"Disaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... place that Lord Hastings and the members of the Sylph's crew learned of the disaster that had overtaken several British cruisers in those parts. Here, for the first time, they heard of the defeat of a small British squadron by the Germans, and of the death of Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock, who had gone down fighting ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... import duties. Economic development is hindered by dependence on relatively few commodity exports, vulnerability to natural disasters, and long distances from main markets and between constituent islands. The most recent natural disaster, a severe earthquake in November 1999 followed by a tsunami, caused extensive damage to the northern island of Pentecote and ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... position; and we accordingly, as usual in such cases, incurred a great many risks that harmed nobody, and picked up much information which did nobody any good. The centre of these nightly reconnoissances, for a long time, was the wreck of the George Washington, the story of whose disaster is perhaps ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... are hidden and lost to posterity. The Rev. Mr. Buller mentions a famous taiaha, of great mana, as having been buried and lost in this way, lest it should fall into the power of opposing tribes, and cause disaster to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... for her father, he knew that he must be overjoyed with what had happened and that he would make the most of it to break off the engagement. How much he would make of it he was soon to realize. The afternoon mail brought a letter from Ruth. Martin opened it with a premonition of disaster, and read it standing at the open door when he had received it from the postman. As he read, mechanically his hand sought his pocket for the tobacco and brown paper of his old cigarette days. He was not aware that the pocket was empty or that he had ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... mortem He communicated with them must be left to the untrammelled study of historical students. The religious message of a miraculous happening, like the story of Jonah or of the raising of Lazarus, we can test and prove: disobedience brings disaster, repentance leads to restoration; faith in Christ gives Him the chance to be to us the resurrection and the life. The reported events must be tested by the judgments of historic probability which are applied to all similar narratives, past or present. The Bible's authority ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... now that her enemies were gone, gave way utterly, and sinking on the floor, she swayed back and forth, sobbing even more hysterically than Zell, and her mother and Laura, oppressed with the sense of some new impending disaster, caught the contagion of their bitter grief, and wept ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... as he pleased, adding here, lopping there, altering everywhere. Moreover, these were centuries full of change. The ancient Achaean palaces were becoming the ruins which we still behold. The old art had faded, and then fallen under the disaster of the Dorian conquest. A new art, or a recrudescence of earlier art, very crude and barbaric, had succeeded, and was beginning to acquire form and vitality. The very scene of life was altered: the new singers and listeners dwelt on the Eastern side of the Aegean. Knights ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... regularity of the annual inundations, which begin on almost the same day, continue the same length of time, and rise to an almost similar height each year, and have done so annually for untold centuries. In our land a flood is a disaster causing loss and sorrow; in this country it is a blessing producing wealth and joy. When the slowly rising waters each year reach the figures on the stone column of the Nilometer which show that the Nile has spread abroad his fertile bounty by ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... all encumbered with the fallen mast and the twisted ropes and the riven sails. Every man's face was as white as a dish, and there was fear in every man's eyes. Nor was it longer possible to pacify all the women-folk or the children, now that the daylight showed them the full extent of their disaster, and every now and then they would break forth into cries or fits of sobbing which were pitiful to hear. Marjorie did much to calm their terrors, as did Barbara Hatchett, both of whom showed very brave and calm; and, indeed, the only pleasing memory of all that ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to find among her works some potent character studies. Nor are we disappointed. "Joe," a song of the Maine woods, describes in admirably appropriate verbiage—as simple and as nearly monosyllabic as possible—the typical Anglo-Saxon stoic of far places, who faces comfort and disaster, life and death, with the same unemotional attitude which Miss Jackson sums up so skilfully in the one ejaculatory ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... uncle's man of business; but while you (imberbis juvenis custode remoto) were gallivanting in the west, a good deal of water has run under the bridges; and if your ears did not sing, it was not for lack of being talked about. On the very day of your sea disaster, Mr. Campbell stalked into my office, demanding you from all the winds. I had never heard of your existence; but I had known your father; and from matters in my competence (to be touched upon hereafter) I was disposed to fear the worst. Mr. Ebenezer admitted ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Women would have felt, "Here is law. Here is order. Therefore we must cherish this man. He is on the Bridge at night," and, handing him his cup, or whatever it might be, would run on to visions of shipwreck and disaster, in which all the passengers come tumbling from their cabins, and there is the captain, buttoned in his pea-jacket, matched with the storm, vanquished by it but by none other. "Yet I have a soul," Mrs. Jarvis ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... these four years is ever truthfully written," Mr. Foley continued, "the world will be amazed at the calm indifference of the people threatened day by day with national disaster. We who have been behind the scenes have kept a stiff upper lip before the world, but I tell you frankly, Mr. Maraton, that no Cabinet who ever undertook the government of this country has gone through what we have gone through. Three times we have been on ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... where they arrived on the eighteenth of January. And in order that the joy of the fleet might be complete, on the afternoon of that same day, the desired news was received that the army of Esteybar had entered the district of Pangasinan without having met any considerable disaster in its difficult march. Thereupon, Ugalde arranged his troops, in order to go to join him. When the two armies were united they began to work together. They attacked Malong first, and after several engagements, the traitor was obliged ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... in all our records is the great acceleration in the increase in the years since the disaster of 1906. Savings bank receipts in 1920 are twice as large as in 1906, postal receipts three times as large, national bank resources four times as large, national bank deposits nine ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... of the most poisonous and suffocating of all gases. That is the real danger in submarine boats—suffocation from chlorine. It will remain so until we get a better form of motive power, liquid or compressed air, perhaps. And here"—Ross led them to a valve wheel amidships—"as though to invite such disaster, they've given ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs. Finnegan had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a vision of disaster upon the threshold. ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... stronger proof of the original intent of Nature to do more for man than the civilization in its arrogance will long permit her to do, than the quick and sure way in which she reclaims his affection, when by weariness, idle chance, or disaster, he is returned, for an interval, to her arms. How soon he rejects the miserable subterfuges of what he had called habits; sheds the still more miserable pretences of superiority, makeshifts of adornment, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Pulaski has made many a flowing tear. But few were left to tell the horrors of that night. The public are familiar with their description of the sad disaster. But they knew not the fate of Albert and Mary, and only added them to the catalogue of ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... conflagration with a hurricane of war, so that the smoke drew tears from all Greeks both here and over there. At the very outset of this fire our vines were a-crackle, our casks knocked together;[313] it was beyond the power of any man to stop the disaster, and Peace disappeared. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... course, his return was made much of. Fake interviews and rumors of threatened death and disaster in impenetrable jungles made frequent appearance; but in an incredibly short time the flame of interest died from want of fuel to feed upon; and, as Mr. Stanley G. Fulton himself had once predicted, the matter was soon dismissed as merely another of the multi-millionaire's ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... felt as though he could not give up to the disaster that had come to them. The thought that—in some way—Pepper was taking an unfair advantage of Mother Atterson knocked continually at the door ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... disaster of the Oriel mine it was commencement day in New Haven and Johnny McLean, his broken arm in a sling, a square of adhesive plaster on his forehead, was back for his Triennial. He was mightily astonished at the greeting he ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... his despoiled glass as calmly as Diogenes might have viewed a similar disaster from his tub. Monsieur's philosophy was grounded upon common sense. He knew that the frame was valuable. He knew also that I had saved enough to pay for the accident. I knew it, too, and was well aware that he would exact payment to the uttermost farthing. Monsieur, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location, and its susceptibility to natural disaster. The international community's role of funding more than 60% of Nepal's development budget and more than 28% of total budgetary expenditures will likely continue as a major ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... "I don't suppose that I am even wealthy, as the world reckons wealth. I have succeeded to a certain extent, although I came very, very near to disaster. I have made a little money, and I can make more ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sin and suffering is disclosed in Judah's fall. We cannot allege that the same close connection between godlessness and national disaster is exemplified now as it was in Israel. Nor can we contend that for individuals suffering is always the fruit of sin. But it is still true that 'righteousness exalteth a nation,' and that 'by the soul only are the nations great,' in the true sense of the word. To depart ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... exchange commodities, but also longing to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow right doctrine, so that they may change the government of the country, and obtain possession of the land. This is the germ of great disaster, and must ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... his voice in their silence, and made supplication:— "Think of thy father at home," (he began,) "O godlike Achilles! Him, my coeval, like me within age's calamitous threshold! Haply this day there is trouble upon him, some insolent neighbours Round him in arms, nor a champion at hand to avert the disaster: Yet even so there is comfort for him, for he hears of thee living; Day unto day there is hope for his heart amid worst tribulation, That yet again he shall see his beloved from Troia returning. Misery only is mine; for of all in the land of my fathers, Bravest ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... never expected such a disaster, and was so frightened that the more he tried to recall the word "Sesame," the more confused his mind became. It was as if he had never heard the word at all. He threw down the bags in his hands, and walked wildly up and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... lest the Government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman should create a British peasantry, the Socialist press opposed the creation of a British peasantry as unscientific and certain to lead to disaster. The people were told in countless articles that peasant proprietorship had proved a failure everywhere. Under the heading "The Small-Holding Fraud" the "Social-Democrat" showed the true motive of the Socialist agitation by expressing the ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... days in bed, the relaxation of body which attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had done since Emil's death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left out of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster. She must certainly see Frank Shabata. Even in the courtroom her heart had grieved for him. He was in a strange country, he had no kinsmen or friends, and in a moment he had ruined his life. Being what he was, she felt, Frank could not have acted otherwise. She ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... brigades. The Emperor ordered me to take some of the Mamelukes, two squadrons of chasseurs, and one of grenadiers of the Guard, and to go and reconnoitre the state of things. I set off at full gallop, and soon discovered the disaster. The Russian cavalry had penetrated our squares, and was sabring our men. I perceived in the distance some masses of cavalry and infantry; which formed the reserve of the Russians. At that moment the enemy advanced to meet us, bringing with him four pieces of artillery, and ranged ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... hangman.' All which rhapsody conjured up a confused and dyspeptic dream, full of absurd and terrific images, which she could not well comprehend, except in so far as it seemed clear that some signal disaster had ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... appear to be indicated, by professional opinion, for the command of the squadron in case war is declared.' 'In that case,' he replied, 'I shall accept, knowing, however, that I am going to a Trafalgar.' 'And how could that disaster be avoided?' 'By allowing me to expend beforehand fifty thousand tons of coal in evolutions and ten thousand projectiles in target practice. Otherwise we shall go to a Trafalgar. Remember what ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... cloth and brush, approached very timidly the scene of the disaster; but the younger burglar, who was nearest to her, gazed upon her with such a gentle and quiet air that she did not seem to be frightened. When she and David had put the room in fair order, I placed two easy-chairs for my wife and Aunt Martha at a moderate distance from the burglars, and took another ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... any signal advantage, for three years, when a peace was concluded at Crespy, in 1544. Charles, being in the heart of France with an invading army, had the apparent advantage but the difficulty of retreating out of France in case of disaster, and the troubles in Germany, forced him to suspend his military operations. The pope, also, was offended because he had conceded so much to the Protestants, and the Turks pressed him on the side of Hungary. Moreover, he was afflicted with the gout, which indisposed him for ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Then came disaster again. He had lost his position on the railroad, and once more he was forced to face ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... better condition to meet disaster, and none ever met it with braver hearts or with quicker and more resolute determination to survive ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... heaven on earth are not meant to be permanent or satisfying, but only to sting man into hunger for full light. When a human being has achieved to the full extent of his perceptions or aspirations, he has, thinks Browning, met with the greatest possible disaster, that of arrested development. Man's powers should ever climb new heights. For his soul's health he should always see "a flying point of bliss remote, a happiness in store afar, a sphere of distant glory." "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" According to ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... blasted by a compelling disaster. The baby, left to his own devices, had stuck a twig into his eye, and was uttering loud cries for attention. Missy remorsefully hurried over and kissed his hurt. As if healed thereby, the baby abruptly ceased crying; even sent her a little wavering smile. Missy gazed at him ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... knew not, or forgot his rank. Panic and immeasurable sorrow had crushed his heart; he cared not for restraints; decorum and ceremony were become idle words. The Swedish army had perished. The greatest disaster of the whole 'Thirty Years' War had fallen upon his countrymen. His own eyes had witnessed the tragedy, and he had no power to check or restrain that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... New York City for two weeks at the time of the Titanic disaster. On Saturday evening before the ocean tragedy I stood on the elevated at the corner of Thirty-third and Broadway. The "Great White Way" was thronged with pleasure-seekers, crowding their way to theatres and picture shows. It seemed to me I never saw the great ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... this year have reference to this awful experience—an experience from the effects of which his nerves never wholly recovered. His letters to Mr. Thomas Mitton and to Mrs. Hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour) are graphic descriptions of this disaster. But they do NOT tell of the wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by Charles Dickens when most of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. Dickenson[14] mentioned in the letter to Mrs. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... ran his fingers through his shock of hair. "Who can say? Was she dreaming, or did she see a vision? If a vision, why did it mislead by urging her into the very step that brought disaster? That scoundrel might never have considered kidnaping the child had the mother remained unsuspicious of his occupation! Yet visions are sent to warn against, not to court dangers. Again, some hold that he happened to be contemplating this step as a means of escape should discovery come, and so ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... giving the ambassador a full account of our adventures, and I had promised to write to him, and always to write the whole truth. He replied by congratulating us on our good fortune, but he prophesied inevitable disaster if we had not the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the establishment of substantial autonomy and self- government in Kosovo; to perform basic civilian administrative functions; to support the reconstruction of key infrastructure and humanitarian and disaster relief ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... justified by the event. Captain Palmer had even then abandoned us to our fate, and was, at the moment, steering away for Batavia, without having made any effort to give us assistance. He saw the wrecks, as also the sand bank, on the morning after our disaster, and must have known that the reef was not all connected, since it is spoken of by him as lying in patches; but he did not seek to ascertain whether any of the openings were passable for the Bridgewater, and might enable him to take ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... and in their deadly hatred of the invader, the young emperor, Guatemozin, opposed to the Spaniards a spirit as dauntless as that of Cortes himself. Again and again, by fierce attack, by stratagem, and by their indefatigable labours, the Aztecs inflicted checks, and sometimes even disaster, upon the Spaniards. Many of these, and of their Indian allies, fell, or were carried off to suffer the worse fate of the sacrificial victim. The priests promised the vengeance of the gods upon the strangers, and at one point Cortes saw his allies melting away from him, under the power of this superstitious ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... like exclamations, all over the world. I saw one as huge and thrilling as these Italian monsters on the Larch Path at the Wayside, a few years later; but at Montauto they really swaggered and remained. We perceive such things from a great distance, as all disaster may be perceived if we are not more usefully employed. A presentiment whispers, "There he is!" and looking unswervingly in the right direction, there he is, to be sure. I could easily have written a poor story, though not a good novel, upon the effectiveness of these spiders, glaring in the ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Brotherson has been a very sick man and the only hope I have of his recovery is the fact that he is ignorant of his trouble or that he has any cause for doubt or dread. Were this happy condition of things to be disturbed,—were the faintest rumour of sorrow or disaster to reach him in his present weakened state, I should fear a relapse, with all its attendant dangers. What then, if any intimation should be given him of the horrible tragedy suggested by the name you have mentioned? The ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... or perished in the sullen waters of the Volta. For nearly a hundred miles "the smoke of their torment" mounted the skies. Nothing was left in the rear of the Ashantee army, not even cattle or buildings. Pursued by a fleet-footed and impartial disaster, the fainting Fantis and their terrified allies turned their faces toward the seacoast. And why? Perhaps this fleeing army had a sort of superstitious belief that the sea might help them. Then, again, they knew that there were many English on the Gold ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... face of the king. Then, finding that Helge's wife was wearing the magic ring that Ingeborg had been forced to give up, Frithiof tried to wrest this from its wearer, and in doing so caused the queen to drop into the fire an image of the god Balder. In the effort to avert this disaster Halfdan's wife let fall a second image, and immediately the temple burst ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... journey to Presles was a lesson to Oscar Husson in discretion; his disaster at Florentine's card-party strengthened him in honesty and uprightness; the hardships of his military career taught him to understand the social hierarchy and to yield obedience to his lot. Becoming wise and capable, he was happy. The Comte de Serizy, before his ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... The defeat was a disaster to Protestant Switzerland not so much on account of the terms of peace, which were moderate, as because of the loss of prestige and above all of the great leader. His spirit however, continued to inspire his followers, and lived in the Reformed Church. Indeed it has been said, though with exaggeration, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... generals who had command in the battle —returned to Rome, and the Roman senators met him at the gate and thanked him that he had not despaired of the salvation of his country, this was no empty phraseology veiling the disaster under sounding words, nor was it bitter mockery over a poor wretch; it was the conclusion of peace between the government and the governed. In presence of the gravity of the time and the gravity of such an appeal, the chattering of demagogues was silent; henceforth ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... stands a large wooden ladder, tall enough to reach to the top of the roof, for fire is very common, and generally ends in everything being demolished by the flames. Buckets of water, passed on by hand, can do little to avert disaster, when the old wooden home is dry as tinder and often ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... open aid from France; the decisive event was the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, October 19, 1781, to Washington, commanding the allied French and American forces, with the aid of the French fleet. Although the war was still continued in a half-hearted way, the Cornwallis disaster convinced England of its hopelessness, and led to negotiations for peace. In these the diplomatic talents of Franklin eclipsed his financial abilities. And this was the more remarkable, since he was not trained in the diplomatic school, where dissimulation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... hold the comb in the window for the banshee to take. This seemed to Gabrielle an unnecessary complication; but Biddy told her that if she didn't follow it in every particular the banshee would scratch the hand off her. Faced with the possibility of this disaster, and not knowing how she could possibly get hold of a pair of red hot tongs in the middle of the night, Gabrielle decided that if ever she saw a comb in the road, she would not bring it home with her. And ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... feel sure on this head; the people of the Islands, whether civilized or uncivilized, have not yet gone far enough to proceed alone. To drop the work now, nay, to lessen it, would merely be inviting a return to former evil conditions. No greater disaster could befall these highlanders to-day than a change entailing a diminution of the interest and sympathy felt for them at the seat of government. It is best to be plain about this matter: the Filipinos of the lowlands dislike the highlander as much ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... that disaster of some sort is going to happen today," said Sir Louis. "It only needs a hatful of rumours to set Jerusalemites at one another's throats. But we're ready for them. The first to start trouble this morning will be ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... she woke her husband, Art, and told him her vision. "It is a true dream," said Art. "I am thy head, and this portends that I shall be violently taken from thee. But thou shalt bear me a son who shall be King of all Ireland, and shall rule with great power and glory until some disaster from the sea overtake him. But from him shall come yet another king, my grandson and thine, who shall also be cut down, and I think that the cause of his fall shall be the armies of the Fian host, who are swift and keen ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... kindly roof of a hospitable family in Penang. The chief mate, also, took the fever, and the second mate and crew deserted; and, although the chief mate recovered and took the ship to Europe and home, the voyage was a melancholy disaster. In a tour I made round the world in 1859-1860, of which my revisit to California was the beginning, I went to Penang. In that fairy-like scene of sea and sky and shore, as beautiful as material earth can be, with its fruits and flowers of a perpetual summer,— somewhere in which ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... upon public matters. The connection, with you as your proxeni, which the ancestors of our family by reason of some discontent renounced, I personally tried to renew by my good offices towards you, in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at Pylos. But although I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to negotiate the peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to strengthen them and to discredit me. You had therefore no right to complain ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... manuscript, and I have no doubt he has written brilliant stuff, which an enchanted world will read by-and-by, with no notion of the price which has been paid for their pleasure and edification. But meanwhile, unless proper steps are taken to avert disaster, our friend Ronnie will be, by then, unable to understand ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... duty of friendship to look in and express one's sympathy with Mrs. Macfadyen in this professional disaster. I found her quite willing to go over the circumstances, which were unexampled in her experience, and may indeed be considered a ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... only appeared to be offering him encouragement, but was in truth doing so. She wished him to understand that his way of thinking was no obstacle to her love, and with that purpose she was even guilty of a slight misrepresentation. For it was only since the shock of this disaster that she had clearly recognised the change in her own mind. True, the regret of which she spoke had for an instant visited her, but it represented a mundane solicitude rather than an intellectual scruple. It had occurred to her how much brighter ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... fourteen days for the complete relief of this inflammation. During that period, the blood-vessels are fully employed absorbing the products of the inflammation, and any attempt to interfere with this necessary process of nature can end only in disaster or in a prolongation of the difficulty. This is the law of pathology, unalterable and not to be evaded. Physicians at times resort to soothing and astringent applications in an emergency, to carry the artist ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... "Bestir yourself! Here all seems lost!"—and vanished from the Field, doubtless in very desperate humor. Upon which the extraneous world has babbled a good deal, "Cowardice! Wanted courage: Haha!" in its usual foolish way; not worth answer from him or from us. Friedrich's demeanor, in that disaster of his right wing, was furious despair rather; and neither Schulenburg nor Margraf Friedrich, nor any of the captains, killed or left living, was supposed to have sinned by "cowardice" ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... her deepest conviction in saying to Francie that the correspondent of the Reverberator had played them that trick on purpose to get them into such trouble with the Proberts that he might see his own hopes bloom again in the heat of their disaster. This had many of the appearances of a strained interpretation, but that didn't prevent Delia from placing it before her father several times an hour. It mattered little that he should remark in return that he didn't see what ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... the babe of a man, and may easily be husht; as to think upon some disaster, some sad misfortune, as the death ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... to bed, and the house was quiet, Paul still sat in his mother's abandoned room. No one but he knew what he suffered that night. He tried to comprehend the disaster that had befallen him. Why had his mother shut herself in a convent? How should her love for him require that she should leave him? To demand answers to these questions was like knocking at the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... After a while he cooled a little, and sat down, and said: "This must not go beyond this room. General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked through the despatches, saw the whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will receive him without displeasure; I will hear him without prejudice. He shall ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... (Islas Malvinas) overfishing by unlicensed vessels is a problem; reindeer were introduced to the islands in 2001 for commercial reasons; this is the only commercial reindeer herd in the world unaffected by the 1986 Chornobyl disaster ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a greater disaster to be recorded next day. A workingman in the square, looking about him for a pipe-light, espied the paper frisking near the curb-stone. He picked it up with the obvious intention of lighting it at the stove of a wandering vender ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so. We shall have the proud consolation of saying to our conscience and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved by our judgments and adored by our hearts in disaster, in chains, in torture, and in death, we never failed ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... understood (as I ought to have known at first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith in the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... "The Master Builder" to read, himself being a believer in the strange theory of will power. He is much upset by Quamina's story, bewildered at the mystery shrouding this evil demon. His life is becoming a purgatory on earth; he goes in daily dread of some fresh disaster. He says little to Eleanor, but she notices he does not sit out in the verandah, preferring the shelter of four walls, as if in mortal ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... appointed, a senate, a great council, and Podesta, a Captain of the People. It seemed as though Pisa herself was about to become Guelph, or at any rate to fling out her nobles. But in many a distant colony the nobles ruled, undisturbed by the disaster at home. And then, almost before she had set her house in order, the splendid victory of Monteaperto threw the Guelphs into confusion, and the banners of Pisa once more flew wide and far. But the fatal cause of the Empire was doomed; Manfred fell at Benevento, and Corradino was defeated ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... were cool, for had they attack'd us when warm'd up with good Liquor, I believe I should have had little regard to those Pop-guns they threatened us with. When we came to the next Town, and gave the People an account of our Disaster; the Landlord of the Inn ask'd us, if we had ever been upon that Road before, and we inform'd him this was the first time, then said I have Authority to enroll you as Freemen upon the small Fee of each a Bottle of Wine, and this I take ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... undoubtedly the tallest and most handsome man on Aniwa; but he was a giddy fool, and, on his early death, she again returned to live with us at the Mission House. Her second marriage had everything to commend it, but it resulted in indescribable disaster. Mungaw, heir to a Chief, had been trained with us, and gave every evidence of decided Christianity. They were married in the Church, and lived in the greatest happiness. He was able and eloquent, and was first chosen as a deacon, then as an Elder of the Church, and finally as High Chief ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... fields, met the same fate after the introduction of Christianity, as Wotan, that of having her kindly influence suspected and described as malignant. She was relegated to the heart of the mountains, as her appearance was supposed to indicate disaster. At a later period, her name disappeared in that of the heathen Venus, to which all conceptions of a being that entices to evil pleasures could be more easily attached. One such mountain region was the Hoerselberg (Orgelusa Mountain), in Thuringia, where Venus maintained a luxurious, ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... suffered to do anything; the captain ordered that I should be bound to the mast; and when at last the flames were extinguished, the passengers, with one accord, besought him to keep me bound hand and foot, lest I should be the cause of some new disaster. All that had happened was, indeed, occasioned by my ill-luck. I had laid my pipe down, when I was falling asleep, upon the bale of cotton that was beside me. The fire from my pipe fell out and set the cotton in flames. Such ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... published, very much prose; his mannerisms had not hardened. And above all, he was but just catching the public ear, and so was not tempted to assume the part of Chesterfield-Socrates, which he played later, to the diversion of some, to the real improvement of many, but a little to his own disaster. He was very thoroughly acquainted with the facts of his subject, which was not always the case later; and though his assumptions—the insensibility of aristocracies to ideas, the superiority of the French to the English in this respect, the failure of the ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to my thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less what necessity I was in to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had neither done or intended me any wrong? who, as to me, were innocent, and whose barbarous customs were their own disaster, being in them a token, indeed, of God's having left them, with the other nations of that part of the world, to such stupidity, and to such inhuman courses, but did not call me to take upon me to be a judge of their actions, much less an executioner of His justice - that whenever ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... diplomacy, sometimes by force. A hundred men must be thrown here, a thousand there, and trained detectives picked for special work. With swift, smooth precision, the well-oiled machinery works, and we, who only see the results, never guess at the disaster that might have befallen if a sudden strain had ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... them realized the danger that threatened. Of the three girls only Ruth knew what was just ahead. The maddened mules were dragging the emigrant wagon for a pitch into the ravine that boded nothing less than disaster for all. ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... again in the fogs of the Gulf-Stream; but has, June 9th (a month before that of Braddock), come up with Two Frigates of it, and, after short broadsiding, made prizes of them. And now, on this Braddock Disaster, orders went, "To seize and detain all French Ships whatsoever, till satisfaction were had." And, before the end of this Year, about "800 French ships (value, say, 700,000 pounds)" were seized accordingly, where seizable ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... heard for the first time of our sovereign's illness, and his happy restoration to health. The French revolution of 1789, with all the attendant circumstances of that wonderful and unexpected event, succeeded to amaze us*. Now, too, the disaster which had befallen the 'Guardian', and the liberal and enlarged plan on which she had been stored and fitted out by government for our use, was promulged. It served also, in some measure, to account why we had not sooner heard from England. For had not the 'Guardian' struck on ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... creation. And in this manly, generous, and free-spirited connexion, the colonies would have grown with the growth of England; have shunned all the bitter collisions of rival interests; have escaped the actual wars which inflicted disaster on both; and, by the first of all benefits to America, she would have obtained the means of resisting that supremacy of faction, which is now hurrying her into all the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... with fresh energy, and but for the careful management of the two officers there must have been a fresh mishap, the sailors being rather reckless and ready to loosen packages whose removal would have caused the sides of the heaps to come crumbling down in a cargo avalanche, to cause disaster as well ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... THE disaster was complete. Not a single dollar of all Markland had cast so blindly into the whirling vortex ever came back to him. Fenwick disappeared from New York, leaving behind conclusive evidence of a dark complicity with ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... a vast territory which is absolutely closed to the Chinese on pain of death and over which they exercise no control. Several expeditions have been launched against the Lolos but all have ended in disaster. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... Christening 6. Paul's Second Deprivation 7. A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place; also of the State of Miss Tox's Affections 8. Paul's further Progress, Growth, and Character 9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble 10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster 11. Paul's Introduction to a New Scene 12. Paul's Education 13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business 14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the holidays 15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit for ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of Breton lore, the selago, or "cloth of gold," cannot be cut with steel without the sky darkening and some disaster taking place:— ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... a home in the early evenings of summer and occurring on successive days at or about the same time and location; or the appearance of a highly excited redbird, disturbed for no apparent reason, is indicative of some imminent disaster, usually thought to be the approaching death of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... naval disaster in the South Seas," said Jacquetot, "and we must clean up the mess, pretty damn quick. The news came yesterday. Orders were wired at once that two battle-cruisers, the Intrepid and Terrific, should be sent at full speed from Scotland to Devonport to dock, coal, and ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... themselves and to each other, seems prima facie no more compatible with kindly intentions than it would be to leave children to play with sharp tools, loaded firearms and deadly poisons; since disaster was bound to ensue from such a course, does not responsibility for the disaster rest with the one who deliberately provided the {97} elements for it? But such a comparison, while superficially plausible, upon reflection is seen to be beside the mark. We really cannot plead such inexperience of ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... and Gunlaugar was invited to remain in her house that night. This he declined, and, passing forward alone, was next morning found lying before the gate of his father Thorbiorn, severely wounded and deprived of his judgment. Various causes were assigned for this disaster; but Oddo, asserting that they had parted in anger that evening from Geirrida, insisted that his companion must have sustained the injury through her sorcery. Geirrida was accordingly cited to the popular assembly and accused ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... the disaster of beliefs through these magical books, and am free once more as in my early childhood to indulge myself in the iridescent idea ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... The fortunes of our country are now standing at the cannon's mouth, and one vote may stem the tide of disaster. ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... began to talk of the May West and the Muckluck as though all along they had looked for succour to come up-stream rather than down. But as the precious hours passed, a deep dejection fastened on the camp. There had been a year when, through one disaster after another, no boats had got to the Upper River. Not even the arrival from Dawson of the Montana Kid, pugilist and gambler, could raise spirits so cast down, not even though he was said to bring strange ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... what would be the true campaign to make. This was, in substance, to go back until high ground could be reached on the east bank of the river; fortify there and establish a depot of supplies, and move from there, being always prepared to fall back upon it in case of disaster. I said this would take us back to Memphis. Sherman then said that was the very place he would go to, and would move by railroad from Memphis to Grenada, repairing the road as we advanced. To this I replied, the country ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... another, and we try to be he. The attempt is always a failure. The worst of it is that in our effort to be another we have ceased to be ourselves, and after such a loss what do we still possess? Perhaps the disaster comes in another way. Conventionality has certain curious notions about the pulpit, the fulfilment of which it paradoxically despises as it demands it. The preacher is expected to speak in a different voice ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... broke in rapidly, "the expedition met with disaster by sea. It was equally unfortunate on land. The commander built a small encampment, and sent for assistance the only seaworthy vessel left to him. He waited six months, but no help came. Then he determined to march inland—to strike a bold course for the Nile—but he was soon compelled ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... captured it, as I find things, out of the jaws of failure and disaster. Failure: that of Pythagoreanism six centuries before;—disaster: Caesar's conquest of Gaul and destruction of the Mysteries there. Men come from the Masters of the World to work on this plane or on that: to found ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... of preparation, thousands of men, and millions or treasure, was received in the country which sent it forth with consternation and rage. Philip alone possessed or affected an apathy which he covered with a veil of mock devotion that few were deceived by. At the news of the disaster, he fell on his knees, and rendering thanks for that gracious dispensation of Providence, expressed his joy that ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... peeped through the keyhole after closing the door, to learn what the packet meant. Directly the Baron had opened it he thrust out his feet vehemently from his chair, and began cursing his ruinous conduct in bringing about such a disaster, for the return of the locket denoted not only no wedding that day, but none to-morrow, or ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... Wheeler National Monument in honor of Captain George Montague Wheeler, who conducted geographical explorations between 1869 and 1879. Its deep canyons are bordered by lofty pinnacles of rock. It is believed that General John C. Fremont here met the disaster which drove back his exploring-party of 1848, fragments of harness and camp equipment and skeletons of mules having ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp, in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, everyone had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck with a short one ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... with the German nobility to have such men restrained by the sword, but by advice and command. He was only afraid that their own rage would not allow of peaceful means to check them, but would bring misery and disaster ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... work, of economy, of prosperity. It is a manly doctrine, a clear-cut, respectable philosophy, a reasonable rule of business activity. Never more than today were the precepts needed. The whole tendency of our modern activities is against its precepts. Disaster and ruin may be seen on every hand and traced directly to the neglect or violation of those sound principles which the wise old Franklin put in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... to last long. An event had happened immediately after his release from prison which could not but influence his fate. This was the burning of Rome—an appalling disaster, the glare of which even at this distance makes the heart shudder. It was probably a mad freak of the malicious monster who then wore the imperial purple. But Nero saw fit to attribute it to the ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... to this Atahualpa did not appear among the troops, and he spoke to the Inca orejones of Cuzco in this manner. "My Lords! you know that I am a son of Huayna Ccapac and that my father took me with him, to prove me in the war. Owing to the disaster with the Pastos, my father insulted me in such a way that I could not appear among the troops, still less at Cuzco among my relations who thought that my father would leave me well, but I am left poor and dishonoured. For this reason I have determined to remain here where my father ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... the three worlds. Alas, having slain, for the sake of the earth, such lords of earth as deserved not to be slain by us, we are bearing the weight of existence, deprived of friends and reft of the very objects of life. Like a pack of dogs fighting one another for a piece of meat, a great disaster has overtaken us! That piece of meat is no longer dear to us. On the other hand, it shall be thrown aside. They that have been slain should not have been slain for the sake of even the whole earth or mountains of gold, or all the horses and kine in this world. Filled with envy and a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... harbour. Government then hurried up troops and had new batteries constructed to overawe the fleet. Unfortunately, at the end of May, thirteen more ships, deserters from the fleets of Duncan and Onslow, joined the mutineers at the Nore. This event might have led to a double disaster. Stout old Duncan with only two ships sailed on undaunted to the Texel, where lay a Dutch fleet of fifteen sail preparing for sea. In order to impose on them he kept flying signals as if to consorts ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... defensive in Miss Pillenger leaped to arms under that smile. It ran in and out among her nerve-centres. It had been long in arriving, this moment of crisis, but here it undoubtedly was at last. After twenty years an employer was going to court disaster by ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... cold, formal reply—"Miss Harland was yet very ill, but in no danger, and could not be spoken with." Could he but see her for an instant—could he touch her hand, or meet her smile, or drink in the sweet music of her voice, he would feel his heart nerved against every disaster, and would wait in patience; but all, all alone, amid lowering brows, or sneering faces, which ever glowered like phantoms about him—whether in reality, as he walked the streets, or in dreams, as he tossed upon his pillow—it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... was much alarmed at Hiram's announcement. 'In trouble?' What could that mean but financial disaster? ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the field with a flourishing colony. Accordingly both companies made haste and sent out settlers in 1607, the one to the James River, the other to the Kennebec. The first enterprise, after much suffering, resulted in the founding of Virginia; the second ended in disaster, and it was not until 1620 that the Pilgrims from Leyden made the beginnings of a permanent settlement upon the territory ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske |
