"Unlucky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lake Champlain[97] has been most unlucky, as it will encourage the Yankies, under the present inveterate and execrable Government, to persevere in a ruinous warfare—ruinous to the American States, and galling to this country, liable to be distracted by the efforts of an interested and mischievous faction, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... the saddle. In the late twilight of that evening they hobbled their animals in a tiny mountain meadow, and cooked coffee and bacon for themselves at the very base of the Saddle. Here, also, before they turned into their blankets, they found the camp of the unlucky stranger who was destined to spend the night on the ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... copper rings, as these are highly prized by Manyuema. Mohamad's Tembe fell. It had been begun on an unlucky day, the 26th of the moon; and on another occasion on the same day, he had fifty slaves swept away by a sudden flood of a dry river in the Obena country: they are great observers of lucky ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... Creevey, Fergusson, Wilson, Lambton, and Sefton were shut out, and afterwards received the inquiries of their friends whether it was not from scruples of conscience, and being unable to make up their minds, that they had abstained from voting. The party is certainly unlucky; for on a preceding night, Lord Carhampton and Luke White paired off and went comfortably to bed, without finding out that they were on the same side. We now, I trust, are rid of the Queen's business, though I still fear we must have one night on ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... injudicious, and liable to a very obvious misinterpretation, as though taken in a view of self-interest, had entangled himself in a quarrel. That quarrel would have been settled amicably, or, if not amicably, at least without bloodshed, had it not been for an unlucky accident combined with a very unwise advice. One morning, after the main dispute had been pretty well adjusted, he was standing at the fireside after breakfast, talking over the affair so far as it had already travelled, when it suddenly ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... unlucky; but if you'll come along of me you shall have a good cup of tea and a bit of breakfast. Now then, missie, ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... round, but the man returned and reported that from what the bonze said, "Mr. Chia had started on his journey to the capital, at the fifth watch of that very morning, that he had also left a message with the bonze to deliver to you, Sir, to the effect that men of letters paid no heed to lucky or unlucky days, that the sole consideration with them was the nature of the matter in hand, and that he could find no time to come round in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... recovered himself, and seeing his enemies were rendered harmless, the boy entered the cabin and examined it curiously. It was dirty and ill-smelling enough, but the corners and spare berths were heaped with merchandise of all kinds which had been taken from those so unlucky as to have met these cruel ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... I, 'my adorable spouse: the strength of my passion secures you from every indiscretion on my part. I should die with vexation were I capable of displeasing you; but I am not afraid that I will ever be so unlucky ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... her time a nobleman, Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi, ex-praetor, ex-consul (A. D. 27) ex-governor of Mauritania, the husband of Scribonia, by whom he had three sons. There was never a more unlucky family than this. The origin of their misfortunes is curious enough. Licinius Crassus, whom Seneca calls "stupid enough to be made emperor," committed, among other fatuities, that of naming his eldest son Pompeius Magnus, after his great-grandfather on the ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... fall, and as each tributary, affected by the freshet, poured logs, fallen trees, fence- rails, stumps from clearings, and even occasionally a small frame shanty, into the Ohio, there was a floating raft of these materials miles in length. Sometimes an unlucky shanty-boat was caught in an eddy by the mass of floating timber, and at once becoming an integral portion of the whole, would float with the great raft for two or three days. The owners, being in the mean time unable to free themselves from their prison-like ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... these was Midshipman Brimmer. He and the other unlucky ones left for their homes as soon as the results had ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... How unlucky! I went too late, the party was over. I arrived just as everybody was leaving. But never mind, it shall be for another time. I will go home as if nothing was the matter. Bless me! the door is ...
— The Jealousy of le Barbouille - (La Jalousie du Barbouille) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... the very things that are best in her; and so far I think the Evelyn intercourse has been unlucky, since they ascribe her greater religiousness to what it suits their democratic notions to scorn. Not that there is much to complain of in Bobus's manner when we do see him. He only uses little stings of satire, chiefly about Lord Fordham. I don't think he would knowingly pain his ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her breakfast she listlessly took up the morning "Courier," and with a sudden start read the heavy head-lines and paragraph which Pat's unlucky venture as ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Friday as an unlucky day, as God knows this one is to me! Are you of a superstitious ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... followers of the successor of the Mahdi, men who felt themselves invincible. It was true that they had, so far, failed to overrun Egypt, and had even suffered reverses, but these the Khalifa had taught them to consider were due to disobedience of his orders, or the result of their fighting upon unlucky days. All this was soon to be reversed. The prophecies had told that the infidels were about to be annihilated, and that then they would sweep down without opposition, and possess themselves of ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... has been grinding corn between two stones and is a very thin and miserable little wretch. Her clothes are rags and there are no bangles on her little brown ankles. Ramaswamy tells us she is a widow! That child? She has probably never even seen the boy-husband who was so unlucky as to die; but because he did she is scorned by everyone. The worst life in all India is that of a widow. She has no ornaments, no amusements, and is treated worse than a slavey in a boarding-house, and for her there ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... She, stopping for the moment her strange, jewelled embroidery, that alone would have marked her for an artist of high powers, would lean over each boy and girl, murmuring her praise, soothing in the same breath the unlucky ones who had not found the most gorgeous fruit, warning the men not to trouble the yet unready apples, quieting the maids if they grew too boisterous, an eye and an ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... shillings; whereupon he collected a number of friends of both sexes in his rooms, and proceeded to have high jinks there. In the midst of the dancing and uproar, in comes his tutor, in such a passion that he knocks Goldsmith down. This insult, received before his friends, was too much for the unlucky sizar, who, the very next day, sold his books, ran away from college, and ultimately, after having been on the verge of starvation once or twice, made his way to Lissoy. Here his brother got hold of him; persuaded him ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... these appellatives were derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of "Dungaree Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte
... prince. I can discover all The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl: There lies the man, slain by young Romeo, That slew thy kinsman, ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... I come to think of it," said the Marionette to himself, as he once more set out on his journey, "we boys are really very unlucky. Everybody scolds us, everybody gives us advice, everybody warns us. If we were to allow it, everyone would try to be father and mother to us; everyone, even the Talking Cricket. Take me, for example. Just because I would not listen to that bothersome Cricket, who knows how ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... be represented by the painter or sculptor is perfectly just and right; while yet the principle on which they base their selection (that general truths are more important than particular ones) is altogether false. Canova's Perseus in the Vatican is entirely spoiled by an unlucky tassel in the folds of the mantle (which the next admirer of Canova who passes would do well to knock off;) but it is spoiled not because this is a particular truth, but because it is a contemptible, unnecessary, and ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... remains for me to inform your majesty of what things I saw during my fourth voyage. But, both because I have already satiated your majesty by long narration, and because this last voyage had an unlucky end, owing to a great misfortune which befel us in a certain bay of the Atlantic ocean, I shall be brief in my present account. We sailed from Lisbon with six ships under the command of an admiral, being bound for a certain island towards the horizon[1], named Melcha[2], famous for its ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... cluster together in this fashion, one smoothing the way for another. But the origin of the superstition is evidently that which we have assigned. In like manner, it has been universally considered unlucky to speak ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... should have seen that kid when he drew number three! All the fellows began kidding him and saying he was unlucky. Then came Connie, and he drew three, and then Wig and, oh, boy, I just can't tell you about it. Each fellow stood there staring at his little slip and I drew ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Take an unlucky man who smokes under protest, his wife not liking to forbid the pleasure entirely, but always grudging it, and interfering with its exercise. Each segar represents a battle, deepening in intensity according to the number. The first may have been ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Affectation is the worst enemy of voice and enunciation alike. Slovenly enunciation is certainly very dreadful, but the unregenerate may be pardoned if they prefer it to the affected mouthing which some over-nice people without due sense of values expend on every syllable which is so unlucky as to fall ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... other weapon. The sailors and soldiers behaved well on this occasion; those who did not form the escalade covered those who did by firing incessant volleys of musketry, which brought down those of the enemy who were unwise enough to show their unlucky heads above the parapet. In about twenty minutes the British flags were floating on the flagstaffs, the French officers surrendered their swords, and were sent on board the Boyne. I forgot to mention that an explosion had taken place in one of the ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... knowledge, I have been absolutely forced by sufficient reasons to absent myself? He will, of course, understand that I ought not to explain under any circumstances the nature of the affair which has taken me out of the country at this unlucky time; but I am certain it will be all-sufficient if a man of Monsieur de l'Estorade's position and character guarantees the necessity of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Czar. In fact, his actions towards Russia were almost openly provocative. Thus, while fully aware of the interest which Alexander felt in the restoration of the King of Sardinia, he sent the proposal that that unlucky King should receive the Ionian Isles and Malta as indemnities for his losses, and that too when Russia looked upon Corfu as her own. To this offer the Czar deigned not a word in reply. Napoleon also sent an envoy to the Shah of Persia ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... dismissed, the poor boys had to go through another trial, and receive sentence, and suffer execution too, from their own fathers. Many a rod I grieve to say, was worn to the stump, on that unlucky night. ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... way, not because she thought her adventures amounted to much, but from a wish to cheer up her friends, who had struck her as looking rather dull and out of sorts, especially Mr. Shaw; and when she saw him lean back in his chair with the old hearty laugh, she was satisfied, and blessed the unlucky pie ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... and pun which occasioned the French translator of the present work an unlucky blunder: puzzled, no doubt, by my facetiously, he translates "mettant, comme on l'a tres-judicieusement fait observer, l'entendement humain sous la clef." The great work and the great author alluded ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... my appointment, because my black-and-white is not sufficiently yellow for them; but I hardly believe they will succeed, and you, my poor dear, will probably have to jump into the cold water of diplomacy; and the boy, unlucky wight that he is, will have a South-German accent added to his Berlin nativity. * * * As far as can now be foreseen, I shall not be able to get away from this galley for two or three weeks, for, including Silesia, that amount of time would probably ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... while the Protestant corporation stood aloof, and drank with renewed potations "the glorious and immortal memory of William III." Such is the dignity of politics in Irish deliberations. At length the unlucky conciliator had his eyes opened by the nature of things, and was compelled to apply to parliament for the insurrection act. The Attorney-general Plunket, the ablest advocate of the Papists, was compelled, by a similar necessity, to write a long official letter, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... see who was the unlucky player, and once more she met the same ironical grey eyes which she had last encountered over the top of a newspaper. The man who was losing so persistently ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... cannot laugh, but these are not necessarily either morose or stupid. They may laugh in their heart, and with their eyes, although by some unlucky fatality, they have not the gift of oral cachinnation. Such persons are to be pitied; for laughter in grown people is a substitute devised by nature for the screams and shouts of boyhood, by which the lungs are strengthened and the health preserved. As the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... him, "Wherefore hast thou brought him back?" and he replied, "He did a foul thing with my wife." So the Jew gave him his money again and he went away; and Azariah said to Ali, "Hast thou recourse to knavery, unlucky wretch that thou art, in order that"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... dealt with one of the elements which had contributed most to the improvement. In the great battle of the Somme, which opened on July 1st, the Ulster Division went for the first time into general action, and their achievement was the most glorious and the most unlucky of that day. They carried their assault through five lines of trenches, and, because a division on their flank was not equally successful, were obliged to fall back, adding terribly in this withdrawal to the desperate losses of their advance. Side by side with them on the other ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... maids-of-honor and other ladies as well as gentlemen of her Court during the celebration attendant on the marriages of M. du Cypiere and the Marquis d'Elboeuf, she took the notion that tragedies were unlucky for state affairs and so would not let them be played again. But she still listened readily enough to comedies and tragi-comedies, even such as "Zani" and "Pantaloon" and took great pleasure in them, laughing as heartily as anyone, for she ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... I've only got a little money. I'll fetch it, dear, (she takes up mug reflectively) A pretty lady in Market-Sinfield—very dark, very ill, and among strangers, (sighing) How unlucky all dark women ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... of sickness which I have so often seen shown by strong men. The skipper said: "We'll heave her to again. You'd better get below. Your pluck's all right, but an unlucky one might catch you, and you ain't got the knack of watching for an extra drop o' water ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... allowed to amuse themselves in what innocent manner they pleased in our garden. Our governess, solicitous for our felicity, thought to add to our pleasures by sending us a basket of sweetmeats, which she intended to be equally divided; but an unlucky accident turned this kind intention into a scene of sorrow, and raised in their hearts nothing but strife. There happened to be a piece of candied angelica, which seemed very beautiful. On this they all placed their attention, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... hae turn about wi' him, and sae I e'en riped his pouches, as he had dune mony an honester man's; and here's your ain siller again (or your uncle's, which is the same) that he got at Milnwood that unlucky night that made us ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... lady was very conscientious, and very well instructed, but she was not judicious. She never found out that her pupil would have been an absolute slave to affection, but was altogether hardened to severity, and when she failed in herself enforcing her authority, she made the great and most unlucky mistake of appealing to George Wynter. Mary, up to that time, had had no dislike to her cousin. He was nearly twenty years older than herself, an excellent man, who took everything au pied de la lettre, and who, perceiving that what Miss Smith said was reasonable, thought duty and common sense ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... gathered in the writer's house, all to entreat me not to go to Kuching, because it was "not a lucky day." "If the Malays fight the Chinese to-day," they said, "they will be beaten." "What reason have you for saying so?" "No reason exactly, but the day is unlucky; it is like Friday to the English, they never go to sea on that day." "Oh," said I, "that was long ago: they often go to sea on Friday now they know better, and no sensible person thinks anything of lucky or unlucky days." "Well, we have told you what ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... his thrilling adventure, then explained: "The ships, still fighting, disappeared behind the horizon. I thought that an unlucky outcome for the Emden was possible, also a landing by the enemy on the Keeling Island, at least for the purpose of landing the wounded and taking on provisions. As there were other ships in the neighborhood, according to the statements of the Englishmen, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... oath that my pride has nothing to do with this. I'd let you drive me barefoot before you through the street yonder. I'd let every soul in The Corner know that I have no pride where you're concerned. I'll do whatever you wish—with one exception—and that one is the unlucky thing you ask. Pardner, you mustn't ask for Jack Landis! Anything else I'll work like a slave to get for you: I'll fight your battles, I'll serve you in any way you name: but don't ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... birds vanished, the storm cleared away, and the tempest-tossed Tiger went peacefully on her course! Ever since the occurrence of this "astounding yarn," the birds have been called "Mother Carey's Chickens," and are considered by our sailors to be the most unlucky of all the feathered visitants ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... "our enemies are unlucky; thanks to them, we are only the more intimate from the past. You never have more justly appreciated Madame d'Harville: she has never been more devoted to you; acknowledge that we are well avenged of the envious and wicked. That will answer while waiting for something ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... so unlucky in town, Bill the Prospector took the box with a slightly trembling hand and rattled the dice. His first throw was twelve, his second eleven. "Even money I beat ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... would not have come into this form of life (into a human body). But to rise from things here to the recollection of those, is not an easy matter [173] for every soul; neither for those which then had but a brief view of things there; nor for such as were unlucky in their descent hither, so that, through the influence of certain associations, turning themselves to what is not right, they have forgotten the sacred forms which then they saw. Few souls, in truth, remain, to which the gift of reminiscence adequately pertains. These, when they see some ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... the most unlucky circumstance in Nature. Maria has somehow suspected the tender concern I have for your happiness, and threaten'd to acquaint Sir Peter with her suspicions—and I was just endeavouring to reason with ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... upon a time a youth called Unlucky Dan. Wherever he went, and whatever he did, and with whomsoever he served, nothing came of it: all his labour was like spilt water, he got no good from it. One day he took service with a new master. "I'll serve thee a whole year," ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... father and mother would follow the movements of John, or Edward, or Philip, as though he might be the only young athlete worth watching in all that animated scene. If he won, they had always known he did not have an equal in his specialty; and should he be so unlucky as to come in at the heels of the pack, why, it was easy to be seen that he had not been given a square deal by some of the rival runners, who persisted in getting in his way, and were probably leagued together to prevent him from carrying off the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... get business, I give one jump, and I am so unlucky as to jump with one foot on him, but I did not mean it. I go as gentle ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... we came across a solitary magpie, which I should not have noticed had not Cavagnari pointed it out and begged me not to mention the fact of his having seen it to his wife, as she would be sure to consider it an unlucky omen. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... born under an unlucky star," interrupted the old woman who was imprisoned for incendiarism. "Only think, to entice the lad's wife and lock him himself up to feed vermin, and me, too, in my old days—" she began to retell her story for the hundredth time. "If it isn't the beggar's staff ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... not know the ancients, I think they were at least as unlucky in not knowing him. But is it incredible that he may have laid hold of an edition of the Greek tragedians, Graece et Latine, and then, with such poor wits as he was master of, contrived to worry some considerable meaning out of them? There are at least one ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... amiable and generous, his good nature inexhaustible, his heart full of warm and humane feelings. As a mere lad he had been initiated into vice by his father's folly; he drank, lived loosely, dressed extravagantly, and was an inveterate and most unlucky gambler; his losses were indeed too constant to be wholly due to ill-luck. At twenty-five he owed L140,000, which his father paid for him. He was a keen sportsman, and he cared for higher things than ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... there was, but gives no reasons in support of his opinion. Supposing it proved, however, it might be gravely debated whether the fortunate owner of this book would have any advantage over the man so unlucky ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "This is an unlucky business, sergeant," Captain Moffat said to him as they were talking over next day's play. "I thought if we had luck we might make a good fight with the Rifles. Bowling is never our strongest point, and ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... since those days," he returns, with a laugh. "What an unlucky lot we were! Gertrude, Marcia, and I, all crossed in our first loves! I hope Laura's fate will ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... disturbers of the peace of mankind; as restless, bustling, busy, horn-blowing contrivances, quite beneath the dignity of men, and only suited to giddy girls that did nothing but chatter and go a-shopping. 'We know nothing about coaches here, sir,' John would say, if any unlucky stranger made inquiry touching the offensive vehicles; 'we don't book for 'em; we'd rather not; they're more trouble than they're worth, with their noise and rattle. If you like to wait for 'em you can; but we don't know anything about 'em; they may call and they may not—there's ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... an odd new feeling, which mixed (this was a part of its oddity) with a very natural and comparatively old one and which in its most definite form was a dull ache of regret that this young lady's unlucky star should have placed her on the stage. He wished in his worst uneasiness that, without going further, she would give it up; and yet it soothed that uneasiness to remind himself that he saw grounds to hope she would go far enough ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... regards the Cento as "a religious pasquinade against the sanctuary on Parnassus," a pasquinade emanating from Athens, under the Pisistratidae, who, being Ionian leaders, had a grudge against "the Dorian Delphi," "a comparatively modern, unlucky, and from the first unsatisfactory" institution. Athenians are interested in the "far-seen" altar of the seaman's Dolphin God on the shore, rather than in his ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... seem that our actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which they owe a great part of the blame or ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... Mercadet I am an unlucky man, as I told you, because he gave them so quickly that I could have gotten ten thousand if I had ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... of the man with the woful news, that the last of the three horses was also dead, after travelling to within four miles of the water. All our efforts, all our exertions had been in vain; the dreadful nature of the country, and our unlucky meeting with the natives, had defeated the incessant toil and anxiety of seven days' unremitting endeavours to save them; and the expedition had sustained a loss of three of its best horses, an injury as severe as it ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Fahrenheit throughout the year, and the atmosphere is both chemically and optically of singular purity. For this reason stone huts were once erected for consumptives in Mammoth Cave. Thirteen was the original number and for the poor unfortunates who inhabited them it was most unlucky; the patients became worse, and on being taken from their subterranean homes in Mammoth Cave quickly died. Only two ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... to terms with Godefroid who would not take the rooms unless he could have them by the single month and furnished. These miserable rooms of students and unlucky authors were rented furnished or unfurnished as the case might be. The vast garret which extended over the whole building was filled with such furniture. But Monsieur Bernard, she said, had furnished his ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... "That is unlucky. But you may make her understand you by means of French. Take notice, you are to comply with her request in everything—if you want means to do so, you may ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... she was, if not quite right, at least not quite wrong. For when we went into the cabin, we and our unlucky yellow flower were flown at by another brown lady, in another gorgeous turban, who had become on the voyage a friend and an intimate; for she was the nurse of the baby who had been the light of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... was silent, even when his sobbing wife reproached him. "I warned thee, husband," she said; "even now has this come, and I fear that worse is still to come. Unlucky was the hour we met: still more so when the child was born;" and, leaning against the fence, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... are the most unlucky lad I know," cried Judson, coming to the door, "we've got you just where we want you this time. There are no chimneys here. Bring ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... that they should revenge themselves on the unlucky bones of those who have not had ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... middle of the party, who had all four come down to welcome him, the strange man dashed in the keenest disgust, seizing at the same time his hat and whip. "Some unlucky star is always over me," he cried, "directly I try to rest and enjoy myself. What business have I going out of my proper character? I ought never to have come, and now I am persecuted away. Under one roof with those two I will not remain, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it,' said the voice, in a marked American accent. 'I never murder on a Friday; it's unlucky. If it's not a rude question, which asylum are ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and asked whether he were hurt. The traveler, perceiving by the kind tone of the inquirer that no harm had been intended, answered, "Not much, only a little lamed, and all the recompense I ask for this unlucky upset is to give me a helping hand to my father's cot-it is just by. I have been out at a neighbor's to dance in the new year with a bonny lass, who, however, may not thank you ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... fire that those low fellows of mine lit got to our camp and burned up nearly everything—the meat, the skins, and even the ivory, which it cracked so that it is useless. That was an unlucky hunt, for although it began so well, we have come out of it quite naked; yes, with nothing at all except the head of the bull with the cleft horn, that I thought you might like ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Mr. Hawke, with rather a dolorous sigh. "This may turn out as bad as our last scrape. Lyndsay, you are an unlucky fellow. If you go on as you have begun, it will be some months ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... honeymoon. And she looks so confoundedly pretty when she's in a temper—what wonderful eyes she's got! And when she's angry the curls get all round her ears, and it's as much as a man can do not to kiss her on the spot. Of course, I didn't really want her to have opals if she thinks they're unlucky, but she needn't have insisted that I knew about it and bought them on purpose to annoy her. Good God! I wish there were no women in the world sometimes. What a splendid place it would be to live in, and what a fine time the men would have—for, of course, they are all the daughters ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... under his direction presumed upon his mood to do careless or ill-judged work, they found his eye as keen and his word as ready as usual. But his mind—his real self—was not there. Padraig wondered whether this could have any connection with the unlucky picture. ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... bring out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince, therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... want it in the Treaty. Unfortunately nobody appreciated the sally. His Resident Secretary solemnly wrote on the telegram when he handed it to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, "Don't sign on the 1st of April—parce que c'est un jour nefasfe—because it is an unlucky day." Either as a Scotchman he deplored the unseemly frivolity, or he thought the French could not appreciate a poisson d'Avril, and so racked his brains for a serious reason ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... Diarmait; so with hostile purpose he advanced on Clonmacnois, but instead of doing what he proposed, he suffered himself to be pressed into the service of the builders, as the story in VG narrates. The tale in LA is interesting, as showing (1) the existence of a calendar of seasons lucky and unlucky for various enterprises, and (2) a spirit of kindly tolerance on the ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... some respects, unlucky in its colonization. New South Wales has hitherto flourished from its abundant supply of convict labour, at the expense of those higher interests which constitute the true strength and security of a state. Western Australia was planted with a sound of trumpets and ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... her head. She was a servant girl by calling, one of those unlucky creatures who are overtaken by trouble when they have scarce arrived in the great city from their native village. "Well," said she, "it's quite certain that one won't be able to dawdle in bed, and that one won't have warm milk given one to drink ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... long-winded, don't be scared at my beginning my history somewhat far back. I began life that most unlucky of all earthly contrivances for supplying casualties in case anything may befall the heir of the house,—a species of domestic jury-mast, only lugged out in a gale of wind,—a younger son. My brother Tom, a thick-skulled, pudding-headed dog, that had no taste for ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... gendarme had come out on an unlucky day; a bullet in his neck laid him lifeless in the rushes beside the strangled horse; his comrade, pierced so that he bled internally, drew off to the roadside mechanically—the image of despair; nothing more heartrending than ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... quick, convulsive start as the first tones fell upon my ear, and now sat bending over my sewing like a chidden child, almost afraid to look up. I was one of those unlucky mortals who bear the blame of everything wrong they witness; and having, in tender infancy, been suddenly seized upon in Sunday school by the superintendent, and placed in a conspicuous situation of disgrace for looking at a companion who was ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... Jennings, "'tis an unlucky devil he is, call him what you will, for he's born to feel the hammer of Thor on his soul as well as his flesh, and it is double ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... were not infrequently robbed of their money. It was here that one of their own men, Bill McCarty, once "scratched a man's neck" with a knife—which, Bill explained, he just "happened" to have in his hand—for cheating at cards. Lefever pointed out the unlucky gambler's grave as he and de Spain rode into ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... that these animals are very rarely killed, and if by chance some "unlucky dog" should lose his life he is hurried out of sight by his devoted companions with so much celerity that his body ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... replied Dick, with the same dry smile. "You put Tip Scammon up to the High School locker thefts, to get me in disgrace, and unlucky Tip had to ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... went fishing and while one of them was having good luck, the other didn't even get a bite. The unlucky lad silently began to make preparation for departure. "Aw, wait a while," urged the other. "You might be lucky if you keep ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... had brought him no dowry, and who, in the opinion of her husband's family, had not shown a proper disposition to bear her share of the domestic burdens and duties. The bickerings and disputes which resulted from this state of affairs, on one unlucky day, took the form of an open and violent quarrel. The younger son, who was absent from home when the conflict began, returned to find it at its height, and was received by his wife with passionate tears, and by his relations with sharp recriminations. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... unlucky in his campaigns, but nobody ever doubted his courage. General Washington thought highly of him, and now took pains to say, in person, to him, ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... thrown there, doubtless, by the patriots as an insult to the royalists. As the troubles thickened, the people became more hostile to the statue of King George, and heaped many indignities upon it, and after the breaking out of the war, the unlucky monarch was taken down and run into bullets for the guns of the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Ocean? Had some latter-day Joshua arisen, and with stern fiat nailed him in mid-heavens, blazing forever? To me as slowly rolled the westering orb down that final slope as ever turned the wheel of Fortune to Murad the Unlucky. Perchance the sun-god had turned cook, and now, burning with 'prentice zeal, and scoffing at Duespeptos and all sound hygiene, was aiming to make of this terrestrial ball one illimitable fry turned over and well done,—a fry ever doing and never done, which should simmer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... length established for the shadow for every individual day of the week; and the merchant will complete no business unless he finds his shadow of the length set down for that particular day. [Also to each day in the week they assign one unlucky hour, which they term Choiach. For example, on Monday the hour of Half-tierce, on Tuesday that of Tierce, on Wednesday Nones, and so ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... auspicious comes from a similar source. We speak of an "inauspicious" undertaking, meaning one which seems destined to be unlucky. But really what the word inauspicious says is that the "auspices are against" the undertaking. And this takes us back to Roman times, when no important thing was done in the state without the magistrates "taking the auspices." This they did from observing the flight of certain birds. ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... which to go forth into the world. On the next day, the 1st of May, Elphin examined the weir basket and found nothing, yet as he went away, he saw the boat covered with the skin rest on the post of the weir. One of the fishermen said to him, "You have never been so unlucky as you were to-night, but now you have destroyed the virtue of the weir basket," in which they always found a hundred pounds' worth on the first of May. "How so?" asked Elphin. "The boat may easily contain the worth of the hundred." The ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... the crossing of this Creek McCulloch's path, which owes its origen [sic] to Buffaloes.... At the entrance of the above glades I lodged this night, with no other shelter or cover than my cloak & was unlucky enough to have a ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... an unlucky fellow I am! worn to a shadow by my royal friend's sporting propensities. "Here's a deer!" "There goes a boar!" "Yonder's a tiger!" This is the only burden of our talk, while in the heat of the meridian sun we toil on from jungle to jungle, wandering about in the paths of the woods, where the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson |
