"Chancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... choice had to be made; and she chose at last a blue and white check that seemed to have borne its travels better than the rest. It had looked so fresh and striking in the window of the shop whence she had bought it. 'And you know, Miss Lucy, you're so tall, you can stand them chancy things'—her little friend had said to her, when she had wondered whether the check might not ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a certain wisdom in this, a wisdom of a dashing chancy nature. Fortune favours the brave; and the world certainly gives the most credit to those who are able to give an unlimited credit to themselves. But there was certainly risk in the life he led. The giving of elegant little dinners two or three times a week in London is an expensive ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... a chancy plan at best, and would probably break down long before any visit could be made to the city. But the revolt should be enough to free them from bondage, even if the slaves fled afterwards. There were less than fifty D'zertanoj at this well station, ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... other hand, a talent that manipulates chance events is bound to be chancy. No matter how highly developed it can't be surefire. The proof is that I've ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... a walie hammer; About the knottit buttress clam'er; Alang the steep roof stoyt an' stammer, A gate mis-chancy; On the aul' spire, the bells' hie cha'mer, Dance ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it was well on in the afternoon when that grave man dismounted a little stiffly from his pony, and I made bold to search for Dan and Belle, and tell my errand. It would maybe be a chancy business, but these two were like bairns then—and on the doorstep they were married. And when the minister's little pony was on its road home, and the sun still red to the west, and we three still standing at the door, Belle with with her ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... avocations, were many-coloured, and suited the silly half of his character, without altogether depriving him of the rights of a citizen, or making him the property and sport of school-boys. Like his employments, his earnings were chancy and various, ranging between a shilling to five shillings a-week, including gratuities, which his conceit prompted him to call "helps," with a view to avoid the imputation of living upon alms—a name, in the Scotch language "awmous," which did not ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... advice from Neil: to speak with no one by the way, to avoid Whigs, Campbells, and the "red-soldiers;" to leave the road and lie in a bush if I saw any of the latter coming, "for it was never chancy to meet in with them;" and in brief, to conduct myself like a robber or a Jacobite agent, as perhaps ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... human life is chancy at any kind of trade, But most of all, as well you know, when the steers are mad-afraid; So you go back to the cattle-boats an' ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... This latter is always fatal, of course; but ordinarily the quarry will run at racing speed for some little distance before falling dead. In certain types of country this means considerable tracking, may even mean the loss of the animal. Next comes anywhere in the barrel forward of the short ribs—a chancy proceeding, and one leading to long chases. After that the likelihood of a cripple ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... reluctant Van Rycke the Koros collection of their order, with instructions that it be sold on Terra and the price returned to them in the precious seeds and plants. In vain the Cargo-master and Captain had pointed out that Galactic trade was a chancy thing at the best, that accident might prevent return of the Queen to Sargol. But the priests had remained adamant and saw in all such arguments only a devious attempt to raise prices. They quoted in their turn the information they had levered out of the ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion of Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who did know ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope |
