"Unlucky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been unlucky, and tonight he had been particularly unfortunate. Two rabbits had come his way, and he had lunged at each of them from his cover. The first he had missed entirely; the second had left with him a mouthful of fur—and that ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... child of a rather queer clergyman. The Rev. John Coleridge was queer enough in having thirteen children: he was queerer still in being the author of a Latin grammar in which he renamed the "ablative" the "quale-quare-quidditive case." Coleridge was thus born not only with an unlucky number, but trailing clouds of definitions. He was in some respects the unluckiest of all Englishmen of literary genius. He leaves on us an impression of failure as no other writer of the same stature does. The impression may not be justified. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... not like pushing myself upon strangers, who perhaps had never heard of my mother's name, and such an odd name as it was—Moneypenny; and if they had, had never cared more for her than she had for them, apparently, until this unlucky mention of Heathbridge. Still, I would not disobey my parents in such a trifle, however irksome it might be. So the next time our business took me to Heathbridge, and we were dining in the little sanded inn-parlour, I took the opportunity of Mr Holdsworth's being out of the room, and asked ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... crows and rooks, all of them keep much prattling, and are full of chat, which most men take for an unlucky ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... and looked about me. The family had come in. I read in their faces that their servant's unlucky interruption-of my meal had destroyed what was dearer to them than life—than my life, at any rate. I fled. I went out homeless and hopeless into the ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... twice conquer in a sea-fight, and I will even allow him the credit of having taken Athens; no difficult matter, no doubt, but one which, brought him great glory because of its being so famous a city. In Boeotia and before Haliartus he was perhaps unlucky, yet his conduct in not waiting for the arrival of the great force under Pausanias, which was at Plataea, close by, seems like bad generalship. He would not stay till the main body arrived, but rashly assaulted the city, and fell by ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Major Dermot. Rather the hero of a cinema drama, who always appears in time to rescue the persecuted maiden. I am beginning to feel quite like the unlucky heroine of ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... this way," Ted reflected as he moped along. "The watch must have been in the trousers when I snatched 'em up, and the watch wasn't there when I returned the trousers. What will folks naturally think? Oh, I wonder if there ever was as unlucky a fellow ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... with this whimsical apology for shabby quarters. On our Way homewards Buckthorne assured me that this Dribble had been the prime wit and great wag of the school in their boyish days, and one of those unlucky urchins denominated bright geniuses. As he perceived me curious respecting his old school-mate, he promised to take me with him, in his proposed visit to Green ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... a huge demon on wheels, its driver evidently trusting to the common sense of the man in the way to get out of the path of danger in time. But Lyman walked on in serene preoccupation, gloating over the unlucky, unhappy man who was following. With a cry of warning Martin rushed to the side of the other man and pushed him from the path of the car, but when the big machine came to a standstill Martin Landis lay in the dusty road, his ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... Leaving this unlucky neighborhood, they continued for several days along the coast, until, finding both his ships and his people nearly disabled by the buffetings of the tempests, Columbus, on the 25th of September, cast anchor between a small island and the main-land, in what appeared a commodious ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... thing, Grandmother Majauszkiene interrupted herself—this house was unlucky. Every family that lived in it, some one was sure to get consumption. Nobody could tell why that was; there must be something about the house, or the way it was built—some folks said it was because the building had been ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... beat him till he lay as one dead; but quickly reviving, Ioskeha assaulted Tawiscara with the antler of a deer, and dealing him a blow in the side, the blood flowed from the wound in streams. The unlucky combatant fled from the field, hastening toward the west, and as he ran the drops of his blood which fell upon the earth turned into flint stones. Ioskeha did not spare him, but hastening after, finally slew him. He did not, however, actually kill ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... wonderful eyes she's got! And when she's angry the curls get all round her ears, and it's as much as a man can do not to kiss her on the spot. Of course, I didn't really want her to have opals if she thinks they're unlucky, but she needn't have insisted that I knew about it and bought them on purpose to annoy her. Good God! I wish there were no women in the world sometimes. What a splendid place it would be to live in, and what a fine time the men would have—for, of course, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... into the hands of a certain TITUS OATES, a most infamous character, who pretended to have acquired among the Jesuits abroad a knowledge of a great plot for the murder of the King, and the re-establishment if the Catholic religion. Titus Oates, being produced by this unlucky Dr. Tonge and solemnly examined before the council, contradicted himself in a thousand ways, told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, and implicated COLEMAN, the Secretary of the Duchess of York. Now, although what he charged against ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... Benita, since it was one that Jacob Meyer seemed reluctant to undertake. A Jew by birth, and a man who openly professed his want of belief in that or any other religion, he yet seemed to fear this symbol of the Christian faith, speaking of it as horrible and unlucky; yes, he who, without qualm or remorse, had robbed and desecrated the dead that lay about its feet. Well, the crucifix told them nothing; but as Mr. Clifford, lantern in hand, descended the ladder, which Benita held, Jacob ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... glanced at the ballroom in passing, as becomes a poor cabinet courier bearing despatches from General Massena to the citizen First Consul; but it seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable, unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the House of Jehu ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... death; hundreds of books have been written about them; never was a man so much explained; never did a man suffer more from the explanations. The day when Wagner began, not to theorise, but to publish his theorisings, was an unlucky one for him. He began with the intention, and certainly in the hope, of making himself clear to himself; as I have already remarked, he wanted to find what it was he wanted to be at and how to get there; and ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... Battalion was unlucky to be deprived of Colonel Ames, a leader whose energy and common sense could ill be spared. This was the first change which the Battalion had in its Commanding Officer, and it was much regretted. A change in Adjutant ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... sentry-duty between eleven and one, he found his comrade Klitzing singularly depressed, and after a time the clerk confided to him that he had been very unlucky all ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... soliloquising, 'Charles Nutter's alive, and in prison, and what comes next? 'Tis enough to make one believe in a devil almost! Why wasn't he drowned, d—n him? How did he get himself taken, d—n him again? From the time I came into this unlucky village I've smelt danger. That accursed beast, a corpse, and a ghost, and a prisoner at last—well, he has been my evil genius. If he were drowned or hanged; born to be hanged, I hope: all I want is quiet—just quiet; but I've a feeling the play's not played out yet. He'll ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... some service, and they know it. No more of that; I pray you in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. 96 SHAKS.: Othello, Act ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... and caged butterflies, se free among them, would fly to the fairest; and then, upon that fairest the Imperial favor was bestowed. But after Genso Kotei had seen Yokihi (whom the Chinese call Yang-Kwei-Fei), he would not suffer the butterflies to choose for him,—which was unlucky, as Yokihi got him into serious trouble... Again, I should like to know more about the experience of that Chinese scholar, celebrated in Japan under the name Soshu, who dreamed that he was a butterfly, and had ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... infinite variety of superstitious practices, due to the belief in the good or evil influences of departed spirits, exists in all parts of China. Days are lucky or unlucky. Eclipses are due to a dragon trying to eat the sun or the moon. The rainbow is supposed to be the result of a meeting between the impure vapours of the sun and the earth. Amulets are worn, and charms hung ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... very gravely to the worthy Minister's speech, pulling his grey moustache now and then to hide an involuntary smile, and when Mr. Otis had ended, he shook him cordially by the hand, and said, 'My dear sir, your charming little daughter rendered my unlucky ancestor, Sir Simon, a very important service, and I and my family are much indebted to her for her marvellous courage and pluck. The jewels are clearly hers, and, egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... beyond the horizon. I thought that an unlucky outcome for the Emden was possible, also a landing by the enemy on Keeling Island, at least for the purpose of landing the wounded and taking on provisions. As, according to the statements of the Englishmen, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... is just the advice I myself would have given To Lord Alfred, had I been his cousin, which, Heaven Be praised, I am not. But it reach'd him indeed In an unlucky hour, and received little heed. A half-languid glance was the most that he lent at That time to these homilies. Primum dementat Quem Deus vult perdere. Alfred in fact Was behaving just then in a way ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... to ascertain the place threatened by the omen, the motions of the clouds were often watched through the whole night. In the same country, the inhabitants regard certain days as unlucky, or ominous of bad fortune. The day of the week on which the third of May falls is deemed unlucky throughout the year. ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... believe in the Italian superstition to anything like the extent they carry it. I don't think I should believe it at all if it were not that one man has always been unlucky to me." ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... the governor, is the state of mankind; such are the unlucky accidents to which they are exposed; however, my child, added he, since we are both of us equally unfortunate, let us unite our sorrow, and not abandon one another. I give you in marriage a third daughter I have still left; she is younger than her sisters, and imitates their conduct in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... reflecting that he had parted with the very weapon which he usually brought with him to repel the violence of Ellen's friends, should he be detected in an interview with her. He remembered, too, that he had met unlucky Nell M'Collum, and that the person who deprived him of his principal means of defence was her niece. He had little time, however, to think upon the subject, for in a few minutes after Nanse's departure, he recognized the light quick step of her whom ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... I imitate the famous Archytas of Tarentum, who, when he came to his villa, and found all its arrangements were contrary to his orders, said to his steward, "Ah! you unlucky scoundrel, I would flog you to death, if it were not that I am in a ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... unlucky business, sergeant," Captain Moffat said to him as they were talking over next day's play. "I thought if we had luck we might make a good fight with the Rifles. Bowling is never our strongest point, and now ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... Hugh. I was just wondering if we could reach Manila by the twenty-third of May. It is unlucky to change the wedding day after it has been once selected," she ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... Wherefore, to make no delay of what was not to be avoided, she goes to the top of a high tower to precipitate herself headlong, thus to descend the shortest way to the shades below. But a voice from the tower said to her, "Why, poor unlucky girl, dost thou design to put an end to thy days in so dreadful a manner? And what cowardice makes thee sink under this last danger, who hast been so miraculously supported in all thy former?" Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... legend goes on to tell that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon gave up the quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake himself again to his warehouse, near the town-dock, in Boston. But as he passed through the Notch of the mountains a war-party of Indians captured our unlucky merchant and carried him to Montreal, there holding him in bondage till by the payment of a heavy ransom he had woefully subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, his affairs had ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... finding Indian tracks, and accompanied by six men, he went forward to locate the redskin camp. They had proceeded but a short distance when they sighted a small party of Indians, with horses grazing. There were just thirteen Indians—an unlucky number—and Will feared that they might discover the scouting party should it attempt to return to the main command. He had but to question his companions to find them ready to follow wheresoever he might lead, and they moved cautiously ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... forests, when the porter of the gate Keisan, having been bribed with a largess, its folding leaves slowly opened, and forthwith issued a horseman closely wrapt up in a mantle; and behind him, at a little space, followed another similarly clad. Alas! for the unlucky fugitives it so chanced that Derar, the captain of the night-guard, was at that moment making his rounds, and observing what was going on, he detached a party to throw themselves between the strangers and the town. The foremost rider, however, discovered their intention, and he called back ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... are occasions, dear B-, there are occasions when even Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end, and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... us," suggested Ned, hopefully. "Perhaps we can make them believe we are spirits, and that it will be unlucky ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... story of our travels, I have had the honour of speaking long with Prince Nicolas and of seeing him on many occasions; for during our first travels in the land we were always strangely unlucky in this respect. I then learnt how our progress through Montenegro had been watched over, and contingencies provided for, which we had taken as ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... relatives. He was also on the most friendly terms with Gabriel Harvey, and a warm admirer (as his works attest) of the genius of Daniel. We have thus gathered our dramatis personae, the parties most essentially interested in Spenser's unlucky passion, into one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... square, corner towards them you know, and waited till they were close on us, and then, Sir, we opened and gave them our cannon, grape-shot, right slap into them,"—or good-humoredly rally each other, as in the case of that unlucky regiment perfectly cut up in its first battle, and known as "six-weeks' soldiers and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... our journey uninterruptedly over the frontiers and mountains; and it was not until I had placed this lofty barrier between myself and the before- mentioned unlucky town that I was persuaded to recruit myself after my fatigues in a ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... sad soul which does not roar with Toby in his revels; shout with laughter over the duel which he arranges between the shrinking Viola and the foolish, vain Sir Andrew; and shake in sympathy with his glee over Malvolio's plight when that unlucky man is beguiled into thinking Olivia loves him, and into appearing before her cross-gartered and wreathed in the smiles {171} which accord so ill with his sour visage. All the more affecting in contrast to this boisterous merriment is the frail ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... hold up her head for a long time, and recalling bitterly her unlucky innocent remark which had led to all this trouble, she almost made up her mind, with a certain heroine of Miss Edgeworth's, that "it is best never to mention things". Mr. Ringgan, now thoroughly alive ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... coal was exhausted and boxes burned out. I suppose you'll be inclined to laugh at the story, but just ask any of the boys, although many of them won't talk about it. I would not myself if I were running on the road. It's unlucky to do so." ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... open air; also because I feared he might ask me what I had done with that gold piece and make a mock of me about the dog. Yet my mother had bidden me go, and it was her last command to me, her dying words which it would be unlucky to disobey. Moreover, our boats and house were burnt and I must work hard and long before these could be replaced. Lastly, in London I should see no more of the lady Blanche Aleys, and there could learn to forget the lights in her blue eyes. So ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... join its parricides. For, though he had not dared say so much to Catiline, he had already sent the poniard to the house of Cicero, and a brief letter indicating all that he had learned from Volero. This he had done in the interval between the Campus and his unlucky visit to the house of Catiline, whom he then little deemed to be the man of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... I shortly afterwards departed from the town, little dreaming of an addition to my good fortune. But more was in reserve. I went by a train which was heavy with third-class carriages, full of young fellows (well guarded) who had drawn unlucky numbers in the last conscription, and were on their way to a famous French garrison town where much of the raw military material is worked up into soldiery. At the station they had been sitting about, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... returned and reported that from what the bonze said, "Mr. Chia had started on his journey to the capital, at the fifth watch of that very morning, that he had also left a message with the bonze to deliver to you, Sir, to the effect that men of letters paid no heed to lucky or unlucky days, that the sole consideration with them was the nature of the matter in hand, and that he could find no time to come round in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... devilish unlucky I own, but I guess we can make out a dinner for to-day, and perhaps the armorer can patch it so that it will answer till we ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... that unlucky boat haunted their peace. That Tom White had only got his deserts they never questioned; but they would have been more comfortable if ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... is going mad," the first officer said, as he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and the freight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quit work. But we're not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem," he reassured her, pointing to a steamship at anchor a quarter of a mile away. "Half of her passengers have pack-horses for Skaguay and White Pass, and the other half are bound over the Chilcoot. So they've mutinied ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... August, now I know, A day that's most unlucky I believe, As I, for one, have always found it so, Then ask Astrologers who can't deceive; For I myself was surely doomed to grieve, Selected by some most ill-omened star, 'Twas then (but why, I really can't conceive) That I was introduced to my Mama, From then she always ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... the pain, he howled and screamed at a tremendous rate. Aunt Nancy went out, and, after amusing herself at his expense, bound him fast and held him prisoner. The probability is that the next day she H tucked up her petticoats, shouldered her gun, and compelled the unlucky Tory to ford the river ahead of her; and that, once on the other side, she kept in constant communication with the Clarkes and with other partisans of ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... therefore I took him in: my wife gave us a dish of fish, and I presented humpback with some, which he ate, without taking notice of a bone. He fell down dead before us, and after having in vain essayed to help him, in the trouble and fear occasioned by such an unlucky accident, we carried the corpse out, and dexterously lodged him with the Jewish doctor. The Jewish doctor put him into the chamber of the purveyor, and the purveyor carried him out into the street, where it was believed the merchant had killed him. "This sir," added the tailor, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... shall do, depend upon it," replied Oaklands. "My good man, you don't imagine I'm going to fatigue myself and lame my horse by walking five miles up this unlucky lane, do you? If things really are as bad as you would make them out to be, I shall despatch a messenger to summon the smith, and employ myself in the meanwhile in tasting your ale, and consuming whatever you may happen to have in the house fit to eat." ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... nothing had been done which could not be justified. The clamour of the malecontents however made a considerable impression on the public mind; and at length, a transaction in which Trenchard was more unlucky than culpable, brought on him and on the government with which he was connected ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of a farce, the comedy of the "Serious Family," and a ballet. When the curtain rose, and the farce commenced, George entered heart and soul into the spirit of the performance; laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks at the dilemmas of an unlucky wight who acted a prominent part, and stamped applause in favour of a young lady who tried in every way to defend this unfortunate individual ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... this blow. He searched two years for a pure, uncontaminated virgin, who might become his queen without danger of the scaffold. But he found none; so he took then Lord Neville's widow, Catharine Parr. But you know, my child, that Catharine is an unlucky name for Henry's queens. The first Catharine he repudiated, the second he beheaded. What will he do ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... were you doing up that stump?" demanded Step-hen; while Thad and Allan were examining the remains of the once proud tree, as if to decide what ought to be done, in order to rescue the unlucky scout. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... slumber, when Imagination, uncorrected by the organs of sense, weaves her own fantastic web out of whatever ideas rise at random in the sleeper. It is not surprising, therefore, that De Lacy in his dreams had some confused idea of being identified with the unlucky Mark of Cornwall; and that he awakened from such unpleasant visions with a brow more clouded than when he was preparing for his couch on the evening before. He was silent, and seemed lost in thought, while his ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... being in love with England, because I hadn't got words enough; but that is exactly the impression I've received from my brief experiences of one corner of its life. In this small corner of it, anyhow, it behaves exactly like a woman who is so unlucky as to love somebody who doesn't care about her. She naturally, I imagine,—for I can only guess at these enslavements,—is very much humiliated and angry, and all the more because the loved and hated one—isn't it possible to love and hate at the same time, little mother? ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... this may be taken, if needed, during the twenty-four hours. It will promote a free flow of urine. Culpeper commended the Lily of the Valley for weak memory, loss of speech, and apoplexy; whilst Gerard advised it for gout. In Devonshire it is thought unlucky to plant a bed of these Lilies, as the person who does so will probably die ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... acknowledged himself a vassal of the Spanish monarch, to whom he agreed to pay tribute. On his release he made his way to the city of Granada, but his adherents were so violently assailed by those of his father that the streets of the city ran blood, and Boabdil the Unlucky, as he was now called, found it advisable to leave the capital and fix his residence in Almeria, a large and splendid city whose people were ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... In this unlucky rencontre, we were so fortunate as not to have a man wounded, which was rather extraordinary, and I believe must have been owing to the panic occasioned by so sudden ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... unlucky word degrade! Unthinking that I was, to use it, forgetting that she herself will be no more degraded in her own eyes, or any one's else, by hearing again the plaudits of those "dear Macedonians," on whose breath she has lived for years, than a ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... of the unhappy victim. Why it should be so difficult of relief is hard to comprehend, until we remember that the brain is apt to go on doing its weary work automatically and despite the will of the unlucky owner; so that it gets no thorough rest, and is in the hapless position of a broken limb which is expected to knit while still in use. Where physical overwork has worn out the spinal or motor centres, it is, on the other hand, easy to enforce repose, ...
— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell
... Gaul the First Triumvirate was suddenly ended by the death of one of its members. It had been a part of their bargain in dividing the Roman world that Crassus should have the government of Syria. But this unlucky general, while aspiring to rival Caesar's exploits by new conquests beyond the Euphrates, lost his army and his life in battle with the Parthians. Besides checking the extension of the Roman arms in the remote East, the disaster had its effect on Roman politics. It dissolved ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... lady would have said something kind about not reproaching herself, but Miss Meadows interposed with, 'It was very unlucky, to be sure—Mr. Kendal never failed them before, not that she would wish—but she had always understood that to let young people run about late in the evening by themselves—not that she meant anything, but it was very unfortunate—if she had only been ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... used to bend others' moods to his own than to enter fully into theirs. His way of approaching the subject had been unfortunate, beginning as he had with a jest. The sequel was destined to be still more unlucky. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... description may be read such eminently private incidents as that—by some unfortunate mistake, which would have been a death-blow to any Beacon Street housekeeper—there were one hundred more guests than there were plates, and—what it might be hoped would be quite unnecessary to state—that the unlucky De trop "bore the disappointment with the most admirable good-breeding, AND RETIRED FROM THE HALL WITHOUT NOISE OR DISTURBANCE." (Noble army of martyrs! Let a monument more durable than brass rise in the hearts ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... property of our merchants. Sheikh Makouran himself lost 2,000 mahboubs. Total loss for the merchants here is about 15,000 dollars. It is the caravan which left these two months ago, and took a letter for me to the Governor of Ain Salah. Both letters have been unlucky; the one sent to Ghat could not be delivered because the Governor was changed; and this one, I imagine, has fallen into the hands of the Shânbah. Two slaves escaped with a water-skin. They then fell in with some Touaricks, who gave them ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... who cut them for him, and even now was planning fresh evil against the St. Quentins. I remembered his face as he cried to M. le Comte that they should meet again; and I thought that M. Etienne was likely to have his hands full with Lucas, without this unlucky tanglement with Mlle. de Montluc. In the darkness and solitude I called down a murrain on his folly. Why could he not leave the girl alone? There were other blue eyes in the world. And it would be hard on humanity if there ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... off. But the clocks had just struck four, and the city gates were still shut. I was obliged to wait, and this annoyed me very much. In order to keep patience I began to recall our courtship, remembering the first days, how we feared the conscription and the drawing of the unlucky number, with its "fit for service;" the old guard Werner, at the mayor's, the leave-taking, the journey to Mayence, and the broad Capougnerstrasse where the good woman gave me a foot-bath, Frankfort and Erfurth farther on, where I received ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... he, "I have lost my senses! Your pardon, Captain! This unlucky thing has driven me crazy. They must pick upon me! What will you drink? Here's some good brandy; sorry I can't say as ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... Janet. You can tell Hammond, you know, and he'll find a way to circumvent them. And it was to tell you all this that I brought you out here this afternoon, only my unlucky tongue would talk of what I see it's too soon to talk of yet. But here's Louisa, right ahead. Make haste and get your traps, while I settle my business, and we'll be back, perhaps, in time for you to manage some way to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... altogether surprising for the calm resolution, the good humour, and the propriety with which it was written. They declared, that they withdrew themselves from poverty and rags—evils that, through a train of unlucky accidents, were become inevitable. They appealed to their neighbours for the industry with which they had endeavoured to earn a livelihood. They justified the murder of their child, by saying, it was less cruelty to take her with them, than to leave her friendless in the world, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... This unlucky remark set French to thinking how he could draw Ratcliffe out, and accordingly, with his usual happy manner, combining self-conceit and high principles, he began to attack the Senator with some "badinaige" on the delicate ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... two or three years later to come to Geneva as historiographer, and he came, bringing with him a wife from Berne, who died soon after his arrival. For a man of his years, he had a remarkable alacrity at getting married, and his second venture was an unlucky one. For from the wedding-day onward, when he was not before the council with some quarrel or some affair of debt he was apt to come before it to get them to compel his wife to live with him, or, failing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... inquired from what place it had come. Hearing that it had been sent from Agrigentum, he communicated to his agents in that town his desire that the seal-ring should be at once secured for him. And this was done. The unlucky possessor, another Roman citizen, by the way, had his ring ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... the South-Eastern Railway?" said the young man; "this unlucky fall has made me late, I fear; but it is of great importance that I should not lose the twelve o'clock train. I should be most thankful if you could get me there in time, and will gladly ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... an unlucky speech for Mr. Spriggins. Melindy's face was black as Erebus in less than a minute and her eyes fairly ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... Or tell them you are ruined, and their features then become something more attenuated, the shoulders something more elevated, and a more commiserating tone confesses, "C'est bien mal beureux—Mai enfin que voulez vous?" ["It's unlucky, but what can be said in such cases?"] and in the same instant they ill recount some good fortune at a card party, or expatiate on the excellence of a ragout.—Yet, to do them justice, they only offer for your comfort ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... easy, gentlemen, sit easy. Nothing's going to hurt you." Long Jim shoved fresh cartridges into his forty-five. "That is, unless you're unlucky. Line up there, boys, one at a time now. Bud, you and Tim and Dough-head give them guys a singe, their hair's getting too long. The rest of you boys just content yourselves doing a fancy decoration on the canvas all around 'em. I'll deevote my entire attenshun to trimming them lugshuriant ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Oh! it came o'er his ear 'like the sweet south;' it unmanned him quite. He scarcely knew where he was. He trembled from head to foot. His colour deserted him, and the unlucky hat fell to the floor; and yet she stood before him, awaiting his reply, calm, quite calm, serious, apparently a little anxious. The duchess was in earnest conversation with his mother. Lord Montfort had walked up to Miss Grandison, and was engaged in arranging a pattern for her. Ferdinand and ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... weathercock off the top of the church steeple whenever she was a bit fresh. Never trust anything red. A red dog will bite you, a red horse will kick you, a red wench will kiss you, besides being a damned unlucky thing to meet first thing in the morning, a red soldier will hang you. There's only one good thing in the world that's red, and that's a red cap—the red cap of Liberty, Neal, and may we soon have all the red coats in the country ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... a new-laid egg. The visit is paid about an hour before the cold fit is expected; and they are persuaded that with the Egg they shall bury the Ague. If the experiment fail, (and the agitation it occasions may often render it successful) they attribute it to some unlucky accident that may have befallen them on the way. In the execution of this matter they observe the strictest silence, taking care not to speak to anyone, whom they may happen to meet. I shall here note another Remedy against the Ague mentioned as above, viz., by breaking a salted ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... she said; "that's just it. You see we've been very unlucky, so far. I wanted to talk to you about it. But—would you mind not giving me any wishes till after breakfast? It's so hard to talk to anyone if they jump out at you with wishes you don't ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... gaffer, that's as plain as the nose on a man's face," cried one of the Fairburn fellows, and without more ado, he dashed forward and made a grab at the offending canvas. He was forestalled, however, a man of the opposing party deftly tripping him up and sending him sprawling into the mud. Before the unlucky pitman could rise the whole mob had surged over him, amidst shrieks ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... concluded. "Any day luck may change. As for myself, I go always on the assumption that I am the one exception—unlucky both at cards and love. If the event proves I am right, I am not disappointed. If I am ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... bounds of possibility that you may take up this volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor: the first series of NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS. The loss is yours—and mine; or, to be more exact, my publishers'. But if you are thus unlucky, the least I can do is to pass you a hint. When you shall find a reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, you must be prepared to recognise under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any of my readers were born—I was a little good-for-nought of a boy, of precisely that unlucky kind who are always in every body's way, and always in mischief. I had, to watch over my uprearing, a father and mother, and a whole army of older brothers and sisters. My relatives bore a very great resemblance to other human beings, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... future, when he is reclining in the sun before the door, or when he is full of health and spirits: it may be cast designedly or not; and the same effect may be produced by an inadvertent word. It is deemed partially unlucky to say to any person, 'How well you look'; as the probabilities are that such an individual will receive a sudden blight and pine away. We have however no occasion to go to Hindoos, Turks, and Jews for this idea; we shall find it nearer home, or something akin ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... in. A peasant lent him his ass, but the roads were so bad that they were unable to reach any sort of shelter before nightfall. The unhappy travellers were obliged to pass the night under a rock; the shelter was more than rudimentary, the wind drifted the snow in upon them, and nearly froze the unlucky peasant, who with abominable oaths heaped curses on Francis; but the latter replied with such cheerfulness that he made him at last forget both the ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... thrown away his cowl and married her," quoth the practical Nomerfide); in that of the wife who, to obtain freedom of living with her paramour, actually allowed herself to be buried; in that (very characteristic of the time, especially for the touch of farce in it) of the unlucky person to whom phlebotomy and love together were fatal; and in not a few others, while it emerges in casual phrases of the intermediate conversations and of the stories themselves, even when it is not to be detected in the general character of ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... parent little dreamed of. On one occasion, when on a visit to a neighbouring farm, the youth had tasted a hare, and ever afterwards he longed to regale himself again on such delightful food. One unlucky morning Carlo was rambling about his father's farm with a gun on his arm, merely to shoot the rooks and frighten away the sparrows, when a hare jumped out of her form and ran away straight before him. The opportunity was too tempting. Bang! went Carlo's gun, and poor pussy tumbled head ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... Fam. Byzant. p. 67. On one side, the head of Valentinian; on the reverse, Boniface, with a scourge in one hand, and a palm in the other, standing in a triumphal car, which is drawn by four horses, or, in another medal, by four stags; an unlucky emblem! I should doubt whether another example can be found of the head of a subject on the reverse of an Imperial medal. See Science des Medailles, by the Pere Jobert, tom. i. p. 132-150, edit. of 1739, by the haron de la Bastie. * Note: Lord Mahon, Life ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... you especially to notice, with respect to these things, Turner's introduction of the ugly square tower high up on the left. Your first instinct would be to exclaim, "How unlucky that was there at all! Why, at least, could not Turner have kept it out of sight?" He has quite gratuitously brought it into sight; gratuitously drawn firmly the three lines of stiff drip-stone which mark its squareness and blankness. It is precisely that blank vacancy of decoration, ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... soft, incapable, not to be scolded, or worked, or made responsible in any way, the most impracticable creature possible: a kitten she could have put into a basket at night, and set in the shed; a puppy she could and would have drowned; but a baby, an unlucky, red, screeching creature, with a soul, was worse than all other evils. However, she couldn't let it die; so she went after some milk, and, with Aunt Rhody's help, after much patient disgust, taught the child how to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... some unlucky accident the merchant suddenly lost all his fortune, and had nothing left but a small cottage in the country. Upon this, he said to his daughters, while the tears ran down his cheeks all the time, "My children, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... first weeks of her first season. But no plan seemed possible of fulfilment when, night after night, Nathalie would make a dutiful, dejected appearance in some fashionable salon, and would sit, drooping and visibly wretched, wherever she was put, unless, by some unlucky chance, she caught a glimpse of the white and gold of Ivan's uniform. Then her sudden wild vivacity would fill her mother with helpless rage; and she would wait and watch, while a roomful smiled, and the rows of diamond-laden ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... really to be blamed for this literary attempt. When, in an unlucky moment, I was one day expatiating on the material afforded to a book-maker (I do not use the word in a sporting sense, of course) by the varied characters and histories of our people, and the more than ordinary interest attaching ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... grace seek to practise self-denying austerities! is it that you despise a common lot with me, that variance rises in your breast against your wife! Why does not Rahula fondly repose upon your knee. Alas! alas! unlucky master! full of grace without, but hard at heart! The glory and the pride of all your tribe, yet hating those who reverence you! O! can it be, you have turned your back for good upon your little child, scarce able yet to smile! My heart is gone! and all my strength! my lord has fled, to wander in ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... foot-hills, prospecting, and working over the old claims; but "dust," "nuggets," and "pockets " still form the burden of conversation in the village barroom or the cross-roads saloon. Now and then a "strike " is made by some lucky - or perhaps it turns out, unlucky - prospector. This for a few days kindles anew the slumbering spark of "gold fever" that lingers in the veins of the people here, ever ready to kindle into a flame at every bit of exciting news, in the way of a lucky "find" near home, or new gold-fields in some distant land. These occasions ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... stock gambling, grain gambling, cotton gambling, and all the rest of it. There is no more of good in that—in fact, there is far more of harm in it to the country—than there would be if everybody went to betting at roulette or faro. It makes the lucky gamblers rich and the unlucky ones poor, but it produces nothing, even incidentally. This time the gambling is taking a more productive form. Instead of betting on market fluctuations, men are putting money into factories, mines, mills, and railroads—especially ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... to make you think of me during this autumn at your chambers,' she was saying. 'What shall it be? Portraits do more harm than good, by selecting the worst expression of which your face is capable. Hair is unlucky. And you ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... What you want is the magnificent abandon of life, the great free souls, the blazing butterflies and not the little gray moths. Oh, you will grow tired of them, too, of all the female things, if you are unlucky enough to live. But you won't live. You won't go back to your ships and sea; therefore, you'll hang around these pest-holes of cities until your bones are rotten, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... Another unlucky douse and another half-smothered bleat,—Dorothy released the yearling and plunged to the rescue. "Go after that lamb, Reuby!" she cried with exasperation in her voice. Reuby followed the yearling, that had disappeared over the orchard slope, upsetting an obstacle ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... of Chester is that of a key. It was the last city that gave up Harold's unlucky cause and surrendered to William the Conqueror, and the last that fell in the no less unlucky cause of the Stuart king against the Parliamentarians. In much earlier times it was held by the famous Twentieth Legion, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... and waggons. Margery travelled part of the way in a litter, and part on a pillion behind her bridegroom, who rode on horseback the whole way. He had with him a regular army of retainers, besides sundry maidens for the Lady Marnell, at the head of whom was Alice Jordan, the unlucky girl who, at our first visit to Lovell Tower, was reprimanded for leaving out the onions in the blanch-porre. Margery had persuaded her mother to resign to her for a personal attendant this often clumsy and forgetful but really well-meaning ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly. One of our adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was much admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search, he found that part quoted at length, in one of the British Reviews, from a discourse ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... in the parliaments in the servants' hall or the stables, Harry, who had an early observant turn, could see which were my lord's adherents and which my lady's, and conjecture pretty shrewdly how their unlucky quarrel was debated. Our lackeys sit in judgement on us. My lord's intrigues may be ever so stealthily conducted, but his valet knows them; and my lady's woman carries her mistress's private history to the servants' scandal-market, and exchanges ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of man that most of those who have paid the ransom and won liberty-ease-have in the winning of it created their own incapacity for enjoying the conquest, and toil on till death; it is the others, the ill-endowed or the unlucky, who have been unable to overcome fortune and escape their slavery, to whom the state of ease has all those charms ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... and when the mist lies thick in the hollows, an occasional glimpse may be caught of it even by day. But when I passed the way there was no fog: the light, though softened by a thin film of cloud, fell equally over the heath, revealing hill and hollow; and I was unlucky enough not to see this goblin of ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... observations. She was content with indulging her own passions, seldom restrained those of others; and though good offices rarely presented themselves to her imagination, she was ready to exert them when applied to, and always talked charitably of the unhappy at her cards, if it was not a very unlucky deal. ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... albeit slightly lopsided by reason of the penny being so much the weightier, until the match, in one unlucky throw, fell close to a chair by the bed, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... want?" said Philip, raising himself in his hammock. The hunter who had been the companion of his first unlucky attempt at fishing was coming towards them. The boy sprang to the ground, and, vowing that he would fish the following morning whatever Elizabeth might say, went ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... together and peered out like squirrels, first up at the house, then down the valley for the arrival of the sheep. Both were shaking with excitement—she at the unwonted sensation of attacking a criminal in his lair, and he with anxiety lest some unlucky chance should bring his plan to nought, and make him a failure in the eyes of ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... How unlucky they had been, to be sure! Since they had come to London not a single pair of lodgers had been even moderately respectable and kindly. The last lot had belonged to that horrible underworld of men and women who, having, as the phrase goes, seen better days, now only keep their ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... great mistake if she thought that her making a bet on the result of this race would shock Lady Mary. The Ladies Ditchin had known what it was as girls to lose their quarter's allowance over one of their father's unlucky favourites for a big race; and Lady Mary all her life had been far too accustomed to regard backing an opinion as the strongest proof of sincere belief in it to feel in the least shocked at anybody holding similar views. She had indeed told her husband, as soon as the fact of ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... was. But I was pretty well done for, and a most gruesome object, when we came up with Sher Singh. His manners ain't exactly ingratiating at the best of times, as you have more than once remarked to me, but when he saw my unlucky hair, his language was positively improper. You see, it was my misfortune—and your very good fortune, I'm inclined to think—that I wasn't you. He even sent for water and had some of the blood washed off my face, to make sure, I suppose, that we hadn't exchanged wigs in the hope ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... that every time he enters a house, at a moment when absolute quiet is from his point of view essential, a door slams, or a pot of jam falls off a shelf, or a—a canary commences to sing loudly, or there occurs one of a hundred other unlucky noises he will name. As you may imagine, my investigations into this problem were extraordinarily difficult. But the result was a triumph. In only .375 per cent. of cases is our burglar disturbed by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... proper for their cure. I, whose aim it was principally to gull the company who had their eyes fixed upon me, took it into my head only to palliate the disease. And indeed I have found by experience that I have an unlucky hand in persuading. My arguments are either too sharp and dry, or pressed too roughly, or not home enough. After I had some time applied myself to her grief, I did not attempt to cure her by strong and lively reasons, either because I ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... that in the instances which we saw there was no real occasion for crying at all. It must, therefore, be considered in the light of a ceremony of condolence, which it would be either indecorous or unlucky to omit. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... while out after deer, had come on the trail of the war-party of Blackfeet. Suspecting them of mischief, he had followed them up and found them just at the time when they made prisoner of Mr Tucker. He saw them bind the unlucky pastor and carry him off, mounted behind a savage chief. Jacob chanced fortunately to be concealed in a rugged piece of ground where horses could not act. As the Indians were riding away he shot the horse ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... their own monograms when marking articles that compose their wardrobes?" He put the unlucky piece of cambric in his pocket, and pertinacious Hannah suddenly stooped and dealt Bioern a blow, which astonished the spectators even more than the yelping recipient, who dropped something at her feet and ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... on burning, some of them under protest, apparently, for they did not give much promise of landing their unlucky builders as victors. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... here," replied Nizza. "I have seen him. But that is not all. I am unlucky enough to have attracted the king's fancy. He has terrified me ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Ocean? Had some latter-day Joshua arisen, and with stern fiat nailed him in mid-heavens, blazing forever? To me as slowly rolled the westering orb down that final slope as ever turned the wheel of Fortune to Murad the Unlucky. Perchance the sun-god had turned cook, and now, burning with 'prentice zeal, and scoffing at Duespeptos and all sound hygiene, was aiming to make of this terrestrial ball one illimitable fry turned over and well done,—a fry ever doing and never done, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... have got!" he said, looking at them admiringly, as Nan sorted the flowers in her lap; and at this unlucky moment they were discovered by Mr. Mayne, who was bringing Lady Fitzroy ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... living can express the anguish and bitterness of our souls, but we that endure it; we are distressed, forsaken, in torture of body and mind, in another hell: and what shall we do? When [3790]Crassus the Roman consul warred against the Parthians, after an unlucky battle fought, he fled away in the night, and left four thousand men, sore, sick, and wounded in his tents, to the fury of the enemy, which, when the poor men perceived, clamoribus et ululatibus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... stained with Henna-dyes; and he was laughing and wore a tattered waistcloth about his middle. Quoth Khalifah, "Praised be Allah who hath changed the fish of the river into apes!" [FN188] then, going up to the first ape, who was still tied to the tree, he said to him, "See, O unlucky, how fulsome was the counsel thou gavest me! None but thou made me light on this second ape: and for that thou gavest me good-morrow with thy one eye and thy lameness, [FN189] I am become distressed and weary, without ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... May was a lucky or an unlucky day for Mr. Potter—probably both; but one strange feature which we only thought of afterwards was that he had lived exactly the allotted span of three score years and ten. In the old part of the yard ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... him, or in pure nervousness, Peterborough blew his nose monstrously: an unlucky note; nothing went well after it. 'A slight cold,' he murmured and resumed the note, and threw himself maniacally into it. The unexpected figure of Captain Bulsted on tiptoe, wearing the ceremonial depressed air of intruders on these occasions, distracted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... begs leave to affirm that Mr. Carroll whatever he might wish knew nothing more or less as a Witness concerning the Charges laid agt. Genl. Arnold owing to an unlucky Alieubi, which happened with respect to him in regard to all the Charges laid in the Complaint. Still how far his evidence might go in assisting Genl. Arnold in proving his negatives your Petitioner does not pretend to say, as this is an ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... was regarded as a 91 fatal omen that Vitellius took office as high priest, and issued his encyclical on public worship on the 18th of July, which, as the anniversary of the disasters on the Cremera and the Allia,[432] had long been considered an unlucky day. But his ignorance of all civil and religious precedent was only equalled by the incapacity of his freedmen and friends. He seemed to live in a society of drunkards. However, at the consular elections ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... absolutely determined Glumdalclitch never to trust me abroad for the future out of her sight. I had been long afraid of this resolution, and therefore concealed from her some little unlucky adventures that happened in those times when I was left by myself. Once a kite, hovering over the garden, made a stoop at me, and if I had not resolutely drawn my hanger, and run under a thick espalier, he would have ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... on thy breath of hyperborean gales From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mails), Ere yet unlucky Fame, compelled to creep To snowy Gottenburg was chill'd to sleep; Or, starting from her slumbers, deign'd arise, Heligoland, to stock thy mart with lies; While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send, Nor owed her fiery exit ...
— English Satires • Various
... grasped his wife more fully. He was completely ignorant of Chinese history, of all the forces that had united to form Taou Yuen. For instance: he was unable to reconcile her elevated spirit with the "absurd superstitions" that influenced almost her every act—the enormous number of lucky and unlucky days, the coin hung on his bed, the yellow charm against sickness and red against evil spirits; only yesterday she had burnt a paper form representing thunder and drunk its ashes in a cup of tea. She was tremendously in earnest ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... or position, if it be too much declared and professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the state in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people as the manner was, did conclude every particular ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... every thing else but the yellow fever; one might as well bin on a raft as such an infernal unlucky old tub as she is. It's the steward, sir—he's got a touch of a fever; but he'll soon be over it. He only wants rest, poor fellow! He's bin a bully at work ever since the first gale. He'll mend before he gets ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... pocket-handkerchief more than once in two days. She changed the dinner-hour, and declared supper (except for Malinda Jane, poor dear!) strictly prohibited. For a time I mitigated the last grievance by eating oysters; but, an unlucky burst of confidence having divulged the dissipation, a solemn lecture on my duty to my family was its quietus. Every article of food was put under lock and key, the night-latch was changed, and Mrs. Lawk, in addition to her duties as jailer to Master Moses ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... Delphi, for Ammon, Dodo'na—in fine, For every oracular temple and shrine— The birds are a substitute, equal and fair; For on us you depend, and to us you repair For counsel and aid when a marriage is made— A purchase, a bargain, or venture in trade: Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye— A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet, A name or a word by chance overheard— If you deem it an omen you call it a bird; And if birds are your omens, it clearly will follow That birds ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... moments, as if the whole army was going to cross the fence at the same instant. But Billy Woodchuck was so unlucky as to step into a hole. He fell head over heels. And by the time he had picked himself up and reached the fence all the rest were safe on the ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey |
