"Bad luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I do?" the man called Reggie protested. "Never was so cruel a piece of bad luck in the history of war. Who should come ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... custom (now extinct) for poor women to carry round the "Advent images,'' two dolls dressed one to represent Christ and the other the Virgin Mary. A halfpenny was expected from every one to whom these were exhibited, and bad luck was thought to menace the household not visited by the doll-bearers before Christmas ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Dale stared blankly at Racey. "Oh, them! Hell, they didn't have nothin' to do with it, them cattle didn't. I'd worked out a system, Racey—a system to beat roulette, and I was shore it was all right. By Gawd, it was all right! They was nothin' wrong with that system. But I had bad luck. I had ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... and false pretence, prevarication and fishing for clues are ubiquitous in the mental manifestations of mediums. If it be not everywhere fraud simulating reality, one is tempted to say, then the reality (if any reality there be) has the bad luck of being fated everywhere to simulate fraud. The suggestion of humbug seldom stops, and mixes itself with the best manifestations. Mrs. Piper's control, "Rector," is a most impressive personage, who ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... observed in France. The owner of a grain field would be afraid of bad luck to the harvest if he should refuse to let the gleaners in after the reapers. Gleaning is, however, allowed only in broad daylight, that no dishonest persons may carry away ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... more bad music at temperance meetings," says Dr. SALEEBY, "than I knew the world could contain." The temperance people are certainly having persistent bad luck. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... hard. Once strike a certain vein of bad luck and you can neither get around nor under it, but there's no use groaning—and what on earth could I have done?" he ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Missouri with but slight detention till we got within fifty miles of Fort Buford. Here we struck on a sandbar with such force of steam and current as to land us almost out of the water from stem to midships. This bad luck was tantalizing, for to land on a bar when your boat is under full headway down-stream in the Missouri River is no trifling matter, especially if you want to make time, for the rapid and turbid stream quickly depositing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... up. "Well, I must be off. The express for Nice passes at four o'clock. I will be away about three weeks and then you shall see me again. Unless I strike a run of bad luck and get cleaned out, in which case you shall ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... right; the thing I wanted you to do. But you see that letter is mighty important. I had to follow. This craft we're sitting on was coming this way. I took passage. She ran into a mess of bad luck. First we were picked up by an ice-floe and carried far into the Arctic Ocean. When at last we poled our way out of that, we were caught by a storm and carried southwest with such violence that we were thrown upon this sandbar. The ship broke up some, but we managed to stick to her ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... confident man who 'knows his own mind' is the sort of person who would have suited him; a man who would have jumped at a diagnosis and stuck to it; or else an ignorant weakling of alcoholic tendencies. It was shockingly bad luck to run against a cautious scientific practitioner like my learned friend. Then, of course, all this secrecy was sheer tomfoolery, exactly calculated to put a careful man on his guard; as it has ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... either to wade through or go six miles round. We decided on the former plan, and soon were up to our waists in water. It was early in May and the nights were still very cold, and the water was like ice; but there was nothing to do but go through, now that we were wet, and as Blackie said, "It was bad luck to turn back." For two hours we waded, and at last, chilled to the bone, we reached the other side. Here we found ourselves in a farming district, and we looked eagerly for a safe warm place to hide in for the day. A deserted-looking building off by itself caught our eye, and it proved to be an ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... not superstitious," laughed Grace. "I fail to see why trying on one's wedding gown beforehand should bring bad luck. I am surely going to do it when it comes, just to prove the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... of money at poker the last time I was in the city. I was in an awful streak of bad luck; could do nothing right. Generally it's the other way about. Now they're pressing me to redeem the I.O.U.s. When they owe me I notice they're not so eager ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... that nearly eighty years ago, but it's quite true still. I wonder what he would have written if he'd had the bad luck to know about you and your disgusting appeals to the Almighty, whom you treat as if He were always waiting round the corner to be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... day on the safer side of the crest, watching a stubbornly contested battle being fought on Hill 2450, which was taken and lost more than once, and in getting shelled continually by field guns. They did not hit many, but, as bad luck would have it, they got our adjutant, Captain W.D. Brown, as game a fellow as ever walked, and he was carried off evidently very badly hit, and died that night in the dressing-station. We were ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... know her when I lived there," replied Nellie. "Her husband used to be well off, I fancy, but had bad luck and got down pretty low. There was a strike on at some building and he went on as a laborer, blacklegging. The pickets followed him to the house, abusing him, and made him stubborn, but I got her alone that night and ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... moment that the cook's boy came in with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... us!" Biddy exclaimed, crossing herself. "Don't ye ever be afther wishin' anybody bad luck, Miss Beth; shure ye'll bring ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Redmond purchased Dreadnought, one of the highest class dogs seen for many years, but had very bad luck with him, an accident preventing him from being shown and subsequently causing his early death. We must not forget Duchess of Durham or Dukedom; but to enumerate all Mr. Redmond's winners it would be necessary to take the catalogues of all the important shows held for the past thirty years. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... when the blackbird's didn't. There would be flies to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specks that flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like cats and bit like dogs and flew like lightning. He may have mourned for the spider in bad luck who caught that fly. There would be much to see and remember and compare, and there would be, always, his two guardians. The flies change from second to second; one cannot tell if this bird is a visitor or an inhabitant, and a sheep is just sister ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... the aunty of ye," said Biddy when we concluded this arrangement and were talking of the expected new comer, "I'll wish her all the bad luck in the world, for it's hot wather she'll kape us in all the time with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... most experienced officers, too, were added to the gift of the generous freebooter; and the outlook was now very different from what it had been a few days before. Yet fate was against them; or, to speak more accurately, they had lost the spirit which should animate pioneers, and when a touch of bad luck was added to their indisposition, they incontinently beat a retreat. A storm arose, which wrecked the ship that Drake had given them, and thus deprived them of the means of escape in case other disasters should arrive. They besought Drake to ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... any better than you do," he said peevishly. "I expected to get killed in a space-battle—not very gloriously, but at least with self-respect. Unfortunately we had bad luck. We won the fight. I do not like what we have to do in consequence, but ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... be hopeful," muttered Tom Fillot to the man behind him, "with the body o' that poor nigger aboard? Strikes me that we're in for a spell o' bad luck, mates." ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... purse and the earrings to them. "Take 'em. Keep 'em. I take no shares wid a crew like ye—not this time, anyhow, ye cowardly, unthankful, treacherous swabs! Aye, count the gold, damn ye! an' stow it away in yer pockets. I bes makin' rich men o' ye—an' at a turn o' bad luck ye all be ready to knife me. D'ye think I kilt them t'ree dead fools? Nay, they kilt themselves wid fear of a poor drownded woman! T'ree more would ha' bin stunned and drownded but for me. Holy saints above! I bes minded to leave ye to fish an' starve—all ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... have left sooner," she said, a little conscience-stricken, "only it was so heavenly! I had the bad luck to oversleep this morning; it would be ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... "what have I told you all along? It has come. It is a clean shave this time; so you may as well bear up and make the best of it. House down, too, eh? Bad luck, upon my soul!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the faces of the two tramps. Maget was struck with pity for the unfortunate peon, who seemed to be suffering the tortures of the damned. He was not a bad man, was Maget, but rather a weakling who had a run of bad luck and was under the thumb of Durkin, a really hard character. Durkin, while astounded at the actions of Juan, showed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Francis feel quite sick. He hated horrible sights. But somehow, to-night, a new feeling woke up in him—a sudden feeling of brotherhood with this poor man, almost of love for him. It was such terribly bad luck that he had caught leprosy and become a ghastly sight, so that he could not earn any money nor come near the town. Francis felt in his wallet for a silver piece to give him, and then he thought how sad it must be to have money flung at you ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... prosperity. It probably held out under Mandeville when the Londoners (who were always the allies of the aristocracy against the national government) besieged it under the civil wars of Stephen; but even so there was bad luck attached to it, for when Mandeville was taken prisoner he was compelled to sign its surrender. Within a generation Longchamp again surrendered it to the young Prince John; he was for the moment leading the aristocracy, which, when it was his turn to reign, betrayed him. ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... you," said Abe. "Looks like folks has mighty bad luck when they go a-rippitin' hether an' yan on the mounting. It hain't been sech a monst'us long time sense one er them revenue fellers come a-paradin' up thish yer same road, a-makin' inquirements fer Hightower. He cotch the measles; bless you, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... Forrest both traversed districts since found to be gold-bearing, and though, like Hunt, reporting, and even bringing back specimens of quartz and ironstone, had the bad luck to miss ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... one occasion.[32] Before the corpse had been placed in the coffin, one of those present, seizing a dog, placed it transversely on the breast of the deceased for a few seconds. I was told that the object of the action was to remove the dog's bad luck[33] by putting him in the above-mentioned position, as he had for some time been rather unlucky in the chase. This proceeding was verified by subsequent inquiries in other settlements, and the custom and its explanation were found to be identical ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... a poor man, sir," he said. "I have had bad luck whenever I've made a try to start at anything. I thought there seemed a chance for me here. I went to Sir Timothy and I ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Harry. If he don't have no bad luck he'll be here in twenty minutes. He ain't over a half a mile away ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... Victor, that my misfortune in being the son of an aristocrat has pursued me always. I have such refined tastes, and such a skill with the cards. You recall the little house near the fortifications? But the inevitable run of bad luck came. One question. Why"—he glanced at the Russian-looking man with something like fear creeping again into his bold eyes—"why do you ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... forgit," said Fly. "We've been havin' bad luck this wee while back with the rabbits. Some ould cat's been spoilin' them on us. But just a minute before you came I kilt the ould baste." Fly looked for applause, but her godmother's attention had ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... wouldn't have thought it was funny then if I'd known how bad he hurt himself. He was laid up for about three weeks. I guess that was the beginning of the end for us. Bob said every time he went out something terrible happened to him. Poor fellow. He was right at that. Just a bad luck artist." ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... notes and deep vibrations, something which awoke an answer in the heart of the listener. At last, after a very difficult and perfectly executed passage, D'Harmental could not help clapping his hands and crying bravo! As bad luck would have it, this triumph, to which she had not been accustomed, instead of encouraging the musician, frightened her so much, that voice and harpsichord stopped at the same instant, and silence immediately succeeded ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... meanness out of one, they're so fine; and moonlight so soft and pure and holy that you wouldn't mind dying in it. And Green Valley folks are ornery enough on top and when things are going smoothly for you. But just let there be a smash-up or a stroke of bad luck and their shells crack and humanness just oozes out of them. They're about as decent a ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... is bad luck to have to climb that hill again. But mom'll say what I ain't got in my head I got to have in my feet. They're big enough to hold a ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... from my perch. I hunted through the cabin for pistols or rifles, but he had been ahead of me; and as I came up and he stood near the wheel—the wheel, like everything else, was neglected now—there was a crazy look in his eyes that meant bad luck for me. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... in the fields or in the house, clever about her work, good at everything, in fact; and when you gave her to me, when I took her, it wasn't one of the conditions that I should forget her if I had the bad luck to lose her." ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... him with approval, "there was once another otter family, away up on the Little North Fork of the Ottanoonsis, that used to have such good times till at last they struck a streak of bad luck." ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... it was you, but there's no help for it; you must come and serve in the main-top along with me, and give up all chance of being a mate or captain of a merchant vessel. We're in bad luck, that's clear, but it can't be helped.' There was a good laugh on board of the man-of-war at Archy pressing his own brother, and the captain was very much amused. 'I'm very sorry for it,' ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... strange history. A bunch of colonists went out there, oh, four or five centuries ago. Pretty healthy expedition, as such outfits go. Bright young people, lots of equipment, lots of know-how and books. Well, through sheer bad luck everything went wrong from the beginning. Everything. Before they got set up at all they had an explosion that killed off all their communications technicians. They lost contact with the outside. ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... sir," Daughtry said. "And you have touched me, sir, touched me to the heart, coming all the way out here on such a night, and running such risks, just to say good-bye to poor Dag Daughtry, who always meant somewhat well but had bad luck." ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... ——. will you please get me a job as I have had bad luck an it left me in pour shape I am a molder and machinists but I will work as helpe a while jest I an wife sen transpertation for ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... "Jupiter! that's bad luck!" exclaimed Jack Stanton. "They'll jolly well beat us now. But never mind, perhaps ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... in the present case not sorry for it, as it gave her an interval to collect her thoughts, stooped over Monna Paula's frame and observed, in a half whisper, "You were just so far as that rose, Monna, when I first saw you—see, there is the mark where I had the bad luck to spoil the flower in trying to catch the stitch—I was little above fifteen then. These flowers make me an old woman, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... set foot in my house, bad luck to his fat face! D'ye think he'd lend me 300 pounds on the farm, Larry? When I'm so hard up, it seems a waste o money not to mortgage it now ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... they had a gut which never rotted, and that this was their living principle!" Yet even they were not destitute of religious notions. No tribe was more addicted to the observance of charms, omens, dreams, and guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and bad luck generally were the effects of the anger of a fabulous old woman.[234-1] The aborigines of the Californian peninsula were as near beasts as men ever become. The missionaries likened them to "herds of swine, who neither worshipped the true and only God, nor adored false deities." Yet ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... of the letter, and, indeed, throughout the season of 1867, the Meum and Tuum had bad luck. FitzGerald thought it was time that the luck should change, for "Neighbour's fare" is defined in Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast as "Doing as well as one's neighbours. 'I mayn't make a fortune, but I ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... Miss Arabella's wedding gown was completed, and presented a blue cascade of frills and flounces that delighted the owner's beauty-loving soul. Just once had she tried it on, and then only in sections, for Mrs. Munn said it was dreadful bad luck to wear your wedding gown before the day. So at one time Miss Arabella had put on the billowy skirt with her lilac waist; and at another the blue silk blouse with her old gingham skirt, and even then she had been ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... bed, and there he lay, very ill indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil bird on the roof of the log house, and to flap its wings there, warning human beings away. The Russians had such bad luck that people were afraid of them and liked to put ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... generally collected and publish'd since his death, gives wonderful glints into both the amiable and weak (and worse than weak) parts of his portraiture, habits, good and bad luck, ambition and associations. His letters to Mrs. Dunlop, Mrs. McLehose, (Clarinda,) Mr. Thompson, Dr. Moore, Robert Muir, Mr. Cunningham, Miss Margaret Chalmers, Peter Hill, Richard Brown, Mrs. Riddel, Robert Ainslie, and Robert Graham, afford valuable ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... he's good company—he amuses you—you don't need to be on your p's and q's with him. Why wouldn't she have taken up with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. He's not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just bad luck." ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 100,000 conscripts, and arm them with muskets taken from the royalists and malcontent National Guards: he would arouse Dauphine, Lyonnais, and Burgundy, and overwhelm the enemy. "But the people must help me and not bewilder me.... Write to me what effect this horrible piece of bad luck has had on the Chamber. I believe the deputies will feel convinced that their duty in this crowning moment is to rally round me ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... large sum for my father's operation," said Joe. "He has had bad luck, too. I really ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... the habit of exploring all the streams along which they passed, in search of "beaver lodges," and occasionally set their traps with some success. One of them, however, though an experienced and skilful trapper, was invariably unsuccessful. Astonished and mortified at such unusual bad luck, he at length conceived the idea that there was some odor about his person of which the beaver got scent and retreated at his approach. He immediately set about a thorough purification. Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... "'Wisha, bad luck to your impudence an' bad manners, you insignificant little spalpeen. How dare you insult your ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... simply, "I hain't nothin' but a boy, but I got to ack like a man now. I'm a-goin' now. I don't believe You keer much and seems like I bring ever'body bad luck: an' I'm a-goin' to live up hyeh on the mountain jes' as long as I can. I don't want you to think I'm a-complainin'—fer I ain't. Only hit does seem sort o' curious that You'd let me be down hyah—with me a-keerint fer nobody now, an' nobody a-keerin' ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... moment of silence, then she gave a little sigh of utter contentment. June sniffed inelegantly—Micky looked hard into the fire; his heart was thumping; that letter ought to have been delivered yesterday, he knew; it was cursed bad luck that it should arrive while he ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... afther all. Now comes the worst part of the business. As we drew near to the tent I heard a loud yelling, and what should I see but a pack of hungry wolves tearing away at my sledge with all the bear's mate on it, and by the time I got up not a scrap was left—bad luck to the bastes. Och! shure, shure, what shall we ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... a low regard for the motives of most seekers of wealth; he went further, and fell into much disbelief of poor men's needs. For instance, he looked upon a man's inability to find employment, or upon a poor fellow's run of bad luck, as upon the placarded woes of a ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... "Bad luck to my memory, then! It's getting not worth a button. Here, Master Arthur. The postman gave it me at the door, just as I had caught sight of the fly turning the corner with the master and missis. I slipped it into my pocket, and never thought ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "Yes," said Anna-Rose. "Just bad luck. He might so easily have married some one else's aunt. But no. His roving glance must needs go and ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... "Bad luck!" breathed Murphy; "'tis a rocky road to Dublin, but a shorter wan to hell! Did you want f'r to shoot, Jack? Look at Dave Elerson an' th' thrigger finger av him twitchin' all a-thremble! Wisha, lad! lave the red omadhouns go. Arre you tired o' the hair ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... invade-able: and there is the additional little circumstance of the late rebellion defeated; I believe I may reckon too, Marshal Saxe dead. You see our situation is not desperate: in short, we escaped in '44, and when the rebels were at Derby in '45; we must have bad luck ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... a competent able seaman, placed at the degrading labor of coal passing. When the cooler atmosphere of the stoke-hole had lowered his temperature somewhat, he again went to the captain and earnestly told his story—of his theft, his bad luck and the bad luck he had brought ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... replied that his master was out, or busy. He did not come to the boats, he did not appear in hall; so that, after hall, when Tom went back to his own rooms, as he did at once, instead of sauntering out of college, or going to a wine party, he was quite out of heart at his bad luck, and began to be afraid that he would have to sleep on his unhealed wound ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... covered with short-hand notes of testimony, and some of the committees traveled far and wide in search of the evidence they desired. They found nothing, but they reminded Massachusetts men of old Captain Starbuck, of Nantucket, a philosophical old sea-dog, who never permitted bad luck to dampen his faith or his good spirits. Returning home from a three years' whaling voyage, with an empty hold, he was boarded by the pilot, an old ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "What extraordinary bad luck that family has!" he thought. "If I had not changed the rug, the merest accident, Prince Charles would have dined at St. James's to-night, and King George in Hanover. It ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... Ye can lean on this"—she passed him the pilgrim staff—"and we can go slowly. Bad luck to the man! If I had known ye were hurt I'd have made ye leave him in the road and we'd have driven his machine back to Arden for him." She looked longingly after the trail ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... dear Dick,' she said, 'I feel as if I should see that fresh face of yours looking very different some day or other. Something tells me that there's bad luck before you. But never mind, you'll never lose your sister if the luck's ever so bad. Father sent word you and Jim were to meet him at Broken Creek and bring your ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... for me ever since they began their dread business, what strikes me most of all and first of all is my good fortune. I may, on a future occasion, complain that in middle life and in later life I did not have good luck, but bad luck, but I should be an ingrate to Destiny if I did not admit that nothing could have been more happy than the circumstances with which I was surrounded at my birth— the circumstances which made the boy, who made the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... handed it to me, though I'm his son. Uncle Bob said our fam'ly always believed that it brought 'em good luck to own this umbrella. He couldn't say why, not knowing its early history, but he was afraid that if I lost the umbrella, bad luck would happen to us. So he made me go right home to put the umbrella back where I got it. I was sorry Uncle Bob was so cross, and I didn't want to go home yet, where the governess was crosser 'n he was. I wonder ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... some not clearly known employments of the factorship or surveyorship kind; he was much patronised by two worthy hatters, Messrs. Grieve and Scott, and in 1813 the book which contains all his best verse, The Queen's Wake, was published. It was deservedly successful; but, by a species of bad luck which pursued Hogg with extraordinary assiduity, the two first editions yielded nothing, as his publisher was not solvent. The third, which Blackwood issued, brought him in good profit. Two years later he became in ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... lord-lieutenantship to let our poor Phin go! Sure, with all these fine soldiers you'll never miss him, and then"—here she stammered and broke quite down. Covering her face with her hands, she cried out, half sorrowfully and half in vexation, "Bad luck to the Blarney Stone! There's no good in it at all, at all—sorra a word more will it give ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... to that it was a bodycoat they wore and knee-breeches. It was their vote sent the Parliament to England, and when there is a row between them or that the people are vexed with the priest, you will hear them saying in the house in Irish 'Bad luck on them, it was they brought misfortune to Ireland.' They wore the Soutane ever ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... admit that you have; also that I'd sooner have you there than anyone else. Looking back, I think you had a most sporting try last time, and I must say it seems to me that only some devilish bit of bad luck prevented you from bringing it off. Though what actually the bit of bad luck was has often puzzled me. But then," he added, "you ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... drain, put in order and treat soil or water, tree or other growth as is most convenient for his purpose. His fetich is erected to "the honorable spirits." Were this not attended to, some known or unknown bad luck, sinister fortune, or calamity would befall him. Here, then, is a fetich-worshipper. The stick or stone is the medium of communication between the man and the spirits who can bless or harm him, and which to his mind are as countlessly ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... Bo," dissented Mr. Bates. "Nix on the vacation. That's just the point. You're going to stick on the job, and I'm going to stick within four feet of you till old Jim-jams Jones shakes along to get his morning's morning; and it will be a sign of awful bad luck for you if the lights in this end of town flicker a single flick any ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... be recalled. She obeyed, and the man was introduced, also the other members of the party. Margaret Lee stood in the midst of this throng and heard their repressed titters of mirth at her appearance. Everybody there was in good humor with the exception of Jack, who was still nursing his bad luck, and the little dark man, whom Jack owed. The eyes of Jack and the little dark man made Margaret cold with a terror of something, she knew not what. Before that terror the shame and mortification of her exhibition to that merry company was of ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Bad luck! I should say so! Almost breaking my neck, and laming Sock," and the lad looked anxiously at his pinto, being relieved to find, however, that the animal ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... empty hives for the reception of swarms are ready before this period; to prepare a hive after the swarm has issued is bad management; negligence here argues negligence elsewhere; it is one of the premonitions of "bad luck." ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... thousand francs. It is a great deal of money for us to make—or to lose. I do not believe 'e will keep it, for, though you bring 'im luck, my dear"—she turned to Sylvia—"that Count always brings 'im bad luck. It 'as been proved to me again and again. Just before you arrived at Lacville with poor Madame Wolsky, Fritz 'ad a 'eavy loss!—a very 'eavy loss, and all because the Comte de Virieu 'eld ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... that." Mrs. Donovan had lost control of herself and was sobbing bitterly. "Here it is after ten o'clock an' we don't know where the little thing is. Seems if bad luck was taggin' her. It isn't a week since her bird was stolen and now—" she shuddered and hid her face in ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... past the new lodger had formed the staple subject of conversation in this household. Mrs. Ede, Kate's mother-in-law, was loud in her protestations that the harbouring of an actor could not but be attended by bad luck. Kate felt a little uneasy; her puritanism was of a less marked kind; perhaps at first she had felt inclined to agree with her mother-in-law, but her husband had shown himself so stubborn, and had so persistently declared that he was not going to keep his rooms empty ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... previously a competition for a trophy (I quote the printed notice) presented by a local supporter of the game, in which up to the present I was getting on nicely. I had survived two rounds, and expected to beat my present opponent, which would bring me into the semi-final. Unless I had bad luck, I felt that I ought to get into the final, and win it. As far as I could gather from watching the play of my rivals, the professor was the best of them, and I was convinced that I should have no difficulty ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... my determination never to play again at cards to the bad luck which befell me on a particular occasion at Ascot on the Cup Day of the year 18—. I was at that time struggling to make my way in my profession, and carefully storing up my little savings for the proverbial ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... utter bewilderment, for, as the party scrambled to their feet, she saw they were the Caravan, dressed up in the most extraordinary fashion, in little frocks and long shawls, and all wearing sunbonnets. The Highlander, with his usual bad luck, had put on his sunbonnet backward, with the crown over his face, and was struggling with it so helplessly that Dorothy rushed at him and got it off just in time to save him from being suffocated. In fact, ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... transit seemed to us, however, out of the question, and we were lamenting our bad luck in having to return without having reached the summit, when H. came up. Without a moment's hesitation, and merely remarking "rather an awkward place," he crossed the pole, while it swayed and oscillated with every movement he made, in a way that made my blood ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... simply titled, with haply underneath a gigantic note of admiration between two humble queries ?!? would positively, my worthy publisher, make your worship's fortune. For it should concern ghosts, dreams, omens, coincidences, good-and-bad luck, warnings, and true vaticinations: no childish collection, however, of unsupported trumpery, but authenticated cases staidly evidenced, and circumstantially detailed; no Mother Goose-cap's tales, no Dick the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... down.) Last fall two strangers who stopped on their journey through here thought they knew Kari. They said it was easier to change one's name than one's face. As bad luck would have it, I did not get a chance to talk with them myself, but my suspicions were roused. Now there is a man staying with me who has just come from the south. He saw Kari at church last Sunday, and if he is right, ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... to Robert, 'Let's play bezique;' and I was beaten by one of those streaks of bad luck—34,000 points in a dozen games—so thoroughly that towards half-past ten I thought that bezique ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... stuff that no one was anxious to pay for; mostly in essay form expressing my own opinions on various important subjects. But it didn't go. I was complaining of my bad luck to a plain-spoken woman in charge of a circulating library, and she gave me grand advice. 'No one cares a snap for your opinions. You must tell something that ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... the hands of these wretches—cut-throats for all he knew, and yet he did not reproach himself for having run into such a trap. He had done the proper thing, in a proper, orderly, and seamanlike way. He had had the most unexpected bad luck, but he did not in the least see any ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... of some kind, and sprinkle the threshold with its blood. A cow or sheep, a goose or turkey, or merely a cock or hen, was used according to the means of the family.{72} It seems that the animal was actually offered to St. Martin, apparently as |204| the successor of some god, and bad luck came if the custom were not observed. Probably these rites were transferred to Martinmas from the old Celtic festival of Samhain. Again, in a strange Irish legend the saint himself is said to have been cut up and eaten in ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... been threatening to do for the last two years." "But why don't you go to Carrick and purchase one?" "To Carrick!—Och, 'tis a good step to Carrick, and my toes are on the ground (saving your presence,) for I depindid on Tim Jarvis to tell Andy Cappler, the brogue-maker, to do my shoes; and, bad luck to him, the spalpeen! he forgot it." "Where's your pretty wife, Shane?" "She's in all the woe o' the world, Ma'am, dear. And she puts the blame of it on me, though I'm not in the faut this time, any how: the child's taken the small pock, and she depindid ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... nominal worth, And belongs to good or bad luck at birth— As dames of a certain degree know. In spite of his Page's hat and hose, His Page's jacket, and buttons in rows, Bob only sounds like a page in prose ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Folly Bay suffered bad luck from the beginning. Gower had four purse-seine boats in commission. Within a week one broke a crankshaft in half a gale off Sangster Island. The wind put her ashore under the nose of the sandstone Elephant ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... case, Father, I'll tell the devil he may just kiss my toe and bad luck to him for all the trouble I have had to get out of his clutches,' and the priest noticed his last sigh was one ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... us, too," she replied. "Do you know, we were so frightened about putting in that advertisement you answered! Dan was terribly against it." A troubled little frown knitted her level brows. "But we've had such bad luck on the farm since we were married—the rain spoilt all our crops last year and we lost several valuable animals—so I thought it would help a bit if we took paying-guests this summer. But ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... "But see now what bad luck! The husband takes a notion to become jealous of my father's visits. In a letter which is a masterpiece of diplomacy, the lady explains ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... jealous fellow-actresses, ill health, bad luck! Behind the glamour and the glitter of the stage, what a world of carking care, of littleness, meanness, jealousy, and intrigue she had found herself called upon to do ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... felt himself in bad luck when he arrived at the river house just too late to share in the liquor or to join in chasing the bold thief. He listened with interest, however, to the story of Long-Hair's capture of the commandant's demijohn and could not refrain ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... to which the slaver brig was lashed was the spot where seven hundred slaves (or nearly that number, for we found three or four half-dead negroes in the hold) and the crew had all gone, and left us lamenting our bad luck. However, I took possession of the vessel as she lay, and though threatened day and night by the natives, who kept up a constant fire from the neighbouring heights and seemed preparing to board us, maintained our hold upon the craft until the happy arrival of my ship, which, with ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... you a moment for breaking your promise, I cannot reproach you for it, because I, too, bet on the Derby, but I bet on a horse that you had said as much against as you could. I did it because you had very bad luck all this year and lost, and also last ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... God is love." He opened his fingers, and the crumpled letter fell and was consumed. He pushed himself up from the mantlepiece and turned and went over to Twyning and stood over him again. He patted Twyning's heaving shoulders. "There, there, Twyning. Bad luck. Bad luck. Hard. Hard. Bear up, Twyning. Soldier's death.... Finest death.... Died for his country.... Fine boy.... Soldier's death.... Bad luck. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the Devil may be wrong'd, and falsely accus'd in many Particulars, and often has been so; there are likewise some other sorts of counterfeit Devils in the World, such as Gypsies, Fortune-Tellers, Foretellers of good and bad Luck, Sellers of Winds, Raisers of Storms, and many more, some practis'd among us, some in foreign Parts, too many almost to reckon up; nay I almost doubt whether the Devil himself knows all the Sorts of them; for 'tis evident he has little or nothing ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... rist, you'll all go to school but Larry, an' him I'll take with me when I go a—washin'. I know I can foind thim in the town that'll help a poor widow that much, an' that's all the help I want, too. Bad luck to beggars. ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... foot once and how Buck had bathed it and bound it up in dirty rags, doing double duty with the newspapers for several days to save his friend from stepping. There was a bitter cold night way back as far as he could remember when he had had bad luck, and came among the others supperless and almost freezing. Buck had shared a crust and found a warm boiler-room where they crawled out of sight and slept. There were other incidents, still more blurred in his memory, but enough to recall how loyal the whole little gang had been to him. He saw once ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... Mickey, whose spirits seemed to rise when he found himself astride of his trusty mustang again, "if we don't have any bad luck, we ought to be out of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... hadn't been for the old lady, I would have gone to the devil. I remembered her in time. Nothing like having an old lady to look after to steady a chap and make him face things. But as bad luck would have it, Captain Anthony has no mother living, not a blessed soul belonging to him as far as I know. Oh, aye, I fancy he said once something to me of a sister. But she's married. She don't need him. Yes. In the old days he used to talk to me as if we had ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... announced, "these are strange orders, in view of the fact that I cleared from New York for Manila or Batavia, via the Cape of Good Hope. It would be a sure sign of bad luck to the steamer Narcissus if a British cruiser should pick her up off the coast ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... she went. She was in too great a hurry to look where she was going, and the result was that presently she tripped and fell, bumping her head and tearing the skirt of her frock half across. This was bad luck indeed, for Wealthy, she knew, would make her darn it as a punishment, and that meant at least an hour's hard work indoors on one of the loveliest days that ever shone. She picked herself up and went into the sitting-room, pouting, ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... of rock in two hands, stand erect and whirl round on his heels till momentum was obtained, and then—let go. The missile would fly like a bullet, and woe betide any one who stood in its way. The performance precluded any kind of aim; the stone was hurled off at any chance tangent: and it was bad luck rather than any kind of malice that guided one three-pound boulder through the window, across the kitchen, and into a portrait of Judas de Beer which hung on the wall not half a dozen feet from the slumbering ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... would carry over his account. So it was closed down just at the wrong time, with the result that he lost everything, and finally came to the streets. He never drank or did anything wrong; it was, as he said, 'simply a matter of sheer bad luck.' ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... complain and lament his bad luck, saying: "Here have I never had a better harvest, and yet there is not a man left to ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... had by this time cost them so much that they were half-ruined, and that was hard for folks who once had twelve thousand francs, and who owned their island. No one ever knew what Cambremer paid at Nantes to get his son away from there. Bad luck seemed to follow the family. Troubles fell upon Cambremer's brother, he needed help. Pierre said, to console him, that Jacques and Perotte (the brother's daughter) could be married. Then, to help Joseph Cambremer to earn his bread, Pierre took ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... his holiness the Pope, and a civil old gentleman he was, for he axed me if I'd take some whisky and water, and on course I said yes. "Hot or cold, Tim?" asked the Pope. "Hot, your reverence," says I, and bad luck to me, for by dad, while the Pope went down to the kitchen to get the kettle I awoke; and now, if I'd said cold, I'd have had time to toss off a noggin-full at laste, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... bad luck had followed him. At the club his losses were no longer limited. There was always some one willing to take a hand, and until dawn he played, wasting his life and energies to satisfy ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... voice unconsciously lowered,—"she played me that trick once before—years ago! It was a regular bit of bad luck, the sort of thing that only seems to happen to me; other men escape. A woman came to our house,—we were living in London then,—an old friend of mine with whom I'd stupidly mixed up again; she brought a child with her, a squalling brat two or three months older than Jasper—Of course the ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... carry the clod indoors, it would melt; and it may melt if the weather changes; and by bad luck there may be no feathers or down adhering to the other clods—those ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... the beau ideal of a militia major—fat, pompous, not much acquainted with military, but, to use his own vocabulary, knowing right smart in the fish and cheese line. But let me deal kindly with the honest old soul; he meant well, but he had bad luck; and he made me, Private William Jenkins, the writer of these disjointed phrases, sergeant-major of the battalion. Whereof, kind reader, more anon: for here I left off my scales and sewed on my chevrons. (That is, she did. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bunk to face his future. This time he made no attempt to put on an act. He was not in the least sorry he had tried to get away. Had Kurt been on the level, it would have been a bright play. That Kurt was not, was just plain bad luck. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... darkest just before daylight," said Tom. "So let us hope for the best. We both have had a bit of bad luck. But when I think of Rad, who may lose his eyesight, I can ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... came. 'If you get a chance to make an end of that d—d fellow Gray, do so. I do not, want the two to begin coddling. He does not know her, I suppose, but if she found him with his handsome face, bad luck to it, likewise a captive, it would be "love at first sight" ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Marmaduke). Bad luck! That's my cork one. I lost the original when I got this. [Touches V.C. pinned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... There was something demoniac in her cleverness, her immunity from harm, her prodigious energy, her malevolent mischief, her raillery. Actually, he had grown morbid about the beast; he had a superstitious feeling that in the end she would bring him bad luck. How he hated her! ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... bad luck I have," he said, one day. "I almost always win at the beginning of the evening; and then, when I get thoroughly set, my ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... Blackfeet the pipe must never be passed across the doorway. To do so would insult the host and bring bad luck to all who assembled. Therefore if there be a large number of guests ranged about the lodge, the pipe is passed first to the left from guest to guest until it reaches the door, when it goes back, unsmoked, ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... up her kite in her arms and started for the door. Going through the hall she knocked Hinpoha's little purse mirror from the table and smashed it all to bits. Hinpoha was aghast. "Bad luck ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... reaction. Unknowingly she had let it slip. The reaction was negative; the bubble microbes actually grew faster in the medium that was supposed to stop them. It happened occasionally on strange planets. It was his bad luck that it ...
— Bolden's Pets • F. L. Wallace
... you, Porter. You guessed what we wanted.—Porter always guesses what I want, Lord Taborley; she's my second self. And Porter can tell your fortune from the cards—can't you, Porter? Only she never reads the cards on a Sunday; she says it brings bad luck. If you come here often, you must try her.—You might take that dish from her.—Thanks awfully. There's room for it here on this ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... to her, "To-morrow take your little brother and tie him to one of the lodge poles, and the next day tie him to another, and so every day tie him to one of the poles until you have gone all around the lodge and have tied him to each pole. Then you will be helped, and will no longer have bad luck." ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... over regularly day and night. He concentrated, too, upon the canal lock in the probable vague hope of flooding the district. His shells fell by the scores around, above, short of and beyond the objective, everywhere except, by extraordinary bad luck, upon it. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq |
