"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very little girl, were passed in comparative confinement. On account of my delicate health, my grandmother and aunts deemed it wise to keep me indoors; or if I went out, I was so heavily coated and mittened and shawled that the frost scarcely got a chance at the tip of my nose. I never skated or coasted or built snow houses. If I had any experience of snowballs, it was with those thrown at me by the Gentile boys. The way I dodge a snowball to this day makes me certain that I learned the act in my fearful childhood days, ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... great change that has been wrought can be imagined, as the visitor looks out over the once famous harbor to find it a mass of green meadows with venerable trees growing here and there. Sandwich has no main street, its winding, narrow and irregular passage-ways being left apparently to chance to seek out their routes, while a mass of houses is crushed together within the ancient walls, with church-towers as the only landmarks. These churches give the best testimony to the former wealth and importance of the town, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... that the stories of Augusta Evans have no location. They happen in any place where the people chance to be and, given that kind of people, the story would evolve itself in the same way anywhere else. But for her there was always a place in which flowers grew and trees waved their branches to the breeze and made mystic aisles of purpled glooms, shot through with glimpses of sun amid ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... the names in the chance order in which they appear upon the passenger list—was a young diplomatist from a Continental Embassy, a man slightly tainted with the Oxford manner, and erring upon the side of unnatural and inhuman refinement, but full of interesting talk and cultured thought. ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the twist of the helm Reality made the coast a destination. Up to this moment the uncertainty of whether they could land had held her mind, up to this moment all sorts of vague possibilities, the chance of meeting a ship, the chance of being blown out to sea, the chance of this or that had come between her and the realisation of the fact that this ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... of Onslow's; and, as is my way, in deepest dudgeon I told my friends aloud that I had that day conducted for the last time; that on the morrow I should send in my resignation, and journey home. By chance a concert-singer, R—— (a German-Jew youth) was present; he caught up my words and conveyed them all hot to a newspaper reporter. Ever since then rumours have been flying about in the German papers, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... stocked myself with such a set of visions for the event either way, I do not pretend to foresee what will happen. Penetration argues from reasonable probabilities; but chance and folly are apt to contradict calculation, and hitherto they seen) to have full scope for action. One hears of no genius on either side, nor do symptoms of any appear. There will perhaps: such times and tempests bring forth, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... wondrous thinges, dare I lay,* *bet Of Love's folke more tidings, Both *soothe sawes and leasings;* *true sayings and lies* And more loves new begun, And long y-served loves won, And more loves casually That be betid,* no man knows why, *happened by chance But as a blind man starts a hare; And more jollity and welfare, While that they finde *love of steel,* *love true as steel* As thinketh them, and over all weel; More discords, and more jealousies, More murmurs, and more novelties, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... on with his news. Flanagan had gone back to America. Clutton had disappeared. He had come to the conclusion that a man had no chance of doing anything so long as he was in contact with art and artists: the only thing was to get right away. To make the step easier he had quarrelled with all his friends in Paris. He developed a talent for telling them home truths, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... chequered, so tragically wiped out, it might as well never have dawned. Yet the one dear woman friend to whom in these latter years he had spoken freely, who knew him through and through—Helena Pitstone's mother—had taken for granted, in her quiet ascetic way, that he had indeed had his chance, and must accept for good and all what had come of it. It was because she thought of him as set apart, as debarred by what had happened to him, from honest love-making, and protected by his own nature from anything less, that she had ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... &;c.; the adventurer, therefore, who could for eight-pence insure the return of a guinea, if a given number came up the first day, would naturally be led, if he failed, to a small increase of the deposit according to the decrease of the chance against him, until his number was drawn, or the person who took the insurance money would ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... at work without requiring much or constant attendance. Small streams of water trickle over the ore to keep it slowly sliding down towards the jaws, where the stamps thunder up and down alternately. A dread power of pounding have they, truly; and woe be to the toe that should chance to get beneath them! ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... ham, and his delicate rolls and creamy butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, one never asks in vain for delicious cafe-au-lait, good bread and butter, a nice omelet, or some savory little portion of meat with a French name. But to a tourist taking like chance in American country-fare what is the prospect? What is the coffee? what the tea? and the meat? and above ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... preparations for getting supper. Travellers had to provide a large part of their own meals, for, as already stated, these village inns were not hotels in the real sense of the word. They were simply rude lodging-places where travellers might be protected from the night air and have a chance to sleep while passing ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... There was no chance. De Chaumont wheeled ready to introduce me to the marquis. I was not permitted to speak to him. But Eagle took my right arm and moved down the corridor ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and his household were in search of Perceval, and by chance they came that way. "Know ye," said Arthur, "who is the knight with the long spear that stands by the brook up yonder?" "Lord," said one of them, "I will go and learn who he is." So the youth came to the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... slave-traders, in travelling with their slaves to the far South, to handcuff and chain their wretched victims, who have been bought up as the interest of the trader, and the luxury or necessities of the planter may chance to require, without regard to the ties sundered or the affections made desolate, by these infernal bargains. About the 1st of September, after the slaves destined for Alabama had taken a final farewell of their old home, and of the friends they were leaving behind, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... their duty being to watch for and transmit to the main body any signals which the leader might make. Then, some fifty yards in the rear of the rearmost of these five, marched twenty Cimarrones whose duty it would be to make a stand should the enemy by any chance appear in force, while the main body retired upon the nearest defensive position. Fifty yards to the rear again followed the aforesaid main body, consisting of half the Englishmen, the mule train, and the other ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... be surprised," he wrote, "to learn what I have in prospect for you. I know you deserve a longer vacation than you have had this summer, but I think, too, that you would not wish to miss this chance. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... pray thee peace! I will be flesh and blood; For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently, However they have writ the style of gods And made a push at chance and sufferance. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... us employ you to fulfil other functions. Be a don." She made a don of Gray, of Calverley. Cambridge men are for ever casting Calverley in our teeth; whereas, in truth, he is specially to be quoted against them. As everybody knows, he was at both Universities, so over him we have a fair chance of comparing methods. As everybody knows, he went to Balliol first, and his ample cabin'd spirit led him to climb a wall, late at night. Something else caused him to be discovered, and Blaydes—he was called Blaydes ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... disturbing possibility was that the British West India fleet, which very properly had sailed in pursuit, might defeat the two French fleets singly. This chance was put to the test on September 5. On that day Admiral Graves, with nineteen men-of-war, attacked De Grasse, who brought twenty-four into line outside Chesapeake Bay; and the decisive action of the Revolution took place. Seldom has a greater ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... keep, but her boy she cannot have. He will be taken by her highborn family and educated, and he must forget all about his mamma. To cry it is, ain't it? Das arme Kind! Well, she can stand it no longer to live where her boy is, and not to see him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets a chance to come by Amerika where there is a big engineering plant here in Milwaukee, and she begs her husband he should come, because this boy she loves very much—Oh, she loves her young husband too, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... ruin, and every mischief produced by gaming. This vice, however, carries with it its own punishment; but it is unconquerable in the heart which it ravages. It lays a man prostrate before those fantastic idols, distinguished by the synonymous names of fate, chance, and destiny. It banishes from his mind the idea of enriching himself, or acquiring a competence by slow and industrious means. It feeds, it inflames his cupidity, and deceives him in order to abandon him ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Kaws to buy theirs. Bank-bills were our only currency then, and the Indians knew there were such things as counterfeits. They consulted together, eyed us carefully, and then every man as he received his dollar brought it to me for approval. By chance I knew the Pawnee word for "good" (Washitaw), and they also knew it. Then came a strange wild scene. I spoke to the chief, and pointing to my whip said, "B'meergashee" and indicating a woman and a pony, repeated, "Shimmy- shindy, shoonga-hin," intimating that its use ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... name, passing from lip to lip, in a short time waxes great, and his qualities become very highly prized and honoured. And it happens often to a great number of men, who have left their country far behind them, that they chance upon nations that are lovers of ability and of foreigners, where, by reason of their upright walk of life, they find themselves recognized and cherished in such a manner, that they forget the country of their birth and choose a new one for ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... along the drain. This led him to the knowledge, that wetness may be often produced by water confined farther below the surface of the ground than it was possible for the usual depth of drains to reach, and that an auger would be a useful instrument to apply in such cases. Thus, chance was the parent of this discovery, as she often is of other useful arts; and fortunate it is for society, when such accidents happen to those who have sense and judgment to avail themselves of hints thus fortuitously given. In this manner he soon accomplished ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... proceed, upon your commands, and the authority of Lord Bacon, who says, he is surprised to find men make diaries in sea voyages, where nothing is to be seen but sky and sea, and for the most part omit it in land travels, where so much is to be observed; as if chance were better to be registered than observation. When you are tired of my register, remember, I can take as well ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... "He, Eutyches, professed that he followed the expositions of the holy and blessed Fathers who formed the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus, and was ready to subscribe to them. But if any where it might chance, as he said, that our fathers were deceived and led astray, that as for himself he neither accepted nor accused those things, but he only on such points investigated the divine Scriptures as more to be ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... battle by the illustrious Gautama, Dhrishtadyumna, greatly stupefied, knew not what to do. His driver then, addressing him said, "It is not all right with thee, O son of Prishata. Never before have I seen such a calamity overtake thee in battle. It is a lucky chance, it seems, that these shafts, capable of penetrating the very vitals, sped by that foremost of Brahmanas aiming at thy vital limbs, are not striking thee. I will presently cause the car to turn back, like the current ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fin' one a cop walks up an' asks yo' whah yo' live, an' ef yo' haven't got a place yet, becaus' yo' ain' got a cent to ren' one with, he says, 'Come with me, I'll fin' yo' a home,' an' hustles yo' off to the p'lice station an' down heah again, an' you're called a 4vag' (vagrant). What chance has we niggahs got, I ask ya? I hopes yo' all gits a vote an' fixes ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... never forget what was promised to the boy. He believes in thought; believes against thought in the mad world, in foolish man; believes in himself, and wonders what he could do, if he had yet only half a chance. All that is streams toward the mind, will stream through it and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... was still more disheartening, so that I never had a chance of showing what I was capable of in that way till I set up for myself. Master Moody, my next instructor, was thought to have uncommon qualifications for teaching oratory. He was a large, handsome, heavy man, over six feet high; and having understood that the first, second, and third prerequisite ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... citizens."[2522]—It is of no use to tell them that, alongside of Paris, there is a France. Danton has shown them that the capital "is composed of citizens belonging one way or another to the eighty-three departments; that is has a better chance than any other place to appreciate ministerial conduct; that it is the first sentinel of the nation," which makes them confident of being right.[2523]—It is of no use to tell them that there are better-informed and more competent ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... rest in the officers' pavilion he waited for his old playmate. As I write I see, as he saw, the long familiar ward, the neat cots, the busy orderlies. He waited with the impatience of increasing pain. "Well, Tom," he said, with an effort to appear gay, "here's your chance at last to ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Be sure that you take in as much of Christ as you can contain before you begin to think of what to do with the overplus. If we are not careful to take what we can, and to use what we need, of Christ, there is little chance of our being faithful stewards of the surplus. The water in a mill-stream runs over the trough in great abundance when the wheel is not working, and one reason why so many Christians seem to have so much more given to them in Christ ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... this depth of degradation I was rescued by a philanthropist, who had me fed and clothed and educated. I had at his hands every chance of leading a respectable life, but I did not want to become smug and honest. My early training was too strong for that, so after a year or two of enforced goodness I ran away to sea. The vessel I embarked on as a stowaway was ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... ardently loved a man, as Chloe must have loved Daphnis. He could not master himself, or calm his feverish passion, and went towards the abyss as if seized by mental giddiness. He could imagine nothing handsomer, more desirable, or more charming than that chance friend. He had sudden transports, fits of surprise, tenderness, curiosity, jealousy, the ardent longings of an old maid who is afraid of dying a virgin, who is waiting for love as for her deliverance, who attaches ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... be but ten?' and the Lord said, 'If there wasn't but ten, he wouldn't destroy them wicked cities.' Now," continued Grandma, with tearful impressiveness, "if Abraham had even a ventured to put it down one five more, what more chance do you think there'd be for ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... see us? What about?" cried Ilya Petrovitch. He was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle exhilarated. "If it's on business you are rather early.[*] It's only a chance that I am here... however I'll do what I can. I must admit, I... what is it, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... fighting on the side of the French against the Dutch. Charles II, with the help of French money, had been carrying on the war in opposition to the wishes of his subjects, who saw their fleets but feebly supported by their French allies, their trade seriously injured, and but little chance of gaining any advantageous return for the heavy cost. Charles himself had a strong affection for his nephew, and began to turn a favourable ear to his proposals for negotiations, more especially as his heroic efforts to stem the tide of French invasion had met with so much success. In these circumstances ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... abused yourself till you are breathless, I may have some chance," said Belinda, "of being heard in your defence. I perfectly agree with you in thinking that a suspicious temper is despicable and intolerable; but there is a vast difference between an acute fit of jealousy, as our friend Dr. X—— would say, and a chronic habit of suspicion. The noblest natures ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend, A something to have sent you, Though it should serve nae ither end Than just a kind memento; But how the subject-theme may gang, Let time and chance determine; Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Vacuity pure and simple—the exact opposite of Mental Assimilation. (4) If in reading over many times an entire series, only the ear and eye are mainly affected and the intellect is left to wander, much more must it wander here. In running over many words, the intellect might be arrested by chance. But here the series consisting of two words only and all attempt to occupy or engage the intellect being purposely avoided, and nothing being done to enchain the attention to the consideration of the meaning or sounds of the two words, or the relation between them, the intellect wanders away ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... scarcely a chance that the business might be made to live, the manager decided to take the public into his confidence—partly, perhaps, as extenuation for the failure he saw ahead. So he led out with a sales letter beginning ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... no chance of their being shot," he said with contempt, almost with regret. "All that is wanted of them are common sense, union, ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... at having mentioned the arch fiend in the presence of those who were his professional enemies gave Wynne a chance to interpolate a question. He could easily understand that the violent excitement of a quarrel with her old servant might account for the sudden death of his aunt. He perceived in a flash how Norah, terrified by the newspaper reports which had openly ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... pilgrim into his castle, and was secretly flattered by his familiarity, and cheered by his devilish gaiety, and was quite willing to make rules bend a little, and the place as pleasant as possible to his distinguished guest, and give him in fact, all his heart could desire, except a chance of escape. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... arrived in Paris early in March. Chance decided that he should lodge in the rue de la Mortellerie, in a house not far from the one where his wife's body lay buried. He went to see Derues, hoping to surprise him, and determined to make him speak, but found he was not at home. Madame ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... they were published. They found nothing and their thoughts went back to Messina; they wondered whether the children might perhaps have been crushed by a falling house in the streets, and whether they ought to return. In the evening they went to a caffe to read the lists, and by chance took up a Roman paper. They could hardly believe their eyes when they read the names of Turiddu and Gennaro among those who had been taken to the Instituto Vittoria Colonna in Naples. They went there at once, but it was already late ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... Chance conducted to the place which I had bathed with my tears, Sidy Mouhamet, sheriff of the tribe of Trargea. He saw me, and asked who I was. He was made acquainted with my history; they boasted to him particularly of my great possessions at Senegal, in powder, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... said George, with a bow; "I don't think the complaint has as yet exhibited itself in my mother's branch of the family. (She always hated me," thought George; "but if she had by chance left me a legacy, there it goes.) You would like, ma'am, to see the rooms upstairs? Here is the landlord to conduct your ladyship. Frank will be quite ready to receive you when you come down. I am sure I need not beg of your kindness that ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was the answer. "If you let me have a boat, with Jack there, and one hand besides, I'll undertake to get on board and bring them off. I know that it would leave you terribly short-handed if we were lost; but I don't think that there's any chance of that, and I'm sure that we shall be ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... what he tells them to do. He ordered your son, for a first employment in his new clerkship, to get a copy of a judgment which ought to have been served last evening, and Oscar, instead of doing so, allowed himself to be fooled. The master was furious. It's a chance if I have been able to repair the mischief by going this morning, at six o'clock, to see the head-clerk at the Palais, who has promised me to have a copy ready by seven o'clock ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... calling off his dog, and came up to her. It was an opportunity, and Edgar Harrowby was a man who knew how to take advantage of opportunities. It was in his creed to thank Providence for favorable chances by making the most of them, and this was a chance of which it would be manifestly ungrateful not to make the most. It was far more picturesque to meet her for the first time, as now, on the wild moor on a gusty gray November day, than in the gloomy old drawing-room at the Hill. It gave ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... to dinner that first day, he was very taciturn and grumpy indeed until soup and fish and third course were disposed of. Then when he got a chance with Dingee out of the room, Mr. Falkirk opened his mouth for the discussion of somewhat ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... a poisonous snake into the closet of that room where you locked me in. You expected me to open the door of the closet, and let him out. I did open the closet-door and let him out; but I did not give him a chance to bite me," I continued, rehearsing the facts for the benefit of Cornwood rather ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... or unprovided sisters, brothers, etc. I shall take care of you, and when I return I may possibly become a politician. A few years' knowledge of other countries than our own will not incapacitate me for that part. If we see no nation but our own, we do not give mankind a fair chance: it is from experience, not books, we ought to judge of them. There is nothing like inspection and trusting ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... how they gild the most ordinary objects! The trail you may be traveling may wander here and there, beset by tangles of briers or marshy ground or loses itself in a wilderness of barberry bushes, yet how much more wonderful to travel it, for its soil has been pressed by pilgrim feet. Some path may chance to lead you where a few old lilac bushes, a mound or perhaps a gray and moss-grown house, still stands where ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... our conversation resembled the confusion of tongues at Babel. We had the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off by the most discordant vociferation; for as they all spoke together, no man had any chance to be heard, unless he could bawl louder than his fellows. It must be owned, however, there was nothing pedantic in their discourse; they carefully avoided all learned disquisitions, and endeavoured ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bank of the Murray. Mount Lookout. Appearance of rain. Chance of being cut off from the depot by the river floods. A savage man at home. Tributaries of the Murray. A storm in the night. Traverse the land of lagoons before the floods come down. Traces of many ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... that was put before them, and drinking oceans of red wine at ten sous a litre; on bad days they smoked, fed, worked at their pictures or played coarse practical jokes on each other and the people of the inn; in fine weather there was always the forest to be exploited, and the chance of ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no saint—but at jedgment I'd run my chance with Jim, 'Longside of some pious gentlemen That wouldn't shook hands with him. He'd seen his duty, a dead-sure thing— And went for it thar and then: And Christ ain't a going to be too hard On a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... unfittest, long since departed this life, asked whether we refused to pass him. The third member, himself a volunteer officer, and myself, said we did. "Well," he rejoined, "you know this man may get a chance at you some day." This prudent consideration, however, did not ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... muttered, "for I would swear he keeps gold there, but the cart will be here directly. It's rare luck that he should be out, and the women too as I verily believe, for not a soul is stirring in the kitchen. Fancy leaving the house alone! I was a fool not to take the chance before." ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... was a work of inspiration, and that the agreement of its doctrines with Disciples' belief only proves the correctness of the latter; that Smith, in writing his doctrinal views, hit on the Disciples' tenets by chance (he had had no opportunity whatever to study them); or, finally, that some Disciple, learned in the church, supplied these ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... a singular chance, at a sale of the library of Dr. Guise in January, 1812, he met with two copies of Mr. Gough's juvenile translation of the History of the Bible; and at the end of one of the volumes were ten sheets ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... to soliloquize,—"but of revolution there is no chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then, shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him—what from? His father's halls? Well, but if he were dead, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... waited, and by and by he returned, a shabbily dressed, weak-looking little old man, with pale blue eyes and thin yellowish white hair. He could not put us up, he said, he had no room in his cottage; there was nothing for us but to go on to the next place, a village three miles distant, on the chance of finding a bed there. We assured him that we could go no further, and after revolving the matter a while longer he again said that we could not stay, as there was not a room to be had in the place since poor Mrs. Flowerdew had her ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... know the truth; her realization of it lay in the future—the future to me ever so present. Varvilliers would not tell it; his sincerity owned always the limit of politeness. I could not look to have my whim indulged; perhaps had there seemed a chance of fulfilment I should have turned coward. Yet I do not know; the love of truth has been a constant and strong passion in my mind. Hence come my laborious trackings of it through mazes of moods and feelings; painful trifling, I daresay. But my whim was accomplished; ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... glanced by chance at Lorand's face, and thought that the change of color he saw on his countenance was the reflection of the flickering ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... a pleasant time of it out there; that is, if there are no fresh troubles. I doubt not that in two or three years he will be one of our lord's esquires, and if he has a chance of displaying his courage and skill, may be back among us a dubbed knight before many years have passed over our heads. France is a rare place for gaining honours, and so it may well be, for I see not that we gain much else by ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... splendid building up town, and he says "No." "Then," says the villain to the greenhorn, "I will show you the lions and the elephants." After seeing the lions and the elephants, I would not give much for a young man's chance for decency or heaven. He looks in, and sees nothing objectionable; but let him beware, for he is on enchanted ground. Look out for the men who have such sleek hats—always sleek hats—and such a patronizing air, and who are so unaccountably ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... softer and weaker-like, an' didn't have her deathlike wearin' sleeps so often, but she went just as fast for all that. The doctor said 'twas heart-disease, and the nerves was gone, too; so he only giv' her morphy, and sometimes pills, but he knowed she'd no chance from the first. 'Twas a year ago last May when she died. She'd been confined to her bed about a week, but I'd no thought of her goin' so soon. I was settin' up with her, and 'twas a little past midnight, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... a life were all his surroundings—scenery, society, domestic refinement, and companionship—and never looked promise fairer for the realization of a dream of glory. That he had laid out something of such a field in the future, I chance to know, for, though my acquaintance with him was slight, he confided to me in a casual conversation, the plan of a series of dramas, different from all he had attempted, upon which he designed to work with the first mood and leisure he could command. And with his scholarship; knowledge of life, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Pythagoras are current in India (L. von Schroeder, Pythagoras). If there were but one or two of these cases, they might be set aside as accidental coincidences, but such coincidences are too numerous to be the result of chance. Even in details the transmigration theory of Pythagoras harmonizes with that of India. Further (after Schroeder und Garbe) may be mentioned the curious prohibition against eating beans; the Hesiodic-Pythagorean [Greek: pros elion ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... tried to think of Nicky and be sorry for him. But she couldn't. She was immoderately happy. She had given up Brodrick's magazine and Brodrick's money for Tanqueray's sake. Tanks would have his chance. He would be able to take a house, and then that little wife of his wouldn't have to sit with her hands before her, fretting her heart away because of Tanks. She was pleased, too, because she had made Brodrick do what he hadn't meant and didn't ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... Kenogami country," went on Sam; "it's two weeks from here by dogs, and it's our last chance in this country. I ain't dared ask too many questions, of course, so I don't know anything about the men who're hunting there. There's four families, and one other. He's alone; I got that much out of the last place ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... no less remarkable than true, with how little examination works of polite literature are commonly perused, not only by the mass of readers, but by men of first rate ability, till some accident or chance [10] discussion have roused their attention, and put them on their guard. And hence individuals below mediocrity not less in natural power than in acquired knowledge; nay, bunglers who have failed in the lowest mechanic crafts, and whose presumption ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Scotch naturalist, received him coldly, and told him, among other things, that there was no chance of his seeing Sir Walter Scott—he was too busy. "Not see Sir Walter Scott?" thought I; "I SHALL, if I have to crawl on all fours for a mile." On his way up in the stage coach he had passed near Sir Walter's seat, and had stood up and craned ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... of the general council of Uisa that Tierre d'Aiily renounced the support of Benedict XIII., and, for want of a better policy, again allied himself with the cause which he had championed in his youth. In the council lay now, to judge from his words, the only chance of salvation; and, in view of the requirements of the case, he began to argue that, in case of schism, a council could be convoked by any one of the faithful, and would have the right to judge and even to depose the rival pontiffs. This was, in fact, the procedure of the council ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... could never, indeed, become a passion with me; for I never got any farther, no matter how long I might have been playing. Had any one given me a general view of the subject, and made me observe how here certain signs and more or less of chance form a kind of material, at which judgment and activity can exercise themselves; had any one made me see several games at once,—I might sooner have become reconciled. With all this, at the time of which I am now speaking, I had, from the above considerations, come to the conviction, that one ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Lackaye, in which the Italian who so movingly confesses to the outrage is merely a detective in disguise, trapping the real bomb thrower—and suddenly he unmasks. If a serious playlet can be made to end with a light touch that is fitting, it will have a better chance in vaudeville. But this is one of the most difficult and dangerous effects to attempt. The hazard is so great that success may come but once in many ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... agree," said the Jew, who had entered upon this intrigue with motives of patriotism, and now, although suspicious of the result, was committed beyond a chance of turning. ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... hastily along Pennsylvania Avenue until he came to a drug store still open, and entered the telephone booth. He had recollected that the twins had a branch telephone in their sitting room; he would have to chance their being awake at ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... that he must have the property, that this was his one great chance in life. The girl might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after he had got her. That Elsie now regarded him with indifference, if not aversion, he could not conceal from himself. The young man at the school was probably at the bottom of it. "Cousin Elsie in love ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent. positive audacity; 100 per cent. will made it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated." (P. J. Dunning, 1. c., p. 35.) ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... content with a little food of the meanest quality; and, inasmuch as he was always rambling about and hunting, when he had leisure, he became intimately acquainted with all the spots, both impracticable and practicable, which gave chance of escape if he had to fly, or opportunity of hemming in an enemy if he was in pursuit. Consequently, it happened that Metellus, being prevented from fighting, was damaged as much as men who are beaten in battle, and Sertorius by flying had ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... sufficient distinction to achieve either a success or a failure. He had gained some notoriety by his wife suing him for divorce; but when the Court granted her separation on the ground of desertion, it cleared him of the charge of infidelity—and of the chance of advertisement at the same moment. Later, by being a constant attendant on Lady Durwent, he almost succeeded in creating a scandal; but, to the great disappointment of them both, London flatly refused to believe there was anything wrong. For one thing, she was the daughter of a commoner—and ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there malingering. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and I did it—a blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rushing on from the empty dining-room, had found her beside the sink with a bottle of carbolic acid upraised, ready to pour down her throat. Delia had struck it from her hand barely in time to save her from all but a chance burn upon ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... change the fact that you did it," replied the girl. "And you took a chance of losing your lives. The gasoline tank might have exploded and killed ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... the Escurial. It was, therefore, evident that, before the new Company could even begin its commercial operations, there must be a war with Spain and a complete triumph over Spain. What means had the Company of waging such a war, and what chance of achieving such a triumph? The ordinary revenue of Scotland in time of peace was between sixty and seventy thousand a year. The extraordinary supplies granted to the Crown during the war with France had amounted perhaps to as much more. Spain, it is true, was no longer the Spain of Pavia and Lepanto. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... might work through Zululand and thence northward to Beza-Town, the capital of the Mazitu, where we were sure of a welcome. After that we must take our chance. It was probable that we should never reach the district where these Kendah were supposed to dwell, but at least I might be able to kill some elephants in the wild country ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... nearly every year after she got so old. She told me things took place in slavery times. She was in Virginia till after freedom. She had two girls and a boy with a white daddy. She told me all about how that come. She said no chance to run off or ever get off, you had to stay and take what come. She never got to marry till after freedom. Then she had three more black children by her husband. She said she was the cook. Old master say, 'Jane, go to the lot and get the eggs.' She was scared to go and scared not to go. He'd beat ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... in just as usual, and met the doctor with her wonted manner; only the crimson stain on her cheek telling anything against her. She did not give him much chance to observe that; for Cindy followed her with the tea things and Faith busied herself about the table. The doctor went back to ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... I used to know. He's a recruiting sergeant for the ——shire regiment, and he wants me to enlist straight away. I wouldn't have given it a thought only what you said about serving the Queen has stuck to me, and it does seem a chance, and somehow that song has been in my head ever since I heard Miss Bertram sing it. I'd like to ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small daily task, If it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. It is the tortoise which always catches the hare. The hare has no chance. He loses more time in glorifying himself for a quick spurt than suffices for the tortoise to make ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... mustard-coloured coat would wholly blind them to his merits. I was a prisoner, a slave, a contemned and despicable being, the butt of her sniggering countrymen. I would take the lesson: no proud daughter of my foes should have the chance to mock at me again; none in the future should have the chance to think I had looked at her with admiration. You cannot imagine any one of a more resolute and independent spirit, or whose bosom was more wholly mailed with ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... people, however, made resistance perilous. Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in Florence. This act of submission proved that Rinaldo had not the courage or the cruelty to try the chance of civil war. Whatever his motives may have been, he lost his hold upon the State beyond recovery. On September 29th, a new parliament was summoned; on October 2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile and the Albizzi were banished. The intercession of the Pope procured ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... (cruising, not remaining in port), and that a collection of ships of various types hastily collected, which have only learned to sail together on the way to the theatre of operations, is no fleet, but a chance concourse of vessels."[27] ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... insolence, and to ascribe his master's delay in satisfying Antoine's requests to Philip's belief that his suppliant was confident of being able to frighten the Spaniards into restitution.[1211] They represented to Antoine himself that his only chance of success lay in devotion to the Catholic faith. Joining arms with "those flagitious men" the Huguenots, he would arouse the hostility of almost all Christendom. The Pope, the priests, even the greater ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... the preceding king, Louis XIV, the court lived in masses. Life was a pageant, a grand one, moving in slow dignity of gorgeous crowds, but a pageant on which beat the fierce light of a throne jealous of its grandeur. No chance was here for sweet escape and ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... automatism and the principle of inversion. They will not resolve everything for us, but they will help a great deal. We have to be very wary of giving way to dreams. It is really a sin against ourselves to prostitute the living spontaneous soul to the tyranny of dreams, or of chance, or fortune or luck, or any of the processes ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... it; he saw what it was; he had not observed it before, since we had been in darkness. And as he looked his composure seemed to desert him. He paled, and his hand trembled and hung loosely. The mad woman, seizing her chance, snatched the dagger from him, and like a flash of lightning drove it into his left breast. Sir Cyril sank down, the dagger sticking out from ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... them along?" asked his father; "the bit laddie is not likely to have another chance to look at such sights as one may ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... trial. The trial took place in July, 1715, and he was found guilty. But sentence was deferred till next term. October came round, but Defoe did not appear to receive his sentence. He had made his peace with the Government, upon "capitulations" of which chance has preserved the record in his own handwriting. He represented privately to Lord Chief Justice Parker that he had always been devoted to the Whig interest, and that any seeming departure from it had been due to ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... chance of ever seeing the man she loved again, had become a remote one. Still, she was determined to keep a close watch over his enemy, and a vague hope filled her heart, that whilst she kept Chauvelin in sight, Percy's fate might still be hanging in ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... impede any one from passing that way, without first ringing a bell; to answer which, was the sole employment of a servant, who was placed there during the Earl's residence, lest by any accident he might chance to come near that unfrequented part of the house, on which occasion the man was to give immediate ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... pluck, and she pressed on her difficult way with the utmost gallantry; but short of temper she certainly was, and at each succeeding obstacle there ensued a more bitter battle between her and her horse. Every here and there a band of crisp upland meadow would give the latter a chance, but each such advantage would be squandered in the war dance that he indulged in ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... and still enslave it, She begg'd to stay behind in Raby Castle, For courts and cities had no charms for her. Curse my blind love! I was again ensnar'd, And doted on the sweetness which deceiv'd me. Just at the hour she thought I should be absent, (For chance could ne'er have tim'd their guilt so well,) Arriv'd young Harcourt, one of Percy's knights, Strictly enjoin'd to speak to none but her; I seiz'd the miscreant: hitherto he's silent, But tortures soon shall force him ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... playing off their wing-darting delights. The Spring or Well is perennial, as old as the foundation of the city, and may have ran for ages before the palms were planted around it by the hand of man, or sprung up from a few date-stones left by some chance fugitives who had stopped to taste its waters, and then held their way on in The Desert. Without the Spring the city could have no existence. It runs into a basin made and banked up for it, an oblong square of some twenty yards by fifteen. In its deepest part it is not more than six feet. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... 'If I get a chance, Lucy, I'll try and find out whether he's thinking of marrying at all. And if he isn't—and I'm sure he isn't—will you give it all up, and try and live comfortable with Uncle Purcell, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the following morning go to church where they are blessed.[1372] This is the proceeding in Lohengrin. In the thirteenth century the prolocutor was going out of fashion and the ecclesiastic got a chance to take his place.[1373] Evidently there was here an ambiguity between the betrothal and the wedding. It took two or three centuries to eliminate it. When the man said, "I will take," did he mean, "It is my will to take now," ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner |
