"Ill luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ill luck," Mauriri said. "Of all nights this one night was selected by the white devils to go fishing. It was dark as we came through the passage. They were in boats and canoes. Always do they have their rifles with them. One Raiatea man they shot. Brown was very brave. We tried to get by to the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Parliamentarians, and to the Scots in particular. Through the Commonwealth, however, and also into the Protectorate, he had lived on in England, in obscurity and with risks, latterly somewhere in or about Norfolk, as tutor or quasi-tutor to a gentleman, on L30 a year. By ill luck, in Nov. 1655, just when the police of the Major-Generals was coming into operation, he had been apprehended, on his way to Newark, by the vigilance of Major-General Haynes, and committed to prison in Yarmouth, There seems to have been no ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... was at its height now, clear balmy days and cloudless nights. Their progress was steady for some time, uninterrupted by ill luck of any kind. When they halted for the midday meal it was like a great picnic in the soft warm sunshine, and when evening came the Jayhawkers rollicked around their fires or gathered where one of their number had tuned up his fiddle. William Isham was his name, a great ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... players won or lost; when the bets were to be doubled and when they were to abide the chance of another count. The loser at the game, even after all that he had with him was gone, was sometimes permitted to continue the game on his promise to pay. If ill luck still pursued him the winner could refuse him credit and decline to play for stakes ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... during this period of festivity. Of course there was an introduction to Matazaemon, the other principal involved. As Kondo[u] carefully explained, no set date could be made for this interview. Tamiya Dono was ill, and to be seen at a favourable time. As ill luck would have it, on the very day the interview was permitted O'Iwa San received an urgent summons from the Okugata of the Hosokawa House. This could not be disregarded, and her absence on the second occasion was easily explained and condoned. Kondo[u] certainly made no effort, and ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon him; he was ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... columns, superior doors and windows, spaces for hydraulic lifts and all the rest of it. Yet no one buys. Dry, too, and almost ready to live in, and all the joinery of pitch pine. There is a reason for their ill luck." ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... at the end of the season and there had been a week of nasty weather that had driven out most of the sightseers and no new ones were coming in. This man was a peevish, egotistical sort, I imagine; at any rate he did a lot of talking about himself and his ill luck, and he told Casey of ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... not look like a woman who would lack courage for anything she wished to do, but Mary saw no reason to disbelieve her word, and indeed did not judge or criticise at all, except by instinct; and people had only to look sad or complain of their ill luck to arouse a sympathy stronger than ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his looks, in all difficulties and distresses of my own—I was going to have added, of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of everything; for whether it was hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy to point them out by—he was eternally the same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my head I am—it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... greater part of its length into the air. Wellman had every possible appliance to contribute to the safety of the airship, and many believe that had fortune favoured him the glory of the discovery of the Pole would have been his. Unhappily he encountered only ill luck. One season he spent at Dane's Island, near Spitzenberg whence Andree had set sail, waiting vainly for favourable weather conditions. The following summer, just as he was about to start, a fierce ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... alone in the studio, as ill luck would have it. In the absence of Ruth he ventured to speak more freely than he would have ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody's tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way,—you may likewise imagine, 'twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such Fracas:—For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the one real shadow in his life. Ill luck and good luck had been taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, own the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterwards to a man whom he hated by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For some years they did not meet, and then ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shook his head mutely, as at one who spoke an unknown tongue. He got out of the boat and walked up the road, and the man crossed his fingers in superstitious fright, muttered a prayer to the river-gods against ill luck, and let him go. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... water, remembering that no man might carry these in Venice under penalty of the galleys. Bibboni's white hose were drenched with blood. He therefore agreed to separate from Bebo, having named a rendezvous. Left alone, his ill luck brought him face to face with twenty constables (sbirri). 'In a moment I conceived that they knew everything, and were come to capture me, and of a truth I saw that it was over with me. As swiftly as I could I quickened pace and got into a church, near to which was the house of a Compagnia, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... out, so she left it with the housemaid, who promised faithfully to give it to her when she returned, with Isobel's message as to writing the address on the sealed envelope. In order that she might not forget, the maid placed it on a table by the back door. By ill luck, however, presently through that door, came, not Mrs. Parsons, but the Rev. Mr. Knight. He saw the letter addressed to Godfrey Knight, Esq., and, though he half pretended to himself that he did not, at once recognized Isobel's ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... thousand rivals, and you as many adorers, and fear Philander appears grown old in love, and worn out with sorrow and care, unfit for the soft play of the young and delicate Sylvia; new lovers have new vows and new presents, and your fickle sex stoop to the lavish prostrate. Ill luck—unkind fate has rifled me, and of a shining fortune left me even to the charity of a stingy world; and I have now no compliment to maintain the esteem in so great a soul as that of Sylvia, but that old repeated one, of telling her my dull, my trifling heart is ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... camp, as ill luck would have it, they met the colonel of their regiment riding out to a neighboring camp. Just before they met him, in fact when they were nearly up to him, for a curve in the road had hid him from sight till then, the officer in command rode ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thus become desperate, because the continued and violent irritation of the will against a run of ill luck drives it to extremity, and makes it bid defiance to common sense and every ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... ill luck of it!" she thought. "If I had only played last time, instead of Gertie, I'd have had it over before he came into the room! I know he'll be just listening to every ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... in retaining them. The advantage thus gained was but a slight one, for these provinces lying between the two Zabs had long been subject to Assyria, and had been wrested from her since the days of Tukulti-ninip: however, it broke the run of ill luck which seemed to have pursued her so relentlessly, and opened the way for more important victories. This was the last Cossaean war; at any rate, the last of which we find any mention in history: Bel-nadinshumu II. reigned three years after Zamamashu-middin, but when he died there was no man of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... fairly regularly, when he wrote letters urging her for his sake to be brave, and telling of the many shocks he had received from the persistent ill luck which he was seeking to overcome. If he had known how eagerly she awaited the familiar writing, how she read and re-read, times without number, every line he wrote, how she treasured the letters, sleeping with them under her ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... mother had always "enjoyed poor health," as the old lady expressed it, and the man himself was forever talking of his diseases, his ill luck, his poverty, which he said he had been enabled to endure only through the sustaining power of the religion "learned ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... ill luck to keep a grave near the eaves of a house, and it will be bad for my mistress to have it always in sight; for she mopes enough at best, and does not sleep o' nights, and the Lord only knows what will become ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... of abuse which might have broken the health of a more irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin converged. Cobbett's language was rougher than Southey's; but the poet-laureate and the author of 'two-penny trash' were equally vehement in sentiment. Malthus, on the other ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... reached the side of his long-eared companion, the creature, which had only been stunned by the bolt, suddenly sprang to its feet and, no doubt crazed by fear, began striking out with its hind hoofs. As ill luck would have it, poor Juan came within direct range of the first kick, and was sent ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... bless our native soil, Far from these acres keep ill luck away! No withered ears the reaper's task to spoil! Nor swift wolf on ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... my husband went and Rene stayed. Then the next day the little Victor was sick, and I saw the hand of the red death upon him and I told Rene that he should run fast after Victor and tell him. But he would not! He swore and cursed at his own ill luck and he ran from the house into the woods. I made the plague flag and hung it out so that no traveller should come in and be in danger of the ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... she wished Betsy Butterfly no ill luck. But she thought that perhaps it would have been a good thing for her if Johnnie Green had caught her and ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Invisible Man could easily have distanced his middle-aged pursuer under ordinary circumstances, but the position in which Wicksteed's body was found suggests that he had the ill luck to drive his quarry into a corner between a drift of stinging nettles and the gravel pit. To those who appreciate the extraordinary irascibility of the Invisible Man, the rest of the encounter will ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... constant, was not extraordinarily rapid. He once told me that he was unfortunate, in the beginning of his career, with his criminal cases, several of his clients, of whom Von Shoultz was one, having been hanged. This piece of ill luck was so marked that somebody (I think it was William Henry Draper, afterwards chief justice) said to him, jokingly, one day, 'John A., we shall have to make you attorney-general, owing to your success ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... that pittance among four or five, which seems to be but just sufficient for one. Harder fare and harder labour he would submit to for the sake of living with the woman that he loves, but he must feel conscious, if he thinks at all, that should he have a large family, and any ill luck whatever, no degree of frugality, no possible exertion of his manual strength could preserve him from the heart-rending sensation of seeing his children starve, or of forfeiting his independence, and being obliged to the ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... eyes, and which can be owned and passed from hand to hand, while they disregard that which gives these things their value. The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo. For instance, suppose that I ransomed a friend from pirates, but another pirate has caught him and thrown ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... had been a gay, lively fellow enough in the days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck, and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the neighbors could hear this woman's tongue, and understand her doings; bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the floor, and poor Gambouge's oil ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as buoyant as ever. Ill luck, or the misconduct of others, was the cause of his failure. He had new plans for carrying on the war. But the parliament which met on the 17th of March 1628 was resolved to exact from the king an obligation to refrain from encroaching for the future on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... fortune in America (a custom becoming quite general in the rural districts), had returned to the village in pretty much the condition of the infant Saint John, and God only knows how many jokes were perpetrated over his ill luck. The people of Lorraine are terrible wags, and if you are not fond of personal jokes, I advise you not to travel in their neighborhood. Big Peter, stung to the quick, and half crazed at having run through his inheritance, borrowed ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... god of the Christian missionaries. Li Faa, educated, who could read and write English and Hawaiian and a fair measure of Chinese, claimed to believe in nothing, although in her secret heart she feared the kahunas (Hawaiian witch-doctors), who she was certain could charm away ill luck or pray one to death. Li Faa would never come into Ah Kim's house, as he thoroughly knew, and kow-tow to his mother and be slave to her in the immemorial Chinese way. Li Faa, from the Chinese angle, was a new woman, a feminist, who rode horseback ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... of our finding no shelter; and, as ill luck would have it, our tents took the opportunity of pitching themselves on the road, a number of coolies broke down, and one abandoned our property and took himself off altogether. Under these interesting circumstances, we were ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... aid, leaving those who stayed under the command of Francisco Pizarro, as his lieutenant. Talavera, already tired of the hardships he had encountered, was willing enough to return, and set sail with the commander in his vessel. The ill luck which had attended Ojeda during this expedition still continued. The vessel was cast on the island of Cuba, and completely wrecked; and the unhappy Spaniards had no choice but to perish on the beach, or to traverse ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Morrell, whom she had never liked. Perhaps after a little this emotion might have carried over into, not distrust, but an uneasiness as to the main issue; but before she had arrived at this point Keith came in to deliver an ill-timed warning. As ill luck would have it, and as such coincidences often come about in the most perverse fashion, Keith had, down the street, met some malicious fool who had dropped a laughing remark about Sansome. It was ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... employ would have echoed this sentiment, could the ill luck have blighted him without reaching them. In working his employes as he did his machinery, Mr. Arnot forgot that the latter was often oiled, but that he entirely neglected to lubricate the wills of the former with occasional expressions of ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... fish-baskets of birch or willow twigs. A Gilyak gentleman does not permit fire carried into or out of his house, not even in a pipe. This is not owing to his fear of conflagrations, but to a superstition that such an occurrence may bring him ill luck in hunting ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... hypodermic injection to Lafouasse, the tavern keeper, whose ataxia had within a short time made such rapid progress that he regarded him as doomed. But, notwithstanding, Pascal still fought obstinately against the disease, continuing the treatment, and as ill luck would have it, on this day the little syringe had caught up at the bottom of the vial an impure particle, which had escaped the filter. Immediately a drop of blood appeared; to complete his misfortune, he had punctured a vein. He was at once alarmed, seeing the ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... pocket a copy of Gaines' "New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury," which had come to him but that morning, and re-read an account it contained, taken from the "New Jersey Gazette," of the sale of Greenwood to Esquire Hennion. "'T is my devil's ill luck that he, of all men, should buy it," he muttered. "However, if I can but get them to New York, away from this dashing dragoon, and then persuade them to cross the Atlantic, 't will matter not who owns it." He rose, stretched himself, and as he did ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... ancient laws had sought to repress their pride and power, sometimes even condemning the innocent to death, as is often done in cases when, from the multitude concerned in some atrocity, some innocent men, owing to their ill luck, suffer for the whole. And this has occasionally extended even to the case of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... vague darkness of the blotted earth. Almost at its zenith was the planet Saturn; and with a half-smile I observed the sinister red sparkle of his malignant attendant—the demon star of Kearny's ill luck. And then my thoughts strayed across the hills to the scene of our coming triumph where the heroic and noble Don Rafael awaited our coming to set a new and shining star ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... with the general manager had to be postponed; and the enthusiast was chafing at his ill luck when he went to his hotel—chafing and saying hard words, for the waiting had been long, and now that the psychologic moment ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Misfortune and ill luck always attaches itself in a minor degree to every team which engages in a championship contest, but most assuredly Philadelphia had more of its share of reverses through accidents to players and illness than ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... doubts about this. Those who represent themselves as born to ill luck can usually trace the ill luck to errors or shortcomings of their own. There are doubtless inequalities of fortune, but not as great as many like to represent. Of two boys who start alike one may succeed, and the other fail, but in nine cases ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... the Meteetsee fell to pieces. It never again was used, for no man cared to enter a country that had but few allurements to offset its evident curse of ill luck, and where such a terrible Grizzly was ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... admire him; but I was tired to death before I got to the end. I amused myself one evening with turning over the Metamorphoses, to see if I could find any passage of ten lines which could, by possibility, have been written by Virgil. Whether I was in ill luck or no I cannot tell; but I hunted for half an hour without the smallest success. At last I chanced to light on a little passage more Virgilian, to my thinking, than Virgil himself. Tell me what you say to my criticism. It is part of Apollo's ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... actually crying. The sight of a Methodist preacher brought up old times. He told me his story. He had come to California hoping to make a fortune in a hurry, but had only ill luck from the start. His prospectings were always failures, his partners cheated him, his health broke down, his courage gave way, and—he faltered a little, and then spoke it out—he took to whisky, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... had not always run under the vaults of Hades. Formerly its course was upon the earth. But when the Titans attempted to scale the heaven, this river had the ill luck to quench their thirst, and Jupiter to punish even the waters of the river for abetting his enemies, turned its course aside into the under world where its waves, slow-moving and filthy, lost themselves in Styx, the largest of all the rivers of Hades, which ran round Pluto's gloomy ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... at the long spell of ill luck, Handsome began to drink heavily. Every cent he made went to the grog shop, and Hickey, never over fond of work at any time, was only too glad of an excuse to drink with him. The two cronies filled themselves with rum until their reason ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... he paced the office with rapid and irregular strides. He could devise no expedient. A lady's will is absolute, and he must bend in submission. He blamed his own tardiness one moment, and his precipitancy the next; then he cursed his ill luck, and vented his anger and disappointment in ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... The ill luck of my new friends, who had been toiling among the nodules for hours without finding an ichthyolite worth transferring to their bag, showed me that, without excavating more deeply than my time allowed, I had no chance of finding good specimens. But, well content to have ascertained that ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... blue sea poured into the skiff, and down she went with all her freight. Down too sank Thorwald's body, so that his men could not see what had been done to him, but they knew well enough that he was dead, Thiostolf rowed away up the firth, but they shouted after him wishing him ill luck. He made them no answer, but rowed on till he got home, and ran the boat up on the beach, and went up to the house with his axe, all bloody as it was, on his shoulder. Hallgerda stood out ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... consequence which you have no doubt foreseen. My debts, though small, were accumulating, and I saw no prospect of being able to pay them. Then, one night, Jezzard made a proposition. We had been playing bridge at his rooms, and once more my ill luck had caused me to increase my debt. I scribbled out an IOU, and pushed it across the table to Jezzard, who picked it up with a very wry ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... pride about always giving things to women, and taking care of them. I believe a nice American man would break stones in the street rather than take money from a woman—even his wife. I mean while he could work. Of course if he was ill or had ill luck or anything like that, he wouldn't be so proud as not to take it from the person who loved him most and wanted to help him. You do sometimes hear of a man who won't work and lets his wife support him, but it's very seldom, and they are always the low kind that other ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... crusade, from which I am but lately returned, in time to find my son—a goodly youth—grown up. He was but twenty, yet he had achieved a squire's training and could play prettily in jousts and tournaments and other knightly games. But about this time he had the ill luck to push his sport too far, and did accidentally kill a knight in the open lists. To save the boy, I had to sell my lands and mortgage my ancestral castle; and this not being enough, in the end I have had to borrow money, at a ruinous interest, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the saving of life—in those days, and well on into the eighteenth century, it was believed to be a most unlucky thing to save a drowning person; he was sure eventually to do his rescuer some deadly injury. A similar belief, as regards the ill luck, prevails in China to this day; nothing will induce a Chinaman to help a drowning man from the water. In our own case, probably this superstition as to ill luck originated in the obvious fact that if there were no survivor ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... ill luck," grumbled Dick. "Trevanion of Exeter came over to our place, and of course the mater pressed him to stay for luncheon, and then nothing would do but a ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... things are thus with you. But if you will help me to that place, and there let me find what I may, there is naught that may not be forgiven you. Even were it murder, I will pay the weregild for you, and you shall have cause to say that the place has no ill luck for you." ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... woeful story. While, after dinner, I was busily employed in catechising my prisoner, how should the devil be employed, but in tempting my men with the distilled juice of the apple? Having, by some ill luck, found out that there was a barrel of it in the house, they hastened to the poor landlady, who not only gave them a full dose for the present, but ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than themselves. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did not I support them so many several ways. For whereas all men detest them to that height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of them by chance, yet such is their happiness that they flatter themselves. For first, they reckon it one of the main points of piety if they are so illiterate that they can't so much as read. And then when they run over their offices, which they carry ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... replenish my purse, for I have had a run of ill luck of late," replied the knight; "and partly to see a most beautiful creature, whom I accidentally discovered ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... quarter of a mile above the present bridge. As the streamlet finds its way behind Lord Sommerville's hunting-seat, called the Pavilion, its valley has been popularly termed the Fairy Dean, or rather the Nameless Dean, because of the supposed ill luck attached by the popular faith of ancient times, to any one who might name or allude to the race, whom our fathers distinguished as the Good Neighbours, and the Highlanders called Daoine Shie, or Men of Peace; rather by way ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... fifty ounces of silver, with which and his Sukesada sword he escaped under cover of darkness, and went to a sea-port called Marugame, in the province of Sanuki, where he proposed to wait for an opportunity of setting sail for Osaka. As ill luck would have it, the wind being contrary, he had to remain three days idle; but at last the wind changed; so he went down to the beach, thinking that he should certainly find a junk about to sail; and as he was looking about him, a sailor came ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... them. That an enemy could enter into the midst of their camp and kill their sentry with bare hands seemed outside the bounds of reason, and so the superstitious Manyuema commenced to attribute their ill luck to supernatural causes; nor were the Arabs able ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... strengthened by past success. A hundred Spanish dollars is no very uncommon risk, and instances have occurred of a father's staking his children or wife, and a son his mother or sisters, on the issue of a battle, when a run of ill luck has stripped them of property and rendered them desperate. Quarrels, attended with dreadful consequences, have often ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... all, if this ain't grandmamma," said Mrs. Tom. It was not often, as she herself said with pride, that she required to be in the shop, which was very much improved now from its old aspect. Ill luck, however, brought her here to-day. She stood at the door which led from the shop to the house, dividing the counter, talking to a lady who was making a complaint upon the quality of cheese or butter. Mrs. Tozer had led ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... crunch on the gravel path. When the heels were clean gone out of sight, Peter sought out the nearest bench and sat down and buried his face in his hands, a picture of woe. Was there ever in the world a man who had such persistent ill luck ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... upon your poor friend and servant. Faith, he took such an interest in my leaving town, that he wanted to compel me to do it at point of fox, so I was obliged to spill a little of his malapert blood. Your Grace's swordsmen have had ill luck of late; and it is hard, since you always choose the best hands, and such ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... part of the story, however, is that though they ascribe moral defects to the effect of misfortune either in character or surroundings, they will not listen to the plea of misfortune in cases that in England meet with sympathy and commiseration only. Ill luck of any kind, or even ill treatment at the hands of others, is considered an offence against society, inasmuch as it makes people uncomfortable to hear of it. Loss of fortune, therefore, or loss of some dear friend on whom another was much dependent, is punished hardly less severely ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... she cried, "what ill luck is mine! I have angered thee; and my aunt did especially charge me that I was to treat thee well. She doth never speak an ill word of thee, sir, never! Do not thou charge my hasty words to her." And Victorine leaned out of the window, and looked ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... was started Teddy wasn't particularly keen as to whether she came or whether she did not; but, ill luck would have it, Nina chose that very opportunity for asserting her dignity—and after that the question of the tea became a question of who should ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... stalk'd into my room in a rage— 'Hilton and Wilton have clear'd me out quite; A run of ill luck at every stage— Fifty pounds lost since you left us to-night! I'll have my revenge on the rogues I vow!' Marks of strange anger disfigure his face, A dry parch'd lip and a thundery brow, And a sharp bright eye that ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... would go down alone, and watch in the library in the dark. I lay down on my bed in my clothes to wait, and then—I had been up most of the night before with Denis; I was dead beat with acting and dancing—by ill luck I fell asleep. When I woke up I found to my horror that it was close on four o'clock. I instantly slipped off my shoes, and crept out of my room and down the stairs. I could not get to the library from the hall, as the stage blocked the way, and I had to go all the way round by the drawing-room ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... have got rid of your duel, bloodguiltless: Captain Lee had ill luck in lighting upon a Lorrain officer; he might have boxed the ears of the whole Florentine nobility, (con rispetto si dice,) and not have occasioned you half the trouble you have ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the smoke of the fires; ill luck supposed to be burnt in the Midsummer fires; the Midsummer festival in North Africa comprises rites concerned with water as well as with fire; the Midsummer festival in North Africa is ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... with such comfort as I could give them, and the bandages they especially begged for, three other sable graces introduced themselves, Edie, Louisa, and Diana; the former told me she had had a family of seven children, but had lost them all through 'ill luck,' as she denominated the ignorance and ill treatment which were answerable for the loss of these, as of so many other poor little creatures their fellows. Having dismissed her and Diana with the sugar and rice they came to beg, I detained Louisa, whom I ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... came in to announce the birth of a daughter to Raja Sarkap, and he, overcome by misfortunes, said, "Kill her at once! for she has been born in an evil moment, and has brought her father ill luck!" ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend a passing stranger—possibly without knowing it, certainly without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not a rap for strangers or their opinions. Still, it would have been well to make an exception in this one's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... snawin', an' cowd, An' th' flagstones were cover'd wi' muck, An' th' east wind both whistled an' howl'd, It saanded like nowt bud ill luck. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... As our ill luck would have it, Demetrius found a couple of dingy rowboats at the edge of the creek, and into one of them he jumped, grabbed the oars, and paddled himself down-stream at a pretty good clip. Holmes swore, both in English and French, but quickly grabbed the other boat, shoved me into it, and started ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... Ill luck had often seemed to dog the footsteps of his house and even his journey home was not without a mishap; nothing serious, as things turned out, but still something that might have been vastly so. His train was in a wreck, rather a nasty one, but ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... at once puts his cap on, pushes it to the back of his head and passes a weary hand across a worried brow. When he has confused himself to the top of his bent he searches round for other victims. On this Sunday night ill luck directed his footsteps to my billet; seeing me in bed, he became positively aghast, though I firmly believe he was inwardly delighted to discover so depressing ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... first began by a flourish on leather.[2] You shall have it for nothing—then, marvel with me At the terrible tinkering work there must be, Where a Tool such as this is (I'll leave you to judge it) Is placed by ill luck at the top ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the country. The humiliating resource to which he was driven, in trying, as a tonic, the reluctant alliance of Lord Sidmouth,—the abortiveness of his efforts to avert the full of his old friend, Lord Melville, and the fatality of ill luck that still attended his exertions against France,—all concurred to render this reign of the once powerful Minister a series of humiliations, shifts, and disasters, unlike his former proud period in every thing but ill success. The powerful Coalition opposed to him already ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... life on the whole is a success. You and I, my reader, know better than to think that life is a lottery; but those who think it a lottery, must see that there are human beings who draw the prizes, and others who draw the blanks. I believe in Luck, and Ill Luck, as facts; of course I do not believe the theory which common consent builds upon these facts. There is, of course, no such thing as chance; this world is driven with far too tight a rein to permit of anything whatsoever falling out in a way properly fortuitous. But it ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... in her young, fresh days, before he came across her life to drag her down. Perhaps he should make a golden fortune and come back to her some summer day with a silk dress and servants, and make it all up; in theory this was about what he expected to do. But if his ill luck went westward with him, and the silk dress never turned up, why, she would forget him, and be better off, and that would be ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Every man in England, as he rises into distinction, necessarily becomes a politician. It was the misfortune of Sir John Jervis, and it was his only misfortune, that he was a politician before he had risen into distinction. Having had the ill luck to profess himself a Whig, at a period when he could scarcely have known the nature of the connexion, he unhappily adhered to it long after Whiggism had ceased to possess either public utility or national respect. But his Whiggism was unconscious Toryism ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... singly—to the reckless. The first mischance breeds the second, apparently by ill luck, but in reality through the influence of irritant nerves. Thus descended Nemesis upon Miss Kathleen Pierce. Not that Miss Pierce was of a misgiving temperament: she had too calm and superb a conviction of her own incontrovertible privilege in every department of life for that. But Esme ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... light feet on the stairs was a matter of relief to her. Excusing herself to the impatient lover, she left the room, wondering if, after all, there could be a remote possibility that her prediction of ill luck was about ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... hypocrisy—powerful, insolent, bold-faced knaves; and after their robbing me of the inheritance of my old, rich uncle, which one of those crafty padres contrived to make the old devotee give them on his death-bed, I had dry eyes for their ill luck. But, I suppose," added he, "you know their creed?" I acknowledged my ignorance. "Well, you shall hear it. It is incomparably true; though, whether written for them by Moratin or Calderon, I leave to the antiquarians." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... not driven off the bird with the other hand. Then it had fain pounced upon the flesh on the left side but again I scared it away and thus, whilst exerting myself with frantic efforts to ward off the bird, by ill luck my turband fell to the ground. At once that accursed kite swooped down and flew off with it in its talons; and I ran pursuing it and shouted aloud. Hearing my cries the Bazar-folk, men and women ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... revenge. These violent threats elicit Roland's laughter, but Charlemagne checks the resulting quarrel by delivering message and emblems of office to Ganelon. To the dismay of all present, he, however, drops the glove his master hands him, an accident viewed as an omen of ill luck. Then, making speedy preparations and pathetically committing wife and son to the care of his countrymen, Ganelon starts out, fully ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... disease was proved. So the Jew silently submitted, let the horse be led away, and paid back what we gave him. Fifty heavy florins! More than enough for a beginning. If I may advise you, count on the two and the five when fixed numbers are to be thrown or hit. Why? Because you must turn your ill luck in love to advantage: and those from whom it comes are the two beautiful Ortlieb Es, as Nuremberg folk call the ladies Els and Eva. That makes the two. But E is the fifth letter in the alphabet, so I should choose the five. If Biberli did not put ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... has gone to France, And left his crown behind, Ill luck be their's, both day and night, ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... said. "The opal is said to bring ill luck, but not when it is your own month stone. Then it is supposed to be not only deprived of evil influence, but to possess peculiarly fortunate power. Let it be an ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... he realizes it and tries to catch up with the present? It seems to me as if the best things had always been just within my grasp, only to slip away again, through unforeseen circumstances, and my ill luck reminds me of a story and picture in a comic paper that the boys were chuckling over last night. It was of a well-intentioned beetle who fattened a nice green caterpillar for its family's thanksgiving dinner, and the thing went ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... on any garment wrong side out, as, for example, a pair of stockings, never change it, as to do so brings ill luck. This direction is intuitively followed by many people who are entirely free from conscious superstition. General in the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... under the Kirke brothers, capture Quebec. As luck or ill luck will have it, among the French captured from the French ships of the Hundred Associates down at Tadoussac, is Claude de La Tour, the father of Charles. Claude de La Tour was a Protestant. This and his courtly manner and his noble birth commended ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... home, and spent only the daytime at my house. The search of that part of the establishment over, the worried official sat down in my work room to rest for a few minutes, cool himself off, and bewail the fate which had brought him such ill luck. Poljensio, who was washing sponges on the platform outside, and had for this reason not been at his brother's house, where he slept, when that domicile was searched, was called in, and while his official master rested, was made to strip himself stark naked, and ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... common to have qualified them for several decades of mutual toleration. But by ill luck, Melite died in child-birth three years after her marriage. She had borne, in 1361, twin daughters, of whom Adelais died a spinster; the other daughter, Sylvia, circa 1378, figured in an unfortunate love-affair with one of Sir Thomas Mowbray's attendants, but subsequently married Robert ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... As ill luck would have it, there happened to be in the inn four Segovia clothiers, three Cordova pointmakers, and two Seville hucksters, all brisk, gamesome, roguish fellows; who agreeing all in the same design, encompassed Sancho, and pulled him ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... men, I am glad to see you all once more around me. You have not been so successful as I hoped, but we must take the good and ill luck as it comes, and I have no fault to find with you. The times, however, are bad enough; for I have certain news that our retreat here, where we have so long been hid, may be discovered"—the villains around held their breath and let their cigars lie dead in their mouths—"but," ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... like the hole we have just left. Oh, I tried everything. I tried to get musical criticism to do for the newspapers. Surely I was competent to do musical criticism. But no—they wouldn't employ me. I had ill luck, ill luck, ill luck—nothing but ill luck, defeat, disappointment. Was it the will of Heaven? I wondered what unforgiveable sin I had committed to be punished so. Do you know what it is like to work and pray and wait, day after day, and watch day after day come and go and bring you nothing? ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... here too long. A report was now spread that a lion had killed one of the chief's cows; and the Wagogo, suspecting that our being here was the cause of this ill luck, threatened to attack us. This no sooner got noised over the camp than all my Wanyamuezi porters, who had friends in Ugogo, left to live with them, and would not come back again even when the "storm had blown over," because they did ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of the class burst out in sundry half-stifled noises, which roused the master from his reverie, and he again resumed the book, to continue the examination. As ill luck would have it, he once more repeated, "Avoir, avant," and then half abstractedly, "avu." "Ah, you young idiot!" cried he, in a discordant voice, "can't you manage avoir yet? Whatever ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... his own cell, and replaced the door, so that the operations of Ursel, which indeed were only such as three years' solitude could have achieved, should escape observation when again visited by the Warder. "It is ill luck," said he, when once more within his own prison—for that in which the tiger had been secured, he instinctively concluded to be destined for him—"It is ill luck that I had not found a young and able fellow-captive, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... "Allowing two legs to a child, doesn't that make four? John Dearborn, you have bought me a house next door to four children! I think I shall begin to put the books back to-night. As ill luck will have it, ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... which were sacred to the memory of men who had been lost at sea, almost always giving the name of the departed ship, which was so kept in remembrance; and one felt as much interest in the ship Starlight, supposed to have foundered off the Cape of Good Hope, as in the poor fellow who had the ill luck to be one of her crew. There were dozens of such inscriptions, and there were other stones perpetuating the fame of Honourable gentlemen who had been members of His Majesty's Council, or surveyors of His Majesty's Woods, or King's Officers of Customs for the town ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to see the wind. In some parts of Great Britain it is a popular belief that, on commencing a journey, if a sow and pigs be met it will prove successful, but if a sow only crosses the road, the traveller, if he cannot pass, must ride round about it, otherwise ill luck ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... obedience of instinct to leap to one side, which he did; but as ill luck would have it, hampered by the impedimenta carried in his arms, he came in violent collision with one of the stems of the banyan, which not only sent him back with a rebound, but threw him down upon the earth, flat on his face. He would have done better by lying still, for ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... noon hour, I went out with Theodora to see the eaves swallows again. We counted fifty-seven nests in a row, each resembling very much a dry cocoanut shell, with a swallow's head looking out at a little hole on the upper side. Dora pointed out the nest of one pair which had experienced much ill luck. Three times the nest had fallen. No sooner would they finish it and have an egg or two, than down it would fall on the stones below. But their misfortunes had finally taught the little architects wisdom. They brought hair from ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... Lord, who at first smiled, shook his head, and placed the untasted winecup before him, began presently, as if it were in absence of mind, to sip a little of the contents, and in doing so, fortunately recollected that it would be ill luck did he not drink a draught to the health of the gallant lad who had joined them this day. The pledge was filled, and answered, as may well be supposed, with many a joyous shout, when the old leader proceeded to acquaint ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... endivour so to be; though men is desperate apt to believe they desarve all they get but the ill luck. I and Marthy try to think of what is all in all to us, and I believe Marthy does make out pretty well, in that partic'lar, accordin' to Friends' ways; though I am often jammed in religion, and all for want of taking to it early as I ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Miss Ann[e] Burwell, one of my old master's daughters. His life was not a prosperous one, and after struggling with the world for several years he left his native State, a disappointed man. He moved to St. Louis, hoping to improve his fortune in the West; but ill luck followed him there, and he seemed to be unable to escape from the influence of the evil star of his destiny. When his family, myself included, joined him in his new home on the banks of the Mississippi, ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... And then, as ill luck would have it, Miss White had some important business at the theatre to attend to, so that she could not see him till the afternoon; and he had to pass the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... was saying, "the famous collection of emeralds which has disappeared has always been what you Americans call 'hoodooed.' They hare always brought ill luck, and, like many things of the sort to which superstition attaches, they have been 'banked,' so to speak, by their ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... here fettered by the laws of ceremony I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing Ill luck is good for something Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation Impunity pass with us for justice It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists Lessen the ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... travelling, as he told us, by {15} the Indian trails over 'Jacob's ladders'—wicker and pole swings to serve as bridges across chasms—wherever the 'float' or sign of mineral might lead him. Both on the Fraser and in Cariboo he had found his share of luck and ill luck; and he plainly regretted the passing of that golden age of danger and adventure. 'But,' he said, pointing his trembling old hands at the two railways, 'if we prospectors hadn't blazed the trail ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... and here and there remove turf or matted parts to have a look. Again I beg, do not give up Geology:—I wish you had Agassiz's work and plates on Glaciers. (501/4. "Etudes sur les Glaciers." L. Agassiz, Neuchatel, 1840.) I am extremely sorry that the Rajah, ill luck to him, has prevented your crossing to Thibet; but you seem to have seen most interesting country: one is astonished to hear of Fuegian climate in India. I heard from the Sabines that you were ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... younger went away empty, he was filled with envy and mortification, showing quite a different spirit from his meek, humble-minded brother, Bogislaff. He swore, and cursed his ill luck. "Why did not that fool of a bookworm give over his chance to him, if he would not profit by it himself? Why the devil should he descend to play the commoner, when he was born to play the prince?" and suchlike unamiable ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... rough off the rocks that he could not fish; and there were others when he had to travel many miles before he could sell his fish. During John's vacation, his receipts amounted to about two dollars a day, which went a great way in counter-balancing the ill luck of the next week. On an average, he earned about a dollar ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... music there stepped forth from the side-doors three maidens arrayed in white; each wore a long veil depending from the back of her head,—one blue, the other red, and the third white. Each carried in her arms an urn, and thus they represented fortune-tellers from the East. They brought good or ill luck, which each related in a little verse. People were to draw a number, and according to this would he receive his gift from the Christmas-tree. One of the maidens brought blanks—but which of them? now it was proved whether you were a child of fortune. All, even the children, drew their uncertain ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... Monsieur's in high spirits, hoping that the prince would perish; they were friends of Cardinal de Retz. At last Monsieur gave me a letter for the gentlemen of the Hotel, leaving it to me to tell them his intention. I was there in a moment, assuring those present that, if ill luck would have it that the enemy should beat the prince, no more quarter would be shown to Paris than to the men who bore arms. Marshal de l'Hopital, governor of Paris for the king, said to me, 'You are aware, Mdlle., that if your troops had not approached this city, those of the king would not have ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was telling of a charge in some battle or skirmish in which, he declared, his company, not himself—for I remember he said he was "No. 4", and was generally told off to hold the horses; and that that day he had had the ill luck to lose his horse and get a little scratch himself, so he was not in the charge—did the finest work he ever saw, and really (so he claimed) saved the day. It was this self-abnegation that first arrested ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page |
