparta like a nest of young birds absolutely bereft of its natural defenders. As it was, Agesilaus, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... lived all these years, doing literally nothing for its uplift toward God who gave us all life and power. I feel that He will put a message into my mouth that may prove a blessing to this community. It seems to me this special opportunity is providential." ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... in the dead of night at the stealthy approach of the Gauls woke the sleeping soldiers to a sense of their danger just in time to save Rome. This splendid big fellow here saves us—after another fashion it is true, but one which is no less providential." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... refers to providential blessing as illustrative of sovereignty. He remarks, "That inequalities in the external condition and circumstances exist, is manifest to all. The questions, then, which force themselves upon our attention are these: Do these inequalities originate with God, ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... what shall we do with the Negro, lies the more fundamental question: What does God mean to do with the Negro in our country? Many a so-called solution of the "race problem" has been a foredoomed failure, because it ran counter to the Providential plan. Some have hoped that time would settle the burning question; if people would only stop talking about it, especially meddlesome people far away from the real pinch of the trouble, they fancy that somehow the mere flight of years would adjust differences and secure to all their ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... necessitous, pitiful relatives who so often make life difficult for a great family in a small town. The existence of Aunt Maria, after being rather a "trial" to the Baineses, had for twelve years past developed into something absolutely "providential" for them. (It is to be remembered that in those days Providence was still busying himself with everybody's affairs, and foreseeing the future in the most extraordinary manner. Thus, having foreseen that John Baines would have a "stroke" and need a faithful, tireless nurse, he had begun ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... and how disagreeable it is to me to hear it talked of. In short, I feel sufficiently recovered to set out for Rome the day after tomorrow. My very dear granddaughter Daniela goes with me, and will remain till the beginning of January. This is a providential pleasure on which I did not count at all, but for which I ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... must have been almost a black hole. The fifth night was the worst of all, for the town was set on fire around, and by the light of the flames the enemy made a furious attack; but just in time to prevent the fire from attaining the frail wooden structure, a providential storm quenched it, and the muskets of the Sepoys again repulsed the enemy. By this time the provisions were all but exhausted, and there were few among even the defenders who were not seriously ill from the alternate burning sun and drenching rain. Death seemed ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... [A providential opening having occurred for getting the Scriptures translated into the Indian language, Rev. Wm. Ryerson, in a letter to Dr. Ryerson, dated York, 24th ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of your lives," said Laura. "If you can only please Aunt Susanna with this dinner it will convince her that you are good cooks in spite of your nefarious bent for music and literature. I consider the illness of Miranda Mary's mother a Providential interposition—that is, if ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Camp or the head-waiter don't bring back some of those tickets, I don't know what I shall do. I shall have to put chairs into the aisles and charge five dollars apiece for as many people as I can crowd in there. I never knew anything so perfectly providential." ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... Nothing short of Providential was considered the finding of the canal, dug by a prehistoric people into the edge of the mesa, which it gradually surmounted. This canal, in all probability, had been cut more than 1000 years before. It could be traced from the river ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... feeling, and to do away with sectional prejudices. A most cordial hearing was given to the Woman's Congress lately held at Louisville, Ky., and especially to the woman suffrage symposium which occupied one evening. Mrs. Howe spoke of the wonderful, providential history of Kansas, and the way in which a new and unexpected chapter of the country's history opened out from the experience of the young Territory. She remembered when the name of Kansas was the word which set men's blood at the East ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... could we put in dukkerin? But as it would indubitably bring forth shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, but calmly took this windfall, which had fallen as it were, from the skies, even as they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a providential rain, unto them, in the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... was a condition more agreeable to the empire than to the emperor. Peace was hateful to Aurelian; and he sought for war, where it could seldom be sought in vain, upon the Persian frontier. But he was not destined to reach the Euphrates; and it is worthy of notice, as a providential ordinance, that his own unmerciful nature was the ultimate cause of his fate. Anticipating the emperor's severity in punishing some errors of his own, Mucassor, a general officer in whom Aurelian placed especial confidence, assassinated him between Byzantium and ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Mrs. Vertrees was perplexed by this informal appearance, but she reflected that it might be providential. "Won't ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... him the leather bag, which contained his money and valuable papers; but I had thought nothing of the circumstance at the time, for it seemed to me quite natural that he should be very careful of an article of so much value. If that providential puff of air had not enabled me to throw the Marian alongside his yacht, I am satisfied, in the light of subsequent events, that he would have made an attempt to elude me. He could have gone on shore in the tender, lived in the woods, or ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... It was Providential that I had managed to drive the brutes away just when I did! And that copingstone! I wondered, vaguely, how I had managed to dislodge it. I had not noticed it loose, as I took my shot; and then, as I stood up, it had slipped away from beneath me ... I felt that I owed the ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... means of restitution, and if he did not take it and use it to that end, he might be held recreant to his moral obligations. He contended, from that vestibule of his soul where he was not a thief, with that self of his inmost where he was a thief, that it was all most fortunate, if not providential, as it had fallen out. Not only had his broker sent him that large check for his winnings in stocks the day before, but Northwick had, contrary to his custom, cashed the check, and put the money in his safe instead of banking it. Now he could perceive a leading ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... a most providential circumstance which seems a very simple one. I did not sleep in the room which had been prepared for me. The place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly, the chimney smoked abominably when an attempt was made at lighting a fire, and I persuaded ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... will. And this immobility, it should never be forgotten, is owing to that very elevation so hated and so envied: wanting which the aristocracy would be subject to the vulgar ambitions, vulgar passions, and sordid desires of meaner aspirants after personal advantage and distinction. It is a providential blessing, we firmly believe, to a great nation to possess a class, by fortune and station, placed above the unseemly contentions of adventurers in public life: looked up to as men responsible without hire for the public weal, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... mentioned somewhere, that in arid climates the only support of vegetable life exists in the dews, which are hence, at least in the cases alluded to, supposed to be providential adaptations to supply certain deficiencies. But considering that dews consist of nothing but a deposition of moisture: it follows that in very arid climates, as there is no moisture, so there can be no dews. For the deposition of a dew, the fist ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... The woodchuck proved a providential supply, and Hector cheered his companions with the assurance that they could not starve, as there were plenty of these creatures to be found. They had seen one or two about the Cold Springs, but they are less common in the deep forest lands than on ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... might yet become "useful." To her husband's feeble suggestion of "gloves," she returned a scornful negative, and spoke of the weakly infant of a neighbor, who might later receive nourishment from this providential animal. But even this hope was destroyed by the eventual discovery of his sex. Nothing remained now but to accept him as an ordinary kid, and to find amusement in his accomplishments,—eating, climbing, ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... favourable wind, and occasional rowing, brought us, about nine in the morning, to the entrance of the much dreaded Ikkerasak. The weather was pleasant and warm, not a flake of ice was to be seen, and all our fear and anxiety had subsided. Our minds were attuned to praise and thanksgiving for the providential preservation we had experienced yesterday. We performed our morning devotions on deck, and all joined in a joyful hallelujah to God our Saviour, which was sweetly repeated by echoes among the mountains ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... are ignorant of the matter without any fault on their part, God will not hold them responsible for such ignorance. By providential circumstances many are, without adverting to it, in the state of life in which God ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous
... "What a providential thing that this young man should press his right thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such a very natural action, too, if you come to think of it." Holmes was outwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had indeed no hope of ever seeing Lenore Anderson again, and he suffered a pang that seemed to leave his heart numb, though Anderson's timely visit might turn out as providential as the saving rain-storm. The wheat waved and rustled as if with renewed and bursting life. The exquisite rainbow still shone, a beautiful promise, in the sky. But Dorn could not be ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... a doctor in the field,—sent there by some benignity of providence,—who always rides forward enough to be near to accidents, but never so forward as to be in front of them. It has been hinted that this arrangement is professional rather than providential; but the present writer, having given his mind to the investigation of the matter, is inclined to think that it arises from the general fitness of things. All public institutions have, or ought to have, their doctor, but in no institution is the doctor so invariably at hand, just when ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope |
