"Fair chance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed to transact the business of the Society for Anthropological Research, I might perhaps be induced to yield to the temptation you so generously put in my way. But seeing that possibly my principal object is to give my endowments a fair chance away from this whirlpool of confusion, which makes social reform a morbid idee fixe, I cannot persuade myself that it would be ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Kentuckian said, "thar's no whinin' on the mount'ns. I jes' tell yo' that when the time comes for the mount'neers o' Kentucky an' Virginia an' Tennessee an' Carolina to get a fair chance, they'll show yo' as fine a race o' men an' women as the Stars an' Stripes ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... family community was the government engineer in the highway department; and his dismissal in favor of the son of Sarcus the rich was now being pressed, with a fair chance that this one weak thread in the net would soon be strengthened. And yet this powerful league, which monopolized all duties both public and private, sucked the resources of the region, and fastened ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... behind the Maumee. Under these circumstances, Detroit itself was in danger of an interruption of supplies and re-enforcements, amounting possibly to isolation. It was open to the enemy to land in its rear, secure of his own communications by water, and with a fair chance, in case of failure, to retire by the way he came; for retreat could be made safely in very small vessels or boats, so long as ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... announce a victory of spirit over sense, not alone in the case of certain individuals, but also in the case of the whole community with which they are identified. If this book comes to be forgotten as a novel (which is not likely), it will have a fair chance of being remembered, along with 'Levana' and 'Emile,' as a sort of educational classic. 'Paa Gud's Veje,' the last great work of Bjoernson, is also strongly didactic in tone, yet it attains at its highest to a tranquillity ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... the dreaded squadron would be due on the following Saturday evening or early the next morning, which would be the first of May. The self-confidence of Admiral Montojo and his officers was almost sublime. All they asked was a fair chance at the "American pigs." They hoped that nothing would occur to prevent the coming of the fleet, for the Spaniards would never cease to mourn if the golden opportunity were allowed to slip from their grasp. They were ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... about grazing the land, he said, simplified matters a whole lot. It was a cinch you couldn't turn loose and dry-farm that land and have even a fair chance of reaping a harvest. But as grazing land they could hold all the land along One Man Creek—and that was a lot. And the land lying back of that, and higher up toward the foothills, they could take as desert. And he maintained that Andy had been right in his judgment: ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... judge; "we've been pretty lenient with you, Mr. Pitkin. We've overlooked a lot of things that we didn't like—a lot of things. I figured this colt to have a fair chance to win to-day, or be in the money at least. He ran like a cow. How do ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... that he'd pull it off in a big way next time, and that the turn of the wheel against him was only to tame his spirit? Was there ever a gambler or sportsman of my class who didn't talk about the 'law of chances,' on the basis that if red, as it were, came up three times, black stood a fair chance of coming up the fourth time? A silly enough conclusion; for on the law of chances there's no reason why red shouldn't come up three hundred times; and so I found that your run of bad luck may be so long that you cannot have a chance to recover, and are out of it before ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I looked in a moment yesterday) one thousand of the two thousand five hundred clerks are men. If I were a minister wondering nearly every day how to work in for my religion a fair chance at men, I should often look wistfully from over the edge of my pulpit, I imagine, to the head of ——'s department store, sitting at that quiet, calm, empty looking desk of his in his little office at the top of his big building ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... fallen from the sun, to the effect that when it was shattered into fragments a king of alien race should rule over the land. As the stone, however, looked remarkably solid, the native princes seemed to have a fair chance of keeping their own for many a ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... courtship, the selection of the site, the building and occupying of the nest; another couple, already sitting when discovered, I watched through the incubation and nursing of the little ones, and at last assisted in giving them a fair chance for their lives and a start in the world. It may be thought that my assistance was not particularly valuable; the birds shared this opinion; none the less, but for my presence not one of those birdlings would be free and happy to-day, as I hope and believe they are. To the study of these ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... shows him dealing out all the old familiar cards, spies and counter-spies, submarines and petrol bases and secret ink. It must be admitted that the result is unexpectedly archaic. Perhaps also Mr. MASON hardly gives himself a fair chance. The "summons" to his hero (who, being familiar with the Spanish coast, is required when War breaks out to use this knowledge for submarine-thwarting) is too long delayed, and all the non-active service ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... I get back, Matilda'll have ceased from troubling, anyway," said the skipper, "and I have strong hopes that Elizabeth'll take Gibson. I shall stay away long enough to give her a fair chance, anyway." ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... unlikely chance that more than a very small proportion will ever attain maturity. Among the mammals, however, the female may produce but half a dozen or fewer offspring at a time, but she lavishes so much care upon them that they have a very fair chance of all reaching maturity. In man, in so far as he refrains from returning to the beast and is true to the impulse which in him becomes a conscious process of civilization, the same movement is carried forward. ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... you won't play in it any way you figure it. If you don't quit willingly you'll quit the other way. I'm giving you a fair chance, that's all. You've only got to make believe you're sick or play sort of rottenly a couple of times. That will do the trick for you and there ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... stand boldly to the Complection of my own Eye-brow, and prepare me an immense Black Wig of the same sort of Structure with that of my Rival. Now, tho' by this I shall not, perhaps, lessen the number of the Admirers of his Complection, I shall have a fair Chance to divide the Passengers by the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... lines could not be pierced, Verdun might be taken and the moral value of the capture would be enormous in Germany, France, and the neutral world, although the military value would be just nothing. Again, there remained the fair chance that the continued pressure upon France would lead the French to ask the British to attack, and the premature attack would spoil the allied ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... thoroughly. Where the cause of internal catarrh is exhaustion, through overwork or worry, the cause must be removed. Let the sufferer learn trust in a living Heavenly Father, and cast all burdens upon Him, and the physical treatment will have a fair chance to cure. See Breath ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... one asks of life. What should a free state in this modern world guarantee to all its citizens? Not that equality of condition for which many in our days plead, the dead level of insured and effortless comfort, but equality of opportunity, a free and fair chance for every man to be and to do his best. That land is best governed where the door of opportunity stands wide open to the humblest of its citizens, so that ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... as a matter of course," he replied. "When you are continually seeing a man who beats me in everything, and whom you set up above everybody, I can have no fair chance." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... like a baby pig," Mr. Hildreth informed her. "There's one in the last litter that isn't getting a fair chance. He's a runt and crowded out. If you want to take him and bring him up on a bottle, you can have him for ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... his son, and heavier, and knew more about the world, and Pig Head was longer in seeing a fair chance to make a grab at the royal legs. At last, however, the chance came, and Pig Head grabbed. The Chieftain naturally lost his balance, and before he knew what had happened he was ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher; but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... fair chance," Brimstead went on. "Two cellars have been dug over there in the pasture. One is for the Town Hall and the other for the University which the Methodists are going to build. A railroad has been surveyed and ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... countenance as in that of my honest friend, which was, indeed, particularly adapted by nature for such impressions. When we were left by ourselves, I communicated to him my disaster, and endeavoured to console him with the same arguments he had formerly used to me, withal representing the fair chance I had of being relieved in a short time by Mr. Bowling. But his grief was unutterable: he seemed to give attention without listening, and wrung his hands in silence; so that I was in a fair way of being infected by his behaviour, when Jackson returned, and, perceiving the deference I paid to Strap, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Lincoln made a poor plea for his client, and overlooked in his argument before the jury two most important considerations. Lincoln was restless, and greatly disturbed. He seemed to think that the lawyer's client had been badly used, and that his attorney had not given him a fair chance, or guarded his rights. When Lincoln arose, therefore, he began by saying that the opposing counsel had overlooked the most important point. He then stated his opponent's position far more strongly than his lawyer had, and made the best possible statement for his opponent, to the astonishment ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... occupations, figures that are available warrant the inference that the Negro is slowly but surely overcoming the handicaps of inefficiency and race prejudice, and is widening the scope of employment year by year. What the individual asks and should have from the white community is a fair chance to work, and wages based upon his efficiency and not upon the social whims and prejudices of fellow-workmen, of employers, or of ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... There was a fair chance at the time of the utterance of the Mid-Lothian speeches that the agitation would, by degrees, die away; Sir G. Wolseley had succeeded in winning over Pretorius, and the Boers in general were sick of mass meetings. Indeed, ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... you with what you bring:' I say, 'I take you with what you bring.' To the necessary deceits and hypocrisies of our life, why add any that are useless and unnecessary? If I offer myself to you because I think we have a fair chance of being happy together, and because by your help I may get for both of us a good place and a not undistinguished name, why ask me to feign raptures and counterfeit romance, in which neither of us believe? Do you want me to come ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... esteemed and in demand everywhere. Now you must own, Theo, that I have given you a pretty complete outline of the pottery and porcelain-making of the European countries. Holland and Belgium, as I have told you, lack both clay and fuel and therefore had not a fair chance to compete with the other nations; but they did make some little porcelain. Sweden also turned out a little. Denmark gave a real contribution to the world in its Copenhagen ware, a type of white porcelain decorated beneath the glaze in cobalt. The fabrique for making this china was opened ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... polite. From Evelyn's revelation it appears that the family of the pretended Cigala were at one time well-to-do, and ranked high in the esteem of Prince Mathias of Moldavia, but that this youth was a black sheep in the flock from the very beginning. After the death of his father he had a fair chance of distinguishing himself, for the Moldavian prince took him into his service, and sent him to join his minister at Constantinople. Here he might have risen to some eminence; but he was too closely watched to render his ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... of the most dismal city in the world, the city which has been suffered to exist without recreation, it has been chosen as the fitting site of the Palace. As regards simple absence of joy, Hoxton, Haggerston, Pentonville, Clerkenwell, or Kentish Town, might contend, and have a fair chance of success, with any portion whatever of the East-end proper. But, then, around Mile End lie Stepney, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, the Cambridge Road, the Commercial Road, Bow, Stratford, Shadwell, Limehouse, Wapping, and ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... killin' ye I wants,—don't care a copper about that (there an't no music in that), but must make it bring the finances out a' yer master's pocket. That's the place where he keeps all his morals. Now, run twenty paces and I'll gin ye a fair chance! The nigger understands me, ye see, and moves off, as if he expected a thunderbolt at his heel, lookin' back and whining like a puppy what's lost his mother. Just when he gets to an honourable distance,—say ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... on me, if you must arrest somebody. I'm older and it doesn't so much matter; but it's terrible to start a child of his age in as a criminal. The name will follow him through life. He'll never get rid of it and have a fair chance. Punish me but let the little chap go, I beg of you," pleaded the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," began Doc, a gleam appearing in his eye. "But they don't want to upset the status quo—that's why I haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! I'd be generous with 'em—give 'em easy ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... be one of the six, and declared all the fellows thought he would be, except Andersen's party. Mr. Wilmot, in a call on Ethel and Flora, told them that he thought their brother had a fair chance, but he feared he was over-working himself, and should tell the doctor so, whenever he could catch him; but this was difficult, as there was a great deal of illness just then, and he was ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... aunt has grown so dependent on me, that this new lady will not have a fair chance if I am at home; and if I don't break the habit, I shall never call ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... replied Mr. Mannering, with much emotion, "for the acknowledgment of your error is half-way to repentance and atonement. And this is a day of triple happiness, for I have just heard that, now my sight is restored, I have a fair chance of again entering into mercantile pursuits, and arriving at independence. But oh! my children, neither in prosperity nor adversity let us forget to pray for true humility ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... Mary," was therefore his answer. "It would not be a great match for Henrietta, but Charles has a very fair chance, through the Spicers, of getting something from the Bishop in the course of a year or two; and you will please to remember, that he is the eldest son; whenever my uncle dies, he steps into very ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... several things," said Percy, "that are much to the credit of the negro who has had a fair chance to be trained along right lines; and I think the modficaton of our language which his presence has brought about in the South is not without some credit. It is generally agreed that the most pleasing English we hear is that of ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... the crystal that morning, and his agitation became painful. But he stuck to his point with extraordinary persistence. It was the young Oriental who ended this curious controversy. He proposed that they should call again in the course of two days—so as to give the alleged inquirer a fair chance. "And then we must insist," said the clergyman. "Five pounds." Mrs. Cave took it on herself to apologise for her husband, explaining that he was sometimes "a little odd," and as the two customers ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... with some disfavour. "Art," says Hamerton, "with a great social or political purpose, is seldom pure fine art; artistic aims are usually lost sight of in the anxiety to hit the social or political mark, and though the caricaturist may have great natural facility for art, it has not a fair chance of cultivation." Writing of Cruikshank's "etchings" (and I presume he refers to those which are marked with comic or satirical characteristics), he says: "They are full of keen satire and happy invention, and their moral purpose is always good; but all these qualities are compatible with a carelessness ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... were on the left bank. Whatever course we then took, whether to strike at Richmond and the portion of the enemy on the right bank, or move at once for the James, we would have had a concentrated army, and a fair chance of a brilliant result, in the first place; and in the second, if we accomplished nothing, we would have been in the same case on the morning of the twenty-seventh as we were on that of the twenty-eighth,—minus a lost battle and a compulsory retreat; or, had the fortified ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... of the cliff; and what with the brightness and joyfulness of the morning, we certainly were in much higher spirits than was at all reasonable in the case of men who had had such close companionship with Death so short a time before, and who still stood a very fair chance of dying dismally of starvation. The knowledge that, by the falling of the chain, our retreat had been again cut off did not at all trouble us. Even could we have crossed the canon, and so have retraced our steps, we could have gone no farther than the valley of the lake; and we could as well ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... not, he was happy—and the one thing wanting was the presence of Lucille at the fight. How he would have loved to show her that he was not really a coward—given a fair chance and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... gentleman tapped at his wife's boudoir, and receiving permission to enter, he said: "Pauline, I have been thinking about our children. I overheard the governess say to-day that they are really bright and interesting, and as yet unspoiled. Perhaps if they had a fair chance they might amount ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... however, under the inspiration of leaders[8] like Bishop H.M. Turner, did not feel that the race had a fair chance in the United States. A few of them emigrated to Wapimo, Mexico; but, becoming dissatisfied with the situation there, they returned to their homes in Georgia and Alabama in 1895. The coming of the Negroes into Mexico caused ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... policy of the statesman, we hang with bated breath on the eloquence of the sentiment moulder, we probe with tremulous care the feelings of the community to find out if we have been pushed to the rear or given a fair chance in the race to a higher life—our final place in ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... to worry and stew just because you do not happen to like me and keep picking on me, Mr. Skinner? Why don't you be a sport and give me a fair chance, sir? You have all the best of it ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... years they used to discuss this problem, and they could never be sure what would have happened in their lives—what would have been the reaction of their different temperaments—if they had been given any fair chance to live and grow as they wanted to. But here they were, mashed together in this stew-pot of domesticity, with all the most unlovely aspects of things forced continually upon their attention. Each was in some way a handicap and a torment to the other—a means which fate used to ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the negro is given better educational opportunities than in the black counties. I have in mind one Black Belt county where the white child is given $15 per year for his education and the negro child only 30 cents a year. See the late Booker T. Washington's article, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" Now these facts are generally known throughout this State by both white and black. And we all know that it is unjust. ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... that my people should have reason to think so meanly of our own skill. The ship has not yet had a fair chance. Give her an open sea, and a cap-full of wind, and she'll defy all the black women that the brigantine can stow. As to your 'Skimmer of the Seas,' man or devil, he ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... realized that her loss of control was becoming serious, that she was really a sufferer; but her antagonism to physicians was deep-set, so the osteopath was called. Had he been given a fair chance, he might have helped, but her obsessions were such that she resented the touch of his manipulations, fearing that some unknown infection might exude from his palms to her undoing. Reason finally became helpless in the grip of her phobias. Her stomach lining was "destroyed," ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... out as a member of council to Bengal, you see clearly that we could not possibly hang him before we had fulfilled our bargain. Then it is true we might hang him after he comes back. But, since the man (being a clever man) has a fair chance in the interim of rising to be Governor-General, we put it to your candor, Lord Barrington, whether it would be for the public service to hang his excellency?' In fact, he might probably have been Governor-General, had his bad temper not overmastered ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Elsewhere, we decimate, or even centesimate: here, we are all children of Rhadamanthus. Usury, on the other hand, beginning in utter infamy, has travelled upwards into considerable esteem; and Mr. '10 per shent' stands a very fair chance of being pricked for sheriff next year; and, in one generation more, of passing for a great patriot. Charles Lamb complained that, by gradual changes, not on his part, but in the spirit of refinement, he found himself growing insensibly into 'an indecent character.' ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... to possess it (and I think I shall), Wheal Danes shall be yours, without the payment of a shilling. Even now, I do not offer myself empty-handed. This is the sum that you yourself agreed I should show myself possessed of; but there is more where this comes from. I ask again, then, give me my fair chance with Harry: let her choose between me and this ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... were generally to be found together; being twins, they had commenced life together, and had thus far gone side by side. It was a quiet October Sabbath afternoon. The twins had a great deal of business on hand during the week, and the Sabbath-school lesson used to stand a fair chance of being forgotten; so Mrs. Ried had made a law that half an hour of every Sabbath afternoon should be spent in studying the lesson for the coming Sabbath. Ester sat in the same room, by the window; she ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Grant. He was carried to Jedburgh jail, and indicted to stand his trial before the Lord Justice-General at the next circuit. There was a determination, on the part of the crown authorities, to make an example of the most inveterate riever of the time, and Will stood a very fair chance of being hanged. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... toil, anxiety, and even sorrow. We fished in the Ettrick and the lesser streams. These last suited our way of it best, since we generally fished with staves and plough-spades—thus far, at least, honourably giving the objects of our pursuit a fair chance of escape. When the hay had been won, we went to Ettrick school, at which we continued throughout the winter, travelling to and from it daily, though it lay at the distance of five miles. This we, in good weather, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... apparently jumbled but really ordered sentence. Abeginner must learn to trust the solvent with which we supply him; and the way to induce him to trust it is to show it to him at work. That is what a Demonstration will do if only the learner will give it a fair chance. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... final spurt, he had now a fair chance to make the road and intercept the bus before it reached the broad, level stretch to the bridge. Should it reach that point his last chance would ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in some ways, enjoyed him in some ways, loved him as a child does if not ill-treated; but she loved her mother with a sort of passionate pity mixed with pride; feeling always nobler power in her than had ever had a fair chance to grow. It seemed to her an interminable dull tragedy; this graceful, eager, black-eyed woman, spending what to the girl was literally a lifetime, in the conscientious performance of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Northern people, as generous as they have been in founding schools for the freedmen, seem to love them best at a distance. The North will educate us, but will not allow us to work. We need education, but we also need opportunity for industrial progress. We want a fair chance in the race of life. How can we ever make any headway if we are all shut up to one or two lines of service? A citizen of the town some time ago said to me that years ago the Negro and the Irishman came to Princeton with nothing. The Irishman has ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... perceived an Indian peeping through an aperture. In an instant his rifle was levelled and discharged, and the ball struck the savage in the eye. While he was reloading he called to Campbell, and pointed out the hole to him: “Watch that place, and you will soon have a fair chance for a shot.” Scarce had he uttered the words when a ball struck him in the shoulder, and almost wheeled him around. His first thought was to take hold of his arm with his other hand, and move it up and down. He ascertained, to his satisfaction, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... collected—probably only 1,000 or 1,200 all told—and expressing her certainty of the impossibility of rinding mouths enough to consume such a mass of mutton. As a matter of fact, there were, I suppose, four or five large dealers present, any one of whom would have bought every sheep, could he have seen a fair chance of a possible profit of threepence a head; to say nothing of innumerable smaller dealers and retail butchers, good for a score or two apiece. What I may call the parochial horizon is well illustrated, too, by the announcement of a domestic ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... discerning gentleman and to whom in favor of your friendship I have shown all the politeness I could. I hear that Sr James Macdonald has been ill at Parma, but is now recovered and in Rome. Abb Galliani is still at Naples and stands a fair chance of being ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... cried his father vehemently. "I don't believe in the man myself; but he was recommended by the surgeon who has done so much for your poor mother, so what could one do but give him a trial? The lad wasn't having a fair chance at school. This looked like one. But I dislike his going up to town so often, and I dislike the letters the man writes me about him. He'd have me take him away from school altogether, and pack him off to Australia in a sailing ship. But what's to be done with a boy like that when ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... directions, and the irreverent manner in which the nickeled surface of the bicycle seems to glint at it and defy it; on the contrary, I deem it but an act of common discretion to place the machine for a short time where the lightning can have a fair chance at it, without involving a respectful non-combatant in the destruction. In half an hour the whole curious affair is over, and nothing is seen but the wild-looking tail-end of the disturbance climbing over a range of mountains ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... trench was crowded with scrambling, struggling men. With a hoarse yell they flung themselves forward, and the lost trench spouted a whirlwind of fire and lead to meet their rush. But the German defenders had no fair chance of resistance. Their new parapet was not half formed and offered no protection to the stream of bullets that sleeted in on them from rifles and maxims on their flanks. The charging British infantry carried ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... less than inhuman to deny them sympathy. Their freedom had been given them, and it was the plain duty of those in authority to make it secure, and screen them from the bitter political resentment that beset them, and to see that they had a fair chance in the battle of life. Therefore, when outrages and murders grew frequent, and the aid of the military power was an absolute necessity for the protection of life, I employed it unhesitatingly —the guilty parties being brought to trial before military commissions—and for a ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... there's a fair chance of success, but it's useless sacrificing the men against so very superior ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... through the relics of successive invaders. After passing through the characteristic traces of different peoples, he comes upon a Roman pavement, and below this the weapons and ornaments of a tribe of ancient Britons. One cannot strike a spade into the earth, in Great Britain, without a fair chance of some surprise in the form of a Saxon coin, or a Celtic implement, or a Roman fibula. Nobody expects any such pleasing surprise in a New England field. One must be content with an Indian arrowhead or ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the right of every girl to be born into a community where the sanitary conditions are such that she has at least a fair chance to enter upon life without being physically handicapped at the start. But hundreds of girls every year open their baby eyes in dark inner rooms where the dim gas light steals what oxygen there may chance to be in the heavy air, take their first steps in foul alleys, find their first toys in garbage ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... felt that Rumania entered the war in absolute security, but that they always realized the danger of their situation and moved only because their faith in the Allies was such as to lead them to believe that they had at least a fair chance to cooperate with them without the certainty ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... that pretty little girl of yours and Caesar's that died when I was a baby. Supposing she had lived to be a woman, and some one had led her to do just as wrong as poor Sally Little did, wouldn't you have thought it very hard if the whole world had turned against her, and never given her a fair chance again to show that she was sorry and meant to live a ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... hand, Porter himself was not one quietly to submit to superiority without an effort to regain the control which the chances of naval war might yet throw into his hands. He was determined to fight, if any fair chance offered; but to do so it was necessary to put his ship in the highest state of efficiency, which could only be done by leaving the spot where he was known to be, and, throwing the enemy off his scent, repairing to one where the necessary work could be performed in security. Two days ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... never beaten before battle. The Marquis de Montcalm would not stay, unless he had a fair chance of success." ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Europe somewhat the position which we are now coming to occupy with regard to Europe as a whole, has acted on this principle—that so long as the powers of the Continent were fairly equally divided she felt she could with a fair chance of safety face either one or the other. But if one group became so much stronger than the other that it was in danger of dominating the whole Continent, then Britain might find herself faced by an overwhelming power with which she would be unable ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... partner, has given proof of it by having travelled over three hundred miles to fight with a gentleman who had slandered him, or rather had spoken the truth about him! He succeeded, moreover, in killing his man. I tell you, Monsieur, you can gain nothing by quarrelling with such men, except a fair chance of having a bullet through you. I know you are a stranger in our country. Be advised, then, and act as I have said. Leave them to their gains. It is late: Retire to your state-room, and think no more on what ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... is a call to fight—to fight for better conditions, for moral and physical health, for sweeter manners, cleaner laws, for a fair chance for ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... Donovan. "I am afraid, Gladys, the old proverb will have a very fair chance of being fulfilled. That child has come out seeking wool, and as likely as not ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... will not succeed if it be planted in low, wet land; and this is, doubtless, one of the reasons why so few persons succeed in growing it in this country. It ought always to be planted on a warm sloping bank, in order to give it a fair chance of success. If some of the warm spots of this kind in the south of England or Ireland were selected, who knows but that our cottagers might be able to grow their own tea? at all events, they might have the fragrant herb to ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... on the stairs just above poor John's body and considered the matter in detail. At the worst, I stood a fair chance of hanging; at the best, I stood to lose close upon fifty thousand pounds. These ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... come. Yet the message has been heeded. The significant phrase is that we must keep ourselves in food. Ponies are running short; there is only sufficient grain for three weeks' rations; so if there is another month, it will be a fair chance that a great many die for lack of food. Lists are therefore being made of everything eatable there is, and all private supplies are to be commandeered in a few days. People are, of course, making false lists and hiding away a few things. If there is another ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... was her difficulty in attending to what her brother and sister-in-law said to her. Something in the measured tones of the Colonel always made her thoughts wander as from a dull sermon; and this was more unlucky in his case than in his wife's-for Ellen used such reiterations that there was a fair chance of catching her drift the second or third time, if not the first, whereas all he said was well weighed and arranged, and was ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his life-time, because he may be hurt in his worldly interest, or at least hurt in his mind: but the law does not regard that uneasiness which a man feels on having his ancestor calumniated[46]. That is too nice. Let him deny what is said, and let the matter have a fair chance by discussion. But, if a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written; for a great deal is known of men of which proof cannot be brought. A minister may be notoriously known to take bribes, and yet you may not ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... This is a very active game, as it keeps the players leaping back and forth over the fence in an effort to avoid being tagged. A player tagged immediately becomes "It". He cannot tag back the one who tagged him, until after that one has a fair chance to get on the ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... it is evident that there was no public sentiment demanding the passage of the woman suffrage law, and but few advocates of it at that time in the territory; that its adoption, under such circumstances, was not calculated to give it a fair chance to exert a favorable influence in the community, or even maintain itself among the permanent customs and laws of the territory. The prospect was, that it would either remain a dead letter, or be swept away under the ridicule and abuse of the press, and the open attacks ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... "Just one more thing. Be really careful. All I have is a hunch, but that hunch tells me we're up against something dangerous. If Link Harris is dead, as he probably is, there's a fair chance he was murdered." ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... her husband, but he would have been as glad as any one to hear that the convict was once more lodged in his prison. There lurked in his mind, nevertheless, an impression that even a convict should have a fair chance. The idea was not expressed, but existed in him. Everybody, he would have said, ought to have a fair chance, and as the law of nations forbids the use of explosive bullets in warfare, the laws of humanity seemed ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... commuted the death sentences of two negroes. One of these, it is said, had no fair chance of defense, and the other killed the invader of his domestic peace, for which offence the Governor said he would never allow a man to be hanged. It is to Mr. McDaniel's credit that this clemency was exercised in full view of the desperate efforts which have been ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... said Caffyn. 'I rather admire dulness; it's so restful. But as you say, Mabel, I dare say I don't understand him: he really doesn't give a fellow a fair chance. As far as I know him, I do like him uncommonly; but, at the same time, I must confess he has always given me the impression of being, don't you know, just a trifle heavy. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... can't get through with it. I have observed him a good deal for several seasons, and I find that though he is such a fool, the sharpest girls can do nothing with him. When so many are after him I suppose no single one can have a fair chance. Yes, we will invite him, but I hope Eva will not think of falling in love with him unless he should propose. Indeed, I think a modest girl ought never to fall in love. It seems to me indecorous, at least before marriage—after, they can do as they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... faces for all the world like the pirate that was hanged on Monument Hill at Boston. It was pretty near over with him, when Nabb thought of his spurs; so he just curled up both heels, and drove the spurs right into him; he let him have it jist below his crupper. As Bill was naked he had a fair chance, and he ragged him like the leaf of a book cut open with your finger. At last, Bill could stand it no longer; he let go his hold and roared like a bull, and clapping both hands ahind him, he out of the door like a shot. If it hadn't been for them 'ere spurs, I guess Bill ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... after that, and this was another thing that kept him from having a fair chance with the other fellows. His mother wanted him to play with his sisters, and she did not care, or else she did not know, that a girl-boy was about the meanest thing there was, and that if you played with girls you could not ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... could readily have understood that. Stella Kamps was the kind of mother they sing about in the sentimental ballads; mother, pal, and sweetheart. Which was where she had made her big mistake. When one mother tries to be all those things to one son that son has a very fair chance of turning out a mollycoddle. The war was probably all that saved Tyler ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... wonderful breakfast, in which nearly half a pot of marmalade and enough butter for three ordinary people figured, Stafford read the papers attentively, to give his guest a fair chance at the food and to overcome his self-consciousness. He got an occasional glance at the trencherman, however, as he changed the sheets, stepped across the room to get a cigarette, or poked the small fire—for, late September as it was, a sudden cold week of rain had come and gone, leaving ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... than once of calling at his flat, since his determination had been sharpened rather than overcome by the victories of Mrs. Willoughby. He was more than ever convinced that Mallinson ought to have a fair chance with Miss Le Mesurier—an equal chance with Drake. The name of Drake made him pause. Miss Le Mesurier knew everything there was to be known about Mallinson, but there were certain facts in Drake's history of which ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... to—Butler's constructive-aggressive orthodoxy in psychology and religion, one is bound to say with all politeness, first, that it is a case of impar congressus, and secondly, that the adventurous knight does not give himself a fair chance. It will take more than eighty-six not very large pages, and a German word at the top of the alternate ones, to do that! In the opening sketch of Butler himself Mr Arnold could not but be agreeable and ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to warm his canvas with their forms. How many or how few astronomers like Banneker, chieftains like Toussaint, orators like Douglass they may have, it is not worth while to conjecture. It is better to dismiss these fanciful discussions. To vindicate their title to a fair chance in the world as a free people, it is sufficient, and alone sufficient, that it appear to reasonable minds that they are in good and evil very much like the rest of mankind, and that they are endowed in about the same degree with the conservative and progressive elements of character ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... being light, the corvette was making but little way through the water, and had a breeze come off the land, the dhow would have had a fair chance of escaping, had it not been for the boat ready to intercept her. The dhow, under her immense spread of canvas, glided on rapidly; and her Arab captain was probably congratulating himself on the prospect of escaping from his powerful foe, when he caught sight ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... of his guardianship, Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still? Step from the car; Alcmena's son, 'tis said, Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old. Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befall, 'Tis a fair chance to serve within a home Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord, To whom wealth's harvest came beyond his hope, Is as a lion to his slaves, in all Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway. Pass in: thou hearest what our ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... devils might be together. He was bound to the stake with seven moist thongs and an old rusty chain, and faggots of wood and straw were piled round him to the chin. For the last time the Marshal approached to give him a fair chance ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... smooth untroubled forehead, and bright cheerful eyes, is the very portrait of a sanguine man. Nothing that the managers might say could persuade him that the merits of his plays would not be recognised at last if they were only given a fair chance. The old soldier of the Spanish Salamis was bent on being the Aeschylus of Spain. He was to found a great national drama, based on the true principles of art, that was to be the envy of all nations; he was to drive from the stage the silly, childish plays, the "mirrors of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the girl's position; and being a rebel and an anarchist at heart, he readily condoned the faults which she confided to him frankly. Gradually Pity, most dangerous of all counsellors, revealed her to him as a girl romantically unfortunate, who never had a fair chance in life, who had been the sport of bad men and fools, who needed only a measure of true friendship and affection for the natural sunshine of her disposition to scatter the rank vapours of her soul's night. What Reggie grasped only in that one enlightened moment when he had christened ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... crouched away from him like children before a hasty father. With each of them, as he entered, he ceremoniously shook hands, both parties touching their bonnets at the same time in a military manner. Altogether, I had a fair chance to see some of the inner workings of a Highland clan; and this with a proscribed, fugitive chief; his country conquered; the troops riding upon all sides in quest of him, sometimes within a mile of where he lay; and when the least of the ragged ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... CHAIRMAN, AND MR. DELEGATES:—We're goin' to quit you. We're goin' to walk, to sherry, to bolt. We didn't have no fair chance to vote our men yesterday. We carried our wards just as you carried your'n. We've just as good a right to the candidate as you have. We therefore with-with-with-go out—and you can bet your sweet life we stay ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... influential men at Court, as much as they think he can be made to pay, in bribes, and some half of that sum into the Treasury, and have all the rest struck out of the accounts as irrecoverable—perhaps two lacs in bribes, and one to the Treasury may secure him an acquittance, and a fair chance of employment hereafter. His real name is Wajid Allee; but as that is the name of the King, he is commonly called Ahmud Allee, that the royal ears may ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... up with it at all; to my Wife and me, and to sundry other parties far and near that have interest in it, there is no satisfaction in this. So there will be nothing for you but compliance, by the first fair chance you have: furthermore, I bargain that the Lady Emerson have, within reasonable limits, a royal veto in the business (not absolute, if that threaten extinction to the enterprise, but absolute within the limits ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... some forlorn pair of lips might be left out, and never know the triumph of a salute, after throwing aside so many delicate reserves for the sake of winning it. If the young men had any chivalry, there was a fair chance to display it by kissing the homeliest ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the distance between them lengthened. The Bretons were half-way to the wood, and still Old Wat was silent. It may have been mercy or it may have been mischief, but at least the chase should have a fair chance of life. At six score paces he turned his grizzled ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... what with the man at the wheel, and what with the crew, a ship has no fair chance of showing a ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... of Mansurpet perceived what was going on, and signalled the news to Clive, who at once set out with his whole force; and, before Law was prepared to issue out from Paichandah, Clive was within a mile of that place. Law might still have fought with a fair chance of success, as he was far stronger than his enemy, but he was again the victim of indecision and want of energy, and, covered by Paichandah, he fell back ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... "that that is hardly likely to occur. The fact of my being a townsman instead of a drunken boatman doesn't give your legend a fair chance!" ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... about the town as errand-boys or the like, and with prudence there was no necessity for such degradation. An uncommon lad like Godwin (she imagined him named after the historic earl) must not be robbed of his fair chance in life; she would gladly spare a little money for his benefit; he was a boy to ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... found myself wanting more than I had ever wanted anything in my life—to make good! I took my own way. Some day you will all understand. That little girl is going to have her choice by and by—I only wanted my fair chance to win out. When she makes her choice her soul will be hers—I promised Sandy ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... his hand playing with the hilt of his midshipman's dirk, which he had managed to retain all through his various struggles, from the habit of thrusting it into its sheath the moment opportunity served; and as he sat he glared up at the skylight feeling as if he would give anything to have a fair chance on deck, his men against the American skipper's, and the victory to the bravest and most strong. He was ready, boy as he was, to lead them on, being wound up to ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... most determined aspirant for fame was none other than Mignon La Salle. With her usual slyness, she kept her own counsel. Nevertheless, she believed she stood a fair chance of winning the prize of which she dreamed. For Mignon could sing. From childhood her father had spared no expense in the matter of her musical education. An ardent lover of music he had decreed that Mignon should be initiated into the mysteries of the piano when a tiny ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... with usury and the problem of poverty is solved. If we credit vital energy with the increase of wealth and give the laborer all he earns, he has a fair and equal chance, and equity requires no more. It is justice and opportunity, a fair chance, that the poor need, not ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... her head toward the speaker and now for the first time had a fair chance to look into the face of the voice's owner. She looked and saw the oval of a most comely face, white and drawn as though by exhaustion or by deep sorrow, or perhaps by both. For all their pallor the cheeks were full and smooth; the brow was broad and low; ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... diminishes. Criminals are, in general, just such men and women as we; in like situations we too should be tempted to crime. We might all repeat with Bunyan: "There, but for the grace of God, go I!" Give every man and woman a fair chance for happiness in normal ways, and the lure of crime will largely vanish.[Footnote: Cf. An Open Letter to Society from Convict 1776 (F. H. Revell Co.).] Yet human nature in its most favorable circumstances and in its most favored individuals has its twists ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... that you are going to forgive your brother," Mary insisted. "He really means well. I think he's what he is because he has never had a fair chance." And then more boldly: "I think the fault is largely yours and Matilda's. Matilda says your parents died when you were all young; and he admitted that he does not even remember them. And he also admitted, when ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... afternoon was passing, and she was curious to see what would succeed to this young wood; though it is hardly right to call it a wood; the trees were not close to each other, but stood apart to give every one a fair chance for developing its own peculiar manner of growth. Some had reached a height and breadth of beauty already; some could be only beautiful at every stage of growth; very many of them were quite strange to Dolly; they were foreign trees, gathered from many quarters. She went on, until she began to ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... to the sea and stood a fair chance of being swamped. The Miami, however, going ahead at full speed, just managed to bring the strain on the tow-line in time to swing the steamer clear into the crest of a huge comber which struck her bow harmlessly instead ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... who have the "cure of souls," Learn hence that justice wins far more than doles. Blankets and soup Dames Bountiful may give, But what HODGE craves is a fair chance to live On labour fairly paid, not casual boons. SALISBURY's "Circuses," and smart buffoons, Won't move him, by "amusement," from that wish. Parties may mutually denounce or "dish;" But what will win the Labourer for a friend ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... to the outlying towns at rare intervals to exchange their venison and skins for ammunition and cloth, and it's wonderful how quickly they pick up the language. But I am rambling. The question before us is, shall we abandon all our things and run away with a fair chance of escaping with whole skins, or stay and fight it out with the certainty of being ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... once popular enough. But there is a fashion in novels, as there is in colours and petticoats; and now I fear they are drugs in the market. It is hard to say why a good story should not have a fair chance of success whatever may be its bent; why it should not be reckoned to be good by its own intrinsic merits alone; but such is by no means the case. I was waiting once, when I was young at the work, in the back parlour ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... he pronounced an opinion. The midshipmen helped him up to each of them in succession. He considered that in so bright a light they were nearly certain to be seen; but as the moon rose later every day they would have a fair chance of making good their escape. That they could not go at once was very evident, so they dusted a corner, and coiled themselves up to sleep. Daylight revealed the dirty condition of the room, and also ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Slavery. What can we say to you, but "watch and pray," "hope and wait," and surely, in His own good time, the Most High will make you a pathway out of trouble. We are delighted to hear of the good behaviour of your people, wherever they have a fair chance of acting (on the borders), ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still |
