"Calamity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment you first beheld me I was engaged in a heated controversy with Epictetus, whose Discourses I hold in my hand. We are unable to agree on many points, especially upon the point which he assumes that he has made in the discussion of grief. He contends that when one is not blamable for some calamity which bereaves him or strips him of his possessions, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... such words have been uttered by those who speak with an authority I could not claim. It is as a lesson rather than as a reproach that I call up the memory of these irreparable errors and wrongs. No tongue can tell the heart-breaking calamity they have caused; they have closed the eyes just opened upon a new world of love and happiness; they have bowed the strength of manhood into the dust; they have cast the helplessness of infancy into the stranger's arms, or bequeathed it, with less cruelty, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... before intimated, the spectacle of pain inflicted is at all times an evil in itself. Even the presence of those gloomy buildings, devoted to all the wretched purposes of incarceration, is, we should say, a public calamity. The more men see of misery, the more callous do they become to it; the less effort do they make to relieve; the more ready are they to inflict it. Punishments should be multiplied as little as possible. Very slight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Quaritch's Dictionary of English Book-Collectors, 'was to recover the famous Manesse Liederbuch, a thirteenth century MS. carried away by the French from Heidelberg in 1656, the loss of which had ever since been regarded as a national calamity in Germany. For L6000 in cash and this precious volume, he handed over the 166 Libri and Barrois MSS. to the Bibliotheque Nationale. By a simple arithmetical process, we can conclude that L18,000 was the net cost to the German Exchequer of a single ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... "The place smells of calamity," said Mrs. Vansittart to herself, as she quitted the carriage and walked quickly along the sandy path to the ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... your weakness,' he said, 'where women are concerned. Valeria is aware that you are my old friend. She will certainly write to you; she may even be bold enough to make her way into your house. Renew your promise to keep the great calamity of my life a secret, on your honor and on your oath. 'Those were his words, as nearly as I can remember them. I tried to treat the thing lightly; I ridiculed the absurdly theatrical notion of 'renewing my promise,' and all the rest of it. Quite useless! ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... painful to the sensitive heart of my dear husband, in being thus surrounded by tokens of calamity. He inquired, with a sigh, whether any efforts had been made to help ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... glowered. Keith smiled wearily. It did not to him at the moment that this would be so great a calamity. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... early in May, 1560, Hubert Languet wrote that suspicion was everywhere rife; men of any standing scarcely dared to converse with each other; some great calamity seemed on the point of breaking forth. The king's ministers evidently feared the great cities; so the court proceeded from one provincial town to another. Disturbances in Rouen and Dieppe had frightened the Guises away from Normandy, whither they had intended leading ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... brought them into some show of order or formation?' asked Saxon. 'They are straggling along the road like a line of geese upon a common when Michaelmas is nigh. Have you no fears? Is it not written that your calamity cometh suddenly—suddenly shall you be broken down ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me to decide, that he rated the consequence of those islands to Great-Britain too low[397]. But however this may be, every humane mind must surely applaud the earnestness with which he averted the calamity of war; a calamity so dreadful, that it is astonishing how civilised, nay, Christian nations, can deliberately continue to renew it. His description of its miseries in this pamphlet, is one of the finest pieces of eloquence in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... are sustained; which yet, to their eternal shame, is too frequently the lot and condition of those poor people, from whose labour their wealth and livelihood doth wholly arise; not only in their diet, but in their cloathing, and overworking some of them even to death (which is particularly the calamity of the most innocent and laborious) but also in tormenting and whipping them almost, and sometimes quite, to death, upon even small miscarriages. He apprehends it was from this prejudice against the Negroes, that arose those supercilious ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... irremediable calamity as this renewed for a time the despondency which he had felt at the first sinking of the boat. Full of depression, he turned away, and tried to account for it all. It was on the previous day that he had landed—about twenty-four hours ago. How had he ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... his temper had to walk a mile and a half uphill through the snow, before he could say or do anything else, there would never be a murder in this world, no divorces, and—by gosh!—maybe no marriages either. That would be a calamity. Snow certainly does ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the velvet neck ridged with veins and muscles, the body already buried in black ooze. And such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on her side, opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek resignation to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was plunging and battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce, furious, red cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding inexorable abysm under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her own species browsing ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... mercy. Had the pagan Rhadogast taken Rome, not a life would have been spared, no stone left on another. The Christian Alaric, though a Goth, respects his Christian brethren, and for their sakes you are saved. As to the gods, those daemons in whom you trust, did they always save you from calamity? How long did Hannibal insult them? Was it a goose or a god that saved the Capitol from Brennus? Where were the gods in all the defeats, some of them but recent, of the pagan emperors? It is well that the purple ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... continents are involved, the whole of the Old World, and the New World suffers grievously in its trade, industry, and finances. Thus the whole world is interested in preventing the recurrence of such a calamity and there is a general feeling throughout the world that the causes which have brought it upon us ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... given the finishing stroke to some complicated action; but to me recurs another thought that is worthy of record, and may encourage others who are to follow us in our profession. I never saw the rear of an army engaged in battle but I feared that some calamity had happened at the front the apparent confusion, broken wagons, crippled horses, men lying about dead and maimed, parties hastening to and fro in seeming disorder, and a general apprehension of something ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... institutes of Calvin were still a serious matter. I have at least learned something; and while writing against the lack of faith in the present religion of humanity, I shall at least remember that my own calamity has come from one inured in the old dogma. It is the irony of Fate that warns ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... natural in old age when they come as the product of years of inner travail, and are won by suffering and really are intellectual riches; for a youthful brain on the threshold of real life they are simply a calamity! A calamity!" Ananyev repeated with a wave of his hand. "To my mind it is better at your age to have no head on your shoulders at all than to think on these lines. I am speaking seriously, Baron. And I have been meaning to speak to you ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... ways of God to man! The controversial spirit observable in many parts of the poem, especially in God's speeches, is immediately attributable to the great controversy of that age, the origination of evil. The Arminians considered it a mere calamity. The Calvinists took away all human will. Milton asserted the will, but declared for the enslavement of the will out of an act of the will itself. There are three powers in us, which distinguish us from the beasts that perish;—1, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... agonies of that half hour I have never forgotten. Military failure was nothing compared to the universal shame and blighting which must fall on the officer who suffered such a disgrace to be inflicted on him in the presence of the whole army; and such a calamity to arrest the progress of that army, if not the hopes of Europe. My resolution was desperately but decidedly taken, if the post fell into the enemy's hands, on that night to throw away my sword and abandon my profession, unless some French bayonet or bullet relieved me from all the anxieties ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Those days we would return with our ears full of the obstinate clamor of that recording bird, which had set itself fiercely to immortalize the noise that passed for a moment through the world, and toss the echoes of an ancient calamity, of which everybody ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... asked herself if she had given as much as she had demanded. Had she not thought too much of her own rights and wrongs and too little of his hopes and burdens? And perhaps because of this he was to be crushed at a blow, and his enemies laugh at his calamity and give to her their ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... came to an abrupt end. The guests, unwilling to go as yet, stunned, distressed, stood clumsily about, their eyes vague, their hands swinging at their sides, looking stupidly into each others' faces. A sense of impending calamity, oppressive, foreboding, gloomy, passed through the air overhead in the night, a long shiver of anguish and of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... calamity threatens the Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... dwelling upon the dangers that beset the republic—dangers which are sometimes very real. Nevertheless an hour in his presence is more often than not depressing; it leaves one with a sense of impending calamity. There are few ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... martingale brasses, worn on the breast; and three brasses suspended from straps on each of the shoulders. These amulets were primarily worn to keep off the "evil eye," and thus protect the horse and its rider or its owner from calamity and harm. The brasses were varied in design, some of the more important being developments of the crescent moon. Some were made to imitate the sun with its pointed rays, others the Catherine wheel; the Kentish ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... but twenty-seven dozen plates on a swaying plank for eight hours a day up steps and down steps, and in doorways and out of doorways, and not break one plate in seven years! Judge, therefore, the simple but terrific satisfaction of a Five Towns audience in the hugeness of the calamity. Moreover, every plate smashed means a demand for a new plate and increased prosperity for the Five Towns. The grateful crowd in the auditorium of the Empire would have covered the stage with wreaths, if it had known that ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... don't know about that," argued Tom. "I hate to hear any fellow talk disparagingly about his own country or its people. It doesn't sound just right. In war time, or during any great national disaster or calamity, the Americans who do things always seem to rise to the occasion. We're a truly great people, all right. But I don't make that claim because I consider myself ever likely to be ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... the eyelids, causing great damage and often blindness. Many babies get the clap plant into the eyes during birth, from the mother, and unless treated within a few minutes after birth, have sore eyes and go blind,—a terrible calamity to the child and the family. If you have clap the germs can be carried on your hands ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... which half of Korsakoff's army was destroyed, rendered Russian failure in the campaign inevitable. All the genius in the world, on that field of action, could not have done anything that should have compensated for so terrible a calamity. Zuerich saved France far more than did Marengo, and it is to be noted that it was fought and won by the oldest of all the able men who figure in history as Napoleon's Marshals. There were some of the Marshals who were older than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... pauperism. The dangers with which Germany is externally threatened will also compel governments, however egotistical and indifferent, to seek their safety in unity, and even should the long neglect of this truth be productive of fresh calamity and draw upon Germany a fresh attack from abroad, that very circumstance will but strengthen our union and accelerate the regeneration of our great fatherland, already anticipated by the people on the fall of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... wonder how life was resumed after so great a calamity. The title deeds to houses and estates were burned—who would claim and prove the right to property? The account books were all lost—who could claim or prove a debt? The warehouses and shops with their contents were gone—who could carry on business? The craftsmen had ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... to noble deeds, To shield from dire calamity his friends, Extend his empire, or protect its bounds, Or put to flight its ancient enemies, Let him be grateful! For to him a god Imparts the first, the sweetest joy of life. Me have they doom'd ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... deep interest in your little entertainment," she said, "and was so pleased when it brought so much money. I know that every penny under the wise direction of the Red Cross will help to make some poor soldier more comfortable; or if some sudden calamity should come in this country, before it was sent away, your little fund might help ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... be no recriminations," I responded; "let us stand shoulder to shoulder in this calamity,—isn't there a story called 'Calamity Jane?' We might live at the inn, and give her the cottage for a summer residence, but I utterly refuse to be parted from our ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... born. She was an intruder and a calamity, of course. That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light weight when Robin was exhibited in the form of a ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Don Pablo saw that it would be a terrible calamity, should these creatures gain a lodgment on the balza. Not only were they the dreaded stinging ants, but in a short time nothing on board would be left. In a few hours they would have eaten all his stores,—his bark, his vanilla, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the calamity one must remember that Scott regarded literature not as an art but as a profitable business; that he aimed to be not a great writer but a lord of high degree. He had been made a baronet, and was childishly proud of the title; his work and his vast earnings were devoted ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... and Austro-Hungarian Embassies were ready to leave for this ancient seat of the Ottoman Government. The families of many German officers in the Turkish service left Constantinople. In short, everybody understood that a calamity was pending. What its exact nature ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... maintain its own privileges, as with a view to encroach upon those of the Latins.] so that if Spain be not speedily liberated, it is to be feared that the whole establishment of the Terra Santa must be abandoned. This would be a great calamity, for it cannot be doubted that they have done honour to ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... Hilary, "are intending to stand as a candidate for this constituency. You require for that, I fancy, a reputation wholly untarnished; the least breath dimming it would be for you a disastrous calamity. I have some information which, if sent to the local Liberal paper, would seriously tell against you in the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... visitor, was not a regular member of the South Harniss Methodist Sunday school, the superintendent personally had invited her to go and Zoeth and the Captain had given their consent. Not to go would be a heart-breaking calamity. She finally resolved to be very, very good and obedient from ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of Kishinev. These lamentable events have caused the profoundest impression throughout the world." President Roosevelt said, "I have never in my experience in this country known of a more immediate or a deeper expression of the sympathy for the victims and of horror over the appalling calamity that has occurred." ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... those operative classes in Lancashire, whom the war ruined for a while, has often been pointed to as showing that the more informed and intelligent workingmen were also for the North. They endured a great calamity without murmuring, because they thought the cause just which had entailed that calamity upon them. Assuming this to be correct, as I believe it to be, the question remains, What was the opinion (or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... serious division between the Piper family, supported by the Contingent, and the rest of the settlement. Tom Sparrell's warning was remembered by the latter, and the ingratitude of the picnickers to their rescuers commented upon; the actual calamity to the reservoir was more or less attributed to the imprudent and reckless contiguity of the revelers on that day, and there were not wanting those who referred the accident itself to the machinations of the scheming Ditch ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... resulting in more violent convulsions, more widespread misery, and more atrocious crimes, than in all probability would have resulted even from the temporary triumph of the revolutionary cause in 1793. But in both nations political passion welcomed impending calamity; and the declaration of war by the Convention on February 1st only anticipated the desire of the English people. Great Britain once committed to the struggle, Pitt spared neither money nor intimidation in his efforts to unite all Europe against France. Holland was included with England ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... gesture of general deprecation, and did not ask WHY Mainwaring's young brother should contemplate his death with satisfaction. Nevertheless, some time afterwards Miss Macy remarked that it seemed hard that the happiness of one member of a family should depend upon a calamity to another. "As for instance?" asked Mainwaring, who had already forgotten the circumstance. "Why, if you had died and your younger brother succeeded to the baronetcy, and become Sir Robert Mainwaring," responded Miss Macy, with precision. This was the first and only allusion to his ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... first great calamity of the war. But apart from the treachery of the king of Naples and the dereliction of the Pope, it was impossible it should end thoroughly well. The people were in earnest, and have shown themselves so; brave, and able ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... individual, when casually mentioned in history, ought to be free from misrepresentation. Why this rule should not apply to the manly soldier who, in the streets of old Quebec in 1791, headed his gallant men wherever a riot, a fire, or a public calamity required their presence, is difficult to understand. No man was more popular in the city from the services he rendered when called on. One class, however, found in him an unrelenting disciplinarian—the refractory soldier attempting mutiny ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... ethical and spiritual qualities of the book are pure and high; the writer does not fail to enforce the truth that it is because "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned" that "she is become an unclean thing." And in the midst of all this calamity there is no rebellion against God; it is only the cry of a desolate but trusting soul to a just ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all. Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... world-school the divine teachers are not alone happiness and prosperity, but also uncertainty and suffering, defeat and death. Inventors with steel plates may make warships proof against bombs, but no man hath invented an armor against troubles. The arrows of calamity are numberless, falling from above and also shot up from beneath. Like Achilles, each man hath one vulnerable spot. No palace door is proof against phantoms. Each prince's palace and peasant's cottage holds at least ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... existent, which for want of ampler designation we call GOD—God, whom some of us will scarcely recognize, save with the mixture of doubt, levity, and general reluctance; God, whom we never obey unless obedience is enforced by calamity; God, whom we never truly love, because so many of us prefer to stake our chances of the future on the possibility of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... savages. I might speak of houses pillaged and burnt; of maize-fields laid waste to feed the horses of the roving marauder; of sheep and cattle driven off to desert fastnesses; bah! what are all these? What signify such trifling misfortunes, compared with that other calamity, which almost every family in the land may lament—the loss of one or more of its members— wife, daughter, sister, child—borne off into hopeless bandage, to satisfy the will, or gratify the lust, of a ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... against one of the vice-presidents of this great corporation that has so successfully and impudently defied the law will create a profound impression upon the whole country. It is a warning to the corporation criminals that the President and his advisers are not to be frightened by calamity-howlers, and will steadfastly pursue their policy of going higher up in their effort to bring the real offenders before the courts. The coming trial before federal Judge Barstow will be followed ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the district! One of the young mistresses, persisting in dancing on the cabin roof of the launch, wilful young madam, drowned in the midst of the festival, with the young doctor! Everywhere on the Sunday morning, the colliers wandered about, discussing the calamity. At all the Sunday dinners of the people, there seemed a strange presence. It was as if the angel of death were very near, there was a sense of the supernatural in the air. The men had excited, startled faces, the ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... stuffing his cap into the pocket of his blue serge sack, and smiled down on the company with such happiness in his gay eyes that March wondered what chance at this late day could have given any human creature his content so absolute, and what calamity could be lurking round the corner to take it out of him. The new-comer looked at March as if he knew him, and March saw at a second glance that he was the young fellow who had told him about the mother put off after the start. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... defence of an invaded country. Again they were prepared to undergo whatever service might be laid upon them in her behalf. They could foresee the arduous tasks and inevitable sufferings of a great war, but had no warning of an impending calamity far worse than those which even war, though always attended with horrors, usually entails. Pericles had lately delivered his great funeral oration at the public interment of soldiers who had fallen for Athens. "The bright colors and tone of cheerful confidence," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... the parcel, and Edith took it, though she was scarce conscious of the act. An awful foreboding of calamity, the mysterious shadow of her father's fate, descended over her soul. She was unconscious of the kiss which Miss Plympton gave her; nor was she conscious of any thing till she found herself seated at ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... to each breast, inducing an almost cheerful state of mind. In the case of Francois Le Rue, the influence of sunshine was so powerful that a feeling of sympathy and respect for the McLeods in the calamity which had overtaken them alone restrained him from breaking out ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... betrayed fears that were troublesome. Of Mulford it is unnecessary to speak. His deportment had been quiet, thoughtful, and full of a manly interest in the comfort of others, from the first moment of the calamity. That Rose should share the largest in his attentions was natural enough, but he neglected no essential duty to her companions. Rose, herself, had little hope of being rescued. Her naturally courageous character, however, prevented any undue exhibitions ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another. April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into solitude, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... lovers. Calamity fell upon calamity. It would be better to be dead. And suddenly all that was hard and resisting in the girl broke with the taut strain, broke with a poignant bodily throe, and she fell face downward into a great ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the worst penalty that can befall him. "For the belly," he says, "one will play many tricks." To smite his cheek with your leathern glove, or to kick him with your shoe, is an outrage at which the gods rave; to kill him would draw down a monstrous calamity upon the world. If he break faith with you, it is as nothing; if you fail him in the least promise, you take your portion with Karta, the Fox, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... individual, left alone with your doubts, deprived of everything, you have exhibited a solid, enduring principle of life, in withstanding all this. But your brother, a captive, forgotten, and in bonds, will not long-endure the calamity; and Heaven will resume his soul at the appointed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... whose absence on a vacation in America at the time of the abduction of little Jack had been attributed by her as the cause of the calamity, had returned and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... this airy sapphire's brooding rest, Its shadows overcast me with a chill Like coming storm, that black calamity Which struck and took our Darling from their charge And mine. Grief stupefied us all. At once The childless mother lost her wavering strength, And lay prostrated; never tasting life On earth again! Beside her husband sat And watched her fading; saw the ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... able to give any particular details. M. Schlosser conversed a good deal, and very earnestly, about Lord Spencer's library—and its probable ultimate destination; seeming to dread its "dispersion" as a national calamity. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... this future seem, that the village worthies, dying to know whether it was founded on fact, began to think of ways of getting at the truth through the servants at the chateau. None of these, however, could throw any light on the calamity which had brought their mistress into the country at the beginning of winter, and to the old chateau of Saint-Lange of all places, when she might have taken her choice of cheerful country-houses famous ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... 'Any calamity which comes upon a man from causes beyond his control ought not to be imputed to him as a fault. The pathetic petition of the Superintendents of Grain[335] informs us that the cargoes which they destined for Gaul ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... said, "then this little boy, whose eye is like a eagle a-soaring proudly in the azure sky, will some day be a man, if he don't choke hisself to death in childhood's sunny hours with a smelt or a bloater, or some other drefful calamity. How surblime the tho't, my dear Madam, that this infant as you fondle on your knee on this night, may grow up into a free and independent citizen, whose vote will be worth from ten to fifteen pounds, accordin as suffrage may range at that ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... died after having borne him a son and a daughter—a son, who did not long survive his mother; and a daughter, who became afterwards Mrs. Dormer of Oxfordshire. From under this calamity Waller, yet only thirty years of age, rebounded with characteristic elasticity. He came back, nothing both, to the society he had left, and was soon known to be in quest of a fair lady, whom he has made immortal by the sobriquet of Saccharissa. She was the eldest daughter of the Earl ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... us heirs of damnation. This I shall the less need to insist upon, because, of itself, it seems so horrid to impute to the goodness and justice of God to be author of so great calamity to innocents, &c. ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... is said to tramp on one who has lost a near relation by death, or met with some severe calamity."—The Antiquary. ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... scene of the abduction of the Earl of Evesham's daughter occupied but a few seconds. Cuthbert was so astounded at the sudden calamity that he remained rooted to the ground at the spot where, fortunately for himself, unnoticed by the assailants, he had stood when they first burst from ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... of our riches be such as it has been represented, why are no measures formed for the payment of the publick debts? of which no man will say, that they are not in themselves a calamity, and the source of many calamities yet greater; of which it cannot be denied, that they multiply dependence by which our constitution may sometimes be endangered. Why are those debts not only unpaid, but increased by annual ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... she obtained it by a long succession of events. She sustained a small, a moderate, and an immense fortune with the same superiority, derived true welfare from the whole train of her prosperities, and refined every instance of calamity into beneficial instructions. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Thus the calamity which had befallen heaven and earth, by the sun-goddess hiding in the cave became a means of much benefit to mortals. For by their necessity the gods were compelled to invent the arts of metal-working, weaving, carpentry, jeweling and many other useful appliances for ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... of water from the stateroom. While occupied with this thought, however, I fell in spite of every exertion to the contrary, into a state of profound sleep, or rather stupor. My dreams were of the most terrific description. Every species of calamity and horror befell me. Among other miseries I was smothered to death between huge pillows, by demons of the most ghastly and ferocious aspect. Immense serpents held me in their embrace, and looked earnestly in my face with their fearfully ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society. But this, and any similar maxim deduced from simple reason, raises an outcry—the church or the state is in danger, if faith in the wisdom of antiquity is not implicit; and they who, roused by the sight of human calamity, dare to attack human authority, are reviled as despisers of God, and enemies of man. These are bitter calumnies, yet they reached one of the best of men, (Dr. Price.) whose ashes still preach peace, and whose memory demands a respectful ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... hitherto arming him with fortitude, began to forsake him. Taken captive once again upon the very brink of reaching his goal, poor Israel was on the eve of falling into helpless despair. But he rallied, and considering that grief would only add to his calamity, sought with stubborn patience to habituate himself to misery, but still hold aloof from despondency. He roused himself, and began to bethink him how to be extricated ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... together and vowed to be free, but, looking again at Voltaire's eyes, my feelings underwent another revulsion. I trembled like an aspen leaf. I began to dread some terrible calamity. Before me stretched a dark future. I seemed to see rivers of blood, and over them floated awful creatures. For a time I thought I was disembodied, and in my new existence I did deeds too terrible to relate. Then I realized a new experience. I feared Voltaire with a terrible fear. Strange forms ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... this awful calamity we add the following remarks:—Heaven be praised (says Mr. Malcolm[6]) old London was burnt. Good reader, turn to the ancient prints, in order to see what it has been; observe those hovels convulsed; imagine the chambers within them, and wonder why the plague, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... of employers and employees are irreconcilably opposed, not identical, is false, Socialist rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. As soon as a calamity threatens capital—for instance, a rise in raw cotton or a cotton famine—masters and men are seen to be in the same boat and devise combined measures for meeting the difficulty. The doctrine of the Class War is opposed to ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... but witless grandfather and a father upon whom the contempt of the public was so soon to fall. Infinitely horrible was the reflection that little Dick would inevitably grow into a comprehension of the family calamity and inquire as to its causes. It was Saturday night, eight days after the elopement. Mostyn had that day been irritated—that is, as much as a man in his plight could be irritated by any extraneous incident—by Delbridge's open criticism of the negligent condition ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Account of Idolatry in the World; nor indeed could the Devil himself find out any other Reason why Men should Cannonise or rather Deify their Princes and Men of Fame, and worship them after they were dead, as if they could save them from Death and Calamity, who were not able to save themselves when they were alive; much less could Satan bring Men to swallow so gross, so absurd a Thing as the bowing the Knee to a Stock or a Stone, a Calf, an Ox, a Lion, nay the Image or Figure of a Calf, such as the Israelites made at Mount Sinai, and say, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... name is to kindle in the minds of those who knew him, a host of pleasant and affectionate remembrances. He was the man above all others fitted by his cast of mind and literary powers to make a stand, if a stand could be made, against the calamity of the times. He was gifted with a high and large mind, and a true sensibility of what was great and beautiful; he wrote with warmth and energy; and he had a cool head and cautious judgment. He spent his strength and shortened his life, Pro Ecclesia Dei, as he ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... and was silent. The two men loved one another as men linked by half a lifetime of toil and ambition learn to love,—or hate; and in the face of a calamity so unthinkable, even Desmond's ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... to the completion of which he had lookd for future pecuniary advantage. His mind is at this moment so entirely occupied in this work, that he feels within himself the firmness and resolution that no prospect of evil or calamity shall draw him off from it or suspend his labours. But the calamity itself, if permitted to arrive, will produce the physical impossibility for him to proceed. His books and the materials of his work, as well as ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... raised the fears of the people, and those who had the money to spare laid in a supply of tobacco before the concession came into force. This was regarded by the poor as proof of the coming rise in price, and they therefore hailed the Moullas as their deliverers from the threatened calamity of ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... before long filled both Africa and Rome with his fame, and some, too, wrote home from the army that the war with Africa would never be brought to a conclusion, unless they chose Caius Marius consul. All which was evidently unpleasing to Metellus; but what more especially grieved him was the calamity of Turpillius. This Turpillius had, from his ancestors, been a friend of Metellus, and kept up constant hospitality with him; and was now serving in the war, in command of the smiths and carpenters of the army. Having ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... administered the last sacraments to the old Breton warrior. The whole town was agitated by the news that the father was dying beside his half-dying son. The probable extinction of this old Breton race was felt to be a public calamity. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... heavily on the spirits of the king, and their effect was increased by certain gloomy prognostics of a great calamity, which was shortly to overwhelm the country. His health rapidly gave way. He had died but two years before, and had been succeeded by his son Cacama, the present king, a young prince who was two-and-twenty years ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... Those who bear the host a grudge purposely stay away, and he has to run to their houses and beg them to come, so that his feast can begin. When the feast has begun it was formerly considered a great calamity if any accident should necessitate the rising of the guests before its conclusion. Even if a dog or other impure animal should enter the assembly they would not rise. The explanation of this rule was that it would be disrespectful ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... his friends and bring back an attacking force, the Federal column would be on the ground. Indeed, he was glad that the family upon which he had quartered himself could not associate him with so terrible a calamity. The young girl might not wish to marry her cousin, yet be sorry if he were fatally or even seriously wounded, while the rest of the household would be plunged in the deepest distress. Although ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... the seven years of his married life, he had never seen this calamity in front of him. His dreams had always been of a time when their children should be out in the world, when he saw himself walking with his wife in some quiet ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... a calamity the particulars of which have already been related in "The Rover Boys in the Mountains." And then Songbird Powell took ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... wrote a friendly letter expressing his sympathy for him in the calamity by which he had been overtaken, and also his regret at the loss of his services and companionship, he having at once resigned his commission in the army on the occurrence of his bereavement, not only feeling desirous of remaining in England, but finding ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... publication of its numerous prophecies, which were suffered to circulate in private. For many years the persons who held this strange opinion had been content to enjoy their dream in private, shrinking from observation and ridicule; but as the belief had begun in a time of deep calamity, so now, when a heavier evil had overwhelmed the kingdom, it spread beyond all former example. Their prophecies were triumphantly brought to light, for only in the promises which were there held out could the Portuguese find consolation; and proselytes increased so rapidly, that half Lisbon ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... but the hero of La Rioja, he insinuated, had sufficient influence to bring about a settlement of these disputes; no one but he had power to prevent a war; would he not, therefore, hasten to Tucuman, and obviate so dire a calamity? Quiroga hesitated, refused, consented, wavered, and again declined the task. With a vacillation to which he had hitherto been a stranger, he remained for many days undecided; a suspicion of deceit appears to have presented itself to his mind; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... in the midst of our mirth and jollity, there is some grudging, some complaint; as [3563]he saith, our whole life is a glycypicron, a bitter sweet passion, honey and gall mixed together, we are all miserable and discontent, who can deny it? If all, and that it be a common calamity, an inevitable necessity, all distressed, then as Cardan infers, [3564]"who art thou that hopest to go free? Why dost thou not grieve thou art a mortal man, and not governor of the world?" Ferre quam sortem patiuntur omnes, Nemo recuset, [3565]"If it be common to all, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... and reluctance, I collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... father. "But I had thought of this running short of school funds as a calamity. If I had been praying about it, I would have asked Him to show me a way to raise money to continue ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... our country are often troubled with the rot (as are our swine with the measles, though never so generally), and many men are now and then great losers by the same; but, after the calamity is over, if they can recover and keep their new stock sound for seven years together, the former loss will easily be recompensed with double commodity. Cardan writeth that our waters are hurtful to our ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... it seems thy greatness was only outward; For thou fall'st faster of thyself than calamity Can drive thee. I 'll not waste longer time; there! ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... of extreme danger to his native land, sacrificed his dearly loved son, Ieoud, as an expiatory offering. Divine sanction had thus been given to the horrid rite; and thenceforth, whenever in Phoenicia either public or private calamity threatened, it became customary that human victims should be selected, the nobler and more honourable the better, and that the wrath of the gods should be appeased by taking their lives. The mode of death was horrible. The sacrifices were to be consumed by fire; the life ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson |
