"Mischance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the next morning, I found that the weather was worse than ever. The mist was so dense that the Wallack guide said it was perfectly impossible to go on, in fact we might consider ourselves lucky if we were able to get back without mischance. Not to be daunted, I waited till nearly noon, thinking it was possible that the mist might rise, and restore to us the bright skies of yesterday. A change came, but not the one we hoped for. The cold rain ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... of things might have continued indefinitely. By, however, an unfortunate mischance, a "medium," from whom much was expected, went, in his endeavour to give satisfaction, a little too far. Not keeping a vigilant eye on European happenings, he announced at one such gathering that the "spirit" addressing the assembly was that of Ludwig of ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... prowling and suspicious Cossack peasants appeared on horseback, some thirty paces from our line, and after regarding it for a moment they fled towards the camp, where it was obvious that they intended to give warning of our presence. This mischance was very unfortunate, because had it not been for that we would certainly have reached the Russians without losing a man; however since we were now discovered and were in any case nearing the spot where I had decided to increase the speed of our advance, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... I need not tell; Her vows I will not relate, For every man must guess them well Who knows much of the "married state." Of the sad mischance suffice it to say That McNair had suspected the Captain's "foul play;" So he laid a snare For the bold and the fair, But he captured, alas, only Mrs. McNair; And the brass-buttoned lover—bold Captain Brown— Was nevermore seen ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... namely, that the whole of my testimonials, and particularly those that I had received in Jena, which were amongst them, had been lost. They had been sent to a gentleman who took a lively interest in my affairs, and I never found out through what mischance they were lost. I now read this to mean that Providence itself had thus broken up the bridge behind me, and cut off all return. I deliberated no longer, but eagerly and joyfully seized the hand held out to me, and quickly became a teacher in the ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... captain's bed and passengers' luggage, and another at the opposite end, with three beds in it. Outside all this, but inside the walls of wicker-work, was an inflated rubber lining, so as to prevent it from sinking if, by any mischance, the 'Giant' should fall into the sea. Thus, according to circumstances, the building could be either the car of a balloon, a ship at sea, or a caravan being drawn by horses upon the wheels already mentioned along a country road. From the inside a narrow ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... "By some mischance I left my desk unlocked when I went out in a hurry yesterday. Lindon here has found one piece ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... supersensitiveness of my cats you would understand that they will appreciate those points. I do not require in you veterinary knowledge; I require sympathetic traits. I do not engage you to nurse my cats—though, should mischance befall, that would come within your duties,—but to be their companion, their friend. You are a lady; themselves ancestral they will appreciate that. I understand you are an orphan; there also a bond links you with them. All ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... securely tied; But lest the bond should break in twain, I'll have it fastened once again." Below the arm-pits tied around, She takes her station on the ground, While on the roof, beyond the ridge, He shovels clear the lower edge. But, sad mischance! the loosened snow Comes sliding down, to plunge below. And as he tumbles with the slide, Up Rachel goes on t'other side. Just half-way down the Justice hung; Just half-way up the woman swung. "Good land o' Goshen!" shouted she; "Why, do ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... Sidhe wrong no one. Their message to you was true; but their messengers were women, and you were a warrior. That is why the mischance came, for it is ever the way with a woman to become foolish over a warrior, and then there is always a muddle. And when Emer comes—," he checked his indiscreet utterance by pretending to have a difficulty in restraining the horses, and then added ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... change their original plan. The urgency of the danger admitted not of half measures. Egra might in a moment be in the enemy's hands, and a sudden revolution set their prisoner at liberty. To anticipate this mischance, they resolved to assassinate him and ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... without thinking of them; and the crop grows in spite of his sleeping, and he knows it (Mark 4:26). That is why Jesus believes so thoroughly in his men, and in his message; God has made the one for the other, and there is no fear of mischance. ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... troops to protect his honour and that of France. Had his promised escort been provided no attempt would have been made by the Indians, and the tragedy at Oswego might in process of time have come to be regarded as a mere mischance. But no such excuse can now be of any avail. According to some accounts of this second massacre, no escort whatever was furnished. According to others, the escort was a mere mockery, consisting of a totally inadequate number of French troops, who were very willing to see their enemies butchered, ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... not spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko; she had flashed me a look—just one. What horrible mischance to have ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... mischance is by no command of the King or mine. The fellow shall be brought to justice if you can ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blow up was her father, Admiral Vernon, a South Carolinian, whose ideas of duty led him to continue his services to the United States. These are mitigating circumstances. Here is no treachery to the South, merely a woman's desire to save her father from a swift and sudden death. No mischance has arisen from her action. Major Lacy took out the boat with his usual distinction, although, fortunately for the lady and the admiral, the Housatonic seems to have suffered instead of the Wabash. Under these circumstances, I think, it does not behoove us ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... this news— Basilis, his new city, which he now Near Lycosura builds, Lycaon's town, First city founded on the earth by men. He to thee sends me on, in one thing glad, While all else grieves him, that his grandchild's death Extinguishes distrust 'twixt him and thee. But I from our deplored mischance learn this: The man who to untimely death is doom'd, Vainly you hedge him from the assault of harm; He bears the seed of ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... with cry and clamor, With a whir and beat of pinions, Rose up from the reedy Islands, From the water-flags and lilies. And they said to Pau-Puk-Keewis: "In your flying, look not downward, Take good heed and look not downward, Lest some strange mischance should happen, Lest some ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... been spattered out with a brushful of blood; the scene was changed from sunny life to wan death. Here were the staring eyes of a dead man, and his mouth twisted awry in its last agony. He could not away with the shock, nor divest himself of a share in it. If he, by mischance, had taken up with Manuela, he had ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... or where it will go? Is it the soul, released from clay, Over the earth that takes its way, And tarries a moment in mirth and glee Where the corse it hath quitted interred shall be? Or is it the trick of some fanciful sprite, That taketh in mortal mischance delight, And marketh the road the coffin shall go, And the spot where the dead shall be soon laid low? Ask him who can answer these questions aright; I know not the cause of that pale ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... were a hundred peas, and the carpenter's wife said: "How can a hundred peas become a hundred sons?" "You will see to-morrow." The carpenter's wife said to herself: "I had better say nothing about it to my husband, because if by any mischance the children should not come, he would give me ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... impetuous young man, who commanded a powerful force of Tlascalans and Otomies on the eastern frontier where the great fortification stood. The old chief advised that this force should at once fall upon the Spaniards. If they were conquered they would be at the mercy of the Tlascalans, but if by any mischance his son should fail, the council could declare that they had nothing to do with the attack, laying the whole blame of it upon the young Xicotencatl. Meantime the Cempoallan envoys were to be detained under pretence of ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... for the middle of the stream; another and another in quick succession followed, and speedily were lost to us in the gloom; and now, two four-oared skiffs stood out together, having a raft, with two guns, in tow; by some mischance, however, they got entangled in a side current, and the raft swerving to one side, swept past the boats, carrying them down the stream along with it. Our attention was not suffered to dwell on this mishap, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the possibility of further mischance. Suppose the boy gone, and the people yet did not rise? Suppose then that Hedwig, by her very agency, gained the throne and held it. Hedwig, Queen of Livonia in her own ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was no exception to the rule. When his agents, Robert Gary & Company, called his attention to the fact, he wrote them, that they seemed in a bit of a hurry considering the extent of past dealings with each other. "Mischance rather than Misconduct hath been the cause of it," he asserted, explaining that he had made large purchases of land, that crops had been poor for three seasons and prices bad. He preferred to let the debt stand, but if the agents insisted upon payment ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... means neglected. On the night of January 21, by arrangement with some of the inhabitants of the beleaguered city, the foot surrounding Faenza attempted to surprise the garrison by a secret escalade. They were, however, discovered betimes in the attempt and repulsed, some who had the mischance—as it happened—to gain the battlements before the alarm was raised being taken and hanged. The duke's troops, however, consoled themselves by capturing Russi and Solarolo, the last two strongholds in the valley that had ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... possible to guess how thoroughly Popinot had picketed the house, in co-operation with Roddy's murderer, by way of provision against mischance; but the adventurer was satisfied that, in his proper guise as himself, he needed only to open that postern door at the street end of the passage, to feel a knife slip in between his ribs—most probably in ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... you," I still maintain there are abundant and large compensations. Particularly for a midshipman, for he had no responsibilities. The lieutenant of the watch had always before him the possibilities of a mischance; and one very good officer said to me he did not believe any lieutenant in the navy felt perfectly comfortable in charge of the deck in a heavy gale. Freedom from anxiety, however, is a matter of temperament; not by any means necessarily of courage, although it adds to courage ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... that the Premier was deceived by his official counsellors of the Liberal party as to the real condition of affairs respecting Home Rule and the prospects for the passage of his bills. He did not dream of defeat, but if by some mischance they would suffer defeat, then he could appeal to the country with the certainty of being sustained by the popular vote. This was what Mr. Gladstone hoped, and what he thought he had the assurance of. But hopes of success began to give way to fears of defeat as the time drew near to take the vote. ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... burden, and was very fit and necessary for going before our ships at our getting to India. While we remained here, there died out of the Admiral, the master's mate, chaplain, and surgeon, with about ten of the common men; and out of the Vice-Admiral, the master and some two more. By very great mischance, the captain and boatswain's mate of the Ascension were slain: For, when the master's mate of the Admiral was to be buried, the captain of the Ascension took his boat to go on shore to his funeral; and as it is the rule of the sea to fire certain pieces of ordnance at the burial of an officer, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... perfectly well who was meant, but that was all. Unfortunately, the particular story in which this person figured was first published serially in an illustrated magazine, and by some extraordinary chance—or mischance—the artist, in depicting the disagreeable man, drew a portrait of the actual original that was positively startling in its likeness. No one who knew him opened the magazine without saying at once, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... it became a passion to the winners; the little girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally through the door of ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... off his head. Most bells in Oxford rung out for him, being a nobleman, and he was buried next night in St. Peter's in the East. But two years after, being to be moved to his country estate by his successor, it was said the coffin, breaking by mischance, proved quite full of Hair: which sounds fabulous, but yet I believe precedents are upon record, as in Dr. ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... this lad, through some strange mischance, had also fallen into the river, a belief which was quickly dispelled by another boy, no doubt his ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... at the source and the mouth; to descend it did not represent a plunge into the unknown, as in the case of the Duvida or the Ananas; but the actual water work, over the part that was unexplored, offered the same possibilities of mischance and disaster. It is a hazardous thing to descend a swift, unknown river rushing through an uninhabited wilderness. To descend or ascend the ordinary great highway rivers of South America, such as the Amazon, Paraguay, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... the lookout for some new amusement. Dream books had begun to pall. We no longer wrote in them very regularly, and our dreams were not what they used to be before the mischance of the cucumber. So the Story Girl's suggestion came pat ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ready in all lands. Alas! a great mischance befell them in the following Lent (March 1202) before they had started, for the Count Geoffry of Perche fell sick, and made his will in such fashion that he directed that Stephen, his brother, should have his goods, ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... will some failings overlook, Forgive mischance, not errors of the cook; As, if no salt is thrown about the dish, Or nice crisp'd parsley scatter'd on the fish, Shall we in passion from our dinner fly, And hopes of pardon to the cook deny, For things which Mrs. GLASSE herself might oversee, And all mankind commit ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... near as easy as popular fiction might lead you to believe. Putting a tail on someone whose spouse wants divorce evidence is relatively easy, but even the best detectives can lose a man by pure mischance. If the tailee, for instance, walks into a crowded elevator and the automatic computer decides that the car is filled to the limit, the man who's tailing him will be left facing a closed door. Something like that can happen by accident, without any ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... degree, but totally regardless of herself and him and everything around, and spurning her own attractions with her haughty brow and lip, as if they were a badge or livery she hated. So unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and linked together by a chain which adverse hazard and mischance had forged: that fancy might have imagined the pictures on the walls around them, startled by the unnatural conjunction, and observant of it in their several expressions. Grim knights and warriors looked scowling on them. A churchman, with his hand ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the car was, it lurched and swayed from side to side. And simply to shut off the power would not have been enough. Moreover, that was something both of them would have feared to do. The slightest mischance, the most trifling circumstance, might arouse suspicion in the watchers on the culvert. It was necessary, and Ivan had warned them specially of this, to dash under that at the highest possible speed for there would be stationed not private soldiers alone, who would be likely to take it for ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... said, for he was willing to know how many men in that castle had wind of this mischance. 'You lay not there all this while. When I came here along, you stood here by the ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... when the blazing furze had dropped off, that the cause of the whole mischance would suffer himself to be captured, and led quietly back to his mistress. Half crying with joy, and still wild with anger, she kissed the beast, and abused her tormentors ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... bridegroom. I did not believe Mr. Putney had sent me this card, nor that his wife had done so; certainly the Count did not send it. But no matter how it came to me, I was very sure I owed it to the determination, on the part of some one, that by no mischance should I fail to know exactly what had happened. I heard recently that the noble lady and her husband expect to spend the summer at her father's country-house, and some people believe that they intend to ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... needs I must, lo, here it is again: When as we both had lost the sight of thee, It grieved us both, but specially thy queen, Who in thy absence ever fears the worst, Least some mischance befall your royal grace. 'Shall my sweet Bremo wander through the woods? Toil to and fro for to redress my want, Hazard his life; and all to cherish me? I like not this,' quoth she, And thereupon craved to know of me If I could teach her handle weapons well. My answer was I had small skill therein, ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... England a man on board a ship with yellow fever is held responsible for his mischance, no matter what his being kept in quarantine may cost him. He may catch the fever and die; we cannot help it; he must take his chance as other people do; but surely it would be desperate unkindness to add contumely to our self-protection, unless, indeed, we believe that contumely is one ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... by now of how all mischance and disaster befell the adventure. For myself, who was thy friend, I will show thee in lines of thy own making what men hereafter (and justly) will say of me who am thy friend ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... sent to guard hither; but, to my thinking, he was on his own business more than Turlogh's, and when this fighting be over we shall see him come back for his ladybird. I pray you, gentles," continued this man, who was of a careless sort, and distressed by no mischance, "permit me to return to the castle with this brace of birds. They are, in fact, for this same young lady, to whom our coarse fare hath little to recommend it, and who, being sickly, needs a dainty. I stand a fair chance to ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... that he was alone; that there was no human being within miles to help the man caught in the hand of that mischance but himself, so ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... of Violet again. To prevent a further mischance of this nature, I will introduce at once the above ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... arrives at the Forty-second Street Station. Bear this fact in mind, please; and I advise you to write on a card—which you had better have easily accessible in your pocket-book—Mrs. Warden's address, No. 68 Clinton Place. Then, should I miss you in the crowd at the station, or should any other mischance occur in regard to our meeting, you will know where to tell your driver to take you, and where to send your trunks. Do not fear that any such untoward accident will occur: it is only professional prudence that leads me to provide for every contingency that may ...
— A Temporary Dead-Lock - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... respectability which rankled so when he remembered them. He explained the difference between the two routes from Malbaie on, and advised him to take the longer, which lay through a more settled district, where he would be safer in case of any mischance. But if he liked to take the shorter, he told him there were good campes, or log-house stations, every ten or fifteen miles, where he would find excellent meals and beds, and be well cared for by people who kept them ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... "As mischance would have it, they were proceeding in the same direction, and it is my belief that they were even then going in search of you. Thoughtless of the consequence, I happened to whistle an air which I sang that night on board the schooner when we were ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... "A singular mischance has happened to some of our friends," said Hamilton. "At the instant when He ushered them into existence, God gave them work to do, and He also gave them a competency of time; so much that if they began at the right ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Kalandars and asked them, "Are ye brothers?"; when they answered, "No, by Allah, we be naught but Fakirs and foreigners." Then quoth she to one among them, "Wast thou born blind of one eye?"; and quoth he, "No, by Allah, 'twas a marvellous matter and a wondrous mischance which caused my eye to be torn out, and mine is a tale which, if it were written upon the eye corners with needle gravers, were a warner to whoso would be warned."[FN188] She questioned the second ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... not bad, and he cared less for being liked than for being respected. He was the offspring of a mesalliance; and greatly over-estimating the importance in which his family was held, he imagined he would be looked down upon for this mischance, unless he kept people at a distance and in awe of him. The idea was a foolish one, no doubt, but then Sir Timothy was not a wise man; on the contrary, his lifelong determination to keep himself loftily apart from his fellow-men had resulted in an almost extraordinary ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... a young architect, the other was a general utility man. They were unknown to each other; each did his separate piece of work and was sent back to his native land. By some mischance they succeeded in discovering who their employer was, and they both arrived, unfortunately for them, simultaneously at the door of Fallock or Farrington's house with the object of blackmailing him. Farrington overheard the ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... and well versed in occult medical science, though a very dog of a cursed unbelieving Jew;[33] he shall be sent for anon; there is no cause to fear him, for the infidel dare not use any of his poisonous drugs to such as you, my sweet lady. The Samaritano[34] would answer with his life any mischance to yours; and that is methinks a right way of effecting cures. So permit me to send for ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... standing up, said he was sorry to see two such great men running foul of one another; that, however, they ought to be looked upon as patriots and fathers of their country; and since they had by mischance discovered their nakedness, the other members ought, according to the custom of the East, to turn their backs upon them, that they might not be seen in such a shameful condition. Mr. Boscawen moved that the house would lay their commands upon them, that no ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... to make haste slowly to disarm all suspicion. At last the neutral, after having been searched several times without yielding anything incriminating, got as far as the frontier. About to pass into the adjacent friendly country the carrier was detained, and by some mischance the diary happened ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... it hath not reach'd me. I know not wherefore—some mischance of flood, And broken bridge, or spavin'd horse, or wave And wind at their old battle: ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... so limber, lissom, lithe of sway, * Brunettes tall, slender straight like Samhar's nut-brown lance;[FN380] Languid of eyelids and with silky down on either cheek, * Who fixed in lover's heart work to his life mischance.' ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... devilish mischance she occupied the seat opposite to mine. And in this trap of Iblis was decoy enough for a poor mouse like me. It is an age since I beheld such an Oriental gem in an American setting; or such a strange Southern beauty in an exotic frame. For one would think her from the South, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... who was galloping the opposite way upon an errand dead opposed to his own. Gaston would have fought him, of course, but would have been killed to a certainty; for Saint-Pol rode as became his lordship, with a company, and the other was alone. He was spared any such mischance, however, and arrived in the highest spirits, with an alba (song of the dawn) for what he supposed to be Jehane's window. It shows what an eye he had for a lady's chamber that he was very nearly right. A lady did put her head out; not Jehane, but a rock-faced ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... man, who had lost both arms, and was walking pensively between the trees. After some expressions of heart-felt commisseration, I enquired by what mischance he had met with so untoward a wound? He told me that he was in the act of loading his musket, when a cannon-ball, passing before him, carried off one arm above the elbow, and so shattered the other, that it was necessary to amputate it. He then named ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... the hand of rough mischance, Or chilled by age, their airy dance They leave, in dust ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... me through the struggling day, Thou wilt be with me through the pensive night, Thou wilt be with me, though far, far away Some sad mischance may snatch you from my sight, In grief, in pain, in gladness, in delight, In every thought thy form shall bear a part, In every dream thy memory shall unite, Bride of my soul! and partner of my heart! Till from the dreadful bow flieth ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... for thee to lie down as chilled as thou art," exclaimed Browne anxiously. "I promised thy old mother I'd have an eye to thee, and lo it is I that have led thee into this mischance! What shall I do for thee? I have it, lad! Sith it is too dark and rough to walk farther I'll try a fall with thee; there's naught warms a man's blood like a good ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... boar-spear in her hand, took her stand in a place where she expected the boars would pass. The Duke and Don Quixote dismounted also, and placed themselves by her side; while Sancho took his station behind them all, with his Dapple, whom he would not quit, lest some mischance should befall him. Scarcely had they ranged themselves in order when a hideous boar of monstrous size rushed out of cover, pursued by the dogs and hunters, and made directly towards them, gnashing his teeth and tossing foam ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Scandinavian countries the Yule candle is, or was, very prominent indeed. In West Jutland (Denmark) two great tallow candles stood on the festive board. No one dared to touch or extinguish them, and if by any mischance one went out it was a portent of death. They stood for the husband and wife, and that one of the wedded pair whose candle burnt the longer would outlive ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... and Pylades, forcing Clytaemnestra through the Central Door, their attendants remaining to guard the door. Chorus, after a word of pity for even this 'twain mischance,' ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... neither aim at the transparency of water color, nor the richness of oil; but at luminous bloom of surface, and dignity of clearly visible form. I do not think that this principle would be disputed by artists of great power at any time, or in any country; though, if by mischance they had been compelled to work in one material, while desiring the qualities only attainable in another, they might strive, and meritoriously strive, for those better results, with what they had under their hand. The change of manner in William Hunt's work, in the later part of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the whole scenery is gotten up to match, and most unexceptionally. Our characters are dissipated upon a scale suited to the heroic age and the primeval constitution of the race. They gamble quite en prince, and carouse most royally. They have a capacity for terrible potations, should mischance or crossed affections so incline them; yet they can seldom plead the latter excuse, for we are given to understand that woman-kind are born to be their helpless slaves and victims. They are perpetually doing deeds of terrible 'derring-do;' upon the backs of unmanageable steeds they leap ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was difficult and ardent, we will remember nothing, except the mischance that befell a certain 'Marquis de Talleyrand' and his men, in the trenches, one night. Night of the 8th-9th May, by carelessness of somebody, a spark got into the Marquis's powder, two powder-barrels that there were; and, with horrible crash, sent eighty men, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... strong affection and weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who, I know not by what mischance, in these my not old years and idlest times, having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say something unto you in the defence of that my unelected vocation; which if I handle with more good will than good reasons, bear with me, since the scholar is to be pardoned ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... delicious root, Late ravish'd from his tooth by elder chit, So soon is human violence afoot, So hardly is the harmless biter bit! Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit, Alack,—mischance comes seldomtimes alone, But aye the worried dog must ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... blush and a look of kindness; it seemed to him as if the overwhelming joy of victory were already gained. But it was not so, for the valiant Froda, burning with noble shame, had again tamed his affrighted steed, and, chastising him sharply with the spur for his share in this mischance, said in a low voice, "Beautiful and beloved lady, show thyself to me—the honour of thy name is at stake." To every other eye it seemed as if a golden rosy-tinted summer's cloud was passing over the deep-blue sky, but Froda beheld the heavenly countenance of his lady, felt the waving of her ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... his guard have been slain before Egypt's kings, yes, at their feast and in their very presence, and it will be said far and wide that this has been done by treachery. Yet you know well, as I do, that it was no treachery, but a mischance. The divine prince who is dead, as all of you saw, grew drunken after the fashion of his people, and in his drunkenness he struck a high-born man, a Count of Egypt and an officer of Pharaoh, who to do him greater ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... parti-coloured dress; one stocking part white and part red, so that they looked as if they had been flayed. Or white and blue, or white and black, or black and red; this variety of colours gave an appearance to their members of St. Anthony's fire, or cancer, or other mischance! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... had the next chance in the encounter, and was thrown no less speedily than Astolfo; but he did not so easily put up with the mischance. Crying out, "What are the emperor's engagements to me?" he rushed with his sword against Argalia, who, being forced to defend himself unexpectedly, dismounted and set aside his lance, and got so much the worse of the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... lamentation and the cry when the news of this mischance was noised about the city. Such a tumult of mourning was never before heard, for the whole city was moved. All men hastened forth to the place where the lists were set. Meetly to mourn the dead there ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... dim expanse Like some bold seer in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance— With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot. And at the closing of the day She loosed the chain and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far away, The Lady ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... road that led him to the world. When Jerry eighteen years had sailed, had bared His hurt soul to the pitiless sun and drunk The rainy brew of storms on all seas, tired Of wreck and fever and renewed mischance That would not end in death, a longing stirred Within him to revisit that gray coast Where he was born. He landed at the port Whence first he sailed; and, as in fervid youth, Set forth upon the highway, to walk home. Some hoarding he had made, wherewith ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... eternity, With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight: Devise extremes beyond extremity, To make him curse this cursed crimeful night: Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright; And the dire thought of his committed evil Shape every bush a hideous ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... Through some mischance I have lost the address of Donaldson's son. Should he happen to read these lines I hope he ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... exclaimed the emperor, as the attendants raised their lanterns, so as to throw light upon her countenance, "by what black mischance have such charms been hidden from ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... mocked him, saying: "What a mischance is this that a kitchen-boy should slay two noble knights! Be not over-proud, Turn-spit. It was but luck, if indeed ye did not attack one knight from behind." "Say what you will, I ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... not say how this moved me, being where I was, in that uncongenial company; but by some mischance I left the paper which contained it on the table in the drawing-room, and on going downstairs after breakfast next morning I found Alma stretched out in a rocking-chair before the fire in the hail, smoking a cigarette and reading the report aloud in a mock heroic tone to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... following account of this affair: "We do not hesitate in saying, and have good reason to know, that had any want of firmness on the part of the leader, or any indecision or vacillation appeared, and a mischance occurred, this splendid command would then and there ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... old man such effectual assurance of undiminished popularity and importance, as at once put his jealousy to rest, and changed his tone of offended dignity into one better fitted to receive such cordial greetings. Young men and women crowded round, to tell how much they were afraid some mischance had detained him, and how two or three young fellows had set out in quest ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the Widdiehill, Donal, with the open heart of the poet, was full of friendliness to her, and rejoiced in the mischance that had led him to make ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... made for all sail possible to be carried, so that they might the sooner reach their rendezvous and begin the work of overhauling and repairs of which they stood in such urgent need. If separated by storm or any other mischance they were to meet at the place agreed upon during the conclave in the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... about these Parias. The most remarkable feature, however, connected with the habits of the Czigany, consists in their foreign excursions, having plunder in view, which frequently endure for three or four years, when, if no mischance has befallen them, they return to their native land - rich; where they squander the proceeds of their dexterity in mad festivals. They wander in bands of twelve and fourteen through France, even to Rome. Once, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Belmont Park until his fellow conspirators, acting on the information, could get their bets down upon the winners, depended the success of the venture. Only, strictly speaking, it would not be a venture at all, but a moral certainty, a cinch, the surest of all sure things. Guaranties against mischance entailing loss would be provided; he could promise his friend Hartridge that; and the telegraph manager, when he came shortly, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... safe protection of Turkish troops, we got to Jeddah. There the authorities and the populace received us very well. From there we proceeded in nineteen days, without mischance, by sailing boat to Elwesh, and under abundant guard with Suleiman Pasha in a five-day caravan journey toward this place, to El Ula, and now we are seated at last in the train and are riding toward Germany—into ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... kingdom not only new knowledge, but new motive. A useful rivalry commenced between the metropolis on the one hand, the residence, independently of the court and nobles, of the most active and stirring spirits who had not been regularly educated, or who, from mischance or otherwise, had forsaken the beaten track of preferment,—and the universities on the other. The latter prided themselves on their closer approximation to the ancient rules and ancient regularity—taking the theatre of Greece, or rather ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... of colonial affairs, convulsed and readily convinced by the light sarcasms with which Soame Jenyns disposed of the pretensions of "our American colonies": such men waited only the opportune moment for retrieving a humiliating defeat. That moment came with the mischance that clouded the mind of Pitt and withdrew him from the direction of a government of all the factions. The responsibility relinquished by the Great Commoner was assumed by Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man well fitted to foster the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... no suspicion of the mischance that had overtaken her guide. She heard voices, and believed that he had fallen in with some friends. Thus she waited, expecting momently that he would return to her. She saw a single gleam of light that vanished in the darkness. Then the voices grew fainter and fainter, and at length died in ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... order to gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... said was guarded by devils and ghosts in the deep ravines of Azuera. "Senor," he said, "we must catch the steamer at sea. We must keep out in the open looking for her till we have eaten and drunk all that has been put on board here. And if we miss her by some mischance, we must keep away from the land till we grow weak, and perhaps mad, and die, and drift dead, until one or another of the steamers of the Compania comes upon the boat with the two dead men who have saved the treasure. That, senor, is the only way to save it; for, don't you see? ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... possible to reach his knowledge. Henry and her own heart only were privy to the shocking suspicions which she had so idly entertained; and equally safe did she believe her secret with each. Designedly, at least, Henry could not have betrayed her. If, indeed, by any strange mischance his father should have gained intelligence of what she had dared to think and look for, of her causeless fancies and injurious examinations, she could not wonder at any degree of his indignation. If aware of her having viewed him as a murderer, she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... avouch to the contrary. What would befall this realm if my marriage were called in question after my decease? The same trouble and confusion would ensue that followed on the death of my noble grandfather, King Edward the Fourth. To prevent such mischance I have resolved, most reluctantly, to put away my present queen, and to take another consort, by whom I trust to raise up a worthy successor and inheritor of ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rising in agitation, "let me not hear of mischance to that noble prince. He seemed sick and feeble when I parted from him; but joy is a great restorer, and the air of the native land gives quick health ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... greatest esteem for the young creatures. The hare came to eat parsley from their hands, the deer grazed by their side, the stag bounded past them unheeding; the birds, likewise, did not stir from the bough, but sang in entire security. No mischance befell them; if benighted in the wood, they lay down on the moss to repose and sleep till the morning; and their mother was satisfied as to their safety, and felt ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... there was much slaughter on both sides without any evident superiority; but about sunset, when the advantage was obviously leaning to the Portuguese, Roxo was slain. Being informed by signal of this mischance, Gonzalez was obliged to discontinue following up his good fortune; and on the tide ebbing the fleet separated, one of the Portuguese galliots being left aground among the enemy, who tore her to pieces ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... strife, If once a widdow, euer I be wife. Ham. If she should breake now. Duke T'is deepely sworne, sweete leaue me here a while, My spirites growe dull, and faine I would beguile the tedi- ous time with sleepe. Dutchesse Sleepe rocke thy braine, And neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine. exit Lady Ham. Madam, how do you like this play? Queene The Lady protests too much. Ham. O but shee'le keepe her word. King Haue you heard the argument, is there no offence in it? Ham. No offence ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... it. Our Russians fired by mistake at friendly Dutch vessels, and you demand indemnity from the Swedes because the mischance occurred ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... those wandering waves that roam the smoothest sea struck the ship, and Clementina caught herself skilfully from falling, and reeled to her seat, while the room rang with the applause and sympathetic laughter for the mischance she had baffled. There was a storm of encores, but Clementina called out, "The ship tilts so!" and her naivete won her another burst of favor, which was at its height when Lord ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Will," as in their usual court-style they call him, he had met with "a foolish mischance," well known among the collectors of our British portraits. There was a feature in his face, or rather no feature at all, that served as a perpetual provocative: there was no precedent of such a thing, says Suckling, in "The Sessions of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... to any man in the Fleete there happen any mischance, they shall presently shoote off two peeces by day, and if it be by night, two peeces, and shew ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... firm in her adherence to the plan of procedure which she had announced. She declared that, as matters stood, she would not become a burden, with all her encumbrances, upon his slender resources. If mischance wrested the promised fee out of his hands, then they must go their ways separately. She repeated her determination to abide by that on the morning when Dr. Slavens announced the ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... my verry hart doth bleed With sorrow for thy sake; For sure, a more renowned knight Mischance cold ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... opening of the campaign I cannot say. Some ascribe it to the rashness of the Prince, who was certainly a very impetuous leader; but it is ill work buffeting the dead, and profitless also. And if his fiery temper did, indeed, bring about the mischance, he exerted himself as a gallant gentleman to ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... been hermetically nailed up. It was hoped that they would resist if some formidable billow should fall on the ship. If, by any mischance, they should yield under the weight of these avalanches, the ship might fill and sink. Very fortunately, also, the stowage had been well attended to, so that, notwithstanding the terrible tossing of the vessel, her cargo was not ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... on the lands about the Madeleine. If your chief creditor agrees to help you, I shall not consider my interests; I shall sell out my Funds and live on dry bread; Popinot will get along between life and death, and as for you, you will be at the mercy of the smallest commercial mischance; but Cephalic Oil will undoubtedly make great returns. Popinot and I have consulted together; we will stand by you in this struggle. Ah! I shall eat my dry bread gaily if I see daylight breaking on the horizon. But ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... too much uneasiness, dear Sir, about the loss of the papers[1006]. The loss is nothing, if nobody has found them; nor even then, perhaps, if the numbers be known. You are not the only friend that has had the same mischance. You may repair your want out of a stock, which is deposited with Mr. Allen, of Magdalen-Hall; or out of a parcel which I have just sent to Mr. Chambers[1007] for the use of any body that will be so kind as to want them. Mr. Langtons are well; and Miss Roberts[1008], whom I have at ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... violence of the sudden mischance hath so wrought in him, who by nature is allied to nothing less than a self-debasing humor of dejection, that I have never seen anything more changed and spirit-broken. He hath, with a peremptory resolution, dismissed the partners of his riots and late hours, denied his house and person to their ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... one day, dragging one foot after the other, and a poor, wizened face on him, and he was as cross as two sticks. When he was rested and had got something to eat, he told them how he had taken service with the Gray Churl of the Townland of Mischance, and that the agreement was whoever would first say he was sorry for his bargain should get an inch wide of the skin of his back, from shoulder to hips, taken off. If it was the master, he should also pay double wages; if it was the servant, he should get no ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... and bring with us your father, an God prosper us. Should ye ride thus through the land, and fight with every knight whom ye may meet, ye will need great good fortune to win every conflict without mischance or ill-hap! They who will be ever fighting, and ne'er avoid a combat, an they hold such custom for long, though at whiles they escape, yet shall they find their master, who will perforce change their mood! Now Sir Knight do our bidding, for ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... Athenian power were the Greek statesmen, that we find it among the arguments with which the Corinthian some time after supported the Peloponnesian war, "that the Athenians, if they lost one sea-fight, would be utterly subdued;"—nor, even without such a mischance, could the flames of a war be kindled, but what the obvious expedient [Thucyd., lib. i., c. 121. As the Corinthians indeed suggested, Thucyd., lib. i., c. 122] of the enemy would be to excite the Athenian allies to revolt, and the stoppage or diminution of the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... better take our lives at once," said Big Tim fiercely, "else we will begin to think that we have had the mischance to fall into ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... and thereby set fire to his own house and to the house of his neighbor, he was liable in an action on the case generally, the declaration not being on the custom of the realm, [88] "viz. for negligently keeping his fire." "For the injury is the same, although this mischance was not by a common negligence, ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... understand that it is most unjust that the man who has wasted the money which he received from his creditor on debauchery, or gambling, should be classed with one who has lost his own property as well as that of others in a fire, by robbery, or some sadder mischance? They would take no excuse, that men might understand that they were always bound to keep their word; it was thought better that even a good excuse should not be accepted from a few persons, than that all men should be led ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Useful, but not appetizing. If I were a profane mortal, I should call him a condemned nuisance. Most birds build their own nests, and a well-built nest lasts them a whole season. This infernal bird has to have a furnace-man to make his bed for him night and morning, and if, by some mischance, the fire goes out, as fires will do in the best-regulated families, he begins to squawk, and he squawks, and he squawks, and he squawks until the keeper comes and sets his nest a-blazing again. He has a voice like a sick fog-horn ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... played his part very unobtrusively, shambling along in nonchalant fashion, mostly hugging the sides of the houses, ready to dart out of sight into a doorway or down a side turning, should he by any mischance arrive too close on the heels ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... that winter, nor the following summer, nor the next year, nor the next. Neither did any Indian or hunter or lumberman have anything to report as to a bull moose of great stature, with a long white slash down his side. Either his quest had carried him far to other and alien ranges, or some fatal mischance of the wild had overtaken his inexperience. The latter was Jabe's belief, and he concluded that his ungainly favourite had too soon taken the long trail for the Red Men's land ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... angry" cried Mrs. Whitney, in a tone intended to make Hiram ashamed of taking so narrow, so rural, a view of his son's fashionable mischance. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... then the unexpected happens—merely the unexpected. O why not the romantic? She hears him praised or blamed; or, as now, he is ill; or she meets him in a dream; or between midnight and dawn she cannot sleep; or, worst of all, by some sad mischance she sees him, close by, in a throng or in a public way—for an instant—and, when it is too late, knows by his remembered look that he wanted to speak; and the flood lifts and sweeps her back, and she must begin again. The daylight hours are the easiest; there is so much to do and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... saves nine," is a wise saw; unhappily, like many others of the same thrifty kind, but little heeded in this our day. So it was with Lord Edward. A rent had, by some mischance been made in the central seam, and, on the morning of the hurricane, was still unmended. When the gale came, it sought a quarrel with any thing it could lay hold of, and the harmless trowsers of Lord Edward became subject to its mighty and resistless devastation; ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... bitter sense of humiliation that he cursed, again and again, the mischance of having encountered this man in the pawnbroker's shop. The only comfort he had in the recollection was, Mr Tigg's voluntary avowal of a separation between himself and Slyme, that would at least prevent his circumstances (so Martin argued) from being known to any member of his family, the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... throats with fear. And then came a day when there should have been a letter, and none came. The whole day passed. I tried to comfort John's mother! I tried to believe myself that it was no more than a mischance of the post. ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... By mischance the neck of his balloon, which should have been open, was out of reach and folded inwards in such a way as to prevent the free escape of the gas, which, at this great altitude, struggled for egress with ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... also through the palace everywhere The swords and spears were taken from the wall That long with honour had been hanging there, And from the golden pillars of the hall; Lest by mischance some sacred blade should fall, And in its falling bring revenge at last For ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... my sons will think me dead, seeing her come without me. Wherefore keep her safely mewed until she has learnt that this is her home, for I would not have that mischance happen." ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... profound grief that it seriously injured his health, and impaired his understanding. An accident of a somewhat similar kind happened to the MS. of Mr. Carlyle's first volume of his 'French Revolution.' He had lent the MS. to a literary neighbour to peruse. By some mischance, it had been left lying on the parlour floor, and become forgotten. Weeks ran on, and the historian sent for his work, the printers being loud for "copy." Inquiries were made, and it was found that the maid-of-all-work, finding ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... this luminous background, and by degrees the sea resumed its azure tint. An hour afterwards we were within cannon-shot of the Seraglio; but, alas! a thick fog covered the city. Constantinople was invisible—and I was deploring the mischance, which was depriving me of a long-anticipated pleasure, when suddenly the sun shone forth brightly, and the fog acquired as if by enchantment a wonderful transparency. The curtain was, as it were, torn to bits, and from all quarters at once there appeared to my dazzled eyes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... to be satisfied with the success which had attended his representation of the character of a somnambulist, he could not banish the doubts and fears that haunted him. Some unlucky mischance might betray him; "Old Batterbones" or Bates might tell the story; Sandy might be entrapped into an exposure of the affair; indeed, there were so many ways by which the secret might come out, that he was far from satisfied with ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... sometimes by my labour, I earn a little money, O, Some unforeseen misfortune comes gen'rally upon me, O; Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my goodnatur'd folly, O: But come what will, I've sworn it still, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... of bewilderment into her room, pointed to numerous specimens of granite, which her "young people" had, in their unhallowed thirst for knowledge, discovered and drawn from my trunk, which, by some strange mischance, had been left unlocked! In vain I mumbled something touching my love of mineralogy, and that a lapidary had offered I knew not what for my collection. I was compelled to "bundle," as the idiomatic, but ignorant woman expressed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... heart doth bleed With sorrow for thy sake, For sure, a more redoubted knight Mischance ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... the air with falsehood's juggling brood, That no one knows how them he may elude! If but one day shines clear, in reason's light— In spectral dream envelopes us the night; From the fresh fields, as homeward we advance— There croaks a bird: what croaks he? some mischance! Ensnared by superstition, soon and late; As sign and portent, it on us doth wait— By fear unmanned, we take our stand alone; The portal creaks, and no ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... he does lose his horse," said Mysie, laughing, "surely he is not the first man on the marches who has had such a mischance. But he will be no loser, for I warrant he will stop the value out of moneys which he has owed my father ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... ago by some peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de Bardelys's servants as belonging to their master, and that as nothing had been seen or heard of him for a fortnight, it was believed that he must have met with some mischance. Not even that piece of information served to arouse my interest. Let them believe me dead if they would. To him that is suffering worse than death to be accounted dead is a ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... so worthy a part, and the re-election of President Lincoln in November (1864), put an end to all anxieties as to danger in the quarter of the Shenandoah, which before Sheridan's campaign had been a region of fatal mischance to the national cause from the beginning of the war. As a consequence the Sixth Corps was once more ordered to rejoin Grant's army, and the regiment left the historic valley on December 1st, arriving on the 5th before Petersburg, where it was ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... town-museum some magnificent pieces of Flemish tapestry that screened the inner circuit of the choir aisles, and had put in their place bas-reliefs in marble executed by the dreadful bungler who had crushed the altar under the gigantic group of the Virgin. And mischance had helped. In 1789 the Sansculottes were intending to destroy this mountainous Assumption, and some ill-starred idiot saved it by placing a cap of liberty on the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... sure to share it. Gentlemen, I return you many thanks for your kindness, and I must accept of your promised care for my unfortunate officers. I sail to-morrow at daylight. You will oblige me by informing their friends, the Rebieras, of their mischance, as I am sure they will contribute all they can to their comfort." So saying, Captain Wilson bowed and quitted the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... molasses, half a pint of milk, and a teaspoonful each of spice, salt, and baking powder, (cost four cents.) Put these ingredients into a mould which has been well buttered and floured, and steam them about three hours. If by any mischance the top of the pudding is watery, you can remedy it by putting it into a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes to brown. When you are ready to use it, turn it from the mould and send it to the table with some CREAM SAUCE. This is an excellent plum pudding, ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... and the glance That ends in silent tears? If we count up the world's mischance, Grieving is ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... a cross-bow out of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without him. We had reached that exciting scene where Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son's head. Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its russet ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... desires of his heart. It only showed itself in a new fierceness and determination in their encounters. Each had sworn to himself to conquer the other. The soreness between them came about when by some sad mischance they fell in love with the same girl. Worse luck, she wanted neither of them, for she was vowed to the convent: the last feminine creature on earth for these two great fighters to think of, with her soft, pure eyes, her slender ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... when, had it been his luck to be born on our side of the water, his bright faculties and clear probity would have insured him eminent success in whatever path he night adopt. Meanwhile, it would have been a sore mischance to me, had any better fortune on his part deprived me of Mr. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... derived from his mother the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom to prefer the substance of a marquisate to the shadow of an empire; and on his refusal, Robert, the second of the sons of Peter and Yolande, was called to the throne of Constantinople. Warned by his father's mischance, he pursued his slow and secure journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passage was opened by his sister's marriage with the king of Hungary; and the emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... through the door. He took it carefully, but in spite of his great precaution fell over it twice on his way to the road, where from certain exclamations and shouts it seemed that a like miserable mischance attended its elevation to the boot. Then Mrs. Baker came back into the office, and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the first time to an outburst of tears. Then her hand was grasped suddenly and she found Green on his knees before her. She ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... me, Dr. Sitgreaves," said the dragoon, gravely. "I fell by mischance of Roanoke; rider and beast kissed the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... house. He had slunk away before the poll was closed,—crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses of the earl's stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of his thoughts—at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's influence over Avenel, but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy—he sought to ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he had forgotten, what thread ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... appeals to the audience for sympathy, greatly exciting the feelings of many of them, though Tom and I were much inclined to laugh when we saw the brigand and the lover hob-nobbing with each other behind a side scene, which, by some mischance, had not been shoved forward enough. At length the young count and the brigand met, and had a tremendous fight, which ended in the death of the former, who was dragged off the stage. Soon afterwards, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... leave the neighbourhood of Black Town thus unexpectedly was a real disappointment to us, as we had hoped to spend some time evangelising in that district. We were to prove, however, that no unforeseen mischance had happened, but that these circumstances which seemed so trying were necessary links in the chain of a divinely ordered providence, guiding to other and ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... gallant fight for health has gone unrewarded. But in the great majority of cases a wise conduct of life would retain robust strength for the threescore or more years of our allotted course, increase it for those who start poorly equipped, and regain it for those who by mischance, blunder, or imprudence have lost their heritage. Yet half the world hardly knows what real health is. Our hospitals and sanitariums are crowded, our streets are full of half-sick people-hollow chests, sallow faces, dark-rimmed eyes, nervous, run-down, worn-out, brain-fagged, dragging on their existence, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... and scruples better than resolves them, and is always too hard for himself. His learning is too much for his brain, and his judgment too little for his learning, and his over-opinion of both, spoils all. Pity it was his mischance of being a scholar; for it does only distract and irregulate him, and the world by him. He hammers much in general upon our opinion's uncertainty, and the possibility of erring makes him not venture ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... stairway, partly abrupt incline—which zigzagged up the hill between the wall of the theatre and the wall of an adjacent house and which was lighted, just below its sharpest turn, by a single lamp pendant from an outjutting gibbet of iron. By a lucky mischance, three of the incompetent officials on duty at the first-class entrance—whereat, in default of guiding signs, we happened first to apply ourselves—examined in turn our tickets and assured us that the way to our second-class places was up that stairway-path. But ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... cup of tea which were passed to her in turn, and as humbly ate the piece of rather stale bread. She felt forlornly miserable under the fire of all these unkind eyes, which took a delight in marking her slips: at the smallest further mischance she might disgrace herself by bursting out crying. Just at this moment, however, something impelled her to look up. Her vis-a-vis, whom she had as yet scarcely noticed, was staring hard. And now, to her great surprise, this girl winked at her, winked slowly and ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... intended for dropping a remote controlled mobile observer to the as yet unseen and unknown surface. Johnny had ferried parts of the crab-like mechanical monster on the last run, and illogically found himself worrying momentarily over the set-back to the Probe his mischance would cause. ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... "But—oh! if by any mischance Max should fall; if by treachery or accident—oh, Sir Karl, my heart is breaking. Do not let Max fight." These words were from her woman's heart. "His station will excuse him, but if the affair has gone too far for him to withdraw, tell ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... audibly she spoke, And the strong passion in her made her weep True tears upon his broad and naked breast, And these awoke him, and by great mischance He heard but fragments of her later words, And that she feared she was not a true wife. And then he thought, 'In spite of all my care, For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains, She is not faithful ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... fevers, the witness of children. We are not, he reflected, quite solvent unless we pay tribute before we go. He mused off into the vista of life as it accomplishes itself not in great triumphal sweeps, but fitful music hushed at intervals by the crash of brutal mischance, and only, at the end, a solution of broken chords. Meantime Dick watched him, and Raven at last, feeling the boy's eyes on him, came awake with ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... in no spirit of mockery that a resolution was passed to paint the lamp-posts white, pending the controversy, so that the good people in the town might avoid running against them in the dark and getting hurt, if by any mischance they strayed from ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... he said—"But on your own head be your own mischance, if any mischance should happen! I take no responsibility. Of your own will you have come here—of your own will you elect to stay here, where there is no one of your own sex with whom you can communicate- -and of your own will you must accept ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli |
