"Accidental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ] inserted before: [Damson, Damazeen, and a large round black Plum are all I have met withal ] (This follows the paragraph on Apricots ["Apricock"], and the absence of this or similar side-note seems to be accidental.) ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... you for so kindly forgiving the piece of negligence I acquainted you of in my last. Young fellows are often guilty of voluntary forgetfulness in those affairs; but I assure you mine was quite accidental:"—Never mind it, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the sick, devotion in prayer, promotion of peace between man and man, and study in general, but the study of the law outweighs them all. (Shabbath, fol. 127, col. 1.) The study of the law, it is said, is of greater merit to rescue one from accidental death, than building the Temple, and greater than honoring father or mother. (Meggillah, fol. 16, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... examining the missile, then dropping it carelessly into his pocket. "Some fellow fired an accidental shot, very likely, and is at this moment the most scared man at Spruce Beach. What's the use of jumping on anyone just because he had ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... front, and are immediately followed by a multitude of cooks and inferior ministers employed in the service of the kitchens and of the table. The main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of slaves, increased by the accidental concourse of idle or dependent plebeians. The rear is closed by the favorite band of eunuchs, distributed from age to youth, according to the order of seniority. Their numbers and their deformity excite the horror of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... no longer be uneasy about the impression which the first account had made upon him. With this condescension she appeared to be highly gratified; for she had been under much distress and vexation before she met with this accidental opportunity of showing him from whence this mischievous story ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the carriage should arrive; then she could run down and prepare her uncle for his innocent and accidental visitor. It would not be prudent to let him receive the information from a servant, or without the accompanying explanation. This it was that made her so unnaturally firm when the little idle B pressed her to waste in play ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... speaking, the emperor was still walking, and Metternich by his side. Whenever they passed the hat lying on the floor, Napoleon cast a quick side-glance on Metternich, who appeared to take no notice of the hat, and it seemed entirely accidental that he slightly wheeled aside, and thus succeeded in passing ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... being in a sky-blue domino I was mistaken for the Count d'Ossore. I was myself led into the mistake by the Marquis Albert having the same Christian name as my English friend. The second meeting with the Count Rodolph, in the black domino, was accidental. The next walk had been appointed as the place of meeting with the Carbonari Felippo and his companions; but Count Rodolph, perceiving me examining my stiletto by the light of the lamp, presumed that I was Felippo, and that I had mistaken the one path for the other which had been ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... possess all his powers as freely in the palace of an oriental monarch, as in the cottage of the meanest peasant: 'tis the species, 'tis man, 'tis his equal he respects, without regarding the gaudy trappings, the accidental advantages, to which ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... reproductive organs on the development of secondary sexual characters, while at the same time explaining the adaptive relation of these characters or organs to the sexual habits of the various species. On the mutation hypothesis, adaptation is purely accidental. T. H. Morgan considers that the appearance of two slightly different shades of eye colour in male and female in a culture of a fruit-fly in a bottle is sufficient to settle the whole problem of sexual dimorphism, and to supersede Darwin's complicated theory ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... minds and habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent was never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation and depression varied according to accidental variations in the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces of his respective charmers. Passing and repassing several times a day from the company of the one to that of the other, he ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... course, merely blunder into beauty; his methods are far from being accidental; by deliberate aims and principles he holds himself close to the regions of the decorative. He likes the rococo and the Victorian, ornament without any obvious utility, grace without any busy function. He refuses to feel confident that the passing of elegant privilege need be a benefit: "A maze ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... "Some accidental resemblance has deceived you as to the miniature," he said, while Paul was looking for the proper number among the letters of Mr. Monday. "No—no—that cannot be the picture of your mother. She left no child. Assheton did you say, was the name ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... night fall, and on the Sunday in the early morning. As soon as Carandas had verified the arrangement and constant practice of these gallant diversions, he determined to wait for a day when the lovers would meet, hungry one for the other, after some accidental abstinence. This meeting took place very soon, and the curious hunchback saw the boatman waiting below the square, at the Canal St. Antoine, for the young priest, who was handsome, blonde, slender, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... injured by accidental wounds and in the course of operations. If the blood vessels traversing the gland are divided, such wounds are liable to bleed freely, and if the facial and auriculo-temporal nerves are damaged, motor and sensory ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... the Middle Ages," to any of those more pretentious explanations which seek to express the true inwardness of romantic literature by analysing it into its elements, selecting one of these elements as essential, and rejecting all the rest as accidental. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... form concerning this name, I really know not, for its origin is very obscure; and yet I believe the name is not accidental but prophetic. In the book of Joshua we have a city called Ai; and this same term is used elsewhere as an appellative. Now, the proper name Ai signifies, "a heap," as a heap of fallen buildings. And if with this name you compound the verb Irad, the word thus compounded will signify ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... is, of saying that the labor groups C and M, but not X, are underpaid, instead of saying that Labor is Exploited, is incisive. Perceptions recover their identity, and the emotion they arouse is specific, since it is no longer reinforced by large and accidental connections with everything from Christmas to Moscow. The disentangled idea with a name of its own, and an emotion that has been scrutinized, is ever so much more open to correction by new data in the problem. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... coincidence is the more remarkable, as Coseguina had been dormant for twenty-six years: and Aconcagua most rarely shows any signs of action. It is difficult even to conjecture whether this coincidence was accidental, or shows some subterranean connection. If Vesuvius, Etna, and Hecla in Iceland (all three relatively nearer each other than the corresponding points in South America), suddenly burst forth in eruption on the same night, the coincidence would be thought remarkable; but it is far more remarkable ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the back by the same hole, pulling the coarse thread with it, as in process in fig. 167. Taking it through by the aid of a thick needle would make too large a hole. Thread can be knotted into the eye of the needle if for any reason it is required to be quite safe from accidental unthreading. The neatest way of doing this is to pass the needle through the centre of the thread and draw it tight; this is a useful trick for any unskilled worker with needles and thread, for re-threading also may be a difficulty. When work has to be unpicked it is better ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... in our dreams are accomplished with still more incalculable rapidity; the relations of space, the duration of time, appear to be alike annihilated; we are transported in an instant to the most distant regions of the earth, and the events of ages are condensed into the span of a few seconds. The accidental jarring of a door, or any noise, will, at the same moment, it awakens a person, suggest the incidents of an entire dream. Hence some persons—Lord Brougham in particular—have supposed that all our dreams take place in the transition or interval between sleep ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the common Brahmin 'Pooree.' The excitement at the time among the sepoys, and the occurrence afterwards of the mutiny, has led many to connect this cake distribution with our disturbances, but without any sufficient grounds for so doing. It is probable that if any connection existed it was accidental, and the relationship acknowledged by either designing or ignorant persons, was consequent upon the distribution, and did not cause or precede it. Those, indeed, who have attempted to explain the 'chupatee ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... lord gadado. I consider books of dreams to be full of idle conceits. God gives a man wisdom to guide his conduct, while dreams are occasioned by the accidental circumstances of sleeping with the head low, excess of food, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... police, but when they are enabled to make any great discoveries, those who have been robbed or defrauded, and to whom they have been serviceable, are, indeed, obliged to present them with some douceur, fixed by the police at the rate of the value recovered; but such occurrences are merely accidental. To these are to be added all individuals of either sex who by the law are obliged to obtain from the police licenses to exercise their trade, as pedlars, tinkers, masters of puppet-shows, wild beasts, etc. These, on receiving their passes, inscribe themselves, and take the oaths as spies; and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... the tail of the woodpecker was formed by variations providentially ordained. It seems to me that variations in the domestic and wild conditions are due to unknown causes, and are without purpose, and in so far accidental; and that they become purposeful only when they are selected by man for his pleasure, or by what we call Natural Selection in the struggle for life, and under changing conditions. I do not wish to say that God did not foresee everything ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... scene, Miss Beaufort, no longer able to bear the restraint of company nor even the accidental encountering of his eyes whose presence, dear as it was, oppressed and disconcerted her, walked out into the park. Though it was the latter end of October, the weather continued fine. A bright sun tempered the air, and gilded the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... conversation on that day, and as he did it, his face gradually assumed a complacent expression, as much as to say, it's now clear that this cannot be the trap they designed for you, otherwise it wouldn't be accidental. Art understood him, and returned a look which satisfied the other that he ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... that had been deliberately burned in punishment, and not of houses that stood in the way of the cannon and the rapid-fire guns, and so underwent partial or complete destruction as the result of an accidental yet inevitable and unavoidable process. Of these last France, to the square mile, could offer as lamentably large a showing as Belgium; but buildings that presented indubitable signs of having been fired with torches rather than ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... indeed—he perceived the grotesqueness, the artificiality of the emotion which in that moment he experienced, but by which he refused to be possessed. It sprang entirely from the consciousness that she was his mother; as if, all things considered, the more or less accidental fact that she had brought him into the world could establish between them any real bond at this time of day! The motherhood that bears and forsakes is less than animal. He had considered this; he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... not escaped him and it had occurred to him that their frequent meetings were not entirely accidental. Past experiences had taught him the significance of certain signs, and when Dr. Harpe appeared with her hair curled and wearing a lingerie waist, the fact which roused the risibilities of her friends stirred in him a feeling which resembled ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... conditions: primary inertia (abnormally delayed and slow labor); expected short labor—especially in women who have already borne children; when the fetal head is known to be large and the mother's pelvis small; placenta praevia (abnormal placental attachment); accidental hemorrhage; absent or doubtful fetal heart beat; when labor is already far advanced; and in threatened ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... under the moon, prayed more earnestly than I; and when I had fully made up my mind to embrace what honour demanded of me, I sought out the girl, who was again in the dairy, and in solemn form, upon my knees, offered her my hand. Father Danvers, walking the terrace, was an accidental witness of my declaration, and very properly told my father. Betty Coy, unfortunate girl, was dismissed that evening; next day my father sent for me. [Footnote: I need only say further of Betty that she, shortly afterwards, married ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... died in England, and the Lord Justice returned to Ireland." Sir Richard Cox asserts that the Earl and thirty-five of his servants were poisoned, at a feast at Ely House, Holborn, and that he and sixteen of them died; but he does not mention any cause for this tragedy. It was probably accidental, as the Earl was a favourer of the reformed religion, and not likely to meet with treachery in England. The Irish annalists do not even allude to the catastrophe; the Four Masters merely observe, that "he would have been lamented, were it not that he had greatly injured the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... preserve the marine environment through the complete elimination of pollution by oil and other harmful substances and the minimization of accidental ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... accident, we speak every day of things happening, as if by the sheerest contingence, without warning or previous knowledge; and so it is with reference to ourselves, and to all the world perhaps: but with reference to divine Providence it is not so; there is nothing accidental, nothing unforeseen with respect to God. "Without Thy counsel and Providence, and without cause, nothing cometh to pass in the earth,"(95) says the Imitation. But what does this mean, "God provides?" It means that the will of the omnipotent Father directs and governs ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... concerning greater matters, the whole nation; but in such wise that even those things which are in the power of the commonalty are discussed in detail by the chiefs. They come together, unless any sudden and accidental emergency have arisen, on fixed days determined by the new or full moon; for these times they deem the most fortunate for the transaction of business. An ill consequence flowing from their freedom is their want ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... it may often say something better. But there is no reason why the general reader should not thoroughly enjoy it. Certainly it ought to be more generously recognised than it is. So many persons at present think of it as merely accidental and fortuitous, as if there was no mind in it, as if all the excellent things loosely described as errata, all the curios felicitates of the setter-up of texts, were casual blunders. Such a view reminds one of the way in which the last- century critics ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... philosophy throw a light upon one another: but they should be compared, not confounded. Although the connexion between them is sometimes accidental, it is often real. The same questions are discussed by them under different conditions of language and civilization; but in some cases a mere word has survived, while nothing or hardly anything of the pre-Socratic, Platonic, ...
— Charmides • Plato
... female nature was too deeply rooted ever to be entirely eradicated. Of a powerful, not to say fierce temperament, her passions were violent and difficult to be smothered. But, however she might and did abuse the accidental prerogatives of her situation, love for her offspring, while it often slumbered, could never be said to become extinct. She liked not the protracted absence of Asa. Too fearless herself to have hesitated an ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... robbery, but on a more serious errand—to put an end to you. I know the methods of this gang pretty well, I can assure you. You would have been found dead, and your man dead too most likely, and the circumstances attending your death would all have pointed to suicide, or perhaps to accidental death. But we've not much time ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... afterward in the boat. The presumption was that the missing man must have done it, and in further conversation with the Gray's Harbor Indian, he inclined to that opinion, and even affirmed that the individual was the ship's armorer, Weeks. It might also have been accidental. There was a large quantity of powder in the run immediately under the cabin, and it is not impossible that while the Indians were intent on plunder, in opening some of the kegs they may have set ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... the boy his future destiny." It would be the height of absurdity to repeat half the nonsense this oracle of Bagley uttered relative to my future fortunes; but with the cunning peculiar to her cast, she discovered I was fresh, and what tormented me more, (although on her part it was no doubt accidental) alluded to an amour in which my heart was much interested with a little divinity in the neighbourhood of Eton. This hint was sufficient to give Tom his cue, and I was doomed to be pestered for the remainder of the day with questions and raillery ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... But these are merely accidental testimonies to Southampton's literary predilections. It is in literature itself, not in the prosaic records of his political or domestic life, that the amplest proofs survive of his devotion to letters. From the hour that, as a handsome and accomplished lad, he joined the Court ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... went on, "but here's another little job in the same line of business. I drove a gentleman to your club early in the evening, and he must have left it accidental in the cab. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... decisive effect on the history of Buddhism, especially in making it a world religion. This was not the accidental result of his action in establishing it in north-west India and Ceylon, for he was clearly dominated by the thought that the Dhamma must spread over the whole world and, so far as we know, he was the first ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... different writers, when we come to the changes in English, the phonetic changes, to phonetics in general, to changes of meaning, etc., few, Ithink, will fail to perceive what I naturally perceived most strongly, "the leaves of memory rustling in the dark." Iperceived even such accidental reminiscences as:— ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... was engaged in an argument, which, if not in itself serious, was at least concerned with a serious enough subject, the unsatisfactory nature of human riches; and from that highly moral discussion have I been lured, by the accidental sight of the word "telephone," into the writing of matter which can have the effect only of exciting to frenzy all critics of the New Humour into whose hands, for their sins, this book may come. Let me forget my transgression and return ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... talents never seduced him into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string. An omnipresent humanity co-ordinates all his faculties. Give a man of talents a story to tell, and his partiality will presently appear. He has certain observations, opinions, topics, which have some accidental prominence, and which he disposes all to exhibit. He crams this part and starves that other part, consulting not the fitness of the thing, but his fitness and strength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no importunate topic; but all is duly given; no ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... loss and the pain of sense constitute the very essence of the punishment of Hell, theologians teach that there are other sufferings called accidental. The reprobate never experience v.g. the least real pleasure nor are they ever free from the hideous presence of one another. After the Last Judgment the lost souls will also be tormented by union with their bodies, a union bringing about a fresh increase of punishment. On this subject, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... he was a fine boy, had a burly physiognomy, and almost ten chins. He cried very little, but beshit himself every hour: for, to speak truly of him, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors, both by reason of his natural complexion and the accidental disposition which had befallen him by his too much quaffing of the Septembral juice. Yet without a cause did not he sup one drop; for if he happened to be vexed, angry, displeased, or sorry, if he did fret, if he did ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... more of the actions, poses and speech of men and women is to demonstrate superiority or to avoid inferiority. There are some who feel inwardly inferior, yet disguise this feeling successfully. This feeling of inferiority may arise from purely accidental matters, such as appearance, deformity, tone of voice, etc., and the individual may either hide, become seclusive or else brazen it out, so ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... compass of a single day. This will defeat your object. You will always be liable to numerous and unavoidable interruptions. You have friends who claim a portion of your time. It is better to interrupt your own affairs than to treat them rudely. You have also many accidental duties, which you cannot bring into the regular routine of your employments. Give, then, sufficient latitude to your system to anticipate these, so that your affairs may not be thrown into confusion by ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... the lilac bush. As long as he persisted in passing the dark hours so near to the Whately home my burden of anxiety and responsibility was doubled. In silent faithfulness he kept sentinel watch. I dared not tell Marjie, for I knew it would fill her nights with terror, and yet I feared her accidental discovery of his presence. Jean was doing more than this, however. His promise to be good seemed to belie Father Le Claire's warning. In and out of the village all that winter he went, orderly, at times even affable, quietly refusing every temptation ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... extent have repeated Massachusetts history. Our method of political management and control has been vindicated by the fact that the Commonwealth has been kept true to its ancient faith, except in a very few years when accidental causes have caused the election of a Democratic Governor. Those elections were protests against an attempt to depart from the old-fashioned method of ascertaining the will of the people in selecting Republican candidates. Massachusetts ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... I might have thought it accidental, except for one or two odd little circumstances. Primo, Victor Field is a guest ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... who believes in historical materialism, but rejects Socialism. "There is nothing in common," he asserts, "between the economic interpretation of history and the doctrine of socialism, except the accidental fact that the originator of both theories happened to be the same man." And a few pages further on he reiterates: "Socialism and 'historical ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... lonely and unhappy; and she had more than one anxious thought for the happiness of the little Alice, brought up, as she was likely to be, under such a father. Still the removal of Bridgenorth was, on the whole, a desirable event; for while he remained at the Hall, it was but too likely that some accidental collision with Sir Geoffrey might give rise to a rencontre betwixt them, more fatal ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to explain away coincidences to men who were the victims of them is likely to need more sympathy than he will get. The dictionary defines them clumsily as instances of coinciding, apparently accidental, but which suggest a ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered. And this persuasion, with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances or situations, or all together, preserved me, through this dangerous time of youth, and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, free from any wilful gross ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... were in fault; whether there was not a peculiar susceptibility in the condition of the recipients; or whether the mischief may not have been occasioned by the wilful administration of poison, or its accidental occurrence in the brass cooking vessels used by the natives. The popular belief was, however, deferred to by an order passed by the Governor in Council in February, 1824, which, after reciting that "Whereas it appears ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... of Honfleur at the mouth of the Seine, for multiplying the connections with us, is at present an object. It meets with opposition in the ministry; but I am in hopes it will prevail. If natural causes operate, uninfluenced by accidental circumstances, Bordeaux and Honfleur, or Havre, must ultimately take the greatest part of our commerce. The former by the Garonne and canal of Languedoc, opens the southern provinces to us; the latter, the northern ones and Paris. Honfleur will ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... to the Ranger, newly built at Portsmouth, and—a second instance of the kind—had the honor of hoisting for the first time the new flag of the stars and stripes; at least he claimed the distinction, for the bristling vanity of Jones made him punctilious in these accidental matters of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... crowd, using their elbows with particular skill, as he learnt to his cost. One curly-headed person caught in the pressure for a space, looked steadfastly at him several times, almost as if she recognized him, and then, edging deliberately towards him, touched his hand with her arm in a scarcely accidental manner, and made it plain by a look as ancient as Chaldea that he had found favour in her eyes. And then a lank, grey-bearded man, perspiring copiously in a noble passion of self-help, blind to all earthly things save that glaring, bait, thrust ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... accidental or malicious, are not uncommon, and I have seen hill-sides completely destroyed. At a certain season the pines change their foliage and the ground becomes thickly covered to the depth of a couple of inches or more with ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... hence was probably in use among all these tribes. It may have had some superstitious connection with the thirteen days of their week. The [c]hob may be regarded as the original gens of the tribe, and the similarity of this word to the radical syllable of the Nahuatl calp-ulli, may not be accidental. I have elsewhere spoken of the singular frequency with which we hear of seven ancestors, cities, caves, etc., in the most ancient legends of ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... progress of this affair the distinctive character of the inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shown more in relief than perhaps in any national transaction since the establishment of the constitution. It is, perhaps, accidental that the combination of talent and influence has been the greatest on the slave side. The importance of the question has been much greater to them than to the other side. Their union of exertion has been consequently closer and more unshakable. They have threatened and entreated, bullied and wheedled, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... complete the outer fabric of their very beautiful and compact nest. As the work progresses more cobwebs and fibre of a silky kind are applied externally, and at times the nest, when tossed about by the wind (sometimes at a considerable elevation), would be mistaken by a casual observer for an accidental collection of cobwebs. The inside of the nest is well felted with the down of the madar plant, and then it is finally lined with fine hair and grass-stems of the softest kind. Sometimes the nest is suspended from only two twigs, exactly after the fashion of the Mango-birds ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... worry about me; I'm going to play up to you, if I can. Listen! Pete's just waiting for a chance to register your face on the film. Burns has planned his scenes to prevent that, but we're just lying low till the chance comes. It's got to be dramatic, and it's got to seem accidental. Get me? I shouldn't have told you, but I can't seem to trick you, Jean. You're the kind of a girl a fellow's got to play ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... the "spacious liberty of generalities." In Marshall's method—as in the older syllogistic logic, whose phraseology begins to sound somewhat strange to twentieth century ears—the essential operation consisted in eliminating the "accidental" or "irrelevant" elements from the "significant" facts of a case, and then recognizing that this particular case had been foreseen and provided for in a general rule of law. Proceeding in this way Marshall was able to build up a body ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... of the threatening crowd, which once or twice jostled him more than was accidental. He came into the post- office, got an envelope, put his letter inside it, stamped it, addressed it to Christine, and dropped it into ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... been able to emerge from the astonishment into which one stroke of parliamentary thunder had involved us, before another more heavy, and more alarming, is fallen on us. Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguishable (an identifiable point in time) period, and pursued, unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan for reducing us ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... relation to the Miracles of the New Testament, whether they be supposed masterly frauds on men's senses committed at the time and by the parties supposed in the records, or fictions (designed or accidental) subsequently fabricated—but still, in either case, undeniably successful and triumphant beyond all else in the history whether of fraud or fiction—the infidel must believe as follows: On the first hypothesis, he must believe that a vast number of apparent ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... hope. The accidental rhyme in this passage is the only blemish that has been objected to in the address, and ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... cause and manner of their formation have not even yet been completely ascertained. They do not constitute any part or organ of the creature that contains them. They are not found in every shell, nor of the same size and shape in any two. They are eccentric and accidental, probably also morbid excrescences, thrown out by some individuals of the species in irregular forms and at uncertain times. They probably owe their origin to the presence of some minute foreign substance ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... inconveniences. It soon appeared that some were dissatisfied with the allotment of the animals; for, next morning, two kids and two Turkey-cocks were missing. As our commander could not suppose, that this was an accidental loss, he determined to have them again. The first step he took was to seize on three canoes that happened to be alongside the ships; after which he went on shore, and having found the king, his brother, Feenou, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... the day passed without incident. The duke, to avoid any accidental indiscretion, waited until after dinner to tell Hyacinthe to pack a trunk and a portmanteau. Hyacinthe was to accompany them, ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... Presidents of the United States were strongly endowed with this temperament, except Rutherford B. Hayes, who, on the contrary, was a fine example of the magnetic. You will remember that he was a sort of accidental President, anyhow, and that he was the result of a compromise in his own party, in a convention in which several electric temperament candidates had produced a deadlock. You will also remember that his administration was characterized by no act of National importance and that at its close he ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... accidental cut across the knuckles was a flea-bite. Dr. Livesey patched it up with plaster, and pulled my ears for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... later on what a combination of accidental circumstances prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at once carried off by some nocturnal and immediate ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the Jerseys was accidental; you had it not even in contemplation, or you would not have sent a principal part of your forces to Rhode Island beforehand. The utmost hope of America in the year 1776, reached no higher than that she might not ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... related the circumstance as it actually happened; and she appeared much relieved to hear that his inebriety was only accidental. ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.' No reason is assigned. The absence may have been purely accidental, but the specification of Thomas as 'one of the Twelve,' seems to suggest that his absence was regarded by the Evangelist as a dereliction of apostolic duty; and the cause of it may be found, I think, with reasonable probability, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... since Richard's return, had sir Wilton given the Mansons a thought, never doubting his son's residence at Oxford must have cured him of a merely accidental inclination to such low company, and made evident to him that recognition of such relationship as his to them was an unheard-of impropriety, a sin against social order, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... in Bow Street, to represent their necessities; and I often see one cut down a court when he beholds me coming, cut round Drury Lane to face me, and come up towards me near this door in the freshest and most accidental way, as if I was the last person he expected to see on the surface of this globe. The other day, there thus appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in the air) one aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. He said he thought if ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... 1090, or thereabouts, the old tower—the southern tower—was given greater width than the northern. Such inequalities were common in the early churches, and so is a great deal of dispute in modern books whether they were accidental or intentional, while no one denies that they are amusing. In these towers the difference is not great,—perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches,—but it caused the architect to correct it, in order to fit his front to the axis of the church, by throwing his entrance six or seven inches to ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... without which the precious philter could never have been distilled? Oh, no! She was silly—nervous—the events of the day had disheartened her, and she was growing to be a craven. How should Johanna know her secrets? The allusion to the marshal was accidental. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... is related a pathetic story of a youth's death from accidental shooting. "Put me in the boat," implored he of his comrades, "that I may die under my country's flag." Another, a young Scotchman, who had a leg cut off in battle, cried out mournfully, "I ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... he also heaved a sigh. "This was indeed," he observed, "a retribution in store for them! Their encounter was likewise not accidental; for had it been, how was it that this Feng Yuean took a fancy ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... man, and Thomas Southerne (1660-1746), born near Dublin, were distinguished playwrights, who began their respective careers in the seventeenth century. Farquhar left Trinity College, Dublin, as an undergraduate and became an actor, but owing to his accidental killing of another player he left the stage and secured a commission in the army. He soon turned his attention to the writing of plays, and was responsible in all for eight comedies. He has left us some characters that are very humorous and at the same time true to life, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... in as great perfection by his ignorance as the wise man by the highest energies of thought and self-discipline. Luck has a real existence in human affairs, from the infinite number of powers that are in action at the same time, and from the co-existence of things contingent and accidental (such as to US at least are accidental) with the regular appearances and general laws of nature. A familiar instance will make these words intelligible. The moon waxes and wanes according to a necessary law. The clouds likewise, and all the manifold appearances ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... years. Smith never minimized the part which Laurent Rodier had had in its construction; indeed, he was wont to say that without Rodier he would have been nowhere. Their acquaintance and comradeship had begun in the most accidental way. Two years before, Smith was taking part in an aeroplane race from Paris to London. On reaching the Channel, he found himself far ahead of all his competitors, except a Frenchman, who, to his chagrin, managed to keep a lead of almost a ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... Towns Hotel had made fortunes, and still made them. It was large and imposing and sombre. The architect, who knew his business, had designed staircases, corridors, and accidental alcoves on the scale of a palace; so that privacy amid publicity could always be found within its walls. It was superficially old-fashioned, and in reality modern. It had a genuine chef, with sub-chefs, good waiters whose ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... "Blue should predominate." He turned his eyes on the dancing sparks on the screen. They glowed now a deep indigo blue. "Lock your dials against accidental turning. We're ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... try and get at the reason for this wide-spread, deep-rooted, fear of beauty: for some reason there must surely be. Such instinctive feelings, on so broad a scale, are not accidental. And so soon as one begins to analyse the attitude of religion towards beauty, the reason ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... Therefore is one nation Papists, another Protestants, one Calvinists, another Lutherans. These differences of sentiment do not arise from differences in the mental constitutions of nations, but from the accidental differences of situation. ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... behave in the fire. It was the method of the Middle Ages which we are so apt to praise, and there is much to be said for practical, craftsmanly experience, especially in the arts, as against a system of formulas based on scientific knowledge. It would be a pity indeed to get rid of the accidental and all the delight which it brings, and we must take it ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... cured during his lifetime were just as effectively relieved by visiting the good father's tomb, in the firm belief that a miracle would be performed. From the following cure, his first one, it will be seen that the discovery of his healing power was rather accidental. ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... publishing it for the benefit of the world: whereas the criticism is generally the crude and hasty production of an individual, scribbling to while away an idle hour, to oblige a book-seller, or to defray current expenses. How often is it the passing notion of the hour, affected by accidental circumstances; by indisposition, by peevishness, by vapors or indigestion; by personal prejudice, or party feeling. Sometimes a work is sacrificed, because the reviewer wishes a satirical article; sometimes because he wants a humorous one; ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... whose cause he pleads. One can scarcely account, far less apologize, for the extraordinary fact, that nearly eleven years, from the date of this voyage, had elapsed, before any British vessel touched at Otaheite, and that even then the visit was an accidental one. Soon afterwards, however, Lieutenant Bligh was ordered to visit it, for the purpose, not of conferring benefits on it, but of procuring the bread-fruit tree, for our West India possessions. Of the changes which had happened in that interval, it would ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... sets Cicero, as a writer, if not as a thinker, above Plato? It would be not only possible but easy to follow this up with a long list of critical enormities on De Quincey's part, enormities due not to accidental and casual crotchet or prejudice, as in Hazlitt's case, but apparently to some perverse idiosyncrasy. I doubt very much, though the doubt may seem horribly heretical to some people, whether De Quincey really cared much for poetry as poetry. He liked philosophical poets:—Milton, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... was a light matter to the depravity of the children by whom the place was crowded, and who had not so much lost as never found shame. Jan was standing amongst them, when he caught sight of a boy with a white head leaning over the gallery, whose face had a curious accidental likeness to Abel's. The expression was quite different, for this one was partly imbecile, but there was just likeness enough to recall the past with an unutterable pang. What would Abel have said to see him there? Jan could not breathe in the place. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing |
