"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... phase of art without an opportunity of comparison, such as the exposition affords. The retrospective aspects of the exhibition are absorbingly interesting, not so much for the presentation of any eminently great works of art as for the splendid chance for first-hand comparison of different periods. Painting is relatively so new an art that the earliest paintings we know of do not differ materially in a technical sense from our present-day work. Archaeology has disinterred various ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... it very kindly chance That gives the apprehension clear To feel the pageant, far or near, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... out too," grunted the American, red in the face; "but it looks like our only chance. Ugh! she made a big dip then. We'd better let go. I'll count three, and three is the signal. ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... 'I wonder how much chance there is,' she mused presently. 'Mr. Elsmere will soon be ridiculous. Why, I saw him gather up those violets she threw away yesterday on Moor Crag. And as for her, I don't believe she has realised ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from the desire to alleviate their sufferings that I learned what I could of medicine, but in the hope to start them on the way towards victory over all evil. I saw that the man who brought them physical help had a chance with them such as no clergyman had—an advantage quite as needful with them as with the heathen—to whom we are not so immediately debtors. It would have been a sad thing for the world if the Lord of it had not sought first the lost sheep of the house of Israel. One awful consequence ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... child," cried Felicite vehemently, dominated by her passion, "you, whom Pascal loves tenderly, and whom he would listen to, perhaps, you ought to entreat him to burn all that, for if he should chance to die, and those frightful things which he has in there were to be found, we ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... her until the Hatteras emerged into the warm, blue Caribbean, and he no longer had the excuse of rough weather to keep away from the dining-saloon. Miss Mallory favored every chance for a talk with Bedient, and once or twice he caught her regarding him with a strange, half-humorous depth of glance. One evening, as the ship was passing the northern coast of Porto Rico, they met on the promenade. The Island was a heavy shadow, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... dream in which the whole world vanished away, and only he and Melior were left. In a moment he felt that as long as she was there the rest might go, and that she was the princess that was waiting for every prince. But who was he that he should dare to ask for the emperor's daughter? and what chance had he amongst the noble suitors who now began to throng the palace? These thoughts made him very sad, and he went about his duties with a face as long as ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... brigade Huggie took a message early one morning, and continued to take messages throughout the day because—this was his excuse—he knew the road. It was not until several months later that I gathered by chance what had happened on that day, for Huggie, quite the best despatch rider in our Division, would always thwart my journalistic curiosity by refusing resolutely to talk about himself. The rest of us swopped yarns of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... smiling, "or is it Fate that has made you a convert? The last time we sagely and quietly conferred together, you contended that the more the circle of existence was contracted, the more we clung to a state of pure and all self-dependent intellect, the greater our chance of happiness. Thus you denied that we were rendered happier by our luxuries, by our ambition, or by our affections. Love and its ties were banished from your solitary Utopia. And you asserted that the true wisdom of life ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to his setting; the shadows lengthened and darkened, as I rode slowly away, with a shadow on my spirit. I felt I had somehow seen a type, a mystery. These incidents do not befall one by chance, and I was sure, in some remote way, that I had looked, as it were, for a moment into a dark avenue of the soul; that I was bidden to think, to ponder. These tokens of violence and death, the blood outpoured, in witness of pain, in the heart of the quiet ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... brave as a lion. But the king, like a certain old woman of whom you may have heard, had so many children that he didn't know what to do; and so, as Maurice had such a lot of elder brothers as to have not much chance of inheriting the crown, or anything else that would keep him in bread and butter, his father sent him out to seek his fortune, like many another prince in those days. So he went over to France, and entered the army of King ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... figure was often practiced by this musical Caliban, that of coming on the stage standing in a triumphal car. But this only excited the further risibilities of his hearers, and he was forced to be content with the chance of making his vocal fascination condone the impression made ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... one!" he replied. "You would open your lips if I gave you the chance. But you will not have it. You are my enemy, and the enemies of Gregory Rasputin never prevail for long, for he ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... to show his displeasure with Oline and maybe thrash her for her doings, here was his chance—a Heaven-sent chance to do that thing. They were alone in the house; the children had gone after the men when they went. Isak stood there in the middle of the room, and Oline was sitting by the stove. Isak cleared his throat once or twice, just to show that he was ready to say something ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... It is very lively. We scarcely get, in all our post-collegiate life, a chance to sit and muse. We go through sensations, experiences, and incongruities, which stir a sense of fun. A man reads (I notice) in his seminary, St. Leo, Ad Flaeirmum, and makes his first pastoral call on a woman who proudly brings out her first baby for him to see. Ad Flaeirmum indeed! ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... all probably familiar with the story of little Charlie Ross, who was stolen away from his home; but it seems well to tell it you again, for it may serve as a warning against making chance acquaintances ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 35, July 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the Interior has given me a monthly and renewable pass first class on the Japanese railways. A friend here asked him for one for Mamma, too, but he said he was very sorry, that privilege could not be extended to a woman. So I'm the only grafter in the family. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but shall make one at the first opportunity in order to get ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... No, no. Her Majesty, God bless her, has too many young men to need an old hulk like me. I should be plain Mr. Hay Denver, of the merchant service. I daresay that I might find some owner who would give me a chance as second or third officer. It will be strange to me to feel the rails of the bridge under my ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... observation almost by chance, excepting that they were taken from widely different families. If the stem of a plant which is even moderately sensitive to apogeotropism be placed horizontally, the upper growing part bends quickly upwards, so as to become ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... employment at one of the freight-handling stations of this railroad system. It was rough, hard work, but he had gone at it earnestly in his purpose to live an honest life. And in his quiet, earnest way he was always seeking a chance to speak to men of Christ as a personal Saviour, until he became known throughout that part of the system for his simple, ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... Shannon's boarding-house slightly in advance of the time named, and read Templeton's note saying that he had gone to Castalia to nab Code while he had the chance. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... innocent man on a guess, which might be mistaken, as to the fancy of the mob. No doubt, however, Pilate considered it kind, as he felt sure of the disposition of the populace; and, at all events, the chance of extricating himself was ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... is anxious as soon as possible to present himself at the office of the agent Silvestre, and from him get directions for going on board the Chilian ship. He is alive to the hint given him by Crozier, that there may be a chance of his being made ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... them; but I am not so sure. Why should the radicals desert them? And what have we done for the radicals? Had we indeed foreseen this Jamaica business, and asked some of them to dinner, or given a ball or two to their wives and daughters! I am sure if I had had the least idea that we had so good a chance of coming in, I should not have cared myself to have done something; even to have invited ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... part of the teachers that every teacher should take his boys for a walk once a week. Each adopted the method he liked best; some preferred to occupy the time of the walk over a permanent subject; others preferred leaving the subject to chance. I usually occupied my class with botanising; and also as geographical master, I turned these occasions to profit by leading on my boys to think for themselves and to apprehend the relations of various parts of the earth's surface: on these and other perceptions ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... here is a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the wild young grandson, 'I have brought you up and educated you, Fred; I have put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted a little out of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never have another chance, nor the ghost of half a one.' The wild young grandson makes answer to this and says, 'You're as rich as rich can be; you have been at no uncommon expense on my account, you're saving up piles of money ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... statistical legerdemain. Though, really, the fallacy which regards an addition of territory as an addition of wealth to the "owning" nation is a very much simpler matter than the fallacies lying behind gambling systems, which are bound up with the laws of chance and the law of averages and much else that philosophers will quarrel about till the end of time. It requires an exceptional mathematical brain really to refute those fallacies, whereas the one we are dealing ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... that a force, even if a divine force (one can hardly call it "God" in the ordinary meaning of that vague word) which urges on Matter without knowing in what direction or to what end, is no God at all, for it is merely personified chance. This is due to what Hegel calls "the error of viewing God as free." [Footnote: Logic, Wallace's ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... learning which he would of course at once bear up and run down to look for you. And, as in all probability you would only be some two miles away at the moment when I should be picked up, there would be absolutely no possibility of missing you. Still," he continued, thoughtfully, "there remains the chance of my failure—as I said just now; and I scarcely like to risk it. If it were not for the fact that you are in so weak and exhausted a condition, I would suggest that you once more get into the life-buoy; when, abandoning this raft, and trusting to chance to find either ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... on his way back to the village, to avoid giving the impression to any who might chance to see him that there was anything unusual upon his mind. The precious substance handed to him by the Huron—a sort of gum—he wrapped in a leaf and stowed away in his bosom, guarding it with the most jealous care. Upon ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... One chance alone now prevents the castaways from yielding to utter despair—the savages may pass on without landing. In that case they cannot be seen, nor will their presence there be suspected. With scrupulous adherence ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... approves and encourages this ominous and fatal tranquillity. Besides, it may be asked, how could the government send new administrators and able magistrates? Who, of such men, is willing to bury himself in the arrondissements, where the good to be done is without glory? If, by chance, some ambitious stranger settles there, he soon falls into the inertia of the region, and tunes himself to the dreadful key of provincial life. Issoudun would ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... I was surprised to see John standing near the trees doing nothing, and as I came up to him he turned towards me with a look which astonished me on his dull old face—that look which perhaps one of my readers has by chance seen on the face of a religious mystic in a moment of exaltation. "Those little birds! I never heard anything like it!" he exclaimed, then trudged off to his work. Like most Englishmen, he had, no doubt, a vein of poetic feeling hidden ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... was well enough known who the stranger was. Indeed there was but little chance of Peter's being mistaken for a Dutchman. The way in which he flew about, and the terrible energy with which he did everything, set him quite apart from ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... California or Australia. Tradition says that Montezuma got his gold from this great vein, which lay in a secret valley whose where-abouts was jealously guarded by three priests of the war tribe, sole possessors of the knowledge. Any intruder who by chance or design looked down into this valley was smitten absolutely blind. Tradition among the successors of the Aztecs says that when Montezuma passed, the Madre d'Oro sank back again into the earth, and has been seen no more. Men still follow the phantom vein. Those who see it, even ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the longer end will of his owne sway drawe downewards, and turne vp to the eie, Sixe, Sincke, Deuce or Ace. The principall vse of them is at Nouum, for so longe a paire of Bard cater treas be walking on the bourd, so longe can ye not cast fiue, nor nine, vnles it be by greate chance, that the roughnes of the table, or some other stoppe force them to stay, and runne against their kinde: for without Cater or trea, ye know that fiue ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... committed to his charge. For the present, there was no fear of the prisoner being summarily executed by any lawful authority, since the King had promised to take cognizance of the case; and the chief danger was from his chance discovery by some lawless man-at- arms, who would think himself doing good service by killing a ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said he, "on that account. You will not be hurt, for you will be put into the debtor's apartment, where Brown is not permitted to visit, and of course can have no chance ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... was sore with fate. Wounded, skin-clad, I was not heroic in look; it was hard to be heroic in mind. I had jeopardized the chance of an empire for a woman. But that proved nothing. The weakest could do that. It must be shown that I ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... perceive, it was a very dangerous adventure that the wicked King Polydectes had contrived for this innocent young man. Perseus himself, when he had thought over the matter, could not help seeing that he had very little chance of coming safely through it, and that he was far more likely to become a stone image than to bring back the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. For, not to speak of other difficulties, there was one which it would ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the chevalier, like most of the other performers, had not changed his dress after the matinee, since the evening performance was so soon to begin; and if, as Cleek had an idea, that the matter of costume and make-up had anything to do with the mystery of the thing, here, surely, was a chance to learn. ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... cataclysm and evolution. The Extremists' ideal is destruction of the existing order of things in the hope that something better will take its place, for nothing can be worse than what is; the Moderates' ideal is formation of a new order of things on definite progressive lines. One is chance, the other is design. The primary difference (so far as methods are concerned) is that the Extremists' method is not necessarily constitutional; the Moderates' method always constitutional. Some Extremists use violence, others work secretly and spread discontent and disaffection. Others again, ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... engagements there, in December, 1857, Lola landed in New York for the second time. Directly she stepped off the ship, she was surrounded by a throng of reporters. Never losing the chance of making a speech, she gave ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... and on the long road they talked much of little Nell and the strange chance by which the lost had been found. A gentleman who lived in the village to which they were now bound, who had himself been kind to the child and to the old man whom the new schoolmaster had brought with him, had written of the pair to Kit's employer, and the letter had been the ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... my good friend," said he familiarly to the cook, "and since chance and your confidence have let me into the secret of your daily sacrifices, allow me ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... much better spirits on this night, for there were signs of the wind shifting from south to north-west; and, for the first time in our lives I suppose, we were anxiously watching and desiring this change, as it was the only chance of saving the thousands of sheep and lambs we now knew lay buried under the smooth white winding-sheet of snow. Before bedtime we heard the fitful gusts we knew so well, and had never before hailed with such deep joy and thankfulness. Every time I woke the same ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... belonging to Tigranes. When Mithridates ascertained this he was alarmed and by means of an embassy immediately arranged a treaty. As for Pompey's command that he lay down his arms and deliver up the deserters, he had no chance to deliberate; for the large number of deserters who were in his camp hearing it and fearing they should be delivered up, and the barbarians fearing that they should be compelled to fight without them, raised an uproar. And they would have done some harm to the king, had he not by pretending ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... want a bond and mortgage to guarantee that you'll be happy, do you? A fellow must be ready to take a chance." ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... By the time you have been as long in the West as I have you won't think anything of two nights' watch. Now you keep a sharp lookout. I don't think there is much chance of their coming, but I don't want to be woke up with a red-skin coming right down ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... in answer valiant Teucer thus: "Most mighty son of Atreus, why excite Who lacks not zeal? To th' utmost of my pow'r Since first we drove the Trojans back, I watch, Unceasing, every chance to ply my shafts. Eight barbed arrows have I shot e'en now, And in a warrior each has found its mark; That savage hound alone defeats ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Chance: or Wisdom, one with nature and man, reaching from end to end, through all time and all existence, orderly disposing all things, according to [49] fixed periods, as he describes it, in terms very like certain well-known words of the book of Wisdom:—those are the "fenced opposites" ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... at almost any risk seemed to possess her. At last it was announced that she intended to reopen the infelix Rockville Hotel, and keep it herself. Wild as this scheme appeared in theory, when put into practical operation there seemed to be some chance of success. Much doubtless was owing to her practical knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more to her rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress of millions, she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the beds, and labored like a common menial. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Whereupon, as was not undeserved, he took his Son tightly to task, and wrote to him: "As long as thou, my Son, shalt make thy reckoning on resources that are still to come, and therefore are still subject to chance and mischance, so long wilt thou continue in thy mess of embarrassments. Furthermore, as long as thou thinkest, This gulden or batzen (shilling or farthing) can't help me to get over it; so long will thy ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... be a chance of withdrawing thee from the conflict. Thou art the youngest who is to draw blade. Now, hear me, and thou shalt know what it is to have a foster father's love, and how far it exceeds the love even of kinsmen. The youngest on the indenture of the Clan Chattan ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Tootles, had watched them riding and walking together throughout the week, had reported what he had seen to Mrs. Ludlow and left it to her fertile imagination to make use of what was to him an ugly business. And the old lady, grasping her chance, had written that letter to Mrs. Harley and having achieved her point of getting Joan into her hands, had discovered that she did not know where Martin was and had made up her mind to show her. Revenge is sweet, saith the phrasemonger, and to the old lady whose discipline had been flouted ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... passed between Lord Danesbury and himself on arriving, he learned that there was but little chance of winning his election for the borough. Indeed, he bore the disappointment jauntily and good-humouredly. That great philosophy of not attaching too much importance to any one thing in life, sustained him in every venture. 'Bet on the field—never back the favourite,' was his formula for inculcating ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... contentment, and the rest. Wherefore, on every occasion a man should say: This comes from god; and this is according to the apportionment and spinning of the thread of destiny, and such-like coincidence and chance; and this is from one of the same stock, and a kinsman and partner, one who knows not, however, what is according to his nature. But I know; for this reason I behave towards him according to the natural law of fellowship with benevolence and justice. At the same time, however, in things indifferent[A] ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... speculator. A wooded hill lay between the two camps: H. had posted here in ambush some Numidian horsemen. 4-5. si quos possent excipere on the chance of their being able to intercept. —Stephenson. 6-8. Non ante ... circumiere those who were to spring on the enemy (lit. those to whom it was necessary to rise in a mass confronting the enemy obviis) from the hill itself did not show themselves until a detachment had made their ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... there are a large number among us that so far to-day have not found a chance to do something to help another. Yes, I'm in the same boat myself, for you see my badge is turned upside-down. How many are there who would like to wipe out that debt, and clean the slate ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... chance, n. fate, fortune, luck, fortuity, hap, casualty, accident; possibility, likelihood, contingency; opportunity; hazard, jeopardy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... action of tracts that are "ready." It becomes a task. The attention necessarily must be of the forced, derived type, in which fatigue comes quickly as a result of divided attention, results are poor, and there is no chance for initiative. ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... man who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib—Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else—was such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was heard privately by a referee; and before Mrs. Fanshaw's lawyers had a chance to ask that the referee's report be sealed from publicity, the judge of his own motion ordered it. At the political club to which he belonged, he had received an intimation from the local "boss" that if Dumont's name were anywhere ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... principles, but the absolute submission of America, the delusive idea of conciliation has been industriously suggested on both sides of the water, that, under cover of this dividing and aid-withholding prospect, the vast British force sent to America, might have the fairest chance of succeeding, and this policy has in fact done considerable injury to the United States, as we shall presently show by a just detail of this campaign, for it is not ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... recovered himself, but he knew that he gave Rachel to her fate, if the pair overcame him. He caught her hand and with the whispered word, "Run!" fled with her toward the front of the cliff facing the Nile. It was a desperate chance for ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... on the defence line proved to be but the prelude to Marlborough's second great life disappointment. He saw his chance. He had but to follow up his success by a decisive victory over Villeroy's forces, and the way lay open to ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... strangely amazed at their relation, which was too consistent and agreeing with itself to disbelieve, concluded that it was his father's ghost which they had seen, and determined to take his watch with the soldiers that night, that he might have a chance of seeing it: for he reasoned with himself, that such an appearance did not come for nothing, but that the ghost had something to impart, and though it had been silent hitherto, yet it would speak to him. And he waited with impatience for the coming ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... And, year by year, I shall no doubt relate For your fatigued but filial ear The history of this date; Yet, though I do not now enhance The crude events of that advance, There is a wild fantastic chance That they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... supply the missing link. Very likely the accepted Christian doctrine of the finality of life after death has given Theosophy an opportunity in the West. Protestantism particularly has allowed absolutely no place after death for repentance, has offered no new chance to the adventuring soul; its Hell and its Heaven have been final states. Catholicism has eased the strain of this with purgatory, a belief wholly without Scriptural basis, but nevertheless evolved ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... have pretty well exhausted the chapter of myself. I will now go talk to YOU Of another fellow, who makes me look upon myself as a very perfect character; for as I have little merit naturally, and only pound a stray virtue now @ind then by chance, the other gentleman seems to have no vice, rather no villainy, but what he nurses in himself and metliodizes with as much pains as a stoic would patience. Indeed his pains are not thrown away. This painstaking person's name is ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... soon forgotten both by Spaniards and Tonquewas. He had left behind him, besides a child and a squaw, property to a respectable amount; the tribe took his wealth for their own use, but cast away the widow and her offspring. She fell by chance into the hands of a jolly, though solitary Canadian trapper, who, not having the means of selecting his spouse, took the squaw ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... been literally fulfilled, for these Latin epitaphs are most certainly never read, {120} while Pope's verses, which are usually in English, stand a better chance. Close to us on the right-hand wall is the bust of a great modern geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, which stands above the monument of his distinguished forerunner, Woodward, who is often called the founder of English geology. Opposite is that of Dean Buckland, ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... moans and howls like the autumn wind in the chimney. 'Ah, unhappy wretch! Ah, your life may be likened to a prison! Ah, how damp and dark it is in your prison! Ah, you will certainly come to ruin, and there is no chance of escape for you!' That's very fine, but I should prefer a literature that would tell us how to escape from prison. Of all contemporary writers, however, I prefer Maupassant." Lysevitch opened his eyes. "A fine writer, ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of any group of three anywhere stands a fair chance of "getting his", fag or no fag, the thing is reasonably sure to work out according to the popular belief. Most every man has his unlucky day in the trenches. One of mine was Monday. The others were Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... spring would pass Thorough the four-walled darkness of the room; And sounds of spring-time whisper trembling by, Though stony streets with iron echoed round. And as they crossed a field, they came by chance Upon a place where once a home had been; Fragments of ruined walls, half-overgrown With moss, for even stones had their green robe. It had been a small cottage, with a plot Of garden-ground in front, mapped out with walks Now scarce discernible, ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... with himself seized him. Why had he not waited? For no possible reason could he go back now. And what a chance to look at her ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... chance to say much to him," he said, laughing good naturedly; "he did the talking. He seemed to have become possessed of the idea that I was past-master of the art of Gaelic, and when I confessed my culpable ignorance ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... up and attend. Have you a wife? Sit up, I say. Will Mrs. Farrell by any chance be ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... governor would refer to me; but the command let him out of an awkward place and he darted from the room, as Hamilton and I supposed,—simpletons that we were with that rogue!—to find the young Nor'-Wester. This turn of affairs gave me my chance. If the young Nor'-Wester and Laplante came together, my disguise as Highlander and turn-coat would be stripped from me and I ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... two innocent sisters were murdered. These horrors were committed at the instigation of the Bishop, who denounced the Egyptian strangers as idolaters, and to whom the Roman prefect, a proud and haughty patrician, had readily lent the support of an armed force. It was owing to the narrowest chance—or, as the old man would have it, to the interposition of great Isis, that his father had been so happy as to get away with him and the treasures he had brought from the temple at Philae. Thus they had means to enable them to travel farther under an assumed name, and they finally settled ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wrote: "'Man in Art' is an excellent idea; you will find us ready to embark on it with sanguine expectation. You will later tell me your ideas of illustrating—it ought to be well done in this particular; but if there is a chance of your coming to England next winter we might settle this ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... meaning is quite uncertain. The most likely interpretations are: (1) that given in the text, [Greek: a bebioken] being understood as the subject of [Greek: en], and [Greek: on etuchen] as [Greek: touton a etuchen], i.e. 'not belonging to the class of acts which were such as chance made them,' but acts of a quite definite kind, viz. the kind which the People curses (through the mouth of the herald at each meeting of the Assembly); (2) 'for he was not of ordinary parents, but of such as the People curses'; the subject of [Greek: en] being ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... elaborate sculpture, spreading along the wall.—As, comparatively speaking, good models of ancient domestic architecture are very rare, I would particularly recommend this at Andelys to the notice of every architect, whom chance may conduct to Normandy.—This building, like too many others of the same class in our own counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, is degraded from its station. The great house is used merely as a granary, though, by a very small expence, it might ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... a bargain, eh? I take you for my secretary. You shall have a fixed salary which we will agree upon directly; and I will give you a chance to ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... in the symbolical language of the Scriptures, mean the events and course of things, seemingly effects of human will or chance, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... he said simply. 'She shall be everything in the world to you still. I have had hard work to persuade her. There will be no chance for me if you don't ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... evolutionary process. In the third lecture the physical basis of heredity and the composition of the germ plasm stream are examined in the light of new observations; while in the fourth lecture the thesis is developed that chance variation combined with a property of living things to manifold themselves is the key ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan
... Ruler; and the extreme, on the other hand, of ascribing all events to accidental or fortuitous influences, equally exempt from His control. The former is the theory of "Fate," the latter is the theory of "Chance;" and both are equally opposed to the doctrine which affirms the eternal purpose and the actual providence of ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... wholly to approve. If Margaret's destiny had been united with such a man as John Lyon, what would have been her discernment in such a case as this? It is such a pity that for most people there is only one chance ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... my German teacher, could use the manual alphabet, and after I had acquired a small vocabulary, we talked together in German whenever we had a chance, and in a few months I could understand almost everything she said. Before the end of the first year I read "Wilhelm Tell" with the greatest delight. Indeed, I think I made more progress in German than in any of my other studies. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... don't appear to care for parties, and as you would be a stranger in the room, it is not likely you would have much enjoyment. Of course, if I believed you would prefer the trouble of dressing, and taking your chance among the company, I would not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... where she might procure a convenience to herself. Before he could make any answer, my Dulcinea interposed, and observed that, far from being offended at a gentleman's using his arms in his own defence, she thought herself very lucky in being along with one by whose valour she stood a good chance of saving herself from being rifled. The prude cast a disdainful look at Miss, and said that people, who have but little to lose, are sometimes the most solicitous about preserving it. The old lady was affronted at this inuendo, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... true—that is, Phil had no definite prospect, but he felt that there must be a chance in a large city like New York for any one who was willing to work, and so felt measurably justified in ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... country life, he thought, for in the town she was like a creature caged and wild to get out. Her best chance was, he said, an entire change of scene and of work, and he thought it providential that we were to lose our Kirstin at this time. Our house, he thought, would be a good place for her. She will have plenty to do, and will have every allowance made for ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... extremely obliged by your offer of your country house (as for all other kindness) in case that my health should require my removal; but I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of any (even supposed) utility:—there is a stake worth millions such as I am, and while I can stand at all, I must stand by the cause. When I say this, I am at the same time aware of the difficulties and dissensions and defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must be ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... genealogical trees of the animal kingdom, whether founded on comparative anatomy, embryology, palaeontology, or all combined. They will all disclose this sequence of functions arranged in the same order. Let me call your attention to the fact that this order is not due to chance, but rests upon a physiological basis. We might almost claim that if the evolution of man from the single cell be granted, no other order of their ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... a mile from a woodyard, which he said was situated "right round yonder point." "But," muttered the Captain, "I don't much like to take wood of the yellow-faced old scoundrel who owns it—he always charges a quarter of a dollar more than any one else; however, there's no other chance." The boat was pushed to her utmost, and in a little less than an hour, when our fuel was about giving out, we made the point, and our cables were out and fastened to trees alongside of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... He couldn't leave. There was Pop. He couldn't kill Pop. He had no chance—and he was afraid. The one absurd, irrelevant thing he could do was write letters back to Earth. He did that. He wrote with the desperate, impassioned, frantic blend of persuasion and information and genius-like invention of a prisoner ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the hall alone; I can't think why. Generally speaking Father's awfully kind, quite different from other fathers, but this is really disgusting of him. I shall lie down on the sofa after dinner and read Immensee, for I've not had a chance before. ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... utmost against them in behalf of his old associations, though, with all his endeavours, he could not suppress them in her presence. So there was the lover who did not propose, and who would have been preferred; and there was the lover who had proposed, and who, if it had been clear that the former chance was hopeless, would not have been lightly ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... imagination, because he was too far away. He cried out, and swung his gun shoulderwards in desperation. But, at the moment, Pourcette turned sharply round, saw his danger, caught his gun, and fired as the puma sprang. There had been no chance for aim, and the beast was only wounded. It dropped upon the man. He let the gun fall; it rolled and fell over the cliff. Then came a scene, wicked in its peril to Pourcette, for whom no aid could come, though two men stood watching ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to draw apart, but they found they could not do it. Each stag was held a prisoner by the antlers of the other. In vain the handsome creatures pulled and pushed. Each was held fast. And the boys, seeing their chance, secured both of ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... and annoy are still at hand, whenever I have a mind to them? This is a handsome wench and is here unknown of any in the world. If I can bring her to do my pleasure, I know not why I should not do it. Who will know it? No one will ever know it and a sin that's hidden is half forgiven. Maybe this chance will never occur again. I hold it great sense to avail ourselves of a good, whenas God the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... made valuable by the work of preceding generations of monks, and on these estates peasants came to live. Workingmen and workingwomen from neighboring districts came to help at harvest time, and, after a chance meeting, were married and settled down on a little plot of ground provided for them near the monastery. As these communities grew up, they looked to the monasteries and convents for aid of all kinds, and turned to them particularly in times ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... belongs to good breeding. You will, at once, conceive the great advantages that a stranger possesses in having access to such social resources. One, with a tolerable visiting list, may choose his circle for any particular evening, and if, by chance, the company should not happen to be to his mind, he has still before him the alternative of several other houses, which are certain to be open. It is not easy to say what can be more truly ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would be easily persuaded of his innocence. They would see then how little she had cared for the splendor and wealth of empire; why, he himself knew how quickly everything was forgotten in Alexandria. His art, too, would be a comfort to him, and if he only had the chance of making his way in his career he would have no difficulty in winning Agatha. He would have her on his side, and Diodoros, and the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... penis does not necessarily hinder the performance of marital functions. Chance mentions a man whose penis sloughed off, leaving only a nipple-like remnant. However, he married four years later, and always lived in harmony with his wife. At the time of his death he was the father of a child, subsequent to whose birth his wife had miscarried, and at the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... General Council, and very eloquent, very influential, he will be deputy in three years, and then, when we have a government that people of our class can recognize, minister, ambassador, and I know not what! The highest offices wait for him, and all his ambitions will be legitimate when he has a chance to put his superior talents at the service of the monarchy. That's one of mamma's phrases. Whereas you, my poor Gontran—you will never be anything other than a very funny and very nice old dear, whom I shall lead as I ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... not end here. During a severely cold winter, in which I went out in a very thin great-coat, I received quite unexpectedly one trimmed with fur. From whom it came I could not for some time discover, till chance gave me a clue which led me to the Chamberlain's lady. But could I thank her for it? No; she became regularly angry and scolded me if I spoke of the gratitude which I felt and always ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... one day, "I don't wan' to hear you talk in that slipshod way any longer before Flaxen. You know better; you've had more chance than I have—be'n to school more. They ain't no excuse for you, not an ioty. Now, I'm goin' to say to her, 'Never mind how I talk, but ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... she can't be long. Pray, sit down. You'll stay and 'ave a cup of tea with us? Now, don't say no. We're just goin' to 'ave it, and my old 'ooman delights in company.— There now, sit down, an' don't go splittin' your lungs on that side of her next time you chance to be alone with her. It's her deaf side. A cannon would make no impression on that side, except you was to fire it straight into her ear.—I've got a message for you, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... were evidently unwilling to trust themselves to the low ground for fear of finding that it was a morass, into which their steeds might plunge with little hope of extricating themselves. On seeing that the fugitives had a good chance of escaping, although some of the Spaniards galloped after them along the road, the others continued firing their carbines, though fortunately they missed their aim. The two fugitives were soon beyond the range of the Spanish musketeers, but Captain Van der Elst still cried out to his companion, ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... brain. Withal there ran through me an insane desire to commit some atrocious crime, to waylay and strike, to speak words of outrageous insult. I do verily believe that only the opportunity was wanting, some chance conflict of the street or temptation of solitude, to have changed these demoniac impulses to action—I whose most violent physical achievement has been to cross over Broadway. It is good that I am home and the blood has left ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... how miserably he had failed. It had been the inspiration of the moment, and the details had appeared clear at once to his mind. Going over them he found that he had not been mistaken. If Paolo came again, and he had the chance, he would do it. It was perhaps all the better that he had found time ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... No wonder; he is soulless, shallow, and unthinking as a mirror, in whom no feeling can pierce the surface. He has two or three times seen that you were displeased with me, that I in my childishness could not help weeping, and that Bertalda might chance to laugh at the same moment. And upon this he builds all manner of unjust suspicions, and interferes, unasked, in our concerns. What is the use of my reproaching him, or repulsing him with angry words? He believes nothing ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... an expedition against the Mungas, a rebel tribe on his outer border, on which occasion he was to employ his native band of Kanemboo spearmen, who, he trusted, would redeem the military reputation of the monarchy. Major Denham was always ready to go wherever he had a chance of seeing the manners and scenery of Africa. The sheik took the field, attended by his armour-bearer, his drummer, fantastically dressed in a straw hat with ostrich feathers, and followed by-three wives, whose heads and persons were ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the same bill, if it grew into a practice, would not fail to lead to consequences destructive of all wise and conscientious legislation. Various measures, each agreeable only to a small minority, might by being thus united—and the more the greater chance of success—lead to the passing of laws of which no single provision could if standing alone command a majority ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... man, so differ these souls' years. The most material life is not devoid of them; the story of the most spiritual is told in them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner |
