"Accidentally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Job's pets always got hurt or disappeared. Dick, his first pony, was accidentally lamed for life; the big dog he romped with was found dead from poison. All the mischief in the neighborhood was eventually laid at Job's door. For a long time the boy systematically avoided the Deans, till by ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... must ever hold that the principle of mere common enterprise is not sufficient—it is not sufficiently specific—it must be more limited. What is the real and true criterion? She being in sight, or seeing the enemy's fleet accidentally, a day or two before, will not be sufficient; it must be at the commencement of the engagement, either in the act of chasing, or in preparations for chase, or afterwards during its continuance. If a ship was detached in sight of the enemy, and under ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... exposed to view in case the landlady entered the room in her absence. The only forgotten object belonging to her that she discovered was a little packet of Norah's letters which she had been reading overnight, and which had been accidentally pushed under the looking-glass while she was engaged in dressing herself. As she took up the letters to put them away, the thought struck her for the first time, "Would Norah know me now if we met each other in the street?" She looked in the glass, and smiled ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... This is altogether as bitter an enemy to guilt as the former is to innocence: nor can I see it in an unamiable light, even though, through human fallibility, it should be sometimes mistaken. For instance, if a husband should accidentally surprize his wife in the lap or in the embraces of some of those pretty young gentlemen who profess the art of cuckold-making, I should not highly, I think, blame him for concluding something more than what he saw, from the familiarities ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... not but admit that the personality took the edge off the clothes; even the "mottled mica"—the rent was completely hid—seemed to have lost the worst of its glaze and stiffness. "You'll do, Josh," said he. "I spoke too quickly. If I hadn't accidentally been thrust into the innermost secrets of your toilet I'd never have suspected." He looked the Westerner over with gentle, friendly patronage. "Yes, you'll do. You look fairly well at a glance—and a man's clothes ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... a plan. He was to say, when the ship came, that he had but five casks of oil; all his trade had been sold for cash, and the cash—a thousand dollars—represented by a bag of copper bolts picked up on the reef from an old wreck, was to be taken off to the ship and accidentally dropped overboard as it was being passed up on deck. This was Lannigan's idea, and Tariro straightway tied up the bolts in readiness in many thicknesses ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... when cattle are pastured on sandy or gravelly soil. The molar teeth may also show irregular wear from similar causes, or from a disease or malformation of the jaw. Their edges may become sharp, or it may happen that a molar tooth has been accidentally fractured. It may also occur that a supernumerary tooth has developed in an unusual position, and that it interferes with the natural and regular ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... around, as Alderman McGuire said, and shot the other, unhypnotized bandit and killed him. But when he reported the entire incident to the station—I was on duty that night—the captain wouldn't believe it, and tried to argue McGuire into saying it was a accident, and that the gun had gone off accidentally and killed the unhypnotized bandit. But the alderman stuck to his story, and it was true, because the hypnotized bandit told me privately all about it when I took him down ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... words are, but I'll be hanged if I will repeat them. 'Falling overboard accidentally!' ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... I did the thing accidentally which I had often had in my heart to do, but which I am very certain would have been impossible to me, had it not blundered out in a very miserable way. We were speaking of my late absence, and I let her know that she had been ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... that, by the merest chance, the gentleman you have accidentally asked to dinner, may, by some strange fortuity, be surprised into asking me a second time for something very much ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... answered, "I can't think of THAT man as being YOU at all. THAT was something that the accident of your being a thief did to you,—like catching cold, and being sick, after accidentally falling in ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... back in his seat, nursing the pistol he had accidentally discharged. Then with his eyes half-closed he slowly raised it to take aim at Pen, who gazed at him firmly and without seeming to blench, while Punch uttered a low, growling ejaculation full of rage as ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... to some extent depend upon incident and arrangement of incident, but there is a kind of novel which only interests through the excitement of events in their nature fictitious, even when accidentally true. Any really good book which may be spoken of as a "novel of incident" will invariably prove to be very much more. To take the case of Fielding's Tom Jones, one observes that it is an imitation of life which is ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... specimen is particularly interesting to those who believe, with Mr. Darwin, that extreme difference of the sexes has been gradually produced by what he terms sexual selection, since it may be supposed to exhibit one of the intermediate steps in that process, which has been accidentally preserved in company with its more favoured rivals, though its extreme rarity (only one specimen having been seen to many hundreds of the other form) would indicate that it ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Portugal come into existence, almost accidentally and without there being any division of race or of language between its inhabitants and ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... special commission in New York and a numerous public audience, to show how surely and how easily his apparatus worked. In the very midst of his experiments a very happy idea occurred to him of replacing by the water of a canal, the length of about a mile of wire which had been suddenly and accidentally destroyed. This accident, which for a moment compromised the legitimate success the celebrated engineer expected, thus suggested to him a fruitful idea which he did not forget. He subsequently repeated attempts to thus ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... such that they cannot possibly afford to have and to bring up any children. They would love to get married, but the specter of a child—or rather of children—frightens them; and they remain single, to the great physical and mental injury of both. Accidentally they learn of appropriate means of regulating conception, get married and live happily—ever after, that is, until they find themselves in a position to have children and to ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... This attempt, which had excited the indignation of many of the Viennese themselves, did not change his Majesty's intentions, as he wished to carry his moderation and kindness as far as possible; and he wrote to the archduke by the Prince of Neuchatel the following letter, a copy of which accidentally fell into ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... what I have accidentally heard, in so great forwardness as I was in hopes that it had been. There must be two vacancies at the Board before he has a very good chance, if he has any. Lord Walsingham has no inclination to quit; it is a scene of business which he likes. Mr. Buller has been many years in Parliament, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... just at the same time, some bolder and fiercer spirits of the Whig party determined to kill both Charles and James at the lonely Rye House belonging to Rumbolt. The plot failed from the fact that the house which the king occupied at Newmarket accidentally caught fire, and Charles was obliged to leave Newmarket a week sooner than was expected. This conspiracy as well as the meetings of the Whig party were betrayed to the king's ministers. Russell was beheaded in 1683, and Sidney shared the ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... be," exclaimed Ernest, one day, when he had accidentally heard Barber abusing Ellis, and the latter had walked away without retorting or attempting ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... followed Voltaire and Ingersoll. In the ranks of their following I have been content to cry: 'I don't know! I can wait! One world at a time is enough for me!' As to mediumship, or any manifestations of it, I know almost nothing. The few mediums I have met accidentally, have unfortunately failed to impress me favorably. All that I have heard or read of them has had a strong tendency to prejudice me against them and the philosophy they taught. Therefore, until my visit to this cottage, I have never been at all interested ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... was that those pirates at first took a great many boats laden with the aforesaid commodities; these they used to carry to Tortuga, and sell the whole purchase to the ships that waited for their return, or accidentally happened to be there. With the gains of these prizes they provided themselves with necessaries, wherewith to undertake other voyages, some of which were made to Campechy, and others toward New Spain; in both ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... evidently a similar version which has filtered through Japanese channels. So things remained until Sun Hsing-yen [1752-1818], a distinguished antiquarian and classical scholar, who claimed to be an actual descendant of Sun Wu, [36] accidentally discovered a copy of Chi T'ien-pao's long-lost work, when on a visit to the library of the Hua-yin temple. [37] Appended to it was the I SHUO of Cheng Yu-Hsien, mentioned in the T'UNG CHIH, and also believed to have perished. This is what Sun Hsing-yen designates as the "original ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... cub unmercifully, though the little creature was enduring extreme agony. But directly the old badger recovered from her fit of temper, she sought to make amends by petting and soothing the frightened cub, and trying to remove the trap. Finally, after half an hour's continuous effort, she accidentally found that the trap was connected by a chain with a stake thrust into the ground. Quickly, with all the strength of her muscular fore-paws, she dug up the soil at the end of the chain, and then, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... go. She ordered me out of the house like a dog, just because I wouldn't give up Tim when she'd accidentally seen him when he'd had one drop more than the full of him,—and any poor body might take a wee drop more'n he meant to take beforehand. She was that hot in her way when her temper was up, rest her soul,—and that nobody knows better than yourself,—that the devil himself couldn't hold her ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... so that their identity and relationship should be concealed. They seemed to have lived very happily together. After many years, when they had had children and grandchildren, their true relationship was accidentally discovered. A complaint was laid before the local authorities. After a long deliberation and careful review of the case, and to eradicate such "unnatural offspring", as they were termed, it was decided that the two offenders, and all their ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... sand dunes, although he perceived no movement, no black dot even which he could conceive to be a possible enemy. Now that he possessed ample time for thought, the situation became more puzzling. This tragedy which he had accidentally stumbled upon must have had a cause other than blind chance. It was the culmination of a plot, with some reason behind more important than ordinary robbery. Apparently the wagons contained nothing of value, merely the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... wonderful address, brought this great and glorious action to a happy conclusion, resolved to relax his mind after his fatigue, in the conversation of the fair. He therefore set forwards to his lovely Laetitia; but in his way accidentally met with a young lady of his acquaintance, Miss Molly Straddle, who was taking the air in Bridges-street. Miss Molly, seeing Mr. Wild, stopped him, and with a familiarity peculiar to a genteel town education, tapped, or rather slapped him ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... of Lord John Lester. The chairman was the delegate for Paraguay. It was expected that he would carefully and skilfully guide the lines on which the committee should work so that the regrettable suspicions which had accidentally fallen on certain Latin Americans should be diverted into ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate; random, statistical; possible &c. 470; unintentional &c. 621. Adv. by chance, accidentally, by accident; casually; perchance &c. (possibly) 470; for aught one knows; as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it; as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen; as the case may ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... attainment of power and position, the religious devotee hopes for personal favors from the unseen powers. These are on different planes of value, they are estimated differently by different persons, but they all centre in the individual, and if society benefits it is only indirectly or accidentally. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... but finally turned and ran. The old man who told me this story added that young as he was, he had some power, so that even a grizzly did not care to tackle him. I believe it is a fact that a silver-tip will dare anything except a bell or a lasso line, so that accidentally the boy had hit upon the very thing which would drive ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the least in power, MacIan or Macdonald, with his narrow realm of Glencoe, whence his men were used to plunder the cattle of their powerful neighbour, Breadalbane. Dalrymple now desired not peace, but the sword. By January 9, 1692, Dalrymple, in London, heard that Glencoe had come in (he had accidentally failed to come in by January 1), and Dalrymple was "sorry." By January 11 Dalrymple knew that Glencoe had not taken the oath before January 1, and rejoiced in the chance to "root out that damnable sect." In fact, in ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... destructive chemical agents, they soon decay, and leave no trace behind. Who ever finds the dead bodies of the thousands of animals and birds which perish yearly? Who finds the remains of the familiar creatures which frequent our woods and meadows? For one which is accidentally buried so as to resist the destructive forces of air and water, millions are resolved into their primitive elements, and are annihilated as structural forms. And yet, because in portions of the vast deposits of rock the remains of certain ancient forms are discovered, it is asked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... governor, and finishing with the expression, "So may'st thou escape the PITY of the world." In May, 1605, he was called upon as a witness in a case of a man who was mortally wounded and dragged at night into his apartment, which almost accidentally gives us his household, consisting of his wife; his natural daughter Isabel, twenty years of age, unmarried; his sister, a widow, above fifty years; her unmarried daughter, aged twenty-eight; his half-sister, a religieuse; and a maid-servant. His "Espanola Inglesa" appeared in 1611. His moral tales, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however, was accidentally supplied, and I found that these accesses of demonstrative affection were sure to supervene whenever my father's face was visible ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... nine weeks since there was accidentally discovered by an Husbandman, at Stunsfield, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, (a large Pavement of rich Mosaick Work of the Ancient Romans, which is adornd with several Figures alluding to Mirth and Concord, in particular that of Bacchus seated on a Panther.) ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... not only a new and keenly-felt defeat, but also a real danger; for it was to be foreseen that the bold partisan would not allow himself as consul to be reduced to insignificance so easily as Domitius and other men of the respectable opposition. It happened that Achilles and Hector accidentally encountered each other not far from the capital on the Appian Way, and a fray arose between their respective bands, in which Clodius himself received a sword-cut on the shoulder and was compelled to take refuge in a neighbouring house. This had occurred without orders ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... but speak, and even that he can do in a mute way, for when he is greatly troubled, he cries like a human being, with real tears. I am thinking as I write of a young Cottesmore pup I was walking at Melton Mowbray who, when a friend accidentally trod on his foot, came yelping up to me for sympathy with big tears rolling down his face. When I picked up this heavy lump of dog and soothed him, he at once stopped his yelping and his tears ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... collision, but otherwise it is forbidden to touch the other boat or crew or paddle or spear or line, or to lay hands on the fish, or to touch it with the paddle or oar, or touch your own spear while it is in the fish, or to tie the line around the fish except so far as this may be accidentally done ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... despondency the element of his own self-created folly. Neither could it be otherwise. For, besides that, it would be too immeasurable a draught of woe to say in one breath that this only was the crux or affirmation of man's fate, and yet that this also was wretched per se; not accidentally made wretched by imprudence, but essentially and irrevocably so by necessity of its nature. Besides all this, which has a lurking dependency upon man's calculations of what is safe, he sees that this mode of thinking would leave him nothing; yet even that extreme consequence would not ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... of one Pasteur Institute says, "We have two classes of patients to deal with in the Pasteur institute. The larger class, of course, are those inoculated by the bite of rabid animals, but we also have a few who are infected by the rabid saliva accidentally coming in contact with wounds already produced. In these accidental eases the disease is almost as likely to result as in those to whom the virus is directly communicated by the bite." The wounds considered most dangerous are the recent fresh ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... imprevu. It was on the road some distance from Fontainebleau that the emperor met the Pope: the potentate alighted from his horse, the pontiff from his traveling chaise, and a coach being at hand, as if accidentally, they ascended its steps at the same moment from opposite sides, so that precedence was neither taken nor given. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... drawing affection or were signalized by their enjoyment of the boon. Many a rare character, otherwise long ago consumed in the alembic of time, will long continue to be fondly singled out and studied. So when the famous Marchioness of Salisbury was accidentally burned to death, the Skeleton was known as hers only by the jewels with which ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... then ten o'clock, and as he watched the slow-moving hands upon the moonlit dial in the church tower, it seemed to him they were held back by invisible fingers, and there came to his mind a forgotten story of a man who, having been accidentally imprisoned in a sepulchre, suffered in the twenty minutes which elapsed before his release all the pangs of starvation, so powerfully was his imagination excited. This story which he had once discredited he now believed, for it seemed to him as if eternities ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... luncheon I had a letter in my hand and accidentally dropped the envelope. Paper of any kind upon the carpet is associated in Binny's mind with the advent of food. Straightway he thudded from his arm-chair and sat down upon the envelope. You will notice that I speak above of Binny and Joe. I do so instinctively, because, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... I knew better. "I think there's one other fellow," I said, hesitatingly. "Eh—oh, Bull's-eye! Yes, you're right there, and he'd have knocked it off smarter than you've done too, my boy." There was a pause after this. We had both accidentally got on to an awkward topic. Doubleday was the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... his wits sharpening by his success, "although those boughs seem to be broken accidentally, yet all are caught in amongst other twigs so that each one points in the same direction—the way we are going. What does it mean, Charley, if it ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a seat, and makes of his silhouette a ludicrous and majestic tripod. This genius's chief amusement is startlingly domestic: it is knitting stockings; and engaged in this peaceful art he sits with dignity and whiles away the hours. How he manoeuvres when he accidentally drops a needle, I have not been able ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... characteristic reticence, stated the opposite opinion with quite unexpected warmth. The warmth, which surprised Nekhludoff, evinced by the usually self-controlled Selenin, was due to his knowledge of the director's shabbiness in money matters, and the fact, which had accidentally come to his cars, that Wolf had been to a swell dinner party at the swindler's house ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Ajumbas on starting, but they are evidently going to be kind and pleasant companions. One of them is a gentlemanly-looking man, who wears a gray shirt; another looks like a genial Irishman who has accidentally got black, very black; he is distinguished by wearing a singlet; another is a thin, elderly man, notably silent; and the remaining one is a strapping, big fellow, as black as a wolf's mouth, of gigantic muscular development, and wearing ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... We feel in a very slight degree excited to good will towards the stranger whom we accidentally light ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... way as chocolate, tea and coffee, meat has a stimulating effect on the system. He who is accidentally deprived of it finds that he experiences a passing depression. This obviously proves that by the exaggerated use of meat, one drugs and doctors oneself without discernment. However this may be, the judicious part played by meat must apparently be reduced to that of a condiment food destined ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... boiler explosions is, undoubtedly, too great a pressure of steam, or an insufficient strength of boiler; but many explosions have also arisen from the flues having been suffered to become red hot. If the safety valve of a boiler be accidentally jammed, or if the plates or stays be much worn by corrosion, while a high pressure of steam is nevertheless maintained, the boiler necessarily bursts; and if, from an insufficiency of water in the boiler, or from any ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... night, attending to my domestic duties in the daytime. I slightly feel the change in climate from season to season. I have never been sick or experienced any disease. I feel only slight pain when accidentally injured. I have no bodily excretions. I can control my heart and breathing. I often see my guru as well as other great souls, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... spirit of revenge, where there was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of the East were stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the sums ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... nests, as in the case of the wren, the robin, and the swallow. Occasionally this gift seems to have been acquired by eating or tasting the flesh of a snake or dragon, as Sigurd, in the Volsung tale, first became aware of Regin's designs against his life, when he accidentally tasted the heart-blood of Fafnir, whom he had slain in dragon shape, and then all at once the swallow's song, perched above him, became as ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... but by doing things. He filled Carlyle's definition, King, Koenning, which means Can-ing, Able-man. All who are at all familiar with his character and deeds must recognise the fact that he was a man of great qualities, both of mind and character. He did not do things accidentally or by mysterious means. Whatever business he had in hand, he knew it thoroughly in all its details. He knew his men and their motives, and he grasped all the minutiae of his material. He was a highly educated modern ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... the battle De Levi opened trenches within six hundred yards of the walls of the city, and proceeded to besiege the city, while General Murray made preparations for defence. On May 1st the largest of the English blockhouses accidentally blew up, injuring Captain Cameron. On the 17th the French suddenly abandoned their entrenchments. Lord Murray pursued but was unable to overtake them. He formed a junction, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable life; a further accident leads another cell to initiate the line of invertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals: the number varying according to the views of the theorist on phylogeny. Let ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... it was that of the clever, the accomplished man; it was the very specialty of the speaker, and a deal of expensive training and experience had gone to producing it. Densher felt somehow that, as a thing of value accidentally picked up, it would retain an interest of curiosity. The three stood for a little together in an awkwardness to which he was conscious of contributing his share; Kate failing to ask Lord Mark to be seated, but letting ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... wretches from whom they were plundered were pining in poverty. Though the destruction of this tyrant was accidental, the people chose the cucumber-gatherers for their governors, as a mark of their gratitude for destroying, though accidentally, their late tyrant. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... and long after the writing of this passage, I met accidentally with Mr. Garbett's elementary Treatise on Design. (Weale, 1850.) If I had cared about the reputation of originality, I should have been annoyed—and was so, at first, on finding Mr. Garbett's illustrations of the subject ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... previous assurance, preferred his claim. It was disregarded, and Mr. Collier, afterwards Earl of Portmore, was appointed over his head. It would seem that Graham had suspected some foul play on the part of this gentleman, for, shortly after, they accidentally met and had an angry altercation. This circumstance having come to the ears of the Prince, he sent for Captain Graham, and administered a sharp rebuke. I give the remainder of this incident in the words of the old writer, because it must ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... the depositions is sufficiently attested by the fact that ninety years were allowed to elapse ere Joseph of Copertino was solemnly received into the number of the Blessed. This occurred in 1753; and though the date may have been accidentally chosen, some people will be inclined to detect the hand of Providence in the ordering of the event, as a challenge to Voltaire, who was just then disquieting Europe with certain ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... known, since I notched no stick and knotted no cord—yet never in my rambles in the wood had I seen that desolate ash-heap where the fire had done its work. Nor had I looked for it. On the contrary, my wish was never to see it, and the fear of coming accidentally upon it made me keep to the old familiar paths. But at length, one night, without thinking of Rima's fearful end, it all at once occurred to me that the hated savage whose blood I had shed on the white savannah might have only been practicing his natural ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... acquaintance accidentally; the chance which led to it was caused by the peculiar conditions of the Yakut spring. My readers will probably only have a very imperfect knowledge of the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... John and Cerinthus (A.D. 80. Cleric. Hist. Eccles. p. 493) accidentally met in the public bath of Ephesus; but the apostle fled from the heretic, lest the building should tumble on their heads. This foolish story, reprobated by Dr. Middleton, (Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii.,) is related, however, by Irenaeus, (iii. 3,) on the evidence of Polycarp, and was probably ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... was a weird one. The glaring light thrown by the jet had been extinguished, but the steel still glowed with heat, and Ansell blistered his fingers when they had accidentally touched the edge. The only light now was a small electric torch which threw direct rays in a small zone. But of a sudden, both men heard a noise—the distinct footsteps of a man crossing ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... cabin and entreated me to join the two women who were living on the hill. At this time it seemed to be the general opinion that there would be a serious fight, and they said I might be wounded accidentally if I remained on the Bar. As I had no fear of anything of the kind, I pleaded hard to be allowed to stop, but when told that my presence would increase the anxiety of our friends, of course, like a dutiful wife, I went ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... was able to forget his troubles, and, to his relief, seemed to have been forgotten by the Government and left to enjoy his peace undisturbed. However, through her connection with a nurses' association, his wife had accidentally learned of Nurse Grey's summons to Muktiarbad and had cleverly contrived to work things so as to go ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... the repetition—the men are placed—Burr takes deliberate aim, touches the trigger, the fatal bullet pierces Hamilton's breast and the slain Federalist falls heavily, his face upon the sward. But before he falls, his pistol, which he had resolved not to fire, is accidentally discharged, sending its ball eight feet over the head of his antagonist and cutting off a leafy twig from an overhanging bough. Burr's attention is strangely affected by the fate of the green branch which he heard the bullet sever, and, as he sees it come wavering to the ground, he cannot resist ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... penalty for surrendering them to the hands of our Government, the time would surely come when the motives and the acts would find that approval in the hearts of all honest men, as it did in his own. Confiding the information accidentally obtained to W.H. Rand, Esq., of Chicago, a gentleman whose patriotism and whose reputation needs no encomiums, he immediately advised the expediency of conference with the State Executive, and to the honor of Governor Richard Yates, it should be said, he fully realized the importance ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... removing the cat-head, after the ship arrived at Boston, it was found that there were two holes under it which had been bored for the purpose of driving tree-nails, and which, accidentally, had not been plugged up when the cat-head was placed over them. This was sufficient to account for the leak, and for our not having been able to discover and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... he walked away from Sheshkovsky, unwilling to hear more, and as though he had accidentally tasted something bitter, spat loudly again, and for the first time that morning looked with hatred at Laevsky. His excitement and awkwardness passed off; he tossed his head and ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... mutineers manage accidentally to set fire to the vessel, and flee it. But the heroic party of officers and passengers come back to recover the missing two, get on board, and manage to put the fire out. This is noticed by the mutineers, who are just over the horizon, and who row back. There is then a good old battle in which ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... sought to clear the table and were about to remove a bouquet containing two small flags, Everett would not allow them to do it, and that later in the evening, during his speech, just at the proper point, he caught up these flags, as if accidentally, and waved them. He said that everything with Everett and Choate seemed to be cut and dried; that even the interruptions seemed ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... huge horns, while his body and legs, kicking and struggling, hung out at their full length in the empty air! It was evident he had tumbled from the top contrary to his intentions; and had been caught accidentally in the branches of the pine. It was a painful sight to witness the efforts of the poor creature; but there was no means of getting him off the tree, as he was far beyond their reach; and Basil, having ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... mind. Yet when he arrived at the end of them he was no less mystified than when he began. Who was Obadiah Price? Who was the girl that fate had so mysteriously associated with his movements thus far? What was the plot in which he had accidentally become involved? With tireless tenacity he hung to these questions for hours. That there was a plot of some kind he had not the least doubt. The councilor's strange actions, the oath, the package, and above all the scene in the king's house convinced him of that. And he was sure that ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... be self-maintaining. It is a complete unit in itself and could commence of itself. Chemicals might mix accidentally, but the complex mechanism of a machine, capable of continuing and making a duplicate of itself, as is F-2 here—that could ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... us to look for a content to which to attach it. Much of what passes for revelation or mystic insight probably comes in this way: the belief-feeling, in abnormal strength, attaches itself, more or less accidentally, to some content which we happen to think of at the appropriate moment. But this is only a speculation, upon which I do not wish to lay too ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... palliated agreement twixt Sir Edward Coke & his lady, she was sent to Hatton House, with order that the Lady Compton should have access to win her & wear her." One wonders whether the last "&" was accidentally substituted for the word "or," by a slip of the pen. In any case to "wear ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... north line of the Midland railway. Pop. (1901) 49,439. The town is well situated in the valley of the Chelt, a small tributary of the Severn, under the high line of the Cotteswold Hills to the east, and is in high repute as a health resort. Mineral springs were accidentally discovered in 1716. The Montpellier and Pittville Springs supply handsome pump rooms standing in public gardens, and are the property of the corporation. The Montpellier waters are sulphated, and are valuable for their diuretic effect, and as a stimulant to the liver and alimentary ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... from either to the Sophist, or assume that the Parmenides, the Philebus, and the Timaeus were 'written simultaneously,' or 'were intended to be studied in the order in which they are here named (J. of Philol.) We have no right to connect statements which are only accidentally similar. Nor is it safe for the author of a theory about ancient philosophy to argue from what will happen if his statements are rejected. For those consequences may never have entered into the mind of the ancient writer himself; and they are very likely to be modern consequences which would not ...
— Charmides • Plato
... there are many external traces, had long been given up as lost, was deplored by Tyrwhitt and by Ritson, and was accidentally discovered in a Bodleian manuscript, latent amidst legends of saints. From this unique MS. it was edited by Sir F. Madden; and again (1868) by the Rev. W.W. Skeat, who says in his preface:—"There can be little doubt that the tradition must have existed from Anglo-Saxon times, but the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... will you by flight seek to hide yourselves in mountains and forests, and thus oblige us to hunt you down? Remember, that in pursuit it may be impossible to avoid conflicts. The blood of the white man or the blood of the red man may be spilt, and if spilt, however accidentally, if may be impossible for the discreet and humane among you or among us to prevent a general war and carnage. Think of this, my Cherokee brethren! I am an old warrior, and have been present at many a scene of slaughter; but spare me, I beseech ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... the two greatest natural motives of all men's actions: But, neither of these passions will ever put us in the way of virtue, unless they be directed by conscience. For although virtuous men do sometimes accidentally make their way to preferment, yet the world is so corrupted, that no man can reasonably hope to be rewarded in it, merely upon account of his virtue. And consequently, the fear of punishment in this life will preserve men from very few vices, since some of the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the idea of standing face to face with a person of whom she had heard so much, Dora removed her high-necked apron, and throwing it across the tub so that the sleeves trailed upon the floor, was hurrying away, when her foot becoming accidentally entangled in the apron, she fell headlong to the floor, bringing with her tub, suds, clothes and all! To present herself in this drenched condition was impossible, and in a perfect tremor lest Mrs. Hastings should go away, Eugenia vibrated, ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... the way of Carlisle, where we accidentally met with our friend Lismahago, whom we had in vain inquired after at Dumfries and other places — It would seem that the captain, like the prophets of old, is but little honoured in his own country, which he has now renounced for ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... She went accidentally to walk in the same wood where she met Riquet with the Tuft, to think, the more conveniently, what she ought to do. While she was walking in a profound meditation, she heard a confused noise under her feet, as it were of a ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... not that way." I had accidentally taken the direction which led away from the city; she begged me to turn toward the houses and the streets. We walked back toward Edinburgh. She eyed me, as we went on in the moonlight, with innocent, wondering looks. "What an unaccountable influence you have ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... leaves of divers old periodicals in search of the "Religion of Actors," I accidentally and unexpectedly found an article by Charles Lamb entitled, "On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, with some Account of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... allowed to sleep with its mother. How, then, can the risk of being suffocated, which is no imaginary one, be lessened? The following rules are those given by a physician of reputation, to prevent an infant from being accidentally overlain. ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... to be nothing to attend to at home, so forthwith taking along with her a matron, (Mrs. Chia Huang) got into a carriage and came over to see widow Chin and her nephew. While engaged in a chat, Chin Jung's mother accidentally broached the subject of the affair, which had transpired in the school-room of the Chia mansion on the previous day, and she gave, for the benefit of her young sister-in-law, a detailed account of the whole occurrence from beginning ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... true enough, sir," Hal agreed; "but we came into the possession of those black peas accidentally and with ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... out, lustily, for help. As good luck would have it, Cooper came on board at that precise instant; and, hearing my outcry, he sprang down between the ships, and rescued me from drowning. I thought I was gone; and my condition made an impression on me that never will be lost. Had not Cooper accidentally appeared, just as he did, Ned Myers's yarn would have ended with this paragraph. I ought to add, that the sixpence got clear, the dog ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... below, previous to the gale, or been washed overboard. Some trifling parts of the quarter boards were damaged by the breach of the sea; and one of the boats upon deck was about one-third full of water, the oyle-hole or drain having been accidentally stopped up, and part of her gunwale had received considerable injury. These observations were hastily made, and not without occasionally shutting the companion, to avoid being wetted by the successive seas which broke over the bows and fell upon different ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... triumphed for a time over religion accidentally associated with political and social abuses. Everything gave way to the zeal and activity of the new reformers. In France, every man distinguished in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave birth to works in which the fundamental ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of a narrow brook for our dinner, and one incident of that meal I think of always when I think of Uncle Eb. It shows the manner of man he was and with what understanding and sympathy he regarded every living thing. In rinsing his teapot he accidentally poured a bit of water on a big bumble-bee. The poor creature struggled to lift hill, and then another downpour caught him and still another until his wings fell drenched. Then his breast began heaving violently, his legs stiffened behind him and he sank, head downward, in the grass. Uncle ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... latter "because we found the missing diamonds in a breast pocket of his coat; but we wanted your evidence to establish the fact. I have also recognized him as the alleged reporter who interviewed me yesterday morning, and who was accidentally left alone for a minute with the leather bag in my office. The moment I discovered that the diamonds were missing I suspected that he must have taken them, but thought it best to keep my suspicions to myself until I could trace him. I learned that ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... at the Naval Hospital, Chelsea, I accidentally came across three well marked and well defined Gemiasmas in the blood of a marine whom I was studying for another disease. I learned that he had had intermittent fever not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... The key was the right one. It had only been selected by guesswork among a number on Roden's bunch. It slipped into the lock and turned smoothly, but the door would not move. She tugged and wrenched at the handle, then turned it accidentally, and the heavy door swung open. There were two drawers at the bottom of the safe which were not locked, and contained neatly folded papers. Her fingers were among these in a moment. The papers were folded and tied together. Many of the bundles were ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... which he had been accustomed to treat her. Night after night his sleep had been disturbed by fears for her when abroad; morning after morning it had been broken by the clamour of her return. He therefore gravely said to her one forenoon as he met her accidentally upon ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... thus injurious to living protoplasm, or constructive protoplasm as it may be called, that which builds up, and forms all kinds of structures, and living beings of all higher types, I accidentally discovered that in minute quantities, under about one per cent., and even in such almost incredible amounts as 1 part in 100,000, (1/10 millilitre in 10 litres) it favors the growth and multiplication of many microbes whose function is antagonistic to the protoplasm of organized beings, and which ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... of all had been the finding of the shabby old trunk in the attic whose contents of rare old coins and postage stamps had brought Billie in nearly five thousand dollars in cash. The money had enabled Billie to replace a statue which she had accidentally broken a little while before and had also given her the chance to go to Three Towers Hall, a good boarding school, and Chet the opportunity to go to the Boxton Military Academy, which was only a little over a mile from Three ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... as regards Raglan, the wounded Rowland, long before he was fit to be moved from the farm-house where his servant had found him shelter, was brought home to the castle. Shafto, faithful as hare-brained, had come upon him almost accidentally, after long search, and just in time to save his life. Mistress Watson received him with tears, and had him carried to the same turret-chamber whence Richard had escaped, in order that she might be nigh him. The poor fellow was ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... playing space. They must be at least three feet distant from any boundary line and from each other. Each player takes a position in front of his stick. The object of the game is to knock over the opponents' sticks. Should a player knock over his own stick accidentally, or that of any player on his side, it counts as though it were knocked over by the opponent. When a player's stick is knocked over, that player is dead and takes his stick and leaves the game. The side first succeeding in knocking over ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... he was accompanied not only by the justice, but also by Pownal, who had accidentally heard of the arrest, and by two or three other persons attracted by curiosity. Pownal immediately walked up to his friend, and, grasping his hand, expressed his interest, and ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Merriman, Sir Percival's solicitor, came down to-day, and I accidentally overheard a conversation which seems to indicate a determination on Sir Percival's part to raise money on Laura's security, to pay off some of his ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... mechanically and paced the deck, nodding to himself and going straight before without aim or object till he reached the forecastle. There his feet got entangled in a coil of rope. He stumbled and fell, accidentally catching hold of a rope with ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... also had to bear a great deal because of Janina, sighed deeply, and wheedled him at every opportunity. She brought in the coffee and arrack and poured it for him herself. While doing so she fawned upon him, touched his hands and arms, as though accidentally, lowered her eyes, and kept up a continual flirtation, trying to awaken some ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... employed himself in reading St. Augustine and the school men; but, in turning over the leaves of the library, he accidentally found a copy of the Latin Bible, which he had never seen before. This raised his curiosity to a high degree: he read it over very greedily, and was amazed to find what a small portion of the scriptures was rehearsed to the people. He made his profession in the monastery of Erfurt, after he had been ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... intrigued and perhaps just a little scandalised the town with a most engagingly flippant and piquant farce all about an accidentally bigamous beauty, certainly shows courage in launching so serious a discussion as The Unknown. And in the silly season too. I see that in a quite unlikely interview (but then all modern interviews are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... with its intertwine. And many are the unsuspected double stars, and frequent are the parasite weeds, which the philosopher detects in the received opinions of men:—so strong is the tendency of the imagination to identify what it has long consociated. Things that have habitually, though, perhaps, accidentally and arbitrarily, been thought of in connection with each other, we are prone to regard as inseparable. The fatal brand is cast into the fire, and therefore Meleager must consume in the flames. To these conjunctions of custom and association—(the associative ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... double sale of their labours, first to the Stage, and after to the presse, For my owne part I heere proclaime my selfe euer faithfull in the first, and neuer guiltie of the last: yet since some of my plaies haue (vnknowne to me, and without any of my direction) accidentally come into the Printers hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled, (coppied only by the eare) that I have bin as vnable to know them, as ashamed to chalenge them, This therefore, I was the willinger to furnish out in his natiue habit: first being by consent, next because ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... occur in a nitrogenous substance if its bacteria be destroyed and new ones prevented from entering it. Putrefaction begins as soon as bacteria, even in the smallest numbers, are admitted either accidentally or purposely. It progresses in direct proportion to the multiplication of the bacteria, it is retarded when they exhibit low vitality, and is stopped by all influences which either hinder their development ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... foliage of these it stands inwoven, as with its own network of ivy. Other countries, even older than England, have had their taverns from time immemorial; but they are all kept in the background of human life. They do not come out in contemporaneous history with any definiteness; not even accidentally. If a king is murdered in one of them, or if it is the theatre of the most thrilling romance of love, you do not know whether it is a building of stone, brick, or wood; whether it is one, two, or three stories ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... attack on Frigg especially suggests that she was, among the Northmen, a formidable rival to the Virgin. When he repeats a legend of the Gods, he transforms them into mortal heroes, and when, as often happens, he refers to them accidentally as Gods, he invariably hastens to protest that he does so only because it had been the custom. He describes Thor and Odin as men versed in sorcery who claimed the rank of Gods; and in another passage he speaks of the latter as a king who had his seat ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... edging still closer to the gully. He was within a hundred and fifty yards of it when a sound suddenly brought him alert. Langdon, in his effort to creep up the steep side of the gully for a shot, had accidentally loosened a rock. It went crashing down the ravine, starting other stones that followed in a noisy clatter. At the foot of the coulee, six hundred yards down, Bruce swore softly under his breath. He saw Thor sit up. At that distance he was going to shoot if the ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... their writings, reprinted in the anarchistic journals to which he subscribed. More than once, the two had held long conversations, and from Caraher's own lips, Presley heard the terrible story of the death of his wife, who had been accidentally killed by Pinkertons during a "demonstration" of strikers. It invested the saloon-keeper, in Presley's imagination, with all the dignity of the tragedy. He could not blame Caraher for being a "red." He even wondered how it was the saloon-keeper had ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the changes which time brings! The present writer was accidentally present on the occasion of the Emperor and Empress's last visit to the Crystal Palace. They came from Chislehurst without any announcement, when they were not expected, on an ordinary shilling day in autumn, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... unimaginative as to other things, sometimes even because they are exceptionally able, but always because they are not afraid of shadows nor oppressed with nightmares. And we see these few rising as if by magic into power and affluence, and forming, with the millionaires who have accidentally gained huge riches by the occasional windfalls of our commerce, the governing class. Now nothing is more disastrous than a governing class that does not know how to govern. And how can this rabble ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... derision, "gueux," or beggars of the sea. Upon the duke's complaining to Queen Elizabeth, that they were pirates, she compelled them to leave England; and accordingly they set sail for Enckhuysen; but the wind being unfavourable, they accidentally steered towards the isle of Voorn, attacked the town of Briel, took possession of it, and made it the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... class in which he was accidentally born and bred, but to which he did not belong. Or, should she go dressed frankly as of her own class—wearing the sort of things that made her look her finest and most superior and most beautiful? Having nothing else to do, she spent several hours in trying ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... this boy brought salvation. He informed Dr. Hirsch Janow that a great scholar and a pious man was accidentally fallen into miserable straits; and lo! in a trice the good-hearted man had sent for Maimon, sounded his scholarship and found it plumbless, approved of his desire to celebrate the sacred festivals in Posen, given him all the money in his pockets—the indurated beggar accepted ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... has accidentally fallen upon my dear wife and Unc Nunkie and turned them into marble," he ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... (LUTTICH), which was, at first, some Monastery dependent on secular Herstal and its grandeurs:—think only how the race has gone between these two entities; spiritual Liege now a big City, black with the smoke of forges and steam-mills; Herstal an insignificant Village, accidentally talked of for a few weeks in 1740, and no chance ever to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and Miss Katy had accidentally strolled into a conservatory near at hand. A glass door gave access to it, and they had "gone to examine the flowers," the young ladies said, with rapturous smiles and ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... perpetually, and upon no condition of any voluntary action done or omitted intervening; things positively Good and Due are such as are in themselves indifferent, but the intellectual nature obliges to them accidentally or hypothetically, upon condition, in the case of a command, of some voluntary act of another person invested with lawful authority, or of one's self, in the case of a specific promise. In a positive command (as of the civil ruler), what obliges ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... she spoke a piece about my conduct in getting married and never telling her a word about it beforehand. She said she was mortified to death to have to learn about my marriage from strangers—strangers—just accidentally. But there wasn't anything she didn't know: that you were a millionaire, but very eccentric and not given to going around like a rational being—in society; and that you had places around in different States and always made it a point not to know your neighbors, so you wouldn't ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... to settle a dispute between Sarah Smithers and Cousin Betsey Skiles. Decided in favour of S. S., thereby angering B. S. Uncle Israel accidentally spilled his tonic on Cousin Betsey's clean apron. ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... very few were aware of what was really being done. The colonel of course knew, and so did Harry's mother—and so did old Alec who had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from snickering out loud at the breakfast table when he accidentally overheard what was going on—an unpardonable offence—(not the listening, but the laughing). In fact everybody in the big house at Moorlands knew, for Alec spread it broadcast in the kitchen ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... do not wish you to be amiable, but honest severity itself. That you stumbled upon me accidentally in your present mood is my good fortune. Tell me the faults in my picture in the plainest English, and I will gratefully accept your invitation; for the hospitality at your cottage is so genial that bread and cheese would be a banquet. I have a strong ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... perfection, the speckling on the legs somewhat increased. As all the shells had gradually augmented, so was this larger than the others. The extended limbs would have occupied a circle of four inches diameter. About a month after this exuviation the animal perished accidentally, having been two years and eight months under examination. It was an interesting specimen, extremely tame and tranquil, always coming to the side of the vessel as I approached, and holding up its little claws ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... is an old schoolfellow, whom I met with accidentally in Melbourne. We joined at once, and have been together ever since. I hope that nothing may occur to part us. You would like him, Tommy. You've no idea what a fine, gentle, lion-like fellow he is, with a face like a true, bold man in expression, and like ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... desire, must be best; but a government complete in itself is that final cause and what is best. Hence it is evident that a city is a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal, and that whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for society, must be either inferior or superior to man: thus the man in Homer, who is reviled for being "without society, without law, without family." Such a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... in war. It must not be regarded as an absolute ill, or as merely an external calamity which is accidentally based upon the passions of despotic individuals or nations, upon acts of injustice, and, in general, upon what ought not to be. The recognition of the finite, such as property and life, as accidental, is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... and confusion ahead and, of course, Billy's curiosity called him to the front immediately to see what was the matter. In passing the wagons which had been left by their drivers to go forward and find out the cause of the sudden stop, Billy accidentally ran into his friend, Senorita Burroetta, which means Miss Baby Buro, as his ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... the telephone he had accidentally pushed aside a book. Beneath it was a slip of paper on which had been penciled a note. He read it, without ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... sun shone brilliantly upon the loch. Luttrell's friends were to dine with him, and as dinner was not until eight o'clock, they made rather a long circuit, and had some distance to return. Brian had joined Archie Grant; the second visitor was behind them with the keeper; Richard Luttrell had been accidentally separated from the others, and was supposed to be in front. Archie was laughing and talking gaily; Brian, whose mind ran much upon Hugo, was somewhat silent. But even he was no proof against Archie's enthusiasm, when the young fellow suddenly seized him by the arm, and pointed out a fine ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... exhausted all my stock of real perceptions, and was beginning to be forced to recombine my old thoughts, so as to produce new associations of the strange and wonderful, when I accidentally met with Mr W——, a gentleman well known in the world of experimental science by the improvements he made on the diving-bell, in addition to the contributions of Rennie and Spalding. I was then living at E——, and he was on his way to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... she was out riding, when she accidentally met Byron's funeral on its way to Newstead. "I am sure," she wrote to Murray, July 13, 1824, "I am very sorry I ever said one unkind word against him." Her mind never recovered the shock, and she died in January, 1828, in the presence of her husband, at Melbourne ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron |
