"Perchance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is terrible," the Druid said, "but our gods will fight for us, and doubtless a terrible destruction will fall upon the impious men who thus dream of profaning the Sacred Island; but it may be otherwise, or perchance the gods may see that thus, and thus only, can the people of Britain be stirred to take up arms and to annihilate the worshippers of the false gods of Rome. Assuredly we are on the eve of great events, and every Briton ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... those who drown, perchance, And all their years, a waking dream, Flash pictured by in lightning gleam, His childhood home appears, the mother's glance, The hearth-side smile; the fragrance of the fields: —Now, war's iron knell Wakes the hounds ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Christie, hath that come back to me, when I have been called to do that which was unpleasing to me, that which perchance seemed lesser work for God than the thing which I was doing. And I have oft found that what I would have done instead thereof was not the work God set me, but the work I ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... said I, 'that they are so irascible, that if perchance their word is doubted, and they are called liars, they will fight on such ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... three of the 'guides' have, with more or less success, adopted for themselves a definite system. Mr. William Morris has given us a list, the perusal of which may perchance arouse serious misgivings in the heart of the general reader, who cannot 'even with great difficulty read Old German,' and who has not yet been educated up to the point of regarding Virgil and Juvenal as 'sham classics.' The 'Admiral's' list is good, if somewhat too ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... seems a body. They all of them lay upon the ground, except one who raised himself to sit, quickly as he saw us passing before him. "O thou who art led through this Hell," he said to me, "recognize me, if thou canst; thou wast made before I was unmade." And I to him, "The anguish which thou hast perchance withdraws thee from my memory, so that it seems not that I ever saw thee. But tell me who thou art, that in a place so woeful art set, and with such a punishment, that if any other is greater none is so displeasing." And he to me, "Thy city ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... "an oath to tell the truth about everything as to which she should be questioned," she replied: "Perchance you may ask me things I would not tell you. I do not like to take an oath to tell the truth save as to matters which concern the faith." She fearlessly tried to guard against violation of what she considered her right to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... name upon a tree,— A gnarled old ash-tree, gaunt and grey; "The name may stay," she said to me, "When I, perchance, am far away!" ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... know?" she asked discouragingly. "How much further could you go on that?... Would you perchance be any happier when ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... love has not attained its highest height until it has become pity. Thus the mother's love for her child is never so noble as when expressed in ministering to its sickness. How near to the little one does she come in those painful, anxious hours when, perchance, all the reward her love seems like to bring is the blighting of her dearest hopes. She loves her child in health, but that love is rewarded with joy; she loves it as it triumphs in its little tasks of intellect, but that love is rewarded with pride; its moral achievements awaken ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... which it was mentioned to be laid. Melmoth's hands felt as cold as those of his dead uncle, when he drew the blotted pages from their nook. He sat down to read,—there was a dead silence through the house. Melmoth looked wistfully at the candles, snuffed them, and still thought they looked dim, (perchance he thought they burned blue, but such thought he kept to himself). Certain it is, he often changed his posture, and would have changed his chair, had there been more ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... of the House of Orleans, he has had the opportunity of a stroll through the public press arm in arm with his old crony and adversary, the Divine Right of Kings. And the two have gone once more a-roaming by the light of the moon, to drop a tear, perchance, on the graves of the Thin End of the Wedge and the Stake in the Country. You know the unhappy story?—how the Wedge drove its thin end into the Stake, with fatal results: and how it died of remorse and was buried at the cross-roads with the Stake in its ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cannot think my sister in the least Would fail her obligation; if, sir, perchance, She have restrain'd the riots of your followers, 'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end, As clears ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... takes earth's abatement! He who smites the rock and spreads the water, Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril, When they stood and mocked—"Shall smiting help us?" When they drank and ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... fairer and nobler than ever before. So they sat in an amazed silence, till presently King Arthur rose and gave thanks to God for the grace given to him and to his court. Then up sprang Sir Gawain and made his avow to follow for a year and a day the Quest of the Holy Grail, if perchance he might be granted the vision of it. Immediately other of the knights followed his example, binding themselves to the Quest of the Holy Grail until, in all, one hundred and fifty had ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... possibility, but I didn't see how any intruder could do all that, without being seen by the waiters. Unless, perchance, the waiters had been bribed to silence. And that, in the face of Luigi's earnest, and convincing testimony, I ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... intrigues and detesting them with an equal hatred, had planned to precipitate the two men upon each other. For a young girl the undertaking is great. I will go to the Countess's to-morrow night, and I will amuse myself by watching Alba, to see... If she is innocent, my deed will be inoffensive. If perchance she is not?" ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... man, to dress it and keep it and to eat of all the trees, forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge only. But the man is utterly alone in his garden: he must have company that is suitable for him. So Jehovah first forms the beasts, if perchance the man will associate with them and make friends with them. He brings them to him one after another to see what impression they make on him, and what the man will call them. He calls them by their right names, ox, ass, bear, thus expressing his ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... had no love for flowers, and the only rose bush he ever noticed was the one which John had planted at his mistress' grave, and even this would, perchance, have been unseen, if he had not scratched his hand unmercifully upon it as he one day shook the stone to see if it were firmly placed in the ground ere he paid the man for putting it there! It was a maxim of the doctor's never to have anything not strictly ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... and I went forth to shoot sand-grouse, tuloor,[15] chikor,[16] chinkara[17] and perchance ibex, leaving behind this black body-servant Moussa Isa, the Somali boy, because he was sick. And it was supposed that we should not return for a week at the least. But on the third day we returned, my brother's ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... think now: He's not really bad; In greater degree he's wrathful and glad Than others perchance; is false not at all, But reckless, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... matter of history and antiquity, if not reverence for spiritual truth, and shall induce mankind to follow the example of their ancestors and label the records "sacred," the names now sunk in obscurity and masked by slander may perchance be engraved in monuments of bronze and marble, and the incidents now deemed too slight for notice become reverenced as "Holy Writ." These changes of chance and time have happened before; if history repeats itself they will occur again. It was reserved to this family to be the instruments ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... with gleams Of Paradisal air, Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance Around our slumbers there; Some breaths of may might drift our way With scents of leaf and loam, Some whistling bird at dawn be heard From those old woods of home. Hark! That's the thrush ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... Two months!—how short a space of time, and yet, perchance, how pregnant with events affecting the happiness and the destiny of millions! Within that brief span—the millionth fraction of a single sand in Time's great hour-glass—thousands have begun their existence, to pursue through life a career of ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... as the lapse of water at noon O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems To float through the slumbering ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... old books, we sometimes find the word I written for the adverb ay, yes: as, "To dye, to sleepe; To sleepe, perchance to dreame; I, there's the rub."—Shakspeare, Old Copies. The British Grammar, printed in 1784, and the Grammar of Murray the schoolmaster, published some years earlier than Lindley Murray's, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... old pleasures, long since gone, Perchance as vivid as of yore, Or else to sleep,—life's curtains ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... improbable that the grave was ever disturbed; to this day there exists somewhere near Cosenza a treasure-house more alluring than any pictured in Arabian tale. It is not easy to conjecture what "spoils and trophies" the Goths buried with their king; if they sacrificed masses of precious metal, then perchance there still lies in the river-bed some portion of that golden statue of Virtus, which the Romans melted down to eke out the ransom claimed by Alaric. The year 410 A.D. was no unfitting moment to break into bullion the ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... not tell whether he might venture to approach Hine-Moa to take her hand, to see would she press his in return, because, said he, "Perhaps I may be by no means agreeable to her;" on the other hand, Hine-Moa's heart said to her, "If you send one of your female friends to tell him of your love, perchance he will not be ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Spanish novels if the hero is left for two minutes alone with the heroine there are invariably asterisks and some hundred pages later a baby. So it is doubtless wise to separate true love by iron bars, and perchance beauty's eyes flash more darkly to the gallant standing without the gate; illusions, the magic flower of passion, arise more willingly. But in Spain the blood of youth is very hot, love laughs at most restraints and notwithstanding these precautions, often enough there ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... nation, The proud archives of the country, Shout his name in stirring paeans, Blazon forth his fame and glory, From the rising to the setting Of the sun he loved to follow. Many days and nights he wandered O'er the turf of good old Garrard, Now in sight, perchance in hearing, Of the birds and beasts and reptiles, Roaming wild and roaming lonely, In the groves of fair Lancaster. Now in sight, perchance in hearing Of the melancholy plover, Of the bluebird's thrilling whistle, Of the redbird's gentle chirping, Of the blackbird's noisy chatter, ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... foolish pleasure-seekers, Nightly thinking They are drinking Life and joy from poisoned beakers, Shudder at their midnight madness, And the raving revel scorn: All are treading To the wedding In the freshness of the morn, And feel, perchance too late, the bliss ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... in the world," he said at length, as though his thoughts had been far afield, searching, perchance, the mazy corridors of Truth for this atom of wisdom; "the greatest wealth in the world is to be able to do something useful. That is the only wealth which will not be disturbed in the coming reorganization ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... to break on them in the grey of dawn, when men least fear a surprise, and are most easily taken. By this very device La Hire had seized Compiegne but six years agone, wherefore our hope was the higher. About five of the clock on an April day we rode out of Compiegne, a great company,—too great, perchance, for that we had to do. For our army was nigh a league in length as it went on the way, nor could we move swiftly, for there were waggons with us and carts, drawing guns and couleuvrines and powder, fascines wherewith to fill the fosses, and ladders and double ladders for ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... to some provincial churl, Who blushes quite unseen? Perchance to some ambitious Earl Or Stockbroker, I ween? Such things have frequently occurred, And gems like thee have crowned The titular and moneyed herd, And made them ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... he so much dreaded was over now, and had been accompanied with far less pain than he feared. He knew they were glad to have him back—Arthur and his dear sister, as he always called her now. Never since the bridal night had the name Edith passed his lips and if perchance he heard it from others, he shuddered involuntarily. Still the sound of her voice had not hurt him as he thought it would; nothing had been half so hard as he had anticipated, and falling upon his knees, he poured out his soul in prayer, nor heard the ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... them honourably, and when taking them to their apartments inquired of them concerning their adventures. When he had heard the truth, he told them that others had fared as badly as they, for in one of his rooms he had two ladies who had escaped a like danger, or perchance a greater, inasmuch as they had had to do with beasts, and not with men. (5) Half a league on this side of Peyrechitte (6) the poor ladies had met with a bear coming down from the mountain, before whom ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Yet, in the end, we found it—a slimy-banked creek, which proved to be the estuary of a great river, though we spoke of it always as a creek. Into this we entered, and proceeded at no great pace upwards along its winding course; and as we made forward, we scanned the low banks upon each side, perchance there might be some spot where we could make to land; but we found none—the banks being composed of a vile mud which gave us no encouragement to venture ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... consequence to them to get possession of it as quickly as possible, and with as little trouble as possible, rather than to see it held, perhaps for years, by a powerful hostile nation, and then to see it acquired only at the cost of bloody, and perchance checkered, warfare. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... their nature to. Whether the product of the intelligent, conscious, logical fowl, will be as rich in quality as that of the uneducated and barbaric bird, I cannot say; but it ought at least to be equal to the Denmark egg eaten now by all Londoners; and if, perchance, left uneaten, it is certain to be a very superior wife ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Or, perchance, in years to follow, I shall watch your plump sides hollow, See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse— See old age at last o'erpower you, And the Station Pack devour you, I shall ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and they could never do it, did they not bind hard the stomach, chest and head with strong bands. And each of them carries with him a gerfalcon tablet, in sign that he is bound on an urgent express; so that if perchance his horse break down, or he meet with other mishap, whomsoever he may fall in with on the road, he is empowered to make him dismount and give up his horse. Nobody dares refuse in such a case; so that the courier hath always a good fresh ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... agitation the colonel began to stammer. "A-all r-right, General, all right, by Gawd! We—we'll do our—we-we'll d-d-do—do our best, General." The general made a passionate gesture and galloped away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet parrot. The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly regretful manner, as if he regretted above everything his ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... repeated many times, the name of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their achievements are wiped out of commonly remembered history; but their name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance may be found in the penny scent fountains of to-day. I was smiling over this quaint olfactory coincidence, and wondering whether any human being alive at that moment had ever read the Sieur Houssaie's book, when a tug at my arm, such as a neglected ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... commonwealth was panoplied for a contest of wits, and perchance of arms, with the nation. Could it hope to win? South Carolina had a case which had been forcibly and plausibly presented. It could count on a deep reluctance of men in every part of the country to see the nation fall into actual domestic combat. There were, ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... clothing, or such appliances of their craft as the hurried revenue raiders had chanced to overlook. The little boy must have contended with fear in this awesome environment, the child of gentlest nurture, but he thought he was going to his mother, or perchance he could not have submitted with such docility, so uncomplainingly. Only when they had reached the rocky marge of the water and he had been uncoiled from the rug and set upon his feet did he lift his ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... weeping over what had befallen. Such was their case; but as regards Uns al- Wujud, he arose from sleep and prayed the dawn-prayer, after which he took horse and rode forth to attend upon the Sultan. On his way, he passed by the Wazir's house, thinking perchance to see some of his followers as of wont; but he saw no one and, looking upon the door, he read written thereon the verses aforesaid. At this sight, his senses failed him; fire was kindled in his vitals and he returned to his lodging, where he passed the day in trouble and transports ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... he lov'd the Muse, (And when the soul the gen'rous virtues raise, A friendly Whig may chant a Tory's praise,) Full many a fond expectant eye is bent Where Newark's towers are mirror'd in the Trent. Perchance ere long to shine in senates first, If manhood echo what his youth rehears'd, Soon Gladstone's brows will bloom with greener bays Than twine the chaplet of the minstrel's lays; Nor heed, while poring o'er each graver line, The far, faint music of a flute like mine. His was ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... admiration which a gifted race ever feels for so fascinating a combination of youthful grace with intellectual power and martial prowess, they believed that this Italian hero would call the people to political activity, perchance even to national independence. For this their most ardent spirits had sighed, conspired, or fought during the eighty-three years of the Austrian occupation. Ever since the troublous times of Dante there had been prophetic souls who caught the vision of a new Italy, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... we are straying Till the light of day has fled, And perchance a storm is gathering With the shadow of night o'erhead? My little one came beside me, And climbed to my waiting knee, And lifted her gaze to the picture, Which told its story ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... this muffin now," he said, in his rumbling, sing-song and strangely theatrical voice, which always suggested that he was about to deliver a couple of hundred or so lengths of blank verse. "Omar beneath his tree perchance, or Gurustu who to Baghdad came with steed a-foam and eyes a-flame. Wherefore do you trample upon hapless animals that are not dumb, young man, and cause the poor astronomer to cast his muffin upon the roses, where, mayhap, the housemaid might find ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... Soon will my heart cease to be of simplicity enough to feel your charm, soon you wall no longer please my eyes. This heart is already burned by a deep passion; and the mention of the interests of men stirs it with hitherto unknown agitation. I must, however, enter this labyrinth; I may, perchance, lose myself ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thought well for once to yield the road. The great, grey Timberwolves, and the Mountain Lions too, left their new kill and sneaked in sullen fear aside when Wahb appeared. And if, as he hulked across the sage-covered river-flat sending the scared Antelope skimming like birds before him, he was faced perchance, by some burly Range-bull, too young to be wise and too big to be afraid, Wahb smashed his skull with one blow of that giant paw, and served him as the Range-cow would have served himself long ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... boon? If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he give Yet one would pray to live Another moon! What kind of plaint have I, Who perish in July? I might have had to die Perchance in June! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... to see the stately drake Lead forth his fleet upon the lake, While her vexed spaniel from the beach Bayed at the prize beyond his reach? Yet tell me, then, the maid who knows, Why deepened on her cheek the rose?— Forgive, forgive, Fidelity! Perchance the maiden smiled to see Yon parting lingerer wave adieu, And stop and turn to wave anew; And, lovely ladies, ere your ire Condemn the heroine of my lyre, Show me the fair would scorn to spy And prize such ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... it was necessary that he should state his position, for it would have been impossible to decide from the tone and quality of his opinions whether he were a socialist, a reformer, a conservative, or an Irishman. Perchance he has discovered the talisman by which it is possible for a man to be all four, and yet to be a man, Furthermore, he claims to be an orator. No one could listen to the manifold intonations of his voice, or witness the declamatory evolutions of his body, without feeling an inward conviction that ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... availeth my acting thus? And what if I act not thus? Is death the better for me now? Or should I desert my wife? She is truly devoted to me and suffereth this distress for my sake. Separated from me, she may perchance wander to her relatives. Devoted as she is to me, if she stayeth with me, distress will surely be hers; while it is doubtful, if I desert her. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that she may even ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... forlorn, Descends upon its fiery wing, I sigh to think a soul is born, Perchance, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... from your object. Some will ride for certain points, thinking that they can foretell the run of the fox. They may be right; but you, in your new ambition, are not solicitous to ride away to some other covert because the fox may, perchance, be going there. Some are thinking of the roads. Others are remembering that brook which is before them, and riding wide for a ford. With none such, as I presume, do you wish to place yourself. Let the hounds be your mark; and if, as may often ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... this general conception, so far as to conceive the possibility of it and not to reject my account as altogether incredible—I shall have attained all I can reasonably expect. Were I to attempt further details I should only perplex. Yet for the sake of the young and inexperienced, who may perchance infer—from the two simple instances I have given above, of the manner in which I should recognize my Father and my Sons—that Recognition by sight is an easy affair, it may be needful to point out that ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... you find me a score of stout fellows to form a bodyguard and a garrison, who, in return for good quarters—perchance for some weeks—and payment at four times the ordinary mercenaries' rate, will be willing to take some risk, and chance even a brush ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... perchance be thine, And my lot lowly be, Or thou be sad or sorrowful, And glory be for me; Yet "God keeps watch 'tween thee and me," Both be his care; One arm 'round thee and one 'round me Will ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... perchance, you happen to be in the dark street outside of Charing Cross station. An occasional hooded lamp throws a precarious gleam on a long line of men carrying—so gently—stretchers on which lie the silent forms of rich ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sharp look of inquiry in his dark eyes and tiny thin face, so ridiculously like his grandfather, Mr. Moss, that his mother could not help being diverted with the resemblance, except when she tormented herself with the fear that the likeness was unpleasing to Arthur, if perchance he remarked it; but he looked so little at the child, that she often feared he did not care for him personally, though he had a certain pride in him as son ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... northeastern ridge, and followed it for some little distance—to no advantage, for it was usually more rotten and steep, and always more difficult, than the face. Still, we kept near to it, lest stones perchance ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... a monster of cruelty, and he was more reluctant than ever before to leave his home. He even promised his sorrowful Eleanor that this should be the last time he would leave her. "I will but bestow Eustace in some honourable household, where he may be trained in knightly lore—that of Chandos, perchance, or some other of the leaders who hold the good old strict rule; find good masters for my honest men-at-arms; break one more lance with Du Guesclin; and take to rule my vassals, till my fields, and be the ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Inter-M.B., You may now perchance pro tem. be Not indifferent to a simple English maid, Soon the daughters dark and dingy Of the land of Ranjitsinhji, Will be throwing her completely in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... out of his window, he found that O'Harrall had disappeared. His mind felt greatly relieved at the thought that he was no longer harbouring a fugitive from justice. On going into the garden the next morning, he could perceive no traces by which it might perchance be discovered that O'Harrall had been there, and he determined that the occurrence should be known only to his mother and himself. He considered that it would be wrong to conceal it from her, and, sitting down, he told ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... of life in the last analysis—"Peace, be still"? Or shall we battle sternly for that equation which we know will be maintained whether we battle or no, in order that the strong become not too strong or the weak not too weak? Or perchance shall we say (sick of dullness): "Enough of this. I will have strong meat or die!" And ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... indignation were the common lot of high and low. No word was spoken, except when the curt "Forward" of the officers passed along the ranks. All knew instinctively, that this retreat was but the prelude to greater disaster, which, perchance, was not far off. ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... mighty, so conquering, this sign of the coming generation, the voice of the new-born babe. At this little human voice, born of sorrow and sin, born to suffering and to knowledge, born to life in all its wonders and to death in all its mystery—the elements perchance relented and averted their fury. Not yet was there to be punished sin, or wrong, or doubt, or weakness. Not at once would justice punish the parents of this babe and blot out at once the record of their fault. Storm and lightning, darkness and the night yielded to the voice of the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... deposition itself, by reference to concomitant circumstances, and such corroborating testimony as time has spared. Being anxious to avoid all room for cavil, by publishing the depositions as returned with the respective commissions, lest, perchance, there should be some slight verbal inaccuracies, I applied to you, believing it was in your power to give the information necessary to enable me to procure certified copies ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and right, for skill in astrology is hereditary, descending from father to son, and new minds are unprepared for such teachings, so that too much knowledge conveyed to outsiders may become a source of disturbance to themselves and perchance of danger and hurt to their fellow men. Thus, following the rules laid down for me by my grandfather, always, even when closely pressed with questions, did ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... a likely looking man and went up and looked over his cards, saying under your breath "Journal Anglais?" or "Flandres Liberale?" which ever it happened to be. Generally you were right, but occasionally the man looked at you with a blank stare and you knew you had made a bad shot, and if perchance he had happened to be a spy, your lot would not have been a happy one. But usually you received a whispered "Oui, madame," in reply, and then you loudly asked the way to somewhere, and the man would conduct you up a side street, pointing the way with his finger. When no ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... has flickered from time to time, it has never been extinguished. There is health and buoyancy still in his muse. It is the one thing essential, the one thing permanent in his nature—ever ready to impart the mystic jingle to pictures of fun and frolic, or perchance judgement and reflection. Thus, as the local Burns, he stands unrivalled. His poetic effusions speak for themselves, but there are other traits in his career which he wished to convey to the public, which might while away an occasional half-hour in the reading of his ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... made them spell short and familiar words. I would spell the words to Pippity, and he would repeat them in a loud, clear voice to Grilly, whose province of course it was to write them in a bold, legible hand, whilst the parrot kept his eye sharply on the writing; and if, perchance, the monkey should make a mistake, it was expected of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... sweet a promise given All my bosom burneth; Hope uplifts my heart to heaven, Yet the doubt returneth, Lest perchance that hope should ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... world calls them: and herein the devil seems to make us afraid of ghosts. I am astonished a thousand times, and ten thousand times would I relieve myself by weeping, and proclaim aloud my own great blindness and wickedness, if, perchance, it might help in some measure to open their eyes. May He, who is almighty, of His goodness open their eyes, and never suffer mine ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Then perchance it passes a city or two that is lying in dock for trade purposes. The next stop will be at one of the several tropical stations where a fresh supply of fruits is purchased and a number of vehicles sold ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... petals to the heart; straight the mind's glance goes back to how many other pageants of summer in old times When perchance the sunny days were even more sunny; when the stilly oaks were full of mystery, lurking like the Druid's mistletoe in the midst of their mighty branches. A glamour in the heart came back to it again from every flower; as the sunshine was reflected. from them so the feeling in ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... hard task, perchance, to win The popular laurel for my song; 'Twere only to comply with sin, And own the crown, though snatched by wrong: Rather Truth's chaplet let me wear, Though sharp as death its thorns may sting; Loyal to Loyalty, I bear No badge but of my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... understand the sentiments which prompted the building of this votive temple, and the numerous mementoes, literally covering its walls, placed there by loving hands in remembrance of dear ones lost—wrecked perchance in sight of home. Yes, the walls are covered with these tablets and touching mementoes, and with pictures illustrating the many ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... a look behind, I leave the friends I cherish here— Perchance some other friends to find, But surely ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... so produced in the lower animals and perfected in the higher! A friend of ours, who accepts the new doctrine, confesses that for a long while a cold chill came over him whenever he thought of the eye. He has at length got over that stage of the complaint, and is now in the fever of belief, perchance to be succeeded by the sweating stage, during which sundry peccant humors may be eliminated from the system. For ourselves, we dread the chill, and have some misgivings about the consequences of the reaction. We find ourselves in the "singular position" acknowledged by Pictet—that ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... vital forces had already begun to yield to the disease that so suddenly prostrated him at Naples, dashing the cup of joy from his thirsty lips; and perchance the grim Kata-clothes had handed the worn tangled threads of existence to their faithful minister Paralysis, even before the severe shock that numbed him while sitting in the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... tapped swiftly out of the bronze bell which had come, men said, with Coronado; he might sigh at the lugubrious, slow-swelling voice of the big bell which had come hitherward long ago with the retinue of Marco de Niza, wondering what old friend or enemy, perchance, had at last closed his ears to all of Ignacio Chavez's music. Or, at a sudden fury of clanging, the man far out on the desert might hurry on, goading his burro impatiently, to know what great event had occurred in the old ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... certainly all the above could not be reconciled with such a proposition. On the contrary, it must be said that the Indians are those who defend us from our enemies; for, in the presidios, who are the soldiers, who sail in the war fleets, who are in the vanguard in war? Could the Spaniards, perchance, maintain themselves alone in this country, if the Indians did not aid in everything? Little experience and less reflection would he have who should propose such a thing. Therefore, these two things do not harmonize well, that those who hate us should defend us, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... some addresses and admonitions. As for the reflections of the men, there was a great deal of rage in them. Perchance they might be formulated thus: "If I am going to be drowned— if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... pearly shell of flashing crimson, amethyst, and emerald, that came scudding over the waves toward them, raised to the wind, fan-shaped, and in its front two silver seats. When she saw it, Noorna cried, 'She has sent me this, Rabesqurat! Perchance is she favourable to my wishes, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... far for boys," we hear some reader mutter. And yet that same reader, perchance, teaches her little ones to consider the great fact that ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Melisendra, if perchance, Sir Traveller, you go for France, For pity's sake, ask when you're there, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... our house number three, As different as they can be; And if perchance they numbered six Each one would have particular tricks, And certain little whims and fads Unlike the other girls and lads. No two glad rascals can you name Whom God has ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... historians, and if any classical antiquities are to be found in Paris. Tell me how the Abbey of S. Denis is built, and what style of architecture prevails in the far North? And tell me, too, if I dare ask, have you perchance in Paris found some fair lady to bend a gracious smile upon you, and console you for all that ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... of autumn was being unfolded day by day in all its accustomed splendor, and the feast and riot of color, the almost unimaginable glory, was the common property of the whole countryside, rich and poor, to be shared alike if perchance all eyes were equally alive to ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was Amphinomus, who drew his whetted sword And fell on, making his onrush 'gainst Odysseus the glorious lord, If perchance he might get him out-doors: but Telemachus him forewent, And a cast of the brazen war-spear from behind him therewith sent Amidmost of his shoulders, that drave through his breast and out, And clattering he fell, and the earth all the breadth of his ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house (as it befel Euphormio), after some seven years' service he may perchance have a living to {27} the halves, or some small rectory, with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a crackt chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life."—Burton, Anat. of Mel. part i. sect. 2. mem. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... returned, when, upon the morrow, leaning upon the arm of Mr. Hall, she passed through the crowded streets, and shrank back as the passing multitude jostled against each other. It seemed as if every one gazed curiously at her, yet, perchance, not one amid the throng heeded the timid little stranger. She was first conducted to the house they had chosen for her boarding-place, and though the lady at its head received her kindly, she felt more lonely than ever, as she passed through the long halls, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... conclude: I must say, adieu! Yet can I not do so before I again assure you that if perchance I may have lightened an hour of your solitude, you, my kind friends, have made happy whole weeks and days of mine; and if happily I have called up a passing smile upon your lip, your favor has spoken joy and gladness to many a heart ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Gibbon has taught us, the offspring of this admixture is something fantastic and unpredictable. I forgot my grievous thirst and my tired feet in admiration and a certain vague expectation of wonders. Here, ran my thought, it is fated, maybe, that romance and I shall at last compass a meeting. Perchance some princess is in need of my arm, or some affair of high policy is afoot in this jumble of old masonry. You will laugh at my folly, but I had an excuse for it. A fortnight in strange mountains disposes a man to look for something at his next ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... plenty of provisions left for the Greeks to take; and the houses were furnished with great numbers of brazen utensils, none of which the Greeks took away. Nor did they pursue the people, being inclined to spare them, if perchance the Carduchi, since they were enemies to the king, might consent to allow them to pass through their country as that of friends; 9, the provisions, however, as many as fell in their way, they carried off; ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... 'tis well, but would ye hear my words And heed them and apply the remedy, Ye might perchance find comfort and relief. Mind you, I speak as one who comes a stranger To this report, no less than to the crime; For how unaided could I track it far Without a clue? Which lacking (for too late Was I enrolled a citizen of Thebes) This proclamation I address to all:— ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... readers have doubtless witnessed, or perchance participated in, the amusement of acting charades—a divertisement much in vogue in social circles, and if cleverly done, productive of much mirth. To the uninitiated, a brief description of an acted charade may not be unacceptable. A word of two or more ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... one night, suddenly, when this feeling of dancing came upon me, I bethought me of lifting one of the crimson curtains, and looking if, perchance, behind it there might not be hid some other mystery, which might at least remove a step further the bewilderment of the present one. Nor was I altogether disappointed. I walked to one of the magnificent draperies, lifted a corner, and peeped in. ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... Perchance also the sucking pig of the good old days still prevails in certain sheltered vales and glades. He, too, used to have his vogue at holiday times. Because the gods did love him he died young—died young and tender and unspoiled ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Teresa, he had observed, was in the habit of leaving the house towards afternoon: she might, perchance, run danger from some Cuban emissary, when the presence of a friend might turn the balance in her favour: how, then, if he should follow her? To offer his company would seem like an intrusion; to dog her openly were a manifest impertinence; he saw himself reduced ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... boundless West— But thou art given by the good All-giver, Blessing a land to be in turn most blest:[2] While, like a leaf-borne insect, floating by, Chanceful and changeful is my destiny; I needs must follow where thy currents lave— Perchance to find a home, or else, perchance ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords, I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have That honorable grief lodged here, that burns Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords With thought so qualified as your charities Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so The ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... first James Cooper and his wife were Quakers, perchance the same Quaker thrift influenced William Cooper to follow the lead of George Washington, who, two years before, in order to find out the inland waterways of our country, came from the Mohawk Valley to the headwaters of the Susquehanna—this ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... how it is that the ripeness of all crime, the maturity of ancient guilt and frenzy, hath burst to light at once during my consulship. But, this I know, that if from so vast a horde of assassins and banditti this man alone be taken off, we may perchance be relieved for some brief space, from apprehension and dismay, but the peril itself will strike inward, and settle down into the veins and vitals of the commonwealth. As oftentimes, men laboring under some dread disease, if, while tossing in feverish heat, they drink cold water, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... sympathize with him because we know that, though he was not quite in earnest in all this, he was as near it as a man can be who teaches that which he does not quite believe himself. Brutus believed it, and Cato, and that Velleius, and that Balbus, and that Cotta. Or if perchance any of them did not, they lived, and talked, and read, and were as erudite about it, as though they did. The example was good, and the precepts were the best to be had. Amid it all he chose the best doctrine, and he was undoubtedly doing good ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... altogether too many of them, you think, for a man no older than the one you met, a while ago; and you, perhaps, conjecture that the youthful-looking woman has adopted some of her dead sister's children, or, perchance, some of her brothers and sisters themselves. But you are mistaken, they are all her offspring, and the father of every one of them is the stoop-shouldered man you saw ahead. If you look closely, you will observe that the mother, who is driving, holds the reins with one hand, while, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... strike! As she looked at him, her pretty brown eyes sparkled with mischief, and her wicked little dimples lost no curtain-calls. Poor, humble Jimmie was stirred to his shoe-tips, for he had never before received the attentions of such a fascinating creature—unless perchance it had been to sell her a newspaper, or to beg the price of a sandwich in his tramp days. Here was one of the wonderful things about the Socialist movement, that it broke down the barriers of class, and gave you exciting glimpses of higher ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... these short and simple annals shall have ended. For there is nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony is to the end that ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... vessel's main boom in the hope of landing in the belly of the sail; to be able to keep his balance and walk out breast high through the rushing water into the blackness beyond till he should reach the gaff; and so, clinging there, perchance catch the boat's painter as she ran in on a rebounding sea. There would be nothing to hold on to. The ever swirling water would upset a man walking in daylight on a level quayside. He would have nothing but a sunken, bellying piece of canvas to support him—a piece only, for the little leach ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... defied him, and your entire race shall perish utterly. Well he knows that your very existence is an affront to all real civilization, but he holds that even such vileness incarnate, as are the Fenachrone, may perchance have some obscure place in the Great Scheme of Things, and he will not destroy you if you are content to remain in your proper place, upon your own dank and steaming world. Through me, the two thousand three hundred and forty-sixth Sacner Carfon of Dasor, the Overlord has given ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... for some moments listening attentively. He could hear nothing—at least no sound that betokened the presence of human beings. The breeze sighing among the leaves, the distant howl of the coyote, the sweet note of the mimic night-thrush, or perchance the rustling caused by the iguana as it scampered over the dead leaves, were the only sounds that broke the stillness of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... determined that this white and perchance fallen wanderer was one whom, perhaps, it would be his duty to lead back into the paths ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... anxious man, going to his friend to borrow, may return having lent him instead. The man who has found nothing yet in the world save food for the hard, sharp, clear intellect, will yet cast an eye around the universe to see if perchance there may not be a God somewhere for the hungering heart of his friend. The poor, but lovely, the doubting, yet living faith of Dorothy arose, stretched out its crippled wings, and began to arrange and straighten their disordered ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... as much in his preface, without seeming to know that his country, in stimulating the almost exclusive, publication of trash, and taxing him to support such publications, is the fostering patron to which he owes his difficulties. Thus does America nip her young genius in the bud; and when it perchance comes to flower and fruit, she is not behind-hand with a blight. The unknown production of the American author is brought into a depressing competition with works which have been tried in England, and found certain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... I felt a desire to know him better. It being a time of worship in the temple, I went with a Jewish friend of mine up the hill, and entered the outer court, called, I believe, the Court of the Gentiles. And, verily, I saw no god there. Perchance he was in ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... to my queen, who, perchance, is even now on her way to Aulis. Stop not by any cool spring in the groves, and let not thine eyes close for sleep. And see that the chariot bearing the queen and Iphigenia pass ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... feast, Cumanus was afraid lest some attempt of innovation should then be made by them; so he ordered that one regiment of the army should take their arms, and stand in the temple cloisters, to repress any attempts of innovation, if perchance any such should begin; and this was no more than what the former procurators of Judea did at such festivals. But on the fourth day of the feast, a certain soldier let down his breeches, and exposed his privy members ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... dollars a year, voted him by a Common Council that spent ten thousand carousing in their tea-room. Had any one of those city fathers ever been up so early, they might often have seen this good man at daybreak toiling on foot to the city, or perchance miles away to some country town, in search of a service place for some repentant prisoner, or to carry a message from a sick child to its friends. In his gentle humility the good man never complained, never said that the pay awarded to his labors by the ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... like a drop of rain when no cloud is visible; one looks and listens, but to no purpose. The weather changes, perhaps a cold snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week before I hear the not again, and this time or the next perchance see this bird sitting on a stake in the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds multiply, and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more confidently and gleefully. Their boldness increases till one sees ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... water. But it took years and years of hard work before the doctors could convince the people of this fact. Few of us now fear the dentist chair. A study of the microbes that live in our mouth has made it possible to keep our teeth from decay. Must perchance a tooth be pulled, then we take a sniff of gas, and go our way rejoicing. When the newspapers of the year 1846 brought the story of the "painless operation" which had been performed in America with the help of ether, the good people ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... had finished he turned the sheet over in his hands to see if perchance the writer might have more to say; but the other side of the paper was blank; and he looked at Sir Richard with an expression ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the speaker brought the flat side of his sword down. But, if perchance, he thought that the boy would await the blow he found surprise for that worthy skillfully evaded ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... Pathfinder of the deep. It matters not, in that infinitude Of space where thou dost guide thy spirit bark To undiscovered lands, supremely fair. If to this little planet thou couldst turn And voyage, wraithlike, to its cloud-hung rim, Thou wouldst not care for praise. And if, perchance, Some hand held out to thee a laurel bough, Thou wouldst not claim one leaf, but fondly turn To lay thy tribute ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... looking at that drawing. I gazed at it long and earnestly. I then referred to the text; after which I rapidly searched through the book to see if there was another drawing of a Greek vase. I thought perchance the printers in a playful mood might have transposed them; such things have happened. But it was not so; the drawing on page 250 was the only one. So I returned to it. There were the reader, the box, the inscription, the attentive youths ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... for me, of the two, natural and lawful son, there would not, in a few hours, have survived but one child. And they might perchance both have fallen—each by the ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... it seemed more plain that this was no ordinary matter of temporary relief, but a national crisis; for here loomed a labor problem of vast dimensions. Masses of Negroes stood idle, or, if they worked spasmodically, were never sure of pay; and if perchance they received pay, squandered the new thing thoughtlessly. In these and in other ways were camp life and the new liberty demoralizing the freedmen. The broader economic organization thus clearly demanded sprang up here and there as accident and local conditions determined. Here again ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... in upon by various diverting sights and sounds. His attention was attracted by some picturesque hunter, dressed in buckskin pantaloons, fringed jacket, broad yellow belt, and wolfskin cap, and carrying a long rifle; or, perchance, he exchanged good-humored remarks with a wayfaring rustic who proposed to swap horses. He wended his way through the Blue Grass region, through Lexington and Frankfort, and southward into Tennessee. Arlington found keen enjoyment in what ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... criticism for the Odyssey; freedom and justice we are to see in it and unfold them in accord with the divine order; woe be to the critic who disobeys the decree of Zeus, and sees in his poem only an amusing tale, or a sun-myth perchance. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... some of his time, his talent and his money to the town, the state, the nation to which he belongs! He gets their help and protection when needed. Protection and aid perchance in time of fire, flood or cyclone, and police protection as well. And now let me close where I begin with the gravestone and the epitaph." [Here draw picture of grave and gravestone with the epitaph, "Here Lies John Blank, He Was Born a Man But Died a Grocer."] "Let us read ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... got up, stretched, and by main strength shrugged off his foul mood. "But we're up against something that is really a something, and I don't mean perchance." ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... thou coward heart! this is no time To shake with thy strong throbs the frame convuls'd. To die,—to be at rest—oh pleasant thought! Perchance to leap and live; the soul all still, And the wild tempest of the passions husht In one deep calm; the heart, no more diseas'd By the quick ague fits of hope and fear, Quietly cold! Presiding Powers look down! In vain to you I pour'd my earnest prayers, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... days; days when the first faint perfume of mint is blown down the breezes, and one begins to wonder how the lambs are shaping. Is that the ideal February? Ah no! For we cannot be deceived. We know that spring is not here; that March is to come with its frosts and perchance its snows, a worse March for the milder February, a plunge back into the winter which poor February tried ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... riches, all his humble subjects cowed, Till one day a bold man pleaded to the Count on bended knee: 'Sire, for just a little season set my toiling brethren free! Let them leave awhile their labour, let them roam the country fair, Quit the close and crowded city for a breath of purer air; Or, perchance, their faithful service you will graciously repay, And a piece of ground assign them from ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... a graphic description of this species, sallying forth in the evening to prey upon the noisy Cicadas; leisurely wheeling with noiseless, cautious flight round some wide-spreading oak, "scanning each branch as he slowly passes by—now rising to a higher circle, and then perchance descending to the lower branches, until at length, detecting the unfortunate minstrel, it darts suddenly into the tree, and snatching the still screaming insect from its perch, bears ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... and strong and free. His very step had gained an elasticity, a firmness, to which it had long been strange. And yet with all this, his judgment had remained undimmed, keen, clear, subject to no illusions. The logic of the situation was rather pitiless, perchance cruel. He was under no sort of illusion on that score. Well, let it be. Here again came in the universal law of life, the battle of the strong. There was no weakness left ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... holds himself erect between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion, releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma. And ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos |
