"Disastrously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It was no use fighting against this false fate. I don't know even if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter began. The conviction that it would end disastrously had been driven into me by all the successive shocks my sense of security had received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg's baseless gossip had the power to bring about the thing itself or the ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated this epoch by an inward diminution of force? Had the twenty years of war worn out the blade as it had worn the scabbard, the soul as well as the body? Did the veteran make himself disastrously felt in the leader? In a word, was this genius, as many historians of note have thought, suffering from an eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in order to disguise his weakened powers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the delusion of a breath of adventure? Had ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Lucille protruded a very red tongue at surprising length, turned one eye far inward toward her nose, wrinkled that member incredibly, corrugated her forehead grievously, and elongated her mouth disastrously. The resultant expression of countenance admirably expressed the general juvenile view of Miss ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... were being constantly smuggled in. Fluctuations in the price of silver affected the value of the silver coins, and the money in common use was in reality a commodity, worth on any given day what one could get for it. These conditions affected most disastrously the business interests of the islands. Merchants were forced to allow very wide margins in commercial transactions, because they did not know what their goods would actually cost them in local currency upon arrival. The most important ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... for convenience' sake. It would be rather troublesome to have a discordant element, and the Henrys felt that Primrose was more firmly established in her willful ways, no doubt, and they did not care for a continual struggle like that which had begun and ended so disastrously the preceding summer. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... which art might have emerged, may even now after the appointed time arise, with strange validities undreamed of or forgotten. Let us not prophesy; let us be content with the recognition that Sorley's generation was too keenly, perhaps too disastrously aware of destinies, of ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... over and done—disastrously done, she thought; but its results were just beginning for Jim Dyckman ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... clerkly fashion he sat about the accomplishment of his stint of labor in time for dinner. A competent workman is not disastrously upset by interruption; and, indeed, he found the notion of surprising Judith with an unlooked-for trinket or so to be at first a very ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... pin my hopes. Where an Aylesbury rushes in I fear to tread. The analogy with an angel was accidental, Knox!" he added, smilingly. "In other words, it is all too obvious. Yet I have failed once, Knox, failed disastrously, and it may be that in my anxiety to justify myself I am seeking for subtlety where ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant reminiscences connected with the spot where he had so disastrously encountered Christian. Consulting Mr. Bunyan's road-book, I perceived that we must now be within a few miles of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, into which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much sooner than seemed at all desirable. In truth, I expected nothing better than ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... behind him on his northward course the fragments of the metropolitan Cathedral of St. Andrews, he crosses a wide arm of the sea, and when he again approaches the shore, the objects most prominent against the sky are the still more disastrously shattered remnants of the great Abbey of Aberbrothwick. One lofty fragment presents in its centre a circle, doubtless once filled with richly moulded mullions and stained-glass, but through which the blue sky is now visible. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... forwards, the second held and secured the ball on downs, only to lose it again by a fumble on the part of Post. Then a delayed pass gained two yards for the first and a mass at left tackle found another. But the next play resulted disastrously, for when the ball was passed back there was no one to take it, and the quarter was borne back several yards before his own astounded players could come to ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ever affected the success of the steel company more than the decision which I gave upon that proposal. Upon no account could two men be in the same works with equal authority. An army with two commanders-in-chief, a ship with two captains, could not fare more disastrously than a manufacturing concern with two men in command upon the same ground, even though in two different departments. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... ditches were filled almost to a level of the surface, a little dirt thrown over them, there to remain until the great United States Government removed them to the beautiful park around Mayree's Heights. There to this day, and perhaps for all time, sleep the "blue and the gray," while the flag so disastrously beaten on that day now ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... stone is humanely pounded into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs for the pavement! No! it was not for the laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his native city, and travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel more disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave error in judgment than when he found himself standing in the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting to the top ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... best-natured, most sensible, best-informed, most modest, unassuming, kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best young fellow in all New Salem or the region about. But Mr. Offutt's trading enterprises ended disastrously in the year 1832. The store was closed, the mill was shut down, and Lincoln was out ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... vessel's name does not appear. In the opinion of counsel, submitted to Jay, it was unlikely that the case would be reversed on appeal, because it unequivocally fell under the Rule.[109] It is therefore to be inferred that this principle, the operation of which was revived so disastrously in 1805, was not surrendered by the British Government in 1794. In fact, in the discussions between Mr. Jay and the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, there seems to have been on both sides a disposition to avoid pronouncements upon points of abstract right. It remained the constant ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... does so act, it falsely and arbitrarily and futilely and disastrously acts, just as would one who draws a circle in the sea, including a few waves, saying that the other waves, with which the included are continuous, are positively different, and stakes his life upon maintaining that the admitted and the damned ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... because of pressure from the bandages. Pressure is unavoidable in the use of adhesive dressings or where careful attention is not given the manner of applying cotton to the parts. Such methods are sure to result disastrously. But if subjects are kept quiet after the parts have been properly bandaged, no difficulty is encountered in maintaining asepsis in an uninfected wound. Recovery takes place in favorable cases in from three weeks to three months, depending ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... dressing, and submitted to follow, obediently as a puppet, the road recommended by friends, though a voice within, that she took for the intimations of her reason, protested that they were wrong, that they were judging of her case in the general, and unwisely—disastrously ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you, young men, especially to lay this to heart—that of all delusions that can beset you in your course, none will work more disastrously than the notion that the summum bonum, the shield and stay of a man, is the 'abundance of the things that he possesses.' I fancy I see more listless, discontented, unhappy faces looking out of carriages than I see upon the pavement. And I am sure of this, at any rate, that all ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... them:'—But with a constant notification that, after hanging, the criminals would be decapitated: otherwise the threat loses its sting. It seems to be a superstition universal amongst Southern Asiatics, unless possibly amongst the Malay race, that to suffer any dismemberment of the body operates disastrously upon the fate in the unseen world. And hence, no doubt, it has arisen that the gallows is not viewed in the light of a degrading punishment. Immunity from mutilation compensates any ignominy which might else attend it. Accordingly, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Resolution came back upon the crest, as it were, of the wave that brought me full knowledge; the more disastrously showed the ruin I had made, the more stoutly I ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... result more disastrous than either the flight from Pultowa or the retreat from Moscow. And though necessarily an expedition on a similar scale, it seemed by no means improbable that its ultimate consequences might bear even more disastrously on British power in the East, than the results of the several expeditions into Russia, under Charles and Napoleon, bore on the respective destinies of Sweden and of France. That substratum of opinion in the minds of an hundred millions of Asiatics, on which British authority in India finds its main ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... arrived to sway him to his purpose. He called to his mind the various portents and prophecies which had forerun their present danger. 'Let not my lord the king,' said he, 'make light of these mysterious revelations, which appear to be so disastrously fulfilling. The hand of Heaven appears to be against us. Destruction is impending over our heads. Our troops are rude and unskilful, but slightly armed, and much cast down in spirit. Better is it that we should make a treaty ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Winny lent herself to cheapness, but about Violet he was not quite sure. And if you had asked why not, he would have told you it was because she was so different. By which he meant so dangerously, so disastrously feminine and innocent and pretty. He knew now (she had "jolly well shown him") that Winny could take care of herself; but Violet, no; she was too impulsive, too helpless, too confiding. To think of her waiting for him like that—for a fellow ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... speaking, he glanced about the poor little studio, where the bare walls, the scanty furniture the brand-new photographic apparatus, the little fireplace a la prussienne, also new, which had never seen a fire, were disastrously apparent in the bright light that fell from the glass roof. The drawn features and straggling beard of the young man, whose very light eyes, high, narrow forehead, and long fair hair thrown back in disorder gave him ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... years, and a number of battles were fought which, after the first year, went in general against the Cavaliers. The most important of these were the battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and that of Naseby the next year, in which the king was disastrously defeated. The enemy came into possession of his correspondence, which showed them how their king had been endeavoring to bring armies from France and Ireland into England. This encouraged Parliament to prosecute the war with more energy than ever. The king, defeated on every hand, put himself in ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... to the localities from which their respective regiments had been raised, and bring in recruits, to fill the places made vacant by death and disease. The critical condition of affairs when the army was withdrawn from the Peninsula, and, afterward, when Pope was so disastrously forced back upon the defenses of Washington, had roused to most earnest action, many patriots, who hoped to avert further disaster by forwarding men to the field. Under these influences, and as the result of these ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... The great stroke had been made and it had disastrously failed. Quebec still remained towering on its granite pedestal. British power still stood defiant. The Continentals had broken their victorious campaign against this gigantic obstacle. Montgomery was dead. Arnold was wounded. One half of the army was captured. The broken ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... prisoners were secured and taken over to the American shore; the enemy's loss was more severe than ours, his resistance being very stubborn, and a good many cannon were destroyed, but the expedition certainly ended most disastrously. The accounts of it are hard to reconcile, but it is difficult to believe that ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... meantime, embarked in another commercial venture, and for a time prospered. Some years previously he had formed a co-partnership with his wife's brother, and a commercial house in charge of Bakewell had been opened in New Orleans. This turned out disastrously and was a ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... learn that on Saturday last, Grant, no doubt driven to desperation by our occupation of Milliken's Bend cutting off his supplies and reinforcements, made a more furious attempt than ever to take Vicksburg by assault, and was repulsed disastrously. His loss is estimated at between 7000 and 10,000 men. Pemberton is now greatly praised by many people, while some of our officers shake their heads and say he is fighting with the halter around his neck, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... letters for them. Clean-cut, decent, brave, honourable Englishmen—not gutter-bred Hooligans dragged from the abyss by the recruiting sergeant, but men who have thrown up good employment because something noble inside them responded to the Great Call. And to the eternal disgrace of governments in this disastrously politician-ridden land such men have not been taught to read and write. It is of no use anyone saying to me that it is not so. I know of my own certain intimate knowledge that ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... anticipated; and had the Confederates moved as Lee intended, there can be no question but that the Federal army, deprived of all supplies, cut off from Washington, and forced to fight on ground where it was unprepared, would have been disastrously defeated. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... purchased in 1917 with half a million lives. On Wednesday the headline was "British and French Check Germans"; but still the retreat went on. Back—and back—and back! Where would it end? Would the line break again—this time disastrously? ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... make just the difference of your being able to go out again, or never. Take care never to check perspiration: during this process the body is in a somewhat critical condition, and the sudden arrest of the function may result disastrously, even fatally. One part of the business of perspiration is to equalize bodily temperature, and it must not be interfered with. The secret of much that is said about bathing when heated lies here. A person overheated, panting it ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... gauntlet. Proscribed, outlawed, with his Netherland property confiscated, and his eldest child kidnapped, he saw sufficient personal justification for at last stepping into the lists, the avowed champion of a nation's wrongs. Whether the revolution was to be successful, or to be disastrously crushed; whether its result would be to place him upon a throne or a scaffold, not even he, the deep-revolving and taciturn politician, could possibly foresee. The Reformation, in which he took both a political and a religious interest, might ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... held out that vitally important despatch. Even then he did not quite understand that it was almost as important as had been the surrender of Vera Cruz. But for that surrender, the American expedition would have been stopped at the seashore. But for this feat of the engineers, it would have been disastrously halted at the foot of the Cerro Gordo pass. One minute later, Ned's heart jumped again, for he heard the deep voice of ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... on foot between two orderlies, powerless to attempt any action with these disjointed fragments of his forces, himself utterly dazed and bewildered by the downfall of a people accustomed to victory and now so disastrously beaten in spite ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the Venetian fleet under the Doge Domenico Selvo. The Venetians are at this moment undoubted masters in all naval warfare; the Normans are worsted easily the first day,—the second day, fighting harder, they are defeated again, and so disastrously that the Venetian Doge takes no precautions against them on the third day, thinking them utterly disabled. Guiscard attacks him again on the third day, with the mere wreck of his own ships, and defeats the tired and amazed ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... dream of gaining way to an alliance with one of these great surrounding houses; and he had a passion for the acquisition of money as a means. And it has to be confessed, he had sacrificed in youth a slice of his youth, to gain it without labour—usually a costly purchase. It had ended disastrously: or say, a running of the engine off the rails, and a speedy re-establishment of traffic. Could it be a loss, that had led to the winning of his Nataly? Can we really loathe the first of the steps when the one in due sequence, cousin to it, is a blessedness? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... die right here." The demoralization of one of his division commanders was so great, that on Thursday afternoon, when the rebels were massing on Rosecrans's right, this general, commanding a division, announced to his brigade commanders that in the event of the anticipated assault resulting disastrously, he proposed to take his division and cut his way through to Nashville. To his troops—the greater part of whom had never seen Rosecrans under the enemy's fire—when on the return from the cedars, they formed ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... itself in the arid wastes, or, as some maintain, flows underground. Its source and mouth are known, but for many miles of its passage it is invisible. Numerous attempts to solve its secrets have been made. They have almost invariably ended disastrously. The Spanish traveller, Ibarete, set out with high hopes to travel along its banks, but he and seventeen men perished in the attempt. Two half- famished, prematurely-old, broken men were all that returned from the unknown wilds. The Pilcomayo, which ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... whatever of marine steam navigation; and British steamers swarmed around our coast north and south, thick as cruisers in a blockade. (See Paper E.) Indeed, it was a veritable blockade of our commerce, and told most disastrously upon our enterprise and independence. The Cabinet of Mr. Polk, headed by our present venerable Chief Magistrate of the Nation, determined to reverse this system, and did it as effectually as any thing can be accomplished in a country, where a given ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... again in the course of our inquiry how deep and natural the sex impulse is in woman, and this, combined with the much greater complexity of her sexual life, renders her position peculiarly liable to be affected disastrously by any failure of love. It must be recognised that unbounded piety is often no more than a sex symptom, proceeding from deprivation or from satiety of love, as also from love's failure in loveless marriage. It seems to me that this connection of ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... things, good, bad, and indifferent, go together to form something that Dickens missed, merely because the England of his time most disastrously missed it. In this case, as in every case, the only way to measure justly the excess of a foreign country is to measure the defect of our own country. For in this matter the human mind is the victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... shall accept Mr. Philbrick's offer. I wish to stay down here, and I see no satisfactory way of so doing, except by this arrangement. It may turn out disastrously,—so be it; the Government will probably refund the purchase-money in case the lands return to the Confederate States either by capture or compromise. But with success, I doubt if I should realize the amount of my present salary and support. If the lands ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... dissipated most of the money. Ten years ago he died also, leaving me a net income of about two thousand a year. Then it was that I undertook an expedition in connection with that," and he pointed to the iron chest, "which ended disastrously enough. On my way back I travelled in the South of Europe, and finally reached Athens. There I met my beloved wife, who might well also have been called the 'Beautiful,' like my old Greek ancestor. There I married her, and there, a year afterwards, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... that is strong by natural force, and not merely effective by declamation; an utterance without trick, without affectation, without mannerisms, without any of that excessive ambition which overleaps itself as disastrously in prose writing as ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... the city youth, "any one might fancy you a bank cashier who had speculated disastrously with the funds of the institution. Four dollars and sixty-five cents—that was the amount of your loss; and you look as if you had ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... poor, till they were driven by the murder of Marie Antoinette into a paroxysm of rage and terror—why, above all, Louis XVI., who attempted deeper and wiser reforms than any other sovereign, failed more disastrously than any—is not the answer this, that all these reforms would but have cleansed the outside of the cup and the platter, while they left the inside full of extortion and excess? It was not merely institutions which required to be reformed, but men and women. The spirit of ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Redoute, in the planter of forty-five, busy with his cotton and his sugar-cane, who made a fortune in a short time by dint of energy and good sense? His success, told of in France, was the indirect cause of another emigration to Texas, led by General Lallemand, and which terminated so disastrously. Colonel Chapron had not, as can be believed, acquired in roaming through Europe very scrupulous notions an the relations of the two sexes. Having made the mother of his child a pretty and sweet-tempered mulattress whom he met on a short trip to New Orleans, and whom he brought ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... which the judgment is given being C, the court of error decides that it is bad, reverses the judgment, and the prisoner is discharged; or the country is put to the expense and trouble of bringing, and the prisoner unjustly harrassed by, fresh proceedings, which may, perhaps, end as disastrously ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... while Private 'Enery Irving, who had hitherto borne some reputation as a French speaker—a reputation, it may be mentioned, largely due to his artful knack of helping out spoken words by imitation and explanatory acting—found his bubble reputation suddenly and disastrously pricked. He made some attempt to clutch at its remains by listening to the remarks addressed to him by a Frenchman, with a most potently intelligent and understanding expression, by ejaculating "Nong, nong!" and a profoundly understanding "Ah, wee!" at intervals in the one-sided conversation. ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... passed in her family for a rank radical, a bold Bohemian; she picked up expressions out of newspapers and at the petits theatres, but her hands and feet were celebrated, and her behaviour was not. That of her sisters, as well, had never been disastrously exposed. ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... horse towards the direction his gray coats had taken the night before, while I turned my horse towards the hole in the woods our fellows had made, and we left the race track where we had fought so gamely, eat so heartily, and played poker so disastrously, to me. As we were each about going into the woods, half a mile apart, he waved his handkerchief at me, and I waved mine at him, and ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... Bardell party's journey to Hampstead, which ended so disastrously, the art of Boz is shown as usual by supplying the notion of movement—he seems to take us along up the northern heights—we feel the pleasurable anticipations of a party of pleasure for the lower ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... was due to the fact that the success of the Persian invasion depended on the control of the sea. Hence the Greeks, though unable to muster an army large enough to meet the Persian host on land, defeated it disastrously by winning a victory on ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... just the crucial point," said the condemned; "that was where my lack of specialisation told so fatally against me. The dead Salvationist, whose identity I had so lightly and so disastrously adopted, had possessed a veneer of cheap modern education. It should have been easy to demonstrate that my learning was on altogether another plane to his, but in my nervousness I bungled miserably over test after test that was put to me. The little French I had ever known deserted me; I could ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... developed by that time. The result of this attitude was a submarine boat built at first exclusively by Krupp and known as the "Germania" type. It was this type which formed the basis of the German submarine which has become known so extensively and disastrously during recent years. In most respects this type is perhaps more similar to the Lake type than to any other, although some features of the Holland type have been incorporated ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... with a cunning rogue, which all but ended disastrously. He was in hot pursuit of the tiger, and, finding no safety on land, it took to swimming in a broad unfordable piece of water, a sort of deep lagoon. Old C. procured a boat that was handy, and got a coolie ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... not degenerated compared with (say) fifty or a hundred years ago may be a question difficult to settle, but it is quite clear that we are pitifully, disastrously below the normal standard of manhood and womanhood which a great nation ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... out to catch his boat; but the Canonita passed on the wrong side of one of the pinnacles and, caught in the left current, came near making a run of it down that side, which would have resulted disastrously. Luckily they were able to extricate themselves and Beaman steered in to us. Had the water been only high enough to prevent landing on this island we would have been in a bad trap, but had it been so high as to make ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... to ponder over during the last three years. Three notable schemes conceived by himself and carefully designed to strengthen his position, have by a curious coincidence matured upon dates of certain interest in Transvaal history. All three have failed disastrously. The first anniversary of the Reformers' sentence day was the occasion of the Reformers giving evidence before the Industrial Commission, which so strongly justified their case. The Peace Negotiations with the Capitalists were opened by Mr. Lippert upon the anniversary of ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... the power of normal intercourse and to marry, on the ground that his perversion was merely a perversion of the imagination. He did so, and, though he married a perfectly strong and healthy woman, and was himself healthy, except in so far as his perversion was concerned, the offspring turned out disastrously. The eldest child was an epileptic, almost an imbecile, and with strongly marked homosexual impulses; the second and third children were absolute idiots; the youngest died of convulsions in infancy (Fere, L'Instinct Sexuel, p. 269 ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... warfare which the American State Department so disastrously insisted upon were the direct outcome of the Hague Conference of 1907. That assembly of the nations recognized, what had long been a palpable fact, that the utmost confusion existed in the operations of warring powers ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... anchor to the north of the rough stone pier, was soon disburdened of her passengers—the ladies going ashore with undisguised delight, and leaving behind them many gracious messages of thanks to the gentleman whose gallantry had resulted so disastrously; for Conyngham was still in bed, though now nearly recovered. Truth to tell, he did not hurry to make his appearance in the general cabin, and came on deck a few hours after the departure of the ladies, whose ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... her into the oval saloon, where his two and twenty comrades had devoured the banquet, which ended so disastrously for themselves. But, all this while, he had held the snow-white flower in his hand, and had constantly smelt of it while Circe was speaking; and as he crossed the threshold of the saloon, he took ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him still to keep to the same west-sou'-west course which I had suggested to Mr Macdougall, a couple of hours or so before, should be altered to a more southerly one, and the controversy about which had caused that "little unpleasantness" between us, which had terminated so disastrously for myself. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... number were sunstruck, some cases proving fatal. I was exhausted and had to lie down in the shade. It was a miserable Sunday scrape and ended like all the rest that had been started on a Sunday, disastrously. The loss of ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... suffering from the competition of France in sugar, and of Brazil in coffee, Java has not been peculiar. The British West Indian colonies are at the present time most disastrously affected by the bounty-fed sugar industry of France, and Ceylon is only just learning how to compensate itself for the diminution of its coffee export by the introduction of a ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... pirate, or the wicked man in general, no matter how successful he may have been in his criminal career, nearly always ends disastrously, and in that way points a moral which doubtless has a good effect on a large class of people, who would be very glad to do wrong, provided no harm was likely to come to them in consequence. But the story of Peter the Great, which we have just told, contains ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... enterprise itself is dully conceived and most of it does seem to me to be dully conceived. In the absence of penetrating criticism, any impudent industrious person may set up as an "expert," organise and direct the confused good intentions at large, and muddle disastrously with the problem in hand. The "expert" quack and the bureaucratic intriguer increase and multiply in a dull-minded, uncritical, strenuous period as disease germs multiply ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Auto-Comrades happen to have sufficient gasolene to keep them both running, if only on short rations. Most of these cases, however, are pathological. They have hot-boxes at both ends of the machine, and their progress is destined all too soon to cease and determine disastrously. The rest of these cases are the rare exceptions which prove the rule. For unexuberant yet unpathological pals of the Auto-Comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which the efforts of a devoted and blissful wife support ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... moving over to a wall buzzer and pressing it, "that's what I meant when I said it could be embarrassing. He'd get expanded too—disastrously. Could you use a drink, Mr. Chard? I know I ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... clerical mind. It has precisely the opposite effect in any logical mind. When the way of life is smooth, and our nation or home is prospering, we may be genially disposed to think that God is near and is looking after us as well as the sparrows. But when a black storm bursts suddenly and disastrously on us; when the earth shakes their roofs on ten thousand of our fellows, or a great ship strikes a rock and pours a laughing crowd suddenly into the lap of death; when vast provinces are laid desolate by war, and we see the tens of thousands clasping ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... traitor!" cried one of the academy boys; and "put him out," was echoed from all parts of the post-office. But the boys who uttered the words were all Dick Graham's friends, and an attempt to put him out would certainly have resulted disastrously ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... rebellion in Canada had required strong repression; and we had taken the first step on a bad road by entering into those disputes as to our right to force the opium traffic on China, which soon involved us in a disastrously successful war with that country. On the other hand, our Indian Government had begun an un-called-for interference with the affairs of Afghanistan, which, successful at first, resulted in a series of humiliating reverses to our arms, culminating ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... for that would have been almost perfect for every other member of the family, and yet he made no effort to alter it. In fact, only a few days before, his sullen resentment of the manner in which their long-prayed-for change of fortune had come had very nearly resulted disastrously for them all, and the more he brooded over it, the more sore and bitter ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... represented. During the summer and autumn a series of events had occurred which profoundly affected the temper of the people and the course of the war. In July the Russians had made a last offensive, had been disastrously beaten, and the process of demoralization which led to the Bolshevik revolution of November had begun. Somewhat earlier the French had suffered a severe and almost disastrous defeat in Champagne which produced mutinies in the army and a defeatist agitation among ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... they imagine, while busy with the fire and kettle, how nearly they had gained their end, yet how disastrously they had missed it. Well for man, sometimes, that he is ignorant of what takes place around him. Had the three pursuers known who was encamped in a clump of trees not half a mile beyond them, they would not have feasted that night so heartily, nor ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... foregoing considerations, it is from no narrow jealousy that we maintain that French preponderance in Madagascar would work disastrously for freedom and humanity in that part of the world. We are not wholly free from blame ourselves with regard to the treatment of the coolie population of Mauritius; but it must be remembered that, although that island is English in government, ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... part of the Boers was to enable them to take advantage of the temporary inaction to make rushes to cover nearer to the British lines than that they had previously occupied! The fighting began, and, for the small body of British troops, continued disastrously. At last, when darkness came on, both sides were forced to cease firing. Now and then, only when a flash of lightning lit up the terrible scene, the firing of bullets demonstrated that the Boers were still thoroughly ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... across the river to visit the garden, which was now overrun with weeds, and the entire day was spent in putting that in order, as they hoped within a few weeks more to commence gathering supplies from that source. The garden had been started before they sailed away on the voyage which ended so disastrously to their vessel. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... prophetic. In less than half an hour after that moment they met with the first really serious accident of the entire journey, and one which easily might have resulted disastrously to life as ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... from one who speaks by the book. Who, in truth, reads epics now—save in the enforced study of school and college? Will not Browning's larger works—like "The Ring and the Book"—suffer disastrously with the passing of time because of a lack of continence, of a failure to realize that since life is short, art should not be too long? It may be, too, that Richardson, newly handling the sentiment which during ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... that it is not the rich nor the money lender alone that must submit to such a readjustment, enforced by the Government and their debtors. The pittance of the widow and the orphan and the incomes of helpless beneficiaries of all kinds would be disastrously reduced. The depositors in savings banks and in other institutions which hold in trust the savings of the poor, when their little accumulations are scaled down to meet the new order of things, would in their distress painfully realize the delusion of the promise ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Egypt, and he longed so much to see her again, that he was wholly unfit for the discharge of his duties in the camp. He became timid, inefficient, and remiss, and almost every thing that he undertook ended disastrously. The army, who understood perfectly well the reason of their commander's remissness and consequent ill fortune, were extremely indignant at his conduct, and the camp was filled with suppressed murmurs and complaints. Antony, however, like other ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... valley of the upper Hudson, driving the feeble colonial forces from his path, and by joining with a force sent up the Hudson from New York City, cut off New England from the remaining colonies and hold this hot-bed of rebellion at his mercy. It was a well-devised and threatening scheme. How disastrously for the royalists it ended all readers of history know. With this great enterprise, however, we are not here concerned, but with a side issue of Burgoyne's march whose romantic incidents fit it for ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... deprived of power to answer so terrible a denunciation, with even a questioning thought. He had heard the destruction of Scotland declared, and himself sentenced to perish if he did not escape the general ruin by flying from her side! This terrible decree of fate, so disastrously corroborated by the extremity of Bruce, and the divisions in the kingdom, had been sounded in his ear, had been pronounced by one of those sages of his country, on whom the spirit of prophecy, it was believed, yet descended, with all the horrors ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... as ever in the long war. He had caught Sheridan at Trevellian's Station, and compelled him to retreat and entirely abandon his part of Grant's new programme; and a little later he came upon Kautz and Wilson—in a railroad raid below Petersburg—and defeated them disastrously, capturing their trains, artillery and a large ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... fighting, had succeeded in pushing the Union forces back upon the river, in a cramped and dangerous position. The action was resumed next day, and the Confederates forced to retire, which they did in good order. That the Union army was not disastrously defeated was due largely to the superb leadership of Sherman, who had three horses shot under him and was twice wounded, but whose demeanor was so cool and inspiring that his raw troops, not realizing their peril, were filled with ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... but the substitute of which wisely and prudently abstained from the vote at the first turn (au premier scrutin) and threw a blank ticket at the second, expound (verb governed by protesters) the acts and situation thence disastrously resulting for ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... men consoled him; but most of his friends advised him to get away out of the country that his great failure might be forgotten. Now here was cause for despair in all conscience; the brilliant man had failed disastrously in the very assembly which he had sworn to master, and the sound of mockery pursued him everywhere. His hopes seemed blighted; his future was dim, he was desperately and dangerously in debt, and he ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... after this event the Moors declared war on the Christians. The king's country was invaded, and the Christians were about to be disastrously defeated, when a strange knight with a magic whip (Pugut-Negru) appeared on the field and put the Saracens to flight. This knight wounded himself in his left arm so that he might receive the attention of the princess. The king's youngest daughter ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... history of last night's dark transactions, however, that was not altogether hers to disclose. The interests and affairs of others were involved, she dared not guess how disastrously; she was only sensitive to the feeling that something black and foul and hideous skulked behind that shut door. Heaven forfend that hers should be the hand to open it and let ruin loose upon this ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... which disregarded the skilful evolution of a plot, contenting itself with a succession of scenes, arranged merely in order of time, that should carry a comprehensive story to its finish. We shall see this influence operating disastrously in plays other than History, and must mark it as a retrograde movement in the development of perfect drama. One extremely valuable contribution of these History Plays was their insistence upon absolute humanness ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... head of cattle. Without delay the Senor and his men coralled and killed a corresponding number of the Seris. Then there was war. The savages made ambushes, but they had only bows and arrows, and the vaqueros fought bravely with their guns. Every ambush turned out disastrously for the Indians. Finally, the Seris made a great ambush, and there was a battle which resulted in the killing of sixty-five savages. The lesson proved sufficient, and the Indians were glad to conclude a permanent peace, agreeing ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... use to Leila in other ways, she would at least serve her as a warning. She had even abstained from defending herself, from making the best of her case, had stoically refused to plead extenuating circumstances, lest Leila's impulsive sympathy should lead to deductions that might react disastrously on her own life. And now that very thing had happened, and Mrs. Lidcote could hear the whole of New York saying with one voice: "Yes, Leila's done just what her mother did. With such an example what ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... war, unlike that against Pisa, ended disastrously. Its origin was a question of trade in the East, where the Comneni had given certain rights to Genoa which on their fall the Venetians refused to respect. The quarrel came to a head in that cause of so many ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... struggled to get at his sword where it hung against the wall, while his comrades, clinging to him and impeding him, were trying in every variety of bad French to dissuade him from a purpose which they were well enough aware must needs end disastrously for him. For they all knew, what the raw Biscayan did not know, how strong was the arm and how terrible the sword of the hunchback whose studies Pinto had so rudely and so foolishly interrupted. As for the hunchback himself, he stood quietly by his chair, with his hands resting ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with it, and the development of the bureaucratic system of administration. The economic conditions steadily declined as the imperial system became constantly more burdensome (v. supra, 55), and the changes in the distribution of wealth and the administration of landed property affected disastrously large sections of the populace. A characteristic feature of Roman society, which affected the position of the Church not a little, was the tendency to regard callings and trades as hereditary, and by the fourth century this was enforced by law. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... ended, Bob. Things have only begun, and, as regards myself, they have begun disastrously," said Barret, who thereupon related the incident of the little ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... legislation clearly within the power of provincial legislatures. He was persuaded that the obnoxious phrases in the preamble of the Jesuits' Estates Act had been inserted with the express object of tempting him to an arbitrary and unjust exercise of power which would react disastrously upon him, not only in Quebec, but also in Ontario, Manitoba, and elsewhere. It was all too palpable, and, as he used to say, 'in vain is the net spread in the sight ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... pleasant place it had formerly been. A change had taken place, both in Master Hugh, and in his once pious and affectionate wife. The influence of brandy and bad company on him, and the influence of slavery and social isolation upon her, had wrought disastrously upon the{143} characters of both. Thomas was no longer "little Tommy," but was a big boy, and had learned to assume the airs of his class toward me. My condition, therefore, in the house of Master Hugh, was not, by any means, so comfortable as in former years. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... sentiment, like gravitation, diminishes in the ratio of the square of the distance, and at any considerable remove can no longer be reckoned upon as a counter-balance to the lawlessness of egotism. Athenians could be passably just, or at least not disastrously unjust, to Athenians; Spartans to Spartans; but Sparta must needs oppress the other cities of Laconia, while Athens was at best a fickle ally; and when Grecian liberty could be strong only in Grecian union, the common sentiment was bankrupted by too great a draft upon its resources. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... of the things that would pluck you away from Jesus Christ, and upset you in your standing will come down upon you unexpectedly. Nothing happens in this world except the unexpected; and it is the sudden assaults that we were not looking for that work most disastrously against us. A man may be aware of some special weakness in his character, and have given himself carefully and patiently to try to fortify himself against it, and, lo! all at once a temptation springs up from the opposite side; the enemy was lying in hiding there, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... F. Smith complain because the Councillor's were never asked for counsel. As resident apostle of Box Elder County and president of the Box Elder "stake of Zion," Snow had already shown his ambition as a financier, disastrously; and it was as the financial head of the Church that he was chiefly to rule during his ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... "Immensely. Sometimes a trifle disastrously. Find me a more absolutely interesting object in the universe than a woman —any woman—and I will devote the remainder of my declining years to the study ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Drew slapped the Texan's horse. It reared and then pounded off. Drew turned to walk back to the camp. He rounded the end of the ridge and stopped short. The round and deadly mouth of an Army Colt was pointed straight at his middle, covering the disastrously empty ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... experiment, I cannot call to mind even a single instance in which leading questions (as the lawyers call them) on my part, addressed to a sitter, ever produced any result worth recording. Over and over again, I have been disastrously successful in encouraging dull people to weary me. But the clever people who have something interesting to say, seem, so far as I have observed them, to acknowledge no other stimulant than chance. For every story which I propose including in the present collection, excepting one, I have been ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... next morning on Mr. Clair, and have a talk with him about the lads, for Mr. Murray had a very strong reason for being interested in their future. It was he who had persuaded their father to invest money in the speculation that ended so disastrously, but he had no idea that Mr. Rivers became such an extensive shareholder; he forgot that a simple country gentleman, without either knowledge or experience, could not be as prudent and far-seeing as a man all his life acquainted with business. Mr. Murray had been a loser in the ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... composition were perforce thrown away, but also the examination was so framed that even the practice of oral composition, in preparation for it, was actively discouraged. And the neglect of composition acted disastrously on the teaching of the subjects in question; for wherever self-expression on the part of the child is forbidden, the appropriate "sense," or perceptive faculty, cannot possibly evolve itself,—perception and expression being, as we have elsewhere ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... that a session which was destined to witness the important proposals of the Whigs in the direction of free trade, and to end so disastrously for the Liberal party, and so well for the Conservatives, should have ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... force the classics down the unwilling throats of those who do not care for them and are perhaps unfitted to appreciate them. There has been entirely too much of this already and it has resulted disastrously. Surely, a sane via media is possible, and we may agree that a man will never like Eschylus, without assuring him that Eschylus is an out-of-date old fogy, while on the other hand we may acknowledge the greatness of Homer and Milton without trying to force them upon ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... Thus disastrously ended the third and last attempt my father made to have us instructed at home. Nor could he send us to town, where there was but one English school for boys, run by a weak, sickly gentleman, whose house ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... said, "on possessing two sons whose word of honor is above reproach. The smallest deviation from the outlined schedule would have resulted disastrously. Ten minutes' tardiness at the different points would have failed to obtain the requisite documents. Your sons did not fail. They can be depended upon. The world is in search of men built on those lines. I ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... some early inroads into Strathearn, but the exigencies of space have determined for me that I can deal with only one—the earliest of all—the Roman invasion. I should have liked to have told the story of the invasion by Egfrid of Northumbria, which ended so disastrously for him at Nechtansmere—most likely Dunnichen, in Forfarshire, in the year 685 A.D., and of which it may well be that we have a solitary trace in the name Abercairny—plainly identical with Abercornig—Abercorn in the Lothians—where the Angles founded a monastery under Abbot ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... determined to bombard these walls and intrenchments with heavy guns and then carry them by infantry assault. But this plan failed disastrously. On the 15th of August the British charged in three columns the bastions and batteries only to be savagely repulsed at every point with a loss of nine hundred men killed, wounded, or prisoners, while the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... sign of "foaming at the mouth." Few mouths then opened that did not immediately begin to "foam." So many fortunes were suddenly wrecked by President Jackson's financial policy, and the business of the country was so disastrously disturbed, that, whether the policy was right or wrong, those who assailed and those who defended it seemed to be equally devoid of common intellectual honesty. "I do well to be angry," appears to have been the maxim which inspired Democratic ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... rejoiced at the amplification. She wrote more or less regular heroic romances,[227] which are very inferior to her fairy tales; and though these are not in the Cabinet, she sometimes "mixes the kinds" rather disastrously in shorter pieces. The framework of Don Gabriel Ponce de Leon, which enshrines the sad but charming "Golden Sheep," and a variant of Cendrillon, is poor stuff; and Les Chevaliers Errans only shows what we knew ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... next ten moves, Wade spotted the weak points in every attack Morey made; the attack crumbled disastrously and white was forced to resign, his king in ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... of eight provinces at my back, infantry and horsemen to the number of one million; why, they could dam up the Yangtsze River itself by merely throwing their whips into the stream. What danger have I to fear?" Nevertheless, his forces were soon after disastrously routed at the Fei River, and he was obliged to beat a ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... whose sole knowledge of makeup is confined to the boudoir, is very prone to overdo in her maiden attempts at stage makeup, and so disastrously decorate her face that under the unaccustomed and little understood lights of the theatre she appears hideous to the folks out in front. And this is especially true of the most beautiful type of women, who think ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... tuned aside to Catania, where he embarked with 2,000 volunteers, declaring he would enter Rome as a victor, or perish beneath its walls. He landed at Melito on the 24th of August, and threw himself at once, with his followers, into the Calabrian mountains. But his enterprise was quickly and disastrously ended. General Cialdini despatched a division of the regular army, under Colonel Pallavicino, against the volunteer bands. At Aspromonte, on the 28th of August, the two forces came into collision. A chance shot was followed ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... effect of the plague upon the religious houses; but I am inclined to think that the monasteries suffered very greatly indeed from the terrible visitation, and that the violent disturbance of the old traditions and the utter breakdown in the old observances acted as disastrously upon these institutions as the first stroke of paralysis does upon men who have passed their prime—they never were again ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... already angry monster to a perfect frenzy of rage. Even at this critical moment there was time for another shot; but Mildmay most unfortunately forgot that he had nine loaded chambers still available, and instead of firing again he flung away his piece and ran for his life. The race was a disastrously short one, however; he had not run more than twenty yards when the huge creature was upon him. The great uplifted trunk gave one whirl in the air and descended with force enough to slay an ox. It struck poor Mildmay on his right side, and, but for the fortunate accident ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... command of the troops in that vicinity and relieve General Lew Wallace. Nelson, with insufficient, and mainly new, undrilled, and undisciplined troops, moved to Richmond, Ky., where (August 30th) he was assailed by Kirby Smith's army and his forces disastrously routed with much loss, principally in captured. He was himself wounded in the leg by a musket ball. There were few organized Union troops now between Smith's army and the Ohio River, and such organizations as could be assembled were new and unable to cope with the Confederate veterans. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... pillow. And as they slept through the tropic night the full moon in the east rose higher and higher, passed overhead and disappeared behind a thickening haze in the western sky; but before it had crossed the meridian its cold, chemical rays had worked disastrously on the ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... Parkman; for, indeed, my dear child, I honor your motive, and share your hope; but unless I find more encouragement than I expect, I will not complicate matters by a futile attempt, which would certainly recoil disastrously." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... deportation for criminals as far back as 1763, when a penal colony was founded in French Guiana and failed disastrously. An expedition was sent there, composed of the most evil elements of the Paris population and numbering 14,000, all of whom died. The attempt was repeated in 1766 and with the same miserable result. Other failures are recorded, the worst being the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... disastrously conducted in this quarter, the party under Colonel Thornton had gained the landing-place. On stepping ashore, the first thing they beheld was a rocket thrown up as a signal that the battle was begun. This ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... does not bother with anything much but plot-expression of character. Indicate the odd twist of a character's thoughts as clearly as you can, but never try to reproduce all his speech phonetically. If you do, you will end disastrously, for your manuscript will look like a scrambled alphabet which nobody can decipher. In writing dialect merely suggest the broken English here and there—follow the method so clearly shown in "The German Senator." Remember ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... less important to the employee than it is to the employer, since if the owner pays a higher salary than the manager can earn, he quite surely will sooner or later discharge his manager. This may result disastrously for the discharged young man, not merely on account of the loss of employment, but because his failure may militate against his securing satisfactory employment elsewhere. When an employer is seeking a man, he looks for one ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... the London of Queen Anne, which Horace bore to the Augustan capital; and so reproducing in an English garb something at any rate of the exotic flavour of his original. In an age when Pope is undeservedly and disastrously neglected, I shall do well to present some few Horatian samples from the king-poet of his century; by whose wit and finish, unsurpassed if not unequalled in our literature, the taste of my own contemporaries was formed; and to ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... knowing but that the Automaton and his emissaries might still be lurking above, ready to thrust them back into the water or to reserve for them some even more terrible fate. But it was a risk that they realized must be taken and at once. An attempt to swim to another dock could end only disastrously. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... a lot of things he may have thought," interrupted Barnes, smiling. "It is barely possible that my arrival may have caused him to act more hastily than he intended. That may be the reason why the job ended so disastrously for him." ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... external protection. This ungrounded assumption, united to the fact that no adult has the confidence of these young people, who are constantly subjected to a multitude of imaginative impressions, is almost certain to result disastrously. ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... abhorrence of maternity, is carried to a still greater extent by American women, with grave national consequences resulting; but though we have not yet reached the Transatlantic limit, the state of the feminine feeling and physical condition among ourselves will disastrously affect the future unless something can be done to bring our women back to a healthier tone of mind and body. No one can object to women declining marriage altogether in favor of a voluntary self-devotion to some ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... objections to offer against going alone on that errand, as, for instance, that the chigger fleas would invade our toe-nails disastrously without his cunning fingers to hunt them out again. He also prophesied that without him to interpret there would swiftly be trouble between us and the chief; but we saw the other side of that medal and rather looked forward ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... short, China only had railways and a good and enlightened system of government her progress and prosperity would soon make the Western world envious. But her government is not only stupidly unprogressive, it is also disastrously wasteful. About seventy per cent. of the whole revenue of the country is lost to the public use through the malfeasance of officials. And only about 85 miles of railway have as yet been opened, although it must be said that 200 or 250 miles ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... I have been growing less and less satisfied with that brief, troubled portion of my life which closed so disastrously. I forgot how much the happiness of another was involved. A blind, willful girl, struggling in imaginary bonds, I thought only of myself, and madly rent apart the ties which death only should have sundered. For five years, Rose, I have carried ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... Who knows what situations a thing like this is going to lead to? I am well aware that whoever she be, a woman is an incubator of sorrow and annoyance. If she is good she is probably stupid, or perhaps she is an invalid, or perhaps she is so disastrously fecund that she gets pregnant if you look at her. If she is bad, one may expect to be dragged through every disgusting kind of degradation. Oh, whatever you ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... attempt to invade Canaan failed. It was made from the south, from the shelter of the block of mountains within which stood the sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea. The Israelitish forces were disastrously defeated at Zephath, the Hormah of later days, and the invasion of the Promised Land was postponed. The desert life had still to continue for a while. In the fastness of 'Ain Qadis the forces of Israel grew and ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... practice. I am a specialist in immoral and heretical plays. My reputation has been gained by my persistent struggle to force the public to reconsider its morals. In particular, I regard much current morality as to economic and sexual relations as disastrously wrong; and I regard certain doctrines of the Christian religion as understood in England to-day with abhorrence. I write plays with the deliberate object of converting the nation to my opinions in these ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... battle. As matters turned out, even such instantaneous and ruinous abandonment would not have helped Rosecrans. It was now the afternoon of the 17th of September. The battle of Chickamauga was to begin in the early morning of the 19th and to end disastrously on the 20th. One full day for the marching of troops was all that intervened, or two at most, if they were only to reach the field upon the second day of the battle. And where were Burnside's men? One division at Greeneville and above, more than two hundred miles from Chattanooga, and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... worse. 55 He therefore judging it below him, To tempt a shame the Devil might owe him, Resolv'd to leave the Squire for bail And mainprize for him to the gaol, To answer, with his vessel, all, 60 That might disastrously befall; And thought it now the fittest juncture To give the Lady a rencounter, T' acquaint her 'with his expedition, 65 And conquest o'er the fierce Magician; Describe the manner of the fray, And show the spoils he brought away, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... that he had decided to make an active defence in order to keep the enemy's attention fixed on his force, and so prevent them from invading South Natal before the reinforcements could arrive. With that object he had fought the action of October 30, which had turned out so disastrously. After that he fell back on his entrenchments, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the expedition that ended so disastrously, as narrated in a previous chapter. The Spaniard who was charged with La Cosa's last message to Ojeda was the only survivor of seventy who had followed the rash commander in his headlong attack. What had become of Ojeda himself none of the survivors could tell, for several days passed without ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... correspondent both clever and intimate is one of those things that make life precious. In a word, her letters (which, to our dismay, besides occupying a bare third of the two volumes, are towards the end disastrously affected by the style of her lover) succeed in giving a whimsical view of her ordinary and external life, viewed from standpoints above and beyond the reach of externals—the head and the heart. Her account of the affair ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... make children what they should be; if, even were there a system that would do this, existing parents are too imperfect to carry it out; and if even could such a system be successfully carried out, its results would be disastrously incongruous with the present state of society; does it not follow that to reform the system now in use is neither practicable nor desirable?" No. It merely follows that reform in domestic government must go on, pari passu, with other reforms. It merely follows that ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... every one of importance is likely to have ties with both sides, regrets for the friends he has lost, misgivings in respect to the course he has adopted. In April, 1779, Arnold had begun his treason by expressing discontent at the alliance with France then working so disastrously. His future lay before him; he was still under forty; he had just married into a family of position; he expected that both he and his descendants would spend their lives in America and he must have known that contempt would ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Jaraicejo, it was discovered that the affairs of Egypt had ended disastrously in the discomfiture and capture of Antonio's friends by the authorities. The news was brought by the gypsy's daughter. Antonio must return at once, and as the steed Borrow was riding, which belonged to Antonio, would be required by him, Borrow purchased the daughter's ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... again with the general course of the history of the times, it will be well to consider for a moment the theory which worked so disastrously for England in 1667; that, namely, of maintaining a sea-war mainly by preying upon the enemy's commerce. This plan, which involves only the maintenance of a few swift cruisers and can be backed by the spirit of greed ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... mind was black with confused pictures of bulbs, departed pensionnaires, hostile bankers, and—the ghastly charite de la Commune which awaited her. Yet her husband, before he went into the wine-business so disastrously, had been pasteur here. He had preached from this very church whose bells now rang out the mid-day hour. The spirit of her daughter, she firmly believed, still haunted the garden, the narrow passages, and the dilapidated little salon where the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood |
