"Disaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this is perhaps the hardest part of our lesson. It is one thing to bear with serenity those blows of fortune against which we are obviously defenseless; it is another thing, when there seems a chance for averting the disaster, when our whole heart and soul are thrown into that effort, to await the outcome with tranquility, to bear failure without complaint. The "might have been's" and the "perhaps may yet be's" are the greatest disturbers of our peace. To use our keenest wits for attaining what ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... was unnaturally compressed in order to keep back the tears. He was ashamed of having hurt her, and yet he knew that the least weakness on his part would mean disaster, i.e., would bind him to her. And to-day he feared this more than anything, and silently followed her ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... obstacles to encounter. Miss Haldane was an only child, and was possessed of an ample fortune. Arthur's career at the university had been creditable, but certainly not brilliant enough to present his withdrawal in the light of a disaster. As Sir Theodore's eldest son, his position was already made for him. He was two-and-twenty years of age; and the young lady was eighteen. There was really no producible reason for keeping the lovers waiting, ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... and hope which the pain has stung into fresh life, so from the sides of the mountain ascended the noise of the waters the cloud had left behind. The sun had kept on his journey; the storm had been no disaster to him; and now he was a long way down the west, and Twilight, in her grey cloak, would soon be tracking him from the east, like sorrow dogging delight. Gibbie, wet and cold, began to think of the cottage where he had been so kindly ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... sultry stagnation of the lower atmospheric stratum. From its vaporous lair somewhere in the cypress and palm jungles of the Mexican Gulf borders, the tempest had risen, and before its breath the shreds of cloud flew like avant couriers of disaster. Already the lurid glare of incessant sheet lightning fought with the moon for supremacy, and from a leaden wall along the southeastern sky, came the long reverberating growl of thunder, that told where the electric batteries had opened fire. A vague foreboding, which ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the hallucinated dwarf whose sobbing eloquence had led an innumerable motley host of unnamed peasants to certain disaster in the deserts of the East, went the hundred Gruyerian soldiers led by Guillaume, but with the knights and priests of Romand Switzerland, the Burgundian French and Lombard nobles who swelled the fabled hosts of Godfrey de Bouillon. With gifts of lands to churches and to priories ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... Thus, in complete disaster, ended that third voyage to New Spain on which so many hopes were set. And with this disastrous end began those twenty years of sea-dog rage which found their satisfaction ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... bloody battle with the Philistines, which terminated the lives of both Saul and Jonathan, that David's reign began in about his thirtieth year,[3]—first at Hebron, where he reigned seven and one half years over his own tribe of Judah,—but not without the deepest lamentations for the disaster which had caused his own elevation. To the grief of David for the death of Saul and Jonathan we owe one of the finest odes in Hebrew poetry. At this crisis in national affairs, David had sought shelter with Achish, King ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... all were agreed as to the character and tendency of such acts of the imperial legislature as the Stamp Act, the Revenue Act, the Port Bill, and the Billeting Bill, hopes were entertained to the last that some method of solution would be eventually discovered that would avert the disaster of revolution. "In America," said Rev. Andrew Elliot, a popular and much-respected minister in Boston, "the people glory in the name, and only desire to enjoy the liberties of England." And he added, significantly enough, "Oppression ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... presence of mind, which saved the entire breakdown of a performance of 'Faust.' In the midst of the church scene, the wire connecting the pedal under Costa's foot with the metronome stick at the organ, broke. Costa was the conductor. In the concerted music this meant disaster, as the organist could hear nothing but his own instrument. Quick as thought, while he was playing the introductory solo, Sullivan called a stage hand. 'Go,' he said, 'and tell Mr. Costa that the wire is broken, and that he is to keep his ears open and follow me.' No sooner ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Jeanne d'Arc lay in what she called her 'Voices,' the mysterious monitions, to her audible, and associated with visions of the heavenly speakers. Brave, pure, wise, and probably beautiful as she was, the King of France would not have trusted a peasant lass, and men disheartened by frequent disaster would not have followed her, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... for months, during fine weather, in many merchantmen, all hands are kept, throughout the day, and, then, there are eight hours on deck for one watch each night. Thus it is usually the case that at the end of a voyage, where there has been the finest weather, and no disaster, the crew have a wearied and worn-out appearance. They never sleep longer than four hours at a time, and are seldom called without being really in need of more rest. There is no one thing that a sailor thinks more of as a luxury of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... degree of heat that would have melted it before. He called this "curing" India-rubber, and after careful tests, patented the process, secured a partner with capital, rented an old India-rubber works on Staten Island, and set to work, full of hope. But commercial disaster swept away his partner's fortune, and Goodyear could find no one else who would risk his money ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious instincts of his daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of life and death, or more than that,—some dark ending, perhaps, which would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon the lips of all ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... proceeded himself to Naumburg. Here the joy and confidence which his presence inspired, "as if he had been a god," far from elating him, awakened only in his mind a feeling of humility and a sorrowful presentiment that some disaster to himself would soon convince the Naumburgers of the frailty of the idol in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... for me," he shouted after the others, "I'm coming in a jiff." He waited till he saw them turn their somewhat dejected and preoccupied backs upon the scene of the late disaster, and then transferred his attention to the creek. At the point where he stood the water was comparatively deep; it had evidently formed a channel for itself, helped, probably, by a slender waterfall which dropped over a large ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... manifestation by Louis Napoleon, or by other European powers, of interference in our internal affairs. The probability of such a demonstration by European meddlers can only have one of the following causes:—Our terrible disaster at Fredericksburg, or, what even is worse than that slaughter, the absolute incapacity of our leaders to cope with such great and terrible events as this last one. The bravery, the heroism of our soldiers will be applauded, ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... following year he continued his operations with unvarying success. His great victory of Isly on the 14th of August 1844 won for him the title of duke. In 1845, however, he had to take the field again in consequence of the disaster of Sidi Brahim (22nd of September 1845), and up to his final retirement from Algeria (July 1846) he was almost constantly employed in the field. His resignation was due to differences with the home government on the question of the future government of the province. Amidst his other activities ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... they well prepared for accident or disaster, as Sam informed Robin on the morning of the ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... chief support for the whole weight of the roof in the centre catches fire. Then, if any wind happens to be blowing, sparks fly on all the neighbouring thatched roofs, and there is no possibility of stopping a disaster. Such things as fire-engines or pumps are quite unknown in the country, and, even if there were any, they would be useless in winter time, owing to the severe cold which ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... to our poor Hooker, who is sitting now, somewhat gloomily, in the shade. Human nature can spare so little sympathy for braggarts in disaster, that we may possibly have been too hard on his demerits. In this respect the Grim old Fighting Cox (as the historian of the Mackerel Brigade calls him) is absolutely incorrigible. Conceive a General—on the very morning after the reverse was consummated—proclaiming ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... sometimes noticed the symbols of Freemasonry carved on fonts, as at Bray, in Berkshire. To the same period belong the splendid spire-shaped font-covers, of immense weight, of which I am sometimes a little fearful, lest the mechanism by which they are raised should become damaged, and terrible disaster follow during the progress of a baptismal service. At Sonning, Berks, there is a small stone desk attached to a pillar for the service-book ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... fitted out three vessels to cruise against the Spaniards; extended his cruise into the Pacific; succeeded in taking valuable prizes, with which he landed in England, after circumnavigating the globe; he set out on a second cruise, which ended in disaster, and he died in the island of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of circumspection is the chief cause of failure and disaster. Fortune, wise lover of the wise, selects him for her lord ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... poor stony land on Griggs's Road, eight miles from Bidwell, and launched into chicken raising. I grew into boyhood on the place and got my first impressions of life there. From the beginning they were impressions of disaster and if, in my turn, I am a gloomy man inclined to see the darker side of life, I attribute it to the fact that what should have been for me the happy joyous days of childhood were ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... has long held me mute. Disaster such as this transcends all thought, Bars all enquiry, chokes all utterance. And yet we mortals must misfortune bear When heaven ordains. Then, though thy heart be wrung, Calm thee and tell us all, that we may know Who of our warriors lives, whom we must ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... we were prisoners for nearly a week. It was not quite cholera but close enough to it to scare us all to death. Both Eve and the apple were young and green, and the combination worked disaster. When the doctor arrived, he shipped Eve off to the inspection hospital, while we were locked up, guarded by five small policemen, and hardly allowed to open our mouths for fear we would swallow a germ. We were fumigated and par-boiled until we felt like steam puddings. ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... moving towards one of the most dramatic incidents in her eventful life. All went as usual on the journey until they had passed Santa Barbara on the morning of the fateful day, April 18, when vague rumours of some great disaster began to circulate in a confused way among the passengers. Soon they knew the dreadful truth, though in the swift running of the train they themselves had not felt the earthquake, and it was not long before concrete evidence confirmed the reports, for at ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... spirits with a dull thud, though I didn't know why. My joyousness changed to what storybook writers describe as a "foreboding of disaster"; but when I have it, it's generally connected with a lecture from Mother, so I know it only as a sneaky, "I haven't eaten the cream" sort ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... in their hands, were rushing on, suddenly a fearful noise was heard. The earth seemed to lift up beneath their feet, and forty men and two lieutenants were carried up, fearfully burned and shattered. The survivors, among whom was John Deane, undaunted by this disaster, fought their way on and took possession of the grand platform, where they remained until reinforced by a body of seamen who had come in the boats under Captain Whitaker. The whole body then advanced and took a redoubt half-way between the Mole and the ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... westwards the independent city of Barca. On his threatening to evict them, they sent a body of Libyans against him. Fighting ensued, and he was beaten close to the town of Leukon. He lost 7000 hoplites in the engagement, and the disaster aroused so much ill-feeling against him that Laarchos, another of his brothers, strangled him. Laarchos succeeded him amid the acclamations of the soldiery; but not long after, Eryxo and Polyarchos, the wife and brother-in-law of his victim, surprised and assassinated ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... more deathlike than ever, Blaine put on all his power and strove to rise. Still roared the anti-aircraft guns, the machine guns and the rest of the snipers below; that is, all that were still on the job after the terrifying disaster so deftly accomplished ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... accomplishing at last the desire of his soul, departed on his first crusade. We have already gone over the circumstances connected with his determination, his departure, and his life in the East, during the six years of pious adventure and glorious disaster he passed there. We have already seen what an impression of admiration and respect was produced throughout his kingdom when he was noticed to have brought back with him from the Holy Land "a fashion of living and doing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said Miss Wardour; "you have your faithful attendant ready to repair such a disaster when it happens, and when you appear with it as restored to its original splendour, I will carry ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... I was overwhelmed by my sensations, by my recollections of the two fights and of all they meant to me of misfortune and disaster, and I was more than overwhelmed by the glory spread before me. I went all hot and cold inside and all ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... were the former slave-owners solidly arrayed against this experiment, but the owners of the industrial North saw disaster in any such beginnings of industrial democracy. The opposition based its objections on the color line, and Reconstruction became in history a great movement for the self-assertion of the white race against the impudent ambition ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... at the scene of the disaster just as Mr. Cranium, utterly destitute of the art of swimming, was in imminent danger of drowning. Mr. Escot immediately plunged in to his assistance, and brought him alive and in safety to a shelving part of the shore. Their landing was hailed with a shout from the delighted squire, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... for being left some time longer undisturbed. An elderly gentleman issued from the female apartments, and the doctor with some amazement recognised his friend Mr. Gryll, to whom and his niece this disaster ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... been witnessed for years. It lasted several days, drove the buffalo hopelessly beyond the reach of the hunters, and killed most of their horses. What greatly aggravated the evil was the suddenness of the disaster. According to the account of one who was in Red River at the time, and an eye-witness, the animals disappeared almost instantaneously, and no one was prepared for the inevitable famine that followed. The hunters were at the same time so scattered that they could render each ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... are sufficient to show this. They tell you to take so much of each thing, to proceed in a certain way, and even what time to take in the cooking. It also calls for attention to detail. Carelessness in Cookery is just one of the rocks on which disaster occurs. An English duke, an ambassador at Paris, was desirous of giving the CORPS DIPLOMATIQUE the treat of a real English plum pudding. The fullest directions were given to his chef—all, indeed, with the exception of ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... swollen, and blotches marbled her quivering cheeks, down which her tears again began to trickle. "My poor, poor Gerard," said she, "how heavily I weigh on you. Oh! do not deny it! I feel that I am an intolerable burden on your shoulders, an impediment in your life, and that I shall bring irreparable disaster on you by my obstinacy in wishing you to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Crusade, declined in strength and could no longer cope with the barbarians menacing it. Two centuries later the city fell an easy victim to the Turks. [17] The responsibility for the disaster which gave the Turks a foothold in Europe rests on the heads of the Venetians and the French nobles. Their greed and lust for power turned the Fourth Crusade into ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... while upon the occasion of this woman's disaster. I knew that if I should do anything that should miscarry, and should be carried to prison, she would be there and ready to witness against me, and perhaps save her life at my expense. I considered that I began to be very well known by name at the Old Bailey, though they did not ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... its erection. The confiscated metal was shipped for St. Malo, where it was expected to bring a high price, but the vessel foundered in leaving the harbour, to the triumph of all good Catholics, who regarded the disaster as a special manifestation of divine ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... feet above this mill and about 650 feet from the south abutment, heard nothing of it, the wind having carried the noise in an opposite direction. It was not until morning that they learned of the destruction of their work and the extent of the disaster. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... up two points to-day," said Percival, cheerfully. He had begun to be depressed with forebodings of disaster, and this ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... scarcely inferior, flowed, the first, 50 miles and the other 40, till they reached the sea, pouring a flood of white hot lava into the ocean, destroying everything in their paths and killing in the waters of the ocean the fish, the mainstay of the inhabitants, who were reduced by the disaster, directly or indirectly, to less than five-sixths of their former strength; and third to that of Galungung, in 1822, which devastated such an immense area in Java; but all the eruptions known besides were as mere child's play to the terrible one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... was gloomy and damp and wide, And the floor was red with the bloody tide From headless women, laid side by side, The wives of her lord and master! Frightened and fainting, she dropped the key, But seized it and lifted it quickly; then she Hurried as swiftly as she could flee From the scene of the disaster. ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... several going and returning gold seekers, many giving dazzling accounts of immense deposits of gold in the new Eldorado; and others, as ever the case with adventurers, gave gloomy statements of peril and disaster. A judicious temperament, untiring energy, a lexicon of endeavor, in which there is no such word as "fail," is the only open sesame to hidden opportunities in a new country. Fortune, in precarious mood, may sometime smile on the inert, but ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... thought fit, He'll have some glowworm sparks of it. Venture you may to turn him loose, But let it be to another goose. The time will come, the fatal time, When he shall dare a swan to rhyme; The tow'ring swan comes sousing down, And breaks his pinions, cracks his crown. From that sad time, and sad disaster, He'll be a lame, crack'd poetaster. At length for stealing rhymes and triplets, He'll be ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... should have been Beechen or Fir ones. There was a hundred Crowns gone; and he did not spare to go to Gaming again briskly. Upon giving him new Cash, he gets new Coals, and then the Business is begun again with more Resolution than before; just as Soldiers do, when they have happened to meet with a Disaster, they repair it by Bravery. When the Laboratory had been kept hot for some Months, and the golden Fruit was expected, and there was not a Grain of Gold in the Vessel (for the Chymist had spent all that too) another Pretence ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... rescue of General Gordon was tediously boated up the Nile, with the result that the "desert column" which Sir Herbert Stewart led so valiantly across the Bayuda reached Gubat just in time to be too late, and was itself extricated from imminent disaster by the masterful promptitude of Sir Redvers Buller. Notwithstanding a general consensus of professional and expert opinion in favour of the alternative route from Souakin to Berber, 240 miles long and far from waterless, the adoption of it was condemned as impossible. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... neck and speak encouragingly to him, and she will doubtless find that he will make a bolder effort to obey her voice when he again finds himself confronted with a similar difficulty; because he will associate his first escape from apparent disaster with her voice, and will in time have such confidence in her guidance that a word from her will be quite sufficient to assure him that all is well. When riding bad horses at my husband's breaking classes abroad, I found it best not to speak to them; for a bond of friendship had not been established ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... humbly implore him To come along-side with his cotton umbrella. But the shower didn't come, and without a disaster, They reached the huge Library—christened of Astor. Then she shook down her skirts to their natural latitude— Ahem'd once or twice—struck out a nice attitude— And then she struck into this little oration, Though I'm sure I don't know where ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... for there came no sound at all from the new lodger's rooms. At twelve, however, the drawing-room bell rang. Mrs. Bunting hurried upstairs. She was painfully anxious to please and satisfy Mr. Sleuth. His coming had only been in the nick of time to save them from terrible disaster. ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... him in sorry fashion, attributing the disaster to his tired and ill-fed horse, and observing that his enemy had chosen to risk no second encounter; but, while she was talking, a messenger, with an appearance of great fatigue and anxiety, came riding up, who asked Sacripant ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... feelings of the boys as they went on their mission. Here was mute evidence that others of the ill-fated ship had met disaster. They had often speculated on the fate of their companions. How many had been left to tell ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... in the depression of despair. Until that day they had heard Mrs. Boyle's hopeful voice cheering her husband, upon whom the foreboding of disaster seemed to weigh prophetically. Sometimes she had sung in a low voice as she watched beside her son. But now her courage seemed to have left her, and she sat in the tent with the Governor, huddled like two old tempest-beaten birds ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... richly dressed in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures expressive of the deepest despair, and wrung his hands, as if affected by some strange disaster. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... came near to the disaster. The one who was pushing was heading straight for the side of the road, and the one in the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... not come between her and Jan. If anything, they were more to each other than ever. The terrible months through which they had passed had changed them both, and had given them, according to their years, the fruits which are often ripened in the black gloom of disaster rather than in the sunshine ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... And in this manly, generous, and free-spirited connexion, the colonies would have grown with the growth of England; have shunned all the bitter collisions of rival interests; have escaped the actual wars which inflicted disaster on both; and, by the first of all benefits to America, she would have obtained the means of resisting that supremacy of faction, which is now hurrying her into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... to disappear in the face of disaster to one's plans, a tonic is often enough the reflection, "it might have been worse" or "there are others worse off."[1] Though one rebels against the encouraging effect of the last statement, it does console, it does renew hope. For hope ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... years after the mine disaster the McGregors, mother and son, lived in the house on the hillside. The woman went each morning to the offices of the mine where she washed windows and scrubbed floors. The position was a sort of recognition on the part of the mine officials of the ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... prince never knew of his son's marriage to the French lady—it was a secret marriage. After the death of his Italian wife without issue the son revealed to his father, the prince, the fact of his former marriage and the fact of the birth of an heir. The son was killed in a railroad disaster, and then the old prince, being without an heir, sought to find his grandson. He spent large sums of money and succeeded in establishing the fact that his grandson also was dead. He learned that he was a spirited young fellow and had been killed ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... O worthy Master! Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster, And ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... assist me, something which had passed with good effect from father down to child for many generations. Only, if I would be blessed in my undertakings, I must not open the golden ball nor endeavor to find out its mystery unless my trouble threatened death or some great disaster. Such a trouble had indeed come to me, and—startling coincidence—I was at this moment in the very house where this picture hung, and—more startling fact yet—the golden ball needed to interpret its meaning was round my neck—for with such ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... was enough. New York had still four hours' trading in front of her. The strategy of pointing to Manderson as the saviour and warden of the markets had recoiled upon its authors with annihilating force, and Jeffrey, his ear at his private telephone, listened to the tale of disaster with a set jaw. The new Napoleon had lost his Marengo. He saw the whole financial landscape sliding and falling into chaos before him. In half an hour the news of the finding of Manderson's body, with the inevitable ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... stand up and oppose the ruling aristocracy of the South, who had even shaken the Democratic grip upon the governments of some of the States. Further, a negro delegate from Georgia portrayed the disaster which would overwhelm the political aspirations of his people if the Populist party, which alone had given them full fellowship, should surrender to ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... at 8 a.m., after a rapid passage, the Susquehanna ought to be on the scene of the disaster. They were obliged to wait till twelve o'clock to take their exact bearings. The buoy fastened on to the sounding-line had not ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... army under Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Brown in the battle of Prague. Brown was killed, as also was the Prussian Marshal, Schwerin; indeed, the King lost eighteen thousand men—nearly as many as had fallen on the side of the enemy; and the Austrian disaster was more than retrieved by the great victory of Kolin, gained by Marshal Daun, June 18th, to which Walpole probably alludes when he says Frederic's "triumphs ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Klussman's mind Jonas Bronck's hand never again came uppermost. He cared nothing and thought nothing about that weird fragment, in the midst of living disaster. It had merely been the occasion of his surrendering to Marguerite. He determined that when La Tour returned and the siege was raised, if he survived he would take his wife and go to some new colony. Live without her he could not. Yet neither could he reespouse her in Fort St. John, where ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... of the bravest soldiers of the world round about the intrenched lines, from which the enemy was driven. He retreated in perfect good order; the panic-spell seemed to be broke, under which the French had labored ever since the disaster of Hochstedt; and, fighting now on the threshold of their country, they showed an heroic ardor of resistance, such as had never met us in the course of their aggressive war. Had the battle been more ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... got home that evening when his wife took the umbrella from him, opened it, and nearly had a fit when she saw what had befallen it, for the disaster was irreparable. It was covered with small holes, which evidently proceeded from burns, just as if some one had emptied the ashes from a lighted pipe on to it. It was ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... on, innate kindliness of heart bubbling to the surface as it invariably does in moments of disaster. As each unfortunate entered the tent the same programme was enacted, the same kind offices volunteered. "My house is close at ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sufficiently recovered from his vexation to give an intelligible account of his accident to his uncle and Patty, who anxiously inquired what had detained him so long, and what had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hat-band to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune; and he was at the same time endeavoring to refute his uncle's opinion, that the waste of the whipcord that tied the parcel, was the original cause ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... so far as this assumes the aspect of immediate knowledge. The term belief is here used to include expectations and any other kinds of conviction that do not fall under one of the other heads. An instance of a seemingly immediate belief would be a prophetic prevision of a coming disaster, or a man's unreasoned persuasion as to his own powers of performing a ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... ruined by the DUST; [OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 121.] the King's vanguard, under Rothenburg, a "new-raised regiment of Hussars in green," coming to the rescue, were mistaken for Austrians, and the cry rose, "Enemy to rear!" which brought Rothenburg his disaster. Friedrich much loved and valued the man; employed him afterwards as Ambassador to France and in places of trust. Friedrich's Ambassadors are oftenest soldiers as well: bred soldiers, he finds, if ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... patience and wait for aid from abroad before unfurling the banner of insurrection; for they were constant in their belief that without the presence of a disciplined army on Irish soil to consolidate their strength and direct it, a revolutionary effort of the Irish people could end only in disaster. But the government had reasons of their own for wishing to set an Irish rebellion afoot at this time, and they took measures to precipitate the rising. The arrest of the delegates at the house of Oliver ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster; There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so! As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master, And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as, swinging heel and toe, We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... rubbish and fragments of the tombs standing round the city, which he had demolished for that purpose. Soon after, the plague infected the army, and swept away a great number of the soldiers, and the general himself. The Carthaginians interpreted this disaster as a punishment inflicted by the gods, who revenged in this manner the injuries done to the dead, whose ghosts many fancied they had seen stalking before them in the night. No more tombs were therefore demolished, prayers were ordered to be made ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... back to action was one that had to do with the blue serge. The best fifty-five-dollar suit in New York was ruined in this submarine disaster. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... disaster, the Leander sailed for Bonair for water. Miranda still assumed a confident tone, and called a council of war to deliberate whether they should attempt a landing at Coro. The council decided, that, in view ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... was not much disturbed by such talk. Uncle Jabez had been prophesying disaster ever since she had ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... he walked on, he dreamed of the Saint whose popularity is easily accounted for, since our forefathers believed that they had only to look at his image, whether painted or carved, to be protected for a whole day from disaster, and especially ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... noticed little more than disturbances of the nervous system as a consequence of the war excitement in non-combatants. Take the first trifling example which comes to our recollection. A sad disaster to the Federal army was told the other day in the presence of two gentlemen and a lady. Both the gentlemen complained of a sudden feeling at the epigastrium, or, less learnedly, the pit of the stomach, changed color, and confessed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... The only hope of the besieged rested on Caesar, who lay not so very far off with three legions in his winter encampment in the region of Amiens. But—a significant proof of the feeling that prevailed in Gaul- for a considerable time not the slightest hint reached the general either of the disaster of Sabinus or of the perilous situation ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... cubs of leopards are charming playthings, and exhibit much intelligence and apparent affection, it is a great mistake to adopt such companions, whose hereditary instincts are certain to become developed in full-grown life and lead to grave disaster. The common domestic cat is somewhat uncertain with her claws, and most people must have observed that should they be themselves spared the infliction of a feline scratch, the seats and backs of morocco chairs are well marked by the sharp talons, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... 14. p. 215.)—"Calamity" is from the Latin calamitas, from calamus a straw or stalk of corn, signifying, 1st, the agricultural misfortune of the corn being beaten down or laid by a storm; and thence, any other trouble or disaster:— ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... and most prosperous existence, how many links of illness, danger, and disaster are always interposed? Unsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy, things that sound a knell, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... fate was a terrible, relentless, passionless person with supreme power over gods and men; that fortune was a being who smiled or frowned as men smile or frown, but whose smile meant prosperity and her frown disaster. ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... reaching our rear he fortunately failed to reap the fullest advantage of his move. The loss he was now able to inflict upon us was hardly a third of what might have been possible. But for the Americans it was more than enough. From this point followed trial and disaster. The day, which had opened so promisingly on the lower road, had already, at early dawn, been lost to them at ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... head of a troop of heavily armed men, and again greeted the emperor, the commotion began afresh. But Caracalla's patience was exhausted, and the high-priest saw by his pale cheeks and twitching eyelids what was passing in his mind; so, inspired by the fervent hope of averting some incalculable disaster from his fellow-citizens, he took his place in front of the statue of the god, and, lifting up ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on, the changes produced by the first General Election—which was the election held in November 1920, for the Constituent Assembly—were extremely sweeping. While the Radicals and Democrats returned with close on one hundred members each, the Koro[vs]e['c] party met with comparative disaster, and the Star[vc]evic group was overwhelmed. With about fifty members apiece, the Communist and the Radi['c] parties gave expression, roughly speaking, to the discontent produced by the unsettled conditions—unavoidable and avoidable—of the new State's first two years. The Moslems ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... finally stopped a mass of ruins, with its brave engineer mortally wounded. Whether the Wetli system can be made to work as intended by the inventor is regarded as doubtful by the engineers who have examined into the causes of the disaster. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... walked at the last?" "Yes, child," said she, "but I saw nothing of it: I only looked to see who looked at me." The Duchess of Queensbury walked! her affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. The Queen has been at the Opera, and says she will go once a week. This is a fresh disaster to our box, where we have lived so harmoniously for three years. We can get no alternative but that over Miss Chudleigh's; and Lord Strafford and Lady Mary Coke will not subscribe, unless we can. The Duke of Devonshire and I are negotiating with all our -art to keep our party together. The ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... oblivious to the fact that the perfume of sweet lavender was stealing insidiously through the room. They tacitly refused to recognize this odor and all that it indicated, when suddenly, with a sharp crash, one of the old Carew tea-cups fell from the tea-table to the floor and was broken. The disaster was followed by what sounded like a sigh of ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... steep declivity. Ere I had time to leap from my saddle, the ass came direct upon me with such force that my horse was driven backwards by the concussion, and I was thrown. Ten months afterwards, another encounter of the same kind threatened me with a similar disaster, and to save myself I had no alternative but to shoot the ass. The Indian who was driving the animal neglected the usual warning cry, given by the arrieros when they enter those dangerous passes, and he was regardless of my repeated ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... card from his waistcoat pocket. A sense of impending disaster was upon him. Mr. Earles glanced at it, and his ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Red River in Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo, Illinois, and thence inland by rail. Fever resulted, and the experiment was never repeated. To the west of Texas stretched a forbidding desert, while on the other hand, nearly every drive to Louisiana resulted in financial disaster to the drover. The republic of Mexico, on the south, afforded no relief, as it was likewise overrun with a surplus of its own breeding. Immediately before and just after the war, a slight trade had sprung up in cattle between ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... up among her pillows, awake and alert, almost brought disaster upon the taper, and the tray, by exclaiming brightly, "Good-evening! I'm wide awake for good! You needn't tiptoe or hush any more. O, I feel like new! All rested and well and—ready again. And I owe it, every bit, to you! You've been so ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... soon known to my nurse and preceptor; with fear and trembling they went before the king, and said, 'Such is the state of the prince of the people of the world; we do not know how this disaster has suddenly and of itself fallen upon him, so that rest, food, and drink have all [on his part] been abandoned.' [On hearing these sad tidings] the king immediately came to the garden [where I resided], accompanied by the wazir, intelligent nobles, wise physicians, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... itself and determined to claim God's gift to brave men will overmatch a mere army, however solid its force. But an inspired energy of faith is demanded of it. The intervening chapters will show pitiable weakness, and such a schooling of disaster as makes men, looking on the surface of things, deem the struggle folly. As well, they might say, let yonder scuffling vagabonds up any of the Veronese side-streets fall upon the patrol marching ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my relief. But in the midst of my rejoicing I heard the bell ring in my apartment, and running thither, encountered a telegraph boy holding in his outstretched hand the yellow envelope which so often bespeaks death or disaster. The sight took my breath away. Summoning my maid, whom I saw hastening towards me from an inner room, I begged her to open the telegram for me. Sir, I saw in her face, before she had read the first line, a confirmation of my very ...
— A Difficult Problem - 1900 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... took four days to unload the treasure at the pirates' lair, and six more days to bury it in the ground. Think how they felt when the last shovelful of earth was put in, how the sense of work well done filled their breasts with satisfaction! But on that very day disaster of the most terrible kind was hanging over them, and less than twenty-four hours lay ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... and skipped across forbidden lines protected by a Cross. This was the only possibility, this the phantom hope that stood trembling on the brink of the prisoners' abysmal fear. Thus the sight of a Red Cross driver or an English uniform in the midst of their disaster became a welcome incident in the lives of these affronted women. The appearance of either seemed to carry to the prisoners a spirit of encouragement and reflect a ray of mercy into the dark corners of their hearts. They indulged the hope that some of those foreign uniforms might ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... increase in the total value of farm property will be noted in the decade from 1850 to 1860. Then followed the Civil War with its great destruction of farm property, and from this disaster the County did not fully ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... notwithstanding every effort was immediately made by Captain Lloyd, his officers, and crew, the ship was entirely consumed. No sooner, however, did the humane and generous commander of the Badger perceive the nature of the disaster, than he hastened to the dreadful scene; and, by his unceasing exertions, and astonishing presence of mind, the crew were saved from the flames. At his suggestion, the powder was instantly ordered to be thrown overboard; a measure to which all the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... "long" on matchlocks. If so, the speculation is apt to come to an unhappy end. A sudden raid will capture the stock and at once equalize the market. To many communities figs are at once meat and pocket-money. To lose the harvest is not to be thought of. The aspect of the means of preventing such a disaster is altogether a secondary consideration. Dokhar at all hazards is the cry of men, women and children. The comparative cessation of fig-wars is one of the blessings ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... St Augustine's friend, or for that matter the son of Monica himself. The reality of these visitations may seem dim, but the most sceptical of us cannot doubt that, whether from some quickened fear of death or impending disaster, from evil conscience or swift intensification of vision; whether in the forms of beloved sons lost at sea or of other revenants who were held indispensably dear in life, the haunters have appeared, to the absolute belief of those who saw them or ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... no need to answer, and indeed the girl could not utter a word, so intense was her misery, so overpowering her assurance of impending disaster. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... carelessness at Branch Offices is extremely irritating. For instance, it is often the case that the words of telegrams have been altered and changed during transmission. It is unnecessary to point out that such mistakes are liable to create annoyance, not to say disaster. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... of wrath that the proper object of them had taken care to escape. Elizabeth heard on all sides of her the whispered, "Yes, how could she do it, how could she consent to do it?" Suddenly she found herself, and herself alone, as it seemed, made responsible for this disaster; for the feeling beginning with Katie seemed to grow, and widen, and widen, like the circles of water into which a stone is thrown, and she was condemned by her friends, by the people who had known her and her father, condemned as false to her friendship, as unwomanly. Katie she could ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Father!" she said under her breath, imploringly, struggling to free herself from the muffling, enveloping sense of imminent disaster. He pressed her hand hard and smiled at her. It was his own old smile, the father-look which had been her heart's home all her life—but it was infinitely sweeter to her now than ever before. She had never felt closer to him. There was a pause during which they did not speak, and then there ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield |
