"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a good horse yet," mused Porter. "You can't make a slow horse gallop, but there's a chance of curing a horse's temper by kind treatment. I've noticed that a squealing pig generally runs like the devil when he takes it into ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... pardon," he beseeched, with mock humbleness. "I will agree not to do it again—till I get another good chance." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... there was but one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I stayed at home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured for Fothergill his coveted appointment of Professor of Astronomy at Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called him, the chance. Something in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic Ingham name; and at the adjourned election, next week, Frederic Ingham was chosen to the legislature. Whether this was I or Dennis I never really knew. My friends seemed to think it was I; but ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... The power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. So, also, the Canonical Laws command (II. Q. VII. Cap., Sacerdotes, and Cap. Oves). And Augustine (Contra Petiliani Epistolam): Neither must we submit to Catholic bishops if they chance to err, or hold anything contrary to ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various
... want of capital, as well as by want of experience. It was not until the brave and generous Matthew Boulton of Birmingham took up the machine, and backed Watt with his capital and his spirit, that Watt's enterprise had the remotest chance of success. Even after about twelve years' effort, the condensing steam-engine was only beginning, though half-heartedly, to be taken up and employed by colliery proprietors and cotton manufacturers. In developing its powers, and extending its uses, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... seen the commercial competition between various countries compared with a horse race. Just as some horses are handicapped, so customs duties must be levied on the productions of certain countries to give the others a fair chance! The comparison would be relevant if the object of a handicap were that the best horse should win, but the race itself is the object. Bastiat has reduced this view of commerce to an absurdity in his famous petition. It is a petition supposed to be presented by the ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... "No chance. I wrote a St. Timothy girl a really loving letter last year. In one place I got rattled and said: 'My God, how I love you!' She took a nail scissors, clipped out the 'My God' and showed the rest of the letter all over school. Doesn't ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... lost all chance of the esteem and affection of another man of sense and temper, who might even at this late period of her life have recalled her from the follies of dissipation, and rendered her ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... prospect seemed terrible, more especially when, after getting up at five o'clock, and driving some miles to Wiborg, we arrived at the station only to find the train crammed from end to end, and not a chance of a seat anywhere. Confusion reigned, every one was struggling with every one else for places, and the scrimmage was as great as though it were "a cheap trip to Margate and back" in the height of the season. There were only second and third-class carriages, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... on the off-chance that an outside source would reference this text by page number. It lists some page numbers, and the first line that appears on that page. With the use of this index, readers will better be able to find the ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... knocked Lord Newhaven down and half killed him, or would have been knocked down and half killed by him. But to tacitly accept a means by which the injured man risked his life to avenge his honor, and then afterwards to shirk the fate which a perfectly even chance had thrown upon him instead of on his antagonist! It was too mean, too despicable. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... looked out upon the lawn something that interested him; that caused a grin to fasten itself upon his rubicund countenance. Phil, under a fire of snowballs from a group of boys who were waiting with their Christmas sleds for a chance to hitch to a passing vehicle, gained Amzi's gate, ducked behind the fence to gather ammunition, rose and delivered her fire, and then retreated toward the house. Her aunts, still stubbornly confronting her mother, and sobbingly demanding that ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Sulla had already squandered their ill-gotten wealth, and longed for a renewal of those scenes of blood which they had found so profitable. The multitudes whose estates had been confiscated and whose relations had been proscribed were eagerly watching for any movement which might give them a chance of becoming robbers and murderers in their turn. The younger nobility, as a class, were thoroughly demoralized, for the most part bankrupts in fortune as well as in fame, and eager for any change which might relieve them from their embarrassments. The rabble were ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... cuss!" He strode to a rose-bowl and knocked the ashes of his pipe into the water—Doggie trembled lest he might next squirt tobacco juice over the ivory curtains. "You don't give a fellow a chance. Look here, tell me, as man to man, what are you going to do with your life? I don't mean it in the high-brow sense of people who live in unsuccessful plays and garden cities, but in the ordinary common-sense way of the ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... husbands and fathers joined us at lunch; but at dinner we were nearly always a company of bachelors, dropping in an hour or so before we wished to dine, and ordering from a bill of fare what we liked. Some dozed away in the intervening time; some read the evening papers or played chess; I preferred the chance society of the Turkish room. I could be pretty sure of finding Wanhope there in these sympathetic moments, and where Wanhope was there would probably be Rulledge, passively willing to listen and agree, ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... no easy matter for the others to do his bidding, but presently he got his chance and struck a heavy, cruel blow at Myles's head. Myles only partly warded it with his arm. Hitherto he had fought in silence, now he gave ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... so likely as a Greek repast to be enlivened by flashes of intellect and of wit, or by music furnished by the guests. Musicians were more commonly hired performers, as were also the dancers. The Romans enjoyed games of chance. Playing with dice, and gambling along ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of talk rings true so far. Checks up all right with what we've heard about the Mayorunas and so on. And that scheme of working in through the Mayoruna country sounds about as sensible as anything. Desperate chance and all that, but it might work. Say, why did you kick me when I was going to tell him you'd been in ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... "In the latter part of this year (1779), Spain decided on joining France in the war, anxious as she was to take the chance of recovering Gibraltar, Jamaica, and the Floridas." (Tucker's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap. iii., ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... is said of democracy, that the cure for democracy is still more democracy. In the same way the cure for the general strike is to make it still more 'general' in character. The less 'general' it is, the less chance has it of success, and the more 'general' it can be made, the more certain is it ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... who came to our church whose coming seemed to be by chance, but was of great interest to me, for I valued them greatly. They were Peter Cooper and Joseph Curtis. Neither of them, then, belonged to any religious society, or regularly attended upon any church. They happened to be walking down Broadway one Sunday evening as the congregation were altering ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... bullets were flying about, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance promptings ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... roadway. Independently of the velocity, which in coaches is the chief source of danger, there are many perils on the railway, the rails stand up like so many thick knives, and any one alighting on them would have but a slight chance of his life . . . Another consideration which would deter travellers, more especially invalids, ladies, and children, from making use of the railways, would be want of accommodation along the line, unless the directors of the railway choose to ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... ridiculed Mrs Buggins' statement. Mrs Buggins had brought home word from some tea-party that the story had been discussed among her own friends; but Miss Mackenzie had regarded that as an accident. A lawyer's clerk or two about Chancery Lane or Carey Street might by chance hear of the matter in the course of their daily work;—that it should be so, and that such people talked of her affairs distressed her; but that had, she was sure, been all. Now, however, in her new ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... great penalties, that no man, upon any pretext whatsoever, should dare to leave the boats and go ashore. This he did, fearing lest they should be surprised and cut off by an ambuscade of Spaniards, that might chance to lie thereabouts in the neighbouring woods, which appeared so thick as to seem almost impenetrable. Having this morning begun their march, they found the ways so dirty and irksome, that Captain Morgan thought it more convenient to transport some of the men in canoes ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... as a matter of prudence, I would avoid it. Let the opium have a full chance, and all will ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... or at least demonic, character, to influence for good or evil (and usually for evil) the affairs of the living. But the correspondence between the old Israelitic and other archaic forms of theology extends to details. If, in order to avoid all chance of direct communication, we direct our attention to the theology of semi-civilised people, such as the Polynesian Islanders, separated by the greatest possible distance, and by every conceivable physical barrier, ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... niece of De Mora's, is coming, so that gave me a chance to mention the dinner to her uncle. Maieddine can easily hear about it, if he chooses to inquire what's going on at my house. And I said something else to De Mora, for the benefit of the same gentleman. I hope ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... determine the true site of the Battle of Mons Grampus. It may be taken for granted that the Roman General made good use of his opportunity to survey the ground upon which the decisive battle was fought. Before retiring to winter quarters at Grassy Walls, the Roman soldiers had a chance given them of testing the strength and valour of the Caledonians. The Ninth Legion was stationed at Lintrose, and here the enemy delivered their attack under cover of night. They had penetrated into the camp ere they were discovered, and it might have gone hard with the Legion if help ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's have a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... skillful and winged cherubim Meet for rich abbeys. From yon crumbling tower, Whose brickwork base the cunning Romans laid— And now of no use else except to train The ivy of an idle legend on— You see, such lens is this thin Devon air, If it so chance no fog comes rolling in, The Torridge where its branching crystal spreads To join the Taw. Hard by from a chalk cliff A torrent leaps: not lovelier Sappho was Giving herself all silvery to the sea From that Leucadian ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... seeming to imply that Russia was in any sense afraid, or doubtful as to the result of a war with China; her sole motives were those of astute and far-seeing policy. Whether the Russian Ambassador at Berlin mooted the matter to Prince Bismarck, or whether that statesman, without inspiration, saw his chance of doing Russia a good turn at no cost to himself is not certain, but instructions were sent to Herr von Brandt, the German Minister at Peking, a man of great energy, and in favour of bold measures, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... true. He did avoid the chance of making her acquainted with any of the folk with whom his daily routine threw him into contact, with a care which might suggest a fear of some sort of contagion for her. But not all the members ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... worst: once a certain drunken squire had a sword fight in Wilno with Domejko and received two wounds; later that squire, returning home from Wilno, by a strange chance took the same boat as Dowejko. So, when they were journeying along the Wilejka in the same boat, and he asked his neighbour who he was, the reply was 'Dowejko.' Without further ado he drew his blade from under his winter coat; slash, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... day, hearing by chance that the new-comer was going to preach at a hamlet the other side of Clough End, he went, found a large mixed meeting mostly of mill-hands, and the tide of Revivalism rolling high. This time Mr. Dyson picked him out at once—the face and head indeed were easily remembered. After the sermon, when ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I got my chance of a few minutes' chat with Springfield. I think I managed it without arousing any suspicions; certainly he did not manifest any, neither did he appear in the slightest degree ruffled when I talked with him ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... a single instant's hesitation, and the only sign of embarrassment she gave was that she got up from her chair, passing in this manner a little out of Olive's scrutiny. It was easy for her not to falter, because she was glad of the chance. She wanted to be very simple in all her relations with her friend, and of course it was not simple so soon as she began to keep things back. She could at any rate keep back as little as possible, and she felt as if she were making up for a dereliction when ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... The ground within 400 yards of the gate offered good artillery positions. Thomson therefore reported that although the operation was full of risk, and success if attained must cost dear, yet in the absence of a less hazardous method of reduction there offered a fair chance of success in an attempt to blow open the Cabul gate, and then carry the place by a coup de main. Keane was precluded from the alternative of masking the place and continuing his advance by the all but total exhaustion ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... he replied, 'not so hollow a thin, either. Let me see, we'll say about four to one against you; you may chance to throw doublets like him I told you of, and then what becomes of the odds I'd like to know? But let things go as they will, I'll give and take four to one, in pounds and tens of pounds. There, M'Donough, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Charlie. "I remember how you said it was your job to take the chance because I, being an officer, was worth more to the cause and because the loss of a private didn't matter ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... worrying about his wife's behaviour. Not so M. de Dreux d'Aubray: he had the scrupulosity of a legal dignitary. He was scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and feared a stain upon his own fair name: he procured a warrant for the arrest of Sainte-Croix wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter him. We have seen how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was driving in the carriage of the marquise, whom our readers will doubtless have recognised as the woman who concealed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... figure, confining his neck in a bandage, pouring liquids down his throat, though he knows they will give him a headache, sitting up all night shaking bits of bone together for the mere purpose of giving somebody a chance of winning all his money, or offering bets on racehorses to afford himself and family an opportunity of changing opulence for beggary! He has the popular ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... "You call him a demon and a familiar spirit because he loves his master and likes music, and when I offer you a chance to prove it you won't take it. Look here! I'll make a bargain. I'll be baptized if you'll baptize Padda too. He's more of a man ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... and her mother a celebrated beauty brought from the Georgian Caucasus, and twice made captive by the chance of war. After giving birth to Zela, she looked, and saw her own image in her child, blessed it, and yielded up her mortality. Is it to be marvelled at, that the offspring of such parents was as I have described, or rather what I have attempted to describe? For I am ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... glories in Ireland, or the Protestant church be destroyed, so long as their fate depended on a Protestant parliament. The union must be repealed; and unless Ireland sent into the house of commons a large body of Catholic repealers, there was no chance of such a consummation. Hence it was that Mr. O'Connell attacked the Irish bill with such bitterness; it did not make a larger addition to the representatives of Ireland, and it did not sink the qualification to a scale ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... have been so disturbed about here that people have changed their abodes, and can no longer be traced; and so I have never come upon the track of Dolores. And I mention this to you, Talbot, so that if you should ever, by any chance, happen to meet her, you may tell her that you saw me, and that I had been hunting after her all through Spain. I dare say it will soothe her, for she loved me most passionately, and must often have wondered why I never came for her. In fact, she was so gentle, so delicate, so sensitive, and ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... important for your information. With respect to the Indian war, the summer has been chiefly employed on our part in endeavoring to persuade them to peace, in an abstinence from all offensive operations, in order to give those endeavors a fairer chance, and in preparation for activity the ensuing season, if they fail. I believe we may say these endeavors have all failed, or probably will do so. The year has been rather a favorable one for our agriculture. The crops of small grain were generally good. Early ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... thought that Henry Leek's name was Farll! And all the sensitive timidity in Priam Farll's character seized swiftly at the mad chance of escape from any kind of public appearance as Priam Farll. Why should he not let it be supposed that he, and not Henry Leek, had expired suddenly in Selwood Terrace at 5 a.m. He would ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... diffidence, have claimed to be the most valuable officer in my own branch of the Service. It is true that I never rose to be more than a chief of brigade, but then, as everyone knows, no one had a chance of rising to the top unless he had the good fortune to be with the Emperor in his early campaigns. Except Lasalle, and Labau, and Drouet, I can hardly remember any one of the generals who had not already made ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Braziliensis—ranges the grassy savannahs of La Plata. Across the desert, between the rivers Negro and Colorado, numbers constantly attend the line of road, to devour the carcasses of the exhausted animals which chance to perish from fatigue and thirst. It also attends the estancias and slaughtering-houses, accompanied by its smaller relative, the chimango. "When an animal dies on the plain the gallinaso commences the feast, and then the two species of polyborus pick the bones clean," says Darwin. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... improving their surroundings if they knew they would return to the same place every other day. Under the old system, no one took much interest in a trench which he only occupied for 24 hours, and would not see again for four days. We did not, however, have a chance of testing this new arrangement, for at 3-45 the following morning, orders came that the Division would be relieved the following night, and was under orders to go to the East. As soon as it was ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... it would be if young people were left to marry who they like," retorted Fountain. "My dear lady, I would never have asked your aid so long as there was the least chance of her marrying Mr. Hardie; but, now that she has of ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... was given to strolling up and down the streets of Ballarat when that eviscerated city was merely in process of disembowelment, before alluvial mining gave way to quartz-crushing, when the individual had a chance, if a very vague one, of sudden and delightful fortune. The Ballarat blacks were a scaly lot, to talk of them like ill-fed hogs, as men were wont to do. They dwined and dwindled, as natives will before the resources of civilisation: the bloodthirsty ones got killed out; the rumthirsty ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... hardly a creature to observe them, in the lonely outskirts of the town. Emily's gaiety and good humor had not led him astray: he knew that these were bad signs, viewed in the interests of love. His one hope of touching her deeper sympathies was to wait for the help that might yet come from time and chance. With a bitter sigh, he resigned himself to the necessity of being as agreeable and amusing as ever: it was just possible that he might lure her into alluding to Alban Morris, if he began innocently ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... led to suppose that the females generally prefer, or are most excited by the more brilliant males." [Footnote: Ibid. p. 399.] "Nevertheless, when we see many males pursuing the same female, we can hardly believe that the pairing is left to blind chance; that the female exerts no choice, and is not influenced by the gorgeous colours, or other ornaments with which the male alone is decorated" [Footnote: Descent of Man, vol. i p. 421.] Such sentences are of continual ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... water, till the liquor had the appearance of a thin gruel, and the potatoes had become almost entirely incorporated with the water. With this potatoe-gruel the flour was mixed up, no water being required, unless by chance I had not enough of the mixture to moisten my flour sufficiently. The same process of kneading, fermenting with barm, &c., is pursued with the dough, as with other bread. In baking, it turns of a bright light brown, and is lighter than bread made after the common process, and therefore ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... bachelor was the very last person for a hunt in slums and the like. The very sight of him would put the people on their guard. 'And think of his fine words,' she added. 'I wish I could go! If I started with a shawl over my head, yoked to a barrel-organ, I should have a far better chance than he will. I declare, Mark, if he does not succeed we'll do it. We'll hire an organ, whereon you shall play. Ah! you shake your head. A musical education is not required, and I know I shall do something desperate soon, if that dear little boy ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was delighted to see Josephine, and made sure Rose was not far off. It was Dard who let out that she was gone to Beaurepaire for some cloth to make him a shoe. This information set Edouard fidgeting on his chair. He saw such a chance as was not likely to occur again. He rose with feigned nonchalance, and saying, "I leave you in good hands; angel visitors are best enjoyed alone," slowly retired, with a deep obeisance. Once outside the door, dignity vanished in alacrity; he flew ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... had the chance," answered Dic. "I'll do it to-morrow. Billy Little, I want to thank you—you must let me tell you what I think, or ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... with his wagons, and with infinite labor and exertion he had made a mile on his way to the road. He was certainly a plucky fellow; but he could not fight a whole brigade of infantry with two companies of cavalry. He had, therefore, taken his chance of reaching the Jamestown Road, and fortunately he had posted himself on the roads ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... an explanation concerning the sudden beating of the war-drum and the extraordinary assembly of the people armed for war. Rahonka looked foolish and nervous, as though he doubted the chance of a safe retreat. He could not give any satisfactory reason for the hostile display we had so recently witnessed, but he attributed it to the drunken state of Kabba Rega, who had sounded the alarm without ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... said, "there is no immediate chance of your being in a position to marry Sybil. Don't look at me as though I were saying unkind things. I am not. I am only talking ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a chance—" began Barton, and then didn't know at all how to finish it. "Why, you're so plucky—and so odd—and so interesting!" he began all over again. "Oh, of course, I'm an awful duffer and all that! But if we'd had half a chance, I say, you and I would have ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... town of Quincy, in Massachusetts, was born John Quincy Adams. Two streams of as good blood as flowed in the colony mingled in the veins of the infant. If heredity counts for anything he began life with an excellent chance of becoming famous—non sine dis animosus infans. He was called after his great-grandfather on the mother's side, John Quincy, a man of local note who had borne in his day a distinguished part in provincial affairs. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... this power of expression! Let us begin as low in the scale of verbal art as you choose. Let two observers chance to see some previously unknown plant, with novel leaf and flower and perfume. If they could paint the leaf and flower, well and good; but ask each separately to communicate to you in words a mental picture of that plant. Observe how, with equal education in the matter of language, the one will ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... they improved on the scientific schemes of their profound master, Hoyle, and on his deep doctrines and calculations of chances. They became skilful without a rival where skill was necessary, and fraudulent without conscience where fraud was safe and advantageous; and while fortune or chance appeared to direct everything, they practised numberless devices by which they insured her ultimate ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... he is," another man said calmly. Turning, he saw that the speaker was Tom Smith, one of the math professors. "I figured the odds against that being chance. There are a lot of variables that might affect it one way or another, but ten to the fifteenth power is what I get for a sort ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... together the grasses of the little ark of bulrushes, her hot tears falling upon her work, and pausing from time to time with her hand pressed upon her throbbing heart. At length, the little vessel is finished, and she goes by night to the bank of the Nile, to take the last chance to save her boy from the knife of the murderers. Approaching the river's edge, with the ark in her hands, she stoops a moment, but her mother's heart fails her. How can she give up her child? In frenzy of grief she sinks upon her knees, and lifting her gaze ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... charming companion, who, although she was wrapped up in a warm theater cloak, seemed to be shivering disconsolately as she and her friend watched the interminable stream of vehicles filing up before the theater, and cutting them off from any chance of obtaining ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... that, in a large measure, the result was brought about in a similar way. Herschel, as he unwearyingly swept the heavens night after night, was in quest of sidereal wonders—such as double stars and nebulae—and he happened to alight upon the new planet in a purely chance way. He had no expectation of finding such a remarkable object, and indeed, when he had found it, wholly mistook its character. There could be no doubt that it was a body wholly dissimilar to the fixed stars, and it was equally certain that it could not be a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... professor, joining them, for Frank had set Sam the example and was lying flat on the soft sand. "I've just been telling the Hakim to do so. Don't sit down to rest out here; lie flat whenever you get a chance. It does wonders. ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Fortunately, chance ordained that on the morrow of that tragic day, there was some official solemnity apropos of I know not what,—fetes in Paris, a review in the Champ de Mars, jousts on the Seine, theatrical performances in the Champs-Elysees, fireworks at the Arc de l'Etoile, illuminations everywhere. Jean Valjean ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance." —Pope, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... By chance one day he came across a copy of the Pennsylvania Freeman, containing the story of Peter Still, "the Kidnapped and the Ransomed,"—how he had been torn away from his mother, when a little boy six years old; how, for forty ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... he said smilingly. "It was a chance meeting. You know," with a touch of sadness in his voice, "the people of my race are not always kindly treated—even in so new a country as this—and so big," he went on musingly. "Who shall say what Canada is to be in the future?—I see things, I see things—a ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... would prevent anybody, man or woman, from following natural bent and ability in any avocation. In the founding of Harvard and other early colleges, some provision was made for the education of Indians, but none for women. Already at Yale and West Point colored men have a fair chance, not yet the women. Miss Eastman thought that suffrage was the highway to all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... wasting ammunition. He must try his best to make the fire of his platoon effective, to get it forward, and to support neighboring platoons in their effort to advance. At the same time he must hold himself subject to his captain's directions. He should take advantage of every chance to carry his platoon forward unless otherwise ordered. In all this he is assisted by his platoon guide (sergeant) and by ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... superior to Kunti yet I am inferior to her in station. I do not grieve, O thou of Kuru's race, that Gandhari hath obtained a hundred sons. This, however, is my great grief that while Kunti and I are equal, I should be childless, while it should so chance that thou shouldst have offspring by Kunti alone. If the daughter of Kuntibhoja should so provide that I should have offspring, she would then be really doing me a great favour and benefiting thee likewise. She being my rival, I feel a delicacy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... give them a chance of seeing something of the liveliness and bustle of "The Corner," as that part of the village was called, where stood the tavern, the ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... hast acted with great rashness! I do not at this moment behold a match (for Duryodhana) except Pritha's son Vrikodara! His practice, again, with the mace, is not so great! Thou hast, therefore, once more allowed a wretched game of chance to commence as that one in former days between thyself and Shakuni, O monarch! Bhima is possessed of might and prowess. King Suyodhana, however, is possessed of skill! In a contest between might and skill, he that is possessed of skill, O king, always prevails! Such a foe, O king, thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Wortley Montagu, a literary acquaintance of my boyhood. It was really pleasant to meet her there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a chance interview at her tombstone. It adds a rich charm to sacred edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you above. The ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... can write if I get the chance," she announced decisively a moment later. "I just FEEL that I have the feel of it, if you know ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... more chance.' 'Cease fire—cease fire there, will you?' for the men were very angry, and so at last the musketry died away, and there was silence. Then from among the rocks three dark figures stood up holding up their hands, and at this tangible evidence ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... effect of these instruments when examining the collection at Hintock House, and the conception instantly flashed through him that Grace had been caught, taken out mangled by some chance passer, and carried home, some of her clothes being left behind in the difficulty of getting her free. The shock of this conviction, striking into the very current of high hope, was so great that he cried out ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... aspect did not frighten the chevalier, at least it gave him matter for reflection. There is a moment in the affairs of every man which decides upon his future. This moment, however important it may be, is rarely prepared by calculation or directed by will. It is almost always chance which takes a man as the wind does a leaf, and throws him into some new and unknown path, where, once entered, he is obliged to obey a superior force, and where, while believing himself free, he is but the slave of circumstances and the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... be called on for testimony. But you commence by constraining, by preventing, and then you avail yourself of acts caused by prohibition to exclaim, "See! practice justifies us!" You oppose our theory, indeed all theory. But when you put a principle in antagonism with ours, do you, by chance, fancy that you have formed no theory? No, no; erase that from your plea. You form a theory as well as ourselves; but between yours and ours there is this difference: our theory consists merely in observing universal facts, universal sentiments, universal calculations and ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... her features were large and her eyes questioning. Had she had Bradley's beard, she would have passed with Kate for the stage driver. She was formidable, but yet a woman; and she scrutinized the slender whip of a girl before her with feminine suspicion. Nor did she give Kate a chance to break the ice ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... do you ask if they concern him? Has Miss Tescheron spoken to you about him?" I was getting suspicious again, for she had refused, on one excuse or another, to let me see Mr. Marshall. It had flashed on me several times again that there was a bare chance of Marshall being Hosley under another name given to him by a person mistaken in identifying him, or that he was trying to hide from me under an alias so easy for him to assume, and had induced Miss Tescheron, perhaps, to avoid meeting ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... a pleasant smile... and said, 'Well, Doctor, you find me taking breakfast, and I assure you I have had a good one. I thought it very probable that this might be my last chance, and therefore I was determined to enjoy it and eat heartily.'... He said that he had not the slightest desire to live, laboring under the sufferings to which he was subjected, and that he was perfectly ready to take all the chances of an operation, and he knew ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... pain, what agony it would be if by chance I had come across this shoe and held it in my hand as now, and there was no violet night to follow, no white arms going to be stretched out through its deep ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... a brute for speaking of Arthur in connection with the devil, but it wasn't the old-fashioned devil I meant. I meant the devil of unfitness. Arthur wasn't fit. He had every chance. We can't get away from what life is. Life shoves people to the wall every day. I've had to fight hard myself. I admit things aren't fair all round, but Arthur had his chance, two or three chances, and he just—dropped out. He couldn't ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... if thine ears can hear, List to my maidens! Bid them tell the tale Of heroes that my hand hath laid full low! The chance may hap among them there is one Hath tried his strength with thee. There may be one Hath laid thee conquered ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... You have told!" declared Whispering Smith. "I knew—why, of course I knew—but I wanted to make you own up. Well, here's the way things are. Sinclair has run us all over God's creation for two days to give his pals a chance to break into Williams Cache to get the Tower W money they left with Rebstock. For a fact, we have ridden completely around Sleepy Cat and been down in the Spanish Sinks since I saw you. He doesn't want to leave without the money, and doesn't know it is in Kennedy's hands, and can't get ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... which had required three generations to build up were lost in half a decade. Not meeting any well- expressed need of the people, and with no schools provided to show to the people the desirable nature of the reforms introduced, it was easy to sweep them aside. In this relapse to mediaevalism, the chance for Spain— a country rich in possibilities and natural resources—to evolve early into a progressive modern nation was lost. So Spain has remained ever since, and only in the last quarter of a century ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... thrown upon the difficulties of a struggle with a great maritime Power and upon the means by which those difficulties might be overcome. The British navy is so strong that, unless it were mismanaged, the German navy ought to have no chance of overcoming it. Yet Germany cannot but be anxious, in case of war, to protect herself against the consequences of maritime blockade, and of the effort of a superior British navy to close the sea to German merchantmen. Accordingly, the law which ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... the unfortunate persons who survived was even more plain to William Darling and his family. Grace begged her father to launch a boat and go to their assistance, but Darling, brave sailor as he was, knew that there was little or no chance of his ever reaching the doomed ship, and shook his head. Then Grace began to plead with her father, telling him it would be better for him to lose his life than to pass by people in such distress, and that she herself would go with him and bear a hand at the oars. Darling ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... have been brutal to drive off and leave that girl there, and it would have been a vulgar flourish to put the entire vehicle at her service. Besides, and perhaps above all, Verrian had no idea of depriving himself of such a chance as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... The rest of mankind was as nothing. Chance travellers might praise or pet him; but he was cold under it all, and from a too demonstrative man he would get up and walk away. When Thornton's partners, Hans and Pete, arrived on the long-expected raft, Buck refused to notice them till he learned they were close to Thornton; after that he ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... chance of that. But I shall put the king on his honour before leaving, and say that I will make particular inquiry into the way in which the trial has been conducted on ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... fool!" thought Nelson. "Still, it's Alden's only chance—unless the Jarmuthians've got some trick I'm not on to, I ought to stand a fighting chance." Meanwhile Emperor and Captain-General drew to one side, listening to Hero John's impassioned oratory. That the idea met ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... vital points, he can tear the surface off the many nostrums of the hour and prove them mean, worthless, and degrading; and, doing so, he will be forming the minds about him. He must be ready; that is the great need. Understand how a conversation is often turned by a chance word, and how governed by one man who has passionate, well-defined views, while others are cold and undecided. Be that one man. You do not know where the circumstances of life will take you; your flag may be directly challenged to your face, and you must reveal yourself. ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... experienced fear—in the kind of automatic way of self-preservation in which the animals feel it—he now, with fevered self-regard and excited imagination, experienced it in double or treble degree. And if, before, he had been aware that fortune and chance were not always friendly and propitious to his designs, he now perceived or thought he perceived in every adverse happening the deliberate persecution of the powers, and an accusation of guilt directed against him for some neglect or deficiency in his relation to them. Hence by ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... was like visiting a church. Look, there by the square doors were the endless marks of machine-gun bullets that had swept the men who tried to leave the boat for the shore. God! they hadn't a dog's chance. If those bullet indentations meant anything, they meant that the man who left the square door was lucky if he got ashore with less than a dozen ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... young man's pockets, but found nothing written. His purse I thought best to leave where it was: to whom, indeed, could I entrust it with any chance of its being more honestly dealt with than by those who should find the body? The innkeeper and the gentleman's servant, with their claims for payment, would see to that. But I ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... be off." So Lela came down and they started off together; when day dawned she saw that it was Lela who was with her and she sat down and upbraided him for deceiving her. Lela said that they had met by chance; he had not enticed her away, no harm had been done and she could go home if she liked or come away with him if she liked. The girl considered but she saw that if she went home now she would be disgraced and her ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... an angry protest, thinking that now was a good chance for any confederate to rob them or cut their pockets: but the wizard, unheeding, struck suddenly upon a small gong. A little blue flame sprang up from a brazier at the far end of ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... get the chance of meeting, if we may judge by their untasted omelette," replied Dalrymple. "But where's ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... lad some seventeen years of age. Following his graduation from high school in a large Illinois city the previous June, his mother had announced her intention of taking him on a tour through Europe. Needless to say, Hal jumped at this chance to see something of the foreign countries in whose histories he had always been deeply interested. It was upon Hal's request that Mrs. Paine had invited his chum, Chester Crawford, to ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... will have enabled him to earn for the support of his own and my mother's old age. He will be compelled, in all likelihood, to settle and die abroad, as my uncle John did, by the liabilities of that ruinous possession of theirs, the first theater of London. When first my father communicated this chance to me, and expressed his determination, should the affairs of the theater remain in their present situation, to buy a small farm in Normandy, and go and live there, my heart sank terribly. This was very different from my girlish dream of a life of lonely independence among the Alps, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... their heads burnished helmets of Margian steel, whose glitter dazzled the spectator. Their legs seem not to have been greaved, but encased in a loose trouser, which hung about the ankles and embarrassed the feet, if by any chance the horseman was forced to dismount. They carried no shield, being sufficiently defended by their coats of mail. Their offensive arms were a long spear, which was of great strength and thickness, and a bow and arrows of unusual size. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... is well not to approach it closely, because all over the country many night-prowling animals have the habit of following by scent the footsteps of any one who has lately gone along through the woods or across the fields. One afternoon by the rarest chance I found three Quails' nests containing eggs. The next morning I took out a friend to share the pleasure of my discoveries. We found every nest destroyed and the eggs eaten. My trail the evening before lay through cultivated fields, and it was thus easy for us to find in the ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... him say himself that he just happened, by mistake, to leave one of his scribbled figures on your uncle's desk, and your uncle, picking it up by mistake, too, said that a boy who could do that should have a chance at the ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... she heard his steps steal away, she left her station and moved softly to the other end of the corridor, determined to trust again to chance, and to quit it by the first avenue she could find; but, before she could effect this, light broke upon the walls of the gallery, and, looking back, she saw Verezzi crossing it towards her chamber. She now glided into a passage, that opened ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... hours on their climb up the long ladder of time Turned my confusion to rhyme, drove me to dare an attempt, If by fair chance I might seem sometimes abreast of my theme, Was I translating a dream? Was it a ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... fourteen now. There isn't much more for me to learn in this school. Senor Juarez and Miss Belton both tell me I ought to go to Pueblo. Edith May Jonas is going. I should like to study many things—drawing, for instance. They say I ought to study that. My mother always said she hoped I would have a chance to learn. And my father used to say, 'Oh, yes!' that he would soon have money for everything. And now he has! Will you ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... well-timed influenza. Those politicians are common enough now. Propose to march to the Millennium, and they are your men. Ask them to march a quarter of a mile, and they fall to feeling their pockets, and trembling for fear of the footpads. They are never so joyful as when there is no chance of a victory. Did they beat the minister, they would be carried out of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may be got out of Dick strikes you. I mean to make much of him. I feel the story extremely myself, which I take to be a good sign; and am already warmly interested in it. I shall run it on now for four whole numbers together, to give it a fair chance." Every step lightened the road as it became more and more real with each character that appeared in it, and I still recall the glee with which he told me what he intended to do not only with Dick Swiveller, but with Septimus Brass, changed afterwards ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... remarked, "but you can't! It's been coming for a long time. He's got your I.O.U. and he won't return; but Carnac's got plenty of stuff in him. He never was afraid of anything or anybody, and if he took a notion, he could do this business as well as yourself by and by. It's all a chance, but if he comes in he'll put ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... none of them had seen the Golden Hynde Steal from the bay; and now the billows burst Like cannon down the coast; and they had thought Their boat could not be launched until the storm Abated. Under Drake's compelling eyes, Nevertheless, they poled her down the creek Without one word, waiting their chance. Then all Together with their brandished oars they thrust, And on the fierce white out-draught of a wave They shot up, up and over the toppling crest Of the next, and plunged crashing into the trough Behind it: then they settled at their thwarts, And the fierce water boiled before their blades ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... and gave the giant a cut on the forehead which made the blood gush forth over his eyes so as nearly to blind him. But shrewd as was the blow, the giant had warded his forehead with his club in such wise that he had not received a deadly wound, and, watching his chance with great cunning, he rushed in within the sweep of Arthur's sword, gripped him round the middle, and forced him to ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Then Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry—in marrying her at all as you said—but I would like to make it up to her some day—and I suppose if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and wants to be free of me, I ought to divorce her—but, by Heaven, I believe I ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... together. To begin with, in fox-hunting you are dependent on 'scent.' Granted the excitement of a fast burst over a grass country, and that you are well carried by your horse, the end—what is it? A poor little fox worried by at least forty times its number of hounds. Has he a chance, bar his cunning, of baffling his pursuers? No. Now, how different is the chase of the boar of India! There you must depend on yourself in every way, and at the end your quarry meets you on nearly fair and equal terms." Let it be remembered that the boar is an animal of great ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... yielding nature, I was a little taken aback to find that a new enemy had turned up. The celery had just rubbed through the fiery scorching of the drought, and stood a faint chance to grow; when I noticed on the green leaves a big green-and-black worm, called, I believe, the celery-worm: but I don't know who called him; I am sure I did not. It was almost ludicrous that he should turn up here, just at ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... chance upon people of poor courage, they leave them with life enough to tell the story.—What is it, Mathew?' asked she of the old ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Barnfield, the poet, Michael Drayton, the intimate friend, all testify on behalf of Shakespeare; and there are many others who must have seen and heard him. The attraction of the tavern must have been increased to a great extent when their patrons stood a chance of catching the crumbs that fell from the wit's table. "To give you total reckoning of it," says Erle, "it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns a court man's entertainment, ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... when these contrary experiments are entirely equal, we remove not the notion of causes and necessity; but supposing that the usual contrariety proceeds from the operation of contrary and concealed causes, we conclude, that the chance or indifference lies only in our judgment on account of our imperfect knowledge, not in the things themselves, which are in every case equally necessary, though to appearance not equally constant or certain. No union can be more constant and certain, than that of some actions ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... so very unreasonable,' exclaimed Monica tartly. 'What possible harm is there in Mr. Barfoot, when he meets me by chance in a public place, having a conversation with me? I wish I knew twenty such men. Such conversation gives me a new interest in life. I have every reason to think well of ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... an' mules an' men'-in' cheers, an' all sich ez dat; de folks dey pays me lib'ul; an', let erlone dat, I'm done mighty well wid my taters an' goobers, er sellin' uv 'em ter de steamboat han's, wat takes 'em ter de town, an' 'sposes uv 'em. So I'm got er right smart chance uv money laid up, sar; an' now I wants ter buy me er nigger, same ez white folks, fur ter wait on me an' bresh my coat an' drive my kerridge; an' I 'lowed ef yer'd sell de little white nigger, I'd buy 'im," and Uncle Bob ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... disturbed by doubts, or exposed to quick transitions arising from different schemes of temporizing policy, and I desire to point out the errors and dangers of all contingent measures and pursuits made only to comply with chance circumstances, temporary interests ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... the original modes of acquiring property, was applied to goods and persons taken in war; to things lost by negligence, or chance, or thrown away by necessity; to pearls, shells, and precious stones found on the sea-shore; to wild animals, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... that part of the house: and the fear came upon him lest his blind son, who frequently turned night into day in his love for the organ, and was uncertain in his movements between chapel and chamber, the direct way being that just described, should by evil chance appear at the very moment of the king's passing, and alarm him—for through the gallery Dr. Bayly must lead his majesty to reach my lord Privy-seal's chamber. The marquis, therefore, although reluctant to introduce another even to the externals of the plot, felt that the assistance of a second ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... did not tell me about that," said Mrs. Joy. "Well, my dear,"—Mrs. Joy would have said "my dear" to Queen Victoria or the Empress of China, if she had ever had the chance of an interview with those potentates,—"you've come to a charming place and to charming relatives, I'm sure, and you can't fail to enjoy your summer. You must come with your cousins to-morrow to this sailing-party which my ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... they are not "the master," that their will is not supreme, and the mother must exact this condition; otherwise these children will become dictators and selfish despots—ruining the discipline of the home, spoiling their own chance of physical health, and rendering unhappy everyone around them. The parents, therefore, have a definite duty to perform and it is not an easy one. The food should be so regulated that each day a natural movement ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... take the job,' said the fighting man; 'and hot as this cove appears, He'll stand no chance with a bloke like me, what's lived on the game for years; For he's maybe learnt in a boxing school, and sparred for a round or so, But I've fought all hands in a ten-foot ring each night in a travelling show; They earned a ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... a revolver bullet passes through the abdomen, the coils of intestine are likely to be traversed by it in several places. If the bullet be small and, by chance, surgically clean, it is possible that the openings may tightly close up behind it so that no leakage takes place into the general peritoneal cavity. If increasing collapse suggests that serious ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... while that minister continued at the head of affairs, he proposed an expedient, often practised by those of his country, that the treasurer (to use his own expression) should be taken off, a la negligence; that this might easily be done, and pass for an effect of chance, if it were preceded by encouraging some proper people to commit small riots in the night: and in several parts of the town, a crew of obscure ruffians were accordingly employed about that time, who probably exceeded their commission; and mixing themselves with those disorderly ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... in the notes I write, there is little or no thought. I have written books that I might give occasion to the French to think, but they have never profited by the opportunity. They are more complaisant now that I copy music. I give them a chance to sing, and they sing." [Footnote: This is Rousseau's own ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... look as though there's a chance for me," he concluded; "and if me laddy will let down the lasso, I'll thry the bootiful experiment of shinning up it, though I much fear me that it will be the same ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... those three great peoples who will, we hope, go on as friends henceforward, leading the world ever closer to the glorious goal of true democracy: that happier time when every boy and girl shall have at least the chance to learn the sacred trust of all self-government, and when most men and women shall have learnt this lesson well enough to use their votes ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... compunctions about bloodshed. A human life he held to be a trifle in the big sum of time, and that it was of little moment when a man went, if it seemed his hour. He lived up to his creed, for he had ever held his own life as a bird upon a housetop, which a chance stone ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Lamb's most pleasant papers arose from "the casual sight of an old playbill which I picked up the other day; I know not by what chance it was preserved so long." It was but two-and-thirty years old, however, and presented the cast of parts in "Twelfth Night" at Old Drury Lane Theatre, destroyed by fire in 1809. Lamb's delight in the stage needs ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... spacing, to an exquisite nicety that is revealed in the very way he puts words and sentences and paragraphs together? I do not know. And if any of you think the thing I am about to speak of is due to a mere mechanical chance of the pen, I'll not quarrel with you. Though I shall still have my own personal thought ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... about him he flew around the tower to the Faubourg de la Riche, where he leaped upon the back of the first horse that he saw; the saddle turned and threw him and a soldier came up suddenly and accosted him. Fortunately, the soldier proved, by some happy chance, to be a Leaguer, who gave him a fresh mount, and soon the Prince had put many miles between himself and his pursuers. Ever since, the tower has borne the name of the young De Guise who so cleverly ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... where several suave but very businesslike gentlemen will subject you to a series of extremely searching questions. And you can be perfectly certain that they are in possession of enough information about you to check up your answers. Should it chance that your grandfather's name; was Schmidt, or something equally German-sounding, it is all off. The Italians, I repeat, are a suspicious folk, and they are taking no chances. Moreover, unless you are able to convince ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... was much wisdom in this plan of Vanslyperken; it was the only one which could have been attended with success, or with any chance of it. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... will do the same if I but get the chance. Can you tell what is the name of that huge tree on the right? See, there are balls ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... off the lists, and Tawiscara, having the first chance, attacked his brother violently with a branch of the wild rose, and 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 ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... N. possibility, potentiality; what may be, what is possible &c. adj.; compatibility &c. (agreement) 23. practicability, feasibility; practicableness &c. adj. contingency, chance &c. 156. V. be possible &c. adj.; stand a chance; admit of, bear. render possible &c. adj.; put in the way of. Adj. possible; in the cards, on the dice; in posse, within the bounds of possibility, conceivable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the plate for the offering. As he advanced slowly she could hear the clink of the coins dropping into it. Mechanically she put her hand in her pocket and drew out the little piece of silver and the four coppers that by chance ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... away the smoke from his cigar. "The man you are posing as would never have put his name to work not his own. You never hesitated; on the contrary, you jumped at the chance of so easy an opening to your career as playwright. My need, as you ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... going home one night by way of the street called Horomachi, saw a fox running for its life pursued by dogs. He beat the dogs off with his umbrella, thus giving the fox a chance to escape. On the following evening he heard some one knock at his door, and on opening the to saw a very pretty girl standing there, who said to him: 'Last night I should have died but for your august kindness. I know not ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... their enemies. Manfroni made a splendid resistance, but he could do nothing to help his foot-soldiers, who could not escape by flight, as they were too far from any refuge; and he was compelled to see them cut up and destroyed before his eyes. The Venetian captain soon saw that his only chance was to retreat or he must be killed, if not taken prisoner, so he galloped off at full speed towards San Bonifacio. He was followed for some distance, but the Good Knight then caused the retreat to be sounded, and the pursuers returned, ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... been pensioned too long already. The' ain't any chance for a man with get-up, over a low grade coffee-cooler on this place, an' I 'm sick of it. I'm goin' to hunt up a job where it will pay me to ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... down upon them from the back antechamber, one sea of heads. We sat down on a side seat with Mrs. Hamilton Grey and her sister, and we made ourselves happy criticising or eulogising all that passed down the centre aisle: not the least chance of getting to our carriage, for an hour to come. One of the blue and silver officials of the House, at a turn in one of the passages, had loudly pronounced, pointing, rod in hand, to an outer vestibule and steps, "All who are not waiting for carriages, this way, be pleased;" and vast numbers, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... as I walked through many regions and countries, it was my chance to happen into that famous continent of Universe; a very large and spacious country it is. It lieth between the two poles, and just amidst the four points of the heavens. It is a place well-watered, and richly adorned with hills and valleys, bravely situate; and for the most part ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and Mrs. Holmes, closely united through misfortune, were well-nigh inseparable now, while Mrs. Smithers, still sepulchral, sang continually in a loud, cracked voice, never by any chance happening upon the right note. As Dorothy said, when there are only eight tones in the octave, it would seem that sometime, somewhere, a warbler must coincide for a brief interval with the tune, but as Dick further commented, industry and patience ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... opponents of ministers to render their administration unpopular. They became exposed to great inconvenience from a statutory rule of the constitution, which requires that all members of the house of commons who accept certain offices under the crown shall vacate their seats, and take the chance of a re-election. In more instances than one, the candidate thus stamped with the approbation of government had not been re-elected; and even the attorney-general, having, by his promotion, lost his seat for Dudley, was unable to appear in the house of commons. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... felt these abrasions not at all. He was mad to be free, and free he would be! The scouts paid him no attention. The sun was set and the forest grew dark. Would he escape he must accomplish the matter soon, or likely Bolderwood or young Harding would come to examine him again, and then the chance ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... catalogue the day's doings and try to discriminate them. In vain thus far were my attempts at logic in the debating club, and the sentences in my diary seemed even more wanting in connection. Conjunctions would not join, nor any therefores and wherefores tie the sentences. It was merely chance that I landed a verb in the right place, and did not altogether lose the noun. I seemed to know what I wanted to say but it would not form itself on the pen, and what I wrote one day I had an infinite disrelish for the next. I have heard something in my time about rising ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... people. But their reign is drawing to a close; their glories have culminated; and the day is rapidly approaching when earth will be governed even as the heavens above are governed. As in the world of nature, "the same chance happens alike to all," and every child in time may become a man and every infant a father, and the experience of one becomes the experience of all, so in the government of the spirit world, every man can rise and become for a space ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... furthest point to which aristocratic privilege has attained in modern times—that assertion itself would become only the starting-point for a whole new series of precedents and of constitutional retrogressions; and worse than that, if by any chance, having raised this issue, we were to be defeated upon it—if having placed this Resolution on the records of the House we were to fail to give effect to it, or were to suffer an electoral reverse as the conclusion of it—then good-bye to the power of the House of Commons. ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... opportunities of knowing the Prince; but he has also, himself, had special occasions of verifying their information, by his own personal observation. He happened, when last in London, to be invited to a dinner of three persons. The Prince came by chance, and made the fourth. He ate half a leg of mutton; did not taste of small dishes, because small; drank Champagne and Burgundy as small beer during dinner, and Bordeaux after dinner, as the rest of the company. Upon the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not to rouse the supposed susceptibilities of this officer, they organized a hunting-party to meet in the locality where he usually took his solitary rambles. This plan was adopted, and so well carried out that the intended meeting took place apparently by chance. The officer did not hesitate to engage in conversation with the hunters, some of whom he already knew; and after some desultory remarks the conversation turned on the Carbonari, those new votaries of secret liberty. The magic word liberty had not lost its power ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... when he gits licked in the open an' knows he's licked proper, he tries to git even underhanded. He knows jest as well as I do that Carlsen was lyin' that time about there bein' no more shells. O' course the skipper may have stowed 'em away, but I doubt it. An' jest so long as he thinks there's a chance of gittin' at 'em, he'll figger on turning' the tables some day. An' he'll be workin' the rest of 'em up to ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... Yourself Good-Bye!" No farmers' business organization ever had been a success in the past and none ever could be. This new trading venture was going to go off with a loud bang one of these fine days and every farmer who had shipped grain to it would stand a first-class chance of losing it. You betcha! The Grain Growers' Associations mightn't be so bad; yes, they'd done some good. But this concern in the grain business—run by a few men, wasn't it? Well, say, does a cat go by a saucer of cream without taking a lick? "Farmers' company" they ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... think, on the whole, it is as good a match as poor Mary could expect to make. The stipend is paid by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, which, of course, is much safer than glebe. She is no longer a young girl, and I think it was her last chance. Although she is my own daughter, I cannot help confessing that she is not the sort of girl that wears well; she has always been plain—(no one would think she was my daughter)—and as time goes on, she will grow plainer. When I was eighteen my mother's maid used to say: 'Why, miss, ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... of Elba, said to an officer who was conversing with him about France, "You believe, then; that the police agents foresee everything and know everything? They invent more than they discover. Mine, I believe, was better than that they have got now, and yet it was often only by mere chance, the imprudence of the parties implicated, or the treachery of some of them, that something was discovered after a week or fortnight's exertion." Napoleon, in directing this officer to transmit letters to him under the cover of a commercial correspondence, to quiet his apprehensions that ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it was necessary for me to work. I had two thousand dollars a year my grandfather had left me, and my idea of seeking for a job, was to look for it leisurely, and with caution. But the family seemed to think that, before the winter set in, I should take any chance that offered, and, as they ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis |
