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Chance   Listen
adjective
Chance  adj.  Happening by chance; casual.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books



... crucifixion of a living pig. The third act was an agonising experience for the doctor, being nothing less than the sacrifice of one of the brethren, the selection being determined by lot. The doctor, in his quality of visitor, was, it is true, spared the chance of being himself the victim, but he nearly became executioner. One of the Chinese adepts having been chosen, to his intense satisfaction, and approved by some mechanical movements on the part of the dragon-headed Baphomet, permitted his limbs to be removed, and then earnestly invoked the assistance ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... was, probably, not over-well pleased at losing this chance of being father-in-law to a royal highness, yet as he passed among his people for a very strict character, and there were in his family several rabbis of great reputation and severity of conduct, the old gentleman was silenced by ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... speedily reduced to the state of a dreary wilderness, in which the land is barren, the waters are impure, and the air is infectious. Curiosity and ambition no longer attracted the nations to the capital of the world: but, if chance or necessity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the city, and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tyber swelled above its banks, and rushed with irresistible violence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... Hill, brother to Mrs. Masham. It is not difficult to guess at the reason for this appointment. Here was a chance for Jack Hill to achieve some glory and wipe away the disgrace of the ill-starred Quebec expedition. As there was also no danger attached to the enterprise, all the more likely that he would succeed. Hill sailed with Admiral Sir ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... of his friends, had appeared to him to be a means of almost national salvation. And then, how great had been the good fortune of the giants in this matter! Had they been the originators of such a measure they would not have had a chance of success; but now—now that the two bishops were falling into their mouths out of the weak hands of the gods, was not their success ensured? So Dr. Grantly had girded up his loins and marched up to the fight, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... affectionate greetings. In every house they entered they were welcomed with frank cordiality, and at once, without ceremony or embarrassment, fell to assisting the host in any work at which he might chance to be engaged, or discussing any topic of interest that might ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... the most interesting fact (if fact it be) that it builds a floating nest, gains scarcely more than chance notice from its historians. Here is Mr. Gould's account of it: "The materials composing this raft or nest are weeds and aquatic plants carefully heaped together in a rounded form; it is very large at the base, and is so constantly added to, that a considerable portion of ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... much it help'd his chance— He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance, Perform charades, and Proverbs of France— Act the tender, and do the cruel; For amongst his other killing parts, He had broken a brace of female hearts, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... was long after twelve o'clock and he fell to thinking what he should do with himself for the rest of the night. It was impossible to walk about till morning and he determined to return to Carlton House Terrace, let himself in with his latch key and slip upstairs to his room. If by any chance she had not retired for the night and he chanced to meet her on the stairs or in the hall then the confession ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... I wished; but you have never taken advantage of me, and you have kept smart people from doing it. Do you know, Mr. Jones, that in every country village there are keen, weasel-like people who encourage new-comers by bleeding their pocket-books at every chance? In securing you as a neighbor our battle was half won, for no one needs a good practical friend more than a city man beginning life in ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... men's rifles. Complaint was made to the chief authorities, and, in this case, the Japanese promised to punish the officer concerned. But there were dozens of instances affecting Europeans of all ranks, from consular officials to chance visitors. In most cases the complaints were met by a simple denial on the part of the Japanese. Even where the offence was admitted and punishment was promised, the Europeans would assure you that the men, whom it had been promised to imprison, came and paraded themselves outside their houses ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... had to chance them. Kept out of reach, or dodged them. I could have led 'em right in so that they wouldn't have heard the stones being lowered down, and got right away over the top and shut the door after me, while when ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... that if he did let the thieves into the house he did not do so especially to give them a chance to steal the necklace. At least that is the way I look at it. And, again, if he did admit them, he permitted them to do ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... Mr. Masters doesn't approve of fools. Mind you, the men have no grievances inside the works. The unions have no chance now. It's fair to ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... house to yourself when I've made up my mind there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in this house, Mrs Patrick—I believe that's your name—and if there's any chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... D.'s would jump at the chance," he said, "but if it's as urgent as all this we can't wait to hunt. I'll tell you, Van Alstyne, there's a chap down in the village he was the character man with the Sweet Peas Company—and he's stranded ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... at the outside of the slit envelope. The postmark showed that it had been mailed early that morning at the general post office and that there was slight chance of tracing anything ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... is, in the first place, all a gamble. The pearl merchants buy the oysters as I bought my mussels, by the lump and as a chance, based on the law of average product. They rot the oysters as you do the mussels. The smell is the same: and many other things are the same. For instance, it is almost impossible to keep the diver from stealing pearls, just as it is hard to keep the Kafirs from stealing ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... gain experience of war. He spent a considerable time there, living amongst warlike, sober, and temperate men, and returned to the Achaeans with so great a reputation that they at once put him in command of the knights. These horsemen, he found, were in the habit of using any chance horses they could pick up when required for a campaign, while in many cases they did not serve in person, but sent substitutes. They were entirely without discipline or bravery, while all this was passed over unnoticed by their commanders, because the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... well-grounded hopes of success. But what a fortunate circumstance was the arrival of this Work! and by what name worthy of its influence shall I call it? In the mouth of an indifferent person it might be Chance; but in mine; whom it rendered so peculiarly happy, common gratitude requires that it should ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... officers and men who had fought in the Seven Years' War against France and now came to claim their share of the conqueror's spoils. Some men were of Yankee origin, who with their proverbial ability to see a good chance, came to what has always been Canada's greatest city, on the Island of Montreal. It was only half a dozen years after Wolfe's great victory, that a great Montreal trader, Alexander Henry, penetrated the western lakes to Mackinaw—the Island of the Turtle, lying between ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... Bentley tilting against Phalaris; and he stung like a hornet. To be a Cambridge man in those days was to be a hater of all Establishments in England; things and persons were hated alike. I hope the same thing may not be true at present. It may chance that on this subject Master Porson will get stung through his coffin, before he is many years deader. However, if this particular variation troubles the waters just around itself (for it would desolate ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... of devotion. Apprehending that this might never be taken up, and the ship coming still nearer to Spain, I made another packet like the first, which I placed on the poop, that when the ship sunk the cask might float upon the water, and take its chance of being found." ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... write her first letter to Lancelot in high spirits, then, to tell him her little bits of news and to remind him (really to remind herself) of good days in the past holiday-time. Something she may have said, or left unsaid, as the chance may be, drew the following reply. She always wrote to him on Friday, so that he might answer ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... burgess' daughter, a woman with thirty or forty thousand francs. Give up your fancy, and I will find you a wife myself. There is some one about three miles away, a miller's widow, thirty-two years old, with a hundred thousand francs in land. There is your chance! You can add her property to Marsac, for they touch. Ah! what a fine property we should have, and how I would look after it! They say she is going to marry her foreman Courtois, but you are the better man of the two. I would look after the mill, and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... time because of chance delays, I should make the trip in two months. Think of it, Alma! Four thousand in two months! Beats the paltry hundred a month I'm getting now. Why, we'll build further out where we'll have more space, gas in every room, and a view, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... drove off all the horses. they prosued on five miles the Indians there divided into two parties. they Continued in pursute of the largest party five miles further finding that there was not the Smallest Chance of overtakeing them, they returned to their Camp and packed up their baggage on their backs and Steared a N. E. course to the River Rochejhone which they Struck at pompys Tower, there they killed a Buffalow Bull and ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... primitive, so simple; it is one pure pulse, you don't know. One only asks the things that minister—one goes and finds and takes them; one's feet in the straw, one's head under any roof. What difference does it make? The only thing that counts, that rules, is the chance of seeing something else, feeling something ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... remembered that Sunday luncheon and declared that it reminded him of a very painful experience in his early life. When big-game shooting in South Africa, he had once been tossed by a wounded buffalo bull. By good chance the creature threw him into a gully some feet lower than the surrounding bush. Thus it lost him, and he was safe from destruction. There, however, he remained with a broken leg for some hours until rescued; and during that time the mosquitoes ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... in my daily intercourse with men which is not guilty of transgressions against the canons of accurate and definite thinking. Yet if I deceive neither myself nor another, I am held to be truthful, even though my language deal with chance and accident, material purposes and spiritual causes, and though I vow that the sun smiles or the moon lets down her hair into the sea. Science is a special interest in the discovery of unequivocal and fixed conceptions, and employs its terms with an unalterable connotation. But no such algebra ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... "count of the Saxon shore" to defend the eastern coasts of Britain against the pirates of the German Ocean; and it was not long after its revolt from Rome in 410, that the Angles and Saxons and Jutes discovered a chance to meddle in Britain, torn as it was by domestic anarchy, and threatened with inroads by the Picts and Scots in the north. Neither this temptation nor the alleged invitation from the British chief Vortigern to come over and help, supplied ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... necessarily offended because a lady does not accept his first offer. Many gentlemen would be offended if that were so;—and very many happy marriages would never have a chance of being made. At any rate he is coming, and I thought that perhaps you would excuse me if I endeavoured to explain how very much may depend on the manner in which you may receive him. You must feel that things are not going ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... uncle dined together alone in Portman Square. Mr. Gresham was not yet in Parliament, but an almost immediate vacancy was expected in his division of the county, and it was known that no one could stand against him with any chance of success. This threw him much among the politicians of his party—those giants, namely, whom it would be his business to support—and on this account he was a good deal away from his own house at the present ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... cannot forgive the wretchedness she has caused to Philip. Well, if you each forgive her for your own part, there is a chance that she may yet lift up ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... to offer to Jaffir's consideration was that the only person in the world who had the remotest chance of reaching Belarab's gate on that night was that tall white woman the Rajah Laut had brought on board, the wife of one of the captive white chiefs. Surprise made Jaffir exclaim, but he wasn't prepared ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... utterly wretched than was Arthur Fenton, after the luckless day when Mr. Irons had lighted upon the presence of Mrs. Herman at the studio. He raged against himself, against chance, most of all against the unmannerly and coarse-minded fellow who had forced himself into the studio, and then persisted in imagining evil which had never existed. He experienced all the acute anguish of finding himself in the toils, and of the added sting from wounded vanity, since he ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... subdued with his musical spell. How Hecuba changed, seeing dead Polydore, And became—Vide Ovid—(here he heard the Dogs snore) "Your patience my friends, I no longer will tire, But brief make excuses, at the earnest desire Of those friends from abroad, who all much lamented That chance or engagements their attendance prevented. The AFRICAN-DOG, said, that he did not dare Quit the warm coast of Guinea in clothing so spare; The LAPLAND and DANE-DOG the gay POMERANIAN, The slender ITALIAN, sagacious SIBERIAN, All pleaded the times; ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe

... his enterprise will succeed, against the wiles of one so artful, and of an appearance so gay, as the man whose guest he has now become. Let the caprice of others be what it may, Alderman Van Beverout, my duty must be done. The smuggler, aided by chance and artifice, has thrice escaped me; the fourth time, it may be our fortune. If this ship possesses the power to destroy the lawless rover, let him look to ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... quarter-deck before he could be despatched. It was interesting to witness the eagerness with which he was assailed by the sailors. This animal is regarded as their most inveterate foe, and they seize with avidity any chance to diminish the numbers of these monsters of the deep. It was some time before he would succumb to the murderous attacks of his enemies. He wreaked his vengeance on the ropes around him, and severed them with his sharp teeth as completely and smoothly as if ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... "What chance is there of saving my son?" she said, peremptorily. "You will, of course, tell us all you know. Lord Dunstable must go to town at once." She touched an electric ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... seemed not worth investigation. Yet when I began to doubt the possibility an unexplained impulse or force kept urging me on to believe that if I but persisted and found an opportunity to examine this gun it would prove to be the one I sought, and if I had a chance to talk to this strange Wild Hunter much of the mystery that surrounded my own babyhood would be cleared up, so I found myself earnestly longing for a real ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... Mr. Mannering, with much emotion, "for the acknowledgment of your error is half-way to repentance and atonement. And this is a day of triple happiness, for I have just heard that, now my sight is restored, I have a fair chance of again entering into mercantile pursuits, and arriving at independence. But oh! my children, neither in prosperity nor adversity let us forget to pray for true humility ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin

... looked troubled, and said gravely that he would have to direct them to return a verdict of guilty on such a finding. The foreman, who was bitterly hostile, jumped at the chance without consulting his colleagues, some of whom had turned to leave the box, and thus snatched a technical verdict of "guilty" against us. Mr. George Skinner, of 27, Great Chapel Gate, Westminster, wrote to me on the following day to say that six of the jurymen ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... in the hopes of ridding himself of such a far from gay gallant. If the lady had not written, there was the chance that a servant might say something. Then, wrinkling his deceitful little nose, he said, 'If I ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... this year's legislative program, are designed to help each and every American citizen fulfill his basic hopes—his hopes for a fair chance to make good; his hopes for fair play from the law; his hopes for a full-time job on full-time pay; his hopes for a decent home for his family in a decent community; his hopes for a good school for his children with good teachers; and his hopes for security when ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... as to say I feel exactly gay, Patricia, but don't you worry about me. I'll come up smiling. You wouldn't have me pine for the sake of a man who wouldn't have me when he got the chance? I guess Honor P Ward has too ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... am not going to throw away a chance. The beggar had the impudence to spoon on my sister Zoe. That was my fault, not hers. He was an old college acquaintance, and I gave him opportunities—I deserve to be horsewhipped. However, I am not going to commit the same blunder twice. My sister is in your ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... husband replied. 'But we shall enjoy it all the same, and hold our heads with the best of them. Besides, don't you see, Arthur gives me carte blanche as to pay for my services, and, though I shall do right, it is not in human nature that I should not feather my nest when I have a chance. Some of that money ought to have been mine. I shall sell out at once if I can find a purchaser, and if I cannot, I shall rent the grocery and move out ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... these natural objects, or from ancient or modern glass, in a perfectly frank and simple manner; nay, even to match your whole colour scheme, tint for tint, by them if it seems well to you. You may get help anywhere and from anything, and as much as you like; it will only be so much more chance for you; so much richer a store to choose from, so much stronger resource to guide to good end; for after all, with all the helps you can get, much lies in the doing. Do what you like then—as a child: but ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... free service with men and horses and arms. It is perfectly clear that this wonderful organization rendered the whole system of government one great confederacy, in which the small proprietors, tenants, and villeins had not a chance of independence; and that their condition could only be ameliorated by those gradual changes which result from a long intercourse between the strong and the weak, in which power relaxes its severity and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... easy for a poor author who may chance to live in Florida or Texas, those noted homes of literature, to go ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... out his flocks and herds even to the borders of Moal. At that time there was a certain blacksmith called Chinghis among the tribe of Moal, and he used to lift the cattle of Unc Chan as often as he had a chance, insomuch that the herdsmen of Unc Chan made complaint to their master. The latter assembled an army, and invaded the land of the Moal in search of Chinghis, but he fled and hid himself among the Tartars. So Unc, having plundered the Moal and Tartars, returned home. And ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... 'em outside Chivy Wood to-day. I never saw taller birds in my life. Talk of them being easy! Why, a pheasant gets ever so much more show for his money when he's beaten over the guns. If they simply walk him up, he hasn't got a thousand to one chance. Bah! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... more) is likely to be high. It lacks the close-knit plot, the feeling for stage effect, the swift progression and the sense of completed action which another and more favored sort of Novel exhibits. Yet it may have as much chance of permanence in the hands of a master. The proper question, then, seems to be whether it most fitly expresses the genius of ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... Nelson, who's so stupid about such things, noticed it in Venice.... But then it was so different. No one could possibly have thought of marrying him then; whereas now of course every woman is trying for him. Oh, Susy, whatever you do, don't miss your chance! You can't conceive of the wicked plotting and intriguing there will be to get him—on all sides, and even where one least suspects it. You don't know what horrors women will do-and even girls!" A shudder ran through her at the thought, and she caught Susy's wrists ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... Be a don." She made a don of Gray, of Calverley. Cambridge men are for ever casting Calverley in our teeth; whereas, in truth, he is specially to be quoted against them. As everybody knows, he was at both Universities, so over him we have a fair chance of comparing methods. As everybody knows, he went to Balliol first, and his ample cabin'd spirit led him to climb a wall, late at night. Something else caused him to be discovered, and Blaydes—he was ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... five hundred dollars is gone with him! I heard of other men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and staked all the spare money ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... whom they could devise no security, but that they should be exterminated or enslaved; would they not have the right to enslave them, and keep them in slavery so long as the same danger would be incurred by their manumission? If a civilized man and a savage were by chance placed together on a desolate island, and the former, by the superior power of civilization, would reduce the latter to subjection, would he not have the same right? Would this not be the strictest self-defense? I do not now consider, how far we can make out ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... for watchman true Waiting to see what GOD will do, As o'er the Church the gathering twilight falls No more he strains his wistful eye, If chance the golden hours be nigh, By youthful Hope ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... travelled 192 miles, and formed a very good idea as to what the ponies could do. The crocks had done wonderfully:—"We hope Jehu will last three days; he will then be finished in any case and fed to the dogs. It is amusing to see Meares looking eagerly for the chance of a feed for his animals; he has been expecting it daily. On the other hand, Atkinson and Oates are eager to get the poor animal beyond the point at which Shackleton killed his first beast. Reports on Chinaman are very favourable, and it really ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... cried Ronald: "I've come to say something unpleasant; and how on earth can I do it, if you don't give a fellow a chance? It's about my sister, as I said. You can see for yourself that it can't be allowed to go on. It's compromising; it don't lead to anything; and you're not the kind of man (you must feel it yourself) that I can allow my female relatives to have anything to do with. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... may not be despised as useless, if they attracted the popular veneration; but the active mind of Belisarius, which in the pride of victory could suppose a defeat, had already resolved that the Roman empire in Africa should not depend on the chance of arms, or the favor of the people. The fortifications of Carthage [2011] had alone been exempted from the general proscription; but in the reign of ninety-five years they were suffered to decay by the thoughtless and indolent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... numerous sincere men. Finally, it is the conviction of all freethinkers that, as Professor James H. Leuba has stated, "It is, furthermore, essential to intellectual and moral advances that the beliefs that come into existence should have free play. Antagonistic beliefs must have the chance of proving their worth in open contest. It is this way scientific theories are tested, and in this way also, religious and ethical conceptions should be tried. But a fair struggle cannot take place when people are dissuaded ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... episode of his illness, when, having exhausted all efforts to soothe him into drowsiness, she had tried her voice, silent for many months—silent since before she had known Dr. Grey. She had wished it so—wished to bury all relics of that time of her youth deep down, so that no chance hand could ever dig ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... most of my life, and until I get used to things I'd be reasonable about the pay. I was told these little places were the best to strike a job in; but, so far as I can find out, there's not much chance here." ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... have often observed with me? Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the withering hopes of those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have followed all the fallacies of the new observations, and recognised their impossibilities. I cannot resolve what to say in a chance so strange, so new, and so unexpected; the shortness of the time, the unexampled occurrence, the weakness of my intellect, and the terror of being mistaken, have greatly confounded me." Although Galileo struggled to obtain a solution of this mystery, yet he had not ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... itself, not as to portions of human nature's daily food, but as to [13] something that must be, by the circumstances of the case, exceptional; almost as men turn in despair to gambling or narcotics, and in a little while the narcotic, the game of chance or skill, is valued for its own sake. The vocation of the artist, of the student of life or books, will be realised with something—say! of fanaticism, as an end in itself, unrelated, unassociated. ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... to continue his rolling process with additional vim, partly because he now knew the other could not get a chance to whack him again with both hands handcuffed—for that was what had actually occurred and it proved his first surmise—that hard metal had come ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... There was no chance of a refusal, for the great nobles were sovereigns in their own domains; the Countess owned half Wiltshire, and was much loved and honoured in all the religious houses for her ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in love with him,' said Louie, maliciously; 'and some day, Mr. Dalby, if we get a chance, perhaps I'll tell you all ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Possibly, he desired, should they ever meet, that their acquaintance might commence afresh. At any rate, Sarah was left quite to forget the existence of the young fellow who watched by her so faithfully; or if by some chance some recollection of him, as connected with that dreadful season, came into her mind, it was purely evanescent and without consequence. Mr. Burns, however, always cherished certain hopes. The reader will recollect his sadness of heart when he discovered how matters stood between Sarah ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the buccaneers sailed might, perhaps, have served for the great ship's longboat; the Spaniards out-numbered them three to one, and Pierre and his men were armed only with pistols and cutlasses; nevertheless this was their one and their only chance, and they determined to take the Spanish ship or to die in the attempt. Down upon the Spaniard they bore through the dusk of the night, and giving orders to the "chirurgeon" to scuttle their craft under them as ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... mate, whose Journal has been quoted, quietly slipped into the water, and endeavoured to reach a canoe which was hanging about to pick him up, but he was seen and taken on board again. In his notes he expresses his regret that the scientific world thus lost the chance of having the experiences of a prolonged residence amongst these people placed before it. At the time of leaving there was great talk of the expedition against Eimeo, and Cook would have liked to have watched the proceedings, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... and she walked quickly out of the room into her own bedroom. There, quite by chance, the first thing she saw was this charming girl in the mirror, in her black hat trimmed with gold daisies, and a long black velvet ribbon. Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... map fails in this region, so it is only by fixing on the well-known city of Yamagata and devising routes to it that we get on. Half the evening is spent in consulting Japanese maps, if we can get them, and in questioning the house-master and Transport Agent, and any chance travellers; but the people know nothing beyond the distance of a few ri, and the agents seldom tell one anything beyond the next stage. When I inquire about the "unbeaten tracks" that I wish to take, the answers are, "It's an ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... chance somewhat more fortuitous than the common hazards which we group together and call existence—pushed Edwin into the next stage of his career. As, on one afternoon in late June, he was turning the corner of Trafalgar Road to enter the shop, he surprisingly ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... This fact is the clearest symptom of the weakness of their empire and of the small power wielded by their King of kings. In contrast alike with its predecessors and successors the Arsacid dominion was peculiarly a chance formation—a state which had come into existence through fortuitous external circumstances, and had no firm foundation within itself, or ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... Gautama, Dhrishtadyumna, greatly stupefied, knew not what to do. His driver then, addressing him said, "It is not all right with thee, O son of Prishata. Never before have I seen such a calamity overtake thee in battle. It is a lucky chance, it seems, that these shafts, capable of penetrating the very vitals, sped by that foremost of Brahmanas aiming at thy vital limbs, are not striking thee. I will presently cause the car to turn back, like the current ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... shielded from rude contact with the outside world, by the secrecy behind which a Welshman hides his love, for, in a hundred ways unnoticed and unseen by those around him, there were opportunities of apprising the girl of his constant and watchful interest. How sweet was the chance touch of her brown fingers in the course of the mill work. If her eyes met his, which they did not often, how easy it was to send a meaning glance from his own! how delightful to sit beside her in the circle round the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... ill-fame, all the vilest class."[3398]—Naturally, lost women form a part of the crowd "Citoyennes," Henriot says, addressing the prostitutes of the Palais-Royal, whom he has assembled in its garden, "citoyennes, are you good republicans?" "Yes, general, yes!" "Have you, by chance, any refractory priest, any Austrian, any Prussian, concealed in your apartments?" "Fie, fie! We have nobody but sans-culottes!"[3399]—Along with these are the thieves and prostitutes out of the Chatelet ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... before he came? You were kind of shy, but you'd have been mine in the end, and you know it. Waiting was all I had to do, and I was content to wait. And now he's come along, and I know very well that I haven't a dog's chance. You're a working lass, Julia, fit mate for a working man. Do you think he's one of our sort? Not he! Do you think he's for marrying a girl who works for her bread? If you do, you're a bigger fool than I think you. He's forever nosing around amongst these swell ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... with his nest or nestlings. When Miss Inches attacked him on the subject, his first impulse was to whistle with amazement. Next he laughed, and then he became almost angry. Miss Inches talked very fast, describing the fine things she would do with Johnnie, and for her; and Dr. Carr, having no chance to put in a word, listened patiently, and watched his little girl, who was clinging to her new friend and looking very eager and anxious. He saw that her heart was set on being "adopted," and, wise man that he was, it occurred to him that it might be well to grant her ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... recited again, then Mrs. Wilbur Edes spoke at length, and with an air which commanded attention, and Von Rosen suffered agonies. He laughed with sickly spurts at Mrs. Snyder's confidential sallies, when she had at last her chance to deliver herself of her ten dollar speech, but the worst ordeal was to follow. Von Rosen was fluttered about by women bearing cups of tea, of frothy chocolate, plates of cake, dishes of bonbons, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... old fellow, and has shown me a lot of favors. Seems to me relatives mean more to folks out here than they do East, because so few have their families or relatives along, I guess. If it had not been for Seldon, I rather think I would not have had the chance of ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... volunteered to go out and get him. Jimmy did not believe in leaving anything to chance. He had been running an auto all week and would just as soon work at night as any other time. Big Jack Moore, another enthusiastic Conservative, ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... of it. Every wink you've had after such a day as yesterday is like money put in the bank. But the sleighing is better now than it will be later in the day. The sun'll be pretty powerful by noon, and the snow'll soon be slush. Now's your chance to get your traps up in a hurry. I can have a two-hoss sled ready in half an hour, and if you say so I can hire a big sleigh of a neighbor, and we'll have everything here by dinner-time. After you ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... chance given me to become initiated in this art and mystery; no further, at least, than by looking on, and watching how that these things might be done as well as others, the reason was, that I had only shipped for this one voyage in the Highlander, a short voyage too; ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... fire low in order to prevent its being seen by any of the wandering bands of patriots—alias soldiers, alias banditti—who might chance to be in the neighbourhood, the three travellers thus thrown unexpectedly together ate their supper in comparative silence, Lawrence and Pedro exchanging a comment on the viands now and then, and the handsome Indian girl sitting opposite to them with her ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... were apparently not prepared: two battalions were wiped out, part of the bridgehead was lost, and Rawlinson's Fourth Army remained a more or less passive spectator of the subsequent campaign. Its own chance of making a thrust had gone, and it waited in vain for the thrust elsewhere to turn the gate the Germans had barred between the Yser floods ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... adventure and love of change, which did him and his own family more harm than anybody else. He was just the kind of man that all his neighbours found fault with, and all his neighbours liked. Late in life (for such an imprudent man as he, was one of a class who generally wed, trusting to chance and luck for the provision for a family), farmer Robson married a woman whose only want of practical wisdom consisted in taking him for a husband. She was Philip Hepburn's aunt, and had had the charge of him until she married from her widowed brother's ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... though with a flash of inspiration. "That may be," said he; "it may very well be! That would cost us our hold over Pakenham. Neither would we have any chance left with her." ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... forgot to mention that Mr. Courtland was lunching with us to-day, Phyllis," said Ella, while shaking hands with her visitor. "Now you will have a chance of getting the slave-dealer's account of the whole business. Are you a slave-dealer, Bertie? If so, why don't you wear the usual broad-leaved hat of ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... special timidity, another by special courage; and others by other bodily and mental attributes. Now it is unquestionably true that, other things equal, each of these attributes, giving its possessor an extra chance of life, is likely to be transmitted to posterity. But there seems no reason to suppose that it will be increased in subsequent generations by natural selection. That it may be thus increased, the individuals not possessing more than average endowments ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... persons drawn away from crime and vice by the active efforts of the missionaries, but the Missions themselves do good. They are well known, and they are constant reminders to the fallen that they have a chance to rise. Some few avail themselves of the chance. Men and women, especially young ones, frequently come in and appeal to the missionaries to help them to reform. They want advice, assistance, or protection. Whatever is needed is ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... only to the arts of space; the arts of time—music, poetry, and the (written) drama—employing vehicles more flexible, have been more fortunate, though they too suffer in some degree from worshipping, instead of the god of order, the god of chance. ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... nonsense! let me never fling a single chance away; Maids ere now, I know, have loved me, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... Farnsworth, blithely; "better streak for home. Wish I'd turned sooner. But we'll beat the storm. Wish the girls had some wraps. Here, Daisy, take my coat and put it on while you've a chance. It'll look pretty silly on you, but it will keep your furbelows from ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... that remain to be solved relate to his uplift from ignorance, poverty and degradation, to the attainment of the ability to support himself, by a fair chance in the labor market, and the enjoyment of approved ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... will—to blend the conflicting elements of his nature into one. He was therefore a man much as the mass of flour and raisins, etc., when first put into the bag, is a plum-pudding; and had to pass through something analogous to boiling to give him a chance of becoming worthy of the name he would have arrogated. But in his own estimate of himself he claimed always the virtues of whose presence he was conscious in his good moods letting the bad ones slide, nor taking any account of what was in them. He substituted forgetfulness for repudiation, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... strength and health changed into premature infirmity, and the home and the love that should have opened wide its doors to console him for all, why in two years Death might have been busy, and taken away from him his last feeble chance of the faint happiness of seeing his beloved without being seen or known of her. All that night and all the next day, the fear of Sylvia's possible death overclouded his heart. It was strange that he had hardly ever thought of this ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... there was no chance for the robbers to plunder and to obtain food, save it were to come up in open battle against the Nephites; and the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... 'pothecary? Nay, all that cometh to our handling, Except ye happen to come to hanging; That way perchance ye shall not mister[394] To go to heaven without a glister. But be ye sure I would be woe,[395] If[396] ye should chance to beguile me so. As good to lie with me a-night, As hang abroad in the moonlight. There is no choice to flee my hand, But, as I said, into the band. Since of our souls the multitude I send to heaven, when all is viewed, Who should but I then altogether Have thank ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... at some chance word of blame and criticism from Miss Meechim, makin' light of his City of Justice and its inhabitants, a light blazed up in his eyes and lit up his face, some as a fire in our open fireplace lights up the spare-room, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley



Words linked to "Chance" :   risk of infection, danger, take place, mishap, even chance, adventure, cross section, occur, fat chance, chance on, try, sporting chance, chance-half correlation, contingent probability, probability, chance upon, shot, street, hearing, attempt, say, potential, conditional probability, fortune, chance event, phenomenon, possibility, fair chance, prospect, tabula rasa, brass ring, essay, chancy, occasion, take chances, throw, toss-up, come about, casual, chance variable, fall out, potency, mischance, measure, room, bump, hazard, clean slate, pass, slim chance, audience



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