"Coincidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by Mr. Taynton, for to be twenty-two years old and in love should be occupation sufficient. But he, too, had his bad hours, when the past rose phantom-like about him, and he recalled that evening when his rage had driven him nearly mad with passion against his traducer. And by an awful coincidence, his madness had been contemporaneous with the slanderer's death. He must, in fact, have been within a few hundred yards of the place at the time the murder was committed, for he had gone back to Falmer Park that day, with the message that Mr. Taynton would call on the morrow, and had left ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... moment, Mr. Henry Bannerworth did incidentally mention something of the sort. It's a most singular coincidence." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... a legend that from the first, destiny seemed determined to oppose the genius and fame of Hamilton with the genius and fame of Aaron Burr. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence that two men, born without the State, so nearly of an age, so similar in brilliant attainments, so notably distinguished in charm of manner and phenomenal accomplishments, and so strikingly alike in ripeness ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... were got up for them by the male sang-pur were to that day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same nights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates of government,—municipal, state, federal,—those of the army, of the learned professions and of the clubs,—in short, the white male aristocracy in everything save the ecclesiastical desk,—were there. Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. No distinguished ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... following the false light of a will-o'-the-wisp? No, no; the strange coincidence of the threat made on the bridge with the disappearance of the child on the day named, was at least real. The thread had not altogether escaped from my hands. It was less tangible, ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... in Venice on Kitty's account. It would be too absurd to suppose that he was here by mere coincidence. Mary believed that nothing but the intervention of Cliffe's mighty kinsman from the north had saved the situation the year before. Kitty would certainly have betrayed her husband but for the force majeure arrayed against her. And now the magnate who had played Providence ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a hundred and sixty yards is not by any means an unprecedented feat, but that two players should have done it in succession was at least a rather remarkable coincidence. It was a severe disappointment to the King, who had serious doubts of his own ability ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... other hand was widely lamented. He was universally beloved by his comrades and possessed a rich fund of humor which often bubbled over in verse. It is a strange coincidence that his best poetic attempt on one of Anthony Wayne's exploits near Fort Lee, entitled "The Cow Chase," closed with ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... their chief succeeded in reaching Paris safely, where he hid himself. Two successive arrivals completed the band of conspirators; on January 16th, 1804, General Pichegru, the Marquis de la Riviere, Jules and Armand de Polignac, landed in France. On the same day, and by a coincidence which suggests the idea of a certain knowledge of the situation, the First Consul said in his statement as to ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... modification by the psycho-physiological conditions of the moment, especially by the emotions and by external circumstances. In a series of identical equidistant stresses, those which coincide with the pulse of attention seem the stronger: this is what is called subjective rhythm. Since this coincidence is nearly always somewhat inexact, there results an easy accommodation of the pulse of attention, although even in the subjective rhythm there has already occurred an objective influence ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... clouded. "This is, indeed, a happy coincidence," said he. "It was my intention to ask an interview with you to-morrow, and now you come forward voluntarily to meet my wishes. At ten in the morning I shall be with you, and I also have ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... unexpected coincidence which the Resident Commissioner apparently omits to mention. It is that "professed Christianity," by insisting on the propriety of cotton garments for the islanders hitherto well clad in a film of coco-nut oil and a "riri or kilt of finely worked leaves," is ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... under my direction. If I had already been impressed by the significance of the fact that my first journey through the German Rhine district, so famous in legend, should have been made on my way home from Paris, it seemed an even more ominous coincidence that my first sight of Wartburg, which was so rich in historical and mythical associations, should come just at this moment. The view so warmed my heart against wind and weather, Jews and the Leipzig Fair, that in the end I arrived, on 12th April, 1842, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... had not occurred as it did and when it did, or if only it had been delayed another twenty-four hours, or even twelve, everything might have turned out differently. But fate, to call it by its fancy name—coincidence, to use its garden one—interfered, as it usually does in cases such as this. And so ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... Obozerskaya that ticklish night. The few wild Yanks who roamed the dark, without pass, had all the room and road. There was a particularly good mission at once found for this American company on another front, whether by design or by coincidence. A board of officers whitewashed the Canadian flyers of the Royal Air Force ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the way to them. But not a word escaped him about himself. Mr. Brock tried him with questions about his recent inheritance, and was answered as he had been answered once already at the Somersetshire inn. It was a curious coincidence, Midwinter admitted, that Mr. Armadale's prospects and his own prospects should both have unexpectedly changed for the better about the same time. But there the resemblance ended. It was no large fortune ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... I perceive thou knowest me not. You and I were rivals in our pursuit—the hand of Melissa. Whether from freak or fortune, the preference was given to you, and I retired in silence. From coincidence of circumstances, her father has now been induced to give the preference to me. My belief was, that Melissa would comply with her father's will, especially after her prospects of connecting with you were cut off by the events which ruined ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... T——t, the constructor of the Mississippi, ("a Northern man with Southern principles") who failed from time to time in launching that vessel as he had appointed to do, that he was in danger of "Lynch law"; and it is at least a singular coincidence that the naval attack was made immediately after that powerful vessel was launched, and before the guns could be put on board. But the idea of any collusion between Mr. T——t and the enemy, or of treachery on the part of the former, was never entertained, I believe, except ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... (which was really near to Neapolis, Kena) even more than at Akhmim. Herodotus perhaps confused Coptos with Chemmis. Strabo mentions linen-weaving as an ancient industry of Panopohs, and it is not altogether a coincidence that the cemetery of Akhmim is one of the chief sources of the beautiful textiles of Roman and Coptic age that are brought from Egypt. Monasteries abounded in this neighbourhood from a very early date; Shenout (Sinuthius), the fiery ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... should only be done by a fitter of some experience, as a little error in calculation is likely to lead to disaster. With each the application of the guide, or pattern, is the same, namely the testing of the exact coincidence of the inclination of the top surface of the bed under the fingerboard (diagram 31), or above the latter as shown in diagram 32. While getting the right inclination, in both instances it will be found necessary to ease the fitting of the neck ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... read. "That is a coincidence." "I had nearly forgotten one thing," she continued. "I must give you a duplicate latch-key to let yourself in with. I have a habit of falling asleep in the afternoon, and you might ring the bell for half an hour and I ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... sails for America, from the port of London, in a fortnight, touching at Plymouth. By a fortunate coincidence, Lady Janet's ball takes place in a fortnight. ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... in my proper bed," answered the Sergeant, "because I am one of the many people in this miserable world who can't earn their money honestly and easily at the same time. There was a coincidence, this evening, between the period of Rosanna Spearman's return from the Sands and the period when Miss Verinder stated her resolution to leave the house. Whatever Rosanna may have hidden, it's clear to my mind that your ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... to the unobserving a happy coincidence, Amiel, strolling from his house to the beach with his after- dinner pipe, was hailed by Dorothea from the summerhouse. She had run the unsuspecting Miss Clark very hard to arrive at the psychological moment. Joining them there, he was duly presented to Jennie Clark, and Dorothea, accepting the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... aggregate number of coins, the answer would have been 482, 3,362, and 6,242. It will be found in either case that if the contents of any two of the three boxes be combined, they form a square number of coins. It is a curious coincidence (nothing more, for it will not always happen) that in the first solution the digits of the three numbers add to 17 in every case, and in the second solution to 14. It should be noted that the middle one of the three numbers will always be ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... By a curious coincidence, not long after this conversation we had ocular demonstration of the fact that the moon is liable to changes from other agencies than those ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... thought which never succeeded in fully developing in China, concerned with natural science and comparable with the Greek natural philosophy. We have already several times pointed to parallels between Chinese and Indian thoughts. Such similarities may be the result of mere coincidence. But recent findings in Central Asia indicate that direct connections between India, Persia, and China may have started at a time much earlier than we had formerly thought. Sogdian merchants who later played a great role in ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... looked grave, and sighed; and Emily felt herself still inclined to believe more of the wonderful, than she chose to acknowledge. Just then, she remembered the spectacle she had witnessed in a chamber of Udolpho, and, by an odd kind of coincidence, the alarming words, that had accidentally met her eye in the MS. papers, which she had destroyed, in obedience to the command of her father; and she shuddered at the meaning they seemed to impart, almost as much as at the horrible appearance, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... There was also the custom of leading a dog to the bed of a dying man who presented him with food, just as Cerberus was given honey-cakes by Hercules in his journey to hell. But I have not been able to obtain any corroboration of this supposition. It is a remarkable coincidence that the Great Mother has been identified with the necrophilic vulture as Mut; and it has been claimed by some writers[285] that, just as the jackal was regarded as a symbol of rebirth in Egypt and the dead ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... like this, nor had the brain that conceived Tantalus risen to the heights achieved by accident and coincidence. ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... of awe which had been there once before came back to Mrs Walsh's eyes. Only to the doctor did she ever repeat the child's words. He, being a man of good common sense, refused of course to be impressed with the coincidence. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... glory," as he calls it, which presented itself at the opening of the Convention. All is summed up in two points: "To create the French Republic; to disorganize Europe; perhaps to purge it of its tyrants by the eruption of the volcanic principles of equality."[6] The coincidence is exact; the proof is ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... by the confident assurances of others as to the effects experienced by them, and which he is striving to arrive at. All these form a practical Christian. Add, however, a gradual opening out of the intellect to more and more clear perceptions of the strict coincidence of the doctrines of Christianity, with the truths evolved by the mind, from reflections on its own nature. To such a man one main test of the objectivity, the entity, the objective truth of his faith, is its accompaniment by an increase of insight into the moral beauty ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... the insurance; but I discovered by accident that the company Gladwyne had his policy on was the one that had insured his cousin. Whether they'll be struck by the coincidence and the unusual nature of both accidents and make trouble or not, I can't tell; but if they pay up there'll be an end of the thing. Failing that, I'll have to consider. My demands might be contested by ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... briskly, and she was too careful not to mention that the iron was cool, with its cord wrapped neatly around the handle. He offered no explanation, but let her babble on about the strange coincidence of his being the Will Hawkes, and how she'd almost forgotten the ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... state, and incidentally connecting Chicago with the South, West, and East. This road, having a large local mileage and being anxious to extend its franchises in Chicago and elsewhere, was deep in state politics. By a curious coincidence it was mainly financed by Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co., of New York, though Cowperwood's connection with that concern was not as yet known. Going to Southack, who was the Republican whip in the senate, Avery proposed ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... intended by Providence to bring to light a great crime. It seemed strange that of all nights in the year I should have chosen that one; it seemed strange that after keeping the woman's face living in my memory for so long I should so suddenly meet it in life. There was something more than mere coincidence in this; yet it seemed a horrible thing to do, to come under the roof of my dearest friend and ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... an expected pleasure, and is all the greater on that account. By a curious coincidence I find we are ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... and Bishop were united in one person, and though the Bishop or Vladika has to-day no temporal power, yet in spiritual matters he is absolute. A very kindly man is the present Vladika, Mitrofanban. By an odd coincidence his was practically the first house we visited in Montenegro, and with him we drank our last cup of coffee when we left many ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... heard pointed in the one direction. The amazing strength, the skill in the use of the harpoon, the rum and water, the sealskin tobacco-pouch with the coarse tobacco—all these pointed to a seaman, and one who had been a whaler. I was convinced that the initials 'P.C.' upon the pouch were a coincidence, and not those of Peter Carey, since he seldom smoked, and no pipe was found in his cabin. You remember that I asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could get these other spirits? Yes, I was certain it was ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to horsemen, avoids Clermont, runs in a straight line to Varennes, and thus lessens the distance between this town and Menehould by four leagues. Drouet had thus two hours before him, and danger far outstripped safety. Yet by a strange coincidence death followed Drouet also, and threatened without his being aware of it, the life of him who in his turn (and without his knowledge) threatened the life ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... eyes of the other. Besides, there were the natives, keen of eye, and quick to observe the smallest sign of anything approaching to perturbation; it would be awful beyond words to fail before them! By a curious coincidence the mind of each had been following precisely the same line of thought, and as they saw Jantje approaching, followed by some forty beaters and every mongrel cur belonging to the village, the same resolution ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... book, and do not wait ten years in order to have another "Sixty Years Since." You must see that congruity requires the semi-centenary, and that Sir Walter was a full decennium behind-hand. The demise of O'Connell at this interesting juncture, must be regarded as a coincidence every way satisfactory, whether we consider the fulness of his fame, the conclusion of an era, or the interests of your forthcoming work. It has prepared public sympathy, and tuned the strings upon which you call successfully play for the next ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Narada, that royal sage after duly worshipping him, and taking his permission, repaired to the city of Varanasi, and having reached there, that famous prince did as he had been told, and remembering the words of Narada, he placed a corpse at the gate of the city. And by coincidence, that Brahmana also entered the gate of the city at the same time. Then on beholding the corpse, he suddenly turned away. And on seeing him turn back, that prince, the son of Avikshit followed his footsteps ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Dr. Thompson will let me tell here an odd coincidence, trivial, but having its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend of his, slept on the sofa, At night, I placed my match-box, a Scotch one, of the Macpherson-plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... be mentioned, that the country adjacent to the Pearl Coast, opposite Cumana, was known to the natives as Amaraca-pan; that the name Amaraca occurs frequently in this region, as (A)mar-aca-ibo, the great gulf where the Lake-Dwellers live. It is regarded only as a coincidence that a name so nearly like that which was bestowed upon the continent by Europeans should be found applied to portions of that continent by the aborigines; but some enthusiasts have undertaken to show that it was from this native ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... coincidence that, like two other leaders of science, Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker, their close friend Huxley began his scientific career on board one of Her Majesty's ships. He was, however, to learn how little the British Government of that day, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... course to him. The failure of the wooden box to serve him as an armor, and the resort to the sheets of linen, the turning of his steps toward the flatboat, and, above all, that strong, steadily-blowing west wind—many persons would have seen something more than a mere coincidence in these things, and who shall say that this view would ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... mother, who had nursed her so tenderly and loved her with that tireless, changeless affection which the maternal heart only knows, filled her with sorrow. However, by a fortunate coincidence they were spared the painful scene they had feared, and obtained her consent with little difficulty. When they visited her, for that purpose, she had just been reading for the first time the life of Mrs. Judson; ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... experience can show other instances of this kind. If it stood alone, it would be valueless, for it might well be explained by mere coincidence. But it forms part of a very normal series; and I could easily enumerate many others within my own knowledge. This, however, would merely mean repeating, with uninteresting variations, the essential features of the present case, a proceeding ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... to wait ten minutes. At last he came, but as he neared her seat, Rachel felt like sinking into the earth with mortification when she recognized in the wearer a stalwart negro. She hoped that it was a mere chance coincidence, but he approached her, and raising his hat ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... who had the fact of the armour in her mind, and was penetrated by this strange coincidence of things which associated Tito with the idea of fear, went to his ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... as Mr Hunter remarks, to correspond with Robin's declarations in the ballad, that he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and if he remained longer at court, sorrow would kill him. This apparent coincidence, the author adds, 'may be but imagination; but it looks like a reality.' It must be admitted, that if the Robyn Hod, or Robert Hood, of the Exchequer records be not Robin Hood the outlaw, then all these singular agreements of names, of dates, and of circumstances, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... ascribing a Celtic origin to this symbol, I have just met with somewhat of a curious coincidence, to say the least of it. In Richardson's Travels in the Sahara, &c., vol. i. p. 420., speaking of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... The coincidence puzzled him; but by the time he had read the morning papers he had forgotten about it, and it was not until he had emerged into the street that it was forcibly recalled. The street was crowded with people; and as Philip stepped in among them, It was as though every ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... totemistic theory of mythologists, and deliberately mistranslated the names of the stocks, so as to make them harmonise with Indian, Australian, and Red Indian totem kindreds. This, indeed, is an example where the criterion of "recurrence" or "coincidence" seems to be valuable. Bowditch's Mission to ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... a fine favorite of hers," rallied Ruth. "She swears by you, Mr. Blake. I happened to casually mention your name, and she was charmed by the coincidence of your being a mutual friend. She gave you a very fine character indeed, though, she hated to admit, you were not as gallant as you might be. 'Regular goop with goils,' I believe ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the Duke of——, a sturdy Protestant, that she was greatly interested in a Roman Catholic Charity, and, knowing the Duke's wide benevolence, had ventured to put down his name for L100. The Duke wrote back: "Dear Lady——,—It is a curious coincidence that, just before I got your letter, I had put down your name for a like sum to the English Mission for converting Irish Catholics; so no money need pass between us." But perhaps the supreme honours of curt correspondence belong to Mr. Bright. Let one instance suffice. Having been calumniated by ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... an odd coincidence that the Whitewood tree known as Major Andre's tree, near which the capture was effected, was struck by lightning the day that news was received at Tarrytown of Arnold's death. A monument now standing on the edge of the road has taken ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... is a divided one, the first thing is to learn to read the verniers. If the divisions are so fine that the coincidence is frequently doubtful, the best plan will be for the learner to get some acquaintance who is skilled in the use of instruments, and having set the instrument at hazard, to write down the readings ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... puffs, Colonel Maltravers dreaded that his brother—then in Paris—should learn his intention, and attempt to thwart it; and, somehow or other, the colonel was a little in awe of Ernest, and a little ashamed of his resolution. He did not know that, by a singular coincidence, Ernest himself had thought of ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... planets on their axes, as well as the movements of the satellites around their primaries, all follow the same law, with two slight exceptions in the case of the Uranian and Neptunian systems. A coincidence so remarkable naturally suggests the necessity for some physical explanation. Such an explanation is offered by the nebular theory. Suppose that countless ages ago a mighty nebula was slowly rotating and slowly ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... [Footnote: This coincidence reminds one of the battle of Camden (see p. 133). The plan was to mass the strength on the left, and with that to fall upon and crush the enemy's right. The advantage clearly lay with the army which struck first. Bragg secured the initiative, and Rosecrans's only course was to give ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... very curious coincidence with the ancient German opinion concerning the prophetic nature of the war-cry or song, appears in the following passage of the Life of Sir Ewen Cameron, in "Pennant's Tour," 1769, Append, p. 363. At the battle of Killicrankie, just before the fight began, "he (Sir Ewen) commanded such of the Camerons ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... and there! Rob's was under the Morris-chair; Ned's, by a strange coincidence, Was on a nail—of the garden fence; And Margery's little pink Tam-o'-shanter I chanced to spy in a morning saunter Out through the barn, where 'tis wont to hide When they've been having a ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... By a strange coincidence it so happened that Lida had reached the very spot adjoining Sarudine's garden where first she had surrendered to him, a place, screened by dark trees from the light of the moon. Sanine had seen her in the distance, and had guessed her intention. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... to be a dangerous pitfall. Later on, while he was mechanically lifting his hat in recognition of the many salutations acknowledged by his companion in their triumphal progress down Main Street, he was still thankful and still puzzling over the almost uncanny coincidence. It was not the first time that Miss Grierson had seemed able to read ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... at Golden to-day on business connected with a divorce case. By chance I ran across a record that astonished me. It may be only a coincidence ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... "will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth," and he prints it in capital letters, "that man shall no more render account to man for his belief, over which he has himself no control. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... that Lady Myrtle's two brothers caused her much trouble, especially the younger, really embittering her life. But for many years I have heard nothing of her or any of the family till just now, for a curious coincidence has happened. A few days before I got your long letter, enclosing Miss Harper's, and dear Jacinth's too, telling of her invitation to Robin Redbreast, I had met a Mrs Lyle, whose husband has got an appointment here. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... that there are many of that kind need not be doubted. For example: Is not the rule, Si inoequalibus aequalia addas, omnia erunt inaequalia, an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics? and is there not a true coincidence between commutative and distributive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion? Is not that other rule, Quae in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se conveniunt, a rule taken from the mathematics, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... gustation, to mean "good," and not only in reference to articles of food relished but as applied to persons of whom the child was fond, rather in the abstract idea of "niceness" in general. It is a singular coincidence that a bright young girl, a friend of the writer, in a letter describing a juvenile feast, invented the same expression, with nearly the same spelling, as characteristic of her sensations regarding the delicacies provided. The Papuans met by ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... garden in the Rue von Bary, terribly wounding a man and his wife. A little child was mangled by a shell which struck a house in the Rue de la Justice. Another shell fell in the barracks in the Rue Falcon, killing one inmate and wounding two others. By a fortunate coincidence the regiment which had been quartered in the barracks had left for the front on the previous day. A woman who was awakened by the first explosion and leaned from her window to see what was happening had her head blown ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... slender line, a hair or some similar substance, was passed through the barrel. This line was then drawn tight, and the workman, looking through, turned the barrel round so as to bring the line into coincidence successively with every portion of the inner surface. If there existed any concavity in any part of this surface, the line would show it by the distance which would there appear between the line itself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... By a most curious coincidence, Mr Cripps had only the other day been asked by a particular friend of his, who was removing from the country to London—"where," said Mr Cripps, "there ain't over much use for a rod,"—if he knew of any one in want of a really ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... have been produced from some odd coincidence with the name of their authors. Thus, De Saussay has written a folio volume, consisting of panegyrics of persons of eminence whose Christian names were Andrew; because Andrew was his own name. Two Jesuits made a similar ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... she said suddenly. The expurgated details of the scandal she had been retailing to her daughter had included the usual maid. She could not find it in her to enjoy the irony of this coincidence. Then, seeing Barbara smile, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Quinze had groaned beneath one hundred and eighty pounds of ineligibility, the frequency with which a tall troup horse of spectacular gait and snortings could be descried beside her daughter's English hunter in the park, the strange chain of coincidence by which at theater, house party, dinner, or even church, Jimmie smiling and unabashed, would find his way to her daughter's side and ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... very serious and important task, affecting all kinds of legal contracts. The pontiffs to whom the duty was assigned abused their power for political ends, and so little care had they taken to regulate the civil year and keep it in coincidence with the solar year that in the time of Julius Caesar the civil equinox differed from the astronomical by three months, the real spring equinox occurring, not at the end of what was called March by ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... hear. Mary shuddered as she realized what the man must have felt. It must have seemed to him like the direct hand of avenging Providence. No wonder he at first could not believe it to be merely accident, coincidence; no wonder that he asked if Zoeth Hamilton had sent Crawford to him, and had demanded to know what ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him into his cabin. He said he'd been to you to get medicine, and you'd given him some. Now, the strange part of the business is, I know him. He didn't remember me, however—perhaps because he didn't get a good look at me. Coincidence is a strange thing. I can point to a dozen in my short life, every one as remarkable, if not as startling, as this. Here, I'll spin you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... disclosing her lover's name, though he is only just prevented by Beppe, the Harlequin of the troupe, from stabbing her on the spot. The second act is on the evening of the same day, a few hours later. The curtain of the rustic theatre goes up and the little play begins. By a curious coincidence the scheme of the plot represents something like the real situation of the actors. Columbine is entertaining her lover Harlequin in the absence of her husband Pagliaccio, while Taddeo keeps a look-out for his return. ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... coincidence, at the same time," thought the incorrigible police agent. Then, remarking that the newspaper was slightly torn at the lower part, and crushed, as if by ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... hundred miles, in length.* And these lines, though broken by numerous irregularities, especially on the north-west coast, are yet sufficiently distinct to indicate a probable connexion with the geological structure of the country; since the coincidence of similar ranges of coast with the direction of the strata, is a fact of very frequent occurrence in other parts of the globe.** And it is observable that considerable uniformity exists in the specimens, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... interposition of Providence, and Father Donovan was evidently struggling to acquire a similar feeling, although he seemed to find some difficulty in the contest. He admitted that this robbery appeared but even justice; still he ventured to hope that Jem Bottles would not take the coincidence as a precedent, and that he would never mistake the dictates of Providence for the desires of his ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... garden). His experiments, social and economic, are a part of its cultivation and for the harvest—and its transmutation, he trusts to moments of inspiration—"only what is thought, said, and done at a certain rare coincidence ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... is. What an extraordinary thing! Oh, I remember, he said he was going abroad. But what a curious coincidence! Why don't you go and speak ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... believe that, now, because I had time to think of everything while that furry gentleman took a dozen steps. I thought of all the things he and my cousins had ever done to disgust me with him during his "courtship." I asked myself whether his arrival here was a coincidence, or whether he'd been tracking me all along, step by step, while I'd been chuckling to myself over my lucky escape. I thought of what he would do when he recognized me, and what Lady Turnour would say, and Sir Samuel. And although I couldn't see exactly what good ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... chorus of eulogies. Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates him on his having found the road to fortune; the sense of having proved a benefactor of his race smooths the pillow on which he lays his head to dream of the brilliant future opening before him. If a single coincidence may lead a person of sanguine disposition to believe that he has mastered a disease which had baffled all who were before his time, and on which his contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what must be the effect ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... delicacy of his contemporaries; for the Hippolytus which we possess, according to the scholiast, is an improvement upon an earlier one, in which there was much that was offensive and reprehensible. [Footnote: The learned and acute Brunck, without citing any authority, or the coincidence of fragments in corroboration, says that Seneca in his Hippolytus, followed the plan of the earlier play of Euripides, called the Veiled Hippolytus. How far this is mere conjecture I cannot say, but at any rate I should be inclined to doubt whether Euripides, even in the censured ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... diseases, and in these practices protective fumigation originated. That such different nations should have had the same idea of fixing the purification by fire on St. John's Day is a remarkable coincidence, which perhaps can be accounted for only by its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his betrothed both started at this, and the former stared curiously at the old man, wondering at the coincidence between the name of the yacht and that of the woman who died in the ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... Smith's face beamed at the gratifying coincidence. "It always was my habit, from a child, to put ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... asserted that sin exists, notwithstanding this perfect coincidence between the will of God and the conduct of his creatures, it will follow, most conclusively, that God is the author of sin. He has decreed and brings to pass all the sensations, perceptions, emotions, inclinations, volitions, and ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... the exclusion of everything else; impartiality is a virtue to all the world except him. There will always be a onesidedness; either the conception or the embodying of it halts, is only partially realized; some incompleteness, some mystery, some apparent want of coincidence between form and meaning is a necessity to the artist, and if he does not find it, he will invent it. Hence the embarrassment of some of the English Pre-Raphaelitists, particularly in dealing with the human form. They have no hesitation in pursuing into still ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... abolition of individual fighting, and its introduction has waited so long the establishment of some high compelling power—for the influence of the Religion of Peace has in this matter been less than nil—that it is evident that only the coincidence of very powerful and peculiar factors could have brought the question into the region of practical politics in our own time. There are several such factors, most of which have been developing during a long period, but none ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... said with a laugh, "only a coincidence—a mere accident. It is said by the peasants that the mind of a friend has wings. Perhaps it is so. As I looked down into the valley I was thinking of a man—a friend. Yes—name of a Saint—he was a friend of mine, although a gentleman! Educated? Yes, many languages, and Latin. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... seem a coincidence that the moment Phillip Lawson uttered the words above quoted, an almost perfect repetition found their way into Marguerite's heart, and left a deep impression which all the taunts of the subtle Evelyn could not shake off. Nor did it seem strange to her ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... of sin has received a peculiar impress in the West. We owe it largely to the religious experience of the Jew and to the seriousness of the Latin mind. There is a curious coincidence of the seventh chapter of Romans with a famous quotation from Ovid. The Latin fathers, particularly Augustine, have developed, not to say over-developed, the analysis of sin. The concept of sin never ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... estimated. Causes of the difference between the English and Athenian orators. The history of eloquence at Athens. Speeches of the ancients, as transmitted to us by Thucydides. Period during which eloquence flourished most at Athens. Coincidence between the progress of the art of war and that of oratory. The irresistible eloquence of Demosthenes. The oratory of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... assailed at Paris, moved their champions to an enthusiasm scarcely less keen than that of the Jacobins. Britons who fraternized with the new hierophants were counted traitors to their King. Moreover, by a most unfortunate coincidence, the British Government publicly announced its resolve to support the Dutch Republic on the very day when the French Convention passed the first of its subversive decrees. Thus, national pride came sharply into conflict. Neither side could give way without seeming to betray ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Cassandra!" she exclaimed. "How delightful to see you back again! What a coincidence!" she observed, in a general way. "William is upstairs. The kettle boils over. Where's Katharine, I say? I go to look, and I find Cassandra!" She seemed to have proved something to her own satisfaction, although nobody felt certain ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... be remarked, as a coincidence at once strange and instructive, that this square formed by the throne, the bishops, and the barons, with kneeling magistrates within it, was in form similar to the ancient parliament in France under the two first dynasties. The aspect ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... should have TELEGRAPHED it to me struck me uneasily. That I should have received it at the hotel where his wife and Professor Dobbs were both staying, and where I had had such a singular experience, seemed to me more than a mere coincidence. An instinct that the message was something personal to Enriquez and myself kept me from imparting it to Mrs. Saltillo. After worrying half the night in our bizarre camp in the redwoods, in the midst ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... and such a trifle as the fact that they were hired to fight against each other never disturbed the tenor of their mutual regard. Armstrong says no more than the truth when he remarks: "It was a pathetic coincidence. The two rival generals had bequeathed to each other the care of their children and estates, a characteristic illustration of the easy good-fellowship in this game of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Professor Grayling had sailed, she would, of course, have shown a much deeper interest. And had Cap'n Amazon learned from Louise the name of the craft her father was aboard, he surely would have mentioned the coincidence. ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... scholar son, unaccountably absent for the first time from the household ceremonies of the Feast of Dedication. What was he doing—outside the Ghetto gates—in that great, dark, narrow-meshed city of Rome, defying the Papal law, and of all nights in the year on that sinister night when, by a coincidence of chronology, the Christian persecutor celebrated the birth of his Saviour? Through misty eyes she saw her husband's face, stern and rugged, yet made venerable by the flowing white of his locks and beard, as with the supernumerary taper he prepared to light the wax candles in the nine-branched candlestick ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Mexican bar named the Xochitl, across the street from the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. It was a coincidence that he had landed in another bar, he told himself hopefully, but he didn't quite believe it. To prove it to himself, he headed straight for the phone booths again and put in his call, ignoring the blandishments of several rows of sparkling ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... time it did this it was because the F-94 was closing in and it evidently put on speed to pull out ahead far enough to get out of range of the F-94's radar. To say that this motion was random and that it was just a coincidence that the UFO made the 180-degree turn when the F-94 closed in head on and that it was just a coincidence that the UFO speeded up every time the F-94 began to get within radar range is pushing the chance ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... of their beliefs in the discovery of the same beliefs in other people. They do not take the trouble to find out how their neighbours obtained these beliefs. If they are current at the time, the probability is that the coincidence is worthless as ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... one already produced by some other company. For example, on July 15th, some years ago, Lubin released a picture called "Honor Thy Father." Four days later, on the 19th, Vitagraph put out a picture with the same title. Yet this was the merest coincidence. On August 17th of the same year Reliance released "A Man Among Men," while Selig's "A Man Among Men" was released November 18th. The plots were totally different, and the Selig story was written ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... that he thought it best it should remain unspoken, and got himself out of sight as soon as possible. Here I may remark that by an odd coincidence Dingaan actually was killed about thirty moons from that time. Mopo, his general, who slew his brother Chaka, slew him also with the help of Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka. In after years Umslopogaas ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... noble strain, it appeared that his brothers had had him exiled at the age of ten, on account of his liberal opinions, since which time he had roamed the world for pleasure and instruction as a philosophical noble. A singular coincidence! the prince had spent three years in Tarascon; and as Tartarin showed amazement at never having met him at the club or on the esplanade, His Highness evasively remarked that he never went about. Through delicacy, the Tarasconian ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... a more detailed account of his conversation with Sarah M'Gowan, and the singular turn which it chanced to take towards the subject of the handkerchief, in the first instance; but when the coincidence of the letters were mentioned, together with Sarah's admission that she had the box in her possession, she clasped her ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... chambers have been burgled by Severac Bablon? By a curious instance of what literary critics term the long arm of coincidence I am in charge of the Severac ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... was a full length, and represented Lord Palmerston in cabinet council, a portrait of Canning, his political preceptor and exemplar, being suspended in the council-room. It was a curious and happy coincidence, that on the day on which this tribute of respect to her husband was presented to Lady Palmerston, a telegraphic despatch from Paris announced the settlement ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... when, by a beautiful and affecting coincidence, Ariel entered the room, and immediately flew into her bosom. She put her hand up and patted it for some time ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... yet another coincidence. Jeffrey's body was found, by the merest chance, the day after his death. But it might have remained undiscovered for weeks, or even months; and if it had, it would have been impossible to fix the date of his death. Then Mrs. Wilson's next of kin ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... sufficient coincidence between his declaration and the course she had urged upon her lover, to lend Bellston's account of himself a certain interest in Christine's ears. He might perhaps be able to tell her something that ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... It is a coincidence worthy of notice, that on the same day in which the American commander was employed in burning the barracks and stores at York, Lieutenant-Colonel Murray was no less actively employed on the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... however, upon the whole, rather a palliation, than a defence. All the skill of that writer could never make that poetical, or a fine panegyric, which is in its own nature removed from the very appearance of poetry; but friendship, good nature, or a coincidence of party, will sometimes engage the greatest men to combat in defence of trifles, and even against their own judgment, as Dryden finely expresses it in his Address to Congreve, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... as they walked and talked, he felt a thrill of youthful wonder at the coincidence of their views and their experiences, at the way their minds leapt to the same point ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... which Senator Edmunds did not foresee. It brought vividly to mind what the people of England had endured from a factional tyranny so relentless that the nation was delighted when Oliver Cromwell turned Parliament out of doors. It is an interesting coincidence that the Cleveland era was marked by what in the book trade was known as the Cromwell boom. Another unfortunate remark made by Senator Edmunds was that it was the first time "that any President of the United States has undertaken to interfere with the ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculous coincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till he heard the corresponding inquiry put to his bride in the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... is that a sceptic like you can so easily swallow the astonishing coincidence of these different people all having imagined the ghost ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... require 1440 of his units to make the one before proposed. He was led to adopt this by a mathematical attention to our old currencies, all of which this Unit will measure without leaving a fraction. But as our object is to get rid of those currencies, the advantage derived from this coincidence will soon be past, whereas the inconveniences of this Unit will for ever remain, if they do not altogether prevent its introduction. It is defective in two of the three requisites of a Money Unit. 1. It is inconvenient in its application to the ordinary ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... I used to call him, had a mother, but no father—his father died when Jack was an infant. I've often fancied that there was a delicate bond of union between us here. He had a mother, but no father. I had a father, but no mother. Strange coincidence! I think the fact helped to draw us together. I may be wrong, but I think so. Jack was on a visit to us at the time, so I had only to cross the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Mr. Bent at Fort Zara, he called upon the Indian agent, and reported the circumstance of meeting Mrs. L———, and, by a singular coincidence, it so happened that the agent was at that very time holding a council with the chiefs of the identical band of Indians from whom she had last escaped, and they had just given a full history of the entire affair, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Delamere Terrace." Although not prone to superstition, he had noted in July 1863 a dream of Miss Barrett in which she imagined herself asking her dead sister Elizabeth, "When shall I be with you?" and received the answer, "Dearest, in five years." "Only a coincidence," he adds in a letter to Miss Blagden, "but noticeable." That summer, after wanderings in France, Browning and his sister settled at Audierne, on the extreme westerly point of Brittany, "a delightful, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... sentiment of Scotland easily favoured that doctrine of Divine displeasure which seemed probable to Reid and his friends. In our day, however, we are less certain of being able to interpret the "judgments of God"; and if we regard it as a remarkable coincidence, it is as far as we may safely go. Coincidences of some ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... "Is this another coincidence?" he asked. "Did the man who left you his clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave you the spoil ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it was the word "priests" that I carried away with me through the darkness of another flight in time. Perhaps it was the cue. More probably it was a mere coincidence. At any rate I awoke, lying upon a rough rocky floor, and found myself on my back, my arms crossed in such fashion that each elbow rested in the palm of the opposite hand. As I lay there, eyes closed, half awake, I rubbed my elbows with my palms and found that I was rubbing ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London |
