"Luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... managed to secure some of Leon's people as his adherents, and thereupon began to plan a communistic settlement, somewhat upon the plan of Rapp's, but with the celibate principle left out. In the year 1844, his followers, among whom were by good luck some of the seceders from Economy, began a settlement in accordance with these plans in Missouri. They were all either Germans or "Pennsylvania Dutch," and people of limited means. It is probable that Keil had nothing, for he appears for some years previously to have followed no regular ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the symbols conform so closely to legends of this monster which are still repeated in the Tusayan villages. The home of Kwataka is reputed to be in the sky, and consequently figures of him are commonly associated with star and cloud emblems; he is a god of luck or chance, hence it is not exceptional to find figures of gaming implements[149] in certain elaborate figures ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... to move their imagination when he brought up as a reason for softening toward him that he was from Burnamy's own part of Indiana, and was a benefactor of Tippecanoe University, from which Burnamy was graduated. But they, relished the cynicism of his attempt; and they were glad of his good luck, which he was getting square and not rhomboid, as most people seem to get their luck. They liked him, and some of them liked him for his clean young life as well as for his cleverness. His life was known to be as clean as a girl's, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... because I can't help myself; and to come back again, if ever I've the luck of it. My heart's leaping out ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... after they had eaten breakfast, Chaske proposed that they should go out on the prairies, and see if they would have the good luck to kill an antelope. Hake went out and got the band of horses, of which there were over a hundred. They selected the fleetest two in the herd, and taking their bows and arrows, mounted and ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... know—just pot luck with us, with your old superintendent, you rascal," he uttered nervously, poking Martin in an attempt at ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... assassinations, then we ourselves must help the thing along.' For, if they cannot report that there is something doing, they will be considered superfluous, and, of course, they don't want that to happen. So they 'help the thing along' by 'correcting luck,' as the French proverb puts it. Or they play politics ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... you have the goodness to step to the library and give me your assistance? and when you have unearthed for me the meaning of the obscure Florentine, we will join the rest at Birkenwood-bank, and see their luck ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... takin' yer lives where they shouldn't be took? and,' says he, 'in a ship what the last skipper died aboard of it,' says he, 'died so sudden, and was so fond of his old place as who knows where he is now, afloat or ashore, p'r'aps a-walking this very cabin, and not bringing no luck for the vige, neither,' says he. And what follows?—why, white-livered jawings, and this man afeard to go here, and that man afeard to go there, and the Old One amongst 'em, so that half of 'em says, 'We was took false,' and the other half, 'Why not 'bout ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... true, and we succeed in the attempt, we shall recover, and the French lose, one of the most valuable branches of commerce—I mean sugar. The French now supply all the foreign markets in Europe with that commodity; we only supply ourselves with it. This would make us some amends for our ill luck, or ill conduct in North America; where Lord Loudon, with twelve thousand men, thought himself no match for the French with but seven; and Admiral Holborne, with seventeen ships of the line, declined attacking ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... There, Frank lad, I want to be true to my duty— don't tell upon me—but I can't help feeling that we had bad luck last night, or some one we know might ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... break sway, if he can. He is also a bad driver when the reins are always slack; the horse then feels abandoned to himself; he is neither directed nor supported, and if no accident occurs, it is great good luck. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... for luck.—Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, observes, that it is accounted {197} lucky by the vulgar to throw an old shoe after a person when they wish him to succeed in what he is going about. This custom is very prevalent ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... was entering the Long Island City slip. "The devil!" he exclaimed in mingled disgust and dismay, realizing that his distraction had been so thorough as to permit the voyage to take place almost without his realizing it. So that now—worse luck!—it was too late to take any one of the hundred fantastic steps he had contemplated half seriously. In another two minutes his charming mystery, so bewitchingly incarnated, would have slipped out of his life, finally and beyond recall. And he could do naught to hinder ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... for a little exercise. Some brute had thrown over a piece of poisoned meat, and she ate it. Four of the pups died. This is the only one left. Mr. Robinson says his man doesn't understand raising pups without their mothers, and as he is going away, he wants us to have it, for we always had such luck in nursing sick animals." ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... trying his luck, and managing the matter very clumsily, the uneasy beast gave him a kick on the head that knocked him down, and there he lay a long while senseless. Luckily a butcher came by driving ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... had nothing but ill-luck all this afternoon," said Phonny, in a pettish tone. "That great ugly black horse of Thomas's trod on ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... him! Hell soon be sleepin' beside her, beyant there, where she's lyin'. It was never known of Peter Connell that he offinded man, woman, or child since he was born, barrin' the gaugers, bad luck to thim, afore he was marrid—but that was no offince. Sowl, he was their match, any how. When he an' the wife's gone, they won't lave their likes behind them. The sons are bodaghs—gintlemen, now; an' it's nothin' but dinners ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... praiseworthy for a member of the political aristocracy to marry a rich woman for her wealth, the better to maintain the luster of his rank, or the more easily to fulfil his particular political and social duties, but they also believed there could be no better luck or greater honor for a rich woman than for this reason to marry a prominent man. They exacted only that she be of respectable habits, and even in this regard it appears that, during certain tumultuous periods, they ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... "little as the lubber knew it, 'twas the best he could have done for me. For though I never looked for such luck as your being out in the court at that hour, I did think the chance not to be lost of visiting the garden or the churchyard, and there were waiting in the vault a couple of stout Normans, who were to come at my ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... speedily ruined by the elements. The ethics of vandalism are indeed strange and varied. In this case vanity was responsible. It was superstition which led the Sienese, after incurring defeat by the Florentines, to remove from their market-place the famous statue by Lysippus which brought them ill-luck, and to bury it in Florentine territory, so that their enemies might suffer instead. Ignorance nearly induced a Pope to destroy the "Last Judgment" of Michael Angelo, whose colossal statue of an earlier Pontiff, Julius II., was broken up through political animosity. One wishes that in this last case ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... Leicester's Italian physician, Julio, was affirmed by his contemporaries to be a skilful compounder of poisons, which he applied with such frequency, that the Jesuit Parsons extols ironically the marvellous good luck of this great favourite in the opportune deaths of those who stood in the way of his wishes. There is a curious ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... go," said Griselda; and finding her way across the saloon without, by great good luck, tumbling against any of the many breakable treasures with which it was filled, she flew down the long passage again, reaching her own room just before Dorcas appeared ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... square in front of Hill's grocery, and as luck would have it, Professor Strout was standing on the platform smoking a cigar. Huldy smiled and nodded to him, and Quincy, with true politeness, followed a city custom and raised his hat, but the Professor did not return the bow, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... crowd dispersed, and Pol lost the fruits of her first fucking. Never was lost a virginity so poorly rewarded. I did not make up her loss, but gave her half-a-crown with which she was well contented. I certainly was in luck to get all this fun for such trifling sums, I being still in poorish circumstances. Five years before I would have given thirty pounds for the same, and had ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... "Just my luck," said he; "here I am forced to ask no end of people to meet a man, who at the same time says he shall probably not come. Why, under the stars, couldn't he say, like other people, whether he was coming or not? I've known dozens of senators, Mrs. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... realized, by good luck, rather than management, a handsome fortune; and returning on the wings of love, lost in the most enchanting reveries, to England, to share it with his mistress and his friend, he ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... gave material for some "Legends" which perhaps are not yet universally forgotten. I have added few curiosities to the list since that work was published. My days of travel seem to be over; but in quitting that happiest way of life—not willingly—I have had the luck to find another occupation not less interesting, and better suited to grey hairs and stiffened limbs. This volume deals with the appurtenances of my Bungalow, as one may say—the orchid-houses. But a man who has almost forgotten what little knowledge he gathered ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... see one, but I guess they have had good luck, they look so jolly," answered Jill, looking at Gus, Frank, and Jack, who stood laughing, each with a large basket in ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... think they have a turn for affairs, thrust themselves forward of their own accord uninvited into courts and toilsome escorts and bivouacs, that they may get a horse, or brooch, or some such piece of good luck. "But his wife is left behind in Phylace, and tears her cheeks in her sorrow, and his house is only half complete without him,"[307] while he is dragged about, and wanders about, and wastes his time in idle hopes, and has to put up with much insult. And even if he gets any of those things ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... weighed down by depression, not fearing ill-luck, but regretting for the first time unfeignedly that she had ever joined herself to the sect in which her child must now be nurtured. For herself, feeling often that all religions were equally false, it had mattered little; with strange ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... being slighted by the depute, who was newly returned from England, he was forced to have recourse to arch-bishop Usher; which drew tears from his eyes, that he could not help them, and yet, by the interposition of lord Castle-Stuart with the king, they got six months liberty; but upon the luck of this in Nov. 1634, he was again conveened before the bishop, and the sentence of excommunication pronounced against him, by Ecklin bishop of Down.—After the sentence was pronounced, Mr. Blair rose up and publicly cited the bishop to appear before ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... luck this difficulty occurred at a time when the Emperor Rodolph was yet alive, and a spectator of this scene, and who might easily have been tempted to employ against his brother the same weapons which the latter had successfully directed against him — namely, an understanding with his rebellious ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Ill luck pursued her new owners, who, on her return to Quebec, decided to send her to England for sale. She left Quebec on August 5, 1833, coaled at Pictou, which lies on the Gulf side of Nova Scotia, and took her departure from there on the ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... the head of the train, saw a man galloping towards us with loose rein, in whom we at once recognised the leader of our advance-guard, Engineer Demestre. The haste with which he galloped towards us at first gave us some anxiety; but his smiling face soon showed us that it was no ill-luck which brought him to us. He signalled to me from a distance, and cried as he checked his horse in front of us: 'Your sister and Miss Fox are ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... I blame myself sufficiently. But how could I prevent it? Could I do more than warn him? I did all that was in my power, and cannot find myself guilty. Civitella, too, lost not a little; I won about six hundred zechins. The unprecedented ill-luck of the prince excited general attention, and therefore he would not leave off playing. Civitella, who is always ready to oblige him, immediately advanced him the required sum. The deficit is made ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... his adventure. Warren sat staring at him. "It's just your luck, Lyman. But, why didn't you throw him back into the creek? Why didn't you stamp him into the ground? And you have spoiled another piece of news. What do you expect will become of you if you ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... foreigner would try to run in, and not seldom succeed, because only the fastest vessels tried to run the blockade after the first few months. But the general experience was one of utter boredom rarely relieved by a stroke of good luck. ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... animal, agee vingt trois. From appearance, she has been used to count her beads and work hard, and never thought of love or finery. The enclosed recommendation of Madame Dupont, the elder, will tell you more. You are in equal luck with a cook. I have had him on trial a fortnight, and he is the best I ever had in the house; for cakes, pastry, and jimcracks, far superior to Anthony. In short, he is too good for you, and I have a great mind not to send him; you will be for ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Madge," said Mrs. Verne, who on entering beheld the bouquet, "and to think that Evelyn should accept Mr. Tracy as escort when we could have Sir Arthur. It is, indeed, provoking beyond endurance. Madge you are to be congratulated upon such good luck; scores of girls would envy you the proud position as Lady Forrester, and for once I hope my child will consider well before she lets such an ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... ought to take your place in society,' she says, 'and get married.' The difficulty was, sir, to decide just what place I ought to take. And then—well, it's an ill wind, as they say, that blows nobody luck. Besides, if you'll pardon me, sir, you seemed to be losing your hold ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... our five hundred and odd true religions, all the thoughts of our hearts would be evil continually. They insist upon it that the 'absolute Atheist,' if virtuous, is so by accident not design; that he can neither love truth, justice, nor his neighbour, except by sheer luck, and that, if bad as his principles, would cut the throat of every man, woman, and child who might have the misfortune to fall in his way. They argue as if none can think good thoughts or purposely perform good acts unless so far eaten up by superstition as always to keep in view the probable ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... school-teachers and ministers. Fortunes were made in one day and lost the next at poker or loo. To-day the lucky miner who had struck a good "lead" was drinking champagne out of pails and treating the town; to-morrow he was "busted," and shouldered the pick for a new onslaught upon his luck. This strange, reckless life, was not without fascination, and highly picturesque and dramatic elements were present in it. It was, as Bret Harte says, "an era replete with a certain heroic Greek poetry," and sooner or later it was ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... your fortune's made. It's a good thing you came to me, and not to some chaps as I could tell you on. I've known blokes as beat their giants, and starved 'em too; so I'll tell you straight, you're in luck this day if you never was afore. 'Cos I'm a lamb, I am - and ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... resolved on a policy of peace, refused aid to Gustavus, withdrew his ships from the Baltic, and opened negotiations with Spain, which brought about a treaty at the end of 1630 on the virtual basis of an abandonment of the Palatinate. Ill luck clung to Charles in peace as in war. He had withdrawn from his efforts to win back the dominions of his brother-in-law at the very moment when those efforts were about to be crowned with success. The treaty with Spain was hardly concluded ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... will step across the instant the supercilious No-Answer comes to hand. Are to converge about Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland;—about 65,000 strong, equipped as no Army before or since has been;—and take what luck there may be. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... individual's will and effort; it is due to the physique and gifts and fortune he has inherited, the education and environment that have molded him, the social situation in which he finds himself, the willingness of others to cooperate with him, and his good luck in early ventures. It seems unfair that to him that hath so much, so much more should be given. Or at least it seems fair that he that hath less should be given more favorable opportunity. It is not enough, as Professor Giddings says, to reward ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home—better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I WAS, with both of 'm on my hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thought," said Reed, as he took a long look. "He's done gone plum' mad with the wish to kill. It strikes them evil-minded critters that way sometimes, an' he's had so much luck shootin' down at us, an' keepin' a whole little army besieged that it's mounted to his head. Ef he had his way he'd jest wipe ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... grassy mounds, which are from ten to twenty feet in height, are now supposed to have been the burial places of the ancient Celts. The peasantry can with difficulty be persuaded to open any of them, on account of a prevalent superstition that it will bring bad luck. A little before we arrived at Drogheda, I saw a tower to the right, apparently a hundred feet in height, with a doorway at a great distance from the ground, and a summit somewhat dilapidated. "That is one of the round towers of Ireland, ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... infantry—5th Battalion Lennox Highlanders, and then Flying Corps. Top-hole time I had too till the day before the Armistice, when my luck gave out and I took a nasty toss. Consequently I'm not as fast on my legs now as ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... most poisonous regard, if you ask me. Perhaps you know why: I don't. Anyway, it was rotten luck that brought your car to the door tonight. He named you during dinner, and while apparently he doesn't know where to look for you, it is plain he's got no use for you—not, at least, until your ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the situation at once. Here you had gone to school and as ill luck would have it you had picked from out the entire bunch of boys the son of his worst enemy for a chum. Neither your father nor mine realized the truth until you innocently carted me home with you for a holiday visit. When your father found out the fact he was too polite to ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... "Better luck next time," he said with his sweetest smile. "It is no good groaning over spilt milk. They haven't treated ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... faded from sight; and then the lighthouse, where she had passed so many happy hours in her childhood. The bright disk of flame shone clear and steady across the quiet ocean, seeming to say, Let your light so shine! Let your light so shine! Good luck, Polly! Keep your own lamp filled and trimmed, like a wise little virgin! And her heart answered, "Good-by, dear light! I am leaving my little-girl days on the shore with you, and I am out on the open sea of life. I shall know that you are shining, though I cannot see you. Good-by! ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... 14th:—'Dr. Burney had the luck to go to Oxford the only week in the year when the library is shut up. He was, however, very kindly treated; as one man is translating Arabick and another Welsh for his ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... at Clapton, who's bin in luck's way, and struck ile, Is dead nuts on Yours Truly. Old josser, and grumpy, but he's made his pile. Saw me settin' about in the garden, jest like a old saffron-gill'd ghost A-waiting for cock-crow to 'ook it, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... Benvenuto roamed about at random, cursing his bad luck, when suddenly he hit his foot against a long pole which lay hidden in the straw. With a good deal of effort he managed to raise it against the wall and to scramble up to the top. Here he found a sharply sloping ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... still very common in North Devon and Somerset, for the young men of the countryside to climb the nearest hill-top to see the sunrise over the ridge of the Quantocks or the distant Mendips on Easter morning. They account for their action by saying it is "for luck"; but this custom, if connected popularly with Christian worship, has at its roots an older, sterner, and perhaps bloody origin. For, searching back into the mists of antiquity, we find that those early and mysterious peoples whose priests we call ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... had pretty fair luck, so far. But nobody knows how long it'll last. There's my brother wasn't out of work for fifteen years, and now he hasn't done a stroke for twenty-three weeks come Tuesday. He's going out ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... matters. After some difficulty he managed to get introduced as the genuine article, and at 4 in the morning had to stand with the other Ethiopian minstrels at "Poverty Junction," between Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Station, while lots were drawn for positions on the course. As luck would have it, Wingfield drew a pitch opposite the Grand Stand, where at least he would be among his own acquaintances. All the niggers had to walk to Epsom, unless it happened some friendly carter could be induced to offer a seat. Had four-in-hands come along Wingfield ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... In these words, uttered many years ago to a group of brother officers in the mess room of the 19th Hussars, Sir John French quite unconsciously epitomised his own character in a way no biographer can hope to equal. The conversation had turned upon luck, a word that curiously enough was later to be so intimately associated with French's name. One man had stoutly proclaimed that all promotion was a matter of luck, and French had claimed that only work and ability really counted in the end. Yet "French's luck" has become ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... their return they had the good luck to meet with several pieces of beef which had been washed out of the ship and were swimming in the sea. This was a most seasonable relief to them after the hardships they had endured; and to complete their good fortune, there ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... luck," said young Walterton lightly, as he handed five sovereigns over to his friend, "moreover it ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... desperate effort to act like an experienced and trusted attendant of the prison, I roamed about and tried not to appear roaming. I successfully passed two guards, and reached the desired spot, which was by good luck temporarily deserted. I succeeded in calling up loudly enough to be heard by Miss Paul, but softly enough not to ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... has already gone. A thousand to your father for the builder man, a hundred to that wretch who was here yesterday, and the rest to pay some of my own debts. My luck has deserted me lately. I shall have to beg of your grandfather again to get the five hundred ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... with beating wool and pounding drugs,[FN186] and I am not to blame; the barrenness is with thee, for that thou art a snub-nosed mule and thy sperm is weak and watery and impregnateth not neither getteth children." Said he, "When I return from my journey, I will take another wife;" and she, "My luck is with Allah!" Then he went out from her and both repented of the sharp words spoken each to other. Now as the Emir's wife looked forth of her lattice, as she were a Bride of the Hoards[FN187] for the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... he parried it with his sword; and a quick backward step was all that saved me from his prompt reply. Angered at having to give ground in the presence of the lady, I now attacked in turn, somewhat recklessly, but with such good luck as to drive him back almost to the window. Mlle. d'Arency gave another terrified scream when he came near her, and she ran past me towards the door of the apartment. Both my antagonist and myself were now beginning to have a clearer impression of each other's outlines, ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... seemed to have the gift of divination. She worked surely—if she struck out one way you might be certain that success was there. In all her enterprises, "good luck" stood close by her; she scented failures from afar, and the firm never made a bad debt. Still Michel continued to tremble. The first mill had been followed by many more; then the old system appeared insufficient to Madame Desvarennes. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... immediately fully explained, and the matter set right, I shall plainly let you know what I do think of you now, and act accordingly. See the secretary, and telegraph me the result at once." Not much hope in that, worse luck; only a limited respite. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... Mirtillo. Mirt. And to you no less, And all fair signs lead on our shepherdess. Amar. With all white luck to you. Mirt. But say, what news Stirs in our sheep-walk? Amin. None, save that my ewes, My wethers, lambs, and wanton kids are well, Smooth, fair and fat! none better I can tell: Or that this ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... passed the evening in the King's Balai watching the Chinamen raking in their gains, while the Malays gambled and cursed their luck, with much slapping of thighs, and frequent references to God and his Prophet,—according to whose teaching gaming is an unclean thing. The sight of the play, and of the fierce passions which it aroused, had awakened memories in Raja Haji's mind, and it was evidently ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... January 10, 1815 (Letters, 1899, iii. 168), "I have tried the rascals (i.e. the public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but S....y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's pudding, and he has not luck enough to be found out in doing a good thing," implies that Byron had read and admired Southey's Roderick—an inference which is curiously confirmed by a memorandum in Murray's handwriting: "When Southey's poem, Don Roderick (sic), was published, Lord Byron sent in the middle of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... was luck in store for us this evening; and ye see the handful of prayers I threw away outside wasn't lost. Jose's making the beasts comfortable in the stable, and I'm thinking we'll none of us complain of our quarters. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... with Lord Chesterfield, who was at that time coming out, and was in great force with his Zinganee, Priam, Carew, Glaucus, and other crack horses. During this time he had few horses of any great account of his own, although his confederate had nothing to complain of in the shape of luck. At the termination of this confederacy Mr. Greville entered upon another with his cousin, Lord George Bentinck, who, from his father's hostility to his racing, was unable to run horses in his own name. The extent of this stud was so great that we ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the reply. "We are heading for Kolberg, on the Baltic Sea. From there we will try to get across into Denmark. The thing to do is to get out of Germany at the earliest possible moment, and, with good luck in getting a boat of some kind at Kolberg, ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... that it is one of the duties of an explorer to "rough it," and to "trust to luck" for his food. I had found on my first two expeditions, in Venezuela and Colombia and across South America, that the result of being obliged to subsist on irregular and haphazard rations was most unsatisfactory. While "roughing it" is far more enticing to the ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... "Well, strangers, what luck to day?" enquires the hunter, as they run up their horses. At the same time he gracefully raises a delicate hand, relieves his mouth of the cigar, twists a well- trimmed mustache, and lifts his hunting-cap from off his head, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... through her sorrow, like a bird when the rain has ceased for a moment, and she asked questions, anxious to delay the inevitable return to her own unhappy condition. She was interested in the luck that had come to her father, and was sorry that her conduct had clouded or spoilt it. At last a feeling of shame came upon them that at such a time they should be engaged in speaking of such singularly irrelevant topics. She could see that the same thought had come upon him, and ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... BLEACKLEY, presenting three generations from Peterloo to the Jubilee of QUEEN VICTORIA, covers too much ground for full effect, but he has pleasantly gilded a wholesome pill for pleasant people. Good luck to him. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... Deut. xii. 20, xix. 8, have been appealed to in support of the opinion; but this appeal is inadmissible, because [Pg 40] extension of the borders is the thing which is there spoken of. The allusion to the signification of the name Gad good luck [Gen. xxx. 11: "And Leah said, For good luck;[5] and she called his name Gad"], is favourable to our view, as well as the circumstance, that in this case the subsequent words are only an expansion of the general thought, and more closely determine ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... sick. We were the first to leave Millen and the first to reach Blackshear. We were again the first to leave Blackshear. Perhaps those fellows we left behind then are exchanged. Now, as we've played ahead every time, with such infernal luck, let's play backward this time, and try what that ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... which hung at the side of the vessel. The helmsman was nodding silently upon his tiller; two seamen sat motionless upon the bow, and the lookout party in the crow's-nest talked mutteringly of our ill-luck as they scanned the horizon. The Northern Lights were pulsing like some great radiating heart, and the sea was alternately flame and shadow. The headlands of Labrador lay to the south—bare, boundless, precipitous; and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... tales such as they knew concerning that place; and both they said that they had never erst come into the dale but a very little way, and said that they had done so then but trusting in their lords' bidding and the luck of the Quest. Thereafter turned the talk as to what had befallen Birdalone, and the chances of coming on her; and, as folk will in such a plight, they talked the matter over and over again till they were weary and could say ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... one brilliant dash after another, sometimes winning out by the narrowest margin and apparently by pure luck. Still, Phil Forrest and his loyal crew were never caught napping and were never headed off for more than a ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... as in knave, know, knuckle. In stead of doubling c final, we write ck; as in lack, lock, luck, attack. In English words, k is never doubled, though two Kays may come together in certain compounds; as in brickkiln, jackknife. Two Kays, belonging to different syllables, also stand together in a ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... My uncle! Crikey!" he exclaimed; "but that has really done it! And what luck we have had, too. To think that we should have been in a compartment which drew up near the signal station where that message about us was shouted by the man in charge. I declare again that you're a regular wizard, Henri, for how else could you have arranged for the ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... trains had no terrors for me, it would give me a chance to see the country, and it was for that I had come to China, and I knew I could manage about my things; but the Chinese inn was something of a difficulty, as I was leaving interpreter and cook in Hankow. I jumped into a rickshaw and by good luck found the genial superintendent, M. Didier, at the station. Mais oui, I might stop in the train at night; mais oui, the little dog could be with me; mais oui, I could certainly manage a trunk in my compartment. And he did even better than his word, wiring ahead to the nights' stopping-places, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... county we're in. How'd our Delergate look spreadin' jelly cake? Nope, he didn't make it. And does it look any like Mac has studied bakery doin's out on the Carrizoso ranch? You know Tom Osby couldn't. As for me, if hard luck has ever driv me to cookin' in the past, I ain't referrin' to it now. I'm a straight-up cow puncher and nothin' else. That cake? Why, it ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... who saw no hope of escape, except by continuing the character of the Prince. "Very good. Come, then, I am ready. By good luck I happen to have the agreement with me between you and the baker's daughter, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... "It isn't luck, my boy," observed Mr Stokes, whom the death of poor Jackson and his own narrow escape from a like fate had led to think of other matters besides those connected with his mundane ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... still, because there appeared no other way whither they could turn themselves for deliverance, they made haste the same way with the soldiers, and went to Claudius. But those that had the greatest luck in flattering the good fortune of Claudius betimes met them before the walls with their naked swords, and there was reason to fear that those that came first might have been in danger, before Claudius could know what violence the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... proud of Max the morning we rode out of Vienna, true knights-errant, with the greatest princess in Europe as our objective prize. Truly, we were in no wise modest; but the God of heaven, the god of Luck, and the god of Love all favor the man that is bold enough to attempt ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... putting the card safely away in his wallet, and soon after Lester Stanwick took his departure, roundly cursing his luck, yet congratulating himself upon the fact that Daisy could not leave Elmwood—he could rest content ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... out of the expedition which nobody had really believed in and most people had laughed at. We were proud of him, and right glad to see him, and a little bit uneasy, but vastly amused over his peppery dealings with the Royal Geographers. [Laughter.] In spite of our admiration for his pluck and his luck we did not take him quite seriously. [Laughter.] In fact we did not take anything very seriously in those days. The Lotos Club at first was younger in that hearty enthusiastic reception to Stanley fourteen ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... heartily by the hand. "Never rejoiced over any one's luck more in my life!" he said; then, in the same breath, "How's Ray? Oh yes, I see how it is, poor fellow! And you love him too; of ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... quite impossible; and the naked truth is, that each man lives for himself, and in his own fashion. The man whom fate serves well passes his life in a manner more or less agreeable; if it serves him ill—he perishes. Luck, and the chance meeting of causes, arranges everything. It is impossible to turn the earth into a general paradise, just as it is to change a small planet into an immense one. The salvation of society is one ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... what I will tell you, Getzel?" he said to himself a few minutes later. "Let us forgive one another. Let us be friends. The Lord helped me. It was my luck to win so many nuts—may no evil eye harm them! Why should we not enjoy ourselves? Let's crack a few nuts. I should think they are not bad! Well, what do ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... thing. You see it's like this. All the cities and things you ever built is in this country. I don't know how it's managed, no more'n what you do. But so it is. And as you made 'em, you've the right to come to them—if you can get there. And you have got there. It isn't every one has the luck, I'm told. Well, then, you made the cities, but you made 'em out of what other folks had made, things like bricks and chessmen and books and candlesticks and dominoes and brass basins and every sort of kind ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... Julian exclaimed piously, as a storm of rain blew in through the half-open door. "Good night and good luck, old chap!" ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... declined, saying that he was then stricken in years, and adding that he was less able to endure the exposure of sea life than he had been. Lief replied that he would, nevertheless, be the one who would be most apt to bring good luck, and Eric yielded to Lief's solicitation, and rode from home when they were ready ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... sweet-smelling branch with its blossoms; he is a vessel that is full of honey; he is a shining stone of good luck; he who does the will of the Son ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... me. Just before I left I called at their cabins again. But I had no more luck that time than the first; they were away somewhere. Well," she concluded, with a smile, "perhaps the third time will win; that's the rule. I'll ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... the chapter of human accidents should fall out to give them a reprieve, the only consequences would be, that as they had dwindled, dwindled before, they would dwindle, dwindle again. There was no stock of good luck which such conduct would not run out. It was clear what was coming: the Tories must return to power. How long they would stay there was another question; but their return was a phasis, a phenomenon which ministers had rendered it inevitable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... out still," whispered Tom, "so as not to wake the girls. I don't want them to see us start off, for we may not have any luck, you know; and it's a thing I never could stand, to come back from fishing, with no fish, and have folks asking me where ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... England in their cars, the motor girls had a strange experience with the gypsies, as set forth in the fourth volume. Cora was in dire straits for a time, but with her usual good luck, and her good sense, she finally turned the situation to the advantage of herself and ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... Scotland to-night! It was just a piece of luck that you found me this morning. Freddie ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... effective measures for our protection. The few regular troops in our little army were not enough to do sentry duty everywhere, and the best that could be done would be to dispose them at the points most open to attack—"And then trust to luck," Rayburn put in, rather bitterly, "that the enemy will be polite enough to try to surprise only the part of the camp where the sentries ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... river, Mr. Calvert," said the major. "Bring your party along as well as you can. You'll find camp somewhere up-stream. We'll have rations to meet you. I'll have to go on now after the battalion,—what there is of it," he added to himself, his teeth firmly set. "Was ever luck worse than this?" ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... says I. "So you can see what luck he's playin' in. Did you want to talk to him 'special, or is it anything I can fix up ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... been inspected, Lord Ormersfield declared that the young ladies must not return alone, and insisted on escorting them home. Every five minutes some one thought of something to say: there was an answer, and by good luck a rejoinder; then all died away, and Mary pondered how her mother would in her place have done something to draw the two together, but she could not. She feared the walk had made Isabel more adverse to all connected with Ormersfield than even previously; for the Ormersfield road was avoided, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... half of 'Sordello,' and that, with Mr. Browning's usual ill-luck, the first half, is undoubtedly obscure. It is as difficult to read as 'Endymion' or the 'Revolt of Islam,' and for the same reason—the author's lack of experience in the art of composition. We have all ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... Was it ill-luck or destiny, that caught Vancouver in this gale? If he had not been driven offshore here, he might have been just two weeks before Gray on the Columbia, and made good England's claim of all territory between New Spain and Alaska. When the weather cleared on April 27, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... MAR. Just like my luck! Alas! they be true sayings, they be—"Give a dog a bad name and hang him," and—"One doesn't get fat in other folk's service." [Footnote: Or, more literally, "Service is no inheritance;" but this does not sound ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... formed his answer. "Love, my brave comrades," replied he, "seldom chooses even ways. I go on a message from a young ensign in the keep, to one of the Scottish damsels in yonder tower. Delay me, and his vengeance will fall upon us all." "Good luck to you, my lad!" was their answer, and, with a lightened step, he ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... I know?" she answered laughingly. "That is the secret of the urn. Meanwhile, we have set you a place at the table-head near Princess Heru, and tonight you dip and have your chance like all of them; may luck send you a rosy bride, and save her ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Colonel-in-charge. Well, I went up for my interview this morning, and was tested for vision by the Colonel with my glasses on. Finally he told me that he was going to recommend me for the Tanks, which means that the thing is as good as settled. I had not dared to hope for such luck, owing to the fact of my not having any special qualification. However, my usual marvellous good fortune seems not to have deserted me. It means just this, that I am going to be a member of the most modern and most interesting branch of the service. So great is my delight ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... receive the very minimum of pay possible for his existence," he told her once, when she talked of the increase in his income. "He works in the dark, and he is in luck if he happens to do any good. In waging his battle with mysterious nature, he only unfits himself by seeking gain. In the same way, to a lesser degree, the law and the ministry should not be gainful professions. When the question of personal gain ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... had good luck that way. The old servant took charge of the house and cooked the food for them. They were not disturbed often, but they could never be sure when a company of soldiers might come by and stay ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... 'Good luck hath been thy guide, sir knight,' said the troll, 'and thou hath released me from the evil dumb shape into which this wizard did change me. But all the happiness that hath been thine and shall be thine again, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... "Thank you," and turned away, muttering to himself something in condemnation of his luck in general. As he walked slowly down the deck up which he had rushed with such headlong speed a few moments before, he noticed a lady trying to set together her steamer chair, which had seemingly given way—a ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... ha' known your own ship," said old Bob, with a wink of his one eye. "Howsomever, we can beat about among the fleet till it's dark, and then back to Portsmouth; and then, do ye see, sir, we can come out to-morrow morning by daylight and try again. Maybe we shall have better luck. The convoy is sure not to sail in the night, and the tide won't serve ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... accordingly a capitalist of the first magnitude. The people here know very well that I ran away from London; but the most of them have run away from some place or other; and they have a great respect for me, because they think I ran away with something worth taking, which few of them had the luck or the wit to do. This gives them confidence in my resources, at the same time that, as there is nothing portable in the settlement except my own notes, they have no fear that I shall run away with them. They know I am thoroughly conversant with the principles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... I shall take the next steamer for New York." I said to him, "How are you fixed, Uncle Billy?" He said, "I have eleven thousand dollars and I am going home." I congratulated him for his courage and good luck and wished him a pleasant voyage and a happy reunion with his old friends. About a week later I met Uncle Billy on the street again and said to him, "How is this Uncle Billy, I thought you were going home on ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... Merrifield, looking pained; 'perhaps the choice seemed very terrible to a poor only child like that. We, who had the luck to be one of many, don't know what wild cats you may ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sailor was waiting for him. By now I was quite certain that he meant to have it out with me, and for my part, after the long uncertainty of the week, I asked nothing better than to get to grips with him. All I prayed for was a hand-to-hand struggle in which I might have the luck to tip him overboard, so I was rather dismayed when I saw that the ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West |
