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Calamity   Listen
noun
Calamity  n.  (pl. calamities)  
1.
Any great misfortune or cause of misery; generally applied to events or disasters which produce extensive evil, either to communities or individuals. Note: The word calamity was first derived from calamus when the corn could not get out of the stalk. "Strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul."
2.
A state or time of distress or misfortune; misery. "The deliberations of calamity are rarely wise." "Where'er I came I brought calamity."
Synonyms: Disaster; distress; affliction; adversity; misfortune; unhappiness; infelicity; mishap; mischance; misery; evil; extremity; exigency; downfall. Calamity, Disaster, Misfortune, Mishap, Mischance. Of these words, calamity is the strongest. It supposes a somewhat continuous state, produced not usually by the direct agency of man, but by natural causes, such as fire, flood, tempest, disease, etc, Disaster denotes literally ill-starred, and is some unforeseen and distressing event which comes suddenly upon us, as if from hostile planet. Misfortune is often due to no specific cause; it is simply the bad fortune of an individual; a link in the chain of events; an evil independent of his own conduct, and not to be charged as a fault. Mischance and mishap are misfortunes of a trivial nature, occurring usually to individuals. "A calamity is either public or private, but more frequently the former; a disaster is rather particular than private; it affects things rather than persons; journey, expedition, and military movements are often attended with disasters; misfortunes are usually personal; they immediately affect the interests of the individual."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Calamity" Quotes from Famous Books



... far places, of Tarragona and Seriphos, investing them with the accent of an intense hopeless desire. He thought of the inexplicable place of her birth and of the riven, unsubstantial figure of the man with the blood pulsing into his ocherous face. Some old, profound error or calamity had laid its blight upon him, he was certain; but the most lamentable inheritance was not sufficient to account for the acute apprehension in his daughter's tones. This was different in kind from the spiritual collapse of the aging man. It was actual, he realized ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... An appalling calamity has befallen the American people since their chosen representatives last met in the halls where you are now assembled. We might else recall with unalloyed content the rare prosperity with which throughout the year the nation has been blessed. Its harvests have ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur

... mule, and ass of my host continued well, I flattered myself I was not in much danger; had either of those animals been ill, I should have taken my leave; for if a suspicion had arose that an heretic was under their roof, they would have been at no loss to account for the cause or the calamity which had, or might befall them.—During my residence at this little posada, I saw a gaudy-dressed, little, ugly old man, and a handsome young woman, approach it; the man smiled in my face, which was the only smile I had seen in the face of a stranger for a fortnight; he told ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... the journey is, however, far from pleasing. On the right are naked hills, and on the left large plains, over which, last spring, the swollen stream rolled, partly covering the trees and the roofs of the cottages. Here I could for the first time see the whole extent of the calamity. Many houses had been completely torn down, and the crops, and even the loose alluvial earth swept away; as we glided by each dreary scene of devastation, another yet more dismal would appear in ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... us! That would be a calamity!" exclaimed Captain Dinks; and, watching his opportunity, when the stern of the ship rose up in the air, he looked over the rail below. "It is really the case!" he said, in grave accents. "The rudder and rudder-post have both been carried away. What a blessing that they did not go before we got ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... bore the dreadful trial with the fortitude and submissive grace that only a serene and unmurmuring faith can give. Frank was more demonstrative in his grief, and disposed to rebel against so cruel a calamity. But his mother calmed and inspired him, and when the first numbing force of the blow had passed away, they took counsel together as to the future. This was dark and uncertain enough. All that was left to them was the little cottage in which they lived. Mr. Kingston's salary had not been large, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... suppliants returned with this gloomy prediction, Janice, who held herself accountable for the calamity, primarily by having secured the appointment of her father, and still more by drawing the caricature which had brought such disaster, was so overcome that for a time the mother's anxieties were transferred to her. Realising this, after the first wild outburst of grief and horror ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines and competing populations,—I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. I see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All hail! mother of nations, mother of heroes, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... of mourning and of grief, both in Boulogne and the camp. The inhabitants and soldiers covered the beach, searching anxiously among the bodies which the waves incessantly cast upon the shore; and the Emperor groaned over this terrible calamity, which in his inmost heart he could not fail to attribute to his own obstinacy. By his orders agents entrusted with gold went through the city and camp, stopping the murmurs which were ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... conversation was no longer that of the light-hearted junior journalist flinging himself recklessly into the tide of talk; but whatever topic was started he turned it to himself. He was exceedingly indignant on the subject of the war, which he regarded more as a personal grievance than as a national calamity. No doubt it was his eminence that constituted him the centre ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... accept, the proposals of August 19th. Nothing is easier than to bring charges of bad faith, but he who peruses these despatches with an impartial mind will find little or nothing to justify any such imputation on either party. Another is, that the allegation that a calamity was inevitable is one so easy to make and so hard to refute that it is constantly employed to close an embarrassing discussion. You cannot argue with a fatalist, any more than with a prophet. Nations whose conscience is clear, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... patriotism is far more demonstrative in India, Australia or South Africa than it is in England itself. The sentiments thus strongly expressed impart a certain zealotism to their feelings, which constitutes a strong link with the Mother Country. In any hour of national danger or calamity this trait provides her with the enthusiastic help of her children from ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... coarse political ruffian like Giles really represented the Democratic party. But he represented the extreme wing, and after he had declared in his place that Washington was neither wise nor patriotic, and that his retirement was anything but a calamity, he got twelve of his party friends to sustain his sentiments by voting with him. The press was even more unbridled, and it was said in the "Aurora" at this time that Washington had debauched and deceived the nation, and that his administration had shown that the mask of patriotism ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... is likely to be an undertaking of very great difficulty, and at this time, such is its importance, with reference to both Oregon and California, that its failure might be looked upon as a national calamity. Still, unless some kind of protection is extended to the shipping of this port, it is not at all improbable that it may fail for want of the necessary laborers, as soon as the boats reach this harbor. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... tons, Glendinning declares that an aircraft built from his designs could sail round the world without the slightest danger of calamity."—Glasgow Herald. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... the country is in a state of fearful and unparalleled distress and misery; and that the principal immediate cause of this calamity, which has fallen upon all classes of persons, except that class which derive their incomes from the Taxes, is, that enormous load of taxation, which has taken, and which still takes, from the Farmer, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... might have filled it with honour and happiness. He heaps up disgrace and misery upon a family that never gave him provocation, and perhaps brings down the grey hairs of the heads of it to the grave with calamity. ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... demanded the author of the calamity. While with great labour the Tourainian was being carried up the stairs, his doublet caught on a projection, and the dead man cried, "Ah, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... different. I told you a while ago and repetition is useless and painful. I need only add therefore that since then my conviction has strengthened and I am sure, sorry as I am to say it, that in this matter you must prepare for disappointment and calamity. That woman, if woman she really is, will never be the wife of mortal man. Now be angry with me if you like, or laugh as you have the right to do, seeing that like Bastin and yourself, I also asked her to marry me, but ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... brought his morning's work to his wife, the most exacting of his critics; asked her whether it was not well done; and in her glow of admiring assent found his confirmation and his reward. Nevertheless she could not throw off an oppressive sense of coming calamity. He was reassuring her with gay and laughing talk when the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain laid him almost in a moment unconscious at her feet; and before two hours were over he had passed away. All the world knows how his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... did not comprehend it while I was a boy; then it was headache only. As I grew older I discovered that it was heartache. The gnawing of a perpetual disappointment, worse than a sudden and violent calamity, had slowly eaten away the very foundation of healthy life. No hand could administer any medicine for this disease except mine, and, as soon as I was sure of that, I felt what my first ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... from Versailles, and there he still remained. Recently his lucid intervals had become more frequent and prolonged; but trifles that sprang from his own mind, and which no care could prevent or detect, sufficed to renew his calamity in all its fierceness. At such times he required the most unrelaxing vigilance, for his madness ever took an alarming and ferocious character; and had he been left unshackled, the boldest and stoutest of the keepers would have dreaded ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... reply. "I merely went to Brussels to try and find him and request an explanation. He charged me with a mission which I discharged with the best of my ability, but which, it seems, has only brought upon me a grave calamity—the loss of the one I love. Hence I am entitled to some explanation ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... if you're still determined to run the aeroplane across lots toward this side of the opening," Andy remarked with a shudder. "Why, perhaps that old chap might get gay, and grab hold, just when we expected to go sailing off. That would be a calamity, not only for him, but the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... shooting case reminds us of a traveller's story which we heard at a dinner table abroad. A gentleman and esquire of strict veracity, like Mr. Welby, related, in order to shew how common was the calamity of the coup de soleil, or stroke of the sun, in the Island of JAVA, that sitting once in the house of an opulent merchant of Batavia, drinking a cool glass of Madeira after dinner, with the merchant's wife in the room, the lady was, in the twinkling of an eye, reduced to a heap of ashes ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... discover— quite accidental. For example, when a pestilence such as typhoid fever broke out in Polpier five or six hundred years ago, your forefathers attributed it to the wrath of God visiting them for their sins: and to be sure it is good that men, under calamity, should reflect on their sins, but only because it is good for them to reflect on their sins at all times and under any circumstance. Nowadays you would have your well-water analysed and ask what the Sanitary Inspector had been about. Or, again, if a fire were ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... thoughts, I tell you, my dear fellow, are good and natural in old age when they come as the product of years of inner travail, and are won by suffering and really are intellectual riches; for a youthful brain on the threshold of real life they are simply a calamity! A calamity!" Ananyev repeated with a wave of his hand. "To my mind it is better at your age to have no head on your shoulders at all than to think on these lines. I am speaking seriously, Baron. And I have been meaning to speak to you about it for a long time, for I noticed from the ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... reckon I've got a crop now." The cotton looked tall and rich, and we praised it. He curtsied low, and then bowed almost to the ground, with an imperturbable gravity that seemed almost suspicious. Then he continued, "My mule died last week,"—a calamity in this land equal to a devastating fire in town,—"but a white man loaned me another." Then he added, eyeing us, "Oh, I gets along with white folks." We turned the conversation. "Bears? deer?" he answered, "well, I should say there were," and he let fly a string of brave oaths, as he ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... was much vexed and shed bitter tears at this calamity, which, as she spoke nothing but Spanish, left her isolated at the court, but she was a little consoled by the promise that thenceforth the King would share her couch. It had not yet occurred to him ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... ever shot from the indignant lip of the moralist, would not be too strong for the baseness which stooped to such a treaty, or the folly which entangled itself in its toils. No burning language of prophecy would be too solemn and too stinging for the premeditated wretchedness, and incurable calamity, of such a bond. No; if we must violate the simplicity of our national interests by such degrading, and such desperate involvements—if we should not shrink from this conspiracy against mankind, let it, at least, not be consummated in the face of day; let us at once abandon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... room Lillian Cowperwood turned and tossed in the face of this new calamity. For it had suddenly appeared from news from her father and Frank and Anna and her mother-in-law that Frank was about to fail, or would, or had—it was almost impossible to say just how it was. Frank was too busy to explain. The Chicago fire was to blame. There was ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... and communicating this year has surpassed that of any previous year, for upon their old devotion has been heaped up new, kindled by the torches of calamity. The quarrels of many have also been brought to an end. In Lent, moreover, their zeal for all piety flamed forth in the confession of many evils, and in doing penance for them with daily scourgings, and other ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... The calamity of the blind is immense, irreparable. But it does not take away our share of the things that count—service, friendship, humour, imagination, wisdom. It is the secret inner will that controls one's fate. We are capable of willing to be good, of loving and being loved, of thinking to the ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... JULIA. Fidgets you! LUD. (aside to JULIA). Be a violet—a crushed, despairing violet. JULIA. Do you suppose I intend to give up a magnificent part without a struggle? LUD. My good girl, she has the law on her side. Let us both bear this calamity with resignation. If you must struggle, go away and struggle in the seclusion of ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... instinct in her revolted utterly at that. It was an instinct that she could not completely reason out. But she knew that if such a calamity befell, her old place would not exist or would be ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... for unless separated they never stop till the one that goes down is killed. At whatever hour of the day or night a fight begins, the dogs have to, be separated, otherwise one or more of the number will be lost; and the loss of a dog is a calamity in the north country. ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... warriors, conquered in battle, and did she not belong rightfully to the victorious Rajah? Even the evident kindness of the terrible old man must spring, she thought, from admiration for his captive, and the flattered vanity eased for her the pangs of sorrow after such an awful calamity. Perhaps had she known of the high walls, the quiet gardens, and the silent nuns of the Samarang convent, where her destiny was leading her, she would have sought death in her dread and hate of such a restraint. ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... not God's will. I do not mean that yours is not real, or that any man's is not real, but I do mean that nothing can happen to any of God's children—no matter how evil the intention of the person who does it, or how seemingly meaningless the calamity that causes it—which is not in some way the sacrament of God's love to us, and His call upon our highest energies. In a true and real sense, therefore, it is God's own doing and meant for our greater glory; . . . I believe in ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... sister, thou art safe here from the son of Adam, for we are in one of the islands of the sea, whither there is no way for him; so do thou take up shine abode with us, till God make easy shine and our affair.' Quoth the duck, 'I fear lest some calamity come upon me by night, for no runaway can rid him of fate.' 'Abide with us,' rejoined the peahen, 'and be even as we;' and ceased not to persuade her, till she yielded, saying, 'O my sister, thou knowest how little is my fortitude: had I not ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... the wrongs it so vividly depicts. It is a psalm of love and forgiveness: the gentleness and peace of Christian meekness and forbearance breathe through it. Not a word of censure is directly applied to the marauding workers of the mighty sorrow which it describes just as it would a calamity from the elements,—a visitation of God. The reader, however, cannot fail to award justice to the wrong-doers. The unresisting acquiescence of the Acadians only deepens his detestation of the cupidity and religious ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... many years to sanction their union by the sacerdotal benediction. Children found parents, by whom they had never till then been acknowledged; restitutions were promised by persons who had never been accused of fraud; and families who had long been at enmity were drawn together by the tie of common calamity. But if this feeling seemed to calm the passions of some, and open the heart to pity, it had a contrary effect on others, rendering them more rigorous and inhuman. In great calamities vulgar minds evince less of goodness than of energy. Misfortune ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... Negro nurse whose absence on a vacation in America at the time of the abduction of little Jack had been attributed by her as the cause of the calamity, had returned and positively ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... nineteenth century to bring to light the fact that "the world is out of joint," and thereby to discredit the theological view of the universe. Theology knows only too well that life is "a dread machinery of sin and sorrow." It is the very existence of the vast aboriginal calamity, whatever it may have been, in which the human race, the whole creation, is involved, that forms the ground for the need of the revelation which Christianity professes to bring. If there were no evil, there would be no need of a deliverance from evil. Of course, why evil has been suffered ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... until long afterwards that Wentworth learned the details of the calamity that had befallen him. On the previous night Mademoiselle Dorine had retired to her room in seemingly perfect health. She dismissed her maid with a request to be awakened early the next morning. At the appointed hour the girl entered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... and she stayed with me again, and worried me half sick telling me that it wasn't fair to Bruce and it wasn't fair to Charlie to divide my time between them that way. Well, then when my third baby was coming, I didn't dare tell her. Dad kept telling me to, and I couldn't, because I knew what a calamity a third would seem to her! Finally she went to visit Aunt Rebecca out West, and it was the very day she got back that the baby came. She came upstairs—she'd come right up from the train, and not seen any one but Dad; and he wasn't very intelligible, I guess—and ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris

... strangely tame and quiet, appearing equally untouched by joy or grief, fear or anger. Is he an exile from some other sphere, and are his loneliness and indifference the result of a hopeless, yet resigned soul? Or has he passed through some terrible calamity or bereavement, that has overpowered his sensibilities, rendering him dreamy and semi-conscious? Something remote seems ever weighing upon his mind. He deposits his eggs in the nests of other birds, having no heart for work or domestic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... patriotism of his principles, his moral courage, his justice, magnanimity and benevolence, his wisdom, moderation, and power of command, while they have endeared him to the heart of the nation, add to the deep sense of the national calamity in the loss of a Chief Magistrate whom death itself could not appall in the consciousness of "having ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... though to show him at last by whom these thefts were committed. He, however, had divers times seen Alypius at a certain senator's house, to whom he often went to pay his respects; and recognising him immediately, took him aside by the hand, and enquiring the occasion of so great a calamity, heard the whole matter, and bade all present, amid much uproar and threats, to go with him. So they came to the house of the young man who had done the deed. There, before the door, was a boy so young as to be likely, not apprehending any harm to his master, to disclose the ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... stimulates to exertion in another. We had already borne up under calamity, and been quite as fortunate as others, even when the horizon was overcast by heavy clouds. But now we were comparatively comfortable; the sky above us was serene, and our hopes were buoyant; the venture I was proposing to make would cost but a trifling sum, and, if failure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... himself he looked about him and saw how great was the calamity that had befallen his army. For now there were left alive to him two only, Turpin the Archbishop and Walter of Hum. Walter had but that moment come down from the hills where he had been fighting so fiercely with the heathen that all ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... bread by their industry. And who is this who tosses his empty head at this blessing in disguise, the constitution of human nature, and calls labor vile, and insults the faithful workman at his daily toil? I see for such madness no hellebore,—for such calamity no solution but servile war, and the Africanization of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... their profession; more than half politician, he had been in Congress, and from time to time was retained by large business interests because of his persuasive gifts with committees of the legislature—though these had been powerless to avert the recent calamity of the women and children's fifty-four hour bill. Mr. Sprole's hair was prematurely white, and the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes were not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... palliate the calamity," exclaimed the king. "The enemy is here, and you know it. He is dogging every step of ours; he is listening to every word of mine, and watching every movement. An inconsiderate word, an imprudent step, and the French gendarmes will rush upon me and conduct the King of Prussia as a prisoner ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... to grasp the extent of this new calamity, and listened to the yelling and shouting of the frightened men, who now broke loose entirely from the slight control Jarette had held principally by means of his revolver. For death in a more horrible form ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... my voice thus long Hath wanted utterance: griefs like these exceed The power of speech or question: yet e'en such, Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man, Constrained by loud necessity endure. But tell me all: without distraction, tell me All this calamity, though many a groan Burst from thy laboring heart. Who is not fallen? What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief, Dying, hath left his troops without ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... does, she should be so miserably nervous on horseback.... I drove to Mrs. Mayo's, who impressed and affected me very much. Those magnificent eyes of hers are becoming dim; she is growing blind, with eyes like dark suns. I could not help expressing the deep concern I felt for such a calamity. She replied that doubtless it was a trial, but that she saw many others afflicted with dispensations so much heavier than her own, that she was content. To grow blind contentedly is to be very brave and good, and I admired and loved her even ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... But here the long-apprehended calamity fell upon Prince Akuli. The old wahine had finished her lei hala. Barefooted, with no adornment of femininity, clad in a shapeless shift of much-washed cotton, with age-withered face and labour-gnarled hands, she cringed ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... this, but designing to have it mistaken for this, they speak of an affection or passion, the object of which is ourselves, or danger to ourselves. Hobbes defines pity, imagination, or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense (he means sight or knowledge) of another man's calamity. Thus fear and compassion would be the same idea, and a fearful and a compassionate man the same character, which every one immediately sees are totally different. Further, to ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... return home; that she was a miserable, abandoned woman, asking only to be forgiven and forgotten. Then the horrid recollection of the scene with his wife came to him; their surmises and their suspicions, which became a certainty. The calamity had happened in Finland, where they had let her visit her aunt; and the culprit was an insignificant Swede, a student, an empty-headed, worthless ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... would be, 1st, that the United States might, from the interest on the public deposits, accumulate during years of peace and prosperity a treasure sufficient to meet periods of war and calamity; 2d, that they might rely on a loan of eighteen millions of dollars in any sudden emergency; 3d, that by the payment in ten installments the increase in capital would be in proportion to the progressive state of the country; 4th, that the bank itself would form ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... experienced so much cruelty and falsehood from the woman who was bound to him by every tie, both human and divine, yet, with a mild and forbearing spirit, he overlooked her misdeeds, during her calamity endeavouring all he could to procure relief for her malady, and soothing her by every possible expression of tenderness: thus she became in a few weeks nearly restored to her senses. But, alas! she returned again to her sin, "as the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... exciting scenes through which we had so recently passed, had completely exhausted us, and we were too much overwhelmed by the suddenness of our calamity, and the novel situation in which we now found ourselves, to be greatly disposed to talk. Johnny sobbed himself asleep in Arthur's arms; and even Max's usual spirits seemed now to have quite forsaken him. After the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... window, through which the sunshine passed and lay in squares upon the red-tiled floor. He tried to interweave his reflections with hope, but he only half succeeded. What had happened to him seemed to have, in its violence and audacity, the force of a real calamity—the strength and insolence of Destiny herself. It was unnatural and monstrous, and he had no arms against it. At last a sound struck upon the stillness, ...
— The American • Henry James

... forced to abandon Fort Henry on February 6, 1862. Ten days later Fort Donelson surrendered with nearly 10,000 prisoners, after a brilliant and nearly successful sortie by the garrison, in which Grant showed, further, tenacity and a collected mind under the pressure of imminent calamity. Halleck had given Grant little help. Buell was reluctant to detach any of his volunteer troops from their comrades to act with a strange army, and Halleck had not warned him of his intentions. Halleck soon applied to ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... train of combustibles were extended to the floor above. Such is the language of philosophy, and such the slight process of reason, by attending to which the habitations of men may at all times be secured against the calamity of fire. How absurd however was the construction of our houses till within the last twenty or thirty years! Wooden staircases, exposed wooden balusters, and wainscotted walls, coated with paints composed of oil and turpentine, and put together more ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... might be by instinct, when he has those in his presence that are to be honored. Signore, the loss of Melchior von Willading before our haven, would have made the lake unpleasant to us all, for months, not to say years; but, had so great a calamity arrived as that of your death by means of our waters, I could have prayed that the mountains might fall into the basin, and bury the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... told that the boys had all taken themselves off. They could not suspect what a dire calamity had befallen their leader, or a rescue party ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... grieved over the terrible calamity with all the bitterness of her soul, then by degrees ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... her ghastly metamorphoses in the little chamber. And the figures on the carpet and the figures on the curtain writhed in horrible contortions of glee, as if they rejoiced over a calamity which had ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... only then, did she realise that something was amiss. Millie Splay in her desire to spare her darling the sudden shock of learning what calamity had befallen the house that night had bidden Joan's maid keep silence. She herself would break the news. But Millie Splay was busy with telegrams to Robert Croyle and Stella's own friends, and all the sad little duties which wait on death; and Joan ran down into the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... seven years of his married life, he had never seen this calamity in front of him. His dreams had always been of a time when their children should be out in the world, when he saw himself walking with his wife in some quiet country place, ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair

... this is what we find. Minna was an impossible wife for such a man: she never could understand why he could not have remained quietly at his post in Dresden, indifferent to good or bad opera representations, and unambitious concerning the proper artistic production of his own works. When calamity followed calamity, to her all the trouble seemed due to Richard's pig-headedness; and she would at once have grown cheerful and good-natured had he burned his finished and unfinished scores and written "something popular." She was, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... day, a particular calamity was added to this general disaster. At Kowno, Napoleon was exasperated, because the bridge over the Vilia had been thrown down by the cossacks, and opposed the passage of Oudinot. He affected to despise it, like every thing else that opposed him, and ordered a squadron ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... But every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race by the savage incursions of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor. Then followed the Crusades, the first three inflicting permanent ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... not give assistance to those of another, lest their own families and property should in the mean time be exposed by their absence to the fury of these barbarous ravagers [q]. All orders of men were involved in this calamity, and the priests and monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic quarrels of the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish idolators exercised their rage and animosity. Every season ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... then reverting to Messina, it exclaims: "The voice of God says to thee, 'Take up thy bed and walk!' for thou art whole." And again it exhorts her citizens "to struggle with the old serpent, and, being regenerate, like new-born babes to suck the milk of liberty, to seek justice, and to fly from calamity and ignominy." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... was still a heightening of their calamity, as they had, for that very reason, and his unpreparedness for it, but too much ground for apprehension with regard to his future happiness. While the other family, from their unforgiving spirit, and even the noble young lady above mentioned, from her lively resentments, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... illness which she had, the shrine containing the relics of St. Leon was lowered, as in a period of general calamity; and, on her recovery, prayers and thanksgivings were commanded, and a solemn procession of all the officers of the town, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... boat was lowered for the purpose. Both vessels now lay to within fifty yards of each other, and a strong hope arose in those on board the Morning Star, that the gentleman who had volunteered to go to the pirate, might, through his exertions, avert, at least, the worst of the dreaded calamity. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... though no one of them all betrayed fears that were troublesome. Of Mulford it is unnecessary to speak. His deportment had been quiet, thoughtful, and full of a manly interest in the comfort of others, from the first moment of the calamity. That Rose should share the largest in his attentions was natural enough, but he neglected no essential duty to her companions. Rose, herself, had little hope of being rescued. Her naturally courageous character, however, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... Thakur Deo. He first consecrates it to the god by placing it in contact with water and the small heap of rice which lies in front of his shrine, and then splits it asunder on a stone, saying, 'Jai Thakur Deo,' or 'Victory to Thakur Deo.' When any serious calamity befalls the tribe a goat is offered to the deity. It must also be first consecrated to him by eating his rice; its body is then washed in water and some of the sacred dub [534] grass is placed on it, and the Baiga severs the head from the body with ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... interests of employers and employees are irreconcilably opposed, not identical, is false, Socialist rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. As soon as a calamity threatens capital—for instance, a rise in raw cotton or a cotton famine—masters and men are seen to be in the same boat and devise combined measures for meeting the difficulty. The doctrine of the Class War is opposed to common experience and ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... the Cooper House, and was driven forth, with two hundred and fifty other guests, by the fire which burned it to the ground in the early dawn of the eighth of August. This summer hotel stood within the grounds occupied by the Present High School. Its burning was a calamity to Cooperstown, for under the management of Simeon E. Crittenden it had become widely famous, and drew guests from ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... dropped upon neighbouring roofs; and the whole street was soon ablaze. Then a sea-wind, rising, blew destruction into further streets; and the conflagration spread from street to street, and from district into district, till nearly the whole of the city was consumed. And this calamity, which occurred upon the eighteenth day of the first month of the first year of Meireki (1655), is still remembered in Tokyo as the Furisode-Kwaji,—the Great ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... the effect of this is, that the blow is greater by reason of its not having been foreseen, and not, as they suppose, that when similar misfortunes befall two different people, that man only is affected with grief whom this calamity has befallen unexpectedly. So that some persons, under the oppression of grief, are said to have borne it actually worse for hearing of this common condition of man, that we are born under such conditions as render it impossible for a man to be ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... confined to the French capital. In Berlin, Rome, London, it aroused the indignation of those whose sympathy with the spiritual life of their respective nations was still a living force. It would seem, however, to be the natural reaction produced by a tremendous national calamity, under which the mainspring of the collective mind temporarily gives way and the psychical equilibrium is upset. Disillusion, despondency, and contempt for the passions that lately stirred them drive the people to seek relief in the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... respectful distance, as also the carriage of Dr. Morini, and some other private persons known to Heliobas. A few people attended it on foot, and these were chiefly from among the very poor, some of whom had benefited by Zara's charity or her brother's medical skill, and had heard of the calamity through rumour, or through the columns of the Figaro, where it was reported with graphic brevity. The weather was still misty, and the fiery sun seemed to shine through tears as Father Paul, with his assistants, read in solemn yet cheerful tones the service for the dead according ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... dreaming of some Hercules, in the shape of a rich uncle, or some other benevolent relative, coming to give them a "lift." In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, pecuniary help to a beginner is not a blessing, but a calamity. Under the appearance of aiding, it weakens its victims, and keeps them in perpetual ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... he began, using the language of the Llotta with an accent that softened its harsh gutturals, "over the calamity that has befallen you. And it is not to be wondered at. But your own danger is as nothing compared with the danger that now threatens our whole solar system. It is to explain that and to ask your cooperation in warding off the holocaust that I have ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... has gone to Soma-tirtha[14] to propitiate Destiny, which threatens his daughter [S']akoontala with some calamity; but he has commissioned her in his absence to entertain ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... be for the relations and friends of the dead, was not so particularly terrible as far as the individuals themselves were concerned. God only knows how I may feel when I am struck, either in my own life or that of any one I love; but hitherto death has not appeared to me the awful calamity that people generally seem to consider it. The purpose of life alone, time wherein to do God's will, makes it sacred. I do not think it pleasant enough to wish to keep it for a single instant, without the idea of the duty ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... lamentations? What sighs and groans? But I dwell not on these things; they are for the man with the gifts of eloquence and imagination to describe. It was certainly a marvel that both parents were not struck lifeless with grief. The calamity was rendered the greater by the fact that their first-born, who had aroused so large hopes concerning himself, was the perpetrator ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... forth irrepressible. He had prayed in his hour of penitence, "Make me to hear joy and gladness" (Psa. li.); and the prayer had been answered, if not before, yet now when peril had brought him nearer to God, and trust had drawn God nearer to him. In his calamity, as is ever the case with devout souls, his joy increased, as Greek fire burns more brightly under water. Therefore this pauper sovereign, discrowned and fed by the charity of the Gileadite pastoral ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... to a damsel of the damsels and said to her, "Who am I?" Quoth she, "Thou art the Commander of the Faithful;" and he said, "Thou liest, O calamity![FN33] If I be indeed the Commander of the Faithful, bite my finger." So she came to him and bit it with her might, and he said to her, "It sufficeth." Then he said to the chief eunuch, "Who am I?" And he answered, "Thou ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... the most innocent of them some unknown danger; for we are surrounded above and below by Keres, or Spirits, winged influences, shapeless or of unknown shape, sometimes the spirits of death, sometimes of disease, madness, calamity; thousands and thousands of them, as Sarpedon says, from whom man can never escape nor hide;[34:1] 'all the air so crowded with them', says an unknown ancient poet, 'that there is not one empty chink into which you could push the spike of a blade ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... and the flatterers of Jehoshaphat may have applauded the liberal policy of the King of Judah, and his freedom from the bigotry of the prophets who would reform Israel, he was pursuing a course which was to involve his family in calamity and bring corruption into his kingdom. Jerusalem and Samaria were not very remote from each other, and the kings of Israel and Judah seem at this period to have maintained frequent personal intercourse: an intercourse which appears not to have elevated the moral character of ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... but he had unlimited confidence in the keeper, and felt sure that he would protect him from such a calamity as being sent to Jacob Wire's. After he had carried the windfalls into the shed, he asked Mr. Nason if he might go down to the river for a little while. The permission given, he jumped over the cow yard wall, and with his eyes fixed in deep thought ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... what George wished to know. Terror of hearing some hideous calamity stayed him from putting the question. He gave a pained smile. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm a bit fagged, that's all. The strain of this search, you ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... forcibly as in the two prefaces. "These dead tinted, hollow-eyed skeletons of villages on the Rhone, oppress me with the feeling that human life—very much of it—is a narrow ugly grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception, and I have a cruel conviction that the lives, of which these ruins are the traces were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne

... American continent should be slave or free. Holding that liberty had better securities under the British than under the American system, he yet believed that the failure of the American experiment would be a calamity and a blow to free institutions all over the world. For years the United States had been the refuge of the oppressed in every land; millions had fled from poverty in Europe to find happiness and prosperity there. From these ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... Johnston had been relieved from command, and that General Hood had succeeded him. I knew nothing of the relative merits of the two commanders, and had no means of judging but by the effect upon the soldiers by whom I was then surrounded. The whole post seemed as if stricken by some terrible calamity. Convalescents walked about with lagging steps and gloomy faces. In every ward lay men who wept bitterly or groaned aloud or, covering their faces, refused to speak or eat. From that hour the buoyant, hopeful spirit seemed to die out. I do not think ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... we hesitate about the meaning of His promises; we put far from us the privilege of believing that He, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, hatchets over us. Whence then this confidence in man, whose breath is in his nostrils, who is absent in the moment of calamity; yet diffidence in God[15] who is the Omnipotent, the very present, help in every time of trouble? Does it not arise from a fear—lest, if we trust him with our provision, he might choose for us and ours the ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves

... day of His patience, threatened to do it in the day of His wrath, saying, 'Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all My counsel, and would none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me' (Prov ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... sentiments, emotions. It's exhausting. War is a terrible thing, Taney. It worries me day and night. Think of the lives! And yet we need this war, we need it for the good of the nation. And now that we're ready, it would be a calamity if— ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn

... to Alyosha, too, that in spite of the calamity that had overtaken the poor girl, betrothed to a man who had been arrested for a terrible crime, almost at the instant of their betrothal, in spite of her illness and the almost inevitable sentence hanging over Mitya, Grushenka had not yet lost her youthful cheerfulness. There was a soft light in ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... for this particular and practical purpose, of predicting the approach of enormous and admitted human calamities, nobody but a fool would deny. But that does not bring us one inch nearer to allowing them the right to define what is a calamity; or to call things calamities which common sense does not call calamities. We call in the doctor to save us from death; and, death being admittedly an evil, he has the right to administer the queerest and most recondite pill which he may ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... for several days, but water is an absolute daily necessity. The sandstorm had left the white boys weak, and as they had already stinted themselves of water for the last day and a half, they were in no condition to meet this new calamity. ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... ago this horrible distemper prevailed all Europe over: and our forefathers were by no means exempt, as appears by the large provision made for objects labouring under this calamity. There was a hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln; a noble one near Durham; three in London and Southwark; and perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charitable ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... a dreadful calamity to be left behind when he wanted to go to Boxford, hopped nimbly into the opening in the pile of chairs that represented the stage-coach, ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... is indispensable,—by no means that this alone is so, or that all modes and kinds of resistance are of equal service. Resistance and Affinity concur for all right effects; but it is the former that, in some of its aspects, is much accused as a calamity to man and a contumely to the universe; and of this, therefore, we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... not walk into the trap, and so these prisoners slept on the prairie, and their wives slept at home bereaved of their husbands. Somebody shot Jones. It is presumed that somebody thought he ought to be shot, but it was as great a calamity to Lawrence as was the rescue of Branson. The people of Lawrence removed Jones to the Free State hotel, showed every sympathy they could show, and offered a reward of $500 for the apprehension of the assassin. Notwithstanding, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... by the sight of this heroic array, their prince, towering high above all, addressed them. No one had foreseen the calamity that had overtaken them. Who could have guessed the power of the Almighty? But though overthrown they were not totally defeated. A rumor had long since been rife of the creation of another world with which they could interfere. At any rate, there must never be peace between them and ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... once ascertained that Jerusalem had undergone a fresh calamity, and fallen more and more beneath the yoke of the infidels. Abou-Kacem, khalif of Egypt, had taken it from the Turks; and his vizier, Afdhel, had left a strong garrison in it. A sharp pang of grief, of wrath, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... otherwise, it is impossible to overlook this destructive passion, which like envy is 'the rottenness of the bones.' Anger and fear are more violent, but this is more fixed: it sinks deep into the mind, and often proves fatal. It may generally be conquered at the beginning of any calamity; but when it has gained strength, all attempts to remove it are ineffectual. Life may be dragged out for a few years, but it is impossible that any one should enjoy health, whose mind is bowed down with grief ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After all, she bore his name; and he was not looking forward at all to the time when she would change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her rich enough to purchase perhaps and extinguish the name of the fellow who married her—why not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to men nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced that they were not, passed his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... business has touched me in the brain. Have patience! the calamity's so new. (Pauses.) There is a fourth way; but that gate is shut To brave men who hold life a ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... was likewise forsaken by a mistress who loved me, but did not love me alone, and whose loss nearly broke my heart, coming after that of my good master. It is a mistake to suppose that a man who has received one cruel blow grows callous to succeeding strokes of calamity. Far otherwise; he suffers agonies from the smallest contrarieties. I returned to Paris in a state of dejection almost ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... man has gained Dorothea's ear: he has fascinated her attention; he has evidently tried to impress her mind with the notion that he has claims beyond anything I have done for him. If I die—and he is waiting here on the watch for that—he will persuade her to marry him. That would be calamity for her and success for him. She would not think it calamity: he would make her believe anything; she has a tendency to immoderate attachment which she inwardly reproaches me for not responding to, and already her mind is occupied with his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... people who heard him threw themselves at his feet, entreating him to desist.—"You see very well," said they, "our good angel! that it is certainly on account of these Jews who reside here that we have suffered this fire, it is they who bring calamity upon us, and if you set them at liberty all the water in the sea will not extinguish the flames." And they besought Oswald to let the Jews be burnt with as much eloquence and tenderness as if they were ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... inclination, moreover, there was a hope which he could not forego. From Simonides he knew Amrah, the Egyptian nurse, was living. It will be remembered, doubtless, that the faithful creature, the morning the calamity overtook the Hurs, broke from the guard and ran back into the palace, where, along with other chattels, she had been sealed up. During the years following, Simonides kept her supplied; so she was there now, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... movement and another popular movement. We do not inquire whether an uprising costs as much as a battle. Why a battle, in the first place? Here the question of war comes up. Is war less of a scourge than an uprising is of a calamity? And then, are all uprisings calamities? And what if the revolt of July did cost a hundred and twenty millions? The establishment of Philip V. in Spain cost France two milliards. Even at the same price, we should prefer the 14th of July. However, we reject ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... alone, all men will believe on Him, and the Romans shall come, and take away our place and nation:" whereas, in truth, a compliance with His directions and admonitions had been the only means to prevent those presaged mischiefs. And, si Tibris ascenderit in maenia, if any public calamity did appear, then Christianos ad leones, Christians must be charged and persecuted as the causes thereof. To them it was that Julian and other pagans did impute all the concussions, confusions, and devastations falling ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... less than a papal visitation, in which the visitors could have relied upon the full power of the Church and State, would have sufficed to put an end to the evil, and unfortunately no such step was taken in time to avert the calamity. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... the day had dawned that Philip opened his eyes, and discovered Krantz kneeling at his side; at first his thoughts were scattered and confused; he felt that some dreadful calamity had happened to him, but he could not recall to mind what it was. At last it rushed upon him, and he buried his face in ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... fight for his penates, and twice made a vehement demonstration of attack; but his heart failed him, and he retreated to a neighbouring mango branch, whence a few minutes after we saw him making short dashes after his insect prey, apparently oblivious of the domestic calamity that had ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... absent. Indeed, she might require some slight service that lay, perchance, in his power to render her. What an opportunity would he not lose were he abroad? She might even depart before we returned; and than that no greater calamity could just then befall him. No, he would not stir a foot from the inn. A fig for exercise! to the devil with health! who sought an appetite? Not he. He wished for no appetite—could contrive no base and vulgar appetite for food, whilst his soul, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... the stool he stripped the glove from the boy's right hand and examined it with anxious fingers. The other two were sponging his chest with water—pumping fresh air into his lungs; but Old Jerry's eyes clung to the calamity ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... a hundred thousand persons died in Florence, though, before the calamity, the city was not supposed to have contained so many inhabitants. But I am weary of recounting out late miseries, and, passing by everything that I can well omit, I shall only observe that, when the city was almost depopulated, seven beautiful young ladies, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... unforeseen occurrence. But he felt that he was equal to the performance of all his duties. He knew that he could rely upon himself and upon his crew, and these thoughts transfigured him. The youth of yesterday was a man to-day. The spirit of a hero burned in his eyes. He rose superior to the calamity which had befallen them. His ability impressed all who approached him. Even the doctor and Mr. Bredejord submitted to him like ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... addition is given to the youngest daughter. The family property always descends in the female line. For this reason, daughters are of more importance than sons. A family without daughters dies out, which among the Khasis is the greatest calamity, as there is no one qualified to bury the dead and perform the religious rites. Thus both the Khasis and the Syntengs have a plan of adoption. The male members of any family, if left without females, are allowed ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... subject to their behests; who have reserved to themselves ample civil and religious freedom and equality before the law; who during the last twelvemonth have enjoyed exemption from any grievous or general calamity, and to whom prosperity in agriculture, manufactures, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... which these plagues were brought upon us. It seems as if some foul demon had taken his seat upon the breast of the nation, and was holding us down with the dead weight of a horrid nightmare, while he laughed at our calamity and mocked at our fear—when our fear came as desolation, and our ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... perceived the sneer; some great calamity had befallen her, of which she as yet scarcely knew the extent; she sat mute and bewildered—too bewildered to ask why all ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... fire supposed to have been kindled by the rays of the sun, and to have been brought by AEneas when he founded his kingdom in the new land of Italy. The extinction of this fire would have been regarded as the gravest public calamity, foreboding disaster. Its flames were intended to represent the purity of the goddess, thus emphasising the mystic aspect of another physical property of fire—its purifying power. "Our God" (said the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews) ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... his lessons so that he must learn them more quickly than any other pupil in school. There would be no more of that wretched fooling until fall, a point of time inconceivably far away. Before it arrived any one of a number of strange things might happen to avert the calamity of education. For instance, he might be born again, a thing of which he had lately heard talk; a contingency by no means flawless in prospect, since it probably meant having the mumps again, and things like that. But if it came on the very last ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... the year to see the son for whom he had sacrificed everything; how, not wishing to live with a murderer, she was about to quit his house, leaving all her property behind her; because, if the honour of the Bastarnays was stained, it was not she who had brought the shame about; because in this calamity she had arranged matters as best she could; finally, she added a vow to go over mountain and valley, she and her son, until all was expiated, for she knew how to ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... perhaps of the State. It was not strange that, on the first news of the illness which proved fatal to him, the people flocked to the churches with prayers for his recovery, and that his death was regarded by all the right- thinking portion of the community as a national calamity. But the courtiers, who had regarded his approaching reign with not unnatural alarm, hailed his removal with joy, and were, above all things, anxious to prevent his son, who had now become the heir to the crown, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... a very different thing from seeing you pass all your days as a heartless, comfortless old bachelor. There are fifty young women in this very county, I could wish to see you united to, in preference to witnessing such a calamity." ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... had come, as Mr. Parker surmised, straight off a wreck, the first to file into his office had assuredly salved from calamity a wonderful headgear. This was Mrs. Purchase, in a bonnet crowned with a bunch of glass grapes; and by the hand she led Myra, who carried one arm in a sling. The child's features were pinched and pale, and her eyes unnaturally bright. Behind followed Mr. Purchase and Tom Trevarthen, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... sorrowful look came into the gentle eyes. Agnes was thinking of the faithless Jonas Derwent, who had cast her off in the day of her calamity. Aubrey made no answer. He was beginning to find out that life was not, as he had always imagined it, a field of flowers, but a very sore and real battlefield, wherein to lose the victory meant to lose his very self, and to win it meant to reign for ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... vision, leaving behind them only a few broken bits of pie crust. A series of "short, sharp shocks" (as described in "The Mikado") then rent the air, summoning Prudence Ann and Delcy, the maid, to the scene of the calamity. Let us draw a veil over the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... quarter in vain from the barbarous marauders of Athol. His dependence on heaven did not, however, prevent him from applying himself vigorously to the work of providing, as far as human prudence could provide, against the recurrence of such a calamity as that which he had just experienced. The immediate cause of his defeat was the difficulty of fixing bayonets. The firelock of the Highlander was quite distinct from the weapon which he used in close fight. He discharged his shot, threw away his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... for those who think as we do; but I have the less hesitancy in making the recommendation because I believe you are not one to shun a fight for the convictions we hold in common, and because you would regard, with me, the election of a senator with the new views as a very real calamity. If sound business men and lawyers should be eliminated from the Senate, I could not contemplate with any peace of mind what might happen to the country. In thus urging you, I know you will believe me when I say that my affection ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that your life might be saved, and Mathilde's, and the happiness of poor Hugues. There was no other way to draw you far from that chateau of murder, no other way to detach Mathilde from one who could bring her nothing but calamity. And to-day, when I left you, I thought all this was accomplished, and I was free to go my way ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... of a calamity that has befallen a very dear friend of mine! Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph! ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... off, an easy prey. Hereupon as he brandished his bare sword in his hand he met Heracles himself on the path, and well he knew him as he hastened to the ship through the darkness. And straightway he told the wretched calamity while his heart laboured ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... ruler, are not easily forgiven. His subjects attribute to him an intelligence he probably lacks; they call him treacherous or cruel when he is very likely yielding to lazy habits and to insidious traditions. They see in every calamity that befalls them a proof that his interests are radically hostile to theirs, whereas it is only his conduct that is so. Accordingly, in proportion to their alertness and self-sufficiency, they clamour for the right to govern themselves, and usually secure it. Democratic government is founded ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... those nations which are strong enough and enlightened enough to take a leading part in human affairs, to work towards the initiation and the organisation of this immense effort. In so far as the Great War of to-day acts as a spur to such effort it will not have been an unmixed calamity. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... the thing was done was an aggravation of the insult. The poorer sort of the French could plead distress, and could also say that they had endured the hardships, the toils, and the perils of a winter campaign. But here was nothing but a naked robbery, without any part taken in the calamity which gave birth to it. He had alluded to these things merely for the purpose of giving the Minister an opportunity of disapproving of them: he hoped he should not hear the principle avowed. Crowned heads, he thought, were at present led by some fatal infatuation ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... they earnestly desired to form some alliance with another tribe, which might enable them to punish and to prevent such gross and wanton indignities. In the meantime, in the hope of avoiding a recurrence of so distressing a calamity, the colonists ploughed over the whole surface of their cemetery, and sowed it with corn; thus concealing what was to them so sacred from the eyes of ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... a piece of news had been heard by anybody on board Charon's/ boat than by Oldenburg on board the Charenton wherry. Altogether the idea that Morus should be admitted as one of the pastors of the most important Protestant church in France was, we can see, horrible to him; and he hoped the calamity might yet be averted.—For the time it seemed likely that it would be. There had been ample enough knowledge in Paris of the coil of scandals about the character of Morus; and copies of Milton's two Anti-Morus pamphlets had been in circulation there long before ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... them alone, or calamity will overtake you; and what is much more important, they will be annoyed with me. I am too fat, alas! to be worried by bad boys. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... wildly happy, but just at this moment a dreadful calamity befell him. Jennie had been talking about marriage more and more, and now she revealed to him a reason which made marriage imperative. She revealed it with downcast eyes, with blushes and trembling; and Peter was so overcome with consternation that he could not play the part that was expected ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair



Words linked to "Calamity" :   vis major, bad luck, disaster, meltdown, misfortune, catastrophe, tidal wave, apocalypse, inevitable accident, the Great Calamity, unavoidable casualty, famine, plague, Calamity Jane, calamitous, act of God, tsunami



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