"Mischance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glance. But he bowed profoundly, and with a sweep of his hat that made the rustics stare. 'Your ladyship's most humble servant,' he said. 'Allow me to hope that Mr. Dunborough is perfectly recovered. Believe me, I greatly regretted his mischance.' ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... reader. A few of us knew perfectly well who was meant, but that was all. Unfortunately, the particular story in which this person figured was first published serially in an illustrated magazine, and by some extraordinary chance—or mischance—the artist, in depicting the disagreeable man, drew a portrait of the actual original that was positively startling in its likeness. No one who knew him opened the magazine without saying at once, "Why, here's a portrait of So-and-so." ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... possibility. I like your appearance. I like your voice. Had you knowledge of the acute supersensitiveness of my cats you would understand that they will appreciate those points. I do not require in you veterinary knowledge; I require sympathetic traits. I do not engage you to nurse my cats—though, should mischance befall, that would come within your duties,—but to be their companion, their friend. You are a lady; themselves ancestral they will appreciate that. I understand you are an orphan; there also a bond links you with them. All cats are orphans. It is the sole unfortunate trait of their characters ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... file, Henry near the middle of the column, his figure in the dusk blending into the brown of theirs. He had completely recovered his strength, and, save for the separation from his friends and their consequent wonder and sorrow, he would not have grieved over the mischance. Instinct told him—perhaps it was his youth, perhaps his ready adaptability that appealed to his captors—that his life was safe—and now he felt a keen curiosity to know the outcome. It seemed to him too that without any will of his own he was about ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a riderless horse, which had been captured a few days ago by some peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de Bardelys's servants as belonging to their master, and that as nothing had been seen or heard of him for a fortnight, it was believed that he must have met with some mischance. Not even that piece of information served to arouse my interest. Let them believe me dead if they would. To him that is suffering worse than death to be accounted ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... filled with horror. Nobody claimed poor me, the baby. But the battalion, the Montgomery Battalion, it was, which had, by mischance, killed my mother, adopted me as their child. I was voted 'Fille du Regiment.' They paid an assessment annually, which the colonel expended for me. A ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... his wife,—what is left of a romance when the romance is left out. Worse still, she never was anything else. He has not so much as a memory of her, for he did not marry her for love; he may not love of his own accord, nor for the matter of that does he wish to do so. If by some mischance he should so far forget to forget himself, it were much better for him had he not done so, for the choice of a bride is not his, nor of a bridegroom hers. Marriage to a Far Oriental is the most important mercantile transaction of his whole life. It is, ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... attempts to make his favorite dog take the water. He would fain that the dog he loves should dash into the stream as other dogs will do. It is, to his thinking, a noble instinct in a dog. But his dog dreads the water. As, however, he has learned to love the beast, he puts up with this mischance, and never dreams of banishing poor Ponto from his hearth because of this failure. And so it was with Mrs. Clavering and her husband at the rectory. He understood it all. He knew that he was so far rejected; and he acknowledged to himself the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... clamour, by my landlady, who, dragging me in a state of bewilderment into her room, pointed to numerous specimens of granite, which her "young people" had, in their unhallowed thirst for knowledge, discovered and drawn from my trunk, which, by some strange mischance, had been left unlocked! In vain I mumbled something touching my love of mineralogy, and that a lapidary had offered I knew not what for my collection. I was compelled to "bundle," as the idiomatic, but ignorant woman ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging." Uz and Buz, by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot missed their grandfather and Ger ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... his post, with everything going well, his thoughts naturally reverted to the strange mischance by which little Inez Hawthorne was ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... have been such a girl as Sarah Rowe, who would have suffered agonies of fright at waking to find herself in such a place. But she had been led to the quiet, familiar Basin, and no harm had come to her, and she had good strong nerves, and lost all her fear in five minutes, so that the mischance would end only in an exciting adventure, which would give her something to talk about as ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... instance was disastrous. Davy slipped and came sprawling squarely down on the lemon pies. His clean blouse was ruined for that time and the pies for all time. It is, however, an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the pig was eventually the gainer by Davy's mischance. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... entire, and in it were three Mission Sunday School children imprisoned. The neighbors and all hands got their shovels and picks and crowbars and were working to set the children free. It came on night and they had not yet reached the children. When they were near them, by some mischance the lantern broke, and the ruins caught fire. They tried to put it out, but could not succeed. They could talk with the children, and even pass to them some refreshments, and encourage them to keep up. But, ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... was so, considered the case complete. Mesdames de Sevenie et de Montalais, he suggested, might as well then and there give up all hope of ever again seeing that particular chauffeur—unless by some mischance entirely out of the reckoning of the latter. The landlord of the auberge, a surly sot, who had supplied the barouche with the man to act as driver and guide in one, took with ill grace the charge that his employee had been in league with the bandits. ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... been worth thirty thousand pounds, the proceeds of various crooked businesses. At that moment he had been in San Francisco, when, by an unlucky mischance, a scheme of his had failed, ingenious as it was, and now he found himself living in an expensive hotel in London, with scarcely sufficient ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... informed him in yapping chorus that he was a scab and no good. But one evening, on his way to work, in a spirit of bravado he went into the Pile-Drivers' Home, the saloon at Seventh and Pine. There it was his mortal mischance to encounter Otto Frank, a striker who drove from the same stable. Not many minutes later an ambulance was hurrying Henderson to the receiving hospital with a fractured skull, while a patrol wagon was no less swiftly carrying Otto Frank ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... lives, with what kindly thoughtfulness he took his friends unawares, no one can imagine. He liked to do good to others and enjoy their surprise when they did not know whence the relief came. It pleased him to repair the injustices of fortune, to bring tears of happiness in families pursued by mischance. He was continually plotting, contriving, machinating in the dark, with a childish fear of being caught with his hand in the bag. The greater part of these fine deeds were not known till after his death; the whole of ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... governor was getting a force ready at Monterey to send to unite with one under Guerra from Santa Barbara. On March 16 they were to have met, but owing to some mischance, the northern force had to make the attack alone. Cavalry skirmishers were sent right and left to cut off retreat, and the rest of the force began to fire on the adobe walls from muskets and a four-pounder. The four hundred neophytes ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... and they cut it out somewhat after the fashion of the lintels of a doorway. Then they fitted in the door, which rested securely in its grooves, but they knew that the claws of a grizzly bear or mountain lion might scratch it out, and they intended to make it secure against any such mischance. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... such mischance as you mention might indeed very well occur, we will lower sail and ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... eye Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... gazed in silence at Selene's tall, slight form, he felt prompted to follow her, to say to her how very sorry he was for the mischance that had befallen her, and that the hound belonged not to him but to another man; but he dared not. Long after she had disappeared from sight he stood on the same spot. At last he collected his senses, and slowly went back to his room, where he sat on his couch with his eyes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... flame; 20 And in his Garland as he stood, Ye might discern a Cipress bud. Once had the early Matrons run To greet her of a lovely son, And now with second hope she goes, And calls Lucina to her throws; But whether by mischance or blame Atropos for Lucina came; And with remorsles cruelty, Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree: 30 The haples Babe before his birth Had burial, yet not laid in earth, And the languisht Mothers Womb Was not long a living Tomb. So have I seen som tender slip Sav'd with care from Winters nip, The ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Which, though most clear, Are not to be seen through; And, if she put her virgin self aside And sate her, crownless, at my conquering feet, It should have bred in me humility, not pride. Amelia had more luck than Millicent, Secure she smiled and warm from all mischance Or from my knowledge or my ignorance, And glow'd content With my—some might have thought too much—superior age, Which seem'd the gage Of steady kindness all on her intent. Thus nought forbade us to be fully blent. While, therefore, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... which drew from Major Oliphant the remark that England could not be held responsible for any accidental injury done by her cannon, and if the Russian's long nose came in the way of the ball, the Russian must submit to the mischance. ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... elderly man, and helped him forget the hurts to his respectability which rankled so when he remembered them. He explained the difference between the two routes from Malbaie on, and advised him to take the longer, which lay through a more settled district, where he would be safer in case of any mischance. But if he liked to take the shorter, he told him there were good campes, or log-house stations, every ten or fifteen miles, where he would find excellent meals and beds, and be well cared for by people who kept them in the winter for travellers. Ladies sometimes made the journey ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... questioning and replying gravely and at leisure, the man was revolving in his mind just what action would be best for the prisoners whose cause he had espoused. As for Judith, she had forgotten that such persons existed, that such trivial mischance as their arrest had just been; she was concerned wholly with the immediate necessity to ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... the fire without answering. He knew next to nothing of Vyse's history, of the mischance or mis-management that had brought him, with his brains and his training, to so unlikely a pass. But a pang of compunction shot through him as he remembered the manuscript of "The Lifted Lamp" gathering dust on his table for ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... unknown quantity, there was real danger in the sheer speed of the machine. Heavy as the car was, it lurched and swayed from side to side. And simply to shut off the power would not have been enough. Moreover, that was something both of them would have feared to do. The slightest mischance, the most trifling circumstance, might arouse suspicion in the watchers on the culvert. It was necessary, and Ivan had warned them specially of this, to dash under that at the highest possible speed for there would be stationed not private soldiers alone, who ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... that this added another to the many doubts I had to endure; and as I thought upon such a mischance occurring, I again looked eagerly outward, and ran my eyes in every direction over the surface of the bay, only, as on every other occasion, to meet ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... it, ran down the line, and picked it up. Then he returned with it to Paul with a look of sympathizing concern. It was a lady's handkerchief, evidently some signal waved to the well-born Herr, who was the only passenger on the platform. So, possibly, it might be from his friends, who by some stupid mischance had gone to the wrong station, and—Gott im Himmel!—it was hideously stupid, yet possible, got on the ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... that those who have children have given hostages to fortune. But I am inclined to think that those who have made large and important bargains with chance are just those who will move heaven and earth to guard against mischance. One aspect of the better America, proposed by the American Eugenic Society, will perhaps be the adoption of a sliding-wage scale, characterized by a rise in pay upon marriage and with the arrival ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... agreed, and Felix followed his own counsel by withholding from Joan all knowledge of the unpleasant mischance that had nearly cost the lives of the King and his companions in the besieged hotel. But his thoughts were busy, and, when he found Sobieski detained in the entrance hall, he consigned Joan and her maid to the care of a servant, briefly explaining that they were to be taken ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... between, as a moveable bridge, there was Montague and his fleet. When would the bridge move towards the Continent? That would depend on the newly-elected Parliament, which was to meet on the 25th. Could there be any mischance in ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... strange mischief and mischance; I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat; In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance, I am simply and symbolically meet; I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind; I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death; At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown, ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... "By mischance I am," replied Don Quixote; "though the ills arising from well-bestowed affections should be ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... where he has made a den. It will not come out till the spring. The catamount or panther is a much more dangerous animal than the wolf; but it is scarce. I do think, however, that the young ladies should not venture out, unless with some rifles in company, for fear of another mischance. We have plenty of lynxes here; but I doubt if they would attack even a child, although they fight when assailed, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... for some new amusement. Dream books had begun to pall. We no longer wrote in them very regularly, and our dreams were not what they used to be before the mischance of the cucumber. So the Story Girl's suggestion came ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... let in upon the kingdom not only new knowledge, but new motive. A useful rivalry commenced between the metropolis on the one hand, the residence, independently of the court and nobles, of the most active and stirring spirits who had not been regularly educated, or who, from mischance or otherwise, had forsaken the beaten track of preferment,—and the universities on the other. The latter prided themselves on their closer approximation to the ancient rules and ancient regularity—taking the theatre of Greece, or rather its dim reflection, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... their Town having a great Swamp running directly through the Middle thereof. The Land here begins to abate of its Height, and has some few Swamps. Most of these Indians have but one Eye; but what Mischance or Quarrel has bereav'd them of the other I could not learn. They were not so free to us, as most of the other Indians had been; Victuals being somewhat scarce among them. However, we got enough to satisfy our Appetites. I saw, among these Men, very long Arrows, headed with Pieces of Glass, which ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... gallant fight for health has gone unrewarded. But in the great majority of cases a wise conduct of life would retain robust strength for the threescore or more years of our allotted course, increase it for those who start poorly equipped, and regain it for those who by mischance, blunder, or imprudence have lost their heritage. Yet half the world hardly knows what real health is. Our hospitals and sanitariums are crowded, our streets are full of half-sick people-hollow chests, sallow faces, dark-rimmed eyes, nervous, run-down, worn-out, brain-fagged, dragging on their ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the student under the scarcely less grave one of misunderstanding. The danger is reciprocative, just as, to return to my nautical simile, the peril of the helmsman is shared by each passenger if he by mischance steers ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... in chill and formal voice, "I've sent for you upon the most unpleasant business it's ever been my lot to be mixed up in. Had I only to consider myself, what I have to say would be left unsaid. But I have to think of other and larger issues. If a mischance ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... and councillors of Greece, Can ye too see, or I alone, the cars? A diff'rent chariot seems to me in front, A diff'rent charioteer; and they who first Were leading, must have met with some mischance. I saw them late, ere round the goal they turn'd, But see them now no more; though all around My eyes explore the wide-spread plain of Troy. Perchance the charioteer has dropp'd the reins, Or round the goal he could not hold the mares; Perchance has miss'd the turn, and on the plain Is lying ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... away all suspicion, the soldiers left them, and no further mischance occurred. At night, just as the young moon was setting, the boat was brought out, and Harry, with little Dick and a comrade whom he engaged could be trusted, prepared their oars. At the same time, Dr. Bathurst and Rose came silently to meet them along the shingly beach. Rose ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may vary from time to time with every fresh batch of material, it is evident that, although the same quantities may be used at all times, at one time a deeper shade may be obtained than at another, and as it is impossible to see what is going to be the result, and if by mischance the shade does not come deep enough it cannot well be rectified by adding a quantity of dye-wood to the bath, because the mordant in the latter will prevent the colouring matter from being properly extracted, and only a part ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... July 1746. Capt. Roberts was a very downright individual, and years before the characteristic had got him into hot water. The occasion was when, in 1712, an Admiralty letter, addressed to him at Harwich and containing important instructions, by some mischance went astray and Roberts accused the Clerk of the Check of having appropriated it. The latter called him a liar, whereupon Roberts "gave him a slap in the face and bid him learn more manners." For this exhibition of temper he was superseded and kept on the half-pay ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... long-boat we cannot have been less than thirty; the exact number no man will ever know. But we shoved off without mischance; the chief mate had the tiller; the third mate the boat-hook; and six or eight oars were at work, in a fashion, as we plunged among the great smooth sickening mounds and valleys of ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... o' his wife, d'ye say?" he would cry. "Ay, as muckle as I feel the loss o' my hair. James Moore can feel naethin', I tell ye, except, aiblins, a mischance ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... am merely impressed again by the invulnerability of newspapers to thousands of important discoveries and inventions, newsworthy 'contributions to Science' as you call them in your bland ignorance of semantics, in contrast to their acute, almost painful sensitivity to any mischance." ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... how she lifted up her eyes to heaven (but as for her hands, they were bound with iron), he endured not the sight, but threw himself upon those that dragged her, the others following him. Then did a grievous mischance befall them, for the men of Troy that stood upon the roof of the temple cast spears against them, judging them to be enemies. The Greeks also, being wroth that the virgin should be taken from them, fought the more fiercely, and many who had before been put to flight in the city came against ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... where we took from him one of his great canoes; and once again in one of his towns, far away to the north, where we took another of his great canoes, with much gold of which he had robbed the Indian. But by a mischance my friend and I were left behind when our comrades sailed away; and for a time we were in danger of falling into the hands of the Spaniard. Then we escaped from them, but, having no canoe big enough to take us across the Great Water, we were obliged to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... succeeding that on which this unlucky mischance happened, an accident almost as bad befell, though not to me, further than that every one is bound by the Ten Commandments, to say nothing of his own conscience, to take a part in the afflictions that befall ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... so long in the loft, and hearing no noise in the room beneath, leaned over the trap-door, and, stretching out his neck as far as he was able, perceived the goodman to be asleep. However, whilst he was looking at him, he leaned by mischance so heavily upon the fan, that both fan and himself tumbled down by the side of the sleeper. The latter awoke at the noise, but the priest was on his feet before the other ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... mischance had chosen the moment it could not have been more opportune for the fire-lighting of malevolence. Griswold's swing-chair righted itself with a click, and Bainbridge's prophecy that a hot-hearted proletary was likely to become the hardest of masters ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... visit a bereaved family," the doctor answered, "either to certify the death, or to see that no mischance caused by grief has befallen the living. You need not hesitate to come with me. The scene is impressive, and there will be such a great many people that no ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... to be satisfied with the success which had attended his representation of the character of a somnambulist, he could not banish the doubts and fears that haunted him. Some unlucky mischance might betray him; "Old Batterbones" or Bates might tell the story; Sandy might be entrapped into an exposure of the affair; indeed, there were so many ways by which the secret might come out, that he was far from satisfied with ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... nights without thinking of them; and the crop grows in spite of his sleeping, and he knows it (Mark 4:26). That is why Jesus believes so thoroughly in his men, and in his message; God has made the one for the other, and there is no fear of mischance. ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... word, and only the weakness of Spain prevented war between it and France. The Spanish party in New Orleans muttered its discontent so loud that Laussat grew alarmed. He feared some outbreak on the part of the Spanish sympathizers, and, to prevent such a mischance, he not only embodied the comparatively small portion of the Creole militia whom he could trust, but also a number of American volunteers, concerning whose fidelity in such a crisis as that he anticipated there could be no question. It was not until December ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... believe Mr. Putney had sent me this card, nor that his wife had done so; certainly the Count did not send it. But no matter how it came to me, I was very sure I owed it to the determination, on the part of some one, that by no mischance should I fail to know exactly what had happened. I heard recently that the noble lady and her husband expect to spend the summer at her father's country-house, and some people believe that they intend to ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... tell thee how I had fortified myself against mischance. I can not break up the statue; sooner would I assail sweet flesh with a sledge; but when it is done I shall bury it in the sands. It will wrench me sorely to do even that. During the carving I feel most secure, for Memphis and Masaarah think I come hither to look after ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... wretched I, to whom this mischance is happened! nay, happy I, to whom this thing being happened, I can continue without grief; neither wounded by that which is present, nor in fear of that which is to come. For as for this, it might have happened unto any man, but any man having such a thing befallen him, could not have ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... go unobserved by those who had so much to gain if mischance should befall us in that last endeavour. Like pirates' junks, slipping from a sheltered creek, the devils in the longboats espied us in the moonlight and began to row towards us and to hail us with those wild shouts which yesterday we had heard even in the House Under the Sea. Yet, I witness, ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... three Kernels at every Stick, that if by any Mischance the tender Shoots of one or two are broken by Insects, or otherwise, there may be one left to supply the Defect. If no bad Accident happen, you have the advantage of chusing the straitest and most likely Shoot. But it is not best to ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... might be more disposed to hesitate, and reflect. The foul birds and filthy beasts seen consorting together, would be proof of prey—that some quarry had fallen upon the plain. Perhaps, a stricken stag, a prong-horn antelope, or a wild horse crippled by some mischance due to his ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the river's dim expanse Like some bold seer in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance— With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot. And at the closing of the day She loosed the chain and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... been Halet's trick. She'd found out about the crest cats, might have put in as much as a few months arranging to make the discovery of TT's origin on Jontarou seem a regrettable mischance—something no one could have foreseen or prevented. In the Life Banks, from what Telzey had heard of them, TT would cease to exist as an individual awareness while scientists tinkered around with the possibilities ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... quite faint, and which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... other, that if the Duke should arrange that the project should be put into execution during his absence, I would never mix myself up in it; whereas if he were himself to be present, I should without scruple keep myself near his person, in order to defend him against any mischance that might happen, my duty and affection towards him equally obliging me thereto. He granted me those two conditions, testifying at the same time that he esteemed me more for having made them, and added that he would be present at the execution ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... contain a spirit so fiery as Hugo's was in hostility to the new regime and its chief representative. Balzac, whom it would have been a happiness even to look at, was dead. Lamartine promised a visit, but for a time his coming was delayed. By a mischance Alfred de Musset failed to appear when Browning, expecting to meet him, was the guest of M. Buloz. But Beranger was to be seen "in his white hat wandering along the asphalte." The blind historian Thierry begged Browning ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... which has cost me much labour and meditation, will avouch to the contrary. What would befall this realm if my marriage were called in question after my decease? The same trouble and confusion would ensue that followed on the death of my noble grandfather, King Edward the Fourth. To prevent such mischance I have resolved, most reluctantly, to put away my present queen, and to take another consort, by whom I trust to raise up a worthy successor and inheritor of ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... once, in embarrassing circumstances, when his life and liberty were at stake, the dignity of his deportment and his perfect command of all his faculties extorted praise from those who neither loved nor esteemed him. But as a soldier he incurred, less perhaps by his fault than by mischance, the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... not tell. Perhaps she, too, can not. If you saw her, O Shakib, you'd do nothing for months but dedicate odes to her eyes,—to the deep, dark infinity of their luring, devouring beauty,—which seem to drop honey and poison from every arched hair of their fulsome lashes. Withal,—another devilish mischance,—she was dressed in black and wore a white silk ruffle, like myself. And her age? Well, she can not have passed her sixth lustrum. And really, as the Novelist would say in his Novel, she looks ten years younger.... To say we ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn which it cannot stand, though it continues the saga of the Mississippi with sympathy and knowledge; but The Fugitive Blacksmith has a flavor which few comparisons and no neglect can spoil. Its protagonist, wrongly accused of a murder which he by mischance finds it difficult to explain, takes to his heels and lives by his mechanic wits among the villages of the lower Mississippi through a diversity of adventures which puts his story among the little masterpieces of the picaresque. Though ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... mischance. Had he profited properly by Mr. Gryce's teachings, he would not have been caught like this; he would have calculated not upon the nine hundred and ninety-nine chances of that book being left alone, but upon the ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... with a bitter sense of humiliation that he cursed, again and again, the mischance of having encountered this man in the pawnbroker's shop. The only comfort he had in the recollection was, Mr Tigg's voluntary avowal of a separation between himself and Slyme, that would at least prevent his circumstances (so Martin argued) from being known to any member of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of the Hundred Knights rushed at Sir Key and overthrew him in return, and took his horse and gave it to King Lot. And when Sir Griflet saw Sir Key's mischance, he set his spear in rest, and riding at a mighty man-at-arms, he cast him down headlong and caught his horse and led it straightway to ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... each meeting she had had with Alec Trenholme. How she had dallied with him in fields and on the road, seeing now clearly, as never before, how she had smiled upon him, how she had bewitched him. What mischance had led her on? She sprang up again from the seat into which she had sunk. "Mercy!" she cried in an agony of shame, "was ever woman so foolish as I? I have treated him as a friend, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... wonderful stories are these same hope-sustained prospectors—tales that are bright with the glitter of silver and gold. Not a single one of them who has not discovered "leads" of wonderful richness or "placers" where the sands were yellow with gold; but by some mischance the prize always slipped out of his grasp, and left him poor in all but hope. And in truth so fascinating becomes the occupation that men who in other respects seem cool and phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the horde rushing toward some unexplored district, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... not be found a very difficult member of the poultry family to carve, unless, as may happen, a very old farmyard occupant, useless for egg-laying purposes, has, by some unlucky mischance, been introduced info the kitchen as a "fine young chicken." Skill, however, and the application of a small amount of strength, combined with a fine keeping of the temper, will even get over that difficulty. Fixing the fork firmly in the breast, let the knife be sharply passed along the line shown ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... mischance into a veritable frenzy of fright; and we were most seriously frightened also—not only because the destruction of the poor ass was imminent, but because of the danger which menaced ourselves. Our party was divided, and should the chain give way, under stress ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... it might be presumed that the recommendations of princes are received with great indifference by the clerks of ministers, and that their offices are the shoals where the petitions of the unhappy are lost; in fact, a man of great experience, to whom Mr. Correard communicated this mischance, told him, that, in such an affair, he would rather have the protection of the meanest clerk, than that of the first prince ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... dim and drifting, With wavering gulfs and antic heights and shifting Rent in the stuff of a material dark Wherein the lamplight, scattered and sick and pale, Shows like the leper's living blotch of bale: Uncoiling monstrous into street on street Paven with perils, teeming with mischance, Where man and beast go blindfold and in dread, Working with oaths and threats and faltering feet Somewhither in the hideousness ahead; Working through wicked airs and deadly dews That make the laden robber grin askance At the good places ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... precious dwarf, whom, both for his appearance and for his knowledge of armor, I had reserved as a gift for your father; and when that danger was past, I breathed freer, not calculating upon any further mischance.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... a widdow, euer I be wife. Ham. If she should breake now. Duke T'is deepely sworne, sweete leaue me here a while, My spirites growe dull, and faine I would beguile the tedi- ous time with sleepe. Dutchesse Sleepe rocke thy braine, And neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine. exit Lady Ham. Madam, how do you like this play? Queene The Lady protests too much. Ham. O but shee'le keepe her word. King Haue you heard the argument, is there no offence in it? Ham. No offence in the world, poyson in iest, poison in [F4] ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... to put up with the loss, and draw what comfort I could from the reflection that, no despatch in the missing cipher was extant. Whoever had stolen it, therefore, another could be substituted for it and no one the worse. Still I was unwilling that the King should hear of the mischance from a stranger, and be led to think me careless; and I bade Ferret be silent about it unless Henry missed the packet, which might ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... to belong to another body—beautiful, swift, and strong, and grafted by some foul mischance onto this rotten hulk. Very white they were, and long, with a nervous uneasiness in every motion, continually hovering around the cards with little touches ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... the air with falsehood's juggling brood, That no one knows how them he may elude! If but one day shines clear, in reason's light— In spectral dream envelopes us the night; From the fresh fields, as homeward we advance— There croaks a bird: what croaks he? some mischance! Ensnared by superstition, soon and late; As sign and portent, it on us doth wait— By fear unmanned, we take our stand alone; The portal creaks, and no ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... news, sahib! We have a surer way, aye, and a quicker one. Struggle not to-night, sahib, when I tie you to the ring in the wall. Bound you must be, for the Black One has spoken; and it is her pleasure that I shall lift my will from you, even as I did by mischance yesterday. India has suffered through this white woman; my people have been tormented by her, and Kali, the Black One, has commanded that the sufferings of the land shall be wiped out in the white woman's blood, and the torments of the people in ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... quartered. I found Captain Bowman, delivered the letter, and started back again through the brown, dusty street, which lay in the shade of the great forest trees that still lined it, doubling now and again to avoid an idling brave that looked bent upon mischief. For a single mischance might set the tide running to massacre. I was nearing the gate again, the dust flying from my moccasined feet, the sight of the stalwart Tom giving me courage again. Suddenly, with the deftness of a panther, an Indian ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... By some mischance this letter was delayed, and Mr. Gilmour's relatives were startled, one March day in 1874, by receiving from an entirely unknown lady in London a letter, containing the unlooked-for statement: 'Your son, Mr. Gilmour, of Peking, has asked my daughter to write to you, telling you of her decision ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... watching the horses, he came to the banks of a river, and saw a big fish, which through some mischance had been cast on the land, struggling hard to get back into ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... inconsistent efforts to do so, only supplied additional materials for the use of their astute and skilful enemy, to whom nothing ever seemed to come amiss; who converted every thing into ingredients of success; whom scarce any surprise or mischance could defeat or overthrow. A very short time before he withdrew from practice, he was engaged at Liverpool, whither he had gone upon a special retainer, in a very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... conciliated every one present, and Macbeth discoursed freely with his thanes and nobles, saying, that all that was honourable in the country was under his roof, if he had but his good friend Banquo present, whom yet he hoped he should rather have to chide for neglect, than to lament for any mischance. Just at these words the ghost of Banquo, whom he had caused to be murdered, entered the room and placed himself on the chair which Macbeth was about to occupy. Though Macbeth was a bold man, and one that could have faced the devil without trembling, at this ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... added the alderman, with wonderful patience, "to- morrow you may speak with the youth who received it. Come, sit down and sup with us, and then you shall learn from Smallbones how this mischance befel, all from my sending two young heads together, and one who, though a good fellow, could not hold all ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... evil smelling streets of the bazaars a man hurried that night, glancing behind frequently to see if by any mischance some one followed. He stopped at the house of Lal Singh, the shoemaker, whom he found drowsing over his ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... sufficiently uncomfortable fashion while the magic number Forty-five was chalked upon the soles of his shoes. He was no further hurt; if he had been a more prudent man he would have grinned at the mischance and said no more about it. But he chose to consider his dignity and the dignity of his empire affronted by the follies of a crowd. He lodged a formal complaint with the English Government. The English Government could do nothing ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... intermarriage, if not by the ties of kinship; and, second, by the patent fact of that great underlying cause of bitterness and strife among immortals as well as mortals, jealousy. It would have been an eruptive occasion of heart-burning and scandal if by any mischance a privileged one should have had occasion to feel slighted; and to have failed in courtesy to that countless host of wilderness imps and godlings, the Kini Akua,[28] mischievous and irreverent as the monkeys of India, would indeed have been ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... a young man, who had lost both arms, and was walking pensively between the trees. After some expressions of heart-felt commisseration, I enquired by what mischance he had met with so untoward a wound? He told me that he was in the act of loading his musket, when a cannon-ball, passing before him, carried off one arm above the elbow, and so shattered the other, that it ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... and terrible of aspect, and all of them bore in their hands javelins of steel that flashed in the sun like winter lightning. [85] Quoth Zein ul Asnam to Mubarek, "This is a thing that taketh the wits;" and Mubarek said to him, "It behoveth us abide in our place neither fare forward, lest a mischance betide us. O God, [vouchsafe us] safety!" Therewith he brought out of his pocket four pieces of yellow silken stuff and girded himself with one thereof; the second he laid on his shoulders and gave Zein ul Asnam other two ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... "No, by Allah, we be naught but Fakirs and foreigners." Then quoth she to one among them, "Wast thou born blind of one eye?"; and quoth he, "No, by Allah, 'twas a marvellous matter and a wondrous mischance which caused my eye to be torn out, and mine is a tale which, if it were written upon the eye corners with needle gravers, were a warner to whoso would be warned."[FN188] She questioned the second and third Kalandar; but all ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... man to get the treasure that people said was guarded by devils and ghosts in the deep ravines of Azuera. "Senor," he said, "we must catch the steamer at sea. We must keep out in the open looking for her till we have eaten and drunk all that has been put on board here. And if we miss her by some mischance, we must keep away from the land till we grow weak, and perhaps mad, and die, and drift dead, until one or another of the steamers of the Compania comes upon the boat with the two dead men who have saved the treasure. That, senor, is the only ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... he said, "upon this city, Empress of the North, her palaces, her castles, her stately halls, her holy towers, and think what war's mischance may bring. These silvery bells may toll the knell of our gallant King. We must not dream that conquest is sure or easily bought. God is ruler of the battlefield, but when yon host begins the combat, wives, mothers, and maids may ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... was pronounced by that lady to be very much sprained; and she, forthwith, proceeded to bathe it with a reddish-coloured lotion. During this operation, the carpenter underwent a severe catechism as to the cause of the accident; and, on learning that the mischance originated with Jack Sheppard, the indignation of his helpmate knew no bounds; and she was with difficulty prevented from flying to the workshop to inflict summary punishment ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in question preferring to make haste slowly to disarm all suspicion. At last the neutral, after having been searched several times without yielding anything incriminating, got as far as the frontier. About to pass into the adjacent friendly country the carrier was detained, and by some mischance the diary ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... Jessie. "His dog came home without him, and we were feared he had gone ower the cliffs, or that some other mischance had happened him. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other mischance. "Do you think you can watch the gentleman without being observed?" I asked. "I'm pretty well sure I can, sir," answered the boy, who is of an enterprising, and indeed audacious, temper. "Very well," said I, "you ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke. It was no doubt the desire to avoid this mischance that led to the invention of the mechanical instrument, now known under the name of the guillotine, which is merely an improvement on a complicated machine which was much more ancient than is generally supposed. As early as the sixteenth century the modern ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... in a place where she expected the boars would pass. The Duke and Don Quixote dismounted also, and placed themselves by her side; while Sancho took his station behind them all, with his Dapple, whom he would not quit, lest some mischance should befall him. Scarcely had they ranged themselves in order when a hideous boar of monstrous size rushed out of cover, pursued by the dogs and hunters, and made directly towards them, gnashing his teeth and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... philosopher such profound grief that it seriously injured his health, and impaired his understanding. An accident of a somewhat similar kind happened to the MS. of Mr. Carlyle's first volume of his 'French Revolution.' He had lent the MS. to a literary neighbour to peruse. By some mischance, it had been left lying on the parlour floor, and become forgotten. Weeks ran on, and the historian sent for his work, the printers being loud for "copy." Inquiries were made, and it was found that the maid-of-all-work, finding what she conceived to be a bundle of waste paper on the floor, had ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... bad, and he cared less for being liked than for being respected. He was the offspring of a mesalliance; and greatly over-estimating the importance in which his family was held, he imagined he would be looked down upon for this mischance, unless he kept people at a distance and in awe of him. The idea was a foolish one, no doubt, but then Sir Timothy was not a wise man; on the contrary, his lifelong determination to keep himself loftily apart from his fellow-men ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... sand the print of lion's paw, Waxed pale for fear. But when that he the bloody mantle saw All rent and torn; one night (he said) shall lovers two confound, Of which long life deserved she of all that live on ground. My soul deserves of this mischance the peril for to bear. I, wretch, have been the death of thee, which to this place of fear Did cause thee in the night to come, and came not here before. My wicked limbs and wretched guts with cruel teeth therefore Devour ye, O ye lions all that ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... Great things could be done! What if he should suddenly take her to his heart, forget his shame, and pain, and anger, and—follow her! What if he changed his heart if not his skin and made her life easier between the two loves that would guard her from any mischance! His heart yearned for her. What if he should say that his love for her was greater than ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... and tall fellows too; but lo! if they have the luck to be wounded where no doctor can be had, then they live; this too have I seen. Had I ever outlived that field in Brabant but for my most lucky mischance, lack of chirurgery? The frost chocked all my bleeding wounds, and so I lived. A chirurgeon had pricked yet one more hole in this my body with his lance, and drained my last drop out, and my spirit with it. Seeing them thus distraught in bleeding of the bleeding soldier, I place no trust ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... And yet mischance is honorable too— Seeming defeat in conflict justified Whose end to closing eyes is hid from view. The will, that never can relent— The aim, survivor of the bafflement, Make this ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... So soon is human violence afoot, So hardly is the harmless biter bit! Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit, Alack,—mischance comes seldomtimes alone, But aye the worried dog must rue more ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... that is the evil, not the damage to the book. I shall have a good opinion ever after of a boy honest enough to confess, May junior, I saw you," he added, hopefully and kindly. "Don't be afraid to speak out if you did meet with a mischance." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most dread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper born, and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was therein nothing blameful. I am but young to die, and thou canst save me with one little word. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hailing distance of the unhappy skipper when he reached the point, though I could still see his violent gestures. Miss Collingsby sat in the standing-room, watching her late persecutor with anxious interest. Perhaps she feared he might, by some foul mischance, undo what I had done; that he might annihilate the waste of waters before him, and step between her and me. I had no such fears. There were no boats or vessels near us, and I was satisfied that Mr. Waterford would be obliged to walk several miles to ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... to the greeting. He was too dumb-foundedly aghast at the mischance that had presented him, while arm in arm with a person of Marie's stamp, to the eyes of one upon whom he was striving to make an impression. What would Molly Dale think? The worst, of course. How could ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... this genius, and it seemed a mystery where and how in the ruined city which is at the heart of every city, in that cour des Miracles where the Bohemians camp, he had found, like a crystal vase, his exquisite style, preserved it unbroken by mischance or shock of fate, and carried it safely at last to ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... first battle had been reported at Rome as a victory, and gave rise to extravagant rejoicings. The second battle was really a victory, but all rejoicing was damped by the news that one consul was dead and the other dying. No such fatal mischance had happened since the Second Punic War, when Marcellus and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... brings them here at such an hour? But you must on no account admit them, Diego—at least, till I have had time to remove the Countess to her own chamber. What a cursed mischance!" ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... along, the keener become her apprehensions; that presentiment of the morning, which during all the day has never left her, now pressing upon her spirit with the weight of woe itself. She could scarce be sadder, or surer that some terrible mischance had happened to her husband and daughter, had she seen it with her own eyes. And were both to be brought back dead, 'twould be almost ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... of blood; the scene was changed from sunny life to wan death. Here were the staring eyes of a dead man, and his mouth twisted awry in its last agony. He could not away with the shock, nor divest himself of a share in it. If he, by mischance, had taken up with Manuela, he had taken up ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... "The Philosophy of Composition"[6] by Edgar Allen Poe, and those who by some mischance have missed it, can spend a delightful hour in the perusal of what, beyond the least doubt, is the most skillful analysis of poetic composition ever written, even though it fails to carry conviction that "The Raven" was ever produced by the ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... and the cry when the news of this mischance was noised about the city. Such a tumult of mourning was never before heard, for the whole city was moved. All men hastened forth to the place where the lists were set. Meetly to mourn the dead there rode nigh upon two thousand knights, with hauberks unlaced, and uncovered heads, plucking ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... clerk of the parish, As you the truth shall hear, And by mischance he cut them down, Or else they had ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... happened that mischance led General Dean to go over to see Major Buford about Chad next morning. The Major listened patiently—or tried ineffectively to listen—and when the General was through, he burst out with a vehemence that shocked and amazed his ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... which the guns and the men who work them were ranged. The risks of grave injury were therefore greatly increased by exposure to this, which by soldiers is called enfilading, but at sea a raking fire; and to avoid such mischance was one of the principal concerns of a ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... you that were my Beauty and my Own, Although from you derive all my mischance, Are not you still my Home, then, you alone, As young and mad ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... such, with their dull souls if they can. No! no! Margaret—we are one! and thus one, our world is as free from their control as it is superior to their dreams and hopes. Here is our heaven, Margaret—ah! how long shall it be ours! at what moment may we lose it, by death, by storm, by what various mischance! What profligacy to fly before the time! No! no! but a little while longer—but ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... food and other impedimenta from Cavor. The interior was warm, the thermometer stood at eighty, and as we should lose little or none of this by radiation, we were dressed in shoes and thin flannels. We had, however, a bundle of thick woollen clothing and several thick blankets to guard against mischance. ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... every one present, and Macbeth discoursed freely with his thanes and nobles, saying that all that was honorable in the country was under his roof, if he had but his good friend Banquo present, whom yet he hoped he should rather have to chide for neglect than to lament for any mischance. just at these words the ghost of Banquo, whom he had caused to be murdered, entered the room and placed himself on the chair which Macbeth was about to occupy. Though Macbeth was a bold man, and one that could have faced the devil without trembling, at this ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... little ladies away from the High Street, it seemed. I saw them again two days later. They had been out as usual, and some trifling mischance having happened to the Spanish saddle, they called at Mr. Buckle's door for repairs. I was in the shop, and could see the two little maidens as they sat hanging over their strap, with a doll dressed very much like themselves between them. I crept nearer ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... upon her a sudden curious sense of consternation—a feeling as of a mental earthquake when the very foundations of the soul are shaken. Had she conceivably been mistaken in him? With all her knowledge of him, had she by some strange mischance—some maddening, some inexplicable misapprehension—failed utterly and miserably to see this man as he ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... little troubled its head with the points of doctrine held by a community which contributes in other ways so largely to its amusement, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated tragic actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite springs of his actions. Indeed, it is with some violence to the imagination that we conceive of an actor as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... paid your debt of homage in advance for a twelvemonth. He who kisses the dust at our feet hath knelt for ten." Then, turning to Droop, who was down on both knees, with his hand still in his breast: "What now!" she exclaimed. "Hath your hand suffered some mischance, Sir American, that you hide it ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... troth!" said Chandos with a smile, "it is very fitting that we should be companions, Nigel, for since you have tied up one of your eyes, and I have had the mischance to lose one of mine, we have but a pair between us. Ah, Sir Oliver! you were on the blind side of me and I saw you not. A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me. We shall go in to the prince anon; but in truth he hath much upon his ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thee to lie down as chilled as thou art," exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's blood like a good wrestling ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... by some mischance Davy Junk was fitted out with red hair, a bony face, lean, gray lips, an' sharp an' shifty little eyes. He'd a sly way, too, o' smoothin' his restless lips, an' a mean habit o' lookin' askance an' talkin' in whispers. But 'twas ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... usual luck at Pringle Junction and just missed the 7.27 for Princhester. He might perhaps have got it by running through the subway and pushing past people, but bishops must not run through subways and push past people. His mind swore at the mischance, even if ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... furnished with jewels exceeding one hundred thousand pounds; "and the Lady Arabella goes beyond her," says the letter-writer. "All this extreme costs and riches makes us all poor," as he imagined![261] I have been amused in observing grave writers of state-dispatches jocular on any mischance or mortification to which persons are liable whose happiness entirely depends on their dress. Sir Dudley Carleton, our minister at Venice, communicates, as an article worth transmitting, the great disappointment incurred ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a Lord! some mishap will befall me, some dire mischance! Ne'er a Lord! ominous, ominous! our Party dwindles daily. What, nor Earl, nor Marquess, nor Duke, nor ne'er a Lord! Hum, my Wine will lie most villanously upon my Hands to Night. Jervice, what, have we store ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... the ages of eternity, but now manifested by the prophetic Scriptures'[111].... But only to a few of them is shown what those things are which are contained in the Mystery. Rightly, then, Plato, in the epistles, treating of God, says: 'We must speak in enigmas; that should the tablet come by any mischance on its leaves either by sea or land, he ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... is acquainted with Westminster-School, knows that there is a Curtain which used to be drawn a-cross the Room, to separate the upper School from the lower. A Youth happened, by some Mischance, to tear the above-mentioned Curtain: The Severity of the Master [2] was too well known for the Criminal to expect any Pardon for such a Fault; so that the Boy, who was of a meek Temper, was terrified to Death at the Thoughts of his Appearance, when his Friend, who ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the next chance in the encounter, and was thrown no less speedily than Astolfo; but he did not so easily put up with the mischance. Crying out, "What are the emperor's engagements to me?" he rushed with his sword against Argalia, who, being forced to defend himself unexpectedly, dismounted and set aside his lance, and got so much the worse of the fight, that he listened to proposals of marriage from Ferragus to his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the sudden mischance hath so wrought in him, who by nature is allied to nothing less than a self-debasing humour of dejection, that I have never seen any thing more changed and spirit-broken. He hath, with a peremptory resolution, dismissed the partners of his riots and late hours, denied his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... in the history of art is more nearly unique, perhaps, than that of any of the great artists. He was certainly one of the greatest of sculptors, and he had either the good luck or the mischance to do his work in a field almost wholly unexploited before him. He has in his way no rivals, and in his way he is so admirable that the scope of his work does not even hint at his exclusion from rivalry with the very greatest of his predecessors. A perception of the truth ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... mischance attending his previous meeting with Hwa-mei, Kai Lung sought the walled enclosure at the earliest moment of his permitted freedom, and secreting himself among the interlacing growth he anxiously awaited ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... they reached Melbourne, without further mischance. Harry induced Jack to remain with him, but Mr. Clinton, with a new stock of trousers, purchased in Melbourne, returned to America on the same steamer ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... the strayed one, Dreading what mischance had happened, Like a wolf she tracked the marshes, Like a bear the wastes she traversed, Like an otter swam the waters, Badger-like the plains she traversed, 120 Passed the headlands like a hedgehog, Like a hare along the lakeshores, Pushed the rocks ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... their prompt arrival was due, it is said, the victory of St. Quentin. Two years later, he commanded the luckless armada which bore back Philip to his native shore. On the way, the King narrowly escaped drowning in a storm off the port of Laredo. This mischance, or his own violence and insubordination, wrought to the prejudice of Menendez. He complained that his services were ill repaid. Philip lent him a favoring ear, and despatched him to the Indies as general of the fleet and army. Here he found means to amass vast riches; and, in 1561, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... caskets are so like the one to the other, that not seldom I mistake one for the other, which has befallen me on this occasion; for, whereas I thought to have brought with me the casket wherein is the feather, I have brought instead that which contains the coals. Nor deem I this a mischance; nay, methinks, 'tis by interposition, of God, and that He Himself put the casket of coals in my hand, for I mind me that the feast of St. Lawrence falls but two days hence. Wherefore God, being minded that ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... insisted upon paying them for their services. If he was asked for a loan of money, to be used for business purposes, and the borrower promised to give a part of his profits to the poor, he would demand no security beyond a mere signature. And if it happened that by some mischance or other the debtor was not able to discharge his obligation, Job would return the note to him, or tear it into bits in ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... was absent at the time at Santa Cruz, but Arundell, relying upon the friendship and esteem which the inhabitants had felt for his father-in-law, surprised the governor's nephew and deputy, the Sieur de la Place, and possessed himself of the island. By some mischance or neglect, however, he was disarmed by the French and sent back to Jamaica.[197] This was not the end of his misfortunes. On the way to Jamaica he and his company were surprised by Spaniards in the bay of Matanzas in Cuba, and carried to Puerto Principe. ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... and weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who, I know not by what mischance, in these my not old years and idlest times, having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say something unto you in the defence of that my unelected vocation; which if I handle with more good will than good reasons, bear with me, since the scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... in battle wince; With valour tart as pungent quince, He slew the vaunting Gaul. Rest there awhile, my bearded lance, While from green curtain I advance To yon foot-lights—no trivial dance, {45} And tell the town what sad mischance Did Drury ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... as two of the Brothers were at work together out of doors, one by mischance did unwittingly hurt the other somewhat, and he who had done the injury prayed the other to pardon him for God's sake. But the Brother who was hurt in body was whole in heart, and said: "Even if thou hadst slain my father I ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... Christmas Eve a soldier brave will be, And all that night in fancy he will trim a Christmas tree; And all that night he'll live again the joys that once he had When he was good St. Nicholas unto a certain lad. And he will wonder if his boy, by any sad mischance, Will find his stocking empty just because ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... immediately, on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the interior of the prison again; but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and assure himself that his son-in-law was, through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall of Blood ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... their original plan. The urgency of the danger admitted not of half measures. Egra might in a moment be in the enemy's hands, and a sudden revolution set their prisoner at liberty. To anticipate this mischance, they resolved to assassinate him and ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... for a moment they both stood there peering into the wonderful picture. Then altogether abruptly, and with no excuse whatsoever, little Eve Edgarton's heart gave a great, big lurch, and, wringing her small brown hands together so that by no grave mischance should she reach out and touch the stranger's sleeve as she peered up at him, "I—can dance," ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... much the better off in this society, which was limited to a certain number, as I was very well pleased with the daughter of the family, a very neat, pretty girl, and had opportunities to exchange friendly glances with her,—a comfort which I had neither sought nor found by accident since the mischance with Gretchen. I spent the dinner- hours with my friends cheerfully and profitably. Krebel, indeed, loved me, and continued to tease me and stimulate me in moderation: Pfeil, on the contrary, showed ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
