"Accidentally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drawing-room, instead of having it played during dinner. Elocutionists are asked in to amuse the guests, who, having been fed on terrapin and canvas-back ducks, are not supposed to be in a talking mood. This may be overdone. Many people like to talk after dinner with the people who are thus accidentally brought together; for in our large cities the company assembled about a dinner-table are very often fresh acquaintances who like to improve that opportunity to know ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... occurrence, the very familiarity would have bred indifference. But it was otherwise with Charlotte Bronte. One of her friends says:—"I have seen her turn pale and feel faint when, in Hartshead church, some one accidentally remarked that we were walking over graves. Charlotte was certainly afraid of death. Not only of dead bodies, or dying people. She dreaded it as something horrible. She thought we did not know how long the 'moment of dissolution' might really be, or how terrible. This was just ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... my pupil and I remarked that some substances such as amber, glass, and wax, when well rubbed, attracted straws, while others did not. We accidentally discover a substance which has a more unusual property, that of attracting filings or other small particles of iron from a distance and without rubbing. How much time do we devote to this game to the exclusion of everything else! At last we discover that this property is communicated ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Hamilton sprang on his tip-toes, and, after a convulsive movement, fell forward on his face. At the same time his weapon was accidentally discharged, his missile flying wide of its mark. Indeed, Hamilton did not fire; in reality, he had resolved not to return his antagonist's fire, and never knew that his weapon was discharged, as he was insensible when he fell. He died within thirty hours, and his funeral was the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... when Blanche was called away again he rose, stole out, went down to Freddy Tarlton's office, and offered to bet Freddy two to one that Blanche wouldn't live a year. Joe's experience of women was limited. He had in his mind the case of a girl who had accidentally smothered her child; and so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... interest in good things to eat and drink was that of witnessing the pony races. Each rancher would bring, casually, almost accidentally, as it were, one pony that represented its owner's idea of speed and quality. No set programme offered, which made the races all the more interesting ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... walking homeward in the early sunshine, marvelling, as people who accidentally find themselves up early pharisaically do, at the fatuity of those who waste the best hours of the whole day in bed, and revelling in the near prospect of a bath and my breakfast, when on turning a corner I walked into a hand-cart which was standing across ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... and the ardor with which they pursued their researches, their exertions were attended for a number of years with but little success. It was not until 1545 that the rich mines of Potosi, in Peru, were accidentally discovered by an Indian in clambering up the mountain. This was soon followed by the discovery of other highly productive mines of gold and silver in the various provinces, and Spanish America began to pour a flood of wealth into the coffers of ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... their enemies, the women even more ingeniously cruel than the men, nothing could exceed the cheerful spirit with which, in their own rough way, they bore one another's burdens. It filled the French missionaries with admiration, and they frequently tell us how, if a lodge was accidentally burned, the whole village turned out to help rebuild it; or how, if children were left orphans, they were quickly adopted and provided for. It is equally a mistake to glorify the Indian as a hero and to deny him the rude ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... discipline to which he as well as they must be subordinate; surpassing his men in skill, knowledge, and ambition, but taking part with them and allowing them to take part in the enterprise, is a good representative of the heroic age. This relation between captain and men may be found, accidentally and exceptionally, in later and more sophisticated forms of society. In the heroic age a relation between a great man and his followers similar to that between an Elizabethan captain and his crew is found to be the most important and fundamental relation in society. In later times ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... his domestics; which statement was supported by their respective evidence. One of the jury shrewdly observed, that the circumstance of Mr. Tisdall's having sustained so heavy a loss might have suggested to some ill-minded persons, accidentally hearing it, the plan of robbing him, after having murdered him in such a manner as might make it appear that he had committed suicide; a supposition which was strongly supported by the razors having been found thus displaced ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... [Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 231-2; Wishart, 189-207; Napier, 557-580. I have seen, in the possession of the Rev. Dr. David Aitken, Edinburgh, a square-shaped bottle of thick and pretty clear glass, which was one of several of the same sort accidentally dug up some few years ago at Philiphaugh, in a place where there were also many buried gunflints. There were traces, I am told, from which it could be distinctly inferred that the bottles had contained some kind of Hock or Rhenish ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... horoscope of Mahommed the Sultan in my hand, then certainly as the stars perform their circuits, being set thereunto from the first morning, they must respond to me; and then, find I Mars in the Ascendant, well dignified essentially and accidentally, I can lead my Lord out of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Bernardins. It would, however, be unprofitable to dwell on this subject at any great length. I will, therefore, only briefly refer to two publications of this sort, to which my own attention has been accidentally drawn: "The Imitation of the Blessed Virgin,"[144] and "The Little Testament of ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... mean to say there actually is gold—" began Mr. Bonaparte, but he got no farther. Whether accidentally or otherwise, Mr. Bacon's foot came sharply into contact with the speaker's shin, and the question terminated in a pained look of surprise, directed with some intensity and a great deal of fortitude ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... orchid, I, as well as the Dayaks, who were shown an illustration of it, searched in vain for three days. There is no doubt that I was at the place which had been described to me, but the plant must be extremely rare and probably was discovered accidentally "near the water," as the native collector said, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... child suggest other uses to which fire might have been put than those named here. Let him also suggest other ways in which food might have been cooked accidentally. Encourage him to make a connected story which will embody what he has thought. Lead him to discover some of the advantages that arise from the use of ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... sheet, and dragged it through the rooms towards a small rampart, intending to throw it down into a garden which had been allowed to run to waste. They hoped that the old man's death would be attributed to his having accidentally fallen off the terrace on his way in the dark to a closet at the end of the gallery. But their strength failed them when they reached the door of the last room, and, while resting there, Lucrezia perceived the two sbirri, sharing the money before making their escape. At her call ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Adrian, he had no idea that he was his son. Of course this was a statement that will not bear a moment's examination, but Ramiro's object was to gain time, and Adrian let it pass. Then he explained that it was only after his mother had, not by his wish, but accidentally, seen the written evidence upon which her husband was convicted, that he found out that Adrian van Goorl was her child and his own. However, as he hurried to point out, all these things were now ancient history that had no bearing on the present. Owing to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... yards the distances tallied within a few inches, so that near the centre of the garden we had a number of pegs stuck in the mould all round a currant bush, of perhaps three or four years' growth, which had thus accidentally marked the spot that was indicated by a skull on ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... Constitution was 9 killed and 25 wounded, as per enclosed list. The enemy had 60 killed and 101 wounded, certainly (among the latter, Captain Lambert, mortally), but by the enclosed letter, written on board the ship (by one of the officers of the Java), and accidentally found, it is evident that the enemy's wounded must have been much greater than as above stated, and who must have died of their wounds previously to their being removed. The letter states 60 killed ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... intellect, accompanied by the name and title of Rubempre. Mme. d'Espard and Mme. de Bargeton held him fast by this clue, as a child holds a cockchafer by a string. Lucien's flight was circumscribed. The words, "He is one of us, he is sound," accidentally overheard but three days ago in Mlle. de Touches' salon, had turned his head. The Duc de Lenoncourt, the Duc de Navarreins, the Duc de Grandlieu, Rastignac, Blondet, the lovely Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, the Comte d'Escrignon, and des Lupeaulx, all the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... for a time, that I should accompany him in all his excursions. But his fear abated as he grew more familiar with its objects; and the contempt to which his rusticity exposed him from such of his companions as had accidentally known the town longer, obliged him to dissemble ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... been left by the people who had been at work at pitching the pales, but had been attracted by the fire at Sir Francis Varney's, and to see which they had left their work, and the pitch was left on a smouldering peat fire, so that when Mr. Jones, the grocer, accidentally put his hand into it he found ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... continues to exist. If they were warned against the possibility of self-abuse arising in innocent ways, as well as in more reprehensible ways, they would exert their influence against its acquirement. If however a boy discovers accidentally a condition of which he was innocent, and of which he does not know the significance, it is human nature that he should investigate the phenomenon and in the end suffer as a consequence. In the effort to relieve some local irritation he may ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... accident should occur at table, do not apologize for it; let it pass without note, and it will be apt to escape observation. If there should be anything accidentally spilled upon the cloth, the waiter should quickly remove the traces, and spread a fresh ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... correctly without any idea of what they mean and far more frequently than you imagine he will receive a wrong impression by confusing words like zeal and seal of similar sound and totally different meaning. A teacher accidentally found out that her class supposed that the "kid" which railed at the wolf in Aesop's fable was a little boy, and I have had a child tell me that he saw at Rouen the place, where Noah's ark was burned, of course he meant Jeanne d'Arc. "The mastery of words," says Miss Arnold, "is an essential ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... making slates appear above the edge of the table, etc. These manifestations are executed by the Medium's foot, which, on one occasion, was distinctly seen before it had time to get back into its slipper by one of our number, who stooped very quickly to pick up a slate which had accidentally fallen to the floor while the Spirits were trying to put it into the lap ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... pretty Comedy, indeed! Ay, if well play'd, return'd he. At these Words, they went down, where a Coach was call'd; which carry'd 'em to Counsellor Fairlaw's House, in Great Lincolns-Inn-Fields, whom they found accidentally at Home; but his Lady and Daughter were just gone to Chapel, being then turn'd of Five. Gracelove began his Apology to the good old Counsellor, who was his Relation, for bringing a strange Lady thither, with a Design to place her in his Family: ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... in a loud voice trembling with excitement, astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges of Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... pecuniary arrangements were all made, and the bargain completed, before Jane knew any thing of the matter. The mother and daughter went out one morning to make a call upon a friend, at whose house the prospective husband of Jane, by previous appointment, was accidentally to be. It was a curious interview. The friends so overacted their part, that Jane immediately saw through the plot. Her mother was pensive and anxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations. The young gentleman was very lavish of his powers of pleasing, loaded Jane with flippant ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... invitation, appeared to create very considerable uneasiness, and even dismay. I informed them that, as we were both old members of the Union, and had accidentally heard that there was to be a meeting, we did ourselves the pleasure of attending it, although (no doubt from mistake) we were not summoned. This did not at all relieve them from the dilemma in which they were placed. After looking at each other for ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... circumstance which I believe has not been attended to; and that is the sensation with which they affect the taste when put into the mouth, as frequently happens unintentionally: some are hot and acrid, some bitter, and some sour. Perhaps this will be attributed to the different kinds of food they have accidentally devoured; but I never found one which tasted sweet, though I have caught them in the fact of robbing a sugar or honey-pot. Each species of ant is a declared enemy of the other, and never suffers a divided empire. Where one party effects a settlement the other is expelled; and ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... presume accidentally, these members of the Witan, but it is clear from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the London "lithsmen" were represented in the great National Witans, and helped to decide the election ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... between the court and the provinces was facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents or messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... I am sure, we have lost, which were two quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most particular account of his own life, from his earliest recollection. I owned to him, that having accidentally seen them, I had read a great deal in them; and apologizing for the liberty I had taken, asked him if I could help it[1234]. He placidly answered, 'Why, Sir, I do not think you could have helped it.' I said that I had, for once in my life, felt half an inclination to commit theft. It ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... at the second mate's door, went upon deck to light another lamp at the binnacle, it having been again accidentally extinguished. He was there asked by his terrified brother, whose agony of mind we will not attempt to portray, if he intended to hurt Smith, the other boat-steerer. He replied that he did; and inquired where he was. George fearing that Smith would ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... made of porcelain. They have a fine wire drainer so that nothing solid will go into the trap and plug the pipes. The Girl Scout uses boiling water, and plenty of it, to flush the sink. She takes pains that no grease gets into the drain to harden there. When grease is accidentally collected, soda and hot water will wash it away, but it should never collect ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... our sly acquaintance, Mons. C., was not disinclined to lead us to ground more debateable, and lay a trap for our national vanity. The master of the vessel had a wooden leg, which led to the subject of artificial limbs, and the perfection to which the art of making them had arrived in England. We accidentally mentioned the case of Lord Anglesey. "Et qui est ce Lord Anglesey?" said M.C., looking archly. "Un de nos plus grands seigneurs, Monsieur." Still he persisted in inquiring how he lost his leg. "C'etait in Flandres." "Ah, vous voulez dire a ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... The class in which he was accidentally born and bred, but to which he did not belong. Or, should she go dressed frankly as of her own class—wearing the sort of things that made her look her finest and most superior and most beautiful? ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... that first principle it is manifest that prayer and sacrifice are not fundamentally unrelated and accidentally juxtaposed: a sacrifice accompanied not even by unspoken prayer, prompted by no desire, no wish for anything whatever, is a meaningless concept. Equally unmeaning and unintelligible is the idea of a prayer which involves no sacrifice—whether by sacrifice we understand the offering of gifts ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... superficial accomplishments, superficially acquired—principles that scarce extended beyond the retenue and morals of her sex—tastes that had been imbibed from questionable models—and hopes that proceeded from a false estimate of the very false position into which she had been accidentally and suddenly thrown. Still Eudosia had a heart. She could scarcely be a woman, and escape the influence of this portion of the female frame. By means of the mesmeritic power of a pocket-handkerchief, I soon discovered that there was a certain Morgan Morely in New York, to whom she longed ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... came, and took him up. He had, as one of his companions in it, as far as Newcastle, the worthy and ingenious Dr Hope, botanical professor at Edinburgh. Both Dr Johnson and he used to speak of their good fortune in thus accidentally meeting; for they had much instructive conversation, which is always a most valuable enjoyment, and, when found where it is not expected, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... attentive an auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and told them in whispers "Puss in Boots" and I don't know what else until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed. As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon and overturned them ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... path on hilly ground. The days are sultry and smoking. We came to some villages of Pyana-mosinde; the population prodigiously large. A sword was left at the camp, and at once picked up; though the man was traced to a village it was refused, till he accidentally cut his foot with it, and became afraid that worse would follow, elsewhere it would have been given up at once: Pyana-mosinde came out and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable life; a further accident leads another cell to initiate the line of invertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals: the number varying according ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... a little girl on the London stage some few years ago whom I have always remembered with joy. I first saw her accidentally at a Lyceum pantomime, into which I strolled after a dull ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Peninsula, and Ormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. The possession of these strategic points enabled the Portuguese to control the commerce of the Indian Ocean. They also established trading relations with China, through the port of Macao, and with Japan, which was accidentally discovered in 1542 A.D. By the middle of the sixteenth century they had acquired almost complete ascendancy throughout southern Asia and the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... that the evaporating and hardening may take place. When this has been ascertained to be satisfactory, the surfaces may be wiped gently with some soft, absorbent material which will take away any superfluous particles of oil that may have been accidentally left in the process of rubbing. If there should be some uneven, clotted, or rough parts observable, a small ball or dabber made in the same way as the preceding, but used with spirit and oil instead of varnish, will work these down to a proper condition. For the dead surfacing, care must be ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... flight of steps. At the bottom appeared what I should have taken to be a large square of dim, worn, and faded oil-carpeting, which might originally have been painted of a rather gaudy pattern. This was a Roman tessellated pavement, made of small colored bricks, or pieces of burnt clay. It was accidentally discovered here, and has not been meddled with, further than by removing the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... at the idea of standing face to face with a person of whom she had heard so much, Dora removed her high-necked apron, and throwing it across the tub so that the sleeves trailed upon the floor, was hurrying away, when her foot becoming accidentally entangled in the apron, she fell headlong to the floor, bringing with her tub, suds, clothes and all! To present herself in this drenched condition was impossible, and in a perfect tremor lest Mrs. Hastings should go away, Eugenia vibrated, brush in hand, ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... ("dear Lorrequer!" dear me, thought I; cool certainly, from one I have ever regarded as an open enemy)—"My dear Lorrequer, I have just accidentally heard of your arrival here, and hasten to inform you, that, as it may not be impossible your reasons for so abruptly leaving your detachment are known to me, I shall not visit your breach of discipline very heavily. My old and worthy friend, Lord Callonby, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... was a rebellion among the slaves in Kingston, Jamaica; and in the next December, the slaves in Bermuda rebelled, and threatened to destroy all the whites. All were engaged in the plot, which was accidentally discovered. One was burned alive, one ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... a liking to Colonel Middleton and his daughter, and would have found his way to Brooklyn over and over again, only the colonel gave him no encouragement. They had met accidentally in the grounds of the White House, and Mr. Cheyne had introduced them to each other; but the colonel bore himself very stiffly on that occasion and ever after when they met on the Parade and in the reading-room. In his heart he was secretly ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the great catastrophe. Some modern theologians may dismiss sin as "a mysterious incident" in the development of humanity, as a grain of sand that has unluckily blown into the eye, as a thorn that has accidentally pierced our heel, but the greatest of ethical teachers regarded sin as a profound contradiction of that eternal will which is altogether wise and good. More than any other teacher Jesus Christ emphasized the actuality and awfulness of sin; more than any other ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... any farther rupture and left them seated on the bank, whence they continued to watch our movements until the boat was loaded and we left the shore. They then came down to the beach and searched about for whatever things we might accidentally have left behind; and after examining with great attention some marks that, for amusement, some of our party had scratched upon the sand, they separated. The old man and the two boys embarked in a canoe and paddled round the point towards ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... Franklinia buchanani, which might well have eggs about both in April and August; and I am not prepared to say that in each of these three cases Hypolais rama, which frequents precisely the same kind of bushes that F. buchanani breeds in, may not accidentally have been shot in the immediate proximity to a nest of the latter, the owner of which had crept noiselessly away, as these ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... well to get on, and not to stand there gaping into the darkness, listening to what you were never meant to hear. The truth of the old saying generally holds good; and sometimes words accidentally overheard in such ways are fixed in the mind for life. These last were like ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... imputed evils, have accidentally come to my knowledge, which I will not now particularize, as I hope that with the assistance of the Resident they may be in part corrected: one, however, I must mention, because it has been verified by my own observation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... well in mind, and it did not take long to give the master of the Hall all of the details. In the midst of the conversation, Fred let drop accidentally that the three unworthy cadets had ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... snoopos—The Man and The Woman—into a frightfully indelicate position. The more indelicate it is, the better. Sometimes she gets into his motor by accident after the theatre, or they both engage the drawing-room of a Pullman car by mistake, or else, best of all, he is brought accidentally into her room at an hotel at night. There is something about an hotel room at night, apparently, which throws the modern reader into convulsions. It is always easy to arrange a scene of this sort. ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... "He might accidentally change these roles," said Belleville, gayly, "and play the Enfant Prodigue when he should play the hero. In which would he be the greater, do you ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... having collected from the neighboring garrisons, appeared in such overwhelming strength that the insurgents hastily put off to sea. Many succeeded in escaping to Formosa and Singapore. The leader was accidentally shot off Macao. The restoration of Imperial authority was followed, however, by terrible scenes of official cruelty and bloodthirstiness. The guilty had escaped, but the Emperor Hienfung's officials wreaked their ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... of effects escape the causality of heavenly bodies. In the first place all effects that occur accidentally, whether in human affairs or in the natural order, since, as it is proved in Metaph. vi [*Ed. Did. v, 3], an accidental being has no cause, least of all a natural cause, such as is the power of a heavenly body, because what occurs accidentally, neither is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... then had also been waste. I put a handful of the stuff in my pocket; and, after the conductor left us, I turned the whole enterprise over to the Goodwin part. When the play ended, the audience should feel sure that he and Kate need never want for a dollar. I knew also where he had accidentally burnt his first sample, and made his discovery; in the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... about the nervous woman greeting him so deferentially and evidently regarding him as something infinitely superior to herself. Wilford had looked with indifference upon Helen, but it would take a stronger word to express his opinion of the mother. Had he come accidentally upon her without ever having met with Katy, he would have regarded her as a plain, common country woman, who meant well if nothing more; but now, alas! with Katy in the foreground, he was weighing ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the only passenger remaining, caught the fleeting shadow of interest on his face, regarded him with natural indifference, and looked out of the window, forgetting him. A few moments later, accidentally aware of him again, she carelessly noted his superficially attractive qualities, and, approving, resumed her idle inspection of the passing throng. But the next time her pretty head swung round she found him looking rather fixedly at her, and involuntarily ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broken some common thing, and had paid for it and could afford to pay for it, when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... called "virtue,"—may be calculated upon as a human motive of action, people always answer me, saying, "You must not calculate on that: that is not in human nature: you must not assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness and jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, except accidentally, and in matters out of the way of business." I begin, accordingly, tonight low in the scale of motives; but I must know if you think me right in doing so. Therefore, let me ask those who admit the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... recollection by several, and by some who have since obtained celebrity. They imagined that their attachment to literary pursuits had been strengthened even by so weak an effort. An extraordinary circumstance concurred with these opinions. A copy accidentally fell into my hands which had formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of our times; and the singular fact, that it had been more than once read by him, and twice in two subsequent years at Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantly convinced me ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... second, by division of the artery, when that is not complete—for then the extremities contract and the blood clots—or by a ligature, or by the application of substances which arrest blood flow, aided by a compressive bandage. Other means are inefficient, and seldom and, at most, accidentally successful. His instruction for first aid to the injured in case of hemorrhage in the absence of the physician, is to apply pressure ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money," he lectured. "There is nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter, and you may do a ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... wonderful than all this is the story of "The Astral Lady" which appeared in one of the English Magazines a few months ago. In that case an English medical gentleman saw the Astral Lady in a first class railway compartment in England. Only accidentally he discovered the body of a lady nearly murdered and concealed under one of the seats. His medical help and artificial respiration and stimulants brought her round, and then the doctor saw the original of the Astral Lady in the recovered ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... for having given more gifts to poets, and having "a larger collection of poems" than any other man of his age. In the struggle between O'Donnell and O'Conor for the northern corner of Sligo, we find mention made of books accidentally burned in "the house of the manuscripts," in Lough Gill. Among the spoils carried off by O'Donnell, on another occasion, were two famous books—one of which, the Leahar Gear (Short Book), he afterwards paid back, as part of the ransom for the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... this place "the back of God-speed," "the back of the world," and "the divil's own hunting ground," but why they do it nobody seems to know. The village is on the road to nowhere, and I dropped on it, as it were, accidentally, during a long drive to the remotest end of Galway Bay. Yet even here I found civilised people who regard the proposed College Green Parliament with undisguised aversion. Not the inhabitants, but Irish tourists, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... mustangs had been ridden away without being accompanied by other animals. The number of moccasin tracks at a certain point showed that a party of warriors had accidentally detected the animals, each of which was mounted by a single Indian and ridden away, the warriors taking altogether a different direction. This simplified matters, and was not displeasing to Dick and Tom, for two of these active redskins could, as ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... white star on her forehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had, of course, two eyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking accidentally in the centre of ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... live for speed alone; in consequence, one afternoon Mrs. MacGregor and Nancy very narrowly escaped dying for it. Whereupon Mr. Champneys summarily dismissed the chauffeur and engaged in his place young Glenn Mitchell, accidentally brought to his notice. Mr. Champneys congratulated himself upon the discovery of Glenn Mitchell. To begin with, he was a South Carolinian, one of those well-born, penniless, ambitious young Southerners who come ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... his stupid eyes on Orazio, whose thrusts he could not parry. "She was saved by Count Nobili, who was accidentally shooting ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... that he could imagine, the daily cups of tea, the virtuous indignation left neither time nor place. Only, now and again, he gave Odette to understand that people maliciously kept him informed of everything that she did; and making opportune use of some detail—insignificant but true—which he had accidentally learned, as though it were the sole fragment which he would allow, in spite of himself, to pass his lips, out of the numberless other fragments of that complete reconstruction of her daily life which he carried secretly in his mind, he ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... from prying eyes by a sand dune, and directly opposite the crutch, which wobbled with every wave that struck it. "Think what it means," said Eloise, "and think what it might mean. It might be part of a shipwreck, or someone who needed it very much might have dropped it accidentally out of a boat, or the one who had it might have died, ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... It told her nothing: no story of sudden frenzied terror, of inextinguishable, unescapable flames, of young people in the midst of health and the vain and wicked pursuit of happiness, half-burned to death, half-drowned. It told her no story of guilt providentially punished, or accidentally. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Endeavour sailed through the straits that Torres had accidentally passed one hundred and sixty-four years before, and, just sighting New Guinea, Cook made his way to Java, for his crew were sickly and "pretty far gone with longing for home." The ship, too, was in bad condition; she had to be pumped night and day to keep her free from water, and her sails ...
— 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
... felicity; there was nothing on earth left for her to desire. Sometimes, when she heard of the misery resulting from very unequal or loveless marriages, she would raise her beautiful face to heaven and thank God that she had been preserved from the snares of her youth. She heard quite accidentally from some one, who had been purchasing a picture, that Allan Lyster was abroad, and she decided, in her own most generous mind, that when he returned he should have an order that would please him. But he did not return, and ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... upon the persons drinking milk containing bacteria. For our present purpose, the kinds of bacteria which find their way into milk may be divided into two classes, namely, those that are normally in milk and which tend to produce souring, and those which accidentally enter and are able to produce disease in persons drinking the milk. The first kind probably enter the milk from the air or from the surface of the milk-pail, and in the milk increase in numbers very rapidly and have the same effect in the milk ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... falling behind other Courts of the same class. See, I've worked out the figures. [He takes a paper from his pocket-book and accidentally drops other papers, which La ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... car, or turret? How many beaters did one use to beat up the woodchuck? What bearers was it necessary to carry with one? How great a danger must one face of having one's beaters killed? What percentage of risk must one be prepared to incur of accidentally shooting one's own beaters? What did a bearer cost? and ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... but as the camp was on a high rocky hill at the junction of four deep canons, this was found impracticable. At daylight the savages came out together, running like deer, and making for the canons. The soldiers fired, killing a buck and accidentally wounding a squaw, but Massai ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... the Kashmir gate, from which point the first and second practically became one. Nicholson, being accidentally separated from his own column for a short time, pushed on with Campbell's past the church, in the direction of the Jama Masjid, while the amalgamated column under Jones's leadership took the rampart route past the Kabul gate ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... concealed by the natives; now, intermarriage with their conquerors, and consequent change of religion and habits, have rendered them careless of them, and they are, generally speaking, really forgotten, and only discovered accidentally in planting a new vineyard, or ploughing a ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... one of these charms was accidentally dropped by a lively little 'moosmie,' or 'girl,' who was waiting on a party of foreigners. One of them picked it up, and was on the point of opening the small box in which it is placed for safety when she discovered the loss, and made a desperate rush for its recovery. On finding the importance ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... rejoiced that you have determined to interest yourself in my little protegee. I will now explain our new adventure. I had gone to the Temple with Rigolette, to purchase some furniture designed for the poor people in the garret, when, upon accidentally examining an old secretary which was for sale, I found the draft of a letter written by a female to some individual, in which she complained that herself and daughter were reduced to the greatest misery, on account ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... so drearily for Christopher, had cast their shadows also over the lives of Alan and Felicia Tremaine. When Willie was a baby, his nurse accidentally let him fall; and the injury he then received was so great that, as he grew older, he was never able to walk properly, but had to punt himself about with a little crutch. This was a terrible blow to Alan; and became all the ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... met. Of Wadd we have no information, except, according to Crabb Robinson's Diary, that he once accidentally discharged a pen full of ink into Lamb's eye and that Lamb wrote ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and loved one, who has perished out of your family circle, suspends all interest in every thing else; when the memory of the departed floats over you like a wandering perfume, and recollections come in throngs with it, flooding the soul with grief. The name, of necessity or accidentally spoken, sets all your soul ajar; and your sense of loss, utter loss, for all time, brings more sorrow with it by far ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... this school originated with Miss Pillbody; and, like many other valuable ideas, it was hit upon quite accidentally. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... cabbie said. "Oh, sure. Well, there was a kind of chase. Some sheriff's officers were looking for an escaped convict, and they were chasing him and doing some shooting. And Shellenberger, he got in the way and got shot accidentally. The criminal, he got away. But it's ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... afterwards, Saul accidentally meets Samuel, he says, "Tell me, I pray thee, where the Seer's house is." Samuel answers, "I am the Seer." Immediately afterwards Samuel informs Saul that the asses are found, though how he obtained ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of a logical proposition is not general validity. To be general means no more than to be accidentally valid for all things. An ungeneralized proposition can be tautological just as well as a ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... 1842 A fire accidentally commenced in the roof of the Nave adjoining the Tower, but was soon extinguished. The roof of the ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... practice, they applied to the jailor for admission to consult with the negroes. But public opinion was so strongly prejudiced against the Abolitionists that neither the jailor nor the sheriff would permit any of them to communicate with the prisoners. Accidentally, a colored man inquired of Mr. Bolton if he would take up their defence. He readily assented, and being prosecuting attorney of the county, and it being well understood that he was not an Abolitionist, the doors ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... up his toothpick so that it lifted his upper lip in a little v-shaped opening and exposed a strong, yellowish tooth. At the moment his machine started slowly forward. It gave him the appearance of accidentally rolling off while immersed ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... other hand, examples of artificially induced development of eggs, not fertilised, are very few. The first known came accidentally to notice. Female silkworm moths reared in confinement sometimes lay eggs when kept apart from the male, and these have been found to hatch, and give rise to caterpillars, which were not reared to maturity. Other moths bred by collectors behaved in the same way, but the grubs ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... stamp. One was found, the Corporal stuck it on the letter, fell suddenly motionless and stared for a long time at vacancy. Then a new thought struck him. He jerked open a drawer of the "gum-shoe" desk, flung the letter inside—where I found it accidentally one day some weeks afterward—and dropping into the swivel-chair laid his feet on the "gum-shoe" blotter and a moment later seemed to have ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... that they dared take the offensive, Charles was alert to the harsh cries of the "bull" of Uri and the "cow" of Unterwalden, which were heard across the woods. A sudden presentiment saddened him. Putting on his helmet, he accidentally knocked off the lion bearing the legend Hoc est signum Dei. He replaced it and ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... and he produced his own apparatus for that purpose, being merely a tube inserted into a bottle containing a small quantity of the acid, just enough to produce the gas for inhalation. He told me, too, a remedy for burns accidentally discovered by himself; viz., to wear wash-leather, or something equivalent, over the burn, and keep it constantly wet. It prevents all pain, and cures by the exclusion of the air. He evidently has a great ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lichen, here and there, with crimson blotches or eyes more or less confluent and fiery when wet,—and others gnarly, and freckled or peppered all over on the stem side with fine crimson spots on a white ground, as if accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him who paints the autumn leaves. Others, again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... experiments may be briefly summed up as follows: The disease is caused by the presence in the system of minute bacteria, Bacillus pestis. It is probable that plague is primarily a disease of rats and only secondarily and accidentally, as it ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... once it occurred to him that the expedition to which he found himself thus accidentally attached could have no other object than this very placer of the Golden Valley. Most likely the very man who shared the secret with him—the murderer of Marcos Arellanos—was among the men enrolled under the orders of the chief Don Estevan. The ambiguous ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... It is probable that the angry Valnebon is speaking here, and that his name has been accidentally omitted from the MSS. At all events the three subsequent paragraphs show that these remarks are not made by Astillon, who declines the other speaker's advice, and proposes a scheme of his ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber's discovering that Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, or ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Her movements are undulating. When she stands up she is like a young girl, with bold shoulders. She does not glance into the large, cracked mirror as she passes; she exhales no odours of perfumes; she takes, accidentally, her husband's arm and walks up and down with him while the conversation and the refreshments keep the other guests ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... associated with philanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion accidentally associated with political and social abuses. Everything gave way to the zeal and activity of the new reformers. In France, every man distinguished in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave birth to works in which the fundamental principles ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... impossible to question or doubt that world of fact. Particular facts one may question as facts. For instance, I think I see an unseasonable yellow wallflower from my windows, but you may dispute that and show that it is only a broken end of iris leaf accidentally lit to yellow. That is merely a substitution of fact for fact. One may doubt whether one is perceiving or remembering or telling facts clearly, but the persuasion that there are facts, independent of one's interpretations and obdurate to one's ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... hastily turning round to meet the furious monster, Enda accidentally touched the door with the point of the spear, and the door flew open. Enda passed through, and the door closed behind him with a grating sound, and he marched along through a rocky pass which ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... a beneficent eccentric old gentleman for many years: one against whom, haply, he had bumped in a crowded thoroughfare, and had with cordial politeness begged pardon of; had then picked up his walking-stick; restored it, venturing a witty remark; retired, accidentally dropping his card-case; subsequently, to his astonishment and gratification, receiving a pregnant missive from that old gentleman's lawyer. Or it so happened that Mr. Raikes met the old gentleman at a tavern, and, by the exercise of a signal dexterity, relieved ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had done was to write a note which might have been lost, and to scratch a few words in the sand which might have been washed out. But the luck of Lewis held until August 11th. On that day, as you remember, he was accidentally shot through the hips by one of his men while hunting elk, so that when, on August 12th, he finally overtook Captain Clark, Lewis was lying in his boat, crippled. All through the trip Lewis had had many more dangerous situations and ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... of that year, Madame Karl, a German woman who had come over in the same ship with the Mullers, was passing through a street in New Orleans, and accidentally saw Salome in a wine-shop, belonging to Louis Belmonte, by whom she was held as a slave. Madame Karl recognised her at once, and carried her to the house of another German woman, Mrs. Schubert, who was Salome's cousin and godmother, and who no sooner set ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... Ring was very full, but nearly all who were there seemed present from motives of curiosity only. They were so orderly that no attempt was made to disperse them. The crowd became so dense that the shops were closed in apprehension that the windows might be accidentally broken by the pressure. About eight o'clock, however, a cry was raised, and an organised gang, many hundreds in number, armed with bludgeons, bars of iron, and other formidable weapons, came marching up Digbeth. They turned down Moor Street, and without ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... your head down to the spool and blow a few bubbles while the spool is in the water, then quickly raise it and try again. Nine times out of ten you will succeed, and a bubble will swell out from the spool as in Fig. 81. These wooden bubble-blowers last a long time, with no danger of breaking when accidentally dropped on the floor, and you can always find enough to provide one for each of the players who meet for a trial of skill ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard
... I came accidentally afterwards to hear, that when the young lady missed her watch, she made a great outcry in the Park, and sent her footman up and down to see if he could find me out, she having described me so perfectly that he knew presently that it was the same person that had stood and talked so long with him, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... ball be accidentally stopped in its motion by a careless player or spectator, what shall be done? Fellow permits the striker either to leave the ball where the interruption left it, or to place it where he thinks it would have stopped, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... their great power of concealment that tigers are so very rarely ever seen by accident, and Mr. Sanderson says that during some years of wandering in tigerish localities he has only come upon them accidentally about half a dozen times, and my own experience, and that of other sportsmen to whom I have spoken, quite confirms this. But I am persuaded that a native can see a tiger much more readily than a European, and the former have, I think, much better distinguishing power. For instance, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... My father has expressed a wish that we should occupy that house of his in Harley street for the winter months, and my mother puts in, accidentally as it were, that she would like to see the children. But you are ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... astonishment, they perceived that he was hanging suspended by one of his huge horns, while his body and legs, kicking and struggling, hung out at their full length in the empty air! It was evident he had tumbled from the top contrary to his intentions; and had been caught accidentally in the branches of the pine. It was a painful sight to witness the efforts of the poor creature; but there was no means of getting him off the tree, as he was far beyond their reach; and Basil, having loaded his rifle, in order to put an end to his agony, sent a bullet through his heart. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... not been elevated, as it afterwards was, by his Traveller; and the bookseller had such faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it till after The Traveller had appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... one flame-thrower with him. He tied it securely inside the shell so it could not shift with the changing gravity, or be accidentally turned on. Again he clung to the curved bar against the wall. Loah stood at the center, directing ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin |
