"Unlucky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neither to land-grants nor to cash subsidies that the Canadian Northern looked for its chief aid, but to government guarantees. This device, the main form of state aid given in our first railway era, had long been discredited by the unlucky fate of the Grand Trunk and the Northern guarantees, and had been sparingly used since. To the Canadian Northern its revival was chiefly due. It was a seductive form of aid: provided that the railway thus helped had good traffic prospects, the government stood little chance of loss ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... a hand at picking a pocket as a woman, and is as nimble-fingered as a juggler. If an unlucky session does not cut the rope of his life, I pronounce he will be a great ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vigorous. It may be a commonplace remark, but it is not at these precise moments in life that tired, depressed men in modest positions are wafted by Uncle Sam to great and desirable heights; but to Mrs. Hamilton it appeared that her husband was simply indolent, unambitious, and unlucky; not at all that he needed to be believed in, or loved, or comforted, or helped, or braced! It might have startled her, and hurt her wifely pride, if she had seen her lonely husband drinking in little Nancy Carey's letter as if it were dew to a thirsty spirit; to see him set the photograph of the ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... military movements of the unfortunate Jacobites, was the work of a strong party in the camp, and was founded upon the alleged authority of private letters, which gave the assurance of a general insurrection taking place on the appearance of the insurgent force. The unlucky change of plans superseded a meditated attack upon the town of Dumfries. "Nothing," observes Mr. Patten, "could be a greater token of a complete infatuation,—that Heaven confounded all their devices, and that their destruction was to be of their ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... course of the night I was attacked by an oppression on my chest, accompanied by a burning fever: this was the result of the cold bath which I had taken in the river. My mental sufferings were severe: I thought to myself, if I should be so unlucky as to get an inflammation on my lungs, what will become of me here without help, without friends, and in a strange land? Ah, my beloved country! ah, my dear mother! have I left you both, in order to perish in the arms of hirelings and of strangers! Have I only reached the long wished-for ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... woman to think that she has an extensive acquaintance, signifies that she will be the possessor of vast interests, and her love will be worthy the winning. If her circle of acquaintances is small, she will be unlucky in ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... [87] Poor unlucky Metaphysicks! and what are they? A single sentence expresses the object and thereby the contents of this ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... unlucky that a comparatively recent change has put it out of the power of a Prime Minister to create fresh Irish peers, for an Irish peerage was a cheap and convenient method of rewarding political service.[24] Lord ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... I see where Prince Ferdinand can take his winter quarters, unless he retires to Hanover; and that I do not take to be at present the land of Canaan. Our second expedition to St. Malo I cannot call so much an unlucky, as an ill-conducted one; as was also Abercrombie's affair in America. 'Mais il n'y a pas de petite perte qui revient souvent': and all these accidents put together make a considerable ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Athelstane sometimes cleaned the motor-bicycle. It had been left, with a bucket of water, outside the shed. He drew out the piston, filled the syringe, then discharged its contents straight at the dog. But at that most unlucky moment a quick change took place on the wall; the collie retired in favor of his master, and the stream of water charged full into the astonished countenance of a precise and elderly gentleman from next door. For a few moments there was a ghastly ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... conscientious, and very well instructed, but she was not judicious. She never found out that her pupil would have been an absolute slave to affection, but was altogether hardened to severity, and when she failed in herself enforcing her authority, she made the great and most unlucky mistake of appealing to George Wynter. Mary, up to that time, had had no dislike to her cousin. He was nearly twenty years older than herself, an excellent man, who took everything au pied de la lettre, and who, perceiving that what ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... From there we can get a drawing- room to New Orleans; that's only a day and a half more; and we can keep to ourselves if by any unlucky chance there should be any one ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... the Carnival in Rome, nothing is more sad than when the theatre-managers have been unlucky in their choice of a musical composer, or when the first tenor at the Argentina theatre has lost his voice on the way, or when the male prima donna[4.1] of the Valle theatre is laid up with a cold,—in brief, when the chief source of recreation which ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... "You are unlucky," he said. "I just happened to take hold here. When I have you beaten I will go on and beat the others. There is more money back of me than back of you all, and I am going to beat every one ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... flesh maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form the remotest guess what part Owen could play in the business. I never knew him give anything away in my life. He would not begin with strangers. I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow went round to Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things which I could never think of sending away. Teal, widgeon, snipes, barn-door fowls, ducks, geese—your tame villatic things—Welsh mutton, collars of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... got a little money. I'll fetch it, dear, (she takes up mug reflectively) A pretty lady in Market-Sinfield—very dark, very ill, and among strangers, (sighing) How unlucky all ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... superstitions such as that of Friday being an unlucky day persist? What would be the scientific way of ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... when trying to do a magnanimous act, take care of baby and let poor, tired mother sleep, as I have been many times since, when, unluckily, I had upset somebody's dish, and "Emily did it" has rung its hateful sound in my ears. To say I was unlucky was not enough; I was untimely, unwarranted and unwanted, I often felt, in early years in everything I attempted, and the naturally quick temper I possessed was only aggravated and tortured into more ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... Years' War (1618-1648) was as auspicious to the Hohenzollerns as it was unlucky for the Habsburgs. On the eve of the contest, propitious marriage alliances bestowed two important legacies upon the family—the duchy of Cleves [Footnote: Though the alliance between Brandenburg and Cleves dated from 1614, the Hohenzollerns did not reign over Cleves until 1666. With Cleves ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... had promised to build over the tomb of Saint Hilaire if the Saint brought him; victory. Nothing remains of it now but the crypt, into which Theodore has probably taken you, for Gilbert burned all the rest. Finally, he defeated the unlucky Charles with the aid of William" which the Cure pronounced "Will'am" "the Conqueror, which is why so many English still come to visit the place. But he does not appear to have managed to win the affection of the people of Combray, for they fell upon him as he was coming out from mass, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... have thought that the peace of Sabbath overlay a village of God-fearing people. A burly figure lounged in the porch of a rickety house, and yawned under a swinging sign, the rude letters of which promised "private entertainment" for the traveller unlucky enough to pass that way. In the one long, narrow main street, closely flanked by log and framed houses, nothing else human was in sight. Out from this street, and in an empty square, stood the one brick building ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... part of the Middle Ages, had allowed itself to be terrified by predictions of plagues, wars, floods, and earthquakes, and in this respect Italy was by no means behind other countries. The unlucky year 1494, which for ever opened the gates of Italy to the stranger, was undeniably ushered in by many prophecies of misfortune—only we cannot say whether such prophecies were not ready ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... It was an unlucky marriage, for she was a dull, ignorant woman, with no feeling for her husband's high aims or superior powers, and the business was not a flourishing one; but he never manifested anything but warm affection ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... written to The Daily Express asking whether it is not unlucky to be married on a Friday. Our own experience is that it doesn't make much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... attach much importance to dreams, and claim to have been furnished by them with premonitions of each misfortune that has overtaken them, and regard Friday as the most unlucky day of ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Constantinople, and whose house is still to be seen in Bishopsgate Street, contributed L10,000 towards the screen and south transept. The statues of James and Charles were set up over the portico, and the steeple was begun, when the storm arose that soon whistled off the king's unlucky head. The coming troubles cast shadows around St. Paul's. In March, 1639, a paper was found in the yard of the deanery, before Laud's house, inscribed—"Laud, look to thyself. Be assured that thy life is sought, as thou art the fountain of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... is a thousand pities that you are not among the lords and ladies you are so often talking about. It was an unlucky chance that brought you here, for, poor child, with us you are like ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... chance there fell out many misfortunes unto them, which was enough to have marred the enterprise. The first and chiefest was, Caesar's long tarrying, who came very late to the Senate: for because the signs of the sacrifices appeared unlucky, his wife Calpurnia[101] kept him at home, and the soothsayers bade him beware he went not abroad. The second cause was, when one came unto Casca being a conspirator, and taking him by the hand, said unto him: O Casca, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... and sent one of his own chief men to see the thing done—and the girl had enemies—her own relations approved! We could do nothing. Mind, Shaw, there was absolutely nothing else between them but that unlucky flower which the Frenchman pinned to his coat—and afterward, when the girl was dead, wore under his shirt, hung round his neck in a small box. I suppose he had nothing else ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... hoarsely, waking up from her unlucky paralysis, "let her go; only let her go, an' I'll—I'll do anythin' you want me to. I'll steal, an' pick an' fetch, and ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... same Evil One—may the son of a dog dream of the holy cross!—caused the old grey-beard, like a fool, to open the cottage door at that same moment. Korzh was petrified, dropped his jaw, and clutched at the door for support. Those unlucky ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... whispered together. Many thought that that little de Nailles had expressed sentiments not proper at her age. Some came to the conclusion that M. Regis chose subjects for composition not suited to young girls. A committee waited on the unlucky professor to beg him to be more prudent for the future. He even lost, in consequence of Jacqueline's success, one of his pupils (the most stupid one, be it said, in the class), whose mother took her away, saying, with indignation, "One might as well risk the things they are teaching ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the streets of Paris, some saying he was insane, and that he was looking for his brother; others, that he was searching for the murderer. One day he entered the police-office where he had first made his unlucky complaint. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... of toil after another, to take lessons. But, repeatedly, these small savings had, by some disaster, been swept away: stolen once, by a worthless older brother; absorbed on another occasion by her mother's fatal illness. Two years ago she had drifted into the chorus, but had been altogether unlucky in her various ventures. She wasn't naturally graceful—had been slow learning to dance. Again and again, she'd been dropped at the end of three or four weeks of rehearsal (gratuitous of course) and seen another girl put in her ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the day, to be deeply interested in land at Saint Vincent's. But there is no evidence. What cannot be denied is that an unpleasant taint of speculation and financial adventurership hung at one time about the whole connection, and that the adventures invariably came to an unlucky end. ...
— Burke • John Morley
... dig gold on the Crown lands. This used to cost a pound or thirty shillings a month—I forget rightly which—and, of course, some of the chaps hadn't the money to get it with—spent what they had, been unlucky, or run away from somewhere, and come up as bare of everything to get it ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to be unlucky as to the times when they have to change stations; the move often chancing at an inconvenient moment. My mother had to make her first voyage with the cares of a young baby on her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... not clear, we had to put about and get an offing to the W.S.W. This series of contrary winds and bad weather ever since we started, not having had a single day of fair wind, was very remarkable. My men firmly believed there was something unlucky in the boat, and told me I ought to have had a certain ceremony gone through before starting, consisting of boring a hole in the bottom and pouring some kind of holy oil through it. It must be remembered that this was the season of the south-east monsoon, and yet ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... which have an unlucky knack of losing,' said Mary, dubiously. 'I suppose if his horses ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... in," he said. "No doubt we are near the top of the rock. Either the staircase was roofed in, or there was a building erected over the entrance; and either the roof or building, whichever it was, has fallen in. That is very unlucky. When we go down, we will climb up the hill and see if we can discover anything ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... said, although his tone was gentle, and in a way sympathetic. "After all, it's your own fault. You blundered right in our way, an' we had to take you for fear you'd see us, an' give the alarm. It was your unlucky chance. You'd give a million dollars if you had it to slip out of our hands and tell Ulysses Grant that Albert Sidney Johnston with his whole army is layin' in the woods right alongside of him, ready to jump on his back at dawn, an' he not ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for the meanest woman we met in the street than he did for his grandest friend in society; but, nevertheless, his splendid courtesy illuminated the slightest social duty, whereas I stood rayless beside him. He had been unlucky where his mother was concerned: she was a weak woman to begin with, had never loved her husband, and had left him for another man, whom she married after the disgrace and sorrow she caused had killed her boy's father. Harry never spoke of this, but, perhaps unconsciously to himself, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... glass-makers," he said, "Jacopo is doing his best to get that unlucky Dalmatian imprisoned and banished. Old Beroviero came to see me this morning and told me a long story about it, which I cannot possibly remember; but it seems to ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... which had fallen into the pool in a former caving-in of the bank. In that dark deep wherein his foot was held fast, his mind's eye could see it all well enough—the water-soaked, brown-green, slimy, inexorable coil, which had yielded to admit the unlucky member, then closed upon the ankle like the jaws of an otter trap. He could feel that grip—not severe, but uncompromisingly firm, clutching the joint. As he considered, he began to draw comfort, however, from the fact that his invisible captor had displayed a certain amount ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... again it is not so well. Unlucky! For there are twenty to twenty-five millions of them. Whom, however, we lump together into a kind of dim compendious unity, monstrous but dim, far off, as the canaille; or, more humanely, as 'the masses.' Masses, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Romans, the Burmans believe in dreams, omens, and unlucky days; observe the flight and feeding of fowls, the howl of dogs, and the aspect of the stars; they regard the lines in the hand, the knots in trees, and a thousand other fortuitous circumstances, and by these allow their actions ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... cut-glass ice-tub," said Nan, as she tore the tissue paper wrapping from an exquisite piece of sparkling glass. "I should think it an unlucky number if I didn't feel sure that one or two more ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... regarding her with sorrowful and hungry looks. Seeing this she exclaimed, "If I were sure that thou wert my own Lasse, I would give thee a bit of meat." At that instant the wolf-skin fell off, and her husband stood before her in the clothes he wore on the unlucky morning when she had ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... diggings, so unlucky in town, Bill the Prospector took the box with a slightly trembling hand and rattled the dice. His first throw was twelve, his second eleven. "Even money I beat you," he said ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... for her Bible-reading. She used to let June undress her, and finish all her duties of dressing-maid; then she sent her away, and locked her doors, and read in comfort. This lasted a little while; then one unlucky night Daisy forgot to unlock her doors. The morning came, and June with it; but June could neither get in nor dare knock loud enough to make Daisy hear; she was obliged to come round through her mistress's dressing-room. But Daisy's door on that side was locked too! ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the young aristocrat how she had borne twelve children, and buried six as bairns; how her man was always unlucky; how a mast fell on him, and disabled him a whole season; how they could but just keep the pot boiling by the deep-sea fishing, and he was not allowed to dredge for oysters, because his father was not a Newhaven man. How, when the herring fishing came, to make all right, he never ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... was a very successful man as a fisherman, and he had money in the bank when he died, but he was very unlucky for all that." ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... "That's unlucky," he said. "Never mind, Mr.," he said smiling at me, "twenty-two misfortunes, aren't you? Always dropping something," he added quite kindly. "More, perhaps, than the rest of us.... Wash your face in cold water. It's this infernal heat ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... thought he heard some one call, "Macleod! Macleod!" Instantly he put his gun against a bush, and ran. He found a hedge at the end of the wood; he drove through it, and got into the open field. There was the unlucky major, with blood running down his face, a handkerchief in his hand, and two men beside him, one of them offering him some brandy from a flask. However, after the first flight was over, it was seen that Major Stuart was but slightly hurt. The youngest member of the party had fired at a bird coming ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a vicious clip with the whip that the fat mare, unused to such treatment, whizzed indignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla looked back once as the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... position; but all was in vain—the flies followed in fresh clusters. In despair he hurried to the window; but every fly lingering there was instantly buzzing and tickling. The marquis, feverish with vexation and surprise, threw up the window. This unlucky measure produced only a general invasion by all the host of flies sunning themselves on the lawn. The astonishment and amusement of the guests were excessive. Brummell alone never smiled. At last M. le Marquis ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... his landlord. By the end of 1775, his translation was completed and published at Oxford, with a numerous list of subscribers. Experience had not yet taught him wariness in his approaches to his patron. At the suggestion of his relative, Commodore Johnstone, in an unlucky moment he inscribed his book to the Duke of Buccleugh. This nobleman had declared his acceptance of the dedication in a manner so gracious, that Mickle was once more decoyed with the hope of having found a powerful protector. After an interval of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... who in one and the same moment saw herself merry and sad, cheerful and despairing, rich and beggared, complained bitterly over this robbery of her happiness, this poisoning of her cup of joy, this unlucky stroke of fortune, and laid all the blame on her parents, though they assured her that they had meant no harm. But the Princess refused to be comforted, and at night, when all the inhabitants of the palace were asleep, she stole ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... seaside cousin, the fifteen-spined Stickleback, who is also a nest-builder. This little fish is fairly common round our coasts, living in weedy pools by the shore, where it devours any small creature unlucky enough to come near. It is about six inches long, this sea Stickleback, with a long snout, and its body is very thin ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... The daughter of an unlucky selector is not taught to spare herself; and Ida was an untiring and conscientious worker. For the rest, she was a generous, patient, self-denying girl, transparently honest in word and deed; the gentle soul shining through its homely mask, like a candle in a bottle. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... goodly store—enough for us each to have a glass. What a pity that the soil hereabouts is not of that peculiar kind of clay upon which certain tribes of American savages are said to subsist, when they have been unlucky in their hunting and fishing, and have nothing better ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... made up his mind never to allude to the affair of the treasure by a single word, so he kept his meeting with Heister to himself; and when you have read a little more, you will say how unlucky it was that he did so, or that Meeta was not present when Margot had been with her grandmother; but when you have read to the end, you will say it was all right ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... "I always was unlucky," said Mrs. Alwynn, faintly. "I had a swelled face up the Rhine on our honey-moon. Things always happen like that with me. At any rate,"—after a pause—"there is one thing. We ought to try and look at the bright side. It is not as if ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... carriage, another to the top of a post, and there he was. Next came Brighteyes, all flying, feet and curls and hat and ribbons. Then one of the twins rolled out, and the other tumbled out; and one was hurt, and the other was not. That is always the way with those two children. One is lucky, and one unlucky. Puff always falls on her feet. Fluff always falls on her head. Uncle Jack often calls them Hap and Hazard, and that is the only difference between them. However, when they got up and shook themselves, ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... rules too urgent upon what would have been a delicate genius in poetry. The airs demanded so many stanzas; but they gave his imagination leave to be away, and they depressed and even confused his metrical play, hurting thus the two vital spots of poetry. Many of the stanzas for music make an unlucky repeating pattern with the poor variety that a repeating wall-paper does not attempt. And yet Campion began again and again with the onset of a true poet. Take, for example, the poem beginning with the vitality of this line, ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... agitation of the Countess kept increasing. The Queen, who perceived all this, looked at me with a smile; I found means to approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper, 'Let down your lappets, or the Countess will expire.' All this bustle arose from two unlucky pins which fastened up my lappets, whilst the etiquette of costume said 'Lappets ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... had he heard the Virginian tell a humorous anecdote, and he was not a little surprised as well as pleased, for it showed that Jack, who had grumbled a great deal during the unlucky and unpleasant cruise down the coast, was in better spirits now they were at last in the waters ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... eye penetrated everywhere. From garret to cellar she knew the dimensions of every cupboard—the capacity of each nook—the measure of the very walls. Woe to the unlucky sleeper! his slumbers from that hour were numbered; she watched him as if he had ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... you like," she answered, "but I don't know how I shall get on, for my own old fiddle, to which I am accustomed, went to the bottom with a lot of other things in that unlucky shipwreck. You know we came by sea because it seemed so cheap, and that was the end of our economy. Fortunately, all our heavy baggage and furniture were not ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... forehead and kneel to you and babble of Africa and love which, in spite of everything, shall forever bloom, an amaranth, in his heart? To know your power, and to feel the sweet security of your own happy state; to send the unlucky one, broken-hearted, to foreign climes, while you congratulate yourself as he presses his last kiss upon your knuckles, that your nails are well manicured—say, girls, it's galluptious—don't ever let ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... liquors, which you make out of durra and dates;" and turning to me, he demanded "whether he was not right?" The poor chief appeared to be much vexed that he was unable to reply to this accusation, and remained silent. The soldier, not content with humbling the unlucky Malek, pursued his advantage without mercy. "Come," said he to the chief, "I do not believe that you know any thing about your religion, and I will soon make you sensible of it" He then asked the chief how many prophets had preceded Mohammed? If he knew any thing about the history of Dhulkamein ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... that the doctor's eyes were fixed on him with an air of recognition. A movement of pity succeeded his first impulse, and turning to de Crucis he exclaimed:—"I see yonder an old acquaintance who seems in an unlucky plight and with whom I should be glad ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... you have the courage to assume that title, for the lordship of Mondolfo is an unlucky one to bear, Ser Cosimo. Giovanni d'Anguissola was unhappy in all things, and his was a truly miserable end. His father before him was poisoned by his best friend, and as for the last who legitimately bore that title—why, none can say that the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... the arm, from one of the unlucky thrusts of those Montaros," he replied, assuming an indifference that ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... and there are all sorts of omens, among which there is a particular bird which has obtained the name of the omen bird. His cry on the right of, or behind, a person engaged in any enterprise is an unlucky sign, and he abandons his object; while the cry heard on the left is a favorable omen, and the individual is ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... unnecessary to dwell further on the tragic events of that unlucky battle. After midday our troops retreated, and the retreat soon became a rout. At this time Sir George Colley was shot. Dismay seized all hearts, followed by panic. The British soldiers rushed helter-skelter down the precipitous steeps they had so cheerfully climbed the night ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... said in Normandy to haunt streams. If one row of freshly sown seeds or potatoes does not come up, it foretells a death in the family. If a girl mends her clothes on her back, she risks having a drunken husband. A screech-owl is unlucky, and so also is it if a bird fly against ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... without more ado, he dashed forward and made a grab at the offending canvas. He was forestalled, however, a man of the opposing party deftly tripping him up and sending him sprawling into the mud. Before the unlucky pitman could rise the whole mob had surged over him, amidst shrieks ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... it's too easy to say, 'Don't let's make distinctions in danger!' Wait a bit. Since the beginning, there are some of those others who've got killed by an unlucky chance; among us there are some that are still alive by a lucky chance. It isn't the same thing, that, seeing that when you're dead, it's for a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... support me. Where am I? From what country are you? What month is this? and what day of it?" I was addressing natives of Bourdeaux, who, after having considered, went to inform Messrs Duprat and Cabannes, who had made it their business to relieve any unhappy persons, whom unlucky accident had thrown upon their coast. They came to meet me; and, without being ashamed at my shocking appearance, they took me in their arms, and bathed me with the tears, which the joy of relieving an ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... seven made for the seven fairies. The old Fairy fancied she was slighted, and muttered some threats between her teeth. One of the young fairies who sat by her overheard how she grumbled; and, judging that she might give the little Princess some unlucky gift, went, as soon as they rose from table, and hid herself behind the hangings, that she might speak last, and repair, as much as she could, the evil which the old Fairy ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... hieroglyph is Fig. 49, which consists of the numeral 5 with the sign of the month Zac. Foerstemann has recognized in god N the god of the five Uayeyab days, which were added as intercalary days at the end of the original year of 360 days, and were considered unlucky days. N is, therefore, the god of the end of the year. Foerstemann has discussed him in detail under this title in a monograph published in Globus, Vol. 80, No. 12. It is still open to question whether god N actually occurs in all the places of the ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... Nearly, but not completely; and caused a loss of five or six hours to that Second Column. So that darkness came on Column Second in the woody intricacies; and several hundreds of the deserter kind took the opportunity of disappearing altogether. An unlucky, evidently too languid Officer; though Friedrich did not annihilate the poor fellow, perhaps did not rebuke him at all, but merely marked it in elucidation of his qualities for time coming." This miserable village of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... felt a kindly will towards him, and were touched by his return to a ruined home and a lonely life. But the women, romantic as they ought to be, felt a tender interest in a young man so handsome and so unlucky, who lifted his hat to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... been told how three unlucky adventures fell upon Robin Hood and Little John all in one day bringing them sore ribs and aching bones. So next we will tell how they made up for those ill happenings by a good action that came about not without some small ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... old women now,—seventy-five years old,—and, as they expressed it, they had always been twins. In twins there is always one lucky and one unlucky one: Jeanne Marie was the lucky one, Anne Marie the unlucky one. So much so, that it was even she who had to catch the rheumatism, and to lie now bedridden, months at a time, while Jeanne Marie was as active in her sabots ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... Lord Earle, raising the precious stones in his hands, "are of immense value. Some of the finest opals ever seen are in this necklace; they were taken from the crown of an Indian price and bequeathed to one of our ancestors. So much is said about the unlucky stone—the pierre du malheur, as the French call the opal—that I did not care ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... inquiry, and observing a person stalking about like himself, he addressed him, in his best French; but the stranger pulling off his hat, very respectfully replied, in the pure Highland accent, "I'm vary sorry, Sir, but I canna speak ony thing besides English."—"This is very unlucky indeed, Donald," said Mr. Scott, "but we must help one another; for, to tell you the truth, I'm not good at any other tongue but the English, or rather, the Scotch."—"Oh, Sir, maybe," replied the Highlander, "you are a countryman, and ken my maister, Captain Cameron, of the 79th, and could tell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... me anything more on this subject? or can you guess in what degree the unlucky coincidence would affect him—whether it would pain him much and deeply; for he says so little himself on the topic, I am at a loss to divine ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... is that men want to work and like to live! Suppose for a moment that the out-of-work, hungry, unlucky creatures, numbering one hundred thousand in New York City, should suddenly ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... and burnt it; and they, the prisoners, procured and encouraged him so to do. Hughson, his family, and Peggy pleaded not guilty to all the above indictments. The attorney-general delivered a spirited address to the jury, which was more forcible than elegant. He denounced the unlucky Hughson as "infamous, inhuman, an arch-rebel against God, his king, and his country,—a devil incarnate," etc. He was ably assisted by eminent counsel for the king,—Joseph Murray, James Alexander, William ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... the package up once more, and prepared for bed. Just as he was about to retire, he remembered Mr. Bland, bound and gagged below. He went into the hall with the idea of releasing the unlucky haberdasher, but from the office rose the voices of the mayor, Max, and Bland himself. Peace, evidently, had been declared between them. Mr. Magee returned to number seven, locked all the windows, placed the much-sought package beneath his pillow, and ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... whimsical apology for shabby quarters. On our Way homewards Buckthorne assured me that this Dribble had been the prime wit and great wag of the school in their boyish days, and one of those unlucky urchins denominated bright geniuses. As he perceived me curious respecting his old school-mate, he promised to take me with him, in his proposed ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... place of the competition; for the pathetic was not his forte, and was Chaucer's. So, too, instead of the summary and concise commendation of his happier cousin to the future regard of the bereaved bride, so touching in Chaucer, there comes in, provoked by that unlucky repentance, an expatiating and arguing review of the now extinct quarrel, showing a liberty and vigour of thought that agree ill with the threatening cloud of dissolution, and somewhat overlay and encumber the proper business to which the dying man has now turned himself—made imperative by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... angle, and with practised line, Light as the gossamer, the current sweep; And if thou failest in the calm, still deep, In the rough eddy may a prize be thine. Say thou'rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine; Beneath the shadow where the waters creep Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap— For Fate is ever better than Design. Still persevere; the giddiest breeze that blows For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife. Be ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... cattle twice a week, always taking from ten to twenty animals, until one day, after exceptionally wet weather, I protested that it was not possible to round up the stock in the then state of the camp and destroy so much grass for a small bunch of cows. Unlucky thought and ill-judged protest! For when he urged that the inhabitants of the town were starving, and that a small point of half-breed heifers would do to go on with, I received orders to let him part out ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... edition, above referred to, of the Chevalier a la Charette and the corresponding prose settled this in my mind long ago; and though I have been open to unsettlement since, I have not been unsettled. The most unlucky instance of that over-positiveness to which I have referred above is M. Cledat's statement that "nous savons" that the prose romances are later than the verse. We certainly do not "know" this any more than we know the contrary. There is important authority both ways; there is fair argument both ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... stipulating that he should always come by night and alone. I do not know whether it was from mere curiosity, or whether some hope of gain mixed with it, but after Dick had sold several horses in this way, he began to complain that dry bargains were unlucky, and to hint, that since his chap must live in the neighbourhood, he ought, in the courtesy of dealing, to treat ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... determination never to touch it again. An attempt to distribute it among the people about us is interpreted by the well-meaning khan as an impulse of pure generosity on my own part; the result being that he ties the stuff up nicely in a clean handkerchief that an unlucky bystander happens to display at that moment and bids me carry it ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... ten minutes, if I may believe the tender reports in the newspapers the next day, I got on very respectably. I had won the attention of the audience. But, at an unlucky moment, a fresh arrival of persons at the door made the monster turn his thousand eyes in that direction. I mistook it for an indication that he was getting weary of my talk. My attention was distracted. Then came a suspension of all thought, an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... pleasure, I shortly afterwards departed from the town, little dreaming of an addition to my good fortune. But more was in reserve. I went by a train which was heavy with third-class carriages, full of young fellows (well guarded) who had drawn unlucky numbers in the last conscription, and were on their way to a famous French garrison town where much of the raw military material is worked up into soldiery. At the station they had been sitting about, in their threadbare homespun ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... trying to find out, she fell in love with him," continued Brook. "That was unlucky, but it wasn't his ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... mahboubs. Total loss for the merchants here is about 15,000 dollars. It is the caravan which left these two months ago, and took a letter for me to the Governor of Ain Salah. Both letters have been unlucky; the one sent to Ghat could not be delivered because the Governor was changed; and this one, I imagine, has fallen into the hands of the Shânbah. Two slaves escaped with a water-skin. They then fell in with some Touaricks, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... hands and crying, "An arrow! an arrow! You have been shot! Shot in the arm! You will have a stiff arm all your life! You will be a cripple! You can never sew any more, nor do anything else! You will come to want! We shall all have to suffer for it! How unlucky we are! How are we to live, how can we ever get along, if your ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... called on Friday, even if it is an unlucky day. Your generosity knocks that superstition galley-west, so I'll take you at your word. Also I will gladly retain this century. To tell the truth I have urgent need of it for other things," and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... disquieting experience. Tim thought his big friend knew everything, and in consequence whenever he became puzzled about facts that were being read to him or that he heard he would instantly appeal to Van, whom he was sure could right every sort of dilemma that might arise. But too often the unlucky Van was forced to blush and falter that he would have to look it up; and when he did so he frequently learned something himself. For Tim never forgot. No sooner would Van be inside the gate than the shrill little voice would pipe: "And did you find out how far away ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... to affirm that Mr. Carroll whatever he might wish knew nothing more or less as a Witness concerning the Charges laid agt. Genl. Arnold owing to an unlucky Alieubi, which happened with respect to him in regard to all the Charges laid in the Complaint. Still how far his evidence might go in assisting Genl. Arnold in proving his negatives your Petitioner does not pretend to say, as this ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... that those low fellows of mine lit got to our camp and burned up nearly everything—the meat, the skins, and even the ivory, which it cracked so that it is useless. That was an unlucky hunt, for although it began so well, we have come out of it quite naked; yes, with nothing at all except the head of the bull with the cleft horn, that I thought you ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard |
