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Chance   /tʃæns/   Listen
Chance

adjective
1.
Occurring or appearing or singled out by chance.  Synonym: casual.  "A casual meeting" , "A chance occurrence"



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"Chance" Quotes from Famous Books



... warned the party that they must not tarry round the lunch-table, and before Mr. Simlins had a chance to say anything more he had on his mind, the principal personages of the day were receiving Judge Harrison and his daughter in the other room. Mr. Simlins looked on, somewhat grimly, but with inward delight and exultation deep and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... many that she had married - seeming so wholly of the stuff that makes old maids. But chance cast her in the path of Adam Weir, then the new Lord-Advocate, a recognised, risen man, the conqueror of many obstacles, and thus late in the day beginning to think upon a wife. He was one who looked rather to obedience than beauty, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... see, and it is a phenomenally good one. Moreover, it is latterly spreading with a constantly accelerating swiftness. It has a better chance to grow and prosper and achieve permanency than any other existing "ism"; for it has more to offer than any other. The past teaches us that in order to succeed, a movement like this must not be a mere philosophy, it must be a religion; also, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... enough to take the utmost care I can of your lady; should I accept more money, it could only be for promising, by implication at least, what is beyond my power to perform. Every possible care shall be taken of your lady, and that affords the best chance of her being speedily able to travel. Now, go you to the inn, sir, for I may be instantly wanted, and we have not yet provided either an attendant for the lady, or a nurse for the child; but both ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... anxiety for the "glory of God." The deed of Grace Darling, when she took a boat in the storm to rescue drowning men and women, was not good if it was only compassion that nerved her arm and impelled her to brave death for the chance of saving others; it was only good if she asked herself—Will this redound to the glory of God? The man who endures tortures rather than betray a trust, the man who spends years in toil in order to discharge an obligation from which the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... M. de Dreux d'Aubray: he had the scrupulosity of a legal dignitary. He was scandalised at his daughter's conduct, and feared a stain upon his own fair name: he procured a warrant for the arrest of Sainte-Croix wheresoever the bearer might chance to encounter him. We have seen how it was put in execution when Sainte-Croix was driving in the carriage of the marquise, whom our readers will doubtless have recognised as the woman who concealed herself ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... the Jordan was the beginning. A new friendship coming into a life may color all its future, may change its destiny. We never know what may come of any chance meeting. But the beginning of a friendship with Jesus has infinite possibilities of good. The giving of the new name must have put a new thought of life's meaning into Simon's heart. It must have set a new vision in his soul, and kindled new aspirations ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... no doubt that he would not have been noble enough to do this, had he thought he had himself any chance of being successful; but still there was something chivalrous in his resolve, something magnanimous in his determination to do all he could for the happiness of her he really loved, when everything in his own prospects was gloomy, dark, and desperate. As ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... mother is progressive she believes in the advancement of women; she thinks the men would oppress them if they got a chance." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... asked me to take chances in a raffle for Dave's fiddle. Yes, sir; with her kind words and pleasant smile she had got Dave to consent to raffle off his fiddle, and she was going to sell twenty-four chances at fifty cents a chance, which would bring twelve dollars cash to the squalid home. I had to respect the woman ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... going to say about the blankets and robes?" asked Will, when he got a chance to speak to Allen alone. "Was it that we might need them—in case we didn't get ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope

... freedom. But America is too great for small dreams. There was a hunger in the land for a spiritual revival; if you will, a crusade for renewal. The American people said: Let us look to the future with confidence, both at home and abroad. Let us give freedom a chance. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... hoarsely. "I c'n see you're game. But don't make a fall play. If Mac Strann gets you, he'll California you like a yearling. You won't have no chance. You've done for Jerry, there ain't a doubt of that, but Jerry to Mac is like a tame cat to a mountain-lion. Lad, I c'n see you're a stranger to these parts, but ask me your questions and I'll tell you ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code and the day's work. But now the two things seem irreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the child of genius, and every child ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... he had continued to hope against hope that he might induce that uncle to start him in some other walk of life, where the winning of Elisabeth would enter into the region of practical politics. But now all chance of this was over; Richard Smallwood was beyond the reach of the entreaties and arguments which hitherto he had so firmly resisted. There was nothing left for Christopher to do but to step into his uncle's shoes, and try to make the best of his life ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... doctor, solemnly. "Those red spots on your cheeks, and the pain which you have so often in the breast, announce its approach. I tell you that if you do not take measures to leave the Temple in a week, in three months you will be a dead man, without giving the guillotine a chance at you. Good-by! Consider well what I say, citizen, and then do as ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... out the sources of my thoughts, I find they had their beginning in fragile Chance; were born of little moments that shine for me curiously in the past. Slight the impulse that made me take this turning at the crossroads, trivial and fortuitous the meeting, and light as gossamer the thread that first knit me to my friend. These ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... the coasts had been comparatively easy, and thousands had attempted it. Settlers from France were the first to try their chance inland; they traveled across a huge continent more unknown then to the civilized world than was in our time the Africa of Livingstone and Stanley. They did it in a cheerful, optimistic spirit that nothing daunted but death. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... himself stealing the Egg, when the chance came. He had had a dream about it. He dreamt that the Egg had been hatched and that out of it had come the most toothsome bird that a Fox had ever taken by the neck. He snapped his teeth in his sleep when he dreamt of it. The Fox told his ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... almost at the doors when, once more, the horses came at them with a rush. The boys were in great peril, but Bert saw their chance of safety. ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... observed, further, that the dogma of equality is not satisfied by the usual admission that one is in favor of an equality of rights and opportunities, but is against the sweeping application of the theory made by the socialists and communists. The obvious reply is that equal rights and a fair chance are not possible without equality of condition, and that property and the whole artificial constitution of society necessitate inequality of condition. The damage from the current exaggeration of equality is that the attempt to realize the dogma in fact—and the attempt is everywhere ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... "Pardon me, General, but the enemy would have no difficulty in spotting such a maneuver. What chance would your soldiers have against a shower of jungle seed? You would only be sending them to destruction. No, the only way is for someone familiar with those old underground diggings to enter them, locate the birds and the machines and blow ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg

... idea, perhaps, of getting home once more, and their songs and merry shouts of laughter kept every body in a good humor. I am unable to account for a curious fact, which I may as well mention in this connection. Whenever the authorities of any country through which I chance to travel have occasion to send their troops from one point to another, they invariably send them upon the same boat or in the same railway train upon which I have the fortune to take passage. There must be something military in my appearance, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... but went at once to him. As I had expected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm. I say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness have points of difference. He was moving swiftly back and forth among the debris of his furniture, now and then staving chance fragments of it across the room with his foot; grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth; and halting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on the pile which he had been building ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Lucullus, and prayed him to come with his fleet and help him to take the most detested and the most hostile of kings, in order that Mithridates, the great prize, which had been followed through many contests and labours, might not escape the Romans, now that he had given them a chance of seizing him, and was caught within the nets. He said, if Mithridates was taken, no one would have more of the glory than he who stopped his flight and laid hold of him when he was trying to steal away; that if Mithridates were shut out from the land ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... very little that he found to say, nor did he find her responsive to that little. But he went away with the resolution to see her again. He effected his object by chance, meeting her on the pier with her stepmother, who had the habit of walking there from twelve to one of a forenoon. Soames made this lady's acquaintance with alacrity, nor was it long before he perceived in her the ally he was looking for. His keen scent for the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... from first to last, an unwilling tributary of the Great Empire on the Lower Euphrates, and was perhaps not sorry to see that empire go down before the rising power of Persia. Under the circumstances she would view any chance as likely to advance her interests, and times of disturbance and unsettlement gave her the best chance of obtaining a temporary independence. From B.C. 538 to B.C. 528 or 527 she seems to have enjoyed one of these rare intervals of autonomy. Egypt, content with having ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... remove. Why can't you and Ferguson buy it? The numbers which you have sent me show that you are quite capable of filling the post of editor; and you and Ferguson can do the mechanical part. I think it will be a good chance for you. Write me at once whether there us any likelihood ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... this and that as they made their way on to a glaring below-stairs restaurant, where after-theater folk gathered. The showy company jarred hideously on Fitzgerald, yet gave him a chance to save his face by pretending to watch it. He could tell his aunt who some of the people were, and she would transfer her curiosity ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... an unrivalled experience in the ways of Eastern life and oriental methods, was allowed to drag out eighteen years in the obscurity of a second-rate seaport town, where his unique qualifications were simply thrown away. He had had his chance, and had lost it. He was not a "safe man"; and England, or rather the Government, generally reserves—and wisely—the pick of the places in the public service for "safe men." Officialdom distrusts genius—perhaps ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... which fitted this officer for the heavy work in hand were those which had been developed and tested in India. He was, first of all, a worker of surpassing industry and the closest application. Where others were brilliant, he was thorough. No commander ever left less to chance or to the inspiration of the moment. He prepared for his campaigns by subjecting his troops to the most thorough drill and by providing them properly with all the munitions of war. His troops were shaped by incessant care and pains into a perfect weapon, the use of which ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... having made up his mind that his clerkship in the reservation agency did not offer the chance of advancement to which the son of a Puyallup chief and a graduate of Carlisle was entitled, applied for work to the President of the Elliott Bay National Bank, it was not an act of such presumption as some might suppose. No one, to be sure, when ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... way in which I affect other women and they me. I can only record my conviction that I do affect a large number, whether abnormally or not I don't know, but I attract them and it would be easy for some of them to become very fond of me if I gave them a chance. They are also, I am certain, more shy with me than they ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... later sufficiently deflect the prospector from the vertical to carry us along the arc of a great circle which must eventually return us to the surface. If we succeed in so doing before we reach the higher internal temperature we may even yet survive. There would seem to me to be about one chance in several million that we shall succeed—otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely than as though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of a slow and ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... any reason have not had those years of mental discipline called "a college education," that this does not excuse you from doing great work in the world. Do not whine, and declare that you could have done so much better if you had "only had a chance to go to college." You can be a success if you will, college or no college. At least three of those famous masters of business which Chicago, the commercial capital of the continent, has given to the world, and whose legitimate operations in tangible merchandizing are so vast that ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... thought that it was her lover and said "Come down and let us be off." So Lela came down and they started off together; when day dawned she saw that it was Lela who was with her and she sat down and upbraided him for deceiving her. Lela said that they had met by chance; he had not enticed her away, no harm had been done and she could go home if she liked or come away with him if she liked. The girl considered but she saw that if she went home now she would be disgraced and her family would be outcasted, ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... conceived themselves entitled to recommend various remedies, some of which were of a nature sufficiently singular. But the advice of my grandfather, Dr. Rutherford, that I should be sent to reside in the country, to give the chance of natural exertion, excited by free air and liberty, was first resorted to; and before I have the recollection of the slightest event, I was, agreeably to this friendly counsel, an inmate in the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... in action at Kangata to win 125 casualties. For us they were to nurse and keep until convalescent; for there was no stationary hospital behind us, and forty miles of the worst of bad roads robbed us of the chance of ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... Maintenon; but her haughtiness, her caprices, had already alienated the King. He had not, however, such rivals as mine; it is true, their baseness is my security. I have, in general, little to fear but casual infidelities, and the chance that they may not all be sufficiently transitory for my safety. The King likes variety, but he is also bound by habit; he fears eclats, and detests manoeuvring women. The little Marechale (de Mirepoix) one day said to me, 'It is your staircase that the King loves; he is accustomed to go ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... a chance to hint about it last night when you went outside with Zebedee," whispered his wife, "I spoke about Tunis. She—she says she'll never leave us to marry Tunis or any ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... in with the French frigate Revolutionaire, eight or ten miles to the westward of Ushant, the wind being off the land. The squadron gave chase, and the Commodore took the most weatherly course, observing, that if the French captain were a seaman, the prize would fall to himself, for his only chance of escape was to carry a press of sail to windward. Instead of this, the enemy kept away; and the Artois overtook, and brought her to action. After they had been closely engaged for forty minutes, the Diamond came up; but Sir Sidney Smith, with that chivalrous feeling ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... justification. Now, what can we want more, or have more, than those merits? Faith, then, is everything, and does everything for us. You see, then, how important it is to have a right view about justification by faith only. If we are sound on this capital point, everything else may take its chance; we shall at once see the folly of contending about ceremonies, about forms of Church-government, about, I will even say, sacraments or creeds. External things will, in that case, either be neglected, or ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... current in India (L. von Schroeder, Pythagoras). If there were but one or two of these cases, they might be set aside as accidental coincidences, but such coincidences are too numerous to be the result of chance. Even in details the transmigration theory of Pythagoras harmonizes with that of India. Further (after Schroeder und Garbe) may be mentioned the curious prohibition against eating beans; the Hesiodic-Pythagorean [Greek: pros elion me omichein]; the vow of silence, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... the whole story. Then Ladronius, seeing her so determined, promised to do as she wished, and set his wits to work to invent some means of carrying off the body without being caught by the sentinels. At last he thought of a plan, which seemed to have some chance of success. He hired two donkeys, and having bought some wineskins, which were used in the place of bottles, he filled them with strong wine and placed them ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... resolved to send the American Colonel Laurens, charged to solicit new succours, and above all, a superiority of force in the navy. On their return from this conference, the conspiracy of Arnold was discovered. General Washington would still have found that general in his quarters; if chance, or rather the desire of showing Lafayette the fort of West Point, constructed during his absence, had not induced him to repair thither before proceeding to Robinson's house, in ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... in the town of Arras and county of Artois, arose, through a terrible and melancholy chance, an opinion called, I know not why, the Religion of Vaudoisie. This sect consisted, it is said, of certain persons, both men and women, who, under cloud of night, by the power of the devil, repaired to some solitary ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... cometh a rout of knights that are black and foul and hideous, albeit none knoweth whence they come, and they do battle right sore the one against other, and the stour endureth of a right long while; but one knight that came within yonder by chance, the first night I came hither, in like manner as you have come, made a circle round me with his sword, and I sate within it as soon as I saw them coming, and so had I no dread of them, for I had in remembrance the Saviour ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... the tragedy by cultivating jealousy. I've told you that I am perfectly willing to give up Society and sit like Dora holding your pens—or filling your fountain pen—no, you dictate. What chance has a woman in a business ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... to fire from the enemys side, and a chance shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses. He looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling

... which of the three you will, indulged in by the good people of Manilla. Everywhere along the streets you may meet Spanish boys and half castes, with each his bird tucked under his arm ready for the combat, should the chance passer-by make it worth ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... He is thrifty and sober; he has a treasure, they say, and it lies so near his heart that he tumbles up in his sleep to stand watch over it. What has a harum-scarum dog like me to expect from a man like him? He won't see I'm starving for a chance to mend. "Mend," he'll say; "I'll be shot if you mend at the expense of my daughter"; and the worst of it is, you see, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... off both her shoes, unwound the spiral puttees and gave her bruised little feet a chance ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... a lava-paved lane they reached the bibliographer's residence and paused awhile near its entrance. Mr. Heard tried to picture the scholar's life in this two-roomed cottage; he regretted having had no chance of visiting that amiable person in his own abode. (Mr. Eames was chary of issuing invitations.) A life of monastic severity. There was a small outhouse attached to one side of the wall; it was the kitchen, Denis explained; Eames' only servant being a boy whom he borrowed for an occasional ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... a new girl at the school; she came just at the beginning of term, but I never mentioned her name to you before. She is called Kitty Sharston, and I think she has a very great chance of winning the Scholarship. She is rather an awkward kind of girl, but will be handsome by and by. She is a great friend of Sir John Wallis, the man who is the patron of the school, and who is giving the Scholarship. I mean to have a good try for ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... that they had simply lain dormant in the hills and—a century counting for nothing in the matter of inheritance—that their possibilities were little changed, and that the children of that day would, if given the chance, wipe out the handicap of a century in one generation and take their place abreast with children of the outside world. The Tollivers were of good blood; they had come from Eastern Virginia, and the original Tolliver had been a slave-owner. The very name was, undoubtedly, a corruption ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... first foot, and the work easy. Below this the labor was very severe. We watched the woods all the time, that the Indians might not surprise us. We were out of the range of their rifles, and only by coming into the open space could they fire with any chance of hitting us. We found they were not disposed to waste powder, and we judged that their supplies of ammunition were as low ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic

... he evaded them, 'are visible in the sky on their way to us, but once they touch the earth they disappear and go out like a candle. Unless a chance puddle, or a pair of eyes happens to be about to catch them, you can't tell where they've gone to. They go really into ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... night had returned upon Alec. Would the boat live? Was there more than a chance? And if she went down, was he not damned for ever? He made no ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... 22] But to returne to the historie. King Henrie being thus depriued of issue to succeed him, did not a little lament that infortunate chance: but yet to restore that losse, shortlie after, euen the 10. of Aprill next ensuing, [Sidenote: Eadmerus. Hen. Hunt. The king marieth againe.] he maried his second wife named Adelicia, a ladie of excellent beautie, and noble conditions, daughter to the duke of Louaine, and ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed

... he didn't take quite as many words as we would have liked to hear. If he had talked the whole thing over, we would have gained a chance to ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... every new subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of poetry, and attainable by very few: I only know of Homer eminent for it in the Greek, and Virgil in the Latin. I am sensible it is what may sometimes happen by chance, when a writer is warm, and fully possessed of his image: however, it may reasonably be believed they designed this, in whose verse it so manifestly appears in a superior degree to all others. Few readers have the ear to be judges of it: but those who have, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... that it was high time for him to go, as it was a bad thing for boys to stay too long at home with their mothers; and he said that he himself had been sent to school at six, whereas Dick was already nine. He added that by chance he had heard of a good school while passing through London, and would arrange matters for her if she wished it. It was rather strange, by the way, that Colonel George always happened by chance to know everything that could save Lady Eleanor trouble. So with a sigh ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... you can spare me a few hours of your valuable time. We have had a very painful incident at St. Luke's, and really, but for the happy chance of your being in town, I should have been at ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... have also seen Mrs. Bowles, and you will be pleased to hear that Tom is satisfied with his change of abode: there is no chance of his returning to Graveleigh; and Mrs. Bowles took very kindly to my suggestion that the little property you wish for should be sold to you, and, in that case, she would remove to Luscombe to be ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cannot long hold his enviable post in view of the fact that he cannot possess sufficient influence to control the troops of the whole country. The generals of equal rank and standing will not obey each other, while the soldiers and politicians, seeing a chance in these differences for their advancement, will stir up their feelings and incite one another to fight. They will fight hard among themselves. The rebels, who are now exiles in foreign lands, taking advantage ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... you might oblige me. You don't appear to care for parties, and as you would be a stranger in the room, it is not likely you would have much enjoyment. Of course, if I believed you would prefer the trouble of dressing, and taking your chance among the company, I would not ask ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... small man; young; dressed in a suit of rusty black, with a certain subdued, credulous, incomplete air about him, like a man forced at birth into some iron mould of circumstance, and whose own proper muscles and soul had never had a chance of air to grow. A homely, saddened, uncouthly shaped face,—one that would be sure to go snubbed and unread through the world, to find at last some woman who would know its latent meaning, and worship it with the heat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... the moors. The third day, however, found him wandering away by himself towards the lonely farmhouse. Had he tried to analyse his feelings, he would have told himself that Jean Lindsay was only a chance acquaintance, who was vastly interesting, but nothing more. But he could not altogether drive her picture from his mind; the black, speaking eyes, the strange longings which were revealed in the girl's half-uttered sentences, filled his mind with unaccustomed thoughts. That was why ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... inherited the "deadly Hapsburg tenacity," and from her mother much good sense and capacity for managing affairs, all of which stood her in good stead. She was especially fortunate in three things: that she lived in the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia, for thus she had given to her a chance to know of what stuff she was made; that she did not marry him, as was proposed by the great Eugene; and that she did not live to see the beautiful head of her daughter, Marie Antoinette, fall under the guillotine. Though ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... tearful April wept itself away in the flowery lap of blue-eyed May, and golden June roses died in the fiery embrace of July, but no answer came; no additional information drifted upon the waves of chance, and the slow stream of life at the parsonage once more crept silently ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... natural such a wonderful case of cerebral injury attracted much notice. Not only was the case remarkable in the apparent innocuous loss of cerebral substance, but in the singular chance which exempted the brain from either concussion or compression, and subsequent inflammation. Professor Bigelow examined the patient in January, 1850, and made a most excellent report of the case, and it is due to his efforts that the case attained world-wide ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... Gloucester; where, being reinforced by some Welsh, they threw up intrenchments, and prepared for their defence. The king here surrounded them with the whole force of his dominions [w]; and as he had now a certain prospect of victory, he resolved to trust nothing to chance, but rather to master his enemies by famine than assault. They were reduced to such extremities, that, having eaten their own horses, and having many of them perished with hunger [x], they made a desperate sally upon the English; and though the greater number fell in the action, a considerable ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... intensely on the lookout for the trail of his star, that he has no time to stop and retrace his footprints, which may often seem indistinct to his followers, who find it easier and perhaps safer to keep their eyes on the ground. And there is a chance that this guide could not always retrace his steps if he tried—and why should he!—he is on the road, conscious only that, though his star may not lie within walking distance, he must reach it before his wagon can ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... what time was wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories saying it ought to be preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying it ought to be destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no one saw that it was right because it was stupid, because that chance mob of ordinary men thrown there by accident of blood, were a great democratic protest against the Lower House, against the eternal insolence of the aristocracy of talents. We have established now in England, the thing towards which all systems have dimly groped, the dull popular despotism without ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... farmer can put away fifty pounds a year, after paying his rent and expenses, if he can lay by a clear fifty pounds of profit, he thinks himself a prosperous man. If this farmer, after forty years of saving, should chance to be succeeded by a son as thrifty, when, he too has carried on the same process for another twenty years, then the family may be, for village society, wealthy, with three or even four thousand pounds, besides goods and gear. This is supposing all things ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... recalled by name, but who had not as yet returned. I learned with some satisfaction, that some shew of justice was still necessary. Where the property of the emigrants is unsold, and still in the hands of the nation, the emigrated proprietor is not totally without a chance of restitution. If he can come forwards, and prove, in a court established for the purpose, that he has merely been absent; that his absence was not without sufficient reasons; that he has not taken up arms against France; and finally, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... under one roof. By referring to Fig. 289 it will be seen that above the gallery there is a portico, which we called the "afterthought" because it did not appear upon the original plans. We got the hint, as "Jimmy" called it, when it was noticed that chance had ordained that the two "A" logs should protrude much farther than the others. "Don't saw them off," I exclaimed; "we will have a balcony"; and so the two "A" logs were left, and this gave us room for a balcony over the gallery, back of which ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... which you can obtain from any author who writes musical comedy. Now remove the wishbone carelessly and make a wish. Add twenty-four, multiply by nineteen, and sprinkle with salt. Then rush the turkey over to the gas stove before it has a chance to change its mind. Let it sizzle for four hours and serve hot with jib cocktails and ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh

... glance convinced us that not a minute was to be lost; we did not stop even to try and secure our clothing, but made our way as quickly as possible to a small river about two hundred yards from our shanty, and which we knew was our only chance of preservation. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... possible. [A minute and unsparing analysis of the characters of the two twins is given by their father, most instructive to read, but impossible to publish without the certainty of wounding the feelings of one of the twins, if these pages should chance to fall under his eyes.] They were brought up entirely by hand, that is, on cow's milk, and treated by one nurse in precisely the ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... with a vague fear. She had no reason to suppose her son's alliance with Christie either would or could be renewed, but she was a careful player and would not give a chance away; she found he was gone out unusually early, so she came straight to the only place she dreaded; it was her son's last day in Scotland. She had packed his clothes, and he had inspired her with confidence by arranging pictures, etc., himself; she had no ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... good reason for this, Chester being most favorably situated to afford her young people a chance to enjoy ice sports when the bitter weather came along. Right at her door lay beautiful Lake Constance, several miles across; and the intake at the upper end near the abandoned logging camp was the crooked and picturesque Paradise ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... witnessed with that easy indifference which was part her nature and part her youth. She had been brought up to believe she was a beauty, and she did believe it. Now that she had the chance, she determined to make the most of her triumph. She would show people that she knew how to spend money; embellishment was the aim of her life, and she did show them. Her toilets were the richest; her equipage was the handsomest and best appointed. Her entertainments soon were ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... forces against the enemy. Already had the Roman horse spread terror through the Carthaginian van; the first legion also of the infantry and the right wing were commencing the action, while the troops of the Carthaginians, in disorder, engaged just as chance threw each in the way of horse or foot. The battle became more general by reinforcements, and the number of those who ran out to the combat. Hannibal, amid the terror and confusion, would have drawn ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the King's son made for the land of the Greeks, continuing to enquire concerning the two as he went along, till, as chance would have it, he alighted at a certain Khan and saw a company of merchants sitting at talk. So he sat down near them and heard one say, "O my friends, I lately witnessed a wonder of wonders." They asked, "What was that?" and he answered, "I was visiting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... was the stamp of truth, or simple, honest benevolence, in the countenance of man, it shone in his," said Henry. "Besides, Dunwoodie has powerful friends in the rebel army, and it would be better that I take the chance where I am, than thus to expose you to certain death, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... who had introduced him to the elder of her visitors, had also found in serving these gentlemen with tea, a chance to edge at him with an intensity not to be resisted: "Talk to Mr. Longdon—take him off THERE." She had indicated the sofa at the opposite end of the room and had set him an example by possessing herself, in the place she ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... SUM. Christmas, how chance thou com'st not as the rest, Accompanied with some music or some song? A merry carol would have grac'd thee well: Thy ancestors ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... meet the Mitchells,' said Bruce. 'It's only a chance, of course, that she hasn't met them already here, and I've told Mitchell at the Foreign Office a good deal about her. He's very keen to know her. Very keen indeed,' he ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... opponent round the waist. The one seeks to trip up the other. They clutch at everything: a bush is a point of support; an angle of the wall offers them a rest to the shoulder; for the lack of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its ground; an unevenness in the ground, a chance turn in the landscape, a cross-path encountered at the right moment, a grove, a ravine, can stay the heel of that colossus which is called an army, and prevent its retreat. He who quits the field is beaten; hence the necessity devolving on the responsible leader, of examining ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... before that age is passed, especially in crowded towns; except where the vicinity of the natural contagion renders it necessary, or the convenience of inoculating a whole family at a time; as it then becomes better to venture the less favourable circumstances of the age of the patient, or the chance of the pain from toothing, than to risk the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... sent up their superannuated stagers, and Dr. Chase had something to recommend of a very superior description. The end of it all was, that, declining to purchase any of the animals brought up for inspection, I found there was little chance of being able to get over the 400 miles which lay between St. Cloud and Fort Garry. It was now the 12th of July; I had reached the farthest limit of railroad communication, and before me lay 200 miles of partly settled country lying between the Mississippi and the Red River. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... were known to the First Born I could not have doubted, in view of the attack of the fleet upon us the day before, nor could the stopping of the pumps of Omean at the psychological moment have been due to chance, nor the starting of a chemical combustion within the one corridor through which we were advancing upon the Temple of Issus been due ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... said despondently; "just as I thought yesterday—Mr. Joseph H. Williams, my uncle, owner. Great chance of getting ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... even in a dead dog, Polonius ought to take care to prevent his daughter from walking in the sun, lest she should prove "a breeder of sinners;" for though conception (understanding) in general be a blessing, yet as Ophelia might chance to conceive (to be pregnant), it might be a calamity. Hamlet's abrupt question, "Have you a daughter?" is evidently intended to impress Polonius with the belief of the ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... good behavior and earnest endeavor in prison duties indicate that the prisoner is entitled to another chance in the outside world, he may be paroled, that is to say, he may be released on certain conditions. Generally prisoners are not paroled until some person is found who will guarantee them employment. In many states the work of the parole board ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... if it please thee, gracious sorceress, If zeal for glory chance to move thy heart, Or milk of kindness soften it, Be merciful to us, And with thy magic herbs, Heal up the wound ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... and asked if she might not go and let out the smaller animals,—the sheep and the goats,—so that that would be done. Yes, Kjersti said she might. In a trice, therefore, she had them out, and as usual they scattered in every direction, leaping and capering,—all except Crookhorn, who seized her chance to slink into the cow house through the open door; but Lisbeth was so busy that she did ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud

... made it up. It isn't everyone I do that for," he added. "Why, to some customers I never speak more than a line or two in a whole year. But you girls—well, you're different. I miss seeing the Gem tied at my dock. There isn't a chance that you'll go cruising again; ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... married, just after the Franco-Prussian War, there seemed some chance of the moderate men, on both sides, joining in a common effort against the radical movement, putting themselves at the head of it and in that way directing and controlling—but very soon the different sections in parliament defined ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... at the beginning of the eleventh century there seemed little chance of the accomplishment of these reforms. If the great secular potentates were likely to cling to the practice of investiture in order to keep a hold over a body of landowners which, whatever their other obligations, ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... ate a soft-boiled egg he concentrated on it. He treated it as a great adventure. Which, after all, it is. Few adjuncts of our daily life contain the element of chance that is to be found in a three-minute ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... going ashore quickly determined to make up a party and keep together, because as yet they knew nothing of the country, and there was the chance that it might be inhabited; in which case, if separated, and any savages were in the neighbourhood, the whites might ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... $600,000,000 in money,—$557,000,000 being already appropriated,—or it must issue United-States notes, not redeemable in coin, but fundable in specie-paying bonds at twenty years; such notes either to be made a legal-tender, or to take their chance of circulation by the voluntary act of the people. The sturdy chairman of Ways and Means maintained that "the highest rate at which we could sell our bonds would be seventy-five per cent., payable in currency, itself at a discount, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... voyage; and when I came home after the first voyage I got settled with him, because at that time I was intending to go south. I came over and got my money, but before the end of the week the vessel returned again, going to Davis Straits, and I went up to see if I could get a chance to go in her. When Captain Bruce told me to go and get my things and come with the vessel again, Mr. Leask was wild, and said I should not get ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... my best for you," promised the officer, who was a young man. He had been twice wounded at the front and was only awaiting a chance to go back, he said. "I'll do my best, but it will take a little time. We'll have to send the papers to France and wait for ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... belongings into the boats and send them off; Agnew and I would arm ourselves with a bundle of rifles, and cut it open and have 500 rounds to fight any attempt to board us, and if we slipped this by any chance, he and I would bring her to England together, he on deck and I in the engine-room. He knew all about navigation and I knew all about engines, having been a marine engineer in ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... reckless, Mr Sudberry did not mind this; it was pleasantly cooling. He was cheered, too, at the moment, by the re-appearance of the sun, which shone out as bright as ever, warming his heart, (poor, ignorant man!) and, all unknown to him, damaging his chance of catching any more fish ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... significant they were, these things: his constant uneasiness on seeing himself watched by her; his invitation when he thought she was going to question him; his access of passion when, through heedlessness or forgetfulness, or simply by chance, she asked him a question on certain subjects, and immediately the tenderness that followed, so sudden that they appeared rather planned in view of a determined end than natural ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... loudly protest That their products are good, if they're not quite the best. Mr. Punch with the Brummagem boys will not quarrel, But all guns should be trustworthy, stock, lock and barrel; Be the game one is after an Arab or pheasant, The chance of a barrel that bursts is not pleasant. Good work brings good pay, as it always has done; That (in the old sense) is "as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various

... for all these are the acts of justice of one who has risen sufficiently high to perceive that justice and injustice are not exclusively confined to what lies before him, to the narrow circle of obligations chance may have imposed, but that they stretch far beyond years, beyond neighbouring destinies, beyond what he regards as his duty, beyond what he loves, beyond what he seeks and encounters, beyond what he approves or rejects, beyond his doubts and his fears, beyond the wrong-doing ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... from a tiger, and that is what we expected. We had been misled by our tracker, who had mistaken the pugs of a big leopard for a tiger's,—they were over rocky ground for the most part and he had only the spoor of a chance patch of half-dried mud to go upon. The beast had killed a goat and was beaten out of a thicket near by me in which he had been lying up. The probability had seemed that he would go away along a tempting ravine ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... squalor in its streets, it can neither invent nor accept human beauty in its pictures; and so long as in passion of rivalry, or thirst of gain, it crushes the roots of happiness, and forsakes the ways of peace, the great souls whom it may chance to produce will all pass away from it helpless, in error, in wrath, or in silence. Amiable visionaries may retire into the delight of devotional abstraction, strong men of the world may yet hope to do service by their rebuke ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin

... irritating pittance. They may make cushions or baskets, but their remuneration is uncertain and slender. Those who are lucky get sustenance from relatives in the town, but the majority are half-starving, and are dependent for a full meal on the bounty of chance visitors. We poked a loaf through the bars. It was ravenously snapped at, torn into little bits, and devoured amid the howls of those who were disappointed. Then a loaf was cast over the door. What ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... unlike that of Mas' Aniello would have ensued; but the time was not come: the Indian showed a white feather, was laughed at, flogged, and sent home to his friends, who had intended him for the bar; but foreseeing that he might, in the course of events, chance to cut a figure on the wrong side of it, sent him to sea, where his valour, if he had any, would find ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... what would be the consequence in case the Bulletin should publish the matter against him, and it was published, he very naturally expected that King would be prepared for the encounter. But as he did not wish to take first advantage of him, but to allow him fair chance, he cried out to him to prepare, and then fired. He expected Mr. King to return the fire. He did not know whether the ball had hit King or not, because King's loose talina covered his upper body and prevented him from seeing ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara



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