Once more the passionate interest in one's fellows, which had for so long been hushed under the all-dominating public calamity, refreshed and enlarged the mind.

We now see our private distresses and the public calamity as merely hideous.

Shaw described his suicide at the age of 39 as a "public calamity".

The financial ruin of a man of acknowledged energy and enterprise is a public calamity.

It was also generally regarded as a public calamity.

Other occasions of mourning on which the beard was allowed to grow were, appearance as a reus, condemnation, or some public calamity.

Christian catacombs dating to the same period reveal bodies were piled-up hurriedly in a manner indicating a public calamity.

Bernard Shaw described Hankin's death as "a public calamity."

In the face of these public calamities and private sorrows, Francis Joseph did his duty.

It might be otherwise during a public calamity; an invasion, for example, such as that of the French in 1672.