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Misfortune   Listen
noun
Misfortune  n.  Bad fortune or luck; calamity; an evil accident; disaster; mishap; mischance. "Consider why the change was wrought, You 'll find his misfortune, not his fault."
Synonyms: Calamity; mishap; mischance; misadventure; ill; harm; disaster. See Calamity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Misfortune" Quotes from Famous Books



... has the misfortune to get wet, care should be taken not to get too near the fire, or into a warm room, so as to occasion a sudden heat. The safest way is to keep in constant motion, until some dry clothes can be procured, and to exchange them ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... was seized by an unaccountable panic. He was afraid of something; he did not know what it was, but he knew, he felt absolutely certain, that some danger, no vague calamity, no distant misfortune, but some definite physical danger was hanging over him and quite close to him—something from which it would be necessary to run away, and to run fast in order to save his life. And yet there was no sign of danger visible, for in front of him was the motionless ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... his misfortune, and much enthusiasm, was aroused when the proprietors of the Daily Mail presented the skilful and courageous pilot with a cheque for L1000 ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... be added convicts, many of whom are become rich and influential; and some, not exactly convicts, to whom England ceased to be a convenient residence. The English who live at Boulogne, some for cheapness, some from misfortune, and some from fear, would offer, I should think, a fair sample of the materials which compose the best society in New South Wales; though, I must admit, that the bustling, thriving settler of New South ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... and I,' cried Mr Pecksniff with increasing obsequiousness, 'that while we mourned the heaviness of our misfortune in being confounded with the base and mercenary, still we could not wonder at it. My dears, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... should pay the penalty and be buried with the mother. The reasons given for this cruel act was that the child was the cause of the mother's death, and that there was no one to nurse and care for it. No woman would dare to nurse such an orphan, lest it should bring misfortune upon her own children. Therefore the poor child was often placed alive in the coffin with the dead mother, and both were buried together. That was the old cruel Dyak custom, but I am glad to say it is a long time since ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes

... feel this time as I always do after a great misfortune, that the shock at first is nothing to the quiet grief afterwards, when one really begins to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... suspect. admirarse, to be surprised. adonde, where, whither. adorable, adorable, adored. adormecer, to go to sleep. adornar, to adorn. adorno, m., ornament. adulto, -a, m. and f., adult, grown-up. adversidad, f., adversity, misfortune. advertencia, f., remark. advertir, (ie), to notice, remark; call attention to; warn, caution. advierto, pres. of advertir. advirtio, past abs. of advertir. afablemente, affably. afecto, m., affection. afeitar, to shave. aficion, f., fondness. aficionado, ...
— A First Spanish Reader • Erwin W. Roessler and Alfred Remy

... in the 'Sunny South,' is not the most agreeable pastime in the world. Don't understand me to refer to that favorite argumentum ad hominem which a true Southerner applies to all who have the misfortune to differ from him, especially to Northern abolitionists; I simply mean that mode of traveling that Saxe in his funny little poem, calls so 'pleasant.' And no wonder! To be whirled along at the rate ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... of his power, his innovations on Church and State, like a freeborn subject, I am determined I will assert his real rights, when he is in adversity, like a loyal one. Let courtiers and sycophants flatter power and desert misfortune; I will neither do the one ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... able to go on; in the end he wept. For he had hoped to be an auctioneer. He told of his early struggles to climb to his goal, and how at last he attained to within a single step of the coveted summit. But there misfortune after misfortune assailed him, and he went down, and down, and down, until now at last, weary and disheartened, he had for the present given up the struggle and become the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. This was in 1830. Seventy years ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... took that old box of misfortune thirty-two days to make Port Duluth. Every day we had some breakdown or other. She was like a good many other ships that fly the Red Ensign, worn out. But did I grumble? Not a bit of it. I looked at it as any man will who's got sand in him. It was ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... one tried to prevent our entering; we merely followed the others; and, indeed, it was all a mystery to us. Cards were being dealt at the faro tables, and dealt by beautiful women in bewildering attire. They also turned the wheels of fortune or misfortune, and threw dice, and were skilled in all the arts that beguile and betray the innocent. The town was filled with such resorts; some were devoted to the patronage of the more exclusive set; many were traps into which the miner from the mountain gulches fell and where ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... drudgery of a schoolmaster's life and amongst the invectives of controversy. In age his temper became stern and exacting. His daughters, who were forced to read to their blind father in languages which they could not understand, revolted against their bondage. But solitude and misfortune only brought into bolder relief Milton's inner greatness. There was a grand simplicity in the life of his later years. He listened every morning to a chapter of the Hebrew Bible, and after musing in silence for a while pursued his studies ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... to bethink him of the least among his investments. Like many other wealthy men, my respected connection is troubled more or less, in the background of his consciousness, by a pervading dread that he will die a beggar. To guard against this misfortune—which I am bound to admit nobody else fears for him—he invested, several years ago, a sum of two hundred thousand pounds in Consols, to serve as a nest-egg in case of the collapse of Golcondas and South Africa generally. It is part ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... this, in which neither they nor their friends quite know what niche in life they can best fill—sometimes, because of their own undisciplined characters; sometimes, because the niche itself seems to be lacking. Whether this stage be their misfortune or their fault, it is an unpleasant one—both for themselves and for their friends. With much sympathy for both, I dedicate these few suggestions to my known and unknown friends who are passing ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... in other circumstances, Oliver Trembath's fiery spirit would have resented the tone and manner of this man's address, but the feeling that he owed his life to him, and that in some way he appeared to be the innocent cause of bringing misfortune on him, induced him to restrain his feelings and obey without question the mandate of his rescuer. Jim Cuttance led the way to a cave in the rugged cliffs, the low entrance to which was concealed by a huge mass ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... was preserved for a different purpose. The dread of their fire going out, and of the difficulty which they should find in lighting another, without match or tinder, set their wits to work to find means to avert so great a misfortune. They obtained from the middle of the island a particular kind of slimy clay, which they had observed, and of which they modelled a sort of lamp, and filled it with the fat of the reindeer. They contrived a wick with a piece of twisted linen. When they flattered themselves ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various

... of him, supposing him to be a man; and Satan said, "Pay the price, and take what you will." But she answered, "Whence should I have money? Have you not heard of all that has befallen us? If you will show mercy, show mercy; and if not, it is your own concern." He said, "If you had not deserved misfortune, I suppose it would not have come upon you; but now, if you have no money, give me the hair of your head, and take three loaves in exchange: it may be that you can live on them for three days." And ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James

... powerless in the presence of sudden misfortune. Eyebright sat as if stunned, while her father walked to and fro. Genevieve slipped from her lap and fell with a bump on the carpet, but she paid no attention. Genevieve wasn't real to her just then; only a doll. It was no matter whether she ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... temper. Whether it were that I derived from nature some jealousy and suspicion of all happiness which seems too perfect and unalloyed—[a spirit of restless distrust, which in ancient times often led men to throw valuable gems into the sea, in the hope of thus propitiating the dire deity of misfortune, by voluntarily breaking the fearful chain of prosperity, and led some of them to weep and groan when the gems thus sacrificed were afterwards brought back to their hand by simple fishermen, who had recovered them in the intestines of fishes—a portentous omen, which was interpreted into a sorrowful ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... and silver spoons,—a family vault in an Orthodox burial-ground,—and above all, one or two venerable family servants, just to show "dese mushroom folks, wid der high-minded notions, how diff'ent things was in ole missus's time!" Measured by this standard, if you had the misfortune to be a nobody, Aunt Judy, as a lady, might patronize you, as a Christian, would cheerfully advise and assist you; but to the exclusive privilege of what she superbly styled family-arities, you must in vain aspire. Our family, in the broadest sense of that word, was a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... such adverse circumstances, to feed, warm, clothe, shoe, and protect his family. With such a meagre sum to supply so many wants, it is impossible for him, even under the most favorable circumstances, to make petty savings with which to meet emergencies. When the misfortune of sickness overtakes him, the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... It was the misfortune of Elizabethan prose to be almost completely overshadowed by the poetry. This prose was, however, far more varied and important than that of any preceding age. The books mentioned on page 123 constitute only a small part of the prose of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... market without going so far. It was sold to our boys in pint cups, and as the weather was very cold we warmed the beer by putting the ends of our picket-pins heated red-hot into the cups. The result was one of the biggest beer jollifications I ever had the misfortune to attend. ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and even till long afterwards. Learning, on its revival in this island, was attired in the same unnatural garb which it wore at the time of its decay among the Greeks and Romans. And, what may be regarded as a misfortune, the English writers were possessed of great genius before they were endowed with any degree of taste, and by that means gave a kind of sanction to those forced turns and sentiments which they so much affected. Their distorted conceptions and expressions are attended with such vigor of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... intense suspicion, and if Governments do not prevent the sort of thing depicted by Mr. Raemaekers the people will see to it themselves. The cartoon is not, of course, intended to reflect personally on the owner of Krupp's works, who is said to be a gentle-minded and blameless lady. It is her misfortune to be associated by the chance of inheritance with the German war machine and one of the underhand methods by which it ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... the next year to prevent the collapse of the service after a widespread financial panic. But heavy forfeits were imposed for lateness in delivering mails, an adverse factor in the greatest fight against misfortune ever known to Canadian shipping history. Within eight years the Allans lost as many vessels. In every case there was disastrous loss of property; in some, a total loss of ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... to have met long before,' said Tancred. 'When I first arrived at Jerusalem, I ought to have hastened to his threshold. The fault and the misfortune were mine. I scarcely deserved ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... pondering on his predicament he heard the chatter of a hablar-bird, and he chuckled to himself. He searched his banco for his bow and arrows, but was astonished to find only the bow. What a misfortune! He must have lost the arrows on the trail. Nothing daunted, little Piang set about his task in another manner. Scattering a handful of parched corn in a clearing, he laid the noose of his rope around it, and ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... sprig of cresses, a sprig of laver, and a sprig of sea-grass; there will be a man to take thy place at the ford." "This welcome is truly meant," replied Lugaid; "the choice of people for the youth whom I desire!" "Splendid are your hosts," said Cuchulain. "It will be no misfortune," said Lugaid, "for thee to stand up alone before them." "True courage and valour have I," Cuchulain made answer. "Lugaid, my master," said Cuchulain, "do the hosts fear me?" "By the god," Lugaid made answer, "I swear that ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... great cordiality, yea, even more than usual affection. Soon after our meeting, my father asked permission of the Bishop to speak to me privately and taking me into a small room, said to me, "My dear daughter, you are not aware of the great misfortune that has recently come upon your father. While I was excited with wine at the card-table last evening, betting high and winning vast sums of money, I so far forgot myself and my duty to the laws of the country, that I called for a toast, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... reduced to gravity on the sudden: "JETZT BIN ICH KONIG,—My Cousin, I am now King!" a fact which the Ill Margraf could never get forgotten again. Lieutenant-General Schulenburg, too, the didactic Schulenburg, presuming, on old familiarity, and willing to wipe out the misfortune of having once condemned us to death, which nobody is now upbraiding him with, rushes up from Landsberg, unbidden, to pay his congratulations and condolences, driven by irresistible exuberance of loyalty: to his astonishment, he is reminded (thing certain, manner of the thing not known), That an ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... was upon him! But he will make his mark even at Columbus, though the place seems to me to be altogether untenable and of no practicable importance, since the enemy may attack both in front and rear. It would seem that some of the jealous functionaries would submit to any misfortune which would destroy Beauregard's popularity. But these are exceptions: they are few ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... against him had to speak first, and being in dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... and he resorted for aid to his mother. He stood at the river side and thus addressed her: "O mother, the pride of my life is taken from me! I have lost my precious bees. My care and skill have availed me nothing, and you my mother have not warded off from me the blow of misfortune." His mother heard these complaints as she sat in her palace at the bottom of the river, with her attendant nymphs around her. They were engaged in female occupations, spinning and weaving, while one told stories to amuse the rest. The sad voice ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... there beside him, in her lovely whiteness and grace. And, mingled with it all, was the happy guess that she liked to linger with him—that amid all this hard clamour of public talk and judgment she felt him a friend in a peculiar sense—a friend whose loyalty grew with misfortune. As for this wild-beast world, that was thwarting and libelling her, he began to think of it with a blind, up-swelling rage—a desire to fight and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... seem quite wonderfully good,' said her mother, warmly. 'I cannot understand; I mean I can scarcely realise, how they can all be so brave and cheerful, when one thing after another—one misfortune after another—has come to try them so terribly. Yes, it almost frightens me to think of our happiness in comparison ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world—let me suffer; can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... have forgotten his misfortune in the contemplation of his writing, and on my applauding his sentiment, he, looking at my arm, which was still in its sling, asked how I had hurt it. I told him briefly, and he listened in silence, until I gave him information ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... It was a terrible misfortune to be the wife of an artist. She would never marry her daughter to a painter; she would rather see her dead. Men who carry with them the demon of form, cannot live in peace and happiness except with a companion who is eternally young, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... worth while. Death is only a process in life, a phase of development, analogous to that which takes place when a seed is dropped in the earth and comes up a beautiful plant, adorned with foliage and blossoms. Life would be incomplete without dying. The greatest misfortune that could befall any one would be that he should not die. This would be an arresting of development which would be ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... equally among all. And herein is its superiority over all previous militia acts. State and national officers, members of Congress, custom-house officials, postmasters, clerks, and the favored and fortunate generally, were heretofore exempt, instead of those who, by misfortune or otherwise, were in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... thought of this; while I was too much taken up with my own affairs just then to have any superfluous energy for other people's welfare or misfortune. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... which it is now my task to make known to you, because they so grievously and deeply affect your future. Many, very many years ago, as far back indeed as 1883, when she was only twenty, your mother had the great and lasting misfortune to make an unhappy marriage—no, not with me, Jon. Without money of her own, and with only a stepmother—closely related to Jezebel—she was very unhappy in her home life. It was Fleur's father that she married, my cousin Soames Forsyte. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... from Lord Salisbury ordered the withdrawal from the negotiations, and the convention fell through, to Crispi's great annoyance. His total miscomprehension of the large-hearted and generous ruler of Egypt was a misfortune to Italy and to Crispi, but the defect was in his temperament—a morbid tendency to suspicion of strangers characteristic of the man and in the roots of his Albanian nature. Crispi was not a judge of men—had he been he would have avoided the friends who ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... was my fortune—my great misfortune—to sail from Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... she seemed pleased to see me near her, and extended her hand to me with a little smile. The doctor had told her she must not attempt to speak. I held her hand for awhile, and told how grieved I was over her misfortune. And then I told her I would bring her a tablet and pencil, so that she might communicate her wants to us; and then I said to her that I was out of a job at my trade (I know that the angels in heaven do not record such lies), ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... invasion of a force from beyond the Alps, and Charles VIII had conquered Naples; Girolamo Savonarola had prophesied to Charles VIII that because he had failed to fulfil the mission of liberator entrusted to him by God, he was threatened with a great misfortune as a punishment, and Charles was dead; lastly, Savonarola had prophesied his own fall like the man who paced around the holy city for eight days, crying, "Woe to Jerusalem!" and on the ninth day, "Woe be on my own head!" None the less, the Florentine reformer, who could not recoil from ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Cor Hydrae, or the serpent's heart, denotes trouble through women (said I not rightly that Astrology was a masculine science?); the Lion's heart, Regulus, implied glory and riches; Deneb, the Lion's tail, misfortune and disgrace. The southern scale of Libra meant bad fortune, while the northern was ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... remembering how she had said that she would die for him—and here it was he that was dying for her. And her heart was heavy with a load of guilt, the heaviest she was ever to feel in her life. She could not know how misfortune is really the lot of human beings; it seemed to her that a special curse attended her, striking down ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... salve to heal his wound. Long time he suffered grievous pain, But not the less to the Most High He offered thanks. They asked him, Why? For answer he thanked God again; And then to them: "That I am in No greater peril than you see: That what has overtaken me Is but misfortune—and not sin." ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... his own affairs, one Heavy misfortune fell upon Mr Campbell, which was the loss of his sister, Mrs Percival, to whom he was most sincerely attached. Her loss was attended with circumstances which rendered it more painful, as, previous to her decease, the house of business in which Mr Percival was a partner, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... to do right by me, why did he not tell me of Jane's misfortune?" exclaimed the young ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... faces of the two girls. Barbara's expressed nothing more than the conventional sympathy of one stranger hearing of another's misfortune; a few months earlier Agnes had not known that Jack and ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... merciful God; but it was impossible to imagine any link between them. She herself felt as remote from the poor creature she had seen lowered into her hastily dug grave as if the height of the heavens divided them. She had seen poverty and misfortune in her life; but in a community where poor thrifty Mrs. Hawes and the industrious Ally represented the nearest approach to destitution there was nothing to suggest the savage misery of ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... couldn't slip out on the way, and fall on the ground. When little Sami was freed from the smothering wrappings and could move his arms and legs he fought with all his limbs in the air and screamed so pitifully that his grandmother thought it seemed exactly as if he already knew what a great misfortune had come ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri

... misfortune," said Fraulein Rottenmeier with a despairing gesture, "what use are books to her? She has not been able to learn her A B C even, all the long time she has been here; it is quite impossible to get the least idea of it into her head, and ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... of his veins and refilling them with the juices of certain herbs. The fabled origin of the Saffron plant ran thus. A certain young man named Crocus went to play at quoits in a field with Mercurie, when the quoit of his companion happened by misfortune to hit him on the head, whereby, before long, he died, to the great sorrow of [484] his friends. Finally, in the place where he had bled, Saffron was found to be growing: whereupon, the people, seeing the colour of the chine as it stood, adjusted it to come of the blood ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... Duke! Bravo! Bravo! The Red Duke!" cried Porthos, clapping his hands and nodding his head. "The Red Duke is capital. I'll circulate that saying, be assured, my dear fellow. Who says this Aramis is not a wit? What a misfortune it is you did not follow your first vocation; what a delicious ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of realizing the benefit of being afflicted. A merchant, to whom he had entrusted all his fortune, in the hope of a large interest, became suddenly a bankrupt, with scarcely any assets. I will not say that it was owing to this misfortune that the divine died within less than a month after its occurrence, but such was the fact. Amongst those who most frequently visited me was my friend the surgeon; he did not confine himself to the common topics of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... enemy, so it appears that a helpless or apologetic frame of mind is expressed in many parts of the world by merely shrugging the shoulders, without turning inwards the elbows and opening the hands. The man or child who is obstinate, or one who is resigned to some great misfortune, has in neither case any idea of resistance by active means; and he expresses this state of mind, by simply keeping his shoulders raised; or he may possibly fold his arms across ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... ear to any thing thou sayest! to thee in whose lap Scribonianus was slain, and thou art yet alive!" These words, with several other signs, gave her friends to understand that she would undoubtedly despatch herself, impatient of supporting her husband's misfortune. And Thrasea, her son-in-law, beseeching her not to throw away herself, and saying to her, "What! if I should run the same fortune that Caecina has done, would you that your daughter, my wife, should do the same?"—"Would I?" replied she, "yes, yes, I would: if she had lived as long, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... at the largest farm-house in the county, there lived a Mr. Chanticleer, one of the proudest and most irritable fellows I ever had the misfortune to meet with. To see the airs with which he strutted about his farm-yard, and drove all the ducks and geese flying to make way for him, often made Jack Leverett and myself laugh: but when he went out for a walk with his wife and daughters, his consequence appeared to ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... quietly. He turned again to Sir Roland. "Just after your son had been rendered unconscious, I had the misfortune to slip up on the polished floor and sprain my ankle badly. No sooner did my companion realize what had happened, than he snatched from me all the stolen property I held, in spite of my endeavour to prevent him, then emptied my pockets, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... Ancona, and taking the steamer thence to Trieste. I had hoped to make the journey along with him; but U——'s terrible illness has made it necessary for us to continue here another mouth, and we are thankful that this seems now to be the extent of our misfortune. Never having had any trouble before that pierced into my very vitals, I did not know what comfort there might be in the manly sympathy of a friend; but Pierce has undergone so great a sorrow of his own, and has so large and kindly a heart, and is ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that they had never met. Dragged about as she is by her enthusiast of a father into all sorts of dangers, it is impossible to say what may be her fate; and it would go nigh to break his heart should her life be lost, or any other misfortune happen to her. Here comes a shore-boat—we'll secure her ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... these two were drinking in the cashier's office it happened that Thady O'Brien, the policeman (he was chief of the municipal police, and fond of drink) saw them, and invited himself to join them and also to express his sorrow at Denison's "misfortune," as he called it, for Denison was a lovable sort of youth, and often gave him drink on board. So they all sat down, Wade in the one chair, and Tom and the policeman on the table, and had several more drinks, and just then Mrs. MacLaggan came to the door, holding ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... words,—as he had even been to her. He had been the son of a banker at Norwich; but, just as she had become acquainted with him, the bank had broke, and he had left Oxford to come home and find himself a ruined man. But he had never said a word to her of the family misfortune. He had been six feet high, with dark hair cut very short, somewhat full of sport of the roughest kind, which, however, he had abandoned instantly. "Things have so turned out," he had once said ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... came from without and knew him. The ploughmen are gone to the field; my clever writer is gone to the court-house. The Nerbudda flows like a bent bow; a beautiful youth is standing in court. [286] The broken areca-nuts lie in the forest; when a man comes to misfortune no one will help him. The broken areca-nuts cannot be mended; and two hearts which are sundered cannot be joined. Ask me for five rupees and I will give you twenty-five; but I will not give my lover ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... when, previously to the trial, I alluded to the damnable treachery of your father? Did they condemn his conduct, or sympathise with me in my misfortune?—No; they shrugged their shoulders, and coldly observed, I ought to have known better than to trust one against whom they had so often cautioned me; but that as I had selected him for my friend, I should have bestowed a whole, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... touched at Carthage, and was disembarking from his ship, the same form is said to have presented itself to him on the shore. It is certain that, being seized with illness, and auguring the future from the past and misfortune from his previous prosperity, he himself abandoned all hope of life, though none of those ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... called to see me, with intelligence of the failure of the new attempt to lay the electric cable between England and America; and here, too, it appears the misfortune might have been avoided if a plan of his own for laying the cable had been adopted. He explained his process, and made it seem as practicable as to put up a bell-wire. I do not remember how or why (but appositely) he repeated some verses, from a ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... chief rights of sovereignty over the whole island, except Leinster and, perhaps, Meath. But, at the same time, a passage or two in the treaty concealed a meaning certainly unperceived by the Irish, but fraught with mischief and misfortune to their country. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... ivy, and up which, towards its very spire, the ivy was still creeping; and how there was a tradition, that, if the ivy ever reached the top, the spire would fall upon the roof of the old gray church, and crush it all down among its surrounding tombstones. [Endnote: 1] And so, as this misfortune would be so heavy a one, there seemed to be a miracle wrought from year to year, by which the ivy, though always flourishing, could never grow beyond a certain point; so that the spire and church had stood unharmed for thirty years; though the wise old people were constantly foretelling ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... had arrived at Hell-Gate Hill, with his old friend Incredulity, they immediately descended the den, and having there with their fellows for a while condoled their misfortune and great loss that they sustained against the town of Mansoul, they fell at length into a passion, and revenged they would be for the loss that they sustained before the town of Mansoul. Wherefore they presently call a council to ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... exact he was in all his methods, finding him stay a considerable time beyond the usual hour, concludes that some misfortune must needs have happened to him, or he would certainly have been at home before. In short, she went immediately to all the places he was wont to frequent, but nothing could be heard or seen of him till the next morning, when a young man, as he was going to work, discovered him, and went home ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe

... unfamiliar; the story would be almost incredible; you wouldn't know what to think. You'd be deeply anxious, and yet half believe that some one was practicing a cruel jest on you. For my part, if I had an explanation to make I would wait for a time of prosperity arid happiness. Misfortune makes people ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... alone—God received by any mode in which it might please the Divine Majesty to reveal Himself. He was, therefore, willing, nay, in a true sense, glad thus to walk by mere faith and live by painful love. "I should deem it a misfortune if God should cure me of my infirmities and restore me to active usefulness, so much have I learned to appreciate the value of my passive condition of soul." This he said less than three years before his death. And about the same time, to a very ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... them, and they rowed back again. But it was too late. The admiral did what he could in the emergency: he cut down the mast, lightened the vessel as best he might, took out his people and went with them to the other caravel, sending his boat to Guacanagari to inform him of the misfortune. ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... girls whisper should any gypsies appear, or rather be scented. The first man to do picket duty, Walter, was in the Get-There, directly out in the road, so that presently it seemed a night in the wide open might be a novelty rather than a misfortune. ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose

... fragmentary shape and under wayward disguises, but nevertheless giving to the motley groups the strong and uumistakable charm of reality. Her grandmother, by whom she was brought up, disgusted at her not being a boy, resolved to remedy the misfortune as far as possible by educating her like a boy. We may say of this, as of all the other irregularities of her strange and exceptional life, that whatever unhappiness and error may be traceable thereto, its influence on her writings has been beneficial, by giving a greater ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... time ere a suitable place could be found, as the point happened to be low and swampy, and poor Eda's first experience of a life in the woods was stepping into a hole which took her up to the knees in mud and water. She was not alone, however, in misfortune, for just at the same moment Bryan passed through the bushes with his canoe, and staggered into the same swamp, exclaiming as he did so, in a rich brogue which many years' residence among the French half-breeds of Rupert's ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... enjoyments this life can impart, but we shall in the common course of providence live to old age. All those, with very few exceptions, who have lived to 80, 90, and 100 years, have been remarked for their equanimity. They were mild spirited, kind, cheerful, and of such a temperament, that neither misfortune, nor any outward circumstances, that agitated the world, could ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... the two truants returned they did not seem at all cast down by their misfortune, while Denys certainly came back in a more cheerful mood than that in which ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... own constant repetition and renewal, and when my poor head would have presided over the arrangement of the words, my heart melted into hopes and desires.... I can write to-day, because the fear of misfortune, of some sudden catastrophe, has seized upon me.... If he ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... escape at all!" she declared. "I call it the greatest possible misfortune. If it had been Burnamy we could have brought them together at once, just when she has seen so clearly that she was in the wrong, and is feeling all broken up. There wouldn't have been any difficulty about his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... is the business of a scholar.' Rasselas, ch. viii. Miss Burney mentions an amusing instance of a consultation by letter. 'The letter was dated from the Orkneys, and cost Dr. Johnson eighteen pence. The writer, a clergyman, says he labours under a most peculiar misfortune, for which he can give no account, and which is that, though he very often writes letters to his friends and others, he never gets any answers. He entreats, therefore, that Dr. Johnson will take this into consideration, and explain ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... As they went out each of them received a stroke with a whip, and then they set off for Norway, and all the forest-men submitted again to King Inge. Sigurd and his people went to King Magnus, and told him their misfortune. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... saw; * The world all dreaded me, both friends and fone. When I took horse, I viewed my numbered troops, * Bridles on neighing steeds a million. And I had wealth that none could tell or count, * Against misfortune treasuring all I won; Fain had I bought my life with all my wealth, * And for a moment's space my death to shun; But God would naught save what His purpose willed; * So from my brethren cut I 'bode alone: And Death, that sunders man, exchanged my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... Graves; "he ought not to dangle about at home and at Cambridge; he wants tougher material to deal with; it's no use snubbing him, because he is on the right tack; but he must not be allowed to interfere too much. He wants a touch of misfortune to bring him to himself; he has a real influence over people—the influence that all definite, good-humoured, outspoken people have; it is easier for others to do what he likes than to resist him; he is not irritable, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... full with horrors this last year or so, and I have no thought of adding to the surfeit. But sometimes common accidents appear exceptional, if they befall ourselves, or those with whom we are intimate. If the sufferer has any special identity, we speculate on his peculiar way of bearing his misfortune; and are thus led on to place ourselves in his position, and ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... speaking. His vague sense of impending misfortune had crystallised into a definite thought; he knew now what it signified. If Schilsky went away from Leipzig, Louise would probably go, too, and that would be the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... applies continually to the modern representative system in every country which has the misfortune to support it. No one needs to be reminded of such a truth. We know in England how the one strong feeling in the elections of 1906 was the desire to get at the South African Jews and sweep away their Chinese labour from ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... generally. We lost neither men nor gear to amount to anything that summer. That seine we lost trying for our first school to the s'uth'ard in the spring was the only bit of misfortune that came, and we had long ago made up for that. But others were not so lucky. There was the loss of the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley's vessel. I think I have said that she was a fast vessel. She was fast—fast, but of the cranky type. We were jogging along a little to ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... of his Jewish brethren whom that king had slain, and he was obliged to flee with his wife Anna and his son Tobias, leaving all his goods as plunder to the Assyrian king. Under Sarchedonus (Esarhaddon) he returned again to his home, but soon a new misfortune overtook him. As he lay one night by the wall of his courtyard, being unclean from the burial of a Jew whom his son had found strangled in the market-place, "the sparrows muted warm dung" into his eyes, which deprived him of sight. Wishing now to ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... they relate of the shutting up of Osiris in a box, this appears to mean the withdrawal of the Nile to its own bed. This is the more probable as this misfortune is said to have happened to Osiris in the month of Hathor, precisely at that season of the year when, upon the cessation of the Etesian or north winds the Nile returns to its own bed, and leaves the country everywhere bare and naked. ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge

... the fact that it happened to be her husband's; but if it should turn out that her husband's was not the winning side after all—then there was matter for consideration. Of course, strictly speaking, her husband's misfortunes must be her own; but in this instance the nominal misfortune would be his failure to ruin Archibald, and Mrs. Pennroyal thought she could sustain that. No, the sensation was certainly not unpleasurable. But was it certain that ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... risk my life, when I know that your happiness, and the welfare of my young ones, depend so much upon it. I hope my mother does not torment herself with unnecessary tears about me. I sometimes fancy how you and she will be meeting misfortune half-way, and placing me in many distressing situations. I have as yet experienced nothing but success, and I hope that six months more will end the whole as ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... came to dinner to go with them. Cecil looked grave and gloomy, but Jock rattled away so merrily that Sydney began to wonder whether all this were a dream, or whether he were still unaware of the impending misfortune. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... misfortune to be discomfited and mortally wounded, it is a great consolation to me to be vanquished by so brave and generous an enemy. If I could survive this wound, I would engage to beat three times the number of such forces as I commanded this ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... very simple: it was his misfortune to have had two villains for brothers, who had made attempts first upon the honour and then upon the life of a wife whom he loved tenderly; they had destroyed her by a most atrocious death, and to crown his evil fortune, he, the innocent, was accused of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... monkey,—the last unhappily indisposed at present,—listening to the degrading jokes of ribald boys and depraved men,—you are quite correct, Sir, in stating that she is not my daughter. On the contrary, she is the daughter of an Hungarian nobleman who had the misfortune to incur my displeasure. I had a son, crooked spawn of a Christian!—a son, not like you, cankered, gnarled stump of life that you are,—but a youth tall and fair and noble in aspect, as became a child of one whose lineage makes Pharaoh modern,—a youth whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... with the air of one searching for fresh subjects; Henry led Gertie to her, and made the introductions. Lady Douglass expressed the view that the Gardens were horribly tiring, regretted her ill-luck in visiting on a crowded afternoon. "But no misfortune," she added ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... ascribe that to the system which prevails here, or to any fault on the part of the men?-I can scarcely ascribe it to the fault of the men; I would say it was their misfortune. They are old and some of them infirm, and they cannot fish like stout, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... reflect on Burleigh for neglecting him, and the Lord Treasurer afterwards conceived a hatred towards him for the satire he apprehended was levelled at him in Mother Hubbard's Tale. In this poem, the author has in the most lively manner, painted out the misfortune of depending on court favours. The lines which follow are among others ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... de la guerre, but prithee ask me no Questions in so good Company, where a Minute lost from this Conversation is a Misfortune ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... under the eyes of a relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, 'He sleeps ill for whom the enemy wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life,—I wish to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself all that exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages from sympathizing friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country follow me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these I have voluntarily cut thyself off. I am as dead to the life I once lived as ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it only required a bold effort to shake off their yoke.' Then follows an account of a civil war, one of the leaders of the revolution being elected king at its termination. Carbry reigned five years, during which time there was no rule or order, and the country was a prey to every misfortune. 'Evil was the state of Ireland during his reign; fruitless her corn, for there used to be but one grain on the stalk; and fruitless her rivers; her cattle without milk; her fruit without plenty, for there used to be but one acorn on ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... who had never "looked round Cape Horn," or engaged a whale in mortal combat. He was on his way home to report the loss of his ship to his owners. An act of kindness, and finding that I knew something of the sea, and could sympathize with a sailor in misfortune, made us firm friends to the end ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... strike thee dead for this deceit, immediate lightning blast thee, me, and the whole world! Oh! I could rack myself, play the vulture to my own heart, and gnaw it piecemeal, for not boding to me this misfortune. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... was seven or eight years old he had the misfortune to lose his mother; his father was already dead. The child's nearest relative was an uncle, David Lynde, a rich merchant of New York, a bachelor, and a character. Old Lynde—I call him old Lynde not out of disrespect, but ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... consequence of her evil habits and licentious tongue, she was held everywhere in fear and abhorrence, and was chased away from every place she entered after about six or eight o'clock. Further, that some misfortune always fell upon every one who had dealings with her, particularly young married people. To the said Konnemann, she betrothed herself after the death of her first paramour, but afterwards gave him fifty florins to get rid of the contract, as she confessed at the seventeenth question upon the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... taking part in a play that she probably wouldn't look at? You're preposterous! Try to have a little common-sense!" These appeals seemed to have a certain effect with his wife; she looked daunted; but Maxwell had the misfortune to add, "One would think you were ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... should be placed, feeling quite satisfied they had wreaked their revenge on their enemy. Sometimes persons were severely punished for the performance of this farce, and when any individuals experienced some great misfortune, they often imagined that it had arisen in consequence of their image having been made by their enemy, and maltreated in the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... of all the ships were promoted, as had been done after Lord Howe's victory. Nelson was exceedingly anxious that the captain and first lieutenant of the CULLODEN should not be passed over because of their misfortune. To Troubridge himself he said, "Let us rejoice that the ship which got on shore was commanded by an officer whose character is so thoroughly established." To the Admiralty he stated that Captain Troubridge's conduct was as fully ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... for every stomach had been empty for two days; but the civil and military authorities came out to meet us, and prevented us from executing our plan. We continued our route, wasting away, so that you might, see us growing thinner every moment. To complete our misfortune, the dormouse, which seemed to have taken a fancy to embark on the Moselle for Metz, barely escaped an overturn. But at Plombieres we have been well compensated for this unlucky journey, for on our arrival we were received with all ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... removed from Skye, he took possession of a new tenement of lands from Mackenzie in Kintail. Greatly struck by what he considered the unrefined manners of his new neighbours in that quarter, and contrasting them with the more genial deportment of his own distinguished clan in Strath, he had the misfortune to exercise his poetic genius in the composition of some pungent satires and lampoons directed against the unpolished customs of the natives of Kintail. It is needless to add that by these means he gained for himself ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... their great annoyance, they find when they least expect it, or when they have taken considerable pains to avoid it, that they have roused by their publication what they would style the bigoted and bitter hostility of a party. This misfortune is easily conceivable, and has befallen many a man. Before he knows where he is, a cry is raised on all sides of him; and so little does he know what we may call the lie of the land, that his attempts at apology ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... buried in Westminster Abbey. The letter, which brought an account of his death to Swift, was laid by, for some days, unopened, because, when he received it, he was impressed with the preconception of some misfortune. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... that misfortune." I aimed a bow at Mistress Susannah; but that lady had turned her broad shoulders, and it missed fire. "Which reminds me," I continued, "to ask for the favour of pen, ink, and paper. I wish to send a letter ashore, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... this actually comes off, the most noteworthy are a curious instance of the punctilio of chivalry (the Count having once promised Melior that no one but herself shall gird on his sword, makes a difficulty when Urraca and Persewis arm him), and a misfortune by which he, rowing carelessly by himself, falls into the power of a felon knight, Armans of Thenodon. This last incident, however, though it alarms his two benefactresses, is not really unlucky. For, in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... few words Maggie explained to her their misfortune, and asked permission to tarry there until ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... half-century on a farm in North Fields, on the banks of Endicott River, a little to the eastward of the bridge at the iron-foundery. He was a person of good estate and an estimable man; but it was his misfortune to have an impulsive nature and quick passions. In June, 1677, he was prosecuted and fined for striking a man who had incensed him. George Jacobs, Jr., his only son, at a court held Nov. 7, 1674, was prosecuted, "found blamable, and ordered to pay costs of court." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... still a lad, but a tall, stout one, a great misfortune fell upon the kingdom, for a Stoorworm rose up out of the sea; and of all Stoorworms it was the greatest and the worst. For this reason it was called the Meester Stoorworm. Its length stretched half around the world, its one eye was as red as fire, and its breath was so poisonous that whatever ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... pretence of eating and drinking, and, having been scolded for his poor appetite, went back to his old place. He sat there till the room was dark, scarcely moving, but wearing no very noticeable sign of pain or trouble. The story was so old, and the misfortune it related was so long past mending! He had been gray himself these many years, and the things which surrounded him and touched him had long since shared all his ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... whose punishment was not to be so severe. It is not our intention to describe the detailed butchery of this day of horror: we will confine ourselves to the Abbe Sierocinski and his five companions in misfortune. They were escorted on the plain, their sentence was read aloud to them with great solemnity, and then the running of the gauntlet commenced. The lashes were administered, according to the letter of the decree, 'without mercy,' and the cries of the wretched ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the gig was her sister, and they were the only daughters of a farmer who had been rich once, but had come to ruin by drink and misfortune. They had been brought up from girls by an old grandmother, with whom the sister was living at the time of my seeing them. Yes, Tom was her husband. He was a doctor in the neighbourhood when he married her, and a man, I surmised, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... keeps one secret to himself; he never has told of his love for Maria Gerard. Upon his return from Italy the traveller inquired several times for the Gerards, sympathized politely with their misfortune, and wished to be remembered to them through Amedee. The latter had been very reserved in his replies, and Maurice no longer broaches the subject in their conversation. Is it through neglect? After all, he hardly knew the ladies; still, Amedee is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... apparently strange conduct. In a way, she was fighting against me; she would tell me nothing, and I had to find out everything for myself. On the night in question I sent Gurdon to Portsmouth Square, and he had the misfortune ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... drinking it and dying;" and as another, the case of "a slater slipping from the roof of a high building, in consequence of a stone of the ridge having given way as he walked upright along it."[201] In all these cases, the accident or misfortune which befalls the individual is represented as the punishment connected with the neglect or transgression of a "natural law," just as remorse, shame, conviction, and condemnation may be the punishment for a moral offence. In other words, a child who ignorantly drinks laudanum is ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... forfeit his word and break his faith, or otherwise forced from his ordinary duty, ought to attribute this necessity to a lash of the divine rod: vice it is not, for he has given up his own reason to a more universal and more powerful reason; but certainly 'tis a misfortune: so that if any one should ask me what remedy? "None," say I, "if he were really racked between these two extremes: 'sed videat, ne quoeratur latebya perjurio', he must do it: but if he did it without regret, if ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... she told herself philosophically, as she lifted the hand-glass, and wriggled about before the glass to view the effect of the new coiffure. It was most elaborate and hairdresser-windowish in effect, and if it were not exactly becoming, that was perhaps more her own misfortune than the fault of the operator, who had bestowed such pains upon the erection. So she declared truthfully enough that she had never felt so fine in her life, and threatened to sit at the piano the whole of the evening, so that all beholders might have an opportunity of admiring ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... sorrowful visage and announced this fresh misfortune; our vessel tacked about, and we reached ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... attached to them at all. Why Mary Lamb preserved such strict anonymity we do not now know; but it was probably from a natural shrinking from any kind of publicity after the unhappy publicity which she had once gained by her misfortune. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... only wisdom and enlightenment and courage on the world of commerce, but millions of dollars upon the unfortunate victims of fire and flood and fever. You have been the promoters of good fortune and the comforters of misfortune. I wish that the people of this land could understand how much true and loyal patriotism, how much disinterested devotion to the highest interests of the country are found among just such men as compose the Chamber of Commerce of the State of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... of the sectarian protests against President Grant's policy in regard to manning the Indian agencies, I believe that religious prejudice has been a real misfortune to our people. General Armstrong, in an address given at Lake Mohonk in 1890, expressed the well-founded opinion that the industrial work of the Catholic schools is as good as any, often superior; the academic work generally inferior, ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... blossom; on the other hand it parched all living things with the fierce heats of summer and destroyed what it had brought into being. Baal, the Sun-god, was thus at once beneficent and malevolent; at times he looked favorably upon his adorers, at other times he was full of anger and sent plague and misfortune upon them. But under both aspects he was essentially a god of nature, and the rites with which he was worshipped accordingly ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce



Words linked to "Misfortune" :   destiny, good luck, ill luck, disaster, hard knocks, knock, lot, circumstances, bad luck, shame, tough luck, pity, weakness, fortune, sewer, gutter, luck, hardship



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