"Ill luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an' snawin', an' cowd, An' th' flagstones were cover'd wi' muck, An' th' east wind both whistled an' howl'd, It saanded like nowt bud ill luck. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... only have not appeared, and they are Bob, the fat and overgrown feebling youth, and, of all creatures, the Faun. It seems my fate that I had to destroy the Faun—the poor, tortured Faun, always willing and eager, ever desirous to please. There is a madness of ill luck in all this. Why couldn't the two dead men have been Charles Davis and Tony the Greek? Or Bert Rhine and Kid Twist? or Bombini and Andy Fay? Yes, and in my heart I know I should have felt better had it been Isaac Chantz and Arthur Deacon, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... trenches," "The enemy is retiring," and "We must attack from the rear." She also took to testing out the engine of her automobile in various ways, and twice, trying to cross a plowed field with it, had to be drawn out with a rope. She took to driving at night without lights also, and had the ill luck to run into the Penzance doctor's buggy and take a ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... but were she that, I don't see why she should be standing this way, unless she thinks the wind will shift, and she wishes to get a good offing from Cape de Verde. Or else she may be one of the picarooning craft which we have heard of on this coast, although it has never been my ill luck ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... greatly agitated. "Let me never hear you mention that name again! It has been our bane! Forget you have ever been so unfortunate as to encounter this young man; and if ill luck should ever drive him across your path again, remember you do not—you ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... was fra puir Antonio, ye mind o' him, Lasses. Hech! the ill luck o' yon man, no a ship come hame; ane foundered at sea, coming fra Tri-po-lis; the pirates scuttled another, an' ane ran ashore on the Goodwins, near Bright-helm-stane, that's in England itsel', I daur say. Sae he could ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... unjustly, that Sir John Orde, who had seen the French arrive off Cadiz, had not dogged their track and ascertained their route; a feat certainly not beyond British seamanship and daring, under the management of a dozen men that could be named off-hand. "I believe my ill luck is to go on for a longer time, and I now much fear that Sir John Orde has not sent his small ships to watch the enemy's fleet, and ordered them to return to the Straits mouth, to give me information, that I might know how to direct ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... The ill luck of my new friends, who had been toiling among the nodules for hours without finding an ichthyolite worth transferring to their bag, showed me that, without excavating more deeply than my time allowed, I had no chance of finding ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... persons so witty as they to suffer under the misconstructions of prejudice or partial acquaintance. Their very sparkling seems to augment the difficulty of coming to a true knowledge of them. How dangerous it is to be so gifted that way, may be seen by the impression these persons have had the ill luck to make on one whose good opinion is so desirable as Campbell's. "During one half of the play," says he, "we have a disagreeable female character in Beatrice. Her portrait, I may be told, is deeply drawn and minutely finished. It is; and so is that ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... a fatality in the invariable unsuccess of my efforts at marriage. I feared, too, that my friend Curzon had placed himself in very unfortunate hands—if augury were to be relied upon. Something will surely happen, thought I, from my confounded ill luck, and all will be blown up. Wearied at last with thinking I fell into a sound sleep for about three-quarters of an hour, at the end of which I was awoke by my servant informing me that a chaise and four were drawn up at the end of the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... she had never liked. Perhaps after a little this emotion might have carried over into, not distrust, but an uneasiness as to the main issue; but before she had arrived at this point Keith came in to deliver an ill-timed warning. As ill luck would have it, and as such coincidences often come about in the most perverse fashion, Keith had, down the street, met some malicious fool who had dropped a laughing remark about Sansome. It was nothing in itself. Ordinarily, Keith would have ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... always brings ill luck to the possessor. It belonged at one time to the see of Canterbury, and Osmond pronounced a curse on any laymen who wrested ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... he said "God was good to thee. I thank Him for't with all my soul. Thou art a good lad." He added drily, "Shouldst have told me this tale in the churchyard. I doubt, I had given thee the mass for love. However," said he (the thermometer suddenly falling), "'tis ill luck to go back upon a bargain. But I'll broach a bottle of my old Medoc for thee: and few be the guests I would do that for." The cure went to his cupboard, and while he groped for the choice bottle, he muttered to himself, "At ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of this addition to his ill luck with an air of military stoicism, though he felt, in reality, more like a father and a husband on the occasion than like a hero. Accustomed to self-command, he succeeded in concealing the extent of his uneasiness, while he ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... in Mr. Arnot's employ would have echoed this sentiment, could the ill luck have blighted him without reaching them. In working his employes as he did his machinery, Mr. Arnot forgot that the latter was often oiled, but that he entirely neglected to lubricate the wills of the former with occasional expressions of kindness and interest in their welfare. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... foul should proceed from me and kept watch over myself, lest default appear in me; but none may avail to make head against ill fortune, nor doth endeavour profit in case of lack of luck, as appeareth by the example of the merchant who was stricken with ill luck and his endeavour profited him not and he succumbed to the badness of his fortune." "What is the story of the merchant," asked the king, "and how was his luck changed upon him by the sorriness of his fortune?" ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... on it, what ill luck is this? I can't account for it: but I believe That I was born for nothing but misfortunes. I am the first who feels our woes; the first Who knows of them; the first who tells the news: And come what may, I bear ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... in black, standing by Orchardson's picture. Why, you must know her by sight! It's Miss Bretherton, the actress. Did you ever see such beauty? I must get somebody to introduce me to her. There's nothing worth looking at since she came in. But, by ill luck, nobody here ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... meat and smokes tobacco—how can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... intermediary a man of your high merit. Believe me that I shall, on my side, preserve an eternal gratitude for the man who has so ingeniously, so cleverly arranged the misunderstanding between us. And since ill luck would have it that the secret should be known to four instead of three, why, this secret, which might make the most ambitious man's fortune, I am delighted to share with you, monsieur, from the bottom of my heart I am delighted at it. From ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... evening. Cut off by his want of money from his ordinary amusements, and depressed by the thought that things would be no better till he had paid his bills, he lounged about, feeling that he was a victim of ill luck. It did not occur to him that that ill luck was of ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... that, John. My thoughts were not heavenly at all today, and I hope they stayed where they belonged. Take the tongs, John, and lift a lump of coal to the fire. I joy to see the blaze. I wouldn't like Hatton hearthstone to have the ill luck that has just come to Yates Manor House. You know, John, the fire in their hall has been burning for nearly two hundred years, never, never allowed to go out. The young squire always fed it as soon as the old squire went away. It was dead and cold this morning. Yates is past comforting. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... presto! when I rose I found my watch swimming in water—your watch-paper all soaked and torn—that is to say, my fingers tore it; and a dozen minuets I had bought for you shared the same fate, not to mention my jemmy-worked garters! My ill luck was complete—me miserum!" ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... said that she wished Betsy Butterfly no ill luck. But she thought that perhaps it would have been a good thing for her if Johnnie Green had caught her and put her in ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... He could do no more with them than what McDonough himself can do—may ill luck attend him! It is inhuman tunes he does be making; unnatural ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... poignards into the water, remembering that no man might carry these in Venice under penalty of the galleys. Bibboni's white hose were drenched with blood. He therefore agreed to separate from Bebo, having named a rendezvous. Left alone, his ill luck brought him face to face with twenty constables (sbirri). 'In a moment I conceived that they knew everything, and were come to capture me, and of a truth I saw that it was over with me. As swiftly as I could I quickened pace and got into a church, near to which was the house of a Compagnia, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... water-hole on the river from which the old Canadian drew his daily supply; and the snow-house in the yard which she built in company with Frank Morton, and which stood the whole winter through, but gave way at last before the blazing sun of spring, and fell—as ill luck would have it—when she and Chimo were sitting there, so that she and the dog together had a hard struggle ere they got free. All these, and many more thick-coming memories of other days, were aroused by the vision of snow that met Edith's gaze that morning, and caused her heart with ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... but the last time I ventured out alone, I met with an unexpected streak of ill luck, which has deterred me ever since from laying myself liable to a repetition of the ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... "He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears poison." Hardly had the ronin heard these words of the priest than an evil heart arose within him, and he thought to himself, "Man's life, from the womb to the grave, is made up of good and of ill luck. Here am I, nearly forty years old, a wanderer, without a calling, or even a hope of advancement in the world. To be sure, it seems a shame; yet if I could steal the money this priest is boasting about, I could live at ease for the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... satisfaction the progress of Le Gardeur's intoxication. If he seemed to flag, he challenged him afresh to drink to better fortune; and when he lost the stakes, to drink again to spite ill luck. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... could read and write English and Hawaiian and a fair measure of Chinese, claimed to believe in nothing, although in her secret heart she feared the kahunas (Hawaiian witch-doctors), who she was certain could charm away ill luck or pray one to death. Li Faa would never come into Ah Kim's house, as he thoroughly knew, and kow-tow to his mother and be slave to her in the immemorial Chinese way. Li Faa, from the Chinese angle, was ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... to Boat Jim, who, sprawled upon the deck, snores away the hours, regardless of the blistering sun beating down upon his uncovered head, and all unconscious of the departure of his chance passenger, an itinerant organ-grinder. This fellow, having had the ill luck to lose the respectable member of the firm, his monkey, and finding difficulty without the aid of his little partner to attract an audience, had, while idling about the docks, encountered Boat Jim, and persuaded the latter to give him a lift up the river, the condition being that he was to ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... ruling his gardener with severe precision, and thundering at his boys whenever he saw them idle. Both he and his wife were so elaborately kind and polite that Caroline believed that it was an act of magnanimous forgiveness for the ill luck that she and her boys had brought them. At last the Colonel had the threatened fit of the gout, which restored his equilibrium, and brought him back to his usual condition of kindly, if somewhat ponderous, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a moment's indecision, went on to the club, and made his way at once to the billiard-room. The Colonel was sitting in his usual corner chair, watching a game of pool, beaming upon everybody with his fatherly smile, encouraging the man who met with ill luck, and applauding the successful shots. He was surrounded by his cronies, but he held out his hand to Wrayson, who leaned against the wall by his side and waited ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... writhes and curses the gods, but it is all of no use; the Father of the Gods tears the ring from his finger, and then they untie him and tell him to take himself off where he will. And now, as he goes, he lays a terrible curse on the ring. To every one who shall ever gain it, he swears, shall come ill luck, misfortune, sorrow, terror, and death; let him rule the world if he will, never shall he be happy; everyone shall long for the ring, and to him who gets it, it shall bring misery and ruin. Truly the dwarf has gained little by stealing the gold from ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... see me at our cottage on Post street one morning before breakfast. In grading a street, a house in which I had lived and had the ill luck to own, on Pine street, had been undermined, and toppled over into the street below, falling on the slate-roof and breaking all to pieces. He came to tell me of it, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... things to women, and taking care of them. I believe a nice American man would break stones in the street rather than take money from a woman—even his wife. I mean while he could work. Of course if he was ill or had ill luck or anything like that, he wouldn't be so proud as not to take it from the person who loved him most and wanted to help him. You do sometimes hear of a man who won't work and lets his wife support him, but it's very seldom, and they are ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on. Some friend Leonard spoke of—a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... superior doors and windows, spaces for hydraulic lifts and all the rest of it. Yet no one buys. Dry, too, and almost ready to live in, and all the joinery of pitch pine. There is a reason for their ill luck." ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... me, I've just offended him a hit; beside he's a man that never knew trouble or ill luck in his life; they are like ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... will to the cause, or his ill luck, led him into an engagement, made just before his departure, whereby he undertook to procure horses and wagons enough for the transportation of the ordnance and all the appurtenances of the camp. It was not ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... disappeared; he returned not during the whole morning; and as no provisions were issued out to us, nor any opportunity given to light fires, I was compelled to endure, all that time, the extremes of hunger, weariness, and cold. As ill luck would have it, too, the day chanced to be remarkably severe. There was no rain, it is true, but the sky was covered with gray clouds; the sun never once pierced them, and a frost, or rather a vile blight, hung upon the atmosphere from morning till night. Nor were the objects which occupied ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... space before the great entrance, where the procession must come forth to gratify the eyes of the gazers, and mayhap shower down such bounty as the elder mendicants averred had been given when Prince Edward (the saints defend him!) had been weighed at five years old, and, to avert ill luck, the counterbalance of pure gold had been thrown among the poor to purchase ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... commotion, and went to beg shelter from her farmer Hebert, who lived in a cottage used as a public house, called La Bijude, where the road from Harcourt met that from Cesny. Acquet was triumphant. The astonished Abbe remained passive; and as ill luck would have it, fell ill and died a few days afterwards. A report was circulated, emanating from the chateau, that he had died of grief caused by Mme. de Combray. Then people began to talk in whispers about a certain basket of white ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... warrior son, Agamemnon king of the nations, Sore grieved. Fury was working in each dark cell of his bosom, And in his eye was a glare as a burning fiery furnace: First to the priest he addressed him, his whole mien boding a mischief. "Priest of ill luck! Never heard I of aught good from thee, but evil. Still doth the evil thing unto thee seem sweeter of utt'rance; Leaving the thing which is good all unspoke, all unaccomplished. Lo! this day to the people thou say'st, God-oracles ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... too long. A report was now spread that a lion had killed one of the chief's cows; and the Wagogo, suspecting that our being here was the cause of this ill luck, threatened to attack us. This no sooner got noised over the camp than all my Wanyamuezi porters, who had friends in Ugogo, left to live with them, and would not come back again even when the "storm had blown over," because ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... only the daytime at my house. The search of that part of the establishment over, the worried official sat down in my work room to rest for a few minutes, cool himself off, and bewail the fate which had brought him such ill luck. Poljensio, who was washing sponges on the platform outside, and had for this reason not been at his brother's house, where he slept, when that domicile was searched, was called in, and while his official master rested, was made to strip himself stark naked, and turn his few slight ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... men, I am glad to see you all once more around me. You have not been so successful as I hoped, but we must take the good and ill luck as it comes, and I have no fault to find with you. The times, however, are bad enough; for I have certain news that our retreat here, where we have so long been hid, may be discovered"—the villains around held their breath and let their cigars lie dead in ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... a saying at Hootawa, that servants will not stay unless they are able to see Sir Rupert the first month after their arrival. Only members of the family are able to see him in the Long Gallery, and, of course, we never know whether he betokens good or ill luck. The last time he appeared there, papa was so nervous that he sold out of Consols, which went down an eighth the day after. We were all very much relieved. But he invested the money in some concern called "The Imperial Federation Stylograph Pen Company," and lost most ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... unfavorable; unsuited &c. 24; inexpedient &c. 647. unpunctual &c. (late) 133; too late for; premature &c. (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty- twenty hindsight. Adv. inopportunely &c. adj.; as ill luck would have it, in an evil hour, the time having gone by, a day after the fair. Phr. after death the doctor, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... great delight of my solitary hours was to purchase an estate, and form plantations with money which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends but I spoiled all their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... a gargotte like the hole we have just left. Oh, I tried everything. I tried to get musical criticism to do for the newspapers. Surely I was competent to do musical criticism. But no—they wouldn't employ me. I had ill luck, ill luck, ill luck—nothing but ill luck, defeat, disappointment. Was it the will of Heaven? I wondered what unforgiveable sin I had committed to be punished so. Do you know what it is like to work and pray and wait, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... to his back. A sporting clergyman without a living; several young wine-merchants, who consumed much more liquor than they had or sold; and men of similar character, formed the society at the house into which, by ill luck, I was thrown. What could happen to a man but misfortune from associating with such company?—(I have not mentioned the ladies of the society, who were, perhaps, no better than the males)—and in a very very short time ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Ill luck had often seemed to dog the footsteps of his house and even his journey home was not without a mishap; nothing serious, as things turned out, but still something that might have been vastly so. His train was in a wreck, rather a nasty one, but ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... ill luck, the Spartan warrior seized his foe by the horsehair crest of his helmet, and began to drag him towards the Grecian lines; but at this point Venus came to the aid of her favorite. Standing unseen beside him, she broke the helmet strap under his chin, and thus released him from ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... ill luck," grumbled Dick. "Trevanion of Exeter came over to our place, and of course the mater pressed him to stay for luncheon, and then nothing would do but a ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... ain't grandmamma," said Mrs. Tom. It was not often, as she herself said with pride, that she required to be in the shop, which was very much improved now from its old aspect. Ill luck, however, brought her here to-day. She stood at the door which led from the shop to the house, dividing the counter, talking to a lady who was making a complaint upon the quality of cheese or butter. Mrs. Tozer had led Phoebe that way in order to point out ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... stories of ancestral exploits which she had heard in her childhood. One of the first Daltons, whose grim figure looked down upon her now in the armor of a Crusader, had taken part in the great expedition under Richard Coeur de Lion. It happened that he had the ill luck to fall into the hands of the infidel, but as there were a number of other prisoners, there was some confusion, and early one morning he managed to seize a horse and escape. Soon he was pursued. He dashed over a wide plain toward some hills that arose in the distance, where he managed to elude ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... just seen my friend Dr S. in Lyons, and he has related to me the saddest tale you can imagine concerning Georges and Pauline. Here it is, just as he gave it, and while it is fresh in my memory. It seems that all through the month of April and well into May, Saint-Cyr's ill luck stuck to him. He lost daily, and at last only a very slender remnant of his wife's money was left to play with. Week by week, too, he grew more wasted and feeble, fading with his fading fortune. As for ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... is proverbial, and to this day they believe in good or ill luck being brought to a vessel by persons and things. In olden times there were many sacrifices to this Jonah superstition; and even in comparatively recent times, Holcroft, the actor, on a voyage to Scotland, narrowly escaped a watery grave, because the men took him for 'the Jonas.' And to this ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... came; the archdeacon and Mrs Grantly and the two girls, and Dr Gwynne and Mr Harding; and as ill luck would have it, they were closely followed by Dr Stanhope's carriage. As Eleanor looked out of the carriage window, she saw her brother-in-law helping the ladies out, and threw herself back into her seat, dreading to be discovered. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... dice." Of course, he was anxious to see how it was done. Taking out some cards, the Judge was greatly amused, and at last George offered to bet me $50 that he could turn the card. I took him up, and he lost. Then the Judge, not at all discouraged by George's ill luck, said he could turn it up for $50; but I told him I did not want to bet with him, since he had never seen the game before. At last I consented to go him once. He turned the card and lost, and then I thought that George would die with laughter. This only riled the ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... and none of these meals equal to a frockified hobgoblin's. All this is true enough. Accordingly, at my Lord Lucifer's first course, hobgoblins, alias imps in cowls, are a standing dish. He willingly used to breakfast on students; but, alas! I do not know by what ill luck they have of late years joined the Holy Bible to their studies; so the devil a one we can get down among us; and I verily believe that unless the hypocrites of the tribe of Levi help us in it, taking from the enlightened book-mongers their ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... "It was ill luck," Mauriri said. "Of all nights this one night was selected by the white devils to go fishing. It was dark as we came through the passage. They were in boats and canoes. Always do they have their rifles with them. One Raiatea man they shot. Brown was very brave. We tried to get by to the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... sang.' And sae he fell out o' ae dwam into another, and ne'er spak a word mair, unless it were something we cou'dna mak out, about a dipped candle being gude eneugh to see to dee wi'. He cou'd ne'er bide to see a moulded ane, and there was ane, by ill luck, on ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... "Task" again; but he opened, by ill luck, upon nothing striking or good; and soon, with distaste, flung the book down, and committed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Barebone any questions. More especially is it considered, in seafaring communities, impolite to make inquiry into your neighbour's misfortune. If a man have the ill luck to lose his ship, he may well go through the rest of his life without hearing the mention of her name. It was understood in Farlingford that Loo Barebone had resigned his post on "The Last Hope" in order to claim a heritage in France. He had returned home, and was living ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... to the smoke of the fires; ill luck supposed to be burnt in the Midsummer fires; the Midsummer festival in North Africa comprises rites concerned with water as well as with fire; the Midsummer festival in North Africa is ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... recognized him. Kane was in no mood to welcome his appearance. His presence, too, actively recalled the last night's adventure of which he was a witness—albeit a sympathizing one. Kane shrank from the illusions which he felt he would be sure to make. And with his present ill luck, he was by no means sure that his ministrations even to HIM had been any more successful than they had been to the Frenchwoman. But a glance at his good-humored face and kindling eyes removed that suspicion. Nevertheless, he felt somewhat embarrassed and impatient, and perhaps ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... did not long keep me in ignorance as to who were my visitors, for, as ill luck would have it, they had bethought themselves of some message they wished to leave, and, re-opening the vestibule door, left a-jar by Mary, followed her along the passage to the room they saw her enter. As they pushed open the door of the parlor, Mary heard them, ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... a'most; and Jim, seein' he could not shake them off, thought the best thing he could do was to cut out some troublesome work for them; so he led off where he knew there was the divil's own leap to take, and he intended to 'pound [Footnote: Impound] them there, and be off in the mane time; but as ill luck would have it, his own horse, that was as bowld as himself, and would jump at the moon if he was faced to it, missed his foot in takin' off, and fell short o' the leap and slipped his shouldher, and Jim himself had a bad fall of it too, and, av coorse, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... some persistent ill luck and was like an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of bad luck—I ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... clouds with the moon, for instance) occasion coincidences, which, when they are attended by any advantage or injury, and are at the same time incapable of being calculated or foreseen by human prudence, form good or ill luck. On a hot sunshiny afternoon came on a sudden storm and spoiled the farmer's hay; and this is called ill luck. We will suppose the same event to take place when meteorology shall have been perfected into a science, provided with unerring instruments; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... old Lord, who at first smiled, shook his head, and placed the untasted winecup before him, began presently, as if it were in absence of mind, to sip a little of the contents, and in doing so, fortunately recollected that it would be ill luck did he not drink a draught to the health of the gallant lad who had joined them this day. The pledge was filled, and answered, as may well be supposed, with many a joyous shout, when the old leader proceeded to acquaint ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Tom's equanimity. The sound of Grace's light feet on the stairs was a matter of relief to her. Excusing herself to the impatient lover, she left the room, wondering if, after all, there could be a remote possibility that her prediction of ill luck ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... of the late encounter reached this officer through the swift-footed Canadian, he swore a deep oath that he would chastise the audacious young Virginian for what he chose to call this barbarous outrage, and avenge the death of De Jumonville, whose brother-in-law, as ill luck would have it, he chanced to be. Foreseeing his danger, and to defend himself against the superior force he knew would be brought against him, Col. Washington set about forthwith to strengthen his works. He dug ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... the ill luck which has too often befallen such repositories in Spain, was burnt in the war of the Communities, in the time of Charles V. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 16.— Morales, Obras, tom. vii. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... the travellers, however, more philosophical than the rest, seemed to take their ill luck quite patiently. There was one group that opened their knapsacks at one of the side tables, and were taking breakfast together there ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... attended a large dinner party at the house of a friend of her father. "Our host asked me, the only stranger guest, which part of a huge turkey, in which he had put his carving fork, I would take. I knew only one point of manners for such occasions, dear Alice,—that I must specify some part, and as ill luck would have it, the side-bone came first into my head, and 'Side-bone, sir,' I said. Oh what a lecture I got when we got home, the wretched little chit that compelled a gentleman to cut up a whole turkey to serve her! I cried myself ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... daughter of Sir Thomas Parker, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Every man in England, as he rises into distinction, necessarily becomes a politician. It was the misfortune of Sir John Jervis, and it was his only misfortune, that he was a politician before he had risen into distinction. Having had the ill luck to profess himself a Whig, at a period when he could scarcely have known the nature of the connexion, he unhappily adhered to it long after Whiggism had ceased to possess either public utility or national ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... requested, I presume that you were the unfortunate person who perished in the pagoda on Monday last, and address this rather to your executors than yourself, regretting that you should have had the ill luck to be the sole victim ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... recognise the fact. A revolver in the hands of a novice is almost as dangerous as an automatic pistol. In fact it spells considerable danger to all in the vicinity. It was therefore scarcely surprising that the batman let off a round in his efforts to remove the cylinder. As ill luck would have it the Divisional General chanced at that moment to be passing through our lines preceded by an orderly. The bullet whizzed close past the General and brought down the orderly with a wound in the leg. The thing was, of course, a pure accident; but ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... fish; and there were others when he had to travel many miles before he could sell his fish. During John's vacation, his receipts amounted to about two dollars a day, which went a great way in counter-balancing the ill luck of the next week. On an average, he earned about ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... people who had lain down to sleep unaware in a fairy ring and were foolish ever afterward—that is, as people say, foolish, but really wise, for they saw how things are; of homes built unknowingly across a fairy path where the sidhe take their journeys, and how ill luck followed the inhabitants until they moved, and of the strange penalties for living out of harmony with the little-known currents of the soul's life; of how blind men see more than others; of how a fool is one whose mind is so cleared of all futile commonplace traffic that ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... suppose, and soon spent most of our money. I and a messmate were to travel together as far as Swansea, so we just saved money enough to pay our way, and enjoyed ourselves with the rest; but, as ill luck would have it, we fell in with a poor Welsh woman, who had come to Plymouth in the hope of meeting her husband, and being disappointed, and having spent all her money, she didn't know how to get back to her home again. Of course we couldn't leave a fellow-countrywoman in distress, so we ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... man who is the most sagacious and energetic will never lose a chance to take advantage of opportunities, and there is no doubt that what many complain of as being ill luck, is simply the result of their failure to grasp the situation that a shrewder man would have taken advantage of and ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... that dead brigand whom Girasole had mistaken for Hawbury. This discovery filled the Baron with consternation. He had expected to find the prisoners here, and his dismay and grief were excessive. At first he could not believe in his ill luck; but another search convinced him of it, and reduced him to a state of ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... hot!" cried Hymer, trying to joke at his ill luck. "But it doesn't take a very great man to break a goblet. There is one thing, however, that you cannot do. Yonder is my great brewing-kettle, a mile deep. No man has ever lifted it. Now, if you will carry it ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... chance of his wanting to marry anybody else is postponed anyhow, till, till he has got over this unfortunate attachment. In fact, my dear fellow, there is no longer anything immediate to fear, and I feel sure that before many weeks are up, the misfortunes and ill luck which for the last two years have dogged us with such incredible ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... go well with Joseph from the very arrival of Ruby. It almost seemed as if the red beast had brought ill luck with him. The fares were fewer, and the pay less. Ruby's services did indeed make the week's income at first a little beyond what it used to be, but then there were two more to feed. After the first month he fell lame, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... so sincere—so straight-forward," Rose went on, in an impersonal tone; "and as papa has had so much ill luck and our circumstances have changed—they are changed, you know, though we are still able to keep up a certain appearance—he has been unchanged. You ought ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... all places than themselves. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did not I support them so many several ways. For whereas all men detest them to that height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of them by chance, yet such is their happiness that they flatter themselves. For first, they reckon it one of the main points of piety if they are so illiterate that they can't so much as read. And then when they run over their offices, which they carry about ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... hang about here waiting, till I have some ill luck? You will have to wait a long time, I hope. ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Barnim the younger went away empty, he was filled with envy and mortification, showing quite a different spirit from his meek, humble-minded brother, Bogislaff. He swore, and cursed his ill luck. "Why did not that fool of a bookworm give over his chance to him, if he would not profit by it himself? Why the devil should he descend to play the commoner, when he was born to play the prince?" and suchlike unamiable and ill-tempered speeches. However, he was now ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... woeful story. While, after dinner, I was busily employed in catechising my prisoner, how should the devil be employed, but in tempting my men with the distilled juice of the apple? Having, by some ill luck, found out that there was a barrel of it in the house, they hastened to the poor landlady, who not only gave them a full dose for the present, but ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... soldier came and wanted something to eat. The girl opened the cupboard and brought him some food, and in her love forgot to shut the cupboard-door again; She seated herself at the table by her lover, and they chattered away together. While she sat so contentedly there, thinking of no ill luck, the cat came creeping in, found the cupboard open, took the hand and heart and eyes of the three army-surgeons, and ran off with them. When the soldier had done eating, and the girl was taking away the things and going to shut the cupboard she saw that the plate which the innkeeper had ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... (1585) with two thousand foot and twelve hundred cavalry, he carried the whole of the old port of Ostend. Leaving a Walloon officer, in whom he had confidence, to guard the position already gained, he went back in person for reinforcements. During his advance, the same ill luck attended his enterprise which had blasted Hohenlo's achievement at Bois-le-Duc. The soldiers he left behind him deserted their posts for the sake of rifling the town. The officer in command, instead of keeping them to their duty, joined in the chase. The ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... started. "How did you come to know that name?" he asked; adding quickly, "But that isn't my name either. If you want to know it, Michael Dillon is my name; and since I am to have the ill luck to be compelled to serve his Majesty afloat, I intend to show that it's one no man need be ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... But ill luck is not to be bespoken any more than good: the Agra's seemed to have blown itself out; the wind veered to the south-west, and breathed steadily in that quarter for ten days. The topgallant sails were never lowered nor shifted day nor night all that time, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of, or pendant to, the same story tells of the Eastern man who approached Salt Lake City on foot and sat by the wayside to rest. By ill luck he sat upon an ants' nest. Shortly he rose anathematising the "lustful Mormon city" and turned his face eastward once more, a Mormon-hater to ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... but the simple obedience of instinct to leap to one side, which he did; but as ill luck would have it, hampered by the impedimenta carried in his arms, he came in violent collision with one of the stems of the banyan, which not only sent him back with a rebound, but threw him down upon the earth, flat on his face. He would have done better by lying still, ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Clowne. All her ill luck go with it![87]—Heere will be simple newes to bringe to my mayster when hee hears shee hath bene shippwreckt! Il make him beleeve I went a fishinge for her to sea and eather drewe her ashore in my netts, or batinge my hooke strooke her and drewe her upp by the gills with ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... befell in Biorn's eleventh summer. The winter which followed brought ill luck to Hightown and notably to Ironbeard the King. For in the autumn the Queen, that gentle lady, fell sick, and, though leeches were sought for far and near, and spells and runes were prepared by all who had skill of them, her life ebbed ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... doorway. On their right the male spectators sit in rows; on their left, the women. The girl's mother, however, does not enter, for a mother-in-law, even in the making, must not look upon her newly acquired son, nor he upon her, then or thereafter. To do so would occasion blindness, and general ill luck to either one ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... hungry lanes are these! The longest has an end. Ill luck tasted to the bitter lees Soonest shall mend. >From out the foe's ranks if Heaven ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... with the multiplication of spirits that might, as occasion presented itself, be invoked. In general, the larger affairs of life were consigned into the hands of the gods; the petty annoyances—accidents, pains, ill luck, and the like—were put down to the account of the spirits. The gods were, on the whole, favorably disposed towards man. They were angry at times, they sent punishments, but they could be appeased. The spirits were, on the whole, hostile; and although the Babylonians ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... was not the slightest doubt in my mind, and I was positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved. I did not hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris. I could not help reflecting on my ill luck. Wandering as I had been for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I should be traveling in the same train with that woman, instead of going the other way. But my luck was destined to ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... passed from hand to hand, while they disregard that which gives these things their value. The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo. For instance, suppose that I ransomed a friend from pirates, but another pirate has caught him and thrown him ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... who sat next to her husband, looked up with beaming eyes, and her heart beat with joy. The object of the luncheon had been achieved, and Fortune was again bestowing her smiles; but as ill luck would have it, Burton happened just then to be in one of his contrary moods. He went on spooning up his soup, and, without troubling to turn his head, said, "I'll save your Royal ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Invisible Man could easily have distanced his middle-aged pursuer under ordinary circumstances, but the position in which Wicksteed's body was found suggests that he had the ill luck to drive his quarry into a corner between a drift of stinging nettles and the gravel pit. To those who appreciate the extraordinary irascibility of the Invisible Man, the rest of the encounter ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... are ready to accuse him of witchcraft," said Balboa lightly when Saavedra hinted at his suspicions. "You have not given me one positive proof that the man is anything but a rather sulky, unhappy brute who has had ill luck." ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... success of a trial shot. Before telling the tale, Cuno had warned Max to have a care, for should he fail in the trial shot on the morrow, his consent to the marriage between him and Agathe would be withdrawn. Max had suspected that his ill luck for a month past, during which time he had brought home not a single trophy of bird or beast, was due to some malign influence, the cause of which he was unable to fathom. He sings of the prowess and joys that once were his (Aria: "Durch ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Ill luck ambushed them in the streets of a sizable town, its name unknown to Lanyard, where another car, driven inexpertly, rolled out of a side street and stalled in their path. The emergency brake saved them a collision; but there were not six ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance |
