"Disastrous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she would have supposed, of more use as a deterrent than a hundred blameless mothers as incentives. For how could any one who had seen anything of her life in the last eighteen years have had the courage to repeat so disastrous ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... which to shrink with dread? The dreary valley dost thou fear to tread? What wouldst thou give to pierce the unknown Dark That lies before thy feebly tossing bark. And know what anchor in that unknown sea, Or wreck disastrous, ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... perfect and blameless in all things, and were also leaving them as their successors, delivering over to them their own proper place of teaching; for if these should act rightly great advantage would result, but if they fell away the most disastrous calamity ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... it is Hobson's choice—an umpire is chosen from the "gate." If he knows little or nothing of his duties the result is disastrous. Should there be difficulty in getting an umpire who knows something of his work, I think the match should take care of itself. I have experienced umpires who do not even know ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... range, running along the north-east coast of Australia, at a variable distance from the shore, and terminating at Cape York.' Having assisted in landing this party, and arranged to meet them at the head of Princess Charlotte's Bay, on their toilsome, and, as it proved, disastrous overland journey, the ships pursued their route, and soon commenced a series of triangulations, which were continued without a break for more than 600 miles. The Bramble waited ten days at the appointed rendezvous without seeing anything of the overland expedition, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... his own head with his clenched fist, angrily demanding that his brain bring forth the thought that was forming slowly. The metal that could be revolved in time without producing a disastrous explosion and without requiring an ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... to nobody about it for years, madam. Yet I would not mind speaking to you—you are so kind to me. During the time you mention I took an ocean voyage which was very disastrous to me and mine. The ship went down with all on board, including ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... through the door, when, as fatality ordained, there occurred to him an unfortunate and disastrous thought. He could not resist the desire to see Mlle. Moriaz once more, to impress forever on his memory her adored image. He turned, and their eyes met. He paid dearly for this weakness of the will. Apparently the violent restraint that he had exercised over himself ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... over General Hawley at the battle of Falkirk, and of the jealousies and machinations of Secretary Murray and the Irish Prince's advisers, particularly O'Sullivan and Sir Thomas Sheridan, against Lord George Murray and the chiefs, I can here make no mention, but come at once to the disastrous battle of Culloden which put a period to our hopes. A number of unfortunate circumstances had conspired to weaken us. According to the Highland custom, many of the troops, seeing no need of their immediate presence, had retired temporarily to their homes. Several ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... purpose, involving the plans of his whole life, implying, as he saw clearly, a brilliant future or a disastrous disappointment, with a great unexploded mine of consequences under his feet, and the spark ready to fall into it, he walked about the gilded saloon with a smile upon his lips so perfectly natural and pleasant, that one would have said he was as vacant of any aim, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... necessitated selling it at a loss and purchasing a mule the next day. On this animal Mary set out dressed in black silk, accompanied by Claire in a like dress, and by Shelley who walked beside. This primitive way of travelling was not without its drawbacks, especially after the disastrous wars. Their fare was of the coarsest, and their accommodation frequently of the most squalid; but they were young and enthusiastic, and could enter with delight into the fact that Napoleon had slept in their room at one inn. And the picturesque though frequently ruined French towns, ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... of Massan's suit. The force was enough to rock him slightly off-balance before the servos readjusted. Massan withdrew his arm from the sleeve and felt the inside of the shoulder seam. Dented, but not penetrated. A leak would have been disastrous, possibly fatal. Then he remembered: Of course—I cannot be killed except by direct action of my antagonist. That is one of the ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... disastrous to the horse's skin. Allow neither singeing nor washing above the hoof, and even this only for appearance. For there is no more reason for washing the horse's foot when he is kept in a stable, than there is when he is kept in a paddock. ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... of his hand and a corresponding effort of his will, he could complete his mastery over Phoebe's yet free and virgin spirit: he could establish an influence over this good, pure, and simple child, as dangerous, and perhaps as disastrous, as that which the carpenter of his legend had acquired and exercised over the ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... words and times. As regards times, if he did not cause the times of the city's opportunities to be lost, he is not guilty; but if he did so, he has committed crime. And as to his words, if the words of his report were true or expedient, let him escape; but if they were at once false, venal, and disastrous, let him be convicted. {184} No greater wrong can a man do you, than is done by lying speeches. For where government is based upon speeches, how can it be carried on in security, if the speeches are not true? and if, in particular, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... there was no time for other method of progression, but because he must be fit, fit, fit. No more 'Old Mooney' for him; he kept an eye for ever on that gentleman, and became doggedly the most practical of men. And practical in the cheeriest of ways. In 1894 a disastrous change came over the fortunes of the family, the father's money being lost and then Scott was practical indeed. A letter he wrote I at this time to his mother, tenderly taking everything and everybody ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... many States and distinct communities, of such diversified habits, interests, and domestic institutions, must be sacredly and religiously observed. Any attempt to disturb or destroy these compromises, being terms of the compact of union, can lead to none other than the most ruinous and disastrous consequences. ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... the sword of the enemy, till at length the victors of Damietta were compelled to sue for a peace which they could no longer obtain. A retreat was ordered; but those who attempted to escape by the river were taken prisoners, and the fate of such as proceeded by land was equally disastrous. While they were occupied in constructing a bridge over a canal, the Saracens entered the camp and murdered the sick. The valiant king, though oppressed with the general calamity of disease, sustained boldly the shock of the enemy, throwing himself into ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... the curiosity of those around him. Even Ole Thorwald and Montague agreed that it was best to let him alone, for although they might overcome his great physical force by the united strength of numbers, the result would certainly be disastrous, as he was the only one who ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... involve them in embarrassments, and then, under the guise of friendship and pretence of assisting them, further his own unprincipled views. The impetuosity of the young nobleman, and certain circumstances that he could not foresee, brought the affair to a crisis both unexpected and disastrous. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... With disastrous result! For as the line came taut, up Jane went!—caught bodily from the ground. And still spinning, whizzed forward in that high wind and ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... few disastrous fires start under conditions which prevent their control. Usually they spring from some of the many small, apparently innocent fires which burn unnoticed until wind and hot weather fan them into action. It is far ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... reserve and self-control, John Graham was quite unlike the average Lowlander by the spirit of feudal prejudice and romantic sentiment, of uncalculating devotion and loyalty to dead ideals, which burned within his heart, and were to drive him headlong on his troubled and disastrous career. A kinsman of the great Montrose and born of a line which traced its origin to Scottish kings, the child of a line of fighting cavaliers, he loathed Presbyterians, their faith and their habits together, counting them fanatics by ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... Much has been heard of government ownership in recent years; yet it is nothing particularly new, for many of the early railroads in these new Western States were built as government enterprises, with results which were frequently disastrous. This mania, with the land speculation accompanying it, was largely responsible for the panic of 1837 and led to that repudiation of debts in certain States which for so many years gave American investments an ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... of other bodies has prevented the original great founders from being invested with the power that is really needed in training and disciplining inferior and more inexperienced assistants, and produces a want of compactness and authority which has disastrous effects in movements of emergency. Moreover, the lack of forms causes a deficiency of framework for religion to attach itself to, and this is almost fatal to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... with the question of further and more disastrous reductions, for our obligations must be met. The $100,000 borrowed for mission work must be paid. We do not believe that the churches wish this to be done by closing more schools and church doors against ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... at the time when the authority of religion was overthrown in this region. This event, due to the enlightened zeal of the clergy of Issoudun will, we trust, have imitators, and put a stop to marriages, so-called, which have never been solemnized, and were only contracted during the disastrous epoch of revolutionary rule. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... lusts thereof." The church has not confined itself to a single form of influence. It has invested the command to purity with the sanction of a divine behest; has used threats and penalties; has employed asceticism, often with most disastrous results; has appealed variously to the spiritual imagination with legend and story. The fresh blood of the Northern peoples has come in to reenforce the spent and struggling morality of the South. A romantic conception of love has blended nature's two great forces—sense and ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... rushes" alternately with long periods of steady doubling, while the camels, who lose their heads as soon as they are asked to increase their dignified rate of 2-1/2 miles an hour, were floundering along at its side. Their loads, hastily packed and wildly hurled from side to side in their disastrous progress, again and again came sliding to the ground, to be painfully reloaded in the dark by furious escorts and despairing drivers. Sometimes the maddened beasts broke away and galloped off, shedding their precious ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Jopp, read a disastrous garnering, and resolved to base his strategy against Farfrae upon that reading. But before acting he wished—what so many have wished—that he could know for certain what was at present only strong probability. He was superstitious—as such head-strong natures often are—and he nourished in ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... a loan of more than two millions to meet the redemption of treasury notes, which fall due before the 4th of March. The state of the country is such that a larger amount thrown on the market would have a most disastrous influence on the public credit. I do not think I can borrow two millions at more than 90 per cent. With a guaranty such as the states have offered, I can get eight millions at par. The alternative is to authorize me to accept the guaranty, or leave the treasury with ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... may not be difficult to suppose a reason for her giving an incorrect account of the state of her tribe. Shaw-na-dith-it knew from bitter experience, that all former attempts made by Europeans to open a communication with the Red Indians, had to the latter issued only in the most disastrous and fatal results. She knew too the antipathy her own people had to the whites,—so great was this, that she feared to return to them, believing that the mere fact of her having resided among the whites for a time would make her an object of hatred to the Red man.—Knowing all this, is it a ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... throne became the cause of the most dreadful civil wars and disorders. His son, Maharaja Dhulip-Sing, proved quite unfit for the high post he inherited from his father, and, under him, the Sikhs became an ill-disciplined restless mob. Their attempt to conquer the whole of Hindostan proved disastrous. Persecuted by his own soldiers, Dhulip-Sing sought the help of Englishmen, and was sent away to Scotland. And some time after this, the Sikhs took their place amongst the ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... Cape Leveque (volume 2 page 91) the brig was for a whole night surrounded by these enormous fish, and the crew in momentary dread of their falling on board, the consequence of which would have been very disastrous. The noise of their fall in the water, on a calm night, was as loud as ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... the motive assigned by the writer, that of the secret indisposition of the cabinet of James the First towards the fortunes of Gustavus, is to me by no means certain, unquestionably the knowledge of this disastrous event was long kept back by "a timid ministry," and the fluctuating reports probably ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested Klondyke for Siward's benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring rather to "carry" Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into bankruptcy under the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the fertile vales which spread, intersected by many lucid streams, between the Roanoke and the Neuse rivers. Here they fixed their abode, and became the ancestors of the powerful Tuscarora nation. In the early part of the eighteenth century, just before its disastrous war with the colonies, this nation, according to the Carolina surveyor, Lawson, numbered fifteen towns, and could set in the field a force ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... that's all, is it?' said Nelson, 'then I wish you and loblolly would put the fire out without making such a confusion'—and he went on writing with the greatest coolness, although the accident might have been attended by the most disastrous consequences, as an immense quantity of powder was on board, and some of it close to the scene of the disaster. The third day after the above incident Nelson was no more, and the poor 'loblolly boy' left the service minus two fingers. 'Old Jack' used ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... carried with it the entire banking system of the Southern and Southwestern States. Although in no way similar to the semi-governmental institutions which preceded it, yet, from its similarity of name and identity of location, its disastrous failure added to the blind popular distrust of its predecessors, which narrow-minded politicians had fostered for their own selfish purposes. Fortunately the sub-treasury plan of Mr. Woodbury supplied the need of a safe place of deposit which, since the refusal of Congress ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... matter, and if we lose——. It will be a trying day for everyone, and we shall only have a few hours' sleep to-night, but I think no one grudges the discomfort. I write on the eve of what may be a very brilliant, a very disastrous, or a very simple affair. We are a small force, the march so far has been brilliant, and success will be a brilliant crown for the expedition and its leader. Everyone is more than a little anxious, but it is hard ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... sight made me wince, for they must have gone down like a cataract, all heaped together. But they were tough, and I trust no heads were broken. The effect on the eight fellows on the sleds came near being disastrous. I expected to see them leap off and run, which no doubt they would have done if Edmund had not taken, for other reasons, the precaution to tie them fast. But they strained at their bonds, and ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... disastrous consequences has been the result of the preponderance of male power. In a higher degree of civilization this preponderance has produced marriage by purchase and polygamy. The barbarous form of the latter is ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... see him, then and there, slyly try to take poor little Louie's hand, utterly forgetful of the disastrous result of a former attempt on what he believed to be that same hand? Didn't I see Louie civilly draw it away, and move her chair farther off from his? Didn't I see him flush up and begin to utter apologies? Didn't ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... thing, but the man seems to have some odd kind of gift. Whether it be that "second sight" which we Scotch people are so prone to believe in, or some other occult form of knowledge, I know not, but nothing of a disastrous tendency ever occurs in this place but the men with whom he lives are able to quote after the event some saying of his which certainly appears to have foretold it. He gets uneasy or excited—wakes up, in fact—when death is in ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... to complain of, for he got as good as he gave, and it occurred to him that he could not expect to start a disastrous conflagration in any maiden bosom so long as he had no brimstone, nor any substitute for it, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to become religious partisanship. If you would really understand Christianity you must look neither down to the deluded masses, and those ambitious worldlings who only use it as a means to an end by inflaming their baser passions, nor up to the throne, where power translates the impulse of a disastrous moment into sinister deeds. If you want to know what true and pure Christianity is, look into our homes, look at the family life of our fellow believers. I know them well, for my humble functions lead me into daily and hourly intercourse with them. Look to them if you purpose ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... past or more, to Scotland's court A traveller came, and to Geneura he Related tidings of disastrous sort; That Ariodantes perished in the sea: Drowned of his own free will was the report, No wind to blame for the calamity! Since from a rock, which over ocean hung, Into the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... for a disastrous change. Case after case came up, bottle after bottle was burst, and bled mere water. Deeper yet, and they came upon a layer where there was scarcely so much as the intention to deceive; where the cases were no longer branded, the bottles no longer wired or papered, where ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did the aftermath, as was shown by the advertisements in the auction columns of the daily papers and the motley mob of hungry, perspiring dealers, pawing over the household gods; and, more disastrous still, because of its rarity, Felix's brave fight to save his father's name, the whole struggle ending in ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a fickleness of temperament that was disastrous to his self-respect. It deflated him to the proportions of an Adair. It toppled his lofty standards in the dust. It changed him from a loyalist, making a fanatical last stand, into ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... rim; then they, too, hurried away to see if Blake had survived that terrible ascent. For the last two hundred feet he had looked like a dead man. There was no cheering. Deep Canyon had been conquered; but it was yet to be seen whether the victory had not been won at a disastrous cost. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... was need, for the horse went headlong down a long narrow hill, and if anything else had been on the road, we must have come into disastrous collision. We were, however, carried safely down, and reached the church ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... banishment of the second Charles; had fought by his side in his hour of peril, and shared the revelries of his court in his after days of prosperity. At an age when the judgement is rarely matured, unless by an untimely encounter with the dangers and adversities of the world, such as those disastrous times too often afforded, he had been employed with signal success in several foreign missions; and it was universally known that the monarch was ever prompt publicly to acknowledge the benefit he had on many occasions derived from the prudent counsels of his adherent, ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... discomfort. In the course of the next three years two daughters were born to the couple; Anna in 1797, and Mary on March 12, 1799. At the time of Mary's birth her parents were passing through a period of pecuniary distress, owing to a disastrous speculation; but with the opening of the new century a piece of great good fortune befell Samuel Botham. He was one of the two surveyors chosen to enclose and divide the Chase of Needwood in the county of Stafford. In the early years of the nineteenth century there ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... is being rapidly effected. The agricultural status of the island was never so hopeful. The commercial activity is greatly increased. The educational awakening is universal and healthy. Notwithstanding the disastrous cyclone of 1898, and the confusion incident to a radical governmental reorganization, the wealth per capita has increased, the home life is improved, and the illiteracy of the people is ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... all material substances the best adapted to the monetary purpose, but even at that best it falls far short of an imaginable ideal. It undergoes spasmodic and irregular cheapening through new discoveries of gold, and at any time it may undergo very extensive and sudden and disastrous depreciation through the discovery of some way of transmuting less valuable elements. The liability to such depreciations introduces an undesirable speculative element into the relations of debtor and creditor. When, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... king, when Thile had left the room, "tell me your opinion—the best way by which we may counteract this senseless and rash step, and succeed in preserving our country from the disastrous consequences." ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... rights and wrongs of this mode of classification, there can be no doubt about one most practical and disastrous effect of it. These lighter or wilder forms of art, having no standard set up for them, no gust of generous artistic pride to lift them up, do actually tend to become as bad as they are supposed to be. Neglected children ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... Italy in 1838, and published in 1840. No one of his poems is more difficult to read, and many are the stories told of the dismay occasioned by its various perplexities. The effect of this poem on Browning's fame was disastrous. In fact, after Sordello there began a period, twenty years long, of almost complete indifference in England to Browning's work. The enthusiasm over the promise of his early poems died quite away. Late in life Mr. Browning commented on this period of his literary career as a time of "prolonged ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... had to put through hotel linen,—the sheets, pillow-slips, spreads, table-cloths, and napkins. This finished, they buckled down to "fancy starch." It was slow work, fastidious and delicate, and Martin did not learn it so readily. Besides, he could not take chances. Mistakes were disastrous. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... long been regarded in Europe as a work of more than ordinary merit, while to military men his review of the tactics and manoeuvres of the French Emperor during the few days which preceded his final and most disastrous defeat, is considered as instructive, as it is interesting."—Arthur's ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... had kept Mrs. Hartley up, but after a time a reaction set in which culminated in a wasting fever, and prostrated the poor creature on a bed of sickness. This, though apparently disastrous, ended happily for all. Beatrice's mother, so long as she was the object of pity, shrank from all communication with her rich relatives, but now that her child was in need of assistance, she flew ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... himself a consummate commander, and, in conversation with his jester, was fond of comparing himself to Hannibal. "We are getting well Hannibalized to-day, my lord," said the bitter fool, as they rode off together from the disastrous defeat of Gransen. Well "Hannibalized" he was, too, at Gransen, at Murten, and at Nancy. He followed in the track of his prototype only to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... action is therefore essentially anti-social, sears the sympathies, cultivates a hard egoism, and produces general deterioration of character and conduct." The young should specially guard against this vice, which has been a rock upon which many a promising life has made disastrous shipwreck. ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... for himself a sad future? As for me, I am more and more satisfied, every day, that all events, even to the most minute, are in the direction or permission of Providence; and that out of the very occurrences we deem afflictive and disastrous, will often arise our greatest good. For the moment I was disappointed; but now I feel ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... made other observations and predictions which had proved accurate? Or was he one of those men who are always making blunders for other people to correct? Is he known to have changed his opinion as to the approaching disastrous event? ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... unit of society in a republic is the individual, and not the race, the failure to recognize this fact being the fundamental error which has beclouded the whole discussion. The effect of disfranchisement upon the individual is scarcely less disastrous. I do not speak of the moral effect of injustice upon those who suffer from it; I refer rather to the practical consequences which may be appreciated by any mind. No country is free in which the way upward is not open for ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... criticisms and the proposed amendments taken one by one gained wide acceptance among economists. But when it came to embodying them in a general theory of economics, many economists have balked.[33] Most of the American texts in economics and much of our teaching show disastrous effects of this confusion and irresolution. The newer concepts, guardedly admitted to have some validity, appear again and again in the troubled discussions of recent textbook writers, which usually end with a rejection, "on the whole," ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... place was oppressive to the bright, high-spirited young man. The bare severity of the building was bad enough in church, he felt, but in Sunday school it was disastrous. It should be a bright place, full of light and life. He made up his mind he would set Miss Cotton and the Ladies' Aid to redouble their efforts towards improving the place. When the service ended with a long, slowly-droned psalm and the children filed quietly out, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... himself and motioned his comrades to do the same. This unorthodox seventh-inning stretch was prohibited because it left the pilot's arm-rest controls without an operator, hence could prove disastrous if, through some malfunction, the ship ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... who robbed most and tyrannized most was the most powerful. If his children continued those tyrannies, they conserved that grandeur. If on the contrary, they were men of little ability, who allowed themselves to be subjugated, or were reduced either by misfortunes and disastrous happenings, or by sicknesses and losses, they lost their grandeur with their possessions, as is customary throughout the world; and the fact that they had honored parents or relatives was of no avail to them, or is of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... gravity of world interest of 1914 has shifted and come to rest at a spot most significant for darker peoples. Victory to all participants in its glorious achievement must be less disastrous than defeat. In order to satisfy the liberal opinion of the world, some form of autonomy must be devised for the newly organized man in America. Durable peace requires that American prejudice be utterly and forever stamped out; first by ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... were soon through with their supper, being notoriously rapid feeders,—which disastrous habit they acquire while on freight, when they are expected to eat dinner and do an hour's switching in ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... would satisfy neither. The Tories hated him for protecting the Dissenters. The Whigs hated him for protecting the Tories. The amnesty seemed to be more remote than when, ten months before, he first recommended it from the throne. The last campaign in Ireland had been disastrous. It might well be that the next campaign would be more disastrous still. The malpractices, which had done more than the exhalations of the marshes of Dundalk to destroy the efficiency of the English troops, were likely to be as monstrous ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not only born there, as a rule, but also breathes his last in the old four-poster, the most extraordinary, wonderful old bedstead you ever laid eyes on. Of course I do not believe in any malevolent influences from the unseen world, but the record of disastrous coincidences in that one room is, to say the least of it, curious. Not that this sort of thing will deter me from going into possession, and I intend to put a lot of ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... will go on always without meeting sooner or later with the ideas that occult study implants. So that the occultist does not threaten those who turn aside from his teachings with any consequences that must necessarily be disastrous. ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... there were brief addresses by Dr. David Dearson on the disastrous results to motherhood should women participate in the active life of the nation; by the Reverend Jayson Yerkes on the Pauline doctrine of the subserviency of the truly feminine woman; by Mrs. Workman Werther on the decadence ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... disastrous to the country; nothing so destructive to it prosperity as civil war; nothing could take place that tended so completely to demoralize and degrade as such a conflict, in which the hand of neighbour ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Hogshead Geoffrey brought it down on the table with disastrous results: the ancient worm-eaten board was split from end ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... and to this he was not equal. For Dick was sorely torn. On the one hand he had never ceased to hang on Quisante's words and to count on Quisante's deeds; on the other, he had never acquitted himself of responsibility for a marriage which he believed to have been most disastrous. Worst of all then for him was what threatened now, an end of the illuminating words and the stirring deeds, but no end to the marriage yet in sight. To him too death seemed the best thing, unless that wonderful unlikely resurrection of activity and power could come. And ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... will stay for dinner," said Auntie Sue, while her dear heart was faint with fear lest they accept, and thus bring about who could say what disastrous consequences through ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... volcanic cowboy he had hitherto been. His old slouching gait, in spite of his evident weakness, was quite gone; his shaggy head was held erect, and he gazed upon his enemy with eyes which the other could not face. For the time, at least, the indelible stamp of his disastrous life was disguised by the fire of his eyes and the set of his features. And this moral strength he conveyed in every action in a manner which no violence, no extent of vocabulary could have done. This man before him had robbed him of the woman he ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... of her stay, thought her resolution but a caprice. And viewed by the light of her subsequent success it is hard now to realize the boldness of an undertaking whose consequences, had it failed, must have been humiliating and disastrous. She had no practical knowledge of the world, had received no artistic training, and enjoyed none of the advantages of intellectual society. But she had extraordinary courage, spirit, and energy, springing no doubt from a latent sense of extraordinary powers, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... come, and very shortly, when Andy's and Sam's observation of the tools was to prove disastrous for our hero. As Tom turned the corner he looked back, and saw, still standing in front of ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... rapidly as the forces grow in numbers, and no national treasure chest is inexhaustible. Tax as they may, the war lords cannot squeeze out of their people more blood than flows in their veins, and exhaustion of the war-chest may prove even more disastrous than exhaustion of the regiments. For these reasons a limit to the size of armies is inevitable and in any great war this limitation must quickly ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... letter was received of which the contents evidently caused Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication: to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud seemed ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in the parish of Tynron, Dumfriesshire, to which he afterwards added the lease of another large farm in the same neighbourhood. Misfortune still pursued him; he rented one of the farms at a sum exceeding its value, and his capital was much too limited for stocking the other, while a disastrous murrain decimated his flock. Within the space of three years he was again a penniless adventurer. Removing from the farm-homestead of Corfardin, he accepted the generous invitation of his hospitable neighbour, Mr James Macturk ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... last night leaves me no doubts on that head. Since the guilty person thinks it necessary to ask me to keep quiet, it is evident he fears my intervention; if he is afraid of that it is because it must be hurtful to him; if disastrous to him, a criminal, it is evident that it must be useful to honest folk. My duty, then, is to go straight ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... intelligence with feelings of rapture, and with bursting hearts they offered up thanks to their divine Creator, for his signal preservation of them throughout this disastrous day. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... obstinacy as strong as his courage, caused young Charles of Sweden to miss the golden opportunity, and instead of seeking to rule his own country wisely, sent him abroad a homeless wanderer on a career of conquest, as romantic as it was, first, glorious, and at the last disastrous. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... hold of her hand to keep her quiet. There had been whisperings, and uneasiness was already spreading. But what course could be adopted? It was impossible to carry off the corpse amidst such a mob, during the prayers, without incurring the risk of creating a disastrous effect. The best plan would be to leave it there, pending a favourable moment. The poor fellow scandalised no one, he did not seem any more dead now than he had seemed ten minutes previously, and everybody would think that his flaming eyes were still alive, ardently ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... was succeeded by a secret shuddering. Some disastrous influence appeared to overhang the scene. How many memorials should I meet with serving to recall the images of those ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... theatres. He had letters of introduction to some eminent literary characters, who, however, either could not or would not do anything for him; and he found no better situation than that of surgeon's mate in an eighty-gun ship. He continued in the navy for six or seven years, and was present at the disastrous siege of Carthagena, in 1741, which he has described in a Compendium of Voyages he compiled in 1756, and with still more vigour in "Roderick Random." His long acquaintance with the sea furnished ample materials ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... this remarkable prolonged interval in egg-laying now removed, the period will doubtless be reduced through gradual evolution to accommodate itself to the newly adopted conditions. The week's interval, taken in connection with the makeshift nest or platform of sticks, is now a disastrous element in the life of the bird. Such of the cuckoos, therefore, as build the more perfect nests, or lay at shortest intervals, will have a distinct advantage over their less provident fellows, and the law of heredity will thus insure the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... whites—treaty officials, missionaries, and consuls—were determined to foist Tanumafili on the unwilling natives of the group, and backed by three men-of-war, they declared Mataafa a rebel and plunged the country into a disastrous and sanguinary war. England and America, in the person of their respective naval commanders, vied with one another in their self-appointed task; and while the Germans stood aloof, protesting and aghast, our ships ravaged the Samoan coast, burning, bombarding, and destroying with indiscriminate ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... and, from years of only dubious recognition, rather querulous. He had a solemn eye under a fringe of whitened eyebrow, a long nose, that his wife often fondly alluded to as "aristocratic" (they were keen on "blood," the Delancy Pottses), and a very retreating chin that one saw sometimes in disastrous silhouette against the light. Draped in the flowing fullness of hair and beard, his face showed ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... penetrate and explore the country of the long peninsula, which runs up northward between the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Pacific Ocean, and ends at Cape York, the northernmost point of Australia in Torres Straits. From this disastrous expedition he never returned. He was starved, ill, fatigued, hunted by remorseless aborigines for days, and finally speared to death by the natives of Cape York, when almost within sight of his goal, where a vessel was waiting ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... the schoolmaster, and the parents, should all alike fully understand that such external processes comprise but a small part of all that constitutes pubescence. A straining of terminology may at times be permissible; but on no account must we allow currency to so disastrous an error as the belief that the sexual life of the child either begins or is completed with the appearance of these external signs. The sexual life of the child begins long before, and the puberal development is not completed till many years after, the appearance of these external ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... thirty horsemen fully armed posted some hundred yards from our tent. To proceed with the demoralised crowd under me, and be followed by this company, would certainly prove disastrous and I felt again that some ruse ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... was a most glorious one for the material and mental progress of England, but most disastrous for Philip of Spain, Louis and Henry of France, Mary of Scotland, O'Neil, O'Brien, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... conducting General Bonaparte, now become the Emperor Napoleon, up to the popular summit of his glory. He had already tainted it by many acts of violence, and by an exclusive devotion to personal ends, in defiance of justice and liberty. Henceforward and under the disastrous inspirations of a mad ambition, victory itself was to become a fatal seduction which by inevitable degrees draws us on to ruin. Great and terrible lesson of Divine justice on the morality of nations! Starting from the violation of the peace of Amiens, and in spite of ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... subsequently burnt six others which were built on the same side of the river, then crossing over, they fired on the canoes which were speeding towards the deep water of Bangweolo, through the channel of the Lopupussi, with disastrous ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... success; and, after four years, the zeal of the native churches began to flag, and some of the native pastors proposed to stop the work in Koordistan, and devote themselves more fully to the "home field." Knowing that the influence of such a course would be disastrous, Mr. Wheeler threw himself into the breach, and was off for a three weeks' tour in Koordistan. Redwan, the seat of the mission, was eighty miles east of Diarbekir. He was accompanied by Hagop Effendi, Civil Head of the Protestants, and two native preachers; and was rejoiced to find at Redwan ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... sin is a terribly complicated one, because it seems to be made up partly of an inner sense of transgression, a sense of failure, a consciousness that we have acted unworthily, meanly, miserably. Yet the sense of sin follows many acts that are not in themselves necessarily disastrous either to oneself or the community. Then there is a further sense of sin, perhaps developed by long inheritance of instinct, which seems to attend acts not in themselves sinful, but which menace the security of society. For instance, there is nothing sinful in a man's desiring to save ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... meaningless, in which opinion I heartily concur. More than one young woman dowered with generous blood, vitality, and courage has confided in me that whether she should marry or not she wished to be a mother at all costs. It is one of the disastrous results of men's shrinking from matrimony that fine women like these must deliberately stifle this glorious passion of motherhood, or pay a terrible price for expressing it—a price exacted not only from themselves but from the child to whom they have given life. ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... and accomplishments of refined society. The young man was not aware of his parentage, de Gersay having extracted a solemn promise from Mademoiselle de l'Enclos that she would never divulge the secret of the youth's birth without his father's express consent, a promise which resulted in the most disastrous consequences. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... three foremost, whereat the other fled. In all, he took over thirty scalps of warriors, thus killing more Indians than were slain by either one of the two large armies of Braddock and St. Clair during their disastrous campaigns. Wetzel's frame, like his heart, was of steel. But his temper was too sullen and unruly for him ever to submit to command or to bear rule over others. His feats were performed when he was either alone or with two or three associates. An army of such men ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... broken the neck of this far-reaching and disastrous rebellion, and had restored to the Emperor of China the principal cities and towns in peace, the London Times wrote of him:—"Never did a soldier of fortune deport himself with a nicer sense of military honour, with more gallantry against the resisting, with more mercy ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... interpreter of history had contradicted the accepted record, that the continued failure of Hayti to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to the fatal want of confidence subsisting between the fairer and darker sections of the inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrous origin in the action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedom for themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of their darker-hued kinsmen. Finally, it had been explained to us that ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... soil. But if used for this purpose it should be backed up with a liberal supply of bones and castor cake, or of bones and farmyard manure, or bones and top soil, as, if not so backed up, the result would be unsatisfactory, if not disastrous, seeing that the nitrate of soda, if applied alone, would cause the plant to wring out everything that was available in the soil. The application of nitrate of soda on the estate alluded to was at the rate of 2 cwt. an acre, and cost 21 rupees an acre, inclusive of the cost of ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... disastrous war with Bulgaria into which the headstrong King rushed in spite of Natalie's warning—"Draw back, Milan, and have no share in what will prove a bloody drama. You have no chance of conquering, for ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... of electricity and magnetism did not escape attention, and the derangement of the compass needle by the lightning flash, formerly so disastrous at sea, pointed to an intimate connection between them, which was ultimately disclosed by Professor Oersted, of Copenhagen, in the year 1820. Oersted was on the outlook for the required clue, and a happy ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... the scourge. But his thoughts had always been turned towards Greece; at last the call came, and he threw himself with all his hopes and all his fortunes into a struggle which more than any other that history can show engaged at the time the interest of Europe. His first efforts resulted in a disastrous defeat against overwhelming odds, for which, as is natural, he has been severely criticised; his critics have shown less quickness in perceiving the qualities which he displayed after it—his unshaken, silent fortitude, the power with which he kept together and saved the wrecks of his shattered ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... far as the Adriatic, though he remained a tributary of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars broke the treaty of peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched against them under their Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the disastrous battle of Varna, on the Black Sea, where the king lost his life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died and was succeeded by the Sultan Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured Constantinople (Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital); in 1456 his armies were besieging Belgrade, but were ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... disastrous day succeeded, for the Kimry-Gauls, a night not less terrible; the cold was excessive, and snow fell in abundance; besides, fragments of rock falling incessantly in their camp, which was situated too near the mountain, crushed the soldiers not by one or two at a time, but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... repeats; this practice is sustainable while population levels are low and time is permitted for regrowth of natural vegetation; conversely, where these conditions do not exist, the practice can have disastrous consequences for the environment . soil degradation - damage to the land's productive capacity because of poor agricultural practices such as the excessive use of pesticides or fertilizers, soil compaction from heavy equipment, or erosion of topsoil, eventually resulting in reduced ability ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency |
