"Misfortune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subjects. Several discourses on these topics, addressed to the prince, will be found in the editions of Raleigh's works. Henry repaid these services with sincere friendship and admiration; and we may presume that his adviser looked forward to that friendship, not only for a cessation of misfortune, but for a more brilliant period of favor and power than he had yet enjoyed. Fortunately, however, his patron's death was preceded by that of his arch-enemy, Cecil; and through the mediation of the Duke of Buckingham, Raleigh ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... are becoming poorer and poorer. There are only two of them,—mother and daughter,—and on account of some sort of unwise investment they are getting into a pretty bad way. I used to know Captain Drane, and was slightly acquainted with his family. I heard of their misfortune through a friend in Pennsylvania, and as I knew that La Fleur took such an interest in the family, I mentioned it to her. The result was disastrous; she has been in a doleful mood ever since, and yesterday assured Mrs. Tolbridge that if it should prove that Mrs. Drane ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... we really ought to cut out these words and put them in a frame; long, long we'd search to find a better motto to guide and help us while we play the game. Look pleasant, please, when you have met reverses, when you beneath misfortune's stroke are bent, when all your hopes seem riding round in hearses—a scowling brow won't help you worth a cent. Look pleasant, please, when days are dark and dismal and all the world seems in a hopeless fix; the clouds won't go because your ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... Maximus Eburnus consul in 638 went to Macedonia (C. I. Gr. 1534; Zumpt, Comm. Epigr. ii. 167), he too must have suffered a misfortune there, since Cicero, in Pison. 16, 38, says: -ex (Macedonia) aliquot praetorio imperio, consulari quidem nemo rediit, qui incolumis fuerit, quin triumpharit-; for the triumphal list, which is complete for this epoch, knows only the three Macedonian triumphs of Metellus in 643, of Drusus ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... worship to enjoy none yourselves; Your wives and children suffer pollution, And you are pointed at with the finger. Thus heedlessly you injure eternal principles, Embracing filth and treasuring corruption, To your endless shame And to your everlasting misfortune. Finally, if in life your heads escape the axe, There will await you the excessive injury of the shroud.[$] Judging by the crimes of your lives, Your corpses will be cast to scorpions and snakes. The devils introduce this doctrine, Which grows like plants from seeds; Some one must arise to punish ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... the automobile, leaving the girls surrounded by the gossipy, though kindly, women of the neighborhood and the curious children. Neither of the young fellows had any well defined idea as to how to proceed; but they were not inclined to waste any more time merely canvassing the misfortune of ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... story of "Dodd" just as it is, and I can't tell it at all unless I tell it that way. You may not like Mr. Waughops; you may not like his way of teaching school; you may say that I am cruel to harp on facts to the extent of intimating that the mere misfortune of being a cripple is not reason enough for being a school teacher; but I can't help this either, because it is true, and we all know it is. We lift up our eyes and behold the educational field all white for the harvest and even among the few laborers that are working, ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... visits, whether for procuring food or in consequence of dissatisfaction with his habitat, are feared by the people; but I could not ascertain what was the nature of the injuries by the ghost to themselves of which they were afraid, nor could I hear of any actual instance of a disaster or misfortune which had been attributed to the machinations of such a ghost. When sleeping in their dark enclosed houses, however, the people fill up all openings by which the ghost might enter (this does not apply to the emone, the entrance openings of which are ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... decision entirely in your hands. Every one is good and sympathetic, and the pater has had most kind letters from his friends in town. We have this great comfort that his good name is untarnished, and that there is no shadow of disgrace in our misfortune. God bless you, my darlings! If we are rich in nothing else, we are rich in our love for ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... each of those fellows in his own way has influenced me. The story is my story, a study of myself, nothing more or less. If the reader don't like me he may lay me down in my cloth or paper cover, and have nothing more to do with me. If I'm not a hero, perhaps it's not so much my fault as my misfortune. That people are interested in me, and show it in a thousand different ways, assures me that my story, not the story of those with whom I'm thrown in contact, is what interests them. It's a narrow-gauge, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... at the police bureau of the arrest of the Princess Ornovski some days ago, and I have obtained permission from the chief of police to lodge her Highness and her companion in misfortune—if they are prepared to pay what I shall ask. It has come to be looked upon as a sort of perquisite of diligent officials, and as I have been very diligent here I had no difficulty in getting the permission—which I shall have to pay for in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... years may be passed over very briefly. In 1834 he married; his wife was subject to attacks of insanity, and all his later life was saddened by the struggle with misfortune and poverty. In 1840 he was called to a newly founded professorship of Slavic literature at the College de France. His lectures as holder of this chair are the only literary work of great importance that he produced during this last period of ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... that—on the 29th of May—"C" Company had another gas misfortune while in support in Gorre village. Their house was heavily shelled with mustard, and though all men were taken out as soon as possible 40% of the Company, together with 2nd Lieuts. H. Coxell and O. Darlington had to be evacuated. There was so much gas at this time that ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... from my Club in a state bordering upon distraction. No great misfortune has happened to me, my dearest friend has not been black-balled, the Club bore has not had me in his unrelenting clutches. The waiters have been, as indeed they always are, civil and obliging, the excellent chef catered with his usual skill to my simple ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... ever received in my life was to be told, a dozen years afterwards by the groom who brought me my horse in a stable-yard in Sydney, that he was my quondam antagonist. He had a long story of family misfortune to account for his position—but at that time it was necessary to deal very cautiously with mysterious strangers in New South Wales, and on enquiry I found that the unfortunate young man had not only been 'sent out,' but had undergone ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... frijoles and some of the good coffee, perhaps? Sundown would, without question. He pressed a dollar into the palm of the reluctant Senora. He was not a tramp. Of that she might be assured. He had met with misfortune, that was all. And would the patron return soon? The patron would return with the setting of the sun. Meanwhile the vaquero of the Concho was to rest and perhaps enjoy his cigarette? And the "vaquero" loafed and ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... can I not look on Phyllis as my own daughter, and give to her all the father love I have learned to feel? I do not rob you either of her love or her presence. I merely add a new joy to my life, and know that in caring for you both and in contributing to her happiness, and securing her against misfortune after we are taken away, I am carrying out the pledge, however idle at the time, ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... does, meaning by noble, gentilhomme; and it is a great misfortune, since it keeps up distinctions and animosities of caste; but it is incurable—at least, it has not been cured, or perhaps much palliated, by our sixty years of revolution. It is a sort of Freemasonry. When I talk to a gentilhomme, though ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... though, the next minute; for, on hearing my words, my uncle glanced in a troubled way at his wife, who was trying to soothe poor weeping Lilla; while, during the next hour, I learned that I had had the misfortune to strike down the man who was my uncle's creditor to a large amount, as he had been Mrs Landell's, or they would not have ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... too much. I had the misfortune of being carried out of my way, and this exasperating clerk was coolly asking me to pay the company a premium for the result of the conductor's carelessness. It was one of those situations in which words fail to express the extent of your indignation. The fellow's audacity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... her in intellectual ones, and though they would always feel for one another that peculiar tenderness left by the possibilities of a first love, no doubt the quarrel over the blue ribbon had been no real misfortune to either. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my eye fixed on the fragments, meditating for a moment upon the inconstancy and fallacy of human things I had just before eagerly desired to obtain, that which I now tore with disdain. I had hoped to have found a companion in misfortune, and how I should have valued his friendship! Now I gave him all kinds of hard names, insolent, arrogant, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... saw that she placed her hand on the latch of the door, when he felt at that gesture that he was to lose her, that he should never have her again, he shouted. He forgot everything. There remained in him only the dazed feeling of a great misfortune accomplished, of an irreparable calamity. And from the depth of his stupor a desire ascended. He desired to possess again the woman who was leaving him and who would never return. He drew her to him. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I fear. Surely you cannot be acquainted with the cruelties practised upon him. I have not beholden them with mine own eyes; but my knowledge is this—as soon as I heard of Philip's misfortune, in whom, why I feel an interest you now know, I hastened to his prison, and there, with some difficulty learned, that not only is he manacled, and his ancles chained, but also is confined by a band of ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Meanwhile Hermon saw how her young figure was trembling, and, before he had time to address a soothing-word to her, she sobbed aloud, crying out to Ledscha: "You are not a mother! My child, he rescued it from the flames. I will not, and I can not—I will no longer pray for his misfortune!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his affairs had summoned him to confer with a tenant who was desirous of becoming a purchaser. Being in the same town with Deena, he decided that he could not well avoid visiting her, to say nothing of Ben. It was his misfortune that every meeting made his self-discipline harder, for, if they lived, he had got to see her under still more trying circumstances—reunited with a husband ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... colonists refused to leave, remained, and thus became British subjects. For those who had remained on the island there was trouble at once. A small vessel, the prize of an English cruiser, bound to Sierra Leone with thirty liberated Africans, put into the roads for water, and had the misfortune to part her cable and come ashore. "The natives claim to a prescriptive right, which interest never fails to enforce to its fullest extent, to seize and appropriate the wrecks and cargoes of vessels stranded, under whatever circumstances, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... name of goodness, said they were living?' cried he. 'It's a misfortune for you that they are dead, isn't it? You pay the tax for them, don't you?—and that'll half-ruin you, you say. Well, I clear you of the tax for these eighteen dead ones—do you understand?—not only clear you of the tax, but give fifteen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... may Heaven preserve from misfortune the man I should so like to sup with at night, after fighting in the morning! The Swan of Padua [Algarotti, with his big hook-nose and dusky solemnly greedy countenance] is going, I think, to Paris, to profit by my absence; the Philosopher Geometer ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... bad way. A few weeks ago the Czar said to England, 'We have on our hands a sick man, a very sick man. I tell you frankly, it will be a great misfortune if one of these days he should slip away from us, especially if it were before all necessary arrangements were made. The Czar wants Turkey out of his way. He wants Constantinople for his own southern capital, he wants the Black Sea for a Russian ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... admired. Everything might still be open to him,—except the love of another woman. As to that, she did not doubt his truth. Why should he be doomed to drag her with him as a log tied to his foot, seeing that a woman with a misfortune is condemned by the general voice of the world, whereas for a man to have stumbled is considered hardly more than a matter of course? She would consent to take from him the means of buying her bread; ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... blue. On both sides we see houses and villages built on the sloping shores, but the interest heightens when we come close abreast the great town of Messina which, on the 20th of December 1908, suddenly became world-famous owing to the awful misfortune which befell it. All educated people knew Messina by name previously, but it was not until the Italian wires flashed the story of the earthquake which had wrought destruction so swiftly and dramatically that it will always be ranked as among the most appalling ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... the monopoly of land by the care which He took to have a direct interest in the land of Canaan by personal inheritance for every Jew. To guard against the might of greed, to prevent the poor of the land, touched by misfortune or snared by debt, from sinking into farm laborers or serfs of the soil he instituted the year of jubilee when every man returned to ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... fainted away. At this, one of the men seized a pig and ran after the stranger, who, hearing the pig squealing, looked behind him and saw the man running with it; and as he neared him he dropped it before him, and told him of Lono's misfortune, Kamakanuiahailono then returned, gathering on the way the young popolo seeds and its tender leaves in his garment (kihei). When he arrived at the place where the wounded man was lying he asked for some salt, which he took and pounded together with the popolo and placed it with a cocoanut ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... Martin—which was his real name—was far from being unamiable or repellent. That he was cowardly, untruthful, selfish, and lazy, was undoubtedly the fact; perhaps it was his peculiar misfortune that, just then, courage, frankness, generosity, and activity were the dominant factors in the life of Redwood Camp. His submissive gentleness, his unquestioned modesty, his half refinement, and his amiable exterior consequently ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... With your benevolence, your character and connections, you may put in motion a much greater fund of charity than you will yourself possess. It is by searching out the objects of distress or misfortune, and recommending them to their wealthy neighbors in such a manner as to excite their attention. I have often remarked to you (I forget whether you agree with me in it or not) that there is more goodness at the bottom of the human heart than the world will generally allow. Men are as often hindered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... whereas the Pombo and the others had the previous night almost made up their minds to send us back to the frontier. Unfortunately, it appears[36] that the Pombo had seen a vision during the night in which a spirit told him that, if he did not kill us, he and his country would suffer some great misfortune. "You can kill the Plenki," the spirit was reported to have said, "and no one will punish you if you do. The Plenkis are ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... luxury, she came down to an empty purse, and a widow's weeds. Her husband lost all his property at once. Money was all the poor man had ever cared for. He had not the courage to live and look his misfortune boldly in the face, but took his own life, (like a coward,) and left his dainty wife and child to bear alone the cross that his manly ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... misfortune, however, not to get speech with her again before his departure. The few short days intervening before embarkation were full of anxiety for him, and incessant, almost wearisome, activity. He had made himself one moment of leisure, and visited ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... truth in the assertion that nobody cared a straw for his colleagues. The Peace party suffered defeat at the polls, and, amongst others, Cobden himself was turned out at Huddersfield, and Bright and Milner Gibson were his companions in misfortune at Manchester. A vigorous attempt was made to overthrow Lord John in the City, and his timid friends in the neighbourhood of Lombard Street and the Exchange implored him not to run the risk of a contested election. He was assured in so many words, states Lady Russell, that he had as much chance ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... When the trees were 3 years old from 2 year transplants they bore 25 pounds. Next year, 1944, they bore 800 pounds or an average of 1 pound per tree. Right then and there we thought that we would have a real story to tell, but we had misfortune in another direction. Three years in a row we have had frosts when 6 inches of new growth were on these trees (the orchard is not as well situated as the parent trees in this respect). So we had no crops worth ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... candor as universal as concealment! Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would truly know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate misfortune,—in short, how much brighter and happier the world would become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at all times, his true and entire feeling! Why, even Evil would ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... without asking any favors of them. We have some wild flowers among us as fair, as blooming, and quite as pure as any they can show. But enough has been said on this subject, which I should not have mentioned at all, but that it has been rung in my ears by almost every white lecturer I ever had the misfortune to meet. ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... the causes of his rise, we shall show that fortuitous commercial events which strong brains dominate, may become irreparable catastrophes for weak ones. Events are never absolute; their results depend on individuals. Misfortune is a stepping-stone for genius, the baptismal font of Christians, a treasure for the skilful man, an abyss for ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Gen. Anderson informs me in a letter that, 'in order to avoid the very serious misfortune of an encounter between our troops, I demand your immediate withdrawal with your guard from Cavite. One of my men has been killed and three wounded by your people.' This is positive and does not admit of explanation or delay. I ask you to inform ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... are engaged," says Luttrell, his eyes dark with emotion. "But it is months since we have met. I came to London to seek her; but did not dream that here—here—— Misfortune has separated us; but if I lived for a hundred years ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... open-hearted a man as ever lived, and had always been very kind to us; but he was scarcely welcome when my father, finding that he had come up alone to London to see about some repairs to his house, while his family were still in the country, asked him to dine and sleep—our first guest since our misfortune. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and your majesty will see who is friendly to you. What misfortune has happened to your majesty during these three ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the wondrous things of His law. I think, too, that walking in the Spirit means having perfect trust in God—walking with our hand in His. If you see a man fearful about to-morrow, dreading the future, always expecting and anticipating evil, meeting misfortune half-way, be sure he is not walking in the Spirit. Hold fast to God's Hand—trust Him. Do you remember the story of the little Russian boy who trusted in God? He and a younger sister were left utterly destitute on the death of their father. ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... married folk, begged him not to keep a peacock's feather in the house—it would certainly bring misfortune. The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds that they actually argued with him—argued with Grandfather Iden!—pointing out to him the fearful risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and grew red in the face—the great grey hat shook and tottered with ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... say to his brother, 'that would be up airly and late at his own business, I would have spirits to work, by rason it would cheer my heart to see our little farm looking as warm and comfortable as anothers; but, fareer gairh (* bitter misfortune) that's not the case, nor likely to be so, for he spinds his time from one place to another, working for them that laughs at him for his pains; but he'd rather go to his neck in wather than lay down a hand for himself, except when he ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... I had the misfortune to marry, and who has ruined me and my aged and unhappy parents, always told me that he was the Hon. Colonel Hope, the next brother to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... Your Royal Highness, it would greatly endear you to your future people, proving to them that you are not the less one of themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, if you were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight operation which, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate with regard to ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... of the war continued to arrive, and at length the death of Bandoola seemed to be the climax of misfortune. Who could be found to take his place? A government officer, who had for some time been in disgrace with the king, now came forward with a proposal to conquer the English and put an end to the war, provided an army was raised on a ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... be, like some famous ones in history, specially fatal to crowned heads, and to heads that have once been crowned? During the whole twelve months of 1872 the only European sovereign who died was Charles XV. of Sweden, while none suffered irremediable misfortune; and in European royal families the only two losses by death were Archduke Albrecht and the duke of Guise. But within the first six weeks of 1873 no less than three persons died who had at some time ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... which I have learned in my roaming life, my friends, is never to call anything a misfortune until you have seen the end of it. Is not every hour a fresh point of view? In this case I soon perceived that accident had done for me as much as the most profound cunning. My guards naturally commenced their search ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... vowed to misery, and makes him, willy-nilly, laugh and sing. So that, if he do not drown himself in a week and thereby balk the inquiry, it is odds that he will compose himself in a month, and by the end of a year will carry no more marks of his misfortune than (if he be a man of good heart) an added sobriety and tenderness of spirit. Yet all this does not hinder the thing from ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... of Ghent, Bruges, and other large towns is for the good of Flanders, since were it not for that, the country would be but an appanage of Burgundy or France. Heavy imposts would be laid upon the people, their franchises abolished, and the trade greatly injured; and it would therefore be a sore misfortune for the country were the Earl of Flanders to crush Ghent, for did he do so he could work his will in ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... It is the Restoration! The maypole is up again at Maypole Lane, and the milk-maids bedecked with garlands dance to the tunes of the fiddle. Boys no longer serve for heroines at the play, as was the misfortune in Shakespeare's day. The air is ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... a metaphysical puzzle, inside and out, and he has brought him home to us as no sea-writer ever tried to do before. Years ago it seemed natural to fancy that he might write himself out, but he goes on with a freshness which looks inexhaustible. If I cannot read him with the old enjoyment it is my misfortune and not his fault. If his latest book had been his first I should have found in it the charm which caught me years ago. But it is in the nature of things that an individual writer like Clark Russell should be his own most ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... say? She knows only my evil deeds as she has heard them recounted by my father. When chance or misfortune has thrown us two together, it has always been under circumstances which could not dispose her in my favour. I have cost her both trouble and money—nay, I even fear her reputation has been called in question on my account. When I was in trouble she came to my assistance, regardless ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... looke out, zounds a Gentleman cannot come by a misfortune in service or so, but everie foole wil ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... might as well perish in what seemed our only chance of safety, as wait to be overwhelmed by the whole power of the Mexican empire. Before I proceed to narrate the sequel of our transactions in Mexico, I shall give an account of the misfortune which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... and generosity of his sovereign; and with this assurance he had retired to his paternal home, old, sick, and poor, to await as best he might the happy moment in which his claims should be remembered. And then it was, as he emphatically declared, that the last and crowning misfortune of a long life had overtaken him. Then it was that the King conceived that unfortunate attachment for his younger daughter, which deprived him of the greatest solace of his old age and exposed him to the raillery and contempt of his fellow-nobles, coupled with sarcastic congratulations ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... professors of which had been burnt (generally by each other) precisely 1,119 years previously. They were really very plausible and thoughtful heresies, and it was really a creditable or even glorious circumstance, that the old monk had been intellectual enough to detect their fallacy; the only misfortune was that nobody in the modern world was intellectual enough even to understand their argument. The old monk, one of whose names was Michael, and the other a name quite impossible to remember or repeat in our Western civilization, ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... heart was quite filled with grief and care, so that his family saw that something annoyed him. At first he would not speak on the matter at all, and put aside the wife's fond queries. Mrs. Lambert thought a great misfortune had happened; that her husband had been ruined; that he had been ordered on a dangerous service; that one of the boys was ill, disgraced, dead; who can resist an anxious woman, or escape the cross-examination of the conjugal ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I know he has, and there are very few who even suspect his misfortune, but it is true, nevertheless. When he was a boy of nine," Miss Reynolds went on to explain, "his father was showing him, one Fourth of July, how to manage some cannon crackers. By some fatality, the first and only one fired hit a post, glanced off and struck the child in ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... or both of us—such things have happened before, though not often. Or, say, misfortune or death might mistake us for honest, hard-working mugs with big families to keep, and cut us off in the bloom of all our wisdom. You might get into trouble, and, in that case, I'd be bound to leave you there, on principle; or I might get into trouble, and you wouldn't ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... representative of God and should be received with due reverence and honor. Especially is this the case with a Brahmana or a Sannyasin whose life is wholly consecrated to God. Any one who fails to give proper care to a holy guest brings misfortune on himself and his household. When Yama returned, therefore, one of the members of his household anxiously informed him of Nachiketas' presence and begged him to bring water to wash his feet, this being always the first service to an ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... instigation of Madame Magloire, whether Monsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the mercy of any one who should choose to enter, and whether, in short, he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little guarded. The Bishop touched his shoulder, with gentle gravity, and said to him, "Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui custodiunt eam," Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... some thieves who have entrapped my master. They number six and fierce and sturdy did they seem. I beseech your aid, good masters, for my master is a brave knight who has suffered misfortune." ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... and Rose were so deeply affected by Allison's misfortune that they scarcely took note of Isabel's few bruises, greatly to that young woman's disgust. She chose to consider herself in the light of a martyr and had calmly received the announcement that Allison's left hand would probably have to ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... most upright man in the world with whom he had been, before the criminality was known to the world, on terms of intimacy, and whose position in the world was such that he might be on terms of intimacy with reputable gentlemen. It is the misfortune of a man that is approached in that way; it is not his crime, and it is not ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... thought he. She was indeed one of those instances of absolute lack of moral sense. Just as some people have the misfortune to be born without arms or without legs, so others are doomed to live bereft of a moral sense. A sweet disposition, a beautiful body, but no soul; not a stained soul, but no soul at all. And his whole mental attitude toward her changed; or, rather, it was changed by the iron compulsion of his prejudice. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... harder to do now that I am blind," she said, at the last, "for I can't help being a care and a trouble to everybody, everywhere I go now. But godmother says people won't mind that much if I'll only be pleasant and cheerful about my misfortune, and not let it cast its shadow on other lives any more than I can help. I haven't said anything about it yet to her, but if there is enough money in the bank that papa left to educate me with, I want to ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... story, but you may take it from me that all is over. The tie between us is broken. I don't know that it was ever very close. It was an external thing. The true misfortune is that I ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... all. I hinted these things to him as plainly as friendship would allow, and to no purpose; but to have told him the whole, so as to cure him, I must have been his father, which, thank God, I am not. As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and, considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless. You and I form, I believe, an exception to that rule; for, I am persuaded that we would neither of us change our relation, were it in our ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... primitive society in order to ward off evils, or to secure the protection of dreaded powers or spirits, are based primarily on logical considerations. If a certain stone is regarded as sacred, it is probably because it is associated with some misfortune, or some unusual piece of good luck. Someone sitting on the stone may have died; or on sleeping on it may have seen a remarkable vision, which was followed by a signal victory over a dangerous foe.... In all ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... tried, but the blessing of a religious contentment was shed upon her; and I stepped up to her, and asked about her concerns, for, saving as a parishioner, and a decent old woman, I knew little of her. Brief was her story; but it was one of misfortune.—"But I will not complain," she said, "of the measure that has been meted unto me. I was left myself an orphan; when I grew up, and was married to my gude-man, I had known but scant and want. Our days of ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... It is the misfortune of Africa to be surrounded by a cordon of vitiated races, half-caste and mongrel breeds, propagated from adventurers and convicts from the other continents of the world. So that Africa learns nothing but the vices of civilization from its contact with the rest of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... after all, he had struck the end of a cross wall and was working through the length of it instead of through its thickness. The fear of such a misfortune took possession of him, and he laid down his crowbar to examine the wall carefully. There was one way of finding out the truth, if he could only get light enough; no mason that ever lived would lay his bricks in any way except lengthwise ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the table as soon as they finished their apple pie. Anna sat primly and ate with great elegance. When she spoke at all she spoke to her father, about church matters, and always in a commiserating tone, as if he had met with some misfortune. Mr. Kronborg, quite innocent of her intentions, replied kindly and absent-mindedly. After the dessert he went to take his usual Sunday afternoon nap, and Mrs. Kronborg carried some dinner to a sick neighbor. Thea and Anna ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... Norwich; but, just as she had become acquainted with him, the bank had broke, and he had left Oxford to come home and find himself a ruined man. But he had never said a word to her of the family misfortune. He had been six feet high, with dark hair cut very short, somewhat full of sport of the roughest kind, which, however, he had abandoned instantly. "Things have so turned out," he had once said to Mary, "that I must earn something to eat instead of riding after foxes." She could not boast that he ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... does not lead to anything. It is a stultified wretchedness, amidst which intelligence dies out like a lamp in a place without air, in which the heart grows petrified in a fierce misanthropy, and in which the best natures become the worst. If one has the misfortune to remain too long and to advance too far in this blind alley one can no longer get out, or one emerges by dangerous breaches and only to fall into an adjacent Bohemia, the manners of which belong to another jurisdiction than that ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... and boys like him, it is of course only natural to hold them up as examples to others. No boy can be a scamp and not suffer for it some way or other; and as to saying it's one's misfortune rather than one's fault that it is so, that is as ridiculous as to say, when you choose to walk north, that it is your misfortune you are not ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with the independence of the other European states, no peace was to be signed by any of the contracting powers; and, during several months, every means was adopted to procure the association of Austria and Prussia. But the latter of these sovereigns had the misfortune at this time to have a strong French party in his council, and, though personally hostile to Napoleon, could not as yet count on being supported in a war against him by the hearty goodwill of an undivided people. Austria, on the other hand, had been ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... for, and a most gruesome object, when we came up with Sher Singh. His manners ain't exactly ingratiating at the best of times, as you have more than once remarked to me, but when he saw my unlucky hair, his language was positively improper. You see, it was my misfortune—and your very good fortune, I'm inclined to think—that I wasn't you. He even sent for water and had some of the blood washed off my face, to make sure, I suppose, that we hadn't exchanged wigs in the hope of deceiving him, and when he was quite sure who I wasn't, I expected ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... of the crew labouring under the misfortune of long, lank, Winnebago locks, carroty bunches of hair, or rebellious bristles of a sandy hue. Ambitious of redundant mops, these still suffered their carrots to grow, spite of all ridicule. They looked like Huns and Scandinavians; and one of them, a young ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Northumberland had ordered dinner, and the Earl of Salisbury, the Bishop and the two knights, Sir Stephen Scrope and Sir William Feriby, sat with the King at the same table by his order; for since they were all companions in misfortune, he would allow no distinction among them. While he was eating, unknown persons entered the hall, insulting him with sarcasms and threats. As soon as he rose, he was summoned into the court to receive the Duke of Lancaster. Henry ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... out fear, because fear hath torment." In this last instance, it is evident that the idea of punishment is not found, but only that of suffering. In the LXX. (Ezek. 14:3, 4, 7) it is translated "stumbling-block," and means, says Schleusner (Lexicon in LXX.), "all that is the source of misfortune or suffering." Donnegan gives as its meaning, "the act of clipping or pruning; generally, restriction, restraint, reproof, check, chastisement; lit. and ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... declaring they could not help proceeding to extremities if I were detained any longer in prison. The Prince de Conde declared he would do anything, without exception, which my friends desired, for my liberty, and offered to march all the Spanish forces to their assistance; but the misfortune was that there was nobody to form the proper schemes; and Noirmoutier, who was the most enterprising man of them all, was hindered from action by Madame de Chevreuse and De Laigues, who, the Cardinal said, would be accountable for the actions of their friends, and that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions. The first emotions of the nobles and of the people were those of surprise and indignation that a vile Barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world; but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune; and their unmanly rage, instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... courtesy in the young man's behavior to his senior. Uncle Ezra responded by a less suspicious look at him, but seemed to be considering this new proposition before he spoke. Uncle Ezra was evidently of the opinion that while it might be a misfortune to be an old man, it was a fault to be a young one and good looking where girls were concerned. "Miss Gale's father and mother showed me so much kindness," Tom explained, seizing his moment of advantage, "I should like to be of some use: it may not be convenient ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... should be done, and was ever foremost in doing it He took hold of the helpless and slow-witted colonists as a master carpenter handles blocks of wood, and transformed them into an efficient and harmonious structure, strong enough to withstand the first onsets of misfortune, and to endure until the arrival of recruits from home placed them beyond ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... celebrated commander of Strasbourg, whose name had been given to a street in Paris, was brought under the censure of the court-martial. But the chief blow fell upon the commander-in-chief of Metz, Marshal Bazaine, to whose "treachery" the whole misfortune of France was attributed. For months he was retained a prisoner at Versailles, while preparations were made for the great court-martial spectacle, which, in the following year, took place under the presidency of ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... and your sister! Do you think a man is going to come to nearly fifty without knowing something of life? That he hasn't been happy in his matrimonial relations is his misfortune, not ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... on the Bath, Me., barque, Eleanor Jones. They were bound for South America with a cargo of chemicals and assorted canned stuffs. From the first day out misfortune assailed the vessel. She encountered heavy weather and, during a towering climax of the storm, part of her deck load of American lumber fetched away and carried with it three of her crew of ten men. Shortly after that the cook's ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... is lovely an' the goose honks high, it's our great American privilege to fight like bearcats if we feel that way about it. But when misfortune descends on one of us, like a topmast in a typhoon, it's time to stop bickerin'. Me an' Bart, driftin' along the docks for a constitootional this mornin', bears the sorrerful tidin's that your new navigatin' officer an' your new ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... was killed as she was passing the palace gates under the belief that a parley having come from his camp, the firing would be suspended, as in fact it was on our side. This government, informed of the misfortune, sent for the husband of the deceased, and ordered twenty-five dollars to be given him; but the unfortunate man, though plunged in grief, declared that twelve were sufficient to supply his wants. Such was the horror inspired by the atrocious conduct of the ex-government of Bustamante, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Barton was a little too despondent. Perhaps she ought to have had more trust in Providence; but there had been sorrows in her life which had robbed her of her natural hopefulness, and she was no longer as courageous in the face of threatening misfortune as ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... the first to get up, and, instead of trying to assist his companions in misfortune, or to rub the dust off his clothes, he began to collect the cake together; and, as the plate was broken, he very carefully arranged the three-cornered wedges on the top of his straw hat, as though the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... contains two reproaches which have keenly affected me; and I think I have already told you that a few chance expressions would suffice to make me go to Wierzchownia, which would be a misfortune in my present perilous situation; but I would rather lose everything than lose a true friendship. . . . In short, you distrust me at a distance, just as you distrusted me near by, without any reason. I ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... dangerous of the many plots which were directed against the life of my master. The course which I adopted may be blamed by some, but it is enough for me that, after the lapse of years, it is approved by my conscience and by the course of events. For it was ever the misfortune of that great king to treat those with leniency whom no indulgence could win; and I bear with me to this day the bitter assurance that, had the fate which overtook Louis d'Entragues in the wood between Malesherbes and Fontainebleau ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... and had gone to bed. This was some consolation, though but of short continuance. As soon as I was laid down, all the fatal consequences of my adventure presented themselves to my imagination. I could not sleep. I saw all the horrors of my misfortune, without being able to find any remedy; in vain did I rack my brain; it supplied me with no expedient. I feared nothing so much as daybreak; however, it did come, and the cruel Brinon along with it. He was booted up to the middle, and cracking a cursed whip, which he held in his hand, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... service. Opposite him was sitting a young handsome man in the uniform of a captain in the British Army. Froissart was frowning and speaking in savage disrespect of Dawson, his immediate chief. "This English Dawson, with whom it is my misfortune to work, is of all men the most impossible. He is clever, as the Devil, but secretive—my faith! He tells me nothing. He lives in disguise of body and mind. There are twenty men in his face, his figure, and his dress. He ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Sultan marvelled and said in his mind, "Glory be to God: the words and works of this youth be wonderful. Whatever I bid him do he beginneth with naming the name of the Lord whereas those who forewent him never suffered me hear aught of the sort. However, the fortunate are Fortune's favourites and Misfortune never befalleth them." Now when it was night-tide the Sultan said, "O youth, in very deed this mansion which standeth beside the palace is brand-new and therein are store of wood and timbers of every kind, but it lacketh ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... depends the preservation of their fortune Prevent disorder from organising itself Princes thus accustomed to be treated as divinities Princess at 12 years was not mistress of the whole alphabet Rabble, always ready to insult genius, virtue, and misfortune Saw no other advantage in it than that of saving her own life She often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony Shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal Shun all kinds of confidence Simplicity of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... composure. He now, though suffering from sea sickness, refused to go on shore: for he conceived that, by remaining on board, he should in the most effectual manner notify to Europe that the late misfortune had only delayed for a very short time the execution of his purpose. In two or three days the fleet reassembled. One vessel only had been cast away. Not a single soldier or sailor was missing. Some horses had perished: but this loss the Prince with great expedition repaired; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Anne bears her misfortune gallantly and well, with a natural feeling, no doubt, of the rank and consideration she is about to lose. Lady Scott is incredulous, and persists in cherishing hope where there is no ground for hope. I wish it may not bring ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... at Daphne, by Antioch, he had some dreams which clearly foreboded his brother's death; and as he leaped out of his bed in a disturbed manner, there came messengers that acquainted him with that calamity. So when he had lamented this misfortune for a while, he put off the main part of his mourning, and made haste to march against his enemies; and when he had performed a march that was above his strength, and was gone as far as Libanus, he ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... that he persuaded the young girl to let him take her to the palace. She did not like to show herself, and asked of what use would be a mirror, only to impress her more deeply with her misfortune; but when he wept, her heart was moved, and she consented, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... and actions of the best men towards the individual women whom they may chance to love and respect. The chivalry and courtesy that the few command through their beauty, wealth and position, are one thing; but justice, equality, liberty for the multitude, are quite another. And when the few, through misfortune, are made to feel the iron teeth of the law, they regret that they had not used their power to secure permanent protection under just laws, rather than to have trusted the transient favors of individuals to shield them in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of the maritime Alps, so that the difficulties of advancing into Italy were greatly diminished. Of these movements, however, his superior officers reaped as yet the honour. He was even superseded (Aug. 6, 1794) very shortly after their success. But this, which at the moment seemed a heavy misfortune, was, in truth, one of the luckiest circumstances that ever ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... came in, but he had the misfortune to lose my assistance almost immediately. I was caught at short leg after a patient innings of ten, slightly marred, however, by about the same number of chances. The Fourth Officer took my place. He began by nearly running out his Captain. If point had not stopped ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... back into the Legation lines, feeling as if an immense misfortune had come. Here I met finally some Japanese cavalry and some Cossacks. After being actually in Peking twenty-four hours, they had at length formed junction with their Legations. The cavalrymen were trotting up and down, and trying to discover their own people. Neither ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Mankind? this mischief had not then befall'n, And more that shall befall, innumerable Disturbances on Earth through Femal snares, And straight conjunction with this Sex: for either He never shall find out fit Mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake, 900 Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain Through her perverseness, but shall see her gaind By a farr worse, or if she love, withheld By Parents, or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, alreadie linkt and Wedlock-bound To a fell ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... and immediately the princess came to herself, and flung her arms round his neck. Then she told him all her story, and what had happened since the ship had sailed away without him. 'But the worst misfortune of all,' she added, 'was a battle which my father lost because you had vanished with his magic sword; and out of his whole army hardly one man ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... and bolted for his stateroom to be soon followed by his two companions in misfortune. A couple of hours in their bunks with some little attention from their now rather repentant critics, and the steamer having passed again into still water the patients were soon restored to normal health, with, if possible, greatly ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... is a fond father's earnest prayer. Be sure, dear Algernon, that they will be through life your greatest comfort, as well as your best worldly ally; consoling you in misfortune, cheering you in depression, aiding and inspiring you to exertion ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did Neal make upon the misfortune of having none to wish him ill; and what rendered this hardship doubly oppressive, was the unlucky fact that no exertions of his, however offensive, could procure him a single foe. In vain did lie insult, abuse, and malign all his acquaintances. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... that species seen on this side the mountains besides the one we saw on Pigeon Ponds on the 3rd of August. On returning to the camp I found that the carts had arrived soon after my departure in the morning; but the men had the misfortune to lose two bullocks in crossing the swampy stream where we had been previously encamped. One was suffocated in the mud, and the other having lain down in it could not be made to rise. By observing the stars alpha and beta Centauri ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... earthquakes had occurred, two hundred leguas in the interior, and as far as Canton, which lasted for two months. They were so terrific that they shook the very strong palaces, while other houses and mosques were overthrown. This misfortune and plague has been by the permission of heaven. At another part, the Japanese of Great Corria have revolted, and are warring with these Chinese, so that four hundred thousand of them have banded against the latter, by which the Chinese are receiving great injury. [25] Thus, by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... I was born, I do not remember such a string of casualties as happened to me and mine, all within the period of one short fortnight. To say nothing connected with the play-acting business, which was immediately before—first came Mungo Glen's misfortune with regard to the blood-soiling of the new nankeen trowsers, the foremost of his transactions, and a bad omen—next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... obliged for the want of means to discontinue manufacturing, and Mr. Hayward left his employment. The inventor now applied himself alone, with unabated ardor and diligence, to detect the cause of his misfortune and if possible to retrieve the lost reputation of his invention. On one occasion he made some experiments to ascertain the effect of heat upon the same compound that had decomposed in the articles previously manufactured, and was surprised to find that the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... Gladstone himself confessed, with much humility it seemed to us, in a pamphlet written many years after the American War, that it "had been his misfortune" on several occasions "not to have perceived the reality and importance of a question until it was at the door." This was very true. His noble enthusiasm for some good and vital cause so engrossed ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... always pleased to oppose herself to lofty beginnings, did not allow L'Ingegno to reach perfection, for a flux of catarrh fell upon his eyes, whence the poor fellow became wholly blind, to the infinite grief of all who knew him. Hearing of this most pitiful misfortune, Pope Sixtus, like a man who ever loved men of talent, ordained that a yearly provision should be paid to Andrea in Assisi during his lifetime by those who managed the revenues there; and this was done until he died ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... sacred ceremony of the marriage. Jeanne listened in half affright. All their lives long, in sickness and health, in misfortune, they must never cease to love, never allow any wavering fancies, but go on to old age, to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... disorder and impiety. And even should he wear the semblance of leading to virtue and practising those things which are praiseworthy and useful to salvation, it would only be to win the confidence of such as would listen to his suggestions, to make them afterward fall into misfortune, and engage them in some sin of presumption or vanity: for as he is a spirit of malice and lies, it little imports to him by what means he surprises us, and establishes his reign ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... reading. Wilde has been discussed in relation to homosexuality by Numa Praetorius (Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. iii, 1901). An instructive document, an unpublished portion of De Profundis, in which Wilde sought to lay the blame for his misfortune on a friend,—his "ancient affection" for whom has, he declares, been turned to "loathing, bitterness, and contempt,"—was published in the Times, 18th April, 1913; it clearly reveals an element ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... which it was designed, and he finally determined to broach the subject to his father. Old Colonel Delany, whose "optics" were so very "keen" to spy out the danger of his son's forming a mesalliance, was stone blind when such a misfortune threatened Alice, liked the young man very much, and could see nothing out of the way in his attentions to his niece, and finally refused to close his doors against him at his son's instance. While ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... in his own mind, "This comes when like marries not like—when a man forms an unnatural union with a sea-maiden." Excusing himself, as we all love to do, he would add: "I did not, in fact, know that she was a maid of the sea. It is my misfortune that my steps are haunted and disturbed by the wild humours of her kindred, but it ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... Mr. Roller, and it sometimes occurred that they conversed across the wall; it could hardly be avoided. A hint or two, an undefinable flying allusion, gave the General to understand that Lady Camper had not been happy in her marriage. He was pained to think of her misfortune; but as she was not over forty, the disaster was, perhaps, not irremediable; that is to say, if she could be taught to extend her forgiveness to men, and abandon her solitude. 'If,' he said to his daughter, 'Lady Camper should by any chance ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... In December another misfortune befell Balzac. A fire broke out at the printing office in the Rue du Pot-de-Fer, and burnt the first hundred and sixty pages of the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques," as well as five hundred volumes ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... take to itself the aspect of a dissolved dream. This letter, then, will contain cheque for the $100 which you have paid. And will you tell Irving for me—I can't get up courage enough to talk about this misfortune myself, except to you, whom by good luck I haven't damaged yet that when the wreckage presently floats ashore he will get a good deal of his $500 back; and a dab at a time I will make ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... write to me that hideous letter which you wrote—that letter, every word of which is still in my memory, and rises up between us to sunder us for evermore. You went beyond yourself. To have spared the living was not needed; but it was the misfortune of your nature that you could not spare the dead. While he was, perhaps, yet lying cold in death near you, you had the heart to write to me bitter sneers against him. Even without that you had done enough to turn me from you always. But when I read that, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... out the bodies of their dead on the roads, and if they were promptly devoured by wild beasts it was esteemed a great honor, a misfortune if not. Sometimes they interred, always wrapping the dead in a wax cloth ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... thou'rt ta'en with anger and despite And patient, if there fall misfortune on thy head. Indeed, the nights are quick and great with child by time And of all wond'rous things are ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... pure, lily face had moved him to it; and simultaneously had come the thought of the relation in which she stood to that man at La Rochette whose life he now sought to save for her, and it had stabbed him with a bitterness no misfortune, no failure yet had ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... grandson of the Berry historian, a young land-owner, the dandy of Sancerre. While present in Madame de la Baudraye's parlor, he had the misfortune to yawn during an exposition which she was giving, for the fourth time, of Kant's philosophy; he was henceforth looked upon as a man completely lacking in understanding and in soul. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... has taken cognizance of the misfortune which precipitate deflation brought to American agriculture. Your measures of relief and the reduction of the Federal reserve discount rate undoubtedly saved the country from widespread disaster. The very proof of helpfulness ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... way to a sensation of joy. Here was another companion in misfortune, alive and ready to share the terrible trouble with ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... Ministry, will be able to stand its ground; nevertheless a change of Ministry would not alter the aspect of our affair in the least, for if the other or movement party come in, the liberty of the press (a great misfortune for Spain) would be probably granted; at all events, the influence of the English Ambassador would be greater than it is even at present, and upon his assistance I may rely at ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... pretty stiff, I confess, heavy and solemn and rather pompous. My mother who was a Moore, as no doubt you have heard, had a strong sense of humor, and didn't bring me up in very great awe of the family. She was thankful I didn't take after them, and so have I always been. I often think, what a misfortune had I had to have a Pritchard as a bedfellow and roommate all these years, as I must have had if I had taken after my father—who was, I believe, however, the mildest of the Pritchards, and very much altered by my mother's influence. And girls are usually like ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... of a most merciful but sometimes severe God, simultaneously abuse both mercy and justice; that, full of indulgence for the indifferent, for their friends, and for themselves, they treat with extreme rigour whoever has had the misfortune to become obnoxious to power; that they more readily pardon the wretch who cuts a man's throat, than the imprudent citizen ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... very materially and to outlive all the other eighteenth-century schools. It was founded by Christian Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843), a most remarkable man, who, after propounding a theory in his younger days which was at least as reasonable as most of the existing theories, had the misfortune to outlive his usefulness and lay his doctrine open to ridicule by the unreasonable teachings of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... his story and told of spending the night with Tom Linton, then of his return to Sheep Camp to learn that he had been robbed of all his savings. Corroboration of this misfortune he left to the oral testimony of the two brothers McCaskey and to the circumstantial evidence of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... was; also some coasting vessels laden with corn from Lynn and Wells, and bound for Holland, were with the same unhappy luck just come out to begin their voyage, and some of them lay at anchor; these also met with the same misfortune, so that, in the whole, above 200 sail of ships, and above a thousand people, perished in the disaster of that one miserable night, very ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... it. They regarded her genius (the thing which had been tacked on to her) more as a crime than a misfortune. It was a power in the highest degree destructive and malign, a power utterly disintegrating to its possessor, and yet a power entirely within her own control. They refused to recognize in it any divine element of destiny, while they remained imperturbably ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... these traitors intended to deliver him up to Isfundiyar khan, the Nawab of Puraniya. By this time Indu Bidhata, the infant who had been made Raja of Marang, had grown up, and, hearing of his uncle’s misfortune, led an army against the Nawab and the traitors, and was accompanied by his brother Budha Sen. Having obtained a victory, he restored his uncle; but, while they were still in the midst of their joy, Kalu Upadhyaya, a relation of the treacherous Brahman, contrived ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... for more than a year," replied the young man, "that I have the misfortune not to be able to die. So reassure ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... the cauld blast, On yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee. Or did misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a'. Or were I in the wildest waste, She bleak and bare, The desert were a paradise, If thou wert there, Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi' thee to reign, The brightest ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... him as an old white man, not flesh-colour white, but chalk white. There is another important point here, but it wants a volume to itself, so I must pass it. O Mbuiri's appearance in a corporeal form denotes ill luck, not death to the seer, but misfortune of a severe and diffused character. The ruin of a trading enterprise, the destruction of a village or a family, are put down to O Mbuiri's action. Yet he is not regarded as a malevolent god, a devil, but as an avenger, or punisher of sin; and the M'pongwe ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... perhaps you would not have found me, Lord Ragnall," I answered, "but as it happens misfortune has kept me here." ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... When misfortune comes it is always best to look it manfully in the face, and not to shrink from or over estimate it. John Miles had a strong, healthy nature, with a good deal of confidence in his own resources, and in an hour or two he was again looking hopefully forward to the future. Not that he cherished a hope ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... before the enthusiasm has time to cool. But it could not be helped, the wind was dead, and the ship could not be handled now until the sea breeze sprang up; and, after all, the delay was not an unmitigated misfortune, for it ensured to the crew time enough to complete their preparations for the coming fight and take breakfast afterward; and even at that day it was fully recognised that an Englishman fights best when his hunger ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... not in mind, Mrs. O'Keefe. You are right in thinking that it is Curtis that is the cause of my misfortune." ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... II. succeeded King William, whose death was joy to France, but a great misfortune to England. Anne was born Feb. 6, 1664, and married George Prince of Denmark, who was High Admiral of England, and a happy assistant to her in steering the ship of state. She was crowned Queen of Great-Britain April 23, 1702. On the 4th of May following ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... departure arrived, the first misfortune of my life occurred—an omen of my future misery. My mother attended Elizabeth in an attack of scarlet fever. Elizabeth was saved, but my mother sickened and died. On her deathbed she joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself:—"My ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of her action was this: on opening her drawer after returning to her room, she found, with a sense of dismay—as if a misfortune had occurred instead of an incident that gave a chance for better thought—that in taking the opiate the night before, she had replaced the cork in the phial insecurely, and that nearly all its contents had oozed away. ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... citizens? It is Antonius, again, who has deprived you of them. The authority of this order is overthrown; it is Antonius who has overthrown it. Everything, in short, which we have seen since that time, (and what misfortune is there that we have not seen?) we shall, if we argue rightly, attribute wholly to Antonius. As Helen was to the Trojans, so has that man been to this republic,—the cause of war, the cause of mischief, the cause of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... the reforms made by Cleomenes, he began to fear that Sparta would win back her former power, and again try to lord it over the rest of Greece. To prevent such a misfortune, he decided to attack the Spartan king while he was too young to excel in the art ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber |
