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More "Odds" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the confederates, who had now the whole responsibility on their heads, with little to cheer them on in their perilous career but their own resolute hearts and the recollection of those days when their ancestors, with odds as fearfully against them, rose up and shivered to atoms the yoke of ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... God's Jews? Their jowls Bobbed, sobbed, gaped, aped, the plaice in face! None heard, 'tis odds, his—God's—folk's howls. Now, how must I apply, to try This ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... falling off. To behold the man thus fallen: to know him accepted among his companions for a poor, muddled toper, welcome (if he were welcome at all) for the bare consideration of his title; and to recall the virtues he had once displayed against such odds of fortune; was not this a thing at once to rage ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... our own and all other farms of the time. Even when very young I suspected that much might somehow be done in a better way. That is what took me into mechanics—although my mother always said that I was born a mechanic. I had a kind of workshop with odds and ends of metal for tools before I had anything else. In those days we did not have the toys of to-day; what we had were home made. My toys were all tools—they still are! And every fragment of ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... the girl. He struck out viciously into the first grinning face that pressed near. Something in his brain seemed to snap then, and he became a snarling, fighting animal, battling against overwhelming odds in defence of his mate. A dart buried itself in his arm and a stone hatchet bit into his shoulder, but he scarcely felt the hurts. All that mattered now was Ora; they were taking her away—taking her to the folds of that incredible hot thing that flapped there at the crater's rim. ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... themselves bounden to defend the course they took. Our burgess, who bowed head to his aristocrat, and hired the soldier to fight for him, could not see that such mis-behaviour necessarily ensued. Lord Ormont had fought duels at home and abroad. His readiness to fight again, and against odds, and with a totally unused weapon, was exhibited by his attack on the Press in the columns of the Press. It wore the comical face to the friends deploring it, which belongs to things we do that are so very like us. They agreed with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dazzled an anchorite, let alone a man who didn't know whether he loved her for certain, but who was willing to give odds ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... our hearts, and made us bear up as bravely as possible in the face of the terrible odds that ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... story in it, Do you know what it is to have a man dodging after you through these odds and ends of streets here? I dare say you do. Well, I had three skulking thieves of Indians dodging after me, over better than four hundred miles of lonesome country, where I might have bawled for help for a whole week on end, and never ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... give in, sir," said Tubbs. "The odds against us are too great, and although we might shoot that fellow and a couple of the blacks, we should be certain to lose our lives. If he promises to carry us safe on board the schooner, scoundrel though he is, he will keep his word, and we may ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... dryly, "I have some left. Maybe seven hundred dollars or some such matter. If I had my legs left it would be enough, or more than enough. I wouldn't ask odds of anybody if I was the way I was before that train went off the track. I'd lost every shot I had in the locker, but I'm not very old yet—some years to leeward of forty—there was more money to be had where that came from and I ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... he said, easily, stretching himself out more comfortably in the rock shadow. "Then I will remain here with you; it makes small odds." ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Frida wore at her christening. She was the first one; bless you, and you think at the time it's something wonderful. Oh dear!"—she sighed and laid the doll back in the cupboard in which the clean pillowcases and Frida's and her Sunday hats were together with all kinds of odds and ends—"how time flies. Now ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... exclusively of the "Forty Thieves," had exhibited an activity and elan for which this gallant little corps was eminently distinguished; and had they been European troops, their conduct upon this occasion, against such overwhelming odds, would ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... the children themselves can find and reach everything, are the sawdust, bran and oats for the guinea pigs, with a few carrots and a knife to cut them, some tiny scrubbing-brushes and a wiping-up cloth. Here also are stored the empty boxes, corrugated paper and odds and ends in constant demand ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... this is notably true of man. It would be a mistake to suppose that man has few instinctive tendencies; perhaps he has more than any other creature. But his instinctive behavior has not the hard-and-fast, ready-made character that we see in the insects. Man is by all odds the most pottering, hem-and-hawing of animals. Instinct does not lead him straight to his goal, but makes him seek this way and that till he finds it. His powers of observation, memory and thought are drawn into the game, and thus instinct in man is complicated ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... sticks to be had in that part of the wood; twigs and branches from the dead tree, fragments of bark, odds and ends of dry brush. Close by stood a white birch. The thin, paper-like covering hung loose on its stem, like grey-white curls. Archie could pull off large pieces, and he enjoyed this so much that he pulled till the birch trunk, as far up as he could reach, was perfectly bare. Some ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... be apologetic about criticism from people who have a right to criticize. I always look upon any criticism as a compliment, not but what the old Adam in T.H.H. will arise and fight vigorously against all impugnment and irrespective of all odds in the way of authority, but that is the way of the beast. Why I value your and Tyndall's and Darwin's friendship so much is, among other things, that you all pitch into me when necessary. You may depend upon it, however blue I may look when in the wrong, it's ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... carrying as many as twenty guns, and in that sea classic, "Tom Cringle's Log," there is a story—obviously founded on fact—of a fight between a British sloop-of-war and a slaver that gives a vivid idea of the desperation with which the outlaws could fight. But sometimes the odds were hopeless, and the slaver could not hope to escape by force of arms or by flight. Then the sternness of the law, together with a foolish rule concerning the evidence necessary to convict, resulted in the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... a bit," said Cashel, impetuously. "Come as often as you want. Mellish fancies that if any one gets a glimpse of me he won't get any odds. You see he would like people to think—" Cashel checked himself, and added, in some confusion, "Mellish is mad; that's ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... valor. He was with Joe Lane and his gallant Indianians at Juamantla, and his name was specially mentioned among those whose fiery onsets had broken the lines of the swarthy foe, and won against such heavy odds the bloody field. He was seldom absent from church on Sunday morning, and now and then his inquiring, thoughtful face would be seen in my smaller audience at night. One unwelcome fact about him pained me, while it deepened ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the darkness whence they came The Sons of Night are hurled again. Yet while the reddened skies resound The wizard souls of evil men Within the demon ranks are found, While pure and strong the heroes go To join the strife, and reck no odds, For they who face the wizard foe Clasp hands heroic ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... jaws of the foremost dog, and as he turned another struck him. He rolled over twice, and when he gained his feet he faced his enemies. He knew the game was up but he went down fighting,—fighting against odds without a whine; and Breed watched five savage dogs mauling a limp dead thing that ten seconds past had been his valued friend. These strange beasts did not move off as the men rode up, and Breed realized with a shock that the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... new power plant and a few other odds and ends were chuted into a neat pile on the ship. I checked all the parts by screen before they were loaded in a metal crate. In the darkest hour before dawn, the heavy-duty eye dropped the crate outside the temple and darted away ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... come to Annie Millikan now because of what she had told him about "Slim" Jim. This man was one of Durand's stand-bys. If there was any underground work to be done it was an odds-on chance that he would be in ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... The Sure Shield (DUCKWORTH) sees to it that our national pride in our Fleet is thoroughly encouraged. Whether he is describing a race against the Germans in times of peace, or a fight against odds with them in these days of war, we always come out top dog. Very good. But, at the same time, I am bound to add that some of his stories compelled me to make considerable drafts on my reserves of credulity before I could swallow them. So improbable are the incidents ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... far room was a chest filled with forgotten odds and ends that had come back with me years before. I ran to it, and from under bundles of letters, old family trinkets, a canteen, a pair of rusty pistols, and other such matters, I brought forth an ambrotype—the kind that was mounted in a black case of pressed ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... this point, but the fact is not a little curious. We need not dissemble the truth about certain prepossessions current in Europe. It is beyond denial that, in spite of the slavery question, the Southerners have been rather the favorites, partly as the weaker side, partly as conquerors against odds, and partly because their demand for independence was thought too natural to be resisted at the sword's point by a Government founded on the right of insurrection only. To these merely sentimental and not very cogent considerations was added the more potent and weighty reflection that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... "What's the odds?" asked Darrin, after a pause. "Dalny must belong to a big and clever organization. He can wire ahead to spies who will board the train later on and follow us ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... With twice those odds of men, I doubt not in this cause to vanquish thee.— Captain remember to your care I give My love; ten thousand, thousand times more ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... from the Princess of Wales, thanking Mrs. Kendal for "the lovely silver wedding bells and flowers which you so kindly sent me on the tenth." You may examine George IV.'s cigar-case—a silver tube in which the King was wont to carry a single cigar. It is impossible to number all the treasured odds and ends, but still more difficult to total up the miniature articles set out in ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the test of its truth; for any philosophy that, being in operation contradictory to the ways of the world, tends to produce a character at odds with it, such a philosophy must necessarily be but a cheat ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... from the ship, at parting, was answered as gayly from the hooker as though the odds had not been so fearfully against her, and no blither heart beat on board the ship ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... under Dutch government, of which Ternate forms a part. It is said to be a good place to dispose of odds and ends,* and for getting a little shell. It is also a ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... his statement as to Beresford's opposition to the Union with the assertion of the latter, that, in an interview of 12th November, he pressed Pitt to take immediate steps to ensure the success of the measure, which otherwise would have to struggle against unfair odds at Dublin. The curious tendency of Hibernian affairs towards confusion also appears in Cornwallis's statement, on 15th November, that he had urged Pitt not to close the door to the Catholics in the United Parliament. Whereas ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... How should men improve the pause, and accept the overtures!—as eagerly seizing salvation through the cross of Christ as a drowning man life through the rope some kind hand flings within his reach. In warfare patriots have stood up gallantly against overwhelming odds, and, closing their broken ranks, have said, "Better fall on the field, better lose life than honour;" but when sinners, dropping the weapons of rebellion, yield themselves up to God, honour is not lost, but won, in a crown that fadeth ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... clothing and odds and ends of all descriptions were hanging stood at the south end of the apartment, while a long row of boxes and packing trunks occupied the floor at the north end. The rug, which had been thrown down on the floor near the hole bored through ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the City of London Yeomanry sent to reinforce was held up by a machine-gun barrage and had to withdraw. The garrison held out magnificently all day in a support trench close behind the crest against odds of twenty to one, and repeatedly beat off rushes, although the bodies of dead Turks showed that they got as close as forty yards from the defenders. Two officers were wounded, and four other ranks ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... to drive the car back to the log road, after it had been finally unloaded of trunks and bags and a great assortment of odds and ends. Jane could not have required more luggage had she been going to a fashionable summer resort for her vacation. She called to the girls to get in and ride out to the log road with them. Harriet and Tommy accepted the invitation with Mrs. Livingston's permission. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... wavering line of Billies that, like the ghost of Banquo, stretched to the disappearing point. Of such images there was an army, but of the real Billy, as he was acutely conscious, there was but one. Among the black faces scowling from the doorways he felt the odds were against him. Without making a reply he passed out between the racks of rusty muskets in the anteroom, between the two Gatling guns guarding the entrance, and on the ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... may write—no, you needn't—just tell me the difference, in your opinion, between what are known as conjunctions and prepositions. Say what you please. We ask no odds of them. Be ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... what that drive did for Alaska. Railroads opened, cities founded, people settled there, and all because men fought with odds against finding buried gold!" ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, (For indeed I do not love it... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!) To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you— Without these friendships—life, ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... watching, days of lead, There came the certain news that you were dead. You had died fighting, fighting against odds, Such as in war the gods thereal dared when all the world was young; Such fighting as blind Homer never sung, Nor Hector nor Achilles never knew, High in the empty blue. High, high, above the clouds, against the setting ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... otherwise damaged, I fancy it was—not the loveliest Margaret. From my slight acquaintance with that tremendous philosopher, supposing that he were turned loose among a bevy of perfectly well-educated women, and meant mischief, I should be disposed to lay longer odds against his chances than I would against those of many men who have never read one word ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... aims which they have set before themselves to accomplish for man. The first and all-present fact of this faith is the terrible loneliness and isolation of man in the great struggle of life. His destiny is in his own hands, and he must fight single-handed against a thousand odds in the awful ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... miles to the north-west of San Cristoval. From frequent intercourse they are almost bilingual, a great "lounge" for me, as one language does for both; the structure of the two island tongues is the same, but scarcely any words much alike. However, that is not much odds. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there their lives and bodyes, saving 2 that made their escape, went to give notice to 200 of theirs that made ready as they heard the gunns, to help their foreguard. The ffrench seeing such great odds made a retreat, and warned by foure Algonquins that a fort was built not afar off, built by his nation the last yeare, they fled into it in an ill houre. In the meane while the Iroquoits consulted what they should doe; they sent to 550 Iroquoits of the lower nation and 50 Orijonot ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... the opry-houses then obtaining in the West The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best; Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone, So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone— A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard, And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack and I appeared; He ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... the good Lord said: "Look at those odds and ends, that are all lying about after the earth is set rolling. Gather them up, and make them into four living nations to people the globe." The saints obeyed ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... past, let us to-day at least see straight—see things as they are. Let us suspend disputes about what is done and cannot be undone, long enough to rally all the forces of good will, all the undoubted courage and zeal and patriotism that are now at odds, in a devoted effort to meet the greater dangers that ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... extreme point of their advance, culminating in the Battle of the Marne, September 6-10. Here the generalship of Joffre and the strategy of Foch overcame great odds. The Germans were driven back from the Marne to the River Aisne. The battle line then remained practically stationary for three years on a front of ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... outline have given place to stubby cargo booms of liners, freighters and tramps of multiple flags and nationalities. Along the Embarcadero they disgorge upon massive concrete piers silk, rice and tea from the Orient, coffee from Central America, hemp and tobacco from the Philippines, and all manner of odds and ends from everywhere. On the piers commodities are piled in apparent confusion, yet each lot moves with precision in or out of yawning holds at the shrill blast of the foreman's ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... new conditions. With William Clito likely to be in possession of the resources of a strong feudal state, heartily supported by the king of France, felt by the great mass of Norman barons to be the rightful heir, and himself of considerable energy of character, the odds would be decidedly in favour of his succession. The balance could be restored only by bringing forward in support of Matilda's claim a power equal to William's and certain not to abandon her cause. Henry could feel that he had accomplished this ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... failure on the main point, that it left them remorsefully indulgent. He had submitted, and had foregone his boyish dreams of Harvard, where all his mates were going; but the sacrifice seemed to have put him at odds with life. The years which had proved the old people mistaken would not come back upon their recognition of their error. He returned to the associations from which they had exiled him too much estranged to resume them, and they saw, with the unavailing regrets which visit fathers ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... seen her, I do not wonder at Rochester's extravagant passion," rejoined the monarch. "But, odds fish! she seems to care little ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... battle—there was no preliminary bombardment, and their troops advanced under cover of a heavy mist and preceded by a creeping barrage. They put an overwhelming number of troops into the fight, the odds against our men being something like three to one, but our infantry in the north fought valiantly, although they were forced to give ground step by step in the initial stages. As the day wore on and the mist rose, we were ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... out. He was fit, that was all, and unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip; ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... partaker in the triumph of him who is always true to himself and makes no compromises with customs, schools, or opinions. Whitman's life, underneath its easy tolerance and cheerful good-will, was heroic. He fought his battle against great odds and he conquered; he had his own way, he yielded not ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... home that was for Tiny and the fisherman! As he left the little chapel at Fellness, a basket, well filled with the odds and ends left from the tea-meeting, had been handed to Coomber to take home, and Peters whispered, as he went out: "I've heard of another job for yer, so be along in good time in the morning, mate." To describe Mrs. Coomber's joy, when her husband walked ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... a well-formed system to an amount beyond all calculation or conception. In the case of the alphabet, the chances for the letters to fall bottom up or aslant are not included. And when we reflect that the blind goddess, or "unintelligent forces," would have to contend against such fearful odds in the case of a single individual, how long are we to suppose it would be, ere from old Chaos she could shake this mighty universe, with all its myriads upon myriads of existences, into the glorious order and beauty in which ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... woods. The rebels fought well, but generally fired too high, and their batteries, although getting our range accurately, missed the elevation much of the time. Their poor shooting was our salvation. Had they done as well as our men, with the tremendous odds against us, they must have annihilated us. The enemy were clear around our right flank, enveloping us, and it looked as though they would capture Dodge's Brigade, when Colonel Dodge took a battalion of Colonel Carr's regiment, the Third ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... seventeens? Do these odd numbers refer to the nine companies of Doubters, and eight of Bloodmen, who were under the command of five fallen angels—Diabolus, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Legion, and Apollyon? Fearful odds against a poor fallen sinner, five evil spirits, or nine classes of doubts, or these nine doubts united to eight ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... twenty-three shillings. You will then learn in possibly twenty cases out of the twenty-three that the waste of the day before has been burned or removed. In the three other cases you will be shown a heap of paper and you will look for this page of the Times among it. The odds are enormously against your finding it. There are ten shillings over in case of emergencies. Let me have a report by wire at Baker Street before evening. And now, Watson, it only remains for us to find out by wire the identity of the cabman, No. 2704, and then we will drop into ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... comment to study other photographs. There were at least several hundred. They were all of Ginkel. Most of them were blurred and showed odds and ends of backgrounds out of focus, such as trees, street cars, buildings, telephone poles. There was one that finally aroused Ginkel ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... number in reserve who could soon be drawn in. The Spaniards, in their long marches and many battles, had dwindled away to less than five hundred men. Four thousand against five hundred were fearful odds; and yet the number of their foes might speedily be doubled or even quadrupled. In addition to this, the plains around the city were exceedingly unfavorable for the movements of the Spanish army, while they presented great advantages to the nimble-footed natives; for their region ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... millions, and Friedrich II. on an allowance of one ducat a month, and a host of other great men whose failings are held up for the corruption of youth, while not a word is said of their wide-reaching ideas, their courage equal to all odds. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... his whole force against the remaining wing, won easily a decisive victory. The only occasions when an impassable feature is welcome are in the Passive Defence of a small force against overwhelming odds (as was seen in August, 1914, when the Belgians occupied a position behind the River Gette), and in the Delaying Action of a Rear-guard fighting for time for the Main Body to get away. In such cases a Decisive Counter-Attack is ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... the big beautiful buttons on the head-stall. "The sulky's as good as new, and so's the harness almost; and there's the nose-bag and the blankets, and a saddle and a monkey-wrench and two bottles of horse-liniment, and odds and ends. I only paid that"—and he held up his fingers again as though it was a sacred rite—"for the lot. Not bad, I want to say. Isn't he good for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... make the hospitals seem almost like home to the little children for a whole happy day, you can not begin too soon to look over all your little treasures, and choose all you can part with. You all have cast-off toys, story-books that have been read through, and boxes full of odds and ends, and it takes very little to brighten the face of a poor sick child lying alone in a hospital cot. A single pretty picture-card will do it. Then, too, you can save your pennies and dimes, so that before ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the gallant band. They killed the men immediately in front with their swords, and the British soldiers pressing on, the rebels gave way, and fled in disorder to Delhi. It was a trying moment. The odds against the British were ten to one. One officer was killed, another was wounded, and twenty-nine men ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... normal school, the scientific teaching was on an exceedingly modest scale, consisting mainly of arithmetic and odds and ends of geometry. Physics was hardly touched. We were taught a little meteorology, in a summary fashion: a word or two about a red moon, a white frost, dew, snow and wind; and, with this smattering of rustic physics, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... task. He rallied sharply from his despondency. He would pit himself against the police. A desperate man, guided by love, could do much—might even outwit the tremendous forces of Scotland Yard. He would not be worthy of Sisily if he lost heart because the odds were against him. Fortune's wheel might have a lucky ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... conclusions were not received with favor. There seemed to be a general conviction that the colored race was to be put on trial, and that it must show its manhood by defending itself and maintaining its rights against all odds. His idea of running away was voted a cowardly and unworthy one, and the plan advocated by Nimbus and Eliab, to stay and fight it out or take whatever consequences might result, was accepted as the true one to be adopted by men having ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... on. None of their made-up and highly finished demoiselles is fit to look at her—such simple beauty, such charms of nature, such enchanting innocence! Ah, that is where those French girls fail—they are always studying how they look, instead of leaving us to think of it. Bah! What odds to me? I have higher stakes to play for. But according to old Twemlow's description, she must be the daughter of that old bear Darling, with whom I shall have to pick a bone some day. Ha! How amusing is that battery to me! How little John Bull knows the nature ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... hunted—and he was not much the worse for it so far as Laura could see. Perhaps Hyde was of the game stamp, in which case there might well be no lines round his mouth, since lines are drawn by conflict: or perhaps a wandering life had kept him out of harm's way. It made no great odds to Laura—she had not the shrinking abhorrence which most women feel for that special form of evil: it was on the same footing in her mind as other errors to which male human nature is more prone than female, a little worse than drunkenness but not so ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... preaching, and those other evangelical functions, which employed him day and night, no quarrel was stirring, no difference on foot, of which he was not chosen umpire. And because those barbarians, naturally choleric, were frequently at odds, he appointed certain hours, for clearing up their misunderstandings, and making reconciliations. There was not any man fell sick, who sent not for him; and as there were always many, and for the most part distant from each other, in the scattering ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... wonder, I ween, At Barlow's turning topsy-tur—poet I mean. I take odds you'll exclaim, 'twixt a grunt and a stare, 'Gottferdummi' the beggar's gone mad, I declare, And his wits must have followed his 'peeper'—not so; He will give you the wherefore, will William Barlow— Viz: he's so seedy and blue, he's so deucedly ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... love readily, but will go forth in search of them with eager alacrity. First and last and always the only keen satisfaction of great love, whether human or divine, is to welcome opportunities of proving itself in some heroic form of courage and endurance. Danger, suffering, battling against odds, discouragement, overwork, pain of mind and body, failure, want of recognition, rebuffs, contempt and persecution, are no longer the subject matter of a strong-jawed stoicism or a submissive patience but ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... joined Lafayette before Admiral Graves arrived from New York with a British fleet to rescue the British general. Had Graves been a Rodney or a Nelson he might have given a different issue to the American Revolution; but he was not the man to win against great odds, and after an indecisive engagement he sailed away, leaving Cornwallis to his fate. Hemmed in by 16,000 American and French troops, the unhappy general, who never met Washington but to be defeated, surrendered his army of 7000, men on the 19th of ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... engagement. In this, and every sea reincounter that happened within the present year, the superiority in skill and resolution was ascertained to the British mariners; for even when they fought against great odds, their courage was generally crowned with success. In the month of November, captain Lockhart, a young gentleman who had already rendered himself a terror to the enemy as commander of a small frigate, now added considerably ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... flights of winding stairs, and found herself weak and dizzy when she reached the top and gazed around her. She was in a great half-story room, eighty feet square. The most of it was filled with heaps of old furniture and bedding, rolls of carpet, of canvas, of oilcloth, and odds and ends of discard of unused household gear—the dust thick over all. A little space had been left around three sides, to give access to three rows of cell-like rooms, in each of which the ceiling sloped from the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... up the Loire, where his men quarreled with the inhabitants. He found himself involved in a fierce conflict, in which, owing to his personal valor and to the marvelous strength of Corineus, he came off victor in spite of the odds ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... bear meat and will not eat beans. Yet my diary bears special note of the delicious meal they furnished on this occasion. Put any philosopher in the traces, or set him ahead of the dog team on show-shoes, breaking trail all day, and towards evening it is odds that his mind is not occupied with deep speculations about the infinite and the absolute, but rather with the question of what he will have for supper. Particularly should the grub be a little short, should fresh meat give out, or, above all, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... lose by an operation, and further, he was in much better health than he had been for some time. I pointed out to him that there was a risk and that if the operation failed he would be totally blind, but that there were very long odds in his favour, and that I was willing to take the risk if he was. He asked one question: 'If you were in my place would you have it done?' I said certainly I would. That quite decided him and all that remained to be done was to ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... course, no one in his senses—especially decent people—would dream of doing all this if he knew what it all meant. So these creatures, whatever they may be, always pretend to be somebody else. They're very sharp: they can pick up all kinds of odds and ends, little tricks, and little facts; and so, with these, they impersonate someone whom the inquirer's very fond of; and they say all sorts of pious, happy little things at first in order to lead them on. So they go on for a long time saying that religion's quite true. (By the way, it's ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... one window looking south and another west; the latter commanded a view of the sea. General Rolleston looked down at the floor, littered with odds and ends—the dead leaves of dress that fall about a lady in the great process of packing—and then gazed through the window ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the world by the foreign ambassadors at Smyrna, the clerks of the English and Dutch houses, the resident foreigners, and the Christian ministers, excited a prodigious sensation, thrilling civilized mankind. On the Exchanges of Europe men took the odds for and against a ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... her. Her agitation culminated. She could bear it no longer. Blindly she ran to another door which led into the sitting-room of the matron, used for many purposes—the hold-all of the odds and ends of the hospital life; where surgeons consulted, officers waited, and army authorities congregated for the business of the hospital. She found the door, opened it and entered hastily. One light was burning—a lamp with a green shade. She ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... excitedly. "I could take a few odds and ends from my laboratory, too, so as to show them some beautiful experiments— fire burning under water, throwing potassium on the river to make it blaze; use some phosphorescent oil; and startle them with Lycopodium dust in the air; ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... the odds he had of me, And he shall know that from the Spanish race Revenge, though nere so bloudy, is not base. Away with ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... in the right mood for these undertakings—that is to say that, thinking failure almost certain, no odds against success affected me. All risks were less than the certainty. A glance at the plan (p. 182) will show that the rate which led into the road was only a few yards from another sentry. I said to myself, 'Toujours de l'audace:' put my hat on my head, strode into the middle of ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the slippery pavement in this muddle of prancing horses and yelling terriers. If you can get any bets that I was more than two seconds getting out there to her, take them all, and give better than track odds if necessary. Then I guess she got rattled, for when I would have led her back to the curb she made a dash the other way and all but slipped under a team of bays that were just aching to claw the roses off her hat. I saw she was helpless ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... flung both arms around it with a little warning shout and hurled it back at Siward, who shot forward like an arrow, his opponents gathering about him in full cry, amid laughter and excited applause from the gallery, where Grace Ferrall and Captain Voucher were wildly offering odds on the blue, and Alderdene and Major Belwether were thriftily ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... at the critical moment: all these are causes which operated powerfully to that end. And of these all that relate to Irish affairs were mainly brought about by the heroic constancy, in the face of enormous odds, the unwearied energy, and high military skill exhibited by ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the captain more concern than the cabin-boy, who was in the condition that makes one feel that all earthly joys have passed away from you for evermore, and drowning would be a happy relief from the agony of it. Needless to say, he was soundly trounced for the misadventure; handy odds and ends were thrown at him; he was reminded of his daring promises on the eve of engagement, and an impassioned oration was delivered on the curse of engaging "useless rubbish who could not guide their stomachs when they got to sea." His troubles ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... alarm, as it turned out, was a false one. Glendinning, informed by spies of the nature of the gathering, was much too sagacious a warrior to oppose his small force to such overwhelming odds. He contented himself for the present ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... corruption and decay. Such men, renowned in their school and college days as good cricketers, oarsmen or riders, were the men that made Alma, Inkermann, and Balaklava possible; who have just done battle at fearful odds on the burning plains of India, on behalf of helpless women and slaughtered babies; and those whom their strong right arm could not save, it was able to avenge! The iron endurance which they had gained ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... strikers were now confronted with bayonets and machine guns. The soldiery summarily stopped the strikers from picketing, that is to say, from attempting to persuade strikebreakers to refrain from taking their places. Against such odds ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... he; "for your sake I'll peril my carcass; I have done that for many a one that was not worth your forefinger. It is no such mighty risk either. I'll but step into the skirts of the forest here. It is odds but they drive a hare or a fawn within reach ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... old estate of cathedral churches, which I have collected together here and there among the writers, and whereby it shall easily be seen what they were, and how near the government of ours do in these days approach unto them; for that there is an irreconcilable odds between them and those of the Papists. I hope there is no learned man indeed but will acknowledge and ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... by 'a very great swell,' the premiere danseuse of the 'Lyceum'. It contained a superb piano littered with stage properties, dresses, and general odds and ends. The furniture was of splendid quality, and large tinted photographs of prominent French 'professionals,' including an unusually prepossessing likeness of Schneider, decked the walls. Satin tights, exquisitely pink, hung out of a half-open trunk. The danseuse was seated at a ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the crew had been by no means uninterested or silent spectators of passing events, but had, on the contrary, indulged themselves in a variety of conjectures as to their probable issue. Several bets were pending as to whether it would be a match or not after all. Zoroaster took long odds that the match was off—offering a bean to half-a-quid—in other words, a guinea to a half-guinea—that Sybil would be the bride. His offer was taken at once by Jerry Juniper, and backed ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... him, and in regard to the will, heads or tails was as good a chance as any. In her own preoccupation, she had not realized that he had reached the reluctant conviction that in any effort to break the will, the legal odds would be against him. But if she had realized it she would have known that the probable hopelessness of litigation would not have helped him much in reaching a decision, so the penny judgment would not have surprised her. Blair, as he told her about it, was in great spirits. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... is directed at Punch's "three Puppets—Wronghead (Mr. Douglas Jerrold), Sleekhead (Mr. Gilbert a Beckett), and Thickhead (Mr. Mark Lemon)—formidable names, Punch! and, as being three to one, formidable odds!" He refers to his friends having warned him not to rebel against Punch's attacks, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... maybe I ought to have hustled round to the door an' took a hand. But I don't aim to mix up in no scrimmage as long as both sides has got a fair show. Course thar was three ag'in' one, but arter you kicked the wind out o' the lawyer, the odds wasn't so bad, an' I sorter hated to lose out seeing how the scrap came out. Holy smoke! but you sure put up some dandy fight, Jim. I ain't seen nuthin' better since I struck this yere camp. You had them two guys licked to a frazzle, when that Enright ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... far as Creil, no farther. I'm buyin' odds and ends in the villages as I go along. It's on the way to Chantilly, so you come along with me. Now yell out a bit if you've got the strength: 'Rabbit skins! Rags and ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... outright at your ignorance of the 'Racing Calendar,' 'Annals of Sporting,' 'Boxiana,' and 'Turf Remembrancer;' question his knowledge of science, it consists in starch a la Brummel{8}; of mathematics, in working problems on the cards; of algebra, in calculating the long odds, or squaring the chances of the dice; he tells you, his favourite book is his betting account, that John Bull is the only newspaper worth reading, and that you must never expect to be admitted into ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... quite dark, with the country scrubby, and our enemies bold and daring, we could be easily surrounded and destroyed by such determined fellows as they have shown themselves to be. Seeing there is no hope with such fearful odds (ten to one at least) against us, and knowing all the disadvantages under which we labour, I very unwillingly make up my mind to push on to our last night's camp. We have done so, and now I have had a little time to consider the matter ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... the British army fairly landed on French soil than it was faced with the worst trial of war—a prolonged and perilous retreat before overwhelming odds. But Sir John French knew all that was to be known of the scientific retreat. Had he not seen it thirty years ago on an Egyptian desert, and practised its every form time and again on the African veldt? In four days the British force covered ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... one—within certain bounds—and one will only walk away from him; but the touch of another man's hand or weapon is quite another matter. That arouses the unthinking blood, and follows then, no matter the issue, the gaudium certaminis, with no care as to odds or evens. Wherefore, even as the club whizzed by to my side step, I came back from the other foot and smote the hostile stranger on the side of the neck so stiffly that he faltered and almost dropped. Then seeing that I was so much lighter than himself and ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... laugh, and all of us tried hard to smother the sound, or at least to ignore it. Every one talked at once, loudly, and with exaggerated decision, obviously trying to say something plausible against heavy odds, striving to explain naturally that an animal might so easily conceal itself from us, or swim away before we had time to light upon its trail. For we all spoke of that "trail" as though it really existed, and we had more to go upon than the mere marks of paws ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... For needless immolation, or for the sight Of those who heard what he was never to hear. To see them listening was itself enough To make him suffer; and to watch worn eyes, On other days, of strangers who forgot Their sorrows and their failures and themselves Before a few mysterious odds and ends Of marble carted from the Parthenon — And all for seeing what he was never to see, Because it was alive and he was dead — Here was a wonder that was more profound Than any that was in ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... hard matter to live—not the dogs among the shops of Galata or Stamboul, but those whose "parish" lies in the large burying-grounds and desert-places without the city; for each keeps, or rather is kept, to his district; and if he chanced to venture into a strange one, the odds against his return would be very large. One battered old animal, to whom I used occasionally to toss a scrap of food, always followed me from the hotel to the cross-street at Pera, where the two soldiers stand on guard, but would never come beyond this point. He ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... in these fine descendants of our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is less true to herself in peace than she was in war? I ask you, who will not recognise in her boat's crew the leaven of her soldiers, and who does not feel that she ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... isn't much above 1,000 miles to come by dauk; and tell her, with my compliments, he is well worth coming twice the distance for. Poor fellow! It is a bad lookout for him, I'm afraid, as he may not get home this ten years; and, though he isn't a kind to be easily lolled, there are serious odds against him, even if he keeps all right. I almost wish you had never ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... disgrace. Love is a naked boy, his years saunce[189] stain, And hath no clothes, but open doth remain. Will you for gain have Cupid sell himself? He hath no bosom where to hide base pelf. Love[190] and Love's son are with fierce arms at[191] odds; To serve for pay beseems not wanton gods. 20 The whore stands to be bought for each man's money, And seeks vild wealth by selling of her coney. Yet greedy bawd's command she curseth still, And doth, constrained, what you do of goodwill. Take from ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... churchmen, Catholics, Puritans, and Independents for influence on the Church of England or for supremacy in the state. Why did the Catholics in general remain loyal? Why were the Puritans punished? Why were the Independents at odds with everybody else? Why did not Presbyterianism take root in England? These are all questions of great moment, and their adjustment by Professor Cheyney prepares the way for the account of the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth colony in Tyler's England in America (volume IV. of the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... standing as close to me as I was disposed to permit. I fancied that they were looking me over, as though to make an estimate of the possible amount of resistance I might be able to offer should they be disposed to make a rush. The odds, if any, must have seemed to them somewhat in my favor, for I was taller by head and shoulders than either of them, and a life-long devotion to athletics had broadened my shoulders, and given me strength beyond the average. Besides, there was the revolver in my right hand, which I ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but at the latter end there is a strong feeling that a dark night would be more adapted for moving—the darker the better. At least every twelve months there should be a regular clearance of worn-out articles, and that miscellaneous collection of odds and ends which can be of no earthly value to anybody, unless he ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... at Carrizal, Mexico. Here is a tale of daring that to duplicate, would tax the imagination of war fiction writers, and among incidents of fact will range along with the Texans' defense of the Alamo, where men fought and perished against great odds. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... and then he laughed. 'Ah, well,' he said, casting aside his momentary gloom; 'it's all a game, and wot's the odds so long as yer ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... precipitate retreat, each canoe seemingly striving to outdo the rest in the speed of its flight. And thus ended victoriously for us the fight which we had been for over forty hours maintaining against such apparently overwhelming odds. ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... down the hall, indifferent to the Kirmanshah rugs, the rare mosaic floor and stained-glass windows, the Parian fountain and the Azeglio tapestries that hung suspended up along the stairway—all old stories to him and as commonplace as rickety odds and ends of furniture might be to any toiler "cribbed, cabin'd and confined" in fetid East Side tenement or squalid ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... made up their minds to like some friend of the family, they commonly besiege him for a story. The same demand is made by the public of authors, and accordingly it was made of Dr. Holmes. The odds were heavy against him; but here again he triumphed. Like a good Bostonian, he took for his heroine a schoolma'am, the Puritan Pallas Athene of the American Athens, and made her so lovely that everybody ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... strong is man's natural self-bias, that, without this restraining principle, he insensibly becomes a competitor in all such cases presented to his mind; and, when the comparison is thus made personal, unless the odds be immeasurably against him, his decision will rarely be impartial. In other words, no one can see any thing as it really is through the misty spectacles of self-love. We must wish well to another in order to do ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... is inexplicable. Yale, beaten by Virginia, Brown, and Wash-Jeff, with the Blue's best gridiron star ineligible to play, a team that seemed at odds with itself and the 'Varsity, mismanaged, poorly coached, journeys to Princeton to battle with old Nassau; the Tiger, Its tail as yet untwisted, presents its best eleven for several seasons, a great favorite in the odds, and yet the final score is Yale, 14; Princeton, 7! A strange ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Manners had nothing to defend himself with, except the stock of his riding-whip, yet he gave so good an account of himself, and wielded his paltry weapon to so much purpose that he quickly freed himself, and rushed to aid poor Doll. This purpose, however, he failed to accomplish. The odds were ten to one, but even then it was for some time an open question whether the one would not prevail over the ten. All his skill was brought into play. He laid about him right and left until his weapon broke, and then, undismayed, he lunged out with the remnant, ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... believe the Turk to be weak, incapable or cruel. He is certainly disorganised and probably without good generalship. He has been obliged to fight against heavy odds. The argument of weakness, incapacity and cruelty one often hears quoted in connection with those from whom power is sought to be taken away. About the alleged massacres a proper commission has been asked for, but never granted. And in ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... discarded his crutch, as he had threatened, and walked out to the studio, using only a stout old blackthorn stick he had found one day when rummaging among a collection of odds and ends in the attic. He thought the stick was his father's and wondered why so interesting a walking stick—or staff; it could hardly be called a cane, he thought, because it was so large and oddly shaped—should be hidden away there. Had his father seen it he would have recognized ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... and Nan seemed from her manner at odds with her companion. He appeared to be trying to laugh the situation off when he caught sight of de Spain pausing for them to pass. Gale's face lighted as he set eyes on him, and he spoke quickly to Nan. De Spain could not at first hear his ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... irreconcilable elements, I'll admit, but I will do my best to mix 'em in. I had the story in sections from most of the parties concerned; a wide acquaintance with the police and an intimate knowledge of the Chinese quarter helping out considerably. The odds and ends, pieced together, make, I ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... boys!" and the four flung themselves upon Theo, striking, pounding and kicking all together. He defended himself as best he could, but the odds were too great. It was only when the boy slipped to the ground in a limp, motionless heap, that his assailants drew off, and looked uneasily at one another ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... of the difficulties of playing a lone hand had already become apparent. But with some one I could confide in, some one who would know everybody in the island and a good deal about them, and who could advise and abet me, it seemed heavy odds against my vanished ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... he continued. "But we've been in tight places before, although none that smells as close as this infernal hole. Now listen: I'm prepared to lay odds that The Babe is not an opium fiend at all, and has never been near this den. He wrote that letter at the saloon, didn't he? And ten to one he borrowed the paper from the bar- tender. That's why it smelled of opium. The handwriting was very shaky. Why? because The Babe was only half ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... about seven million. Her mental attitude is similar, that of a great awakening, a consciousness of new strength, an exuberance of energy biting on the bit to run the race; mellowed memory of hard-won battles against tremendous odds in the past; for the future, a golden vision opening on vistas too far to follow. They dreamed pretty big in the days of Queen Elizabeth, but they did n't dream big enough for what was to come; and they are dreaming pretty big up in ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... one is the odds I will stand, A hundred to one is the odds you command; Here's a handful of goldfinches ready to fly! May I venture a foot in my stirrup to try?" As he carelessly spoke, Dick directed a glance At his courser, and motioned her slyly askance:— You might tell by the singular ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... him. His imperious and arrogant domination was felt to be insupportable. But the circumstance that determined the course of Austria was the victory gained by Wellington at Vittoria, in Spain, over the French under Jourdan (June 21). The news of it turned the scale in the Austrian councils. The odds against Napoleon were now fearful, especially as his own army was largely composed of recruits who were hardly above the age of boys. He won one more triumph at Dresden (Aug. 27), but this was ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... were all the kinds of brushes that the painters would need, and there were great bundles of cloth, which the painters would spread over the floors, so that the nice clean floors shouldn't get all spattered with paint; and there were some odds and ends besides. ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... his father speak, but who had slipped entirely from his mind. It was Jefferson Davis, a native of Kentucky like Abraham Lincoln. He had been a brave and gallant soldier at Buena Vista. It was said that he had saved the day against the overwhelming odds of Santa Anna. He had been Secretary of War in the old Union, now dissolved forever, according to the Charleston talk. Other names, too, began to grow familiar in Harry's ears. Much was said about the bluff Bob Toombs of Georgia, who feared no man and who would call the roll of his slaves ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Mr. Bascomb went on, "this camp is in a state of mutiny. The men are all at odds ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... chance that an individual taken at random will be so affected is only one in a million. Let the population consist of sixty millions, composed, we will assume, of ten million families, each containing six members. On these data, Professor Stokes has calculated for me that the odds will be no less than 8333 millions to 1 that in the ten million families there will not be even a single family in which one parent and two children will be affected by the peculiarity in question. But ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... be presumptuous in me to say as much of the actual situation in Ireland; but it would be uncandid not to say that the optimists of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee had greater apparent odds in their favour in 1861 than the optimists of Ireland seem to me ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... the glass to look after; and the table-linen was all under my care. I had to answer all the bells, except in the bedrooms. There were other little odds and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... climbed the stairs that led to the ivy room. She found her room-mate already in possession, and with her belongings half-unpacked. Photos adorned her dressing-table, a large American flag draped the mirror, and her bed was spread with odds and ends. She ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... rather by an occult decree of Providence than by any other circumstance. The numbers on each side were nearly the same, or differed so slightly that, in view of past conflicts, fought with much greater odds in favor of the one side, they might be regarded as equal. The Southern army when it approached Gettysburg numbered sixty-seven thousand bayonets, and the cavalry and artillery probably made the entire force about eighty thousand. General Meade's statement ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... odds he had of me, And he shall know that from the Spanish race Revenge, though nere so bloudy, is not base. Away with him A ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... had put the two specimens of which she had providentially become possessed in her lap, and they looked very pretty against the navy-blue of her skirt. Diva was very ingenious: she used up all sorts of odds and ends in a way that did credit to her undoubtedly parsimonious qualities. She could trim a hat with a tooth-brush and a banana in such a way that it looked quite Parisian till you firmly analysed its component parts, and most of her ingenuity was devoted to dress: the more was the pity ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... Hastings, do come here for one second,' and others to like purpose. Conveniently deaf to the voice of the charmers, he rides straight into the horseman's circle, and takes up his position on the heavy-betting side. 'They're laying odds on yours, my lord,' exclaims a bookmaker. 'What odds?' blandly asks the owner. 'Well, my lord, I'll take you six monkeys to four!' 'Put it down,' is the brief response. 'And me, three hundred to two—and me—and me!' clamour a score of pencillers, who ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... pray, good Mistris Sue, You haue a time to heare aswell as speake: You challenge more by odds then is your due, And stand on Arguments are childish weake: Of freedome, liberty, and all content, But in the aire your breath is ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... particularly those of a trivial everyday kind, are so frequent in an ordinary life, that we grow used to their unaccountableness, and forget the question whether the very long odds against such juxtaposition is not almost a disproof of it being a matter of chance at all. What occurred to Elfride at this moment was a case in point. She was vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... clothing is rolled, and careful sailors generally wrap each garment in a piece of muslin before consigning it to the black bag. In the ditty box are kept such articles as toothbrush, brush and comb, small hand glass, writing material, and odds and ends. Each bag and box is numbered, and must be kept in a certain place. At first we thought it wouldn't be possible to keep our clothing in such a small space, but experience taught us that we ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... narrow terraced river-walk of semi-oriental houses, barracks, a mosque, and half-a-dozen streets at right angles, the Desert racing up to the end of each, make all the town. A mile or so up stream under palm trees are bungalows of what must have been cantonments, some machinery repair-shops, and odds and ends of railway track. It is all as paltry a collection of whitewashed houses, pitiful gardens, dead walls, and trodden waste spaces as one would wish to find anywhere; and every bit of it quivers with the remembered life of armies ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... kind of fighting the odds were greatly with the Americans, as Gage, with his memory of Braddock's defeat, might have foreseen. The British complained with exasperation that the militia would not stand up to them. The provincials knew better than to do so. Lightly armed, carrying little ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the world. I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... memory of her as he leaves the house. The girl who has rowed, ridden, or raced at a man's side for days, with the object of getting the better of him at some sport or pastime, cannot reasonably hope to be connected in his thoughts with ideas more tender or more elevated than "odds" or "handicaps," with an undercurrent of pique if his unsexed companion ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... sweet brother," was the answer. "You will care for yourself most damnably and pity yourself most poignantly. I speak from experience. 'Tis odds you will not live, and that is my chief regret. I would you had my thews to keep you alive ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... The odds, however, were much too great for even so dauntless a soul as his; and when the enemy were within some ten or twelve paces, he turned and ran up the tree. In the first fork he crouched, almost hidden, and peered ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... well be avoided, unless we go out and drive them off, in open battle. For the last, they are too strong, to say nothing of the odds of risking fathers of families against mere vagabonds, as I suspect these savages to be. I have told them to help themselves to meal, or grain, of which they will find plenty in the mill. Pork can be got in the houses, and they have made way with a deer already, that I had expected the pleasure ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... with many mighty bowmen, the son of Subhadra, surrounded by several great car-warriors of unrighteous propensities, hath been slain on the field. The slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Subhadra, was a child in years and of childish understanding.[82] He fought in battle against desperate odds. I asked him to open a passage for us in battle. He penetrated within the hostile army, but we could not follow him, obstructed by the ruler of the Sindhus. Alas, they that betake themselves to battle as a profession, always fight with antagonists equally circumstanced ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... occasions, generally had an ear or two of corn in his pocket; and Ned, whose nose had been many a time in that capacious receptacle of odds and ends, after sweeping around his master two or three times, would stop short and come sideling up, half coquetishly, yet with a knowing twinkle in his eye, and commence a search for the little tidbit that he had good reason for knowing lay snugly ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... more have gone and my journals have never been written up, save in chance scraps. The Wanderer is quite as interesting as ever! I took the odds to L2 with him over a race run at Newmarket, and he paid promptly. He puts out little signs of improvement—sprouts of gentility—at times: but one heavy spell of gin and Shakespeare takes him back to the old level again. Still, he is more amusing than the dandies; in ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... of a state, The poor are the most fortunate, Who, save the name of him they call Their king, can find no odds at all. The truth of this you now may read— A fearful old man in a mead, While leading of his Ass about, Was startled at the sudden shout Of enemies approaching nigh. He then advised the Ass to fly, "Lest we ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... is a mining settlement hidden in the oak forest about a mile from the above mentioned railroad. Here, Mr. Pope recently found a small Sunday-school battling against great odds. Intemperance and profanity were rife, and the demand for gospel labor was very urgent. Meetings were held with blessed results, so that shortly ago a church was organized, now one of the strongest in this region. One consecrated young man is ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... wide expanse of the boundless prairie, to that rugged mountainous section of Arizona, where many fabulous fortunes have been won through the discovery of rich ore. The Broncho Rider Boys find themselves impelled, by a stern sense of duty, to make a brave fight against heavy odds, in order to retain possession of a valuable mine that is claimed by some of their relatives. That they meet with numerous strange and thrilling perils while enlisted in this service, can be readily understood; and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the room. He ate a lonely meal, not of the lobster—he kept that for another occasion—but one made up of cold scraps from the pantry. He wandered uneasily about the premises, quieted Job's wails for the time by a gift of eatable odds and ends tossed into the boathouse, smoked, tried to read, and, when it grew dusk, lit the lamps in the towers. At last he walked to the closed door of his helper's room ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... unabashed Michael; "We have been drinking all even to the glories of the day, and to my noble Lord of Leicester and his valiant master of the horse. Drunk! odds blades and poniards, he that would refuse to swallow a dozen healths on such an evening is a base besognio, and a puckfoist, and shall swallow six ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and Toby saw how the two traps were set for the black fox, whose pelt is the one known as silver fox, and by long odds the most prized of all furs, sometimes one fine ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... all classes at Vanebury, and the sporting gentlemen in that thriving borough were soon giving odds upon his chance of success. The Liberals were for the most part careless and over-confident. Their man had won every election for twenty years past, and they could not believe that this Tory lawyer was destined to accomplish ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... More prisoners came in, and also our old friends the Munsters, and General Paget. Rumours galore. We are going to Cape Town with the prisoners; to Harrismith; to Winberg; to the Transvaal on another campaign, etc. Definite orders came to move the next morning. In the evening an unusual flood of odds and ends of rations was poured on us; flour, a little biscuit, a little fat for cooking, diminutive hot potatoes, a taste of goose, commandeered the same day by the mounted gunners, a little butter from the same source, besides the usual sugar, cooked ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... the dead bodies of the two road-agents had revealed nothing as to their identity, for, excepting their weapons, a little money, some odds and ends in their pockets, they had nothing of value about them, and they were buried at the expense of Doctor Dick, who would have it so, as he very ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... It will make no real odds, and he has had enough on his hands to-day. The boy will sleep quietly enough to-night, so let ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bunk at the side were two or three bags evidently containing clothing and other supplies, while on the bunk in the rear were some odds and ends of clothing, a folded tent, a coil of rope, doubtless used by the young adventurers as a tracking line, to assist them in hauling their canoe up the swift stream which connected the lake with the river below, and a rifle in a ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... gravel-sifter. But there were a great many fallals and odds and ends which were not in the least like the sifter which they use for riddling sand. There were little manichords which resembled toes in white woollen stockings, and when they moved it was just as if a foot with two hundred skeleton toes were walking; and ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... Sir Hugh prepared for the defence of the barracks. The mutineers first rifled the city and cantonment, and murdered all the English who came in their way. At noon they opened fire on the intrenchments. From the 6th to the 25th of June, the inmates struggled against fearful odds. Though starving, they resisted successfully. On June 25, Wheeler received a proposal that safe passage would be given to Allahabad to those who were willing to lay down their arms. An armistice was proclaimed, and next morning terms were negotiated. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... decade ago when he first began to think about his age. Another part of the utterance—more particularly that about "movin' on"—consisted of scraps of remarks that had been addressed to him, which he had hoarded up as an ape lays away odds and ends, and which he repeated, parrotlike, when the sun and his pipe warmed Old Dalton into speech. But that idea that the earth was growing yellow—that was a recent uncanny turn of his fancy, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... roomy passages easy to traverse, though there were frequent turns puzzling to the uninitiated. As he approached the cosy bower he heard, to his chagrin, the voice of the guide. What should he do? The odds were too many for him. Wait till next day when his victims would probably be alone? Risk going in upon them before nightfall? How had Stephen eluded his vigilance? In this dilemma he crept near enough to get a view of the interior. The sight of Minnie Brand ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... the horse," I said. "He's worth ten thousand. But if you've two or three hundred to pay for my soiling the shoulders of your shirt, I'm willing to let the odds stand so." ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... been begun against great odds, against powerful interests consolidated in a battle-line that at first seemed impervious, but by tremendous efforts they had made progress; the vast energy and the winning personality of Mr. Grayson were a strong weapon, and Harley was gradually sensible that the people were rallying around ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... from what I have been reading; and I include in these my scrap-books." These were very curious indeed. He had six or eight, of different subjects. There was one of History, one of Natural Science, one which he called "Odds and Ends." But they were not merely books of extracts from newspapers. They had bits of plants and ribbons, shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone and wood, which he had taught the men to cut for him, and they were beautifully illustrated. He ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... together and became more coherent during these two years of teaching, during the struggle against the odds of class teaching. It was always a prison to her, the school. But it was a prison where her wild, chaotic soul became hard and independent. When she was well enough and not tired, then she did not hate the teaching. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... (as less there could not be) of spirit and movement in the battle-scene where Edward refuses to send relief to his son, wishing the prince to win his spurs unaided, and earn the first-fruits of his fame single-handed against the heaviest odds; but the forcible feebleness of a minor poet's fancy shows itself amusingly in the mock stoicism and braggart philosophy of the King's reassuring reflection, "We ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... carry about with me that miscellaneous lot of household furniture—bed, blankets, pots, kettles and frying pan, plates, dishes and wash-basin, coffee-pots and coffee, tea, sugar and butter, salt, pickles, rice, bread and wine, pepper and curry powder, and half a hundred more odds and ends, the constant looking after which, packing and repacking, calculating and contriving, have been the standing plague of my life for the last seven years. You will better understand this when I tell you that I have made in that time about eighty movements, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... in being hunted in my comings and goings through the village. It became my Africa, where any tree might hide a deadly enemy, and any fence an ambush. I discovered secret passages through backyards. I matched cunning against overwhelming force, and sometimes, when the odds were not too great against me, I remembered Joshua and another David and turned on the Philistines and smote them right manfully. At other times the hostilities lagged, but they never ceased entirely, and often they broke ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... fluctuations of the gambling market, and their causes. I gather that extraordinary care has been bestowed upon these details; but criticism here must be left to experts, I only know that, not once or twice only in the course of his narrative, Mr. Moore makes us study the odds against a horse almost as eagerly as if it carried our own money: because it does indeed carry for a while the destiny of Esther Waters—and yet for a while only. We feel that, whichever horse wins ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to Ireland—the horses literally putting-to—when Mr. Colburn arrived with his flattering proposition [for a new book]. Taking up a scrubby manuscript volume which the servant was about to thrust into the pocket of the carriage, he asked what was that. I said it was one of my volumes of odds and ends, and read him my last entry. "This is the very thing," he said, and carried it off with him.' The book was correctly described as a volume of odds and ends, and was hardly worth preserving ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... his friends, he did not hesitate to open and examine the chests of the poor fellows; but he found nothing therein except such coarse clothing as is usually worn by merchant seamen, and a few little odds and ends of no particular value, except perhaps a sailor's palm or two, with sail-needles; and in one or two instances a little housewife with sewing needles, thread, ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... just did slip out, as you say. An old hand, a man accustomed to be at odds with the laws and the police, would have known better. Did he make the same statement here?" asked ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... four brave men," he said, in conclusion, "who, at such odds and risk, pursued and took the prisoner and his party, on that glorious occasion, two are present, and in positions which amply testify the high estimation that has been placed on their gallant conduct. The others, the two Woodburns, who ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... to be known by all who desired to win. The rook and knight were estimated at about sixpence each; the queen, threepence; the pawns, three-halfpence; and the 'side-pawns,' three farthings. The value of bishops varied, while the king was beyond all price. The regulations respecting odds were also well defined, in degrees from a single pawn up to a knight and rook; but any one claiming the latter odds was held not 'to count as a chess-player.' And it was not unusual for works on chess to contain puzzling problems, representations of drawn games, and well-combined positions. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... fortune, have the thousand horse. Soft ye, my lords, and sweet Zenocrate! You must be forced from me ere you go.— A thousand horsemen! we five hundred foot! An odds too great for us to stand against. But are they rich? and ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... men fell fast among the Usutu. They raised their war shout and came on, though slowly, for they feared the bullets. Step by step John Dunn and his people were thrust back, fighting gallantly against overwhelming odds. They were level with us, not a quarter of a mile to our left. They were pushed past us. They vanished among the bush behind us, and a long while passed before ever I heard what became of them, for we met no more ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... in the old time you never resembled me to a churn, let alone a cracked one. You used to christen me a pillar, and a tree, and a rock, and a polished corner; but there, what's the odds, when a man has done his duty? The names of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... explained, "he thinks you've been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it's odds against the matter coming ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... which have been raided, and canoes they'll get—likewise help from the recently raided. When dark comes, away they'll attack us, and personally, I mean to see it out fighting, and they'll probably chop me afterward, and the odds are I give some of them bad dyspepsia. About that I don't care two pins. But I don't intend to be caught alive. That means torture, and no error about it." He shivered. "I've seen their subjects after they've played their torture ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... of the arbitrary governments of Europe, was viewed with alarm by their despotic rulers, and the enslaved hordes of the imperial Russian were hurled upon the free sons of Hungary. Even with such mighty odds, we should not have despaired for Hungary, had she been afforded but one year of peaceful preparation to complete her organization and develop her resources. Her gallant sons upon her own soil, and battling for their homes, their altars, ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... sheltered, fed, and clothed about 80 aged or broken-down men and women. In 1874 the Sisters removed to their present establishment, at Harborne, where they minister to nearly double the number. The whole of this large family are provided for out of the scraps and odds-and-ends gathered by the Sisters from private houses, shops, hotels, restaurants, and bars of the town, the smallest scraps of material crusts of bread, remains of meat, even to cigar ends, all being acceptable to the black robed ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Oh, call me pet names, dearest, call me a marine! In twice a thousand years shall the unholy invention of man labor at odds to beget the fellow to this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Lincolnshire, and were not far from Sleaford, when they learned that Ginkell with an irresistible force was close on their track. Victory and escape were equally out of the question. The bravest warriors could not contend against fourfold odds. The most active infantry could not outrun horsemen. Yet the leaders, probably despairing of pardon, urged the men to try the chance of battle. In that region, a spot almost surrounded by swamps and pools was without difficulty found. Here the insurgents were drawn up; and the cannon were planted ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... girlishness in her face that attracted him beyond measure. She appeared to be about twenty years of age, and was such a girl as those he had known and danced with, in those distant university days when his future seemed assured, and life a joyous conquest with all the odds in his favor. Now she was of another world, for he was, after all, but a workingman, while she, the daughter of a millionaire lumberman, would dance and associate with those other university men whose financial incomes enabled ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Prince, nor longer tempt the gods. Throw up the game,—too fearful are the odds. With honour canst thou quit this high divan, For thou'st done more than any other man. Yet two successes serve not, though they're glorious, Unless for the third time thou be victorious. And thou, my domineering, wilful child, Wilt not relent ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... considered, it may cease to be a matter of so much amazement abroad how it happened that our noble Army in Mexico, regulars and volunteers, were victorious upon every battlefield, however fearful the odds against them. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... all odds the most decorous affair ever held in our house. At the end the gifts were distributed—Parisian dolls, toy baby-carriages and paint boxes for the girls; steam engines, magic lanterns and miniature ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... the scenes he was forced to witness every day. His conscience smote him and he reproached himself with being in town when duty should have called him to the side of his fellow-countrymen, struggling against such fearful odds in their efforts to ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... treasures; the absence of the sovereign at the critical moment: all these are causes which operated powerfully to that end. And of these all that relate to Irish affairs were mainly brought about by the heroic constancy, in the face of enormous odds, the unwearied energy, and high military skill ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... make the poachers think there was a bittern booming in Bilberry Moss—that, in the case you put, death only should have parted me from Mary. But I have lived in the world fifty-five years; I have been forced to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, the odds are, if Mary had loved and not scorned me, if I had been secure of her affection, certain of her constancy, been irritated by no doubts, stung by no humiliations—the odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on the saddle)—"the odds are I ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... to touch us up in the papers. It's any odds on it," said M. Formery gloomily. "Where's the housekeeper? I should like to ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... hospital nursing, did so much to mitigate the horrors of war. Her example was nobly followed half a century later by two other English ladies, who, although they had not to encounter the desperate odds connected with ignorance and old-fashioned ideas which Miss Nightingale successfully combated, did marvellous service by displaying what private enterprise can do in a national emergency—an emergency with which, in its suddenness, gravity, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... a well-fought encounter. Each man, himself a warrior, was able to appreciate the value of the strokes and parries. The betting at the commencement had run high upon Sweyn, and horses, armour, arms, and slaves had been freely wagered upon his success; but as the fight went on the odds veered round, and the demeanour of the combatants had as much to do with this as the skill and strength shown by Edmund in his defence. The Dane was flushed and furious; his temper gave way under the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... These people rob and enslave one another, although of the same island and even kindred. They are cruel among themselves. They do not often dare to kill one another, except by treachery or at great odds; and him who is slain his opponents continue to strike ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... travels, criticism, and even fiction, has acted as an expert on old pictures, raised carnations, and even, in time of need, performed surgical operations on wounded soldiers—all of it, not as an amateur, but as a professional asking no odds of anyone. In addition to which, he has been a painter, and a painter whose work has shown no sign of haste or distraction. The quiet, human side of English life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is what has most appealed to him, the country parlors and white-washed kitchens, peopled ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... Walter Scott, introduces historical personages in his fiction. The page Jack Wilton, the hero of the tale, a little superior by his rank to the ordinary picaro has, like Gil Blas, little money in his pocket and a few odds and ends of Latin in his head; he distributes in his conversation the trite quotations that have remained by him, skilfully enough to persuade the vulgar that he does not belong to their tribe. "Tendit ad sidera ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Moro Malay, Acuna Lacasamana, had great influence with these women. Being envious of the valor of the Spaniards, he was continually opposing them, and seeking their destruction, with whom, on this account, they were always at odds. It must be understood that this Moro held unlawful relations with the wife of Langara, the stepmother ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... considerable sieges or battles of the war, five, besides the great bushfight in which the Indians defeated Braddock, were victories for France; and in four of these—Oswego, Fort William Henry, Montmorenci, and Ste.-Foy—the odds were ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Artaphernes, from the Cilician shores against the devoted coasts of Euboea and Attica. And after largely deducting from this total, so as to allow for mere mariners and camp followers, there must still have remained fearful odds against the national levies ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... applauses of his dexterity, it was evident that he must at last be overpowered; and the nobles around Prince John implored him with one voice to throw down his warder, and to save so brave a knight from the disgrace of being overcome by odds. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... and compliments,' answered the author of the stratagem, 'belong rather to you than to me, friend; for by Him that made me, you could give the odds of two brays to the greatest and most skilful brayer in the world; for your tones are rich, your time correct, your notes well sustained, and cadences abrupt and beautiful; in short, I own myself vanquished, and yield to you the palm ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... play, Laura and Scott Burton arrived on horseback, and the next morning the rest of the family appeared on the scene. We had sent over to see if Laura would play Audrey on so short notice, and bring over some odds and ends for costumes. We actually had an audience of sixteen persons, and we had no idea of playing before anybody but Aunt Truth ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... soldiers knew his person, and adored him. The generals were sure to meet him in every scene of action, and sought his company at other times. As soon as fortune declared for him, his first care was to make restitution, by desiring Cameran to go his halves in all parties where the odds were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sloping sides of the ditch were fringed with Boers, who had ridden thither before dawn and were now waiting for the unsuspecting column. There were not more than three hundred of them, and four times their number were approaching; but no odds can represent the difference between the concealed man with the magazine rifle and the man ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing less, stunted in their growth and ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... know. And being in his late forties Henry began tantalizing me with odds on the Gilded Youth. He certainly was a beautiful boy—tall, chestnut haired, clean cut, and altogether charming. He played Brahms and Irving Berlin with equal grace on the piano in the women's lounge on the ship and an amazing game of stud poker with the San Francisco boys in the smoking room. ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... her alarm clock Patty rose early in the morning, for there was much to do by way of final preparation. Before breakfast she had attended to many left-over odds and ends, and when she appeared at the table she said only an absent-minded "good-morning," and then knit her brows as if in ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... draw, and Varney received a fall so sudden and violent that his sword flew several paces from his hand. Lambourne came up just in time to save the life of Varney, and Tressilian perceived it was madness to press the quarrel further against such odds. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... we are looking for something great, for adventure and excitement and battle against odds, we can find it much better than in brutally slashing at our fellows, or running amuck at the beck of our impulses, by putting our valor at the service of some really great human endeavor. If we want to get into the big game, the great ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... a hold upon myself, I turned to Nan white-hot with eloquence. Now I was talking not wholly for myself or the pennant, but for this boy and girl who were at odds in ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... echoed Mrs. Belloc. "I've heard his income is fifty thousand a year, what with lessons and coaching and odds and ends. There's a lot of them that do well, because so many fool women with nothing to do cultivate their voices—when they can't sing a little bit. But he tops them all. I don't see how ANY teacher can put fifteen dollars ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... bedroom door, in a lobby furnished with odds and ends, was a wickerwork sofa that would do finely for Narayan Singh, and that old soldier didn't need to have it pointed out to him. Without word or sign from us he threw his kit on the floor, unrolled his blankets, removed his boots, curled up on the sofa, and if he didn't go to sleep ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... you and the young woman should understand one another and agree beforehand which should be beat; and if you take my advice you will determine between you that the young woman shall be beat, as I am sure that the odds will run high upon her, her character as a fist-woman being spread far and wide, so that all the flats who think it will be all right, will back her, as I myself would, if I thought it would be a fair thing." "Then," said I, "you would not have ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... conquered, instead of conquering! Oh, the fortune of battles lies in the hands of Providence; the wisest disposition of troops, the most acute calculations are brought to naught by seeming accident. Should I expose my army to the fearful odds, should I hazard so many lives to gratify my ambition and my pride? My generals say it will be wiser not to attack, but to wait and be attacked. Oh, Winterfeldt, Winterfeldt, were you but here, you would not advise this, not you! Why have you been taken from ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Fenwick, in course. It don't make no odds about dinner. But I was wanting just to say a word to you about that poor young ooman there." This he said in a slow, half-hesitating voice, as though he could hardly bring himself to speak of the unfortunate one to whom he alluded. The Vicar muttered some word of assent, and then the miller ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... wall Nell Gwynne's mirror, in its curious frame of needlework. Oh! You wish to take a peep at yourself in Nelly's looking-glass? Odds, fish! mind you do not overset that basset table of Japan manufacture—another Strawberry Hill relic. Now, are you satisfied? Those beautiful enamels, and that charming Bermudian brain-stone, the wonderful network ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... if he was a soldier, would be the sort that would want to lead a charge where the odds were against him. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... carrying him away up above us as we sat on the sled; the conveyance, a home-made "bob" sled upon which had been placed rough boards piled with hay and fur robes for the comfort of passengers, and the harness home-made like the "rig," was ingeniously constructed of odds and ends of old rope of different colors which the men assured us, when interrogated upon the point, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... gave you the most glorious chance I ever saw in all my born days. After using up your chance with the revolver you had this here boundless plain to run upon. Why, I've dodged a hundred Indians in my day with less of a chance, and all the odds against me, for they were firing at me. But you couldn't be shot down, for I didn't happen to feel inclined to use my revolver. It didn't seem fair." And saying this, Obed tenderly drew out his revolver from his ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... lies I hate, an' ther's lies that don't make no odds. You've lied in a way I hate. You've lied 'cos you had to lie, knowin' you was doin' wrong. If you hadn't know'd you was doin' wrong you wouldn't have needed to lie—sure. Say, you're not only handin' over that kiddie to her mother, you're handin' her over to that feller. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Emily said, our visit there had something the same effect as a picnic or tea drinking at little Anne's famous baby house. In like manner, it was tiny, square, with one sash-window on each side of the door, but it was nearly covered with creepers, odds and ends which Clarence brought from home, and induced to flourish and take root better than their parent stocks. In his nursery days his precision had given him the name of 'the old bachelor,' and he had all a sailor's tidiness. Even his black cat ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tussle between one big boy and four small ones, the odds are usually in favour of the former, but Dangle on the present occasion did not find his task quite as easy as he expected. The juniors defended themselves with great tenacity, and although the senior's blows came home pretty hard, he could only deal with them one at ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... regretted that the trimming was sold out. It was Cecilia's face of blank dismay that made him suddenly remember that there was possibly an odd length somewhere, and a search revealed it, put away in a box of odds and ends. Cecilia's thanks were so heartfelt that the assistant was ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... you see what that means?" asked the girl. "He is trying to make me feel that it would be better to produce Wren than to keep her away from the lawyers, because it looks 'odd.' Well, I'll take my chances on the odds," she said with a laugh; "and Wren Salvey will be 'produced' when I am sure that the motor girls' strange promise will be kept. We have those smart men just where we want them now, and if they want Wren they must give us ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... Paris. Repudiated by his own people in the Congressional elections; harassed on every side and at every turn by his political enemies, he still pursued the even tenor of his way and accomplished what he had in mind, against the greatest odds. ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... her grow up from a rangy, long-legged, stringy-haired leetle colt think more o' what she is than what she looks like, but now that you mention it, I'll lay there ain't a Jane this side o' the border and mighty few above it that can give her odds on looks. And there ain't a man in these parts but has his trigger set for the guy that'd look cross-eyed ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... and it was growing dusk when they entered a rambling attic at the top of the house. It was filled with the heterogeneous collection of odds and ends such as accumulate in any large house—pieces of furniture, broken or too worn for use; pictures, some with frames and some without; toys, a nursery chair, and who knows what beside. Mrs. ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... these motives that the most unthinking audience could fail to understand. No crowd can resist the fervor of a patriot who goes down scornful before many spears. Show the audience a flag to die for, or a stalking ghost to be avenged, or a shred of honor to maintain against agonizing odds, and it will thrill with an enthusiasm as ancient as the human race. Few are the plays that can succeed without the moving force of love, the most familiar of all emotions. These themes do not require that the audience ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Jackson," reports Lewis, "showed no elation. In fact, he had for some time considered his election certain, the only question in his mind being the extent of the majority. When he finished looking over the summary by States, his only remark was that Isaac Hill, considering the odds against him, had done wonders ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... history of mankind seen as a whole, and simply accepting these conditions as part of the order of nature, they ask us to overthrow an institution which is immeasurable ages older than man himself. The odds are somewhat against them, one may surmise, but they may do considerable injury to their own ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... French word, formed by a kind of onomatopoeia, meaning a heterogeneous collection of odds and ends; cf. de bric et de broc, corresponding to our "by hook or by crook"; or by reduplication from brack, refuse), objects of "virtu," a collection of old furniture, china, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... so sound, however, was the other dead man's vote—that of Toth Janos, the potter. We had sent his substitute, the poultry-dealer, with a cartload of odds and ends to Galicia, just to have him out of the way. We managed to make it difficult to prove which of the two men named Toth Janos had been buried two days before election-day by providing for ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... been said they would not abide the nomination of Taylor; but since the deed has been done, they are fast falling in, and in my opinion we shall have a most overwhelming, glorious triumph. One unmistakable sign is that all the odds and ends are with us—Barnburners, Native Americans, Tyler men, disappointed office-seeking Locofocos, and the Lord knows what. This is important, if in nothing else, in showing which way the wind blows. Some of the sanguine men have set down all the States as certain ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... matter to live—not the dogs among the shops of Galata or Stamboul, but those whose "parish" lies in the large burying-grounds and desert-places without the city; for each keeps, or rather is kept, to his district; and if he chanced to venture into a strange one, the odds against his return would be very large. One battered old animal, to whom I used occasionally to toss a scrap of food, always followed me from the hotel to the cross-street at Pera, where the two soldiers stand on guard, but would never come beyond this point. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... up, smiling at her, as he did so, with a wondrous look of triumph—not the look of one who has just placed his feet, quite consciously, upon the road that leads to prison, but that of one who has won victory against great odds. She ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... warfare, and very often has no commander. In France he is called a "franc-tireur," or free-shooter. The guerrilla goes out to live on the country, to skulk, to war on the weak, and never attack save from ambush, or when the odds clearly are on his side. His military status is barely one remove from that ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the West, and they mean to spring him on the London talent. Sir Lothian Hume is his patron, and to make a long story short, he lays me odds that I won't find a young one of his weight to meet him. I told him that I had not heard of any good young ones, but that I had an old one who had not put his foot into a ring for many years, who would make his man wish he had ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bits of old songs and psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely odds and ends and ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... uncertainty does allure me. I always enjoyed skating on thin ice, from the days of college when I loved to get through a course of lectures on as little work as possible. The satisfaction of 'getting away with it' against odds was so exhilarating. I will return after my little dinner with Warren at the Club. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
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