"Untoward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confidence subsisted between us and the inhabitants, as could hardly be expected any where else; and it was a little extraordinary, that this friendly intercourse had never once been suspended by any untoward accident; nor had there been a theft committed that deserves to be mentioned. Not that I believe their morals, in this respect, to be much mended, but am rather of opinion that their regularity of conduct was owing to the fear the chiefs were under, of interrupting a traffic which they might ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... being in this untoward condition, Mr Sparks went out one morning and entered into society. Society did not regard him with a favourable eye, but Sparks was not thin-skinned; he persevered, being determined, come what might, to seek his fortune. Poor fellow, like many a man in this world who deems ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... the meantime, felt it a part of his duty to console and soothe the ruffled feelings of his zealous and fluent parishioner, and to Virginia's pride his offer of escort to Willow Bluff was ample reparation for the untoward interruption of her oratory. She delivered into his hands, with sensitive upward glance, the receptacle containing her manuscript, and set a brisk pace, at which she insured the passing of the other guests along the road, making visible her triumph ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words," besides those which are recorded, "did he testify" to the truth about the Lord Jesus being Messiah, the King; and with such force did he "exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation," that three thousand "gladly received his word and were baptized" (Acts ii. 38-41), as subjects ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... all places hedgerows & tall trees even within a few yards of the beach. Particularly Hithe stands on an eminence cover'd with wood. I shall confess we had fires of a night (ay, & a day too) several times even in June: but don't go & take advantage of this, for it was the most untoward year ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... called at five o'clock in the morning. Even the little birds of Lyons were drowsy at that untoward and melancholy hour. As I slowly roused myself I heard their sleepy twitterings out in the trees on the Cours du Midi—and my sympathies were with them. There are natures which are quickened and strengthened ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... and Wardo began to look at him in surprise. "Let me go free and unhindered from here for two hours. I give my word that when that time is over I will be at any place thou shalt name, to go with thee willingly thy prisoner. If aught untoward befall, no blame shall come to thee. It will be easily done; the stewards are busy, and I shall have care not to ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... fires. Beholding them, the Rishi Dadhichi became filled with grief and wrath, and said, "This is neither a Sacrifice nor a meritorious rite of religion, since Rudra is not adored in it. Ye are certainly exposing yourselves to death and chains. Alas, how untoward is the course of time. Stupefied by error you do not behold that destruction awaits you. A terrible calamity stands at your door in course of this great Sacrifice. Ye are blind to it!" Having said these words, that great Yogin saw into the future ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... hands unquestioning, to applaud any move soever he might make. And equally unthinking as this popular manifestation of early hero-worship, was the clamor that later floated into Richmond on every wind, blaming the government—and especially its head—for every untoward detail of the facile descent ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... were followed with great interest on both sides of the line. But on the other side of the Atlantic the British home public had Napoleon to think of at their very doors; and so, for the most part, they regarded the war with the States as an untoward and regrettable annoyance, which diverted too much force and attention from the ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... self-accusations? I am old, monk, and have long worn that troublesome cap," pointing to the horned bonnet, which lay near his hand, the symbol of his state, "and in my day, I do not recall the criminal that has not fancied himself the victim of untoward circumstances." ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... An untoward little incident had marked the commencement of the meal. A small still-life picture that hung over the sideboard had snapped its cord and slid down with an alarming clatter on to the crowded board beneath it. The picture itself was ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... does not mean that we are to judge result wholly without regard to aim. Admirable intention is still admirable as intention, even when untoward circumstance defeats it and brings deplorable results. Bolshevism is not merely a body of belief and speculation. When the Bolsheviki seized the government of Russia and began to attempt to carry out ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... came those foster-brothers home; things went not merrily betwixt Thorgeir and Grettir, but Thormod bore himself well. Goodman Thorgils said to the foster-brothers even as he had said to Grettir; and of such worth they held him, that neither cast an untoward word at the other although their minds went nowise the same way: and so ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... again—damn them!" cried Wildeve, looking up. The heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they were wondering what mankind and candle-light could have to do in these haunts at this untoward hour. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... to be decent at first filled his friends with surprise, then disgust, then raillery. The untoward thing had never been tried at Charles II's Whitehall, and it furnished a deal of talk between routine scandals. In fact, it was looked upon ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... rupture of the membranes six weeks before delivery. Rains cites an instance in which gestation continued three months after rupture of the membranes, the labor-pains lasting thirty-six hours. Griffiths speaks of rupture of the amniotic sac at about the sixth month of pregnancy with no untoward interruption of the completion of gestation and with delivery of a living child. There is another observation of an accouchement terminating successfully twenty-three days after the loss of the amniotic fluid. Campbell mentions delivery of a living ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... as uneventful as La Fosseuse's life," answered Genestas, "I should still be glad to know about it; I should like to know the untoward events that could bring a man of your calibre ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Puritans will have to encounter the somewhat untoward fact that in his speech against the High Church Bishops, Falkland, if he does not actually call himself a Puritan, twice identifies the Puritan cause with his own. Among the bad objects which he accuses the clergy of advocating in their sermons is "the demolishing ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... 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 a sharp knife, and exposed to the influence of a perfectly dry atmosphere for a ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... One untoward incident happened. The infant Seth, summoned to show himself, stood in a corner and pouted, turned red, and became intransigeant; finally, when peremptorily told to go and speak to the gentleman, shrank from and glared at him; only allowed his hand to be taken under compulsion, and rushed away ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... subject Latour, in England, and he, in preference to putting it into a safe, which might attract the spies of the conspirators, kept it in a small cavity behind the wainscoting in the drawing-room at Buckworth—a spot which he showed me, so that if any untoward event occurred I should at least know where the documents were secreted. When I realised the terrible fate of the unfortunate Latour and noticed the disordered state of the room and study beyond, I suspected ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... 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, shook ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... in a mossy bank by the side of a road that skirted a wood, where the tall thimble blackberries grew in abundance, from which the last young one was taken, when it was about half grown, by some nocturnal walker or daylight prowler, some untoward fate seemed hovering about them. It was a season of calamities, of violent deaths, of pillage and massacre, among our feathered neighbors. For the first time I noticed that the orioles were not safe in their strong, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... nothing is so irritating to a horseman as to come near losing his seat, except perhaps to lose it altogether, and indignation against the cause of an untoward accident is generally a mortal's first consciousness thereupon: however foolishly, he feels himself injured. But there, having better taken in Donal's look, he ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... the event of untoward happenings France would act as her honor dictated—remaining always mindful of the obligations of her alliance. ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thing you must do is to dress for dinner, and not let anyone imagine there is anything untoward about," Myra advised. "And please don't tell father you have been lunching with one of the Kaiser's principal spies, if that's what the Baron's title really means. I would much rather you said nothing to him at all about it for the ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... discomforts, suffered many griefs, and bore many heartaches on account of the war and its varying fortunes, but throughout it all they acted bravely. There were no wild outbursts of grief when fathers, husbands, brothers or sons were killed in battle, and no untoward exclamations of joy when one of them earned distinction in the field. Reverses of the army were made the occasions for a renewed display of patriotism or the signal for the sending of another relative to the field. ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... withdrawing the key the adventurer stood at alert attention; but the heavy silence of that sinister old rookery sang in his ears untroubled by any untoward sound.... ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... such an untoward accident as this, and, as he expressed it, "to bring his daughter's mind into intimate relations with nature," the fanatical philosopher established the town of Lindsleyville, determined that no family ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... emphasised the opinion that this knife had been brought there by the murderer: "Horrible though it may be, my conclusion is that he brought it with the intention of cutting the throats of his victims, and that, finding they lay in rather an untoward position, he changed his mind, and, having carried out the object with which he entered the house, left the knife and, going back, brought the axe with which he effected his purpose. What was the purpose of the murderer? Was it the robbery of Dewar's paltry ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... the fates seemed slightly untoward. At the close of one of our joint debates, in the southern part of the district, he was greeted by a demure-looking individual with the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... apprehensive, and, feeling himself weakened by the fear lest something untoward might happen, he asked Ellhorn to give him a drink of brandy from a flask which stood on the mantel. Nick poured the measured dose into a glass, smelt of it, and looked frowningly at ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... mining-camp had brought no untoward excitement. Van, at his tent, with the covered figure lying on the earth, had welcomed his partners at midnight with the news that a "homeless and worn-out pilgrim of the desert" had come desiring rest. He ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... as the oldest Greek theorists supposed that the sports of chance had changed the material universe from its simple primitive form into its present heterogeneous condition, so their intellectual descendants imagined that but for untoward accident the human race would have conformed itself to simpler rules of conduct and a less tempestuous life. To live according to nature came to be considered as the end for which man was created, and which the best men were bound to compass. ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... Agsan was guilty 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 ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind. Every sparrow twittered hope. The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it melodiously. It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly company. Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented Margaret replying to his letter. Time would clear it up and set him wondering at his lapse ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... of sleep, provoked by being placed in bed, sometimes acts very irregularly. Often it may succeed for a week or two, and then some untoward happening breaks the habit, and night after night, for a long time, sleep is refused. The wakeful child put to bed, resents the process, and cries and sobs miserably, to the infinite distress of his mother. It then becomes just as likely that the child ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... holding. Robert was in his seventh year when his father entered on this farm at Whitsuntide, 1766, and he had reached his eighteenth when the lease came to a close in 1777. All the years between these two dates were to the family of Burness one long sore battle with untoward circumstances, ending in defeat. If the hardest toil and severe self-denial could have procured success, they would not have failed. It was this period of his life which Robert afterwards described, as combining ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... have then in Friedrich Hoelderlin a youth peculiarly predisposed to feel himself isolated from and repelled by the world, growing up without a strong fatherly hand to guide, giving himself over more and more to solitude and so becoming continually less able to cope with untoward circumstances and conditions. Growing into manhood, he was unfortunate in all his love-affairs and as though doomed to unceasing disappointments. Early in life he devoted himself to the study of antiquity, making Greece his ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... signers, "joint and several," ever imagined that they might, in the course of untoward events, be called upon to make good the promise to pay that stood over their names, is not likely. Nor did Jacob himself ever contemplate so painful a possibility. Serious as he saw his difficulties to be, he saw a way out of them—or he would have done so, he said to himself bitterly, if ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of untoward deeds on the part of Hurstwood had come. Doctor Beale, the handsome resident physician of the neighbourhood, met Mrs. Hurstwood at her own doorstep some days after Hurstwood and Carrie had taken the drive west on Washington Boulevard. Dr. Beale, coming east ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... 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
... wind and the untoward direction of the river obliged us again to employ the cordel to forward the boat a few miles more on her way. By the middle of the afternoon we had arrived at a place on the left [19] bank of the river that had been, a few days ago, the scene of a battle between the Pasha and the ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... he forgot or transgressed; and they had real, soothing, comforting talks just often enough to be tantalizing, and yet to convince him that all the other unsatisfactory meetings and partings were either his own fault, or that of some untoward circumstance. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the disadvantages of emigration is the separation of friends for ever. Time and distance no doubt gradually obliterate from our mind the most endearing recollections; but, under untoward circumstances, which will at times cross the path of every mortal in the most favourable situations, the emigrant's, and particularly the female emigrant's, breast must be "stung with the thoughts of home," on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating. But he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile, became immediately the less awful character of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... of a human life can never do justice to nature; for the reason that, for every man and woman, there come long periods of quiet labor or inaction when for months, perhaps years, scarce one untoward incident comes to break the slow routine of existence. The doings of one day repeat those of the day before, anticipate those of the morrow. What shall the chronicler do? Send his reader yawning to bed over the unfinishable ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... now to Elise and her father and Sister Benigna; and what would our young friend—from the city evidently—have looked or said could they have been communicated to him? Already the mind and heart of the mother of Elise, disconcerted and distracted for the moment by that untoward casting of the lot, had risen to a calm survey of the situation of things; and now she was endeavoring to reconcile herself to the prospect which imagination presented to the eye of faith, If she had perceived in the unannounced ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... his heart; and such fidelity It is his darling passion to approve; More brave for this, that he hath much to love:— 'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted, high, Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye, Or left unthought of in obscurity,— Who, with a toward or untoward lot, Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not— Plays, in the many games of life, that one Where what he most doth value must be won: Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray; Who not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... sources of revenue will be sufficient to provide for the support of Government, to pay the interest of the public debts, and to discharge the principals within shorter periods than the laws or the general expectation had contemplated. War, indeed, and untoward events may change this prospect of things and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps, happen ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... This was the most untoward situation ever yet known in the valley of Heart's Desire. Dan Andersen was proving recreant to our creed. And yet, what ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... their gaunt sides and shaking with a spectre-like malignity. Then he thought of the fair girl whom he had seen in the garden shedding tears on roses, and strove to weave a chaplet of verse which should be more unfading than flowers. What a strange destiny was his! The victim of untoward accidents, persecuted by some evil spirit, and leading an aimless, desultory life, which he yet feared would lead on to lunacy. What should he do in the present instance? Be patient? Yes, he would be calm, forgiving, philosophical as ever. Footsteps ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... so sure of that, my dear. We are untoward creatures, at the best, and the brightness of to-day, would not have looked like brightness then. No, love, the changes that seem so good and right to look back upon, would have dismayed me, could I have seen them before me. It is well ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... constitutional kind, of a constitutional king at that, without throne and crown, without sceptre and without sword, without irresponsibility, without the imperishable possession of the highest dignity in the State, and, what was most untoward of all—without a civil list. The d'Hautpoul Ministry numbered only one man of parliamentary reputation, the Jew Fould, one of the most notorious members of the high finance. To him fell the portfolio of finance. Turn to the Paris stock ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... also 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 ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and shaken, Myra was assisted down the mountain-side after a little while, and was eventually lifted on to a mule. The journey to the high road that ran through the heart of the Sierras was accomplished without untoward incident, and by great good fortune a motor car, carrying two high officials of the Guardia Civil, drove up just as the party reached the road. Into the car Myra and Don Carlos were invited, after some voluble explanations on the ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... from London that all was going well. He had found the will which I drew up at Florence in his uncle's escritoire, and everything was left to him; but he trusted, in spite of this untoward circumstance, long absence might have altered my determination. 'Dear Lois,' he wrote, 'I expect you to come back to England ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... altogether from going to the one great shop in the town, where women oft did congregate, would have been to expose an event, the participators in which devoutly hoped was buried in oblivion. They had been in Miss Franklin's department without anything untoward happening; but it was neither "Robinson's" nor the person who served them there that flashed like lightning across Annie's thoughts at this crisis. It was the articles the girls had been buying, the Tussore silk and Torchon lace for frocks that ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... security of the expedition, but because I think single ships ought never to be sent out on discoveries. For where risks are to be run, and doubtful and hazardous experiments tried, it cannot be expected that single ships should venture so far, as where there is some security provided against untoward accident. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... there, two minutes later he would look again to make quite sure that he had not been wrong. The conductor was not there. He must be ill. There was a stirring behind the curtain, and a sound of voices and hurried footsteps. Was there an accident, some untoward misfortune? Silence again. The conductor was at his post. Everything seemed ready at last.... They did not begin! What was happening? He boiled over with impatience. Then the bell rang. His heart thumped away. The orchestra began the overture, and for ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... manager, who 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 Trichinopoly cheroots, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... you 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 ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... frequent dramatic entertainments—in their hall in winter, and outdoors in the big yard back of Kalmuck Temple in the summer. In the entire history of the lodge there had never been so much as an untoward incident, but at eleven o'clock on the night of July 15 something frightful did occur. It spread it across the top of the first page of the "Daily Eagle" in the one ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... shadows and streaks of bright light alternate with each other in this period. In its second half, the clouds massed themselves heavily upon the darkening horizon. Even the "privileged" Spanish Jews suffered an untoward change in their affairs at the beginning of the thirteenth century: gradually they were withdrawn from under the sovereignty of the Arabs, and made subject to the power of the Catholic monarchs. They became thenceforward ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... troubles, Ascyltos commenced to nod, and the maid, whom he had slighted, and of course insulted, smeared lampblack all over his face, and painted his lips and shoulders with vermillion, while he drowsed. Completely exhausted by so many untoward adventures, I, too, was enjoying the shortest of naps, the whole household, within and without, was doing the same, some were lying here and there asleep at our feet, others leaned against the walls, and some even slept head to head upon the threshold itself; the lamps, failing because of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... west coast; but those gentlemen were unable to effect such object. The difficulties of the country were very great, and their means of transport extremely limited; and in consequence of successive untoward events they were ultimately obliged to abandon the enterprise, without any satisfactory result. But I should be doing injustice to those officers, more particularly to Captain Grey, if I did not state that he shewed a degree of enthusiasm and courage that ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... not in merit, than himself, who had been long in treaty for the hand of a fair and noble damsel of the city, by name Cassandra, whom Lysimachus ardently loved, and the match had sundry times been broken off by divers untoward accidents. Now Pasimondas, being about to celebrate his own nuptials with the utmost splendour, bethought himself that it were excellently well done if he could procure Ormisdas likewise to take wife on the same occasion, not to resort afresh ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... is our duty to see that no one molests her upon that last journey. I think, Watson, that we must spare time to run down together on Saturday morning and make sure that this curious and inclusive investigation has no untoward ending." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... State apartments. It was a painful and difficult business to ascend that thin and yielding ladder in such a confined space, but Racksole was managing it very nicely, and had nearly reached the top, when, by some untoward freak of chance, the ladder broke above his weight, and he slipped ignominiously down to the bottom of the wooden tube. Smothering an excusable curse, Racksole crouched, baffled. Then he saw that the force of his fall had somehow opened a trap-door at ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... man came under observation with an edematous, inflamed penis. The wife, the night previous, on advice of friends, had injected pure carbolic acid into the vagina just previous to coitus. The husband, ignorant of the fact, experienced untoward burning and smarting during and after coitus, but thought little of it, and soon fell asleep. The next morning there were large blisters on the penis, but it was no longer painful. When seen by Dr. Allen the prepuce was retracted and edematous, the whole penis was much swollen, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... urge the necessity of economy, and of adopting all possible precautions against waste. You will at once perceive, however, how embarrassing my position is. A source of possible misunderstanding between myself and the colonists is furnished by these untoward circumstances, altogether unconnected with the ordinary, or, as I may perhaps venture to term them, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... brother," the voice said, "to blame God for untoward accidents, or for mistakes and follies committed ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... than any man. William Bankes also a great deal. I myself recollect more of his oddities than of his academical qualities, for we lived most together at a very idle period of my life. When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of seventeen and a half, I was miserable and untoward to a degree. I was wretched at leaving Harrow, to which I had become attached during the two last years of my stay there; wretched at going to Cambridge instead of Oxford (there were no rooms Vacant ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... years that followed; how the boy had come to her for sympathy in his childish joys and sorrows; how he had sought her counsel, and guided himself by it, in riper years. She recalled with sadness the untoward events which had interfered to separate him from her and from his early home as he advanced to manhood. Things had not gone well with him in the last years of his life, and he sank under a burden of care too heavy to be borne by one of his sensitive nature. Now he was dead, and she ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... 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 authority, going about the whole island in person to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... commenced. Many rows, from the operations of the "cut-worm," and from multitudinous causes unknown, have to be replanted, and an unusually late frost may destroy all his labors, and compel him to commence again. But, if no untoward accident occurs, in two weeks after the "scraping," another hoeing takes place, at which time the plow throws the furrow on to the roots of the now strengthening plant, and the increasing heat of the sun also justifying the sinking of the roots deeper in the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... a ghaut up the country. The natives had bathed there for centuries without any accident on record, when, one day, a woman disappeared under the water from amongst the rest, and every day for many weeks the same untoward circumstance occurred. It was supposed to be an alligator, but it was afterwards ascertained that this party of thieves had concealed themselves in the jungle on the opposite side of the river, which at that ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Phineas, buoyed up by the sympathy of his friends, and in some measure supported by the excitement of the occasion, carried himself well, and bore bravely the terrible misfortune to which he had been subjected by untoward circumstances. But when the magistrate fully committed him, giving the first public decision on the matter from the bench, declaring to the world at large that on the evidence as given, prima facie, he; ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... him, of lawyers and judges, was most bitter and cruel. A brilliant lawyer, he was accused of non-performance of duty; but he died, knowing nothing of the delays complained of. He was blamed for what he could not help. Some stroke of ill-health; some untoward worldly [Transcriber's Note: original says "wordly"] circumstances, or something in domestic conditions will often disqualify a man for service; and yet he is blamed for idleness, for having possessions when the finances are cramped, for temper when the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... galloped on his war-horse to the nearest Barber, who shaved his head like the men's. On the way back, he saw the Prime Minister going to Court. "May I ask," said the Prime Minister suavely, "to what untoward circumstance is due the erasure of ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... unlucky. (It may be said, in a parenthesis, that the fast phrase, "over the left," so prevalent during the past few years, to indicate the reverse of what has just been spoken, has its derivation from the impression that such an untoward sinister glance may neutralize all effort and bring notable misfortune.) Of a hundred men interrogated on this point, ninety-five will assert that they hold no such superstition, and that they have never even thought of the direction in ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... from rough treatment, from the cruelties and the rage of the Mahdist believers, who even murdered Mohammedans loyal to the Government. For the first time since the abduction deep despair beset the boy, and at the same time some kind of vague notion that an untoward fate was persecuting them. Why, the idea itself of abducting them from Fayum and conveying them to Khartum was sheer madness which could be committed only by such wild and foolish men as Idris and Gebhr, not understanding that ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... life, with the healthful country air, should have restored Beethoven's health in some measure could it have been continued longer. His letters from here indicate that he expected some improvement in this respect. Had not some untoward circumstances intervened, the master's life might have been spared long enough to enable him to carry to completion the list of ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... of the season a rather untoward event occurred at Miss G.'s lodgings. An elderly lady took one of the flats for a month. She had with her an attendant of about thirty. Before long Miss G. observed that they were not on very good terms, and one morning the old lady was found ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... incredible variety of distempers; and, like the corruptors of their nature, have physicians who thrive upon their miseries. The supereminence of man is like Satan's, a supereminence of pain; and the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have reason to curse the untoward event that, by enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow-animals. But the steps that have been taken are irrevocable. The whole of human science is comprised in one question:—How can the advantages of intellect ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Charles Jacomb personified religion, and that Singing Sal, in like manner, was a sort of high priestess of Nature; and that they were in deadly antagonism. They were Ormuzd and Ahriman. She was a strangely fanciful young woman, and she dwelt much on this thing, until, half fearing certain untoward doubts and promptings of her heart, she began to think that if now and at once Mr. Jacomb would only ask her to be his wife, she would avoid all perils and confusions by directly accepting him, and so decide her future ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... phenomena of whose contact with the whites raise some grave and gloomy problems. There are the relations of the two European races—races which ought long ago to have been happily blended into one, but which have been kept apart by a train of untoward events and administrative errors. Few of the newer countries have had a more peculiar or more chequered history; and this history needs to be studied with a constant regard to the physical conditions ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... 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 unshaken ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... driven his victim into a corner. To yield a point in family discipline or to pay the price of the property he had destroyed—one of the two he must do. It was a most untoward predicament for Jacob Getz. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... luck had turned, Nils said, and it was the child that had turned it. They had been married for four years, and though they had no one to provide for but themselves, they scarcely managed to keep body and soul together. All sorts of untoward things happened. Now a tree which he was cutting down fell upon Nils and laid him up for a month; now he got water on his knee from a blow he received while rolling logs into the chute; now the pig died which was to have provided them with salt pork for the winter, and the hens took to the bush, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... specially evil life; he had not broken laws, but the subject of Deity was not one which his scheme of existence had included. When it had haunted him of late he had felt it an untoward and morbid sign. The thing had drawn him—drawn him; he had complained against it, he had argued, sometimes he knew—shuddering—that he had raved. Something had seemed to stand aside and watch his being and his thinking. Something which filled the ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had their troubles,—their untoward causes of banishment; you, the looker-on, had 'your wishes and regrets,'—your anxieties, alloying your home happiness and domestic bliss; and the parallel might be pursued further, and still it would be true,—still ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... could answer better than I. I don't see why a canal-boat shouldn't be healthy, however. The dampness would not amount to very much. It would be outside of one's dwelling, and not within it, as is the case with so many houses. A canal-boat having no cellar could not have a damp one, and if by some untoward circumstance it should spring a leak, the water could be pumped out at once and the leak plugged up. However this might be, I'll offer another wager to this board on that point, and that is that more people die ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... waited long for his letter. I was puzzled, angry, and alarmed; but thanks to my previous thrift, I cannot say that I was ever practically embarrassed. The embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were all for my unhappy father at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and fortune against untoward chances, returning at night from a day of ill-starred shifts and ventures, to read and perhaps to weep over that last harsh letter from his only child, to which he lacked the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... its prime, one that has grown without check or hindrance, and has been removed from the tree without bruise or blemish, you have within you pure, good and chaste food, and you should be thankful and of a gladsome mind. Moreover, no untoward effects arise from excess of appetite. If you be of the fair sex your eyes may brighten on such diet, and your complexion become more radiant. If a mere man you will ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... forget what I had written. Perhaps I might not remember the exact words of a sentence, but I was at liberty to replace them by other expressions as good, and as I never happened to be at a loss, or to be struck dumb, when I spoke in society, it was not likely that such an untoward accident would befall me before an audience amongst whom I did not know anyone who could intimidate me and cause me suddenly to lose the faculty of reason or of speech. I therefore took my pleasure as usual, being satisfied with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... railroad between Baltimore and Washington), and transferred his column from thence, by cars, on the 25th, to the National Capital—soon thereafter also taking military possession of Baltimore, which gave no further trouble to the Union Cause. In the meantime, however, other untoward events to ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... return half of a second-class ticket from London to Paris. He, therefore, wandered about the streets till morning broke, and then came back to London a crestfallen and miserable man, bemoaning his untoward fate, and cursing "them blasted Frenchies" from the ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It is surprising, therefore—and one must bow down before the judgment of God when He leaves mankind to himself—that a mind evidently of some grandeur, professing fearlessness in the most untoward and unexpected events, an immovable firmness and a resolution to await and to endure death if so it must be, should yet be so criminal as she was proved to be by the parricide to which she confessed before her judges. She had nothing in her face ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... children, although they were both well past forty years of age. Once he saluted the "little girl," as he called her, with a kiss, and he was quite astonished when she blushed. Her brother clapped his hands and enjoyed what he called the fun. But it was the untoward affection of the fat lady that nearly brought about a catastrophe, for her constant smile at the professor aroused the jealousy of the living skeleton and brought about an ultimatum from that gentleman in the ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... breakfast and saw Ephraim standing beside her. It was his way to look calm outwardly, but she could see that he was struggling with the nervous untoward beating of his heart, so that he could not speak. Susannah did not understand why she could not immediately rise and speak. She was conscious of a red flush that rose and mantled her face, but she did not understand the emotion from which it arose. She only knew ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... glance at the man who, but for the untoward arrival of Gledware, would have won from him his share of the booty. But his voice was smooth and pleasant as he resumed: "Yes, pard, the kid must die. We couldn't do nothing with her, and if we left her on some door-step, she's sure old enough, and she ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of age untoward! Ever spleeny, ever froward! Why these bolts and massy chains, Squint suspicions, jealous pains? Why, thy toilsome journey o'er, Lay'st thou up an useless store? Hope, along with Time is flown; Nor canst thou reap the field thou'st sown. Hast thou a son? In time be ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... came in answer to her poignant wish for some untoward happening, there was a quick double knock at the front door of the Blanchard's dwelling, and a sharp whirring ring at the push-bell below the knocker. The sounds seemed to go violently through and through the little house in ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... bedroom. MISS PHOEBE saves herself by instant flight, and nothing but mesmeric influence keeps MISS SUSAN rooted to the blue and white room. When he returns he is loaded with wraps, and still cheerfully animated, as if he had found nothing untoward in ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... counsellors we have mentioned. One of these was, the prospect of his succeeding to an old lady, a distant relation, who was known to be possessed of a very large sum in the stocks: but in this their hopes were disappointed; for the young man was so untoward in his disposition, that, notwithstanding the instructions he daily received, his visits rather tended to alienate than gain the good-will of his kinswoman. He sometimes looked grave when the old lady told the jokes of her youth; he often refused to eat when she pressed ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... of the League of Nations and the treaty of peace with the Central Powers interdependent. For the maxims that underlie the former are irreconcilable with those that should determine the latter, and the efforts to combine them must, among other untoward results, create a sharp opposition between the vital interests of the people of the United States and the apparent or transient interests of their associates. The outcome of this unnatural union will be to damage the cause of stable peace which ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... clouded, seize and turn the head; Loyalty without Freedom is a chain Which men of liberal notice can't sustain; And Freedom without Loyalty, a name Which nothing means, or means licentious shame. 790 Thine be the art, my Sandwich, thine the toil, In Oxford's stubborn and untoward soil To rear this plant of union, till at length, Rooted by time, and foster'd into strength, Shooting aloft, all danger it defies, And proudly lifts its branches to the skies; Whilst, Wisdom's happy son but not her slave, Gay with the gay, and with the grave ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... industrious father was taken away from his wife and his little ones. He had been their stay and support. He was sober and thrifty but sickness and untoward conditions made accumulations impossible. When he, the head of the home, was taken away there was nothing for the support of these helpless little ones and their widowed mother but her own arms and head and heart. There was no time for sentiment and tears. These little ones must be sheltered and ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... 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
... care is taken at Ellis Island, the girl's destination carefully indicated upon her ticket and her friends communicated with, after she boards the train the governmental protection is withdrawn and many untoward experiences may befall a girl between New York and her final destination. Only this year a Polish mother of the Hull House neighborhood failed to find her daughter on a New York train upon which she had been notified to expect her, because the girl had been ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... stay in Paris, on his way back, an event occurred that had a most untoward influence on his plans and hopes. He fell desperately in love with a beautiful French woman. Like himself, she was poor, but of patrician blood, and was very fascinating. She attracted him by her extreme beauty and brilliancy. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... into four chapters. Then, though the Editor had not wholly lost courage, the Publisher indignantly interfered; and the readers of Fraser, as those of the Cornhill, were protected, for that time, from farther disturbance on my part. Subsequently, loss of health, family distress, and various untoward chances, prevented my proceeding with the body of the book;—seven years have passed ineffectually; and I am now fain to reprint the Preface by itself, under the title which ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... in statu quo. Our lives went on evenly. The telephone was at our service, without any of its past vagaries. Maggie's eyes ceased to look as if they were being pushed out from behind, and I ceased to waken at night and listen for untoward signs. ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... adverse fortune or any instance thereof, any untoward event, usually of lingering character or consequences, and such as the sufferer is not deemed directly responsible for; as, he had the misfortune to be born blind. Any considerable disappointment, failure, or misfortune, as regards outward ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the Nepean River on the other, is now entitled the County Of Cumberland. For many years, this single district supplied the wants of the settlers. Upon it they found ample pasture for their herds, and sufficient employment for themselves. Nor was it until a succession of untoward seasons, and the rapid increase of their stock pointed out to them the necessity of seeking for more extensive pasturage, that they contemplated surmounting that dark and rugged chain of mountains, which, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... child," rejoined her companion, "for the blind violence of a crazy woman. I am confident that the wound is not dangerous. Perhaps the accident, apparently so untoward, may in the end be productive of good. We are too apt to receive as good what should be avoided as evil, and to deem that a curse which ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... probability be enemies, ferocious robbers and murderers, in whose eyes our rifles would be our only passports. For the first two days nothing worth mentioning took place. On the third morning, however, an untoward incident occurred. We were encamped by the side of a little brook in an extensive hollow of the plain. Delorier was up long before daylight, and before he began to prepare breakfast he turned loose all the horses, as in duty bound. There was ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... landing ghat. The increased facilities which improved means of transit now offer to bachelors for running home on short leave have resulted in making the Anglo-Indian "spin" rather a drug in the market; and operating in the same untoward direction is the growing predilection on the part of the Anglo-Indian bachelor for other men's wives, in preference to hampering himself with the encumbrance of a wife of his own. Among other social products of India old maids are now occasionally found; and ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... reason for Esther's refusal to go away. It was a simple reason and had to do with the fact that in Coombe the mails were sure and regular. Travellers miss letters and strange addresses are uncertain at best, but in Coombe there was small chance of any untoward accident befalling a certain weekly letter in the handwriting of Professor Willits. Esther lived upon these letters. Brief and dry though they were, they formed the motive power of her life and indeed it was from one of them that ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... assisted in dressing her the next morning, and set out 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 that she looked ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... went on. 'Cytherea has been left in a nameless and unsatisfactory, though innocent state, by this unfortunate, and now void, marriage with Manston. A marriage with me, though under the—materially—untoward conditions I have mentioned, would make us happy; it would give her a locus standi. If she wished to be out of the sound of her misfortunes we would go to another part ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... bloodstains were on their track, and they were heard next morning wailing in the woods. But the little caravan had suffered heavy loss. Gilbert was killed; Roper and Calvert were severely injured and disfigured by spear-wounds and blows from the waddies. It was a melancholy and untoward event, but time could ill be spared to mourn. The dead man was buried, a large fire made over his grave to prevent the natives from detecting and disinterring the body, and with sad hearts the little caravan prosecuted their march. The Doctor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... by fancy became an elysium: employment enlivened by plays, rum, and tobacco, was described as a cheering vicissitude in a life of crime. It was not difficult to see, that a reaction would follow, and that any untoward accident would ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... all the fears of the alarmists were falsified. The only untoward incidents were the raids of the pickpockets upon the crowds. I myself was one of their victims, in a somewhat curious fashion. I was riding with another reporter in a cab at the tail of the procession. The crowd, as we approached Lillie ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... correcting the proofs for the Quarterly; it is but a flimsy article, but then the circumstances were most untoward. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... life, the Vicarage at Castle Terryn and the society those duties included, formed to him indeed a happy resting-place; while his many excellent qualities soon reconciled St. Eval and his Countess to Myrvin's desertion, as they called his accepting the rectory at Oakwood. No untoward event occurred to prevent the celebration of Percy and Edward's bridals as intended. They took place, attended with all that chastened joy and innocent festivity which might have been expected from the ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... prove so untoward and perfidious, their iniquitie shall be upon themselves, and they shall bear their punishment: Deliverance and good successe shall follow those who with purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord, and whose hearts are upright toward his glory. When wee look back ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... gnarled giants up in Bramshill Park—the only place in England where a painter can learn what Scotch firs are—down to the little green pyramids which stand up out of the heather, triumphant over tyranny, and the strange woes of an untoward youth. Seven years on an average have most of them spent in ineffectual efforts to become a foot high. Nibbled off by hares, trodden down by cattle, cut down by turf-parers, seeing hundreds of their brethren cut up and carried off in the turf-fuel, they ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... expect such a declaration to change the temper of the Lower House. Speeches were heard still more violent than those previously made. The Scots, to whose influence every untoward occurrence was imputed, were threatened with a repetition of the Sicilian Vespers. There were other members however who counselled moderation; for it almost appeared as if the dissolution of this Parliament might ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... cross-grained stick At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked: Such answer household ends; but she will have Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound Down to the heart of heat; from these she strips All needless stuff, all sapwood; hardens them, From circumstance untoward feathers plucks Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with iron will: The hour that passes is her quiver-boy; When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind, Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow sings, For sun and wind have plighted faith to her: Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold, In ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... again," he said smilingly, yet with a certain imperiousness of manner that became him well. "I am thus solitary through the untoward accident that drowned the faithful follower who alone shared my design, and I knew not that I was in peril from these lawless men in one part of the realm more than the other. Paul, if I ever wield the kingly power, I will put down these bands of marauders with a strong ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... had at home on a modest scale?" Then he thought that Poseidon smiled at him, and held out his right hand, and said that for his sake he would give the Megarians a large shoal of anchovies. Those, then, that have such pleasant, clear, and painless dreams, and no frightful, or harsh, or malignant, or untoward apparition, may be said to have reflections of their progress in virtue; whereas agitation and panics and ignoble flights, and boyish delights, and lamentations in the case of sad and strange dreams, are like the waves that break on the coast, the soul not having yet ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... 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 bedroom when you are made ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... without even a glance at me, and walked up the aisle and across the front of the house toward the little stairs at the side which led up to the platform. By this time the entire audience was aware that something untoward was happening. There were a few cries of "Sit down! Put him out!" An usher hastened up as Barber was ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... sailed with a fair Wind, 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 ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... is closed to oncoming discharges from the color-centers; but it is certain that any such discharge, during this complicated process of readjustment, would take the localization-centres by surprise, as it were, and might conceivably result in untoward eye-movements highly prejudicial to the safety of the individual as a whole. The much more probable event is ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... that feeling. It made life exciting, and she was too much of a woman not to like excitement. But it frightened her, too, a little; and when Don Jose Avellanos, rocking in the American chair, would go so far as to say, "Even, my dear Carlos, if you had failed; even if some untoward event were yet to destroy your work—which God forbid!—you would have deserved well of your country," Mrs. Gould would look up from the tea-table profoundly at her unmoved husband stirring the spoon in the cup as though he had ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... will make the journey under the charge and escort of persons that I have appointed for the purpose. They will explain to you, on the way, the mystery in which your parentage and birth seems to you at present enveloped. You will find that I was induced many years ago, by the influence of an untoward dream, to treat you injuriously. But all has ended well, and you can now go in peace to your ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... not opened to let any one else in until the arrival of the favoured person. He is regaled with spice cake and cheese, and with ale or spirits, as the case may be. All the 'ill luck'—that is, the untoward circumstances of the year, would be ascribed to the accident of a person with light hair having been the first to enter a dwelling on the mornings referred to. I have known instances where such persons, innocently presenting themselves, have met with ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... back to her. I had two objects in view: I wished to see the shipping-list, as it was my aim to leave the country for America by the first opportunity; and, secondly, to see what account the public had got of my untoward adventure. I felt conscious that all the city was in commotion about it, and the authorities despatched for my apprehension; for I had no doubt that my nurse would at once declare her innocence, and tell who had done the deed. With an anxiety I want words to express, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... usual time, Raby turned her steps to Storr Alley. Groups of people stood about in the court, and it was evident, since she was last there, something untoward had happened. A fireman's helmet at the other end of the alley, in the passage leading to Driver's Court, told its own tale; and if that was not enough, the smell of fire and the bundles of rags and broken ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed |
