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Chance   Listen
noun
Chance  n.  
1.
A supposed material or psychical agent or mode of activity other than a force, law, or purpose; fortune; fate; in this sense often personified. "It is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they signify merely men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause." Note: Many of the everyday events which people observe and attribute to chance fall into the category described by Clark, as being in practice too complex for people to easily predict, but in theory predictable if one were to know the actions of the causal agents in great detail. At the subatomic level, however, there is much evidence to support the notion derived from Heisenberg's uncertaintly principle, that phenomena occur in nature which are truly randomly determined, not merely too complex to predict or observe accurately. Such phenomena, however, are observed only with one or a very small number of subatomic particles. When the probabilities of observed events are determined by the behavior of aggregates of millions of particles, the variations due to such quantum indeterminacy becomes so small as to be unobservable even over billions of repetitions, and may therefore be ignored in practical situations; such variations are so improbable that it would be irrational to condition anything of consequence upon the occurrence of such an improbable event. A clever experimenter, nevertheless, may contrive a system where a very visible event (such as the dynamiting of a building) depends on the occurrence of a truly chance subatomic event (such as the disintegration of a single radioactive nucleus). In such a contrived situation, one may accurately speak of an event determined by chance, in the sense of a random occurrence completely unpredictable, at least as to time. "Any society into which chance might throw him." "That power Which erring men call Chance."
2.
The operation or activity of such agent. "By chance a priest came down that way."
3.
The supposed effect of such an agent; something that befalls, as the result of unknown or unconsidered forces; the issue of uncertain conditions; an event not calculated upon; an unexpected occurrence; a happening; accident; fortuity; casualty. "In the field of observation, chance favors only the mind that is prepared." Note: This quotation is usually found in the form "Chance favors the prepared mind." It is a common rejoinder to the assertion that a scientist was "lucky" to have made some particular discovery because of unanticipated factors. A related quotation, from the Nobel-Prize-winning chemist R. B. Woodward, is that "A scientist has to work wery hard to get to the point where he can be lucky." "It was a chance that happened to us." "The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts, And wins (O shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts." "I spake of most disastrous chance."
4.
A possibility; a likelihood; an opportunity; with reference to a doubtful result; as, a chance to escape; a chance for life; the chances are all against him. "So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune. That I would get my life on any chance, To mend it, or be rid on 't"
5.
(Math.) Probability. Note: The mathematical expression, of a chance is the ratio of frequency with which an event happens in the long run. If an event may happen in a ways and may fail in b ways, and each of these a + b ways is equally likely, the chance, or probability, that the event will happen is measured by the fraction a/a + b, and the chance, or probability, that it will fail is measured by b/a + b.
Chance comer, one who comes unexpectedly.
The last chance, the sole remaining ground of hope.
The main chance, the chief opportunity; that upon which reliance is had, esp. self-interest.
Theory of chances, Doctrine of chances (Math.), that branch of mathematics which treats of the probability of the occurrence of particular events, as the fall of dice in given positions.
To mind one's chances, to take advantage of every circumstance; to seize every opportunity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books



... losing that air she had of a venerable and dignified sheep, became a Mittie May transformed; a Mittie May reverted to another and more feverish time; a Mittie May stirred by olden memories to nightmarish performances. By chance once Jeff had happened upon her secret, and now, all in one illuminating flash, recalling the conditions governing this discovery, he gave vent to a low anticipatory chuckle. It was the first chuckle ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... sitting at my side, as usual—I suddenly thought, with the brutality that characterized me in these matters—"I will ask her to let me sleep with her." I still fought against any premonitory thought of self-abuse, but here, I thought to myself, is a chance of something better that will do me no harm and perhaps good. When she understood me she turned very red and walked away, shaking her head. But I let her understand that was the only way of retaining me, and finally, when they had all gone to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of the venerable Crittenden to Affect a compromise aroused a faint hope. But he offered little else than an extension westward of the Missouri Compromise line; and he never really had the slightest chance of effecting that consummation, which in fact could not be effected. His plan was finally defeated on the ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... difficult day. We were forced off the ridges, by the quantity of snow among the timber, and obliged to take to the mountain sides, where occasionally rocks and a southern exposure afforded us a chance to scramble along. But these were steep, and slippery with snow and ice, and the tough evergreens of the mountain impeded our way, tore our skins, and exhausted our patience. Some of us had the misfortune ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... seen between the blinders of habit: and in his walk down that narrow vista Granice cut a correct enough figure. To a vision free to follow his whole orbit his story would be more intelligible: it would be easier to convince a chance idler in the street than the trained intelligence hampered by a sense of his antecedents. This idea shot up in him with the tropic luxuriance of each new seed of thought, and he began to walk the streets, and to frequent out-of-the-way chop-houses and bars in his search for ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... determined to bring about my wife's restoration to health. For that reason I am going to have specialists down here, and above all things to change for a time her place of residence. My own feeling is that she will stand a much better chance of recovery without ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to the Legislative Assembly occurred shortly before Lunalilo's death, and the rallying-cry, "Hawaii for the Hawaiians," was used with such effect that the most respectable foreign candidates, even in the capital, had not a chance of success, and for the first time in Hawaiian constitutional history, a house was elected, consisting, with one exception, of natives. Immediately on the king's death, Kalakaua, who was understood to represent the foreign interest as well as the policy indicated by ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... following day. She knew Roger was watching her from the front porch, and as she turned toward him she saw she had wounded him so deeply that she had some compunctions; but he avoided meeting her, nor did she find a chance to speak to him again. When, an hour later, she was ready to depart with Mr. Atwood for the distant landing, Roger was not to be found. Her conscience smote her a little, but she felt that it would be the best for him in the future, and would probably end his nonsense about leaving home and winning ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... accommodation and pioneer conditions throughout in no way deter them. We expected that their criticism would be, "It is not worth while." That has never been the case. Before the war they came again and again, as a testimony to their belief in the value of the effort. Some have given promising children a chance for a complete education in the States. Indeed, one such lad, taken down some years ago by one of the students, entered Amherst College last year; while several were fighting with ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for ever, and I never heard ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... of miles away from the Main Street. I do not know how or why, but the cling-clang of that bell always stirred strange fancies in my mind, and strange things appeared quite possible. Whenever the bell went tinkle I began to wonder who it was outside, and whether by chance they wanted me, and what they might want of me. But the caller was never better than some neighbour, who needed a button or ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... took the German off his guard, and he turned swiftly to see who might be behind him. It was the opportunity that the young captain and the young lieutenant had hoped would come, and, taking a perilous chance, they threw themselves on the back of the German, each at the same time catching hold of a hand that held a pistol. Then Gif rushed in; and between them the cadets succeeded in hurling the fellow, muscular though he ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... for her letters written to her friend Buzot while she was in prison; yet it should be remembered that there was not the slightest chance of their meeting again, and, besides, the letters reveal the terrible struggle through which she had passed. While in prison, her beauty, grace, and fearlessness won and humanized nearly all who came under her spell. She was once unexpectedly set at liberty, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... secret door here; and even if there were one, and all the Mauprats, living and dead, knew the secret of it, what were that to us? Do we belong to the police that we should hunt out these wretched creatures? And if by chance we found them hidden somewhere, should we not help them to escape, rather than hand them over to justice? We are armed; we need not be afraid that they will assassinate us to-night; and if they amuse themselves by frightening us, my word, woe betide them! I have no eye for either relatives ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... replied Jack, with a wave of his hand. "I hadn't hoped for such a chance. But it's due me. Who's in the ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... which the Negroes themselves, or their friends, have a right to ask in their behalf is, that they shall have a chance to show the stuff they are made of. The immortal Lincoln gave them this chance when he admitted them to wear the blue and carry a musket; and right manfully did they justify his confidence. There was not better fighting done during the civil war than was done by some of the Negro troops. ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... since. I reached the place just before the final cleansing, and brother Fritz, just to let us know that he existed, and that he had a spite against us, persisted in flinging his shrapnel around, thereby keeping me well on the run. He did not give me the slightest chance to get pictures, nor to meditate on the surroundings; in fact the only meditation I indulged in was to wonder whether the next shrapnel bullet would strike my helmet plumb on the top or glance off the rim. Then thinking of George Grave's remark, I called Fritz a "nasty ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... the first to cover them with ridicule and to chase them from the stage;(1) he has also dismissed that slave, whom one never failed to set a-weeping before you, so that his comrade might have the chance of jeering at his stripes and might ask, "Wretch, what has happened to your hide? Has the lash rained an army of its thongs on you and laid your back waste?" After having delivered us from all these wearisome ineptitudes and these ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... that Kruger Bobs had abandoned his raw-boned steed and placed himself astride the sacred body of the thoroughbred Nig. On such a night and after such a battle, a horse abandoned was a horse forever lost. Neither The Nig nor Piggie could be left to any chance ownership, but neither could Piggie, fresh from a two-day fight, be left to the mercies of an inexperienced rider. Three inches shorter than his master, Kruger Bobs weighed fifty pounds the more, and he rode with the resilient lightness ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... conforming to Tao man finds happiness. For Confucianism, as for Europe, man is the pivot and centre of things, but less so for Taoism and Buddhism. Philosophic Taoism, being somewhat abstruse and unpractical, might seem to have little chance of becoming a popular superstition. But from early times it was opposed to Confucianism, and as Confucianism became more and more the hall-mark of the official and learned classes, Taoism tended to become ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... when he wants them. The winds blow as they list. These institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they are the instruments of wisdom. Wisdom cannot create materials; they are the gifts of Nature or of chance; her pride is in the use. The perennial existence of bodies corporate and their fortunes are things particularly suited to a man who has long views,—who meditates designs that require time in fashioning, and which propose duration when they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... but Mrs. Graham was a little sorry that she had let such a good chance go by for saying something that was near her heart, so presently she added, "I am sorry that poor Marilla hasn't a better gift at personal decoration. It seems a pity to let her disfigure that pretty ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... doubled in price in consequence of certain military preparations undertaken at Nantes, and that speculators had arrived at Angers to buy coin, the old wine-grower, by the simple process of borrowing horses from his farmers, seized the chance of selling his gold and of bringing back in the form of treasury notes the sum he intended to put into the Funds, having swelled it considerably by ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... extravagantly puerile as the plot, which turns on a set of banished men playing at hell and devils in caverns close to a populous city, and brings into the action a series of the most absurd escapes, duels, chance-meetings, hidings, findings, and all manner of other devices for spinning out an unnatural story. Many who know nothing more of Suckling's plays know that Aglaura enjoys the eccentric possession of two fifth acts, so that it can be made a tragedy or a tragi-comedy at pleasure. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... us wait, dear," replied her mother, who, grave and pallid as a ghost, would eat nothing that, by any chance, could be made to ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... securing work. At this place he met a criminal, a former acquaintance. He, too, was without money. They talked over their misfortunes, and after duly considering the matter, came to the conclusion that out of crime there was no chance to get another start. They planned a burglary for the following night. A residence some distance from the central portion of the city was entered. They obtained ten dollars and a silver watch, and concluded to continue their criminal efforts the next evening. During the ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... daily crop of "furphies" or rumours. Some of these, it was suspected, were set going by the Intelligence Section of the General Staff, but many of them were the deliberate creation of a few people with a rather perverted sense of humour. Others developed from the chance remark of some individual speculating on what might be, or what he hoped would be. The "Anzac Liar," as the unknown person was designated, dealt with many subjects, from an advance to a retirement, from the landing of a Greek ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... did not want to give her mother's indecision a chance to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience that if this happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of decision Claire made up her mind for one thing—she would either go to Mrs. Condor's evening alone or ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... couldn't get away, and the boar might have got at him before I could have had a chance to bring any ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... Then the dispute died down. Arkhipov proposed a game of chance. They uncovered a green table, set lighted candles at its corners and commenced to play leisurely and silently as in winter. Arkhipov sat erect, resting his elbows at right angles ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... department was quite crowded with parents escorting their children about. Like America, England appears to be well stocked with parents who make a custom of taking their young and susceptible offspring to places where the young ones stand a good chance of being scared into connipshun fits. The official guide was in the Chamber of Horrors. He was piloting a large group of visitors about, but as soon as he saw our smaller party he left them and came directly to ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... residence here unpleasant. There's nothing to be gained by sentimental talk about the business, my dear Paulina. My friends at the clubs have begun to grow suspicious of this house, and I don't think there's a chance of my ever winning another sovereign in these rooms. Why, then, should you remain to be tormented by your creditors? Return to Paris, where you have twice as many devoted slaves and admirers as in this detestable straight-laced land ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... the drowning of some forty fellow-creatures, and the destruction of a fine merchant-ship. We hauled the single poor fellow that was saved on board. The consternation among the officers was very great. It blew too hard to lower the boats: no effort was or could be made to rescue any chance struggler not carried down in the vortex of the parted and sunken ship— ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... of the imperial will came out when he reached the great telescope. The moon, near first quarter, was then shining, but the night was more than half cloudy, and there was no hope of obtaining more than a chance glimpse at it through the clouds. But he wished to see the moon through the telescope. I replied that the sky was now covered, and it was very doubtful whether we should get a view of the moon. But he required that the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... individual on the whole island, the crowd being prevented from trampling us to death only by the incessant exertions and vociferations of Too-wit. Our chief security lay, however, in the presence of Too-wit himself among us, and we resolved to stick by him closely, as the best chance of extricating ourselves from the dilemma, sacrificing him immediately upon the first appearance ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... taken up should be left in the ground till the foliage turns yellow, or dies down naturally. This gives the bulbs a chance to ripen. Cutting off the foliage and digging too early is a not uncommon and serious mistake. Bulbs that have been planted in places that are wanted for summer bedding plants may be dug with the foliage on and heeled-in under a tree, or along a fence, to ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... admirals, but perfect silence is considered the most respectful way of greeting the Emperor himself.) The Imperial train, which was preceded by a pilot engine drawing a van full of rather anxious-looking police, slowed down on approaching the station so that everyone had a chance of seeing the Emperor, who was facing us. All the school children of the district had been marshalled where they could get a good view. The Japanese bow of greatest respect—it has been introduced since the Restoration, I was told—is an inclination ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... fire, for he was on his legs again in a second, chasing the bear's tail directly before our muzzles," said Pomp, quietly laughing. "But luckily a stick flew up under his feet. Down he went again. That gave two or three of us a chance to send some lead after the beast. He got a wound—we tracked him by his blood on the ground—we could see it plain as day by the glare of light—it led straight towards the fire that was running up through the leaves and thickets on the north. I expected that when he met that he would turn ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... appetite. At the start he could not think of drinking coffee made from the dirty river water and his stomach turned at the thought of eating blue bacon fried in a pan that was open to receive any little thing that might chance to drop in. He was now so hardened that he could eat a piece of duck washed in the thick water, or would snatch a piece of bacon off of the mud and swallow ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... Mrs. Briggs as brief as possible, he alighted at her gate, and knocked impatiently at her door. He found her pretty sick, while both her children needed a prescription, and so long a time was he detained that his heart misgave him on his homeward route, lest Maddy should be gone, and with her the chance to remedy the wrong he might ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... foresaw it in vision, or clearly anticipated it, scarcely a realm of fruitful speculation of which he was not a freeman; and as if there were hardly a form of human energy which he did not manifest. And all that he demanded of life was the chance to be useful! Surely, such a man brings us the gladdest of all tidings—the wonderful possibilities of the human family, of whose chances ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... the matrons, to prevent an eternal prattle that would drown all manner of intelligibility, I found it absolutely necessary to sew up their mouths; so that between the blind judges and the dumb matrons methought the trial had a chance of being terminated sooner than it otherwise would. The matrons, instead of their tongues, had other instruments to convey their ideas: each of them had three quizzes, one quiz pendent from the string that sewed up her mouth, and another quiz in either ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... characteristic action: wind, sunshine, a wandering scent, the freshness of dew, all the small sensuous pleasures that most men neglect, Lawrence would go out of his way to procure. "I'm breaking my rule." Long ago he had resolved never to let himself get fond of any one again, because in this world of chance and change, at the mercy of a blindly striking power, the game is not worth the candle: one ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... objections to the bicycle to which I have referred were sufficient to prevent many, especially elderly men, from dreaming of becoming cyclists. So long as the tricycle was a crude and clumsy machine, there was no chance of cycling becoming a part, as it almost is and certainly soon will be, of our national life. The tricycle has been brought to such a state of perfection that it is difficult to imagine where further progress can ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... cream-of-tartar in proper proportions is harmless. But double the proportion of cream-of-tartar and the result is internal riot. "And a leetle spice to kill the bitter of the taste ought to work all right," he soliloquized. Then he remembered Chance. Loring had left to oversee the establishment of an outlying camp. The Mexican who assisted Sundown seemed stupid and sullen. Sundown found excuse to enter his bedroom, where he hastily scrawled a note to Corliss. Later he tied the note to the inside of the ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... lines of August's note, and could only understand that she was dismissed. Outraged by her mother's tyranny, spurned by her lover, she stood like a hunted creature, brought to bay, looking for the last desperate chance for escape. ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... a designation of such packet or passenger ships as trade periodically and regularly to and from ports beyond sea, in contradistinction to chance vessels. Also, a term applied by seamen to men-of-war ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... an entire week almost in a trance, and when the day of the drawing arrived, Thursday morning, I was so pale, so sick-looking that the parents of conscripts envied, so to speak, my appearance for their sons. "That fellow," they said, "has a chance; he would drop the first mile. Some people are born ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... foot apart—running north and south. These wide rows allow free access of air and sunlight to the soil, which may then be cultivated. Under the old system this space would be full of weeds; therefore impracticable. This gives the young wheat a chance to spread out, to send up from twenty to forty stout stems from the root-system of a single grain of seed. The growing stems become more sturdy, bear larger heads, heads with more and larger kernels, of heavier, brighter wheat. With ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... twin-celestials. Now the sun "With fervid rays, had scorch'd the arid meads, "When faint with lengthen'd toil, the goddess gain'd "The edge of Lycia's monster-breeding clime; "Parch'd and exhausted, from the solar heat, "And infants milking her exhausted breast. "By chance a lake, far distant she espy'd, "Deep in a vale's recess, of waters pure. "There clowns the bulrush gather'd; there they pluck'd "The shrubby osier, and the marsh-fond grass. "Approach'd the goddess; on her knees ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... "Now, look here Miss Boyce, will you come for a walk with me? I'll convince you, as I convinced those fellows over there. I know I could, and you won't give me the chance; it's too bad." ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... railed off gardens, no sounds of conversation or laughter come from their hermetically closed windows, not a soul goes in or out, at most, at rare intervals, does one catch a glimpse of a gorgeously arrayed servant gliding about in ghostly fashion, supercilious and suspicious, and addressing the chance visitor in awed whispers as though he were the guardian of a house of affliction. It is, indeed, like a ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... stricken down by the glance of an eye from one of the culprits, others fainted, many writhed as in a fit. Tituba was beaten to make her confess. Others were tortured. Finally all the accused were thrown into irons. Numbers of accused persons, assured that it was their only chance for life, owned up to deeds of which they must have been entirely innocent. They had met the devil in the form of a small black man, had attended witch sacraments, where they renounced their Christian vows, and had ridden through the air on broomsticks. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... one don't mean to move, till it gets a bit cooler. If these fellows want to attack us, they have got the chance, now; and there is no more reason they should do it, three hours hence, than when we are having ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... Louie loved horses as he loved nothing else in his whole dull world. Sober he fed them bits of sugar, with strange throat-sounds which they must have understood, it seemed; drunk he threatened the life of any man who might chance to maltreat them. That was the reason Steve had made Big Louie his head-teamster ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... Penfeather wants men, as wants 'em he doth, what's to stay or let us from rowing out to Penfeather soft and quiet and 'listing ourselves along of Penfeather, and watch our chance t' heave Penfeather overboard and go a-roving on our ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... whom at the age of nine he went to reside in Rome. In the house of this bachelor uncle the poor little orphan pined away. Fever succeeded fever, until his guardian felt that companionship with boys in play and study was the only chance of saving so frail a life as Gabriello's. Accordingly he placed the invalid under the care of the Jesuits in their Collegio Romano. Here the child's health revived, and his education till the age of twenty throve apace. The Jesuits seem to have been liberal in their course of training; for young ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... rate, you must take your chance for that. You're a fine, active young fellow, and I suppose if they take to runnin' you won't ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... arrived at London, England was at war with the Spanish people, and it was two years before he found a chance to get back. When he finally arrived at Roanoke Island, there were no signs of any of his people to be found, except that on the tree was cut the word "Croatan," which is the name of an Indian village ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... Third Crusade. [35] The decline of the crusading movement left the knights with no duties to perform, and so they transferred their activities to the Prussian frontier, where there was still a chance to engage in a holy war. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Teutonic Order flourished, until its grand master ruled over the entire Baltic coast from the Vistula to the gulf of Finland. The knights later had to relinquish much of this ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... chorus. Now, in the case of man, a snuff-box instead of the sheep's horn, is an admirable introduction; for, if he refuses to take a pinch, he'll generally give you a sufficient reason why he does not, and that's an excellent chance to form, perhaps, a lasting friendship, but to scrape an acquaintance to a certainty; and if he takes it perhaps he'll sneeze, and you can come in with your 'God bless you!' and so on, to a conversation ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... make the character sympathetic; perhaps that were an impossibility. In a word, with his mixture of vapid idealism and old-fashioned fatalism, he proved monotonous to me. The sculptor is a formidable bore, the antique raisonneur of French drama, preaching at every pore every chance he has. The actor who played him, Hans Marr, made up as a mixture of Lenbach the painter—when he was about forty-five—and the painter, etcher, and sculptor, Max Klinger. The violinist was Lina Lossen, and ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... many books about me as I could; that I might read upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. 'What you read THEN (said he,) you will remember; but if you have not a book immediately ready, and the subject moulds in your mind, it is a chance if you again have a desire to study it.' He added, 'If a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should prescribe a task for himself. But it is better when a man reads from ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... the matter that had been out of her mind accidentally and indirectly came to the surface in a chance remark. She said: ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... was trying to decide whether it was taking a worse risk to believe what Maulbow said than to keep things stalled on the chance that ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz

... productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a composition falls to him, he approaches it on its technical side. Yet music is of all the arts in the world the last that ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... obliged me to confess my apprehensions. True to her determination of making the best of every thing, she was more courageous than I. With her usual good sense, she pointed out to me that the greater the surrounding numbers, the better the chance of any individuals passing unnoticed; that it was the idle who hindered or molested others; and that this multitude of people, intent upon objects of their own, would have neither time nor inclination ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... your loyalty and devotion has nothing to oppose to the force of my exposition. There are, however, some other and minor reasons which ought likewise to be considered before you come to the determination of trusting entirely to possibilities and chance. For the results of your deliberation you will have to come to will in their working and effects go beyond yourself, and must affect two other persons. These will have a right to expect that your decision will not be taken regardless ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... the attempt at goal after touchdown! The song broke into a great heart-broken moan. Score—Delmar 7; Elliott 6. The one stupendously inspired chance gone. ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... plans for a sky racer that is to take part in the big meet. I have worked it out on a new principle, and it is not yet patented. Whoever stole my plans can make the same kind of a sky racer that I intended to construct, and so stand as good a chance to win the prize of ten ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton

... to a mere chance question that this account of the Last Day was obtained from an Indian. It was related to Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, Maine, by Mrs. Le Cool, an old Passamaquoddy Indian. It casts a great light on the myth ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... suddenly abandoned the attack and flung themselves back into their canoes, in which they made off with all speed for the shore, subjected meanwhile to a galling fire of grape and canister from our guns, which I very regretfully allowed to be maintained, believing that our only chance of safety lay in inflicting upon them a severe enough lesson to utterly discourage them from any renewal of the attack. We continued firing until the last canoe had reached the shore, by which time eleven of them had been utterly destroyed and several others badly damaged, resulting in ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... almost broke a pious father's heart by deserting the altar of that divine Jesus upon whose Bible he had founded the fairest fabric of his fame. My friend, of whom I so sternly speak, is now in Italy; and should these remarks, per chance, ever meet his eye, I beseech him by our past friendship, by our walks "by moon or glittering star-light," through the Eden groves and avenues of New-Haven, by the love he bears to his parents, and above all, by the love he bears that Saviour, upon ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... from school both boys had gone to New York in order to look the world over. By dint of sheer push, three-quarters of which Tom had supplied, the boys had secured their first chance in the New York offices of the S.B. & L. Not much of a chance, to be sure, but it meant forty dollars a month and board in the field, with the added promise that, if they turned out to be "no good," they ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... chance of Thomaso returning speedily?" Francis asked. "Because, if so, he might notice your absence, and so give the alarm before the ship sets sail, in which case we should have the whole crew on ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty

... instant he felt stupefied. But it was certain enough: he could plainly distinguish his brother Guillaume emerging from the gaping doorway which conducted to the foundations of the basilica. And he saw him hastily climb over the palings, and then pretend to be there by pure chance, as though he had come up from the Rue Lamarck. When he accosted his two sons, as if he were delighted to meet them, and began to say that he had just come from Paris, Pierre asked himself if he had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... who could be trusted, and who he proposed should set out at the same time, but by different routes, to warn the settlements, so that in case one or more of them was waylaid and killed the others might have a chance to get through in safety. However, at the last moment the British agent Cameron had himself disclosed the purpose of the expedition to Falling and the two brothers Williams, and detailed them with a Captain Guest to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... labour, and at the same time to feed the animals; they of course damage the vines, but the Cypriote thinks the system pays. The young vines are never staked and tied as in Europe, but are allowed to take their chance, and the heavy bunches in many instances ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... eyes down the long straight street, where greens and violets and browns merged into a bluish grey monochrome at a little distance. He wanted to be alone, to wander at random through the city, to stare dreamily at people and things, to talk by chance to men and women, to sink his life into the misty sparkling life of the streets. The smell of the mist brought a memory to his mind. For a long while he groped for it, until suddenly he remembered his dinner with Henslowe and the faces of the boy and girl he had talked to ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... the process of sampling or picking out here and there, now and again, a book or a set of books which chance or circumstances may throw in our path, we may gradually acquire a caseful of most desirable specimens, against which it is out of the question to raise any charge of incompleteness, where incompleteness ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... was standing outside of his booth, he was put into a flutter of excitement by the approach of the mighty Betterton, in company with a country friend. The actor offered several shillings for himself and rustic as they were about to enter the show, but this was too much for Crawley. He saw the chance of his life, and took advantage of it. "No, no, sir," he said to "Old Thomas," with quite the patronising air of an equal, "we never take money of one another!" Betterton did not see the matter in the same light, and, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... prevalent, that such as rashly enter it are seized with great horror and consternation, which a short while since was confirmed by a remarkable incident. For when a new inhabitant of the house had, either by mere chance, or to try the truth of the report, taken up his lodging in that apartment, in the course of the night, a few hours afterwards, he was thrown out by some sudden violence, he knew not how, and was found in a state of stupefaction, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... or twenty years ago, when one could buy Empire furniture at very low figures, for in those days there was many a chance to pick up such pieces. To-day, a genuine antique or a hand-made reproduction of an antique made sixty years ago, will command a large price, and even in Paris one has difficulty in finding them in the shops at ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... had to pass, arched its course; beyond this was the church, and there Mabel knew they were to await the coach which was to convey them to a village many miles from their old homes, and where Sarah Bond had accidentally heard there was a chance of establishing a little school. Mabel paused for a moment to look at the venerable church standing by the highway, the clergyman's house crouching in the grove behind. The hooting and wheeling of the old owls in the ivied tower was a link of life. Sarah Bond passed the turn-stile that ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... time originally agreed upon she will keep her promise; but she will listen to no earlier marriage. I have about given up all hope. Something again—that fearful something I cannot shake off—tells me that my only chance lay in getting her to go with me this month. Once abroad with her, I could make ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... proceeds with that degree of assurance or evidence, which remains. Even when these contrary experiments are entirely equal, we remove not the notion of causes and necessity; but supposing that the usual contrariety proceeds from the operation of contrary and concealed causes, we conclude, that the chance or indifference lies only in our judgment on account of our imperfect knowledge, not in the things themselves, which are in every case equally necessary, though to appearance not equally constant or certain. No union can be more constant and certain, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... all this while, was at the East. It consisted now of a wife and two children. I saw no chance of supporting them on the Pacific coast out of my pay as an army officer. I concluded, therefore, to resign, and in March applied for a leave of absence until the end of the July following, tendering my resignation to take effect at the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... I was able to start at once—too soon, in fact, to be altogether comfortable. We had scarcely put out from Folkestone before I got my chance. The sea was distinctly rough, but I just had time to open my Vade Mecum at page 228 (sub-heading, "On embarking and what happens at sea"), and to read to a passing French steward the first sentence that caught my eye. It was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various

... troubles women often have and usually I was unfit to do my work. I saw your advertisement and decided to try Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. I am very much pleased with the result and recommend your Vegetable Compound whenever I have a chance." MRS. WANDLESS, 360 ...
— Food and Health • Anonymous

... the dogs found us, and a man carried me home in a basket to his wife, who treated me very kindly. I did not like it, but pretended I did, and ate all I could, always watching and hoping for a chance to run away to my mountain home. My mistress, however, soon thought I was too knowing, and put a chain about my neck. Finally, when I was about four months old, they sent me to a friend in San Francisco. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... of the town, within about a stone's throw of the end of Albrecht Durer Strasse—or the street where ALBERT DURER lived—and whose house is not only yet in existence, but still the object of attraction and veneration with every visitor of taste, from whatever part of the world he may chance to come. The street running down, is the street called (as before observed) after Albert Durer's own name; and the well, seen about the middle of it, is a specimen of those wells—built of stone—which are very common in the streets of Nuremberg. The house of Albert ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... humbly seeking for patronage; theirs is the assured position of people who can give the world what the world asks; and as for saleswomen, a class upon whom much sentimental sympathy is lavished year by year, their heart-whole superciliousness to the poor shopper, especially if she chance to be a housewife striving nervously to make a few dollars cover her family needs, is wantonly and detestably unkind. It is not with us as it was in the England of Lamb's day, and the quality of breeding is shown in a well-practised restraint ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... render it uncertain even which way she was steering. Then, there was the probability that she would pass at so great a distance as to render it impossible to perceive an object as low as the wreck, and the additional chance of her passing in the night. Under all the circumstances, therefore, Mulford felt convinced that there was very little probability of their receiving any succour from the strange sail; and he fully appreciated Jack Tier's motive in forbearing to give the usual call of "Sail, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... of the fact that in the case of non-sexual feelings sexuality constantly plays a certain part. Our sentiments are complex, and compounded of many and various elements; sexual contrasts play their part in family relationships; and it is not by pure chance that harmony exists by preference between father and daughter, and between mother and son. This sexual contrast tends to manifest itself in all displays of family affection. Thus, many men will tell us that in early boyhood they loved to kiss their mother ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... and even into the very country whence the Gypsies emigrated, to instruct the people who know not God. Is it not inconsistent for men to be solicitous for the welfare of their fellow-creatures in distant regions, and to throw off, and leave to chance, those who, equally wretched, have brought their errors home to us? If it be a good work to teach religion and virtue to such as are ignorant of their Creator, why not begin with those nearest to us?—Especially as neglect in this particular, is attended with detriment ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... have observed, Barton is not much inclined to talk about what he does," said Mrs. Markham; "and, do you know, Major, he has not given me a chance to speak to ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... satisfaction when favoured with a little glimpse into the home ways, the games, or social life of an animal; and the peep I had into the Rabbit world one night, though but a small affair, I have always remembered with pleasure, and hope for a second similar chance. ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... me. But perhaps I am too old. It's queer—now when chance has brought me together with you again—I am beginning to doubt whether it will be possible to play ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... opportunity shall be afforded you," said one of the officials, who had not as yet spoken. "It would be an injustice not to give you such a chance, especially as, if you are successful, you will remove the most odious portion of ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... generally intelligible? We quote by way of curiosity a sentence from the Sartor Resartus; which may be read either backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either way. Indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head, we think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at its meaning: 'The fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own freedom; which feeling is its Baphometic baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... road continued as bad as it was below, and the timber more abundant. At four miles we reached the top of the mountain, and foreseeing no chance of meeting with water, we encamped on the northern side of the mountain, near an old bank of snow, three feet deep. Some of this we melted, and supped on the remains of the colt killed yesterday. Our only game to-day was two pheasants, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... safe, Captain Plum. She is where the friends who are invading us from the mainland will have no chance of finding her." ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... not a criminal. He is not bad. He is a fool. He has behaved idiotically, and I can never care for him in the way I used to, but I mean to give him a chance. I'm not going to jump at his first real folly to get ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... FRIEND FALL,—Redpath tells me to blow up. Here goes! I wanted you to scare Rondout off with a big price. $125 ain't big. I got $100 the first time I ever talked there and now they have a much larger hall. It is a hard town to get to—I run a chance of getting caught by the ice and missing next engagement. Make the price $150 and let them draw ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the cattle of Nodwengo. Also, into his hand I will deliver all those who cling to this faith of the Christians, and, if it pleases him, he shall offer them as a sacrifice to his god. This I swear, and you, Noma, are witness to the oath. Yet it may chance that after he, Hokosa, has gathered up all this pomp and greatness, he himself shall be gathered up by Death, that harvest-man whom soon or late will garner every ear;" and he looked at ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... with exceeding content, and waited for a time on the chance that some of our severed company from Dalness would appear, though M'Iyer's instruction as to the rendezvous had been given on the prospect that they would reach the Brig earlier in the day. But after an hour or two of waiting there was no sign of them, and there was nothing ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... checked by Eadwine's conversion; but Mercia, which had as yet owned the supremacy of Northumbria, sprang into a sudden greatness as the champion of the heathen gods. Its king, Penda, saw in the rally of the old religion a chance of winning back his people's freedom and giving it the lead among the tribes about it. Originally mere settlers along the Upper Trent, the position of the Mercians on the Welsh border invited them to widen their possessions by conquest while the rest of their Anglian neighbours ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... got aground right under the guns of the fort. He was ordered to surrender, but refused to do so, though there was not the least chance for him to make a successful resistance. He was determined that the rebels should not have his vessel, and, rushing down into the powder-magazine, he said his prayers, and coolly laid his lighted cigar on an open ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... the end of Fanny's letter, so that by no chance should I read it first, were these words in ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell

... instructions, and in the opinion of the captains and pilots, it seems advisable to change the direction. They shall sail first west-southwest to a latitude of nine degrees, and then take a due course for the Philippines, stopping at the island of Los Reyes on the way. If by any chance one of the vessels becomes separated from Legazpi's vessel, the pilots are to return to the above latitude, stopping at any port that they may find, for eight or ten days, in hopes of meeting the other vessels. Whether they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... a laugh, "I should not dream of putting in a rivalry with your new passion. I should not stand a chance against a shrimp; but I hope your new aquarium will soon make its appearance, or else some of your pets will come to an untimely end, I fear I heard the house-maid this morning vowing vengeance against 'them ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... (Fig. 44), they are dragged over the knob and some of the grains stick there. But in the other form of primrose, No. 2, when the flower falls off, the stamens do not come near the knob, so it has no chance of getting any pollen; and while the primrose is upright the tube is so narrow that the dust does not easily fall. But, as I have said, neither kind gets it very easily, nor is it good for them if they do. The seeds are ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... work," Alec protested, pleased nevertheless at Knight's praise. "The steer thought I looked so harmless that he took a big chance—that's how I ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... the officers to free the three Negroes after a few Years Service meets my most hearty approbation but as the Chance of War or other Incidents may prevent the officer [owner] from Compling with the Intention of the Officers it will be proper for the purchaser or purchasers to sign a Condition in the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... preserve these chains of domestic union; do not let us unbind the human sheaf and scatter its ears to all the caprices of chance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us carry the principles and the habits of home beyond its bounds; and, let us realize the prayer of the Apostle of the Gentiles when he exclaimed to the new-born ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... musicians in Paris, men belonging to no school; They alone were interesting to Christophe. It was only through them that he could gauge the vitality of the art. Schools and coteries only express some superficial fashion or manufactured theory. But the independent men who stand apart have more chance of really discovering the ideas of their race and time. It is true that that makes them all the more difficult for a ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... powers nor of their ministers. With these last you will have some plague. As to your feelings on this occasion they are, I know, both deep and affecting: you embark property most precious on a most tempestuous ocean; for, as you possess the highest reputation, so you expose it to the perilous chance of popular opinion. On the other hand, you will, I firmly expect, enjoy the inexpressible felicity of contributing to the happiness of all your countrymen. You will become the father of more than three millions of children; and while your bosom glows with parental tenderness, in theirs or at ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... danger his ship would be exposed to if he put in at that part of the island; and therefore begged of him to stand off as quickly as possible, and take me along with him, as this was the only chance I had ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... Barn The Patch of Blue Girl from Montana The Ransom Rose Galbraith The Witness Sound of the Trumpet Sunrise Tomorrow About This Time Amorelle Head of the House Ariel Custer In Tune with Wedding Bells Chance of a Lifetime Maris Crimson Mountain Out of the Storm Exit Betty Mystery Flowers The Prodigal Girl Girl of the Woods Re-Creations The White Flower Matched Pearls Time of the Singing of Birds Ladybird The Substitute Guest Beauty for Ashes Stranger ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill

... "you must have heard! It's all up—she won't hear speak of me—persists in her resolution—won't see me; or give me a chance of making my peace. I'm the most unlucky fellow on the face of the earth," continued he, changing his tone on a sudden to a melancholy sort of whine—"I wish I lay three hundred feet deep in the bed of the Mississippi. I tell you, boys, it's clean up with me, I feel that. I'm a lost man, done ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... transmitted through General Grant to the army, and in like manner all orders coming from General Grant to any of his subordinate officers must necessarily come, if in my department, through me; that if by chance an order had been given to any junior officer of mine it was his duty at once to report that fact. The President asked me. "What order do you refer to?" I replied, "To order number 17 of the series of 1867." He said, "I would like to see the order," and ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... the chance. That girl of mine, you know," added the major, with a tremble in his voice, "would have what little I have saved, which is not much. She's a good girl, but she would need a protector ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... move his? If but for himself, God might well desire no change, but he is God for the sake of his growing creatures; all his making and doing is for them, and change is the necessity of their very existence. They need a mighty law of liberty, into which shall never intrude one atom of chance. Is the one idea of creation the begetting of a free, grand, divine will in us? and shall that will, praying with the will of the Father, find itself cramped, fettered, manacled by foregone laws? Will it not rather be a new-born law ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... afterwards that we might have been carried off like the Cumbrie people on the islands near Yaoorie, if we had tried the experiment. Our canoe was only large enough to hold us all when sitting, so that we had no chance of lying down. Had we been able to muster up thirty thousand cowries at Rabba, we might have purchased one which would have carried us all very comfortably. A canoe of this sort would have served us for living in entirely, we should ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various

... first place, I cannot be in town as I proposed, for the Commissioners under the Judicial Bill, to whom I am to act as clerk, have resolved that their final sittings shall be held here, so that I have now no chance of being in London before spring. This is very unlucky, as Mr. Gifford proposes to wait for my arrival in town to set the great machine a-going. I shall write to him that this is impossible, and that I wish he would, with your assistance and that of his other friends, make up ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... evident point of view were "funny" in the Lancashire sense, which does not imply humor, but strangeness and the unexplainable. Singular as the phrasing was, Tembarom knew what he meant, and that he was thinking of the oddity of chance. Tummas had obviously heard of "poor Jem" and had felt an ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... apprehensions, for darkness must ever be the ally of crime; and it was one night, long after the clocks had struck the mystic hour "when churchyards yawn," that the hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu again stretched out to grasp a victim. I was dismissing a chance patient. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... saw that he had no chance of getting rid of her, and that he would only be wasting ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... little chance of our reaching another river with more water in it than the last, to camp by," observed my brother; "I see none marked down on the maps ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... not the voice of birds, Nor sneezing, nor lots in this world, Nor a boy, nor chance, nor woman: My Druid is Christ, the Son of God; Christ, Son of Mary, the great Abbot, The Father, the Son, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... he had behaved with such prudence that his keepers had almost given up watching him, he managed, while strolling in the great park, to give them the slip, and to hide himself where there was no chance of anyone finding him. He contrived somehow to get hold of a pilgrim's dress; then that of a cattle-driver, and in this disguise he made his way to the free city of Luebeck, and threw himself on the mercy ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... in Spanish rulers of the islands are accounted for by the demand for lucrative places, from the many favorites to whom it was agreeable and exemplary to offer opportunities to make fortunes. It goes hard with the deposed Spaniards that they had no chance to harvest perquisites, and must go home poor. This is as a fountain ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... replace sympathy with men by anxiety for the "glory of God." The deed of Grace Darling, when she took a boat in the storm to rescue drowning men and women, was not good if it was only compassion that nerved her arm and impelled her to brave death for the chance of saving others; it was only good if she asked herself—Will this redound to the glory of God? The man who endures tortures rather than betray a trust, the man who spends years in toil in order to discharge an obligation from which the law declares him free, must be ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... admitted. There was a nice sitting-room and bed-room, and a small room which Larry said would do for him. The landlady, who was a pleasant-looking, buxom dame, asked only fifteen shillings a week, including doing for us; so we agreed to take it. By some chance we did not inquire ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... slight acquaintance with truth," besought Elvira; "a caller now and then would give me a chance to mend my stockings and to get to bed by nine o'clock a few nights in the week. As it is, I have to idle my time away evening after evening, sitting and grinning at your flocks and herds of young men until I am so sleepy I have to go and coax pa to drop a big slipper on the floor ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... lifted the keen weapon again—but just then a piercing cry was heard above them, and Uncas appeared, leaping frantically from a fearful height upon the ledge. Magua recoiled a step, and one of his assistants, profiting by the chance, sheathed his own knife in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Everything went quite differently from what I expected. I wanted to attract Armand, and I was only frightening him off. He thought such a woman as I was pretending to be too expensive. It was just through a chance conversation, some sudden confidence on my part, that he found out that I really like quite simple things. He was delighted, and he ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... a chair at the window that gave on the garden, absorbed in exploration and discovery, quite ignoring the adults. Either Janet had forgotten him, or she had no hope of controlling him and was trusting to chance that the young wild stag ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... her, she will be a very valuable prize, in fact, just the kind of a boat we want. Those men must know they have no chance. Call on them to surrender. They are almost within earshot now. Depend upon it if you offer them good treatment they will hand over their boat, and think they've got out of the hole ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott

... it should chance that two daughters "come out" in consecutive seasons both of their names are frequently engraved upon their ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... rocks aloft? were the questions I rapidly put to myself. An examination made as well as the darkness of the place permitted, convinced me that my hopes were vain and transitory. I now gave way to a sort of momentary despair; every instant was abridging my chance of life, and the sudden and frightful feeling that you are to be called on unprepared, to die, rushed on my mind with a choking sensation. I listened for some time at the entrance of one of the caverns, which the violence ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various

... receive this, if all goes well, you shall know everything—everything. Who I am—yes, and my name. It has been more than three years now, hasn't it? It has been incomprehensible to you, but there has been no other way. I dared not take the chance of discovery by any one; I dared not expose you to the risk of being known by me. Your life would not have been worth a moment's purchase. Oh, Jimmie, am I only making the mystery more mystifying? But to-night, I think, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard



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