"Unlucky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... personal appearance, in which beauties and defects are fantastically mingled in the most attractive manner. He watches the Countess's game, and places his money where he sees her deposit her own little stake. She looks round at him, and says, "Don't trust to my colour; I have been unlucky the whole evening. Place your stake on the other colour, and you may have a chance of winning." My Lord (a true Englishman) blushes, bows, and obeys. The Countess proves to be a prophet. She loses again. My Lord wins twice the sum that he ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... strange to say, the worker who had tried to escape proved to be the unlucky one who was doomed to go to the clover field with Freddie Firefly and gather clover nectar ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... forfeit his contract. The rebel then returns with his followers, repairs all the mischief done to his fort, improves its defences, and stipulates for a remission of his revenue for a year or more, on account of the injury sustained by his crops or granaries. The unlucky Amil, whose zeal and energy have caused the necessity for this reduction, is probably thrown into gaol till "he pays the uttermost farthing," or bribes influential persons at Court to get him released on ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... told me." ... It was cruel for me—cruel for many reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky as to be called Trifon. Yes, indeed; Trifon Ivanitch. Every one in the house called me doctor. However, there's no help for it. I say, "Trifon, madam." She frowned, shook her head, and muttered something in ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... of those unlucky and rare people to whom everything has lost poignancy when it is occurring not for the first time. He knew how far dearer to him was Georgie than Blanche had ever been—how far more lovable she was. But his love had ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... supposition, have no more to do with this case than with the plague which destroyed the people after David had numbered them? Above all, what becomes of the theological aspect of the question, when he asserts that a practitioner was "only unlucky in meeting with the epidemic cases?" (Op. cit. p. 633.) We do not deny that the God of battles decides the fate of nations; but we like to have the biggest squadrons on our side, and we are particular that our soldiers should not only say their prayers, but also ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... in Peru. They cabled to me to come home when he was taken ill, but I was up country and missed it. The first news I had was a second cable announcing his death. It was unlucky." ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... are much given to soothsaying, and have lucky and unlucky days. They worship the sun moon and stars, the fire, cows, and the first thing they meet on going out of a morning, believing every manner of vanity. The devil is often in them, but they say it is one of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... him a small favor: the wood bin near the kitchen door was empty—almost. Another time that would have brought a storm down on the head of the unlucky stable hand whose duty it was to keep the bin filled. But now Seth rejoiced at having to go to the wood yard, and found ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... left word that he was to be aroused at any hour on your coming. I am not allowed within doors in my stable dress," he added, "but you will have no trouble in finding the rooms. It is that one where the candle burns, one floor above, numbers 11, 12 and 13—the number is unlucky for a Christian, but that does not matter for the likes of them!—and a lamp burns at the turn of the stairs. The back door is ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... John the Great and his unfortunate successor (1433-8), unlucky as most literary princes, but deserving whatever courage and honesty and the best gifts can deserve, was a good ruler, a good son, a good brother, a good lawyer, and one of the earliest writers in his own Portuguese. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... considerable amusement in looking over the artists who are usually employed in copying or studying from the celebrated pictures in the different galleries; but I have been taught discretion on such occasions by a ridiculous incident which occurred the other day, as absurdly comic as it was unlucky and vexatious. A friend of mine observing an artist at work in the Pitti palace, whom, by his total silence and inattention to all around, she supposed to be a native Italian who did not understand a word of English, went up to him, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... wish to give unlucky Oleander his coup de grce. Poor devil! I pity him, too. If you intend to make your entree like the ghost of Banquo at the feast, you can't appear, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... editors, and adhere to the old copies, is unable to restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill seconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator at some unlucky ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... In an unlucky hour her father endorsed for a friend, and to save his honor, was compelled to lose his property. It was a blow from which he did not recover, and henceforward much of the support of the family devolved upon the mother, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... windows of the city. How many hours and half hours have I not reckoned as they sounded from the near or distant churches, and cursed their slowness or accused their speed! I knew the tones of every brazen voice in the towers of Paris. There were lucky and unlucky days. Sometimes I went in, without waiting an instant, and only found her husband with her, who spent in lively talk, or friendly conversation, the hours that unbent and prepared him for sleep. At other times I only met one or two friends; they dropped in for a ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... little less unfavourably than usual. Their letters were always read aloud at the lunch table at Wierzchownia, and often, alas! their perusal served to prove anew to Madame Hanska, the mistake she had made in contemplating an alliance with a member of a family so peculiarly unlucky ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... like it. And the man rides a gray horse too. Drat the man, to come with news on a gray horse! It be that unlucky, as no one in their ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... against the King of Prussia; it was commanded by Count Neipperg. The encounter took place at Molwitz, on the banks of the Neiss. For one instant Frederick, carried along by his routed cavalry, thought the battle was lost, and his first step towards glory an unlucky business. The infantry, formed by the aged Prince of Anhalt, and commanded by Marshal Schwerin, late comrade of Charles XII., restored the fortune of battle; the Austrians had retired in disorder. Europe gave the King of Prussia credit ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "There was an unlucky porbeagle Who was picked up at sea by an eagle; On reaching the nest It began to protest On the ground that the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... pretty when she's in a temper—what wonderful eyes she's got! And when she's angry the curls get all round her ears, and it's as much as a man can do not to kiss her on the spot. Of course, I didn't really want her to have opals if she thinks they're unlucky, but she needn't have insisted that I knew about it and bought them on purpose to annoy her. Good God! I wish there were no women in the world sometimes. What a splendid place it would be to live in, and what a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... for us to think of ourselves. So far as I am concerned, well, there is that one censored letter—nothing in itself, yet damning if the code should be discovered. As for you, well, you are safe from anything transpiring in France, and although you seem to have been rather unlucky there, you appear to be safe as regards Norfolk. You must make up your mind now to follow my lead. Take a home command, do the rest of your soldiering quietly, and shout with the others when the day of peace comes. These last few months ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ten dollars he had received in change, not having yet spent any of it, and Reginald Ward gave him back the unlucky bill. Percy thrust it quickly into ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... unable to work and fell into a sort of mental coma. In a letter of November 13 he describes himself as eating Peruvian bark like bread; and six weeks later he was still suffering from the effects of his unlucky midsummer plunge into the miasmatic air of Mannheim. In other ways, too, the new situation proved a disappointment. Social demands involved him in expenditures far in excess of his modest calculations, while the intervals of relief from physical incapacity were filled with ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... after this misadventure of the unlucky historian, a party of twenty-five Americans, under a captain named Daniel Sullivan, [Footnote: Do., Daniel Sullivan to G. R. Clark, June 23, 1786. Small's letter says June 21st.] were attacked while working in their ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... would seize hold upon the inmates of the house, who would refuse to open the door to one who might by this time be herself infected. And when this was the case, the forlorn creature was forced to wander away, and generally tried to find her way out of the city and into the country beyond. Many such unlucky wights, having no passes, were turned back by the guardians of the road; but some succeeded in evading these men, or else in persuading them, and many such unfortunates had found rest and help and shelter ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Ireland, where I had no doubt of being able to get myself ordained as priest; and, in troth, notwithstanding I was a beginner, and without any companion to help me, I did tolerably well, getting my meat and drink, and increasing my small capital, till I came to this unlucky place of Horncastle, where I was utterly ruined by the thaif in the rider's dress. And now, Shorsha, I am after telling you my history; perhaps you will now be telling me something ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake himself again to his warehouse, near the town-dock, in Boston. But as he passed through the Notch of the mountains a war-party of Indians captured our unlucky merchant and carried him to Montreal, there holding him in bondage till by the payment of a heavy ransom he had woefully subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... expectation of falling in with them, and having to take to flight or of undergoing a still worse fate, and of falling into their hands. Many people, in my day especially, had an idea that ships were fated to be lucky or unlucky, either because they were launched on a Friday, or that their keel was laid on a Friday, or that they were cursed when building or when about to sail, or had a Jonas on board, or for some other equally cogent reason. I always found that a bad captain ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly. One of our adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was much admired, thought he had somewhere read the sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search he found that part quoted at length, in one of the British Reviews, from ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... probably have been more complete but for the rain which unfortunately set in soon after we commenced our march, which rendered the fire of many of our muskets useless, and by obscuring the sun, led to several unlucky mistakes. As an instance of this, a body of 50 prisoners who had surrendered, were ordered to the fort in charge of a subaltern and 14 volunteers; the officer mistaking the direction, conducted them towards the British camp in the route by which we had advanced, and they were ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... than she is; but she is only seventeen," interposed Uncle Geoffrey, as he saw that unlucky blush. "She is a good girl, and very industrious, and her mother's right hand," went on the simple man. If I only could have plucked up spirit and contradicted him, but I ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... something to quarrel with? Those beautiful tresses, young lady, you may so liberally tear off, are no way guilty, nor is it the whiteness of those delicate breasts you so unmercifully beat, that with an unlucky bullet has slain your beloved brother: quarrel with something else. Livy, Dec. 3, l. 5., speaking of the Roman army in Spain, says that for the loss of two brothers, who were both great captains, "Flere omnes repente et offensare ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... finished the story of our travels, I have had the honour of speaking long with Prince Nicolas and of seeing him on many occasions; for during our first travels in the land we were always strangely unlucky in this respect. I then learnt how our progress through Montenegro had been watched over, and contingencies provided for, which we had taken as a matter ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... been winding myself up into a hard knot, the last six months, and the more I try to disentangle myself, the worse the thing gets. My allowance is n't half enough; nobody but a miser could live on it. I 've been unlucky, too. I bought a dog, and some one poisoned him before I could sell him; then I lamed a horse from the livery-stable, and had to pay damages; and so it went. The fellows all kept lending me money, rather than let me stay out of the ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... exhausted; and, being carried in his chair to the hospital, he died about midnight. He was a great loss to the French; for, though he had caused the massacre of La Chine, his services of late years had been invaluable. In spite of his unlucky name, he was one of the ablest North American Indians on record, as appears by his remarkable influence over many tribes, and by the respect, not to say admiration, of his ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... unlucky?" I asked with frank incredulity. Mr. Burns turned his eyes away from me. No, the late captain was not an unlucky man. One couldn't say that. But he had not seemed to want to make use ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... to ally themselves with a discredited and defeated politician like Lord North, the results of that alliance were as unsatisfactory to the high contracting parties as the most rigid believer in poetic justice could desire. The Coalition Ministry was unlucky enough in its enterprises to satisfy George himself, who had talked of going back to Hanover rather than accept its services, and had only been dissuaded from self-exile by the sardonic reminder of Lord Thurlow that it might be easier for the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... unlucky accident by writing to Philip. If Miss Jillgall would have allowed it, I should have begun my letter at once. But she had more to say; and she was stronger than I was, and still kept me on ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... done this it expired within a fortnight after the last of Ernest's articles had appeared. It certainly looked very much as if the other editors knew their business in declining to have anything to do with my unlucky godson. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... replied, "it must be very tiresome; for all the historical books which contain no lies are extremely tedious. I write some authentic ones myself; and if you were unlucky enough to carry a copy of any of them from door to door you would run the risk of keeping it all your life in that green baize of yours, without ever finding even a cook foolish enough to buy it ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... longer there; he had taken to his heels. But M. d'Anquetil was still there with Catherine, and he it was who received the burning torch on his forehead, an outrage he could not stand. He drew his sword, and drove it to the hilt in the unlucky knave's stomach, teaching him, at his own expense, how fatal it may be to attack a gentleman. Now M. Coignard had not got twenty yards away from the house when the other lackey, a tall fellow, with the limbs of a daddy-longlegs, ran after him, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... march, there fell out an unlucky accident, which, however, did not prove of the bad consequence it might have done. The master of our camels was an old Mohammedan, who had conceived an opinion that it was an act of merit to do us all the mischief ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... luck, Jack," he answered. "I always was an unlucky dog. Here have I been three years in this abominable country; and I see lads fresh from England jingling the money in their pockets, while I am as poor as when I landed. Ah, Jack, if you want to keep your head above water, old friend, you must ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... such a cause. But far from having exaggerated the results, I am of opinion that I might have gone much farther. There is no doubt that a great many instances have occurred, in which some simple idea like the one I have alluded to, has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit far deeper into the difficulty, than I have here supposed. He gets into a contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... cross-purposes would be likely to take place between such a crew and such a commander. The captain, in his zeal for the health and cleanliness of his ship, would make sweeping visitations to the "lubber nests" of the unlucky "voyageurs" and their companions in misery, ferret them out of their berths, make them air and wash themselves and their accoutrements, and oblige them to stir ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... love!' I exclaimed. 'You mean, Winnie, that expression which my unlucky eyes had lost when we met upon the sands ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... home-made kitchen table, and as they worked she talked of many things which to her mind were essential to preparations for marriage, of the dresses to be made, of the new house, which was Mrs. Farnshaw's pride, and of John Hunter himself. By some unlucky chance Elizabeth mentioned her father's name. Mrs. Farnshaw had been waiting for an opportunity to speak of the misunderstanding between her husband and their daughter. It is the tendency of the weak to waste much time and energy ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... the marriage took place about the middle of October. No doubt, at that time of year they went to Italy,—but of that the present narrator is not able to speak with any certainty. This, however, is certain,—that if they did travel abroad, Mary Marrable travelled in daily fear lest her unlucky fate should bring her face to face with Mr. Gilmore. Wherever they went, their tour, in accordance with a contract made by the baronet, was terminated within two months. For on Christmas Day Mrs. Walter Marrable was to take ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... all that's unlucky can have brought that boy here at this time?" Stephen Ray was ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... some thirty girls and as many men and boys. Everyone was pretty cheerful—it was twenty minutes to eight and most of us were young. Rather too many wanted the same job, but there were no worries to speak of. Others might be unlucky—not we. So our little group talked. Bright girls they were, full of giggles and "gee's." Finally the prettiest and the brightest of the lot peered in through the street doors. "Say, w'at d'ye know? I see a bunch ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... performed, after which they returned with the idol to the house, where they placed it vis-a-vis with the other, just as we see in the lower division of Plates XX-XXIII of the Manuscript Troano. Here they kept constant vigil until the unlucky days (Uayeyab-haab) had expired and the new Kan year appeared; then they took the statue of Bolon-Zacab to the temple and the other idol to the heap of stones at the east side of the village, where ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... queen remaining to tell, so she would maintain Dioneo his privilege, she, after the ladies had laughed at the unlucky Biondello, began blithely to speak thus: "Lovesome ladies, if the ordinance of created things be considered with a whole mind, it will lightly enough be seen that the general multitude of women are by nature, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... some hard thinking," insisted Holmes. "Did you take that handkerchief out again until the unlucky time just after you had turned away from the board ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... till something opposed the current: a small obstacle would then do the business—would raise the stream suddenly to a surprising height, and would produce a tremendous noise. It was my ill fortune one unlucky day to cross Lady Anne Mowbray's humour, and to oppose her opinion. It was about a trifle; but trifles, indeed, made, with her, the sum of human things. She came one morning, as it was her custom, to loiter away her time at my mother's till the proper hour for going ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... refines. He is good metal in the inside, though rough and unscoured without, and therefore hated of the courtier, that is quite contrary. The time has got a vein of making him ridiculous, and men laugh at him by tradition, and no unlucky absurdity but is put upon his profession, and done like a scholar. But his fault is only this, that his mind is [somewhat] too much taken up with his mind, and his thoughts not loaden with any carriage besides. He has not put on the quaint garb of the age, which is now a man's [Imprimis and all ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... she sobbed. "Oh, if I hadn't lost that unlucky belt. To think that I begged to be a chaperon, and then wasn't ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... people who cannot laugh, but these are not necessarily either morose or stupid. They may laugh in their heart, and with their eyes, although by some unlucky fatality, they have not the gift of oral cachinnation. Such persons are to be pitied; for laughter in grown people is a substitute devised by nature for the screams and shouts of boyhood, by which the lungs are strengthened and the health preserved. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... that you say I'll try to do. Hilda, why does loving a person give pain? I have an ache in my heart—a big ache. There now, what a horrid girl I am! I am making your eyes fill with tears. You shan't be unhappy just when you're going to be made into a beautiful white bride. Sutton says it is unlucky for a bride to cry. You shan't cry, Hilda, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... parting from it for a moment. This man's talk was all of well-dressed highwaymen, whose conversation and manners induced the unwary to join company with them. Then in some shady dell whistling up their men, the unlucky traveller found himself despoiled—of his goods certainly, perhaps also of ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Deering, "but by them, for they will at any time unite to fall upon an unlucky Christian if opposed to a Mussulman in a dispute, should the Turk choose to invoke their aid against the unbelievers, as they ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... foolish it would be to go over to that henyard and just trust to luck for a chance to catch one of those biddies. Of course, they might be lucky and get a hen that way, but then again they might be unlucky and get in a ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... Bronte, and Oliver Onions to Compton Mackenzie. Given the mind that in compiling such a list would at once drag in The Odyssey and The Psalms, and run hastily on to Sir Thomas Browne and Charles Lamb, we are instinctively conscious that when it reaches, with its arbitrary divining rod, our own unlucky age, it will skip quite lightly over Thackeray; wave an ambiguous hand in the direction of Meredith, and sit solemnly down to make elaborate mention of all the published works of Walter Pater, Thomas ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... an excellent person, and it has been good for Gaston," said Bettina's friend. "We like her, but she is not—she is not——" She paused there, evidently seeing that the remark was unlucky. Bettina, who was still in short frocks, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... were all broken up. They had been very unlucky racing, and when the servants got the sack Margaret had come up to London. She had been in several situations. Eventually, one of her masters had got her into trouble, his wife had turned her out neck and crop, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... mentioned in this narrative: 'Madam, will you walk?' It came out in some talk they had next morning with some of the local people that that song was regarded with an invincible repugnance; it was not so, they believed, at North Tawton, but here it was reckoned to be unlucky. However, why that view was taken no one had ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... end of 1775, his translation was completed and published at Oxford, with a numerous list of subscribers. Experience had not yet taught him wariness in his approaches to his patron. At the suggestion of his relative, Commodore Johnstone, in an unlucky moment he inscribed his book to the Duke of Buccleugh. This nobleman had declared his acceptance of the dedication in a manner so gracious, that Mickle was once more decoyed with the hope of having found a powerful protector. After an interval of some months, he learnt that his ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... did dreame every night of't, and the Ravens With their unlucky throates never leave croaking Some danger to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... appearance at an unlucky moment both for his father and himself; for the cruel governor of Uri, exasperated at the manly courage of Tell, seized the boy by the arm and sternly demanded if he ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... unlucky? I have tried to give the poor fellow a little consolation by reminding him how fortunate it is he hadn't bought more, and that the loss will be the Van Vrecks' or that of some insurance company, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... in the direction of the engine, shouting as he went: "Depechez! Depechez! Sauvez-vous!" At the same moment a stray artilleryman was seen hastening towards us; but suddenly there came a terrific crash of glass, a shell burst through the roof and exploded, and the unlucky artilleryman fell on the platform, evidently severely wounded. We were already in motion, however, and the line being dear, we got fairly swiftly across the viaduct spanning the Sarthe. This placed us beyond the reach of the enemy, and we then ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... office-holder going out of his seat calls on the President with his successor to transfer the seals and other tokens. The unlucky man enumerated the good qualities of his substitute, and was surprised that Mr. Lincoln should dilate upon his with excessive regrets that he was going to leave the service. This Mr. Addison was indeed a first-class ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... with tears in his eyes, "how unlucky I am to have eaten up the bone my master gave me, otherwise you should have had it and welcome. But I can't give you one of these, because my master has made me promise to watch over them all, and I have given him my paw on it. I am sure a dog of your respectable appearance will say ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "in deferring this project. There is not a moment to be lost. Some chance incident, some early recollection, even a sight of myself—for he saw me once or twice, to his cost—may awaken feelings which, by some unlucky association, might lead to a discovery. Curse on the cowardly scoundrel, Corbet, that did not take my hint, and put him at once and forever out of my path, sight, and hearing. But he had scruples, forsooth; and here now is the serpent unconsciously ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to do with Lester's conversion. The next morning after the occurrence of the wonderful phantom in the clouds, Murray left his home, and soon after enlisted in the army under General Montgomery. He was in the unlucky ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... was about to enter the house, when Jael stopped her, and said, "Oh, miss, you will be going in left foot foremost. Pray don't do that: it is so unlucky." ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... carry on, it created military forces, and these were destined both to save it and to destroy it. Its legislators thought they could restrain their generals by the fear of punishment, but if they sometimes cut off the heads of unlucky soldiers they could not do the same to the fortunate soldiers who obtained over it the advantages of having ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... to be done. A few of them on their return were soundly thrashed, and deserved it; a few were hidden by their mothers for a week, in hay-lofts and hen-roosts, till their father's anger had passed away. But only one turned monk or clerk, and that was Leofric the Unlucky, godson of the great earl, and poet-in-ordinary ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... His "ingenious defense," Made a "powerful appeal" to the jury's "good sense," "The world he must defy Ever to justify Any presumption of 'Malice Prepense;'"— The unlucky lick From the end of his stick He "deplored"—he was "apt to be rather too quick;"— But, really, her prating Was so aggravating: Some trifling correction was just what he meant;—all The rest, he assured them, was ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... his time with great satisfaction, these disputes being much less frequent, as well as shorter than usual; but the devil, or some unlucky accident in which perhaps the devil had no hand, shortly put an end to his happiness. He was now eternally the private referee of every difference; in which, after having perfectly, as he thought, established the doctrine of submission, he never scrupled to assure ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... everywhere. From garret to cellar she knew the dimensions of every cupboard—the capacity of each nook—the measure of the very walls. Woe to the unlucky sleeper! his slumbers from that hour were numbered; she watched him as if he had ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... divinity and worshiped. He read to her her favorite books, and ventured somewhat, out of his exceptional knowledge, to expound them—whereat she looked away and listened with something of the astonishment with which she had received his disquisitions on poetry and art on that first unlucky evening. For the most part, however, he, too, was inclined to silences, in which he looked at Elizabeth in the happiness of a lover's wretchedness. The love she had given to Brassfield seemed to ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... it is said, in very remote ages, divided the year by lunations, as the Mayas, who divided their civil year into eighteen months, of twenty days, that they called U—moon—to which they added five supplementary days, that they considered unlucky. From an epoch so ancient that it is referred to the fabulous time of their history, the Egyptians adopted the solar year, dividing it into twelve months, of thirty days, to which they added, at the end of the last month, called Mesore, five days, ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... ill-starred twins, Elizabeth and Henrietta: Madame Elizabeth, who never lost the love of her old home, and, though married, before entering her teens, to the Infanta of Spain, retired, after a life of disappointment, to her beloved Versailles to die; and the gentle Henrietta who, cherishing an unlucky passion for the young Duc de Chartres, pined quietly away after witnessing her lover wed ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... taking my departure I inadvertently "walked off" with the hat and overcoat of one of your friends whose initials are L. G. T. I am mortified beyond words and shall send the garments to you by the next post with my deepest apologies to the unlucky owner. ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... asperse the deities of any nation. It is unlucky. None the less, your desires outpace your reason. Grant that I had not more than fifty men to defend the garrison, yet Nacumera is impregnable except by starvation. We can sit snug a month. Meanwhile our main force is at Calonak, undoubtedly. ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... chill to Iris's very heart. She retired modestly to a corner of the room and bent her face over her book. Had Lady Dacre recognised her yesterday? Would she say anything about it if she had? Could anything be more unlucky? She sat and trembled as she turned these things over in her mind, and listened anxiously to the conversation, but at present it did not approach any dangerous subject. The ladies were discussing the weather, the want of rain, the new vicar, Lady Dacre's rheumatism, ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... moment one lottery is drawn, the mind of the people is intent on selecting numbers for the next. Nor is this an easy matter,—all sorts of superstitions existing as to figures and numbers. Some are lucky, some unlucky, in themselves,—some lucky only in certain combinations, and some sympathetic with others. The chances, therefore, must be carefully calculated, no number or combination being ever played without profound ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... was Mr. Tolman's reply. "You see several unlucky incidents marred the complete success of the occasion. As the trains trimmed with bunting and flowers started out the scene seemed gay enough. On one car was a band of music; on another the directors of the road; and on still another rode the Duke of Wellington, who at that time was ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... is a thousand pities that you are not among the lords and ladies you are so often talking about. It was an unlucky chance that brought you here, for, poor child, with us you are like a fish ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... not without misgivings that this step was taken: Duchess Eleanora, in particular, expressed dissatisfaction with the match, and feared, perhaps superstitiously, the portent of a second unlucky alliance. Anyhow the preparations for the nuptial day, and the pageants which accompanied it, drew off the thoughts of all from the ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... in the Tour, she failed not to make a conquest on some unguarded heart of the fair sex: not was it long ere she received billets-doux from many of the most accomplished who could speak and write French. This gave them a pleasure in the midst of her unlucky exile, and she failed not to boast her conquests to Octavio, who every day gave all his hours to love, under the disguise of friendship, and every day received new wounds, both from her conversation and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... not having been pronounced, the alarm which is common at the moment of great decisions increased, and the confidence which they had just lost in him, they also lost in themselves. It was then that he nominated seven Lithuanians to the task of composing the new government. This choice was unlucky in some points; it displeased the jealous pride of an aristocracy at all ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... do not mean that these times are gone: they are alive (in a modern fashion) in many places in the world; some of my friends have described them in prose and verse. I only mean to say that I never was there; I was born unlucky. I am willing to do my best, but I live in the commonplace. Once or twice I have rashly tried my hand at dark conspiracies, and women rare and radiant in Italian bowers; but I have a friend who is sure to say, "Try and tell us ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... had given way at last, and taken it on that unlucky day when he was hanging about talking to me as I lay on the grass with my head throbbing, and then walking away toward the tent or to where he could get a good ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... of this unlucky fourteenth century a marked religious revival extended over Europe. Perhaps men's sufferings had caused it. Many sects of reformers appeared, protesting sometimes against the discipline, sometimes the doctrines, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... horror, of fantasy. A collection of weird, terrifying, supernatural tales with grotesque illustrations in funereal black and white. And the very line I had turned to, the line which had probably struck terror to that unlucky devil's soul, explained M. S.'s "decayed human form, standing in the doorway with arms extended and a frightful face of passion!" The description—the same description—lay before me, almost in my friend's words. Little wonder ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... in his college days, Thought e'en a cross a moral scandal, Has left his Puritanic ways, And worships now with bell and candle; And MANN, who mourned the negro's fate, And held the slave as most unlucky, Now holds him, at the market rate, On a plantation ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... yet other Christmas delights besides pantomime, pudding, and pie. One glorious, one delightful, one most unlucky and pleasant day, we drove in a brougham, with a famous horse, which carried us more quickly and briskly than any of your vulgar railways, over Battersea Bridge, on which the horse's hoofs rung ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the martial ardour displayed by the only son left to him, a boy of five. Marthereau shakes his weary head, his fine eyes shining like those of a puzzled and thoughtful hound. He sighs, saying: "Oh, we're none of us so bad, but we're unlucky, poor devils all of us. But we're too ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... Monsieur de Karpathy, the proverb ill applies to you also: you are unlucky at cards, and unlucky in love as well. Poor Abellino! Heaven help you! You owe me a ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... widow can swear to it. I asked if any one had searched for it; and Mordacks said no, it would be hopeless. I told them that if I were only free to show myself and choose my time, I would lay my life upon finding it, if thrown away (as it most likely was) in some part of that unlucky cave. Mordacks caught at this idea, and asked me a number of questions, and took down my answers; for no one else knows the cave as I do. I would run all risks myself, and be there to do it, if time suited. But only certain tides will serve, even with the best of weather; ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... superstitious, as all mountaineers are. She thinks it unlucky to dine thirteen. It certainly has happened twice (whether from chance or not who can tell?) that we have had to mourn the death of an acquaintance who had, a short time before, made the thirteenth at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Egyptians conceived the heavenly bodies as the abiding-place of various of their deities, it does not appear that they practised astrology in the later acceptance of that word. This is the more remarkable since the conception of lucky and unlucky days was carried by the Egyptians to the extremes of absurdity. "One day was lucky or unlucky," says Erman,(3) "according as a good or bad mythological incident took place on that day. For instance, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... experience. Tim thought his big friend knew everything, and in consequence whenever he became puzzled about facts that were being read to him or that he heard he would instantly appeal to Van, whom he was sure could right every sort of dilemma that might arise. But too often the unlucky Van was forced to blush and falter that he would have to look it up; and when he did so he frequently learned something himself. For Tim never forgot. No sooner would Van be inside the gate than the shrill little ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... the unlucky adventure and the sad, weary days that had followed, while the preacher listened spell-bound,—shocked ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... scared Mr. Schwartz overboard. The Ella's been unlucky as to crews. They call her ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "That's lucky and unlucky too, for I'm this minute for Peel with two of the boys to fetch round my Nickey by the night-tide. But youll stay and keep the wife company, and I'll be back first tide in the morning. You'll be obliged to him, won't you, Kate?" he cried, pitching his voice over his shoulder; and then, in a ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... aide-de-camp; "I have only just time to get across that unlucky river, and go I must, there is my mother in France!... What a night! This herd of wretches would rather lie here in the snow, and most of them would sooner be burned alive than get up.... It is four o'clock, Philip! In two hours the Russians will begin to move, and you will see the Beresina ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... large-view camera with ten dozen photographic plates and a corresponding amount of prepared paper. In view of the difficulties of travel, I had decided to develop my plates as I went along and make prints in the field, rather than run the risk of ruining them by some unlucky accident. Perhaps at the very end of the trip a quantity of undeveloped plates might be lost, and such a calamity would mean the failure of the whole journey in one of its most important particulars. Such a disastrous result was foreshadowed ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... to hear that; but why did not you tell me that before? If I had known as much this morning I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... but the slap, coming on him when his nerves were unstrung, startled him. He turned sharply; but the stern and indignant face wreathed into amiable smiles, when he saw that the lively gentleman behind him was only Wesley Tiffles. Everybody liked Wesley Tiffles; even those who bore the burden of his unlucky financial schemes uniting in cheerful testimony to his charming, companionable qualities. His presence was like a ray of sunlight to Marcus Wilkeson's beclouded mind; and when Wesley Tiffles hooked ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... obvious to the unlucky "creature of her own," that the Queen did not easily digest "contempt." Nevertheless these instructions to Heneage were gentle, compared with the fierce billet which she addressed directly to the Earl: It was brief, too, as the posy of a ring; and thus it ran: ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Nothing had been more unlucky to me as the promoter of the Fixed Period than the peculiar healthiness and general sanity of him who was by chance to be our first martyr. It might have been possible to make Jack understand that a rule which had been found to be applicable to the world at large ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... the spirit of the plague that passed, taking with it the breath of the unlucky and the unfit: and in the hut on Lonesome three were dead—a gaunt mountaineer, a gaunt daughter, and a gaunt son. Later, the mother, too, "jes' kind o' got tired," as little Chad said, and soon to her worn hands and feet came the well-earned rest. Nobody was left then but Chad ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Madame de Sabran, who until now was faithful to Richelieu, was touched by the pitiable state in which she saw the prince, and wished to justify the proverb, 'Unlucky at play, lucky at love.' The prince, by a little note, dated half-past seven, from the drawing-room of Madame de Sabran, with whom he supped, announced to Broglie that he should not go to the Luxembourg, and charged him to go in his stead, and make his excuses ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... wealth to our enterprising neighbours. In two years he turned his steps to Quebec, and going home to France was appointed Governor of the territory he had discovered. He was the first Governor of Louisiana, a territory ceded by Napoleon I. to the United States, in 1803. The unlucky Governor was not destined to reach his government. La Salle, in command of four ships, with settlers, sailed from Rochelle, on the 24th of July, 1689. He was ignorant of the exact geographical situation of the mouths of the Mississippi, but passing through ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... (be inactive) 683; let slip through the fingers, lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos [Fr.], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c 24; inexpedient &c 647. unpunctual &c (late) 133; too late for; premature &c (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty-twenty hindsight. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that!" cried the little man, throwing out his hands. "They call me Unlucky Jim, and Unlucky Jim I'll be to the end of the chapter. Why, boss, me and Sammy Walker has sunk every damned cent we've got in that claim, the fruit o' nine years' hard work, and here you comes ridin' up as cool as may be, and tells me that it's all ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... another side, our meeting was unlucky. If you hadn't come in, Innes would have told me more about Evelyn. She must have an address in London, and he ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Davies the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in Russel-street, Covent-garden[1151], told me that Johnson was very much his friend, and came frequently to his house, where he more than once invited me to meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he was prevented from ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the country wanted war; that the President alone had prevented an immediate rupture, but that as the responsible leader of the American people, he would be compelled to bow eventually to public opinion. When Mr. Wilson had to explain away his unlucky speech at Philadelphia, no action was taken from the German side, and no information given him which might lead him to understand that Germany desired to avoid a casus belli at all costs, for fear of giving Mr. Wilson an opportunity ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... returned in fame and in sunshine, admired by all who aspired to be thought tasteful or refined. He felt offended alike with the patrician stateliness of Edinburgh and the plebeian servility of the husbandmen of Ayrshire; and dreading the influence of the unlucky star which had hitherto ruled his lot, he bought a pocket Milton, he said, for the purpose of studying the intrepid independence and daring magnanimity, and noble defiance of hardships, exhibited by Satan! In this mood he reached Edinburgh—only ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... was an ambitious, daring painter, and some of his church standards were for long attributed to Giorgione. The church of San Antonino remains his chief monument; but for all his travels Pellegrino remains provincial in type, is unlucky in his selection, cares little for precision of form, and ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... "That is unlucky. But you may make her understand you by means of French. Take notice, you are to comply with her request in everything—if you want means to do so, ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... Darwin always maintained, but, as he also maintained, it is not absolutely essential to evolution. Romanes argues as if "free intercrossing" meant that none would pair like with like! I hope you will have another slap at him, and withdraw or explain that unlucky "infinity to one," which is ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... which may be added that in the instances which we witnessed there was no real occasion for crying at all. It must therefore be considered in the light of a ceremony of condolence, which it would be either indecorous or unlucky to omit. ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... crowd chasing down a runner. Something in that room could have saved the unlucky man. It could have saved ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... this, and hosts of like cases, the mental tension is not coerced but spontaneous—not disagreeable but agreeable; and the coming impressions to which the attention is directed, promise a gratification that few, if any, desire to escape. Hence, when the unlucky sneeze occurs, it cannot be that the laughter of the audience is due simply to the release from an irksome attitude of mind: some ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... "That's unlucky," he said. "Never mind, Mr.," he said smiling at me, "twenty-two misfortunes, aren't you? Always dropping something," he added quite kindly. "More, perhaps, than the rest of us.... Wash your face in cold water. It's this infernal heat that worries ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... "It will be unlucky for us if these Dhahs happen to discover our whereabouts," said Denviers, "for a shower of arrows shot from their stout bows towards us would make our present position ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... people—must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught them—unconsciously perhaps, but surely—to divide the world into two great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who made speeches and those who must listen, the so-called good and the so-called bad; perhaps—he smiled a little at his own cynicism—those who were caught and those ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... the people all seemed happy: when the ceremony is put off from day to day, it naturally damps their spirits, and produces superstitious presages of an unlucky year: nor is that strange, for the season of storms ought surely to be past in a climate so celebrated for mildness and equanimity. The praises of Italian weather, though wearisomely frequent among us, seem however much confined to this island for aught I see; who am often ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Piedelot's well-known voice. It had a strange sound, however; for it was at the same time—dull and vibrating, stifled and clear, as if he were calling out as loud as he could with a bit of rag stuffed into his mouth. He seemed to be hoarse and gasping, and the unlucky fellow ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Charles's breed, which happened to be with the party, seized the hog by the ear. At the same time a soldier ran up to despatch the animal with a large stick, and not observing the dog in the dusk, he accidentally struck him an unlucky blow on the head, and killed him. Poor Billy's fate was universally regretted in the camp, where he was a general favourite. The hog weighed 80 lbs., had large tusks, and his hide was half-an-inch thick. The meat was hard and tough, but still was acceptable as a change. Some natives ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... the usual No Thoroughfares of speech, and Podsnap and Twemlow say Hear hear! and sometimes, when he can't by any means back himself out of some very unlucky No Thoroughfare, 'He-a-a-r He-a-a-r!' with an air of facetious conviction, as if the ingenuity of the thing gave them a sensation of exquisite pleasure. But Veneering makes two remarkably good points; so ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... on a hand-painted chocolate pot, but my lucky number drew a toy velocipede instead. Still I was lucky to draw anything. Then another time I found a horseshoe in the road. I hung it over the front door and next day it fell down on Pa's head when he was coming into the house. That was a very unlucky day for me." Elfreda giggled reminiscently. "Pa raged like a lion. He declared I did it purposely and pitched the horseshoe into the street. I let it stay there. I wasn't much impressed with its lucky qualities. Just the same it didn't cure me of my ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower |
