"By chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gathering up every wretched nursery tale and village superstition, and transmitting them to future ages? Such certainly has been the verdict of some who knew only the backs of the books, or who at farthest had opened by chance upon some passage where—true to their rule which compelled them to print their manuscripts as they found them—the Bollandists have recorded the legendary stories of the Middle Ages. Yet even for an age which searches diligently, as after hid treasure, for the old folk-lore, the nursery ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... shall be no herd in the stalls; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." But now I had no God. The universe had no great Fatherly Ruler. The affairs of man were governed by chance, or by a harsh and grinding necessity; and all good ground of hope and cheerful trust had given place to doubt, and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... by chance. I endeavoured to keep in a straight line, but to no purpose. The huge pyramidal buttresses of the trees, so characteristic of these coniferae, barred my way; and, in passing around them, I soon lost all ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... in my pocket by chance. When I reached for my handkerchief to quench the flow of blood the top came out with it. I must have touched the spring without knowing it, for the top began to spin. I stood still and watched it, ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... clever at corporation law had a milk-white one. Then they oiled the corners of their mouths so that they might be able to speak more fluently. All the servants stood in the courtyard and saw them mount their steeds, and here by chance came the third brother; for the squire had three sons, but nobody counted him with his brothers, for he was not so learned as they were, and he ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Cecil Brown, looking over the desert with his dark, intolerant eyes. "If one could come wandering here alone—stumble upon it by chance, as it were—and find one's self in absolute solitude in the dim light of the temple, with these grotesque figures all around, it would be perfectly overwhelming. A man would be prostrated with wonder and awe. But when Belmont is puffing his bulldog pipe, and Stuart is wheezing, and Miss Sadie ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... that this peculiarity was not suspected until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to talk, listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... census important is the quality of the units that compose it. They are free forcible men, in a country where life is safe, and has reached the greatest value. They give the bias to the current age; and that not by chance or by mass, but by their character, and by the number of individuals among them ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... period. [OLD-FASHIONED SCOTTISH CIVILITY.—Such were literally the points of politeness observed in general society during the author's youth, where it was by no means unusual in a company assembled by chance, to find individuals who had borne arms on one side or other in the civil broils of 1745. Nothing, according to my recollection, could be more gentle and decorous than the respect these old enemies ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of his life—and one of the most remarkable instances of "illumination" in the large literature of mystical experiences—occurred when Boehme was twenty-five years of age, some time in the year 1600. His eye fell by chance upon the surface of a polished pewter dish which reflected the bright sunlight, when suddenly he felt himself environed and penetrated by the Light of God, and admitted into the innermost ground and centre of the universe. ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... of smuggling on the coast, but, except in the case of a few notorious characters, he did not know who were the individuals engaged in it. Jack was a favourite with both revenue men and smugglers, and the latter knew that, should he by chance learn anything of their proceedings, he would not betray them. He used to go off with them when they went out fishing, sometimes with Tom, and sometimes alone, and soon became a very expert boat sailor. One thing is very certain, that his associates ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... that you neglect your plainest duty as an officer in order to corrupt, if you can, a supposed country maiden, of whom you have heard by chance. His Grace of Cumberland will be glad to ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... lavished their adulation upon him till it became fulsome. He often took pleasure in seeing how long he could make them dance attendance upon him for a single favour. To such of his own countrymen as by chance visited Paris, and sought an interview with him, he was, on the contrary, all politeness and attention. When Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and afterwards Duke of Argyle, called upon him in the Place Vendome, he had to pass through an ante-chamber crowded ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... traditions of hurried removals from France into Holland before St. Bartholomew's Night, and of later escapes into the same country. But all finally decided that Europe anywhere was impossible, and hence they determined on a wholesale emigration to Canada. Here by chance they settled down side by side with the little Quaker group which had come from Pennsylvania. Close association and intermarrying resulted in the Quakerizing of the European Huguenots—their beliefs were essentially similar, anyway—so in time all the descendants of this double ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... By chance an officer, who came among us on furlough, was praised in good company as a remarkable, sound-minded, and experienced man, who had fought through the Seven Years' War, and had gained universal confidence. It was not difficult for me to approach him, and we often went walking with each other. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... reception, I heard by chance these two words, 'l'improductivite slave.' I experienced the same relief as does a nervous patient when the physician tells him that his symptoms are common enough, and that many others suffer from the same ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... it an hour since," he said carelessly. "That same drover and his mate desire to see you, Mr. Renault. Could you, by chance, take the air at dusk—say on Great George Street—until ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... refractory Nanny produced better results than could have been expected. He reports soon after to Madame Streicher, "Miss Nanny is a changed creature since I threw the half dozen books at her head. Possibly, by chance some of their contents may have entered her brain, or her bad heart. At all events we now have a ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... thinned the fold, Safely he refuged on the wold; And, as in den secure he lay, The thefts of night regaled his day. The shepherd's dog, who searched the glen, By chance found the marauder's den. They fought like Trojan and like Greek, Till it fell out they ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... prince, warding his land, until One began in the dark of night, a Dragon, to rage. In the grave on the hill a hoard it guarded, in the stone-barrow steep. A strait path reached it, unknown to mortals. Some man, however, came by chance that cave within to the heathen hoard. {29e} In hand he took a golden goblet, nor gave he it back, stole with it away, while the watcher slept, by thievish wiles: for the warden's wrath prince ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... Thou knowest, all the little Learning I am Master of is upon that Subject; I never looked in a Book, but for their sakes. I have lately met with two pure Stories for a Spectator, which I am sure will please mightily, if they pass through thy Hands. The first of them I found by chance in a English Book called Herodotus, that lay in my Friend Dapperwit's Window, as I visited him one Morning. It luckily opened in the Place where I met with the following Account. He tells us that it was the Manner among the Persians to have several ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Greece synchronized, not by chance, the doom of Turkey: a sentence in which all the members of the Entente, starting from different points and pursuing different objects, concurred. The executioners were, naturally, the Balkan States. Russia began the work ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... comfortable quarters in which to eat and spend the night. There was quite an attractive hotel near the railroad, but actuated by a desire to see something of the town, which we found to be more than usually drawn out, we passed it with lingering regret. Whether by chance or instinct, we drifted to the ruins of the old hotel, now in process of reconstruction, and were comfortably ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... Stylosanthes elatior—is drunk to promote menstruation, and the same decoction is also drunk and used as a wash to counteract the ill effects of eating food prepared by a woman in the menstrual condition, or when such a woman by chance comes into a sick room or a house under the tabu; also drunk for diarrhea and used with other herbs in decoction for breast pains. Dispensatory: This plant "produces no very obvious effects," but some doctors regard it as possessed ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... sir—right," said Captain Wopper, with emphasis, while he looked earnestly into the face of the young doctor. "This world wasn't made to be kicked about like a foot-ball by chance, or circumstances, or anything of the sort. Look 'ee here, sir; it has bin putt into my heart to feel charitable leanings, and a good bit o' cash has bin putt into my pocket, so that, bein' a lone sort o' man, I don't have much use for it. That's on the one hand. ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... myself quite handsome in my disguise, and pleased myself better than in my formal Sunday clothes. I made gestures, and leaped, as I had seen the dancers do at the fair-theatre. In the midst of this I looked in the glass, and saw by chance the image of a niche which was behind me. On its white ground hung three green cords, each of them twisted up in a way which from the distance I could not clearly discern. I therefore turned round rather hastily, and asked the old man about the niche as well as the cords. He very courteously ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... undertaking which needs the passion for harmony and proportion? Isn't there a beauty as a possible ideal of aspiration for a race that probably never could achieve a Florentine or Japanese beauty of line?" He cast this out casually, as an idea which had by chance been brought up to the top by the current of the talk, and showed no indication to pursue it further when Sylvia only nodded her head. It was one of the moments when she heard nothing but the brazen clangor of "the wedding is on the twenty-first," ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... me with that bugbear; but I am not so easily frightened. We have met for the first time by chance, but our next meeting ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... what not—he might say that the cause of it was as simple as that of any dogfight—the "hog-mind" of the minority against the universal mind, the majority. The un-courage of the former fears to believe in the innate goodness of mankind. The cause is always the same, the effect different by chance; it is as easy for a hog, even a stupid one, to step on a box of matches under a tenement with a thousand souls, as under an empty bird-house. The many kindly burn up for the few; for the minority is selfish and the ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... landed to-day, and I wandered down here by chance. As for writing, I have done very little since I saw you off on that tramp steamer. There were two or three acquaintances of yours watching the mail boat next day on the chance ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our persons and implements, I could not help thinking how picturesque a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious our labors must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, might have ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... would no longer serve them, those who were in the open retired to the woods, and potted at the windows of the ranch, but, as the openings from which the besieged fired were mere loop-holes made for the purpose of defence, they had little hope of hitting them at long range except by chance. Those of the besiegers who happened to be near the stockade took shelter behind the breast-work, and awaited further orders from their chief— ignorant of the fact that he had ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... to say that it was not the poetry of "Child Harold," but Scott's own superior prose that had done his poetry harm, and that if ever the public could by chance get tired of his novels, Scott might write in verse with equal success. He insisted that Scott had a dramatic talent, "talent," he said, "which people are loth to grant me." He said that the success of Scott's novels was not in the least due to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... and not to this art, or any art, alone. You all know the story of the painter who, in despair at not being able to carry out the intention of his imagination, dashed his brush at the imperfect canvas, and with the scattering paint produced by chance the very effect which his brush guided by his skill alone, had failed to achieve. The actor's business is primarily to reproduce the ideas of the author's brain, to give them form, and substance, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... not the remotest idea what he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was to visit all the ministers of religion he could find in the place to borrow a passage home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent—and his story far too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance. It was close upon sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta on the road to Dunn's Battery, when I met him—I was rather bored, and with a whole evening on my hands—luckily for him. He was trudging dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... columns, and in one place, for a special piece of observation, the smaller man mounted on his companion's shoulders. Miriam happened to see them whilst they were thus posed, and the spectacle struck her with such ludicrous effect that she turned away to disguise sudden laughter. In doing so, she by chance faced Mallard, and he too began to laugh. For the first time since they had been acquainted, they looked into each other's eyes with frank, hearty merriment. Miriam speedily controlled herself, and there came a ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... one occasion do I remember his losing it. As a rule, tiresome questions, concerning past participles, square roots, or meridians never reached him, being snapped up in transit by arm-waving lovers of such trifles. The few that by chance trickled so far he took no notice of. They possessed no interest for him, and he never pretended that they did. But one day, taken off his guard, he gave voice quite unconsciously to a correct reply, with the immediate result of finding himself in an ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... vital scorn of all, As if the worst had fall'n which could befall. He stood a stranger in this breathing world, An erring spirit from another hurl'd; A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped By choice the perils he by chance escaped. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... in the twilight shroud that wrapped them round, I saw his head make the needless gesture of denial. I saw all the misery emanating from these two, who for once by chance in the shadows did not know ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. The Old Bachelor was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition of wit."—JOHNSON, Lives ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... walked over to a window. He stood for half a minute staring out to sea, looking in that direction by chance, because the window happened to face that way, to where the Gulf haze lifted above a faint purple patch that was Squitty Island, very far ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... difference, that the sufferings of Christ were voluntarily borne for our benefit, and were probably far more exquisitely agonizing than any which we are called upon to undergo. Besides, it must be a solid support to us amidst all our troubles to know, that they do not happen to us by chance; that they are not even merely the punishment of sin; but that they are the dispensations of a kind Providence, and sent on messages of mercy.—"The cup that our Father hath given us, shall we not drink it?"—"Blessed Saviour! by ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... such another gem as the nest of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best thing to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird past my ears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I was intruding upon ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well advanced in literature, to his own house, where the Earl of Dorset, celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and cost of his academical education. He entered his name in St. John's College, at Cambridge, in 1682, in his eighteenth year; and it may be reasonably ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... for much if not all the most splendid audacious achievement. Very often—very, very often—the impossibilities are achieved by those who in their ignorance advance not boldly but unconcernedly where a wiser man or woman would shrink and retreat. Fortunate indeed is he or she who in a crisis is by chance equipped with neither too little nor too much knowledge—who knows enough to enable him to advance, but does not know enough to appreciate how perilous, how foolhardy, how harsh and cruel, advance will be. Mildred ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... I can't at the moment recall his name, although the governess told me, poor soul! We were thrown together by chance, and the poor woman perished in the flames. Has no one of his many ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... a witness for God against the sinner upon the account of that unsteadiness and variety that were in them, both touching God, and their own selves. Sometimes the man thinks there is no God, but that everything hath its rise of itself, or by chance, or fortune—"The fool hath said in his heart, There ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. 'May thy release come soon, brother!' the lama continued placidly. 'Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... State. I was a carpet-bagger and knew but few of them. While I was on duty at Springfield the senators, representatives in Congress, ax-governors and the State legislators were nearly all at the State capital. The only acquaintance I made among them was with the governor, whom I was serving, and, by chance, with Senator S. A. Douglas. The only members of Congress I knew were Washburne and Philip Foulk. With the former, though he represented my district and we were citizens of the same town, I only became ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... beauty. Nor do people always recognise that he was a writer of sweet and flowing melodies. Weingartner expressed the surprise he felt when, imbued with current prejudice against Berlioz's lack of melodic invention, he opened, by chance, the score of the overture of Benvenuto and found in that short composition, which barely takes ten minutes to play, not one or two, but four or five melodies of ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... sudden and awful tragedy to which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village street. He ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... be married so soon, for Margaret would wait a little longer; but an unexpected and urgent summons home made it necessary for Mr. Carrollton to go, and so by chance the bridal day was fixed for the 18th. None save the family were present, and Madam Conway's tears fell fast as the words were spoken which made them one, for by those words she knew that she and Margaret must part. But not forever; for when the next year's autumn leaves shall fall ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... stopped, by chance, at a place by the sea. I never noticed its name. I slept for a week. Slept, with my eyes open. I do not know what I have seen, or what I have dreamed. I think I was dreaming of you. I know that ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... days the wretched inhabitants were seen wandering about, in the fields and among the ruins, searching for their children, their friends or any articles of furniture which might, by chance, have escaped the flames. Many became maniacs, and their cries arose in all directions like the howlings of wild beasts. The emperor and the nobles, to avoid the spectacle of so much misery, retired to the village of Vorobeif, a few miles from Moscow. The whole population ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... to His Majesty, sir," he said presently, rising; and then he added as if by chance: "You are a ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... "britska," I believe it was called, with yellow body and wheels and large black hood, and so very conspicuous) at a certain part of the road, and then, and not till then, commence chiming. It was a compliment to my father's punctuality; but what happened when, by chance, he failed to attend church I know not—but ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... that a larger group was formed for some unusual exploit and that Keith became part of it by chance rather than choice. Once he accompanied such a group to that part of the harbour where tall-masted fullriggers with foreign flags lay nose by stern in unbroken line along the quay. Strange odours, fragrant or repulsive, filled the air. Jolly, loud-voiced men toiled mightily or lounged ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... who, having seized the argument by chance, was pleasantly surprised to find that he was going to convince himself. "But here is the great distinction: to be an inspiration, a woman should always represent to the artist a form of the unattainable. It is the search for something beyond him that makes him challenge the ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... are smeared with a species of bird-lime, made by bruising the berries of a tree by no means scarce. They are then strewed, with the gluten uppermost, near to the spot to which it is understood the tiger usually retires during noon-tide heat. If by chance the animal should tread on one of these smeared leaves his fate is certain. He commences by shaking his paw, with the view to remove the adhesive incumbrance, but finding no relief from that expedient, he rubs the nuisance against his jaw with the ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... as she passed observantly along them it appeared as if they had been brushed by some foot at a much earlier hour. At the end of the garden, bushes of broom, laurel, and yew formed a constantly encroaching shrubbery, that had come there almost by chance, and was never trimmed. Behind these bushes was a garden-seat, and upon it ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... time it chanced, (for things sometimes do happen by chance in a very remarkable way,) it chanced that Will Corrie, being also much depressed about Gascoyne, resolved to take into his confidence Dick Price the boatswain, with whom during their short voyage together ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... cast aside unfinished, and they were never seen by me till after I had lost him. Others, as for instance "Rosalind and Helen" and "Lines written among the Euganean Hills", I found among his papers by chance; and with some difficulty urged him to complete them. There are others, such as the "Ode to the Skylark and The Cloud", which, in the opinion of many critics, bear a purer poetical stamp than any other ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... neat and respectable among this theatrical rabble. For I will not disguise from you, Miss Ellen, that my first mistress was an actress, and my life a very gay one at the beginning. Merry, kind, and careless was the pretty Cora, and I am bound to confess I enjoyed myself immensely, for I was taken by chance with half a dozen friends to pin up the folds of her velvet train and mantle, in a fairy spectacle where she played the queen. It was very splendid, and, snugly settled among the soft folds, I saw it all, and probably felt that I too had my ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... class interests of the Puritans were to be defended best by the constitutional limitation of royal power, and in their struggle with James's son and successor, Charles I (1625-1649), they represent by chance the forces ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... These visits he repeated frequently through the day, but once I was amused to see that he forgot "the way out," and put himself in a great fuss, realized that a cage was a prison, and flew up and down in a fright, until by chance he saw the opening, and glided out. At last Zoee caught him in the act of purloining her goodies, and was most indignant. A rush at the thief, with an angry chirp, sent Bobby flying away in ignominious haste, a wiser, but not a repentant bird; for he continued his robberies, only with care to ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... to walk about the place without thinking at every step of the habits and usages of long-past times; the very stones tell of them; the ideas of the middle ages are still there with all their ancient superstitions. If, by chance, a gendarme passes you, with his silver-laced hat, his presence is an anachronism against which your sense of fitness protests; but nothing is so rare as to meet a being or an object of the present time. There ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life—that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battlefield ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death. And he who roused this consciousness in them showed them at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of the mere chaining of the instinctive tendency—is subject to one great difficulty. The chain may by chance be broken; the inhibition may be removed; then the natural instinctive tendency at once shows itself. Remove the restraints of civilized society but a little, and manifestations of the sexual instinct of our race appear in forms that are not far removed ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... three spirits came below us, of whom neither I nor my Leader was aware till when they cried out, "Who are ye?" whereon our story stopped, and we then attended only unto them. I did not recognize them, but it happened, as it is wont to happen by chance, that one must needs name the other, saying, "Cianfa, where can he have stayed?" Whereupon I, in order that the Leader should attend, put my finger upward from my chin to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... Unfriended, Unemployed, Unvalued, Unpopular, and actually Unpitied. She was Unsuccessful, Unfortunate, Unlucky, Unpaid, Unshod, Unfed, Unquiet, Unsettled, Uncertain, Undecided, Unhinged, Uneasy, Upset, Unhappy, and Utterly Useless. Until, by chance, she went to Cole's Book Arcade, and got some good instructive books, and now she is the very best person in Australia, and the best but two ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... them by chance," said the priest, "in the South wood, in a spring evening. Varney was muffled in a russet cloak, so that I saw not his face. They separated hastily, as they heard me rustle amongst the leaves; and I observed she turned her head and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... on the turn, and if by chance it is not, the tortuous and narrow passages between the coves, with their rocking rocks and hidden pools, are enough to twist the ankles and temper of anyone who is not ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... the men of the Thirteenth Cavalry who had pursued Villa's raiders into Mexico and upon whom Billy Byrne had stumbled by chance, the little party of fugitives came safely to United States soil, where all but one breathed sighs ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sons and one daughter of Montezuma, were lost in the confused rush of such a multitude over this foot-path. The Indian story is that Cortez slew the children of Montezuma when he found himself unable to carry them off. Perhaps he did, but the probability is that they perished by chance, or, rather, it seems to have been by chance that Cortez or any of his gang escaped ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... immune function is strong so these misbehaving cells are destroyed as fast as they appear. Mutated, freely-multiplying cells are caused by peroxidized fats, by free radicals in the body, by radiation (there has always been background radiation on Earth), by chance mutation. There are naturally occurring highly carcinogenic substances in ordinary foods that are unavoidable. In fact some of these naturally occurring substances are far more dangerous than the toxic residues of pesticides in our foods. The body is supposed to deal with all these things; ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... by chance, and gradually improved by such expedients, as the successive discovery of their defects happened to suggest, are never to be tried by a regular theory. They are fabricks of dissimilar materials, raised by different architects, upon different plans. We must ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by supernatural law, for ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... Quite by chance, Dschemil happened to pass by, and seeing a man sitting there, full in the glare of the sun, he stopped, and said, 'Get up at once, Jew; you will have a sunstroke if you sit in ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... trap-taken, or the leaves by chance winds blow, Under tunic, peasant hemp, or cloth of gold, By the fire, in low flame burning, I have crouched in silence, yearning, And as now, my helpless ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Berlin—a beautiful city. These places that kings build, have of course, more general uniformity and consistency of style than those that grow up by chance. The prevalence of the Greek style of architecture, the regularity and breadth of the streets, the fine trees, especially in the Unter den Linden, on which are our rooms, struck me more than any thing I have seen since Paris. Why ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... time is not a circumstance that draws a sin to another species, nor is frequency or custom, except perhaps by something accidental supervening. For an action does not acquire a new species through being repeated or prolonged, unless by chance something supervene in the repeated or prolonged act to change its species, e.g. disobedience, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the confederacy is not of that kind that forms itself originally by concert and consent. It has been forced together by chance—a heterogeneous mass, held only by the accident of the moment; and the instant that accident ceases to operate, the parties will retire to their ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... not a word of the story. And sitting there, like a boy, or a magpie, he picked up one of the shoes which Abdul Mujid had slipped off as he took his seat and began to examine it curiously. This perfectly childish act by chance caught the wandering glance of the headman, and as he looked at the shoes, and then up at the fine strapping fellow who owned them, a sudden thought occurred to him. "Those are very like soldiers' shoes," he said in a hard, suspicious ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... "I accept. You may one of these days reap the reward of your disinterested devotion. But as I cannot, and you will not, quit this place, it becomes necessary to fill up the excavation beneath the soldier's gallery; he might, by chance, hear the hollow sound of his footsteps, and call the attention of his officer to the circumstance. That would bring about a discovery which would inevitably lead to our being separated. Go, then, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... yield similar pleasure. We often find a tiny child rubbing his genital organs or his thighs or taking exaggerated pleasure in riding on someone's foot in order to stimulate these nerves, which he has discovered at first merely by chance. When he begins to run around, he loves to exhibit his own body, to go about naked. None of this is naughtiness or perversion; it is only Nature's preparation of trends that she will later need to use. The child ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... said the miller, as though he told a dog to lie down. "Theer now! You've been an' gived me palpitations with your noise. Banging tables won't mend it, nor bad words neither. This thing hasn't come by chance. You 'm ripening in mind an' larnin' every day. You mark my word; theer 's a mort o' matters to pick out of this new trouble. An' ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... exquisite. The Poems I endeavored not to understand, but to read them with my eye alone, and I think I succeeded. (Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) As if I were to luxuriate to-morrow at some Picture Gallery I was never at before, and going by to day by chance, found the door open, had but 5 minutes to look about me, peeped in, just such a chastised peep I took with my mind at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over unrestrained,— not to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. Coleridge ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... helped him in this enterprise, and Eteocles prayed to Pallas of the Golden Shield, whose temple stood hard by. Then they crouched, each covered with his shield and holding his spear in his hand, if by chance his enemy should give occasion to smite him; and if one showed so much as an eye above the rim of his shield the other would strike at him. But after a while King Eteocles slipped upon a stone that was under his foot, ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... was quickly found, and several quaint anecdotes were selected for the next day's program, so if by chance other pupils had come prepared with some of them, there would be still others for Peace to choose from. And when school-time came the next day, she departed almost happily, with the Presidential book ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... horse. Francois will not think of that; and even if he did, his horse is a mustang, and the prairie is covered with mustang tracks, running in every direction. No, no, he will never come back here, except by chance; and there are a thousand chances to one against it. No, we must go in search of him; we must go upon his trail; and that I fear will be impossible among so many others. Before we leave this place," continued Basil, "let us try every ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... as I think I have said, I had acquired her dislike to meat, also that she ate some plantains, throwing the skins for Tommy to fetch and laughing at his play. When it was over, Bastin and Bickley went away together, whether by chance or design I do not know, and she said to ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... from red, and she set her lips, and she drew her gown close round her lest his touch should defile it (so the unhappy gentleman understood the gesture), and she daintily picked her steps round him lest by chance she should happen to come in contact with so foul a thing. Thus she walked toward the door, and, having reached it, she turned and said ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... his expression cold and impassible, his lips never smile—he is of the same type as many of the revolutionary leaders during the French reign of terror. His name is Pancratius, which name, from the Greek, signifies the union of all material or brutal forces. It is not by chance that he has received this name. The profound truth in which this character is conceived is also manifested in his distrust of himself, in his hesitation. As he is acting from false principles, he cannot deceive himself into that enthusiastic faith with which he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a passing thought that came to him by chance, his desire to grow up a gentleman, but he was more than half in earnest. He had not thought much about the future hitherto, but now his ambition was kindled, and he thought he should like to fill a respectable ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... unexpectedly, and as the consummation of all my wishes, my pleasure trip was transformed into an important scientific expedition for the benefit of the Museum, by the intervention of one of my friends, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer. By chance I met him a week ago in Boston. He laughed at me a little about my roving disposition, and then asked me what plans I had formed for the Museum, in connection with my journey. I answered that, thinking especially of my health, I had provided only for the needs of myself and my wife ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... Perozes was destroyed and the whole Persian army with him. For the few who by chance did not fall into the ditch found themselves at the mercy of the enemy. As a result of this experience a law was established among the Persians that, while marching in hostile territory, they should never engage in any pursuit, even if it should happen ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... fully. "Colter by chance got a line on what the kid and Mosby were planning to pull off. Knowing I had some influence with Curly, he came straight to me. That was just after the finals in ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... moose-calf soon tires of the beaten paths. He ventures downward toward the plain. A wolf, skulking through the scrub at the foot of the mountain, encounters, by chance, the moose-calf. The calf is fat. But, the wolf is cunning. He dares not harm the moose-calf hard by the trails of the mountain. He becomes friendly, and the fool moose-calf tells the wolf where he is bound. The wolf offers to accompany him, and the moose-calf is glad—here ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... sit down at the table: Vaninka took her place again, and as by chance she was seated with her back to the light, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in a sewing machine was once quite a task. Ofttimes it had to be adjusted by chance, in other instances by certain guiding marks upon the needle bar. It is gratifying to know that all this has been done away with, and that the needle has only to be inserted into the bar, and fastened by turning a small screw. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... adjacent villages for food, and presently to return again to the place where his master's bones were only then left. This he continued to do from July, when the battle was fought, until the January following, when a soldier being quartered near, and going that way by chance, the dog, fearing he came to disturb his master's bones, flew upon the soldier, who, being surprised at the suddenness of the thing, unslung his carbine, he having been thrown on his back, and killed the noble animal. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... bear fight in the afternoon, but Ysidria and I preferred a walk on the bluffs; of course, Madre Moreno went with us, but she considerately, or by chance, kept by herself. Madre Moreno had allowed her niece and myself a freedom of intercourse not at all in keeping with Californian customs, but she took upon her the duties of duena at Bolinas, so that the many visitors should find no chance for wonder or remark. Catalina and the others ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... the motherless brood, and for Gran'ther and Mr. Fen Llewellen. They lived in a most haphazard fashion, for, although they were not really poor, the children never seemed to have any decent clothing to wear; and if, by chance, they got a new garment, something always happened to it as, for instance, the taking of Margaret's new gingham by Bob as ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... should not be risked under ordinary garden or field conditions of growth. We naturally wish to bring to maturity every possible plant that the ideal we are breeding for may not be lost, if it should by chance be included in the number. If grown in pots or boxes the first season, with due care every good seed is likely to produce a vigorous bulb that may be planted out next year. I have found six-inch standard flower pots, after many trials, to be the ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... follow the reapers to gather and bind the corn after it has fallen to the swish of the sickles. A handful of the standing corn of the last of the farmer's fields is tied about with ribbon. Nobody but the farmer knows where that handful is, and the girl who comes upon it by chance is made the Queen of the Mheillia. She takes it to the highest eminence near, and waves it, and her fellow-reapers and gleaners shout huzzas. Their voices are heard through the valley, where other farmers ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... friendship, zeal, and blithesome humours known: Whence that loud shout in such a hearty strain? Why all the Hamiltons are in her train. See next the decent Scudamore advance With Winchelsea, still meditating song, With her perhaps Miss Howe came there by chance. Nor knows with whom, nor why she ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... was, but whether by chance or Providence let no man dare to tell, that even while the four black people were yet on their knees by the bed, the turning and tossing of the white face stopped suddenly and Naomi lay still on her pillow. ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... not by chance she made the discovery, nor was it exactly reason that conducted her to the spot. By whatever means she found it, we must regard the affectionate little creature as the very ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... passing of the days. Dear one, thou knowest we Chinese women are not supposed to know of love, much less to speak of it. We read of it, we know it is the song of all the world, but it comes not to us unless by chance. We go to you as strangers, we have no choice, and if the Gods withhold their greatest gift, the gift of love, then life is grey and wan as the twilight of a hopeless day. Few women have the joy I feel when I look ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... that which thou didst like good Was but thy appetite that swayed thy blood For that time to the best; for as a blast That through a house comes, usually doth cast Things out of order, yet by chance may come And blow some one thing to his proper room, So did thy appetite, and not thy zeal, Sway thee by chance to do some one ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... gave a more elaborate version of his letter, and told a lie. He said he had destroyed the letter in his indignation. He had destroyed it, but solely to escape any question of his showing it to his wife. He said a happier thing by chance; he said that for two pins he would motor over to the school and see for himself how the boy really was; then perhaps he would be in a position to consider the entreaty which Mrs. Upton added to the specialist's demand, that his patient should be placed under his ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... There stood by chance at the inn door two jolly peasant women who were travelling towards Seville with some carriers, who happened to take up their lodging in that inn the same evening. And as our knight-errant believed all that he saw or heard to take place in the same manner as he had read in his books, he no ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... why it has been such a relief to be in the moving pictures," Estelle went on. "I could be so many different characters, and, at times, I thought perhaps, by chance, I might be cast for the very part I have lost—cast for my real self, as ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... Guibert, Goisbricht, of Ghent, who afterwards owned, by chance of war, many a fair manor about Lincoln city, was one of those valiant Flemings who settled along the east and northeast coast of Scotland in the eleventh century. They fought with the Celtic princes, and then married with their ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... not—for, though the youngest and least rational of my father's children, I can perceive there are some about him who hit upon truth occasionally, either by chance or intention. There's that rugged bear, Sir Thomas Pride, whom, I have heard say, my father knighted with a mopstick—he, I do believe, speaks truth, and of a truth follows one scriptural virtue, being no respecter of persons. As to General George ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... the new roof leaks. I get anxious about the blinds—do any of them work loose and swing around and bang their lives out in the night? Have the neighbours' chickens rooted up that row of hollyhock seeds? Then those books I placed on the shelves so hurriedly. Are any of them by chance upside down? Is Volume I. elbowed by Volume II. or by Volume VIII.? And I can't get away to see. Coming up here every Saturday night and tearing back every Sunday ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... the bolas, or even seizing the animals by their hind-legs, soon capture the whole. Strange to say, these silly creatures make no attempt to break through the sham fence, nor even to leap over it. Not so with the guanacos, when so enclosed. The latter spring against the fence at once, and if, by chance, a party of guanacos be driven in along with the vicunas, they not only break open the rope enclosure and free themselves, but also the whole herd of their cousins, the vicunas. It is, therefore, not considered any gain to get a flock ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... lilted, he rode and sang, Then met he by chance Sir Thule Vang; Sir Thule Vang, with his twelve sons bold, All cas'd in iron, the bright and cold. Look out, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... wages; nay, Evens, the famous man upon the Harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish, and carried to his grave in the dark at night without one linke, but that Mr. Kingston met it by chance, and did give 12d. to buy two or ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... note. But the moment I know for certain what is designed for me at Cheltenham, I write to you in order that you may know it from me and not by chance from anyone else. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... pulled over his brow—one that seemed by his phisog to hold the good word of the world as nothing—and that had, in the course of circumstances, been reduced to a kind of wild desperation, either by chance-misfortunes, cares and trials, or, what is more likely, by his own sinful, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... work, the dreaded trench in the Potter's Field yawned to receive her. That was the blow that broke her down. She was put out by the landlord soon after the accident, as a hopeless tenant, and I thought that she had gone to the almshouse, when by chance I came upon her living quite happily in a tenement on the next block. "Living" is hardly the word; she was really waiting to die, but waiting with a cheerful content that amazed me until she herself betrayed ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Ploughman. This was not the way to go about it: his barge had well nigh been shipwrecked in the launch; and he might have lived to regret the letter which hindered his voyage to Jamaica, had he not met by chance in the street a gentleman of the west, of the name of Dalzell, who introduced him to the Earl of Glencairn, a nobleman whose classic education did not hurt his taste for Scottish poetry, and who was not too proud ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... thee straightway to the Princess of Daryabar and convey to her greetings and expressions of sympathy both from myself and from his sire;" and as the leech departed she called to mind her son and wept with sore weeping. By chance the Sultan, who was passing by that way, seeing Firuzah in tears and sobs and breaking out into sore and bitter lamentation, asked of her the reason thereof.—And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... perceive there was a person ready to claim it, which conspired rather to confirm my suspicions, being a little in the style of the gentry I have alluded to. They vary their mode of proceeding according to situation and circumstance. Your money-dropper contrives to find his own property, as if by chance. He picks up the purse with an exclamation of 'Hallo! what have we here?—Zounds! if here is not a prize—I'm in rare luck to-day—Ha, ha, ha, let's have a peep at it—it feels heavy, and no doubt is worth having.' While he is examining its contents, up comes ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... own office. The Indian I also thought nothing of. If the proofs were in a roll, he could not possibly know what they were. On the other hand, it seemed an unthinkable coincidence that a man should dare to enter the room, and that by chance on that very day the papers were on the table. I dismissed that. The man who entered knew that the papers were ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wonderful valley, so narrow that only at mid-day is the face of the sun to be descried from it. That valley lay undiscovered and unknown for thousands of years; no person dreamed of its existence. But at last, a long time ago, certain hunters entered it by chance, and then what do you think they found, Caballero? They found a small nation or tribe of unknown people, speaking an unknown language, who, perhaps, had lived there since the creation of the world, without intercourse with the rest of their fellow-creatures, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... in his thought That innocent passion, was more deeply wrought To chivalrous pity; and at vesper-bell, With careless mien which hid his purpose well, Went forth on horseback, and, as if by chance Passing Bernardo's house, he paused to glance At the fine garden of this wealthy man, This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan; But, presently dismounting, chose to walk Amid the trellises, in gracious talk With ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot
... excellent fellow, once a minister,—I will call him Isaacs,—who deserves well of the world till he dies, and after, because he once, in a real exigency, did the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other man could do it. In the world's great football match, the ball by chance found him loitering on the outside of the field; he closed with it, "camped" it, charged it home,—yes, right through the other side,—not disturbed, not frightened by his own success,—and breathless found himself a great man, as the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... all the predatory animals. The lions, the tigers, the bears, the eagles and hawks, serpents, and the fish-eating fishes, all live by destroying life; but they kill only what they think they can consume. If something is by chance left over, it goes to satisfy the hunger of the humbler creatures of prey. In a state of nature, where wild creatures prey upon wild creatures, such a thing as wanton, wholesale and utterly wasteful slaughter ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... rightly, perhaps, that having become poor, he cared little to display his ruin before those who had obscured his splendor. He absented himself rarely, and then only to go to Corbeil, almost always on foot. There he frequented the Belle Image hotel, the best in the town, and met, as if by chance, a young lady from Paris. They spent the afternoon together, and separated when the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... consciousness, and the other by reasoning. The spirit of the two great masters of thought was as essentially different as their habits and lives. Plato believed that God governed the world; Aristotle believed that it was governed by chance. The former maintained that mind is divine and eternal; the latter that it is a form of the body, and consequently mortal. Plato thought that the source of happiness was in virtue and resemblance to God; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... and went off, but I believe made some jeering remark to the carpenter as to the sensible practice of ventilating a ship's quarter-deck. I know he popped into the mate's cabin to impart the fact to him because the whiskers came on deck, as it were by chance, and stole glances at me from below—for signs of lunacy or ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... a step and stood on the stair beside me, looking up at me very sweetly, and resting her hand lightly on my shoulder—a caress so frank and unconcealed that it meant no more then its innocent significance implied. But at that moment, by chance, I encountered Lois's eyes fixed on me in cold surprise. And, being a fool, and already unnerved, I turned red as a pippin, as though I were guilty, and looked elsewhere till the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... good act. By chance Quincy and Alice stood side by side. She looked up at him and said to her partner, "What is your name, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... name Rohtraut by chance in an old German lexicon. The full vowel coloring appealed to him and ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... Goa. He attempted here to flee to Cochinchina with a number of negroes—one of whom was the one whom your Reverence left in the office of the procurator for the province, and a good interpreter. They were caught, although by chance, while within the river, and are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... with its barbed spines—while stuck into every loop and button-hole of his dress could be seen the leaves and branchlets, and fruits and flowers, of a host of curious and unknown plants! He had been herborising in the woods; and coming by chance within earshot of the scuffle, had scrambled through the bushes just in time to spoil the ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... name—was born in the village of Heemskerk at the end of the fifteenth century, and flourished at the period of Italian imitation. He was the son of a peasant, and, although he had an inclination toward art, he was intended for a peasant. He became a painter by chance, like many other Dutch artists. His father had a furious temper, and the son was very much afraid of him. One day poor Van Veen dropped the milk-jug; his father flew at him, but he ran out of the house and spent the night somewhere else. The next morning his mother ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... this hotel; and had before this period had sundry hostile meetings with the ladies of the Bareacres family. My Lady Bareacres cut Mrs. Crawley on the stairs when they met by chance; and in all places where the latter's name was mentioned, spoke perseveringly ill of her neighbour. The Countess was shocked at the familiarity of General Tufto with the aide-de-camp's wife. The Lady ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the author of this book by Mr. McWilliams, a pleasant New York gentleman whom the said author met by chance on a journey.] ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... me think of poor Mr. Porterfield's tartan, especially as Jasper Nettlepoint strolled in again at that moment. His mother at once challenged him: it was ten o'clock; had he by chance made up his great mind? Apparently he failed to hear her, being in the first place surprised at the strange ladies and then struck with the fact that one of them wasn't strange. The young man, after a slight hesitation, greeted Miss Mavis ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... pins in your mouth, because they will stick in your throat, and give you pain. Oh! you cannot think what pain a pin would give you in your throat, should it remain there: but, if you by chance swallow it, I should be obliged to give you, every morning, something bitter to drink. You never tasted any thing so bitter! and you would grow very sick. I never put pins in my mouth; but I am older than you, and know how to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... master. In hunting through those rooms behind the altar, I came quite by chance upon a cell which had escaped the notice of our soldiers when they threaded their way through the winding passages below. I burst open the door, looked in, and saw that beautiful creature. "Ah, ah!" said I. "By the gods, I have a royal prize!" But, ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... one day that the son of a king, while riding in the forest, came by chance upon the dwarfs' house and asked for a night's lodging. As he left the next morning he saw the coffin on the mountain-side, with beautiful Snow-white lying in it, and read what was written upon the lid ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... impressed with a sense of mystery and with a growing conviction that the boy was shielding some one else. He began to talk cheerfully of other things, hoping that Jim might perhaps drop a useful hint, or, at least, that the boy would gain confidence in him as a friend. By chance ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... phenomenal intelligence, Mop had many of Punch's ways, and all of Punch's trust and affection; and, like Punch, he was never so superlatively happy as when he was roughly mauled and pulled about by his tail. When by chance he was shut out in the back-yard, he knocked, with his tail, on the door; he squirmed his way into the heart of Mary Cook in the first ten minutes, and in half an hour he was on terms of the most affectionate friendship ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... there may have been some such even among the Roman Popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that accursed old man who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is to be found even now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing not by chance but by agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for the guarding of the mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make them happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. I fancy that even among the Masons ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... his hand to Spiegelberg). Spiegelberg, thou art a great man! or else a blind hog has by chance ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... bodyguard—a Hindu by religion and of exclusive caste—because of his great strength and the beauty of his youth and person. This one, tradition tells, conceived a burning passion for the favourite wife of his master, having seen her face by chance, unveiled, at the bars that protected her window;—a girl of extreme loveliness, and as slender as a wand, whom custom prevented from disclosing her features to the eyes of men who were not her near relatives. She had therefore been closely ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... realms beyond the seas have little history before the battle of Waterloo, a date at which the Englishman's historical education has commonly come to an end; and if by chance it has gone any further, it has probably been confined to purely domestic events or to foreign episodes of such ephemeral interest as the Crimean War. It may be well, therefore, to pass lightly over these matters in order to sketch in brief outline the development of the ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... of receiving your wound you were at a very short distance from me, and that your cousin was at a still less one from you, in your rear. As you advanced towards the intervening stream, my eyes, conducted by chance, or something better, fixed on your cousin, who at the moment drew a pistol from his holster. You were but a few paces from him, when I saw him deliberately—I could not be mistaken—deliberately vary his aim from myself to you. The pistol was fired—you fell from your horse, struck by his ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... impossible angle, are drawn by a moth-eaten pony, mostly bones. Public conveyances—if these are not indeed a myth—are most exasperating. You can never find one when you want it, even at the "Public Carriage Station." If by chance you come across one in the street, the driver will ignore your signal and drive on. Evidently he selects this walk in life merely to discharge the obligations of his conscience, for he never seems to want a passenger, nor will he take one till he finds his vehicle ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... the summer, however, before I made up my mind to speak to her on the subject; but one afternoon, in the month of August, I resolved to do so, and with that intent walked leisurely over to Irville; and after calling on the Rev. Dr. Dinwiddie, the minister, I stepped in, as if by chance, to Mrs Nugent's. I could see that she was a little surprised at my visit; however, she treated me with every possible civility, and her servant lass bringing in the tea-things in a most orderly manner, as punctually as the clock was ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... held to the vague idea that the club was an invention of a certain Dr. Samuel Johnson. Also that it came about in some such way as this. The Doctor had grown weary of bullying the patient Boswell, and browbeating the acquaintance met by chance in Fleet Street or the Strand did not entirely satisfy him. So one day, storming out of the Cheshire Cheese, after roundly abusing the larkpie of which he had consumed an enormous quantity, he founded the first club, with ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... various purifications if they accidentally come in contact with him, believing that every dog was animated by a wicked and malignant spirit, condemned to do penance in that form for crimes committed in a previous state of existence. If by chance a dog passed between a teacher and his pupil during the period of instruction, it was supposed that the best lesson would be completely poisoned, and it was deemed prudent to suspend the tuition for at least a day and a night. Even in Egypt, dogs are now as much ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {49b} And if it would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves; have some singularity in a ruff cloak, or hat-band; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... magnifying-glass will scarcely detect it. And I must warn you that if you want to know any of the minute creatures we are studying, you must visit one place constantly. You may in a casual way find many of them on seaweed, or in the damp ooze and mud, but it will be by chance only; to look for them with any certainty you must take trouble in ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... I comed back here, an' by chance fell in with this feller—this Yankee-nigger—who offered me five dollars a day to haul up the curtain, an' do a lot o' dirty work, sich as bill stickin', an' lightin' the candles, an' sweepin' the floor; but ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... hair-plait and the mischievous blue eyes of his adored? That Miss Greta Du Taine had left for Johannesburg with the latest batch of departing pupils! If she told, W. Keyse would vanish out of her life, it might be for ever; or, if by chance encountered on the street, pass by with a casual greeting and a touch of the cheap Panama. Emigration Jane was no heroine, only a daughter of Eve. Arithmetic and what was termed the "tonic sofa" had been more sternly ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... disclosed to him by this drive to Field-Lane, the course of which gave him a good sample of it, did almost shake him in his opinion that Eleanor ought to be let alone. Mr. Carlisle had not seen such a view of London in his life before; he had not been in such a district of crime and wretchedness; or if by chance he had touched upon it, he had made a principle of not seeing what was before him. Now he looked; for he was going where Eleanor was accustomed to go, and what he saw she was obliged to meet also. He reached the building ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... thunder-strooke, And gazing on me so a little space, Thou shouldst haue shot thine eye balls in my face, 30 Then falling at my feet, thou shouldst haue said, O she is gone, and Nature with her dead. With this ill newes amaz'd by chance I past, By that neere Groue, whereas both first and last, I saw her, not three moneths before shee di'd. When (though full Summer gan to vaile her pride, And that I sawe men leade home ripened Corne, Besides aduis'd me well,) I durst haue sworne The lingring ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... near the house my friend, For this day here shall be your journey's end. Then had she done the thing which [she] did not, And I in kinder words had paid the shot. I do entreat my friends, (as I have some) If they to Daventry do chance to come, That they will baulk that inn; or if by chance, Or accident into that house they glance, Kind gentlemen, as they by you reap profit, My hostess care of me, pray tell her of it,[8] Yet do not neither; lodge there when you will, You for your money shall be welcome still. From thence that night, although ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... communion with God in private prayer and exercise is most constant and intense, He Himself was continually withdrawing for such communion; and there are no more suggestive passages in the Gospels for our guidance than those incidental references which tell us, as if by chance, giving us passing glimpses into the unrecorded portions of His life, how on one occasion He retired into a mountain apart to pray, or how on another he spent the whole night apart in prayer, or how he was in a ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... a foolish speech—foolish of Sibylla to give utterance to it; but she did so in all singleness of heart, meaning nothing. Lucy was bending over the coral, held by Lionel. She felt her own cheeks flush, and she saw by chance, not by direct look, that Lionel's face had turned a deep scarlet. Jealous of her! She continued to admire the coral some little time longer, and then resigned it to him with ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the utmost importance for understanding the logic of induction, that we should form a distinct conception of what is meant by chance, and how the phenomena which common language ascribes to that ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... by the mate, went to the top of the gangway, and the fellow who had brought the party from the station stood on guard near. Dick afterward realized that much depended on the choice he swiftly made and wondered whether it was quite by chance ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... and can foresee every thing? More is invented than is discovered by the police. The agents of our police were decidedly as good as those of the present people, and yet they frequently knew nothing of what was going on but at the end of a week or a fortnight; and then they found it out only by chance, or incaution, or treason. I don't fear that any disclosures will be obtained from you by any of these means. You are clever and decided, and, if they were to work upon you, you would easily get clear. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon |
