"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from paying me copyright money, all that I ever received from Mr. B—— was two copies of his edition of "Our Village," one of which I gave away, and of the other some chance visitor has taken one of the volumes. I really do think I shall ask him for a copy or two. How can I ever thank you enough for your infinite kindness in sending me books! Thank you again and again. Dear Mr. Bennoch has ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... get near to understanding each other. But it astonishes me that you spoilt your excellent chance. How could you hope ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... outright. "To fight a bull with bare hands is one thing, amigo," he said. "To take a chance on getting a knife stuck in your back is another. Those Mexicans—they don't love the man who crosses the river and makes of their bull-fights ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... gaily: "I am just now the host, and as it may never again chance that I have the pleasure of madame for a guest, I must insist ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... for the space of five years, as well in the country as in Paris.... To relieve my weariness and disgust, I applied myself to literature and to the sciences. The study of the languages was, above all others, my favourite pursuit. Chance threw in my way two Englishmen, on a visit to my own country: I learned their language, and this circumstance decided my fate. It was at the commencement of my passion for that language that I made the metamorphosis of a diphthong in my name, which has been imputed to me ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... "Sister, I fail to see that the Lord requires any such sacrifice on my part," I impulsively replied. "I think it sufficient to work with and for them here in the home. What would my former society friends say or think should any chance to meet me with them?" And the tears of (righteous?) indignation filled my eyes. "My dear," she gently replied, "take a little time in your room alone with God. He will make it clear, what he would have you ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... very nearly came to grief myself. The same thing happened to me some time ago—about forty years, I should say,—and I perceive that it has not been forgotten. It may amuse you to look at this paper, which I chance to have with me. Good-morning. I leave for St. ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... of four or five days in the arrival of the "Southern Cross" gives me a chance of writing you a line. The Bishop dropped me here this day three months, and told me to look out for him on September 1. As New Zealand is 1,000 miles off, and he can't command winds and waves, of ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is powerless to dissolve the solid South and to restore to that section bi-party in place of one-party governments. It is wholly incapable of attracting Southern whites in sufficient numbers to raise it to the rank of a party of opposition, or to give to it the barest chance of achieving success at the polls. Its very name is a political bugaboo and makes it a party impossibility in those states. Since 1876, rather than utilize it as a party of opposition, the Southern whites have preserved their sectional solidity and one-party ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... Grannie, "and sticking that close to it of an everin that you haven't a chance to put a word ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... lying awake then, his life may have passed before him—his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition—no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him—neither name nor money to bequeath—a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... because I was afraid of endangering my chance of you, darling, the great prize of my life—my Fellowship I call you. My brother's Fellowship was won at his college, mine at Talbothays Dairy. Well, I would not risk it. I was going to tell you a month ago—at ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... know how she despised them. For she could act! She was still sure that she could play any part—except that of patient endurance. Yet, so far, hardship was all that life had offered her. A chance! That was it. So far, she had never had a ghost of a chance. Would fate—or luck—or Providence—or whatever it is that rules, never give her ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... night came I was in quite a trouble; I did not know whether my frock was clean or dirty; I only had a week's notice, and the body and sleeves to make, and only one hour every night to work on it, so you can see with these troubles to overcome my chance was rather slim. I must now close, although I could fill ten pages with my griefs and misfortunes; no tongue could express them as I feel; don't forget me though; and answer my letters soon. I will write you again, and would write more now, but ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... which are yet necessary to their fame and their figure in the world. It is not difficult to recall examples of them. No one, for instance, would talk of Scott's Tales of a Grandfather as indicating the power that produced Kenilworth and Guy Mannering. Nevertheless, without this chance minor compilation we should not really have the key of Scott. Without this one insignificant book we should not see his significance. For the truth was that Scott loved history more than romance, ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... shout of contempt at this mild proposal. Unfortunately, few of the men sent on this exploring expedition were imbued with the peacemaking spirit of their chief; and most of them seemed glad to have a chance of venting their hatred of the poor Indians on this unhappy wretch, who although calm, looked sharply from one speaker to another, to gather hope, if possible, from the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... I'd be content with a new house. Now we can go away together. I can see what I longed to see. I have a chance of knowing what is in me. (She takes Sally's hands) It's great news you've brought me. No one ever brought me such news before. Take this little cross. You won't have a chance of getting fond of me after all. (She wears ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... M. Rameau, though a Liberal politician, was Liberal as a tradesman, not as a Red Republican or a Socialist. And, though little heeding his son's theories while the Empire secured him from the practical effect of them, he was now as sincerely frightened at the chance of the Communists becoming rampant as most of the Parisian tradesmen were. Madame Rameau, on her side, though she had the dislike to aristocrats which was prevalent with her class, was a stanch Roman Catholic; and seeing in the disasters ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had the scrupulosity of a legal dignitary. He was scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and feared a stain upon his own fair name: he procured a warrant for the arrest of Sainte-Croix wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter him. We have seen how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was driving in the carriage of the marquise, whom our readers will doubtless have recognised as the woman who concealed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... said the people of Half-a-Loaf, "but the unfortunate folk in Windy-Gap have lost their chance. They'll not have time ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... true site of the Battle of Mons Grampus. It may be taken for granted that the Roman General made good use of his opportunity to survey the ground upon which the decisive battle was fought. Before retiring to winter quarters at Grassy Walls, the Roman soldiers had a chance given them of testing the strength and valour of the Caledonians. The Ninth Legion was stationed at Lintrose, and here the enemy delivered their attack under cover of night. They had penetrated into the ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... better husking quality and much better quality of kernel, according to growers. Of course, being seedlings, neither is entirely dependable in any of these qualities. The best that can be said is that the planter of a Chinese seedling has a better chance than the planter of a Jap seedling if he is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... in Florida I would want to take a chance on for a long trip. I only know two fellows I would like to have along, and we can't get them. One is Walter Hazard, the Ohio boy who chummed with us down here for so long. The other is that little Bahama darky, Chris, whom Walter insisted on ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Gains and losses, joys and sorrows, and all the endless variety of experiences through which we all have to pass, are an unintelligible mystery unless we apply to them this solution, 'He for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness.' It is not a blind Fate or a still blinder Chance that hurtles sorrows and changes at us, but a loving Father; and we do not grasp the meaning of our lives unless we feel, even about their darkest moments, that the end of them all is to make us more capable of possessing more ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... chance of idleness and incapacity winning real success, or a high position in life, as there would be in producing a Paradise Lost by shaking up promiscuously the separate words of Webster's Dictionary, and ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... would come the next attack, panic began to grow amongst them and ferment, till presently those in the outer lines commenced to scurry away towards the forests and the spoiled corn-lands of the country, and those in the inner packs were only wishful of a chance ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... she imagined it, caused Dorothy's heart to flutter wildly. She had not anticipated this attitude in Moran, and she instantly realized that it brought a fresh danger into the situation. She knew that Wade would not remain in concealment if the agent insulted her. She must avoid the chance of that, if possible; must get him out of the office so that ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... number of letters awaiting him, and had been compelled to buy a waste-paper basket of abnormal dimensions—so many moribund charities cast envious eyes upon the Malgamite scheme, and wondered how it was done, and, on the chance of it, offered Cornish honourable honorary posts. But the telegrams had been few, and nearly all from Roden. There was a letter from Roden ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... campaign; following that the strategical march to the sea; and, finally, that bold movement from Savannah to Goldsboro, which is considered by the best critics as one of the boldest and best-planned campaigns of history—one in which every chance was taken, and every opportunity given the enemy to concentrate ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... responsibility, and I don't mean to be a party to making shipwreck of you and your great naval reputation; nor will I ever consent to your going upon a forlorn and desperate attempt—that is, without the means necessary for the fair chance of success—in other words, adequate means. Although you have worked miracles, we can never be justified in expecting them, and still less ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... at all," the man said. "I was hiding here, waiting for a chance to shoot at a fox that has a particularly fine pelt, but I guess I may as well give up. I heard the shouts of you folks, but I had no idea you would coast away ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... to return to the land the manure yielded by its products. In purely agricultural countries there is little demand for labour, and it always tends to diminish, as may be proved by any reader of this volume who may chance to occupy a purely agricultural neighbourhood. Let him look around him, and he will, without difficulty, find hundreds of men, and hundreds of women and children, wasting more time than would, if properly employed, purchase twice the clothing and twice ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... that little slang phrase so much in vogue in America," queried Napoleon, coldly fixing his eye on Barras—"a phrase which in French runs, 'Petit, mais O Moi'—or, as they have it, 'Little, but O My'? Well, that is me. {1} Besides, if I am small, there is less chance of my being killed, which will make me more courageous in the face of fire than one of your bigger men ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... touch. And the Centaurs smelt the wine, and flocked to it, and fought for it with Heracles; but he killed them all with his poisoned arrows, and Cheiron was left alone. Then Cheiron took up one of the arrows, and dropped it by chance upon his foot; and the poison ran like fire along his veins, and he lay down, and longed to die; and cried: "Through wine I perish, the bane of all my race. Why should I live forever in this agony? Who will take my immortality ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... this assurance—that Broxton Day was practically helpless physically—led the lawyer to take a chance in the living room. But he was manifestly very ill at ease from the moment he ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... down, he removed the globe from its rack and advancing it towards the now repellent down, drove it before him about the room. In this chase he observed that the down preferred to alight against "the points of any object whatsoever." He noticed that should the down chance to be driven within a few inches of a lighted candle, its attitude towards the globe suddenly changed, and instead of running away from it, it now "flew to it for protection"—the charge on the down having been dissipated by the hot ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... eager spectators. When the hour arrived the bombardment began. The air was full of smoke and the noise was terrific, but alas for marksmanship, the willing and waiting cruiser rode serenely unharmed and unhittable. The afternoon wore away and still no chance shot went home. Finally a Whitehall boat sneaked out and set the enemy ship on fire, that her continued security might no longer oppress us. It was a most impressive exhibit of unpreparedness, and gave us much to ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... grated on the floor, or perhaps the fact of his touching the relic put him into psychic communication with all these spirits. At any rate, he became aware that the eyes of that dreadful magician were fixed upon him, and that a bone had a better chance of escaping the search of a Rontgen ray than he of hiding himself from their ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... hed been crawlin around the woods tryin to find somebody till he saw me duck behind a bush. Hed been layin there ever since tryin to decide wether to shoot me an take a chance on missin or lay there till I died a natshural death. It was easy to see tho that we wouldnt win anything but a wooden cross hangin round there so we walked thru the woods till we ran into about twenty ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... friend of hers. And desired to be much more than a friend, if Tony but knew! Were it not for this, it would have been simple enough for her to go and use her influence with Brett—ask him out of sheer friendliness to her to give Tony a chance—to grant him time in which to pay. It would have to be a very long time, she reflected. But perhaps, when she was Eliot's wife... Eliot was generous ... he would not think twice about paying twelve hundred pounds to give happiness to the woman ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Francis Ferdinand to achieve Serbo-Croat unity within the Monarchy, and thus simultaneously to counteract the attractions of Pan-Serb propaganda and to remove the most fertile source of friction between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. His death destroyed the last chance of such a solution; for the statesmen of Vienna and Budapest were not merely incapable but openly hostile. An appeal was to be made to the arbitrament of ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... state, that the more enlightened of the people began to deposit their bonds in the crown treasury. Others, impressed by the confidence of their more prosperous neighbours, showed signs of weakening. The situation was made clear to them. There could be no possible chance of loss from a financial point of view. Their bonds were safe, for the loan itself was a perfectly legitimate transaction, a conclusion which could not be gainsaid by the most pessimistic of the objectors. Mr. Blithers would be paid in full when the time came for settlement, ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the lease of my house in Shoe lane, and soe accquitt and discharge my poore wife who as yet knoweth nothing of his debt. Moreover I entreat my deare wife that if at my death my servant Artur [blank] shall chance to bee with mee and in my service, that for my sake she give him such poore doubletts, breeches, hattes, and bootes as I shall leave, and therwithall one of my ould cloakes soe it bee not lyned with velvett. In witnesse ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... just what I am going to tell you," said Billie, her fists clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white. "I might have stood some chance if it hadn't been for that old statue. Now I can't get enough money to pay for that—much less go ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... hour of love and of faro; now is the hour to press your suit and to break a bank; to glide from the apartment of rapture into the chamber of chance. Thus a noble Venetian contrived to pass the night, in alternations of excitement that in general left him sufficiently serious for the morrow's council. For more vulgar tastes there was the minstrel, the conjuror, and the story-teller, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... musical, licensed with the songs and acted without—or, at least, there is no necessity whatever for retaining them. Why, therefore, should Mr. Stephens drag "solos, duets, choruses, and other musical arrangements," into his drama, unless it is that he thinks they will give it a better chance of success? while, in the event of failure, he reserves the right of turning round upon the law and the music, which he will declare were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... Alfoxden, when younger, forged a check and had served his term for it. Coming out into the world again, no one would trust him because of that one mistake, Spalton, at this juncture, took him in and gave him a new chance—but—as I said unkindly, in my mind, and publicly, he made capital ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... chance to go to school when a boy, but after I came to Kansas I was too old to go to school, and I had to work, but I attended night school, and learned to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kansas Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of domestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often called chance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which the moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is pointed by ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... commodity in the genius of his author; the author, a stanch champion in his foreign ally, who, notwithstanding his community of interest, can still praise without blushing. Many good results doubtless arise from this alliance, but an increased chance of impartial criticism is not likely to be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... with us or well disposed towards us; and, although some will doubtless take up arms on the other side, I think that, with the advantage of the surprise, and with such assistance as our party can give you, there is every chance of bringing the enterprise to a ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... being admitted, may, we will suppose, be interpreted in different methods. Thus the coincidences may be considered the effect of chance. I have had the chances calculated by a competent person, that a given practitioner, A., shall have sixteen fatal cases in a month, on the following data: A. to average attendance upon two hundred and fifty births in a year; three ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... years his cherished plans of an otium cum dignitate. What the world at large would have called the most fortunate event in Bunsen's life proved indeed a real misfortune. It deprived Bunsen of the last chance of fully realizing the literary plans of his youth, and it deprived the world of services that no one could have rendered so well in the cause of freedom of thought, of practical religion, and in teaching the weighty lessons of antiquity to the youth of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... the islands—their population—has been destroyed. Only by compelling each native to work for a definite period could a sufficient amount of labour be produced to-day; but such a system, while extremely beneficial to the race as a whole, stands but a poor chance of being introduced. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... one Wave as with swing of the sea When the mid tide sways at its height; For the hour is for harvest or fight In face of the just calm sun, As the signal in season may be And the lot in the helm may leap When chance shall shake it; but ye, Put in the sickles ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... been preserved by "Providence," by freaks of chance, by virtue of its own inherent strength—whatever has been buried by misers, fondled, treasured by loving hands of collectors and connoisseurs during all these centuries—every speck of ancient dust, every scrap of parchment or papyrus, a corroded piece of metal, a ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... anticipated. Achillas and his army received her with acclamations. Under Ganymede's influence they decided that, as all the other members of the royal family were in durance, being held captive by a foreign general, who had by chance obtained possession of the capital, and were thus incapacitated for exercising the royal power, the crown devolved upon Arsinoe; and ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... blessed moment to have been able to wash my hands free of him; but I swithered, and was like the cuddie between the two bundles of hay. At long and last a thought struck me, which was to give the deluded simple creature a chance of escape; reckoning that, if he found his way home, he would see the shame and folly of fighting against us any more; and, marrying Mysie Rabble, live a contented and peaceful life, under his own fig and bay tree. So wishing him a sound sleep, I cried through the door, "Mounseer, gooda ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... "In the first place, I know Markham is a slave to his word: besides, were any chance to bring him here, I think I could pass your Majesty upon him without difficulty, as Louis Kerneguy. Then, although my cousin and I have not been on good terms for these some years, I believe him incapable of betraying your Majesty; and lastly, if ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... after the typical boy's own heart. Its hero is a plucky young fellow, who, seeing no chance for himself at home, determines to make his own way in the world.... He sets out accordingly, trudges to the far West, and finds the road to fortune an unpleasantly rough ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... course, I had formed the determination of becoming acquainted with the contents of that demijohn in some way, by fair means or foul, and became deeply interested in their conversation, looking for a favorable chance to carry my point. I noticed that one of them was very boastful about what he was going to do when the legislature met, and the other saying to him that "he would not be there three days before they would kick him ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... you long ago," he said. "You are so tall. Shall we go home to dinner? But on Thursday you will have another chance." ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... why he should be left any better off than before the disaster," continued the captain. "We can keep the money as a charity fund; and I have no doubt we shall soon find a chance to make good ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... some of the crew were addicted to vicious practices. Gambling was an enormous offence, and he was not quite willing to believe that such a terrible evil had obtained a foothold in the ship. He could hardly conceive of such a thing as boys engaging in games of chance; only the vilest of men, in his estimation, would do so. Shuffles had told him so, apparently without malice or design, and there was no reason to doubt the truth of his statement, especially as he had given the particulars by ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... caused by the non-appearance of the sixty-seven carriers was extremely dangerous, as it increased the chance of desertions. Already many had volunteered to search for their missing friends, which would have resulted in a search for them also, until my body of carriers would ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... been solely because men could not invest their means in profitable works, with any chance of being long permitted to enjoy the profits under such despotic and unsettled governments, that they squandered them in feeding idle people in marriage ceremonies; since temples, tanks, and groves secured esteem in this life, and promised some advantage ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... we had lost our way, and worse still, that there were no hopes of our finding it. Not a hut was in sight—darkness coming on—nothing but great plains and mountains to be distinguished, and nothing to be heard but bulls roaring round us. We went on, trusting to chance, and where chance would have led us it is hard to say; but by good fortune our advanced guard stumbled over two Indians, a man and a boy, who agreed to guide us to their ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... before realized that I would be sitting so high up, and that at each dip in a crack or depression of the ice, when the sled runner ran a little higher than the other, I should stand a grand chance of being spilled into the water, but my feet were so cold in my rubber boots that I was thinking to get them under cover would be agreeable, and though Ituk probably well knew what the outcome of my ride would be, he very patiently agreed to allow ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... That's straight across as the birds fly. I made nearer five gettin' here. Maybe you'll get that when I tell you these devils have eyes everywhere. Since they shot up Allan Mowbray I'm scared. Scared to death. I've taken a big chance coming around. I ain't makin' it bigger stoppin' to feed. An' if you'll take white advice you won't neither. Jest get to it an' set all the darnation territory you ken find between you an' Bell River before to-morrow. I quit. So long. I've ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... frequently absent from their families or homes the term of six twelve or eighteen months and alwas subjected to severe and incessant labour, exposed to the ferosity of the lawless savages, the vicissitudes of weather and climate, and dependant on chance or accident alone for food, raiment or relief in the event of malady. These people are principally the decendants of the Canadian French, and it is not an inconsiderable proportian of them that can boast a small dash of the pure blood ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... even now, Master Herbert—would you believe it?—I keep thinking of that dreadful time, and I have to shriek out for some relief to my feelings. You often ask me what I am crying for, but you will know now. And you often wonder why I won't be friends with the cat, and try to bite her when I get a chance. Well, the animal that stole my mother was so very like a cat, that I cannot help hating everything that looks like one.—But don't you think, sir, Mr. Cocky is staying out beyond his time. I am not sure of him, sir. Remember, by his own showing, he was ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... without its being noticed that they did not belong to that side. Thus they managed to cut the ropes of the affair, so that not another missile could be discharged from it. As the sun was rising the soldiers of the third legion, called the Gallic, that wintered in Syria but was now by chance in the party of Vespasian, suddenly according to custom saluted the Sun God. The followers of Vitellius, suspecting that Mucianus had arrived, underwent a revulsion of feeling, and panic-stricken at the shout took to flight. (Another instance of how the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... keeping, therefore, that one of them should have broken up his night's sleep. He knew those attacks of the boy's by heart; there was exactly one chance in one hundred that his presence should be necessary. He had sent a safe remedy, telephoned a severe but soothing message, and mentally prayed now for patience to meet the irrational, angered eyes of maternity, ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... latter days stern with her almost to harshness. And although I have ever disdained eavesdropping and couching in covert places to hear the foregatherings of my betters (which some honourable persons in the world's reckoning scorn not to do), it was by Chance, and not by Design, that, playing one wintry day in the Withdrawing-room adjoining the closet where my Grandmother still sat among her relics, I heard high words—high, at least, as they affected one person, for the lady's rose not above a mild ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... him from all success in those proceedings, and formerly he was unable to sue again, owing to his having rashly brought the matter into court, whereby he consumed his right of action, and lost all chance of recovering what was his due. Such unbending rules, however, we do not at the present day approve. Plaintiffs who venture to commence an action before the time agreed upon, or before the obligation ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... the service of the king, and have a chance to prove your loyalty by your deeds," added Lawrence. "Your ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... to God. Hold them steadily before Him in faith and prayer. Keep still, and stop your own restless working until He begins to work. Do nothing that He does not Himself command you to do. Give Him a chance to work, and He will surely do so, and the very trials that threatened to overcome you with discouragement and disaster, will become God's opportunity for the revelation of His grace and glory in your life, as you have never known ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... inane was speedily banished; pale topics—the spectres that haunt the dull and are cherished by them—were whipped away to limbo, and some subject full-blooded, alive with either serious or comical possibilities, was very soon upon the carpet. By chance Artois happened to speak of two people in Paris, common friends of his and of Hermione's, who had been very intimate, but who had now quarrelled, and every one said, irrevocably. The question arose whose ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... firmly persuaded that, situated as our country now is, a young man of activity and talents has the best chance for health, fortune, and honour by entering the navy. Your sons are under peculiar advantages, for you may be assured that they will find not only a friend, but truly a parent in Captain Truxton. We have talked much about them, and I am happy to find that his dispositions towards them ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... to tell you of the good times here for boys. When you read in the papers about the big meetings and the long lectures, you might suppose that young people don't have much chance; but you'd be mistaken. We go boating on the lake, and fishing down at the Point, and bathing in a safe place along the shore. This afternoon all the boys and girls are going pilgriming through Palestine in a procession. Last evening I went out with little Susie for a walk. We came upon an ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "We'll have a chance to argue with him still," the Little Russian rejoined. "You keep on playing your flute; whoever has gay feet, if they haven't grown into the ground, will dance to your tune. Rybin would probably have said that we don't feel ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... whites along, the river. For months I have watched the Indians preparing for an expedition, the extent of which they had never before undertaken. I finally learned from Myeerah that my suspicions were well founded. A favorable chance to escape presented and I took it and got away. I outran all the braves, even Arrowswift, the Wyandot runner, who shot me through the arm. I have had a hard time of it these last three or four days, living on ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... of it," said the prince; "for should I even have acquired a crown I am now too much engaged to occupy myself with such a trifle. If that Armenian has not merely guessed by chance" ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "they have not seen us after all; they are not coming here, and unless we can make them hear us within the next ten minutes our chance will be lost. It is a piece of wreckage—possibly part of the poor old Dolphin—that they have stopped to examine. We must shout, lads, and with a will, the ship is to leeward of us and may catch the sound. Now then, when we rise stand by—one, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... bettre be disposyd amongste pore people. Me. O a wykyd comunicacyon. Ogy. Ye & so great an Apostle whiche was wotyd to stand all in precyous stones & gold, now stadythe all of wodde hauynge before hym skaresly a wax candle. Me. If it be trew that I here, it is great ioperdy lest that same chance to all the rest of the sayntes. Ogy. I thynk it wel, for ther is an epistle abrode whiche our lady dyd wryte apon the same matter. Me. What lady? Ogy. *She that hathe her name of a stone.[*Our ladi of stone in Raurachia whiche is a certayne cuntre.] Me. I trawe it is in Raurachia. ...
— The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion • Desiderius Erasmus
... bribed the priests with whom the power of evading its dangers rested. And with that worldly wisdom which persons of genius in their wildest chimeras rarely lack, she had already freed herself from the chance of active persecution from the Church, by ample donations ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... smiled Hal, "but I won't give him a chance to lick me on the money score; it's too good fun having you all here, and a royal holiday ahead of us, without hunting for a trimming from dad because I play the la-de-da or think ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... the manse, listening if by chance she might hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met no one, heard nothing, and ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... therefore doubtless, a third sort of fundamentals, by which you can wrestle with conviction of conscience, and stifle it; by which you can suit yourself for every fashion, mode, and way of religion. Here you may hop from Presbyterianism, to a prelatical mode; and if time and chance should serve you, backwards, and forwards again: yea, here you can make use of several consciences, one for this way now, another for that anon; now putting out the light of this by a sophistical delusive argument, then putting out the other, by an argument that best suits the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a man in youth writes a foolish book and gives his name to it, he has, so far as his name is concerned, used his one chance; and if, in maturer life, he writes something high and good, then if he wants his wise child to live, he must consent to die himself with the foolish one. It is much the same with one who has become notorious ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... association should be formed and the happenings sent from one to the other and used in brief by out-of-town journals and be fully detailed by local journals. More unity is needed and is a thing to be encouraged and maintained. Our journals depend too much upon chance MSS. than upon active reporters ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... multiplied. It is even seen that creatures sometimes perform acts that have no fruits, for without acts the course of life itself would be impossible. Those persons in the world who believe in destiny, and those again who believe in chance, are both the worst among men. Those only that believe in the efficacy of acts are laudable. He that lieth at ease, without activity, believing in destiny alone, is soon destroyed like an unburnt ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he began, "why I have worked for this resolution recommending the pardon of Alfred Williams. It is one of the great laws of the universe that every living thing be given a chance. In the case before us that law has been violated. This does not resolve itself into a question of second chances. The boy of whom we are speaking has ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... The other party replied that Catharine was not ugly by any means, and they showed Charles her portrait, which, after looking at it a few minutes, he said was not unhandsome. They reminded him, also, that Catharine was only the third in succession from the crown of Portugal, so that the chance of her actually inheriting that realm was not at all to be disregarded. Charles thought this a very important consideration, and, on the whole, decided that the affair should go on; and commissioners were sent to make a ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... pause, Kenkenes recovered himself, but he knew that he gave Rachel to her fate, if the pair overcame him. He caught her hand and with the whispered word, "Run!" fled with her toward the front of the cliff facing the Nile. It was a desperate chance for escape ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... old friends take warning in time, or abolish smoke and get a new kind of city government. I should say the best chance is to ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... that came to him by chance, his desire to grow up a gentleman, but he was more than half in earnest. He had not thought much about the future hitherto, but now his ambition was kindled, and he thought he should like to fill ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... and about that many lived. The wood was thoroughly dormant and plump. I cut it right out of the orchard in May or June and got them to live. Of course if you cut scions from the ends of branches, you haven't a chance at all. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... Is it owing to his lessons that you lost the chance of making a fortune and earn your living now by serving behind a counter in a ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... him gold. But, his voyage paid for, he must buy at Vigo fresh apparel and a horse. When at last he rode eastward and northward he was poor enough! Food and lodging must be bought for himself and his steed. Inns and innkeepers, chance folk applied to for guidance, petty officials in perennially suspicious towns—twenty people a day stood ready to present a spectral aspect of leech and gold-sucker! He was expert in traveling, but usually he had borne a ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent. positive audacity; 100 per cent. will made it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated." (P. J. Dunning, 1. c., p. 35.) Cited by Karl Marx in "Capital," p. 786, edition ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... preserved and they should be skinned down to the last joint, leaving the claws attached to the skin. Smaller skins may have the paws preserved, though the effect is hardly worth the trouble and the smaller paws are easily crushed on the floor by a chance step. ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... the Nation, at a word, When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her, Flamed weldin' into one keen sword Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder: A splendid flash!—but how'd the grasp 61 With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally? Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp,— Half ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... its monuments. No, Noureddin Ali thought of the explosion. He knew that Scharnhoff needed money, so he gave him French money, knowing that would put old Scharnhoff completely in his power. Then he tipped off some one down at Ludd to watch for a chance to steal some TNT. He had better luck than he expected. He got two tons of it. He didn't have all the luck, though. His plan, I believe, was to time the fireworks simultaneously with a French-instigated raid from El-Kerak. But the ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... matins and the mass chaunted in his army. He stationed all the horses and baggage in the village, under such small guard as he could spare, having resolved to fight the battle on foot. He sagaciously perceived that his only chance of victory rested in the superiority of the personal fortitude and activity of his countrymen, and to bring them face to face, and arm to arm, with their opponents, was the simple object of his tactical dispositions. He formed his troops into three divisions, with two ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... directed from Paris the armies of Louis XIV., and with success. Carnot, also, from Paris directed the armies of the Republic: in 1793 he did well, and saved France; in 1794 his action was at first very unfortunate, but he repaired his faults afterward by chance; in 1796 he was completely at fault. It is to be observed, however, that both Louvois and Carnot individually controlled the armies, and that there was no council of war. The Aulic council, sitting in Vienna, was often intrusted with the duty of directing the operations ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... isolated and imperfect, there would still be a supernatural character about them, owing to their permanence and self-sufficiency, where no other sensual pleasures are permanent or self-sufficient. But when, instead of being scattered, interrupted, or chance-distributed, they are gathered together, and so arranged to enhance each other as by chance they could not be, there is caused by them not only a feeling of strong affection towards the object in which they exist, but a perception of purpose and ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... caution could augment the chance of my success. But, to confess to you the truth, the works and passages in which I have succeeded, have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity; and when I have seen some of these placed in opposition ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... from attack by an enemy; for, if the lowest terrace had been mastered, the people had but to block up the chimney-like approach to the next terrace after fleeing thereto, and defy their foes, whose only chance of gaining the mastery was by starving ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... once embraced the artistic ideal, he must embark upon what is the most terrible of all risks. There is a small chance that he may find his exact subject and his exact medium, and that the subject may be one which is of a widespread interest. But there are innumerable chances against him. Either the fibre of his mind is ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... idea," the little man replied, without the slightest hesitation. "We met at first by chance in the Teyn Kirche, one afternoon—it was a Sunday, I remember, about ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... accounted for. They had met and made friends with each other without either knowing who the other was; they were rival claimants for the same property, and would hereafter contend for it; still, without identifying each other as the little boy and girl that had met by chance in the cave so long ago. In the meanwhile, there might be personal meetings, in which they should recognize each other as persons though not by name; and should thus be cementing their friendship as man and woman, while, as Jack Vivian and ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... aside all my own acts in other matters, why can you not remember at least so much as that? Yet you treat me like a dog. I tell you, I shall not leave without word from her, and when I leave I shall make no promises as to when I shall or shall not come back. So long as one chance remains—" ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... continued to take the lead, but the chief soon went before them for two reasons, first, that he might have an opportunity of looking at them, and secondly, that they might have a fairer chance of seeing him in all his state, for which purpose, he had placed himself outside his awning, on an elevated and conspicuous seat. However, he only wished to get a few yards before them, for his canoe men soon lifted their paddles out of the water, and the boat fell back to its ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Kenneth," she said slowly. "It is the most powerful force in all the world. It overcomes reason, it crushes the conscience, it makes strong men weak and weak men strong. For love a woman will give her honour, for love a man will barter his chance for eternal salvation. It overlooks faults, it condones crime, it rises above every obstacle that the human mind can put before it. It knows no fear, it has no religion, it serves no God. You love my girl, Kenneth. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... among the principal personages in every popular drama, and "Hell's Mouth" was a piece of stage scenery constantly brought into requisition. A miracle-play without a full display of the diabolic element in it would have stood a fair chance of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... in Paris is to look for a smelt in the Seine; nothing but chance can throw her into the net. The chance came. Mere Cardinal, who to entertain a neighbor had taken her to the Bobino theatre, recognized in the leading lady her own daughter, whom the first comedian had held under his control ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... whole of them were as busy as beavers, putting up the two tents on ground which Max had selected as suitable for the camp. In doing this he had to consider a number of things, such as a view of the river, nearness to the boats, a chance for drainage in case of a summer storm that might otherwise flood them out, and soak everything they owned; and such matters that an old and experienced camper never fails ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... wound is disinfected the greater is the possibility of diminishing this risk. If cleansing is carried out within the first six hours the chance of eliminating sepsis is good; with every succeeding six hours it diminishes, until after twenty-four hours it is seldom possible to do more than mitigate sepsis. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... sure I could not have written a letter at all in such a position," said Clarissa. And so they sat, almost as late as their father, discussing the probable character and appearance of this new relation, and the chance of their being able to love her with all their hearts. There was the necessity for an immediate small sacrifice, but as to that there was no difficulty. Hitherto the two sisters had occupied separate bedrooms, but now, as one chamber must be given ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Mrs. Nelson Smith would soon be forgotten. I'd hand over the money you hate to charities—not the kind of charities I've been supporting here! They've all been part of what you call my fraud, and have only given me a chance to bring some rather queer-looking fish around me, who might have raised curiosity if I couldn't have accounted for them. But ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... your information. With respect to the Indian war, the summer has been chiefly employed on our part in endeavoring to persuade them to peace, in an abstinence from all offensive operations, in order to give those endeavors a fairer chance, and in preparation for activity the ensuing season, if they fail. I believe we may say these endeavors have all failed, or probably will do so. The year has been rather a favorable one for our agriculture. The crops of small grain were generally ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... 17. I am at Nimrod Judy's. I this day had a chance to send a letter through the lines to Brother George Hoover, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... all, that it is better for his own people, better for himself, better for future generations, that he should starve than steal? If you have no foundation of knowledge, or habit of thought, to work upon, what chance have you of persuading a hungry man that a capitalist is not a thief "with a circumbendibus?" And if he honestly believes that, of what avail is it to quote the commandment against stealing, when he proposes to make the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... such thing as chance. [And what to us seems merest accident Springs from the deepest source of destiny.] In brief, 'tis sign'd and seal'd that this Octavio Is my good angel—and now no ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... through a similar course of development, as in the case of existing marsupials. No one will pretend that so perfect a structure as the abnormal double uterus in woman could be the result of mere chance. But the principle of reversion, by which a long-lost structure is called back into existence, might serve as the guide for its full development, even after the lapse of an enormous interval ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... mind of a story!" cried Shadow. "A Dutch laborer working on the railroad was much annoyed by the other laborers coming along and knocking his stiff old derby hat over his eyes. At last he got good and mad and when he saw a chance, he stole a stick of dynamite from the shanty where it was kept. He stuck the dynamite in his hat and then went around to the other laborers. 'Now, chust hit dot hat vonce again of ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... would be glad to have me establish my real rights," said Crawford. "You would like to have it brought up in court, perhaps, how your sister was found going through my possessions, and how she happened, quite by chance, of course, to select the most portable and valuable article in my house and carry it away with her. She would like, I am sure, to have public opportunity to make all that ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... kings,—if I might, or thought they would listen to me,—for I recommend them greatly to God, and I wish I might be of service to them. All this makes one risk life; for I long frequently to lose mine,—and that would be to lose a little for the chance of gaining much; for surely it is not possible to live, when we see with our eyes the great delusion wherein we are walking, and the blindness ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... of Kent, not discouraged with the euill chance which [Sidenote: Beda. Will. Malmes.] happened in the beginning, but rather occasioned thereby to learne more experience in feats of warre, prooued so perfect a maister therein, that in processe of time he subdued by force of armes all those English Saxons ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... wife was half a heathen, and afterwards the girl was left to chance?' said Colonel Mohun. 'I see no other. And you, Lily, are the last person I should expect ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... silkily sympathetic. Would they, he asked, repeat their assertions in public—before a vast public? Only let Vincent give them a chance, and the Planet, they vowed, should ring with their wrongs. Their aim in life—two women and a man explained it together—was to reform the world. Oddly enough, this also had been Vincent's life-dream. He offered them an ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... look of furious triumph as he wiped his bloody sword after killing the last of the Bashi-Bazouks who had failed to escape into the neighbouring woods. "These brutes at least won't have another chance of drawing blood from women and children," he cried, sheathing his sword with a clang, and trotting towards his comrades, who were already mustering at the bottom of the dell, the ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... did," Elsie replied. "But I don't care; and mother shan't have the chance again. I don't think our father'd let her if he ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... life, was compromised; he must leave at once by a certain coach which would start in an hour: there was but just time to disguise him; he must make for a certain port on the Baltic, and there lie concealed until a chance of getting ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... to be here; but there is scarcely a chance, the time is so short," said Mrs. Cavendish, as she again resorted ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... silvery tones which nature gave—and that strange fascination which comes from magnetic powers. The ancients said that the poet is born and the orator is made. It appears to me that a man stands but little chance of oratorical triumphs who is not gifted by nature with a musical voice and a sympathetic electrical force which no effort ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... before Howard had a chance. On a Sunday afternoon the Assistant City Editor who was in charge of the City Desk for the day sent him up to the Park to write a descriptive story of the crowds. "Try to get a new point of view," he said, "and let ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... hands and feet in an attempt to scramble upward, and, possibly more by chance than design, he fell into the stroke that a dog uses when swimming, so that within a few seconds his nose was above water and he found that he could keep it there by continuing his strokes, and also make progress through ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... de Breaute, there was nothing improbable in the charge; but so far as Mme. Verdurin was concerned, it was a sheer impossibility. From the fact that Odette did occasionally tell a lie, it was not fair to conclude that she never, by any chance, told the truth, and in these bantering conversations with Mme. Verdurin which she herself had repeated to Swann, he could recognize those meaningless and dangerous pleasantries which, in their inexperience of life and ignorance of vice, women often ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of the science of numbers to the faith of man in the morning of the world, when he sought to find some kind of key to the mighty maze of things. Living amidst change and seeming chance, he found in the laws of numbers a path by which to escape the awful sense of life as a series of accidents in the hands of a capricious Power; and, when we think of it, his insight was not invalid. "All things are in numbers," said the wise Pythagoras; ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... by law, for they suspected that its tendency would be to leave them without any mediatory functions, and therefore without any claims on the faithful. Equally does Gotama deny the existence of chance, saying that that which we call chance is nothing but the effect of an unknown, unavoidable cause. As to the external world, we cannot tell how far it is a phantasm, how far a reality, for our senses ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... stairs, Martini following in silence. She had grown to look ten years older in these few days, and the gray streak across her hair had widened into a broad band. She mostly kept her eyes lowered now; but when, by chance, she raised them, he shivered at the ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... the lace shawl. My faithful porter will forward it to me wherever I am. I don't know yet. If my children want to go with me into Brittany, I shall go to fetch them, if not I shall go on alone wherever chance leads me. In travelling, I fear only distractions. But I take a good deal on myself and I shall end by improving myself. You write me a good dear letter which I kiss. Don't forget the three leaves from the tulip tree. They are asking me at the Odeon to let them perform ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... "we'll chance it; and there's my hand upon it, Lascelles. You make whatever plans you may consider necessary, and I'll back you up through thick and thin. A man can but die once; and if we fail in this we shall at least have the consolation ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... force both of ships and of infantry upon them. However, he found himself unable even to hold converse with them, although he approached their wall and shouted and hallooed. For Gallus by ordering his trumpeters to sound their instruments all together gave no one a chance to hear a word. Antony further failed in a sudden assault and subsequently met a reverse with his ships. Gallus by night had chains stretched across the mouth of the harbor under water and took no open measures to guard against them but quite disdainfully ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... dependent upon others; and as our circumstances in life have been so strangely similar, we are more like brother and sister than cousins. I shall be very glad, for her sake, if she finds in the Mortons more than is ordinarily found in chance friends. And I shall be glad, for my own sake, when I can release the dear old Doctor from the burden with which he willingly shackled himself when he took me under ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... my person, and that, too, was a chance in my favour, for just as like I might not have had it on. When I started to overtake the boat, I had thrown off both jacket and trousers; but on my return from that expedition, and before I had got as badly scared as I became afterwards, I had drawn my clothes on again. The ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... whom he would. He was seventy-six, and had spent his life in improving his estate, but he prized nothing about it so much as his right to give the result of his life's work to the first beggar he might chance to meet. It would have made him still happier if he could have had the power of destroying Brackenhill utterly, of wiping it off the face of the earth, in case he could not find an heir who pleased him, for it troubled him to think that some man must have the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... the region of the heart, the passing pallor of the face. Had they seen none of those things? Had they no wild, despairing thoughts about him? Was it possible they could go peacefully to sleep with this dread thing hanging over them, with a chance of awaking to a day of bitter anguish and wild, heart-broken farewell? This cruel anxiety, kept all to herself, was killing the girl. She grew restless and feverish; sometimes she sat up half the night at the window listening to ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... insects of the Coal-forest are in entire harmony with the principle of evolution, but when we try to trace their origin and earlier relations our task is beset with difficulties. It goes without saying that such delicate frames as those of the earlier insects had very little chance of being preserved in the rocks until the special conditions of the forest-age set in. We are, therefore, quite prepared to hear that the geologist cannot give us the slenderest information. He finds the wing of what he calls "the primitive ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... not one invariable or inevitable) that they cannot allow other minds room to breathe and show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment and instruction, which the greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest. Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority, raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. This is not ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... beginning of the dawn of will. How often have you wished that you had servants who would believe in you, and serve you with the same truth with which you regarded them! The servants born in a man's house in the old times were more like his children than his servants. Here is a chance for you, as it were of a servant born in your own house. Connie loves the child: the child will love Connie, and find her delight in serving her like a little cherub. Not one of the maids to whom you have referred had ever been taught ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... looking up again, "an' now that the colonel's glasses hev showed the way I kin see that feller peepin' from roun' his bush, tryin' to git another shot, mebbe at me an' mebbe at you. It's a long carry, but I'm shore to hit. I had a chance at him then, but I 'low to wait ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of benevolence, have you not thought it fit, during the last few days, to give me the chance of talking to you alone?" The tone was full of exasperation, but ironical too, as if he were faintly amused ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... been approved by the psychographs, his background will be thoroughly investigated. We may find criminal types who show the blackest of careers, but who would turn over a new leaf if given the chance and prove to be more valuable than men with the best of backgrounds who merely want to get away from it all. We don't want that kind of colonist. We want people who have faith in the project; people ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... mother; "but I doubt it greatly. Thou wast ever one to follow distant dreams, neglecting the good that lay within hand's reach. Were Elias or Yuhanna in thy place, no doubt at all but they would make some money. There is a chance when making purchases or hiring horses for his Honour. But thou art capable of scorning every gain—nay, even of bestowing all thy goods!—for the sake of a fine friendship which may ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... year 1739, was, in that one season (continued to 1740) played upwards of forty nights, to great audiences, with continued mirthful applause. As this is a truth, I give it to the candid; and let the relation take its chance, though it should not be thought by some (who may not abound in good nature) that I only mean by this, to pay due regard to the merit of the piece, though it speaks for itself; for, without extraordinary merit in the writing, it could never have gained such an uncommon run, at the distance ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... facing the enemy in the open is inspired by the atmosphere of war, and knows that he has at least a fighting chance against his foe. The Koreans took their stand—their women and children by their side—without weapons and without means of defense. They pledged themselves ahead to show no violence. They had all too good reason ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... fortunate chance," resumed Count Tristan, "that brings him here. Through him you can influence his sister,—through her the vote of Mr. Rutledge will be secured, and these two votes gained; the road to the left will be chosen, and for this I shall be wholly your debtor. Truly, Madeleine, you are the fairy Maurice ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... smaller by cutting off the recruiting which was always going on from the ranks of the great public. How long it will take Britain to recover even pre-war conditions I do not venture to suggest. But I am pretty certain that there is no chance for a drama of truth and beauty there for many years to come, unless we can get it endowed in such a substantial way as shall tide it over—say—the next two decades. What we require is a London theatre undeviatingly ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... him goat-like, in a fury of complacent intelligence. For it was not every day so notable a personage as the Brockhurst trainer crossed his threshold. To Josiah Appleyard, indeed—not to mention his two apprentices stretching eyes and ears from the back-shop, to catch any chance word of Mr. Chifney's conversation—it appeared as though the gods very really condescended to visit the habitations of men. While Mrs. Appleyard, peeping from behind the wire blind of the parlour, had—as she afterwards repeatedly declared—"felt her insides turn right over," when she saw the carriage ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the Lists there stood some dozen Captains of either side mingled, all which were sworn, and one of those was I: and 'twas my chance to stand next a Captain o'th' enemies side, called Tiribasus; Valiant they said he was; whilst these two Kings were streaching themselves, this Tiribasus cast something a scornful look on me, and ask't me who I thought ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and commanded the plateau between us and the enemy. With my staff, I lay upon the ground behind the troops, holding our horses by the bridles as we rested, for our orderlies were so exhausted that we could not deny them the same chance for ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... a minute or two, with a cold void in his stomach. He had always distrusted the handiwork of man as a place to scramble on, and now he was planted in the dark on a decomposing wall, with an excellent chance of breaking his neck, and with the most urgent need for haste. He could see the windows of the House, and, since he was sheltered from the gale, he could hear the faint sound of blows on woodwork. There was clearly the devil to pay there, and yet here he was helplessly stuck.... Setting ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... old gossips chance to sit, And sip their slop, and talk of it, What gives a sharpness to their wit? A ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings |
