"Calamity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... writings of the great poet and patriot without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he labored for the public good, the fortitude with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with his country and his fame." Notice the last sentence of a delightful ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many words) that there was no stranger ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... there's Tressa." A chivalry he would never have acknowledged had been thrusting the girl more and more into the foreground. From the ordinary perils of isolation father and lover might defend her, but in the great calamity that Blue Pete knew was planned to overwhelm her two protectors she ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... notice when it was that Thomas was absent? "Thomas was not with them when Jesus came." What an unfortunate time to be away! What a great calamity to have missed that service of all others! There was the little despondent, despairing company of ten meeting behind closed doors. They were sorrow-burdened and fear-filled. But Jesus came, and Thomas, the saddest and bitterest man of them all, ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... been one of my worst days, and I have for a long time had no days but bad ones. Three things have happened, either one of which would alone have been a calamity. Together they crush, they ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... to almost prohibitive figures, which have their effect in an enormous increase in the cost of living, Santo Domingo has as much reason as the rest of the world to desire an early cessation of the world calamity. ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... will give thee half my monies and marry thee to my maiden daughter." Thereupon Hasan cried angrily at him, "Woe to thee! Thou art a miscreant Magian who to Fire dost pray in lieu of the King of Omnipotent sway, Creator of Night and Day; and this is naught but a calamity among creeds!" At this the Magian was wroth and said to him, "Wilt thou not then conform with me, O dog of the Arabs, and enter my faith?" But Hasan consented not to this: so the accursed Guebre arose and prostrating himself to the fire, bade his pages throw him flat on his face. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... him all that day, whenever he thought of his morning's work. Till then all Christians, monks above all, had been infallible in his eyes: all Jews and heathens insane and accursed. Moreover, meekness under insult, fortitude in calamity, the contempt of worldly comfort, the worship of poverty as a noble estate, were virtues which the Church Catholic boasted as her peculiar heritage: on which side had the balance of those qualities inclined that morning? The figure of Raphael, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... played her ghastly metamorphoses in the little chamber. And the figures on the carpet and the figures on the curtain writhed in horrible contortions of glee, as if they rejoiced over a calamity ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... married life had been a protracted struggle, darkened by domestic affliction. Two of their three children had died of typhoid in the epidemic which devastated Apex before the new water-works were built; and this calamity, by causing Mr. Spragg to resolve that thereafter Apex should drink pure water, had led directly to the founding ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... pleased, and were responsible to nobody but the monarch who had made them governor, loyalty began to cool. Moreover, men whose ability and advanced opinions made them distasteful to the English kings, fled to the colonies, and to Virginia among the rest, and sowed the seeds of revolt. Calamity makes strange bedfellows: the planters liked outside oppression as little as did the common people, and could not but make common cause with them. The distance between the two was diminished. Social equality there could hardly be; but political and theoretic equality could be acknowledged. The ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Donnacona five years ago, and I have kept it from the world till this moment, fearing that calamity ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... want of ampler designation we call GOD—God, whom some of us will scarcely recognize, save with the mixture of doubt, levity, and general reluctance; God, whom we never obey unless obedience is enforced by calamity; God, whom we never truly love, because so many of us prefer to stake our chances of the future on the possibility of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Rose's name is to kindle in the minds of those who knew him a host of pleasant and affectionate remembrances. He was the man above all others fitted by his cast of mind and literary powers to make a stand, if a stand could be made, against the calamity of the times. He was gifted with a high and large mind, and a true sensibility of what was great and beautiful; he wrote with warmth and energy; and he had a cool head and cautious judgment. He spent his strength and ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Australia or South Africa than it is in England itself. The sentiments thus strongly expressed impart a certain zealotism to their feelings, which constitutes a strong link with the Mother Country. In any hour of national danger or calamity this trait provides her with the enthusiastic help of her children ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... Pedestal'd haply in a palace court, When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore. But oh! how unlike marble was that face: How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. There was a listening fear in her regard, As if calamity had but begun; As if the vanward clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 40 Was with its stored thunder labouring up. One hand she press'd upon that aching spot Where beats the human heart, as if just there, Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain: The other upon Saturn's ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... about. The tenor of nearly everything that she said was singularly gloomy. Her mind was full of superstition of a homely, domestic kind. She was a great believer in signs, and the signs with which she was most familiar were usually forewarnings of some great and mysterious public or private calamity. Her voice was remarkably soft, low, and sweet, so that to hear these alarming threats and these appalling prophecies uttered in the tones of a cooing dove, was ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... death, perhaps, and this threw you upon the world and made you what you are; it was always intended that you should make yourself; therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as early as it did. You will never die of water, although your career upon it in the future seems well sprinkled with misfortune. You will continue upon the water for some time yet; you will not retire finally until ten years from now.... What is your brother's ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... All this and more went flashing through his mind as Miss Wren finished her brief and significant story, and it dawned upon him that, whatever it might be to others, the death of Downs—to him, and to her whom he loved and whose honor he cherished—was anything but a calamity, a thing to mourn. Too generous to say the words, he yet turned with lightened heart and met Byrne's searching eyes, then those of Miss Wren now fixed upon him with austere challenge, as though she would say the flight and fate of this friendless soldier were crimes to be laid ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... inoffensive lion fleeing in the midst of a herd of gazelles. All are seized by the same fear, because all are exposed to the same danger. But birds, whose wings can carry them at will afar from the furnace, preserve greater presence of mind, and profit by the public calamity and general anxiety to make a successful hunt and copious feasts. One may see the birds of prey flying in front of the fire and seizing easy victims. Certain birds of Africa are the most furious hunters during a fire. Legions of insects flee far ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... perceived the sneer; some great calamity had befallen her, of which she as yet scarcely knew the extent; she sat mute and bewildered—too bewildered to ask why all this ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... his own fortune. He was then importuned to sell as much as would purchase a hundred a year for life, "which," says Fenton, "will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day." This counsel was rejected: the profit and principal were lost, and Gay sunk under the calamity so low that his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... a terrible calamity. My men declared that it was impossible to advance without horses, and refused to accompany me any farther. I remonstrated in vain; then, filled with indignation at their cowardice, I left them and pursued my journey alone. Since then I have seen only one man, a trapper, who was travelling south ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... laid waste the rural districts. Vast swamps and tracts of brush covered fields once beautiful with the products of agricultural labor. The minds of men were distracted by apprehensions of some frightful, impending calamity. The cultured Roman, the untutored Goth and the corrupted Christian were locked in the deadly embrace of despair. "Constantly did society attempt to form itself," says Guizot, "constantly was it destroyed by the ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... minister at Peking, a man of remarkable abilities and accomplishments, who was thought sure to rise high among diplomatists, and who had especially attracted American friendships by his marriage with an American lady. The impression created by this calamity was made all the greater by the fact that, in the absence of further news from the Chinese capital, there was reason to fear that the whole diplomatic corps, with their families, might be murdered. American action in the entanglements which followed was prompt and successful, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... coach-house. He had recognised the hand-writing on the envelope, and the recognition of it gave form and quick life to all the vague suspicions that had troubled him some months before, and again during the last few days. He felt suddenly the near approach of a frightful calamity which had long been stealing ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... laugh at thee; Where are thy threats now, Fool, thy scoffs and scorns Against the gods? I see calamity Is the best Mistress of Religion, And can ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... red. It was quite true. He had begun to look on this calamity as one for which he and Clark were both ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... formed the committee of the kirk was not humbled. Though their predictions had been falsified, they were still the depositaries of the secrets of the Deity; and, in a "Short Declaration and Warning," they announced[a] to their countrymen the thirteen causes of this national calamity, the reasons why "God had veiled for a time his face from the sons of Jacob." It was by the general profaneness of the land, by the manifest provocations of the king and the king's house, by the crooked ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... hundred more than L-I. On its first official trip this ship exploded a thousand feet in air, killing twenty-eight officers and men aboard, including all the officials who were conducting the trials. The calamity, as explained on an earlier page, was due to the accumulation of gas in the communicating passage between ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Again they were prepared to undergo whatever service might be laid upon them in her behalf. They could foresee the arduous tasks and inevitable sufferings of a great war, but had no warning of an impending calamity far worse than those which even war, though always attended with horrors, usually entails. Pericles had lately delivered his great funeral oration at the public interment of soldiers who had fallen for Athens. "The bright colors and tone of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... beginning to give way have been rallied by the females, through the earnestness of their supplications, the interposition of their bodies, [54] and the pictures they have drawn of impending slavery, [55] a calamity which these people bear with more impatience for their women than themselves; so that those states who have been obliged to give among their hostages the daughters of noble families, are the most effectually bound to fidelity. [56] They even suppose somewhat of sanctity ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... home, some a few weeks, others for months, instead of greeting their friends, were hurried into eternity so near their own homes, under such aggravated circumstances. And then what a terrible disappointment to survivors! Many families as well as individuals were by this calamity not only bereft of friends, but of their property—some reduced to a ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... shrieks, and plains to all Of her calamity: The old man foams, and cursing, swears His ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... for experts, and even soldiers and sailors, drawn into the political vortex, make light of our necessities, believing in the hopelessness of ever convincing the people of the truth until "a white calamity of steel and iron, the bearing of burdens and the hot rage of insult," fall upon us. It is for this reason that we see the extraordinary phenomenon of men denying the necessity for becoming a nation in arms, and yet urging our Government to contract no friendships abroad, and to interfere ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... breeze blowing up from the frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at eighteen degrees below zero. We were placed between the two extremes of heat and cold, and there was as much danger to be apprehended from the one as the other. In the bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never struck me; we wanted but this to put the finishing stroke to our misfortunes, to be thrown naked, houseless, and penniless, upon the world. "What shall I save first?" was the thought just then uppermost in my mind. Bedding and clothing appeared the most ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... sciences that enormous sums of money, the most delicate skill, long periods of time, are necessary to produce it. Galileo could replace his telescope with but little trouble; the destruction of a single modern observatory would be almost a calamity ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... discharge of an animal function, you would feel it as in some degree a humiliating circumstance; but what would be any defect of this kind, however serious, in comparison with that great want under which you labor—the want of piety, the calamity of a soul estranged from the love of God! What are the other subjects of humiliation compared with this—a moral fall, a spiritual death in sin: and this, unless it be removed, the sure precursor of the second death—eternal ruin! "This is a lamentation indeed, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... unnecessary publicity, and avoiding all display. She was earnest in her studies, and being gifted with a fine intellect and a good judgment, gave promise of great attainments. He had never known a student more assiduous in study; she wanted to become mistress of her profession. Her death is a calamity, not to her friends alone, but to all who are making an effort for the enlargement of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... for in these cases the Senate dissolves the marriage, and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the guilty are made infamous, and are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons; for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons when they need most the tender care of their comfort, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... estate: Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks, God's mother deigned to appear to me, And in a vision full of majesty Will'd me to leave my base vocation, And free my country from calamity: Her aid she promised and assured success: In complete glory she reveal'd herself; And, whereas I was black and swart before, With those clear rays which she infused on me That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see. Ask me what question thou canst possible, ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... under Hiram Ranger's roof for Mary the cook only. Of the four wakeful ones the most unhappy was Hiram himself, the precipitator of it all. Arthur had the consolation of his conviction that his calamity was unjust; Adelaide and her mother, of their conviction that in the end it could not but be well with Arthur. For Hiram there was no consolation. He reviewed and re-reviewed the facts, and each time he reached again ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... insurance had to be one which, in our circumstances, was practicable, and care had to be taken that it was not of a character that would frustrate the main purpose by provoking, and possibly accelerating, the very calamity against which it ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... its unquenchable and irresistible humor, its bright views, and its cheerful trust in goodness and virtue, it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of a life which had been marked at nearly every step with struggle, disappointment, and calamity; it was begun in prison, and finished when he felt the hand of death pressing cold and heavy upon his heart. If this be remembered as we read, we may feel what admiration and reverence are due, not only to the living power of Don Quixote, but ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... this would too much resemble our republic, and we have paid so dear for the honour of being republicans, that we have no farther inclination for it. A federal government may suit a country with a scanty population, like Switzerland; or a new nation, like America; but it would be a calamity to our old France: we are too volatile, too impassioned; we want a ruler, a master who knows how to make himself obeyed. Hark you, M. Werner, I must continue to speak to you frankly: the only chief, that ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... no bounds to their terror. They, seized on all the provisions that they had, they rushed to the ships, they threw themselves at the feet of Columbus and begged him to intercede with his God, to withhold the calamity which he had threatened. Columbus would not receive them; he shut himself up in his cabin and remained there while the eclipse increased, hearing from within, as the narrator says, the howls and prayers of ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... left them to perish? or had some new tempest of calamity, let loose upon France, drowned the memory of their exile? In vain the watchman on the hill surveyed the solitude of waters. A deep dejection fell upon them, a dejection that would have sunk to despair, could their eyes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... not sure that Gibbon is right when he says that the Christians were lucky in that Constantine did not turn Jew. To be persecuted is not wholly a calamity, but to persecute is to do that for which Nature affords no compensation. The persecutor dies, but the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... the pealing ring of the same great English trumpet that was yet to sound over the battle of the Baltic, and again in our later day over a sea-fight of Shakespeare's own, more splendid and heart-cheering in its calamity than that other and all others in their triumph; a war-song and a sea-song divine and deep as death or as the sea, making thrice more glorious at once the glorious three names of England, of Grenville, and of Tennyson for ever. From the affectation of cosmopolitan indifference ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Vanves, and Issy keep up an incessant firing. We would not be surprised if at any moment a bomb reached us, but so far we have escaped this calamity. The "Reds" are fighting all around Paris with more or less success. If one could believe what is written in the Le Journal de la Commune, one would say they were triumphant all along the line. We have just heard that General Bergeret has been arrested, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... that surrendered, while two hundred and forty-six in all only escaped, the mishap to Proctor who was personally a brave officer, as he had repeatedly proved, ought not to have excited surprise. But the disaster following as it did, and as should have been expected, the calamity on Lake Erie, the Governor-in-Chief was highly incensed, and nearly sacrificed Proctor to public opinion. He abused him and his army in no measured terms, in general orders. He contrasted the conduct of the soldiery ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Sahib! That is the precursory notice of some great calamity. The 'spirit' under the earth is waking up and is ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... "I wish all the dogs were kicked after him." And both Sam and Ben seemed to glory in the calamity that had befallen Trip. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... to avoid misery, fears it, And, at the best, shows but a bastard valor. This life's a fort committed to my trust, Which I must not yield up, till it be forced: Nor will I. He's not valiant that dares die, But he that boldly bears calamity. Maid of Honor, Act iv. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... figures in that affair parted each other's company fully realizing that hostilities were at hand. To say that Harrison was bound to sit helplessly in his capital while his enemies gathered a force sufficient to overwhelm him, and all without a move on his part to avert a calamity, but illustrates the foolishness of the whole contention. Immediately on the breaking up of the council, Tecumseh departed with a portion of his braves to organize and cement a federation of the tribes; Harrison, in the meantime, ordering an ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... leisure for an hour's sleep—his eating-hall, wherever he can obtain food. Sit thou down by Rose and me, good father, and tell us of some holy lesson which may pass away these hours of weariness and calamity." ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... we meet with the distressing intelligence that all its records were destroyed in the Great Fire. Very few escaped. The leather-sellers, pinners, and ironmongers were happily without the range of the conflagration. All the books of the companies abound with graphic details of this calamity. It melted their plate, burned their records, and laid their property, from which they chiefly derived their incomes, in ashes. At the same time they were burdened with a load of debt, the consequence of ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... who was stationed in the gun-room escaped unhurt in the storm of iron and splinters. Several huge blocks of iron crashed through the upper deck, injuring the people on the deck above, and causing the cry to be raised, that the magazine had blown up. This unhappy calamity not only rendered useless the whole battery of eighteen-pounders, thus forcing Jones to fight an eighteen-pounder frigate with a twelve-pounder battery, but it spread a panic among the men, who saw the dangers of explosion added to the peril they were in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... until noon. He had been summoned just as he was sitting down to breakfast, and he had gone instantly, leaving Mary wringing her hands at the double distress of a dreadful calamity and Dr. Lavendar's going without his breakfast. When he saw William King he asked no ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... is not a leading characteristic of the bridge-player's manner at the Senior Conservative Club on occasions like this. Mr Bickersdyke's partner did not bear his calamity with manly resignation. He gave tongue on the instant. 'What on earth's', and 'Why on earth's' flowed from his mouth like molten lava. Mr Bickersdyke sat and fermented in silence. Psmith clicked ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... sayings, and one of these sayings began to float through the atmosphere of Orangeville and was whispered from one to another; namely, that Julia Hammond had fallen into a tub of butter. Now, on first hearing such a statement one would think a sad calamity had happened to the young lady, especially when taking into consideration that in a few weeks' time she expected to change her name. But upon making an examination of her wearing apparel, one saw no sign of such an accident, and when she appeared at the table in her elegant ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... writing, though no one of them all betrayed fears that were troublesome. Of Mulford it is unnecessary to speak. His deportment had been quiet, thoughtful, and full of a manly interest in the comfort of others, from the first moment of the calamity. That Rose should share the largest in his attentions was natural enough, but he neglected no essential duty to her companions. Rose, herself, had little hope of being rescued. Her naturally courageous character, however, prevented any undue exhibitions of despair, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... nor a philosopher; and therefore he was utterly unable to account for the origin of the fire. In vain he wasted his intellectual powers in speculations; in vain he tried to remember some exciting cause to which the calamity could be traced. Meanwhile, Miss Fanny was deliberating quite as diligently over another question; for she apparently regarded the destruction of the boat-house as a small affair, and did not concern herself to know how ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... retard the progress of vice. And even indigence and obscurity, though without power to confer happiness, may at least prevent misery, and apprize those who are blinded by their passions, that they are on the brink of irremediable calamity. Pleased, therefore, with the thought of recovering others from that folly which has embittered my own days, I have presumed to address the ADVENTURER from the dreary mansions of wretchedness and despair, of which the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... countrymen from this calamity, or to die in the attempt. Accordingly, when the time of sending off the tribute came, and the youths and maidens were, according to custom, drawn by lot to be sent, he offered himself as one of the victims, in spite of the entreaties of his father. The ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... because the monk's countenance was growing dark. In the twilight of his pallid face, his nose looked like a comet portending some public calamity. ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... riot was ended, but the damage to my house was very great; and I was intending, as the public had done the deed, that the town should have paid for it. "But," said Mr Keelivine, the town-clerk, "I think you may do better; and this calamity, if properly handled to the Government, may make your fortune," I reflected on the hint; and accordingly, the next day, I went over to the regulating captain of the pressgang, and represented to ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... will be the means of circulating thousands of copies, where, without such denunciation, it would never have been known. There is in the North, as well as the South, a class of men who act, apparently, on the supposition that those who foresee and foretell any calamity are as guilty as those who create it, and that the only way to obviate any impending danger is not to see it. Such persons not only refuse to see and hear themselves, but do what they can to keep ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... stood paralyzed, fronting the calamity. I could not believe. It was as if the floor had swallowed my belongings. I had been absent not more than five minutes. Surely this was the room. Yes, Number Six; and the beds were ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... has been acquired, after hard and miserable wrestlings with despair and wretchedness, I cannot say, but I am inclined to think that it is not so. It seems to me rather to be the display of perfect manliness and womanliness in the presence of an irreparable calamity, a wonderful and amazing compensation, sent quietly from the deepest fortress of Love to these simple and generous natures, who live in each other's lives. I tried to picture to myself what my own thoughts would be if condemned to this sad condition; I could only foresee ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reason of the difficulties of mastication. I once read the story of an Englishman who hanged himself because they had brought him his tea without sugar. There are hours in life when the most trifling cross takes the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which makes the object small or great according to the end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... protest will avail. I know you Jews. You hang together in calamity And help each other while the Christians starve. Let them redeem you and ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union," he wrote in January. And in April that ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... justify the ways of God to man! The controversial spirit observable in many parts of the poem, especially in God's speeches, is immediately attributable to the great controversy of that age, the origination of evil. The Arminians considered it a mere calamity. The Calvinists took away all human will. Milton asserted the will, but declared for the enslavement of the will out of an act of the will itself. There are three powers in us, which distinguish us from the beasts that perish;—1, reason; ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... especially since I've been in this war business." Then seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever happens. You know yourself death isn't so much—not such a horrible calamity as we talk as ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... love The land of Montezuma bade us lay Low at your feet. Your starry virtues draw Her prayers and hopes and holiest desires Across the sea in humblest supplication. We make no weary tale of our misfortunes; They are so great the world is heavy with them, And Mexico means but calamity To every ear. ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... reasonable part produces reason How I may be deliver'd of these woes, And teaches me to kill or hang myself: If I were mad I should forget my son, Or madly think a babe of clouts were he: I am not mad; too well, too well I feel The different plague of each calamity. ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... to break the news to Mrs. Peyton, and the frightened young girl was too much struck with the change still visible in his face, and the half authority of his manner, to decline, or even to fully appreciate the calamity that had befallen them. After the first benumbing shock, Mrs. Peyton passed into that strange exaltation of excitement brought on by the immediate necessity for action, followed by a pallid calm, which the average ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... have taken place in the dark recesses of a cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it has always seemed to me almost a world calamity—at least from the viewpoint Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatest consideration of ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sanctifier of the most hateful frauds; and a secure shelter, under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal abominations fester and flourish. Were I again to be reduced to the condition of a slave, next to that calamity, I should regard the fact of being the slave of a religious slaveholder, the greatest that could befall me. For all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have found them, almost ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... appeared without his usual cheer; and Jerd wore a harassed look of a worn and worried man. And when Judkins put in appearance, riding a lame horse, and dismounted with the cramp of a rider, his dust-covered figure and his darkly grim, almost dazed expression told Jane of dire calamity. She ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... madam, I must beg of your ladyship not to be so importune to my fresh calamity as to mention Nutbrain any more. I am sure there is nothing in it. In love ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the armed rabble, to which he left the possession of 1,500 field-pieces and 300,000 guns, while he disarmed the regulars to the last man? To his calculations we owe the Commune; posterity will hold him responsible for that incalculable calamity, which it was at every hour in his power to avert, or to crush instantly. Presently his tenure of office is very precarious. The Emperor is eighty-two, and has never liked Bismarck; he has given recently some signs that he feels galled by the chain. The Crown Prince may make ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... frightful calamity, he thought, if that sacrifice of Lieutenant Hernandez should avail nothing. If that girl should fall once more into the clutches of ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... beginning of sorrows to him. Hitherto, up to his thirty-fifth year, independent master of leisure and the delights of literature, his years had passed without a check or a shadow. From this day forward domestic misery, the importunities of business, the clamour of controversy, crowned by the crushing calamity of blindness, were to be his portion for more than thirty years. Singular among poets in the serene fortune of the first half of life, in the second half his piteous fate was to rank in wretchedness with that of ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... to Cecil than the personal destruction the day's calamity brought him was the knowledge of the entire faith these men had placed in him, and the losses which his own mistaken security had caused them. Granted he could neither guess nor avert the trickery which had brought about his failure; but ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... time Mrs. Nelson and Ralph were nearly prostrated by the calamity that had taken place. But stern necessity soon compelled them to put aside their grief. Although Mr. Nelson owned a small cottage close to the bridge, he had left but a small amount—less than a hundred dollars—in cash behind him. They must work to ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... will not ask your pardon: it is never an interruption to bring good news from the King to his subjects. I will not weary you with a long presentation; I have only this message: you are all invited to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved from every possible calamity; you are all invited to come now. I am going to ask the Tennesseeans to sing one ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... room that was her own, poor Edith (the cause, as he felt, of their calamity) had indeed prepared ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... said Lydgate, deprecatingly. "It was a fatal accident—a dreadful stroke of calamity that bound me ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... was an honest farmer, by name Juan Lanas, a Christian old man and much beloved, who had inherited no mean estate from his forefathers, though with but little wit in his crown,—a lack which was the cause of much calamity to both the father and the daughter, for in the times to which we have attained, God forgive me if it is not necessary to have more of the knave than of the fool in ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say—It would have been better for me if I ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... sphere, I pray in transcendent rapture - subtle, silent, deeply significant signs take place in the wonderful landscape before my eyes. A soft veil of clouds obscures the light, as a warning of danger or calamity, - a great glowing brilliance rises behind me or at my side as an encouraging greeting, - a light layer of clouds gradually evaporates and a deep, dark, boundless, ravishing azure comes to view, filling me with unknown comfort. Blue, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... The sunlight, which was so bright it was making the others squint and draw the curtains, suddenly seemed to Sahwah to be darkened, while a nameless fear stole into her heart and oppressed her with a sense of lurking danger, of hovering calamity. Only for a minute it lasted, and then she was herself again and the sunshine struck into her eyes ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... and possessed of loftiness of character; but who meets with an early and untimely death. Such is Baldur the Beautiful of Iceland, and such, also, are Hector and Achilles of Troy. These songs mark the greatness and the waning of the heroic world In the Nibelungen-lied the final event is a great calamity that is akin to a half historical event of the North. Odin descends to the nether world to consult Hela; but she, like the sphinx of Thebes, will not reply save in an enigma, which enigma is to entail terrible tragedies, and lead to destruction the young hero who is ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... fear, struggled together in the shocked mind of Lady Isabel. Arrest the dead. She had never heard of a like calamity: nor could she have believed in such. Arrest it for what purpose? What to do? To disfigure it?—to sell it? With a panting heart and ashy lips, she turned from the room. Mrs. Mason happened to be ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to explain his defection to Mr. Clotworthy and to Tarleton. The only mitigating feature of the business was that the matter to be reported was only a concert. Both Mr. Clotworthy and Tarleton trembled when they thought of the calamity that would have befallen the paper if the forgotten report had been of a murder! They hardly dared contemplate such a devastating prospect. They invited John to think of another profession and wished him a very good morning. Tarleton quitted the room, leaving John alone with the editor, and as ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... healing ministry of the successor of Parris, Joseph Green, was brought to a close, by the early death of that good man, in 1715, and the whole Parish, still feeling the dire effects of the great calamity of 1692, were mourning their bereavement, expressed in their own language: "the choicest flower, and greenest olive-tree, in the garden of our God here, cut down in its prime and flourishing estate," they passed a vote, earnestly ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... gate in an automobile set at its highest speed, and as he saw Roscoe he made a gesture singularly eloquent of calamity, and was lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street. Edith had followed part of the way down the drive, and it could be seen that she was crying bitterly. She lifted both arms to Roscoe, ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... rebuff; Flanagan's success was explicable, his picture was showy and superficial: it was just the sort of thing a languid jury would see merit in. Philip grew impatient; it was humiliating that Lawson should think him capable of being seriously disturbed by so trivial a calamity and would not realise that his dejection was due to a ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the dreadful trial with the fortitude and submissive grace that only a serene and unmurmuring faith can give. Frank was more demonstrative in his grief, and disposed to rebel against so cruel a calamity. But his mother calmed and inspired him, and when the first numbing force of the blow had passed away, they took counsel together as to the future. This was dark and uncertain enough. All that was left to them was the little ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... her heart. If Bass would only do this. If he would go and get work, and come to her rescue, as a strong bright young son might, what a thing it would be! They were in the rapids of a life which was moving toward a dreadful calamity. If only something ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... my own dear wife!" he said in faltering accents, "have I really been so cruel that you despair of my love? Why, my darling, no greater calamity than your loss could possibly befall me. I love you dearly, dearly! better far than I did when I asked you to be mine—when we gave ourselves to ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... their congregations! four hundred churches left vacant! four hundred families rendered desolate! forty thousand of God's sheep, and as many lambs, left to wander in the wilderness without a shepherd! who can estimate the extent of such a calamity? who can reckon the sorrows, sufferings, and stupendous losses, public and private, caused by this iniquitous ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... are probably aware that I was prevented from doing this by a great calamity, very similar in its circumstances to that I had to deplore in 1833—the loss of another son, equal in virtues, hardly inferior in abilities, to him whom you have commemorated. This has been an unspeakable affliction to me, and at my advanced ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... finished speaking, the poor, flurried little fairies discovered that the baby was the daughter of a poor peasant and his wife, while Prince Charming lived in quite another country, a very long way off. It was a great calamity, no doubt, but nothing could be done, for the fairies had no more gifts left; so they returned very sadly to Fairyland, and hoped that the wymps would not find it out. Of course, the wymps did find it out, for they had arranged the whole thing ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... which the nations of Europe had in either America, is slipping from under them, so that we shall soon be rid of their neighborhood. Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war to us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be a great calamity to us. Could we induce her to join us in guarantying its independence against all the world, except Spain, it would be nearly as valuable to us as if it were our own. But should she take it, I would not immediately go to war for it; because the first war ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... timber. I could have only lain there for a few seconds, for no human clamour had mingled with the sound of the ship's agony when I staggered to my feet. My head was aching furiously, and my right wrist was numb from the fall, but my senses had now come back to me, and I knew that some great calamity had befallen the ship. In desperation I pulled myself together and ran with all speed, heedless of the darkness, to the end of the passage where the ladder was, and so up it and on to ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... lain unconscious. No bones were broken, no severe concussion sustained in the rapid drag over the sandy surface, and the awful sense of the calamity that had befallen him and the dread and doubt as to the fate of his beloved ones seemed to rally his stunned and bewildered faculties and bring him face to face with the horror of the situation. Barely able to breathe, he found himself rudely gagged. Striving ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... Alexander," observed Swinton; "the ways of Heaven are inscrutably mysterious, and when we offer up prayers for the removal of what may appear to be a heavy calamity, we may be deprecating that which in the ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... tendency to insanity, and he lives in fear of being involved in a terrible catastrophe, from which he only saves himself by strong efforts of will and by the recollection of the lost love of his youth. The awful calamity which overtook him at the very moment his betrothal to Susanna was sanctioned by her father proved, in fact, his salvation, and delivered him from madness, but its effects were never eradicated. Like Hamlet ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... passed since this terrible calamity took place, scientific men have been busily engaged, until quite recently, in endeavoring to ascertain the real significance of the various events which were observed during and after the occurrence of the earthquake. The geographers ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... fashion. Of all the eggs that are produced by the animals at large in nature an overwhelming proportion never develop at all. They dry up, are eaten by their enemies, find no suitable place or time for development and decay, or are overtaken by some other calamity. Of the animals which emerge from the remainder an overwhelming majority come to an untimely end within the first few days of life. Each has countless enemies which prey upon him, and these have scarcely devoured him before they themselves become the prey ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... when he proposed to borrow. He had neglected to build up a credit as he went along. The business world only knew him as a man who paid cash and exacted cash. Taken at his fullest inventory he had "scalped" a living out of the world for which he had done but little to make happier or better. One calamity might easily scuttle his prospects forever—for instance, a fire, or a bank failure. And without credit it would be ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... almost alone on the deck, the majority of the passengers having gone below—for the wind was cold and boisterous, and the crew having retired forward to the forecastle excepting those on duty aft—a tall, thin, pale man, whom the calamity seemed to have aged ten years in that brief space of time, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... this calamity gave force to the words with which Chatham at the very time of the surrender was pressing for peace. "You cannot conquer America," he cried when men were glorying in Howe's successes over Washington. "If I were an American as I am ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... spirit, or a liberation of her own, had fired Columbine, and was now burning within her, unquenchable and unutterable. Some divine spark had penetrated into that mysterious depth of her, to inflame and to illumine, so that when she arose from this hour of calamity she felt that to the tenderness and sorrow and fidelity in her soul had been added ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... great cities, so egotistic in ordinary times, were visited to-morrow by some calamity—a siege, for instance—that same selfish city would decide that the first needs to satisfy were those of the children and the aged. Without asking what services they had rendered, or were likely to render to society, it would first of all feed them. Then ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... middle, commercial, and professional classes were still prosperous and contented, but luxury, imported vices, slavery, political corruption, and new ideals [4] had gradually sapped the old national vitality and destroyed the resisting power of the State in the face of a great national calamity. Rome now stood, much like the shell of a fine old tree, apparently in good condition, but in reality ready to fall before the blast because it had been allowed to become rotten at the heart. Sooner or later the boundaries of the Empire, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... depression causes very high prices for the necessities of life and even widespread scarcity of food. This cause produces far more deaths in modern nations than war. The doubling of the price of bread in any civilized country would be a far greater calamity than a great war. While modern civilized peoples fear famine but little, there are many classes in the great industrial nations that live upon such a narrow margin of existence that the slightest increase ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... Strange what influence calamity possesses in softening the character! He made no answer, but, putting his arms around me, pressed me to his breast, while ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... they were deficient in military stores; when the Yankees were stimulated to enthusiasm by every influence which could be brought to bear upon them by their families, at no great distance from the seat of war, and when no great calamity ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; To sleep? Perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes When he himself might his quietus make With a ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... places, of Tarragona and Seriphos, investing them with the accent of an intense hopeless desire. He thought of the inexplicable place of her birth and of the riven, unsubstantial figure of the man with the blood pulsing into his ocherous face. Some old, profound error or calamity had laid its blight upon him, he was certain; but the most lamentable inheritance was not sufficient to account for the acute apprehension in his daughter's tones. This was different in kind from the spiritual collapse of the aging man. It was actual, he realized ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... not have thought or spoken. I found this man in confinement, rendered harsher to him by his habits of life, his natural dignity of feeling, and—forgive me, Mr. Waverley—by the cause through which this calamity had come upon him. I cannot disguise from you my feelings upon this occasion; they were most painfully unfavorable to you. Having by my family interest, which you probably know is not inconsiderable, succeeded in obtaining Sir Everard's release, I set out for Scotland. I saw Colonel Gardiner, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... there was friction between his followers and those of Garrison. To denounce the Constitution and repudiate political action were, from Birney's standpoint, a surrender of the only hope of forestalling a dire calamity. He had always fought slavery by the use of legal and constitutional methods, and he continued so to fight. In this policy he had the support of a large majority of abolitionists in New England and elsewhere. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... the vast net is closing in on the enemy,—little by little the vice is tightening,—and if no incalculable calamity overtake the armies of the Union, it is but fair to assume that at no distant day the rebel South will find itself in the last extremity, overwhelmed by masses from without and demoralized by want of means within. Government at present holds the winning cards,—if ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... of course, entirely dependent upon the land for their living. They till the soil and rear cattle, and the greatest calamity that can come upon any family is that their land shall be taken from them. To be landless involves degradation as well as poverty, and very severe hardship is the lot of men who have been deprived of this means of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... the page boy was found to be upside down with the original knots and seals intact! This experiment according to the excellent patter of the showman, was based upon the prevalent idea that in India certain magicians make a small effigy of a person on whom some dire calamity is intended, and that whatever is done to this doll, happens to the unfortunate person at any distance, but at that identical moment. I am glad to say that I have never seen or heard of this myth ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... external wound, half healed, had broken out afresh; internal inflammation had taken place, which might terminate fatally if not soon removed. Of course, the wretched sufferer's temper was not improved by this calamity—in fact, I suspect it was well nigh insupportable, though his kind nurse did not complain; but she said she had been obliged at last to give her son in charge to Esther Hargrave, as her presence was so constantly required in the ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... was but too prophetic: "My dear girl, you must arm yourself with courage. You have partaken of my prosperity; it now remains to you, since you have chosen it, to partake of my misery. Expect nothing in future but insult and calamity in following me. The destiny begun for me by this melancholy day will pursue me until ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... dreamily of summer days that were gone. Suddenly there was a terrific crash, a clattering tinkle of broken glass, a howl from a boy near the window. Twenty knees banged the desks beneath as twenty boys jumped. Then, before any of us had found his wits, Jimmy Jenkins, a red-headed boy whom no calamity could throw off his balance and from whom no opportunity ever got away free, had jumped over two forms and was down on the floor in the girls' aisle, gripping something ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... A serious calamity threatens the Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... regarding long distances was just at that moment the most remote sensation in Stanton's sensibilities. If the railroad journey had seemed unhappily drawn out, the sleigh-ride reversed the emotion to the point of almost telescopic calamity: a stingy, transient vista of village lights; a brief, narrow, hill-bordered road that looked for all the world like the aisle of a toy-shop, flanked on either side by high-reaching shelves where miniature house-lights twinkled cunningly; ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... by party leaders, they will not force this mighty issue to the front and demand its recognition at the ballot-box; and these words rang in her ears: "Because I have called and ye have refused, ye have set at naught all my counsel. I also will laugh at your calamity when your destruction ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... would be dear enough before we got through. I guess I'd better run right out and have a talk with McLean. He knows these men even better than I do, and I'm almost one of them, you know. And I'll get a line on some of these delinquents who are crying calamity for the countryside. I'd better, because we'll need them. They simply haven't become thoroughly interested yet, that's all. It will take something to jolt them; something to set them on fire. And then—then ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... self-forgetful that it makes one think better of mankind. I remember hearing a preacher say that no family knew all their capabilities of love until death had taken one of their number,—not their love for the dead, but their deeper affection for each other after the loss. I suppose every calamity brings its compensations in developing noble traits of character; and it is almost an offset to failure itself to have such an overflowing feeling as this,—to know that there are so many sympathizing hearts. But what I was going to speak of was the conduct of my clerk, Monroe. He is a fine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... circus or traveled with one before?" she asked Billy. When hearing that he had not, she rolled up her eyes, a habit she had, and exclaimed: "Poor uneducated beast, what you have missed, never to have been taught to perform in a circus." This was a calamity in her eyes. She could not remember ever being anywhere else, as she had been born in a circus in this country shortly after her mother had been ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... ladies belonging to Boston clubs and personally acquainted with Mr. Henry James. As to the dinner itself, Mr. Rittenhouse Smith, who never spoke inconsiderately in matters of this grave nature, had agreed with her that—barring, of course, some Providentially interposed calamity such as scorching the ducks or getting too much salt in the terrapin—even Mr. Hutchinson Port would be unable to ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... reading it he handed it to me, and I also read it carefully. I cannot recollect it word for word, but it professed to come from 'his affectionate uncle, Richard Yardington.' It expressed pleasure at his coming home sooner than had been anticipated, and hinted in rather vague terms at some calamity. He referred to a lady called Alice, and stated that she had not been informed of Mr. Furlong's intended arrival. There was something too, about his presence at home being a recompense to her for recent grief which she had sustained. It also expressed the writer's intention ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... seemed very nearly extinct. The penal code, with all its malign influence, had one good effect. It subdued to a great extent the fighting propensities of the people, and fused the clans into one nation, purified by suffering. Since that time, in spite of occasional visitations of calamity, they have been steadily rising in the social scale, and they are now better off than ever they were in their whole history. When we review the stages by which they have risen, we cannot but feel at times grieved and ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... this class, as connected with the novelties and excitement of railway travelling. Missing their luggage, or finding that something has gone wrong about it, often causing very terrible distress, and might be amusing, were it not to the sufferer so severe a calamity. I was much entertained with the earnestness of this feeling, and the expression of it from an old Scottish lady, whose box was not forthcoming at the station where she was to stop. When urged to be patient, her indignant exclamation was, "I can bear ony pairtings that may be ca'ed for ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... This mild domestic calamity had upset him so infernally. It could not be right that so slight a change in his habits should have such an effect upon him. George had been so little hurt—the doctor gave him a couple of days before complete recovery—that it had not seemed ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... balderdash and doggerel that it was ever our bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language, but should any of our readers peruse the book, (from which calamity Heaven preserve them!) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of Vallum-brozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly got up.... We should ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... years younger, much less mature, and therefore less able to profit by the meritorious features and at the same time withstand the weakening influences attendant upon the system. Indeed, I think its adoption in the secondary schools would be nothing short of a calamity. Another reason why I feel impelled to speak is that reference is made in Mr. Secor's article to the working of the system in the institution with which I am connected as "highly satisfactory." In justice to the system itself and certainly ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... to us, tended to preserve public health, to ensure respect for authority, and to prevent any undue accumulation of goods and chattels in the hands of one man. Under the law of muru a man smitten by sudden calamity was politely plundered of all his possessions. It was the principle under which the wounded shark is torn to pieces by its fellows, and under which the merchant wrecked on the Cornish coast in bye-gone days was stripped of anything the waves had spared. Among the Maoris, however, it was at once ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... father. "But I had thought of this running short of school funds as a calamity. If I had been praying about it, I would have asked Him to show me a way to raise money to continue until middle ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... that the long dry summer menaced some catastrophic change which should surprise this easy-going age as the plague had done last year. But oh, how lightly that widespread calamity had touched those light minds! and, if Providence had designed to warn or to punish, how vain had been the warning, and how soon forgotten the penalty that had ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the inevitable effect of thought and expression. The same necessity of natural language which led the Hebrew prophets to speak of their land as married, of their nation as a wife in prosperity and a widow in calamity, of their Maker as their husband, who rejoices over them as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride: [117] this same necessity, becoming a habit like that of our own country folks in Hampshire, of whom Cobbett speaks, who call almost ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... introduced before the infinitive by the preposition for: as, "For men to search their own glory, is not glory."—Prov., xxv, 27. "For a prince to be reduced by villany [sic—KTH] to my distressful circumstances, is calamity enough."—Translation of Sallust. "For holy persons to be humble, is as hard, as for a prince to submit himself to be guided by tutors."—TAYLOR: Priestley's Gram., p. 132; Murray's, 184. But such a limitation is sometimes implied, when ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... he felt at that gesture that he was to lose her, that he should never have her again, he shouted. He forgot everything. There remained in him only the dazed feeling of a great misfortune accomplished, of an irreparable calamity. And from the depth of his stupor a desire ascended. He desired to possess again the woman who was leaving him and who would never return. He drew her to him. He desired her, with all the strength of his animal nature. She resisted ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Thebes by Juno for her private revenge. The fable is that he laid all that country waste by proposing riddles and killing all who could not guess them. The calamity was so great that Creon promised his crown to anyone who could guess one, and the guessing would mean the death ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... Great Britain—a subjection which the Irish conscience and the Irish voice and Irish arms yet did not cease to protest against and deny. But the nation was divided, and it required some great and general calamity to unite them together and ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... course, I did not send, the scoundrel is not worthy of it. I merely sent him six inches of tobacco with reluctance. That cursed family is a perfect pest to the place, and it is my humble opinion that the hand of Providence sends them the present calamity for their ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... when they should otherwise rejoice. In the midst of victory a great calamity has fallen upon us. We have lost our father,—our brother! Our great chief—he whom we all loved—has fallen. Alas! In the very hour of triumph, when his strong right hand had hewn down his enemy on the field—in that ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... always something tremendous in the form of great mountains; but these swept by, not only huger than anything Earth knows, but troubled by horrible commotions, as though overtaken in flight by some ceaseless calamity. ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... else of blind recklessness, saying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Because they kept their faith in God, their lives were for the most part lives of hardy and hopeful enterprise; cheerful always, in bad luck as in good; thankful when their labours were blest with success; and when calamity and failure came, saying with noble resignation—"I have received good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not receive evil? Though He slay me, yet will I ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... rescue. The town of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, hearing, says their address, "the loud groans of the sinking College,... and hoping that their example might provoke ... the General Court vigorously to act for the diverting of the omen of calamity which its destruction would be to New England," pledged themselves to an annual contribution of sixty pounds for seven years. This act of chivalrous generosity fairly shamed our lagging Commonwealth into measures ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... once a good companion, and a good Christian; which I think is saying enough. Yet it is but justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous illness, he was watched with the anxious apprehension of a general calamity; day and night his house was beset with affectionate inquiries; and, upon his recovery, Te deum was the universal chorus from the ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... familiar trenches would become. At various points—about every four or five miles-a warship was passed. The troops on each ship stood to attention and the bugler blew the general salute. Port Said was reached in the afternoon, and here a great calamity overtook me. Paddy was lost! He was seen going ashore in the boat which took the mails. Though orders were out against any one's leaving the ship, Colonel Monash offered me permission to go and look for ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... nothing to do but to beg; for Tiny's charity and goodness of heart seemed to have all forsaken him, and one day in his anger he drove her out of his garret, and bade her return no more, for that the very thought of her was hateful to him. In doing this, Tiny brought a terrible calamity upon himself; he fell against his harp ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... A calamity expected, feared, and guarded against by a whole community does sometimes occur, and with a suddenness which finds the victims unprepared in spite of all their elaborate precautions. Compared with the importance of saving ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... held in my own hands the police report of the accident. It states that the fall was unavoidable; and that, if no such calamity had occurred before, this was due to the simple fact, that, during the bad weather, nobody had thought of looking out of the window. The castings of the little railing in front were found to be broken in two places, and so long ago, that a thick layer of rust had filled up the ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the bow of the jangada. Manoel and Benito walked one behind the other without speaking. Yaquita and her daughter silently followed, and all felt an unaccountable impression of sadness, as if they had a presentiment of some coming calamity. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... around my very garments. That which the heart rebukes cannot be concealed; but we must be obedient to the will that directs all things;—and if it be that we remain blind in despotism until misfortune opens our eyes, let the cause of the calamity be charged to those it belongs to," he concludes; and then, after a few minutes' silence, he lights his taper, and sets it upon the table. His care-worn countenance pales with melancholy; his hair has whitened with tribulation; his demeanour denotes a man of tender sensibility ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams |
