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Disaster   Listen
noun
Disaster  n.  
1.
An unpropitious or baleful aspect of a planet or star; malevolent influence of a heavenly body; hence, an ill portent. (Obs.) "Disasters in the sun."
2.
An adverse or unfortunate event, esp. a sudden and extraordinary misfortune; a calamity; a serious mishap. "But noble souls, through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat The stronger."
Synonyms: Calamity; misfortune; mishap; mischance; visitation; misadventure; ill luck. See Calamity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disaster" Quotes from Famous Books



... rather better than he had expected, and by luncheon-time he had reached a large town, seventy miles away from his own city, where he knew of an exceptionally good place to obtain a refreshing meal. With this end in view, he was making more than ordinary village speed when disaster befell him in the shape of a break in his electric connections. Two blocks away from the hotel he sought, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... favorite game of ball of the North American Indians, known to-day, as it was in 1636, by the name of "lacrosse," was potent among them as a remedial exercise or superstitious rite to cure diseases and avert disaster; that it formed part of stately ceremonials which were intended to entertain and amuse distinguished guests; and that it was made use of as a stratagem of war, by means of which to lull the suspicions of the enemy and to ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis

... attack. Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon we came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long—the very one in which Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his first journey. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores through the brushwood, which is very thick at this ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... when your arms on shore were covered by disaster,—when Winchester had been defeated, when the army of the Northwest had surrendered, and when the feeling of despondency hung like a cloud over the land,—who first relit the fires of national glory, and made the welkin ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... nearly five dollars a bushel, and the American supply likely to be cut off; consols at 57 1/2, gold at thirty per cent premium; a Ministry without credit or authority, and a general consciousness of blunders, incompetence, and corruption,—every new tale of disaster sank the hopes of England and called out wails of despair. In that state of mind the loss of the Guerriere assumed portentous dimensions. The Times was especially ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... conversation that had taken place with his mother, he would unhesitatingly have told himself that Hilda was yielding to a foolish presentiment raised by the sorrow of parting. Persons in love are very apt to fancy each separation the last, and to imagine some dreadful disaster to be in store for the object of their affections. He flattered himself that his own common sense was too strong to be shaken by such absurdities, but he owned that the sensation was a natural one. Without ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... destruction, on account of one of these blockades. Behind the dam the water rose seven feet in one hour, overflowing the dikes, and breaking through them. This danger is incurred every winter; but disaster is generally warded off by the ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... efforts at relief occupied all comers far into the morning. It was long before any one thought of asking the cause of the disaster; yet presently reason sufficient was discovered. The broken railway train covered with its wreckage the immediate cause of the accident: a pile of timbers erected carefully and solidly between the rails. Seeing this, after a time, there began to mount ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... before the dawn she started awake to hear the sharp thudding of a horse's hoofs galloping upon the turf not very far away. That last set her heart a-beating, she could not have said wherefore, save that it reminded her vaguely of a day in the hunting-field that had ended for her in disaster. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... abroad, though one of great unrest, is not one of decadence, but of progress. But it would be folly not to admit that there are aspects of it which presage disaster unless directed, just as the pot will boil over ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn

... young to understand that the world which seems to stop with their disaster is going on with smooth indifference, and that a little time will carry them so far from any fateful event that when they gather courage to face it they will find it curiously shrunken in the perspective. Nothing really stops the world but death, and that only for the dead. If we ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... that it would be carried out. It was made on the day after the first great battle of the war had been fought and lost. All patriotic and intelligent men then saw the necessity of giving such an assurance, and believed that without it the war would end in disaster to our cause. Having given that assurance in the extremity of our peril, the violation of it now, in the day of our power, would be a rude rending of that good faith which holds the moral world together; our country would cease to have any claim upon the confidence of men; it would make the war not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... burned the camp of an army had been kindled merely to gratify the revenge, or favour the escape of an individual. Shaking, therefore, from his kingly spirit the thrill of superstitious awe that the greatness of the disaster, when associated with the name of a sorcerer, at first occasioned, he resolved to make advantage out of misfortune itself. The excitement, the wrath of the troops, produced the temper most fit ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... to me, as entirely accidental, and not in the least owing to any previous offence received, or jealousy of our second visit entertained by the natives. Pareah seems to have been the principal instrument in bringing about this fatal disaster. We learnt afterwards, that it was he who had employed some people to steal the boat; the king did not seem to be privy to it, or even apprized of what had happened, till Captain Cook landed. It was generally remarked, that, at first, the Indians shewed great resolution in facing our fire-arms; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... then the exclamations! The rapid preparations! The launching of canoes upon the wave! The signalling and shouting!— Death and disaster flouting— The anxious haste, the strife, a human life to save Across the boiling surges, Each man his light bark urges, Though death is in the error of a stroke; And paddling, poising, drifting, O'er the floes the light shell lifting, The gallant fellows ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... course for girls are finding their chief difficulty in discovering people properly endowed by nature and properly trained to teach it. To give such work into any but the wisest hands invites disaster. To make it a study of the physical basis of sexual life is disaster in itself. Service, through making one's self a pure member of society, and through helping others to keep the same standard—this must be the keynote of the teaching, an education toward social ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... bound to be lost in hastily assembling each party at the mouth of the tunnel and getting it started on its mission, while to rush men forward individually as they left the tunnel would inevitably result in confusion, disorganisation and possible disaster. Instructions were therefore that each party was to assemble in the nullah and move as quickly as possible on its objective as soon ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... though the armies are not unequal in strength, l'Hopital may well consider the chances of victory to be against us. In the second place, in a battle Enghien will be in command, and though all of us recognize that he possesses extraordinary ability, his impetuosity might well lead to a disaster. Then the marshal must feel that while the glory of a victory would fall to Enghien, the discredit of a defeat would be given to him, while if aught happened to Enghien himself the wrath of Conde and his faction would ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... stated,—namely, such an attestation from competent authorities to the truth of Kate's narrative as may save all readers from my fair Westmoreland friend's disaster,—it remains to give such an answer, as without further research can be given, to a question pretty sure of arising in all reflective readers' thoughts— namely, does there anywhere survive a portrait of Kate? I answer—and it would be both mortifying ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... remained immovable, and Bertrand reluctantly added, "We fear either your son or his cousin, possibly both of them, have met with disaster—maybe murder." ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... dim confusion, she grasped one thought and saw it stand quite clear before her eyes. She found difficulty in clothing it in words, but its meaning perhaps was this: That cedar stood in their life for something friendly; its downfall meant disaster; a sense of some protective influence about the cottage, and about her husband in particular, was ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood

... allowed to distinguish himself by a solid reign of well-doing, or by any continuing reign at all,—sometimes as many as four kings simultaneously fighting;—and in Norway, from sire to son, nothing but sanguinary anarchy, disaster and bewilderment; a Country sinking steadily as if towards absolute ruin. Of all which frightful misery and discord Irish Gylle, styled afterwards King Harald Gylle, was, by ill destiny and otherwise, the visible origin: an illegitimate Irish Haarfagr who proved to be ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... broken immediately after by a public disaster unequalled since the last consular army was overthrown by the Gauls on the Rhone; and the capitalists, left without a leader, drifted away to their natural allies in the Senate. Crassus had taken the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... not angry with Carter. The fellow had acted like a seaman. Carter's concern was for the ships. In this fatality Carter was a mere incident. The real cause of the disaster was somewhere else, was other, and more remote. And at the same time Lingard could not defend himself from a feeling that it was in himself, too, somewhere in the unexplored depths of his nature, something fatal and unavoidable. He muttered ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... Saxony and Denmark, and in which the Protestant cause was in the end successfully sustained by the Swedish hero, GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS (q. v.), who had opposed to him the imperial generals TILLY and WALLENSTEIN (q. v.); his reign is regarded as one of disaster, bloodshed, and desolation to his empire, and his connivance at the assassination of Wallenstein will be forever remembered to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... American people will face it with the undaunted spirit which in their revolutionary struggle defeated his unrighteous projects. His threats and his barbarities, instead of dismay, will kindle in every bosom an indignation not to be extinguished but in the disaster and expulsion of such cruel invaders. In providing the means necessary the National Legislature will not distrust the heroic and enlightened patriotism of its constituents. They will cheerfully and proudly bear every burden of every kind which the safety and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... produces soldiers in abundance; innumerable horses neigh and paw the ground in the palace stables; and workmen could soon bend wood, melt copper, sharpen brass. The fortune of war is changeable, but a disaster may be atoned for. To have, however, wished for a thing which did not at once come to him, to have met with an obstacle between his will and the carrying out of that will, to have hurled like a javelin a desire which had ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... through dissensions among the Saracens who then dominated that country. On the 15th of August, while his army was marching through the passes of the Pyrenees, his rear-guard was attacked and annihilated by the Basque inhabitants of the mountains, in the valley of Roncesvaux About this disaster many popular songs, it is supposed, soon sprang up; and the chief hero whom they celebrated was Hrodland, Count of ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... Gospel-historians, in specifying "the country of the Gergesenes" (8:28). As stated in the text, a whole region or section is referred to, not a town. The keepers of the swine ran off to the towns to report the disaster that had befallen their herd. In that district of Perea there were at the time towns named respectively Gadara, Gerasa, and Gergesa; the region in general, therefore, could properly be called the land of the Gadarenes or of the Gergesenes. Farrar (Life of Christ, p. 254 note) says: ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... and after an early tea everyone mounted horses or carriages and went forth to see the sights of the Section—everyone, that is to say, save The Chaperon, who had other work to do; he it was who discovered and averted what might have been a disaster. Some members of the party were quite content as long as they were given three cups of tea, others fancied cocktails, and some babbled for cocoa. It was suddenly found that the supply of this last useful article was running short. The Kid not being a cocoa-drinker, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... declared war on Ignorance. He felt a sudden shame for his previous doubts. He saw clearly that his great continent-country was a rock to which the other baffled, despairing nations might cling when disaster ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... hear Jim Rodgers tell the story of Billy Rhodes to realize how deeply the iron of football disaster sinks ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... rate, those effeminate people are not typical specimens of our steadfast friendly race. When the folk in the colliery village hear that deadly thud and feel the shudder of the earth which tell of disaster, Jack the hewer rushes to the pit's mouth and joins the search-party. He knows that the gas may grip him by the throat, and that the heavy current of dissolution may creep through his veins; but his mate ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... 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 is already disheartened ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... victor from Esthonia, having beaten alike the pagans and the Livonian knights, and bearing with him the victorious Danneborg, he was at the height of his glory, and none dreamed of the terrible disaster that awaited him. He had made enemies among the German princes, and they conspired against him, but they were forced to submit to his rule. Some of those whose lands he had seized did not hesitate to express openly their hatred for him; but others, while ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... preparing ourselves, and if, with the lessons taught the world by the dreadful tragedies of the last twelve months, we continue with soft complacency to stand helpless and naked before the world, we shall excite only contempt and derision if and when disaster ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... the auspices of an experienced general, and with all the means and appurtenances of European warfare. How different from the starveling expeditions he had hitherto been doomed to conduct! What an opportunity to efface the memory of his recent disaster! All his thoughts of rural life were put to flight. The military part of his character was again in the ascendant; his great desire was to join the expedition ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... them fresh water; how the Minister of Marine and the engineers, all responsible men of experienced and scientific training, had naturally all been hostile, were all certain on scientific grounds that disaster was at hand, had calculated its coming, foretelling it for such a day and hour as ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... out of bond but losses and deterioration during seven years, and interest on borrowed money—credit having been strained to the utmost—brought ruin and insolvency, and he had to go to South Australia, followed by his wife and family soon after. It seems strange that this disaster should be the culmination of the peace, after the long Napoleonic war. When my father married in 1815 he showed he was making 600 pounds a year, with 2,000 pounds book debts, as a writer or attorney and as agent for a bank. But the business ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... their co-religionists and allies, and had only been waiting for news of the success of the Armada to rise in arms against the English, who had but few troops there. Rumours of disaster had arrived, and a small frigate had been driven into Tralee Bay. The fears of the garrison at Tralee Castle overcame their feelings of humanity, and all on board were put to death. Two galleons put into Dingle, and landing begged for water; but the natives, deciding that the Spanish ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... strained and tugged in its efforts to free itself, but the sticks were tough and the ropes which held them sound, and with increased speed the brig flew before the gale. Two of the best hands were at the wheel, for any carelessness in steering might in an instant have produced a serious disaster. The effects of the additional sail were satisfactory, as the stranger was no longer gaining on us, as she had hitherto done. Still, as I felt the violent blows given by the seas, now on one quarter, now on the other, the brig now pitching into a hollow ahead, ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... justify the wisdom of this selection, for his first war party resulted in disaster. Starting with about eighty warriors on a raid into the Utah country to steal horses, he led his unlucky band into an ambush, and barely twenty of them escaped; their leader ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... that it's done with an eye to your ultimate personal profit, That your chivalrous task is but worn as a mask till occasion allows you to doff it, Let the caviller say that the victim to-day is preserved from a final disaster, And is saved from the Japs that to-morrow perhaps he may furnish a meal ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... thing it was that Grant said at Shiloh. The first day closed in disaster. The enemy had all but driven the Union Army into the river. Not a great distance from the banks of the stream they will point out to you the tree under which Grant stood, cigar clinched between his teeth, directing the disposition of his forces. Some ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... story—how he had lived as a boy in the town where, later, the flood came and swept away the Bellmore home, taking Dave with it. The future engineer was away at the time of the disaster, and he knew nothing of the particulars of the rush of the waters, save ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... essential principle of the Republican party is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country. If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the disaster had been, Will felt that the stroke of lightning had saved the ship. The pressure of the wind, upon two masts and hull, had nearly sufficed to capsize her. Had the main mast stood, he felt that she must have ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... necessity, where it might not have been a choice. During the entire course of the war, the "Intelligencer" sustained most vigorously all the measures needful for carrying it on with efficiency; and it did equally good service in reanimating, whenever it had slackened at any disaster, the drooping spirit of our people. Nor did its editors, when there were two, stop at these proofs of sincerity, nor slink, when danger drew near, from that hazard of their own persons to which they had stirred up the country. When invasion came, they at once took to arms, as volunteer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred. There was but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. That man was Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers of New Jersey. He was hurrying home with happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair forever, and in that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... The Americans, by this victory, acquired forty-two pieces of brass artillery, four thousand six hundred muskets, and an immense quantity of military stores. This surrender of Burgoyne was the greatest disaster which the British troops had thus far experienced, and raised the spirits of the Americans to the highest pitch. Indeed, this surrender decided the fate of the war, for it proved the impossibility of conquering the Americans. It showed that they fought under infinitely greater ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... was said to have made on their conduct, after waiting to see whether they would stand after they got out of the reach of the enemy's shot, was, "well, d—— me, if ever I saw ten thousand men run a race before!" However, notwithstanding their disaster, many of their officers certainly evinced great bravery, and on their account it is to be regretted that the attack was made so soon, for they would otherwise have carried their point with little loss, either of life or credit, as the British divisions on the left soon after stormed and ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... violent yaw, turning, perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost at the same moment one shout followed another from on board; I could hear feet pounding on the companion ladder; and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the directors objected that the debts of the company were heavy, and that a premature increase would raise the price of stock to a point at which it could not be maintained, and might end in a disaster like that of the South Sea Company. The ministers sent a message of warning, announcing that the affairs of the company would probably be considered in parliament. They concerned the public, for the company enjoyed protection ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... babe of a man, and may easily be husht; as to think upon some disaster, some sad misfortune, as the death of thy ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... by defeat, but nursing no bitterness, he sat down on the leather divan again and permitted his sister to feed him and tell him that his disaster was only an accident. He tried to think so, too, but serious doubts persisted in his mind. There had been a clean-cut finish to that swing and jab which ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... for doing prodigies—to repair the country's omissions. All the country cares for is to hope Dick Turpin may get to York. Our men are good beasts; they give the best in 'em, and drop. More's the scandal to a country that has grand material and overtasks it. A blazing disaster ends the chapter!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... invincibility of love of country? Or shall I carry you to the painful scenes of Long Island, York island, and New Jersey, when, combatting superior and gallant armies, aided by powerful fleets, and led by chiefs high in the roll of fame, he stood the bulwark of our safety, undismayed by disaster, unchanged by change of fortune? Or will you view him in the precarious fields of Trenton, where deep glooms, unnerving every arm, reigned triumphant through our thinned, worn down, unaided ranks, himself unmoved? Dreadful was ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... killed by Therese and Laurent, and they had conceived the crime in shame! For Madame Raquin, there was such a fathomless depth in this thought, that she could neither reason it out, nor grasp it clearly. She experienced but one sensation, that of a horrible disaster; it seemed to her that she was falling into a dark, cold hole. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... either of these incidents produced any practical effect on the result of the war. Lord Chatham's refusal to contemplate their independence could not retard its establishment; and the alliance of France and Spain, which brought nothing but disaster to those countries, could not accelerate it by a single moment. For nearly six years the war continued with alternations of success, the victories gained by the British arms being the more numerous, the triumphs of the Americans being incomparably the more important, involving as they ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... year I lost three men on anarchist duty, among the victims being my most valuable helper, Henri Brisson. Poor Brisson's fate was an example of how a man may follow a perilous occupation for months with safety, and then by a slight mistake bring disaster on himself. At the last gathering Brisson attended he received news of such immediate and fateful import that on emerging from the cellar where the gathering was held, he made directly for my residence instead of going ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... was a muff at rowing, though, and kept "catching a crab," which disaster he accounted for by declaring that the fishes would keep holding on to his oar when he dipped it into the water; but the Palaeotherium, who was in the bow of the boat, and consequently got all of the splashes and knocks with the ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... seized the duke to cross the bridge, and re-visit once more the home of his youth, the scene of his family's disaster, the stage of that frightful tragedy which had shocked the ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... said, morosely. "Somebody ought to take a snap-shot of the scene of our disaster. If you don't want the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... villages blazing, Flemish citadels exploding, their fragments hurled skyward in a blue flame of gunpowder; but never this vast arch of crimson, glowing and growing before his astonished gaze, as he paddled the boat inshore, and stood up to watch the great disaster. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... as that. Fui, non sum. I was indeed your 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) ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... spoke: "Ah!" he said, "when one thinks that fifty thousand francs would have sufficed to prevent such a disaster! With fifty thousand francs the roof could have been put on, the heavy work would have been saved, and one could have waited patiently. But they wanted to kill the work just as they had killed the man." With a gesture he designated the Fathers of the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... with unabated vigour, even after my arrest, the Government must imprison others or grant the people's wish in order to gain their co-operation. Any eruption of violence on the part of the people even under provocation would end in disaster. Whether therefore it is I or any one else who is arrested during the campaign, the first condition of success is that there must be no resentment shown against it. We cannot imperil the very existence of a Government and quarrel ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... spot, I found that the boat had run foul of a sunken tree and had filled almost immediately. Mr. White had, on the instant, managed to run her ashore, across another sunken trunk, and thus prevented her from going down in deep water opposite to a steep bank. By this disaster our whole stock of tea, sugar, and tobacco, with part of our flour and pork, were immersed in the water, but fortunately all the gunpowder had been stowed ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... since, by retaining what belongs to you, he secures the rest of his dominion. He knows that he is plotting against you, and that you are aware of it; and supposing you to have intelligence, he thinks you must hate him; he is alarmed, expecting some disaster, unless he hastens to prevent you. Therefore he is awake and on the watch against us; he courts certain people, who from cupidity, he thinks, will be satisfied with the present, and from dullness of understanding will ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... disaster with the bread, the Story Girl had been taking cooking lessons from Felicity all the week, and getting on tolerably well, although, mindful of her former mistake, she never ventured on anything without Felicity's approval. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Rhoda Kane's mind that was beyond her control, the thought that John Dennis might not return took on the proportions of a disaster. Her feeling was akin to panic as she said, "I will ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... same time—his purity has not to be protected; it is itself a purifying force. He draws some of his most delightful parables from woman's work, as we have seen. It is recorded how, when he spoke of the coming disaster of Jerusalem, he paused to pity poor pregnant women and mothers with little babies in those bad times (Luke 21:23; Matt. 24:19). Critics have remarked on the place of woman in Luke's Gospel, and some have played with fancies ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... fact, all the horrid rigors of amateur rescue work: of which the least said the soonest mended. It was presently noted by some coolhead that the renter of boats, having seen the disaster first, had already put out for the scene of trouble, rowing lustily. Nobody could beat him to his garlands now; that was clear; clear, too, that there really wasn't much peril, after all. So the motley gathering of idlers ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... The Far Side disaster had been pretty disturbing, however. And next day, Thursday, the blue envelopes came to the members of the Bunch. A printed card with a typed-in date, was inside each: "Report for space-fitness tests at Space-Medicine Center, ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... commander knows nothing whatever about the art of war. He is a perfect ignoramus. There is no doing anything with him." But his soldiers followed their "Little Corporal" with an enthusiasm which knew no defeat or disaster. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... is like the hell of fire beneath our feet, which the geologists tell us is the life of the globe. Were it not for it, who would not at times despair of the French character? As long as this fiery core remains, I shall believe France capable of recovering from any disaster to her arms. The "mortal ripening" of the nation ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... ago while walking with a friend in the woods we came on a Skunk. My companion shouted to the dog and captured him to save him from a possible disaster, then called to me to keep back and let the Skunk run away. But the fearless one in sable and ermine did not run, and I did not keep back, but I walked up very gently. The Skunk stood his ground and raised his tail ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the marines to fire upon any one who should attempt to leave the ship; the yard-tackles to be cut, to prevent the boats from being hoisted out; and the firemen only to take the necessary measures for extinguishing the fire. The captain, who was undressed in his cabin at the time of the disaster, received an immediate report of it from an officer, and hastened to the quarter-deck. The flames were rising in volumes from the main hatchway, but the Admiral was calmly giving his orders from the gangway, the firemen exerting themselves, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... from the company on the raft at this terrible disaster. How terrible it really was they did not even yet understand, but they were soon to learn. Freddie was almost ready to burst into tears. Aunt Amanda was so exasperated that she could scarcely speak. The ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen

... were brought to an end by the San Francisco earthquake in April, 1906, which, Montgomery states, 'Wrought such a disaster that I had to turn my attention to other subjects and let the aeroplane rest for a time.' Montgomery resumed experiments in 1911 in California, and in October of that year an accident brought his work to an end. The report in the American ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... atrocity of the situation dawned upon him. He had heard of such things, of the ghouls who haunt the scenes of great disaster, preying upon the bodies ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... operations, never having received any information in regard to the general plan of campaign. If it be intended that his column shall move on Bowling Green while another moves from Cairo or Paducah on Columbus or Camp Beauregard, it will be a repetition of the same strategic error which produced the disaster of Bull Run. To operate on exterior lines against an enemy occupying a central position will fail, as it always has failed, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. It is condemned by every military authority I have ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... comfort; yet I would have given all I possessed for my deliverance; my escape was not yet more certain, or my situation much less perilous. I found that I still held clutched in my right hand the bush that had given way, and been the cause of my disaster; but how far I had fallen, or at what part of the hideous chasm I had been mercifully arrested, I had no means to ascertain; for I stood, like a Russian peasant ready to receive the knout, with my face to the wall of rocks. I looked to the right ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... your happiness materially, and as you desire a healthy old age and a long life, inform yourselves as to the few simple laws that govern human existence, and attempt so far as lies in your power to follow them. If you do not do this, disaster will follow as surely as the night follows ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... social wealth, the security, the opportunities for health, for artistic enjoyment, and of all that makes life worth living. Today the future is heavily clouded and uncertain; but our faith still holds that even the great disaster will help ultimately to weaken the despotic and exploiting forces, and make the condition of the common people more than ever the chief ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... 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

... complete feast, either in the tent of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, or even here also, for many strength-recruiting dainties are here; but the business of an agreeable feast is not our care. We, O thou Jove-nurtured one, contemplating it, rather dread a very great disaster, as it is matter of doubt whether the well-benched ships be saved or destroyed, unless thou puttest on thy might. For near the ships and the wall the high-minded Trojans and their far-summoned allies have pitched their camp, kindling ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... [the Cadiz arsenal], and we said to him: 'You 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

... Lord turned not from the fierceness of His great wrath, wherewith His anger was kindled against Judah." And what followed? Josiah was killed in battle—by his own fault too—by Pharaoh Nechoh, King of Egypt. And then followed nothing but disaster and misery. The Jews were conquered first by the King of Egypt, and taxed to pay to him an enormous tribute; and then, in the wars between Egypt and Babylon, conquered a second time by the King of Babylon, the famous Nebuchadnezzar, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... and I camped without having fallen in with Lejoillie and Carlos. Although we were anxious about ourselves, we had also reason to fear that they might meet with some disaster. They had, however, plenty of powder and shot. They had also a compass to guide them, so that, notwithstanding the foggy state of the atmosphere, they might be able to keep a direct course towards the Saint John. The birds we had shot afforded us an ample meal; and by cooking them at ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... Waihee, the path of his journey was marked afterward by leanness and famine. But a king must be fed, and it is not good to anger a king. So, like warning in advance of disaster, Waihee heard of his coming, and all food- getters of field and pond and mountain and sea were busied with getting food for the feast. And behold, everything was got, from the choicest of royal taro to sugar-cane joints for the ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... attempt to unite the Old World with the New by means of an electric nerve. Authorities differ as to who was responsible for the disaster, but the cause was proved to be what Morse had foreseen when he wrote: "Too sudden a check would inevitably snap ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... the dupe of his good nature and politeness, succeeded in dispersing Lord Loudon's army: and this era, in the opinion of Mr. Maxwell, is the finest part of the Prince's expedition." Henceforth, all was dismay and disaster. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... difficulties involved by constant movement, transport, and the selection of new landing grounds, but, in the words of Sir John French, "It was the timely warning aircraft gave which chiefly enabled me to make speedy dispositions to avert danger and disaster. There can be no doubt indeed that even then the presence and co-operation of aircraft saved the very frequent use of cavalry patrols and detailed supports." The Royal Flying Corps was an important factor in helping the British Expeditionary ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... God's gift to brave men will overmatch a mere army, however solid its force. But an inspired energy of faith is demanded of it. The intervening chapters will show pitiable weakness, and such a schooling of disaster as makes men, looking on the surface of things, deem the struggle folly. As well, they might say, let yonder scuffling vagabonds up any of the Veronese side-streets fall upon the patrol marching like one man, and hope to overcome them! In Vienna there was often ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in Arrowfield. Everything was in such a state of confusion that our entrance was not opposed; and in a few minutes we saw by the light of flaring gas-jets, and of a fire that had begun to blaze, one of the most terrible scenes of disaster I ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... stage again, and help him financially? He had the plan for a comic opera; indeed, he had sketched it as early as 1845, at the same time as the plot of "Lohengrin." Sixteen years it lay dormant in his brain. At last he wrote out the poem in Paris, immediately after the "Tannhaeuser" disaster there. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call "Die Meistersinger" a humorous opera; for while the story of the mediaeval knight who wins the goldsmith's daughter has comic features, its chief characteristic ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... "This disaster has shown us that, after all, when the Chinese have the advantage of strong fortifications, they are no contemptible enemies, and that it will not do to despise them. Of course, they are not to go unpunished for this last proceeding. As soon as the troops can be collected and ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... declared war on each other. A chance musket shot in the backwoods of Virginia started a conflict which reverberated in Europe, disturbed the peace of the world for seven years, and had serious consequences in the French and English colonies of North America. The news of Washington's disaster at Fort Necessity aroused the British Government to the conclusion that it must make a strong demonstration in order to crush the swelling prestige of the French rivals in America. The British planned, accordingly, to send out three expeditions, one against Fort Duquesne, another against the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... no enigmatic personality to be served apart. A far more important change is that, while the malady of the Fisher King is antecedent to the hero's visit, and capable of cure if the question be asked, the failure to fulfil the prescribed conditions of itself entails disaster upon the land. Thus the sickness of the King, and the desolation of the land, are not necessarily connected as cause and effect, but, a point which seems hitherto unaccountably to have been overlooked, the latter is directly attributable to the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... did not learn this disaster until Wednesday, the 26th of May, at his waking. I was at Versailles. Never was such trouble or such consternation. The worst was, that only the broad fact was known; for six days we were without a courier to give us details. Even the post was stopped. Days seemed like years in the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... thee a yal(2) day's march I straave; bud thoo's sae varra arch. For all I still straave faster, Thoo's tripp'd my heels an' meade me stop, By some slain corn, or failin' crop, Or ivery foul disaster. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... Wolseley to Khartum, and a considerable number of the Conservative party long held him chiefly responsible for the "betrayal of Gordon." His lethargic manner, apart from his position as war minister, helped to associate him in their minds with a disaster which emphasized the fact that the government acted "too late"; but Gladstone and Lord Granville were no less responsible than he. In June 1885 he resigned along with his colleagues, and in December was elected for the Rossendale Division of Lancashire, created ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... for us; his labour went on slowly, he struck his blows gently and cautiously, so as to avoid a falling-in of the rock, which would not only have marred our hopes, but would, besides, have caused a great disaster. The vault of rocks suspended over our heads might bury us all alive, and, as will be seen by the sequel, the precautions we had taken were not fruitless. At the very moment when our hopes were about to be realised,—the aperture being ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... acquaintance, and he hugged himself in his solitude when the story of the battle of Bull Run appeared in the Times. He felt only the wish to be more private than ever, for Bull Run was a worse diplomatic than military disaster. All this is history and can be read by public schools if they choose; but the curious and unexpected happened to the Legation, for the effect of Bull Run on them was almost strengthening. They no longer felt doubt. For the next year they went on only ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... There was a charming young woman in whom George Henry had taken more than a casual interest. There was reason to suppose that the interest was not all his, either, but there had been no definite engagement. At the time when financial disaster came to the man, there had grown up between him and Sylvia Hartley that sort of understanding which cannot be described, but which is recognized clearly enough, and which is to the effect that flowers bring fruit. Now he felt glad, for her sake, that only the ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... to a sudden panic on the receipt of Guy's note. A telegram calling him to Africa—calling with a voice which he obeyed with such alacrity that he had not paused to finish his dinner—could only mean that some disaster had happened—some disaster to Jack Meredith. And quite suddenly Millicent Chyne's world was emptied of all else but Jack Meredith. For a moment she forgot herself. She ran to the room where Lady Cantourne ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... young ruffians, for you are nothing else! These hand-to-hand fights between boys seldom finish well. Some disaster is ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi

... among country people on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to decapitate a crowing hen. The same custom is reported from New Hampshire and from Prince Edward Island. Does not this proverb then refer to the common superstition that it presages death or disaster for a hen to crow, in consequence of which such hens ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... circumspect and neglectful of no precaution to insure success or avert disaster, he was extremely bold in thought and action. That using every means to obtain extensive and accurate information (attempting no enterprise of importance without it), and careful in the consideration of every contingency, he was yet marvelously ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... left you to infer, that I have no sympathies for those who come to oppress and enslave my country; nor will I ever aid or sanction their ignoble purposes—not even to the withholding any intelligence I may gain of their movements, which may avert disaster or peril from our ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... aboard of the dismasted lugger; and well was it for the occupants of the latter that such was the case; for as the ship cleverly rounded-to, with her topsails lowered, alongside and to windward of the boat, so near was the latter to foundering that the bow wave of the rescuing craft completed the disaster by surging in over the gunwale in sufficient volume to fill her; and down she went, at the precise moment when some half a dozen ropes, hurled by the sailors above, came whirling down about the shoulders of ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... the year 1676 were marked in Virginia by ominous signs of disaster. A great comet streamed through the sky "like a horsetail," and it was well known that that meant pestilence or war. Then came tens of thousands of pigeons, stretching across the sky as far as the eye could see. They were followed by vast swarms of ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... hot spell, of the blasted crops, of an almost sure disaster to the wheat-fields, and of the activities of the I.W.W. Even the war, for the time being, gave place to the ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... courted the bee, And the owl the porcupine; If churches were built on the sea, And three times one were nine; If the pony rode his master, And the buttercups ate the cows; And the cat had the dire disaster To be worried, sir, by a mouse; And mamma, sir, sold her baby, To a gypsy for half a crown, And a gentleman were a lady, This world would be upside down. But, if any or all these wonders Should ever come about, I should not think them ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... 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 through ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... make up for the years of pleasant good-fellowship which his overstudious life had cost him and to recover touch with the friends of his earlier days, Stephen Dartrey, filled with a queer sense of impending disaster, was climbing the steps to Nora's flat. On the last landing he lingered for a moment ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... was in direst need of labor as a result of this movement, yet the danger therefrom was not as extensive and serious as it was once thought to be. This labor shortage did not have the effect of plunging the whole section into disaster. For the most part, real hardships were experienced only in certain sections, especially those that had contributed heavily to the movement. From the farming and industrial interests of those States struck hardest ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... traveled to this out-of-the-way corner of the globe, but the hostility of the natives has usually brought disaster upon them, so that even the sport of hunting the strange and savage creatures which haunt the jungle fastnesses of Kaol has of later years proved insufficient lure even ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to see her tremble, and look so pale; and as soon as she was a little recovered, asked her the occasion of her fright, and added (with tears running down her cheeks) 'I am afraid, my dear Hebe, some sad disaster has befallen you, for, indeed, my child, I but too ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... expenditure. . . . At five or six o'clock one morning, I was awakened by a prodigious noise on the ramparts under my windows. I sprang out of bed, and saw numbers of people rushing towards the Rhone. I foreboded the disaster! dressed myself, and hastened to the river. . . When I reached the Rhone, I beheld a tremendous sight! All the work of several weeks, carried on daily by nearly a hundred men, had been swept away. Piles, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... from their expressions that Manning and Greig did not share Britz's confidence. They could foresee only disaster. And in the state of nervous depression in which they found themselves they were unable to offer a word of encouragement to the detective. But Britz did not require their encouragement, his own self-confidence being ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... physical disaster from which she had barely escaped with her life. She had not had time to recover from this when, a few hours later, she had been called upon to face the emotions and agitations aroused by the news of her relationship to Lord Ashiel, and the history ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... beleaguered force at daybreak, and the worst incident of the campaign ended without disaster. A casualty list, published in the London papers a few days later, contained an announcement, which concerned nobody who read it, to the effect that Private Ford, of a West African Regiment, had succumbed to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... him severely. Owing 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 ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... men belong to the Confederacy, and I'm a Northerner. They've been chasing me all day. [Pulling a bit of crumpled paper from his breast.] They want this paper. If they get it before to-morrow morning it will mean the greatest disaster that's ever come to the ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various

... of the Republic, to the obscurity of private life. Proffered to a public, pliant, because anxious that its representatives in the field should have a worthy Commander, by an Administration eager to repair the disaster of Bull Run,—puffed into favor by almost the entire press of the country, the day had been when the loyalty of the citizen was measured by his admiration ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... passing the Danube into Moravia, while the Archduke Ferdinand was organising the Bohemians on his left, the Archdukes Charles and John in Hungary, with still formidable and daily increasing forces on his right, the population of Vienna and the surrounding territories ready to rise, in case of any disaster, in his rear; and Prussia as decidedly hostile in heart as she was wavering in policy. The French leader did not disguise from himself the risk of his adventure; but he considered it better to run all that risk, than to linger in Vienna until the armies in Hungary and Bohemia ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... NA natural hazards: hurricanes, flooding, and volcanic activity (an average of one major natural disaster every five years) ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... find the time, and looked about for Luella. She was nowhere to be seen. I left the room a little disappointed, but with a swelling of pride that I had passed the dreaded ordeal and had been accepted as Henry Wilton in the house in which I had most feared to meet disaster. My opinion of my own cleverness had risen, in the language of the ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... upon the ears of travellers voyaging through the desolation. They look around, they stare across the flats, they see nothing. But the mysterious music continues. Then, if they be Sahara-bred, they commend themselves to Allah, for they know that some terrible disaster is at hand, that one of them at least is ...
— The Desert Drum - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, was the most beautiful woman in the world. And from her beauty and faithlessness came the most celebrated of ancient wars, with death and disaster to numbers of famous heroes and the final ruin of the ancient city of Troy. The story of these striking events has been told only in poetry. We propose to tell ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... paralysed with astonishment, opened the kitchen door just in time. Mr. Hawkshaw was not so drunk but he could recognise disaster when it hovered near. As she lifted the steaming kettle from the stove he made a flying leap for the door. The rush of air that followed him as he shot through the aperture almost swept Edna from her feet. In ten seconds the tattered Hawkshaw was scrambling over the ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... practical adviser. Stimson was no mooning Romeo, however, but an eager, incisive soul, born very poor, eager to advance himself. Cowperwood detected that pliability of intellect which, while it might spell disaster to some, spelled success for him. He wanted the intellectual servants. He was willing to pay them handsomely, to keep them busy, to treat them with almost princely courtesy, but he must have the utmost loyalty. Stimson, while maintaining ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... of ruin and disaster to landlords and farmers were equally confounded by the openings of the railways. The agricultural communications, so far from being "destroyed," as had been predicted, were immensely improved. The farmers were enabled to buy their coals, lime, and manure for less money, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles



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