"Unprepared" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it was, found the elder man all unprepared. Is any one ever ready for any dire calamity, however certainly expected? He paced up and down under the tall trees of the park and for a time did not answer. Then he paused and laid his hand upon the shoulder of the Boy with a tenderness of ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... were taken unprepared: Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, and Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost without striking a blow. Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray, Louis XIV. returned to Compiegne to fetch ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the Moors, as they were preparing for the combat, a tumult arose. The music stopped, and the musicians assailed the theatre with their instruments, which went flying in all directions. The valiant Villardo, unprepared for so many foes, threw down his sword and buckler and took to flight, and the Moors, seeing the hasty leave of so terrible a Christian, made bold to follow him. Cries, exclamations, and imprecations rose on all ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... o'clock [Footnote: Clark's letter to Henry.] Clark entered the town, and at once pushed his men on to attack the fort. Had he charged he could probably have taken it at once; for so unprepared were the garrison that the first rifle shots were deemed by them to come from drunken Indians. But of course he had not counted on such a state of things. He had so few men that he dared not run the risk of suffering a heavy ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to them the restoration of the former ecclesiastical domains, as a free gift of the Emperor of the French, at their first conference, as they would then be as well convinced of Napoleon's good faith as he was himself. In answer, His Holiness was informed that the Emperor was unprepared to discuss political subjects, being totally occupied with the thoughts how to entertain worthily his high visitor, and to acknowledge becomingly the great honour done and the great happiness conferred on him by such a visit. As soon as the ceremony of the coronation ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... observed the new arrivals from the kitchen window, and had hardened himself for the meeting, but the travellers were unprepared. They stared at him, scowling. An odd silence fell ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... was a question that I was quite unprepared for. I had often been set down as a pedlar. I had been suspected of being a travelling musician, and also a colporteur for the Salvation Army; in fact, of being almost everything but a tiler or plasterer. But this shrewd woman had evidently come to the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the child towards her; it was only natural that she should doubt, being so unprepared, but a second glance would ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... his surroundings had dawned so slowly on the rapt soul, the patient face had turned toward his brother's so calmly, he was so meek and quiet, so undemonstrative usually, that he was totally unprepared for the wild burst of passionate weeping with which Harry threw ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... meant; but at last the declaration that she had refused her old lover because she had placed her affections upon Edwin Lechmere, whom she was endeavouring to "entrap," was not to be mistaken; and the country girl was altogether unprepared for the burst of indignant feeling, mingled with much bitterness, which repelled the untruth. A strong fit of hysterics, into which Mary Charles worked herself, was terminated by a scene of the most painful kind, her father being upbraided ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... was simply dressed in something dark. Her handsome face was pale, but she held a steady eye upon the jury, speaking clearly and with deliberation. Old Meakum, always in court and watchful, was plainly unprepared for this, and among the prisoners, too, I could discern uneasiness. Whether or no any threat or constraint had kept her invisible during these days, her coming now was a thing for which ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the path, growing among pointed rocks, there was a gnarled olive-tree, whose branches projected towards her. Before she knew what she was doing she had caught hold of one and stood still. So suddenly she had stopped that Gaspare, unprepared, came up against ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... succeeded in capturing some castles and small towns. But the Earl of Warwick, who was, as has been already said, the prime minister under Edward, immediately raised an army of twenty thousand men, and marched to the northward to meet her. Margaret's French army was wholly unprepared to encounter such a force as this, so they fled to their ships. All but about five hundred of the men succeeded in reaching the ships. The five hundred were cut to pieces. Margaret herself was detained in making arrangements for the king and ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... discrimination to enable her to choose the proper kind of people to be with them. Unfortunately for everybody, however, Mrs. Caldwell had been brought up on the old-fashioned principle that absolute ignorance of human nature is the best qualification for a wife and mother, and she was consequently quite unprepared for any possibility which had not formed part of her own simple and limited personal experience. She never suspected, for one thing, that a servant's conversation could be undesirable if her appearance and her character from her last mistress were satisfactory; and, therefore, when Kitty ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... causing no pain; but when he touched one of the marks said to be vulnerable, he left the needle fixed, and drove it in to the depth of several inches. The first time he did this it drew from poor Grandier, who was taken unprepared, such a piercing cry that it was heard in the street by the crowd which had gathered round the door. From the mark on the shoulder-blade with which he had commenced, Mannouri passed to that on the thigh, but though he plunged the needle in to its full depth Grandier uttered ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... when the angel of death comes for you, he may carry you where Charley is, into the blessed home prepared for all who love God. When He will come, you cannot know. Be always ready, and then He will not find you unprepared. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... from the vessels was most ineffectual, owing, as I afterward learned, to the unexpected suddenness of the first volley, which caught the ship's crews entirely unprepared and the sighting apparatus of the guns unprotected from the ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... did he still enforce Only the virtues and rare qualities Congenial with her after destiny; Yet, not foreseeing evil, he himself Was unprepared, and when her father led, Her opposition and entreaty past, The hapless Lora forth, to promise love And honour to a man, whose vacant mind, Throughout a course of long succeeding years, She vainly strove to soften and to raise, ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... had every reason to be angry, and that he, if he meant to accomplish anything, had every reason to be considerate and patient. So he faced Mr. Caruthers with shoulders squared, as though it were a physical shock he had to stand against, and in consequence he was quite unprepared for what followed. For Mr. Caruthers raised his face without a trace of feeling in it, and, with his eyes still fixed on the glass in his hand, set it carefully down on the mantel beside him, and girded himself about with the rope of his robe. When he spoke, it ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... of the young general, or rather of Rada, who directed his movements, was to secure the necessary supplies for the troops, most of whom, having long been in indigent circumstances, were wholly unprepared for service. Funds to a considerable amount were raised, by seizing on the moneys of the Crown in the hands of the treasurer. Pizarro's secretary, Picado, was also drawn from his prison, and interrogated as to the place where his master's treasures ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... found myself, as I had once or twice found myself before, entirely unprepared to preach. I did not feel anxious, because I did not feel that I was to blame: I had been so much occupied. I had again and again turned my thoughts thitherward, but nothing recommended itself to me so that I could say "I must take ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... at me and others on account of our 'horror.' Surely it is a natural feeling, and she would herself be liable to it if she were more credulous. The agency seems to me like the shaking of the flood-gates placed by the Divine Creator between the unprepared soul and the unseen world. Then—the subjection of the will and vital powers of one individual to those of another, to the extent of the apparent solution of the very identity, is abhorrent from me. And then (as to the expediency of the matter, and to prove how far believers may be carried) ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the old lady varied the exercise by introducing certain gymnastics. Sometimes, as she stretched out her staff, the ground would suddenly open before her, and she sprang over the wide chasm with the greatest ease; while the poor Prince, all unprepared, would have to strain every muscle in his body to clear, in the midst of his rapid career, the yawning gulf. Then she would wave her staff upwards, and the ground rise in front of her, like a steep and rocky hill, up which she would lightly ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... grown and so mature that he passed for twenty. Having succeeded so well in the management of his English classes, he was offered the position of instructor of Latin, with an increase of his salary. The offer at first dismayed him. He was thoroughly ignorant of the Latin language, and utterly unprepared for the duties demanded of him. He was very anxious to have the place, however, for he needed the increase of salary offered him, and, after hesitating a little while, accepted it. He purchased a Latin grammar, and engaged a private tutor. He studied hard, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... past have been neglectful or unduly jealous of the intenser personal loves. They have been, to put it by a figure, urgent upon the road to the ocean. To that they would lead us, though we come to it shivering, fearful and unprepared, and they grudge it that we should strip and plunge into the wayside stream. But all streams, all rivers come from this ocean in the beginning, lead to it in ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... day of salvation." "To day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Death must come soon, and it may come any night, and, rousing the sleeper, may hurry him into eternity. Is it not folly to remain unprepared? ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... I was emotionally unprepared. First off, Cleary and Fred had been building me up all through the three months, and I had actually gotten to the point where I thought I knew what I was doing. These space-jockeys spent most of their time deflating ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... has not been useless to mankind. I have benefited many. But my offences against GOD are numberless, and I have had little time for repentance. Preserve me, Sir, by your prerogative of mercy, from the necessity of appearing unprepared at that tribunal, before which Kings and Subjects must stand at last together. Permit me to hide my guilt in some obscure corner of a foreign country, where, if I can ever attain confidence to hope that my prayers will be heard, they shall be poured with all ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... about Sary, so he was unprepared to offer any advice, but he thought best to agree in everything with Jeb, concerning this particular one, and ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... evidently unprepared to meet me on the old footing, and, at the same time, equally unwilling ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... entire months even, when one lives on illusions, and when one flatters one's self one is turning aside the blow which threatens one. At last, the most probable misfortune always surprises us disarmed and unprepared. In addition to this development of the unhappy germ, which was going on unnoticed, there have arisen several very bitter and altogether unexpected accessory circumstances. The result is that I am broken in soul and body with chagrin. I believe that this chagrin is incurable; for the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... inundated soil tho within it's limits it grows very closely in short almost as much so as the bulbs will permit; the radix is a tunicated bulb, much the consistence shape and appearance of the onion, glutanous or somewhat slymy when chewed and almost tasteless and without smell in it's unprepared state; it is white except the thin or outer tunicated scales which are few black and not succulent; this bulb is from the size of a nutmeg to that of a hens egg and most commonly of an intermediate size or about as large as an onion ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Unprepared for the sudden question, she blushed and replied, "Yes."—Though she knew she was engaged to a brilliant assembly, for which her milliner had been ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... the stupefied state of one who wakes to find his dream made real. After such evidence from Elias, an unprepared, impartial person, there was no longer any room for doubt but that the gold of his vision actually existed. He felt a trifle jealous of the witness for knowing more about it than he did himself. A servant summoning the Emir to dinner, he went out into ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... this we none of us got, and each had to work out his own principle of conduct for himself. It was a long, difficult, and wasteful process, and I cannot but believe that many of us failed in the endeavor. We had come unprepared with any advice. The principle upon which we were apparently trained was the repression of every instinct. My mother was ignorant from innocence, my father from indifference, and so between them I was sent out helpless. A mother incurs great responsibility in sending her child away unprepared. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... needn't talk much about Jenny's last letter and what happened after that. I was entirely unprepared, of course. I hadn't the faintest idea—Well, she was the one person about whom I had no doubts at all! I actually left the letter unread for a few minutes (the envelope was in your handwriting, you know)—because I had to think over what I had ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... they perceived the approach of the lion, which they had not at first, they all seized their guns; but being wholly unprepared for such a sudden attack, there was a great deal of confusion; the Major crying out, "Let no one fire till I tell him," only produced more alarm among the Hottentots, all of whom, except Bremen, appeared ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... skill which they exerted. They wisely began the action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of Germany supported the renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became general; was maintained with various and singular turns ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... about him I remember. He knew Bengali. He once asked Nirada, a boy in his class, the derivation of his name. Poor Nirada[30] had so long been supremely easy in mind about himself—the derivation of his name, in particular, had never troubled him in the least; so that he was utterly unprepared to answer this question. And yet, with so many abstruse and unknown words in the dictionary, to be worsted by one's own name would have been as ridiculous a mishap as getting run over by one's own carriage, ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... tenderly,—his habit was ever to think of others rather than himself,—and he wondered sadly, as he considered all the bitterness and hardships of the poor human creatures who are forced into life on this planet,—why life should be made so cruel and hard for them,—why sudden and unprepared death should snap the ties of tenderest love—why cruelty and treachery should blight the hopes of the faithful and the trusting—why human beings should always be more ready to destroy each other than to help each other— why, to sum all up, so merciful and divine a Being ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... taken by surprise, unarmed and unprepared, did not abandon its future prospects in any ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... future will mainly rest upon the fact that he was a distinguished Canadian Educationist, and the Founder of a great system of Public Education for Upper Canada. What makes this widely conceded excellence in his case the more marked, was the fact that the soil on which he had to labour was unprepared, and the social condition of the country was unpropitious. English ideas of schools for the poor, supported by subscriptions and voluntary offerings, prevailed in Upper Canada; free schools were unknown; the very ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... shielded by her bonnet Faith saw not even that Mr. Linden's door stood open; but when she came out again a while after, the full stream of sunlight that came thence into the passage drew her eyes that way. And Faith did not wonder then that her mother had been startled, and unprepared by the doctor's words for the sight of what she now saw. The chintz-covered couch was drawn before the window, in the full radiance of the sunlight, and Mr. Linden lay there looking out; but the sunlight found no glow in ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... was the primary cause of many deaths. There were no "buffers" to break the force of the concussion of two carriages in contact. When the train was about to start, the guard used to cry out along the train, "Hold hard! we're going to start," and 'twas well he did, for sometimes, if unprepared, you might find your nose brought into collision with that of your opposite neighbour, accompanied by some painful sensations in that ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... callous, under the hardening influence of a wicked life; and every day that danger increases. God's patience may be exhausted. The brittle thread of life may be sundered at any moment, and the impenitent and unprepared soul be summoned to the bar of God. With great propriety, therefore, may the parent feel anxious in ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... of matters in this quarter; and as little alteration has taken place since that period, your Excellency will readily perceive the impracticability of the movement expected by Congress, (and mentioned in your letter to Count de Rochambeau,) especially too, when you consider how unprepared we are to encounter any expense, that ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... canals was conducted with all expedition, as we never had less than seven or eight thousand Indians employed[2]. As Guatimotzin, the reigning monarch of Mexico, frequently sent out large bodies of troops in canoes on the lake, apparently with the hope of attacking us unprepared, Cortes used every military precaution to guard against any sudden attack, by assigning proper posts to our several captains, with orders to be always on the alert. The people in Huexotla, a town and district only a few miles from Tezcuco, who had been guilty of murdering some of our countrymen ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... "I am always unprepared for the demonstrations of character you and she make. My traditional estimate, which comes from thoughtfulness, or the putting off of responsibility, or God knows what, I find will not answer. I have been on my guard against that which everyday life might ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... determined as a last resource to walk quietly as close to it as he could, before the gases began to affect him, then to draw back a few yards, take a few deep inspirations, so as to fully inflate his lungs, and then rush straight through; for he argued to himself, if he could pass through once unprepared and taken by surprise, he could ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented, with the remark, 'You know better what it ought to be than I do, Wegg,' and again shook hands with ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... I do not mean that it shows any want of reading or writing, but it does indicate an untrained character a mind unprepared ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hand of Lagash had become unnerved. The zealous and iconoclastic reformer had reigned but seven years when he was called upon to defend his people against the invader. He appears to have been utterly unprepared to do so. The victorious forces of Umma swept against the stately city of Lagash and shattered its power in a single day. Echoes of the great disaster which ensued rise from a pious tablet inscription left by a priest, who was convinced that the conquerors would be called to account for ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... this absolute basis of Christian [20] Science; namely, Cast not pearls before the unprepared thought. Idolatry is an easily-besetting sin of all peoples. The apostle saith, "Little ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... probably not unprepared for what I am about to tell you. Yesterday evening the Directors of the East India Company elected me one of the members of the Supreme Council. It will, therefore, be necessary that in a few weeks,—ten weeks, at furthest,—I should leave this ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... questionable propriety, which led to such local excitement that upon the recommendation of an ecclesiastical council he was dismissed by a vote of 200 to 20, and the town voted that he be not permitted on any occasion to preach or lecture in the church. Mr. Edwards was wholly unprepared financially for this unusual ecclesiastical and civic action. He had no other means of earning a living, so that, until donations began to come in from far and near, Mrs. Edwards, at the age of forty, the mother of eleven children with the youngest less than a year ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... never for a moment having conceived the idea that so illegal and unconstitutional a demand as I have just received from you would be made by an officer of the United States Army, am wholly unprepared to defend my command from this unwarranted attack, and shall therefore be forced to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the flatboat struck a shallow portion with such suddenness that it instantly stopped, and the youth, unprepared for the shock, sprawled overboard with ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... bade her good morning as he passed. Perhaps she knew she did not deserve politeness; anyhow she took Clare's for impudence, and came swooping upon him. He stopped and waited her approach, perplexed as to the cause of it; and was so unprepared for the box on the ear she dealt him, that it almost threw him down. Her ankle was instantly in Abdiel's sharp teeth. She gave a frightful screech, and Clare, coming to himself, though still stupid from her blow and his own surprise, called off the dog. The woman limped raging ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... important element in marching. An army which can march five miles a day more than its opponent will almost certainly be victorious, for it can go to his flank, or assail him when unprepared, Frederick the Great achieved his successes by imparting mobility to his troops, and Napoleon also was a master of that peculiar feature in that faculty of command of which we have before spoken, that enables a leader to obtain from his men ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... maun have our joke," he would declare in high good-humour, as he buttered Kirstie's scones, and she waited at table. A man who had no need either of love or of popularity, a keen reader of men and of events, there was perhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he would have been quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated him. He thought maid and master were well matched; hard, bandy, healthy, broad Scots folk, without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them. And the fact was that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fear; he had learned to read the soul; he had become familiar with all that the face may make known of the secret terrors of conscience. And how could she meet the calm eyes of one who found her here in such a relation toward him? Yet all this she had weighed before in her mind; she was not unprepared. The hour and the man had come. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... begun reading them sooner, Harry," was the answer. "I feel that I have been rescued from the jaws of death through God's mercy; and how unprepared I ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... communication to me on the way to London for which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate between them; with the view of sparing the mother's feelings as much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I could what his wrong was, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... sailed in, being yet a good way from the city, they came upon a barque of some 60 tons. It was all unprepared for attack, and the boats got alongside, and the crews climbed on to the deck before their presence was discovered, or dreamt of. No resistance whatever was offered by the Spaniards against the English. All ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... I trust it will not greatly inconvenience you. I see you have my order of yesterday in your hand, and so are not unprepared for ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... was preparing to spear one of the men. The natives retreating, the men went in search of the bullock-drivers, whom they found endeavouring to raise a bogged bullock: their timely arrival probably saved these men's lives, as they were unarmed and unprepared. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... a desperate lunge at Adrian, who, having kept his eye cautiously on the movements of his enemy, was not unprepared for the assault. As he put aside the blade with his own, he shouted with a loud voice—"Colonna! to the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... know," said the doctor; "you are unprepared; the difficulties seem out here insuperable; but a man's life is at stake, so is our reputation amongst these people, for one failure will balance a hundred cures, just as at home one evil deed stands out strongly against so many good which pass unnoticed. It is barely ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... momentarily embarrassing; and I was puzzled to know how 'His Excellency' would get out of it. With no appearance of discomposure, he stooped down, took the flowers, and, looking from them into the sparkling eyes and radiant face of the lady, said, with a gallantry I was unprepared for 'Really, madam, if you give them to me, and they are mine, I think I can not possibly make so good use of them as to present ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... man's one hope—no hope at all, indeed, for the odds were fifty to one against him. Swift as was his movement, and unprepared as his tormentors were for it, just as the horse rose to his leap over the wagon tongue, and as the rider flung himself low on his neck to escape what he knew would come, a bow twanged back of him. They all heard the zhut! of the arrow as it struck. Then, in a stumbling heap, horse ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... flew to the round of the chair, the seat, the arm, the back, and so on till he reached the ladder again. Then for the first time the thrush changed his position and rose to his feet, when, without the least warning, the mocker flung himself madly after him, and the thrush, unprepared, ran, with a sharp cry. Obviously the mocking-bird, finding the first method of attack, which was probably his usual one, a failure, decided to try another, as the event proved, successfully. The excitement of this performance evidently gave him pleasure, no doubt helped to pass ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... a moment in consternation in view of the gatherings of so portentous a storm. The emperor, by false professions and affected clemency, had so deceived them that they were quite unprepared for so formidable an attack. They soon, however, saw that their only salvation depended upon a vigorous defense, and they marshaled their forces for war. With promptness and energy which even astonished themselves, they speedily raised ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... "item." For many days he followed the most highly impossible clews, some of them intractable, to supply a rather unusual word of description. In other words, they reacted with a vigour that often found him unprepared but serene. Consequences bothered Anderson but little in ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... during this time, and no accident had occurred to mar the run, the weather being on the whole fair, though one cold storm caught them unprepared and ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... traders are reported to be rapidly increasing, and it is stated that the authority of the Consulate is treated with contempt. Pending a possible confirmation of this, I would suggest that you keep an open mind on the subject of to-night's speech. By adopting an anticipatory—even an unprepared—attitude you may find your hand materially strengthened. I shall put my opinions before you more explicitly when ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... possessed by some superhuman access of frenzy, leaped from his position on the back of the stone Lion, and slipping agilely through the ranks of the startled spearmen and guards, who were all unprepared for the suddenness and rapidity of his movements, he sprang boldly on the edge of the Royal chariot, and there clung to the jewelled wheel, looking like a gaunt aerial spectre, an ambassador of coming ruin. The King, speechless with amazement and fury, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... entered the port. The consul, mortified at this second enterprise, ordered ten of his lightest vessels to lie as close as possible to each other, across the mouth of the harbour; and that they might not be taken by surprise and unprepared, he further directed that the men should constantly have their oars in their hands, stretched out, so as to be ready to plunge them into the water at a moment's warning. The skill and experience of the Rhodian, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... no doubt, by means of resolution, of gaining access to her in her house, yet I preferred taking her unprepared, and not warmed against me by any previous contention. Accordingly, the next morning, at the time she usually devoted to half an hour's air and exercise, I hastened to her garden, leaped the paling, and concealed myself in an arbour. Presently I saw, from my retreat, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... (The speaker, rising to be seen, Looks very red, because so very green.) I rise—I rise—with unaffected fear, (Louder!—speak louder!—who the deuce can hear?) I rise—I said—with undisguised dismay —Such are my feelings as I rise, I say Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, Already gorged with eloquence and song; Around my view are ranged on either hand The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land; "Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" Close at my elbow stir their lemonade; Would you like Homer ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... conscript fathers, can be too great to be due to such a mighty service as this of Brutus, and to such important aid as he has afforded the republic? For if Gaul had been open to Marcus Antonius—if after having overwhelmed the municipal towns and colonies unprepared to resist him, he had been able to penetrate into that further Gaul—what great danger would have hung over the republic! That most insane of men, that man so headlong and furious in all his courses, would have been likely, I suppose, to hesitate at waging war against us, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... For that you make the passover a type of the Lord's supper, when it was only a type of the body and blood of the Lord: 'For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us' (1 Cor 5:7). 2. In that you make it an example to you to admit persons unprepared to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... themselves received many and mysterious reinforcements, which seemed to spring up like magic from the bosom of the earth—so suddenly and unexpectedly had they emerged from copse and cleft in that mountainous and entangled neighbourhood—were not unprepared for a fresh foe. At the command of the vigilant Muza, they drew off, fell into order, and, seizing, while yet there was time, the vantage-ground which inequalities of the soil and the shelter of the ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... between Bill and Jan, ex-leader and leader; the veteran northland dog, comparatively empty and exquisitely poised and prepared; and the new-comer from the outside world, terribly full, heavy, and unprepared. All, or nearly all, had fallen out as Bill had planned. Their distance from the camp was a safe one; Jan was grossly bloated and he, Bill, was in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Matters look very ominous, Mr Frobisher, in the opinion of nearly all our leading men, so we are naturally eager so to order things that, if trouble should arise between the two countries—as I, for one, feel certain it will—we shall not be entirely unprepared. It is most unfortunate, however, that we are at present extremely short of naval officers; indeed, if war were to break out to-morrow it is an absolute certainty that several of our men-of-war would be unable to put to sea, for want of capable officers to man them. Crews sufficient ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Japan as the dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never believed to be possible. Continental Europe was unprepared to admit that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... was this move that it caught De Morbihan himself unprepared. In an instant Lanyard had ten yards' lead. In another he was spinning on two wheels round an acute corner, into the rue Jean Goujon; and in a third, as he shot through that short block to the avenue d'Antin, had increased his lead ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Warrender was entirely unprepared for such a commission. "There will be great difficulties, dear Lady Markland," he said. "It is a long way. I am sure my mother would not wish you to think of her. This is a house of death. ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... something; from some a shilling, from some only sixpence; some few gave nothing at all: these in general endeavoured to escape observation behind the backs of the donors, but Father John let none of them off; and those who were unprepared, and who alleged their poverty, and their inability, he reproved for their idleness, and hinted rather strongly that their visits to Mrs. Mulready's, or similar establishments, were the cause of their not being able to do what he called ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... was that he had had no premonition of the thing that was about to happen to him; that the supreme moment should have come upon him so casually and with so light a step; that he went to meet it in a mood so commonplace and unprepared? (Good Heavens! He remembered that he had been eating pea soup at the time, and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... had not come to the spot unprepared. Having anticipated some difficulty in getting hold of the storks, he had providentially provided a lure, which, in the event of their proving shy, might attract them within reach of his ringall. This lure was a large fish—which he had taken out of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the threshold, instinctively removing his hat. As he remembered it, the room, though of good size and comfortable enough, had been a clutter of purely masculine belongings. He was quite unprepared for the colorful gleam of Navajo rugs, the curtained windows, the general air of swept and garnished tidiness which seemed almost luxury. Briefly his sweeping glance took in a bowl of flowers on the center-table and then ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... was the cry, and shriller still the scream, when there rose up from the shadow of those silent bulwarks the long lines of the English bowmen, and the arrows whizzed in a deadly sleet among the unprepared masses upon the pirate decks. From the higher sides of the cog the bowmen could shoot straight down, at a range which was so short as to enable a cloth-yard shaft to pierce through mail-coats or to transfix a shield, though it were an inch thick of toughened wood. One moment ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to their loss. Virginia, those people will go out of life as soft, as unprepared, as when they came in. They will be as helpless as when they left their mother's wombs. They haven't been disciplined. They haven't known pain and work and battle—and the strengthening they entail. They don't live a natural life. Nature meant for all ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... convinced of her insanity they would attach no longer any importance to her warnings, and a precious lapse of time that should be improved for immediate preparations for defence was irretrievably lost. The Queres might be allowed to approach, and their onslaught would find the Tehuas utterly unprepared. If only Cayamo had been present! But he dared not approach a woman now, for he was at work purifying himself and fasting, in anticipation of the great day when the scalp which he had taken would be feasted over, danced over, prayed at, and sung to. Shotaye found herself in a most painful ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... rent the skies. Mezentius asked no mercy, but only that his body might be spared the insults of his revolted subjects, and be buried in the same grave with his son. He received the fatal stroke not unprepared, and poured out his life ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... not wait to be interrupted. He sat down and plunged into narrative, and after the first few words, Darnell, whose mind was not altogether unprepared, listened without ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... then said, 'O king, men do not let fly their arrows at their enemies when the latter are unprepared. But there is a time for doing it (viz., after declaration of hostilities). Slaughter at such a time is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... drawn up in the bed, his hands clasped about them. Thor noticed the strangeness of his expression, but he was unprepared for his words when they came out. "Say, Thor, you're not in love with her yourself, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... cometh, when no man can work." And, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might: for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest."—But how would it be with you, dear reader, if you are unprepared, and should be taken out of the world? Let me beseech you to seek the Lord while He may be found. Jesus died to save sinners. He shed His blood. He fulfilled the law of God, and died the JUST for the UNJUST: and whosoever depends for ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... and the end of his speech, Mr. Lockwood urged as a reason for the jury being tender in taking Peace's life that he was in such a state of wickedness as to be quite unprepared to meet death. Both times that his counsel put forward this curious plea, Peace raised his eyes to heaven and exclaimed "I am not fit ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... the military services, by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving the peace of the world. Fit to hold our own against the strong nations of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth. Unprepared, and therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and helpless to defend ourselves, protect others, or preserve peace. The first step—in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come—is to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Murray," said he, "I am not a child, nor did I, knowing all I know, come here unprepared for ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Navy and Marines had to launch amphibious operations against many islands about which information was unconfirmed or nonexistent. Intelligence authorities resolved that the United States should never again be caught unprepared. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the wretched system which establishes an inequality of duties betwixt the different parts of the same kingdom; a system, be it said in passing, mightily resembling the conduct of a pugilist, who should tie up one arm that he might fight the better with the other. But Fairford was unprepared for the expensive and regular establishments by which the illicit traffic was carried on, and could not have conceived that the capital employed in it should have been adequate to the erection of these ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... not trust himself longer in Lord Strathern's company; he wanted time to recover his self-command; so he again addressed Sir Rowland: "That I left Elvas so suddenly, and unprepared for a prolonged absence, matters little, Sir Rowland; but I have been so little with my regiment of ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... foot, passed the Bayfield gates on the way to Axcester. The troopers entered the town while the Ting-tang was sounding, and before the roll could be called the prisoners were surrounded. Their release had come; and though many had sighed for it for years, it found them quite unprepared. ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... September. Our honeymoon we spent fishing and "roughing it" in the Canadian wilds. I felt at home and blissful. I could cook and fish and make a bed in the open as well as any man. It was heaven; but it left me entirely unprepared for the world I was about ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... Francis said, "as they will be unarmed and unprepared. We can issue out singly until the alarm is given, and then those that remain must rush out in a body. Simply knock them down with the hilts of your swords. There is no occasion to shed blood, unless in the case of armed resistance; but remember they will have their knives in their girdles, ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... opened trade with the rich khanate of Bokhara, south of the desert, and in various ways sought to consolidate the conquest he had made. But misfortune came to the conqueror. One day, being surprised by the Tartars when unprepared, he leaped into the Irtish in full armor and tried to swim its rapid current. The armor he wore had been sent him by the czar, and had served him well in war. It proved too heavy for his powers of swimming, bore him beneath the hungry waters, and brought the career of the victorious brigand ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... he suddenly, with no preliminary stir, hit the table with his fist a blow which caused the utterly unprepared Ricardo to leap aside. And only then did Schomberg look up with a ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... O'Iwa entered the house at Samoncho[u]. She gave a start on finding Iemon glumly seated before the fireless brazier. "A fine hour for a woman to be gadding the street. And the meal! Unprepared: excellent habits in a wife!——" "To the Danna apology is due. This Iwa is much in the wrong. But for the meal money had first to be secured...."—"Then there is money, or means to procure it? Where is it? How much?"—"Nay, ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... in Philadelphia much longer than I had originally anticipated, and unexpected warm weather found me totally unprepared. I immediately wrote to my sister Margaret and asked her to send me some suitable apparel. Her letter in reply to mine, which I insert, gives something of an idea of New York society of that period. As she ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... father had seen his end approaching with swiftness, and the realization came that his pretty child was unprepared to meet the world, he had said a good word for his actor friend, as the most practical and substantial admirer on Sylvia's list; and this she remembered, too, with a great ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... to places, in the Turkish fashion, men who were unprepared by their studies for them. One of his cooks became a colonel. Another colonel had been a merry-andrew. Having once received a good medical advice from his butler, he told him that nature intended him for a doctor, and sent him to study medicine ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... unprepared for any show of resistance; and is a little startled to find that Colombe defies him, and that one of her courtiers (not choosing to be outdone by Valence) has the courage to tell him so; but he treats the Duchess ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... unprepared for the opposition that awaited him, was riding down the street equipped point device, and with a goodly train of followers, in brilliant suits. Private wooing did not enter into the honest ideas of the burghers, and the suitor ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her air of coquetry. Gordon was facing the men, and was unprepared for the heavy blow she dealt upon the back of his neck. "Hang it on him, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... souls, the fruitless design! Pursue with avidity the beaten road which leads to popular honors and sordid gain, but relinquish all thoughts of a voyage for which you are totally unprepared. Do you not perceive what a length of sea separates you from the ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... Indians, laid hold of him, and gave a shout. Immediately all the Indians alongside of the canoe, and those on board, armed with daggers, pistols, pikes, and other weapons, seized every man on deck, who were totally unprepared for so sudden an attack. A most dreadful and sanguinary contest immediately took place; when, after a short but bloody engagement of about five minutes, the deck was immediately cleared ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... Session, Mr. Sheridan delivered his admirable answer to Lord Mornington, the report of which, as I have already said, was corrected for publication by himself. In this fine speech, of which the greater part must have been unprepared, there is a natural earnestness of feeling and argument that is well contrasted with the able but artificial harangue that preceded it. In referring to the details which Lord Mornington had entered into of the various atrocities committed ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... shield of faith. The very exercise of holding up the shield and keeping the soul in watchings makes it strong for the battle. If you do not exercise your soul in earnest prayer each morning, Satan will likely catch you that day unprepared. ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... that the Government went down to the House that day expecting to be resisted. The sequel was a startling surprise. Sir Edward Grey's speech was far from a great oration. It gave the effect of being unprepared as to form, so loosely did the vehicle hang together, the sentences sometimes coming with strange inexactitude for the tongue of one whose written word in dispatches has a clarity and precision that have never been excelled. But it had the supreme qualities ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... Dolf, holding up a key which had been resting in his pocket; "catch me unprepared; I thought about ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... said, "to think that John, my brother, should go before me! Poor fellow, bach! To be taken so suddenly and unprepared as ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the Triple Entente. On both sides were fear and suspicion. Each believed in the possibility of the others springing a war upon them. Each suspected the others of wanting to lull them into a false security, and then take them unprepared. In that atmosphere, what hope was there of successful negotiations? The essential condition—mutual confidence—was lacking. What, accordingly, do we find? The Germans offer to reduce their naval programme, first, if England will promise ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... before been so much in earnest, for never before had he met with the least indecision, and he continued pleading his cause so vehemently that Louis, who was wholly unprepared for so stormy a wooing, stopped his ears and whispered to his sister, "Tell him Yes, before ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... ungenerous," returned Hester. "You know I was then taken unprepared! The smallpox had but just appeared—at least I had ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Peggy, with a little gasp of dismay. "That's too wholesale a word for me, Rosalind! The only experience of the kind I have had happened in India, and I was entirely unprepared, for, as a matter of fact, I cherished a profound aversion for the victim! I didn't dislike him afterwards, though! I was so grieved for the poor fellow's distress, so grateful to him for liking me ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Katherine unprepared; she winced, then hesitated, not knowing what to say. He saw the trouble in her eyes, and paused with the pencil held between two fingers. "I am not asking from any desire to know the nature of the worry, if there was one; that would be quite immaterial in its effect on the issues. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Yes, sir, you could whisper. So long as you didn't talk out loud, it was all right. And there was no rising at the tap of the bell, forming in line and walking in lock-step. Seemingly it never entered the school-board's heads that anybody would ever be sent to state's prison. They left the scholars unprepared for any such career. They have remedied all that in city schools. Now, when a boy grows up and goes to Sing Sing, he knows exactly what to do and how to behave. It all ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... understanding his state of mind. He shouted Christine's name, brandished his pistol, knocked his forehead against the glass in his endeavors to run down the glades of the illusive forest. In short, the torture was beginning to work its spell upon a brain unprepared for it. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... meaningless group—if a degree of comparison be admissible in regard to a part when the whole is absolutely incomprehensible on archaeological principles—consists of a series of unprepared and irregularly shaped pieces of laminated sandstone (plate xvi.) similar to some of the stones of which the fort of Dunbuie was built, {132} having one of their surfaces decorated with small cup-marks, sometimes symmetrically arranged so far as to indicate parts ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... is to carry on any other part of his work. This method should be adopted not only in every department at Washington, but throughout the country; it should be taught in our schools and colleges, and so thoroughly that never again in a world-wide crisis shall we find ourselves physically unprepared. ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... superior in number and discipline, and the few who have escaped the slaughter are indebted for their safety to their knowledge of the mountain passes. We have no time to spare; our men must be instantly put in a state of defence or we shall be surprised unprepared: the hidden situation of this place affords no security, since a traitor Moor is the guide of the Christians; and to his perfidy is chiefly to be ascribed ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... attack was made on the Bank, and on that occasion its officers were so unprepared for an attack that the Armenians gained possession of the building, and held it against ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... is a limit, wisely observed hitherto, which makes the ballot a privilege and a trust, and which requires of some classes a time suitable for probation and preparation. To give it indiscriminately to a new class, wholly unprepared by previous habits and opportunities to perform the trust which it demands, is to degrade it, and finally to destroy its power, for it may be safely assumed that no political truth is better established than that such indiscriminate and all-embracing extension of popular suffrage must ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... the Secretary of the Navy is making all the ships at his command ready for service, so that we shall not be altogether unprepared to defend ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various |
