"Untoward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... listened to your brother's recital of your wonderful self-denial, and persevering effort for his sake. I saw, young as you were, the germ of a high and noble nature, best developed, believe me, in the rough and untoward circumstances by which you were surrounded. I wrote to you at first, thinking, perhaps, to aid you in the struggle for knowledge and truth; and as your mind and heart were laid open before me, how could I help loving the guileless sincerity ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... must not be supposed that the outset of Iglesias' spiritual journey was wholly serene, free from obstacle or hesitation, from risk of untoward selection, or rejection, of the safe way. Many roads, and those bristling with contradictory signposts, presented themselves. Noisy touts, each crying up his own special mode and means of conveyance, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Her tailored gown, of dark green broadcloth, the severe linen shirtwaist, and her simple hat, were subjects of conversation that night in more than one humble home, fading into insignificance only before her radiant hair. The general opinion was that it must be a wig, or the untoward results of some experiment with hair-dye, probably the latter, for, as the postmaster's wife said, "nobody would buy a ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... what goodness is. He was high, sincere, exacting, even austere, in his estimates of either; and when he was satisfied he paid honour with sometimes unexpected frankness and warmth. But from some unfortunate element in his temperament, or from the effect upon it of untoward and unkindly circumstances at those critical epochs of mental life, when character is taking its bent for good and all, he was a man in whose judgment severity—and severity expressing itself in angry scorn—was very apt to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... out he's changed his lot for worse, Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse: For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast, That each man's shoe be made on his ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... From this untoward enterprise De Soto returned to the village of Guachoya, renouncing all idea of establishing his colony in Anilco. He immediately commenced with all energy building his two brigantines, while he looked anxiously ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... confirm her in her resolution, they assisted in dressing her the next morning, and set out along with her all their skill and dexterity were requisite to reduce her shape into some kind of symmetry; but, having at last pinned a small cushion under her petticoat on the right side, to counteract the untoward appearance the little infant occasioned by throwing itself on the left, they almost split their sides with laughter, assuring her at the same time that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... which so often arranges favourably the events apparently very unfavourable. For, at the best, foresight has but probabilities to work with; but chance, whose tools we know not, very often contradicts all our bad prophecies, and untangles untoward events far beyond our best prudence or wisdom. And Katharine was so happy. She was really Richard's wife; and on that solid vantage-ground she felt able to beat off trouble, and to defend her own and ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... none? Why, how now, I say? What, you puling, peevish thing, you untoward baggage, will you not be ruled by your father? Have I taken care to bring you up to this, and will you do as you list? Away, I say; hang, starve, beg; begone, pack, I say; out of my sight! Thou never gettest pennyworth of my goods for this. Think ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... requires great forbearance and discrimination on the part of parents and teachers, in their endeavors to develop the latent faculties of the minds of such children, (whether this dullness is natural, or the effect of untoward circumstances,) without injuring the sensibilities ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... to Hamish by the patience and gentleness with which he suffered, he could not do otherwise than seek to lead him to the Great Healer; and his touch was life. Then all the shadows that had darkened the past and the future to the lame boy fled away. Gradually all the untoward circumstances of his life seemed to adjust themselves anew. His lameness, his suffering, his helplessness were no longer parts of a mystery, darkening all the future to him, but parts of a plan through which something better than a name and a place in the ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... untoward thing often follows another, and while the rest stood musing, chained to the place, regaling themselves with the Cogniac effluvium, and all miserably chagrined, I led the horse to the stable, when a fresh perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty, but after many strenuous attempts, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... address to Congress in November, 1794. The Democratic clubs had been unsparing in their condemnation of the excise law, and their resolutions had more than once a treasonable sound. Washington did not hesitate to deprecate the untoward influence of these "self-created societies" and to condemn those "combinations of men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the unerring truth that those who rouse cannot always appease a civil convulsion, have disseminated, from an ignorance or perversion of facts, ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... homeward run nothing untoward occurred, except that, instead of proceeding to Liverpool, the cruisers and their convoy were suddenly ordered by wireless to make for ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... mention to Sir Richard his untoward encounter with Sir John Chandos, and to beg him to explain ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... next to one dear state of bliss, vouchsafed 120 Alas! to few in this untoward world, The bliss of walking daily in life's prime Through field or forest with the maid we love, While yet our hearts are young, while yet we breathe Nothing but happiness, in some lone nook, 125 Deep vale, or ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... with grace which Athena gave him, he marvelled at the untoward heart which the gods had given his wife and bade his nurse lay him his bed. Penelope caught up his words quickly; the bed was to be laid outside the chamber which he himself had made. The words ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... disappointments. I am armour-proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks, it is better that I should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the stoep bearing a tea-tray. Josephus sat erect. For full ten minutes his brown eyes gazed ardently towards the table. What had happened? What untoward event had occurred? Antony was oblivious of his very existence. Munching bread and butter, drinking hot tea himself, he appeared entirely to have forgotten that a thirsty and bewilderedly disappointed ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... in India: But they never were, and the Chinese are too wise a people to suffer any thing of the kind. Macao certainly is as fine a city, and even finer, than could be expected, considering its untoward situation: It is also regularly and strongly fortified, having upwards of 200 pieces of brass cannon upon its walls. Yet, with all these, it can only defend itself against strangers. The Chinese ever were, and ever will be, masters of Macao, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... in which these promises were recalled, never reached her hand. She left New York, as it now appeared, before its arrival. The interval had been spent on the road, where she had been detained by untoward and dangerous accidents. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... of the lovers of the German lyric drama to bear testimony to their admiration for the artist who had done so much for their pleasure. The house was crowded in every part. Every seat had been sold days before. Many of the tickets had been bought by speculators, who, in spite of the untoward weather, reaped a rich harvest. During the day the prices obtained varied from ten dollars to fifteen dollars for the orchestra stalls (regular price, four dollars), and at night seats in the topmost gallery fetched as much as three dollars, which was six times the regular tariff. There ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... came those foster-brothers home; things went not merrily betwixt Thorgeir and Grettir, but Thormod bore himself well. Goodman Thorgils said to the foster-brothers even as he had said to Grettir; and of such worth they held him, that neither cast an untoward word at the other although their minds went nowise the same way: and so wore ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... together with a stack of wheat, which he had just completed and secured against the weather. This unfortunate man was indebted about L33 which the contents of his wheat-stack would have paid off, but now, besides being very much beaten, he had the world to begin again, with a load of debt which this untoward accident would much increase. The man himself knew not to what cause to attribute it; and he was as ignorant who were his enemies; for two of them had blackened their faces, and to the third he was ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... be made to shake off the spirit of slumber and slothfulness, and be stirred up to the attending and fulfilling more diligently their calling, and not suffered any longer to sleep and snore in their office; the stragglers and wanderers may be reduced to the way; the untoward and stiff-necked, which scarce, or very hardly, suffer the yoke of discipline, as also unquiet persons, who devise new and hurtful things, may be reduced to order: finally, whatsoever doth hinder the more ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... until he found himself attacked by magical charms and imprecations; and even then the only steps he took was to renounce all friendship with him, according to ancient custom, and to exhort his servants to avenge his death, if any thing untoward should befall him. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... hands as if he had come to some disagreeable, and perhaps terrible conclusion. And so indeed he had. The uneasy suspicions which had been floating in his mind in a state of solution were suddenly crystallized by this untoward event. The absurdity of a man's having tramped twenty miles through an almost unbroken wilderness to preach the gospel to a garter snake, burst upon him with a crushing force. This grotesque denouement of an undertaking planned and executed ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the glass, I was no doubt, too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change, in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, tawdry finery that I could not ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... are destroying the victors by means of snares, although all the soldiers have long since fled from them." When Chosroes heard this, he sent a large number of the best troops against them, and these not long afterwards returned and announced that nothing untoward had come to pass. For already the Persians had forced back the citizens by their numbers and turned them to flight, and a great slaughter took place there. For the Persians did not spare persons of any age and were slaying all whom they met, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... which is south and a little west, but having no knowledge on the subject and no Bradshaw with us to prove our point, we accepted the ultimatum, although Miss Cassandra relieved her feelings by saying that she did not believe a word of it, and that tourist's agents were a stiff-necked and untoward generation, and that she for her part felt sure that we could cut across the country to Saincaize and Bourges. However, when we hear the questions that are asked these long-suffering agents at the tourist offices by people who do not seem to understand explanations ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... said, considered it so important that the First Consul was informed immediately about the situation that he had demanded a safe conduct for two aides-de-camp, so that if any thing untoward befell one of them, the other could carry his despatch. As it would be useful if an officer going on such a mission spoke Italian, Massna chose a Major Graziani, an Italian who was in the French service, but being a most suspicious ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... whenever the frailties of human nature are put to severest test. I think we possess a better reason than Democritus himself for our Abderian tendency; for laughter with us oftenest veils an effort to regain balance of temper, when disturbed by any untoward circumstance. It is a counterpoise ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... perpetually willing. It wears (let the violent personification be pardoned) a hanging lip, and a wrinkle in abeyance, and an eye in suspense. It is much at the service of the vagrant encounterer, and may be accosted by any chance daughters of the game. It stands in untoward places, or places that were once inappropriate, and is early at some indefinite appointment, some ubiquitous ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... inventive genius, for which he was afterward distinguished, was awakened within him, and the spirit of humanity received a fresh impulse. One of the first benefits which he derived from his apparently untoward circumstances was the necessity of resorting to the power of love in the child's heart as the only source of obedience. There was nothing either in the disposition of the parents or the children to aid him in his efforts; on the contrary, a spirit of contempt on the one side and of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... harmony, and our citizens moving in phalanx in the paths of regular liberty, order, and a sacrosanct adherence to the constitution. Thus I think it will be, if war with France can be avoided. But if that untoward event comes athwart us in our present point of deviation, no body, I believe, can foresee into what port ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... she continued, with a sigh, "and for a time every thing was happy, though the political affairs were so untoward, and cost much suffering and danger. The young wife only admired her husband's determined will, his audacity, his ambition after leadership and power. But in the midst of all this, as time went on, he began to grow jealous of the cousin ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... more, each gave to the beautiful berries. The guardian upon his pedestal was still asleep. Slorg climbed by a ladder, that Slith knew where to find, to the iron clamp across the crack in the World, and waited beside it with a chisel in his hand, listening closely for anything untoward, while his friends slipped into the house; and no sound came. And presently Slith and Sippy found the golden box: everything seemed happening as they had planned, it only remained to see if it was the right one and to escape with it from that dreadful place. ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... fellow, notwithstanding the pain, had the cool determined resolution to lie still. The lordly savage let the arm drop out of his mouth, and quietly placed himself in a couching position, with both his paws upon the thigh of his fallen foe. While things were in this untoward situation, the Captain unthinkingly, raised his hand to support his head, which had got placed ill at ease in the fall. No sooner, however, had he moved it, than the lion seized the lacerated arm a second time; crunched it as ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... shoulders. "Let us hope so, indeed," he said. "But I will not believe in any such untoward event. Too long a time has elapsed since the loss for me not to have heard something respecting the MS., had it been found by anyone who knew how to make use of it. Besides, I would defy the most ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... walked through the hall of the villa, already peopled with a score of the Pargeters' acquaintances, eager to show their sympathy with the wealthy sportsman in this most untoward and extraordinary occurrence, the American was obliged to shake hands with many men whom he had hitherto only known by sight, and to answer questions some of which impressed him as strangely indiscreet. More than one of those with whom he found himself ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... had set his heart upon getting up the piece, was at his wits' end, and had bent his footsteps towards the main guard, to advise with me as to what should be done in this untoward emergency. I endeavoured to console him as well as I could, and suggested, that if the worst came to the worst, the part might be read. But, lugubriously shaking his caput, Fred declared that would never do; so, after discussing half-a-dozen Trichinopoly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... inferred, however, that apples are to be grown only in regions and soils naturally well adapted. Such adaptations should be controlling in commercial plantations; but if man has dominion he should be able to accomplish much in untoward or even in hostile conditions. Even the city lot may be able to yield a harvest, if the occupant of it is minded in fruits rather than in other things. Every observant traveler has noted cases in which good results in the rearing of plants ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... large corps of surgeons and nurses, and went himself to Pittsburg Landing to find such suffering and such destitution as ought never to exist on the soil of our bounteous land, under any possible conjuncture of circumstances, however untoward and unprecedented. Without surgeons or surgical appliances, without hospital supplies, and, above all, worse than all, without SYSTEM, there lay the defenders of our national life, their wounds baking in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... returns to truth and justice necessary,—the Inquisition and the Witch-Trials. These restored, we may safely congratulate ourselves on having regained the ground on which our race stood before the Reformation, that untoward event, whence all the mischief dates that has befallen man in the shape of human rights, liberty, and other deplorable things, as lately a grave writer—not a Catholic, nor a Jew either—gravely assured us. Gentle readers, let us not be impatient. Progress has been of late so rapid, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... It is true that the Padre was with us nearly all the time; but not only was Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic; and I wondered if it might not prove that more than one soul benefited by the untoward events of ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... extent of his credit, his plans to meet the present situation and to prepare for possible emergencies. "We are not at the wall yet, by any means, Jack," he said, his voice ringing out with a resolute courage. "But I am bound to say that if any sudden or untoward combination of circumstances, a strike, for instance, should arise, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... by no means done!" cried Burgsdorf eagerly. "They have rather shown themselves to be obstinate and untoward. Goldacker has been extorting bonds in Fuerstenwald, plundering whole villages, and putting the magistrates in chains, because they would not say that Goldacker gave the press money to the young fellows of the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... see why a canal-boat shouldn't be healthy, however. The dampness would not amount to very much. It would be outside of one's dwelling, and not within it, as is the case with so many houses. A canal-boat having no cellar could not have a damp one, and if by some untoward circumstance it should spring a leak, the water could be pumped out at once and the leak plugged up. However this might be, I'll offer another wager to this board on that point, and that is that more people die in houses than ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... this: something or another troubles me, and I feel as if something untoward were going to happen. You have been talking of past miseries to the guest, and have been living in past unhappy times, and it is in the air all round us, and makes us feel as if we were longing for something that we ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... enrich the language. Even if the Lord Mayor and Speaker mean to insinuate that this influence is to be obtained and held by flattering their people, by managing them, by skilfully adapting themselves to the humors and passions of those whom they would govern, he must be a very untoward critic who would cavil even at this use of the word, though such cajoleries would perhaps be more prudently practised than professed. These are all meanings laudable, or at least tolerable. But when we ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... smiled and peacefully jogged on in the same life as if nothing untoward had happened. Still, the mask of jovial heedlessness glued by pride on his face would sometimes be suddenly detached. Then, in lieu of laughter, one saw grief and indignation. Thus it was that one morning, when the little blackguards yelped "Muster Jarvey's Roifle" beneath ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... just strength enough to bring himself home, and giving up the ghost at the rookery, will hang dangling "all abroad" on a bough like a thief on a gibbet; an awful warning to his friends, and an object of great commiseration to the squire. But, maugre all these untoward incidents, the rooks have, upon the whole, a happy holiday life of it. When their young are reared, and fairly launched upon their native element, the air, the cares of the old folks seem over, and they resume ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... gentleman was shocked, endeavoured to soften the lawyer's clerk; that machine did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of the term. The lady's name, however, was at last revealed by this untoward incident; from her name to her address was but a short step, and the same day our crestfallen hero lay in wait at her door, and many a succeeding day, without effect. But one fine afternoon she issued forth quite naturally, ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... report of my gentleness and valor. Commend me to the glorious and triumphant ladies and privily advise them to send me hence guerdons of gold or silver if haply they are tormented by base enchanters, cruel dragons, vile hippogriffins, or other untoward monsters, and I do swear to redress their wrongs when those guerdons do come unto me. For it doth delight me beyond all else to avenge foul insults heaped upon princesses and lorn maidens. If so be thou ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... length, And lesser objects gain unwonted strength; Each step misguiding; to the eye unknown, The shining gutter, from the glist'ning stone; While crossing shadows checker o'er the ground, The more perplexing for the brightness round. Deceitful are thy smiles, untoward Night! Thy gloom is better than misguiding light. Then welcome is yon cloud that onward fails, And all this glary shew in darkness veils. But see how soon the fleeting shade is past, And streamy brightness moots across the waste. Now fly the ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... gives him a good character," her husband said, smiling. "But if anything untoward happens, Annie, you shall have a house of your own half way between ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... perhaps, other means of exit—running wild being in her case impracticable—and finding life impossibly dreary without Ned, the least-good-for of her sons; and the household was thus reduced to old Michael Rafferty, and his aunt, and little Ody. These domestic changes, in conjunction with other untoward chances, sadly hindered farming operations, and nature made prompt use of the pause. Season by season the patch of tilled ground seemed to shrink at the wish of the greedy black land that girdled it about. The outlying ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... "It is a most untoward business!" said the doctor. "I am very sorry your schooldays should be clouded—but it can't be helped, and you will work yourself into a character again. You are full young, and can stay for the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... would demand sympathy there from her who had professed to sympathize with him so strongly in his political desires. With her, at any rate, the glory of his Membership would not be dimmed by any untoward knowledge of the realities. She had only seen the play acted from the boxes; and to her eyes the dresses would still be of silk velvet, and the swords of ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Aileen Armagh of old—the child on the vaudeville stage, dancing the coon dance with such vigor and abandonment that once, when Aileen was nearly sixteen, Octavius, being witness to this flaunting performance, took her severely to task for such untoward actions now that she was grown up. He told her frankly that if Romanzo Caukins was led astray in the future it would be through her carryings-on; at which Aileen looked so dumbfoundered that Octavius at once perceived his mistake, and retreated weakly ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... drops of blood were spared at that opportune moment, torrents were compelled to flow at a later period. The intellect which soars above a nation cannot escape a great misfortune; I mean the misfortune of finding no equals capable of judging it when it succumbs beneath the weight of untoward events. My equals are few; fools are in the majority: that statement explains it all. If my name is execrated in France, the fault lies with the commonplace minds who form the mass of all generations. In the great crises through which I passed, the duty of reigning was not the mere giving of audiences, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Federal law or of organized resistance to Territorial law, assuming the character of insurrection, which, if it should occur, it would be my duty promptly to overcome and suppress. I cherish the hope, however, that the occurrence of any such untoward event will be prevented by the sound sense of the people of the Territory, who by its organic law, possessing the right to determine their own domestic institutions, are entitled while deporting themselves peacefully to the free exercise of that right, and must be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... spouse, the far-famed "Poor Thing" of much polite apology for her socially aristocratic ailments; Vane Tempest's singular elopement with the beautiful wife of a green subaltern; Harry Chillingly's untoward end while potting tigers; Count Platen's enormous winnings at Baccarat; Fitzgerald Law's falling into a peerage; and Mrs. Claire Atterbury, the wealthy widow's purchase of a handsome boy-husband fresh from Sandhurst. All this with Jack ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... borrowed capital. These were the first to smash. In those days the expenses of bringing land into cultivation were more than double the present rate, and, the cultivation of coffee not being so well understood, the produce per acre was comparatively small. This combination of untoward circumstances was sufficient cause for the alarm which ensued, and estates were thrust into the market and knocked down for whatever could be realized. Mercantile houses were dragged down into the general ruin, and a dark cloud settled over ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... cried out, "To the Speech-Hill first, to the Speech-Hill first! But even before that, one word to thee, Hall-Sun! Saith Thiodolf, Send ye watchers to look to the entrance into Mid-mark, which is by the Bearing dwelling; and if aught untoward befalleth let one ride on the spur with the tidings to the Wain-burg. For by that way also may ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... the episode of the "Mysterious Man of Meteighan," a wild and untoward storm swept down the North Atlantic and over the seaboard far and near. In the Bay of Fundy that night the elements met in their grandest extremes. Tide-rips and mountain waves opposed each other with titanic force. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... it. His women were in this respect exquisite logicians; for there is nothing so logical as passion. They knew their own minds exactly; and only followed up a favourite idea, which they had sworn to with their tongues, and which was engraven on their hearts, into its untoward consequences. They were the prettiest little set of martyrs and confessors on record. Cibber, in speaking of the early English stage, accounts for the want of prominence and theatrical display in Shakespeare's female characters from the circumstance, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... at the time the untoward event occurred in front of his hotel, chanced to be at the residence of M. Duchatel, the ex-Minister of the Interior. As they were conversing, the brother of M. Duchatel entered, breathless and in the highest state of agitation, to communicate the ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... coil of wire not only has inductance, but also a certain small capacitance. Coils wound with their turns parallel and having a number of layers have a bunched capacitance which produces untoward effects in oscillation circuits. In honeycomb and other stagger wound coils the ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... less tragic nature. Her hand was on the arrow but she had made no movement to withdraw it, and her eyes, fixed upon space, showed depths of horror hardly to be explained even by the suddenness and startling character of the untoward fatality of which she had just been made ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... visit to Ireland in 1885 was an important incident in the public life of the Prince of Wales. It was seventeen years since he and the Princess had visited that much-troubled country and many untoward events had occurred since then. The proposal for another visit was not popular with a section of the Irish press and politicians, but when it was evident that the generous instincts of the Irish people were going to make the occasion ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest that the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward commencement of conversation in the appearance of no less a personage than the donkey himself—I mean the donkey who ate ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... before her, not reading, but bent on seeking ways and means for the safety and protection of nations,—as bent as Roger Seaton was on a force for their destruction. So the hours passed swiftly, and no interruption or untoward obstacle hindered the progress of the "White Eagle" as it careered through the halcyon blue of the calmest, loveliest sky that ever made perfect weather, till late afternoon when it began to glide almost insensibly downward towards earth. Then she roused herself from her long abstraction and ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... nothing. Mrs. Betts, a picture of injured virtue, held herself aloof beyond the sea of finery, gazing across it at her insensible young mistress with eyes of mournful indignation. Bessie felt herself the object of general misunderstanding and reproach, and was stirred up to extenuate her untoward behavior in a strain ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... in culinary duties before open fire-places, gossiped in lowered tones of standing grievances: It was like the exactness of the Great to require a five-course dinner, served with due attention to refinement and etiquette in untoward circumstances, such as an improvised cooking-range of clay and bricks, a hurried collection of twigs, some charcoal, and every convenience conspicuous by its absence! And what a village to rely upon!—no shops; only a weekly market ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... of this untoward event, and went on hoeing until sunset, when, with the other labourers, he shouldered his hoe ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... almost stopped beating at this, and the color forsook Sally's cheeks. Neither of them had foreseen anything of this kind, and they were rendered speechless by the untoward incident. Sally was saved the necessity of ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... after withdrawing the key the adventurer stood at alert attention; but the heavy silence of that sinister old rookery sang in his ears untroubled by any untoward sound.... ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... the neck of St. Leger, and to effect his escape from the English cavalry. Saint Leger was carried back to Cork where he expired; Maguire, on reaching the camp, had barely time left to make his last confession, when he breathed his last. This untoward event, the necessity of preventing possible dissensions in Fermanagh, and still more, the menacing movements of the new Deputy, lately sworn in at Dublin, obliged O'Neil to return home earlier than he intended. Soon after reaching Dungannon he had the gratification of receiving a most gracious letter ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... hopelessly drunk than his brother, who has not tasted a drop. And so the two begin to hoot and yell, and throw mud and bricks at the Good Templars; and, of course, they break up the procession. It would be manifestly wrong to punish Chang for what Eng does, and, therefore, the Good Templars accept the untoward situation, and suffer in silence and sorrow. They have officially and deliberately examined into the matter, and find Chang blameless. They have taken the two brothers and filled Chang full of warm water and sugar and Eng full of whisky, and in twenty-five ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... complained bitterly of the presence of the troops, and half of them were moved away. So long as the British force was strong the town was fairly quiet. When it was reduced the people began to abuse and irritate the soldiers, until the insults heaped upon them led, as we shall see, to an untoward encounter. Thus did the ministry strengthen the spirit of resistance and bring contempt upon Great Britain. For its refusal to make its concessions complete, the king is mainly responsible. A complete surrender would have humiliated him and his ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... Frederick William is the inheritance of Frederick the Great. It is not a theory to be set forth by worldly philosophy only, but by divine authority. Do you not remember how the Bible speaks of "a chosen generation," of "the generation of the righteous," of "the generation of vipers," of an "untoward generation," of "a stubborn generation," of "the iniquity of the past visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation?" So that the text comes to-day with the force of a projectile hurled from mightiest catapult: ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... brother," the voice said, "to blame God for untoward accidents, or for mistakes and ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... and night passed without any untoward event. In the evening Jean had an interview with her French chauffeur, and afterwards disappeared into her room. Lydia tapping at her door to bid her good night ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... a declaration to his mistress by circumstances so hateful, so untoward! He could have raged and railed against his fate like any madman. For he desired her greatly, and she was very lovely in his sight. If her night's rest had been broken and but a mockery, she showed few signs of it; the faint, wan complexion of fatigue seemed only ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... each campaign were followed with great interest on both sides of the line. But on the other side of the Atlantic the British home public had Napoleon to think of at their very doors; and so, for the most part, they regarded the war with the States as an untoward and regrettable annoyance, which diverted too much force and attention from ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... Malacca without any untoward excitement, and we steamed along pleasantly with a group of passengers who looked well-bred and agreeable; as time went on, our first impression of them was corroborated. A delightful feature aboard was music every evening in ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... in the Englishman a dangerous maniac, whom the slightest untoward accident might turn upon him with rending fangs. Not for a moment did Werper attempt to delude himself into the belief that he could defend himself successfully against an attack by the ape-man. His one hope lay in eluding him, and making for the far distant camp of Achmet Zek as rapidly as he could; ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... common-sense counselled him to lay it down. So he resigned; and the fat was once more in the fire—and the blaze and the stench were greater than ever; for his resignation synchronized with another untoward event. ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... the town by a hill, crosses a canal, and then mounts and winds, and mounts again, and dips and mounts, between fields of stubble, with circular straw-stacks as their only occupants. The first intimation of anything untoward, besides the want of life, was the spire of the little white village of —— on the distant hill, which surely had been damaged. As one drew nearer it was clear that not only had the spire been damaged, but that the houses had been damaged ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... a weak antagonist. It was not likely that this feeling was strong enough to lead to action, but at least during that summer of 1898 it was somewhat unpleasant for American tourists in Paris, and an untoward episode might easily have brought unfriendly sentiment to a dangerous head. Austria had never been very friendly to the United States, particularly since the execution of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, which his brother Francis ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... the riot, I stood at the usual place awaiting my friends, and saw before they reached me that they had something untoward to tell. The farmer, his wife, and three children, holding each other's hands, stretched across the road. Birse was a little behind, but a conversation was being kept up by shouting. All were walking the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Decazes, the formation of a new Cabinet. Decazes found it difficult to select competent men for the various portfolios. His Cabinet, when finally brought together, lacked internal unity and outward support. Its career was early imperilled by the untoward election of Bishop Gregoire of Grenoble, one of the regicides, to the Chamber of Deputies. This popular manifestation, though sufficiently explained by the sterling public qualities of the bishop himself, created the utmost apprehension ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... familiarly referred to as Mrs. Prexy—annually invited the seniors to dinner in parties of ten. Patty, whose turn had come a short time before, owing to an untoward misfortune, had been in the infirmary at the time; but, though she had missed the fun, she now found it ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... Indeed, this untoward incident of the minister's misplaced zeal seemed to throw a certain gloom over the small party to which Lionel soon found himself attached, as it moved away from the house. The tall, brown-bearded head keeper ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... However untoward the surroundings of Gounod, his genius did not lie altogether dormant during this period of friction and fretfulness, conditions so repressive to the best imaginative work. He composed several masses and other church ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... Unsociableness nesocietamo—emo. Unspotted (stainless) senmakula. Unstable sxangxema. Untamed sovagxa. Untidy (dress) negligxa. Untie malligi. Until gxis. Untimely antauxtempa, trofrua. Untiring senlacigxa. Untoward kontrauxa. Unto (prep.) al. Untrammeled libera. Untrue malvera. Unused neuzita. Unusual neordinara, malofta. Unvarnished (plain) simpla, neafektema. Unveil malkovri. Unwary malsingardema. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... foaming at the mouth. Another moment and they would have been exchanging blows. Having completely exhausted their stock of direct insults, they now resorted to the most flowery and ornate insulting of each other's ancestors, male and female, paternal or maternal. Yet nothing untoward occurred. ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... exclaimed Mr. Channing, making prisoner of his hand. "I said this untoward loss of the suit might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. And so it will; it is bringing forth the sterling love of my children. You are ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sprang from the throats that, a moment earlier, had bellowed vociferous cheers. The great Michael Costa, who was conducting, dropped his baton in astonishment, and, refusing to pick it up again, left his desk. There is a theory that it was this untoward incident that led him to transfer himself from the Haymarket to Covent Garden. Quite possible. Musicians ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... In their embraces were expos'd to all The scene of gods, stark naked in their fall. Nor serves a verbal penance, but with haste From her fair brow—O happy flow'rs so plac'd!— She tears a rosy garland, and with this Whips the untoward boy; they gently kiss His snowy skin, but she with angry haste Doubles her strength, until bedew'd at last With a thin bloody sweat, their innate red, —As if griev'd with the act—grew pale and dead. This ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... formidable fortress, and which, when garrisoned by troops of such temper and mettle, it appeared impossible to reduce. It must also be considered that Phipps had been delayed by contrary winds and pilots ignorant of the river navigation, which combination of untoward circumstances conspired to compel him to relinquish his design, which under more favouring conditions he might have carried out with success, and conquered the place before it could have been known in Montreal that it was even ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... rumors touching the insolvency of the firm of M'Loughlin and Harman, and, it is to be feared, that this untoward exposure will injure them even in a worldly point of view. In the True Blue there are two paragraphs of the following stamp—paragraphs that certainly deserve to get the ears of those who either wrote or published them ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... improper'y called convulsions[409]. He could sit motionless, when he was told so to do, as well as any other man; my opinion is that it proceeded from a habit which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions, and those actions always appeared to me as if they were meant to reprobate some part of his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged in conversation, such thoughts were sure to rush into his mind; and, for this reason, any company, any employment whatever, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and his head backward, in an intense communing with Toby, did not see his visitor, until Mrs Varden, more watchful than the rest, had desired Sim Tappertit to open the glass door and give him admission—from which untoward circumstance the good lady argued (for she could deduce a precious moral from the most trifling event) that to take a draught of small ale in the morning was to observe a pernicious, irreligious, and Pagan custom, the relish whereof should be ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... recognized that her anxiety was unreasoning, based on her own emotions, or at least not logically derived from her knowledge of his character. Of course he had taken the discovery of her secret far worse than she had ever conceived as possible, when timorously thinking of untoward hazards that one day or another might lead to disclosure. But, even then, fully allowing for the effect of his extreme excitement, would he, so brave and self-reliant a creature, be guilty of an act that is in its ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... of a human life can never do justice to nature; for the reason that, for every man and woman, there come long periods of quiet labor or inaction when for months, perhaps years, scarce one untoward incident comes to break the slow routine of existence. The doings of one day repeat those of the day before, anticipate those of the morrow. What shall the chronicler do? Send his reader yawning to bed over the unfinishable tale? Or pass ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... joys and gains? What pleasures crowd its ways, That man should take such pains To seek them all his days? Sift this untoward strife On which thy mind is bent, See if this chaff of life Is worth the ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... Yet despite these untoward circumstances all hope of peace between the French and the Five Nations had not been destroyed. The Iroquois loved their revenge and were willing to wait for it, but caution warned them that it would not be advantageous to destroy the French for the benefit of the English. ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... recurrence of such an untoward accident as this, and, as he expressed it, "to bring his daughter's mind into intimate relations with nature," the fanatical philosopher established the town of Lindsleyville, determined that no family in which there was a young man should ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... days passed with no untoward event to mar their slumbering tranquillity. Life for the newcomers to the Village of Peace brought a content, the like of which they had never dreamed of. Mr. Wells at once began active work among the Indians, preaching to them through an interpreter; Nell and Kate, in hours ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... 'Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can leave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards erasing from Mr Clennam's mind the—ha—untoward and unpleasant circumstance ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... convulsed and distorted, as if their last agonies had been terrible to endure! Stiff and dead! Mon Dieu, Monsieur! and I had pledged the name and credit of the house of John Meavy and Co. to an extent from which there could be no recovery, if aught untoward had happened! Eh, bien. Monsieur! Cesar Prevost is fortunate in a very elastic temperament. Yet I did not dare think of John Meavy. However, if the thing was done, it was too late for remedy now. Eh, bien! I would wait. Meantime, I carefully examined ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... expect such a declaration to change the temper of the Lower House. Speeches were heard still more violent than those previously made. The Scots, to whose influence every untoward occurrence was imputed, were threatened with a repetition of the Sicilian Vespers. There were other members however who counselled moderation; for it almost appeared as if the dissolution of this Parliament ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... send this humble explanation—protesting, however, which I do most solemnly, against being invited under such untoward circumstances; and claiming as your old friend and no less old admirer to be instantly invited to the next performance, if such ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... feeble attempt at a good-natured criticism or a generous sentiment, would that be the fitting occasion to throw off the mask, and parade myself to a mocking world as the imbecile violator of an established system? Should I not, in a moment so untoward, more than ever desire to merge my insignificant unit in the mysterious importance which the smallest Singular obtains when he makes himself a Plural, and speaks not as 'I,' but as 'We'? We are insensible to the charm of young ladies; We are not bribed by suppers; We, like ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the five, little need be said save to record one untoward incident which has been the occasion of a most unfortunate ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... little hands upon his breast,—"I think, Gifford, that the doctor was not quite frank with me, to-day. I thought it proper to ask him if my injury was at all of a serious nature, if it might have—ah—I ought to apologize for speaking of unpleasant things—if it might have an untoward ending. He merely remarked that all injuries had possibilities of seriousness in them; he appeared in haste, and anxious to get away, so I did not detain him, thinking he might have an important case elsewhere. But ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... committed to her care by her dying mother. She thought of the love they had borne each other in the years that followed; how the boy had come to her for sympathy in his childish joys and sorrows; how he had sought her counsel, and guided himself by it, in riper years. She recalled with sadness the untoward events which had interfered to separate him from her and from his early home as he advanced to manhood. Things had not gone well with him in the last years of his life, and he sank under a burden of care too heavy to be borne by one of his sensitive ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... ways of increasing his fortune. One of these was the prospect of succeeding to an old lady, a distant relation, who was known to be possessed of a very large sum in the stocks. But the young man was so untoward in his disposition, and accommodated himself so ill to her humour, that she died and did ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... the merits of his character, and the discomforts of his situation, and the great danger he was in from evil companionship. This last feature of the case had more weight with Mr. Stewart than all the rest. He knew that perseverance under untoward difficulties often accomplished great things in bringing out strong points of character; that no position in life, however humble, is an actual bar to intellectual and moral improvement; and that where there is a will, there is always a way. And he knew, too, that the "eye of ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... her baggage; or to find constant fault with what he cannot control, are all faults in which lady travellers are prone to indulge, but which all mark low breeding, founded upon intense selfishness. Good-nature, perfect courtesy, patience, punctuality, and an easy adaptation to perhaps untoward circumstances mark the perfect lady in travelling. When you see a lady, detained perhaps for hours by a snow-storm, pleasantly trying to beguile the time by conversation, relieving tired mothers, perhaps, of the care of fretful children, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... population of the rocks was returning to its summer home. Something more than the mere joy of the season was making him glad; he hardly knew what it was, for it appeared to him that circumstances were untoward. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... white cape and tops, and flicking his leg like a gentleman with a dandy whip. But at last Barney and a wayward ambition persuaded him to desert his proper craft for the greater hazard of cracking a crib, and thus he was involved in his ultimate ruin. He incurred and he deserved the untoward fate of those who overlook their talents' limitation; and when this master of pickpockets followed Barney through the window of a secluded house upon the York Road, he might already have felt the noose tightening at his neck. The immediate reward of this bungled attack was thirty ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... their troubles,—their untoward causes of banishment; you, the looker-on, had 'your wishes and regrets,'—your anxieties, alloying your home happiness and domestic bliss; and the parallel might be pursued further, and still it would ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
