"Odds" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... advanced and declared in the name of his brethren, that they were resolved to fight to the last drop of their blood, and further, that they were quite prepared to suffer like their brethren in France. And so the fight between such fearful odds began. Many soldiers of the Electorate fell under the swords of the knights and their faithful servants, but ever the furious archbishop ordered forward new bands to fill the gaps. Day by day the ranks of the ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... they were a benefit to Alan and a help to herself, so Polly dropped in at her will, morning, noon, or night, and never failed to find a hearty welcome. The other girls laughed a little at her devotion, but it had no effect, so they went on their way, giving the boy the odds and ends of their time, while Polly and Alan spent long, cosy hours together, reading or playing games, with a perfect enjoyment of each other's society which left them no opportunity to miss their absent friends. Damon and Pythias, the girls ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... and among others Mr. Percy, would not allow that the English translation deserved to be called miserable. "The wrong side of the tapestry we cannot expect should be quite equal to the right side." said he: "Voltaire pointed out a few odds and ends here and there, which disfigured the work, and required to be cut off; but upon the whole, if I recollect, he was satisfied with the piece, and complimented Mr. Hill upon having preserved the general design, spirit, and simplicity ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... had seen the dismay on those ten faces. It was any odds on their blurting out a shamefaced refusal, but Ted Harper, their acknowledged chief, pulled himself together just in time, and called out as the train began to move:—"We'll do it, sir. I don't know how we'll manage it, but we'll do our best. We'll ...
— The Comrade In White • W. H. Leathem
... the support which he had given Grettir against such odds as he had to deal with. Not one of the men who had helped Grettir was ever received into favour again with the ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... been throughout the whole day's battle, so was it now. King Olaf's men were greatly outnumbered; it was a conflict of skill and endurance against overwhelming odds. This final contest, while it lasted, was fierce and terrible. In a short time, however, many of King Olaf's champions fell. Brave and strong though they were, they could not withstand the furious onslaught of the ambitious ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... purpose on a pinch, and so accessible, never locked; just go in and help yourself. Nowadays farmers use and abuse so much complicated machinery, that it is more than likely one could construct entire an automobile from the odds and ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... wooden ship without steam and without armour would be a mere floating coffin. The fighting Temeraire, and the saucy Arethusa, and Nelson's Victory itself, would be nothing but targets for deadly fire from active and irresistible foes. The odds would be about the same as the odds of javelins and crossbows against modern fire-arms. Steam alone had made a revolution in naval warfare; but when we add to this the armour-plating of vessels, ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... ramshackle piano in an East Side restaurant in New York when the Colonel picked him up, Sebastian could do charming things with quite simple little tunes, if you did not inquire into problems of harmony and counterpoint too closely. He was doing them now, weaving odds and ends of familiar tunes, rather scapegrace and thin, into a lovely, reassuring whole, that made you feel rested and safe. Judith, making herself comfortable against a stiff and unwieldy Arts and Crafts sort ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... faith, fast as sinners to Christianity in a Maffitt meeting, and those on whom the spirit fell not, kept very quiet. People had gone there to make homes, not to fight the Southern tiger, and any attempt against such overwhelming odds seemed madness, for Lowrie's dominion was largely legitimate. He was one of those who are born to command—of splendid physique and dignified bearing, superior intellect and mesmeric fascination. His natural advantages had been increased by a liberal education; he had been brought ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... happy day, you can not begin too soon to look over all your little treasures, and choose all you can part with. You all have cast-off toys, story-books that have been read through, and boxes full of odds and ends, and it takes very little to brighten the face of a poor sick child lying alone in a hospital cot. A single pretty picture-card will do it. Then, too, you can save your pennies and dimes, so that before Christmas comes you can go into the ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 58. Against odds a small number of men can fight to best advantage by grouping themselves so as to prevent their being attacked ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... the old time you never resembled me to a churn, let alone a cracked one. You used to christen me a pillar, and a tree, and a rock, and a polished corner; but there, what's the odds, when a man has done his duty? The names ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... ordinary case, with three men starting from a given point in North Italy at the same time, the odds seem in favor of their all reaching their destination at the same time. As it happened, however, there was another factor to be considered, which had its due result. Bernard Maddison was rather more at home on Continental railroads than he was on English ones, whereas ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... muster in their thousands on market-place, or green, With blatant brazen brayings, and thump of tambourine. Are you at prayer, asleep or sick? What odds? You're forced to list To the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... means. From nine to three he is the strictest and best business man in the city. If you spoke to him then of the True Blue Athletic Club he wouldn't know what you were talking about. But after three o'clock he'll take any odds you like to offer, from matching pennies ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... is a partaker in the triumph of him who is always true to himself and makes no compromises with customs, schools, or opinions. Whitman's life, underneath its easy tolerance and cheerful good-will, was heroic. He fought his battle against great odds and he conquered; he had his own way, he yielded not ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... water, or a glass of porter, before he cuts into the beef; and while I'm mixing the first, or starting the cork, he refreshes himself with an entremet, such as a wing of a duck, or perhaps a plate of pickled oysters. You must know that there is great odds in passengers; one set eating and jollifying, from the hour we sail till the hour we get in, while another takes the ocean as ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... was hardly to be expected that St. George could carry the day. Still, every nerve was strained to effect the purpose. Regardless of the gale, reef after reef was let out while force pumps moistened his sails; yet nothing was gained. Three miles against seven were too much odds;—and, with a slight move of the helm, and "letting all fly," as we neared the line of surf, to break her headway, La Estrella ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the guards moved into Chester Pelton's private rest room with the stretcher. Claire went to the desk and began picking up odds and ends, including the pistol Cardon had given her, and putting them in ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... foul, which it now most certainly is, for I am writing any thing but "Newton Forster," and which will account for this rambling, stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like what we call "skewer pieces" on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is foul, as I said before, I have, however, a way of going a-head, by getting up the steam which I am now about to resort to—and ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not but it is. There are many, however, not in that category. They struggled at fearful odds, and every risk, against the fate of their country. They strove when hope had left them. Wherefore do they stand apart now, when she is again erect, and righteous, and daring? Have they despaired for her greatness, because of the infidelity of those to ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... her shoulders in rich and luxurious folds. She gave him, half extended, a hand, which he lifted and lowered once after the fashion of the day and then released. He remembered her now perfectly,—the Almira Prendergast the big boys used to say was by long odds the prettiest girl in the days when half a dozen big brick ward schools were all the town afforded, but he did not say so, nor did she ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Athelstan unlocked the leather bag that had caused Ismail so much concern and shook out from it a pile of odds and ends at which his brother nodded with perfect understanding. The principal item was a piece of silk—forty or fifty yards of it—that he proceeded to bind into a turban on his head, his brother lending him a guiding, understanding finger at every other turn. When that ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... at seven o'clock!" said Mrs. Hopkins. "You forget that this is Wednesday. We always keep the shop, except the post-office part, open until past nine on Wednesdays; such a lot of people come in for odds and ends on this special night. But I will be back long before nine. Don't on any account shut the ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... continued, knitting his brows still more severely, "there's Gulliver an' the Lillycups or putts, an' the Pilgrim's Progress—though, of course, I don't mean for to say I knows 'em all right off by heart, but that's no odds. An' there's Robinson Crusoe— ha! that's the story for you, Sall; that's the tale that'll make your hair stand on end, an' a'most split your sides open, an' cause the very marrow in your spine to wriggle. Yes; we'll begin with ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... it. It seemed to poor Blythe as if he had awakened and found himself in fairyland, with a score or more of small brown gnomes climbing and scrambling about his domain, singing, jollying, planning, laughing, working, cooking, eating, kindling big camp-fires with odds and ends of wood, and telling such nonsensical yarns as he had never heard before. Pee-wee and Roy in particular amused him greatly. "Go on, make fun of him," he would say to Roy. And then he would deliberately take sides with Pee-wee against the whole troop. But he ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... words preparatory to marching. "You are all brave men," he said, "and loyal to your sovereign. For my own part, I hold life as little in comparison with my duty to my prince. Yet let us not distrust our success; the Spaniard, in a good cause, has often overcome greater odds than these. And we are fighting for the right; it is the cause of God,—the cause of God," 21 he concluded, and the soldiers, kindled by his generous ardor, answered him with huzzas that went to the heart ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... little enough chance to win at a straight game of roulette. But the wheel is very rarely straight, even with all the odds in favor of the bank, as they are. This game was electrically controlled. Others are mechanically controlled by what is sometimes called the 'mule's ear,' and other devices. You can't win. There wires and magnets can be made to attract the little ball into any pocket the operator ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... saw Celia and Rosalind he said: "How now, daughter and niece, are you crept hither to see the wrestling? You will take little delight in it, there is such odds in the men. In pity to this young man, I would wish to persuade him from wrestling. Speak to him, ladies, and see if you ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... house. It comes out of that "great within" which we are now exploring. It arises from the courageous facing of our weaknesses and becomes a part of the man who knows himself and laughs with life, at the mere joy of living, doing, accomplishing ... winning against all odds. ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... minds, we might catch a faint conception of the affection which they must have felt for brothers waging the deadly fight against the same enemies, and contending in a seemingly endless and hopeless struggle against the same terrible odds. Union, affection, devotedness, are words ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... them from being married. And a very good resolution it was. The only pity was, that it was not very likely to be carried into effect. A father, an unknown lover, and a king, all joined against a poor boy and girl. The odds are very much ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... of discharging two cartridges in immediate succession? And if two cartridges, why not three? An easy thought, but a very difficult one to realise. Something in the power of the double-barrel—the overwhelming odds it affords the sportsman over bird and animal—pleases. A man feels master of the copse with a double-barrel; and such a sense of power, though only over feeble creatures, is fascinating. Besides, there is the delight of effect; for a clever right and left is sure of applause and ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... kept the pace moderate, at first, but had speeded up toward the end. None grew more haggard, toil-worn, or emaciated than he. With blistered hands, sweat-blinded eyes, parched mouths and fevered souls these men fought against all the odds of destiny. Half naked they strove, oppressed by heat, sun, flies, thirst, exhaustion. Tobacco was their only stay and solace. The Master, however, only chewed khat leaves; and as for "Captain Alden," she ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... think with their children in these matters. It would make no odds whom you happened to love, they would most certainly oppose you. I never yet knew a young lady whose parents fully approved her ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... Doctor, "How I wish our little boys were out here with us. How they would enjoy themselves among these lakes and rivers. It is a hard lot that the children of our cities have in life. They struggle up to man and womanhood against fearful odds, and the wonder is, that they do not perish in their infancy; that they are not blasted, as the blossoms are, when the cold east wind sweeps over ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... him understanding. Starting from this interpretation, we can begin to order the baffling and teasing aspects, the illusive nature of the world. Why this ever failing, but never ending struggle against unseen odds to grasp and understand and live with the Divine? Why, between the two, the absolute and the changeless spirit, unseen but felt, and the hesitant and timid spirit of a man, would there seem to be a great gulf fixed? Because ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... strong feeling that a dark night would be more adapted for moving—the darker the better. At least every twelve months there should be a regular clearance of worn-out articles, and that miscellaneous collection of odds and ends which can be of no earthly value to anybody, unless ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... of thousands, it does not prove he was unable. Lord Ormont was as big as Murat. More, he was a Christian to his horses. How about Murat in that respect? Lord Ormont cared for his men: did Murat so particularly much? And he was as cunning fronting odds, and a thunderbolt at the charge. Why speak of him in the past? He is an English lord, a lord by birth, and he is alive; things may be expected of him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bad; she was finishing a modest meal of tea and scone, and she was not very different in her way from thousands of other girls who were finishing, or beginning, or continuing their teas in London tea-shops at that exact moment. The odds were enormously in favour of the supposition that she had never seen the "Yellow Peacock"; obviously she supplied excellent material for Jocantha's first ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... the labor day parade; speaking at vaudeville shows—there was no cessation of these eight months' strenuous work. The campaigning in Sacramento was in charge of Mrs. Mary Roberts Coolidge, assisted by Mrs. E. V. Spencer, against great odds, but the city gave a small favorable majority, due chiefly ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Missouri column, still lingered for some sort of word with Molly Wingate. Some odds and ends of brush lay about. Of the latter Molly began casting a handful on the fire and covering it against the wind with her shawl, which at times she quickly removed. As a result the confined smoke arose at more or less well defined intervals, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... direction to look for the smugglers. At length two of the king's vessels, early one morning, found the Happy-go-Lucky at anchor, not far from Saint Michael's Mount. On seeing the royal cruisers, the outlaws cut their cables, and making sail, stood out to sea. Undaunted by the vastly superior odds against them, the daring smugglers stood to their guns, and fought with a bravery worthy of a better cause. For a whole hour—entertaining to the last the hope of escape—they maintained the unequal contest. They knew, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... come from that way," said the surprised Terry; "so what is the odds, as me father said he used to ask when the Injins was on all sides of him, and a panther in the tree he wanted to climb, and he found himself standing on the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... things successfully which we poor humans cannot. You will set out your cream-jug that was presented to Mrs. Martha Buggins by her friends and neighbours as a token of respect in 1823, and the bowl that was presented to Mr. Bobby as a sword and shooting prize in 1860, and all your pretty little odds and ends. You will get everything ready in the kitchen, so that customers won't have to wait long; but you will not prepare much in advance, so ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "the odds against us are terrific. All the more reason why we should fight bravely. Let us show the Spaniards to-day what Americans ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... Adirondacks, where Braybridge was, somewhat in the quality of a bull in a china-shop. He was lugged in by the host, as an old friend, and was suffered by the hostess as a friend quite too old for her. At any rate, as I heard (and I don't vouch for the facts, all of them), Braybridge found himself at odds with the gay young people who made up the hostess's end of the party, and was watching for a ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... escape from this dreadful fate.... The number of the enemy was double that of the Christians; but the invulnerable armor of the Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... for food, for drink, for association with its kind, impel it to action, and the result is the evolution of strength, skill and intelligence in proportion to the intensity of its desires. To gratify these desires it will accept battle no matter how great may be the odds against it and will unhesitatingly risk life itself in the combat. Desire not only induces the activity that develops physical strength and beauty, but also has its finer effects. Hunger compels the animal not only to seek food, but to pit its cunning against that of its prey. Driven forward by desire ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... victory. The coveted object becomes dear, not so much for its own sake, as because it is a trophy. Such a child knows not the joy of sharing; he knows only the joys of wresting victory against odds. This is indeed an evil that grows with the years. The child who holds onto his apple, his Candy, or toy, fights tooth and nail everyone who wants to take it from him, and resists all coaxing, is liable to become a hard, ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... trusting little Betty insane! Nonsense! It was unthinkable. If she was in an asylum anywhere she was there without warrant, and it behoved her faithful old nurse to find a way out for her. This she meant to do against all odds, for ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... pity, to my thinking, that by reggilations we'll be parted so soon as we get inside. You've a-got so used to my little ways an' corners, an' we've a-got so many little secrets together an' old-fash'ned odds an' ends o' knowledge, that you can take my meaning almost afore I start to speak. An' that's a great comfort to a man o' my age. It'll be terrible hard, when I wants to talk, to begin at the beginning every time. There's that old yarn o' mine about Hambly's ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a great flight of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his family for heaven's sake; but the odds are—nay, and the hope is—that, with all this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a hairbreadth to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do so, for the wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, whether of strength or weakness, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... odds he had of me, And he shall know that from the Spanish race Revenge, though nere so bloudy, is not base. Away with him ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... she had occupied for more than forty years, presented a singular melange of incongruous odds and ends, the flotsam of a long term of service, where the rewards, if intrinsically incommensurate, were none the less invaluable, to the proud recipient. The floor was covered by a faded carpet, once the pride of the great drawing-room, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... work-basket," said Whiteside. "Pushed to the bottom and covered with a lot of wool and odds and ends ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... give me Odds; but there's no great Honour in getting a Victory, when Odds is taken: He only can properly be said to get the Game, that gets it by his own Art; we are as well match'd ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... reached the top of the stairs leading to the garret, still on hands and knees, the old furniture, odds and ends piled around indiscriminately, took on the grotesqueness of imps, demons and other fantastic figures. So wrought up was his imagination that nothing but the fear of ridicule from his confederates forced him on. Crawling along the dirty, sooty, begrimed floor, he soon located the ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... see?" asked Diksey, who had laughed even harder than the others. "That's a joke. It's by odds the best joke I ever made. You walk with your legs, and so that's the way you walk, and your legs are the ways. See? So, when you mend your legs, you mend your ways. Ho, ho, ho! hee, hee! I'd no idea I could make such ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... we did furl the sails; for had they come down, and we under sail, they would have seen us, and we should have been to leeward of them, which would have given us a poor chance against such odds; now we shall have the weather-gage, and may choose, if our heels are as good as theirs, which I expect ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... down under me. Twenty years ago, Slavery did really seem to be rapidly hastening to its fall, but ten years ago, the Fugitive Slave Bill, and the efforts to enforce it, changed the whole appearance of the struggle. Anti-slavery in an abolition sense, has been ever since battling against heavy odds, both in Church and State. Nevertheless, God reigns, and we need not despair, and I for one do not. I know, at any rate, no better work for me during the brief period I am to stay on the earth, than is found in pleading the cause of the down-trodden ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... after my return. I think, Sir, you will be satisfied that justice to Stockdale, justice to myself, who had passed my word for sending on the plate, and sensibility to the shuffling conduct of Barrois, permitted me to act no otherwise. But no matter. Let his ill behavior make no odds between you and me. It will affect your interest, and that suffices to determine me to order back the plate, as soon as Stockdale has done with it. He will not require more days, than Barrois months. So that it will be here before you can want it. But it must never go into Barrois' ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... for medical purposes, may be constructed of materials found in nearly every amateur mechanic's collection of odds and ends. The core, A, Fig. 1, is a piece of round soft iron rod about 1/4 in. in diameter and about 4 in. long. A strip of stiff paper about 3/4 in. wide is covered with glue and wrapped around one end of the core, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... they threw themselves upon the Portuguese outposts. After a desperate struggle they were repulsed and a sally from the town was beaten back at the same time; the Europeans seemed ready to meet any odds. With these victories, Henry was confident that Tangier must soon fall; he ordered another escalade, but all his scaling ladders were burnt or broken and many of his men crushed beneath the overhanging parts of the wall, that were pushed down bodily upon the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... divert from his immediate neighbourhood the whole stress of the opposing force now concentred there. They could see that the Prince was still unharmed, fighting with the gallantry of his soldier race. But the odds for the moment were heavily against him; and they despatched a messenger to the King, who remained with the reserves, begging him to go to the assistance of the Prince. Ere the messenger returned, they had fought their own way into the melee, and had joined issue with the gallant youth, who, fearless ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... master as a young man, and was perfectly familiar with all the events of his career. From various conversations, at odds and ends of spare time, I discovered that Doctor Dulcifer had begun life as a footman in a gentleman's family; that his young mistress had eloped with him, taking away with her every article of value that was her ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... gain the not-every-day-of-the-week-to-be-attained benefit of finding out where he is. Unless, indeed, as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as big grasshoppers do when you chase them), and puts you on a wrong scent, by crying 'Fire!' out of saints' windows. Still, the odds are if you prick lustily enough, you ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... that the odds were against him, and he must summon help. He went up the ladder, therefore, and went in search of assistance. The boys scrambled up after him. Some were caught, and ultimately sentenced to the Island, on a charge of stealing the articles which were found; but others escaped. Among these ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... different markets have special varietal preferences, paying a better price for these than do other markets for the same quality. We can only take the space here to point out a few of these preferences. The Baldwin is by all odds our best general market and export variety. It is the workingman's apple and finds its best sale in our largest cities, particularly in New York and Chicago. The Rhode Island Greening is a better ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... slices of bread in it—certainly a spoon is not very suitable; the other dish has a perfect aquarium of little fish and bits of bigger fish beautifully arranged in a pyramid with similar soup round it—there are bits of red mullet, crab, green fish, and white fish, and all sorts of odds and ends. Why do we not make dishes like this at home? I get just such oddities any time I lift my trammel net, but they are thrown away as "trash." But the French are artists in every line of life, in cooking, in dress, and I believe they put art into the way they heave ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... been built, very likely everything about it is in a more or less chaotic condition. Odds and ends of lumber, mortar, brick, and all kinds of miscellaneous building material scattered all over the place, the ground uneven, treeless, shrubless, and utterly lacking in all the elements that go to make a place pleasing and attractive. Out of this chaos order ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... cold and dark. Trenton found the buckboard at the door, and he put his camera under the one seat—a kind of a box for the holding of bits of harness and other odds and ends. As he buttoned up his overcoat he noticed that a great white steamer had come in the night, and was tied up in front of ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... a Gentile care for truth? They want you to worship one dead man, and you prefer to worship another dead man. What's the odds to you? Can't you mutter your Latin, and play with your beads, before both, and have ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... wasn't thinking how I talked, Sis," said Annie, reaching out a hand to pat the white one on the chair arm. "But fifty-fifty, my dear—that's all the bet ever was or will be for a woman, and now her odds is a lot worse, they say, even for the well and strong ones. Maybe part of the trouble with us women was we never looked on this business of getting married with any kind of halfway business sense. Along comes a man, and we get foolish. Lord! Oughtn't ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... heard distinctly. There would occasionally be a lull for a moment, and then the uproar would break out again with increased violence. If the enemy is too strong for us to attack, what must be the fate of Rosecrans' four regiments, cut off from us, and struggling against such odds? Hours passed; and as the last straggling shots and final silence told us the battle had ended, gloom settled down on every soldier's heart, and the belief grew strong that Rosecrans had been defeated, and his brigade cut to pieces or captured. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... destructive of the very principles upon which it is built, and by which it subsists; and yet this is a crime every day committed by men of fortune and quality, with as little remorse as they eat and drink; and if the tradesman demands his money, it is odds but he is either threatened or turned into a jest. The son of Sirach's wise observation is here every day verified, merely substituting the words rich and poor, for the words debtor and creditor. The debtor hath done wrong, and yet he threateneth; the creditor is wronged, and yet he must ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... strictly to the path therein marked out. It inquired after Phebe diligently; it thoroughly mastered all possible intricacies of her case; it made her gifts digestible and indigestible; and it said that, by all odds, it was Dr. Harrison who should have attended her from the first. Dr. Dennis took very good care of her, nevertheless, and it was not long before he pronounced that all she needed was quiet and rest to complete ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... of Major Booth, who fell contending against fearful odds at Fort Pillow, at the time of the bloody massacre, a few weeks after presented the blood-stained flag of the fort which had been saved by one of the few survivors, to the remnant of the First Battalion of Major Booth's regiment, then incorporated with the Sixth United ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... my young lady," he said, easily, stretching himself out more comfortably in the rock shadow. "Then I will remain here with you; it makes small odds." ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... period, and his name is enshrined with that of old Quebec. Other heroes were to come, other battles to be fought, much work for priest and civilian, but this is the simplest, the bravest of them all, for its mighty work was done at great odds. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... defences weaker and more inadequate. Orde brought out steaming pails of coffee which the men gulped down between moments. No one thought of quitting. They were afire with the flame of combat, and were set obstinately on winning even in the face of odds. About ten o'clock they were reinforced by men from the mills downstream. The Owners of those mills had no mind to lose their logs. Another pile-driver was also sent up from the Government work. Without this ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... been, past the memory o' man, in a complaining condition, I ken nae odds o' her this many a year; her ail's like water to leather, it makes ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... Houses, in Pommern 6,500." [Rodenbeck, ii. 234, 261.] Prussia has been a meritorious Nation; and, however cut and ruined, is and was in a healthy state, capable of recovering soon. Prussia has defended itself against overwhelming odds,—brave Prussia; but the real soul of its merit was that of having merited such a King to command it. Without this King, all its valors, disciplines, resources of war, would have availed Prussia little. No wonder Prussia ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... war, undertaken by a fool (Lopez) against enormous odds, served to show what a people even when in the wrong, and in a bad cause, can do when it believes itself to be fighting for national liberty. As a matter of fact, Paraguayan liberty was not threatened for an instant, and Lopez declared war against both Brazil and the Argentine Republic out ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... of this new condition, he replied, 'To-morrow morning, early, you must go and collect all the odds and ends of rubbish you can find in the streets, and then take them and throw them on the paths and walls of the garden, and you'll see then if we won't be more than a match for the ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... of the place was of extreme comfort. The bare description of furniture conveys nothing, but the comfort was there and showed out in the odds and ends of family possessions which were in evidence everywhere—the grandfather's clock, the sewing-machine, the quaint old oil-lamps upon the mantel-board over the place where the fire should ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Fitzsimmons get together within a year and that the gamblers who are on the inside "make a killing." For six months or more before their last mill these two worthies chewed the rag, making everybody believe that the battle was to be for berlud. The odds were on Corbett, and he got lost in the shuffle as a matter of course—just as Fitz did when he mixed it with Sharkey. Now the rag-chewing has begun over again, and Bob is doing the lordly contempt act just as Jeems did before the late unpleasantness. He has "retired"—wants Corbett ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... principal are maize 42 and wheat 25 p.c. Hazara was part of the territory made over to Raja Gulab Singh in 1846, but he handed it back in exchange for some districts near Jammu. The maintenance of British authority in Hazara in face of great odds by the Deputy Commissioner, Captain James Abbott, during the Second Sikh War is a bright page in Panjab history, honourable alike to himself and his faithful local allies. The population is as mixed as the soils. Pathans are numerous, but they are split up into small tribes. The Swatis ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... discussion we determined to accept the scheme, as it stood, it being the only one possible under the circumstances, and giving the best chance of success that such a forlorn hope would admit of — which, however, considering the enormous odds and the character of our foe, was ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... his knife," she explained, "and made this boat, horse, and cart. He is going to make something else when he gets time. I made that doll out of some odds and ends, and John carved the head. We shall also make some molasses candy of funny shapes. Danny will be delighted. Poor little fellow, he talks so much about Santa Claus, and the things he ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... in arms by day to kill; They triumph, being many. Yet I swore Before the King, my Father, I would "kill" And "kill"—even as a foolish fly should swear To quench a flame. It scorched, and I shall die If I dare open battle; but by art Men vanquish fortune and the mightiest odds. If there be two ways to a wise man's wish, Yet only one way sure, he taketh this; And if it be an evil way, condemned For Brahmans, yet the Kshattriya may do What vengeance bids against his foes. Our foes, The Pandavas, are furious, treacherous, base, Halting at nothing; and how say the wise ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... just beneath the clouds, sometimes out of sight in the mist, the American flying men attacked the enemy. Now there was no time for the Huns to loose their bombs. They must look to their own safety. No longer did they have all the odds ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... much time and labour on Greek; and in what, it may be asked, are they better for it? Very few of them "keep up their Greek." Say, for example, that one was in a form with fifty boys who began the study—it is odds against five of the survivors still reading Greek books. The worldly advantages of the study are slight: it may lead three of the fifty to a good degree, and one to a fellowship; but good degrees may be taken in other ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... would send a wire. Mildred saw the rooms in the morning, was satisfied with them, and after luncheon Philip went up with her to Highbury. She had a trunk for her clothes and another for the various odds and ends, cushions, lampshades, photograph frames, with which she had tried to give the apartments a home-like air; she had two or three large cardboard boxes besides, but in all there was no more than ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... one of the three men whom we had named as possible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during the very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted. The odds are enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could express them. No, my dear Watson, the two events are connected—MUST be connected. It is for us to find ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that's better. Five against three leaves us four to nine. That's better odds than we had at starting. We were seven to nineteen then, or thought we were, and that's ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rolled, and careful sailors generally wrap each garment in a piece of muslin before consigning it to the black bag. In the ditty box are kept such articles as toothbrush, brush and comb, small hand glass, writing material, and odds and ends. Each bag and box is numbered, and must be kept in a certain place. At first we thought it wouldn't be possible to keep our clothing in such a small space, but experience taught us that we ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... as to Beresford's opposition to the Union with the assertion of the latter, that, in an interview of 12th November, he pressed Pitt to take immediate steps to ensure the success of the measure, which otherwise would have to struggle against unfair odds at Dublin. The curious tendency of Hibernian affairs towards confusion also appears in Cornwallis's statement, on 15th November, that he had urged Pitt not to close the door to the Catholics in the United ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... in thunder from her side; And the "Falcon" and the "Cerberus" make every bosom thrill, With gun and shell, and drum and bell, and boatswain's whistle shrill; But deep and wider grows the trench, as spade and mattock ply, For we have to cope with fearful odds, and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... impossible age, if you would marry the best man in the world, impersonate youth and beauty. Dear languishing widow, if you would marry a real man, impersonate youth, beauty and wealth. You will win. The odds are much against you here in the East, where in every state there are thousands and thousands of more women than there are men, but you will win. Men follow actresses around the world because they impersonate love, passion, beauty, virtue and nobleness. ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... it was established that 70,000 naval reservists had been gathered at Kiel and Helgoland ready for duty on auxiliary vessels and cruisers of newly-formed squadrons. Many facts that pointed to Germany's resolution in the face of odds never reached America. The Ally censors kept Germany's secret well. But the whole world expected that a big engagement would be fought any day. The intervening hours, almost the minutes, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... we have here we can defend Washington, and, scarcely, Baltimore. Besides these there are about eight thousand, not very reliable, under Howe, at Harper's Ferry with Hunter approaching that point very slowly, with what number I suppose you know better than I. Wallace, with some odds and ends, and part of what came up with Ricketts, was so badly beaten yesterday at Monocacy, that what is left can attempt no more than to defend Baltimore. What we shall get in from Pennsylvania and New York will ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... for his instruments in a place where there is nothing but ice. HAYES would, therefore, only add to the cost of the expedition. HALL can take all necessary observations with his eyes, which cost Congress nothing and are easily carried. Therefore HALL is by all odds ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... "Not at all as bad as you say. I take chances—but I only take them when the odds are right. You were carrying me back to certain death. The worst my wrecking the controls can do is administer the same end. So I took a chance. There is a bigger risk factor for you of course, but I'm afraid I didn't take that into consideration. After all, this entire affair is your idea. ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... had lain buried for weeks, yes for months; such a hurrying to and fro above decks and below; such a riotous system of packing and unpacking; such a littering up of the cabins with shirts and skirts, and indescribable and unclassable odds and ends; such a making up of bundles, and setting apart of umbrellas, green spectacles and thick veils; such a critical inspection of saddles and bridles that had never yet touched horses; such a cleaning and loading of revolvers and examining of bowie-knives; such a half-soling of the seats ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... peremptory attitude in diplomacy served him well, till Bismarck crossed his path. In the encounter between the man with a great idea to carry out, who had taken the measure of the forces against him, and the man who had only, as it were, a dignified attitude to support in the eyes of Europe, the odds were uneven, and Palmerston ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the leading political topic of the day. The argument interested me deeply; but it is one of my mental peculiarities that when several conversations are going on around me I can by no means keep my attention exclusively fixed upon the one in which I am myself engaged. Odds and ends from all the others find their way into my ears and my consciousness, and I am sometimes accused of absence of mind, when my fault is in reality a too great alertness of the sense of hearing. In this instance ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... "The odds," he continued, "seem heavy, but I have known one man hold his own against four before now. You may not understand all these different points, but I must tell you this. All through America, we millionaires, who operate largely upon the markets and control ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wealth, and station were on one side; degradation and poverty on the other. The solitary hope of reinstatement in the affection, if not the esteem, of him she loved truly as it was in her to love anything beside herself, was arrayed against the certainty of alienation and the tearful odds ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... flushes any strong feeling. He shook hands with a short, firm grip which argued more muscle than one might have supposed in him. His walk was rapid; his bearing upright; his glance direct, with something of apprehensive pride. The observant surmised a force more or less at odds with the facts of life. Shrewd men of commerce at once perceived his qualities, but reserved their judgment as to his chances; he was not, in any case, altogether of their world, however well he might have studied its principles and ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... On the Wednesday following, as I wandered aimlessly along Piccadilly, at odds with Fortune and myself, but especially with myself, my eye encountered the Duchess ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... stretched in a straight and unguarded course, and it seemed as if safety had been won. But the early light of the dawning day revealed an alarming scene. Before the daring band lay another fleet, flying the Mongol flag, while thousands of armed foes occupied the banks of the stream. The odds were hopelessly against the Chinese, there was no choice between death and surrender, but the heroic Changkone unhesitatingly resolved to accept the former, and was seconded in his devotion by his men. Dashing ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... directly overhead. He tried to close his ears to the mutter of meaningless words coming from across the narrow cabin. Raf had known from the moment his name had been drawn as crew member that the whole trip would be a gamble, a wild gamble with the odds all against them. RS 10—those very numbers on the nose of the ship told part of the story. Ten exploring fingers thrust in turn out into the blackness of space. RS 3's fate was known—she had blossomed into a pinpoint of flame ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... the house which had now been turned into a cavalry barracks was just above my room, a large attic under the dripping gables, black with the stains of centuries, littered with broken furniture, discarded clothing, and the odds and ends cherished by the thrifty Alsatian peasant, who never throws away anything from the day of his birth to the day of his death. And, given a long line of forefathers equally thrifty, and an ancient high-gabled house where his ancestors first began collecting discarded refuse, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... are looking for something great, for adventure and excitement and battle against odds, we can find it much better than in brutally slashing at our fellows, or running amuck at the beck of our impulses, by putting our valor at the service of some really great human endeavor. If we want to get into the big game, the great adventure, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the water-ways of the city and under the many high-arched bridges. On the decks of the boats the people were dancing and singing (howling), to the notes of an indescribable instrument, which could give a Scotch bag-pipe liberal odds and then surpass it in its most hideous discordance. Music is not a strong point with the Chinese or Japanese; if they have any actual melody in their compositions, no foreign ear can detect it. At one of the public performances at Kobe it seemed that the notes were produced ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Abanazar, or Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded in five minutes or... But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly of young but brilliantly clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too anxious for their dignity to care to come to open odds with the resourceful three. So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of their heads, instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should, and rejoiced in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous made-up ties on Sundays—no man rebuking. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... men in the truck scrambled up the poles, nipped the wire with their nippers, and the balloon passed through. This was done repeatedly before it reached its haven. Bets were freely made by every man in my gun crew, with the odds of 5 to 1, that the Huns would get it. Somehow I had an inspiration that she would navigate the storm, and I took up all the offers in my battery against the bag—and lost. Her mission of observation ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... This dance, to men so well skilled in the ways of the Indian warrior, was a sure signal that the next day would be certain to have a fearful history for one party or the other and doubtless for both. The odds, most assuredly, were apparently greatly in favor of the savage host and against the little ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... it? Andy isn't any goal kicker, and all the others were afraid to try, I suppose. What's the odds, though! We won, and six to nothing is good ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... long before the perimeter watch, returning from a patrol that had taken them some distance out, brought in a makeshift dwelling bubb made from odds and ends of stellene. They had also picked up its occupant, a lean comic character with an accent and ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... which, so far, had resulted in securing him two terms of office—possibly because his character appealed to men of all grades and varying convictions. But the opposite party was strong in the state, and the question whether he could carry his ticket against such odds, and thus give hope to his party in the coming presidential election, was one yet to be tested. Forceful as a speaker, he was expected to reap hundreds of votes from the mixed elements that invariably thronged to hear him, and, ignorant as I necessarily was of the exigencies of ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... the Gray's Inn Road, Richard Frencham Altar disposed of the last of his worldly goods. Four suits from a tailor in Saville Row, two pairs of shoes in brown and patent by a craftsman of Jermyn Street, some odds and ends of hosiery, a set of dressing table brushes with black monograms on ivory and the gold cigarette case Doreen had given him on the day of their engagement. In consideration for which he departed with ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... can comfort yourself with the knowledge that they've played as plucky a game against odds as I ever expect to see," answered the other. "And we won't say die yet; there's still"—he looked at ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... perfect type. Humanity does, I believe, progress towards a fuller element of the woman in the man, the man in the woman, and the best we have produced so far confirm the truth of this. But it is not an advance to produce a type in which the temperament and the body are at odds. This is not ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... now half smoked, a bell began tolling, and it seemed as if the whole village were pouring into the church. At this I was very much surprised, not having been used at any time of my life to the unanimous devotion of an entire population, but having always thought of the Faith as something fighting odds, and having seen unanimity only in places where some sham religion or other glozed over our tragedies and excused our sins. Certainly to see all the men, women, and children of a place taking Catholicism for granted was a new sight, and so I put my cigar ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... deck-edifice beside us. This seemed to be a spare wheel-house, used if anything went wrong with the one in front. It had a door on each side and there were windows all round it. At present it was piled full of cane folding steamer chairs and other odds ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... make no real odds, and he has had enough on his hands to-day. The boy will sleep quietly enough to-night, so let ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Herbert Cary picked up her work basket and slowly crossed the grass to a shady bench underneath the trees. She must go on with her task of planning a dress for Virgie. But the prospect of making her daughter something wearable out of the odds and ends of nothing was not a happy one. In fact, she was still poking through her basket and frowning thoughtfully when a childish voice came to ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... he said. "I replenish my stock whenever I go through a big town. There's always a second-hand bookstore somewhere about, where you can pick up odds and ends. And every now and then I write to a wholesaler in New York for some stuff. When I buy a book I mark in the back just what I paid for it, then I know what I can afford to sell it for. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... Mr. Smythe, a young student, some time ago, I found he was so full of poetic quotations that I began to think whether all his lessons at college had not consisted in the learning of odds and ends from ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... He so wanted yesterday back—things as they had been. He so wanted her love and her admiration. He wanted to put his tired head on her shoulder. He couldn't bear, not for another moment, to be at odds with her. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... never arrived at the practice of these, he had retained a scientific interest in them, and had kept fairly well informed of new experiments. His general reading, too, had been wide, and he had rambled upon many curious odds and ends of information. He thus knew something of methods employed by criminals to alter their facial appearance so as to avoid recognition: not merely such obvious and unreliable devices as raising or removing beards, changing the arrangement and color of hair, and fattening or thinning ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Vers. It was some time before I could make these men understand what I was really in search of, and when they understood they seemed to think I was a little mad, until the idea struck them that I might be a dealer in antiquities, hoping to pick up certain odds and ends that would repay me for the trouble of walking to such ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... views. The rooms are sweet with flowers in winter, and the gardens are fragrant in summer. One can lounge and read all day, or take a walk, or do a dozen other things. The cheerful, interesting conversation at table, and in the odds and ends of time through the day, would be sufficient stimulus to all but the most exacting guests; while, as a matter of fact, there are always a few hours in the evening when everybody seems to be at leisure, ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... nerve in his body seemed to respond. Had he not embarked before this on desperate adventures; had he not fought in the face of overwhelming odds, and managed to hold his head up? A peculiar little smile played around the corner of his thin lips; it was like the flash of light on a blade. He ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... was partly to make her sure that it was he who appeared in the darkness. But it was technically true, too. It was within reason to hope for Vale's ultimate safety. One can always hope, whatever the odds against the thing hoped for. But Lockley thought that the odds against Vale's living through the events now in progress were very ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... as different from the moment he saw it so expressed in poor Milly. Since it was false that he wasn't loved, so his right was quite quenched to figure on that ground as important; and if he didn't look out he should find himself appreciating in a way quite at odds with straightness the good faith of Milly's benevolence. There was the place for scruples; there the need absolutely to mind what he was about. If it wasn't proper for him to enjoy consideration on a perfectly false footing, where was the guarantee that, if he kept on, he mightn't soon himself ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... odds, but, on the testimony of Nelson himself, a better fleet never carried the fortunes of a great country than that under Sir John Jervis. The mere names of the ships or of their commanders awaken more sonorous echoes than the famous catalogue ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... feeling is more likely than not to be quite unintelligible to the listener. Indeed, if it were not so, we should have to restrict, by hypothesis, the enjoyment of music to those able to give a technical report of what they hear,—which is notoriously at odds with the facts. That psychologist is quite right who holds that psychology, in laying down a principle explaining the actual effect of a musical piece, is not justified in confining itself to skilled musicians and taking no notice of more than nine tenths of those ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... again, and keeping on trying? I've got influence enough to double your salary if Thurston doesn't get through. It will be tolerably easy, for this time I don't count on trusting too much to you. I'll send you along a man and you'll just make a bet with him—we'll fix the odds presently and they'll be heavy against us—that Thurston successfully completes the job in the canyon. The other man bets he doesn't. When it appears judicious we'll contrive something to draw Thurston away for a ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... not whine,—Cairy never did that exactly; but he presented himself for sympathy. The odds had been against him from the start. And Isabelle was touched by this very need for sunshine in the emotional temperament of the man. Conny had appraised the possibilities of his talent intelligently, believed that if properly exploited ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... by way of this road, and strike his rear by a mounted charge simultaneously with an advance of our main line on his front. I knew that the attack in rear would be a most hazardous undertaking, but in the face of such odds as the enemy had the condition of affairs was most critical, and could be relieved, only by a bold and radical change in our tactics; so I at once selected four sabre companies, two from the Second Michigan and two from the Second Iowa, and placing Captain Alger, of the former regiment, in ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... long odds—fourteen to two. I began to wonder if Bothwell had forgotten us, and I ordered Alderson to unlock the door for a sortie ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... crashing fall; and his friend's gasp of triumph as he dashed on to the first negro; and the cries of both the blacks as Flambeau and Fanshaw bound them. Flambeau's enormous strength more than redressed the odds in the fight, especially as the fourth man still hovered near the house, only a shadow and a voice. He heard also the water broken by the paddles of a canoe; the girl's voice giving orders, the voices ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... odds if they be? 'Twill be all the better fun," answered Mr Crago. "No—far's one can tell they're dead sober. Come along and listen—" He hurried back and they ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... smartly from the mark and were fully justifying the long odds laid upon them. That master-strategist, Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig, realising that if he wished to reach the Metropolis quickly he must not go by train, had resolved almost at once to walk. Though hampered considerably by crowds of rustics who gathered, gaping, at every point in ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... Kensingtowe amused itself speculating who would be the last man. Many names were mentioned, but Ray was not one of them. Bets were made, and the odds were slightly in favour of Doe. The sentiment of the school said that he ought to be played on the strength of the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... good fortune the colonel did not see the chickens, so they and the turkeys were safely smuggled into camp, Benny getting full credit for maintaining the balance of power, when the odds were ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... you, what's the odds if you call me Tommy Love or Love Tommy? I knows who you mean. And the governor, 'e is awful partickler about these here being done to-night. And we sent off millions on 'em last week. My eye, wasn't it a treat lickin' ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... paid the slightest attention to her. Forced by sheer odds of mass toward a corner, Ben's long arms were working like flails. Another man fell, and was up again. The first one also was upon his feet now, his face white, and a tiny stream of blood trickling from his bruised jaw. A heavy beer-bottle flung by one of the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... old still gazed upon The scene where, thirty years agone, The lines of Bill and me and John Were cast in pleasant places; And "Friends," I murmured, "what's the odds If you are rather battered gods? This is no time for ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the house—must be extemporized, indeed, at last, of odds and ends from the operating-room. K. did the work, his long fingers deft and skillful—while Mrs. Rosenfeld knelt by the bed with her face buried; while Sidney sat, dazed and bewildered, on her little chair inside the door; while night nurses tiptoed along the corridor, and the ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... went on, after a little pause. "Those are the people who look to us to help them in their fight against terrible odds. I hoped—that you would ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... and this, being absolutely too poor for any other purpose, is sold as cotton waste to be used for cleaning machinery and polishing brass and nickel trimmings. Were we individuals half as thrifty as are manufacturers in salvaging the odds and ends that come our way we might save ourselves many a penny. Every year we Americans throw away enough food and wearing apparel to maintain a small army. We are, alas, a very wasteful people and are constantly becoming more so. Our ancestors used to lay aside buttons, string, ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... the sale of my talents in any service not at odds with my calling: as the compiling of pious almanacks, the inditing of rhymed litanies and canticles, and even the construction of theatrical pieces"—the ladies lifted hands of reprobation—"of theatrical pieces," ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... "Sure's you're born! Them odds and ends have got their little old secret, and they think there ain't anybody can pull it; but, land! when he sets his grip there they've got to squeal, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I've heard Jack say," replied Emson modestly. "Everything comes in useful. I daresay you won't repent saving up all those odds and ends of stones and shells and eggs ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... law of England would have allowed you to demand a trial by half foreigners and half Englishmen. But, by your lot being the lowest, as is assumed, in the scale of humanity, you are inevitably placed on a footing of fearful odds, when brought into the sacred temple of British justice. Without a jury of your own countrymen—without the power of making adequate defence, by speech or witness—you are to stand the pressure of every thing that ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... women, sometimes their own, fall in the streets dead or dying, because they no longer had the reserves of men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing less, stunted in their growth and threatened ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... fact, by a neat stratagem of ours, we raised the laugh against his Lordship, and something a great deal more substantial. My Lord did not know that the Chevalier Barry had a useless eye; and when, one day, my uncle playfully bet him odds at billiards that he would play him with a patch over one eye, the noble lord, thinking to bite us (he was one of the most desperate gamblers that ever lived), accepted the bet, and we won a very considerable amount ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... soldiers knew his person, and adored him. The generals were sure to meet him in every scene of action, and sought his company at other times. As soon as fortune declared for him, his first care was to make restitution, by desiring Cameran to go his halves in all parties where the odds were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dollar even first, and then, when I felt certain you would win, I gave him odds of five to ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... inflicted by a rebel shell many weeks before, and lay buried in the stronghold for whose safe keeping he had continued to provide in the hour and article of death. His spirit, however, seemed yet to actuate the survivors. Havelock's march had been one succession of victories won against enormous odds, and half miraculous; but even he could work no miracle, and his troops might merely have shared a tragic fate with the long-tried defenders of Lucknow, but for the timely arrival of Sir Colin Campbell with five thousand men more, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... them were the Daimios of Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen. Their ancestors "had of old held equal rank and power with Iyeyasu, until the fortunes of war turned against them. They had been overcome by force, or had sullenly surrendered in face of overwhelming odds. Their adherence to the Tokugawas was but nominal, and only the strong pressure of superior power was able to wring from them a haughty semblance of obedience. They chafed perpetually under the rule of one who was in ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... compliments,' answered the author of the stratagem, 'belong rather to you than to me, friend; for by Him that made me, you could give the odds of two brays to the greatest and most skilful brayer in the world; for your tones are rich, your time correct, your notes well sustained, and cadences abrupt and beautiful; in short, I own myself vanquished, and yield to you the palm ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at all because they did not debate vigorously, and even "protest;" but the odds were too ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard |
