"Untoward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... armed, although "indignation meetings" have been held to denounce me for speaking the truth and believing my own eyes, and I consider myself quite safe while in the company of many landlords. But agents are another matter. There is while with them always the off chance of something untoward turning up, and it is, perhaps, as well to be prepared for emergencies. Personally I must confess that I am favourably disposed towards the much vilified agents. They are in many respects the most manly men in Ireland. Nearly always well-bred, they excite ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... to his favorite, Decazes, the formation of a new Cabinet. Decazes found it difficult to select competent men for the various portfolios. His Cabinet, when finally brought together, lacked internal unity and outward support. Its career was early imperilled by the untoward election of Bishop Gregoire of Grenoble, one of the regicides, to the Chamber of Deputies. This popular manifestation, though sufficiently explained by the sterling public qualities of the bishop ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... herself upon her woodcraft, was lost in this little patch of country between the Pangani and the Tanga railway. She knew that Wilhelmstal lay southeast of her about fifty miles; but, through a combination of untoward circumstances, she found herself unable to determine which ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "By this untoward event my hopes were irreparably blasted. The utmost efforts were demanded to conceal my thoughts from my companion. The anguish that preyed upon my heart was endeavoured to be masked by looks of indifference. I pretended to have been previously informed by ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... feeling. The recognition brought me to my senses at once. I did not waste a single thought in speculating how the mistake had occurred, for there was not a moment to be lost. I must be wise to shield her, and chiefly, as much as might be, from the miserable confusion which her own discovery of the untoward fact would occasion her. At first I thought it would be best to lie perfectly still, in order that she, at length awaking and discovering where she was, but finding me fast asleep, might escape with the conviction that the whole occurrence ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... parish. I thought he was wrong in permitting a woman, at her advanced time of life, to run the risk encountered in visiting the sick and suffering poor at their own dwelling-places. Circumstances, however, failed to justify my dread of the perilous influences of infection and foul air. The one untoward event that happened, seemed to be too trifling to afford any cause for anxiety. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... had set his heart upon getting up the piece, was at his wits' end, and had bent his footsteps towards the main guard, to advise with me as to what should be done in this untoward emergency. I endeavoured to console him as well as I could, and suggested, that if the worst came to the worst, the part might be read. But, lugubriously shaking his caput, Fred declared that would never do; so, after discussing half-a-dozen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... rejoins the good lady with heightened interest; "but it may be that something untoward in your experiences has unduly biased you. Not that I would cast reflections. Believe me, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... made fretful and impatient and exigeant as a woman is—as if he alone of all mankind is to be exempt from misfortune and annoyances; as if his friends must never die, his youth never fade, his circumstances run always smoothly, protected by the care of others from all untoward hitch; and as if time and tide, which wait for no one else, are to be bound to him as humble servants dutifully ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... business to preserve the Greeks, but they must eat and drink so as not to offend but pleasure their stomachs, are base and ignominious persons, and that their being reputed such must needs extremely humble them and make their lives untoward to them, if they take honor and a good name for any part ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... accept the apologies of the General and myself. You, of course, knew that we should extricate you—as we shall again, if any other untoward circumstances happen to arise. Recollect that we can open any door of prison or palace in Russia," and then he smiled grimly as ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... would not have come with half the importance: it would have been merely a vexation which a few sharp words would have exploded and put an end to. But now, combined with the untoward circumstances of situation—for Eve could not confess herself a listener—was the fact that her nerves, her senses and her conscience seemed strained to a point which made each feather-weight appear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... moment earlier, had bellowed vociferous cheers. The great Michael Costa, who was conducting, dropped his baton in astonishment, and, refusing to pick it up again, left his desk. There is a theory that it was this untoward incident that led him to transfer himself from the Haymarket to Covent Garden. Quite possible. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... she was, unknown to herself, already in the throes of a romantic attachment for Wilson; and, long, long after, when he had gone down to the depths with her and saved her by his steady hand, with something of mirth for the untoward happening that closed ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thrown away on Aylmer. He could not imagine himself now without Alice. In spite of her ideas on the graphic arts, Alice was his air, his atmosphere, his oxygen; and also his umbrella to shield him from the hail of untoward circumstances. Curious—the process of love! It was the power of love that had put that picture in ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... dawned beautiful in sky and atmosphere. It would have been as mild and gracious as a windless June day had not the Turk, nervous lest these dogs of Christians should celebrate their festival with any untoward activity, opened ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... him off his expected punishment. The story shows us what sort of stuff Edward was really made of. He felt so deep an interest in all the beautiful living creatures around him for their own sake, that he could hardly restrain his feelings even under the most untoward circumstances. ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... the ground and looked around him, but the mound of earth on which he had before seated himself was no longer visible. Then he began bitterly to lament, and to sigh with heartfelt sorrow over his untoward fate. At length he started once more on his journey. Upon this Rubezahl, assuming the appearance of a traveller, accosted him, and inquired why he so lamented, and what was the great sorrow with which he was afflicted. The glazier related to him ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... wheat corps here and deficiency abroad or special tariff favors to flour export, may even increase the amount exported despite an otherwise untoward effect of the new tariff upon farmers. I have selected flour exports as the article best reflecting the chief interest of the farmers, and at the same time the state of general business for manufacturing, transportation and such other branches ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... bridle and made a dragging step to meet Blinky. But so great was his emotion that he had no physical control. He waited. After that bursting of his heart, he slowly changed. This then was the strange untoward thing that had haunted him. All the time fate had held this horrible crisis in abeyance, waiting to crush at the last moment his marvelous good fortune. That had been the doubt, the misgiving, the inscrutable ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... come to her all at once, but through the months during which she watched and waited. It was a wonderful thing to be a mother, even under these untoward conditions. She felt that she would love this child, would be a good mother to it if life permitted. That was the problem—what would ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... ill-kept rooms, the poor infants of the dead lady had struggled through their brief lives, and given them up, one after the other. Sir Jeoffry had not wished to see them, nor had he done so, but upon the rarest occasions, and then nearly always by some untoward accident. The six who had died, even their mother had scarcely wept for; her weeping had been that they should have been fated to come into the world, and when they went out of it she knew she need not mourn their going as untimely. The two who had not perished, she had regarded ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the struggles of a brave spirit against the restrictions of an ignoble body, we pay admiring honors to every success that it achieves. It is the contest between human will and untoward fate. Each triumph is a victory of man's dearest heritage, spiritual power. Some have made themselves great captains despite physical weakness and natural fear; scholars and writers have become renowned, though slow to learn, or, haply, "with wisdom at one entrance quite shut out"; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... to this kind that untoward things happen. My sister gave a "candy-pull" on a winter's night. I was too young to be of the company, and Jim was too diffident. I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed of his own motion. His room was in the new part of the house, and his window ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... TROMP CHESTER MOTE BOLTON BRIEFLESS—I selected his Christian names in anticipated recognition of possible professional favours to be conferred on him in after-life) the words "imbecile from his birth," as frivolous, untrue, and even libellous. We had but one untoward incident. In the early morning of Monday we found in our area a person who had evidently passed the night there in a condition of helpless intoxication. As she could offer no satisfactory explanation of her presence, I handed her over to the police, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... universal suffrage worked fairly smoothly during the first year of its existence. The estimates were voted with regularity, racial animosity was somewhat less prominent, and some large issues were debated. The desire not to disturb the emperor's Diamond Jubilee year by untoward scenes doubtless contributed to calm political passion, and it was celebrated in 1908 with complete success. But it was no sooner over than the crisis over the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is dealt with above, eclipsed all purely domestic affairs in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... it was deemed advisable to have an abundant supply of provisions in the different forts in advance of this, as well for the support of their respective garrisons, as for the subsistence of the general army, in the event of its being driven into them, by untoward circumstances. With this view, three hundred pack horses, laden with flour, were sent on to fort Recovery; and as it was known that considerable bodies of the enemy were constantly hovering about the forts, and awaiting opportunities of cutting off ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... consigned for the night to the provost-marshal. How anxiously I spent that night, I need not say. I was in the hands of violent men, exasperated by the popular resistance, and accustomed to disregard life. I braced myself up to meet my untoward catastrophe, and determined at least not to disgrace my country by helpless solicitation. I wrote a few letters, committed myself to a protection above the passions and vices of man, wrapped my cloak round me, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... kaleidoscope of life,—within an hour, Mr. Bonflon returned with a new message, and with the programme of the "Flying Cloud" changed, if not reversed. He had seen De Aery again. One or two of the expected passengers had telegraphed that untoward circumstances would compel them to remain behind, and there would be room for us. But no time was to be lost; the air-steamer would weigh anchor before daylight of the following morning, and we must start ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... first glance; every consideration disappears before the irresistible impulse to live in one another; under circumstances hostile in the highest degree to their union, they unite themselves by a secret marriage, relying simply on the protection of an invisible power. Untoward incidents following in rapid succession, their heroic constancy is within a few days put to the proof, till, forcibly separated from each other, by a voluntary death they are united in the grave to meet again in another world. All this is to be ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... considering it meritorious rather than otherwise, on the part of the Indians, to maintain order so effectually without the aid of soldiers. The captain in Lajas is on duty day and night, watching that nothing untoward may happen to man, beast, or property. But few strangers come to this remote pueblo, and no one can pass it unnoticed. The only trail that runs through the place is swept every afternoon with branches of trees, and the next morning it is examined by the captain to ascertain if anyone ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... still—and who can wonder at that? She will bear with all—will live, will die with him. I look, Eusebius, upon this ode as a real consolation to your lovers of an ambiguous and querulous age. Seeing what we are daily becoming, it is a comfort to think that, should such untoward persons make themselves disagreeable to all else of human kind, there will be, nevertheless, to each, one confiding loving creature, to put them in conceit with themselves, and make them, notwithstanding their many perversities, believe that they are ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., was reluctantly compelled to admit that the untoward result of his admirable arrangements was attributable, not to the Miss Crumptons, but his own diplomacy. He, however, consoles himself, like some other small diplomatists, by satisfactorily proving that if his plans did not succeed, they ought to have ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... from that moment followed her. How grateful I was to the wrinkled Eve's extortion, and to the untoward tumble, since it procured me the sight of that smile. I took my sweet revenge from that. For I knew that the beautiful Aurelia entered the house of her host with beaming eyes, and my fancy heard her sparkling ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... presented in accordance with Part III, Chapter XVI. In holiday celebrations also the feature may be speeches or athletic contests, or else parades of floats, fraternal orders, soldiers, etc. Usually, however, the occurrence of some untoward accident that mars the occasion itself furnishes a story feature of greater importance than the monotony of the parade and ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... drama to bear testimony to their admiration for the artist who had done so much for their pleasure. The house was crowded in every part. Every seat had been sold days before. Many of the tickets had been bought by speculators, who, in spite of the untoward weather, reaped a rich harvest. During the day the prices obtained varied from ten dollars to fifteen dollars for the orchestra stalls (regular price, four dollars), and at night seats in the topmost gallery ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... poor heart! be patient, and be meekful; A calm must follow each untoward blast; With steady eye look forward to the sequel; The common road will then seem less unequal, That ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... which, though started by war conditions, has by no means halted with the war, than can be realized on superficial observation. In this light, Mr. Scott's diagnosis is as important as his chronicle of the facts. The reaction of the Negro masses away from untoward and repressing social conditions and their awakening to the simple but effective expedient of carrying their labor to better markets, are the significantly new features of the after-war aspects of the Negro problem. Economic adjustment, in most ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... chosen a more inopportune moment. The hero, who had troubled Hugh's repose in the moist atmosphere of the city, persisted in behaving in an untoward fashion, even when translated to an altitude of three thousand feet or so. He still perorated, still posed like a shop-walker, still behaved like a puppet, with its ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... was killed off by one critique Just as he really promised something great, If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate; 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... persuaded, feel much concern at the untoward circumstances that have occurred, and the impossibility that must now exist of the troops being of any service in this country. Every arrangement is made for their sailing the moment the wind will enable the transports ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... time the untoward event occurred in front of his hotel, chanced to be at the residence of M. Duchatel, the ex-Minister of the Interior. As they were conversing, the brother of M. Duchatel entered, breathless and in the highest state of agitation, to communicate the tidings that the troops had fired upon ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... of soiling the clothes of a person that happened to be working under the house. As the owner of the sick dog (it had been mangled by a wild boar) had been previously warned of the possibility of something untoward happening, he was fined and was condemned to make further reparation in the form of a convivial meeting in order to remove the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... admire in men whom you think fortunate—what is it but their mastery of adversity after adversity? What is that which you call success but victory over untoward events? Do not, then, let your resolution be softened by the hard luck that keeps you out of college. If that bends you, you are not a Damascus blade of tempered steel; you are a sword of lead, heavy, dull, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... life happy and pleasant at St. Mary Western. But in his mind, as he woke up on this first morning, none of these things found place. He came to his senses thinking of the one little item which could be described as untoward—thinking of Hilda, and Hilda engaged to be married to Fred Farrar. It was not that he was in love with Hilda Carew himself. He had scarcely remembered her existence during the last two years. But this engagement jarred, and Farrar jarred. It was something more than the very natural shock which ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... thanks and acknowledgments—and the superstitious dread which at first bad undoubtedly seized the company passed away quickly—the talking, the merriment, and laughter were resumed, and soon it seemed as though the untoward circumstance were entirely forgotten. Only Guido Ferrari seemed still somewhat disturbed in his mind—but even his uneasiness dissipated itself by degrees, and heated by the quantity of wine he had taken, he began to ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest that the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward commencement of conversation in the appearance of no less a personage than the donkey himself—I mean the donkey ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... protocol packet or item of email (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do untoward things. 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a {net.god}, pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission problem. Compare {shitogram}. 3. A status report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. "What'd Corporate say ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Sorrows, Marriages and Funerals, the ties of life bound or broken, fit and fortunate, or untoward and painful, are all lessons. Events are not blindly and carelessly flung together. Providence does not school one man, and screen another from the fiery trial of its lessons. It has neither rich favorites nor poor victims. One ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... you to take this letter as an instruction—absolute and imperative, and admitting of no deviation whatever—in case anything untoward or unexpected by you or by others should happen to me. If I should be suddenly and mysteriously stricken down—either by sickness, accident or attack—you must follow these directions implicitly. If I am not already in my ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... who, nevertheless, would have been a shining example of virtue, had the morbid element in his cerebral organism been left out. In our rough estimates of responsibility this goes for nothing, like the untoward influences of education; and it could not well be otherwise, though it cannot be denied that one element of moral responsibility, namely, the wish and the power to pursue the right and avoid the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... by Lancelot that the first thing to do was to prevent the pirates from landing. If they succeeded by untoward chance in effecting a landing, then all of us who were lucky enough to be left alive were to retreat with all speed to the stronghold and fasten ourselves in there. To this end the gate was left ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Paine cherished as one of his most sacred principles. Of this poem, Mr. Paine always spoke as one of his happiest efforts. Coming from so young a man, it is certainly very creditable, and promises more, I fear, than the untoward circumstances of his after life would permit him to perform."—Paine's Works, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... instructions upon the acceptance of an offer made by Lord Clarendon whilst on a visit at Clumber last week. Lord Clarendon received not long ago a private letter from the President of the United States. He proposes that in answering this letter he should express his concern at these untoward events, and particularly at their occurrence at a time when, if not speedily settled, they would prevent the fulfilment of a project which he had reason to think had been in contemplation—a visit to Washington by the Prince of Wales on ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... of circumstances makes the present conjuncture more favorable for Virginia, than for any other state in the Union, to fix these matters. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniards on the one hand, and the private views of some individuals, coinciding with the general policy of the court of Great Britain on the other, to retain as long as possible the posts of Detroit, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that something untoward had happened in Kay's to cause this sudden defection of the first fifteen of the house. He knew that Kennedy was having a hard time in his new position, and he did not wish to add to his discomfort by calling ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... shoulders. "Let us hope so, indeed," he said. "But I will not believe in any such untoward event. Too long a time has elapsed since the loss for me not to have heard something respecting the MS., had it been found by anyone who knew how to make use of it. Besides, I would defy the most clever reader of cryptography to master my MS. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... interviewers for days and weeks and his story was spread all over the United States. At the Chicago meeting of 1912 Watt Terry, a modest and even shrinking colored man of Brockton, Mass., unfolded a remarkable story of success in spite of the hardest and must untoward circumstances. So unbelievable seemed this man's story that the Executive Committee took up with him personally the facts of his recital, and later the Secretary of the League, in response to a demand, had to vouch for his statements in open meeting. To clinch the matter still further Mr. Washington ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... situation and to prepare for possible emergencies. "We are not at the wall yet, by any means, Jack," he said, his voice ringing out with a resolute courage. "But I am bound to say that if any sudden or untoward combination of circumstances, a strike, for instance, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... of La Salle, the Belle, the only vessel remaining to him, was wrecked and utterly lost. Several of the sailors were drowned; and stores of inestimable value were destroyed. Father Le Clercq, in describing this untoward event, writes: ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... singularly ambitious one. But there had been circumstances which had led those who had conceived the bold idea to hope that it would not prove to be so impossible as it might at first sight appear. There had been whispers of certain difficulties- -untoward circumstances at Milan. Ill-natured things had been said of the "divina Lalli." Doubtless she had been more sinned against than sinning. But to put the matter crudely—which, of course, no Italian who had to speak of it, was ever so ill-bred ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... magnificent ice-cave, so well known to travelers for its azure tints, was inaccessible, they could look into the vault and see that the habitual bed of the torrent was dry. The journey was accomplished in a week without any untoward accident. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... under Convoy of two Vessels of Force. It needs not to be mentiond to you, how necessary it is to remove the Enemy from their Lodgment there. I cannot but hope the Business is by this Time effected; but should any untoward Accident happen, a Regiment of regular Troops will support our Militia, and animate that Part of the Country. Our last Accounts from General Lovel were of the 6th Instant. There was then no unpromising Circumstance, but the Want of a few disciplind Soldiers. ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... day, sunny and cloudless, and travelling, especially on the electric car, was very pleasant. The fellows were full of spirits and a bit noisy, and played pranks on each other and had a thoroughly good time. The only untoward incident occurred when Peters, the second team centre, fell off the running-board of the trolley car and rolled down a six-foot embankment. Fortunately the accident occurred on a curve and the car ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... conclusion of his despatch Nicias peevishly complains of the exacting temper of the Athenians, and their readiness to blame anyone but themselves if anything untoward occurred. Whatever may be the truth of the general charge, it was most ill-timed and ungrateful in his own case. Towards him, at least, the conduct of his fellow- citizens was marked by an excess of generosity, amounting to actual infatuation. Nothing is more remarkable than the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... along with her all their skill and dexterity were requisite to reduce her shape into some kind of symmetry; but, having at last pinned a small cushion under her petticoat on the right side, to counteract the untoward appearance the little infant occasioned by throwing itself on the left, they almost split their sides with laughter, assuring her at the same time ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... more comfortably in his chair—planting his feet still more at ease upon his fender—the kindly Man of the World silently revolved all the possible means by which Darrell might yet be softened and Lionel rendered happy. His reflections dismayed him. "Was there ever such untoward luck," he said at last, and peevishly, "that out of the whole world you should fall in love with the very girl against whom Darrell's feelings (prejudices if you please) must be mailed in adamant! Convinced, and apparently ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... explanation of his haste in coming and his fear that it was an untoward time, Anne heard him with a faint smile, all her listening in her upturned face. She was grateful to him. Her father, she knew, would be the stronger for men's hands to hold him up. She returned a little explanation. Father was so tired. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... time of writing I have heard of no very untoward incident. The last train left Brussels at 9 o'clock on Wednesday night. Passengers to the city cannot pass beyond Denderleeuw, where ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... in white cape and tops, and flicking his leg like a gentleman with a dandy whip. But at last Barney and a wayward ambition persuaded him to desert his proper craft for the greater hazard of cracking a crib, and thus he was involved in his ultimate ruin. He incurred and he deserved the untoward fate of those who overlook their talents' limitation; and when this master of pickpockets followed Barney through the window of a secluded house upon the York Road, he might already have felt the noose tightening at his neck. The immediate reward of this bungled ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... (afterwards Sergt.) A. Paterson specially distinguished themselves. At 1.30 next morning the Company was relieved by the Plymouth R.M.L.I. Before dawn an alarm summoned them to the front again, but nothing untoward happened. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... to church, but to appear to take it out of your pocket on entering, and some plumped it down noisily like men paying their way. I believe old Snecky Hobart, who was a canty stock but obstinate, once dropped a penny into the plate and took out a halfpenny as change, but the only untoward thing that happened to the plate was once when the lassie from the farm of Curly Bog capsized it in passing. Mr. Dishart, who was always a ready man, introduced something into his sermon that day about women's dress, which every one hoped Chirsty Lundy, the ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... seafaring—in other words poaching and smuggling—blood, he was wasted, out of his element and out of touch. The slow moving South Saxon cocked a shrewd sceptical eye at him, sized him up and down and sucked in its cheek refusing to be impressed. While by untoward accident, his misfortune rather than his fault, the earliest of his moral sweepings brought him into collision with the most reactionary element in the community, namely the inhabitants of the black ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... shyly to it. There was always a line of cleavage at prayer-meeting, as at teas and "socials," between old and young. Raven was glad he had chosen the room at random. He liked the atmosphere of half-awed, half-tittering youth. They were always on the verge, always ready to find hilarity in untoward circumstance, and yet trained to a respect for meeting, doing their conventional best. What hard red cheeks there were, what great brown hands of boys, awkwardly holding hats, and yet, taken into the open, how unerringly they gripped the tasks that fell to them. All of them, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... presentation of an abstraction was all that greeted my ears. The practice of thoughtlessness was condemned as a thing entirely apart from the practitioner, and as a tendency needing correction. Inwardly, I know he swore; outwardly, he was as serene as though nothing untoward had happened to him. It was then that I came to admire Carson. Before that he had my affectionate regard in fullest measure, but now admiration for his deeper qualities set in, and it has in no ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... contrary, we desire the laws we are now about to pass to be the bulwarks and safeguards of industry against the forces that have disturbed it. What we have to do can be done in a new spirit, in thoughtful moderation, without revolution of any untoward kind. ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... sojourn in another country. When Darab grew up, he was more skilful and accomplished, and more expert at wrestling than other boys of a greater age. But whenever the washerman told him to assist in washing clothes, he always ran away, and would not stoop to the drudgery. This untoward behavior grieved the washerman exceedingly, and he lamented that God had given him so useless a son, not knowing that he was destined to be the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... head on his hands as if he had come to some disagreeable, and perhaps terrible conclusion. And so indeed he had. The uneasy suspicions which had been floating in his mind in a state of solution were suddenly crystallized by this untoward event. The absurdity of a man's having tramped twenty miles through an almost unbroken wilderness to preach the gospel to a garter snake, burst upon him with a crushing force. This grotesque denouement of an undertaking planned and executed in the loftiest frame of religious enthusiasm, ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... could not speak a word of English, nor the English a word of Greek, no explanations could be made. The Greeks shrugged their shoulders, and having been accustomed to be knocked about a good deal by the Turks, and to untoward events in general, took things very philosophically. A breeze sprang up, and with the cutter in tow, the midshipmen shaped a course, as well as they could calculate, for Corfu. The Greek crew were far more numerous ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... not harder than Porphyry or Agate, the Chisel of my love, drove by the Mallet of my fidelity, would have made some impression on thee. I, that have shaped as I pleased the most untoward of substances, hoped by the Compass of reason, the Plummet of discretion, the Saw of constancy, the soft File of kindness, and the Polish of good words, to have modelled you into one of the prettiest Statues in the world; but, alas! I find you are a Flint, that strikes fire, and sets my ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... about this or that task, when we had far rather be doing something very different; persevering in it, often, when we are thoroughly tired of it; keeping company for duty's sake, when it would be a great joy to us to be by ourselves; besides all the trifling untoward accidents of life; bodily pain and weakness long continued, and perplexing us often when it does not amount to illness; losing what we value, missing what we desire; disappointment in other persons, wilfulness, unkindness, ingratitude, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... world, decayed, undone; on the road to ruin, on its last legs, on the wane; in one's utmost need. planet-struck, devoted; born under an evil star, born with a wooden ladle in one's mouth; ill-fated, ill-starred, ill-omened. adverse, untoward; disastrous, calamitous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... linen shirtwaist, and her simple hat, were subjects of conversation that night in more than one humble home, fading into insignificance only before her radiant hair. The general opinion was that it must be a wig, or the untoward results of some experiment with hair-dye, probably the latter, for, as the postmaster's wife said, "nobody would buy ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... her voyage to Europe. Besides writing to his patron the bishop of Burgos, he lodged a complaint against Cortes before the royal audience at St Domingo; but the members sent him an answer highly favourable to us, with whose good services they were already acquainted. All these untoward circumstances gave the adelantado infinite vexation, insomuch that from being very fat, he became quite lean. But he used every exertion to collect a powerful armament on purpose to overwhelm us as rebels against his legitimate ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... was the greatest boon; the gay and buoyant spirit that no reverse of fortune, no untoward event, could subdue, lightened many an hour of the journey; and though at times the gasconading tone of the Frenchman would peep through, there was still such a fund of good-tempered raillery in all he said that it was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to be taken by the gang. With the turn of the century, however, a reaction set in. Pressed men claiming to be of alien birth were thenceforth only liberated "if unfit for service." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 2733—Capt. Young, 11 March 1756, endorsement, and numerous instances.] For this untoward change the foreigner could blame none but himself. When taxed with having an English wife, he could seldom or never be induced to admit the soft impeachment. Consequently, whenever he was taken by the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... led a very unhappy life. I was born in India thirty-nine years ago, and while my every act has been as open and as free of wrong as are those of an infant, I have constantly been beset by such untoward affairs as this in which you have rendered such inestimable service. At the age of five, in Calcutta, I was in peril of my liberty on the score of depravity, although I never committed any act that could in any sense ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Sevres set only sufficient for twelve! Truly it is untoward, but I wish, my dear aunt, you would not let it trouble you so much. If you will allow the two extra plates to be placed before Bertha and myself, we will endeavor to render them invisible by our witchcraft. Do compliment us by permitting the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... an ill wind which blows nobody good." We had earnestly desired, during two terms of service in the Levant, to visit Egypt, but some untoward event had always prevented us from doing so. A threatened massacre at Damascus, some consul's squabble at Sidon or Haiffa, or some fresh atrocity reported in the course of the Cretan insurrection, or the desire on the part of our minister to have "the flag shown" at Constantinople, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... is a tedious journey. The country opens out, and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... to our noble task of purifying politics, in the interest of good government I wish to say a word of the untoward events of last evening. If my memory serves me the disasters which overtook the Majority of this honourable body always befell when it was the Minority's deal. It is my solemn conviction, Mr. Chairman, and to its affirmation I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honour, that that wicked ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... public inquiry into the affair before the whole House. He now raised some of his opponents a step in the peerage: Argyll became a marquis, and Montrose was released from prison. On October 28 Charles announced the untoward news of an Irish rising and massacre. He was, of course, accused of having caused it, and the massacre was in turn the cause of, or pretext for, the shooting and hanging of Irish prisoners—men and women—in Scotland during the civil ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... such deeds, and by such personal and mental characteristics as these, that William, notwithstanding the untoward influences of his birth, fought his way, during the twenty years of which we have been speaking, into general favor, and established a universal renown. He completely organized and arranged the internal affairs of his own kingdom, and established himself firmly upon the ducal throne. His mind ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... himself and to God; that is to say, that not outward experience, but inner feeling, is to decide. This inner feeling of the union of God with the godly meets us also in some of the Psalms, where, in spite of depression arising from untoward circumstances, it maintains itself as a reality which cannot be shaken, which temptations and doubts even tend to strengthen. It was a momentous step when the soul in its relations to God ventured to take its stand upon itself, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... been strong rumors touching the insolvency of the firm of M'Loughlin and Harman, and, it is to be feared, that this untoward exposure will injure them even in a worldly point of view. In the True Blue there are two paragraphs of the following stamp—paragraphs that certainly deserve to get the ears of those who either wrote or published them cropped off ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... acted thus, there is little doubt but long ere this the kind heart of his Majesty would have 230warmed into graciousness as he reflected upon the untoward circumstances which removed from the eldest born of an ancient house the honours of its armorial bearings; the engrailed bar might have been erased from the shield, and the coronet of nobility have graced the elder ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... said, in completing the history of Lucy Morris as far as it can be completed in these pages, that she did go to the deanery, and that there she was received with all the affection which Mrs. Greystock could show to an adopted daughter. Her quarrel had never been with Lucy personally,—but with the untoward fact that her son would not marry money. At the deanery she remained for fifteen happy months, and then became Mrs. Greystock, with a bevy of Fawn bridesmaids around her. As the personages of a chronicle such as this should all be made to operate backwards and forwards on each other from ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... following the episode of the "Mysterious Man of Meteighan," a wild and untoward storm swept down the North Atlantic and over the seaboard far and near. In the Bay of Fundy that night the elements met in their grandest extremes. Tide-rips and mountain waves opposed each other with titanic force. All along the bleak and rock-ribbed coast ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... Corny," she answered,—I believe she now used this familiar name simply to show how completely she had forgotten the little spleen she had certainly felt at my untoward exhibition in the street.—"You must ask forgiveness of those who possess the right to pardon. If Corny Littlepage chooses to slide down hill, like a boy, what right has Anneke Mordaunt ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... not very far from seeing—really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went to announce me,—then he returned ... you were too unwell, and now it is years ago, and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some slight, so it now seems, slight and just sufficient bar to admission, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... and noble and pure. A kind of guardian angel that image was to little Fleda. These ideal likenesses of her father and mother, the one drawn from history and recollection, the other from history only, had been her preservative from all the untoward influences and unfortunate examples which had surrounded her since her father's death some three or four years before had left her almost alone in her grandfather's house. They had created in her mind a standard of the true and beautiful in character, which nothing ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... affection, which they bear their children. In a little time, custom and habit operating on the tender minds of the children, makes them sensible of the advantages, which they may reap from society, as well as fashions them by degrees for it, by rubbing off those rough corners and untoward affections, which ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... ticketed and catalogued, with its distinct manners, dress, language, and literature,—this was a conception which resulted logically from theories which held the nation itself to be the creation of popular will or historic accident; but a nation slowly struggling against untoward outward circumstance and inward dissension, collecting by degrees its constituent members, forming and reforming, plunging with rude strength down dangerous ways, but nevertheless growing into integral unity,—this has ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... me to go on to the fort, but this I refused to do. I might be three or four days reaching it, or longer, should any untoward circumstance occur, and he might be dead before I returned. This event made me feel very much out of spirits. I was anxious if possible to procure better food than the wolf's flesh afforded, so taking my ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... in general merit. He was remarkable, says one who knew him at this time, for his frank and open manner and for his pleasant and cheerful disposition. A good story is told of the young cadet which shows his ability, even at this time, to make the best of circumstances apparently untoward, and to turn to his advantage his surroundings, whatever they might be. Having been for some slight breach of discipline required to bestride a gun in the campus for a short time, he saw, to his dismay, coming down ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... nerve-steadied Hawke. General Renwick's loss of his faded and feeble spouse, the far-famed "Poor Thing" of much polite apology for her socially aristocratic ailments; Vane Tempest's singular elopement with the beautiful wife of a green subaltern; Harry Chillingly's untoward end while potting tigers; Count Platen's enormous winnings at Baccarat; Fitzgerald Law's falling into a peerage; and Mrs. Claire Atterbury, the wealthy widow's purchase of a handsome boy-husband fresh from Sandhurst. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Island, giving the Liberals a popular majority, returned three Conservatives to one Liberal. Ontario cast 217,000 Conservative and 213,000 Liberal votes and returned forty-eight Conservatives and thirty-eight Liberals. An untoward incident of the elections was the defeat of Mr R. L. Borden in Halifax. The leader of the Opposition had won universal respect, {246} and it was to the satisfaction of opponents as well as followers that another seat ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... as an emblem of a future life. After vegetation's wintry deaths, hailing the returning spring that brings resurrection and life to the graves of the sod, he dreams of some far off spring of Humanity, yet to come, when the frosts of man's untoward doom shall relent, and all the costly seeds sown through ages in the great earth tomb shall shoot up in celestial shapes. On the moaning sea shore, weeping some dear friend, he perceives, now ascending in the dawn, the planet which he lately saw declining ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... common substitute for mother's milk is cow's milk. If clean and given in moderation it will agree with the child and produce no untoward results. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... exchanging blows. Having completely exhausted their stock of direct insults, they now resorted to the most flowery and ornate insulting of each other's ancestors, male and female, paternal or maternal. Yet nothing untoward occurred. ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... even austere, in his estimates of either; and when he was satisfied he paid honour with sometimes unexpected frankness and warmth. But from some unfortunate element in his temperament, or from the effect upon it of untoward and unkindly circumstances at those critical epochs of mental life, when character is taking its bent for good and all, he was a man in whose judgment severity—and severity expressing itself in angry scorn—was very apt to outrun justice. Longing for sympathy and not ill-fitted ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... our glass houses, soon perish. At Kew, there have been, at various times, very fine specimens of some of the largest-growing ones, but they have never lived longer than a year or so, always gradually shrinking in size till, finally, owing to the absence of proper nourishment, and to other untoward conditions, they have broken down and rotted. This rotting of the tissue, or flesh, of these plants is the great enemy to their cultivation in England. When it appears, it should be carefully cut out with ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... de Spain spent most of his time in Sleepy Cat trying to catch sight of Nan. His reflection on the untoward incidents that had set them at variance left him rebellious. He meditated more about putting himself right with her than about all his remaining concerns together. A strange fire had seized him—that fire of the imagination ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... in his veins, and is liable at any moment to be ignominiously hurled from his position by the discovery of his origin. He is never safe. I have known instances where parties have gone on for years and years undetected; but some untoward circumstance brings them out at last, and down ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... ancient gentleman here is still full of trouble, which moves my concern, though it moves only the secret laughter of many, and some untoward surmises in disfavor of him and his household. The loss of a very large sum of money (about 200l.) is talked of; whereof this vill and neighborhood is full. Some disbelieve; others says, 'It is no wonder, where about eighteen ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot |
