"Ill luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him fairly regularly, when he wrote letters urging her for his sake to be brave, and telling of the many shocks he had received from the persistent ill luck which he was seeking to overcome. If he had known how eagerly she awaited the familiar writing, how she read and re-read, times without number, every line he wrote, how she treasured the letters, sleeping with them under her pillow at night, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... myself, lest default appear in me; but none may avail to make head against ill fortune, nor doth endeavour profit in case of lack of luck, as appeareth by the example of the merchant who was stricken with ill luck and his endeavour profited him not and he succumbed to the badness of his fortune." "What is the story of the merchant," asked the king, "and how was his luck changed upon him by the sorriness of his fortune?" "May God prolong the ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... coffin: no newes of them, why so? and I know not how much is spent in the search: why thou losse vpon losse, the theefe gone with so much, and so much to finde the theefe, and no satisfaction, no reuenge, nor no ill luck stirring but what lights a my shoulders, no sighes but a my breathing, no teares but ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... circumstances! The yearly disbursements of our Scottish Fishery Board, in the way of assistance to poverty-struck fishermen, unable even to repair their boats, testify all too tangibly that they cannot regulate their long runs of ill luck by their temporary successes! And if such be the case among our hereditary fishermen of the north, who derive more than half their sustenance from the white fishery, how much more must it affect those fishermen of Sutherland, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... far otherwise; and throughout the winter many a growl took place, as a huge pile of undespatched letters would pass before our sight, and blessings of a doubtful nature were showered on our ill luck. ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... Ferguson, the gardener, with the same instinctive fidelity which had always characterized him. He had his intervals of right feeling and common sense, when he reflected that Farnham had done him no wrong, and probably intended no wrong to Maud, and that he was not answerable for the ill luck that met him in his wooing, for Maud had refused him before she ever saw Farnham. But, once in a while, and especially when he was in company with Offitt, an access of jealous fury would come upon him, which found vent in imprecations which were none the less fervid for being ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... write English and Hawaiian and a fair measure of Chinese, claimed to believe in nothing, although in her secret heart she feared the kahunas (Hawaiian witch-doctors), who she was certain could charm away ill luck or pray one to death. Li Faa would never come into Ah Kim's house, as he thoroughly knew, and kow-tow to his mother and be slave to her in the immemorial Chinese way. Li Faa, from the Chinese angle, was a new woman, a feminist, who ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... she answered the long-drawn "Maggie" with three cheerful words, "I'm coming, Davie." Very soon Davie loomed through the fog, and throwing a plaid about her, said, "What for did you go near the boat, Maggie? When you ken where ill luck is, you ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... pitiable condition, and perfectly worn out; had they been out the remainder of that day without success they (the men) must have perished. From their own account it appears they, to lighten the cart, packed on the camels as much of the light sundries as they could, and on their return they by some ill luck got off the track and got confused, and after many efforts and leaving part of their load they abandoned themselves to the guidance of the camels who, by their instinct I suppose, brought them safe to ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... went away, and I stood looking after his stumpy figure. I was again in a broil, not of my making; just a bit of ill luck, for here was a nice business. I went in, and was caught on my way upstairs by my Aunt Gainor, who called ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... forests. Savage capital punishments—impalement, mutilation, hanging alive in chains—were inflicted on the marauders, who duly acknowledged these attentions by yet more atrocious severities upon the wayfarers who had the ill luck ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... they seven Strings the lyre possessed? Oh, and afterwards eleven, Thank you! Well, sir,—who had guessed Such ill luck in store?—it happed One of ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... "A horrid piece of ill luck yesterday," cried he. "I am in great straits; I must get hold of eight hundred dollars, and have not in all this luckless town a friend to whom I can turn except you. Exert your faculties, Anton, and contrive to get me ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... and Gjest Baardsen, that must have been a terribly arduous necessity. However, he submitted with bad grace, and was enrolled as a pupil at the gymnasium in Bergen. Here his Finnish Hyde promptly got him into trouble. Having by sheer ill luck been cheated of his chances of a heroic career, he began to imagine in detail the potentialities of greatness for the loss of which Fate owed him reparation. And so absorbed did he become in this game of fancy, and so enamored ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... they have such a pride about always giving things to women, and taking care of them. I believe a nice American man would break stones in the street rather than take money from a woman—even his wife. I mean while he could work. Of course if he was ill or had ill luck or anything like that, he wouldn't be so proud as not to take it from the person who loved him most and wanted to help him. You do sometimes hear of a man who won't work and lets his wife support him, but it's very seldom, and they are always the low kind that ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... couldn't play in public—unless in a gargotte like the hole we have just left. Oh, I tried everything. I tried to get musical criticism to do for the newspapers. Surely I was competent to do musical criticism. But no—they wouldn't employ me. I had ill luck, ill luck, ill luck—nothing but ill luck, defeat, disappointment. Was it the will of Heaven? I wondered what unforgiveable sin I had committed to be punished so. Do you know what it is like to work and pray and wait, day after day, and watch day after day come and ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... being common occurrences, are seldom traced to their origin, too often found to be in expensive habits, and overreaching or misguided speculations, and sometimes in the treachery and villany of partners; and, amidst this bad system, so nicely is credit balanced, that a run of ill luck, or a mere idle whisper, is often known to destroy commercial character of a century's growth. But in these cases it should be recollected, that the reputation of the parties has probably been already endangered by some great stretch of enterprize, calculated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... stories of ancestral exploits which she had heard in her childhood. One of the first Daltons, whose grim figure looked down upon her now in the armor of a Crusader, had taken part in the great expedition under Richard Coeur de Lion. It happened that he had the ill luck to fall into the hands of the infidel, but as there were a number of other prisoners, there was some confusion, and early one morning he managed to seize a horse and escape. Soon he was pursued. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... same, but it was evident that he was ill at ease, for he grumbled very much, and complained a good deal of his ill luck. He did not, however, slacken his pace on that account, but rather increased it, until he reached Rongvoldstede, where he hastily summoned nineteen armed men, mounted a fresh horse, and, ordering them to follow, dashed back into the forest at ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... said, 'Mother, I had to come here to consult the ghost of the old Theban prophet Teiresias, I have never yet been near Greece, nor set foot on my native land, and have had nothing but one long run of ill luck from the day I set out with Agamemnon to fight at Troy. But tell me how you came here yourself? Did you have a long and painful illness or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy passage to eternity? Tell me also about ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... were reading in different parts of the room I did not appropriate the remark to myself, though I thought he had intended it for me. I paid no attention to him, however, until, just as I was turning the sheet inside out, the Spaniard, irritated by another stroke of ill luck, advanced to me, and demanded that I should either lay the newspaper aside or quit the room. I very promptly declined to do either, when he snatched the paper from my hands, and instantly drew his sword. I was unarmed, with the exception of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... part of a bird belonging to a stranger be accepted or partaken of. The whole bird or nothing must be offered. An infringement of these restrictions would lead, it is believed, to serious results,[32] such as ill luck to the hunting dogs, tangling of the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... whippoorwill called in the twilight. The streams were filled with fish. Coming to the mouth of the Rappahannock, the travelers' boat grounded upon sand, with the tide at ebb. Awaiting the water that should lift them off, the fifteen began with their swords to spear the fish among the reeds. Smith had the ill luck to encounter a sting-ray, and received its barbed weapon through his wrist. There set in a great swelling and torment which made him fear that death was at hand. He ordered his funeral and a grave to be dug on a neighboring islet. Yet by degrees he grew better and ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... proverb? "He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears poison." Hardly had the ronin heard these words of the priest than an evil heart arose within him, and he thought to himself, "Man's life, from the womb to the grave, is made up of good and of ill luck. Here am I, nearly forty years old, a wanderer, without a calling, or even a hope of advancement in the world. To be sure, it seems a shame; yet if I could steal the money this priest is boasting about, I could ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on. Some friend Leonard spoke of—a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to make a prey ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the news of this addition to his ill luck with an air of military stoicism, though he felt, in reality, more like a father and a husband on the occasion than like a hero. Accustomed to self-command, he succeeded in concealing the extent of his uneasiness, while he immediately set ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... be found in most Japanese gardens is the nanten, [7] about which a very curious belief exists. If you have an evil dream, a dream which bodes ill luck, you should whisper it to the nanten early in the morning, and then it will never come true. [8] There are two varieties of this graceful plant: one which bears red berries, and one which bears white. The latter is rare. Both kinds grow in my garden. The common variety ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... expression did not change under the reproach. His bronzed face was naturally amiable, and his mental attitude toward ill luck, usually one of indifference, was rarely more than one of perplexity. His features were so regular as to contribute to this undisturbed expression, and his face would not ordinarily attract attention but for his extremely bright and alive eyes—the frequent mark of an out-of-door ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... gallant enough in a fashion, yet the most observant would find it difficult to recognise in the Senor Ramiro the handsome and courtly Count Juan de Montalvo of over twenty years before. A long spell of the galleys changes the hardiest man, and by ill luck Montalvo, or Ramiro, to call him by his new name, had been forced to serve nearly his full time. He would have escaped earlier indeed, had he not been foolish enough to join in a mutiny, which was discovered ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... had been a gay, lively fellow enough in the days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck, and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the neighbors could hear this woman's tongue, and understand her doings; bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the floor, and poor Gambouge's oil and varnish pots went clattering ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... variant of, or pendant to, the same story tells of the Eastern man who approached Salt Lake City on foot and sat by the wayside to rest. By ill luck he sat upon an ants' nest. Shortly he rose anathematising the "lustful Mormon city" and turned his face eastward once more, a Mormon-hater to the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the Jew silently submitted, let the horse be led away, and paid back what we gave him. Fifty heavy florins! More than enough for a beginning. If I may advise you, count on the two and the five when fixed numbers are to be thrown or hit. Why? Because you must turn your ill luck in love to advantage: and those from whom it comes are the two beautiful Ortlieb Es, as Nuremberg folk call the ladies Els and Eva. That makes the two. But E is the fifth letter in the alphabet, so I should choose the five. If Biberli did not put ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the Aztec's victory over the Spaniards when the Indians almost wiped their enemies off the face of the earth. Senor, to tell the truth, rather would I turn my horse's head homeward. Pray, let us return!" "And why, amigo," I asked. "Because this has always been a day of ill luck for our family," said Don Reyes. "It began with the misfortune of the famed Knight Don Pedro Alvarado, the bravest of men and the right hand of Don Fernando Cortez. In the bloody retreat of the Spaniards from Mexico, in their fight with the Aztecs, during the Noche Triste, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... But ill luck danced in his pocket with the golden nobles, and from the day that he closed his bargain with it he was an unhappy man. He had no comfort of living, for it was nothing but work, work, work. He was up and away at his ploughing at the first dawn of day, and he never came home till night ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... you believe in luck?" interposed Manson. "Don't you believe there is such a thing as good or ill luck in this world, and that one or the other follows us most of the time ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... lifetime. It was because I wanted so to restore to you what my gambling had cost, that I agreed. I did not think it possible to lose. But help me this once; believe me, I do know, and with shame, that were it not for my accursed ill luck we should be living in luxury now. But just this once—you ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... had caught a glimpse of her in the afternoon as he returned from Abersethin, the path to which led him through Essec Powell's fields. Caught a glimpse of her only, for as ill luck would have it, as he crossed one corner of the field she was reaching the gate at the further corner. Other maidens wore white frocks and straw hats, but his heart told him that this was no other than Valmai. He could hear her singing as she went, a long ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... get up, thou little fool, and don't trouble the man to carry thee," said Michael. "If there be still a boat to take us, in God's name let us cross the river; for the blues are truly in St. Florent, and after flying from them so far, it would be sore ill luck to be ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... not look like a woman who would lack courage for anything she wished to do, but Mary saw no reason to disbelieve her word, and indeed did not judge or criticise at all, except by instinct; and people had only to look sad or complain of their ill luck to arouse a sympathy stronger than ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... felicity, by degrees, took possession of my imagination. The great delight of my solitary hours was to purchase an estate, and form plantations with money which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends but I spoiled all their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Nor bode of ill to him or you. When did my gifted dream beguile? Think of the stranger at the isle, And think upon the harpings slow That presaged this approaching woe! Sooth was my prophecy of fear; Believe it when it augurs cheer. Would we had left this dismal spot! Ill luck still haunts a fairy spot! Of such a wondrous tale I know— Dear lady, change that look of woe, My harp was ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... years' ill luck!" shouted zu Pfeiffer, sitting on the bed in his shirt. He glared at Bakunjala standing in the door, too terror-stricken to flee, convinced that he would be blamed for breaking the glass. "You—you superstitious nigger!" yelled zu Pfeiffer, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... his effects, and the diamond rings were almost the only articles which escaped. My master, who always looked out for a rainy day, had collected these rings as a sort of stand-by, to 'raise the wind' when required. By ill luck, he took them to the same jeweller who had been employed by me to substitute the paste, and to whom I had sold the real stones. He came home in a great rage, accused me of dishonesty, and sent for a constable. I told him that ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... marry thee; That is, as if I lov'd thee for thy Eyes And put 'em out to hate thee; Or like our Stage-smitten Youth, who fall in Love with a Woman for acting finely, and by taking her off the Stage, deprive her of the only Charm she had, Then leave her to ill Luck. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... heard a growl and down from the limb leaped the darn skunk upon my left shoulder while the trap struck me fair in the face, I did some tall scrambling shook him off and empied my revolver in his skin. My shoulder was very sore for three months so we had two cripples at once. The next streak of ill luck, another of the gang got lazy and would not wash well in cold water and contracted cold and then Pneumonia—this layed him off for nearly three weeks. Our catch this winter was Wolverine, Lynx, Marten, Ermine, ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... And now comes my woeful story. While, after dinner, I was busily employed in catechising my prisoner, how should the devil be employed, but in tempting my men with the distilled juice of the apple? Having, by some ill luck, found out that there was a barrel of it in the house, they hastened to the poor landlady, who not only gave them a full dose for the present, but filled their bottles ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Vivian. He did not know why, but he always had a presage of disaster when he saw that high-bred, impassive face beside him, or heard the modulation of Vivian's quiet, musical voice. Hugo was superstitious, and he firmly believed that Rupert Vivian's presence brought him ill luck. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... hours those Kokko fires burnt. Indeed, it would be considered ill luck if they did not smoulder through the whole of the night. And it is round such festive flames that the peasant folks gather to dance and sing and play games, and generally celebrate the festival of the ancient god Bael. The large landed proprietors invite their tenantry to these great ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... clouds with the moon, for instance) occasion coincidences, which, when they are attended by any advantage or injury, and are at the same time incapable of being calculated or foreseen by human prudence, form good or ill luck. On a hot sunshiny afternoon came on a sudden storm and spoiled the farmer's hay; and this is called ill luck. We will suppose the same event to take place when meteorology shall have been perfected into a science, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the Fortune and Red Bull Theatres, but with a similar result, insomuch that the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert, who had duly sanctioned their performance, records in his accounts that, "in respect of their ill luck," he had returned some portion of the fees they had paid him for permission ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... by my chair, actually crying. The sight of a Methodist preacher brought up old times. He told me his story. He had come to California hoping to make a fortune in a hurry, but had only ill luck from the start. His prospectings were always failures, his partners cheated him, his health broke down, his courage gave way, and—he faltered a little, and then spoke it out—he took to whisky, and then ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c 24; inexpedient &c 647. unpunctual &c (late) 133; too late for; premature &c (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty-twenty hindsight. Adv. inopportunely &c adj.; as ill luck would have it, in an evil hour, the time having gone by, a day after the fair. Phr. after death ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... opened the cupboard and brought him some food, and in her love forgot to shut the cupboard-door again; She seated herself at the table by her lover, and they chattered away together. While she sat so contentedly there, thinking of no ill luck, the cat came creeping in, found the cupboard open, took the hand and heart and eyes of the three army-surgeons, and ran off with them. When the soldier had done eating, and the girl was taking away the things and going ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... and Thormod, but against their voices were now many raised, saying that ill luck would be with the host for long enough, ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... We have lived to see, what never yet we feared, An interloper own our little farm, And say, "Be off, you former husbandmen! These fields are mine." Now, cowed and out of heart, Since Fortune turns the whole world upside down, We are taking him- ill luck go with the ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... you are ready to accuse him of witchcraft," said Balboa lightly when Saavedra hinted at his suspicions. "You have not given me one positive proof that the man is anything but a rather sulky, unhappy brute who has had ill luck." ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... right hand, and every alternate person passes at the same time under the arm of his preceding neighbour. The wassailing (or "worsling," as it is termed in West Sussex) of the fruit trees is considered a matter of grave importance, and its omission is held to bring ill luck, if not the loss of all the next crop. Those who engage in the ceremony are ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... ever? Nay,—just when I need your evidence, my ill luck will seal your lips, and drive the screws ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... most amazing ill luck follows me! I had dropped in to enjoy the quiet and charm of your garden, but the tranquil life is not for me. There was another gentleman, equally bent on enjoying the pergola. We engaged in a pretty running match, and because I was fleeter of foot he grew ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... of devils," snorted the other mate. "You're as evil a man for a ship's company as a whistler. You'll be calling ill luck on us to name ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... and the Land of Storms. Now that I have had my growl out, which is a privilege sailors take on all occasions, I will turn the tables and give an account of my doing in Nat. History. I must have one more growl: by ill luck the French Government has sent one of its collectors to the Rio Negro, where he has been working for the last six months, and is now gone round the Horn. So that I am very selfishly afraid he will get the cream of all the good things before me. As I have nobody to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... said he, sadly, "but our misfortunes are only beginning; these Prussians and Austrians and Russians and Spaniards—all the nations we have been beating since eighteen hundred and four, are now taking advantage of our ill luck to fall upon us. We gave them kings and queens they did not know from Adam nor Eve, and whom they did not want, it seems, and now they are going to bring back the old ones with all their trains of nobles, and after pouring out our blood for the Emperor's brothers, we ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... mountaineer often slants at an angle of fifty degrees so that it is impossible to plow. The mountaineer cultivates such a patch entirely with a hoe. When the mountain side, crop and all, slides down to the base he bears the ill luck with patience and fortitude and tries to find a remedy. He hauls rocks to brace the earth and plants another crop. He had no time to sit and bemoan his fate. Through such trials, and because neighbors were so far removed, his self-reliance and resourcefulness were of necessity developed. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... were as good and faithful servants of the Emperor, as M. the Constable could be of the King his master. Thereupon our men by night hoisted up two great cannons, with the help of the Swiss soldiers and the lansquenets; but as ill luck would have it, when the cannons were in position, a gunner stupidly set fire to a bag full of gunpowder, whereby he was burned, with ten or twelve soldiers; and the flame of the powder discovered our artillery, so that all night long those within the castle fired their ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... married, he eats meat and smokes tobacco—how can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying the monks were not living according to their rules. And after that I could not find a ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... limit of his contract with the Evil One is close at hand. With Zamiel's aid he causes Max to miss the mark several times during the rehearsals for the match. The lover is thrown into deep dejection by his ill luck, and while in this melancholy condition is cunningly approached by Caspar, who says to him that if he will but repeat the formula, "In the name of Zamiel," he will be successful. He does so, and brings down an ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... Charlemagne checks the resulting quarrel by delivering message and emblems of office to Ganelon. To the dismay of all present, he, however, drops the glove his master hands him, an accident viewed as an omen of ill luck. Then, making speedy preparations and pathetically committing wife and son to the care of his countrymen, Ganelon starts out, fully expecting never ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... there would be three, he made excuse, and my husband went and Rene stayed. Then the next day the little Victor was sick, and I saw the hand of the red death upon him and I told Rene that he should run fast after Victor and tell him. But he would not! He swore and cursed at his own ill luck and he ran from the house into the woods. I made the plague flag and hung it out so that no traveller should come in and be in ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... mouth (as by whistling). Or ordinary human actions might be imitated: a stick thrown or pointed toward an enemy, it was believed, would cause a spear to enter his body;[1538] a hostile glance of the eye, indicating desire to inflict injury, might carry ill luck.[1539] In such cases the fundamental conceptions are the sympathy that comes from unity and the activity of the pervasive mana. These conceptions are visible in procedures in which action on a part of the human body, or on an image or picture of it, was supposed to reach the ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... the naked Graces stay With maunds of roses for to strew the way: Besides, the most religious prophet stands Ready to join, as well our hearts as hands. Juno yet smiles; but if she chance to chide, Ill luck 'twill bode to th' bridegroom and the bride. Tell me, Anthea, dost thou fondly dread The loss of that we call a maidenhead? Come, I'll instruct thee. Know, the vestal fire Is not by marriage quench'd, but flames ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... "It was ill luck," Mauriri said. "Of all nights this one night was selected by the white devils to go fishing. It was dark as we came through the passage. They were in boats and canoes. Always do they have their ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... out of the great mass of gods goes hand in hand with the multiplication of spirits that might, as occasion presented itself, be invoked. In general, the larger affairs of life were consigned into the hands of the gods; the petty annoyances—accidents, pains, ill luck, and the like—were put down to the account of the spirits. The gods were, on the whole, favorably disposed towards man. They were angry at times, they sent punishments, but they could be appeased. The spirits were, on the whole, hostile; and although the Babylonians also invoked ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... scramble up again, each time coming down heavier than before, till there wasn't another spring left in him, and his only ambition victuals. Then, of course, he thought of his wife—it's a wonderful domesticator, ill luck—and ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... general mirth of the class burst out in sundry half-stifled noises, which roused the master from his reverie, and he again resumed the book, to continue the examination. As ill luck would have it, he once more repeated, "Avoir, avant," and then half abstractedly, "avu." "Ah, you young idiot!" cried he, in a discordant voice, "can't you manage avoir yet? Whatever ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... written to the press to say they had thought of sailing on her, or had decided to sail on her, but because of "omens" cancelled the passage. Many referred to the sister ship, the Olympic, pointed to the "ill luck" that they say has dogged her—her collision with the Hawke, and a second mishap necessitating repairs and a wait in harbour, where passengers deserted her; they prophesied even greater disaster for the Titanic, saying they would not dream of travelling on the boat. Even some aboard ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... went away empty, he was filled with envy and mortification, showing quite a different spirit from his meek, humble-minded brother, Bogislaff. He swore, and cursed his ill luck. "Why did not that fool of a bookworm give over his chance to him, if he would not profit by it himself? Why the devil should he descend to play the commoner, when he was born to play the prince?" and suchlike ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... contrary, I believe that his progress at the bar, although uniform and constant, was not extraordinarily rapid. He once told me that he was unfortunate, in the beginning of his career, with his criminal cases, several of his clients, of whom Von Shoultz was one, having been hanged. This piece of ill luck was so marked that somebody (I think it was William Henry Draper, afterwards chief justice) said to him, jokingly, one day, 'John A., we shall have to make you attorney-general, owing to your success ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... Baron of the Exchequer. Every man in England, as he rises into distinction, necessarily becomes a politician. It was the misfortune of Sir John Jervis, and it was his only misfortune, that he was a politician before he had risen into distinction. Having had the ill luck to profess himself a Whig, at a period when he could scarcely have known the nature of the connexion, he unhappily adhered to it long after Whiggism had ceased to possess either public utility or national respect. But his Whiggism was unconscious Toryism after all: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... mere touch is a dishonor will be the first to cry out with indignation against that writer as shameless who but utters the truth concerning the things they mean and do; they fear lest their innocent daughters, into whose hands his books might chance, by ill luck, to fall, should learn that it is their business to keep themselves pure.—Ah, sweet mothers! do not be afraid. You have brought them up so carefully, that they suspect you no more than they do the well-bred gentlemen you would have them marry. And have they not your blood in them? That ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... other causes. If they were mercies, he would ascribe them, if the open face of the providence did not give him the lie, to his own wit, labour, care, industry, cunning, or the like. If they were crosses, he would ascribe them, or count them the offspring of fortune, ill luck, chance, the ill management of matters, the ill will of neighbours, or to his wife's being religious, and spending, as he called it, too much time in reading, praying, or the like. It was not in his way to acknowledge ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... repair, until an exasperated tenant actually gave notice. Melrose meanwhile was absorbed in trying to recover a paragraph in the Times he had caught sight of on a first reading, and had then lost in the excitement of studying the prices of a sale at Christie's, held the day before, wherein his own ill luck had led to the bad temper from which he was suffering. He tracked the passage at last. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... futile Kaisers: and the LATE Kaiser Conrad's young Boy, who one day might have swept the ground clear of them, perished,—bright young Conradin, bright and brave, but only sixteen, and Pope's captive by ill luck,—perished on the scaffold; "throwing out his glove" (in symbolical protest) amid the dark mute Neapolitan multitudes, that wintry morning. It was October 25th, 1268,—Dante Alighieri then a little boy at Florence, not three years old; gazing with strange eyes as the elders talked of such ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... is! A drop of royal blood is in these days a mere drop of poison to them that have the ill luck to inherit it. As my lord said the other day, it brings the headsman's ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was as much as he could win or lose ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... were rainin', an' snawin', an' cowd, An' th' flagstones were cover'd wi' muck, An' th' east wind both whistled an' howl'd, It saanded like nowt bud ill luck. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... disappeared; he returned not during the whole morning; and as no provisions were issued out to us, nor any opportunity given to light fires, I was compelled to endure, all that time, the extremes of hunger, weariness, and cold. As ill luck would have it, too, the day chanced to be remarkably severe. There was no rain, it is true, but the sky was covered with gray clouds; the sun never once pierced them, and a frost, or rather a vile blight, hung upon the atmosphere from morning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... for the two million bushel grain elevator, Calumet K, had been let to MacBride & Company, of Minneapolis, in January, but the superstructure was not begun until late in May, and at the end of October it was still far from completion. Ill luck had attended Peterson, the constructor, especially since August. MacBride, the head of the firm, disliked unlucky men, and at the end of three months his patience gave out, and he telegraphed Charlie Bannon ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... went with all her freight. Down too sank Thorwald's body, so that his men could not see what had been done to him, but they knew well enough that he was dead, Thiostolf rowed away up the firth, but they shouted after him wishing him ill luck. He made them no answer, but rowed on till he got home, and ran the boat up on the beach, and went up to the house with his axe, all bloody as it was, on his shoulder. Hallgerda stood out of ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of his bad luck. A good character, good habits, and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of the ill luck that fools are dreaming of. But when I see a tatterdemalion creeping out of a grocery late in the forenoon with his hands stuck into his pockets, the rim of his hat turned up, and the crown knocked in, I know ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... "And I never knew a single fellow who liked to hear a loon call. Some say it's a sign of ill luck to be scolded by ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... on the Neperan, near Tarrytown, where the Cowboys chased a woman to death, but were afterward cut to pieces by the enraged neighbors. Hers is but one of the many ghosts that haunt the neutral ground, and the croaking of the birds of ill luck that nest at Raven rock is blended with the cries of her dim figure. Still, graceless as these fellows were, they affected a loyalty to their respective sides, and were usually willing to fight each other when they met, especially ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... presage the calamities of the day. A violent and incessant rain did not allow the army, to take a single moment's rest. To increase our misfortunes, the bad state of the roads retarded the arrival of our provision, and most of the soldiers were without food: however, they gaily endured this double ill luck; and at daybreak announced to Napoleon by repeated acclamations, that they were ready to fly to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... all the same," said Claudius, smiling, "and you shall do as you like with it, beloved. It was honestly got, and will bring no ill luck with it. And now I have told you, I say, let us go to my father's house and make it ours." He spoke proudly and fondly. "Let me welcome my dear lady where her match was ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... have been the turning-point in his ill luck. Toward the middle of February, as he slowly began to mend, he was cheered on by long letters from home, full of anxiety for his health and advances of money from his father, with strict instructions that from now on he was no longer to stint and ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... and unromantic termination of his case. A few more nights in the station house, or in the Tombs, would have given him capital material for a book, of which he had already projected the first chapter. He sat down, and execrated his ill luck. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... her wrath she left the parsonage, making a great commotion, and went to beg shelter from her farmer Hebert, who lived in a cottage used as a public house, called La Bijude, where the road from Harcourt met that from Cesny. Acquet was triumphant. The astonished Abbe remained passive; and as ill luck would have it, fell ill and died a few days afterwards. A report was circulated, emanating from the chateau, that he had died of grief caused by Mme. de Combray. Then people began to talk in whispers about a certain basket of white wine with which she had presented the poor ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... ill luck always attaches itself in a minor degree to every team which engages in a championship contest, but most assuredly Philadelphia had more of its share of reverses through accidents to players and illness than any team of the ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... he'll do it, just for revenge," Prescott replied, with a shake of his head. "Fits is probably superstitious, and he has most likely come to the conclusion that he runs to bad luck in pursuing our crowd. All of his ill luck, and that of his confederates, now in jail, has come ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... shadow in his life. Ill luck and good luck had been taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, own the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterwards to a man whom he hated by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For some years they did not meet, and then at last they again ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... employment that he could get as an hostler, and occasionally, when times went well with him, from temporary engagements in service as stable-helper in private houses. Though a faithful, steady, and honest man, he got on badly in his calling. His ill luck was proverbial among his neighbors. He was always missing good opportunities by no fault of his own, and always living longest in service with amiable people who were not punctual payers of wages. "Unlucky Isaac" was his nickname in his own neighborhood, and no one could ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Shall I have any shame in confessing that I preferred their society, a society not unfamiliar to me, to the dull and solitary life that I might have led in tending my old bed-ridden relation in Wales, who after all, may live these twenty years, and at the end can scarce leave me enough for a week's ill luck at the hazard-table? In a word, I joined my gallant friends, and entrusted myself to their guidance. Since then, we have cruised around the country, regaled ourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, silenced the fractious, and by the help of your fate, or my devil, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... succeeded in retaining them. The advantage thus gained was but a slight one, for these provinces lying between the two Zabs had long been subject to Assyria, and had been wrested from her since the days of Tukulti-ninip: however, it broke the run of ill luck which seemed to have pursued her so relentlessly, and opened the way for more important victories. This was the last Cossaean war; at any rate, the last of which we find any mention in history: Bel-nadinshumu II. reigned three years after Zamamashu-middin, but when he ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... place would await him, and draw him on until he filled it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself, "that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared that a certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards himself, being present in the galleys in the person of that Champmathieu, present in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear, provided that he did not prevent men ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... help it he guesses he'll jist grin an' bear it.' And there's an old Irish trapper that's bin in the mountains nigh forty years now, and who's alive at this day—if he bean't dead—that used to say to himself when ill luck came upon him, 'Now, Terence, be aisy, boy; an' av ye can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye can.' So you see, Mr Bertram, we have got a few sparks of wisdom in ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... had always "enjoyed poor health," as the old lady expressed it, and the man himself was forever talking of his diseases, his ill luck, his poverty, which he said he had been enabled to endure only through the sustaining power of the religion "learned at ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... ladies did not honour us by riding to the meet," said Mr Bagnall at last, looking at that one of us who sat nearest him—which, by ill luck, happened to ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... safety were in our hands, and yet through a combination of ill luck and paralyzing terror we seemed unable ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... said he looking forward. "Ha! that's unlucky. I wish it had been to starboard; but as it's not much, the men may not notice it. I fancy they'll see more of ill luck in this cat." ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... that she wished Betsy Butterfly no ill luck. But she thought that perhaps it would have been a good thing for her if Johnnie Green had caught her and put ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... have injured his mind," they said to one another. "Or perhaps the train ran over his head when he didn't know it." They could think of no other reason for Freddie's queer actions. Always before he had seemed too kind-hearted to rejoice over another person's ill luck. ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... thank him—for having chosen as an intermediary a man of your high merit. Believe me that I shall, on my side, preserve an eternal gratitude for the man who has so ingeniously, so cleverly arranged the misunderstanding between us. And since ill luck would have it that the secret should be known to four instead of three, why, this secret, which might make the most ambitious man's fortune, I am delighted to share with you, monsieur, from the bottom of my heart I am delighted ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... demons and human enemies. Even the spirits of Fate who served Anu, god of the sky, and that "Norn" of the Underworld, Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades, might sometimes be propitious: if the deities were successfully invoked they could cause the Fates to smite spirits of disease and bringers of ill luck. Damu, a friendly fairy goddess, was well loved, because she inspired pleasant dreams, relieved the sufferings of the afflicted, and restored to good health those patients whom she ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... that," she said. "The opal is said to bring ill luck, but not when it is your own month stone. Then it is supposed to be not only deprived of evil influence, but to possess peculiarly fortunate power. Let it ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Goethes, that he sent them in return a collection of sweetmeats and fruits. All promised to go well; intentions, after all, are not acts; and there certainly is not, nor ever was, any treason in taking a morning's walk. But, as ill luck would have it, just as Mr. Goethe was passing the comte's door, out came the comte in person, purely by accident, as we are told; but we suspect that the surly old German, either under his morning hopes or his evening disappointments, had ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... dates of its first and last entries, shelved and forgotten. A pity that Horrocleave's suspicions had not been delayed for another month or so, for then the book might have been mislaid, lost, or even consumed in a conflagration! But never mind! A certain amount of ill luck fell to every man, and he would trust to his excellent handicraft in the petty-cash book. It was his only hope in the world, now that the mysterious and heavenly ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the water, remembering that no man might carry these in Venice under penalty of the galleys. Bibboni's white hose were drenched with blood. He therefore agreed to separate from Bebo, having named a rendezvous. Left alone, his ill luck brought him face to face with twenty constables (sbirri). 'In a moment I conceived that they knew everything, and were come to capture me, and of a truth I saw that it was over with me. As swiftly as I could I quickened pace and got into a church, near to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... supported from New York. Not one solitary circumstance, except faith in the valor of his troops, favored a further advance at this time. But his gallant little army was ready to follow him, the enemy was within striking distance, and so Burgoyne marched on, bemoaning his ill luck, but with the pluck characteristic ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... fight was in progress. I tried to place a guard out around our camp, but all were drunk and refused to serve. I expected an attack from Mexican troops at any moment, and really it was a serious matter for me, for being in command I would be held responsible for any ill luck attending the expedition. Finally the camp became comparatively still, for the Indians were too drunk to walk or even to fight. While they were in this stupor I poured out all the mescal, then I put out all the fires and moved ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... all the gentry of our town from injurious encroachments." It was added with angry resentment that "a law might be found to control even Mr. Stavrogin." This phrase was prepared by way of a thrust at the governor on account of Varvara Petrovna. They elaborated it with relish. As ill luck would have it, the governor was not in the town at the time. He had gone to a little distance to stand godfather to the child of a very charming lady, recently left a widow in an interesting condition. But it was known that he would ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that as a matter of fact those contingent happenings we call luck and ill luck do often come frequently to certain persons, whom we call lucky or unlucky, which shows that they are not the result of pure chance, and that there is some sort of order determining them. Moreover, we know that the higher in the scale ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... some scraps of food, crossed the room and disappeared from my sight. I knew now that the deserters of whom they had spoken were actually in the place with them, and found myself pitying the fate of men who had had the ill luck to fall into the hands of so coldly brutal an officer as ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... appeared, and they are Bob, the fat and overgrown feebling youth, and, of all creatures, the Faun. It seems my fate that I had to destroy the Faun—the poor, tortured Faun, always willing and eager, ever desirous to please. There is a madness of ill luck in all this. Why couldn't the two dead men have been Charles Davis and Tony the Greek? Or Bert Rhine and Kid Twist? or Bombini and Andy Fay? Yes, and in my heart I know I should have felt better had it been Isaac Chantz and Arthur ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... snatched the morsel from out my hand had I not driven off the bird with the other hand. Then it had fain pounced upon the flesh on the left side but again I scared it away and thus, whilst exerting myself with frantic efforts to ward off the bird, by ill luck my turband fell to the ground. At once that accursed kite swooped down and flew off with it in its talons; and I ran pursuing it and shouted aloud. Hearing my cries the Bazar-folk, men and women and a rout of children, did what they could to scare it away and make the beastly ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... side of his long-eared companion, the creature, which had only been stunned by the bolt, suddenly sprang to its feet and, no doubt crazed by fear, began striking out with its hind hoofs. As ill luck would have it, poor Juan came within direct range of the first kick, and was sent flying ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... Parliamentarians, and to the Scots in particular. Through the Commonwealth, however, and also into the Protectorate, he had lived on in England, in obscurity and with risks, latterly somewhere in or about Norfolk, as tutor or quasi-tutor to a gentleman, on L30 a year. By ill luck, in Nov. 1655, just when the police of the Major-Generals was coming into operation, he had been apprehended, on his way to Newark, by the vigilance of Major-General Haynes, and committed to prison in Yarmouth, There seems to have been no definite charge, other than that ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... thought to be the genius of the family. It was his ill luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and, as one is not altogether fit for the battle of life who is engaged in a perpetual contention with his dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects at the Bar, and, in the embraces of dyspepsia, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... often set on their feet by disasters, and many who use them wisely fare better than those who are completely fortunate and for that very reason wanton. Somehow ill luck seems to hold no inconsiderable portion of benefit, because it does not permit men to lose their senses or indulge in extreme wantonness. For naturally it is most advisable to set one's face steadfastly toward all the best things, and to make not possibility, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... in the studio, as ill luck would have it. In the absence of Ruth he ventured to speak more freely than he would have done ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... house. The search of that part of the establishment over, the worried official sat down in my work room to rest for a few minutes, cool himself off, and bewail the fate which had brought him such ill luck. Poljensio, who was washing sponges on the platform outside, and had for this reason not been at his brother's house, where he slept, when that domicile was searched, was called in, and while his official master rested, was made to strip himself stark naked, and turn his ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... battle-field, but as a soft and happy nuptial couch; and touching the consolation of Sancho Panza, my squire, I rely upon his goodness and rectitude that he will not desert me in good or evil fortune; for if, by his ill luck or mine, it may not happen to be in my power to give him the island I have promised, or any equivalent for it, at least his wages shall not be lost; for in my will, which is already made, I have declared the sum that shall be paid to him, measured, not ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... accustomed courtesy, wished him every kind of prosperity, and embraced him as he left; but at the door of the castle Caesar found one of Gonzalvo's captains, Nuno Campeja by name, who arrested him as a prisoner of Ferdinand the Catholic. Caesar at these words heaved a deep sigh, cursing the ill luck that had made him trust the word of an enemy when he had so often broken ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
