FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • More 'Avert' Quotes from Famous Books

... eyes on the previous night, and was tired out when the evening arrived, and, as no good could come of my keeping a watch, for the simple reason that it was not in my power to avert anything that might happen, I tumbled some further covering over the Frenchman, who had lain on the deck all the afternoon, sometimes dozing, sometimes waking and talking to himself, and appearing on the whole very easy and comfortable, ...

— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... the secret treasure was got at by torture. That month of May 1527, with its awful experience, was an end to the pride and the hope and the gladness of the pagan revival; a severe and penitential spirit came over society, preparing to meet the Reformation by reform, and to avert change in doctrine by a change in morality. The sack of Rome, said Cardinal Cajetan, was a just judgment on the sufferers. The city was now the Emperor's, by right of conquest, to bestow as he chose, and the Romans were ...

— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... Macgregor. Rob Roy sounded his horn; instantly his followers appeared in view. Rob Roy ordered them to drive off the cattle from the estate: Abernchile was forced to make an humble apology in order to avert his wrath, ...

— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... count on my epaulets. But only two nights ago she received a letter—I know not of course from whom—evidently from some high authority—that induced her to think the moderation of the Council would avert the war, and leave the swords of the Mobiles in their sheaths. I suspect the decision of yesterday must have been a very sudden one. Ce cher Gramont! See what it is to have a well-born ...

— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ecclesiastical soil. From the moment Nance entered the cathedral on that third Sunday, she and Mac were as acutely aware of each other's every move as if they had been alone together in the garden of Eden. At first she tried to avert her eyes, tried not to see his insistent efforts to attract her attention, affected not to know that he was singing to her, and watching her with ...

— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... alone; they had all been educated in the love and admiration of constitutional monarchy; and even John Adams and Jefferson so sincerely shrank back from the attempt at creating another government in its stead, that, to the last moment, they were most anxious to avert a separation, if it could be avoided without a loss of their inherited liberties." (History of the United States, Vol. VIII., ...

— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... then around the van, and lastly ourselves. At the same time some good young women threw orange-flower water over my wife and myself from pretty glass vases with narrow necks as a sign of welcome. The incense of the priests was supposed to avert the "evil-eye" from the gipsy van and our party. I felt much obliged for the good intention, but I did not mind the "evil eye" so much as the water-spouts. In my experience of travelling I never met with ...

— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... Shadow made answer, in very solemn tones, "They are trying to propitiate your mightiness, and to avert the omen, lest the rain should fall, and the wind should blow, and the storm-cloud should burst over the ...

— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... of death. They seldom give it a thought. The general belief is that if a man's 'time' has come, nothing can possibly avert it. Under this impression he goes into battle or takes up his position in the lines. He consistently refuses, however, to be a party to anything which is considered at all likely to precipitate the end. For instance, no amount of persuasion would induce ...

— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... turrita, i.e. Cybele, the goddess of settled life. 171. Epidaurius hospes, i.e. Asclepius (Aesculapius), who had a famous temple at Epidaurus (in Argolis), whence his worship was introduced into Rome to avert a pestilence 293 B.C. 172. reptavit placido tractu came gently gliding on his voyage. —Jebb. —For reptavit cf. repo, herp, and our creep. 173. Paeonium draconem the serpent of the ...

— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... soldiers were experienced at the hands of the troops of the Argentine Republic. An indemnity was demanded by France and the United States of America for ships captured during the blockade of Buenos Aires, and large sums of money had to be paid to avert further war. Finally, the English Government persuaded Brazil to make a somewhat humiliating peace with Buenos Aires, and renounce all claim to the colony, which was henceforth to be known as ...

— South America • W. H. Koebel

... which will be removed when the king is healed. The version of Sone de Nansai is here of extreme interest; the position is stated with so much clearness and precision that the conclusion cannot be evaded—we are face to face with the dreaded calamity which it was the aim of the Adonis ritual to avert, the temporary suspension of all the reproductive ...

— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... there is too often no peace. There the voluble mouth and bright penetrating eye are ever directed toward the Master of the household; and light itself is not more persistent than the stream of Feminine discourse. The tact and skill which suffice to avert a Woman's sting are unequal to the task of stopping a Woman's mouth; and as the wife has absolutely nothing to say, and absolutely no constraint of wit, sense, or conscience to prevent her from saying it, not a few cynics ...

— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... whatever specious name the autocracy may call itself. Ruling classes have always said that masses were incapable of understanding foreign policy. The masses understand it now. They understand that in spite of very earnest efforts in various Cabinets, the ruling classes have failed to avert the most terrible disaster in history. The masses will say to themselves, 'At any rate we couldn't have done worse than that.' The masses know that if the war decision had been openly submitted to a representative German chamber, instead of being ...

— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... They constantly avowed that they were loyal to the king when protesting in the strongest language against his policies. Even Otis, regarded by the loyalists as a firebrand, was in fact attempting to avert revolution by winning concessions from England. "I argue this cause with the greater pleasure," he solemnly urged in his speech against the writs of assistance, "as it is in favor of British liberty ... and as it is in opposition to a kind of power, ...

— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... obtain the help of the people in stripping a numerous aristocracy of their baneful exemption from state-burdens, had already found out its own share in the peril of the experiment, and now sought, by a close alliance with the noblesse, to avert the ruin that too evidently menaced both. But the torrent had but accumulated at each irresistible concession, and every day's work added to the democratic elements of a constitution that had already made royalty a cipher, and ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... noticed; and, turning up her eyes in the face of her husband, she sighed heavily, and sought her apartment. Soon afterwards she proceeded to put her children to rest, making them offer up to heaven a prayer to avert from the head of their father a danger they did not understand, but enough to them, if they saw it in the face of their mother, whose looks were their laws, and whose smiles were the sunlight of their ...

— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... under these circumstances that Lord Palmerston rose to define the position of the Ministry, to vindicate the honor and dignity of the Commons, to avert a collision with the House of Lords, and, in general, to extricate the councils of the nation from ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... which you worship, that which is called Love. The love of man may avert the massacre of men. I hope so with all my heart. Hist! Oro comes. I feel, I know that he comes, though not in search of us who are very far from his thought ...

— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... green waters came the boatman's frail craft, ever drawing nearer to the perilous rock. All his care and all his skill were required to avert a very visible danger. But high above him, from the rock round which the swirling eddies splashed and ...

— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... very sensible of the great change there is in himself, and of her disturbance at it. It seems, but heaven avert it! a threat of a total breaking up of the constitution. This, too, seems his own idea. I was present at his first seeing Lady Effingham on his return to Windsor this last time. "My dear Effy," he cried, "you see me, all at once, an old man." I was so much affected by this exclamation, ...

— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... formidable perils. Of all these perils and losses, those to which Cloche had exposed his house by refusing to stretch a point of etiquette in favour of a fairy, without birth, yet formidable and illustrious, were by no means the hardest to foresee, nor was it least urgent to avert them. ...

— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France

... know. In our temple we have begun prayers the second time to avert misfortune from Phoenicia. We had our first prayers before Thou didst ...

— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... forty New Mexico summers, and with those clear steady eye that Texas and New Mexico weather are apt to give. His ranch had not as yet shown oil, but it was in the pool, and if any man hated to lose his land McIntyre did. Every one had rather looked to him at first to avert the big calamity, and he had hunted all over the territory for the legal means with which to do it, but he had failed, and he knew it. He avoided Samuel assiduously, but Samuel was sure that when the day came for ...

— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... bedroom," said Pats. "I looked in," and he drew aside the tapestry that she might enter. She shook her head and stepped back. But in spite of her respect for the owner's privacy, and before she could avert her eyes, she caught a hasty glimpse of a monumental bed with hangings of faded silk between its massive columns; of two portraits on the walls and an ivory crucifix. This glance at the bedroom served to increase her uneasiness. Moving toward a table that ...

— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... the forenoon, and a hand-to-hand fight had lasted till the evening, when two thousand of the enemy and five hundred of the scanty garrison had fallen, the Knights and their soldiers prepared for the end. They knew the Grand Master could not save them, that nothing could avert the inevitable dawn. They took the Sacrament from each other's hands, and "committing their souls to God made ready to devote their bodies in the cause of His Blessed Son." It was a forlorn and sickly remnant ...

— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... were enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many, necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would have been working on ...

— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... would afford us constant guidance in the paths of public and private virtue. The narrow and unreasonable notion of exclusive national merit can not survive a fair glance over the vast map of time and space which history lays before us. We may not avert our eyes from those dark spots upon the annals of our beloved land where acts of violence and injustice stand recorded against her, nor may we suffer the blaze of military renown to dazzle our judgment. Victory may bring ...

— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... dogs and threw herself down on the crusted snow, passing one arm over a shaggy back. The animal looked at her, uncertainly, but suddenly he passed a big moist tongue over her face. Could he have realized that her saving grace might avert condign punishment? The girl petted him as Stefan turned the toboggan and its ...

— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... at once, inasmuch as he must be taken sooner or later. But here is the point: before two months have elapsed the better element of Dawsbergen will be so disgusted with the new dose of Gabriel that it will do anything to avert a war on his account. We have led them to believe that Axphain will lend moral, if not physical, support to our cause. Give them two months in which to get over this tremendous hysteria, and they'll find their senses. Gabriel isn't worth it, you see, and down in their ...

— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the imperial generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced by the weakest or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time ...

— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... Election of 1906 took place those of us in County Cork and elsewhere who had taken our stand by Mr O'Brien were marked out for opposition by the Party chiefs. But a truce was arranged through the intervention of Mr George Crosbie, editor of The Cork Examiner, who generously sought to avert a fight between brother Nationalists, which, whatever its effects at home, would be bound to have grave results abroad, where the only thing that would be strikingly apparent was that brother Nationalists were at one another's ...

— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... was speedily known to all the servants of the Chateau. She did not often visit them, but when she did there was a hurried recital of an Ave or two to avert any harm, followed by a patronizing welcome and a rummage for small coins to cross her hand withal in return for her solutions of the grave questions of love, jealousy, money, and marriage, which fermented secretly or openly in the bosoms of all of them. They were but human ...

— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... country, disappointments, and pride of spirit brought them in touch—a reciprocated passion was the result. Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix was going to marry Lambert, when the scholar's terrible mental malady asserted itself. She was frequently able to avert the sick man's paroxysms; she nursed him, advised him, and guided him, notably at Croisic, where at her suggestion Lambert related in letter-form the tragic misfortunes of the Cambremers, which he had just learned. On her return to Villenoix, Pauline took her ...

— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... Grenoble, not only a great concourse of Catholics flocked to hear him, but also such numbers of Protestants of the Geneva following that their ministers became alarmed and held meetings to decide what measures should be taken to avert a storm, which threatened desolation to their strongholds and was fast emptying their conventicles. They decided at last on a personal conflict with their opponent, choosing one of their most furious pastors, a man of violent temper and bitter tongue, ...

— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... their minds that Pap would seek a public vengeance. Nor could he take it better than in his own dance hall where Maude and Alec flouted him every night. Thus, if their expectations were fulfilled, they would be on the spot to succor. A watchful eye might even avert disaster. ...

— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the congregation of which the present esteemed Parnass is Solomon Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered ...

— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... said I, "honest families made miserable; for Heaven's sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can." I spoke with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible, and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling ...

— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... when men cannot or will not see danger at a distance; or seeing it, are undetermined in the means which are necessary to avert or keep it ...

— Washington's Birthday • Various

... whole country, since spies sat at the board and took note of all extravagant phrases that might be construed into disloyalty. Orange himself held meetings of a very different sort in his sincere endeavour to avert the catastrophe ...

— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... she had to avert; she had to think and scheme. But had she known of Daisy's sleepless night, and the cause of that, she would have felt that the anchor which prevented the situation drifting into disaster had been torn up. For the anchor was the belief, as Lady Nottingham had told her, that Daisy ...

— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept ...

— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... diffidence which her presence itself imposed upon me. Nor did I hear her voice more than once or twice when she demurely answered such questions as her father set her. And though once or twice I found her stealing a look at me, she would instantly avert her eyes when our ...

— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... of Light, on thee I call! Thou seest my soul is dark within; Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall, Avert from me the ...

— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... Samoa is one much coveted and highly respected, for the tulafale is in reality a Minister of War, and on his public utterances much depends. If he is possessed of any degree of eloquence, he can either avert or bring about war, just as he chooses to either inflame or subdue the passions of his audience when, rising and supporting himself on his polished staff of office, he first scans the expectant faces of the throng seated on the ground before him ere he opens his lips to speak. On this occasion, ...

— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke

... spoken in a most wheedling and insinuating tone replete with the the confidence of one who knew that the stronger he spoke the more satisfaction he would give his auditor, and the more readily he would avert any suspicion as to his object and ...

— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... shallow; those little cylinders, her loaves, are greatly exposed to drought. Over there, as here, the drying up of the victuals constitutes a mortal danger. To avert this peril, by far the most sensible course is to enclose the food in absolutely ...

— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... voluntary punishment, like the cutting off the joints of the finger at the Friendly Islands, was not inflicted on themselves from the violence of grief on the death of their friends, but was designed as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa, to avert any danger or mischief to which they ...

— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... although the opinion of either of them is well worth having on most questions, and although both know their own minds, I doubt whether they, either of them, had any clear idea then as to what ought to have been done to avert the catastrophe, and I doubt whether they, either of them, have a clear idea now. Subsequent to May we were confronted with a horribly complex military and political situation in the Near East (and by that time military forces were already committed to the Dardanelles venture); because it was ...

— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... responsibility of quashing this measure, and contentedly look forward to the probability—almost certainty—of a fresh course of outrage and disorder, and a new catalogue of miseries and privations, which he all the time believes it is in his power to avert. But these Ministers think that they could not avert these evils (by accepting the Bill) without giving umbrage to their task-masters and allies, and they do not scruple to sacrifice the mighty interests at stake ...

— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... prophesying too boastfully that a certain thing will or will not happen; you will remember that there is also a provision that the rash prophet may avert disaster by knocking wood. Applehead should, if there is any grain of sense in the rite, have knocked wood with his fingers crossed as an extra precaution, ...

— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... the time had come to close my eyes, but they remained fixed. I could not avert my gaze from a scene which was made more horrible by a struggle which took place between the first pirate of the long row in which they stood ...

— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... done," she said, slowly. "The very day that witnessed his downfall, would bring about the catastrophe I have sacrificed myself to avert. Constance, say no more; we can do none of these things; there is no help for me on this ...

— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... Magnolia is!' interposed little Toole in great haste; for it was a practice among these worthies to avert quarrels—very serious affairs in these jolly days—by making timely little diversions, and it is wonderful, at a critical moment, what may be done by suddenly presenting a trifle; a pin's point, sometimes—at least, a marvellously small one—will draw off innocuously, the accumulating ...

— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:—We have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry ...

— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... a conference of some of the European powers was held at Vienna to avert the war by mediating between Russia and Turkey, but was unsuccessful. Mr. Gladstone said: "Austria urged the two leading states, England and France, to send in their ultimatum to Russia, and promised it her decided support.... Prussia at the critical moment, to speak in ...

— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... as he does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents, and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main force ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... moment be tempted to work his downfal, if not his death; but, in consequence of that very knowledge and his very deeds, the value of such an adviser and such a tool was almost sure to protract and avert his doom. The disgrace and misfortune, therefore, of Perez, however enveloped afterwards in the mantle of political delinquency, are to be traced to more strictly personal causes. It is a curious, interesting, and ...

— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... coat of our tyrant,—youth's panoplied armor for fight,— And tie the white neckcloth that rumples, like pleasure, and lasts but a night; And pray the Nine Gods to avert you what time the Three Sisters shall frown, And you'll lose your high-comedy figure, and sit more at ease ...

— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... part, amid stirring scenes of Indian war, and in surroundings that would test my courage and manhood to the utter-most; yet, although I heard it not, the hour had already struck, and I stood on the brink of a tragedy beyond my power to avert. ...

— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... sexes. The poor, unable to indulge in the luxury of precious metals, found substitutes in shells and glass; and the extravagance of the taste was defended on the ground that their brilliancy served to avert the malignity of "the evil eye" from the ...

— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... of opinion on many points, yet attend the mosques and the Moulla teachings, and comply with all the outward forms of religion, in order to avert the anger which continued absence from the congregation would draw upon them from hostile and bigoted neighbours. Two of them were suddenly taxed in the Musjid with holding heterodox opinions, and were then accused of being Babis. The discussion was carried outside and into the bazaar, the ...

— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... conviction made him happy in his work, it made him humble, and the older he grew the humbler he became. He felt more and more his own utter insufficiency. It grieved him that human eyes should ever turn away from the Master to the servant, and he perpetually sought to avert their gaze from himself to God alone. "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things—to Whom be glory for ever and ...

— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... this year, a theme for copious declamation. Persons who cherish republican sympathies ascribe these evils to our dependent condition as colonists—'the States of the Union,' they say, 'can take care of themselves, and avert the scourge from their shores, but we are victims on whom inhuman Irish landlords, &c., can charge the consequences of their neglect and rapacity.' Meanwhile I have a very delicate and irksome duty to discharge. There is a general belief that Great Britain must make good to the province ...

— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... little time, he comes to himself, and gets up again without any assistance." Pliny, in his Natural History, B. 38, c. 4, says: "Despuimus comitiales morbos, hoc est, contagia regerimus," "We spit out the epilepsy, that is, we avert the contagion." This is said, probably, in reference to a belief, that on seeing an epileptic person, if we spit, we shall avoid the contagion; but it by no means follows that the person so doing must spit upon the epileptic person. We read in the first Book of ...

— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... shook her head with a wan smile. She knew too well the terrible danger in which her lover stood, and she rightly guessed that the Queen would have no power to avert it. ...

— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... to the priesthood. Men imagined that all their diseases were inflicted by the immediate displeasure of the Deity, and therefore concluded that the remedy would most probably proceed from those who were particularly employed in his service. Whatever, for the same reason, was found of efficacy to avert or cure distempers was considered as partaking somewhat of the Divinity. Medicine was always joined with magic: no remedy was administered without mysterious ceremony and incantation. The use of plants and herbs, both in medicinal and magical practices, was early ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the time; and which, being confined for a while to their limited number, I never chose to notice. But of late years I have got to read,—not merely hear,—of the play's failure 'which all the efforts of my friend the great actor could not avert;' and the nonsense of this untruth gets hard to bear. I told you the principal facts in the letter I very hastily wrote: I could, had it been worth while, corroborate them by others in plenty, and refer to the living witnesses—Lady Martin, ...

— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... uncleanness, would vouchsafe to work a miracle, in order to inflict this most filthy punishment on any person. Thus much is indubitable, that the precepts of the mosaic law were constituted particularly, to avert the people from idolatry and false religion, and at the same time to keep them clear of all uncleanness.[60] To this end conspired the prohibition of eating blood, carrion, or animals that died spontaneously, swines flesh, and that of ...

— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... life. He forged a letter from my father, begging me, if I found it in any way possible, to listen to Oliver Hilditch's proposals, and hinting guardedly at a very serious financial crisis which it was in his power to avert. It never occurred to me or to my chaperon to question his bona fides. He had lived under the same roof as my father, and knew all the intimate details of his life. He was very clever and I suppose I was a fool. I remember thinking I was doing quite a heroic action when I went to the registrar ...

— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... discolored wallpaper and the forlorn furniture. She slipped out gently and dressed herself, the absence of any apparatus for a bath making her heart heavier with reminders of the realities of poverty. It was not easy to avert her thoughts from her dainty bedroom of yesterday. But she succeeded; the cheerlessness of the little chamber turned her thoughts backwards to the years of girlhood, and when she had finished dressing she almost mechanically lit the fire and put the kettle to boil. Her childish dexterity ...

— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... this recital with horror. At the same instant, her mother entered, and, on her knees, besought her daughter to avert her eternal damnation. Madame d'Egmont tried to calm her own and her mother's mind. 'What can I do?' said she, to her. 'Consecrate yourself wholly to God,' replied the director, 'and thus expiate your mother's crime.' The Countess, in her terror, promised whatever they asked, and proposed ...

— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... You must remember that I have been arguing from your point of view. My own is quite unchanged. It is your duty to do what you must do; it is my affair to avert the consequences to myself, if I can manage it without taking an unfair ...

— The Price • Francis Lynde

... the child turned into a torch and set the palace on fire. She told this dream to the soothsayers, and asked them what it meant. They said it must mean that her son would be the means of bringing some terrible calamities and disasters upon the family. The mother was terrified, and, to avert these calamities, gave the child to a slave as soon as it was born, and ordered him to destroy it. The slave pitied the helpless babe, and, not liking to destroy it with his own hand, carried it to Mount Ida, and left it there ...

— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the way of the Persian. In the little isle of Samos lived a king called Polycrates, who had always been wealthy and prosperous. His friend Amasis, king of Egypt, told him that the gods were always jealous of the fortunate, and that, if he wished to avert some terrible disaster, he had better give up something very precious. Upon this Polycrates took off his beautiful signet ring and threw it into the sea; but a few days later a large fish was brought as a present to the king, and when it was cut ...

— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in order to avert an imprecation. Paulomi is a patronymic denoting Sachi ...

— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... ringleaders. This was but wise; for there are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future. And great care is to be taken, by timely management, to avert an incontestable act of mutiny, and so prevent men from being roused, by their own consciousness of transgression, into all the fury of an unbounded insurrection. Then for the time, both soldiers and sailors are irresistible; as even the ...

— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... only peril that the capitalist class feared was the creation of a distinct, disciplined and determined workingmen's party. This they knew would, if successful, seriously endanger and tend to sweep away the injustices and oppressions upon which they, the capitalists, subsisted. To avert this, every ruse and expedient was resorted to: derision, undermining, corruption, violence, imprisonment—all of these and other methods were employed by that sordid ruling class claiming for itself ...

— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... spring of water overflows its bounds. A voice kept ringing in his ears, "I will pray for you." Subconsciously his mind kept saying, "Rosalie—Rosalie— Rosalie!" There was nothing now that he would not do to avert his being taken away upon this ridiculous charge. Mistaken identity? To prove that, he must at once prove himself—who he was, whence he came. Tell the Cure, and make it a point of honour for his secret to be kept? But once told, the ...

— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... declared in April, 1898, with practical unanimity by the Congress, and, once upon us, was sustained by like unanimity among the people. There had been many who had tried to avert it, as, on the other hand, there were many who would have precipitated it at an earlier date. In its prosecution and conclusion the great majority of our countrymen of every section believed they were fighting in a just cause, and ...

— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... fetched the bell of Our Lady of Loreto, and went around the house ringing energetically. I did not even try to explain to her that ringing a bell in that motionless atmosphere might rather attract than avert a thunderbolt, and in spite of the consciousness that in case of danger I could not be of the slightest help, I was ashamed to let her risk the danger alone. The old lady was simply magnificent when, with her head thrown back, she seemed to defy the black and copper-colored ...

— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... with him on his flight from Thebes. Eriphyle could not resist so tempting a bribe, and by her decision the war was resolved on, and Amphiaraus went to his certain fate. He bore his part bravely in the contest, but could not avert his destiny. Pursued by the enemy he fled along the river, when a thunderbolt launched by Jupiter opened the ground, and he, his chariot, and his charioteer, ...

— TITLE • AUTHOR

... whereas, if he tumbles down on a fine day when the streets are dry, and there is no apparent cause for such an accident, the owner of the goods bears whatever loss may occur. The idea is that on a wet and slippery day mere exercise of human caution would be sufficient to avert the disaster, but happening in bright, dry weather, it becomes indubitably a manifestation of the will of Heaven. In the same way, an endless run of bad luck or some fearful and overwhelming calamity, against which no mortal foresight could guard, ...

— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... occur to Ben that he dressed well the better to avert suspicion from his real character. Besides, a man who lives at other people's expense can afford to ...

— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... yet, so far as he knew; and he agreed with Fitzjames that Dalaber had better keep himself very quiet for the next few days, prosecuting his studies with zeal, and not showing himself much in the streets. It was to be hoped that the flight of Garret, when known, would avert further peril from Oxford; but as Dalaber had certainly been his closest comrade and companion during his visit, it behoved him to have a care that he excited ...

— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... was only a repetition of the one of Gondar, it would be a mere waste of time to speak of it here; suffice it to say that these unfortunate and injured men answered with all humility and meekness, and endeavoured by so doing to avert the wrath of the wretch in whose power ...

— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... fell upon her face that great heart of his, that had ever been adamant to beauty, a very Gibraltar against the wiles of the other sex, went down in the chaos of a first and overwhelming passion. So hard hit was he by Miss Tattersby's beauty that his chief thought now was to avert rather than to direct suspicion towards her. After all, she might have come into possession of the jewel honestly, though how the daughter of a retired missionary, considering its intrinsic value, could ...

— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... Nyamoana, for the ladies are the chiefs here) presented a string of beads, and a shell highly valued among them, as an atonement for having assisted Manenko, as they thought, to vex me the day before. They seemed anxious to avert any evil which might arise from my displeasure; but having replied that I never kept my anger up all night, they were much pleased to see me satisfied. We had to cross, in a canoe, a stream which flows past the village of Nyamoana. ...

— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... she could say that she did not; wished she could, truthfully, deny knowing Farmer Weeks at all. But not even to avert what looked like a serious danger would ...

— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart

... day was drawing to a close. It had been thus far spent by the council, as had been the several preceding days of their session, in discussing the subject of the ways and means of doing something to avert the doom that hung over their seemingly devoted state. But up to this hour their deliberations had been wholly fruitless. Project after project for the means of raising military forces had been brought forward and discussed; and each in ...

— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... loosen a block of wall this size, push it out at the right moment, crawl through, put it back again to avert suspicion, and then make the best of our way into the forest. That was how we escaped from Vera Cruz; the trick should ...

— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... that issue sharply pressed upon Great Britain, complications of a most embarrassing nature might arise, involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr. Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington, conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question; and at the very moment when ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... Messrs. David Wright, James Evans, William Griffis, jun., Henry Wilkinson and Edwy Ryerson. The protest was as follows: We, the undersigned ministers of the W. M. Church, desirous to avert the evils which may probably result to our Zion from "impressions" made by certain political remarks in the editorial department of the Guardian, take this opportunity of expressing our sentiments for your satisfaction, and to save our characters from aspersion. ...

— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... is a ship wrecked. If a person take salt and spill it on the table, it betokens a strife between him and the person next to whom it fell. To avert the omen, he must lift up the shed grains with a knife, and throw them behind ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various

... good can come of your knowledge. It cannot avert harm if harm must come. And more—be cool in your judgment, or you may ruin all ...

— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... called John O'Bail, led the Indians, and an officer by the name of Johnston commanded the British in the expedition. The force was large, and so strongly bent upon revenge and vengeance, that seemingly nothing could avert its march, nor prevent its depredations. After leaving Genesee they marched directly to some of the head waters of the Susquehannah river, and Schoharie Creek, went down that creek to the Mohawk river, ...

— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... mad schemes rioted through her brain. The wedding must not go on! But how was she to avert it? The king was within a few paces of her now. There was a smile upon his lips, and in that smile she saw the final confirmation of her fears. When Leopold of Lutha smiled his upper lip curved just a trifle into a shadow of a sneer. It was a trivial characteristic ...

— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... was powerless to avert the war; possibly even it may have stimulated Clovis to strike rapidly before a hostile coalition ...

— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... daily output was disappointing, Emerson drew consolation from the prospect that his pack would be large enough at least to avert utter ruin, and he argued that once he had won through this first season no power that Marsh could bring to bear would serve to crush him. He saw a moderate success ahead, if not the overwhelming victory upon which ...

— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... and among the Celts the name of the divine bull was borne by kings.[499] In the saga Morrigan is friendly to the bull, but fights for Medb; but she is now friendly, now hostile to Cuchulainn, finally, however, trying to avert his doom. If he had once been the bull, her friendliness would not be quite forgotten, once he became human and separate from the bull. When she first met Cuchulainn she had a cow on whom the Brown Bull was to beget a calf, and she told the hero that "So long as the calf ...

— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... immediate neighbourhood, one must feel the reflex of the shock. While sympathy for Sylvia keeps the thing ever present, like a weight upon the chest, I find myself wondering if anything could have been done to avert the disaster, and we all rove about in a half unsettled condition. Half a dozen times a day Lavinia Dorman starts up with the determination of calling upon Sylvia, but this morning decided upon writing her a letter instead, and having sent it up by Timothy Saunders, is now sitting out in ...

— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... my soul With more unrest, and Hebe-like, the bowl Of festal comfort for a moment raise To my poor lips, and then avert thy gaze? Wouldst make me mad beyond the daily curse Of thy displeasure, and in wrath disperse That halcyon draught, that nectar of the mind, Which is the theme I ...

— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... Dr. Bose "is thus seen to be threatening the future of India, and to avert it will require the utmost effort of the people. They have not only to meet the economic crisis but also to protect the ideals of ancient Aryan civilisation from the destructive forces that are threatening it.... There is ...

— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... nervous anxiety. We resolved to go ashore and ramble about the village, as if to observe the habits and dwellings of the people, as we thought that an air of affected indifference to the events of the previous day would be more likely than any other course of conduct to avert suspicion as to our intentions. While we were thus occupied, the teacher remained on board with the Christian natives, whose powerful voices reached us ever and anon as they engaged in singing ...

— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... vows and prayers they bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things ill-ominous and foul. And lord Anchises from the beach calls with outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "Gods, avert their menaces! Gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the righteous!" Then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose the sheets. Southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over ...

— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... place the settlement in a position to successfully resist all, or any attempts of the savages. Those who had had any experience in Indian warfare were called to the council, and consulted on the best means to avert the impending calamity. The panic was more painfully apparent among those who had come upon the scene hampered with goods and chattels of various kinds. These worthies were brimful of wrath and whiskey, and gave ...

— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that ...

— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... which to recover from her first apprehensions, and now she was surprised at her own coolness. Ed's behavior had shocked and horrified her; she was still half paralyzed at his treachery; nevertheless, her mind was clear, and she was determined to avert a tragedy if possible. She knew only too well what would happen when Blaze Jones and Dave Law encountered the Lewis gang; the presence of Longorio's soldiers merely made more certain the outcome of that meeting. ...

— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... says Lander, "that we possessed the power of doing anything we wished, was at first amusing enough, but their importunities went so far that they became annoying. They applied to us for charms to avert wars and other national calamities, to make them rich, to prevent the crocodiles from carrying off the people, and for the chief of the fishermen to catch a canoe-load of fish every day, each request being accompanied with some sort of present, such ...

— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... way (to avert danger), but that might be made effectual, fortunately. It was to provide and keep open a drain for the excess beyond the occasions of profitable employment. Mr. Archer had been stating the case in the supposition, that after the present class of free blacks ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Yes; she was afraid they would all be unhappy; but it would be only for a while. She sighed; it was a peaceful sigh. Her regret for the sorrow that she would cause was the regret of one far off, helpless to avert the pain, who has no relation to it except that of an observer. She said to herself, calmly, "Poor ...

— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... already profusely smiling group. The small boys now rolled on the ground in convulsions of mirth, while the grave and reverend seniors, who had hitherto kept them in check, were fain momentarily to avert their faces, and I could see their bodies shaking with laughter. The greatest clown in the world never received a more flattering tribute to his powers to amuse than had been called forth by mine to make myself ...

— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... as fond of animals,' said Edith quickly, to avert a storm. 'That Noah's Ark you gave him is his greatest pleasure. He's always putting the animals in and taking ...

— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their ...

— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... honourable baronet, in what seemed to him a commercial paradox, that the taking away from an open trade by far the largest customer, and the lessening of the consumption of the article, would increase both the competition and the demand, and of course all those mischiefs, which it was their intention to avert. ...

— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... antiquary," Bryan Twyne, when one deals with the obscure past of the University. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the strange blending of new and old at Oxford—the old names with the new meanings—if we avert our eyes from what is "bitterly historical." For example, there is in most, perhaps in all, colleges a custom called "collections." On the last days of term undergraduates are called into the Hall, where the Master and the Dean of ...

— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... future to the fatal termination of the scene. As we value our domestic happiness, as our hearts yearn for the prosperity of our offspring, as we pray for the guardian care of the Almighty over our Country—we earnestly inquire what shall be done to avert the impending ruin. The efficient cause of our calamities is vigorously increasing in magnitude and potency, while we wake ...

— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... transmuted into more useful political energy. A nation was at its birth. The problem was whether in Great Britain there were minds acute and imaginative enough to see the actual dangers; generous enough not to be dissuaded from trying to avert them by any rudeness on the part of those who were being assisted; prophetic enough to recognize that Anglo-Saxon communities, whether at home or across the seas, will always claim the right to govern themselves, and that to such ...

— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... loss of her most precious provinces, the destruction of all her power. He must believe that the evil of the increase of unchastity which invariably results from the formation of an army is an immeasurably greater calamity than any national or political disasters that army can possibly avert. He must believe that the most fearful plagues and famines that desolate his land should be regarded as a matter of rejoicing if they have but the feeblest and most transient influence in repressing vice. He must ...

— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... them himself, he sighed at the wickedness and ingratitude of the agricultural classes of Oude; and the baneful effects of this sad sigh has been upon us ever since, sir, in spite of all we can do to avert them. In order to have the blessing of God upon our labours, it is necessary for us to fulfil strictly all the responsibilities under which we hold and till the land; first, to pay punctually the just demands of Government; ...

— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... the Burmese officers now came to the flagship to offer apologies for their rudeness; but as the viceroy himself refused to apologise, none of these were accepted. The Burmese, seeing that the British were in earnest, tried to avert the war for a time; and the commodore, also anxious to avoid hostilities, allowed twenty-four hours' grace to give the viceroy time to change his mind. Instead of an apology, however, came a message, to the effect that if the British ships attempted to pass the stockades on the banks ...

— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... found that false and fictitious entries had been made in the Company's books; that leaves had been torn out; that some books had been destroyed altogether, and that others had been carried off and secreted. The vulgar arts of the card-sharper and the thimble-rigger had been prodigally employed to avert detection and ruin by the directors of a Company which was promoted and protected by ministers of State and by the ...

— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... knew us all. I did not give up hope till 7 P.M., when his heart failed him in spite of active stimulation. It was then that we all gathered round his bed. I did my utmost with the help of Frazer to avert the sad end; but ere long, seeing our efforts were vain, we ceased, and sat in his room and saw him gradually and very peacefully pass away, his breath getting feebler and feebler till he closed his eyes and ...

— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... something that kept people away from their stores. And the rumor of an epidemic might accomplish that as thoroughly as the epidemic itself. Therefore, without questioning too far, they were quite willing to spend money to avert such disaster. The sum suggested was voted into the hands of a committee of three to be appointed by ...

— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... fanatics, who first arose in Italy in 1260, and subsequently appeared in other quarters of Europe, and who thought by self-flagellation to atone for sin and avert divine judgment, hoping by a limited number of stripes to compensate for a century of scourgings; the practice arose at a time when it was reckoned that the final judgment of the world ...

— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... quite realize it, they were living in days that were big with fate. Far away, in the chancelleries of Europe, and, not so far away, in the big government buildings in the West End of London, the statesmen were even then making their last effort to avert war. No one in England perhaps, really believed that war was coming. There had been war scares before. But the peace of Europe had been preserved for forty years or more, through one crisis after another. And so it was a stunning surprise, even to Grenfel, ...

— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske

... of imposture to serve the purposes of civil policy. Accordingly Diodorus Siculus relates (lib. ii., p. 31, compared with Daniel ii. 1, &c., Eccles. xliv. 3) that they pretended to predict future events by divination, to explain prodigies, interpret dreams, and avert evils or confer benefits by means of augury and incantations. For many ages they {44} retained a principal place among diviners. In the reign of Marcus Antoninus, when the emperor and his army, who were perishing with ...

— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... desert; sometimes half a score were interred at one camp, and of one company over a fourth were thus left beside the prairie road. Now we traverse the self-same track in a day and a night, reclining on luxurious cushions of ease, covering fifty miles while dining in luxury; and we avert the ennui of the journey by berating the railway company ...

— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... mare. I could not stir even a finger; I could not lift my voice; I could not even breathe, and though I expected every moment to see the sleeping man murdered, I could not even close my eyes to shut out the horrible spectacle, which I had not the power to avert. I saw the woman approach the sleeping figure, she laid the unoccupied hand lightly along his clothes, and having thus ascertained his identity, she, after a brief interval, turned back and again entered my chamber; here she bent down again to listen. I had now not a doubt but that the razor was ...

— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... loyalty to sovereigns, has gone by. The history of nations is the history of intrigue, quarrelling, and bloodshed, and we are determined to put a stop to warfare for good and all. We hold in our hands the only power that can thwart the designs of the League and avert an era of tyranny and retrogression. That power we intend to use whether the British ...

— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... involved War, and "preparations for War." But none the less, but rather the more, because of the horrors which he foresaw must be inseparable from so terrible a War, was he anxious by timely mutual Concessions—"by any sacrifice," as he termed it—if possible, to avert it. ...

— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... telegram grieves and alarms us, Vicksburg must not be lost without a struggle. The interest and honor of the Confederacy forbid it. I rely on you to avert this loss. If better resource does not offer you must hazard attack. It may be made in concert with the garrison, if practicable, but otherwise without. By day or night as you ...

— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... went to bed between damp sheets which smelt of railway smoke. He could not lie still. The idea of the danger hanging over Anna was too much in his mind for him to feel his own suffering as yet. Somehow he must avert public malignity from her, somehow turn it aside upon another track. In his feverish condition a queer idea came to him: he decided to write to one of the few musicians with whom he had been acquainted in the little town, Krebs, the confectioner-organist. ...

— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... his judge, his executioner; yet it made him avert himself again, and that movement made ME, with a single bound and an irrepressible cry, spring straight upon him. For there again, against the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, was the hideous author of our woe—the white face of damnation. I felt a sick swim at ...

— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... small distance, and animated by mutual hatred, the chances of collision become great and imminent. But it is to be hoped in the present case that the communication made by the Conference to the two parties on Thursday last may avert danger of hostilities between the ...

— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... desolate—for perhaps a dishonored grave. I plead not for myself, but for one helpless and pure, who at this hour may be the victim of a villain's plot. In the name of humanity, I entreat you give me but time to avert the calamity, and I will follow you without remonstrance. Go with me yourself. Be present at the interview. Of what consequence to you will be ...

— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... disease is in a majority of instances I believe preceeded by certain premonitory signs; such as flying pains about the chest or some other part, head ache, etc. A reasonable resort under such circumstances to one or two cathartics will pretty certainly avert ...

— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... he, "I am glad that I have come in time to avert so horrible a crime. You, senor," he continued, addressing Harry, "may retire: you are free. You will be respected and protected by my followers, and may either go, or remain till our return to Vittoria. As for Senor Ashby, I wish to have a brief conversation ...

— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... well assured that everything about us will dwindle by degrees, until at length our concerns are shrunk to the dimensions of our minds. It is not a predilection to mean, sordid, home-bred cares that will avert the consequences of a false estimation of our interest, or prevent the shameful dilapidation into which a great empire must fall by ...

— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... nibble at disfranchisement and cramp reform by pedantic adherence to existing rights would be to deceive expectation, to whet appetite, and to bring about that revolution which it was our object to {129} avert." Russell drew up a sketch of his proposed Reform Bill, which he submitted to Lord Durham, and on the draft of the measure thus submitted to him Lord Durham offered some suggestions and alterations of his ...

— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... primarily, to conjure away any such appearance of a changed relation between the two women as his father-in-law might notice and follow up. It would have been open to him however, given the pitch of their intimacy, to avert this danger by some more conceivable course with Charlotte; since an earnest warning, in fact, the full freedom of alarm, that of his insisting to her on the peril of suspicion incurred, and on the importance accordingly of outward peace at any price, would have been the course really ...

— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... spirits, the ubiquitous McGuntrie, Van Blarcom, the young reservist Pietro Ricci,—a very good sort of fellow,—and I were herded together beyond escape. Also, a foursome at bridge seemed divinely indicated by our number, and to avert a sheer paralysis of ennui we formed the habit of winning each other's money ...

— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... small body of Roman soldiery reserved their strength for the defence of themselves; and the poor wretches, not a few, who had fallen from the faith, and offered sacrifice, hung out from their doors sinful heathen symbols, to avert a storm against which apostasy was no sufficient safeguard. In this conduct the Gnostics and other sectaries imitated them, while the Tertullianists took a more manly part, ...

— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... power of compensation taken from him. To some was given the chance of making reparation. For him there was no chance. He could do nothing to mitigate the injury he had done. She whom he had wronged must suffer for him and he was powerless to avert that suffering. His helplessness overwhelmed him. O Hara San, little O Hara San, who had given unstintingly, with eager generous hands. His face was set as he turned from the window and, starting to pull off ...

— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... "Art thou not sufficiently humiliated? Dare to breathe a word in his favor, and it shall go hard with thy minion. Punishment thou canst not avert; say but a word, and that punishment becomes death; for he is mine, soul and body, to have and to hold, to head or to hang—my vassal, my slave! ...

— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... mind, casts a keen glance round, for who knows what new delights may be somewhere within reach! "Ah!"—the deep-breathed sigh of content—is always a danger signal where this innocent child is concerned. I turn in time to avert disaster, and Chellalu, finding life dull ...

— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... desiring to learn the Prophet's strength and, if possible, to avert war, sent the following message ...

— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... form of composition there are three digressions from the Principal theme. But, in order to avert the excess of variety, so imminent in a design of such length, the digressions are so planned that the third one corresponds to the first. That is, there are here again only two Subordinate themes ...

— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of ...

— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing, an internal rebellion, and at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign intervention ...

— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... (1) To avert invasion. (2) To keep the sea open for the arrival of imports; (3) And the departure of exports; (4) And for the exit of re-exports; (5) Also the entrance of re-imports. (6) ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various

... the grand master, that if he appeared at the duel without permission, he did it for the sake of the honor of the Order, and to avert ugly suspicions, which might entail disgrace, and which he, Rotgier, was always prepared to redeem with his own blood. This letter was sent instantly to the border by one of the knight's footmen, to be sent thence to Malborg by mail, which the Teutons, ...

— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... avert what is already here. Within a few days, perhaps to-morrow, you will hear the publication of an edict from Santa Anna, ordering every American to give ...

— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... the distinction between a politician and an idiot. We should therefore throw a veil upon those unhappy instances of human nature, who seem to breathe without the direction of reason and understanding, as we should avert our eyes with abhorrence from such as live in perpetual abuse and contradiction to these noble faculties. Shall this unfortunate man be divested of his estate, because he is tractable and indolent, runs in no man's debt, invades no man's bed, nor spends the estate he owes ...

— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... masks have, for the most part, grown to their faces, so that, except in some rare animal paroxysm of emotion, it is hardly themselves that they express. The apparition of a poet disquiets them, for he clothes himself with the elements, and apologises to no idols. His candour frightens them: they avert their eyes from it; or they treat it as a licensed whim; or, with a sudden gleam of insight, and apprehension of what this means for them and theirs, they scream aloud for fear. A modern instance may be found in the angry protestations ...

— Style • Walter Raleigh

... they escaped together from Scipio's camp, been always near his person, had carried his helmet on the line of march, slept next to him by the campfire, and fought by his side in battle, ready at any moment to give his life to avert harm ...

— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... and never returned. Like her, he died in battle; but the death that she sought to avert, was a welcome messenger to him. He felt that in the grave ...

— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... Brahmins of their profession; more than half politician, he had been in Congress, and from time to time was retained by large business interests because of his persuasive gifts with committees of the legislature—though these had been powerless to avert the recent calamity of the women and children's fifty-four hour bill. Mr. Sprole's hair was prematurely white, and the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes were not ...

— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Thebaid. When he had arrived near an ancient city named Besa, on the right bank of the river, he lost his friend. Antinous was drowned in the Nile. He had thrown himself, it was believed, into the water; seeking thus by a voluntary death to substitute his own life for Hadrian's, and to avert predicted perils from the Roman Empire. What these perils were, and whether Hadrian was ill, or whether an oracle had threatened him with approaching calamity, we do not know. Even supposition is at fault, because the date of the event is still uncertain; some authorities ...

— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... by with Kate in a tumult of indecision. Sometimes she decided that the romance between Mary and David was a mere spring madness, which would wear itself out and do little damage. At other moments she felt it was laid upon her to speak and avert a catastrophe. ...

— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... that he might be left for that night, and stepping out into the court so as to be unheard by the patient, explained that the brain had had a shock, and that perfect quiet for some hours to come was the only way to avert a serious illness, possibly dangerous. Master Headley did not like the alternative at all, and was a good deal perplexed. He beckoned to Tibble Steelman, who had all this time been talking to Lucas Hansen, and now came up prepared with his testimony that this Michael was a good man and true, a ...

— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... "no change had been made in the constitution of the country, and that responsible government in a colony was responsible nonsense, and meant independence." It was at last found necessary to give some sort of explanation of such extraordinary opinions, to avert a political crisis in the assembly. Then, to add to the political embarrassment, there was brought before the people the question of abandoning the practice of endowing denominational colleges, and of establishing in their place one large non-sectarian University. At this time ...

— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... unpleasant pause, during which Effie congratulated herself on the forethought that had sent Christie safely to bed before the matter was discussed. Annie, as she generally did in similar circumstances, started another subject, hoping to avert anything more unpleasant. But Effie wanted the matter decided, and Aunt Elsie ...

— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... was over. The prisoners, five in number, were blindfolded, and in that condition led into the camp of the outlaws; Martin keeping close by their side, intent upon preventing any further violence from being offered, if he could avert it. ...

— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... done; each of them thanked me from the bottom of his or her heart for saving the life of his or her daughter or sister, and not one of them gave me a chance to say that as I had done all the mischief I could not be too thankful that I had been able to avert evil consequences. From the various references to the details of the incident I concluded that the young lady had dashed into the house and had given a full account of everything which had happened in less time than it would have taken me to arrange my ideas ...

— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... has taught them this melancholy fact, in the trials, sufferings, afflictions, and multiform death which they undergo; and therefore their prayers are directed to him, when any severe calamity befalls them. To avert his displeasure, they often have recourse to superstitious practices, with the most childish credulity; and will drum and dance throughout a whole night, in the hope of bringing relief to the sick and dying. They know not that the great enemy of man's happiness and salvation, is a chained enemy, ...

— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... one hand and peril from Great Britain on the other; and as we come to realize the triple danger, we can perhaps make some allowances for the high-handed measures with which the Puritan governments sometimes sought to avert it. [Genesis of ...

— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... water-carriers, who feed the fire-engines from their leathern water-pots, are chiefly bent upon securing their pay for the help they give; and when, to crown all, the sufferers themselves are generally of the belief that what is to happen will happen, and that there is very little use in trying to avert calamity—you may believe that a fire, once started, spreads not by houses, but by streets, leaving acres of black ruins dotted with the still standing chimneys. However, I fancy that of late years wider streets and stone ...

— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... thought I had found it again in the compassion which the woes of the world set in my heart. You were my last hope, the awaited saviour. But, behold, that again is a dream, you cannot take the work of Jesus in hand once more and pacify mankind so as to avert the frightful fratricidal war which is preparing. You cannot leave your throne and come along the roads with the poor and the humble to carry out the supreme work of fraternity. Well, it is all ...

— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... evacuation. On the contrary they become sharper, and more difficult to be discharged. By judicious management it is practicable, if not entirely to prevent a variety of disorders, yet at least to abate their severity, and so to avert the ultimate danger. As soon as any of the symptoms begin to appear, the proper way is to avoid all violent or laborious exercise, and to indulge in such only as is gentle and easy. To take very little ...

— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... of the cases of beginning miscarriage end in miscarriage. If the physician is sent for in time he can very frequently give directions that will, if carried out faithfully, avert the disaster. Success is more likely to attend those cases in which the trouble has been caused by some accidental injury, as a fall, or blow, or extra exertion. This is more especially the case if the woman has previously borne children, is healthy and in good condition ...

— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... steamer went swaggering by, stirring the quiet stream into great waves that lashed the banks on either side. I saw the imminence of the catastrophe, and hurried to the stern of the boat to witness its consummation, since I could not possibly avert it. The poor ducklings had uttered their baby-quacks, and striven with all their tiny might to escape; four of them, I believe, were washed aside and thrown off unhurt from the steamer's prow; but the fifth must have gone under the ...

— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... were all in panic—Walter, Adele, and Mr. Lyttleton. They put their empty heads together to think what was best to be done to avert suspicion from themselves. Miss Manwaring was the real stumbling-block. She knew far too much, and had proved rather difficult to manage. Among them they evolved another brilliant scheme: Miss Manwaring must be kidnapped and hidden away in ...

— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Helen did not avert her glance instantly. Nor did she at once resume a stroll evidently interrupted to take in deep breaths of the beauty of the scene. That was encouraging to the American,—she expected him to ...

— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... instructions from the government, and in the progress of events had now become the next in natural order. Grant and Farragut were of the same mind; but other ideas had arisen, and now the government, anxious to avert the impending risk of European complications, deemed it of the first importance that the flag of the nation should, without delay, be restored at some point in Texas. The place and the plan were left discretionary with Banks, but peremptory ...

— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... iodine, but he could not or would not make her any answer. It was cruel to see him struggling, but he resisted assistance, and watching like one in a dream, frightened at her own powerlessness to save or avert, Kate remained crouching by the fireplace without strength to think or act, until she was suddenly awakened by seeing him relax his hold and slip heavily on the floor; and it was only by putting forth her whole strength she could get him into a sitting ...

— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... bound himself by his promise to her; and the people awaited his next movement. But the death that night of some conspicuous man that had been predicted to him by Phanuel,—what if, by bringing it upon another, he could avert it from himself, thought Antipas. If Iaokanann was in very truth the Elias so much talked of, he would have power to protect himself; and if he were only an ordinary man, his murder was ...

— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... me to tell you?' he said, looking at her fully as he stood opposite to her; and there was a gleam in the keen blue eyes that made her suddenly avert her face. 'Is it possible that all these years you have not known what you have been to me—that you have not ...

— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... to such pleasant platitudes as John's description of the manner in which Greenwood broke up the radical meeting in the market-place; but in both hearts and below all the sweet intercourse there lay a sense of tragedy that nothing could propitiate or avert. ...

— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... redeemed us to God by thy blood." When it was announced that the French occupation of Rome should cease, the Pope published a decree calling on all Rome to go with him to the feet of Mary, if haply by cries and tears they might prevail with her to avert from the throne of God's vicar the dangers that threaten it; and in that act the Pope led ...

— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... the antique, claw-footed desk, sat up in his chair, and stared tensely before him. His emotion was not to be suppressed. Do tears tremble in the eyes of the strong man? Let us not inquire too curiously. If they tremble down the fine-skinned cheek, let us avert our gaze. For grief in men is no thing to ...

— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... veins. The saints only can tell if he did not disgust this Captain Carroll into flight. He believes himself the sole custodian of the honor of our family—that he has a sacred mission from this Don Fulano of Koorotora to avert its fate. Without doubt he keeps up his delusions with aguardiente, and passes for a prophet among the silly peons and servants. He frightens the children with his ridiculous stories, and teaches them to decorate that heathen ...

— Maruja • Bret Harte

... who hinders] damper, wet blanket, hinderer, marplot, killjoy; party pooper [Coll.]; party crasher, interloper. trail of a red herring; opponent &c 710. V. hinder, impede, filibuster [U.S.], impedite^, embarrass. keep off, stave off, ward off; obviate; avert, antevert^; turn aside, draw off, prevent, forefend, nip in the bud; retard, slacken, check, let; counteract, countercheck^; preclude, debar, foreclose, estop [Law]; inhibit &c 761; shackle &c (restrain) 751; restrict. obstruct, stop, stay, bar, bolt, lock; block, ...

— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... amiable and kind-hearted woman, and all accounts concur in saying that she exercised the power that she acquired over the mind of the king in a very humane and praiseworthy manner. She was always ready to interpose, when the king contemplated any act of harshness or severity, to avert his anger and save his intended victim, and, in general, she did a great deal to soften the brutality of his character, and to protect the innocent and helpless from the wrongs which he would otherwise have often done them. These amiable and gentle traits of character ...

— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the rising presidency there can be no doubt, and there seems to be every probability of its becoming the seat of the Supreme Government; nothing short of a rail-road between the two presidencies can avert this catastrophe; the number of days which elapse before important news reaching Bombay can be known and acted upon by the authorities of Calcutta rendering the measure almost imperative. Bengal, too proudly ...

— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... void of help, Though my soul should be stung to death; Could I avert one pang from you, Imploring with ...

— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... this also was ready, and she sallied forth once more, with a feeling approaching to anxiety, to look for Frank. Still her companion did not make his appearance, and for the first time a feeling of dread touched her heart. She strove to avert it, however, by considering that Frank might have been obliged to follow the wolf farther than he expected or intended. Then a thrill of fear passed through her breast as the thought occurred, "What if the wolf has attacked and killed ...

— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... of Anacreon and art and literature generally; formed an alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, struck with his prosperity, ascribed it to the envy of the gods, insinuating that they intended his ruin thereby, and advised him, in order to avert his impending doom, to throw the most valuable of his possessions into the sea, upon which he threw a signet ring of great price and beauty, to find it again in the mouth of a fish a fisherman had sold him; still, though upon this Amasis broke alliance with ...

— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... religious speculation the two may have represented the conflicting powers of Good and Evil. Sacrifices were offered for the ordinary purposes—to conciliate the favor of the gods, to requite their benefits, and to avert their wrath. Typhonian, that is, red-haired men, were immolated when they fell into the hands of the natives in honor of Osiris, whose name is concealed in that of the fabled Busiris. That the practice of offering human sacrifices is compatible with a high degree of civilization we know from ...

— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... might be quiet for that Night, but 'tis quite otherwise with him; for when a new Thought, as he calls it, comes into his Head, up he gets, sets it down in Writing, and so gradually encreases the detested Bulk of his Poetick Fooleries, which, Heaven avert it! he threatens to Print. Demetrius having had the misfortune of miscarrying upon the Stage, endeavours to preserve his unlawful Title to Wit, by bringing all the Dramatick Poets down to his own Level. And wanting Spirit to set up for a Critick, ...

— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay

... the north bank of the Wando river. This body moved with equal secrecy and celerity. But they were disappointed in their aim. Marion had returned from the Continental camp to his own. The storm which threatened the former was overblown, and he was in season to avert that by which the latter was threatened. His force was scarcely equal to that of the enemy. He nevertheless resolved upon attacking them. In order to keep them in play, while he advanced with his main body, Cols. Richardson and Scriven, with a part of Mayham's horse, ...

— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... uninteresting to the bees, whereas, during the period of swarming, it is necessary to preserve a succession of queens, for conducting the different colonies; and to ensure the safety of the queens, it is necessary to avert the consequences of the mutual horror by which they are animated against each other. Behold the evident cause of all the precautions that bees, instructed by nature, take during the period of swarming; behold an explanation of the captivity of females; and that the ...

— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber

... expressing his thanks to Major R. D'O. Fletcher, the officers, the non-commissioned officers, and the men of the 1st West India Regiment, for the prompt manner in which they turned out and lent their efforts to avert the extension of the ...

— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... given, and in a few moments his section was thundering past the cliffs of Chapultepec. Coming into action within close range of the flying Mexicans, every shot told on their demoralised masses; but before the San Cosme Gate the enemy made a last effort to avert defeat. Fresh troops were brought up to man the outworks; the houses and gardens which lined the road were filled with skirmishers; from the high parapets of the flat house-tops a hail of bullets struck ...

— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... eight years, with frequent stirrings. This was in order that the whole fresco, when at last it was entrusted to its bed, should be set there for immortality. Nor did the master fail to thwart time by those mechanical means that should avert the risk of bulging already mentioned. He neglected no detail. He was provident, and he lay in wait for more than one of the laws of nature, to frustrate them. Gravitation found him prepared, and so did the less majestic but not vain dispensation of accidents. ...

— Essays • Alice Meynell

... elements were in their own natures imperishable. Left to themselves, they would hasten to dissolution, and the man would thus die a second time; that is to say, he would be annihilated. The piety of the survivors found means, however, to avert this catastrophe. By the process of embalmment, they could for ages suspend the decomposition of the body; while by means of prayer and offerings, they saved the Double, the Soul, and the "Luminous" from the second death, and secured to them all that was necessary for the prolongation of ...

— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... only for an example but a reward. Again he repeated, without my promise, my sacred promise, he really and seriously feared distraction! That this was weakness he was ready to allow: but if it were true, and true it was, should I want love, I yet had too much benevolence not to desire to avert consequences which, beyond all ...

— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... our state And gods, we will assemble in debate A concourse of all Argos, taking sure Counsel, that what is well now may endure Well, and if aught needs healing medicine, still By cutting and by fire, with all good will, I will essay to avert ...

— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... last years of Madame Recamier's life is inexpressibly touching, telling as it does of self-denial, patient suffering, and silent devotion. To avert the blindness which was gradually stealing upon her, she submitted to an operation, which might have been successful, had she obeyed the injunctions of her physicians. But Ballanche lay dying in the opposite house, and, true ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... his dishevelled locks and shaggy beard, looked so fierce and powerful, as he sat on the opposite side of the fire glaring at his host, that Bladud became impressed with a hope that the maniac— for such he evidently was—would not attempt to prove his resistless power there and then. In order to avert such a catastrophe, he assumed an air of the most perfect ease and indifference to the boast, and asked him with a bland smile if he would have ...

— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... in every department of society, the dilapidated state of the public works, and the impending danger of the degradation of the State, you had a right to expect that your representatives would lose no time in devising and adopting measures to avert threatened calamities, alleviate the distresses of the people, and allay the fearful apprehensions in regard to the future prosperity of the State. It was not expected by you that the spirit of party would take the ...

— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... him, and could walk on his hind legs or stand on his head for periods apparently unlimited. In fact, so obedient and willing we found him, that when for the third time he had inverted himself, no persuasion short of picking him up by his tail, a proceeding which I deemed necessary to avert asphyxia, could induce him to resume his normal position. But that which rendered the entertainment specially fascinating and ludicrous was the inimitable and unbroken gravity of Pepin's expression. No matter what his attitude, his eyes retained always the solemnity one observes in the eyes ...

— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned,—we have remonstrated,—we have supplicated,—we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the ...

— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... vile—with all power of compensation taken from him. To some was given the chance of making reparation. For him there was no chance. He could do nothing to mitigate the injury he had done. She whom he had wronged must suffer for him and he was powerless to avert that suffering. His helplessness overwhelmed him. O Hara San, little O Hara San, who had given unstintingly, with eager generous hands. His face was set as he turned from the window and, starting to pull off his torn shirt, called for Yoshio. But no Yoshio was forthcoming and at his second ...

— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... his cloak on the floor, his cravat untied, his shirt open at the neck, cut by Sigismond's knife. Luckily for him, he had cut his hands when he tore the grating apart; the blood had flowed freely, and that accident was enough to avert an attack of apoplexy. On opening his eyes, he saw on either side old Sigismond and Madame Georges, whom the cashier had summoned in his distress. As soon as Risler could speak, he said to her ...

— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... he was drifting towards bankruptcy. He resolved—he did more—he went to work, to try and avert the catastrophe. He succeeded in all that he undertook, for he ...

— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... were spoken idly, merely to avert a pause, and forgotten as soon as uttered. But as a matter of fact the next time they met was when he looked up from his cot in the hospital after he had been retrieved from the hut by two of his devoted Tommies, and saw the odd pale eyes of Gora ...

— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... for the first time, the necessity, "That Mr. Dorriforth and she no longer should remain under the same roof." This was like the stroke of sudden death to Miss Milner, and clinging to life, she endeavoured to avert the blow by prayers, and by promises. Her friend loved her too sincerely to ...

— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... now slowly retreated as though leading her victim on. The water rose to the girl's knees, and still she advanced, chained by that clammy eye. Now the water was at her waist; now her armpits. Her fellows upon the island looked on in horror, helpless to avert her doom in which they saw a forecast of ...

— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and then abandon. Driven about from house to house in the city, and from general to general in the camp, the latter had no resort but to place himself in the hands of Tissaphernes; unless we are to suppose that his object in courting favor with him was to avert the entire destruction of his native city, whither he wished himself ...

— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... had achieved a high place among poets: it had been the aim of his life, humanly speaking; and he had taken worthy pains to accomplish and prepare himself for the enterprise. He never would sacrifice anything he thought right on reflection, merely to secure present popularity, or avert criticism which he thought unfounded; but he was a severe critic on himself, and would not leave a line or an expression with which he was dissatisfied until he had brought it to what he liked. ...

— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... fashion—military and economic. The fate of Belgium and the fate of Greece are plain warnings. She cannot forego her army, for this is a necessary safeguard of the ideal she represents. But this army, however large, does not and cannot suffice to avert economic pressure, which is an inevitable outcome of the existing system of society. We have, therefore, to draw the fatal conclusion that Switzerland is doomed should capitalist imperialism endure. For Switzerland neither can nor ought to come to terms with either group of allied ...

— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... direst Need, under pain of Grievous and Sore Affliction. This I say, knowing well the Spiritual and worldly Perils that shall beset such an one, and having myself been brought near to Destruction of Body and Soul, which latter may Christ in His Mercy avert. ...

— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... "Oswestry Advertizer," describing the Newtown and Machynlleth as "the worst managed railway in the course of formation," warned Machynlleth against its impending doom. It would mean a break of journey at Newtown, and, to avert this, the North Western, once the personification of all unrighteousness, was now transformed into the fairy godmother, who, by pressing forward its co-operation with the Bishop's Castle, Mid-Wales and Manchester and Milford undertakings, was urged to carry forward connecting ...

— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... could not avert the fate which was due to befall the house on January 8th, 1799, when the lease of the building and all within were disposed of by public sale. A philosophic journalist, not possessing Steele's sense of humour, gravely remarked of ...

— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... no Language, but a Character which the Lovers invented to avert Discovery: Ha, I hear my old Master coming down Stairs, it is impossible you shou'd have an Answer; away, and bid him come himself for that—begone we are ruined if you're seen, for he has doubl'd his ...

— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... enduring as their love. The memory of a slight or an injury is nursed for a lifetime, and when the hour of vengeance strikes, no compunction, not even the commonest human instincts—such as mother love—can avert the blow. Signy in the "Voelsunga Saga" is implacable as fate. To avenge the slaughter of the Volsungs is with her an obsession, a fixed idea. When incest seems the only pathway to her purpose, she takes that path without a moment's hesitation. The contemptuous ...

— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... own mind. He went to bed between damp sheets which smelt of railway smoke. He could not lie still. The idea of the danger hanging over Anna was too much in his mind for him to feel his own suffering as yet. Somehow he must avert public malignity from her, somehow turn it aside upon another track. In his feverish condition a queer idea came to him: he decided to write to one of the few musicians with whom he had been acquainted in the ...

— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... own duties[16], Josiah read in the Book of the Law, and thinking of the captivity which had overtaken Israel already, and the sins of his own people Judah, he rent his clothes. Then he bade the priests inquire of God for him what he ought to do to avert His anger. "Go," he said, "inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that ...

— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... amazement. I say wavering, in so far as we understand the said desire to be constrained by the fear of another evil, which equally torments him: whence it comes to pass that he knows not, which he may avert of the two. On this subject, see III. xxxix. note, and III. lii. note. Concerning cowardice and ...

— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... answer to that question? And upon Damaris it now dawned that these two, distinct yet interchangeable personalities—imprisoned, as by some evil magic in one picture—were in opposition, in violent and impious conflict, which conflict she was called upon, yet was powerless, to avert or ...

— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... saw Maggie. She did not get up from her place by his head; nor did she long avert her gaze from his poor face. But she held Maggie's hand, as the girl knelt by her, and spoke to her in a hushed voice, undisturbed by tears. Her miserable heart could ...

— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the hurricane was the lesser evil. I might have done something to avert, or, at least, lessen the greater one. To tell the truth, I meant to have gone out there this spring—had, indeed, almost fixed upon a day for starting, ...

— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... explosive material. Can we depend on our country keeping free from the infection when we have far more poverty in our midst than the neighbouring European States?" Emigration and temperance reform, he thinks, may avert the danger. ...

— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... through her brain. The wedding must not go on! But how was she to avert it? The king was within a few paces of her now. There was a smile upon his lips, and in that smile she saw the final confirmation of her fears. When Leopold of Lutha smiled his upper lip curved just a trifle into a shadow of a sneer. It was a trivial characteristic that Barney Custer ...

— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... say they did try without avail; some that they were callous and indifferent; some that they did much to avert the horrors, and saved large numbers of victims out of their clutches. But they did not succeed in stopping an awful loss of life. The pages of history will be stained dark when the story ...

— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... fellow-men; yet I wonder how many of us, as we gather round the cosy fireside of home, ever think of the hardy miners. All honour, then, to that Christian man, whose noble heart thought so much of them and of the risks they encounter in the deep mines; his mighty genius studied to avert the dangers to which they are exposed, and by his clever invention many thousand lives have been saved. Statues are raised to soldiers and statesmen, and their deeds are chronicled all over the world, yet the simple-hearted Cornish chemist has done more for England's ...

— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... co-ordination of its members. The life of the family should be studied intensively in order to define more exactly the nature of the family consensus, the mechanism of family rapport, and minor accommodations made to minimize conflict and to avert tendencies to disintegration in the interest ...

— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... I have already sufficiently spoken in another part of my work on the Renaissance. Contarini will more than once arrest our notice in the course of this volume. Of all the Italians of the time, he was perhaps the greatest, wisest, and most sympathetic. Had it been possible to avert the breach between Catholicism and Protestantism, to curb the intolerance of Inquisitors and the ambition of Jesuits, and to guide the reform of the Church by principles of moderation and liberal piety, Contarini was the man who might have restored unity to the Church in Europe. ...

— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family ...

— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... will ever be of use to the student as a practitioner. It is a perfectly fair question whether I and some other American Professors do not teach quite enough that is useless already. Is it not well to remind the student from time to time that a physician's business is to avert disease, to heal the sick, to prolong life, and to diminish suffering? Is it not true that the young man of average ability will find it as much as he can do to fit himself for these simple duties? ...

— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... then the spirit, and then the whole face and especially the eyes,—so that all these doors are opened to receive the poison which is ejaculated by the fascinator. Wherefore it is most proper, whenever we intend to praise a person, that we should warn him, and use some form to avert the ill effects of our words, as by saying, 'May it be of no injury to you!' There are, indeed, some, who, when they are praised, avert their faces, not to indicate that praise in itself is unpleasant, but to avoid fascination; it being thought that fascination ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... nodded to the boy, and then went out to have a long talk with Simon, and so to avert any suspicion of being too familiar with, or too fond of, the prince. But after leaving the Temple he went to his friends and acquaintances, and told them, with tears in his eyes, about the little prisoner in the Temple, the "dauphin," as the royalists used always ...

— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... a decision. This was construed into contempt of Court, and he was ordered to attend at the Bar next morning. Fearing the consequences of his rash remark, he consulted John Clerk, who offered to apologise for him in a way that would avert any unpleasant result. Accordingly, when the name of the delinquent was called, John Clerk rose and addressed the Bench: "I am sorry, my lords, that my young friend so far forgot himself as to treat your lordships with disrespect. He is extremely penitent, and you ...

— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... allow what we cannot prevent, but we must seek to avert the evil consequences. We will address ourselves to the king, and inform him who has occasioned this disturbance, ...

— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... important of which was the remarkable series of successful researches by Pasteur into the nature and mode of cure of that most dreadful of maladies, hydrophobia. The value of his discovery was greater than could be estimated by its present utility, for it showed that it might be possible to avert other diseases besides hydrophobia by the adoption of a somewhat similar method of investigation ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... in consequence of an urgent necessity to maintain public safety or to avert public calamities, issues, when the Imperial Diet is not sitting, Imperial ordinances ...

— The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 1889 • Japan

... Thursday, May 21, the day on which he died, he was very delirious all day, though he knew us all. I did not give up hope till 7 P.M., when his heart failed him in spite of active stimulation. It was then that we all gathered round his bed. I did my utmost with the help of Frazer to avert the sad end; but ere long, seeing our efforts were vain, we ceased, and sat in his room and saw him gradually and very peacefully pass away, his breath getting feebler and feebler till he closed his eyes and fell ...

— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... wonder; and it even tended to confirm my favourite opinion, that some were born to good and some to evil fortune. I became almost as careless as my companions, from following the same course of reasoning. It is not, thought I, in the power of human prudence to avert the stroke of destiny. I shall perhaps die to-morrow; ...

— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... correspondence. P. T. had prudently asked for the return of his letters; but Curll had kept copies, and was prepared to swear to their fidelity. Accordingly he soon advertised what was called the Initial Correspondence. Pope was now caught in his own trap. He had tried to avert suspicion by publicly offering a reward to Smythe and P. T., if they would "discover the whole affair." The letters, as he admitted, must have been procured either from his own library or from Lord Oxford's. The correspondence to be published by Curll would help to identify the mysterious appropriators, ...

— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... his return, he made us laugh at y'e following. They had clomb y'e hill, and were admiring y'e prospect, when Pole, casting his eyes aloft, and beginning to make sundrie gesticulations, exclaimed, "What is it I beholde? May heaven avert y'e omen!" with such-like exclamations, which raised y'e curiositie of alle. "Don't you beholde," cries he, "that enormous dragon flying through y'e sky? his horns of ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... at some place, I forget where. There was no drill now—we seldom had any—no special care of us, and no "policing" or keeping clean. Symptoms of typhoid fever soon appeared; forty of our hundred were more or less ill. My brother and I knew very well that the only way to avert this was to exercise vigorously. On waking in the morning we all experienced languor and lassitude. Those who yielded to it fell ill. Henry was always so ready to work, that once our sergeant, Mr. Bullard, interposed and gave the duty to another, saying ...

— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... ability to heal mentally. Conceit cannot avert the effects of deceit. Taking advantage of the present ignorance in relation to Christian Science Mind-healing, many are flooding our land with conflicting theories and practice. We should not spread abroad patchwork ideas ...

— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... of innumerable kinds, commonly distinguish'd from sallows, as sallows are from withies; being so much smaller than the sallow, and shorter liv'd, and requiring more constant moisture, yet would be planted in rather a dryish ground, than over moist and spewing, which we frequently cut trenches to avert. It likewise yields more limber and flexible twigs for baskets, flaskets, hampers, cages, lattices, cradles, the bodies of coaches and wagons, for which 'tis of excellent use, light, durable, and neat, as it may be wrought ...

— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... the boy whose story we have heard today? Methinks I can never rest happy till the thing is done. Will not a curse light upon the very house itself if these dark deeds go on within its walls? Who can have a better right to avert such curse than we — ...

— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... office just in time to avert a quarrel between the Coal King and his attorney. In her presence both men resume their ...

— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... life from this standpoint we find all occupied with its want and misery, exerting all their strength in order to satisfy its endless needs and avert manifold suffering, without, however, daring to expect anything else in return than merely the preservation of this tormented individual existence for a short span of time. And yet, amid all this turmoil we see a pair of lovers exchanging longing glances—yet why so secretly, timidly, and stealthily? ...

— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... on one side of the bosom to the opposite side of the waist with a garland of artificial flowers, looked simple, yet very elegant. The eye of the most critical woman could find no fault in the harmony of the toilette, the coldest man could not avert his gaze from the head, which constantly called forth the two comparisons to a Greek cameo, or a nixie, comparisons which the beautiful woman was compelled to hear so often ...

— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... intentions to inform him of. They were merely acting from hand to mouth to avert the parliamentary censure with which they were threatened. They had no plan, they had no intentions to carry out. If they could have known their intentions, a great hero would have been saved to the British army, a great disgrace would not ...

— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... believing that they can kill a man by discharging at him a muth or handful of charmed objects such as lemons, vermilion and seeds of urad. This ball will travel through the air and, descending on the house of the person at whom it is aimed, will kill him outright unless he can avert its power by stronger magic, and perhaps even cause it to recoil in the same manner on the head of the sender. They exorcise the Sudhiniyas or the drinkers of human blood. A person troubled by one of these is seated near the Bharia, who places two pots with their mouths ...

— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... to be sure, when she asked herself whether it was all true and real; whether it could be possible. She walked in darkness surrounded by demons. Her being was plunged into the deepest and strangest bewilderment; confusion enveloped her; there was sorrow in the effort she made to avert the inexorable. ...

— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... abortion she ought at once to retire to bed, upon a mattress, and keep perfectly quiet till every symptom has disappeared. Sometimes this simple measure, promptly adopted, is sufficient to avert the threatened evil. If there is much feeling of fullness, and the patient is of full habit generally, eight or a dozen leeches may be applied to the lower part of the bowels; if there is fever, saline medicines may be given, such as the common effervescing draft of carbonate of soda and ...

— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... greater, it remained permanently leavened and lifted in her by the strange and lovely incident that had taken, for the moment, such command of her and of him. She would not question it or reason about it, perhaps with an instinct to avert its destruction; she simply drew it deeply into her content. Only its sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let that go with open hands. She wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all ...

— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... had tried his hand a second time, in the last futile effort to avert the impending disaster, she had trusted him just the same. When he had said to her, speaking close to her dull ear: "Dear little girl, I'm going to ask you to go to sleep again for me," she had turned her ...

— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond

... end for a little while—a few weeks, perhaps—avert it it could not. And who could take him? You could not go; and he has no mother. No! I ...

— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... distinguished Revolutionary race, possessor of a good estate, and with charming, cultivated surroundings, this gentleman seemed the Noah of the political world. Perhaps his retention in the Cabinet was due to a belief that, under the new and milder dispensation, the presence of one righteous man might avert the doom of Gomorrah. An exception existed in the person of the Attorney-General, a man, as eminent barristers declare, ignorant of law and self-willed and vulgar. For some reason he had much influence with the President, ...

— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... out from under the twitching lids and rolled down the chubby cheeks. The clerk moved uneasily. He did hate to see anyone cry, but had not the slightest idea how to avert the threatened deluge. As his eye roved about the small store for something to divert her attention, it chanced to rest upon the candy cabinet, and hastily diving into the case, he brought forth a handful of tempting chocolates, ...

— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... the precious lesson that prayer for others is a real power, and does bring down blessings and avert evils. Abraham did not here pray for Lot, but yet 'God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow'(chap. xix. 29), so that there had been unrecorded intercession for him too. The unselfish desires for others, that exhale ...

— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... the most developed dolls. A huge quarter of the place, the biggest bazaar "on earth," was peopled with these and other effigies and fantasies, as well as with purchasers and vendors, haggard alike in the blaze of the gas with hesitations. I was just about to appeal to Flora to avert that stage of my errand when I saw that she was accompanied by a gentleman whose identity,'though more than a year had elapsed, came back to me from the Folkestone cliff.' It had been associated in that scene with showy knickerbockers; ...

— Embarrassments • Henry James

... shoot in his hand, and fall slowly to the ground. He was greatly terrified at this spectacle, considering it as some omen of very dreadful import. He immediately and instinctively offered up a prayer to the presiding deities of the land, that they would avert from him the evil influences, whatever they might be, which the omen seemed to portend, or that they would at least explain the meaning of the prodigy. After offering this prayer, he took hold of another stem of the myrtle, ...

— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Mr Braine, sadly. "We are so surrounded by difficulties, so hedged in by danger, that we cannot stir. You must remember that any premature action on our part might hasten the catastrophe we want to avert." ...

— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... during the progress of the war—over the fitting out of Confederate cruisers at English ports to prey upon the commerce of the United States, over captured mails, etc.—in which all of Lincoln's sagacity and patience were needed to avert an open rupture with the British government. That the strain was severe and the danger great is made clear by an entry in Mr. Welles's Diary, in which he says: "We are in no condition for a foreign war. Torn by dissensions, an exhausting civil war on our hands, we have ...

— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... has ever darkened my life, there came to me a calamity of a less painful sort, yet one of the most trying that I have ever known. A long course of mistaken university policy, which I had done my best to change, and the consequences of which I had especially exerted myself to avert, at last bore its evil fruit. On the 13th of June, 1888, I was present at the session of the Court of Appeals at Saratoga, and there heard the argument in the suit brought to prevent the institution from taking nearly two millions of dollars bequeathed by Mrs. Willard Fiske. I had looked ...

— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... evening, Conrad was shewn to his bedroom, and there dreamed through the livelong night—now, that he was riding at frightful speed through woods and wilds with Mr Harrenburn, hurrying with breathless haste to avert some catastrophe that was about to happen somewhere to some one; now, that he was intently painting a picture of the corpse of a beautiful young lady—terribly oppressed by nervousness, and a fretful sense of incapacity most injurious to the success of his labours—when ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?'—they would acknowledge that ...

— Protagoras • Plato

... assembly, will not have been without use."[1] There is a prophetic ring about this, very welcome to us of the twentieth century. We cannot think altogether unkindly of our great-grandfathers' ill-judged attempt to avert the calamity which has now broken ...

— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... fingers gripped the iron top rail, and, exerting all his strength, he slowly pulled his body up, until he fell forward into the driver's seat. Swift as he had been, the action was not quickly enough conceived to avert disaster. He had the reins in his grip when the swinging pole struck the steep side of the bluff, snapping off with a sharp crack, and flinging down the frightened animals, the wheels, crashing against them, as the coach came to a sudden halt. Hamlin hung on grimly, flung ...

— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... their party, saw the approaching danger, and endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm. Neither the old men nor the old women could read their books, now they had got them, said the three Miss Browns. Never mind; they could learn, replied Mrs. Johnson Parker. The children couldn't read either, suggested the three Miss Browns. No matter; they could be taught, ...

— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... their destination, and we are fearful lest they may arrive too late; the man with his hand held over the eyes of his wife, the revolver being slowly raised; the two friends at the gate of the cottage; and then the climax as they enter the room just in time to avert the tragedy. Thus the cut-back effect kept suspense and interest at highest pitch ...

— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... of your country, and my cause that you pretend to support?—I repeat it, brother, that this design could not have been framed by you. I again command my son to pursue his journey and I cannot conceive you will give the least obstruction; if you should (which I pray God avert), I solemnly declare that I will not be constrained by such measures, nor shall I ever forget what I owe to myself. As to my troops, you may see what I have written on that head to the Hanoverian ministry. ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... "in close divan," and it was handed about from mouth to mouth, till it reached the ears of the Inquisitor, within the dark recesses of his house of terror. A cloud was now gathering over the head of the devoted Salvator which it seemed no human power could avert. But ere the bolt fell, his fast and tried friend Don Maria Ghigi threw himself between his protege and the horrible fate which awaited him, by forcing the sullen satirist to draw up an apology, or rather an explanation of his ...

— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... him of intense unhappiness. Having lost his old business connection he could no longer obtain employment in his original vocation. He had therefore no alternative to avert starvation but to follow the precarious calling of a cab-runner. These events, it will be recalled, happened in a bygone age, before the motor superseded the horse. Often, after a weary trail half across the town behind a luggage-laden ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various

... all parts of the world persons who feel shame for some moral delinquency are apt to avert, bend down, or hide their faces, independently of any thought about their personal appearance. The object can hardly be to conceal their blushes, for the face is thus averted or hidden under circumstances which exclude any desire to conceal shame, as when guilt is fully confessed ...

— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... have broken down our wall, slain our martyred brother Mathias—we could not find his body," he added quickly, "and Brother Joachim thinks that the Jews have eaten him so that by the consecrated holiness of his flesh they might avert their ...

— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... for the most part, grown to their faces, so that, except in some rare animal paroxysm of emotion, it is hardly themselves that they express. The apparition of a poet disquiets them, for he clothes himself with the elements, and apologises to no idols. His candour frightens them: they avert their eyes from it; or they treat it as a licensed whim; or, with a sudden gleam of insight, and apprehension of what this means for them and theirs, they scream aloud for fear. A modern instance may be found in the angry protestations launched against Rossetti's Sonnets, at the time ...

— Style • Walter Raleigh

... the nurse quickly; "'tis the good doctor's pomander, with spices and perfumes in it to avert contagion." ...

— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... looks already irresistible, but the actual finish is charmingly accomplished.} Bd7 {By this move Black may be said to lose a Piece. His best course—but that a bad one—was possibly to retreat his Bishop to K's square.} 22. Rh3 {Threatening mate in two moves.} h6 23. Qd2 Kh7 {To avert the promised mate, by Rxh6, etc.} 24. Qxd7 Bd6 25. Rxh6 {The termination is very pretty—quite an elegant little problem.} Kxh6 26. Rd3 {And Black has no possible means of escape; for, if he play ...

— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"

... a similar mutiny on the ministerial benches if Pitt had obstinately resisted the general wish. Pressed at once by his master and by his colleagues, by old friends and by old opponents, he abandoned, slowly and reluctantly, the policy which was dear to his heart. He laboured hard to avert the European war. When the European war broke out, he still flattered himself that it would not be necessary for this country to take either side. In the spring of 1792 he congratulated the Parliament on the prospect of long and profound peace, and ...

— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... shall not know the touch of pain, Pure as refined gold they shall issue safe From the hot crucible; a pleasing sight Unto the Lord. Oh, 't is a rosy bed Where we shall couch, compared with that whereon They lie who kindle this accursed blaze. Ye shrink? ye would avert your martyred brows From the immortal crowns the angels offer? What! are we Jews and are afraid of death? God's chosen people, shall we stand a-tremble Before our Father, ...

— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... May heaven, which has inspired this generous thought, Avert those dangers you have boldly sought! Call up more troops; the women, to our shame, Will ravish from the men their part of fame. [Exeunt ...

— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... national unity and preservation. Even if this arrogant demand was complied with, would peace be thus possible? Would not the breaking up of the Union involve the people in calamities that no patience, or wisdom upon the part of the North could avert? Remember a long border in an open country, stretching from the Atlantic, possibly even to the Pacific, is to be defended. Will the bordering people sink down from war, and all its exasperations, and become as peaceful ...

— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... with patriotic care the danger and resources of Modena. The citizens besought St. Geminianus, their patron, to avert, by his intercession, the rabies, flagellum, &c. Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi, Ab Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis.The bishop erected walls for the public defence, not contra dominos serenos, (Antiquitat. Ital. Med. Aevi, tom. i. dissertat. i. p. 21, 22,) and the ...

— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... is old, so old that its root has been lost and we know not who first imagined it; but the idea, the central incident, doubtless goes back to Druid times, when a woman might well have offered herself up to the cruel gods to avert their wrath and stay the plagues which fell upon her people. Under a like impulse Curtius sprang into the gulf in the Forum, and Decius devoted himself to death to win the safety of the Roman army. In each case the powers, evil or beneficent, were supposed to be appeased by the offering of a human ...

— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... the careless storage of the powder; for [Don Juan says that] all there is on those islands is contained in a chamber of the fort of that city, and that in so prominent a place that it overlooks the wall; and that if by some accident (which may God avert!) this powder should explode, besides the risk to the city, there would remain no more powder in that whole country, nor material with which it could be made. To avoid so great a difficulty there would be built in some of the said four cavaliers two round towers, so ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. To break off that point is to avert the danger. The common system of representation perpetuates the danger. Unequal electorates afford no security to majorities. Equal electorates give none to minorities. Thirty-five years ago it was pointed out that the remedy is proportional representation. It is profoundly ...

— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... followed, and that issue sharply pressed upon Great Britain, complications of a most embarrassing nature might arise, involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr. Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington, conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question; and at the very moment when the Democratic National Convention which nominated Mr. Polk was declaring our title to ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... stay for a few minutes only. In the silence that followed, their eyes met, and, as though it were too much trouble to avert her look, Alma continued to regard him. She smiled ...

— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... no means to avert this doom of dread? Is it an absolute necessity, that I must either kill this colossus, or be myself slain? Is there no alternative? Is there still no chance ...

— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... reached an alarming extent, and threatened to drive the South into secession from the Union, Clay appeared once again in his great role as a pacificator. To preserve the Union was the dearest object of his public life. He would by a timely concession avert the catastrophe which the Southern leaders threatened, and he probably warded off the inevitable combat when, in 1850, he made his great speech, in favor of sacrificing the Wilmot Proviso, and enacting a more ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... loyal and frank, just an eager flash of love and confidence, seeming to say, "Be quick, Will, and put your foot on this viper that we've both of us warmed, and that is trying to bite me;" then she would turn pale, avert her head, and drop upon a chair. And for why? Because she had seen the nauseating truth, and her heart was ...

— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... especially in a primitive condition of society. Hence the "spirits" were feared as demons rather than worshipped as powers of good, and instead of a priest a sorcerer was needed who knew the charms and incantations which could avert their malevolence or compel them to be serviceable to men. Sumerian religion, in fact, was Shamanistic, like that of some Siberian tribes to-day, and its ministers were Shamans or medicine-men skilled in witchcraft and sorcery whose ...

— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... a limb long ago cut off) by which a past mode of life prolongs itself into the succeeding one. I was full of idle and shapeless regrets. The thought impressed itself upon me that I had left duties unperformed. With the power, perhaps, to act in the place of destiny and avert misfortune from my friends, I had resigned them to their fate. That cold tendency, between instinct and intellect, which made me pry with a speculative interest into people's passions and impulses, appeared to have gone ...

— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... times as he found each idea unworkable. His emotional balance was also erratic—though that was natural, since the stars were completely berserk in what was left of the sky. He seemed to fluctuate between bitter sureness of doom and a stupidly optimistic belief that something could be done to avert that doom. But whatever his mood, he went on working and scheming furiously. Maybe it was the desperate need to keep himself occupied that drove him, or perhaps it was the pleading he saw in the eyes around him. In the end, determination conquered ...

— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... Government of Canada, in the discharge of a national obligation, which has ever been recognized by all civilized authorities, has been obliged to come to the aid of the Blackfeet and other Indians to avert the danger and suffering from famine. The Sioux are already feeling the hardships of their position, and it will tax the skill and energies of the Government of Canada to provide a remedy. Already, at the instance of ...

— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... entered all alone. The mantris all Were terrified lest harm should come to him. They sought with him to go. He lightly said: "No, mantris mine, whatever God hath willed, Must happen. If in flames I were to burn, In God I still should trust. 'Tis only He That evil can avert. We mortal men No power possess. With my own eyes I wish To see this apparition. Should it be The will of God, I'll come forth safe and sound. Be not disturbed. In case of urgent need I'll call upon ye. All await me here." ...

— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... physicians advised me to abandon advocacy for a while, I felt that I would sooner run any risk than relinquish the hope of oratorical distinction. Afterwards I reflected that by learning to moderate and regulate my voice, and changing my style of speaking, I might both avert the danger that threatened my health and also acquire a more self-controlled manner. It was a resolve to break through the habits I had formed that induced me to travel to the East. I had practiced for two years, and my name had become well known ...

— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... infatuated with this M. Bertomy! Between the honor of your husband's name, and pleasing this love-sick cashier, you refuse to hesitate. Well, I suppose he will console you. When M. Fauvel divorces you, and Abel and Lucien avert their faces at your approach, and blush at being your sons, you will be able to say, 'I have made ...

— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... fruition any military plan, may be somewhat corrected by the plain and convincing terms in which the eye-witness describes the manner in which they stayed their hand whenever it could have slain, and the silent struggle which the Moderates of Chinese politics must have waged to avert the catastrophe by merely gaining time and allowing the Desperates to dash themselves to pieces when the inevitable swing of the pendulum took place. Finally, it will not escape notice that many remarks ...

— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... my poodle grows! He rises from the ground; That is no longer the form of a hound! Heaven avert the curse from us! He looks like a hippopotamus, With his fiery eyes and the terrible white Of his grinning teeth! oh what a fright Have I brought with me into the house! Ah now, No mystery art thou! Methinks for such half hellish brood The key of ...

— Faust • Goethe

... me," said Steinholt. "A crisis very possibly may arise in which the quick judgment of one man may be necessary to avert the danger that always ...

— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... the maddening watches of the night his mind, ticking like an unstillable clock, beat for him an incessant rhythmical reminder of the impending ruin of his house and of his own powerlessness to avert it. He reviewed again and again the whole course of his life and his business—they were one: his lowly beginnings, his early struggles in the raw but ambitious prairie town, the laborious stages of endeavor by ...

— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... of this clinging to another life is doubtless very different. It is simply an expression of the reluctance of the human being to use the awful word "never." As the years take from us, one by one, all that we have loved, we try to avert our gaze; we are fain to believe that in some phantom world all will be given back to us, and that our toys have only been laid by in the nursery upstairs. Who, indeed, can deny that to give up these dreams involves a cruel pang? But, then, who but the most determined optimist ...

— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... apprehensiveness all about the presence of the king, in all the earlier scenes. He diffuses disquietude and vaguely presages disaster, and the observer looks on him with solicitude and pain. He is not yet decrepit but he will soon break; and the spectator loves him and is sorry for him and would avert the destiny of woe that is darkly foreshadowed in his condition. McCullough gave the invectives—as they ought to be given—with the impetuous rush and wild fury of the avalanche; and yet they were felt to come out of agony as ...

— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... old servant—and she had contrived to make herself very much disliked by them all—Tynn could not help feeling warmly the blow that was about to burst upon her head. Was there anything earthly he could do to avert it?—to help ...

— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... scouts had entered. Falling still under simple gravity, they had been missed by the rays till they had fallen to so small a distance, that no humans or men of our allied systems could have stopped, but only their enormous iron boned strength permitted them to resist the acceleration they used to avert collision with the planet. Then scattering swiftly, they had blasted the great protective screen stations by attacking on the sides, where the ray screen projectors were not mounted. Designed to protect ...

— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... riding, a great gray motor shot out just as they were passing. Jane caught just one glimpse of the man on the driver's seat. It was Frederic Hoff, frantically twisting at the wheel in an effort to avert the threatened collision. There came a thud and a crash as the forward part of the Hoff car struck the motorcycle a glancing blow, overturning it completely. Too terrified even to shriek, Jane felt herself ...

— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... misfortunes whose understandings are guided by the Sastras. Thou art acquainted, O prince, with the lenity and severity of fate; this anxiety therefore for the safety of thy children is unbecoming. Moreover, it behoveth thee not to grieve for that which must happen: for who can avert, by his wisdom, the decrees of fate? No one can leave the way marked out for him by Providence. Existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain all have Time for their root. Time createth all things and Time destroyeth ...

— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... study of philosophy, and are especially famous for the art of astrology. They are mightily given to divination, and foretell future events, and employ themselves either by purifications, sacrifices, or other enchantments to avert evils, or procure good fortune and success. They are skilful, likewise, in the art of divination by the flying of birds, and interpreting of dreams and prodigies; and are reputed as the oracles (in declaring what will come to pass) by their exact and diligent ...

— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... strongly, perhaps, as those of the opposite parties, that Mazarin should be got rid of. That odious foreigner exposed them all to the public animosity which pursued himself. Anne of Austria frequently employed the artifices of her sex to avert their opposition in council, ...

— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... rationalists are busy proclaiming the downfall of religion. The war serves them as material for demonstration. The failure of Christianity to avert bloodshed, and the horrors under which Christendom is now submerged, are naturally used as a proof that the ethic of Christianity is lamentably feeble. The difference between theoretical Christianity and the social practices which the Church condones is ...

— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... degree of attention on their part was considered too great, which might contribute to its preservation. It was placed under my care, not to be cured, but that I might, if possible, devise some plan of management which would avert the disease they had so much reason to apprehend. I felt the responsibility of the trust, and endeavoured to find it to the best of my ability. Every opportunity which I could desire was afforded me; for the infant, from its birth was submitted ...

— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... developed in Mr. Robert, though he was loath to admit it. If his actions were a mystery to her, hers were none the less so to him. He made up his mind to move guardedly in whatever he did, to practise control over his mobile features so as to avert any shock or thoughtless sign of interest. He knew that sooner or later the day would come when he would be found out; but this made him not the less ...

— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... honour and might. Nay, come for the gifts; the Achaians shall honour thee even as a god. But if without gifts thou enter into battle the bane of men, thou wilt not be held in like honour, even though thou avert the fray." ...

— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... by the rapid transit on the wheel. If three boys or three girls have been born to a woman, they think that the fourth should be of the same sex, in order to make up two pairs. A boy or girl born after three of the opposite sex is called Titra or Titri, and is considered very unlucky. To avert this misfortune they cover the child with a basket, kindle a fire of grass all round it, and smash a brass pot on the floor. Then they say that the baby is the fifth and not the fourth child, and ...

— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... delirious all day, though he knew us all. I did not give up hope till 7 P.M., when his heart failed him in spite of active stimulation. It was then that we all gathered round his bed. I did my utmost with the help of Frazer to avert the sad end; but ere long, seeing our efforts were vain, we ceased, and sat in his room and saw him gradually and very peacefully pass away, his breath getting feebler and feebler till he closed his eyes ...

— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... to fight our way against this biographer, who takes a rambling and revolutionary view of all the chief transactions of the time. In this spirit, he denies or doubts the necessity of the French war. We deny that it was possible to avert it. It may be true, that if England had been faithless to her compacts, and had suffered her allies to be trampled on, she might, for awhile, have avoided actual collision. But, could this have been done with honour; and what is national honour but a national ...

— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... down on a sofa and covered his face with his hands. It burned them, but he sat motionless, repeating to himself, mechanically, as if to avert thought, "You fool! you fool!" At last he got up and made his ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... said quietly but sonorously, and then, like an invocation to the Deity, the dark young mountaineer slowly read from the paper in his hand how they were all peaceably assembled for the common good and the good of the State to avert the peril hovering over its property, peace, safety, and happiness. How they prayed for calmness, prudence, wisdom; begged that the legislators should not suffer themselves to be led into the temptation ...

— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... severely wounded. His dignity bled freely; he made, strange to say, scarcely any attempt to staunch the blood, which might have continued to flow for a considerable time had not a diversion occurred. (It is well known that the dignity will only bleed while you watch it. Avert your eyes, and it instantly dries up.) The diversion, apparently of a trifling character, had, in truth, an enormous importance, though the parties concerned did not perceive this till later. It consisted in the passing of Mrs. Prockter and her stepson, ...

— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... would be limited to the rise of material comfort of the poorer classes, and this gain might be set off by the congested and torpor-breeding luxury of the better-to-do. A mere increase in quantity of consumption would do nothing to avert the drifting of industry ...

— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... destroyed their authority, the stores were exhausted, discipline relaxed, and those who had exacted the most servile homage, were themselves dependant for impunity on the royal clemency. He employed the discretion with which he was entrusted, to avert the miseries of forfeiture; but he could not restore the relations between the bond and the free, which revolt had shaken; or dispense with the counterpoise ...

— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... it may seem, it is the fact that they would have preferred to do so, being restrained by the simple question of policy. They saw that Pomp had grown very fond of her, and any such action on their part might alienate him—a catastrophe which they were anxious to avert above everything else. ...

— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... down upon her and her helpless old people that the bitterness of despair rose in her heart. Against the uprooting of their feebleness her whole nature cried out, and the sacrifice that had been offered her in the milk-house days before, seemed but a small price to pay to avert the tragedy. Doubt of herself and her motives assailed her, and she quivered in every nerve when she thought that thus she had failed them. What! Was she to save herself and let the sorrow fall on their bent shoulders? Was it too late? Her heart answered her that it was, for her confession ...

— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... annual trophies and their monthly wars; Though long my party built on me their hopes, For writing pamphlets, and for roasting popes; Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on! Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon. Avert it, heaven! that thou, or Cibber, e'er Should wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair! Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets, The needy poet sticks to all he meets; Coached, carted, trod upon, now loose, ...

— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... Avert, High Wisdom, never vainly wooed, This threat of War, that shows a land brain-sick. When nations gain the pitch where rhetoric Seems reason they are ripe for cannon's food. Dark looms the issue though the cause be ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the perquisites of sailors, they are always on the keen look-out for an opportunity of levying such contributions upon incautious strangers; though they never attempt it in presence of the captain; as for the mates, they purposely avert their eyes, and are earnestly engaged about something else, whenever they get an inkling of this proceeding going on. But, with only one poor fellow of a cabin-passenger on board of the Highlander, and he such a quiet, unobtrusive, unadventurous wight, there seemed little ...

— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... went on the Colonel, "has just reached me from the War Office. It concerns the Regiment, the dear old Regiment." Both men saluted, and the Colonel went on hoarsely, "Were the news in this document to become public property before its time, nothing could avert the defeat of England in ...

— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... their spirit with prayer and songs of thanksgiving. An awful sense of contrition seized Christians everywhere; they resolved to forsake their vices, to make restitution for past offences, before they were summoned hence, to seek reconciliation with their Maker, and to avert, by self-chastisement, the punishment due to their ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to avert the danger of a war with America. The natural opposition of the two rival States may, however, in the further development of things, be so accentuated that England will be forced to assert her position by arms, or ...

— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and justice. To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait ...

— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Bellward, and finally Desmond succumbed. He opened his eyes to dart a quick glance at Bellward and found the other's staring eyes, with pupils distended, fixed on his. And Desmond felt his resistance ebb. He tried to avert his gaze; but it was too late. That ...

— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... extent to England. Figure to yourself, Mr. Speaker, the land in whose representative chair you sit; figure to yourself the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country from Thames to Trent north and south, and from the Irish to the German Sea east and west, emptied and emboweled (may God avert the omen of our crimes!) by so accomplished a desolation. Extend your imagination a little farther, and then suppose your ministers taking a survey of this scene of waste and desolation; what would be your thoughts if you ...

— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... are weary of not being avenged; tremble lest they administer justice themselves." "If, before two or three hours pass, the foreman of the jury be not named," said another, "and if the jury be not itself in a condition to act, great calamities will befall Paris." To avert the threatened outbreaks, the assembly was obliged to appoint an extraordinary criminal tribunal. This tribunal condemned a few persons, but the commune having conceived the most terrible projects, did not consider ...

— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... their own houses by the satellites of usurpation, tyranny, and murder, the people then gave vent to their tears and execrations. The contrite prayers of a sinful nation arose from every dwelling; and, like the blood of the Paschal Lamb on the doors of the Israelites, implored Divine Mercy to avert the sword of the destroying angel from them and their families, when he should be sent in wrathful visitation to take ...

— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... every subordinate being becomes subject to decay and death: pain and disease, the inheritance of mortality, usually accelerate his dissolution. To combat these, to alleviate when it has not the power to avert, Medicine, honoured ...

— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... than by living separately from them; if they throw obstacles in the way, God, to whom all vengeance belongs, will give them in His good time what is their due. Be therefore submissive to ecclesiastical superiors, in order to avert, as much as may be in your power, any jealousies. If you are children of peace, you will soon ingratiate yourselves with the clergy and the people, and this will be more acceptable to God than if you ...

— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... the height of his celebrity and of his susceptibility, was ever more anxious than Horace Churchill to avert the stroke of ridicule—to guard against the dreaded smile. As he walked away, he felt behind his back that those he left ...

— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... and worked (however plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for "the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers." It had conspicuously failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. Lord Morley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelity to public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which ...

— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... refuge—here, if anywhere, will resistance be made to the storms of political phrensy and the silent arts of corruption; and if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hands of the demagogue or the usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed ...

— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... two pale, scared little brothers, to add their shrieks to the general clamour. Deanie's fellow workers, poor little souls, denied their childish share of the world's excitements, gazed with a sort of awful relish. Only Johnnie, speeding down the room away from it all, was doing anything rational to avert the catastrophe. The child hung on the slowly moving belt, inert, a tiny rag of life, with her mop of tangled yellow curls, her white, little face, its blue eyes closed. When she reached the top, where the pulley was close against the ceiling, ...

— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... theme for copious declamation. Persons who cherish republican sympathies ascribe these evils to our dependent condition as colonists—'the States of the Union,' they say, 'can take care of themselves, and avert the scourge from their shores, but we are victims on whom inhuman Irish landlords, &c., can charge the consequences of their neglect and rapacity.' Meanwhile I have a very delicate and irksome duty ...

— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... conclusion is much more frequent than the previous kind as so many speeches anticipate future action or events. Dealing with entirely different topics the three following extracts illustrate this kind of conclusion. Washington was arguing against the formation of parties in the new nation, trying to avert the inevitable. ...

— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... unprejudiced, his industry admirable, his firmness that of a man. He is the most experienced man in the Prussian states. The enemies of his country may rely on his word. The artful he can encounter with art; those who menace, with fortitude; and with wise foresight can avert the rising storm. He seeks not splendour in sumptuous and ostentatious retinue; but if he can only enrich the state, and behold the poor happy, he is himself willing to remain poor. His estate, Briess, near Berlin, is no Chanteloup, ...

— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... many-folded serpent; and in the night, when the tall forest trees moaned and creaked in the fitful wind, he would shrink terrified by the solemn and mysterious sounds, which then do predispose the mind to superstitious fears, and tell how, at such a time, his countrymen kindle a fire to avert the actual presence of the evil spirit, and wait around it—chanting their uncouth and rhythmical incantations—with fear and trembling, for the ...

— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... good to be gained by saying that the Church will perhaps some day make concessions which will avert the necessity of ruptures, such as that which I felt forced upon me, and that it will then be seen that I have renounced the kingdom of God for a trumpery cause. I am perfectly well aware how far the Church can go in the way of concession, and I know ...

— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... hardships; some girls suffered miserably from want of health, but she had vigor and spirits to make the best of circumstances. Bessie was flattered by this estimate of her pluck, but all the same she preferred to avert her thoughts from the contemplation of the strange future that was to begin in September. It was July now, and a respite was to be given her ...

— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... back; although Thorn could not see what had persuaded the latter to lend. It was strange, certainly, that Hallam had inquired about Askew, but in the meantime he could let this go. Gerald was threatened by a danger money could avert, and Thorn could help. If he did help, it would give him a claim to Osborn's gratitude, although he could not tell how far this would influence Grace. The Osborns cherished the old-fashioned traditions of their class, and anything that touched one touched all. Grace, however, was modern ...

— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... stretch and expand our minds to the compass of their object; be well assured that everything about us will dwindle by degrees, until at length our concerns are shrunk to the dimensions of our minds. It is not a predilection to mean, sordid, home-bred cares that will avert the consequences of a false estimation of our interest, or prevent the shameful dilapidation into which a great empire must fall by mean reparation upon ...

— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... a superstition about prophesying too boastfully that a certain thing will or will not happen; you will remember that there is also a provision that the rash prophet may avert disaster by knocking wood. Applehead should, if there is any grain of sense in the rite, have knocked wood with his fingers crossed as an ...

— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... of our treaty stipulations with Mexico and our duty to the Indians themselves will, it is feared, become a subject of serious embarrassment to the Government. It is hoped, however, that a timely and just provision by Texas may avert this evil. ...

— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore

... Masters; but had she seen them both, and had she known the young woman, she would have declared in her pride that they were fit associates. But she saw nothing of this, sitting there behind her veil, thinking whether she might still do anything, and if so; what she might do to avert the present evil destination of the Bragton estate. There was an honourable nephew of her own,—or rather a great-nephew,—who might easily take the name, who would so willingly take the name! Or if this were impracticable, there was ...

— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... taking no note of what was going on. Rich colour came into her face, and, as the keen detective cast a swift glance at her, he saw before him a woman conscious of her guilt, fearing exposure, yet not knowing how to avert it. ...

— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... we avert a storm that for a moment was very imminent. Yet some mischief was done, and some good, too, perhaps. For if I made an enemy of the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache by humbling him in the eyes of the one woman before whom he sought to shine, I established ...

— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... something of what it contains. She wrote and mailed it to you weeks ago—before the crash—saying, I believe, that adversity was not the time for the settlement of domestic differences, and that if her private fortune could avert disaster, you were to write immediately ...

— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... for, being deputed to divine offices, they spend all their time in the study of philosophy, and are especially famous for the art of astrology. They are mightily given to divination, and foretell future events, and employ themselves either by purifications, sacrifices, or other enchantments to avert evils, or procure good fortune and success. They are skilful, likewise, in the art of divination by the flying of birds, and interpreting of dreams and prodigies; and are reputed as the oracles (in declaring ...

— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... expectation of benefit to the Company could not be realized; but he well knew that by enforcing his demands he should utterly and effectually ruin a man whom he mortally hated and abhorred,—a man who could not, by any sacrifices offered to the avarice, avert the cruelty of his implacable enemy. As long as truth remains, as long as figures stand, as long as two and two are four, as long as there is mathematical and arithmetical demonstration, so long shall his cruelty, rage, ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... proved inconstant. But no Lover, and especially a King, will ever be satisfied with an ideal Love. Kindness cherishes the Flame, but Unkindness quenches it. But if you have still any Value for Zeokinizul's Heart, you still may avert the Blow which seems to trouble you. I, replied she, smartly, I, troubled at the King's Alteration! very far from it. On the contrary, I bless interposing Heaven, that it happened before Gratitude had prevail'd upon me to make him a Sacrifice ...

— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... hope. But will a longing bring the thing desired? Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative. The fire I shrink from, may consume me.—But dead, and yet alive; alive, yet dead;—thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we then living? Yet if our dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our ...

— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... true, your lordship, but it is to avert such a contingency, if possible, that the Natives appointed a deputation to lay their case before His Majesty the King, as they have no means to emigrate to America, ...

— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... subjecting me to a similar crushing, for I was just in advance of the wheel when it struck the left gate post. With these two hair-breadth escape, I thought I could sucessfully(sic) explain to Mr. Covey the delay, and avert apprehended punishment. I was not without a faint hope of being commended for the stern resolution which I had displayed in accomplishing the difficult task—a task which, I afterwards learned, even Covey himself would not have undertaken, without first ...

— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... shelterless on poverty's bleak cliff? Oh, confound him! Let him come, and let him laugh at the contrast between rumour and fact. Were he the devil himself, instead of being merely very like him, I'd not condescend to get out of his way, or to forge a smile or a cheerful word wherewith to avert his sarcasm." ...

— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... all be known and told, it is not too much to say that Lockhart's fortitude {p.xxxiii} during these last years, so black with affliction, bodily and mental, was not less admirable than that of Sir Walter Scott himself. Thus, the trials from which we are tempted to avert our eyes, really brought out the noblest manly qualities of cheerful endurance, of gentle consideration for all, who, being sorry for his sorrow, must be prevented from knowing how deep and incurable were his wounds." And it should be said that in these ...

— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... was made of les hommes who were to pass la commission, another of les femmes. These lists were given to the planton with the Wooden Hand. In order to avert any delay, those of the men whose names fell in the first half of the list were not allowed to enjoy the usual stimulating activities afforded by La Ferte's supreme environment: they were, in fact, confined to The Enormous Room, subject to instant call—moreover ...

— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... the Lech, and deprived by death of Count Tilly, his best support, urgently solicited the Emperor to send with all speed the Duke of Friedland to his assistance, from Bohemia, and by the defence of Bavaria, to avert the danger from Austria itself. He also made the same request to Wallenstein, and entreated him, till he could himself come with the main force, to despatch in the mean time a few regiments to his aid. Ferdinand seconded the request with all his influence, and one messenger after another was ...

— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... recital with horror. At the same instant, her mother entered, and, on her knees, besought her daughter to avert her eternal damnation. Madame d'Egmont tried to calm her own and her mother's mind. 'What can I do?' said she, to her. 'Consecrate yourself wholly to God,' replied the director, 'and thus expiate your mother's crime.' The Countess, in ...

— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... the gods is weighed down by the sense of approaching annihilation. He now realises that the consequences of his lawless lust of power are beginning to work his ruin. He tells Bruennhilde the whole story ot his schemes to avert destruction by the help of Siegmund and the Valkyries, ending by commanding her, under dreadful penalties, to leave the Volsung hero to his fate. Siegmund and Sieglinde now appear, flying from the vengeful Hunding. ...

— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... earliest opportunity in his power of expressing his thanks to Major R. D'O. Fletcher, the officers, the non-commissioned officers, and the men of the 1st West India Regiment, for the prompt manner in which they turned out and lent their efforts to avert the extension of the late fire at ...

— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... this plausible explanation, and, perhaps, secretly glad to avert their eyes from a spectacle which awakened so extraordinary and unusual sensations in their sluggish bosoms, the sons of the squatter turned away in a body from their mother and the corpse, and proceeded to make the enquiries which they fancied ...

— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... woman of our class, she could not quite comprehend your words of yesterday's date. Therefore my quarters might be let for six rubles to the Regimental Adjutant, without the stables; but I can always avert that from myself free of charge. But, as you desire, therefore I, being myself of an officer's rank, can come to an agreement with you in everything personally, as an inhabitant of this district, not according to our customs, but can maintain ...

— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... merry in the eyes of the happy man, but sadly solemn in the eyes of him in whose heart the dreary thoughts of the past are at a like game. Behind Donal lay a world of dreams into which he dared not turn and look, yet from which he could scarce avert his eyes. ...

— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... the same time his tribe would probably experience a crushing disaster. Lady Hester's resolution was immediately taken: she would not for one moment suffer a calamity to fall upon her friends which it was in her power to avert. She could go forth alone, trusting in herself and her ability to encounter and overcome danger. Of course the sheikh professed his objection to her determination, and candidly told her that though, if she ...

— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... would be as well for you to be about at the time specified, to avert any suspicions or ...

— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... make some sort of demonstration from the Hungarian side, and the Venetians began to fear that they might be coming in their direction, they asked for help from the pope, who gave orders that at twelve o'clock in the day in all his States an Ave Maria should be said, to pray God to avert the danger which was threatening the most serene republic. This was the only help the Venetians got from His Holiness in exchange for the 799,000 livres in gold that he had got ...

— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... gone up in the Baby Racer twice with Dave, and had proven himself a model passenger. As he had just hinted, too, he had been familiar enough with the mechanism of the biplane to operate some of its auxiliary machinery so as to avert an accident. ...

— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... proofs which have been given you, you will see how my Government, and especially my Chancellor, strove up to the last moment to avert the worst. We grasp the sword in compulsory self-defense, with clean ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... point possible, but Henri, by their absence from his own hand, could measure the peril that menaced him. So, surveying the number of cards that remained in stock, he guarded carefully three aces of trumps which might help him to avert disaster. But, playing the only ace that would allow him to score again, Paul Landry announced coldly, laying on the table four queens of spades and four knaves ...

— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... bottom of the pass, while the bullets mowed them down pitilessly. The brave but headstrong general exhorted them to preserve the order of their ranks, and when they would have fled in terror, he beat them back into line with his own sword. The Virginians alone knew how to avert a massacre, and spreading out quickly into skirmish order, they took cover behind the trees and rocks to meet their wily foe on even terms. But the brave and stubborn Braddock was blind to so obvious an expedient, and with oaths he ordered ...

— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... Roxanne felt that way, but I had to remind myself often of her rose-cloud disposition and watch carefully to see that no troubles that I can avert—like Helena Kirby—shall come ...

— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... joined them at this point, so conversation became general. Isabelle withdrew into her own mind, to think ahead how to avert the next crisis. When the girls came down for the hour of relaxation, there would be more embarrassment, unless she could manage. She strolled to the window and ...

— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... Sergius, with both hands up as if to avert a blow. After looking at the commissioner a moment, his eyes fiercely bright, he walked the ...

— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... chair, and stared tensely before him. His emotion was not to be suppressed. Do tears tremble in the eyes of the strong man? Let us not inquire too curiously. If they tremble down the fine-skinned cheek, let us avert our gaze. For grief in men is no thing to make ...

— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... conference of some of the European powers was held at Vienna to avert the war by mediating between Russia and Turkey, but was unsuccessful. Mr. Gladstone said: "Austria urged the two leading states, England and France, to send in their ultimatum to Russia, and promised it her decided support.... Prussia at the critical moment, to speak in homely ...

— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... have very wide cobble-stones; the houses for the most part are shabby, without local colour. The look of things is neither modern nor antique—a kind of mediocrity of middle age. There is an enormous number of blank walls—walls of gardens, of courts, of private houses—that avert themselves from the street as if in natural chagrin at there being so little to see. Round about is a dull, flat, featureless country, on which the magnificent cathedral looks down. There is a peculiar dulness and ugliness in a French ...

— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... medicine? Can one imagine a naturalist refusing to study the viper, the bat, the scorpion, the centipede, the tarantula, and one who would cast them back into their darkness, saying: "Oh! how ugly that is!" The thinker who should turn aside from slang would resemble a surgeon who should avert his face from an ulcer or a wart. He would be like a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity. For, it must be stated to those who are ignorant of the case, that argot is both a literary phenomenon ...

— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... prestriction^; dim-sightedness &c 443; Braille, Braille-type; guttaserena (drop serene), noctograph^, teichopsia^. V. be blind &c adj.; not see; lose sight of; have the eyes bandaged; grope in the dark. not look; close the eyes, shut the eyes-, turn away the eyes, avert the eyes; look another way; wink &c (limited vision) 443; shut the eyes to, be blind to, wink at, blink at. render blind &c adj.; blind, blindfold; hoodwink, dazzle, put one's eyes out; throw dust into ...

— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... what we cannot prevent, but we must seek to avert the evil consequences. We will address ourselves to the king, and inform him who has occasioned this disturbance, and why ...

— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... banquets were dangerous to the whole country, since spies sat at the board and took note of all extravagant phrases that might be construed into disloyalty. Orange himself held meetings of a very different sort in his sincere endeavour to avert the ...

— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... legal lawlessness was reached in France. The greatest Socialist statesman in Europe, Jaures, was shot and killed by a gentleman who resented his efforts to avert the war. M. Clemenceau was shot by another gentleman of less popular opinions, and happily came off no worse than having to spend a precautionary couple of days in bed. The slayer of Jaures was recklessly ...

— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... in the history of the scheme for the "better government of Ireland." The Home Rule Bill had been read for the third time in the Inferior Chamber, but, apart from this conciliatory action, no effective attempt had been made to avert ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... must have supposed he had seriously offended his new acquaintance, to induce him thus elaborately to attempt to avert his suspicions. However that might be, the Solitary resumed the conversation as ...

— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... private interest, contributed their share for Buchanan's election according to the merciful Divine Benignity, that we could peaceably prepare people for the New Era until this hour under his administration, and warn the inhabitants of the United States, that they should lose no time to avert the impending judgments, which would have already effected a general destruction without hope of escape, except by blind submission to tyrants, if the falsely called Republicans who have been made blind tools of the monarchial speculations, had succeeded with the intrusion ...

— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar

... how it was with Doctor Hillhouse on the morning of the day fixed for the operation. The very danger that Mr. Carlton sought to avert in his rejection of Doctor Kline was at his door. Not having attended the party at Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell's, he did not know that Doctor Hillhouse had, with most of the company, indulged freely in wine. If a suspicion of the truth had come to him, he would have refused to let the operation ...

— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... instinctive tendency, a congenital love of peace, and of easy and tranquil life, he began to anticipate the agitations which must surge up around him and at once be his ruin. He foresaw that they were inevitable, and to avert them he made up his mind to superhuman efforts of energy and activity. The knot must be cut immediately, this very day; for even he had fits of that imperious demand for a swift solution which is the only strength of weak natures, incapable of a prolonged effort of will. His lawyer's mind, ...

— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... shallow, and transient, true affection is rational, conscious, unselfish, deep, and enduring. Being rational, it looks not to the enjoyment or comfort of the moment, but to future and enduring welfare, and therefore does not hesitate to punish folly or misdeeds in order to avert future illness or misfortune. Instead of being a mere instinctive impulse, liable to cease at any moment, like that of the California hen referred to, it is a conscious altruism, never faltering in its ethical sense of duty, utterly incapable ...

— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... I sent for Estenega and told him of what I had seen. In the first place I had to tell some one, and in the second I thought to end his infatuation and avert further trouble. "You firebrand!" I exclaimed, in conclusion. "You see the mischief you have worked! You will go, now, ...

— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... ill-luck which I could not prevent changed the count's face; from gaiety it fell to gloom, from purple it became yellow, and his eyes rolled. Then followed worse ill-luck, which I could neither avert nor repair. Monsieur de Mortsauf made a fatal throw which decided the game. Instantly he sprang up, flung the table at me and the lamp on the floor, struck the chimney-piece with his fist and jumped, for I cannot say he walked, about the room. The torrent of insults, imprecations, and incoherent ...

— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... with Arthur and Mordred looked about them, saw where the young chieftain stood with drawn sword, and knew that now nothing could avert the battle. ...

— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... he had a letter, and meant to ask him for it as soon as she should have finished her own. When she glanced at him again, he was staring at the smiling face of Miss Mayhew, as she read her letter, with the wild regard of one who sees another in mortal peril, and can do nothing to avert the coming doom, but must dumbly await ...

— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells

... opens the heart and then the spirit, and then the whole face and especially the eyes,—so that all these doors are opened to receive the poison which is ejaculated by the fascinator. Wherefore it is most proper, whenever we intend to praise a person, that we should warn him, and use some form to avert the ill effects of our words, as by saying, 'May it be of no injury to you!' There are, indeed, some, who, when they are praised, avert their faces, not to indicate that praise in itself is unpleasant, but to avoid fascination; ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... without any doubt, is the treatise on the 'City of God.' The Roman empire, as Augustine's life passed on, was hastening to its end. Moral and political declension had doubtless been arrested by the good influence which had been brought to bear upon it; but it was impossible to avert its fall. "Men's hearts," as well among the heathen as among the Christians, were "failing them for fear and for looking after those things that were coming on the earth." And Christianity was called to meet the argument drawn from the fact that the visible declension seemed to date from the ...

— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... that there could never be another love in the world for her—-she must send him away, she must end the affair at once. If she did that she could save him from learning of his father's disgrace, could avert the otherwise inevitable quarrel between them, could make his career and his future secure. And her uncles would be happy, the ...

— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... said old Saracinesea, stoutly. "I wanted Giovanni to marry her. It has pleased Providence to avert that awful catastrophe. I liked Madame Mayer because she was rich and noisy and good-looking, and I thought that, as Giovanni's wife, she would make the house gay. We are such a pair of solemn bears together, that it seemed appropriate ...

— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... influences of the time, as many lovely lips can clearly testify. Neither is there the slightest reason why Mrs Nickleby should have expressed surprise when, candles being at length brought in, Kate's bright eyes were unable to bear the light which obliged her to avert her face, and even to leave the room for some short time; because, when one has sat in the dark so long, candles ARE dazzling, and nothing can be more strictly natural than that such results should be produced, as all well-informed young people know. For that matter, old ...

— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... her friends, the whole world must join her: and join her I did. It was the very relief of which hypocrisy stood in need. I entreated this straight-backed youth, stiff in determination, to condescend to lend a pitying ear to our petitions; to suffer us to permeate his bowels of compassion, and avert this fatal and impending cloud, fraught with ...

— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... through the young man's mind. His first impulse had been to avert his eyes; in this familiar room it did not seem fitting to see her dressed so differently from the way he had always known her. Before, however, he had followed this sensation to an end, he made himself the spontaneous avowal that, until ...

— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... consequence; and in troubled thought he sauntered out to cross the farmyard on his way to Pont-y-fro. The moor beyond the Cribserth he avoided carefully, and when his work led him along the brow of the hill, he tried to avert his eyes as well as his thoughts from its undulating knolls, a background, against which memory would picture a winsome girl, red-cloaked ...

— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... tearing their flesh with their nails, and dashing themselves against hard stones and stumps of trees and prickly bushes until blood streamed from their cheeks and all parts of their bodies. Supposing that they were performing some rite in honour of the diabolical beings they worshipped, Drake, to avert the evil which might ensue should he calmly sanction such a proceeding, ordered his men to fall on their knees, he himself setting the example. There they offered up prayers to God, that He would in His own good pleasure open the eyes of the savages, ...

— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... to shamming an attempt upon his life so as to avert suspicion, down to shamming a wound ...

— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... John O'Bail, led the Indians, and an officer by the name of Johnston commanded the British in the expedition. The force was large, and so strongly bent upon revenge and vengeance, that seemingly nothing could avert its march, nor prevent its depredations. After leaving Genesee they marched directly to some of the head waters of the Susquehannah river, and Schoharie Creek, went down that creek to the Mohawk river, thence up that river ...

— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... she feels. It seems that the successor was jealous of his predecessor.... See, is this a proof this time?".... And, after having glanced at the first letters as a person familiar with them, she handed one of those papers to Maud, who had not the courage to avert her eyes. What she saw written upon that sheet drew from her a cry of anguish. She had, however, only read ten lines, which proved how much mistaken psychological Dorsenne was in thinking that Maitland was ignorant of the former ...

— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... suggest an illiterate writer; but educated writers, even the King,[12] then occasionally lapsed into using them. In the letter, however, they are consistently and may have been purposely used, to avert suspicion from being the work of an educated person; though an illiterate appearance would rather cause such a letter (if genuine) to be disregarded, than to deter a nobleman from attending the opening of Parliament, for which ...

— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker

... as these words were destined to be,—and they were no less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's prediction of the Sword and bloody Scourge,—it was now too late to avert the coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at Lyons. Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genevre and taken up his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to describe in detail the holiday march of the French ...

— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... business men would take—which even the unbusinesslike Nott would take—which the girl herself might be tempted to listen to. Clearly he could do nothing but abandon the Pontiac and her owner to the fate he could not in honor avert. And even that fate was problematical. It did not follow that the treasure was still concealed in the Pontiac, nor that Nott would be willing to sell her. He would make some excuse to Nott—he smiled to think he would probably be classed in the long line of absconding tenants—he would say ...

— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... conceal his designs, and thus throw his enemy off his guard. He advanced, therefore, toward the Rubicon with a small force. He established his headquarters at Ravenna, a city not far from the river, and employed himself in objects of local interest there in order to avert as much as possible the minds of the people from imagining that he was contemplating any great design. Pompey sent to him to demand the return of a certain legion which he had lent him from his own army at a time when they were friends. Csar complied with this ...

— The Junior Classics • Various

... was now fully clouded; but Edward felt too indignant at the unreasonable tone which he had adopted to avert the storm by the least concession. They both stood still while this short dialogue passed, and Fergus seemed half disposed to say something more violent, but, by a strong effort, suppressed his passion, and, turning his face forward, walked sullenly on. As they had always ...

— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... bounds, however, he must put forth his full might to avert the general catastrophe—and to punish Zuleika nearly well enough, after all, by intercepting that vast nosegay from her outstretched hands and her distended nostrils. There was no time to be lost, then. But he wondered, as he paced ...

— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... means, then, the unavoidable stoppage of at least half the factories and workshops. It means millions of workers and their families thrown on the streets. And our "practical men" would seek to avert this truly terrible situation by means of national relief works; that is to say, by means of new industries created on the spot to ...

— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... progress of the war—over the fitting out of Confederate cruisers at English ports to prey upon the commerce of the United States, over captured mails, etc.—in which all of Lincoln's sagacity and patience were needed to avert an open rupture with the British government. That the strain was severe and the danger great is made clear by an entry in Mr. Welles's Diary, in which he says: "We are in no condition for a foreign ...

— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... who would pass that cleft in the Areopagus where the "Avengers" had their grim sanctuary without a quick motion of the hands to avert the evil eye. Thieves and others of evil conscience would make a wide circuit rather than pass this abode of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, pitiless pursuers of the guilty. The terrible sisters hounded a man through life, and after death ...

— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... Cobden having spoken on the part of the confederation, the closing of the debate was felt to be inevitable. Even then, by inducing a Protectionist to solicit the Speaker's eye, Lord George attempted to avert the division; but no supporter of the government measure, of any colour, advancing to reply to this volunteer, Bentinck was obliged to rise. He came out like a lion forced from his lair. And so it happened, that after ...

— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... declension and grievous apostatizing from God and his covenant, all the three kingdoms and in special this nation, and every individual therein capable of such a work, are, without all controversy, called to bewail and confess before God, and by speedy amendment to turn from them, in order to avert judgments, and turn away justly impendent wrath ...

— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... though elected on the same narrow and corrupt basis as before, in the space of six years first admitted the principle of toleration for all creeds, and wrested from English hands commercial and legislative autonomy. It came too late to avert—if, indeed, it could ever have averted—the implication of Ireland in the American War, its predecessor of 1775 having, in defiance of Irish opinion, subscribed an Address to the Crown, expressing "abhorrence" of the American ...

— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... to "avert the evil, with which this "Country was threatned by a "deliberate plan of Tyranny, "should be crowned with the suc "cess that is wished—The praise "is due to the Grand Architect "of the Universe; who did not see "fit to suffer ...

— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse

... father, and at Gerald. And again Gerald shrank in spirit, as if it would be more than he could bear, as her hot, exposed eyes rested on him. There was something so revealed, she was revealed beyond bearing, to his eyes. He turned his face aside. And he felt he would not be able to avert her. And he ...

— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... of skirts, except Mrs Perch, who, being (but that she always is) in an interesting situation, is not nimble, and is obliged to face him, and is ready to sink with confusion as she curtesys;—may Heaven avert all evil consequences from the house of Perch! Mr Dombey walks up to the drawing-room, to bide his time. Gorgeous are Mr Dombey's new blue coat, fawn-coloured pantaloons, and lilac waistcoat; and a whisper goes about the house, that ...

— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... entrails of animals, and by the offering of sacrifices to propitiate the gods. In the later, the Christian times, a higher power was claimed; the clergy asserting that, by their intercessions, they could regulate the course of affairs, avert dangers, secure benefits, work miracles, and even change the order ...

— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... provision of giving away a "farm coupon" with every number may avert trouble for a time, but it will be only for a time. The reader will need a farm, on which to spread out and peruse his purchase; but the world is small, and land has not ...

— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... galleys which were Spanish, or western (ponenirinas, as they were called in the Levant), and of a stronger build than those which were constructed at Venice by the Orientals. He now saw that the victory was not to be so easy as he had anticipated, and that he must neglect no means that might avert defeat. A kind-hearted as well as a brave man, he had always been remarkable for the humanity with which he had cared for the unhappy Christian slaves who rowed his galley. He now walked forward to their benches and said to them in Spanish: "Friends, ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... thought, were themselves more truly insensible, not to see how much a noble nature and education avail to conquer any affliction; and though fortune may often be more successful, and may defeat the efforts of virtue to avert misfortunes, it cannot, when we incur them, ...

— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... medical ornaments, "anodyne necklaces." I find them advertised in the Boston Evening Post as late as 1771—"Anodine Necklaces for the Easy breeding of Childrens Teeth," worn as nowadays children wear strings of amber beads to avert croup. ...

— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... eyes. Not liking the looks of things, it shut them again. When it was too late, there were windy declarations and some feeble temporizing; but all thinking men felt that the crisis had come and nothing could avert it. The earthquake that had rumbled so long in premonitory throes suddenly yawned in an ugly chasm, that swallowed up the petty differences of each side. One throb and the little lines of party were roughly obliterated; while across the gulf that gaped between ...

— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... What are spells and charms? A. Spells and charms are certain words, by the saying of which superstitious persons believe they can avert evil, bring good fortune or produce some supernatural or wonderful effect. They may be also objects or articles worn about the ...

— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous

... woman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health, who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still confined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It may well be supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert the accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular course of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which the common observer ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... totally unable (in appearance at least) to turn herself on the wretched settle which served her for a couch, the humanity of Mr. Tyrie's successor sent two women to attend upon the last moments of the solitary, which could not, it was judged, be far distant, and to avert the possibility that she might perish for want of assistance or food, before she sunk under the effects of extreme age or ...

— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... revolting picture. The glimpses of Nature's revolutions which we have enjoyed are more agreeable. We are no advocates for any attempts of preserving the human body from decomposition; that which will restore the beloved forms of friends most readily to their primitive elements, and avert the possibility of anything so dear remaining to excite our aversion or disgust, or becoming a pestilential agent, we would cordially encourage. There can be no doubt that use would soon render cremation as little disagreeable to the feelings as consigning ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... compensation taken from him. To some was given the chance of making reparation. For him there was no chance. He could do nothing to mitigate the injury he had done. She whom he had wronged must suffer for him and he was powerless to avert that suffering. His helplessness overwhelmed him. O Hara San, little O Hara San, who had given unstintingly, with eager generous hands. His face was set as he turned from the window and, starting to pull off his torn shirt, called ...

— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... Hepworth Dixon's lithe and sinewy style and form their own style upon it, calls, by a yet bolder and more striking figure, "a great sexual insurrection of our Anglo-Teutonic race." For this end we have to avert our eyes from everything Hellenic and fanciful, and to keep them steadily fixed upon the two cardinal points of the Bible and liberty. And one of those practical operations in which the Liberal party engage, and in which we are summoned to join them, directs itself entirely, as we have seen, ...

— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... flames cast a dreadful glare around, destroyed several of the works in question, and set fire to parts of the tower above the gate, which, falling into the covered gallery in rear of the bastion, threatened to set that too in a blaze. The besieged were able to avert this last calamity by the steady use of water, though the enemy pressed them hard all the time with ...

— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... said the Palmer, "is prisoner, I should rather say slave, to the great Soldan, taken in a battle in which he did his duty, though unable to avert the defeat of the Christians, with which it was concluded. He was made prisoner while covering the retreat, but not until he had slain with his own hand, for his misfortune as it has proved, Hassan Ali, a favourite of the Soldan. ...

— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... that he will surely beat her, he cannot hold his water, that he cries out or walks in the night, will stab his bedfellow, tell all his secrets in his sleep, and that nobody dare lie with him, his house is haunted with spirits, with such fearful and tragical things, able to avert and terrify any man or woman living, Gordonius, cap. 20. part. 2. hunc in modo consulit; Paretur aliqua vetula turpissima aspectu, cum turpi et vili habitu: et portet subtus gremium pannum menstrualem, et dicat quod amica sua sit ...

— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... be ranged under three heads: (1) To eliminate the poison; (2) to antagonize its action; (3) to avert ...

— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... pad undoubtedly saved his life, but no amount of padding could avert entirely the fiendish malignity of those merciless ...

— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... six days. I am extremely impatient to be off. She will be a most charming boat—both comfortable and pretty. The boom for the big sail is new—and I exclaimed, 'why you have broken the new boom and mended it with leather!' Omar had put on a sham splice to avert the evil eye from such a fine new piece of wood! Of course I dare not have the blemish renewed or gare the first puff of wind—besides it is ...

— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... between Dissenters, without the one's totall quitting his errors, or the other's being necessitated to partake therein: and I truly believe this was the utmost both of his and his Archbishop's inclinations; and if I may not, yet both these Martyrs confessions on the scaffold (God avert the prophecy of the last, Venient Romani) surely may convince the world, that they both dyed true Assertors of the Reformation. And the great and learned light of this last age, Grotius, soon discern'd this inclination in him: for in his dedication of his immortal and scarce ever to be ...

— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... whom I found at dinner at the Athenaeum yesterday, told me he was convinced that a revolution in this country was inevitable; and such is the opinion of others who support this Bill, not because they think concession will avert it, but will let it come more gradually and with less violence. I have always been convinced that the country was in no danger of revolution, and still believe that if one does come it will be from the ...

— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... that could not well be contradicted, as he had several spear wounds about him in different parts of his body; but every thing else was looked upon as a fabrication (and that not well contrived) to avert the lash which he knew hung over him. He was well known to have as small a share of veracity as of honesty. His wounds however requiring care and rest, he was secured, and placed under the surgeon's ...

— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins