"Unprepared" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most faithful regard to justice. They have been dictated by a love of peace, of economy, and an earnest desire to save the lives of our fellow-citizens from that destruction and our country from that devastation which are inseparable from war when it finds us unprepared for it. It is believed, and experience has shown, that such a preparation is the best expedient that can be resorted to prevent war. I add with much pleasure that considerable progress has already been made ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... rigorous examination of revolvers, mess tins, and similar accessories at once commenced. Companies, instead of standing like so many rows of dummies, were given each some task to perform. Suddenly in the midst of everything a loud cry of 'Gas' is emitted by the General. Not unprepared for such a 'stunt' as this, the entire party scrambles as fast as possible into gas-helmets. I think we earned high marks for our gas-discipline. This inspection made a strong impression on the men, who afterwards remembered the occasion ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... confusion, that it was her surprise and admiration: but kindly would have it that I took too much care upon me. "Yet," said she, "I don't see but you are always fresh and lively, and never seem tired or fatigued; and are always dressed and easy, so that no company find you unprepared, or unfit to receive them, come when they will, whether it be ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... meant to lean, give way like rushes beneath the weight of the last moments. In vain we seek a refuge among reflections that rave or are strange to us and do not know the roads to our heart. No one awaits us on the last shore where all is unprepared, where ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... mood that the screen door banged loudly behind the heels of Tudor, who strode into the room and paused before him. Sheldon was unprepared, though it was very apparent ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... their shoulders, and, with a great shout, plunged twenty abreast up to their cravats in water. The stream ran deep and strong; but in a few minutes the head of the column reached dry land. Talmash was the fifth man that set foot on the Connaught shore. The Irish, taken unprepared, fired one confused volley and fled, leaving their commander, Maxwell, a prisoner. The conquerors clambered up the bank over the remains of walls shattered by a cannonade of ten days. Mackay heard his men cursing and swearing as they stumbled among ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to her. That this unexpected double meeting with the daughter of the man he had wronged, and the man who had espoused the quarrel, should be confounding to him appeared only natural. But he was unprepared to understand the feverish alacrity with which he accepted Dona Maria's invitation to chocolate, or the equally animated way in which Clementina threw herself into her hostess's Spanish levity. He knew it was an awkward situation, that must be surmounted without a scene; he was quite prepared ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... not, a parley would have given the band time to act upon instructions already understood. But Cassim ben Halim, an old soldier, and Maieddine, whose soul was in this venture, were not the men to meet an emergency unprepared. They had calculated on a check, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hurriedly, expecting every moment that a wicket would fall and find him unprepared. But the batsmen were still together when he rose, ready for the fray, and went downstairs ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... vanquish at his own art, and, possessed suddenly of the high duty of citizenship, carried him to the edge of a hill and dropped him over, thinking thereby to give him a quick death, while the vultures would provide him a tomb. But Pierre was not killed, though to his grave—unprepared as yet—he would bear an arm which should never be lifted higher than his shoulder. When he waked from the crashing gloom which succeeded the fall, he was in the presence of a being whose appearance was awesome and massive—an ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... emotionally unprepared. First off, Cleary and Fred had been building me up all through the three months, and I had actually gotten to the point where I thought I knew what I was doing. These space-jockeys spent most of ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... Turkey, but we hesitate to insist upon the overwhelming necessity of British official and military officers to organise the civil administration and an army of defence; thus, when the sudden emergency shall arise, Turkey will be totally unprepared; the various races that comprise her Asiatic dominions will already have been poisoned by intrigue, and the only defence that can be offered to a Russian advance will be afforded by Turkish neglect, which has left the country devoid ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... assault, and the last wall was suddenly stormed before the morning broke. The soldiers forced their way through the breach or sprang over the breastwork, and surprised at last—in its sleep—the city which had so long and vigorously defended itself. The burghers, startled from their slumber, bewildered, unprepared, found themselves engaged in unequal conflict with alert and savage foes. The battle, as usual when Netherland towns were surprised by Philip's soldiers, soon changed to a massacre. The townspeople rushed hither and thither, but there was neither escape, nor means of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... embarrassing; and I was puzzled to know how 'His Excellency' would get out of it. With no appearance of discomposure, he stooped down, took the flowers, and, looking from them into the sparkling eyes and radiant face of the lady, said, with a gallantry I was unprepared for 'Really, madam, if you give them to me, and they are mine, I think I can not possibly make so good use of them as to present them ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... before the first slab (12), the visitor will see the figure of an Athenian dragging an Amazon to the ground by her hair, while another Amazon is protecting a fallen sister in the corner. This scene will shock the gallantry of the unprepared visitor, who should, nevertheless, compose himself to explain to his partner the kind of women with whom the Athenians had to deal. The second slab (13), represents a wounded Amazon sinking to the earth, and an Athenian and an Amazon in full combat, but upon the third (14), the ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... of eternity. All this was not prepared long beforehand, for it seems that the dagger had only been shown to Burke on his way to the House as one that had been sent to Birmingham to be a pattern for a large order. Whether prepared or unprepared, the scene was one from which ...
— Burke • John Morley
... grave-digger was laid up in his bed, from long working in a damp soil and sitting down to take his dinner on cold tombstones, and I was consequently under obligation to go alone, for it was too late to hope to get any other companion. However, I wasn't unprepared for it; as the old gentleman had often made it a request that the bell should be tolled as soon as possible after the breath was out of his body, and he had been expected to go for some days. I put as good a face upon it as I could, and muffling myself up (for it was mortal ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... workmen are withdrawn from labor, and scores of thousands of its sons are mercilessly doomed to death; and the destruction of these unfortunate men is already begun. More than this: the war is being managed by those who have hatched it so badly, so negligently, all is so unexpected, so unprepared, that, as one paper admits, Russia's chief chance of success lies in the fact that it possesses inexhaustible human material. It is upon this that those rely who send to death scores of thousands of ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... dissipated, that no merchant would employ him, and the entire support of the family fell upon his wife. That was, in the very nature of things, an exceedingly meagre support. Mrs. Lee had never looked forward to such a condition in life, and therefore was entirely unprepared for it. Ordinary sewing was all that she could do, and at this she could make but a small pittance. The little that her husband earned was all expended in the accursed poison that had already ruined himself and beggared ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... this private character, Mr. SHORTER is not unprepared to record his opinions as they occur to him or to continue to nourish his mind on the latest productions of the human intellect. His travelling entourage comprises a brace of highly-trained typists, a librarian, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... expedition, as we never had less than seven or eight thousand Indians employed[2]. As Guatimotzin, the reigning monarch of Mexico, frequently sent out large bodies of troops in canoes on the lake, apparently with the hope of attacking us unprepared, Cortes used every military precaution to guard against any sudden attack, by assigning proper posts to our several captains, with orders to be always on the alert. The people in Huexotla, a town and district only a few miles from Tezcuco, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... no less than my trusty attendant Petrarca. The style is not, strictly speaking, imposing. Perhaps this arose from suggestions of economy, or possibly from the mind of the architect being at that moment unprepared with any other. Simplicity in design and execution characterize it throughout. It consists of a long single building of one low story, containing two rows of about twenty windows on each side. There is a door in the middle, and at each end a small wing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... sir, that I am not wholly unprepared," Reade remarked dryly, while the corners of his ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... festivities incident to the return of the members of the raid, he cut the head from the murderer of his child while the celebration was in progress. His action was so sudden that they were totally unprepared, and no attempt was made to prevent ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... was in the bottom of the vehicle. He swung this into the unconscious girl's face as he thrust her upon the seat. He had expected to see one of the servants of the mansion—a seamstress, or one of the maids, perhaps—but he was totally unprepared for the vision of girlish loveliness ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... of the summer of 1850, a Russian nobleman, Count Kostia Petrovitch Leminof, had the misfortune to lose his wife suddenly, and in the flower of her beauty. She was his junior by twelve years. This cruel loss, for which he was totally unprepared, threw him into a state of profound melancholy; and some months later, seeking to mitigate his grief by the distractions of travel, he left his domains near Moscow, never intending to return. Accompanied ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... for which Mr. Letts was totally unprepared, and the satisfied smile of Mr. Widden as he took the vacant place by no means improved matters. In a state of considerable dismay Mr. Letts dropped farther and farther behind until, looking up, he saw Miss Foster, attended by her restive escort, quietly waiting for him. An odd look in her eyes as ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... have yielded him a revenue of 2000 sterling per annum. But this, of course, all went to wreck in one day, upon that mad decree of the French convention which proclaimed liberty, without distinction, without restrictions, and without gradations, to the unprepared and ferocious negroes. [2] Even his wife and daughter would have perished simultaneously with his property but for English protection, which delivered them from the black sabre, and transferred them to Jamaica. There, however, though safe, they were, as respected Colonel Charost, unavoidably ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... his hand, "leave all this to me until your degree is taken. You have a race to run and must not start unprepared. If you could have seen his joy when the ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... since the day that "Peoria Red" and I were caught out of doors and entirely unprepared to face one of the worst blizzards that ever swept down from the Arctic regions across the shelterless plains ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... Thompson delivered himself of any such high-sounding speech he was always rewarded by signs of a deep impression made upon his hearers. He had come to look for such results; but he was totally unprepared for the expression of aghast wonder that his words produced in the face ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... a long way off, and was alone in a strange place, with an amount of work and responsibility for which I knew I was thoroughly unprepared and unfit. However, I sauntered back to my lodgings, and began to ruminate as to ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... days, at last, Unheeded, silently, are past, Calmly I shall resign my breath, In life unknown, forgot in death: While he, o'ertaken unprepared, Finds death an evil to be fear'd, Who dies, to others too much known, A ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in now and again to talk of our migration, and yet in spite of all that, in spite of our song, in spite of my father's preparation I had no definite premonition of coming change, and when the day of departure actually dawned, I was as surprised, as unprepared as though it had all ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... host of prewar studies by the General Staff, the Army War College, and other military agencies, the Army was unprepared during World War II to deal with and make the most efficient use of the large numbers of Negroes furnished by Selective Service. Policies for training and employing black troops had developed in ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... uncommon affection. As he resided in a remote part of the country, and we were five gentlemen with as many servants, we carried some provision with us from the next market town, lest we should find him unprepared for our reception. The roads being bad, we did not arrive at the house till two o'clock in the afternoon; and were agreeably surprised to find a very good dinner ready in the kitchen, and the cloth laid with six covers. My friend himself appeared in his best apparel at the gate, and ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... and windows, saluted them every where with cries of 'Vive la Nation;' but not a single 'Vive le Roy' was heard. The King stopped at the Hotel de Ville. There Monsieur Bailly presented and put into his hat the popular cockade, and addressed him. The King being unprepared and unable to answer, Bailly went to him, gathered from him some scraps of sentences, and made out an answer, which he delivered to the audience as from the King. On their return, the popular cries were 'Vive le Roy et la Nation.' He was ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... uncovered mass of hair, the color of the midnight sunshine, tumbled over her shoulders, and flashing against her flushed cheeks and dazzlingly fair skin. Her deep blue eyes had an astonished and certainly indignant expression in them, while he, utterly unprepared for such a vision of loveliness at such a time and in such a place, was for a moment taken aback and at a loss for words. Recovering his habitual self-possession quickly, however, he raised his hat, and, pointing to the boat, which was more than half way out of ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... this unlooked-for addition of more than twenty guests would, no doubt, have been an unwelcome tax, but in those days preceding the sad termination of the war there were so many poor, half-starved stragglers from the different commands passing to and fro, that we were never unprepared to feed as many as called upon us. At this time, two cooks were kept continually at work in the kitchen preparing such plain food as we could command: such as boiled hams, biscuit, loaf bread, corn ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... by a man of genius who completely broke the fetters of ancient polyphony. This was Claudio Monteverde, then in his thirty-ninth year, and chapel master to the Duke of Mantua. He was the first composer to use unprepared chords of the seventh, dominant and diminished, and to emphasize passionate situations with dissonances. He invented the tremolo and the pizzicato, and originated the vocal duet. His keen dramatic sense enabled him to arouse interest through contrasts, conspicuously characteristic passages, and ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... deliberation, and blew his nose; then he continued: "Kitchens is my name, sir; Dr. Kitchens; your state of mind, Mr. Reding, is not unknown to me; you are at present under the influence of the old Adam, and indeed in a melancholy way. I was not unprepared for it; and I have put into my pocket a little tract which I shall press upon you with all the Christian solicitude which brother can show towards brother. Here it is; I have the greatest confidence in it; perhaps you have heard the name; ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... came from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... winter. The cold was severe, and the roads heavy with mire. But the Prussians pressed on. Resistance was impossible. The Austrian army was then neither numerous nor efficient. The small portion of that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Glogau was blockaded; Breslau opened its gates; Ohlau was evacuated. A few scattered garrisons still held out; but the whole open country was subjugated: no enemy ventured to encounter the King in the field; and, before the end of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so change its aims and desires as to virtually create a new character. It was Frederick Mostyn who in this instance underwent this great personal change; a change totally unexpected and for which he was absolutely unprepared. For the people gathered in Mrs. Denning's drawing-room were mostly known to him, and the exceptions did not appear to possess any remarkable traits, except Basil Stanhope, who stood thoughtfully at a window, his pale, lofty beauty wearing an air of expectation. Mostyn decided ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... my promise," he writes "and I may say for myself that I spoke with every needful precaution. The result a little startled me. Romayne was not merely unprepared to hear of the birth of his child—he was physically and morally incapable of sustaining the shock of the disclosure. For the moment, I thought he had been seized with a fit of catalepsy. He moved, however, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... these wild sows are, yet more fierce and dangerous are the boars, one of which I had once the misfortune to meet in a forest, unprepared for attack or defence. I retired behind an oak-tree just when the furious animal levelled a side-blow at me, with such force, that his tusks pierced through the tree, by which means he could neither repeat the blow nor retire. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... to go about to let M. de Boiscoran have your note? If he knew beforehand, it would be easy. But he is unprepared. And then he is just as suspicious as M. Galpin. He is always afraid lest they prepare him a trap; and he is on the lookout. If I make him a sign, I fear he will not understand me; and, if I make him a sign, will not M. Galpin see ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... at three separate points, and the landing on our shores was unopposed. The Britons, doubtless, had been lulled to security by the tidings of the mutinous temper in the camp of the invaders, and were quite unprepared for the very unexpected result of the mission of Narcissus. It seems likely, moreover, that the disembarkation was made much further to the west than they would have looked for. The voyage is spoken of ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... everything thing got lifted from the table, and before you could say "Jack Robinson" off whisked the cloth. I was so unprepared for it that I said "Oh!" and ducked my head, and that made the cloth catch on old Lady Farrington's cap—she had to sit on my side of the table, to be out of the draught—and, wasn't it dreadful, it almost pulled it off, and with it the grey curls fixed at the side, and the rest was all ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... make energetic war on those barbarians. Charge of the war was given to General Don Juan de Vega, son of Doctor Don Juan de Vega, auditor of Manila. He with a fine fleet of four hundred Spaniards and other Indians sailed to humble the pride of those barbarians. The latter were not unprepared for resistance; for, joining their forces, they entrenched themselves so that there was considerable doubt as to the undertaking. Both sides fought with great valor, and there were many killed and wounded. But at last our troops were victorious, as their zeal was to the service ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... of his English classes, he was offered the position of instructor of Latin, with an increase of his salary. The offer at first dismayed him. He was thoroughly ignorant of the Latin language, and utterly unprepared for the duties demanded of him. He was very anxious to have the place, however, for he needed the increase of salary offered him, and, after hesitating a little while, accepted it. He purchased a Latin ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... ill. There was organic disease, and there was what is vaguely called nervous breakdown; it was too clear that Mr. Newthorpe must count upon very moderate activity either of mind or body henceforth. He himself was not quite unprepared for this collapse; he accepted it with genial pessimism. Fate had said that his life was to result in nothing—nothing, that is, from the point of view of his early aspirations. Yet there was Annabel, and in her the memory ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... have failed to soften and bend my will. They found me unprepared. My former calamities produced in me a spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I thought they had sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me. If God's judgments now fail to take away from me the heart of stone, what more grievous ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... in the whole to an hundred and thirteen persons. Thus were we all, both at sea and on shore, reduced to the utmost despair by this catastrophe, those on shore conceiving they had no means left them ever to leave the island, and we on board utterly unprepared to struggle with the fury of the seas and winds we were now exposed to, and expecting each ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... of love and intrigue, with sudden starts of passion, and unprepared and improbable turns of resolution and temper. Towards the conclusion, one of the female characters puts an end to herself, for little apparent reason, except that it is the fifth act, and some blood must therefore be shed; Garrick's refusal, in all ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... shattered Densie's prayer, while Alice's was much like it, and Hugh, too, more than once bowed his head upon the burning hands he held, and asked that space might be given her for repentance, shuddering as he recalled the time when, like her, he lay at death's door, unprepared to enter in. Was he prepared now? Had he made a proper use of life and health restored? Alas! that the answer conscience forced upon him should have wrung out so sharp a groan. "But I will be," ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... kept himself always in perfect condition. Had he become spiritually flabby? Certainly this unexpected call on his energies would appear to have found him unprepared. It spoiled his whole day, knowing, when he got out of bed in the morning, that he must hunt about and find his food instead of sitting still and having it brought to him. It frightened him to think ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... classes furnished students with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the 21 Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared ...
— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker G. Eddy
... he was waiting for Cosgrave in the Carlton lounge. He had never been in the place before—or in any place like it—and it confused and astonished him. He was like a monk who had come unprepared into the crude noise and glitter of a society desperately pleasure-seeking. He could regard the men and women round him with contempt, but not with indifference, for they represented a force against which he had not yet ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... the chief object of my letter, I am afraid you will be sorry—though perhaps not altogether unprepared for what I have to say—'I have sold the 'Courier.' It may be the only daily paper, (as you wrote me the other day) that 'witnesses for righteousness,' but my mind is too harrassed by all this mysterious business ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... three more bodies. They were Austrians, in the condition of the first. I walked in a dream of horror. It was, I suppose, a bad day for me to have come with my other unhappiness weighing upon me, but I was, in some stupid way, altogether unprepared for what I had seen. I had, as I have told you, thought of death very often in my life but I had never thought of it like this. I did not now think of death very clearly but only of the uselessness of trying to bear up against anything when that was all one came to in the end. I felt ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... So utterly unprepared were the fellows for the onset, and so mauled were they in the very first rush, that a general alarm was raised. In the darkening they imagined themselves surrounded by a strong reinforcement of the Fairburn party, and at once there was a wild stampede from the premises. ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... and turning toward us, with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, lowered his huge shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac, with a snort, leaped aside in terror, nearly throwing me to the ground, as I was wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I raised my pistol in a passion to strike him on the head, but thinking better of it, fired the bullet after the bull, who had resumed his flight; then drew rein, and determined to rejoin my companions. It was high time. The breath ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... make out an ordinary passage of 'unseen' Latin or Greek. It is a test to which the purely linguistic teacher must obviously defer: while the master, who aims at imparting knowledge of the subject-matter must acknowledge, if his boys flounder helplessly in unprepared extracts, that they could have learnt about ancient life better ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... incomplete for Duty unprepared, Although he's game to dare the worst that ever Briton dared, To supplement our trooper's skill in saddle, pluck and dash, You must have more manoeuvres, JOHN, and—if needs be,—more cash! Then away away we'll go With a tally rally-ho! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... as the servants were gone the parson expressed his surprise at Mrs. Etheridge's announcement, being, as he said, utterly unprepared to give lectures at a minute's warning. To which the hostess replied with a slightly ironical tone in her voice, "But, Doctor, you told me this afternoon you could lecture upon and illustrate the first ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... surprising force. In bush fighting especially this is a decided advantage, since the closeness of the ground prevents the troops attacked knowing the number or disposition of their opponents, while the moral effect of a sudden rush of well-armed and disciplined men upon enemies practically unprepared for the onslaught cannot ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... which blazed across the entire Continent caught most people unawares and unprepared—but not so our headquarters. Our mobilization papers had already been made out and were despatched immediately on the outbreak of war. Each one of us was bidden to report forthwith to his Squadron Headquarters, and while we kicked our heels there, officers were scouring the ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... says Forrest, the British were expelled from their infant settlement of Balambangan by an insurrection of the Sulos, who, finding the garrison weak and sickly, unprepared and off their guard, murdered and plundered them, and set fire to their settlement:—this was in return for having released their sultan from prison, and reestablished him on the musnud of his ancestors. In 1800, Captain Pavin and a boat's crew were cruelly murdered in the palace of the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... command had caused any remissness in our duties. I, however, withheld the commissions which had been enclosed to me by the officers of the squadron, lest the measure should excite popular dissatisfaction, and thus cause a danger for which the Government was unprepared. ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Landing was the most misunderstood and most misrepresented of any battle occurring during the war. It was charged that Grant was drunk; that he was far away from the battleground when the attack was made, and was wholly unprepared to meet the terrible onslaught of the enemy in the earlier stages of the encounter. Gen. Beauregard is said to have stated on the morning of the battle that before sundown he would water his horses in the Tennessee river or in hell. That the rebels did not ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... these words quickly, feverishly, and passionately, seizing her hand in both of his. He had never called her before by her name; but now he called her by it over and over, with loving intonations. Mimi had hardly been prepared for this; but though unprepared, she was not offended. On the contrary, she looked up at him with a face that told him more than words could convey. He could not help reading its eloquent meaning. Her glance penetrated to his heart—her soul spoke to his. He caught her in his arms, and ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... Englishman's work stuck in my memory. He said that tears can wash out guilt, but not shame. I can give Corrie all I've got, I have always been fond of him and I am yet, but I can't give him my respect. It was a shameful thing to strike down an unprepared man from behind, because he was losing in a game. Some things can't be paid for, because they are not bought and sold. Of course he will have every chance possible. He isn't what I supposed; well, there is no use of complaining, we will make the best of what he is. I sent him away while we settled ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... is because they are old classics, and you accept them, whereas my story is quite new and original—and you were unprepared for it, and so you can't appreciate it. Anyway, it's my first-born story, and I'll defend ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent, was what Margaret was unprepared for. She knew, and had rather revelled in the idea, that she should have to give up many luxuries, which had only been troubles and trammels to her freedom in Harley Street. Her keen enjoyment of every sensuous pleasure, was balanced finely, if not overbalanced, by her ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... congestion. The city was unprepared for the unprecedented increase in population necessitated by the demands of its factories for men to produce munitions of war. The workingmen, however, were soon better provided for than in some other cities. The Rockford Malleable Iron Company ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... little I had learned in theory and I imagine that we got through the introductory attempts with less than the average difficulties. Our first efforts were not satisfactory to either of us. My wife was absolutely unprepared so far as any definite knowledge of the act was concerned. I sincerely hope that the prudish notions of the past generations will give way to more sensible views in the future, and that the girl becoming a wife will be just as chaste, but wiser in matters of such importance to her happiness. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... unsatisfactory, and she seemed to be settling into a confirmed state of ill health, and almost of hypochondriacism. So many shocks, following each other in such quick succession, on a person entirely unprepared by nature, experience or self-regulation, had entirely broken her down, and shattered her nerves and spirits in a manner which she seemed less and less like to recover. She was only able to rise late in the day, take a short drive, and after dining in her own room, come down ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Unprepared for it, we should never have thought of taking what we saw for an encampment of Mormons, or men of any kind. Under the white filmy veil that floated over the plain, some half-dozen little, spots of a more intensified white were barely visible. These the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... had been mooted between them before, and she was not unprepared to consider it. They had not proceeded far with the discussion when a knock came to the door, and in a minute Grammer ran up to say that a message had arrived from Hintock House requesting Dr. Fitzpiers to attend there at once. Mrs. Charmond had met with a slight accident through ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... and passed pleasantly through a country of that soft, that refined and cultivated loveliness, which, however much we have heard of it, finds the American eye—accustomed to so much wildness, so much rudeness, such a corrosive action of man upon nature—wholly unprepared. I feel all the time as if in a sweet dream, and dread to be presently awakened by some rude jar or glare; but none comes, and here in Westmoreland—but wait a moment, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... blank amazement escaped me, for I was utterly unprepared for the sight I witnessed. I could not believe my eyes; nor could you, my reader, had ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... co-operate with Austria in war? What reason, moreover, is there for supposing that Austria, who has recently declared that though prepared for war she will not make war for ten sail of the Line more or less in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will some few years hence, when unprepared for war, draw the sword on account of the addition of one ship of war to the Russian Fleet in ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Aunt Caroline know as soon as the act is irrevocable and shall inform you at the same time so that you may not be unprepared. You realize, I suppose, that you will be accused of being accessory? Didn't you tell me that a trip would ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... him, a very few being equal in the becoming qualities, which adorn, and fit off a complete gentleman; his very enemies, if he have now any left, will give him this character, at least if they knew him so thoroughly as I did.—His death seized him suddenly, but he could not be unprepared, since to my certain knowledge he never took a dose of opium, but he solemnly recommended himself ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Bayfield gates on the way to Axcester. The troopers entered the town while the Ting-tang was sounding, and before the roll could be called the prisoners were surrounded. Their release had come; and though many had sighed for it for years, it found them quite unprepared. ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with astonishing suddenness, caught farmers throughout the state unprepared and the breaking of levees in many places forced persons living along the rivers to desert their homes. In the crowded cities it added woe ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... talisman as well against danger from without, as against the demon within. It had never left his mind, and he now returned for his reward. He had returned to Charlemont just before the church service had begun, and, being unprepared to go thither, had found no difficulty in persuading his sweetheart to give the hour of morning ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... constable and also by assisting in a mercantile enterprise carried on by two acquaintances in the town. After a year this hand-to-mouth existence began to pall. Neither then nor in later life did Jackson have any real taste or aptitude for law. He was not of a legal turn of mind, and he was wholly unprepared to suffer the sacrifices and disappointments which a man of different disposition would have been willing to undergo in order to win for himself an established position in his profession. Chagrin in this restless young man was fast yielding to despair when ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... over the surface we could see brilliant points, some of dazzling brightness, outshining the daylight. There was also an astonishing variety in the colors of the broad expanses beneath us. Activity, vivacity and beauty, such as we were utterly unprepared to behold, expressed their ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... of the stealthily lurking danger. The dimness and repose are of a terror, that contrast and forcible colour would at least mitigate; the surprise would be lost, or rather be altogether of another kind; it would arm you for the danger, which becomes sublime by taking you unprepared. And there is his little landscape with the sun shedding his rays through the hole in the tree, where the sentiment of the obscure—the dim wood—is enhanced by the bright gleam—and there is in this little picture a whole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Irtish and Obi, opened trade with the rich khanate of Bokhara, south of the desert, and in various ways sought to consolidate the conquest he had made. But misfortune came to the conqueror. One day, being surprised by the Tartars when unprepared, he leaped into the Irtish in full armor and tried to swim its rapid current. The armor he wore had been sent him by the czar, and had served him well in war. It proved too heavy for his powers of swimming, bore him beneath the hungry ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... morning she had promised Delvile to set out for London, and he expected the morning after to claim her for his wife; yet Mr Monckton neither sent nor came, and she knew not if her letter was delivered, or if still he was unprepared for the disappointment by which he was awaited. A secret regret for the unhappiness she must occasion him, which silently yet powerfully reproached her, stole fast upon her mind, and poisoned its tranquility; for though her opinion was invariable in holding his proposal to be wrong, she ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... unprepared for any show of resistance; and is a little startled to find that Colombe defies him, and that one of her courtiers (not choosing to be outdone by Valence) has the courage to tell him so; but he treats the Duchess and her adviser with all the courtesy of a man whose ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... said, 'O king, men do not let fly their arrows at their enemies when the latter are unprepared. But there is a time for doing it (viz., after declaration of hostilities). Slaughter at such a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fast-fleeing thieves. The Mexicans and Indians had come so suddenly upon us, and had made such an effective dash, that we stood like children who had broken their toys on a stone at their feet. We were so unprepared for such a stampede that the thieves did not approach within rifle-shot range of the camp to accomplish their object; few of ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... and all of us having been refreshed with a little cold rice and honey, and water from the stream, we permitted the canoe to drift down with the current, for our men were too much fatigued with the labours of the day to work any longer. But here a fresh evil arose which we were unprepared to meet. An incredible number of hippopotami arose very near us, and came plashing, snorting, and plunging all round the canoe, and placed us in imminent danger. Thinking to frighten them off, we ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... Unprepared, as always if taken by surprise, the Germans when they realized the meaning of the disturbance rushed wildly about, one officer shooting frantically straight up ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... world; and even in countries where the aim is not so clearly set forth the current of opinion mostly sets against the faith, the current of the world invariably does so. For faith to hold on its course against all that tends to carry it away, it is needful that it should not be found unprepared. The minds of the young cannot expect to be carried along by a Catholic public opinion, there will be few to help them, and they must learn to stand by themselves, to answer for themselves, to be challenged and not afraid to speak ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... said, in a firm but temperate tone of voice, "there must be some limit to ambition here below. It is utterly useless to struggle against the impossible. Pray listen to reason. We are utterly unprepared for a sea voyage; it is simply madness to think of performing a journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a tempest to contend with. As we are totally incapable of steering our frail craft, we shall ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Notwithstanding this, however, the opportunity is such a splendid one that, were my hands free, I should be strongly disposed to take my whole fleet into Port Arthur roadstead, engage the Russian ships at close quarters, trusting to find them unprepared; do them as much damage as possible with our heavy guns; and trust to our destroyers to complete their destruction while the confusion of the surprise was at its height. But, gentlemen, I cannot do this. My ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... where their books awaited them. It was almost nine o'clock before they had actually settled themselves, and Elfreda's sudden, tempestuous entrance caused Anne to lay down her Horace with an air of patient resignation. "We might as well begin saying 'unprepared' now, and grow accustomed to the sound of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... as punctilious as Portia about the pound of flesh. His utterance was deliberate and spaced with not infrequent slight delays. Exactly at the end of the hour the lecture stopped. Suddenly, abruptly, but quietly, without peroration of any sort, always with "a gentle shock of mild surprise" to the unprepared listener. He had weighed out the full measure to his audience with ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and through and through, take them as nobly sparing her. Amerigo was at any rate having the sensation of a particular ugliness to avoid, a particular difficulty to count with, that practically found him as unprepared as if he had been, like his wife, an abjectly simple person. And she meanwhile, however abjectly simple, was further discerning, for herself, that, whatever he might have to take from her—she being, on her side, beautifully free—he would absolutely not be able, for any qualifying purpose, to ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... whirling motion acquired by the bullet by friction with the gun. Euler thinks it due chiefly to the irregularity of the shape of the ball. In our case the B. M. was regular enough. But on one side, being wholly unprepared for flight, she was heavily stored with pork and corn, while her other chambers had in some of them heavy drifts of snow, and some only a few men ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... ecclesiastical domains, as a free gift of the Emperor of the French, at their first conference, as they would then be as well convinced of Napoleon's good faith as he was himself. In answer, His Holiness was informed that the Emperor was unprepared to discuss political subjects, being totally occupied with the thoughts how to entertain worthily his high visitor, and to acknowledge becomingly the great honour done and the great happiness conferred on him by such a visit. As soon as ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... clung to their ground, defended the treaty as the best attainable, and held up as the alternative a war, for which the refusal of the Republicans to support the military establishment and build up a navy left the country unprepared. In justice to Jay, his significant words to Randolph, while doubtful of success in his negotiation, should be remembered: "Let us hope for the best and prepare for the worst." To the red flag which the Federalists held up, Mr. Gallatin replied, accepting the consequences of war if it ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... presume you must have been staying at the kraal of Mynheer Van Ormon. Yesterday morning we were looking for our horses about ten miles south of his place, when we saw two giraffes, the first I had ever seen in my life. We were badly mounted, and unprepared for hunting anything except our strayed horses, else ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Julien de Buxieres—ensconced in his unpretentious apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary's first letter. The announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were, had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical. He remembered, it is true, hearing his father once speak of a cousin who had remained a bachelor and who owned a fine piece of property in some corner of the Haute Marne; but, as all intercourse ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... heard about Sary, so he was unprepared to offer any advice, but he thought best to agree in everything with Jeb, concerning this particular one, and all "widders" ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... was King Ethelred nicknamed The Unready. The name stands not as meaning that he was unprepared, but that he was without counsel, or "redeless". His advisers were few and, for the most part, traitorous and unworthy; they swayed him and directed him just as it suited their own ends, and he had not the manly strength of will that would enable ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... she bid me. By this time, I was not wholly unprepared for the result she anticipated. My belief in Sebastian had sunk to zero, and was rapidly ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... with the other Candidates to the Guildhall, to commence the election. Sir John and his agent were about to move very deliberately towards the scene of action, when I addressed him as follows:—"I see that you are either unaware of the forms to be observed, or you are unprepared, Sir John. If, however, when it comes to the proper time, no one else proposes you, I will: though I am no freeman of Bristol, yet I will undertake to do this, as it will give your friends an opportunity of coming forward, and it will prevent ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... shut on you, there in my stateroom, it shut also on me. I was totally unprepared; I was averse to murder; and also I had given you my word ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... not come to the spot unprepared. Having anticipated some difficulty in getting hold of the storks, he had providentially provided a lure, which, in the event of their proving shy, might attract them within reach of his ringall. This lure was a large fish—which he had taken out of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... coming into the glittering new town utterly unprepared for the change that had taken place, had felt the environment strike him like a blow. He saw people like those on Broadway, walking paved sidewalks in front of plate glass under brilliant electric lights. He had ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... Modern Travelling Stated in a Proper Light, sums up a biting condemnation of "our rugged unsocial Telemachuses and their unpolished Mentors," describing how someone in orders, perhaps a family dependent, is chosen as the Governor of the crude unprepared mortal embarking for a tour of Europe. "The Oddities, when introduced to each other, start back with mutual Astonishment, but after some time from a frequency of seeing, grow into a Coarse Fondness one for the other, expressed by Horse Laughs, or ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... Mr. Ponsonby to the drawing-room, and he came not altogether unprepared for objections; he had half ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... I was unprepared for the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she would have fainted then and there. It's awful to hear a woman moan, and clench her teeth, and pant ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... around, frowning. "He caught me unprepared," he snarled. "He can't do that to me again. Not while ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... since the crash of Aunt Grizel's revelations, as fatuous as the day before yesterday; nor had she expected the boyish sulkiness of that day's earlier mood. She expected change and the signs of discomfort and distress. It was this haggard brightness for which she was unprepared. He looked as if he hadn't slept or eaten, and under jaded eyelids his eyes had ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... consequence is obvious, the wife has recourse to cunning to undermine the habitual affection, which she is afraid openly to oppose; and neither tears nor caresses are spared till the spy is worked out of her home, and thrown on the world, unprepared for its difficulties; or sent, as a great effort of generosity, or from some regard to propriety, with a small stipend, and an uncultivated mind into ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... without thinking of the young bride, whose agitated soul was incapable of extending a thought to such trifles. That Mrs Gamp-like umbrella raised to mental vision, as if by magic, the despair of the stout elderly female who, arriving unexpectedly and all unprepared at her journey's end, sought to collect her scattered thoughts and belongings and launch herself out on the platform, in the firm belief that a minute's delay would insure her being carried to unknown regions far beyond her destination, and it was impossible to look ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... eyes downcast, he suddenly, with no preliminary stir, hit the table with his fist a blow which caused the utterly unprepared Ricardo to leap aside. And only then did Schomberg look up with a dull, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... temporary lull in the gale, he distinctly heard the clock in the town hall tower strike three. This told him that the time fixed for the coming of the circus train had long since passed, and that they would undoubtedly be caught unprepared by the storm. ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... next few days—for which most of the hostages, city-bred and used to the bake-shop round the corner, were unprepared— promptly presented themselves. Lunch-time came, but there was no lunch. There was not even bread. Philip and Suydam had tinned things, and the former some cake, which by tea-time that afternoon—so appallingly soon does ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... all, he was unprepared for what happened. Fectnor leaned forward as if to deposit his coat on the sidewalk. Then he seemed to stumble, and in two swift leaps he had gained the inner side of the walk and had darted into the inset of the saloon. He was out of sight ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... Quite unprepared, at time approaching sunset, we reached and rounded a sharp curve, to see down and far away, and to be held mute in our tracks. Between a white-mantled mountain range on the left and the dark-striped lofty ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... trust himself longer in Lord Strathern's company; he wanted time to recover his self-command; so he again addressed Sir Rowland: "That I left Elvas so suddenly, and unprepared for a prolonged absence, matters little, Sir Rowland; but I have been so little with my ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... courage more with each mouthful that had torn me from a warm, dry home where I was appreciated, and had brought me first to the damp tree in the damp field, and when I had finished my lunch and dessert of cold pears, was going to drag me into the midst of a circle of unprepared and astonished cousins. Vast sheep loomed through the mist a few yards off. The sheep dog kept up a perpetual, irritating yap. In the fog I could hardly tell where I was, though I knew I must have played there a hundred times as a ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... eyes—and she was here to save, not to destroy! The crouching figure on whom she had inflicted a wound without having done the slightest good, was, after all, a big, imaginative child in a vast night, utterly unprepared by rearing and training, psychology or properly directed thought, to cope with this demon-carnival into which he had been projected. And why should not the shell's concussion have stunned him ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... been a woman of strong logical faculties, but she had in some things a very surprising and awful astuteness. She seldom introduced any purpose directly, but bore all about it and then suddenly sprung it upon her unprepared antagonist. At other times she obscurely hinted a reason, and left a conclusion to be inferred; as when she warded off reproach for some delinquency by saying in a general way that she had lived with ladies ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... a misfortune for religion. The storm of applause with which these words, simply expressing that in which all agree, were received, must have suggested to the speaker that his countrymen in general are unprepared to believe that one, who has no other aspiration in his life and his works than the advancement of the Catholic religion, can speak without a reverent awe of the temporal government, or can witness without dismay ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Constance and Marjorie that had so nearly wrecked their budding friendship, and of the many changes that time had wrought in the life of the girl who looked like her. She had, therefore, been quite unprepared to meet the dainty, well-dressed young woman whom Marjorie appeared to hold in such strong affection. She reflected that night, a trifle resentfully, after Marjorie had kissed her good-night and left her, that it was very strange in Marjorie not to ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... so he toyed with her and pulled her to him, whereupon her girdle fell down and her trousers were unloosed and he besought her of amorous dalliance. But she said to him, 'O Commander of the Faithful, wait till to-morrow night, for I am unprepared for thee, knowing not of thy coming.' So he left ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... parable of the Ten Virgins. Five were wise, not because they watched all night for the bridegroom, for it is written "they all slumbered and slept," but because they were prepared; and five were foolish, not because they did not watch, but because they were unprepared. "The fisherman's wife who spends her time on the pier-head watching for the boats, cannot be so well prepared to give her husband a comfortable reception as the woman who is busy about her household work, and only now and again turns a longing look seaward."[56] So Christ's command to "watch" ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... unprepared: Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, and Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost without striking a blow. Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray, Louis XIV. returned to Compiegne to fetch the queen. The whole court followed him to the camp. "All that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and stormy December morning, the half frozen, desperate band of ragamuffin soldiers started its march toward Trenton—toward its last forlorn hope. Washington prayed that he might catch the garrison of Hessians unsuspecting and unprepared; but he feared that he had taken so long to effect the crossing of the ice-filled river that he could ...
— Washington Crossing the Delaware • Henry Fisk Carlton
... conversion of a strong-felt metaphor into something to be actually realized in nature, like that of Jeremiah, "Oh! that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears," is strictly and strikingly natural; but come unprepared upon it, and it is a conceit: and so is ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... journey was resumed two horsemen appeared on the road coming from the direction of Williamsburg. I was quite unprepared to recognize a Confederate officer of high rank in either of the riders who now approached, as ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... this object, and opened it, and dipped his pen in the ink, and wrote "My dear Aunt;" but he did not get much further. He raised his head, thinking how to introduce his narrative, for which she would in all likelihood be wholly unprepared, and in so doing looked round upon his book-cases, on one shelf of which the reflection of a ray of afternoon sunshine caught in the old Louis Treize mirror over the mantelpiece was throwing a shaft of light. He got up to make ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... which was exercised in this matter, and what occurred to me in regard to it, I have written to your Majesty in the said letter. I told you how I was preparing, being in uncertainty, what appeared to me necessary, so that if anything should happen I should not be caught unprepared; accordingly, as the houses of the Parian were very near to the wall, I had several of them demolished so that this space might be free. I wrote to the alcaldes-mayor and magistrates of this district, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... often been within the jaws of death, for as all the world knows pirates are not dealt leniently with. I had been mixing with men of all nationalities, and had been engaged in all kinds of fray. Thus, I was never unprepared for a struggle. To be ready to meet danger ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... voice at once, and unexpected as the summons was, felt he was not altogether unprepared for it, though he could not have offered even the weakest explanation ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... visiting him, and wrote him a note, to say that she should call upon him about six o'clock in the evening. What did M. de la Garde? Why he gave a ball on that very evening; and, when madame Ramoski reached his hotel, she found it illuminated. As she had come quite unprepared she was compelled to return as she came, very discontentedly. But to leave madame de Blessac and M. D———n, and to talk of my own matters. We had at this period a very great alarm at the chateau, caused by the crime ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... He was unprepared for the meeting, but he had taken too many chances in his lifetime to show astonishment. He and Radisson had fought and parted; they had been in ugly business together, and they were likely to be, now that they had met, in ugly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shrieking, and came toward her. From her aspect the white girl thought that the woman meant literally to tear her to pieces. So utterly wanton and uncalled-for was the attack that it found the girl entirely unprepared, and what would have happened had not a warrior interfered may only be guessed. And then Usanga, noting the interruption, came ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in perpetuity by an act of Parliament; that the said total dissolution of the Provincial Councils was not introduced by any easy and gradual change, nor by any gradations whatever, but was sudden and unprepared, and instantly accomplished by a single act of power; and that the said Warren Hastings, in the place of the said Councils, has substituted a Committee of Revenue, consisting of four covenanted servants, on principles opposite to those which he had himself professed, and ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was confronting the Triple Entente. On both sides were fear and suspicion. Each believed in the possibility of the others springing a war upon them. Each suspected the others of wanting to lull them into a false security, and then take them unprepared. In that atmosphere, what hope was there of successful negotiations? The essential condition—mutual confidence—was lacking. What, accordingly, do we find? The Germans offer to reduce their naval programme, first, ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... manuring, laying the deep foundation for foot-paths, and securing that perfect growth of grass without which all park-like ornament is robbed of half its value, they would set their faces resolutely against all propositions on the part of public-spirited citizens to veneer their unprepared grounds ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... had not been unprepared for something like this, but the pain he might have felt at another time was made easier by a subtle anodyne. He hardly seemed to feel the smart as a week before he might have done. In some strange ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... nothing of this. With savage panting wordlessness she took fresh grip on the sharpened bone with her spare hand, and lunged with it desperately through the arrow-slit. With the hand that clutched mine she drew me towards her, so as to give the blows the surer chance, and so unprepared was I for such an attack, and with such fierce suddenness did she deliver it, that the first blow was near giving me my quietus. But I grappled with the poor frantic creature as gently as might be—the stone of the wall ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... for me to be in school, I was woefully unprepared to remain there. Really, I am unable to tell the many obstacles that confronted me while in school. But one of my many difficulties was to get sufficient clothing, for when I entered, I had on all that I possessed and day after day I wore what ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... a week since Nick had left her. During that week, crammed with people, questions, packing, explaining, evading, she had believed that in solitude lay her salvation. Now she understood that there was nothing she was so unprepared for, so unfitted for. When, in all her life, had she ever been alone? And how was she to bear it now, with all these ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... following them? "Does the fifth, or the tenth century belong to the earlier centuries?" it would be asked. In the same way I ask: Does the conception of extension belong to metaphysics? You answer, "Yes." Well, that of body too? "Yes." And that of a fluid body? You stop, you are unprepared to admit this; for if you do, everything will belong to metaphysics. From this it is evident that the mere degree of subordination—of the particular to the general—cannot determine the limits of a science; and that, in the present case, we must expect to find a ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... little of the manners and systems of heathen nations; they knew less of their literature; they knew nothing of their languages. Dictionaries, literature, buildings, converts, everything had to be produced. Their fields of labour were unprepared. Their message and their aims were ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... too great a traveller, too experienced a wanderer, to be put out of temper by this enforced rest. The men had worked very well hitherto. It had, in its way, been a great feat of generalship, this leading through a wild country of men unprepared for travel, scantily provisioned, disorganised by recent events. No accident had happened, no serious delay had been incurred, although the rate of progress had necessarily been very slow. Nearly six weeks ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented, with the remark, 'You know better what it ought to be than I do, Wegg,' and again shook ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... as the roads were passable Mrs. Nixey made her way up to the solitary farmstead. The last time she had seen old Marlowe he had been ailing, yet she was quite unprepared for the rapid change that had passed over him. He was cowering in the chimney-corner, his face yellow and shrivelled, and his eyes, once blue as Phebe's own, sunken in their sockets, and glowering dimly at her, with the strange ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... Altogether unprepared was I for the result. It is found that the learned Dane has here made one of those (venial, but) unfortunate blunders to which every one is liable who registers phenomena of this class in haste, and does not methodize his memoranda ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... stimulation of the thought-faculties caused by the transference and expression of the spirits' opinions, will not be lost to the medium. 'If you will take one step we can more easily help you to take a second than we could compel you to take the first if you were unprepared,' said a spirit teacher to Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, and there need be no loss of dignity or individuality, no injury to body or mind, but a gain of strength and spiritual vigor, education of mind and stimulation of moral purpose, ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... themselves for their masters, the human body and human life are contemptible and unworthy. I claim that it braces the mind to expose the body; that an education in the prepared emergencies of games and sport, is the best training for the unprepared emergencies with which life ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... such a condition of things would be a scourge for the human race, and would not be possible, except under conditions not existing in all countries. I simply mean that civilized governments ought always to be ready to carry on a war in a short time,—that they should never be found unprepared. And the wisdom of their institutions may do as much in this work of preparation as foresight in their administration and the perfection of ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Great War made revolutionary changes. That condition of unpreparedness was one. That there will never be another war is the belief of all governments. But if all governments should be mistaken, not again would my country, or yours, be caught unprepared. A general staff built of soldiers and free of civilians hampering is one advantage we have drawn from our ordeal ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... was that "the present position of the European world is one in which sheer force holds a larger place than it has held in modern times since the fall of Napoleon." In this condition of Europe, the phenomenon that most impressed him was that "England is of all Powers the most unprepared for war." That being the case, it seemed to him to be the first duty of a British Government to set in order the nation's defences. The next five years he devoted chiefly to an effort to master the subject, to which he gave the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... not unprepared for covert danger, by the formality of the counts, as by the warnings of Haco; but, indeed, undivining the solemnity of the appointed snare. On entering the lofty hall, he beheld William seated in state; his sword of office in his hand, his ducal robe on his imposing form, and with that ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
