"Chance upon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only when they are fortunate enough to get into a better class of work, and when they chance upon some well-organized establishment and are drawn into the union as a matter of course that we find Polish girls in unions at all. Intellectually they are not in the running with the Russian Jewess and the peasant surroundings of their childhood ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... master. In hunting through those rooms behind the altar, I came quite by chance upon a cell which had escaped the notice of our soldiers when they threaded their way through the winding passages below. I burst open the door, looked in, and saw that beautiful creature. "Ah, ah!" said I. "By the ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... unlikely,' concluded Carr hastily as they heard the subject of their discussion moving about in the cabin, 'and admit that he may chance upon a second strike. What then? Why, Sanchia and Devine and Courtot and a crowd of hangers-on have their eyes on him. They'd oust him again with not the shadow of a doubt ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... treasure-cave; Where henceforth sudden gleams of spring would pass Thorough the four-walled darkness of the room; And sounds of spring-time whisper trembling by, Though stony streets with iron echoed round. And as they crossed a field, they came by chance Upon a place where once a home had been; Fragments of ruined walls, half-overgrown With moss, for even stones had their green robe. It had been a small cottage, with a plot Of garden-ground in front, mapped out with walks Now scarce discernible, but that the grass Was thinner, ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... that any other who has known me will chance upon me here," observed Hugh Crombie. "Our trade was unfavorable to length of days, and I suppose most of our old comrades have arrived ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... into several apartments, one of which Prospero called his study; there he kept his books, which chiefly treated of magic, a study at that time much affected by all learned men: and the knowledge of this art he found very useful to him; for being thrown by a strange chance upon this island, which had been enchanted by a witch called Sycorax, who died there a short time before his arrival, Prospero, by virtue of his art, released many good spirits that Sycorax had imprisoned in the bodies of large trees, because they had refused to execute her wicked commands. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... egg once, picked up by chance upon the ground, and those who found it bore it home and placed it under a barn-door fowl. And in time the chick bred out, and those who had found it chained it by the leg to a log, lest it should stray and be lost. And by and ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... sit down here and rest thee weary limbs, friend," he said. "Truly, I have left two Injun guns lying open to the day; and, truly, it doth afflict me to think so; for if other Injuns should chance upon this place, they must needs find them, and perhaps use them in killing poor white persons. Truly, I will hide them in a hollow tree, and return to ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... close ties of deep mutual appreciation. He flings his diamonds of learning upon the page, and we recognize the scholar whom no extravagance in knowledge can make bankrupt. We seem to have come by rare chance upon one of those wardrobes of the early kings, wherein are all savory treasures,—the rose and violet colored sugars of Alexandria, sweet almonds, and sharp-toothed ginger. We pardon his puns, indeed we believe them to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not simply gigantic monuments of misplaced and misapplied human industry, gathering up every wretched nursery tale and village superstition, and transmitting them to future ages? Such certainly has been the verdict of some who knew only the backs of the books, or who at farthest had opened by chance upon some passage where—true to their rule which compelled them to print their manuscripts as they found them—the Bollandists have recorded the legendary stories of the Middle Ages. Yet even for an age which searches diligently, as after hid treasure, ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... should make thee mad Though this and worse, howbeit it irk thee, were. Art thou discrowned, dethroned, disrobed, unclad Of empire? art thou powerless, bloodless, old? This were some hurt: but now—thou shouldst be glad To take this chance upon thee, and to hold So large a lordly happiness in hand As when my father's and thy lord's is cold Shall leave in thine the sway of all ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his brush, or by the fictitious personages which he incarnates? I answer, No! The expression of nature by gesture, face, or voice will not come to the artist by inspiration nor by reflection, especially in extreme situations. He may chance upon agreeable effects, and even moving expressions, but rarely does a just and telling expression of that which he would express result from mere chance. Caustic truth or knack—more vulgarly, cheek—comes of influence outside of one's ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... the secret at last. I chance upon a web which, though deserted, is not yet dilapidated, proving that it has been but lately quitted. Instead of hunting in the brushwood whereon it rests, let us inspect the neighbourhood, to a distance of a few paces. If these contain a low, thick cluster, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... island, how glad we were to chance upon you right here in gay, care-free Paris! And what an enchanted day we spent amid your ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Coming by chance upon the Robert Louis Stevenson memorial at San Francisco, on the edge of Chinatown, I copied its inscription, and in case any reader of these notes may have forgotten its trend I copy it again here; for I do not suppose that its application was intended to cease with the Californian ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... heard that passionate appeal for another chance upon more than one previous occasion. He had heard the husband who had tortured his wife to death make a passionate appeal to God to give him another chance. He knew that God had never given him another chance with ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... type, now counting the engravings of another and collating it in his mind, now comparing the condition of a third with the copy which he has at home, now searching through the text of some small duodecimo to see whether it contains the usual blanks or colophon. But presently he will chance upon some tome whose appeal is irresistible. So he retires with it to his nook, and is soon absorbed once more with that tranquillity which is better ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan |
