"Accidentally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the prairie had been accidentally fired by our artillery, and the volumes of smoke now partially concealed the armies from each other. As the enemy's left had evidently been driven back, and left the road free, the cannonade having been suspended, I ordered forward the eighteen-pounders on the road nearly ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... danger I could not but fear, as she was now something of an adept in the handling of both the pistol and rifle, a fact which largely eliminated the chance that the shot had come from an accidentally discharged firearm. When I left the hut, I had felt that she and I were safe among friends; no thought of danger was in my mind; but since my audience with Al-tan, the presence and bearing of Duseen and ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... eyes to his true vocation, that of a dramatic composer. The excitement over the contest between Gluck and Piccini was then at its height, and the youthful musician was not long in espousing the side of Gluck with enthusiasm. He made the acquaintance of Gluck accidentally, the great ehevalier interposing one night to prevent his being ejected from the theatre, into one of whose boxes Mehul had slipped without buying a ticket. Thence forward the youth had free access to the opera, and the friendship ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... the fact, and William Heath had thus isolated himself from his home and all that he held most dear simply because, while on a pleasure trip, he had accidentally met a beautiful girl who had chanced to touch a chord in his heart that ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... mines alone saved the country from ruin. The first was the Kapunda. It was accidentally discovered by a shepherd, who picked up a piece on the surface of the ground, and showed it to his master. Pieces of copper ore may even now be found in ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... beautiful Creole from New Orleans, who, with her mother, and a young gentleman who appeared in the capacity of friend, spent the summer months in the North. They stopped at the Carlton, where my friend was boarding, and the acquaintance had been formed quite accidentally. The lady was beautiful, bewitching, and very tender; and, without stopping to inquire as to the consequences, or to assure himself that he had the least chance of success, Medwin fell desperately and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... he walked away from Sheshkovsky, unwilling to hear more, and as though he had accidentally tasted something bitter, spat loudly again, and for the first time that morning looked with hatred at Laevsky. His excitement and awkwardness passed off; he tossed his head ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the Dutchman. The fact that he had on a red sweater was the barest coincidence. Having observed the brick to be accurately pursuing its proper trajectory he had ducked back round the corner again and continued upon his way rejoicing. He had not even noticed Tony Mathusek, who, having accidentally found himself in the midst of the melee, had started to beat a retreat the instant of the crash, and had run plump into the arms of Officer Delany of the Second. Unfortunately Tony too was ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... happened accidentally." And she told him about the old gentleman who had come to her rooms when she stood absolutely penniless and at bay ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... was crushed accidentally, in the sixth year of his age, by one of his play-fellows; and thus he, who, by his natural disposition seemed to be destined to a military career, was obliged to enlist in the militia togata. He fought the good fight in verse. It is remarkable that Byron and Sir Walter Scott, his cotemporaries, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... did not altogether appear to take this view, the old lady half turned presently, and taking a long look down the other side of the car, to disarm Keith of any suspicion that she might be looking at him, finally let her eyes rest on his face, quite accidentally, as it were. A moment later she ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... stood side by side, with Roswell holding her hand "and carelessly turning over the leaves of a Bible," his eye accidentally rested on this passage of the book of Jeremiah: "As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you." And "thereupon he pointed out such text to said Mary Almira, and she responded to the same with a blush and a smile." Roswell further confessed, "that with ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... fragments of Cordaites, leaves, ferns, microspores, macrospores, pollen grains, rootlets, etc., exactly as would have done a gelatinous mass that upon coagulating in a liquid had carried along with it all the solid bodies that had accidentally fallen into it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... either remarkable for their power of drawing affection or were signalized by their enjoyment of the boon. Many a rare character, otherwise long ago consumed in the alembic of time, will long continue to be fondly singled out and studied. So when the famous Marchioness of Salisbury was accidentally burned to death, the Skeleton was known as hers only by the jewels with ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... four days, though I was often alone with Mrs. Fosdyke, she never said one word on the subject of Mr. Sax. Once or twice I caught her looking at me with that unendurably significant smile of hers. Miss Melbury was equally unpleasant in another way. When we accidentally met on the stairs, her black eyes shot at me passing glances of hatred and scorn. Did these two ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... will when their fathers were still alive, like women who have borne three children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by lictors with the fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being taken to execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes for any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who flogs the culprit ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... boys did not write or see each other till they met accidentally in the street at ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... trial; and every emergency, in peace or war, brings out some such instances. At the close of the troubles of 1856, in Kansas, a traveller chanced to be visiting a lady in Lawrence, who, in opening her work-basket, accidentally let fall a small pistol. She smiled and blushed, and presently acknowledged, that, when she had first pulled the trigger experimentally, six months before, she had shut her eyes and screamed, although there was only a percussion-cap to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... establish their authority in civil causes, and only transfer it afterward to tribunals of another kind, where that authority was not acquired. In some cases (and they are frequently the most important ones), the American judges have the right of deciding causes alone.[198] Upon these occasions they are, accidentally, placed in the position which the French judges habitually occupy: but they are still surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury, and their judgment has almost as much authority as the voice of the community at large, represented ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... 1622, a feltmaker's apprentice named John Gill,[498] while seated on the Red Bull stage, was accidentally injured by a sword in the hands of one of the actors, Richard Baxter. A few days later Gill called upon his fellow-apprentices to help him secure damages. In the forenoon he sent the following letter, now somewhat defaced by time, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... with perfect skill, and the certainty of their securing their end. These papers were to have been taken from the envelope, and found in the garret just at the right moment, either by Cynthia herself or one of the other members of the family, who was to be led on, as it were accidentally, to the discovery. The right moment must be close at hand. He was to offer his hand—and heart, of course—to Myrtle, and it was to be accepted. As soon as the decision of the land case was made known, or not long afterwards, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... referred him to the staff of the National Guard; who referred him to the subprefect; who referred him to his subordinate functionaries; who knew nothing on the subject; until the colonel, indignant at the impertinences of office, accidentally heard that the requisite conveyances were to be seen in front of the Hotel de Ville. Regarding it as the natural right of the soldier to be first served in all cases, he sent off a squadron at full speed to make his seizure. Nothing could be more complete. The affair was settled at once. The remonstrances ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... seemed to have thought more about such matters than she had, and she insensibly receded from her first hasty generalisation of him, and paused to reapproach him on another level. The little girl began to play with her glasses, and accidentally knocked them from her nose. The minister's face and figure became a blur, and in the purblindness to which she was reduced she had a moment of clouded volition in which she was tempted to renounce, and even oppose, the scheme for a ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... a great blunder. I did the thing accidentally which I had often had in my heart to do, but which I am very certain would have been impossible to me, had it not blundered out in a very miserable way. We were speaking of my late absence, and I let ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... Laurent, referring to Madame Guix. "Wonderful—afraid of nothing. Once at the beginning of the invasion she was put against the wall and a brute of a German aimed and pulled the trigger of a gun he had found in a corner. She had accidentally covered it with a wounded man's great coat! He accused her of hiding arms! Then in the thick of the battle, she went out into the German lines and sought a doctor for our men—feeling herself incompetent. The whole German medical staff came in and felicitated ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... was twenty-five men killed, of whom one was Lieut-Col. Loubeau, of the line, and 184 wounded, of whom seventeen were officers. The number of insurgents killed is unknown, but they are estimated it from two to three thousand, including, unfortunately, many indifferent persons, who were accidentally passing along the boulevards when the soldiery suddenly opened their sweeping fire. The insurgents taken with arms in their hands were carried to the Champ de Mars, and there shot by judgment of court martial. Most of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Irish nationality, in a gap in some desultory conversation that happened to occur casually, this latter worthy asked whether he could be accommodated with a room at "The Harp," while he remained in town, as he was a stranger in a great measure, and having accidentally, as he said, made the acquaintance of one he believed to be an agreeable landlord. Tom replied in the affirmative; for, in connection with the saloon business, he kept a few boarders and had, besides, ample accommodation for more than one occasional ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... marriage. In the mean time, Chremes, who is now living at Athens, and is ignorant of the fate of Pasibula, agrees with Simo, the father of Pamphilus, to give Philumena, another daughter, in marriage to Pamphilus. While these arrangements are being made, Chrysis dies; on which Simo accidentally discovers his son's connection with Glycerium. Chremes, also coming to hear of it, declines the match, having no idea that Glycerium is really his own daughter. Simo, however, in order to test his son's feelings, resolves to pretend that the marriage-day ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... Captain Beechey's expedition on the northwest coast of America, simply proves that there exists a layer of frozen drift, in the fissures of which (even now) the muscular flesh of any animal which should accidentally fall into them would be preserved intact. It is a slight local phenomenon. To me, the ensemble of geological phenomena seems to prove, not the prevalence of this glacial surface on which you would carry along your boulders, but a very high temperature ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... attacked by the so-called religious zeal of the Puritans, Ethelmar's heart was disturbed, as is recorded by a writer of the period, who says that "when the steps of the altar were levelling with the rest of the ground one of the workmen accidentally struck his mattock on this stone and broke it; underneath which was an urn wherein the heart of this Ethelmar was, being enclosed in a golden cup, which thing ... being conveyed to the ears of the committee-men they took the cup for their own use, and ordered him to bury the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... said his host, while a slight blush rose to his cheeks, "I will tell you, that though to my father's sternness and avarice I attribute many of my faults, I yet always had a sort of love for him; and when in London I accidentally heard that he was growing blind, and living with an artful old jade of a housekeeper, who might send him to rest with a dose of magnesia the night after she had coaxed him to make a will in her favour. I sought him out—and—but you say you ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... way. The cotton was brought to the market for sale, and I bought a pound for a penny. This was the price demanded, and probably double what they ask from each other. We saw the cotton growing luxuriantly all around the market-places from seeds dropped accidentally. It is seen also about the native huts, and, so far as I could learn, it was the American cotton, so influenced by climate as to be perennial. We met in the road natives passing with bundles of cops, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... they put themselves at once into postures of defence. They had drunk too much for science, and so were especially careful to assume correct attitudes, until Jolly smote Val almost accidentally on the nose. After that it was all a dark and ugly scrimmage in the deep shadow of the old trees, with no one to call 'time,' till, battered and blown, they unclinched and staggered back from each other, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Scott, and a large collection of the letters of distinguished men. For a considerable period his will could not be found, although diligent search was made for it, both at home and abroad, and his sister, Mrs. Cholmondeley, was on the point of taking out letters of administration, when it was accidentally discovered by Dr. Dibdin among some books on an upper shelf at Pimlico. As it did not contain any directions as to the disposal of his books, those in England, together with some brought from Holland, were sold by Sotheby and Son, Evans, and Wheatley at a series of sales extending over ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... time, or how dear it would be of them if they came next. She always introduced people to each other who were not on speaking terms, and had intentionally cut each other for years. She had a real genius for making people accidentally meet who had just broken off their engagement, or had some other awkward reason for not wishing to see each other—and then pushing them together so that they could not get away. At heart she was intensely a peacemaker, but people ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... is to cut just sufficient bread for each meal so that there will be really no left-overs. If, however, a few slices are accidentally left, put them aside in a can or jar, never in the regular bread box with the bread; one or two slices will invariably be missed until sufficiently old to mold and contaminate the remaining quantity of bread in the box, and then, too, they are more apt to accumulate in this way than in a ...
— Made-Over Dishes • S. T. Rorer
... smashed the lot," he remarked casually. But even I, with all my innocence, never for a moment believed he had stumbled accidentally. During the uncorking and the filling up of glasses a profound silence reigned; but neither of us took it ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... cotton-growing industry—aided, curiously enough, in a certain sense, by the prohibition of the African slave trade, giving rise to the slave-rearing business in Virginia and Maryland—has all along been exhibiting a steady, sturdy, and rapid growth. By the alliance, accidentally as it were, resulting from the prohibition of the slave trade, between the Southern and the Northern slaveholding States, a robustness and consistency were given to the whole slaveholding interest which possibly it might never have had under a different policy. If the foreign ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... effect:—That the practice now complained of, sir, is very frequent, and, whatever may be the temptation to it, such as every day produces some instances of, I have reasons for asserting with great confidence. I have, within these few days, as I was accidentally upon the river, informed myself of two watermen ignominiously dragged by force into the service to which they had voluntarily offered themselves a few days before. The reasons of such oppression, it is the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... by the stony nature of the plains, which would soon disable an unshod horse from taking part in the chase. Nevertheless, in two places in this very central region, I found small heaps of stones, which I do not think could have been accidentally thrown together. They were placed on points projecting over the edge of the highest lava cliff, and they resembled, but on a small ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... title of 'Army of Reserve'. By this artifice the honour of the Constitution was saved. The First Consul had not violated it. If he had marched to the field, and staked everything on a chance it was merely accidentally, for he commanded only an "Army of Reserve," which nevertheless he had greeted with the title of Grand Army before he entered upon the campaign. It is scarcely conceivable that Bonaparte, possessing as he did an extraordinary ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... before Skinner appeared. Skinner had reckoned that about that time the curmudgeon would be lounging around downstairs, waiting to meet him quite accidentally, so he permitted himself a cigar and a stroll in the office, which stroll was made to ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... element of his own self-created folly. Neither could it be otherwise. For, besides that, it would be too immeasurable a draught of woe to say in one breath that this only was the crux or affirmation of man's fate, and yet that this also was wretched per se; not accidentally made wretched by imprudence, but essentially and irrevocably so by necessity of its nature. Besides all this, which has a lurking dependency upon man's calculations of what is safe, he sees that this mode of ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Berghen, had been prevented from setting forth at the same time, by an accident which, under the circumstances, might almost seem ominous. Walking through the palace park, in a place where some gentlemen were playing at pall-mall, he was accidentally struck in the leg by a wooden ball. The injury, although trifling, produced go much irritation and fever that he was confined to his bed for several weeks. It was not until the 1st of July that he was able to take his departure from Brussels. Both these unfortunate nobles thus went forth to fulfil ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the unexpected arrival, she exclaimed to her sister-in-law, 'Why, there's Tom!' and went downstairs thinking to meet him entering the house. He was nowhere to be seen. Not long afterwards there arrived the news that her husband had been shot accidentally and considerably injured. Directly they met she related to him her curious vision, and on comparing notes it was discovered that it had certainly taken place more or less at the same hour as the accident, the husband declaring that as he fainted away his wife was most distinctly present in his ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... Huskisson appointed; but by some oversight or intention, the matter was not mentioned to Mr. Hemes, who, as chancellor of the exchequer was more immediately concerned in the investigation. It was only on the 28th of November that Mr. Hemes, calling at the colonial-office, accidentally saw a list of the committee and its chairman, drawn out by Mr. Tierney. On the subject being discussed, the chancellor of the exchequer was thought to have acquiesced in the appointment; but Mr. Hemes, in the course of the parliamentary explanations which followed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his Morning storie right: These two Antipholus, these two so like, And these two Dromio's, one in semblance: Besides her vrging of her wracke at sea, These are the parents to these children, Which accidentally ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the holy sister were busied in exchange of confidence, the extraordinary difference between, their countenances and their persons must have struck any one who might have been accidentally a witness of their interview. The dark pilgrim's robe of the disguised female was not a stronger contrast to the white woollen garment worn by the votaress of Saint Bride, than the visage of the nun, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... here will have the letter and the pearl in two days' time. Look to it that he never leaves this house at any minute from this time forth that you do not search him from top to toe. If he resists—ah, well, a pistol may go off accidentally, and things that Mauravania's king would give his life to keep hidden will come to light if any charge of murder is preferred. Monsieur the police spy, I wish you joy ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... master of the long lash; but it is easy to flick at a mark on the ground, and difficult to lean forward and catch a shirking dog just behind the shoulders when the sleigh is going at full speed. If you call one dog's name for "visiting," and accidentally lash another, the two will fight it out at once, and stop all the others. Again, if you travel with a companion and begin to talk, or by yourself and sing, the dogs will halt, turn round, and sit down to hear what you have to say. Kotuko was ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... Mr. Yrujo officially presented, as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from Spain, to him at Mount Vernon; but although Mr. Yrujo went there for the purpose, the ceremony of presentation was prevented by Mr. Yrujo's having accidentally ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... glanced up at the only passenger remaining, caught the fleeting shadow of interest on his face, regarded him with natural indifference, and looked out of the window, forgetting him. A few moments later, accidentally aware of him again, she carelessly noted his superficially attractive qualities, and, approving, resumed her idle inspection of the passing throng. But the next time her pretty head swung round she found him looking rather fixedly at her, ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... the moment of discovery. The philosopher began experimenting. He repeated what had been accidentally done and was immediately convinced that a force, or, as it were, invisible rays were streaming from the cathode pole of the tube through the glass, and through a substance absolutely opaque, and that these rays were performing their work at a distance on the surface of paper ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... upon their methods; I can state that now. The mental state which they reach systematically I reached accidentally. The solitude, the absorbedness, the lying in a bed month by month, the gazing upon a fixed point hour by hour—these are all self-evident facts with me, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the life so terrible, that prisoners would risk all to escape from it. In one year, of eighty-five deaths there, only thirty were from natural causes; of the remaining dead, twenty-seven were drowned, eight killed accidentally, three shot by the soldiers, and twelve murdered by their comrades. In 1822, one hundred and sixty-nine men out of one hundred and eighty-two were punished to the extent of two thousand lashes. During the ten years of its existence, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... I am sorry I took the boy in," remarked the doctor, not perversely, but with steadfast kindness. "If our own little boy had lived, and had done this thing accidentally, would I have been sorry he had ever been born? Or if little Ted had grown to be thirteen, and you and I had died in the wilderness of poverty, leaving him to wander out of the city to seek for a home in God's fair country, where his little peaked face could fill out ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... and in some cases pretty rich clusters. But besides these there are also nebulae in abundance and globular clusters in every state of condensation." It can hardly be doubted that the two nubeculae, which are, roughly speaking, round, or, rather, oval, are not formed accidentally by a vast number of very different objects being ranged at various distances along the same line of sight, but that they really represent two great systems of objects, widely different in constitution, which here are congregated ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... fact is unimportant, for Sprot was really speaking of movements at a date much earlier than July 29; he later gave a separate account of what Logan was doing at the time of the outbreak of the plot, an account not quoted by Hart, who fraudulently or accidentally confused the dates. And next we find it as good as explicitly stated, by Hart, that this letter of Logan's to Gowrie was never produced in open Court. 'Being demanded where this above written letter, written by Restalrig to the Earl of ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... some point truly sensitive, how often Lydia had sought it in vain, before Madame Steno obtained an ascendancy over the painter. She had been reduced by it to those meannesses of feminine animosity to manage, as if accidentally, that her husband might read all the disagreeable articles written about his paintings, innocently to praise before him the rivals who had given him offense, to repeat to him with an air of embarrassment the slightest criticisms pronounced ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... fortunes, the coxcombs also begin to court the two Jewesses. La Nuche comes to consult the mountebank and meets Ariadne attired as a boy, and Willmore in his own dress. Ariadne, who has a rendezvous that evening with Willmore, is accidentally anticipated by La Nuche, who runs into the garden during a night brawl between Beaumond and the Rover, each of whom is ignorant of his opponent's personality. Both the combatants encounter the courtezan in the garden and are joined by Ariadne. The confusion and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... have been stupid to stay and get shot at," Scotty pointed out. "Even if he is a good shot, he might accidentally clip you." ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... perhaps, seems strange in a girl as fond of the limelight as I was. I began to re-consider the question. Accidentally, I discovered that he had a wife already. What with one thing and another, I thought it best to write and give him up. He immediately resigned his appointment with the London General, gave me a long-priced certainty for the Oaks, and left for New York. When he returned, two ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... world this is for plots! And there is no escaping them. If we are not the originators of them, we are the victims—more or less. If we don't originate them designedly we do so accidentally. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... correctly without any idea of what they mean and far more frequently than you imagine he will receive a wrong impression by confusing words like zeal and seal of similar sound and totally different meaning. A teacher accidentally found out that her class supposed that the "kid" which railed at the wolf in Aesop's fable was a little boy, and I have had a child tell me that he saw at Rouen the place, where Noah's ark was burned, of course he meant Jeanne ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... powerful help to virtue, and to produce many examples of sinners, who have been converted by it to an heroic practice of piety. St. Austin mentions two courtiers who were moved on the spot to forsake the world, and became fervent monks, by accidentally reading the life of St. Antony.[11] St. John Columbin, from a rich, covetous, and passionate nobleman, was changed into a saint, by casually reading the life of St. Mary of Egypt.[12] The duke of Joyeuse, marshal of France, owed his perfect conversion ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the same way as chocolate, tea and coffee, meat has a stimulating effect on the system. He who is accidentally deprived of it finds that he experiences a passing depression. This obviously proves that by the exaggerated use of meat, one drugs and doctors oneself without discernment. However this may be, the judicious ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... a femur or thigh-bone was accidentally cast upon a millstone which lay by the shore, having been borrowed by the Crotalophoboi from the neighbouring tribe of Garimanes a good many years previously and never returned to them by reason, they declared, of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... he could get the feeling that his admirer might not be coming, we descended upon him in all our wretched nonchalance and unworthiness—out of hell, as it were. We were most brisk, familiar, affectionate. It was so fortunate to meet him so, so accidentally and peradventure. The night was so fine. We were out for a stroll in the park, to eat afterward. He ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... through Miss Ames' room, she stirred, and thinking she might be awake, you stopped and leaned over her to see. There you accidentally let fall—perhaps from your breast pocket- -the little glass dropper you had used—and as you bent over the old lady, she grabbed at you, and felt your jersey sleeve—even bit at it—and tasted raspberry jam. That jam got on that sleeve as you climbed up past the Patterson's ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... approach of the young lady, he grew pale; and, if this was sudden, started. If his eyes accidentally met hers, the blood rushed into his cheeks, and his countenance became all over scarlet. If he touched her, his hand, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... He had accidentally shot himself and was rapidly sinking. A fugitive in hiding for weeks, his life had been an intolerable one. Now that he was dying, he made a full confession, admitting his own hand in the awful railroad crime, and implicating two others, Elliston ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... lives are entirely occupied in writing what isn't true—and of course it tells' on them in the long run. They deceive others first, and then they deceive themselves, though in their fits of 'inspiration' as they call it, they may, while weaving a thousand lies, accidentally hit on one truth. But the lies chiefly predominate. Dante, for example, was a perfectly brazen liar. He DIDN'T go to Hell, or Purgatory, or Paradise—and he DIDN'T bother himself about Beatrice at all. He married someone ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... ranks of their following I have been content to cry: 'I don't know! I can wait! One world at a time is enough for me!' As to mediumship, or any manifestations of it, I know almost nothing. The few mediums I have met accidentally, have unfortunately failed to impress me favorably. All that I have heard or read of them has had a strong tendency to prejudice me against them and the philosophy they taught. Therefore, until my visit to this cottage, I have never ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my professor—he had not given me lessons, but about that time, accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand, examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly deficient, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in his hand, and, moving near the grate fire, began to read it. Suddenly the paper as if accidentally, slipped from his fingers, and fell upon the glowing coals—where it was ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... Bedouins who are not visible, and draw their knives and make savage passes at other Bedouins who do not exist. I am in deadly peril always, for these spasms are sudden and irregular, and of course I cannot tell when to be getting out of the way. If I am accidentally murdered, some time, during one of these romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr. Grimes must be rigidly held to answer as an accessory before the fact. If the pilgrims would take deliberate aim and shoot at a man, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... design is sometimes hard to distinguish from connection without design; as when a man treads on another's corns, it is not always easy to say whether he has done so accidentally ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... on Mr. Bobbsey. "Danny, and some of his chums, must have gone on the boat early this evening. They played about, as boys will, and some of them, either on purpose or accidentally, must have loosed the knots in the ropes before coming ashore. Then the boat just drifted ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... was entertained in his way by Aidoneus the king, who, in conversation, accidentally spoke of the journey of Theseus and Pirithous into his country, of what they had designed to do, and what they were forced to suffer. Hercules was much grieved for the inglorious death of the one and the miserable condition of the other. As for Pirithous, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Gumption enough to evolve any deep System for landing a Tid-Bit, but he had accidentally hit upon the ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... one day the rebel surgeon accidentally tore his coat across the breast, and turning to Major H. said, he would give him a bottle of wine if he would repair it. "Yes, sir," said the major, "if you will furnish me with a needle, thread, and a few other indispensables, I will ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... warrant from Mr. Riley, and returned to my office. A little after half past one, I received a message that, by the Marshal's permission, the counsel were to remain awhile in the Court Room for consultation, and wished me to join them there. I sent word that I would come immediately. I was accidentally detained, by a client, until nearly 2 o'clock, and, in the interval, the rescue ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... obtained against me by that rascally Meyer. Brought up before the magistrate, I was confronted with the blackguard and five other rascals of his stamp, who positively took their oaths that they had seen me taking the pocket-book of the general, which he had left accidentally upon the table in the bar of Tremont's. The magistrate said, that out of respect for the character of my profession he would not push the affair to extremities, but that I must immediately give back the two hundred dollars Meyer said I had stolen from him, and pay fifty dollars besides for the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... relief be provided for the injuries accidentally caused to Japanese subjects in the island Ikisima by the target practice of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and rhymes protect their nests, as in the case of the wren, the robin, and the swallow. Occasionally this gift seems to have been acquired by eating or tasting the flesh of a snake or dragon, as Sigurd, in the Volsung tale, first became aware of Regin's designs against his life, when he accidentally tasted the heart-blood of Fafnir, whom he had slain in dragon shape, and then all at once the swallow's song, perched above him, became ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... mother telling me of my father and herself meeting Mr. and Lady Caroline Lamb at a dinner at Lord Holland's, in Paris, when accidentally the expected arrival of Lord Byron was mentioned. Mr. Lamb had just named the next day as the one fixed for their departure; but Lady Caroline immediately announced her intention of prolonging her stay, which created what would be called in the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Namur [1], amidst other publick Rejoicings made on that Occasion, there was a Gold Ring given by a Whig Justice of Peace to be grinn'd for. The first Competitor that entered the Lists, was a black swarthy French Man, who accidentally passed that way, and being a Man naturally of a wither'd Look, and hard Features, promised himself good Success. He was placed upon a Table in the great Point of View, and looking upon the Company ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... coach, and lighting at my bookseller's in Paul's Churchyard, I met with Mr. Crumlum and the second master of Paul's School, and thence I took them to the Starr, and there we sat and talked, and I had great pleasure in their company, and very glad I was of meeting him so accidentally, I having omitted too long to go to see him. Here in discourse of books I did offer to give the school what books he would choose of L5. So we parted, and I home, and to Mr. Selden, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... conditions as serious conversation and discussion elsewhere, thus duplicating real life. We know that children may spell words correctly in lists that they will miss in writing letters, and that they can solve problems in arithmetic correctly in school that seem quite beyond them when accidentally met as actual problems outside. Such facts emphasize the truth that only actual life secures a full and normal test of knowledge, and, therefore, that the recitation secures it only to the ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Traveller; and the bookseller had such faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it till after the Traveller had appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money." ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... Strangulation or Hanging.—Often accidentally caused in children or intoxicated persons. Waste no time in going for or shouting for assistance. At once cut the rope, necktie, or whatever else causes the tightening. Pull out the tongue and secure it, commence artificial respiration at once (see Drowning), ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... example,) the fluid part is rapidly absorbed. The solid parts remain, to be acted on by the gastric juice. In the case of St. Martin, [Footnote: The individual here referred to—Alexis St. Martin—was a young Canadian, eighteen years of age, of a good constitution and robust health, who, in 1822, was accidentally wounded by the discharge of a musket which: carried away a part of the ribs, lacerated one of two lobes of the lungs, and perforated the stomach, making a large aperture, which never closed; and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... great commendations from the captain and his comrades, he disguised himself so that nobody would take him for what he was; and taking his leave of the troop that night, went into the town just at daybreak; and walked up and down, till accidentally he came to Baba Mustapha's stall, which was always open ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... had read much of Shakespeare while in the Panchronicon, found on returning thus accidentally to modern America, that this playwright was esteemed the first and greatest of poets and dramatists by the modern world. Then and there he planned a conspiracy to rob the greatest character in literary history of his just fame; and, under the pseudonym of "Delia Bacon," advanced those theories of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Trojan war, and are as follows:—The fleet, collected by the Greeks for the siege of Troy, had assembled at Aulis, in Boeotia, and was about to set sail, when Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief, had the misfortune to kill accidentally a stag which was grazing in a grove, sacred to Artemis. The offended goddess sent continuous calms that delayed the departure of the fleet, and Calchas, the soothsayer, who had accompanied the expedition, declared that nothing less than the sacrifice of Agamemnon's favorite daughter, Iphigenia, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... heard the like anywhere. So, restraining the torrent of my tears, I rose up, interpreting it in no other way than as a command to me from Heaven to open the book and read the first chapter I should light upon. For I had heard of Anthony [see also 77, e], that accidentally coming in whilst the Gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if what was read was addressed to him: "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me" [Matt. 19:21]. And by ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Naseby, and while yet the king was going and coming as regards Raglan, the wounded Rowland, long before he was fit to be moved from the farm-house where his servant had found him shelter, was brought home to the castle. Shafto, faithful as hare-brained, had come upon him almost accidentally, after long search, and just in time to save his life. Mistress Watson received him with tears, and had him carried to the same turret-chamber whence Richard had escaped, in order that she might be nigh him. The ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Hyacinth O'Gara? It is a little sixpenny book; I venture to say you would like it; I wish I was reading it to you. I am much pleased with Napier's History of the Peninsular War. The Spanish character and all that influenced it, accidentally and permanently, is admirably drawn. There is the evidence of truth in the work. Heber is charming, but I haven't read him! People often say "charming" of books they have not read; but I have read extracts in two reviews, and have the pleasure of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... with him. He tied it securely inside the shell so it could not shift with the changing gravity, or be accidentally turned on. Again he clung to the curved bar against the wall. Loah stood at the ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... confession, such a complete unburdening of the soul, it is not in her to make. It all came out of her by sudden jerks, so to speak, and then it was all over. But just because it came from her soul so unintentionally and accidentally, as it were, it seemed to me for that ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... personally for the protection of either of these officers. They could look after themselves, and, if they succumbed to the charms of the lady, and it cost something, why, that was none of his affair. But somehow the suspicion had come to him that he had accidentally stumbled upon a more complicated plot than mere blackmail. Mrs. Dupont's intimacy with Molly, and the use she was making of her distant relationship with the Major to further her ends, made him eager to delve deeper into her real purpose. At least these two, apparently ignorant ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... cunningly round, and made a rush towards the water, but on a second blow it lay again motionless and feigning death. We tried to rouse it, but without effect, pulled its tail, slapped its back, struck its hard scales, and teased it in every way, but all in vain; nothing would induce it to move till accidentally my son, then a boy of twelve years old, tickled it gently under the arm, and in an instant it drew the limb close to its side and turned to avoid a repetition of the experiment. Again it was touched under the other arm, and the same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... of ranks or predominance of vulgarity, of which his mother had complained. Lady Clonbrony had assured him, that, the last time she had been at the drawing-room at the Castle, a lady, whom she afterwards found to be a grocer's wife, had turned angrily when her ladyship had accidentally trodden on her train, and had exclaimed with a strong brogue, "I'll thank you, ma'am, for the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... to settle a dispute between Sarah Smithers and Cousin Betsey Skiles. Decided in favour of S. S., thereby angering B. S. Uncle Israel accidentally spilled his tonic on Cousin Betsey's clean apron. Much disturbance ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... powerful voice would be heard ringing out in oratory and declamation so that neighbors blocks away would say to Hayne or Timrod next morning, "I noticed that you had Simms with you last night." In 1860 the "Wigwam" was accidentally burned. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... conservative nobleman as he drank with one of the Red Republicans. "Ah," was the answer, "but not Liberty." Eight more prisoners before long were added to their number, and three were released,—one because he was eighty, one because of his wife's illness, and one because he had been accidentally wounded. At last, sixty mattresses were brought in, for two hundred and twenty-five men. They had no blankets, and had to trust to their great-coats to keep them from the cold. A few of them went to sleep, but were roused at midnight by an order that their quarters must ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... a suggestion, also, that in the average school, the vast possibilities of the child's latent energy are only imperfectly realized. A friend of mine stumbled accidentally upon this fact by introducing a new method of grading. He divided his pupils into three groups or streams. The group that progressed the fastest was made up of those who averaged 85 per cent and over in their work. A middle group averaged between 75 per cent and 85 per cent in their work, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... the store, each holding a bottle of red soda pop and laughing together. As they start down the steps DAVE accidentally steps on JIM's outstretched foot. JIM jumps up and pushes DAVE back, causing him to spill the red soda all over his ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... Tuileries had been shut in consequence; that a small part alone remained open to the public, who were kept at their distance by a national ribbon, which none could pass without being instantly arrested. This had prevented his apprising the Princess of the attempt which he had accidentally defeated, and which he wished me to communicate to her immediately. I did so by letter, which my good driver carried to Paris, and delivered safe into the hands ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... molestation until he reached Mouaou Kombo. Here he found the inhabitants comparatively hostile and distrustful, and in firing off a salute,—with the double purpose of intimidating them and restoring them to confidence,—one of his retinue accidentally shot two of the villagers. All hopes of friendly intercourse and of further progress were now at an end, and Du Chaillu began a rapid retreat, his men casting away in their flight his photographs, journals, and note-books, and hopelessly impairing the value of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Lord, pointing to Vivian, "is my son's friend, and I am quite sure that you are all delighted to see him. He arrived here accidentally, his carriage having fortunately broken down in passing one of the streams. All those rivulets should have bridges built over them! I could look at my new bridge for ever. I often ask myself, 'Now, how can such a piece of masonry ever be destroyed?' It seems quite impossible, does not it? ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... entire disregard for truth, and of sorrow for the exposure to cold to which I had innocently subjected the infant, I left the house. A few days after, I heard that the little one had died with croup. Jenny, whom I accidentally met in the street, assured me that he took the cold which caused his death from the exposure on the afternoon of my call, as he became ill the following day. I improved the opportunity to endeavour to impress upon the mind of the poor girl the sin of which she had been guilty, in telling a falsehood ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... which shine the more luminously that they spring from the events and situations with no suspicion of homily. In The Black Arrow, Dick Shelton begs from the Duke of Gloucester the life of the old shipmaster Arblaster, whose ship he had taken and accidentally wrecked earlier in the story. The Duke of Gloucester, who, in his own words, 'loves not mercy nor mercy-mongers,' yields the favour reluctantly. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... steps. At the bottom appeared what I should have taken to be a large square of dim, worn, and faded oil-carpeting, which might originally have been painted of a rather gaudy pattern. This was a Roman tessellated pavement, made of small colored bricks, or pieces of burnt clay. It was accidentally discovered here, and has not been meddled with, further than by removing the superincumbent earth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and, Dr. Hart having been called, and having briefly confirmed the evidence of his principal, the coroner announced: "The next witness, gentleman, is Dr. Thorndyke, who was present almost accidentally, but was actually the first on the scene of the murder. He has since made an examination of the body, and will, no doubt, be able to throw some further ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... on the 29th instant about eleven at night of a raging fever. I had some sort of knowledge of him when I was employ'd in the Revenue, because he used every year to present me with his almanack, as he did other gentlemen, upon the score of some little gratuity we gave him. I saw him accidentally once or twice about ten days before he died, and observed he began very much to droop and languish, tho' I hear his friends did not seem to apprehend him in any danger. About two or three days ago he grew ill, and was confin'd ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... the Disposal of the Dead. This done I took up the third volume, the last of the series, the first portion of which was headed, Renewal of the Family. This part I began to examine with some attention, and pretty soon discovered that I had now at last accidentally stumbled upon a perfect mine of information of the precise kind I had so long and so vainly been seeking. Struggling to overcome my agitation I read on, hurrying through page after page with the greatest ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... was on a visit to Florence, and refused all applications for his pictures he was accidentally taken in to paint what he so rarely condescended to ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... something hidden away within people that could not get itself expressed except accidentally. One was startled or alarmed and then the words that fell from the lips became pregnant words, words ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... flames one midnight,—whether fired intentionally or accidentally was not known; but the giant bellows at Dana's Mills was slit and two belts were cut at the Miantowona Iron ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that Miss Rachel put on her things, and accompanied the captain. She was prevailed on to take the captain's arm at length, greatly to Jack's amusement. He was still more amused when a boy picked up her handkerchief which she had accidentally dropped, and, restoring it to the captain, said, "Here's ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Talleyrand, I will go to greet the envoys of Poland," he said, taking his hat, and advancing a few steps. But at that moment his eyes, as if accidentally, seemed to behold M. de Mueller, who was standing by the side of Talleyrand. "Ah, I forgot the ambassador of the Duchess of Weimar. Well, perhaps it would have been fortunate for you if I had forgotten ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... we young folks went home to live on the old farm the town sold this deserted lot at auction for unpaid taxes. Some years before, vagrant woodsmen had accidentally burned the old house; but the barn, a weathered, gray structure, was still intact. Since the land adjoined other timber lots that the old Squire owned, he bid it off and let it lie unoccupied except as a pasture where ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... mould, said to be three or four feet deep, eminently fits it; and the lots each with a narrow frontage at the bank of the river, extends back two miles into the prairie. All is at a dead level. John Omand had asked us to dine at his house; but accidentally passing it without recognizing it from his description, we select a fair representative of the common class of houses, and ask for dinner. It is a log-cabin, like all of this class (some far better ones ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... it the more extraordinary is, that the man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has heard of me. I did not immediately recognize the donor; but one of Richard's cards, which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a moment, Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card imports that "orders [to wit, for brawn] from any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... against Georges, with but little success. The khan, however, did not deign to interfere in a strife which caused him no trouble. But in the year 1325 Georges again went to the horde on the eastern banks of the Caspian. At the same time, Dmitri appeared in the encampment. Meeting Georges accidentally, whom he justly regarded as the murderer of his father, he drew his sword, and plunged it to the hilt in the heart of the grand prince. The khan, accustomed to such deeds of violence, was not disposed to punish the son who had thus avenged the death of his father. But the friends of Georges so ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... steward to lift the corpse from the boards and carry it across the room and place it in the coffin. They obeyed, one at the head and the other at the feet, and were about half way across the room when the one who was at the head accidentally stumbled over a cuspidor, lost his balance, and dropped the corpse. The head of the dead man struck the floor, and to the utter surprise and astonishment of all present, a deep groan was heard. Soon the eyes opened, and other appearances of life were manifested. The physician was immediately ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... came to see the start, we left a little after noon, with one pack on a broncho mule, Jack riding a mule and I a favourite horse of mine called by the unusual name of Billy. The pack-mule always had to be blindfolded before we could handle him, and if the blind should accidentally slip off there was an instantaneous convulsion which had a most disrupting effect. Going straight up the canyon, we crossed over finally into Long Valley, and were on the headwaters of the Virgin. At sunset we came to a little settlement called Mt. Carmel, but continued to Glendale, ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... youth of 28.... He is a Vermonter, a man of considerable talent, and, in the way of despatching business, is a perfect 'steam engine in breeches.' ... He is the most democratic judge I ever knew.... I have often thought we should cut a queer figure if one of our Suffolk bar should accidentally drop in."[152] ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... he discovered two little lines of print, presenting, in the customary form, the address of the house at which the letter had been written! The writer, in taking the sheet of paper from the case, must have accidentally turned it wrong side uppermost on the desk, and had not cared to re-copy the letter, or had not discovered the mistake. Restored to his best good-humour, Hugh resolved to surprise Mrs. Vimpany ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once accidentally offended her, and I ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... tenth and eleventh month the first perception of causality was observed. Thus on the three hundred and nineteenth day the child was beating on a plate with a spoon and accidentally found that the sound was damped by placing the other hand upon the plate; it then changed its hands and repeated the experiment. Similarly at eleven months it struck a spoon upon a newspaper, and changed hands to see if this would modify the sound. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... no more locality in common with Pennsylvania than with Penmanmaur. It is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all Americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. It is thus that self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting any thing which happens, even accidentally, to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... roused her guardian from that mildness with which he had been accustomed to treat her. Night after night his sleep had been disturbed by fears for her when abroad; morning after morning it had been broken by the clamour of her return. He therefore gravely said to her one forenoon as he met her accidentally ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... with Mr. Darwin, that extreme difference of the sexes has been gradually produced by what he terms sexual selection, since it may be supposed to exhibit one of the intermediate steps in that process, which has been accidentally preserved in company with its more favoured rivals, though its extreme rarity (only one specimen having been seen to many hundreds of the other form) would indicate that it may soon ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Powers who are to be invited to sign a protocol, the object of which is to decide upon the fate of Holstein, have proved successful in convincing her of the propriety of this course. As Holstein belongs to the Germanic Confederation and is only accidentally connected with Denmark through its Sovereign, a Protocol to ensure the integrity of the Danish Monarchy is a direct attack upon Germany, if carried out without her knowledge and consent; and it is an act repugnant to all feelings ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... carefully. We are made to rip, and do work over, to suit the notions of the big firms, who want the garments to send out on the road. It takes twice as long to make such a coat, but we get no more for it. Of course the game is played on us when the coats are not really samples. If we accidentally scorch the cloth a little, in pressing, we have ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... had been sent accidentally— or perhaps deliberately—by its captain. It was sweeping around in a spiral whose radius kept growing smaller and smaller. The skiff, still attached to the ship's plating, was likewise carried ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... I'll take care of them; and Thompson, if the newspaper fellows come here to-night, say that the young lady fell over the wharf accidentally, and has gone home ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the paper down with a gesture of impatience, and got up; and then, as if ashamed of his irritability, he took it again, and gave it back to her. In doing so his hand accidentally touched hers. ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... say much to each other. There would be time for that when all was over! Were they not going the journey together? would they not dwell in happy company, through the long years of eternity? The man who was nailing the chain close to where Elizabeth stood accidentally let his hammer slip. He had not intended to hurt her; but the hammer came down heavily upon her shoulder and made a severe wound. She turned her head to him and smiled on him. Then she lifted up her eyes to heaven and prayed. Her last few moments were spent in alternate ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt |
