Next comes 1803. Upon the Louisiana Purchase, I have already touched; but not upon its diplomatic side. In those years the European game of diplomacy was truly portentous. Bonaparte had appeared, and Bonaparte was the storm centre. From the heap of jackstraws I shall lift out only that which directly concerns us and our acquisition of that enormous territory, then called Louisiana. Bonaparte had dreamed and planned an empire over here. Certain vicissitudes disenchanted him. A plan to invade England also helped to deflect his mind from establishing an outpost of his empire upon our continent.英文原著 · 《A Straight Deal》
My one great longing then was to be able to speak with the tongue of John Most,--that I, too, might thus reach the masses. Oh, for the naivety of Youth's enthusiasm! It is the time when the hardest thing seems but child's play. It is the only period in life worth while. This period is but of short duration. Like Spring, the STURM UND DRANG period of the propagandist brings forth growth, frail and delicate, to be matured or killed according to its powers of resistance against a thousand vicissitudes.英文原著 · 《Anarchism and Other Essays》
Thus a happy and opulent family, Raised by the grandfather, and augmented by the father, became extinguished with the grandson. Go, Reader! And reflecting on the vicissitudes of all human affairs, Meditate on eternity.英文原著 · 《Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson》
Demetrius, determining still to hold on by the wreck, went off to Greece, and collected his friends and officers there. Menelaus, in the play of Sophocles, to give an image of his vicissitudes of estate, says-英文原著 · 《DEMETRIUS》
So far we have followed what may be called the vicissitudes of the great Permo-Carboniferous Gondwana land in its fullest imaginary extent, an enormous equatorial and south temperate belt from South America to Africa, South India and Australia, which seems to have provided the foundation of the present Southern continents, two of which temporarily joined Antarctica, of which however we know nothing except that it exists now.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
And you will forget the vicissitudes of the last few days and you will remember who you are.美剧 · 《Billions》
Recent events Have demonstrated to me that my body is too fragile To endure the vicissitudes of the world.美剧 · 《The Big Bang Theory》