"Destiny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there is an essential connection between Mr. Lincoln's character and his violent and bloody death. It is no accident, no arbitrary decree of Providence. He lived as he did, and he died as he did, because he was what he was. The more we see of events the less we come to believe in any fate, or destiny, except the destiny of character. It will be our duty, then, to see what there was in the character of our great President that created the history of his life, and at last produced the catastrophe of his cruel death. After the first trembling horror, the first outburst of indignant sorrow, has ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... world. Here, you can cross the road, without putting limb or life in peril. Here, when you are idle, you can saunter and look about, safe from collision with merciless straight-walkers whose time is money, and whose destiny is business. Here, you may meet undisturbed cats on the pavement, in the full glare of noontide, and may watch, through the railings of the squares, children at play on grass that almost glows with the lustre of the Sussex Downs. This haven of rest is alike out of the way of fashion ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... yielded to her destiny, and since that time has been as happy a specimen of the married life as is often to be met with. Ben-na-Groich, on finding out the hoax, was too much afraid of the ridicule of his friends to make it public; and to this ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of the Church was substituted culture in the classical humanities; a new ideal was established, whereby man strove to make himself the monarch of the globe on which it is his privilege as well as destiny to live. The Renaissance was the liberation of humanity from a dungeon, the double discovery of the outer and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to the world that the object of free Russia is not to dominate other nations and forcibly to take away their territory. The object of independent Russia is a permanent peace and the right of all nations to determine their own destiny." ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... no longer young, that was true; but with an ache of old regret he felt that he had not yet lived his life, that his was a baffled destiny, an arrested fate. A lady came up and took his turn with the librarian, and Colville did not stay for another. He went out and walked down the Lung' Arno toward the Cascine. The sun danced on the river, and bathed the long line of pale buff and grey houses that followed its curve, ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Okba!" Khawla cried.... "Okba, wert thou weak of heart? Okba, wert thou blind of eye? Thy fate and ours were on the lot ... Thou hast let slip the reins of Destiny. Curse ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the Great Lakes in a continual turmoil. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War and the intervention of England as an ally of Prussia put an end to the necessity for such pretexts, and a regular military campaign opened upon which was staked the destiny of North America. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... liberate him, had not Servazio roughly insisted on the culprit's punishment. Uncertain, what to do, the Emperor receives a long procession of ladies with Tilda at its head, who all beseech pardon for Frauenlob. At last the Emperor calls for Hildegund, leaving in her hands the destiny of the prisoner. Left alone with him the latter, prepared to die, only craves her pardon. After a hard struggle with her conscience, love conquers and she grants him pardon. When the Emperor reenters with his suite, to hear the sentence, they find ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... old her mother felt that it was time she should know of the high destiny to which she might be called, for there now stood no one between her and the throne, William IV's children having died in infancy. Accordingly, the governess placed in a book which the princess was reading, a genealogical table, so that the princess might come upon it as if by accident. Victoria ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... die young and throbbing with life! 'Tis a destiny enviable indeed! For is not this, as a delightful poet has said, "to take away with one all one's illusions, to be buried like an Eastern king, with all one's jewels and treasures, with all that makes the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... every man must accomplish his destiny: what befalls my body or soul was written in a gabicote (book) a thousand years before the foundation of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Maid stood still And guarded watched, and her proud eyes' Scrutiny bade his own advise Whether indeed their solemn stare Saw Destiny and read it there Beyond her suitor, or within Her own heart heard the message ring. Awhile she gazed: her stern aspect, Young and yet fraught with Godhead, checkt Both Him who claimed, and her who'd cling, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough. Its destiny was linked, for the future, with that of the human soul, of which it was one of the special, the most distinctive ornaments. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... jostling and jostled, fatuously pompous, swelled with foolish, good-natured contempt; harbouring never a suspicion of the deep and calculating scorn wherewith the workers regard them, of the constantly growing hatred to which they give rise, or of the destiny that awaits them. For their pleasant slumbers they select the snuggest corners of the hive; then, rising carelessly, they flock to the open cells where the honey smells sweetest, and soil with their excrements the combs they frequent. The patient ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... that long march north, and I never dreamed at that time that I would remain right in this territory, until a splendid railroad would be built to us from another direction to take us out of it. Nearly everything is packed. We expect to return here in the spring, but in the Army one never knows what destiny may have waiting for them at the War Department. Besides, I would not be satisfied to go so far away and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... it, and locked it up in a box in her own room. To make up for it she allowed him to write a novel on condition of its being kept secret. From that time she began to reckon only upon herself. Unhappily there was a good deal of shallowness and lack of judgment in her attitude. Destiny had kept her too long an old maid. Now one idea after another fluttered through her ambitious and rather over-excited brain. She cherished designs, she positively desired to rule the province, dreamed ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... races of mankind, ruled aforetime an iron Destiny with silent power. A dark and heavy band was around man's anxious soul; without end was the earth; the home of the gods and their abode. Throughout eternities had her mysterious structure stood. Beyond the red mountains of the morning, in the holy bosom of the sea, there dwelt the ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... follow occupation it is a different matter— the interference is temporary, and Australians, Canadians and Americans soon come forth and govern themselves, the native-born soon grow patriotic, and work out their own destiny. In such cases England's share is her glory, a glory of which no other nation partakes, for she alone is the grand old mother of nations, God bless her! It is different with India. No one pretends that Our race can ever obtain a foothold there. Conquerors the English are, and conquerors they ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... ought my weary pen to fall flat and refuse its office; for it is here that the fate of every heroine culminates. For what are women born but to be married? Old maids are excrescences in the social system,—disagreeable utilities,—persons who have failed to fulfil their destiny,—and of whom it should have been said, rather than of ghosts, that they are always in the wrong. But life, with pertinacious facts, is too apt to transcend custom and the usage of novel-writers; and though the one brings a woman's legal existence to an end ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... was engaged to be married, and had a passionate love of the country. His keen, clear, rapid intelligence would probably have served him well in commercial affairs when once he had learnt to understand them. He was reserved for a very different destiny, and he gratefully declined Mr. Darbishire's offer. Nevertheless, his stay at Manchester as private tutor had some share in his mental development. He made acquaintance with interesting persons, such as Harriet Martineau, Geraldine Jewsbury, Mrs. Gaskell, and William ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... beautiful, even to perfection. What character, what firmness, what power to love could be read in those features! What hate, what revulsion, what undying energy for the true and the right were there! A fair, young creation,—so fair and so young, it seemed impossible that her destiny should be an unhappy one: yet her destiny was unhappy. The shadow on the brow, the melancholy which softened the clear hazel eye, the slightest possible compression of the mouth, said,—"Destined to misfortune!" Were these actual portraits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... Mingham! What a destiny! Certainly Blent was in the same valley, but—— Well, a "seat" is one thing, and a farm's another; the world is to blame again, no doubt. And with men who want nothing, for whom the word "opening" has ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... of anxiety and despondency, and from first to last, throughout the literary and spiritual history of the poet, he did more than any other friend to keep alive in his heart the steadfast flame of faith in his poetic destiny; Judge Bryan's name must always be inseparably connected with Henry Timrod's in the literary annals ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... of shedding blood. It is very probable that he would have ceased visiting Macquart, whose jealous fury made him so uncomfortable, if he had not tasted the pleasure of being able to speak freely of his dear Republic there. In the end, however, his uncle exercised decisive influence over his destiny; he irritated his nerves by his everlasting diatribes, and succeeded in making him eager for an armed struggle, the conquest of universal happiness ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... (2) He reveals himself alone to those who seek a revelation. (3) His revelations come along the path of duty and are confined to no place or land. (4) For those who will be led by him God has in store a noble destiny. (5) Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. (6) Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Thus this marvelous story presents certain of the noblest fruits of Israel's spiritual experiences. ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... of mercy and cruelty, rendered insensible to the terrors of their fate by previous intoxication. Five of these poor creatures were hung, and placed in the grave of the Prince, while the sixth, a young and favourite wife, was reserved for a destiny still more horrible; being thrown alive into the grave, which was immediately ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... the love to his neighbor incumbent on him, is called upon, both by reason and by his nature, to serve other people and the common good of humanity. I comprehended that the natural law of man is that according to which only he can fulfil destiny, and therefore be happy. I understood that this law has been and is broken hereby,— that people get rid of labor by force (like the robber bees), make use of the toil of others, directing this toil, not to the common weal, but to the private satisfaction ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... his mind as she shrank and sighed because he had tossed a priest from his way with as slight regard as he would the poorest peon. She did not even know how surely the destiny of her mother and her own destiny had been formed by a priest's craft. She would never know, because her mind would refuse to accept it. There were thousands like her because of their shadowed inheritance. Revolution for the ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the best news I have heard for a long time. I always knew you would bring it off soon; but I wasn't prepared for anything quite so sudden. There is, of course, only one thing to do when a man fulfils his destiny in this way. The custom is immemorial, and, war or no war, we must crack a bottle. Tell me where you would like to dine, and when, and I'll fix it up, and some jolly show afterwards. Occasions like This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... which for the moment seemed to promise that the storm after all might pass away. The conclave had elected as a successor to Clement a man who, of all the Italian ecclesiastics, was the most likely to recompose the quarrels in the church; and who, if the genius or the destiny of the papacy had not been too strong for any individual will, would perhaps have succeeded in restoring peace to Christendom. In the debates upon the divorce the Cardinal Farnese had been steadily upon Henry's side. He had maintained from the first the general justice of the ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... make me happier than anything else to die in the service of mademoiselle, but we are all subject to our destiny"—the conversation was in French—"and mine compels me to cease my services as a femme ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... wayward and willful, and at length rashly dashed the cup of happiness of which she had drank so freely in her sunny youth from her lip, by disobeying her too fond and doating parents, in committing her life's destiny to the keeping of one who they, with the anxious foresight of love, too well knew would not hold the precious trust as sacred. Brave and handsome and gifted he might be, but the seeds of selfishness had been too surely sown within his heart; and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb Pantagruelion. But for thee, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... big, pithy principle of equal rights. The Law must come. If he could assist in bringing it he would be accomplishing something real and tangible and he would be satisfied. He did not believe that Destiny had anything to do with his appearance upon the scene at this particular time; rather he felt that his coming was merely a result of a combination of circumstances such as might have occurred to any man. And like any man with courage and deeply settled ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Hexham Square, though it is one of the oldest. Not that it is very remote from the throng of existence, but it is isolated in a dingy district of silent and decaying streets. Once it was a favored residence of opulence and power, and its architecture still indicates its former and prouder destiny. But its noble mansions are now divided and broken up into separate dwellings, or have been converted into chambers and offices. Lawyers, and architects, and agents, dwell in apartments where the richly-sculptured chimney-pieces, the ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... chance, the destiny of a lifetime approaches through the conventional door of everyday life—steals up, lays the hand that none can resist on the handle of some door which opens of itself into a new, a wider world. Before ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... nothing to do with converting heathens or others to Christianity. It has to do with that awful government of the world, of which the Bible preaches from beginning to end; that moral and providential kingdom of God, which rules over the destiny of every kingdom, every nation, every tribe, every family, nay, over the destiny of each human being; ay, of each horde of Tartars on the furthest Siberian steppe, and each group of savages in the furthest island ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Robin Hood, thou, Thou art both mother and may',[22] I think it was never man's destiny To ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... you have done Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful; who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now: get you gone, And at the pit of Acheron Meet me i' the morning: thither he Will come to know his destiny. Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms, and everything beside. I am for the air; this night I'll spend Unto a dismal and a fatal end. Great business must be wrought ere noon: Upon the corner of the moon There hangs a vaporous drop profound; I'll catch it ere ...
— Macbeth • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... this death, this destiny, she stretched her arms with one of the old lovely gestures toward a bust which stood near by and cried—her ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... soon after, became the husband of Mary Chaworth. It is not for us to speculate wherefore Destiny entangled the threads in that web of existence which originally seemed to have woven the fates of Byron and Mary Chaworth together. We are ignorant of spiritual laws, and know little of the origin whence come those strange attractions, mind to mind, heart to heart, which make or mar the life-experiences ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... are wont to believe when the unexpected happens—and remained for some time in his camp. But when a long silence followed the absence of the foe, the spirit of the mighty king was aroused to the thought of victory and the anticipation of pleasure, and his mind turned to the old oracles of his destiny. ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... my destiny That it denied me a man-child to be 30 Heir of my name and of my prosperous fortune, And re-illume my soon extinguished being In a proud line of princes. I wronged my destiny. Here upon this head ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... at the unheard-of adventures that occurred to me in my last voyage, and I think I can boldly assert that no man, either before or since, has explored so much, or has been in the peculiarly dangerous situations in which I have been placed by destiny. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... That sway'st the world; thou whose eternal bands Sustain the order of material things, Come, gentle Concord! (11) these our times do now For good or evil destiny control The coming centuries! Ah, cruel fate! Now have the people lost their cloak for crime: Their hope of pardon. They have known their kin. Woe for the respite given by the gods Making more black the hideous guilt ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... commonplace discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions departed from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or had my destiny led me to the place at which the troubles of my mortal pilgrimage were to find ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... the climax of my destiny," answered the Spaniard. "I have longed to discover you, and now that my wishes are fulfilled, death claims me as his own. Such has been my fate through life. I cannot even leave you the wealth I have amassed, for of that also I ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the friend of peace because it had withheld the blow. When the striking time came, it struck hard and forced the battle on enemy soil, which proved, to its logic, that it was only receiving payment of a debt owed it by destiny. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... have now begun? Say, do you hope To check the ripening change of Christendom, The universal spring, that shall renew The earth's fair form? Would you alone, in Europe, Fling yourself down before the rapid wheel Of destiny, which rolls its ceaseless course, And seize its spokes with human arm. Vain thought! Already thousands have your kingdom fled In joyful poverty: the honest burgher For his faith exiled, was your noblest subject! See! with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... right when he said Conway would give me no rest until I fought him. I felt it was ordained ages before our birth that we should meet on this planet and fight. With the view of not running counter to destiny, I quietly prepared myself for the impending conflict. The scene of my dramatic triumphs was turned into a gymnasium for this purpose, though I did not openly avow the fact to the boys. By persistently standing on my head, raising heavy weights, and going hand over hand ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Hayes to Fort Dodge. Ninety-five miles of country lay between, and every mile of it was dangerous ground. Fort Dodge was surrounded by Indians, and three scouts had lately been killed while trying to get dispatches through, but Will's confidence in himself or his destiny was unshakable, and he volunteered to take the dispatches, as far, at least, as the Indians ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... for creation is strikingly proved by the prolific output of the Arts. Year after year, as we whirl through space on our mysterious destiny, undeterred by apparent futility, the primal instinct for the visualization of dreams steadily persists. Good or bad, useful or useless, it must be satisfied. It amounts to a law, like the attraction of the sexes. Discouraged in some directions, it will out ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... No compulsion is intended. We will lay before woman the great responsibility that rests upon her, her sacred duty as a wife and mother, we will open up to her a career of the highest usefulness in the world, in which she may more perfectly than ever before fulfill the destiny for which she is created, and then she may individually accept the ballot or not, according to the dictates of her own conscience. All men can do is to take down the barriers and say to her: "Vote, if you please." It is to give more ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... felt that the debt he owed it for getting him his seat was a doubtful one. His administration was noteworthy principally because he destroyed the last vestiges of carpet-bag government in the South, and left the southern states to work out their own destiny unhampered. He was not even considered for a renomination, and spent the remainder of his life ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... brethren, and it is only God's favor that has preserved us sound rather than them; and who knows what we ourselves may become? His dialogue Against Fate was a disputation with a heathen philosopher, who maintained a destiny or overruling fate in all things. His canonical epistle to Letoius, bishop of Melitine, metropolis of Armenia, has a place among the canons of penance in the Greek church, published by Beveridge. He condemns apostacy to perpetual penance, deprived of the sacraments till ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... father was preparing to leave them, were crying and clinging round his knees. His heart was too deeply affected to eat; the meal passed over in silence, and he rose to go. I put on my hat and shawl to accompany him through the wood as far as my sister Mrs. T—-'s. The day was like our destiny, cold, dark, and lowering. I gave the dear invalid his crutches, and we commenced our sorrowful walk. Then old Jenny's lamentations burst forth, as, flinging her arms round my husband's neck, she kissed and blessed him after the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... new parents that weare so good & so favourable to me. The 3d reason was to watch a better opportunity for to retyre to the french rather then make that long circuit which after I was forced to doe for to retyre to my country more then 2,000 leagues; and being that it was my destiny to discover many wild nations, I would not to strive against destinie. I remitted myselfe to fortune and adventure of time, as a thing ordained by God for his greatest glorie, as I hope it will prove. Our treatis ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... was little doubt what the sequence would be. A long sentence and his wife branded with the stain of his guilt. Better if he were dead—better if he were killed, rather than that destiny should overtake her. ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... a bearing upon Sylvia's destiny occurred at about this time. I am not sure which came first: the invitation to a celebration out at the Quemado settlement, or the arrival on the border of Runyon, ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... deuis'd her owne despaire in thee, Thine eye not to be match'd, but by the other, Doth beare the influence of my destiny. And where they stray, my soule must wander thither Beauty of beauty, mother of Loues mother. All parts he praises, coming to her lip, Currall beneath the waues, vermilion dye, And being so neere, he wold ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... away from him. Blows and a curse would have overawed her, at all events for the moment; she would have felt: 'Yes, he is a man, and I have put my destiny into his hands.' His tears moved her to a feeling cruelly exultant; they were the sign of her superiority. It was she who should have wept, and never in her life had she been further from such display ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... "For you it is the will of heaven and destiny that ye shall return here with the fleece; but meanwhile both going and returning, countless trials await you. But it is my lot, by the hateful decree of a god, to die somewhere afar off on the mainland of Asia. Thus, though I learnt my fate from evil omens ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... me," he lifted his hand as the Secretary endeavoured to break in. "I thoroughly realize the responsibility of my position and that my great wealth is a sacred trust. Upon the answer to the question you have just put to me depends the destiny of the world, whether it is answered by myself at this time or by others in the future. Exactly what I will do when the time comes I cannot say, but I will tell you this much, that in reaching a decision I will call to my assistance men like yourself and abide by whatever ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... the mighty river gleamed, unheeding the tragedy that had been enacted on its shores, unmindful of the threads of destiny even now being spun by the swift ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... revealed will. It was this that enabled him to take the wings of the morning, and fly not only to the uttermost parts of the visible but of the invisible world; to enjoy scenes of light and glory, such as Gabriel contemplated when he came from heaven to Nazareth, and revealed to Mary her high destiny—that her Son should be the promised Saviour, who should bear the government of the universe upon his shoulders—whose name was Wonderful—Counsellor—the Mighty God—the everlasting Father—the Prince of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The principal god at Memphis is Ptah, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by the Greeks, Hephaestus. At Thebes, Ammon was revered as the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the sun. Thoth is the chief ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... never cast a line in it again—two idle lads, in short (as we need not fear to acknowledge now), doing a hundred things the Faculty never heard of, or else it had been worse for us—still it was your prognostic of your friend's destiny that he was to be a writer of fiction." That is a very pretty picture, but it is a picture of happy urchins at school, rather than of undergraduates "panting," as Macaulay says, "for one and twenty." Poor Hawthorne was indeed thousands of miles away from Oxford and Cambridge; that touch about the ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... just as the race-horse or the fantail pigeon has been evolved. Both these explanations, you will observe, involve consciousness, will, design, purpose, either on the part of the animal itself or on the part of a superior intelligence controlling its destiny. Darwin pointed out—and this and no more was Darwin's famous discovery—that a third explanation, involving neither will nor purpose nor design either in the animal or anyone else, was on the cards. If your neck ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... this, in either capacity, it was impossible, without degradation, to submit. I had no inclination to place myself at the mercy of men who had taken advantage of a spurious decree to dismiss me—now that—in spite of their opposition—the destiny of the Empire had been irrevocably decided by my having counteracted their anti-national views whilst carrying out the intentions of His ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... ribs my high and hollow cave. The vortex of the World spins raptureless, And languorously crawls the oily wave. From sun-shot peaks of dawn no more I leap Like a launching condor past control,— O speak, Son of the West! if this be Sleep— Or Death that is our destiny and goal? Thick torpor clouds the climes; eternal snow Falling, falling, falling, throngs my realm. Shall nevermore my breath o'er Ocean blow? Nor wrestle with his seas that roar and whelm? No balsam to the woods can I restore, Nor render pure my breath for man to drain; I faint within ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... the coming struggle as the dominant figure of Mexico? Who but that military genius who checks the Yankee hordes and saves the fatherland? I am he. Fate points the path of glory and I am her man of destiny. You see, then, what I bring you—power, position, riches. Riches? Caramba! Wait until my hands are in the treasury. I will load you with gold and jewels, and I will make you the richest woman in the world. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... pretence of having suffered," she answered. "I have no patience with people who do. We have our destiny in our own hands to make or mar, most of us. If we fail in one thing we shall succeed in another. Life is a fertile garden, full of plants that bud and blossom and bear fruit not once but every season while it lasts. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... and though the name of Constance had never passed their lips, and they knew nothing of her destiny; yet as year after year passed, her image, now a sad, tearful image, grew more and more distinct before their eyes. In their dreams they often saw her in suffering and nigh unto death, and when they would stretch forth their hands to save her, she would be snatched out of their sight. ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... with these Indians up to a recent period too numerous and complicated in their detail for me to unravel and record, but they have been the dying struggles of a singular race of brave men fighting against destiny, each less and less violent, till now the wild game is gone, the whites too numerous and powerful; so that the Indian question has become one of sentiment and charity, but ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... me when I am starving in the streets, or dying in the workhouse?" The fervid spirit in her that had never known a mother's loving discipline, never thrilled to the sympathy of a sister-friend, rose in revolt against the evil destiny which had imbittered her life. Her eyes still rested on the photograph. "Come to my heart, my only friend, and kill me!" As those wild words escaped her, she thrust the card furiously into the bosom of her dress—and ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... is possible that this deep-seated inclination might have been thwarted; that my destiny might have taken another shape. But my father died while I was quite young, and my mother survived him but a few years. She lived long enough, however, to convince me that there is nothing more pure, disinterested, and enduring than a mother's love, and that ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... sharp account when all was over. Again the rations were reduced. Four weeks' allowance was stretched to serve for six, and still the Spaniards did not come. So England's forlorn hope was treated at the crisis of her destiny. The preparations on land were scarcely better. The militia had been called out. A hundred thousand men had given their names, and the stations had been arranged where they were to assemble if the enemy attempted ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the borders of rice fields and cotton plantations, where their fathers and mothers have toiled in slavery, and by an inspiration that is divine, will dissipate the dark memories of the past, and will show, by precept and example, that sanctification of spirit and purity of life will shape the destiny of their race for coming time. Again we thank ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... branches of our social life await the work of women, civic philanthropy to begin with; and as our public life becomes more and more constitutional, it demands from the individual both a ripe insight into the good of the community and a living sense of duty in regard to its destiny; and, on the other hand, the foundations of this insight and sense of duty must be in our times more and more laid by the mother, since the father is often entirely prevented by his work from sharing ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... on the last day of every month the mortal, to whom belongs the destiny of the Wehr-Wolf, must exchange his natural form for that of the savage animal; in which horrible shape he must remain until the moment when the morrow's sun dawns upon ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and to rise in the midst of the friends we have lost. 'We sorrow not, then, as others who have no hope'; but look forward to the day which 'joins us to the great majority.' But whatever is to be our destiny, wisdom, as well as duty, dictates that we should acquiesce in the will of Him whose it is to give and take away, and be contented in the enjoyment of those who are still permitted to be with us. Of those connected by blood, the number does not depend on us. But friends we have, if we ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not insisted on sitting still that afternoon nothing might have happened. If he had gone out, or if he had shut himself up with his statue, beyond the reach of visitors, his destiny might have been changed, and one of the most important events of his life might never have come ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... better calculated to carry on a religious war. He paid more attention to the results of his enterprises; more master of himself, he was more fit to command others. When mounting the throne of the Atabegs, Saladin obeyed rather his destiny than his inclinations; but, when once firmly seated, he was governed by only two passions,—that of reigning and that of securing the triumph of the Koran. On all other subjects he was moderate, and when a kingdom or ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... and Phillis, nor leads beneath shady arcades to a vine-clad cottage, wherein is love and rich cream and homemade butter. The three sisters, the dread Moirae, in their darksome cavern, spinning the golden thread of destiny, reel from their distaff no bright soft film of wedded happiness. The polished metal, many times refined, would never show half its qualities were it not subject to unwonted tests. We suffer according ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... whence came division? 'Sing, heavenly Muses,' as Homer says;—let them condescend to answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in jest. 'And what will they say?' They will say that human things are fated to decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny, when 'the wheel comes full circle' in a period short or long. Plants or animals have times of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by sense will not enable them to ascertain, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... stealing when he actually had no necessity for it, being at times when he stole well supplied with money, the stealing of objects for which he had no use and which he could not convert into money, as stated in the Reform School Records, the patient's belief in his destiny as a thief and the methods he employed in atoning for his conduct, such as giving one-fourth to charity, and lastly the peculiar physical and mental sensations which accompanied the act of stealing. The inquiry was conducted along these lines. ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... and compel England to make peace; that it will give the Emperor all the leisure he requires for organizing, in accordance with his lofty plans, the vast empire he has created; that it cannot fail to have an influence on the destiny of Poland, Turkey, and Sweden; and finally, that it cannot fail to give lasting glory to Your Excellency's ministry. The news of the conclusion of this marriage will be received with tumultuous joy throughout the Austrian dominions. France and the greater part of ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... her to be even impalpable; for the beautiful is a necessity of life. There is in the world no function more important than that of being charming.... To shed joy around, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, and the very spirit of grace and harmony, is not this to render ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... Haward mounted his horse and gathered up the reins. "I am not responsible for the laws of the realm," he said calmly, "nor for rebellions and insurrections, nor for the practice of transporting overseas those to whom have been given the ugly names of 'rebel' and 'traitor.' Destiny that set you there put me here. We are alike pawns; what the player means we have no way of telling. Curse Fate and the gods, if you choose,—and find that your cursing does small good,—but regard me with indifference, as one neither more nor less the slave of circumstances ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... started on his drive with his wife and sister that afternoon, was in one of those strenuous moods which seem to make one's whole being tick with the clock-work of destiny and cause everything else, all the environment, and the minor happenings of life, to appear utterly idle. Even when he talked, and apparently with earnestness, it was always with that realization of depths, which made his own voice ring empty and strange in ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... him, but having vowed not to exercise her magic spells against him she was powerless to detain him further. The goddess now warned him that his future would be beset with many dangers, and commanded him to consult the blind old seer Tiresias,[52] in the realm of Hades, concerning his future destiny. She then loaded his ship with provisions for the voyage, and reluctantly bade ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... so, you know. Every bright young imagination is apt to find greater glories in the misty past, or grander possibilities in a still more misty future than in the too practical and prosaic present in which both duty and destiny lie. And so Helena the princess, Leaning against the soft cushions of her gilded barge, had sighed for the days of the old-time British valor and freedom, and, even as she looked off toward the approaching triareme, she was wondering ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... thing made, and physical degradation in crowded towns for healthy and comfortable country life in the makers. The day would fail, if I should attempt to enumerate the evils which science has inflicted on mankind. I almost think it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... those happy moments at a cost of all the renown my sword may have won me, how gladly would I do so this moment. This constant suspense is worse than downright defeat or certain misfortune. Is there no power can give us an insight into the hidden destiny of ourselves? is there no means by which we can see the future? Not long could I sustain this ordeal of suspense. Ah, Isabella, what have I not suffered for thy love? what is there I would ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... which I tried to imitate but in an English and unsuccessful fashion. And when they were rudely run down by a passing gondola (which happened not unfrequently) she pretended to cry, and I did the same. Then, in pretty pantomime, she would point downwards to the sky to tell me that it was Destiny that had caused the shipwreck of our flowers, and I, in pantomime, not nearly so pretty, would try to convey to her that Destiny would be kinder next time, and that perhaps tomorrow our flowers would be more fortunate—and ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... strange that the grim hand of destiny should strike at so many in that little world at the same time, and that its blows should be of that intimate nature which allows of no speech, even ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... into Tenth Street. The faded soprano, who had in better days sung before a King, was wearying as she reeled out ragtime with a strong Neapolitan accent. Samson had been talking to the short-story writer about his ambitions and his hatreds. He feared he was drifting away from his destiny—and that he would in the end become too softened. The writer leaned across the table, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... their side with a goad, must needs fall to the rear to drive up a cow and calf. Inside the wagon Ross Gilhooley did naught but bow his head between his hands as if he could not face the coming day charged with he knew not what destiny for him. His wife was adjusting and readjusting the limited gear they had dared to bring off with them—their forlorn rags of clothing and bedding, all in shapeless bundles; sundry gourds full of soft soap, salt, tobacco, and a scanty store of provisions, ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... months. Another confirmation of the view that the Celts dated their year from the first of November is furnished by the manifold modes of divination which, as we shall see presently, were commonly resorted to by Celtic peoples on Hallowe'en for the purpose of ascertaining their destiny, especially their fortune in the coming year; for when could these devices for prying into the future be more reasonably put in practice than at the beginning of the year? As a season of omens and auguries Hallowe'en ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer |
