"Happy chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... critical one. He had only a few days' supply of provisions; it was impossible to advance, and dangerous to retreat; the Austrians, in superior numbers, were dangerously near him; only fortune and valor could save him from serious disaster. In this crisis of his career happy chance came to his aid, and relieved him from the awkward and perilous situation into which he ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... the marnin'," echoed Spruce with a sigh, catching these words by happy chance; "All the same, she's a fine young lady, and 'er orders is to be obeyed. She ain't a bit like what I ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Christianity—the rapid propagation of her tenets and the growth of her influence—and sees behind these things nothing more than the fortunate circumstance of the existence of the Roman Empire. Or he notices the sudden and rapid rise of the power of the Roman pontiff and explains this by the happy chance that moved the centre of empire to the east and left in Rome an old prestige and an empty throne. He sees how the Church has profited by the divisions in Europe; how she has inherited the old Latin genius for law and order; and he ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... however, on the other side of the cloister—in the beautiful frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli. If Orcagna's work was appointed to survive the ravage of time it is a happy chance that it should be balanced by a group of performances of such a different temper. The contrast is the more striking that in subject the inspiration of both painters is strictly, even though superficially, theological. But Benozzo cares, in his theology, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... might make myself at least tolerated by Miss Delmaine. Will you help me in this matter? Will you give me the chance of pleading my cause with her alone? By so doing"—with a meaning smile—"you will also give my cousin the happy chance of seeing you alone." ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... mighty; by its bloody might Empires have risen—risen but to fall. A nation built in blood must ever fight, Or lose its name and power. 'Tis not all To conquer once; an enemy subdued Waits but a happy chance for further feud. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... My happy chance in early life led me to become intimate with a respectable person who was born in a certain island, which is pronounced to be the first gem of the ocean by, no doubt, impartial judges of maritime jewellery. The stories which that person imparted to me regarding his relatives ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... In this dilemma a happy chance came to his aid. A Ligurian soldier, a practised mountaineer, being in search of water, saw a number of snails crawling up the rock in the rear of the castle. These were a favorite food with him, and he gathered what ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... who promises she will be a mother, or rather, I should say, a sister to me, and to have stepped at once into such practice as Mrs Rowland says I shall certainly have here. They say what is very true, that it is a singular and happy chance to befall a youth who has only just ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... real to you? Look at this photo of one of them. Surely it was not just a happy chance which brought out the detail so perfectly. Look at the thoughtful, fine old face. Can you look at it and say, "Yes, I am on my way to the Light, and you are on your way to the Dark. At least, this is what I profess to ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... pool bordering the road did not shed its seed; the dogs were sleeping by the wayside; nature was full of sweet pensiveness. Kunda, guessing the road, went with doubtful steps to the front of the Datta house; she had no design in going, except that she might by a happy chance see Nagendra. Her return to his house might come about; let it occur when it would, what harm was there in the meantime in trying to see him secretly? While she remained shut up in Hira's house she ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... 1850 is to be seen in the gloomiest pictures which he ever painted. Their titles and subjects alike recall the more tragic poems of Thomas Hood. But the eclipse was not to last for long, and in 1850 Watts owed his recovery to a happy chance encounter with friends who were to give him a new haven of refuge and gladden his life for thirty ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... for the first time in my boyhood, when I was too young for it to lay any hold on me. When I entered Pembroke College, Oxford, though I loved to think that Johnson had been there before me, yet I cannot call to mind that I ever opened the pages of Boswell. By a happy chance I was turned to the study of the literature of the eighteenth century. Every week we were required by the rules of the College to turn into Latin, or what we called Latin, a passage from The Spectator. Many a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... a lighter note, his voice laughed through the lovely lines; of the ship which was to sail beyond the world; of how each man staked such small wealth as he possessed; "for in those days Marchaunt adventurers shared with their prentices the happy chance of ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... an entrance, and presume it won. Fear is no more, for fierce Mezentius lies, As the first fruits of war, a sacrifice. Turnus shall fall extended on the plain, And, in this omen, is already slain. Prepar'd in arms, pursue your happy chance; That none unwarn'd may plead his ignorance, And I, at Heav'n's appointed hour, may find Your warlike ensigns waving in the wind. Meantime the rites and fun'ral pomps prepare, Due to your dead companions of the war: The last respect the living can bestow, To shield their shadows from contempt ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Don Mario for his part took it to be all Conjuration; he was coming forward to present Hippolito to them, when Aurelian spying his Friend, started from his Knees and ran to embrace him—My dear Hippolito (said he) what happy chance has brought you hither, just at my Necessity? Hippolito pointed to Don Mario and Leonora, and told him upon what terms he came. Don Mario was ready to run mad, hearing him called Hippolito, and went again ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... nerves, could he go?—he pulled up short again, as he had pulled up in sight of Mrs. Lowder's carriage, to ask it. And yet the desire queerly stirred in him not to have wasted his word. He was just then however by a happy chance in the Brompton Road, and he bethought himself with a sudden light that the Oratory was at hand. He had but to turn the other way and he should find himself soon before it. At the door then, in a few minutes, his idea was really—as ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... she had heard from Michael, but there was nothing in that to cause her anxiety. She did not expect to hear from him after his desert journey had begun, except by happy chance. If he passed a desert mail-carrier, he would give him a letter to be posted when he arrived at the ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Sultan, sent riders after us. At the Court of Kaikobad, King of the Carcasenes, I served as a gardener. His daughter, the Princess Adelma, fell in love with me. I had to flee again, and came to Berlas. There I kept my poor parents by carrying burdens, and by begging. Then a happy chance gave me these fine clothes, a horse, and this purse of gold. I set out in quest of adventure. And here ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... he cried, shaking him heartily by the hand; "what happy chance brings you here so early? But first sit down and eat—eat, and talk afterwards. Here, Roger, Harry, bring another platter and napkin, and let us have more broiled trout and a cold capon, a pasty, or whatever ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... drawing closer the friendship of the two men. Burke was promptly brought into Parliament as member for Wendover, and during the single year which Lord Rockingham's Administration lasted its leader had every reason to rejoice at the happy chance which had given to him such a ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in essence, Whistler's lecture was an attack on the academic theory taught in the universities, and defended naturally by a young scholar like Oscar Wilde. Whistler's view that the artist was sporadic, a happy chance, a "sport," in fact, was a new view, and Oscar had not yet reached this level; he reviewed the master in the Pall Mall Gazette, a review remarkable for one of the earliest gleams of that genial humour which later became his most characteristic gift: ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... stranger, who was about leaving, her business having been long finished, "I am wondering how it happened that these names were bestowed just as they are. Can you tell me, Mrs. Gunter? It would seem as if the babies must have shown their dispositions when very young—or was it a happy chance?" ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... bar And grasp the skirts of happy chance, And breast the blows of circumstance, And grapple with his ...
— The Conservation of Races - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 2 • W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
... make any rebate. Till that attack had come, it might have been open to him to be generous;—but not now. And yet when this man spoke of his own loss, and reminded him of his wealth;—when Crinkett threw it in his teeth that by a happy chance he had feathered his nest with the spoils taken from the wretched man himself,—then he wished that it was in his ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... torments. Had not the narrator, who gently boasted a part in these beginnings, been once all but killed by a falling column, which indeed must have crushed him, but that he stretched out a hand in which, by happy chance, he was holding a hammer, and this—for a hammer is cruciform—touching the great pillar, turned its fall in another direction. Where stood the temple of Venus was now a vineyard, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing |
