"Providential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thus be seen, that, although the act of Fred Ashman in passing down the Xingu seemed like a mistake, yet it was the most providential thing that could ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... fixing in her memory the exact position of the treasure. Thereupon she will go to the hive, disgorge her plunder into one of the provision-cells, and in three or four minutes return, and resume operations at the providential window. And thus, while the honey lasts, will she come and go, at intervals of every five minutes, till evening, if need be; without interruption or rest; pursuing her regular journeys from the hive to the window, from the window back to ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... genius was not, in the Creator's design, a motive to compel society to go down on its knees before the man of superior talents, but a providential means for the performance of all functions to ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... be considered a providential concurrence that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe was in London this same time with Miss Greenfield. We notice in her 'Sunny Memories,' under the date of May 6, the following remarks: 'A good many calls this morning. Among others came Miss Greenfield, the (so-called) ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... having been got up from the hold, were mounted on the quarter-deck of the ship, and the heavy stores and powder were landed, that her damages might be examined. It was, indeed, both wonderful and providential that she had escaped destruction; for not only had the sharp rock torn off the planking and worked its way into the timbers, but one point had cut a hole right through the bottom, and, breaking off, had happily remained fixed. ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... troubled him exceedingly. He had a great purpose in view,—a purpose which, accomplished, would enable him to realize the cherished object of his life,—would enable him to revel in the ease and affluence he so much coveted. Something must be done. Here was an opportunity afforded by the providential visit of Miss Dumont which might never occur again, and he resolved to improve it. Determined to detain her, he adopted the first expedient which ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... of noting what is often believed to be the "providential chain of causes" in everything that happens, recalls the fact that Benjamin Flower, editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, while in jail (1798) at the instigation of Bp. Watson for an article defending the French Revolution, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... through, but we certainly thought it rather hard work. It is a wonder that our little detachment stuck out four months' constant exposure with so little sickness, whilst our luck in sitting under that constant shelling without a man being hit was nothing short of providential. ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs. There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides or, perchance, in some providential nook to find ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... bad at all," he frankly admired his own handiwork at the finish. "You see, it was like this. I've been short on anything like this for a long time—good Rube stuff—and so when Conway came through in his match the other night it looked like a providential opportunity—and it certainly has panned up ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... providential thing, as you call it, to find such a mother in the bargain! Now I might have discovered a slattern, or a scold, or a woman of bad character; or one that never went to church; or even one that swore and drank; for, begging your pardon, Miss Lucy, just such creatur's are to be met with; ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown thin during his sickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were going to see Mrs. Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhaps providential that he had failed to find her at home in the morning, when he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in which he had been loafing about her drawing-room for the past week. He now owed it to her to appear before her as well as he could. How charmingly punctilious ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... in the regeneration of the race, in its ultimate perfectibility, the synthesis of humanity, the providential idea, and the path of the future; he therefore puts on a shovel hat, cries out against ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... AEschylus to teach us how the terrible vengeance of the Eumenides gradually gave place to a gentler and more humane law; just as the primitive despotism of Zeus was gradually transformed into a providential and moral ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... for the execution. Harrison was the person appointed to join in prayer with the unwary general. By agreement, he prolonged his doleful cant till intelligence arrived, that the fatal blow was struck. He then rose from his knees, and insisted with Fairfax, that this event was a miraculous and providential answer which Heaven had sent to their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... hours so filled with grand and beautiful views. I should perhaps qualify this statement by deducting the hours of darkness; yet this is really a fortunate enhancement of the traveler's enjoyment; it seems providential that there is one part of the way just long enough and uninteresting enough to permit one to go to sleep without the fear of missing anything sublime. Leaving Salt Lake City at noon, we sped through ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... was in incumbent on Mr Slope first to secure the bishop. He specially felt that it behoved him to do this before the visit to the archbishop was made. It was really quite providential that the dean should have fallen ill just at the very nick of time. If Dr Proudie could be instigated to take the matter up warmly, he might manage a good deal while staying at the archbishop's palace. Feeling this very strongly Mr Slope determined to sound the bishop ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... that to touch the sovereign is not to touch the Pontiff. Certainly his temporal power is not a divine institution; who does not know this? But it is a providential institution, and who is ignorant of the fact? Doubtless, during three centuries, the Popes only possessed independence enough to die martyrs; but they assuredly had a right to another sort of independence; and providence, which does not always ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... spoiled. I tried to laugh it off and say how Providential it was they had come to our rescue; but though I kept telling myself every minute that there was no need for me to mind Beechy, I dreaded meeting her alone. However, the evil moment wouldn't be put off forever, and she came along the balcony from her window to mine when ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of great ability and determination, well acquainted with the tendencies of the age, and not particularly scrupulous about the means by which the success of his policy might be assured. To such a man Luther's attack on the bishops of Germany seemed to be almost providential. He realised that by embracing the new religious system, which enabled him to seize the wealth of the Church and to concentrate in his own hands full ecclesiastical power, he could rid himself of one of the greatest obstacles to absolutism, and secure for himself and his successors ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... in October, 1835, when Salome Carabet and Hanne Wortabet were placed by their parents in our family school. We afterwards added to the number Melita Carabet, and the two orphan girls Sada and Rufka Gregory. These two were brought to us in a very providential way. They were the children of Yakob Gregory, a respectable Armenian well ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... repulsive. The worship of force, which is so apparent in many of his writings, is a striking example. He was often accused of teaching that might is right. He always answered that he had not done so—that what he taught was that right is might; that by the providential constitution of the Universe truth in the long run is sure to be stronger than falsehood; that good will prevail over evil, and that right and might, though they differ widely in short periods of time, would in long spaces prove to be identical. Nothing, he was accustomed to say, seemed weaker than ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... MINNIE. There wasn't anything providential about it. I took the six o'clock train to Newcastle this morning. Not that I had any notion of staying there. I ran into Prag at the station. I nursed his wife, you know—and he started in to tell me how he was coming up to Foxon Falls to shoot Mr. Pindar because he'd closed down ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... If the lessons were severe, they were in every case of the native's own seeking, and were administered in fair and open combat, in which few of the white party were without having narrow escapes to record; but a providential good fortune seemed to attend them, for every member got through the journey without accident. An account has been furnished to the newspapers in the form of a journal by Mr. Richardson, the Surveyor appointed to accompany the expedition, ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... the story of my happy Brooklyn pastorate; for that is succinctly given in the closing chapter of this volume. Our home-life here for the past forty-two years has been a record of perpetual providential mercies and unfailing kindness on the part of my parishioners and fellow townsmen. Brooklyn, although removed from New York (for I cannot yet twist my tongue into calling it "Manhattan") by a five minutes' journey on the East River Bridge, is a very different ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... and eternal life, as a natural evolution of history from within, and it will spread to the minds of all men; and the misinterpretation of that doctrine so long prevalent, as a preternatural irruption of power from without, will be set aside forever. For there is a providential plan of God, not injected by arbitrary miracle, but inhering in the order of the world, centred in the propulsive heart of humanity, which beats throb by throb along the web of events, removing obstacles and clearing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... steady boarder, and installed himself in the only vacant room in the Murphy house, having read the black and white card in the parlor window, which proclaimed "Furnished Rooms and Table Board," and regarding it as a providential opportunity for him to see Maggie Murphy ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... fell to her when Schiller, stirred up by her visit, came the year after, with his Wife, to Swabia; and lived there from August 1793 till May 1794. It was a singular and as if providential circumstance, which did not escape the pious Mother, that Schiller, in the same month in which he had, eleven years ago, hurried and in danger, fled out of Stuttgart to Ludwigsburg, should now in peace and without obstruction come, from ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... through this season, and indeed, the financial stringency will rather help than hinder our operations. Really it is most fortunate. Indeed," he added, with a slight laugh, "as my sister-in-law would say, quite providential!" ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... with fear and trembling—fear not of my adversary, but of myself.' Just twenty years later he records with evident satisfaction that he has entirely lost his taste for controversy and his readiness in disputing, and this he takes to be a providential discharge from it. 'I am sick,' he writes on another occasion, 'of opinions; I am weary to bear them: my soul loathes this frothy food. Give me solid, substantial religion. Give me an humble, gentle lover of God and man. Whosoever thus doeth the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... bullet-holes. When retreat became inevitable, the Communists tried to set the building on fire, but did not succeed. Then, in their desperation, arrangements were made for blowing it up; but the most violent man among them was killed by a providential bullet, as he was on the point of doing his work. The remainder fled, the place was speedily occupied by the national troops, and the observatory with its precious ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... among broken gimlets, the head of a grape, and other things no beggar would have stolen, I found a tin canister containing fifty pounds. Waster Lunny says that this should have made a religious man of Green Brae, and it did to this extent, that he called the fall of the cotter's house providential. Otherwise the cotter, at whose expense it may be said the money was found, remains the more religious man ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... views; but woe to the people who confide on great emergencies in any but the honest, the noble, the wise, and the philanthropic; for there is no security for success when the meanly artful control the occasional and providential events which regenerate a nation. More than half the misery which has defeated as well as disgraced civilization, proceeds from neglecting to use those great men that are always ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... vastly different from that in which she had started forth. Her buoyant spirits soared upwards at the prospect of a Christmas spent in the midst of a happy family party, and all the difficulties of life seemed to dissolve into thin air, since, after the providential meeting just vouchsafed, it seemed faithless to doubt that future difficulties would be solved in the ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... arrogance. The General's confidence in himself and his men is superb. Not Hildebrand in the height of his power, or Mahommed, at the moment when he was launching the armies which offered to the world Islam or the sword, showed himself more supremely possessed with the confidence of his providential mission than does General Booth in his book. "For this end was I created, to this work was I called, all my life has been a preparation to fit me for its accomplishment." While thus speaking with the confidence of a man who feels himself charged with a divine ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... farther he goes, and the more his past gathers behind him, the better is he able to imagine what must be before him. His chart is every day getting more full of amazing indications. He is beginning to feel about him the increasing press of some Providential design that has been permeating and moulding age after age, and to discover that be has been all along unconsciously prosecuting a secret mission. And so it comes at last that everything new takes that look; every evolution of mind, every addition ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... furnished to the apologists of war, in particular, new arguments, weighted with all the authority which in these days attaches to scientific deliverances. If people no longer say, as Bonald did, and Moltke after him, that war is a providential fact, they yet lay stress on the point that it is a natural fact. To the peace party Dragomirov's objection is urged that its attempts are contrary to the fundamental laws of nature, and that no sea wall can hold against breakers that come with ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... stranger had disarmed his antagonist, pulled him from his horse, and committed him to custody. "My Lord," said Barton to him, "this is a most providential adventure. We have again rendered a signal good service to one of those pretty maidens whom you assisted at Halifax." "To which of them?" eagerly inquired the young nobleman. "Mistress Constantia Beaumont," returned Barton. "But where is Isabel?" ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... lucidity of her statements. Little by little, however, Maryllia extracted a sufficient number of facts from her hesitating and reluctant evidence to gain considerable information on many points respecting the management of her estate, and she began to feel that her return home was providential and had been in a manner pre-ordained. She learned all that Mrs. Spruce could tell her respecting the famous 'Five Sisters'; how they were the grandest and most venerable trees in all the country round—and how they stood all together on ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... was coming in through a French window out of strong sunlight, was so confounded by the providential nature of this miracle, that he had time to hear Fleur say calmly: "Oh, how do you do?" as if he had never seen her, and to understand dimly from the quickest imaginable little movement of her head that he never ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... distress met with an unexpected and providential relief. For about the 24th June, a prodigious number of large sea fish, called turlehydes, were brought into the bay of Dublin, and cast on shore at the mouth of the river Dodder. They were from thirty to forty feet long, and so bulky that two tall men placed one on each side of the fish ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... perhaps, the brotherhoods impersonated under those names, to the time when the republics lost their independence, and their learned men sank into copyists of, and commentators on, the works of their forefathers. That we include these as educated under a distinct providential, though not miraculous, dispensation, will surprise no one, who reflects, that in whatever has a permanent operation on the destinies and intellectual condition of mankind at large,—that in all which has been manifestly ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... and if he were he would plead a providential indisposition rather than miss driving with her ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... you go on your way rejoicing; that you are enabled to thank Him who is the giver of every good gift, spiritual, temporal, and providential, for blessings to yourself and your ministry. I do not doubt but you often meet with circumstances which are not pleasing to nature; yet, by the blessing of God, they will be all profitable in the end. They ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... belongs to her; she possesses neither an idea nor an enemy; she controls all the historical events of her time, without desiring them, without comprehending them.... She serves friendships and individuals, without knowing how to serve a cause or a system or a party, and she is protected by the providential course of things, without having to worry about ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... her as providential that she should be the instrument of his initiation. Some girls would not have known how to manage him. They would have over-emphasized the novelty of the adventure, trying to make him feel in it the zest of an escapade. But Lily's methods ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... years of our national career. During that period the free portion of this Union has grown to an overwhelming superiority over the slave portion, and compelled the slaveholders to draw the sword to save themselves from material and providential destruction. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... anxiety that you should form no connection with a man like this. It is true that on the morning when we spoke to you we did not know the extent of his guilt, but we had suspected him for some time. It is quite providential that the disclosure comes—at the present moment, and I hope it will detach you from him for ever. Your father and I send our love, and please assure Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... till they arrived at Mr. Barton's house. Mrs. Barton received them very kindly. "Oh, Miss Parker, she said, my heart aches for that poor lad upstairs, and yet with all this trial, and the wonderful providential escape he has had, would you believe it? his heart seems very little affected. He is not softened that I can see. I told him to day how thankful he ought to be that God did not cut him off in all his sins, and he answered ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... him. A new ray of hope had crossed the Major's mind. His meeting with Thurnall might he providential; for he recollected now, for the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... wrote a letter to the Topeka Journal making a call for helpers setting Sept. 28 as the day. When I arrived in Topeka I learned that the W. C. T. U would be in convention session on that day in Wichita, and also that there was a carnival going on in the place, and thought it providential to have a crowd. I arrived in Wichita the 28th, the raid was postponed until the 29th. I took hatchets with me and we also supplied ourselves with rocks, meeting at the M. E. church, where the ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... more than four million dollars, is called Riverside; but, save in the rainy season, one looks in vain for the stream from which it takes its name. The river has retired, as so many western rivers do, to wander in obscurity six feet below the sand. "A providential thing," said a wag to me, "for, in such heat as this, if the water rose to the surface it would all evaporate." The sun was, indeed, ardent as we walked through the town, and we were impressed by the fact that the dwellings most appropriate for ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... This providential rescue had come about as follows. The soldier who had deserted me while I was engaged with the carabineers in the streets of Agreda had quickly reached the vines; thence, leaping across the vine stocks, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... it was determined otherwise. The old sailor must be abandoned to his fate, just as he had been left upon the sand-spit. His youthful companions could only breathe a prayer in his behalf, and express a hope that, as upon the latter occasion, some providential chance should turn up in his favor, and he might again be permitted to ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... without an exception, have prayers for the dead, and their providential preservation serves as another triumphant vindication of the venerable antiquity of this ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... "YOUR HOLINESS,—Providential accident, as your chamberlain would tell you, has enabled his Majesty's Government to judge for itself of that source of your Holiness's information which your Holiness very properly refused to reveal. At the same time official channels have disclosed ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... as if they must have been misguided in some providential manner. On the other hand, it would be the crassest of indiscretions to linger about the place an instant longer ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... pot of honey and one of marmalade, and tin-tacks, string, and glue. But we could not get any ladies with crosses, and the shirts and trousers were too expensive for us to dare to risk it. Instead, we bought a head-stall for eighteenpence, because how providential we should be to a farmer whose favourite horse had escaped and he had nothing to catch it with; and three tin-openers, in case of a distant farm subsisting entirely on tinned things, and the only opener for miles ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... humanity, nor wound afresh the bosoms of the disconsolate sufferers in this unparalleled and inhuman massacre, by detailing the deeds of their fiend-like barbarity. There were two or three who were in the power of these wretches, had they known it, and who escaped in the most providential manner. There were two whom they thought they left dead on the field at Mr. Parker's, but who were only stunned by the blows of their guns, as they did not take time to re-load when they charged on them. The escape of a little ...
— The Confessions Of Nat Turner • Nat Turner
... are small, seldom more than an inch in length. At first, you will not readily distinguish them, they are so nearly of the color of the stones to which they are attached. This is one of those Providential adjustments by which the weak are rendered as secure as the strong. Slow in their movements, without offensive weapons, their form and their coloring are their two great safeguards. The stones to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... some time that she must let her husband into her secret. It had begun to wear upon her. And now the time had come as by providential interposition. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... into the traditions of the family. In his eyes Grandmamma's twenty years, her triumphant charm, were concealed by a respectful sobriquet and by her providential qualities. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... sending to me for artillery, I detached to him the three guns of Wood's battery, with which he speedily drove them back, and, seeing some others to the rear, I sent one of my staff to bring them forward, when, by almost providential decree, they proved to be two twenty-four pound howitzers belonging to McAlister's battery, and served as well as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... ladies, had been precipitated into the street, and all those who were on it were more or less severely injured. Josephine recognized it as a providential protection that she had not paid with broken limbs, like her friends, for the curiosity of seeing the beautiful little greyhound, but had only received violent contusions and sprained joints. For weeks she had to suffer from the consequences of this fall, and was confined ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... had achieved recognition or not. He could lay aside a scheme which had not found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could not run their locomotives around sharp curves, it must be because they persisted in using the vicious crank, which he had already superseded by his (temporarily ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... on a bark trading between Liverpool and St. John's, N.B., sees a man writing in the captain's cabin, a stranger who disappears after pencilling certain lines on the slate. These prove a providential warning by which the vessel escapes certain destruction. The story is told by Robert Dale Owen in Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, and vouched ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Battle bell-ringers never stopped ringing except during service time; or how the warmest of welcomes ended our delightful year of travel and made us feel we were home at last, with thankful hearts for the providential care which had watched over us ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... internal navigation, which brought foreign trade in a manner to every man's door. The legions combated alternately on the plains of Germany, in the Caledonian woods, on the banks of the Euphrates, and at the foot of Mount Atlas. But much as this singular and apparently providential circumstance aided the growth, and for a season increased the strength of the empire, it secretly but certainly undermined its resources, and in the end proved its ruin. The free trade in grain which it necessarily brought with it, when the same dominion ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the stupidity and injustice of the English colonial policy which brought about the Revolution, cannot be estimated exactly; but certain it is that the preparation of the lawyers who were then in their prime appears to have been Providential interference in behalf of the people of the United States. Never in history has the profession of the law received so great a harvest of profound students of the constitutional principles of government as did our country ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... coming wedding, the stranger, after a little, adroitly turned the conversation upon the wound of Reynolds; asked a number of questions, and appeared deeply interested in the whole narration concerning it—the attack upon him by the Indians and his providential escape through the assistance of Boone—all of which was detailed by Isaac in his own peculiar way. From this case in particular, the conversation gradually changed to other cases that had happened in the vicinity; and also to the state of the country, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Squire had been a better farmer and less interested in books, especially in his yellow-backed law-books, the eking might not have been so continuous; and if his good wife had not been snatched away, at untimely thirty-five, by one of those accidents which we call providential, leaving a forty-year- old father alone with a five-year-old boy, her good sense would undoubtedly have made times easier with the Squire. As it was, his sister came to be mother in this little home. Good, steadfast Aunt Fannie she was, a woman without a vision, who accepted what ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... uncompromising a belief that the enemy of Israel must be the enemy of God, that it has become difficult for modern Judaism to retain any affection for it. It makes its appeal to the persecuted, no doubt: it conveys a stirring lesson in the providential care with which God watches over His people: it bids the sufferer hope. Esther's splendid surrender of self, her immortal declaration, 'If I perish, I perish,' still may legitimately thrill all hearts. But ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... to her slowly, carefully, the details of that desperate journey northward, of their providential meeting on the Little Big Horn, of the papers left in his charge, of Hampton's riding forward with despatches, and of his death at Custer's side. While he spoke, the girl scarcely moved; her breath came in sobs and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... "Which is providential," said the children's mother thankfully. "It's an alibi. They can't get any till tomorrow, no matter how much we ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... solicitude which she might be feeling in regard to his dealings with the firm, by the assertion that he had only two months previous closed out his account owing to the conviction that prudent investors were getting under cover. This assurance gave the episode a still more providential aspect in Selma's eyes. In the first flush of her gratitude that Flossy had been superbly rebuked for her frivolous existence, she had forgotten that they were her husband's brokers. Moreover the lack of perturbation ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... all pass through the same cycle—beginning, progress, perfection, corruption, end. This, however, does not explain the succession of empires in the world, the changes of the scene of prosperity from one people or set of peoples to another. Le Roy finds the cause in providential design. God, he believes, cares for all parts of the universe and has distributed excellence in arms and letters now to Asia, now to Europe, again to Africa, letting virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance travel from country to country, that all in their turn may share in good and bad ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... the masquerade—but, had not this gentleman been a seaman, it would have surpassed all our means to get this boat into the water, or even to use her properly were she even launched. I look upon his profession as being the first great providential interference, or provision, in our behalf; and his superior skill and readiness in that profession as a circumstance of no less importance ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... glad he was, but every man felt his heart grow warm within him. There was a deep feeling of gratitude for the providential care we had received, and for the happy ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... and continuous progress of the European race toward the Rocky Mountains," says the vivid pen of De Tocqueville, "has the solemnity of a providential event. It is like a deluge of men, rising unabatedly and driven daily onward by the hand of God." [Footnote: "Democracy ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... could not have believed that "such a state of things was possible." The Dundalk marchers to freedom (to the number of twenty) were not precisely the pick of the local respectability, and my escape must be regarded as providential. As to their outpourings of abuse, my philosophy resembles that of the old whipper-in of the Meynell-Ingram Hounds:—"I bain't a cruel chap, I bain't. But when I puts the lash among the hounds I dew like to hear 'em yowl; I dew like to see 'em skip, and writhe, and look mad. For ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... his wits perfectly clear for the appreciation of Decoud's political idea. It was a good idea—and Barrios was the only instrument of its realization. The doctor's soul, withered and shrunk by the shame of a moral disgrace, became implacable in the expansion of its tenderness. Nostromo's return was providential. He did not think of him humanely, as of a fellow-creature just escaped from the jaws of death. The Capataz for him was the only possible messenger to Cayta. The very man. The doctor's misanthropic ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... you succeeded. I had started to Shirley's myself on personal business, and I was letting some whim turn me aside. If you had kept the trail we should have missed each other, for I was on my way to Big Wolf Creek, a good distance away, and your leaving the trail and wandering down here was providential for Shirley. Shall I show you on to ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... me, in absolute retirement, that she should go about making explanations in regard to her private affairs. I have inferred, I confess, that she had in some unfortunate manner terminated her union with her husband; and I have always hoped that her coming here might prove a providential, happy thing,—that somehow she might find her way out of trouble, and resume, what has evidently been broken off, a peaceful and happy life. She ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... leaped about and started to run. Then the star in which he trusted must have betrayed him. It must have shed upon him a ray just strong enough to make him a visible object; for, suddenly, ping! something hit him violently on the leg and bowled him over like a rabbit into a providential shell-hole. And there he lay quaking for a long time, while the lunacy of his adventure coarsely and unsentimentally ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... there was no excitement to sin, no means of gratifying appetite. My good intentions were traced in the sand. I was very soon as thoughtless and as profane as ever, although frequently checked by the remembrance of my providential escape; and for years afterwards the thoughts of the shark taking me by the leg was accompanied by the acknowledgment that the devil would have me in like manner, if ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... circumstances something more than mere chance, to acknowledge the guiding hand of God; for instance, when help has unexpectedly come to an individual in great perplexity and need. But these instances of providential design are of a limited kind, and concern the accomplishment of nothing more than the desires of the individual in question. But in the history of the world, the individuals we have to do with are peoples, totalities that are States. We cannot, therefore, be satisfied with what we may call this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... I have lived all these years, doing literally nothing for its uplift toward God who gave us all life and power. I feel that He will put a message into my mouth that may prove a blessing to this community. It seems to me this special opportunity is providential." ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... wonderful thing happened that, I believe, could ever have occurred. Yes, Senor Capitano, I declare to you, it was the most wonderful thing, now that I recall it again in speaking to you, that I have ever heard of in all my life. Ay, so wonderful and providential, that it would seem incredible to me were I not certain by this very occurrence, which has brought it home to me, that there is a Power above which watches over us and preserves us from danger, no ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... not hurt, though it was a miracle that I was still alive, for a bullet had struck my chest, and would have penetrated had my pocket-book not stopped it. The fact was, that my pocket-book had served the providential service of the proverbial bible or pack of cards. Bester was with me, and not seeing my other adjutants, I enquired what had become of them. Walsh did not reply at once, and one of the "Tommies" standing close by ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... of a passing hansom called out, "Cab, Miss?" And this seemed to Patty a providential ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... so scrupulous and tender on this subject, (as indeed John Woolman was on all others,) was in the way of becoming in time more eminently serviceable to his oppressed fellow-creatures. We have seen already the good seed sown in his heart, and it seems to have wanted only providential seasons and occurrences to be brought into productive fruit. Accordingly we find that a journey, which he took as a minister of the Gospel in 1746 through the provinces of Maryland, Virginia, and, North Carolina, which were then more noted than others for the number of slaves ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... of books belonging to various brethren and confederates," spoke Garret, as the task went on. "By a providential warning our brother, Dr. Barnes, received timely notice of visitation at his house, and the books were hurriedly carried hither in the dead of night. You have heard, perhaps, ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the revolutionary attempt of that year, and was obliged to flee the country. He went to Zurich, where he lived in great poverty at first, but afterward with a certain moderate income, for nearly ten years. This circumstance was evidently providential, as will appear in ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... to the mythic view of Christ's significance, which is that maintained by Strauss, is, that it violates men's faith in the integrity of history as a veracious outcome of the providential love and wisdom which are extant and operative in human affairs. And the objection to what has been called the Troubadour view of the same subject, which is that represented by M. Renan, is, that it outrages men's faith in human character, regarded, if not as habitually, still as occasionally capable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... and is a most providential success. Eastern Tennessee was tending to the position which Lucknow sustained towards the Indian rebellion. It is now relieved, and a fortnight or so will bring intelligence that the whole of it has practically joined forces to Western Virginia. I regard it as of the highest ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... the fearful danger in which he had been placed, and his providential preservation, did his utmost to laugh Archy out of ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the Right, explosions of yells from all sides at once, and all the air sawed and pawed and clawed and cloven by a writhing confusion of gesturing arms and hands. Out of the midst of this thunder and turmoil and tempest rose Dr. Lecher, serene and collected, and the providential length of his enabled his head to show out of it. He began his twelve-hour speech. At any rate, his lips could be seen to move, and that was evidence. On high sat the President, imploring order, with his long hands put together as in prayer, and his lips visibly but not hearably ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... scarlet fever is severe all round; there have been some deaths, and the gardener's child was in great danger. The doctor has analysed the water, and finds it in a very bad state, so that your absence this autumn is providential. If you are in haste, telegraph to me, and I will meet your landlord there, and the sanitary inspector, and see what can be done, without waiting for Jasper. At any rate, you cannot go back there at once. Shall I secure a furnished house for ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a plaintive magnanimity which made mistrust seem cruel. How much better I might play providence over Pickering's experiments with life if I could engage the fine instincts of this charming woman on the providential side! Pickering's secret was, of course, his engagement to Miss Vernor; it was natural enough that he should have been unable to bring himself to talk of it to Madame Blumenthal. The simple sweetness of this young girl's face ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... maize, or Indian corn, is totally new since 1846. The famine in Ireland in that year, and the potato rot in almost every successive year since, have now fully established it. Like the gold discoveries, the potato rot may be regarded as a providential means of effecting a great change in the condition of society. Those discoveries are not without their influence in the East, and, combined with the potato rot, they have rapidly increased the commerce between ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... entirely novel frame of government, deriving its genius from an idea, and regardless of precedent, could live to shame a system which had received the sanction of centuries of success, which was seemingly Providential in its stability, which had everywhere superseded every other form, which had absorbed into itself the elements of all other systems. Our Government was an anomaly; as such, there were ten chances to one ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... celibacy, which he had never kept, and poor Isabella, sustained only by the moral support of her courageous mother, was beginning to quake and tremble, as she knew not what might happen, and the prospect for her future happiness was far from good. A providential illness overcame the dreaded bridegroom when he was less than forty leagues from Madrid, as it turned out, and Isabella was able to breathe ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... began Mrs. Mayhew with great animation, "I'm excessively thankful that you happened to be on the road, and that the stage overtook you this morning. It was so fortunate that I almost think it providential. How dreadful it would have been if Ida had been alone in such frightful peril! I cannot tell you also how delighted I am that my daughter behaved so beautifully. Indeed, I must confess that I am agreeably surprised, for Ida was never famous for her courage. Your own manner must have ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... slowly up the road, ragged himself, the car and harness almost ready to drop to pieces, the mare, I am sure, in the last week of her existence, we were glad that he had his Celtic fancy to enliven his life a bit,—that fancy which seems a providential reaction against the ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... themselves, they were drifting among rapids. Three of the boats were dashed to pieces, and their contents lost. Six men were thrown into the water, but were fortunately rescued. For seventy miles falls and rapids succeeded each other, until at length, by a providential escape, the party reached Sertigan, the ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... have you, my brother, lived unforgiven? Fifteen, twenty, forty, sixty years? Lived through great awakenings, lived through domestic sorrow, lived through commercial calamity, lived through providential crises that startled nations, and you are living yet, strangers to God, and with no hope for a great future into which you may be precipitated. Oh, would it not be better for us to get our nature through the Grace of Christ revolutionized and transfigured? ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... to console himself with the reflection that the thing was bound to occur any way, and that it was providential that he and Scott were present ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... spread, by chance or Providential interference, a little earlier than usual. Mr. Young, having finished his meal first, had risen from his seat. I happened to be the last at the festive board. In walking towards the place where his bedding was spread upon the rocks, he saw close to him, but above ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles |
