"Luckless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had this luckless female been conveyed from the apartment, than the Baron, advancing to the table, filled and drank a deep goblet of wine; then, putting an obvious restraint on his passions, turned to the preacher, who stood horror-struck at the scene ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the corn-cobs crack; The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, And the sweet cider trips in silence round. The laws of husking every wight can tell; And sure, no laws he ever keeps so well: For each red ear a general kiss he gains, With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains; But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast, Red as her lips, and taper as her waist, She walks the round, and culls one favored beau, Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. Various the sport, as are the wits and brains Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; Till ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... uttered half unconsciously as she fingered the key, and for a few seconds she stood there, thinking of the master of the house, wondering what luckless influence had so early blackened and distorted his life, and whether he would probably return to Le Bocage before she left it to go out and carve her fortune in the world's noisy quarry. The light danced over her countenance and form, showing the rich folds of her crimson merino dress, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... consequently knew that in my eager haste in loading for my last shot, I had neglected to put in any bullet at all! But I now put in the bullet, looked at it after it was entered, to make sure it was there, and then felt it all the way down, till I had rammed it home. I then raised the luckless piece once more, uncertain at first which of the two moose I should take, this time. But, seeing the smaller one beginning to move his head and lay back his horns, which I well enough knew was his signal for running, I instantly decided to take him, took a quick, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... luckless roses, Were on their bush to-day, And that itself the rosebush Were plunged in ocean's spray. Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway, My dearest Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... just what I ought to say," went on the luckless Walt. "I really did think you were the crowd I should join, but something has come up and I ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... understood; the public is not accustomed to such depths. The pictures we paint, my dear fellow, are mere screens. We should do better to turn rhymes, and translate the antique poets! There is more glory to be looked for there than from our luckless canvases!" ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... can be manipulated so as to fall high or low, according to the betting, irrespective of the person who holds it, so long as he does not know the secret. There is a board with a dial face and a pointer on a print. The luckless "punters" cannot tell that it is controlled by a magnetic ring. Into these mysteries the police ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... exclaimed Cologne in something like impatience. "Now, Claud, this it no joke! We are out to find our lively-loving, luckless little ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... your sovereign's latest words, In which I will unto you all unfold Our royal mind and resolute intent:— When golden Hebe, daughter to great Jove, Covered my manly cheeks with youthful down, Th' unhappy slaughter of my luckless sire, Drove me and old Assarachus, mine eame, As exiles from the bounds of Italy: So that perforce we were constrained to fly To Graecia's Monarch noble Pandrassus. There I alone did undertake your cause, There ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... each group was welded into one mighty unit by twenty-one such bands of force. The unit formed, a ray from each of its seven component structures seized upon a designated sphere, and under the combined power of those seven tractors, the luckless globe was literally snapped into the center of mass of the Vorkulian unit There seven dully gleaming red pressor rays leaped upon it, backed by all the power of seven gigantic fortresses, held rigidly ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the coach, who had faithfully promised to be on hand that afternoon, in order to go over the various signal codes again. Joe Hooker had not yet put in an appearance, and several of the substitutes were enjoying themselves punting the ball, doubtless also wondering if they were going to be as luckless as before about breaking into the game, this time with ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... moral worth and the verdict singularly unrighteous; but as long as some testators really are daft, or subject to interested suasion, or wantonly sinful, they should be denied the power to stifle dissent by fining the luckless dissenter. The dead have too much to say in this world at the best, and it is monstrous and intolerable tyranny for them to stand at the door of the Temple of Justice to drive away the suitors ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... and the cruelty practised on Sisera by Jael under the guise of hospitality is revolting under our code of morality. To decoy the luckless general fleeing before his enemy into her tent, pledging him safety, and with seeming tenderness ministering to his wants, with such words of sympathy and consolation lulling him to sleep, and then in cold blood driving a nail through his temples, seems more like the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... that fellow come from?" queried Ned anxiously, pointing toward the feet of the luckless individual who was ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... matter with the Spanish Ministers. "Charles knew that he had had much conference with Isola, the Spanish ambassador." Meanwhile, up to July 1, Colbert was trying to persuade Marsilly's valet to go to France, which he declined to do, as we have seen. However, the luckless lad, by nods and by veiled words, indicated that he knew a great deal. But not by promise of security and reward could the valet be induced to return to France. "I might ask the King to give up Martin, the valet of Marsilly, to me," Colbert concludes, ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Walnut was still a mile and a half away, and there was nothing for our luckless travellers to do but whip and kick, both of which they did most vigorously. Hallowell sat as immovable as the Sphinx, excepting his right arm, which from the moment they had started on the back trail had not once ceased ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... sentiment more truly religious than all the stupid stillness which the streets of London ever inspired where the Sabbath is so decorously observed. I recollect, in the country parts of England, the churchwardens used to go out during the service to see if they could catch any luckless wight playing at bowls or skittles; yet what could be more harmless? It would even, I think, be a great advantage to the English, if feats of activity (I do not include boxing matches) were encouraged on a Sunday, as ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... toward any of these reckless men who were so assiduously engaged in breaking the law of the land by running contraband goods into Uncle Sam's domains and he was just as willing to bind up the wounds of this luckless adventurer as if the other had only been an ordinary sailor in ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... hills," the Dutch called it Sleepy Haven Kill, hence Sleepy Hollow. "Far in the foldings of the hills winds this wizard stream," writes the grand sachem of all the wizards, who wove the romance of the headless horseman and the luckless schoolmaster so tightly about the spot that they are to-day part and parcel of it. The bridge over which the scared pedagogue scurried was some rods further up the stream than is the present crossing, for in those days the Post Road ran along ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... at the ragged gap of Israel's "on'y fittin' way," was visible, to prove his word, another man's head, white-turbaned like his own, and two dark limy hands passing in a pail of mortar. Welcome distraction. True, Greenleaf's luckless question still stood unanswered, but just then an orderly summoned him to the busy generals and spoke aside to ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... alarming nature of this incident, and the interference of a cloud that sought to neutralise the sun, our persevering traveller completed his observations, and proved the luckless spot to be situated in 56 ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... she learned how he espied The Ass in that small meadow-ground; And that her Husband now lay dead, Beside that luckless river's bed In which he had been ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... saving scheme began to haunt Hans; but he had one luckless notion, which was destined to cost him no little vexation. With the stock of the shop, he had inherited from his father a stock of old maxims, which, unluckily, had not got burnt in the fire with the rest ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... or tercels. The men bungled in handling them; they evidently belonged to the castle, not to the troop. When they finally rose into the air, Pere Azuli, the veteran blue pigeon, and Rien-du-Tout, the little dun-colored stray Peirol had trained, were almost out of sight. The luckless Blanchette was lagging, and despite her frantic attempts to escape her enemy she was soon struggling in the falcon's grip. Clair de la Lune, the other white pigeon, seemed about to meet the same fate when something ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Edwin examined Captain Lee's hurts, which turned out to be less severe than might have been expected. He also assisted Sam to secure Thomson's wrists with a handkerchief, and then devoted some time to soothing the agitated spirits of poor Mrs Durby, whose luckless shins had not escaped quite scatheless ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... are to consider these centres of energy as abnormally weak in all their structures at birth in those who become insane: these are the luckless legacies from the fathers and the mothers, and for how far back in the ancestral line we do not know. We are to consider that there is the same abnormal condition of the cerebral bloodvessels and of the softer inter-vascular structures as in other local ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... often heard the guests of her patroness mention it with triumph; and she fancied their feelings would find a sympathetic chord in those of every British soldier. Unfortunately, M'Nab had fought throughout that luckless day on the side of the Pretender; and a deep scar that garnished his face had been left there by the sabre of a German soldier in the service of the House of Hanover. He fancied that his wound bled afresh at Mabel's allusion; and it is certain that the blood ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... of those enormous habiliments, that were not only slashed and galooned, but artificially swollen-out on the broader parts of the body, by introduction of Bran,—our Professor fails not to comment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay his devoir on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of dry wheat-dust: and stood there ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... most especially," answered Lord Glenallan, "to declare my luckless marriage, and to vindicate the reputation of the unhappy Evelinethat is, if you see a possibility of doing so without making public the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... red flame that burst from Wetzel's rifle came a sharp yelp of agony from the leader. He rolled over and over. Instantly followed a horrible mingling of snarls and barks, and snapping of jaws as the band fought over the body of their luckless comrade. ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... they and you will remember what merited your esteem in his character and conduct and forget that which estranged your hearts from so honorable a man. But should you not, you are too just to visit what you deem the sins of the father upon his luckless daughter. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... a machine that, when some one has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. Is this young man to be ground to pieces under this machine for an act which at the worst was one of weakness? Is he to become a member of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred ships called prisons? Is that to be his voyage-from which so few return? Or is he to have another chance, to be still looked on as one who has gone a little astray, but who will come back? I urge you, gentlemen, do not ruin this young ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... many places of business seem to be always open. It was not our experience to see or hear anything like this in Germany. Even the law of despotic power is better than none at all,—often far better than enlightened law not enforced. Policemen in the streets of Berlin make short work with the luckless tradesman who leaves his blinds or doors open on Sunday before two o'clock P.M. Of course restaurants and places of food supply are open. To all outward appearance Berlin was a fairly well-ordered city on Sundays. One in search of evil, however, could ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... my years that I Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring Him back to Thebes; not the delegate Of one man, but commissioned by the State, Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed, Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes. O listen to me, luckless Oedipus, Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim With right to have thee back, I most of all, For most of all (else were I vile indeed) I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee An aged outcast, wandering on and on, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... the school inspected by him, that he should have no opportunity for food from breakfast to four o'clock, when he staves off death by inviting disease in the shape of the malefic bun; for him or for certain luckless pupil-teachers that, after dinner, he should be "in for [them] till ten o'clock." With this kind of thing when on duty, and no home when off it, a man must begin to appreciate the Biblical passages about partridges, and the ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... were promptly obeyed; but seeing that his movement would be too late, he rushed to the topping-lift, and cast it off, causing the swinging boom to drop into the water, just as the last boy was about to slide down into the professors' boat. Of course the luckless fellow went into the water; but he was promptly picked up by his companions ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... the many lovers that rumor gave to the Queen, poor Fersen is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue. Fersen lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He was dragged ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... short distance ahead the open doors of a barn, its protecting walls were soon gained, permission to enter having been readily given by the owner. It was thought afterward that there was detected in the man's face a dry sense of humor, provoked, no doubt, by the experience of many a luckless traveler who had gone that way before. No sooner had the shelter of the building been obtained and these same grateful travelers ensconced themselves in comfortable positions on the cushions of the car when from the right and the left, the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... may, the stock, furniture, and clothes of many hundred poor families, servants, and others, who have been ruined by the lottery. If he wish for further satisfaction, let him attend at the next Old Bailey Sessions, and hear the death-warrant of many a luckless gambler in lotteries, who has been guilty of subsequent theft and forgery; or if he seek more proof, let him attend to the numerous and horrid scenes of self-murder, which are known to accompany the closing of the wheels ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Mr. Burley!" I replied, "keep up your spirits; don't yield to depression. You will be spared to stamp many a blue document—to entangle scores of luckless litigants in ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... any of our laws so far as I have discovered, was in accordance with the 'good old plan,' pursued probably ever since the origin of universities. I refer—'horresco referens'—to the punishment of boxing or cuffing. It was applied before the Faculty to the luckless offender by the President, towards whom the culprit, in a standing position, inclined his head, while blows fell in quick succession upon either ear. No one seems to have been served in this way except Freshmen ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the winding bridle-track scarcely permits a driver to walk beside his mule, seemed to defy the skill of our boldest engineers. Overland travellers reported depths of snow varying from twenty to fifty feet. Fearful stories were narrated of luckless wagon-trains caught in the narrow defiles by sudden mountain storms, and perishing helplessly amid these Alpine rigors. It was surely a legitimate question whether a railroad were possible in the face of such embarrassments; and it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... which sometimes exist between two men, but rarely between two women, of so widely different temperaments. They had roomed together four years in college, and countless were the difficulties from which the sober Arthur had extricated the luckless Thorne, while many a time the rather slender means of Arthur had been increased in a way so delicate that expostulation was next ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... ill-fortune who had sent the blinding snow storm which had forced down the plane ten long days ago at the very beginning of its triumphant return flight to the base at Cape Richards. Since that hour the storm gods had emptied the vials of their wrath upon the luckless explorers. Day after day, cyclonic winds made all thought of a take-off suicidal in the extreme. Three days ago the last of their food had given out, and, he mused, starvation is an ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... may flaunt a titled trail Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, And mine as brief appendix wear As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare; To-day, old friend, remember still That I am Joe ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... grin, "I suppose the ould chap is hard set on that point; who the devil else would kiss him, barrin' some she ghost or other? Some luckless ould maid, I'll go bail, that gather a beard while she was here, and the devil now is kissin' it off to get seein' what kind of a face she has. Well, all I can say," he proceeded, "is, that I wish him luck of his employment, for in troth it's an honorable one and he has a right ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... all for thy locks so bright, And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue, 270 That on the night of our luckless flight, Thy brother ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the countess being invisible, I watched my man spreading out my suits over the chairs, amongst them being some handsome women's cloaks, and a rich red dress deeply trimmed with fur, which had been originally intended for the luckless Corticelli. I should no doubt have given it to Agatha, if I had continued to live with her, and I should have made a mistake, as such a dress was only fit for ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the capable company of his fellow-fags, he would have been comparatively comfortable. But the possibility of the feckless youngster wandering about benighted somewhere on his own account added a new weight to the burden which already lay on the spirit of the luckless treasurer of the ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... young lady rushed up stairs, and Anton, little less confused, entered his friend's room, where he had the shock of being at once addressed by the short-sighted Bernhard as Herr von Fink. A dreadful suspicion crossed his mind; and, pretending to be in the utmost haste, he carried the luckless cloak home, over a heart full of grief and anger. If it were, indeed, Fink that Ehrenthal's fair daughter had been expecting! The longer Anton had to wait for his friend, the more angry he grew. At last he heard his ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... fight, the delight of the ambush skilfully laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with the Crescent of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the Cross. Then the return to Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him some luckless Christian ship, while aboard his own war-worn galley the drums beat and the trumpets sounded, and the banners floated free to the stainless Mediterranean sky. Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with what a short ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... lunacy, that the first thing considered is, whether the patient has done any thing sufficiently foolish, to induce his relatives to apply for a statute against him: now any malicious, evil-minded person, were he so disposed, might make successful application to the court against the luckless author of the Cenci, a tragedy in five acts. Upon which the judge with all the solemnity suitable to so melancholy a circumstance as the decay of the mental faculties, would ask for proofs of the defendant's lunacy; upon which the plaintiff would ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... this luckless arm hath led The storm unseen that hovers o'er thy head; Taught the dark sons of slaughter where to roam, To seize thy crown and seal the nation's doom. Arm, sleeping empire, meet the murderous band, Drive back the invaders, save the sinking land.— But vain the call! behold the streaming ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... had never occurred to Mrs. Abbott that such a task as this might, even temporarily, be undertaken by herself; her one desire was to get rid of the luckless brats, that their vulgarity might not pain her, and the care of them ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... Mademoiselle Cormon had another and very excusable mania: that of being loved for herself. You could hardly believe the lengths to which this desire led her. She employed her mind on setting traps for her possible lovers, in order to test their real sentiments. Her nets were so well laid that the luckless suitors were all caught, and succumbed to the test she applied to them without their knowledge. Mademoiselle Cormon did not study them; she watched them. A single word said heedlessly, a joke (that she often was unable to understand), ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... manner, which renders the southern buffoon so much superior to his duller competitor of the north, and uttering a wild jumble of wholesome truths, loose morality, and witty inuendoes, the latter of which never failed to extort roars of laughter from all but those who happened to be their luckless subjects. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... lecture, but on this point Mrs. Waltham was inflexible. The girl could not offer resolute opposition in a matter which only involved an hour or two's endurance. She sat in pale silence. Then her mother broke into tears, bewailed herself as a luckless being, entreated her daughter's pardon, but in the end was perfectly ready to ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... shoots his sting at unaware; An ambushed thief forelays a traveller; The man lies murdered, while the thief and snake, One gains the thickets, and one thrids the brake. This let divines decide; but well I know, Just or unjust, I have my share of woe, Through Saturn seated in a luckless place, And Juno's wrath that persecutes my race; Or Mars and Venus in a quartil, move My pangs of jealousy for ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... precious carnation-bed. Slipping in a cartridge, he fired; and the skill which had deserted him during the day came back to him. There was a yelp; then silence. And Sylvia, rushing out from the house, found the luckless Thomas breathing his last on ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... little fool!" interposed the old man hastily, "has she too tumbled in love with you? Has the luckless word already past to and fro ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Luckless, of your play, and your play. I tell you I must be paid. I would no more depend on a benefit-night of an unacted play than I would on a benefit-ticket in an undrawn lottery. Could I have guessed that I had a poet in my house! Could I ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... "Ah! luckless was the day he learned to chew! Embryo of ills the quid that pleased him first; Thirsty from that unhappy quid he grew, Then to the ale-house went ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... "Oh, luckless, shameful, that you are!" cried Bathilde, wringing her hands wildly; "you have killed the man whom I love—but, I swear to you, by the memory of my mother, that if he dies, I will ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... his practicality, and the multitude of his acquaintances, all manner of shiftless or luckless fellows were in the habit of looking to him for advice and help. As soon as they found themselves adrift they turned to Gammon. Every day he had a letter asking him to find a "berth" or a "billet" for ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... which probably suggested the name to this part of the great American chain, projected from, and were scattered all round, the cliffs. Over these the Indians, whose numbers increased every moment, strove to drive the luckless herd of buffaloes that had chanced to fall in their way. The task was easy. The unsuspecting animals, of which there were hundreds, rushed in a dense mass upon the cape referred to. On they came with irresistible impetuosity, bellowing furiously, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ah! luckless speech, and bootless boast! For which he paid full dear; For while he spake, a braying ass Did ...
— The Diverting History of John Gilpin • William Cowper
... he obtained the reputation he had missed when living. His works were widely circulated, and some of them printed so late as 1672. They were reckoned an important help to the student of hermetic science; and the name of the luckless Bernard Trevisan was always included in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... and even Black-eyed Susan, JERROLD'S greatest triumph, have passed away into the limbo of forgotten plays and can never return to us. Another drama had in it as one of the characters "a certain cowardly English traveller named Luckless Tramp," a name, I should have thought, quite sufficient in itself to swamp every possible chance of success; yet our forefathers seem to have had no difficulty in accommodating themselves ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... especially the fat baby she held in her arms; but she had long ago ceased to be embarrassed by the shabbiness of her toilette, or the inevitable disorder of her sitting-room. She found seats for her guests, and to do so pushed into the background the baby's cradle and an old easy-chair, in which the luckless Nina was sitting bundled ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... scorn upon the luckless offender's head if one should write to the Manners and Morals Department of the Ladies' Own as follows: "Would it be proper for a lady novelist, in search of local colour and new experiences, to accept the escort of a strange man at midnight if he was too drunk to recognise her afterward?" ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... extricate him out of the deadly thrall in which he was held. Mave, who had been aware of the enmity which his companion bore him, as well as of its cause, and fearing that the halter was intended to hang the luckless mealman, probably upon the next tree they came to, did not, as many another female would do, avoid or run away from the madman. On the contrary, she approached him with an expression singularly winning and sweet on her countenance, and in a voice of great kindness, laid her hand ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... father, virtue hath been vanquished by vice. The low have risen, and the high have fallen. I have been offended again by Sarmishtha, the daughter of Vrishaparvan. Three sons have been begotten upon her by this king Yayati. But, O father, being luckless I have got only two sons! O son of Bhrigu, this king is renowned for his knowledge of the precepts of religion. But, O Kavya, I tell thee that he hath deviated from the path ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... it booteth not to tell Of every fierce encounter that befell; How knight 'gainst knight drove fierce with pointless spear And met with shock that echoed far and near; Or how, though they with blunted swords did smite, Sore battered was full many a luckless wight. But as the day advanced and sun rose high Full often rose the shout: "A Gui—A Gui!" For many a proud (though bruised and breathless) lord, Red Gui's tough lance smote reeling on the sward; And ever as these plaudits shook the air, Through vizored casque ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... natives who lived with us, there were none who understood all that they said, and of those who occasionally came in, one only could converse with them. He was a very fine lad, of the name of Wur-gan. His mother had been born and bred beyond the mountains, but one luckless day, paying a visit with some of her tribe to the banks of the Dee-rab-bun (for so the Hawkesbury was named) she was forcibly prevented returning, and, being obliged to submit to the embraces of an amorous ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... riotous, those children confronting the wine-like air of the open. They were more subdued than I had looked for, since I could only too easily remember one of my earlier calls for Dinkie at noon, when I found the entire class turned out and riding a rancher's pig, a heavy brood-sow that had in some luckless moment wandered into the school-yard and had been chased and raced until it was too weary to resent a young barbarian mounting its broad back and riding thereon, to the shouts of the other boys and the shrill cries of the girls. But now, from my car-seat, I could see Gershom surrounded ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... mantle over shoulder, stands, with his lute, on the covered water-butt, while at the casement above is his lady's charming face. Part two: The head of the water-butt has given way, and the angry father, from his window, beholds a scene of luckless misery. ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... by the strange noises that issued thence. Shading his eyes from the light, he peered below, and through the semi-darkness saw a sight that made him heartsick and disgusted. More than ever he wished that he had never gone on this luckless cruise. ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... bearing my confinement unmolested? What, silent yet!" he added, in a tone of sarcasm; "methinks, thou art a novice in thy cunning trade, or thou wouldst not be so chary of thy ghostly counsel, or so slow to shrive the conscience of a luckless prisoner!" ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... strict discipline maintained by von Salis, resigned in 1777, and the school was closed. At the invitation of the count of Leiningen-Dachsburg, Bahrdt now went as general superintendent to Duerkheim on the Hardt; his luckless translation of the Testament, however, pursued him, and in 1778 he was suspended by a decision of the high court of the Empire. In dire poverty he fled, in 1779, to Halle, where in spite of the opposition of the senate and the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... an infant, he naturally felt a great affection for her, and intrusted her with the exclusive management of the culinary department, little negroes and all. His confidence in her was not misplaced, for from morning till night she was faithful to her trust, and woe to any luckless woolly head who was found ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering strange sixteenth- century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the rusty dagger in the midnight air. Finally he reached the corner of the passage that led to luckless Washington's room. For a moment he paused there, the wind blowing his long grey locks about his head, and twisting into grotesque and fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man's shroud. Then the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... anxiety, with breathless haste Madame von Brandt emptied her pocket, hoping that the luckless letter might be sticking to her gold-embroidered handkerchief, or fastened in the folds of her fan. She did not remember that her anxiety might be observed; and truly no one noticed her, all were occupied with their own pleasures. All around her was movement, life, and merry-making; ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... stairs to view the pitiful remains of another human being, botched by Nature in the flesh, no less lamentably than Melrose in the spirit. The legal inquiry into Brand's flight and death was short and mostly formal; but the actual evidence—as compared with current gossip—of his luckless mother, now left sonless and husbandless, and as to the relations of the family with Faversham, hastened the melting process in the public mind. It showed a man in bondage indeed to a tyrant; but doing what he could to lighten the hand of the tyrant on others; privately and ineffectively generous; ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to speak of his past. He told me of Hungerford's kindness to him on the 'Dancing Kate', of his luckless days at Port Darwin, of his search for his wife, his writing to her, and her refusal to see him. He did not rail against her. He apologised for her, and reproached himself. "She is most singular," he continued, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... who could show other troops how to mount a breach. It may be guessed with what stomach the Fifth Division digested this; and among them not a man was angrier than their old general, Leith, who now, after a luckless absence, resumed command. The Fifth Division, he swore, could hold their own with any soldiers in the Peninsula. He was furious with the seven hundred and fifty volunteers, and, evading the Marquis's order, which was implicit rather than ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... husband is like a lion-tamer with a whip!" And the old lady would explain what a hard and dangerous life was lived by lion-tamers, how their safety depended upon life-long distrustfulness of the creatures over whom they ruled. She would tell stories of the rending and maiming of luckless ones, who had forgotten for a brief moment the nature of the male animal! "Yes, my dear," she would say, "believe in love; but let the man believe first!" Her maxims never ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... not say so much. Meg had a touch of Hal, too. 'Twas ill turning her down one road an' she took the bit betwixt her teeth, and had a mind to go the other. There was less of it in Mall, I grant you. And as to yon poor luckless loon, Mall's heir,—if he wit his own mind, I reckon 'tis as much as a man may bargain for. England ne'er loveth such at her helm—mark you that, Robin. She may bear with them, but she layeth ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... there in the dark, incident after incident of her luckless evening coming back upon her, her heart grew hungry for David. Nay, her craving for him mounted to jealousy and passion. After all, though he did get on so much better in grand houses than she ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were the two unfortunate young ladies I have named. I looked at the corpses of the luckless victims brought in during the two days I remained in Johnstown, but the bodies of the two ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... is but one means of escape, and one alone, for the luckless prisoner. One of his fellow-huntsmen must approach with boar-spear and provoke the boar, making as though he would let fly at him; but let fly he must not, for fear of hitting the man under him. The boar, on seeing ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... an impression seemed to reign among the servants generally that Missis would not be particularly disobliged by delay; and it was wonderful what a number of counter accidents occurred constantly, to retard the course of things. One luckless wight contrived to upset the gravy; and then gravy had to be got up de novo, with due care and formality, Aunt Chloe watching and stirring with dogged precision, answering shortly, to all suggestions ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the fault of the lower class generally very well. It does not appear that the Hulots, though they treated her without much ceremony, gave Bette any real cause of complaint, or that there was anything in their conduct corresponding to that of the Camusots to the luckless Pons. That her cousin Adeline had been prettier than herself in childhood, and was richer and more highly placed in middle life, was enough for Lisbeth —the incarnation of the Radical hatred of superiority in any kind. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... this intermingling at social gatherings there has gradually developed an accepted code of conduct termed "good manners," which are as stringently binding as any law enacted by a legislature. And there are penalties for violation of this code, that are surely imposed upon the luckless offender, ranging all the way from a snub, a sound or gesture of disapproval, ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... he was on the road. But, at the door he met an obstacle in the shape of a mountain of straw, that caused the horse to back. The desperate man dug his knees into the flanks of the beast, and urged it on. Down went the straw mountain, and the luckless Timotheus beneath it, and Newcome rained a few exultant curses on him, as he forced his steed; when a well-dressed negro sprang up from nowhere, and, seizing the rein nearest him, spoke to the intelligent animal, and backed it to ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... for failure were ever accepted. They knew terrible punishments were certain to follow when anyone was luckless enough to ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... the pious Sisters, demoralised by the boatmen of the Loire, still edifies and scandalises the lover of happy badinage in verse; one is the young and unfortunate NICOLAS-JOSEPH-LAURENT GILBERT (1751-80), less unfortunate and less gifted than the legend makes him, yet luckless enough and embittered enough to become the satirist of Academicians and philosophers and the society which had scorned his muse; and the third is JEAN-PIERRE CLARIS DE FLORIAN (1755-94), the amiable fabulist, who, lacking La Fontaine's lyric genius, fine harmonies, and ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... of obliging the young ladies, or the desire of seeing her parents, I cannot pretend to say, but in a luckless hour Susan yielded, and the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... lady took them, but began again at once in a tearful voice complaining of the dog, of Gavrila, and of her fate, declaring that she was a poor old woman, and that every one had forsaken her, no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. Meanwhile the luckless Mumu had gone on barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to call her away from the fence. 'There ... there ... again,' groaned the old lady, and once more she turned up the whites of her eyes. The doctor ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... home, where his first act was to smash the luckless hat and replace it with another. But it was some time before he recovered from the horrors of that near approach to extermination, and he passed a very wakeful and unhappy ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... clearly perceived by Emma, whose pride in assisting to dress the beautiful creature for her marriage—with the man of men had a tinge from the hymenaeal brand, exulting over Dacier, and in the compensation coming to her beloved for her first luckless footing on this road. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... great lamentation. King Arthur saluted her courteously, and asked for whom she was weeping. She prayed him to speak softly, for "Yonder," said she, "is a monstrous giant that will come and destroy you should your voice reach his ears. Luckless wretch, what brings you to this mountain?" asked the widow. "Fifty such knights as you could not hold their ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... to laugh, but laugh I did with a few others. Never has a man been so abused as was that luckless English Consul who penned such a fatuous message. The spy had already marched our troops half way and more; even the pessimistic allowed that they must have started; an authentic message showed clearly that it was folly and imagination. We would have to have weeks more of it, perhaps even ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Priscilla, in an awful tone, pointing to where the luckless Terence is crawling home in the fond belief that he is defying all detection; whereupon Kit, with much presence of mind, looks scrutinizingly in just the opposite direction. "It is somebody carrying a gun. Good gracious! ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... home, to the Crystal Palace and to the Pompeian Court, as it is called, you will see an exact model of one of these old buried houses, copied even to the very paintings on the wells, and judge for yourself, as far as a little boy can judge, what sort of life these thoughtless, luckless people lived 2000 ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... derangement and blighted by early excess; if such things forcing him by imperceptible daily pressure to choose the things he loathed, to be the thing he feared, to act a part abhorrent to his soul; if such estranging and falsification of a man's true self may count as lunacy, the luckless, worthless ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... enemies would have called him, only he was too unimportant to have enemies, the roughs and the children who mocked his passage being actuated merely by impersonal malice. To his friends—if the few who were aware of his existence could be called friends—he was a Schlemihl (a luckless fool). ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... thousand Indians in Espanola in 1492, and that in 1548 there were barely five hundred survivors. The same decrease had taken place in the other islands. But the work of Las Casas came in time to save the Indians on the mainland from the fate of the luckless islanders. ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... These luckless adventurers at length saw themselves surrounded by all the horrors of famine. Many of them were reduced to devour the leaves of trees; the majority were altogether destitute of sustenance. In this state of severe privations, and with very light ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... divines would have punished him. For the next two cases prove how dangerous it was becoming to be convicted or even suspected of heterodoxy. Parliament was beginning to understand its duty as Defender of the Faith as the Holy Inquisition has always understood it—namely, by the death of the luckless assailant. ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... character to our "wash" (or rather "ironing," for we omitted the earlier processes of the laundry). We used to cut small models of clothes out of white paper, and then iron them with the farthing iron. How nobly that domestic implement did its duty till the luckless day when Polly became uneasy because we did not "put it down to the fire to ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... burned certain outlying houses from which shots had come and burst open the rest. Also they had repeated the trick of capturing sundry luckless natives and, in their rush through the town, driving these prisoners ahead of them as living bucklers to minimize the danger of being shot at ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... he caught Fast hold of something—a dark huddled heap— Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee deep For a tall man: and half above it propped By some old ragged side piles that had stop't Endways the broken plank when it gave way With the two little ones, that luckless day! "My babes! my lambkins!" was the father's cry, One little voice made answer, "Here am I;" 'Twas Lizzie's. There she crouched with face as white, More ghastly, by the flickering lantern light, Than sheeted corpse. The pale blue lips drawn tight, Wide parted, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Bishop, always ready to take the worst advice, got ready for his task, and on Easter Eve embarked upon the river, leaving his Vicar-General under orders to proclaim the general ban. This was done, and the edict so contrived as to catch the luckless Governor in every church. The practical effect was to close all the churches, for to whatever church the Governor went the priest refused to celebrate the Mass. Several other persons were mentioned ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... those who prefer the luckless adorers in novels to the conquering heroes; and hold that the quality an ideal lover needs most is ugliness, so that he may honour beauty the more. Once I knew a boy who was uglier than sin, and who wrote a story—in a sprawling hand and on ruled paper—a wonderful story, ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... luckless novelist, went to Pitou, the unrecognized composer, saying, "I have a superb scenario for a revue. Let us join forces! I promise you we shall make a fortune; we shall exchange our attics for first ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... proceed, whether she did or no. The luckless fictionist looked straight at his pitiless leader, and blurted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... along, And tire in untamed infamy of song, Lest, in some dismal Dunciad's future page, I stand the CIBBER of this tuneless age; Lest, in another POPE th' indulgent skies Should give inspired by all their deities, My luckless name, in his immortal strain, Should, blasted, brand me as a second Cain; Doom'd in that song to live against my will, Whom all must scorn, and yet whom none could kill. The youth, resisted by the maiden's art, Persists, and time subdues her kindling heart; To strong entreaty yields ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... them too must wait in due patience and thought, Or else my fine works will all come to nought. My wit too's so copious, it flows like a river, But disperses its waters on black and white never; Like smoke it appears independent and free, 15 But ah luckless smoke! it all passes like thee— Then at length all my patience entirely lost, My paper and pens in the fire are tossed; But come, try again—you must never despair, Our Murray's or Entick's are not all so rare, 20 Implore ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his grandmother as an atoning sacrifice—in those old days when the luckless sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical happiness as long as his relations held out; long, long before the missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them permanently miserable by telling them how ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... venturing forth wearing a silk hat is in danger of having his hat, if not his head, smashed. "Hat off," cries the one who spies one of these head-coverings, and if the order is not instantly obeyed, woe betide the luckless wearer. At midnight all Germany, or at least all in the cities and the larger towns, may be seen out-of-doors or leaning from windows, waiting for the bells to ring out the Old Year and welcome in ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... say? I was very nervous that day; I was thinking over the memories of my miserable existence.) But I know how sincere Asie is. Still, I cannot repent of having caused you so much pain, since it has availed to prove to me how much you love me. This is how we are made, we luckless and despised creatures; true affection touches us far more deeply than finding ourselves the objects of lavish liberality. For my part, I have always rather dreaded being a peg on which you would hang your vanities. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... cause, not only declares that the unhappy girl was guilty throughout, but lugs God into the tragedy, and makes Him responsible for what was, perhaps, the cruellest and most devilish of all the many murders perpetrated by Henry VIII. The luckless lady was but a child at the time she was devoured by "the jaws of darkness." At most she was but in her twentieth year, and probably she was a year or two younger than that age. Any other king than Henry would have pardoned her, if for no other reason, then for this, that he had coupled her youth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... shades are witness of my woes; The senseless trees do grieve at my laments; The leafy branches drop sweet Myrrha's tears: For love did scorn me in my mother's womb, And sullen Saturn, pregnant at my birth, With all the fatal stars conspir'd in one To frame a hapless constellation, Presaging Sophos' luckless destiny. Here, here doth Sophos turn Ixion's restless wheel, And here lies wrapp'd in labyrinths of love— Of his sweet Lelia's love, whose sole idea still Prolongs the hapless date of Sophos' hopeless life. Ah! said I life? a life far worse than death— Than death? ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... cruising off the West Indies, in wait for some luckless sugar boat, he had been surprised by a destroyer and forced to submerge so suddenly that his diving gear had jammed and they had gone to the bottom. But the craft had managed to withstand the pressure and they had been able to repair the damage, limping home with a bad leak but ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... the luckless wretch might shriek, Well might her paleness terror speak! For there were seen, in that dark wall, Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall; Who enters at such grisly door Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more. In each ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... wonderful collections preserved in the Museum. Then comes the evening drive along the gentle winding ascent towards Posilipo with its glorious views over bay and mountains, all tinged with the deep rose and violet of a Neapolitan sunset; or the stroll along the fashionable sea front, named after the luckless Caracciolo the modern hero of Naples, where in endless succession the carriages pass backwards and forwards within the limited space between the sea and the greenery of the Villa Reale. Or it may be that our more active feet may entice us to mount the winding flights ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... organize an exploring party for the benefit of the Guatusos, but no single volunteer answered our advertisements in San Jose de Costa Rica; I have lived to congratulate myself on that disappointment. Since my day a road has been cut through their wilds to Limon, certain luckless Britons having found the money for a railway; but an engineer who visited the coast but two years ago informs me that no one ever wandered into "the bush." Collectors have not been there, assuredly. So there ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... quite a decided incline to the water's edge. It was raised on posts above the level of the ground, so that a fall from it would mean serious injury. There was naught for the luckless colonel to do but sit, helpless, in the saddle and let the ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... hours, how many days, who knows? Neighbours there were who thought they had gone away To return some luckier or luckless day. No sound came from the room: the cold air froze The very echo of the children's sighs. And what they saw within each other's eyes, Or heard each other's heart say as they peered At the dead mother lying there, and feared That she ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... fragment of wood, nor a bit of rigging. On all sides emptiness ... only he and I, and in the distance the sounding sea. I looked back; the same emptiness there: a ridge of lifeless downs on the horizon ... that was all! My heart revolted against leaving this luckless wretch in this solitude, on the briny sand of the seashore, to be devoured by fishes and birds; an inner voice told me I ought to find people, call them, if not to help—what help could there be now!—at least to lift him up, to carry him into some living habitation ... but an indescribable panic ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... bring folk around his standard. Earl Hakon and Ragnfrod sighted one another off the northernmost part of South More, & straightway Hakon gave battle, he that had most men but withal smaller ships. Hard was the struggle & therein waxed Hakon luckless; men fought from the prows and sterns, as the custom was in those times. Now there was a current in the sound, and all the ships were driven into shore, so the Earl bade his folk rest on their oars, and drift to land at such place where he should deem it best ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... slowly by, and he was left to ponder over the critical nature of the situation as revealed by the luckless Baron's intelligence. Clearly he must ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Macbeth concocting a murder, and coming together with some little awkwardness, perhaps, when the transaction was done and over; but my Lord and Lady Skinflint, when they consult in their bedroom about giving their luckless nephew a helping hand, and determine to refuse, and go down to family prayers and meet their children and domestics, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... that you cannot trust a man who, unless he is intending a burlesque, can bring himself to write like that. Crabbe not only brings himself to it, but rejoices and luxuriates in the style. The tale from which that last luckless distich is taken, "The Elder Brother," is full of pathos and about equally full of false notes. If we turn to a far different subject, the very vigorously conceived "Natural Death of Love," we find a piece of strong and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... As I am outlaw'd from my fame and state, Be this day outlawed from the name of days. Day luckless, outlaw luckless, both accurs'd! [Flings away his napkin and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various |
