"Miracle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flash of lightning and roll of thunder appeared the horse. A horse, do I say? Why, he was a miracle of wonder. He was light as air, with dappled coat and golden mane. Flames came from his nostrils and sparks from his eyes. Volumes of steam rolled from his mouth and clouds of smoke issued from his ears. ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... 'sceptical' philosophy. He recognized the impossibility of constructing scientific knowledge out of its material constituent alone, but did not see where the formal constituent could come from, and so resigned himself to regarding the actual successes of science as a kind of standing miracle. ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... taken place. Even the cure, the magistrate, and the doctor rushed into the street to hear the news, and a pretty uproar there was. "Said I not truly that Wise Peter was in league with the Evil One?" exclaimed one, "for only thus can the miracle of a spring of wine be accounted for." "True, true!" cried the listeners; "a wizard he must be; and that of ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... sometimes profound and the emotions awful, they are also, as a rule, repugnant to our better feelings: the facts are the hoardings of a parish scold. In great poetry it is the formal music that makes the miracle. The poet expresses in verbal form an emotion but distantly related to the words set down. But it is related; it is not a purely artistic emotion. In poetry form and its significance are not everything; ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... the last crashing horror of the bomb, in some hell-darkness at the end of all:—these haunted her. Or she saw visions of men swinging from peak to peak above fathomless depths of ice and snow on the Italian front; climbing precipices where the foot holds by miracle, and where not only men but guns must go; or vanishing, whole lines of them, awfully forgotten in the winter snows, to reappear a frozen and ghastly host, with ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... elevated with the hopes of victory, the canoes of Bolabola set out to engage those of Ulietea and Huaheine, which being strongly fastened together with ropes, the encounter lasted long, and would probably, notwithstanding the prediction and the miracle, have ended in the overthrow of the Bolabola fleet, if that of Otaha had not, in the critical moment, arrived. This turned the fortune of the day, and their enemies were defeated with great slaughter. The men of Bolabola, prosecuting their victory, invaded Huaheine ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... are down in the mouth you use poor judgment," she went on. "You know only by a miracle could Rojas or anybody have headed those white horses. Where's your old stubborn confidence? Yaqui was up on Diablo. Dick was up on Sol. And there were the other horses. They could not have been headed or ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... boys!" he cried. "It is really you, and you have saved me at the eleventh hour! I had given up all hope, but lo! the miracle is done!" ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was not the man to wholly absorb himself in such a reverie. His thoughts travelled farther; in idea he embraced his entire future, which he fashioned out at pleasure. He took leave of his sorrowful past as a blind man who by some miracle recovers his sight, parts from his dog and his staff—troublesome witnesses of evil days. He had done with petty employments, with ungrateful toil, with humiliating servitude, with anxiety about the morrow, with the necessity for counting every sou, with meagre repasts, with sordid ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... room, as from one chamber to another. This is putting the fact poetically; but, prosaically, the intervening steps are few at the most; and when you have entered your room your train has ceased to be. The simple miracle would be impossible in America, where our trains, when not shrieking at the tops of their whistles, are backing and filling with a wild clangor of their bells, and making a bedlam of their ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... something to my father, bowed loftily to Louise, passed me without a sign, and went out. In a moment, Lu's voice, a quick, sharp exclamation, touched him; he turned, came back. She, wondering at him, had stood toying with the amber, and at last crushing the miracle of the whole, a bell-wort wrought most delicately with all the dusty pollen grained upon its anthers, crushing it between her fingers, breaking the thread, and scattering the beads upon the carpet. He stooped with her to gather them again, he took from her hand and restored ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... we rode out of Delhi Gate it was as if a miracle took place. A stiffening passed along the squadron. A trooper caught sight of Ranjoor Singh standing beside some bullock carts, and passed the word. I, too, saw him. He was with a Muhammadan bunnia, and was dressed to resemble ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... It banishes pain, sickness, weakness, and cheats death of his prey. Oh, grave, where is thy victory? Oh, death, where is thy power? Overcome by my marvelous discovery! Harmless as water! Sweet on the tongue as honey! Potent as a miracle! By the grace of Heaven, which has bestowed this secret upon me, I have saved five thousand men, women, and children from sure doom, in the last three years, through my swift and infallible remedy, Professor Certain's Vitalizing Mixture; as witness my undenied affidavit, sworn to before Almighty ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... profound as to admit no ray of light seems to have fallen for a time on Egypt, as one of the ten plagues; but the event was evidently miraculous; and no student of natural science is entitled to have recourse, in order to extricate himself out of a difficulty, to supposititious, unrecorded miracle. Creation cannot take place without miracle; but it would be a strange reversal of all our previous conclusions on the subject, should we have to hold that the dead, dark, blank out of which creation arose was miraculous also. And if, rejecting miracle, we cast ourselves on the purely natural, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... briefer courses than he, and left him still shining high in the heavens of the political world. Jackson, Van Buren, Harnson, Polk, and Taylor all rose after, and set long before him. The spell—the long-enduring spell—with which the souls of men were bound to him is a miracle. Who can compass it? It is probably true he owed his pre-eminence to no one quality, but to a fortunate combination of several. He was surpassingly eloquent; but many eloquent men fail utterly, and they are not, as a class, generally ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... with that thought all terror fell away from him, and his one desire became so to carry himself in that encounter as to be deserving of her esteem. Afterward he told me that while he was in the tremors of that first and unavoidable alarm he was cheered by a miracle. You know already how the God of Love, in very person, had ridden, visible only to the eyes of Dante, by Dante's side that night, though the vision vanished at the time when the lances of the Dragon-flag rode out of the sheltering wood to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... triumph of Napoleon appeared a miracle before which the voice of criticism must be dumb. And yet, if we remember the hollowness of the Bourbon restoration, the tactlessness of the princes and the greed of their partisans, it seems strange that the house of cards ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... ever seen the other. The man was following his wife and his one child to the grave. "Nothing almost sees miracles but misery," says Kent in King Lear. Because this man was miserable, he saw a miracle where was no miracle, only something very good. The thing was true and precious, yea, a message from heaven. Those deep, upturned, silent eyes; the profound, divine sympathy that shone in them; the grasp of the tiny hand upon ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... of 1851-2 was a local one, but was believed by many to have been inspired by a celestial antiphony. The remarkable sounds were either a miracle or a psychic wonder born of the intense imagination of a sensitive race. A few pious people in a small village of Montgomeryshire had been making special prayer for an outpouring of the spirit, but after a week of meetings with no sign of the result hoped for, they were returning ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... city kettle had been set on the stove to boil half a century ago and had never been taken off. The steam is pouring out of the nose. The cover is dancing up and down. The very kettle is rocking and jumping. But by some miracle the destructive explosion never happens. The Californian is easy-going in a sense and yet he works hard and plays hard. Athletics are feverish there, suffrage rampant, politics frenzied, labor ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... out. When they came to take out the body, which had been embalmed, it was found in a remarkable state of preservation. The custodian said, with an irreligious grin, that in the old days the condition of the body would have been called a miracle, and a patron saint would have been made responsible, and all the people would have come, bearing lighted candles, to do honor to the saint; and he added regretfully that it was no good in these days. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... from its very glory's midmost heart Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light Into our souls. All things are seen aright Amid the blinding pillar of its gold, Seven times more true than what for truth we hold In vulgar hours. The miracle is done And for one little moment we are one With the eternal stream of loveliness That flows so calm, aloft from all distress Yet leaps and lives around us as a fire Making us faint with overstrong desire To sport and swim for ever in its deep— Only a moment. O! but we shall keep Our vision still. ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... the news came that his father had, in fact, been swept off the deck of his smack by a billow. The widow then remembered how her son had woke up and spoken of his father's death. Everyone said it was a miracle, and the affair caused a great sensation. The dates were compared, and it was found that the accident and the dream were almost coincident, whence they concluded that they had happened on the same night and at the same hour. And there ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... violence along the west coast of the whole Continent of Europe, and which drove the "Pinta" almost helplessly towards a lee-shore, the dangers of the voyage reached their climax. "I escaped," says the admiral, "by the greatest miracle in the world." Fortunately, however, his seamanship was equal to the emergency, and on the afternoon of the fourth of March he came to anchor in the Tagus. To the King of Portugal, who happened to be at no great distance, he sent a despatch announcing his arrival and the result of his voyage, ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... the youngest—named Kedzie after an aunt who was the least poor of the relatives—was just growing up into a similar career. Her highest prayer was that her path might lead her to a clerkship in a candy-shop. Then this miracle! Her father announced that he was going to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... that instant something happened: something that was like the kindling of spirit into flame ran between them—a transforming magic that only one knew for the Divine Miracle that changes the face of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... those who have been it is a memory and a possession. The Greek monks say that at the sepulchre a fire bursts out of its own account each Easter Eve, and there is at least a truth of symbolism in their miracle. An old bishop and saint was once asked to give sight to a blind woman. He had performed no miracles in his life, yet he promised to pray for her. And whilst he knelt in church praying, the candles which were unlit burst of themselves ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... least straw, "here's your chance to reform me. If you marry me I'll be a different person. I'd do anything for you. You know love is a great miracle worker. Won't you give me a chance to show you how nearly I can live up to your ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... out anchors and saved the ship, and it is certain that if the cricket had not sung all of us, four hundred soldiers and thirty horses, had been lost.' Some of the crew accepted the occurrence as a miracle from God; but Nunez himself is silent on that head, being a better observer of natural history than a theologian. But 'from there, and sailing more than a hundred leagues along the coast, the cricket every evening gave us his music, and thus with it we ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Mystery, Miracle, Morality and Passion Plays, the direct progenitors of the Opera and the Oratorio. The descent of the Opera may be traced also to another source, to the secular play which persisted in the ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... "Perhaps you have not heard the reason why I left your party in the woods. It was not because I grew tired of your company. It was because I was attacked by an assassin, and narrowly escaped with my life. It has only been by a miracle that I have come here; and, though I still have something of my strength, yet I am very far from being the man that I was ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... if it must go over crash—that nothing could save it; and Jack uttered a cry of dismay, and warning to his brother to get out of the way. Then, as if by a miracle, it fell back with a heavy thud on to the other wheels, and bumped and jolted on after the long team of oxen into the obscurity. And then, when ruin seemed to have come completely upon the expedition, wish-wash! splish-splash! the foaming ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... matter to keep one's "reckoning" in the woods. If they be of any extent, it requires extraordinary precautions upon the part of an inexperienced person to prevent himself from being lost. Should he endeavor to travel by night, it would be almost a miracle indeed if he could save ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... carried away into the fifth heaven by a strong north-east wind, which was blowing at the time. This wind, which lasts for 120 days during the summer months, and without which the inhabitants would almost die with heat, I endeavoured to make them believe was a miracle performed by the dervish in their favour, as a parting legacy to them and their descendants for ever. The old men, indeed, who recollected the wind ever since their youth, were incredulous; but their testimony bore but little weight, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... sound before great events, this probably only means that the shaft on which it was mounted was of some hard ringing wood unknown in the north. It was a foreign weapon, and if the shaft were of lance wood, the sounds it gave out when brandished or shaken would be accounted for at once without a miracle.] ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... taking no end of sodas after to bring you right for the meet at nine. If a man will drink champagnes and burgundies as you do, and spend his time after women, I should like to know how he's to be in hard riding condition, unless he expects a miracle." ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... poor Ramrod, and though he made a gallant and desperate struggle to reach land with the aid of his arms alone, he felt that only by a miracle could he do so. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... learn to read, but each of them failed. I was so exhausted at the close of the day's work that I usually lay down in the corner without even washing. Sometimes I pulled myself together and went out into the village, praying as I went, that by some miracle or other I should find a teacher. Sometimes I made excursions into the city of Glasgow. One night I wandered accidentally into a mission in Possilpark, where a congregation of miners was listening to a tall, fine-looking young preacher. I had not sufficient energy to keep awake, ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... a miracle if you escape," he said. "Hundreds of emigrants die daily; and if Stephen Ayres had not providentally come among us, not a soul would have been alive at this moment ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... pleases me greatly. During my stay in London I did some work in the British Museum on subjects which interested me, and at a visit to Maskelyne and Cooke's great temple of jugglery in Piccadilly saw a display which set me thinking. Few miracle-mongers have ever performed any feats so wonderful as those there accomplished; the men and women who take such pleasure in attributing spiritual and supernatural origin to the cheap jugglery of "mediums" should ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... this, and appeared to be willing to return to more friendly relations. The queen was no longer insulted with contemptuous cries when she appeared in the garden of the Tuileries, or in the Bois de Boulogne, and it even began to be the fashion to speak about the dauphin as a miracle of loveliness and beauty, and to go to the Tuileries to see him working ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... almost a miracle that he had not been killed under the buffalo's hoofs, but the ride did not hurt him in the least. And he is still telling the hospital children, over and over again, all the wonders of that procession in which he rode to the end of the route on the buffalo, and then back ...
— Sonny Boy • Sophie Swett
... the Roman outgrowth of the God-idea. Both the Hebrew and the Roman customs maintained the inferiority and the consequent subjugation of woman, despite the fact that the Roman Church exalted the Virgin as a personality; but the postulate of the Church that Mary was so exalted by a miracle, which never could be repeated, killed any forlorn hope which might have lurked within the female breast regarding a possible emulation of her example. No other woman might do more than cringe and crawl and beg and whine; or cajole and wheedle and buy the Holy Mother's intercession, ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that Fortune hath bestowed upon her, Tell her, I hold as giddily as Fortune; But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems That nature pranks ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... is really a treasure now. The antique Spanish plaque you own, found to be Moorish lustre, and out of the attic it comes! A Spanish miracle cross proves the spiritual superstition of the race, so back to the junk-shop you go, hoping to acquire the one ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... non-believers in miracles would call it, magnetic state, and in that part of the province of Marittima and Campagna, is already known under the denomination of St. Catherine. Her fame seems to have originated in a miracle which she worked some time ago on the person of an old woman, who came to her in great distress because her daughter had died in childbed, leaving the grandmother of the infant without pecuniary means for its support. "St. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the Blessed Saints above that are Protectors of Chastity, that they wou'd miraculously restore your Nose and Beauty again; and soon after, break out into Thanksgivings for having your Nose restored; and this will pass for a Miracle, and so Vindicate your Innocency that you will never more be suspected. And I hope you will make me amends for what I have suffer'd for you. This the young Lady faithfully promis'd; and so the Bawd went home to provide for her own Cure, leaving the Lady fast ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... pale. All? These few fish all he had to offer his multitude of guests? Only a miracle could divide these so as to give a portion to each. He waited, despair slowly descending upon his heart. In vain his anxious wait; no more fish appeared. Vatel's anxiety was fast becoming despair. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... needed no letters from Padre Filippo to announce miracles, since a miracle had happened in his own house—a marvel that had made Marianna cross her hands in speechless wonder. The new lamp burned on the table, the green reading shade reflected almost as much light on the ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... in my power, Madam. But I will not flatter you with false hopes. It will be little less than a miracle should he survive." ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... full of courage, very quick of understanding, she drew him, leaning on her, back to a life that had become strangely new to them both. They talked very little, for Merryon's strength was terribly low, and Macfarlane, still scarcely believing in the miracle that had been wrought under his eyes, forbade all but the simplest and briefest speech—a prohibition which Puck strenuously observed; for Puck, though she knew the miracle for an accomplished fact, ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... priests still possessed. And when the Hollander challenged an exhibition of such power, the missionary undertook to walk on the surface of the sea. A day was appointed. The Spaniard prepared himself by confession, prayer, and fasting. A great crowd of the Japanese assembled to see the miracle, and the friar, after a confident exhortation to the multitude, stepped, crucifix in hand, into the water. But he was soon floundering over his head, and was only saved from drowning by some boats sent to his assistance.—Hildreth's Japan, etc., ...
— Japan • David Murray
... If by a happy miracle the fertility of all arable lands were to be increased, it would not be the agriculturist, but the consumer, who would profit by this phenomenon; for the result of it would be, abundance and cheapness. There would be less labor incorporated into an acre of grain, and the agriculturist ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Walter, if you will only use it properly and prudently. The mortgage on Cedar Hall has nearly expired; I have not a solitary dollar to pay it, and the consequence will be—a foreclosure, unless some miracle occurs to redeem it. Your business must not be broken down, by drawing on your capital!" said Mrs. Jerrold, pressing the yolk of a hard-boiled egg through the gilded wires of ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... What miracle is this? For in the hour I prayed the prayer was granted! Peace, perfect peace! [Rises.] Then will I go to-morrow to my last battle as to the altar; peace shall at last be mine for all ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Mark Twain succeeded not merely in captivating the great mass of the people; he achieved the far more difficult and unique distinction of convincing his countrymen of his essential fellowship, his temperamental affinity, with them. This miracle he wrought by the frankest and most straightforward revelation of the actual experiences in his own life and the lives of those he had known with perfect intimacy. It is true that he wrote a few ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Christ in none of his three characteristic phases, neither as the magic babe (from whom I am cut off by the wanton and indecent purity of the Immaculate Conception), nor as the white-robed, spotless miracle worker, nor as the fierce unreal torment of the cross, comes close to my soul. I do not understand the Agony in the Garden; to me it is like a scene from a play in an unknown tongue. The la t cry of despair is the one human touch, discordant with ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... the presence of this sweetest miracle. The beauty and solemnity of it well nigh deprived them of the power of speech. A divine silence fell upon them and they slowly, softly took their way homeward through the gathering dusk, hand in hand—but with few words—to ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... my make—my make, good Master Trueworth; I do not study it. Do you observe The hollow in my back? That's natural. As now I stand, so stood I when a child, A rosy, chubby boy!—I am youthful to A miracle! My arm is firm as 'twas At ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... wall To bend His thorn-crowned Head in mute forgiveness . . . Three times He bowed it . . . (but the whole stands writ, Sealed with the Bishop's signet, as you know), Once for each person of the Blessed Three— A miracle that the whole town attests, The very babes thrust forward for my blessing, And either parish plotting for my bones— Since this you know: sit ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... a bed of waxen callas before a hedge of ceanothus, and struck into dazzling relief the cold white chalices of the flowers and the vivid shining green of their background. Presently it slid beyond to a tiny fountain, before invisible, and wrought a blinding miracle out of its flashing and leaping spray. Yet even as he gazed the fountain seemed to vanish slowly, the sunbeam slipped on, and beyond it moved the shimmer of white and yellow dresses. It was Yerba and Milly returning to ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... It was by no miracle that Edison was far and away ahead of his time when he undertook to improve the dynamo. He was possessed of absolute KNOWLEDGE far beyond that of his contemporaries. This he ad acquired by the hardest kind of work and incessant experiment with magnets of all kinds during several ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... came out of that blanket with rumpled hair and a look of pleased surprise at the new game of peek-a-boo. She was smiling! The child's escape was little short of a miracle. The fire had started within three feet of her wall, but owing to the direction of the wind, it had worked away from her. If Miss Snaith had believed a little more in fresh air and had left the window open, the fire would have eaten ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... This miracle of beauty is not without its analogies in other seas. The medusae of the Arctic seas, an allied existence, people the ultramarine blue of the cold, pure sea with vivid patches of living green thirty miles in diameter. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... them in Strasburg, where the Prince tarried with Elsie in order that they might witness the Miracle Play, which was acted within the cathedral. After that, the next stage of their journey brought them to Hirschau, where Prince Henry sought a night's shelter at the monastery, after having placed Elsie under the ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... with their ancestors and near relatives, constitute Literature,—without which the human race would be little better than savages. For the effect of pure literature upon a receptive mind is something more than can be definitely stated. Like sunshine upon a landscape, it is a kind of miracle. It demands from its disciple almost as much as it gives him, and is never revealed save to the disinterested and loving eye. In our best moments, it touches us most deeply; and when the sentiment of ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... read your letter and I have not been able to answer it until now. It seems like a miracle that I should have found out about my own mother here in a strange land. But perhaps I was meant to take care of you. You must promise to do what I tell you. I must go away now, but I'll come back in a ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... vein of roughness. The surf ran high on the beach at Taahauku; the boat broached-to and capsized; and all hands were submerged. Only the brother himself, who was well used to the experience, skipped ashore, by some miracle of agility, with scarce a sprinkling. Thenceforward, during our stay at Hiva-oa, he was our cicerone and patron; introducing us, taking us excursions, serving us in every way, and making ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... modern times the chief cause of the weakening of religion all round, in and out of the Jewish communion, is the growing disbelief in the objective validity of prayer. And a similar remark applies to the belief in miracles. But to a much less extent. All ancient religions were based on miracle, and even to the later religious consciousness a denial of miracle seems to deny the divine Omnipotence. Jewish theology from the Rabbinic age sought to evade the difficulty by the mystic notion that all miracles were latent in ordered nature at the creation. And so the miraculous becomes interconnected ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... altar, and caused it to rise through the straight tube into the interior of the statue as high as the breasts. A series of small conduits, into which the principal tube divided, carried the liquid to the breasts, whence it spurted out, to the great admiration of the spectators, who cried out at the miracle. The sacrifice being ended, the lamps were put out, and the milk ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... think that it would be a glorious thing if I got an opportunity of signalizing myself on the very first day of the invasion. I really began to dream of titles and rewards, the thanks of parliament, and the command of a regiment. It is a miracle that, in the delirium of my waking dream, I did not place the muzzle of my musket to my strange ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... blood as to produce an exact admixture never beheld elsewhere, and imparting to her countenance the tenderest animation; her eyes and hair were blacker than jet; her eyes, I say, of which the gaze could scarce, from their excess of lustre, be supported, which have been celebrated as a miracle of tenderness and sprightliness, which have given rise, a thousand times, to the finest compliments of the day, and have been the torment of many a rash man, must excuse me, if I do not pause longer to praise them, in a letter; her mouth was the feature ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... that the debt was a small one, and calculated that by a miracle of economy he might pay it out of his salary at the end of the week. Consequently, he dined out two or three days: at least he did not dine at home; but his dissipation did not seem to agree with him, for he looked white and tired. Luckily, he had not to pay for his lodgings till Mrs. Bryant came ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... further remark that he always carried with him a wonderful representation of himself, like to him to a miracle, only smaller in its dimensions, like as a duodecimo is to a folio—a babe, as it were, of his own begetting—a little alter ego in which he took much delight. It was his umbrella. Look at the delicate finish of its lower extremity; look at the long, narrow, and well-made ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... disappeared, and I found myself stretched upon the bed in my own chamber. I remembered the fatal blow I had received. I put my hand upon my breast; the spot where the dagger entered. There were no traces of a wound. All was perfect and entire. Some miracle had made ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... position, whatever their coat-of-arms, by his side they were vulgar supernumeraries. His power appeared to be limitless, like his genius; and believing everything possible, looking upon himself as a prodigy, a living miracle, he exulted proudly and ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... breathed Mary. "Oh, what a miracle that was! You touched the wire—that sent a current all about them! Grandie!" She threw her arms about the shaking form, "you and I would never have thought of that. Are you safe? Our ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... the beginning she had been alarmed when his miracle of a niece was brought into the house. The ostentatious partiality with which he introduced her into society produced results which went beyond his previsions. The crowd of worshippers kept growing greater and denser; after the episode with ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... eye by every device of cunning, in the society of women chosen for their beauty, their wit, their power to allure, to fascinate, to intoxicate. He had had his senses appealed to by every form of attraction a clever woman can fabricate, herself a miracle of art in dress, in smile, in speech. He had gone from more than one door with his head swimming, the vivid recollection of the hour just past a drug more potent than the wine that had touched ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... little. "'Go, therefore, now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.' Yes, you would certainly have need of a miracle, dear Bettie—" ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... Evelyn's cautious verdict, that the virtues attributed to the forked stick "made out so solemnly by the attestation of magistrates, and divers other learned and credible persons, who have critically examined matters of fact, is certainly next to a miracle, and requires a ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... God, how she understood! And she said I was better than she was! Better than she was!' He laughed at the absurdity of the notion. 'I wonder if girls guess at one-half a man's life. They can't, or—they wouldn't marry us.' He took her gift out of his pocket, and considered it in the light of a miracle and a pledge of the comprehension that, one day, would lead to perfect happiness. Meantime, Maisie was alone in London, with none to save her from danger. And the packed wilderness ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... busy myself about trifling things, and not to give credit to what was said by miracle-workers and jugglers about incantations and the driving away of daemons and such things; and not to breed quails [for fighting], nor to give myself up passionately to such things; and to endure freedom of speech; and to have ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... it. He was still the same good companion, and still also the same hard-working hero. In this only had he changed, that now he would work, and some said equally well, whether he were drunk or sober. Those who were mostly inclined to make a miracle of him—and there was a school of worshippers ready to adore him as their idea of a divine, superhuman, miracle-moving, inspired prophet—declared that his wondrous work was best done, his calculations most quickly and most truly made, that he saw with most accurate eye ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... was a deeply tragic character that contrasted irreconcilably with the ludicrous pettiness of her employment. It seemed a queer anomaly, that so gaunt and dismal a personage should take a toy in hand; a miracle, that the toy did not vanish in her grasp; a miserably absurd idea, that she should go on perplexing her stiff and sombre intellect with the question how to tempt little boys into her premises! Yet such is ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Abydos became the centre of his worship, and that he dispossessed the local god An-Her in the affections of the people. Tradition affirmed that the head of Osiris was preserved at Abydos in a box, and a picture of it, became the symbol of the city. At Abydos a sort of miracle play, in which all the sufferings and resurrection of Osiris were commemorated, was performed annually, and the raising up of a model of his body, and the placing of his head upon it, were the culminating ceremonies. At Abydos was the famous shaft into which offerings were cast for ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... couldn't have kept you from it; but at least I was determined to try. Though I thought it incredible that you should take a step like that, in secrecy and flight, yet I find so many strange ways of marrying in America that I must be pardoned for my fear. As it is, I cannot regret it, since, by a miracle, it gave me proof of that which you have found it so difficult to believe. It has grieved me more than I could ever make you understand to know that during all these months you have ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... you some hospitality," added La Touche. "In this life we have many ups and downs. One day you are prisoners to us, and the next day we are prisoners to you. What matters it if we retain our honour and our lives. It's a miracle that we're alive." ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... go on long like this,' he thought. 'It's God's own miracle he's not been run over already.' He brooded no more on policemen, a sportsman's sacred fire ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... antiquarians would hardly have added to the burden of shame and remorse of which Mr. Thorne would have felt the weight before the last cart carried away its load from the trampled sward; that he would have regretted his decision every hour of his life; and if by a miracle he could have found himself once more with the fatal deed undone, he would have rejoiced for a moment, suffered his old torment for a little while, and then proceeded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... table is gold; the platters are the same. The pillars of sweet cedar that support the lofty roof are richer by far than those of Solomon's temple. And the "gilded one" smiles at his queen, and lifts a cup of rosy wine to his lips. Do the company notice that miracle of dazzling light he holds in his delicate brown hand? 'Tis cut from one precious stone. It is like a living fire, and the red wine glows ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... themselves into the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona: completely cut off from home, they were obliged to procure their supplies by way of the river. The consul Tiberius Sempronius only escaped, as if by miracle, from being taken prisoner, when with a weak escort of cavalry he went to Rome on account of the elections. Hannibal, who would not hazard the health of his troops by further marches at that inclement season, bivouacked for the winter where ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... drowsy; these symptoms denoted very clearly great disorder of the brain. For nine days she remained in this dreadful state; during which time I scarcely knew whether she was dead or alive; at every moment I besought the Almighty to work a miracle in her behalf. One morning the poor creature closed her eyes. I cannot describe my feelings of anguish. Would she ever awake again? I leant over her; I heard her breathing gently, without apparent effort; I felt her pulse, it beat calmer and more regular; she ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... unclasped the receivers from his ears. There, high above the sleeping ship's company, with the blue carpet of the Mediterranean stretched indefinitely about us, we three stood looking at one another. By virtue of a miracle of modern science, some one, divided from me by mile upon mile of boundless ocean, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... it not possible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed itself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED in oppositions of moral values, and saw, read, and INTERPRETED these oppositions into the text and facts of the case? What? "Miracle" only an error of interpretation? ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... friends, the vanishing of friendships in which one had trusted,—even this phase of trial, which is truly the hardest of all, can be best endured by closing the door of consciousness on it, and creating a new world by that miracle-working power of the soul. Friendships that hold within themselves any permanent, any spiritual reality, come to stay. "Only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... fulfilment of the great promise of salvation. To them, to be sure, or rather to many of them, not to all, merciful helps were granted. The unseen and the hoped-for was sometimes, not always, made more tangible to them by the grant of some sign and token, some portent or miracle, by the way. But the careful Bible-reader knows how very little such things are represented in the holy histories as being the "daily bread" of the life of the old believers. Even in the lives where they occur most ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... of Rome. With him came St. Louis of Troyes. These two fair bishops, Germanus of Auxerre and Louis of Troyes, crossed the sea to prepare the way of the Lord. By them were the tables of the law redelivered, and men converted again to the faith. They brought many a man to salvation; many a miracle, many a virtue, did God show in their persons, and many a country was the sweeter for their lives. When the law of God was restored, and Britain made again a Christian land, hearken now what foul work was done by treason and by envy. ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... evolved, and must in that case be all descended from the simplest common parent-forms—or: That is not the case, and the distinct species of organisms have originated independently of each other, and in that case can only have been created in a supernatural way, by a miracle. Natural evolution, or supernatural creation of species—we must choose one of these two possibilities, for ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... larder. The work was hard, but it toughened the sinews of the young soldiers, and gave them an occupation in which they were interested. Before it was finished they were joined by another small detachment with loaded pack horses, which by the same kind of miracle had come safely through the wilderness. Colden now had a hundred men, fifty horses and powder and lead for all the needs of ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... led the way, side by side, followed by a dozen men. A glance told Nathaniel that nothing much less than a miracle could turn the tide of battle. Half of the mainlanders were fighting in the water. Others were struggling desperately to get away in the boats. Foot by foot the Mormons were crushing them back, their battle cries now turned into demoniac yells of victory. Into the rear of the struggling mass, ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... There, too—guilty. Only the third there was no sustaining. The loss was fearful, but there were men enough left to clear him from that charge. He struggled with desperation to retrieve his error, if error it were; he escaped death himself as by a miracle, and he brought off a remnant of the command which, in weaker hands, might have been utterly swallowed up. On that count he is clear. But on ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... writers and orators fond of boasting the unapproachable excellence of American institutions do not like to allude. Fifty years ago we were wont to speak of civil government in the United States as if it had dropped from heaven or had been specially created by some kind of miracle upon American soil; and we were apt to think that in mere republican forms there was some kind of mystic virtue which made them a panacea for all political evils. Our later experience with cities has rudely disturbed this too confident ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... the English from their fortifications might have stopped his progress, and took up a position there, along with La Hire, between the expedition and the enemy. But in the towers not a man budged, not a shot was fired. It was again a miracle, and she had predicted it. The party of Dunois marched on in safety, and Jeanne returned to Orleans, once more receiving on the breeze some words of abuse from the defenders of those battlements, which ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... he cried, slapping me on my back. "Introduce me to your charming friends," and with this he gave a horrible low -born smirk at Miss Travis, to whom, to my infinite sorrow, by some accursed miracle, he appeared as plainly visible as ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... of this miracle of beauty in the midst of misery; this glowing gem in a setting of ugliness. It is her modest little head that has bent over the boxes of earth, which constitute her landed property; her pretty little fingers which have trained the stems and watered the roots and cherished the flowers until the ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... prophet's ken, that through the smoke of war discerned the coming evil; how diligent the patriot's hand, that amidst awful responsibilities reached futureward to avert it! By almost a miracle the weak Confederation, "a barrel without a hoop," was held together perforce of outside pressure; and ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... miracle: those who are within the city fly and abandon the walls, and the Venetians enter in, each as fast and as best he can, and seize twenty-five of the towers, and man them with their people. And the Doge takes a boat, and sends messengers to the barons of the host to tell them that lie has taken ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... Bones was a great believer in miracles, but they had to be very spectacular miracles. The fact that standing in the middle of the woodland path were two middle-aged gentlemen in top-hats and morning-coats, seemed to Bones to be a mere slice of luck. It was, in fact, a miracle of the first class. He crept silently back, raced down the steps to where the little ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... complaining grief Be not merciful unto him who is a liar or a rebel Between two stools a man falls to the ground Blessings go as quickly as they come Call everything that is beyond your comprehension a miracle Cambyses had been spoiled from his earliest infancy Canal to connect the Nile with the Red Sea Cannot understand how trifles can make me so happy Cast off all care; be mindful only of pleasure Confess I would rather provoke a lioness than ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... no wine," she said. Evidently she was expecting some manifesting of supernatural power. All the years since his birth she had been carrying in her heart a great wonder of expectation. Now he had been baptized, and had entered upon his work as the Messiah. Had not the time come for miracle-working? ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the Comforter came as swiftly and surely and mysteriously as the accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was renewed—"that day Jesus was guest in the house of one who ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... with all you folk," laughed Svidrigailov. "You won't admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say that it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about having an opinion of their own, you can't fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I don't mean you, you have an opinion ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Bar Cross happened to get word," observed Foy thoughtfully, "we might stand some hack. But they won't. It's good-by, vain world, for ours! Say, in case a miracle happens for you, just make a memo about the sheriff being a nuisance, ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... who fail to perceive the cogency of the evidence by which the occurrence of miracles is supported, should not confine themselves to the discussion of general principles, but should grapple with some particular case of an alleged miracle," [he read before the Metaphysical Society a paper dealing with the evidence for the miracle of the resurrection. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... has been gathering flowers. Doubting the truth of her statement, he snatches the basket from her. She confesses her falsehood; but upon examining the basket it is found to be full of roses. The Lord has performed a miracle. Overcome with remorse for doubting her, Ludwig begs her forgiveness, and the two join in prayer that the Lord may continue His goodness to them. The third scene opens at Schmalkald, on the borders of Thuringia, where Ludwig has assembled ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... those of afternoon. Turning his head, he saw that the pillar stood behind the encampment and that its light was thrown forward and downward, not backward and outward. Very manifestly, the benefits of the miracle were only for the believers in Jehovah. The marvel brought into the young man's mind some natural speculation concerning the great miracle-worker to whom his guide was leading him. What manner of man was he about to look ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... not? It is next to a miracle that there should be a girl deaf and blind to such charms. But, nevertheless, I believe it is so. They will probably make her marry him, whether she ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... for food flourishes. Nothing can keep under the redundancy of nature in Kona; everything is profuse, fervid, passionate, vivified and pervaded by sunshine. The earth is restless in her productiveness, and forces up her hothouse growth perpetually, so that the miracle of Jonah's gourd is almost repeated nightly. All decay is hurried out of sight, and through the glowing year flowers blossom and fruits ripen; ferns are always uncurling their young fronds and bananas unfolding their great shining leaves, and spring blends her everlasting youth ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... affairs seems to border on a miracle; many circumstances, however, combined to break the power of Philip, and to favor the progress of the infant state. Had the whole weight of his power fallen on the United Provinces there had been no ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... all the world seemed laughing. He hardly knew what he said, how she answered; only that she was there, slender, beautiful, as the springtime full of flowers; that a miracle had happened, was happening. The mottled blur in the sky had become a spot of brightness; sunshine filled the room; in a cage above, a tiny ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... well. His whole family had been wiped out, and he had escaped as by a miracle. "In those days, dogs ate dogs and men ate men," was the refrain of his tale, only too literally and absolutely true, for no man dared to venture on the lonely path leading from one village to another, knowing that the likelihood was that murderers lay ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... not to say a word till the time, but he is!" she announced to her sisters that evening; but when they questioned and cross-questioned concerning the means whereby the miracle had been wrought, she steadfastly refused to satisfy their curiosity. That was not their concern. An inherent loyalty to Dan forbade that she should make public the wiles by which he had ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Israel, after they had left Egypt, were those which forbid murder, adultery, theft, and false witness, since without those laws their communion or society could not subsist? and yet these laws were promulgated by Jehovah God upon Mount Sinai with a stupendous miracle: but the cause of their being so promulgated was, that they might be also laws of religion, and thus that the people might practise them not only for the sake of the good of society, but also for the sake of God, and ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... would wander about the country at night, disconsolate and sad. Finally, when he died, an inventory of his effects, showed him to be possessed of only a few old woollen clothes and his brushes The miracle in Rembrandt's painting is the deep, impenetrable shadow, in which nevertheless one can see form and outline, punctuated with wonderful explosions of light. Nothing like it has ever been seen. It ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... ingratiating composition impossible to resist. She apologized for her apparent insincerity, but would be candid, and confide the whole truth to Mr. Bell. Then she told him that Colonel Clifford "had only just been saved from death by a miracle, and a relapse was expected in case of any great excitement or irritation, such as a doubtful lawsuit with a gentleman he disliked would certainly cause. The proposed litigation was, for various reasons, most distressing to ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... no doubt," returned the other, with quiet reassurance. "If it wasn't chance, some obscure agency has been at work. You must remember, Lily, that only by a miracle could you have ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... actions which were, or were supposed to be, the actions proper for "possessed" people. Ascetic practices prepared the person to fall a victim to the contagion of hysteria. The predisposition was also cultivated by the religious ecstasies, the miracle and wonder faiths, and the current superstitions. Then there was the fact which nearly any one may have experienced, that an old and familiar story becomes mixed with memory, so that he thinks that ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner |
