"Infelicity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will take this audit, take this life,/And cancel those cold bonds] This equivocal use of bonds is another instance of our author's infelicity in ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... importance to his inopportune visit. In a miserable indecision he allowed himself to be carried away by the high-flown hospitality of his Spanish hostess, and consented to stay to an early dinner. It was part of the infelicity of circumstance that the voluble Dona Maria—electing him as the distinguished stranger above the resident Fletcher—monopolized him and attached him to her side. She would do the honors of her house; she must show him the ruins of the old Mission beside the corral; Don Diego and ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... the happiness of HAMET was lessened, the infelicity of ALMORAN was increased. All the enjoyments that were in his power he neglected, his attention being wholly fixed upon that which was beyond his reach; he was impatient to see the beauty, who had taken intire possession of his mind; and the probability that ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... going to ask her if she meant for the invalid; but he checked the infelicity of this and took the enquiry as referring to social life. "No—I like it, with one thing and another; it's less of a mob than later on; and it would have for us the merit—should you come here then—that we should ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... soul should be consigned To infelicity, Why always I must feel as blind To sights my brethren see, Why joys they've found I cannot find, ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... denied this Privilege, but in having their Appetites at the same time vastly encreased, without any Satisfaction afforded to them. In these, the vain Pursuit of Knowledge shall, perhaps, add to their Infelicity, and bewilder them into Labyrinths of Error, Darkness, Distraction and Uncertainty of every thing but their own evil State. Milton has thus represented the fallen Angels reasoning together in a kind of Respite from their Torments, and creating to themselves a new Disquiet amidst ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and stormy. Petty, Tierney, George Ponsonby, and Fox censured Melville severely. Canning with his wonted brilliance, Castlereagh with the usual laboured infelicity, sought to strengthen the defence; but it had almost collapsed when, about 4 a.m. of 9th April, Wilberforce arose. At once Pitt bent forward and sent an eager glance down the Treasury bench at his old friend; for the verdict of a conscientious and independent member at such a time is decisive. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... hoped, stopped the arrival of the unhappy Corbin, Miss Sally returned home to consider the best means of finally disposing of him. She had insisted upon his stopping at Kirby and holding no communication with the Jeffcourts until he heard from her, and had strongly pointed out the hopeless infelicity of his plan. She dare not tell her Aunt Miranda, knowing that she would be too happy to precipitate an interview that would terminate disastrously to both the Jeffcourts and Corbin. She might have to take her father ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but palliative. Infelicity is involved in corporeal nature, and interwoven with our being; all attempts, therefore, to decline it wholly are useless and vain; the armies of pain send their arrows against us on every side, the choice is only between those which ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the revolutions of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of the modern world, which cannot easily repeat either the triumph of Alexander or the fall of Darius. But the peculiar infelicity of the Byzantine princes exposed them to domestic perils, without affording any lively promise of foreign conquest. From the pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by a death more cruel and shameful than that of the malefactor; but the most glorious of his predecessors had much more to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... should be a citizen or a councillor to be admitted to the Lord's Supper; his mind must be Christian and his conduct Christlike. Without faith the rite was profaned, the presence of Christ was not realized. Moreover, since matrimonial cases were many and infelicity sprang both from differences of faith and impurity of conduct, a board, composed partly of magistrates and partly of ministers, was to be appointed to deal with them; and it was to have the power to exclude from the church those who either did not ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various |
