"Improbable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... G. M. Davis, describes St. Andrew's Bay, Florida, as practicable for exporting and importing purposes. It may be required, if Charleston and Wilmington fall—which is not improbable. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... austerities of his nature the warmth and light of domestic affection? Pity, reverence, gratitude, and womanly tenderness, her fervid imagination and the sympathies of a deeply religious nature, combined to influence her decision. Disparity of age and condition rendered it improbable that Baxter would ever venture to address her in any other capacity than that of a friend and teacher; and it was left to herself to give the first intimation of the possibility of a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was on board a frigate destined for the East India station. Adam went to Mr Shallard with a message from the Miss Pemberton's saying they would be answerable for any sum required to obtain Ben's discharge, but the lawyer feared that so urgent was the need of men for the navy that success was improbable. He did his best, but before any effort could be made to obtain his discharge, the frigate sailed, carrying Ben as one ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Spaniards as the worthy author himself. Del Rio mentions, as a remarkable circumstance, the fact of the Gypsy Count speaking Castilian with as much purity as a native of Toledo, whereas it is by no means improbable that the individual in question was a native of that town; but the truth is, at the time we are speaking of, they were generally believed to be not only foreigners, but by means of sorcery to have acquired ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... seldom felt otherwise than annoyed. Give it up for good! that was the cure for temper, but it had been valuable as something of her own. She would have been thankful could she have hoped to keep regularly to her own rules, but that she knew was utterly improbable—boys, holidays, callers, engagements, Dr. May, would all conspire to turn half her days upside down, and Cocksmoor itself must often depend not only on the weather, but on home doings. Two or three notes she wrote at the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... emperors, interrupted their commerce, and obliged them to disperse along the coast of Abyssinia and eastern Africa. Besides the impossibility, chronologically, for the assigned causes having produced the supposed effect, there is no necessity for having recourse to this improbable hypothesis. From being best acquainted with their Moorish conquerors, the Spaniards and Portuguese have always been accustomed to name all the Arabians Moors, wherever they found them, and even gave at first the name of black Moors to the Negroes, whence our old English ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... It is not improbable that another question of grave importance may arise out of this clause. Is the appropriation conditional and will it fall provided I do not deem it proper that it shall be expended under the superintendence of Captain Meigs? This is a question which shall receive serious consideration, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... feminine belongings. In nothing was this more apparent than in the visiting card which she had prepared for her use. For such an article one would say that she, in her present state, could have but small need, seeing how improbable it was that she should make a morning call; but not such was her own opinion. Her card was surrounded by a deep border of gilding; on this she ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... scale for the slip varies with the design of the screw, and that with a given screw the speed of the wake (which decides the point of no apparent slip) varies with the type of ship and with the position of the screw with respect to the hull. Remembering these disturbances, it is not improbable that it may be possible to account for or explain what at first sight may appear departures from the curve. The diameters of the screws in the table are not compared with the diameters given by the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... is not more astonishing, and it is far less improbable than what I was to see. We were at the end of the village. Colville had drawn our car up in the middle of the street, and I was standing by him, when two Belgian soldiers rushed up to us, pointing up the road, and shouting to Colville to clear out ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... seeketh to make stay of our work," pronounced Percy—a most improbable suggestion, for Satan surely had no cause to interfere with his servants when ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Sirius is surrounded by an enormous atmosphere of hydrogen, and that the intensity of its radiation is greater, surface for surface, than that of the sun. There is historical evidence to support the assertion, improbable in itself, that Sirius, within eighteen hundred years, has changed color ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... opinion of a God, who, master of his grace, grants it to none but his favourites, and permits all others to become worthy of eternal torment. Nothing but enthusiasm or folly can induce a man to prefer improbable conjectures, attended ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... maintained the historical character of the annals of Sargon of Accad, long before recent discoveries led Professor Hilprecht and others to adopt the same view, it is as well to state why I consider them worthy of credit. In themselves the annals contain nothing improbable; indeed, what might seem the most unlikely portion of them—that which describes the extension of Sargon's empire to the shores of the Mediterranean—has been confirmed by the progress of research. Ammi-satana, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the very slaves of circumstances," said Marchdale, "and we never know what we may do, or what we may not. What appears to us so improbable as to border even upon the impossible at one time, is at another the only course of action which appears feasibly open to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... pardon, adjutant," said he, with a preoccupied look, "but in your report I observe that your regiment contains forty-three enlisted men, and nine hundred and twenty-six company cooks. This seems to me improbable, and the general cannot seem to ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... life. But few, though not living in crowded towns, have not, at some period of their life, come in contact with smoke, and been obliged to breathe it, minutely combined with the air. It is not, therefore, to be supposed improbable, that a portion of the infinitely small particles, thus suspended in the atmosphere, should effect a settlement in the more minute air-cells, and in course of time, be conveyed to the interlobular cellular tissue by the process of absorption, and thence to ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... was reported to the Indians they laughed aloud and dispersed. It was not at all improbable that there might be an alarm before morning. The horses were therefore, after being well fed, tied up with their saddles upon them, that they might be instantly mounted in case of emergence. They all slept, also, with their ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... shattered at the shoulder, a bullet had pierced its lungs. Yet, with two fatal wounds and a useless leg, the plucky creature had scaled the face of a cliff which one would think a squirrel would find impossible to traverse and made leaps which might well be considered improbable for a perfectly sound animal. The ram was dead and food for the ravens, and a reaction had taken place in my mind; I felt like a bloody murderer, and hung my head ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... to be treated with no confidence, and this made him the more free to act. There were many recusant gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Chartley, and an assault and fight there were not improbable, if, as Cavendish hinted, there was a purpose of letting the traitors implicate themselves in the largest numbers and as fatally as possible. On the other hand, Babington's hot head might only fancy he had authority from the Queen for his projects. If, through ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sometimes amuse themselves with trying the judgment of children, by telling them improbable, extravagant stories, and then ask the simple listeners whether they believe what has been told them. The readiness of belief in children will always be proportioned to their experience of the veracity of those with whom they converse; consequently children, who live with those who speak truth ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of the story for the ordinary reader centres, not in its ghostly characters and improbable machinery, the scenes in Mejnour's chamber in the ruined castle among the Apennines, the colossal and appalling apparitions on Vesuvius, the hideous phantom with its burning eye that haunted Glyndon, but ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... That these four great departments in her educational process will be much better defined, and their parts better understood, when experience has given more ample opportunities for their observation, cannot be doubted; and it is not improbable, that future investigations will suggest a different arrangement of heads, and a different modification of their parts also; but still, the great outline of the whole, we think, is so distinctly marked, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... veiled, the coast-lands of Apulia veiled by its tepid and unwholesome breath. To cheer me up, she says that on clear days one can see Castel del Monte, the Hohenstaufen eyrie, shining yonder above Barletta, forty miles distant. It sounds rather improbable; still, yesterday evening there arose a sudden vision of a white town in that direction, remote and dream-like, far across the water. Was it Barletta? Or Margherita? It lingered awhile, poised on an errant sunbeam; then ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... or that the summons to it had any influence in the matter of the proclamation, is disproved by all that is known concerning it.[37] The connection with the battle is direct, avowed, and reasonable; that with the gubernatorial congress is supposititious and improbable. Governor Curtin says distinctly that the President, being informed by himself and two others that such a conference was in preparation, "did not attempt to conceal the fact that we were upon the eve of an emancipation policy," in ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... extends 100 miles, and they would tell any lie to avoid going where they had no inclination to go, their opinions are worthless. It might be worth the while of the colony to send forth another expedition to determine the boundaries of this desolate country, as it is not improbable that a practicable rout might be discovered to South Australia by means of the river ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... Greece, and Rome. These subterranean apartments were used for religious meetings in the first centuries of our era, and it is generally supposed that they were chosen as safe hiding-places from persecution. Very likely it was so; but it is not improbable that the spot had peculiar attractions to worshippers, from the feeling that they were in the midst of an unseen congregation, whose bodies were buried there. If it was so, it would be but one of many proofs that the early Christians mixed with their new religion many of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... never been one whose coming she had particularly looked forward to, or whose going she had deplored. She had thought of marriage as something she might come to, but she had promised herself that it should be on such conditions as were, she was aware, quite improbable of ever being fulfilled. She would not care for a man because he was clever and distinguished, but she felt that he must be those things, and to have, besides, those qualities of character and person which should attract her. She had known a good many men ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... conversations have been imagined, but always on an adequate foundation of truth or logical inference. All the dates and "coincidences" are genuine. But, indeed, I prefer fiction, and am resolved never in future to make an excursion into the crude and improbable regions ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... their minds and characters. Allow for all these influences, allow for whatever impressions his German residence and his familiarity with German literature had produced; accept the fact that the story is to the last degree disjointed, improbable, impossible; lay it aside as a complete failure in what it attempted to be, and read it, as "Vivian Grey" is now read, in the light of the career which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... journey into Georgia, which would consume some three or four weeks' time. He intended to go to his future station by the way of the Mississippi, and promised that, if any time were left him on his return, he would again visit Bellevue. This, however, he thought was improbable. ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... living on in Terra Nova Bay. At the same time there was good prospect of their ultimately being relieved by the ship, if indeed she had not taken them off in the autumn. As for ourselves, it seemed most improbable that we could journey up the coast owing to the abnormal state of the ice. Instead of being frozen for the winter, the whole Sound to the north and west of Inaccessible Island was open water during ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... all. The lawyer has no right to refer in his summing up, or otherwise, to anything that has not been properly submitted in evidence. He is guilty of unfair practice in telling the jury about the defendant's family or circumstances, unless this has been part of the case, which is improbable. He knows this well; so does his opponent and the judge. And should the opposing lawyer protest, the judge will say, looking up, "Be careful, counselor, be careful." The counselor bows respectfully and probably goes on ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... There might come a sudden revolution in Nick's way of seeing things. I've heard of boys who were said to be the worst in the town taking a turn, and forging up to the head. It's improbable, I admit, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... startled them. The captain wheeled like a flash with his gun at his shoulder. But Timon was too cunning to show himself. It is not improbable that he meant the expression for a note of triumph over his inimitable exploit, while such a wonderful dog was too wise to run any risk of punishment from his ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... this stanza is supposed to be biographical in its intent. It is known that before the anti-Omaric uprising in Naishapur, and even during his errant tour through Persia, the younger Omar was socially lionized,, becoming much sought after. It may seem improbable that Omar, Jr., as a member of the sterner sex, should have been admitted as a regular frequenter of women's clubs, but it must be remembered that then, even as in our own day, men were eagerly prized as lecturers on subjects of interest ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... color of raw liver, and if ever a man was too scared to try to escape it was he. Ali Baba's two sons got one on either side of him without making him feel any better, for he too was a Hebron man and knew them and their reputation. There was nothing improbable about their throwing in their lot with the greater robber ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... the valley had been nearly full-grown when brought here with the soil that was to nourish them. From any viewpoint, the planting of an oasis of life on the barren world had been a gigantic undertaking, but there were numerous indications that the McAllen Tube was only one of the array of improbable devices the association had at its disposal for such tasks. A few cryptic paragraphs expressed the writer's satisfaction with the undetailed methods by which the Base's localized ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... or Federal, prohibiting the African slave trade, ought to be repealed." Two minority reports accompanied this resolution: one proposed to postpone action, on account of the futility of the attempt at that time; the other report recommended that, since repeal of the national laws was improbable, nullification by the States impracticable, and action by the Supreme Court unlikely, therefore the States should bring in the Africans as apprentices, a system the legality of which "is incontrovertible." "The only difficult question," it was said, "is the future ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... improbable that if he threw off a Character, the Ideas of which were so strongly impress'd in every one's mind, however finely he might write in any new form, that he should meet with the ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... evening began to fall when a thought suddenly struck him. On the hearth a fire was burning; he waited until the women had again left the hut. He could hear their voices without as they talked with those in the next cottage. They might at any moment return, and it was improbable that they would again go out, for the cold was bitter, and they would most likely wait indoors for ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... Frankfurt Parliament of 1848-49, and Count Bismarck was the inheritor of these traditions when he finally expelled the House of Hapsburg in 1866, and thus translated ancient theories into modern facts. It was therefore highly improbable, to say the least, that only a few years after the Treaty of Berlin he should be engaged in an attempt to nullify his own work. [Footnote: On January 14th, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament voted the exclusion of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... have been the course of affairs, both foreign and domestic, had Mr. Fox—as was, at one time, not improbable—been the Minister during this period, must be left to that superhuman knowledge, which the schoolmen call "media scientia," and which consists in knowing all that would have happened, had events been otherwise than they have been. It is probable that some of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... of the Human Body, with the Description of the Blood- vessels. This work, which reached a second edition in 1687, is highly creditable to the author, who appears to have studied intimately the mutual relations of different parts. It is not improbable that the example of Genga led J. Palfyn, a surgeon at Ghent, to undertake a similar task about thirty years after (1718- 1726). For this, however, he was by no means well qualified; and the work of Palfyn, though bearing the name of Surgical Anatomy, is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... It seems not improbable that this appointment was intended as the preparative of the Earl for higher objects in the same department. At all events, it directed his attention to Indian topics, and gave him the due portion ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... it seem improbable to Howard that he would have allowed anything to divert him from his course unless his personal safety caused him to do so; but Tim said that if such were the case they would have heard ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... petal-like sepal was really a bract adherent to the calyx, and incorporating with itself one of the calycine lobes—"soudee au calice et ayant devoree, en englobant dans sa propre masse, un lobe calicinal." The Belgian savant considers this somewhat improbable explanation as supported by a case wherein there were five calyx lobes of uniform size, and a detached feather-veined leaf proceeding from the side of the ovary lower down ('Bull. Acad. Belg.,' xvii, ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... reply: the answer came from Mr. Oldfield; he said Sir Charles had a right under the entail to fell every stick of timber, and turn his woods into arable ground, if he chose; and even if he had not, looking at his age and his wife's, it was extremely improbable that Richard Bassett would inherit the estates: the said Richard Bassett was not personally named in the entail, and his rights were all in supposition: if Mr. Wheeler thought he could dispute both these positions, the Court of Chancery was open to ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... opposes to Mr. M'Lennan's theory the statement of Mr. Darwin: 'From all we know of the passions of all male quadrupeds, promiscuous intercourse in a state of Nature is highly improbable.' {248} On this first question, let us grant to Sir Henry Maine, to Mr. Darwin, and to common sense that if the very earliest men were extremely animal in character, their unions while they lasted were probably monogamous or polygamous. The sexual jealousy ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... have washed through the doorway from the outer cave when the main outlet of the latter in the face of the bluff toward D (fig. 13) was obstructed in some way. This is improbable. ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... with their regular services, I selected that time, otherwise I would much have preferred the morning or the evening. I decided to go to New York because for many years friends over there had been begging me to come. I regarded it as absurd and improbable to expect the people of Brooklyn to build a fourth Tabernacle, so I went in the direction that I felt would give me the largest opportunity ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... at full speed through the park, the villain's mind sped more rapidly than the animal he bestrode,—sped from fear to hope, hope to assurance. Grant that the spy lived to tell his tale,—incoherent, improbable as the tale would be,—who would believe it? How easy to meet tale by tale! The man must own that he was secreted behind the tapestry,—wherefore but to rob? Detected by Madame Dalibard, he had coined this wretched fable. And the spy, too, could not live through the day; he bore Death with ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... derived from kachhap, the tortoise; but many other castes also say they belong to the Kashyap gotra or worship the tortoise, and if this has any connection with the name of the caste it is probable that the caste-name suggested the gotra-name and not the reverse. It is highly improbable that a large occupational caste should be named after an animal, and the metaphorical similitude can safely be rejected. The name seems therefore either to come from krishi, cultivation, or from some other ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... about twice a stone's-throw from the new carriage-road between Durstan and Bulsted, I fancied from old recollections she might be Kiomi herself. This was not the time for her people to be camping on Durstan. Besides, I feared it improbable that one would find her in any of the tracks of her people. The noise of the wheels brought the girl's face round to me. She was one of those who were babies in the tents when I was a boy. We were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he did not go fast, as it was most important to reserve the powers of the animal that carried him for the emergency of having to gallop for his life, which it was not at all improbable that he would be called upon to do; but half an hour's steady trot, the ground being fairly free from obstacles, and not so yielding as usual, brought the party to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... law of nature, which, as a man, he had a right to: and he alone could punish him in his family, where the respect of his children had laid by the exercise of such a power, to give way to the dignity and authority they were willing should remain in him, above the rest of his family. (*It is no improbable opinion therefore, which the archphilosopher was of, that the chief person in every houshold was always, as it were, a king: so when numbers of housholds joined themselves in civil societies together, kings were the first kind of ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... thus be seen that about 1209, Helinand became a monk at Froid-mont, and it is exceedingly improbable that any portion of his "Chronicle" was written before that date. On the other hand, his 'familiar' Guarin only became Bishop of Senlis in 1214, and died in 1227, (12) so that it is certain Helinand wrote the last part of his "Chronicle" not later than the ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... into a trance and so abused Saul, answering to Saul in Samuel's name in her counterfeit hollow voice.[8] An institution very popular with the Jews of the first temple, often commemorated in their scriptures—the schools of the prophets—was (it is not improbable) of the same kind as the schools of Salamanca and Salerno in the middle ages, where magic was publicly taught as an abstruse and useful science; and when Jehu justifies his conduct towards the queen-mother by bringing a charge of witchcraft, he only anticipates ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... "It is highly improbable that I shall have an equal number of votes with Mr. Jefferson; but, if such should be the result, every man who knows me ought to know that I would utterly disclaim all competition. Be assured that the federal party can entertain ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... accurate by putting heavier masts and yards in her; but he painted her as he saw her. This is very important, as it gets rid of the difficulty which I myself have felt and expressed, that it was very improbable that she was sold all standing in sea-going trim, as I imagined Turner intended us to believe she was sold, and answers also the criticism just mentioned as to the disproportion between the weight of the masts and yards and the size of the hull." ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... askt his Opinion of any strange Experiment; That He that hath seen it hath more Reason to beleeve it, than He that hath not; yet I have found Helmont so faithful a Writer, even in divers of his improbable Experiments (I alwayes except that Extravagant Treatise De Magnetica Vulnerum Curatione, which some of his Friends affirm to have been first publish'd by his Enemies) that I think it somewhat harsh to give him the Lye, especially to what ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... that make for unity. And whose was this parliament? Which religion was it that conceived of it, and made provision for it, and set in motion the influences that drew these hostile bands into harmony? It was the Christian religion which gave us this great endeavor after unity. And it is highly improbable that such a movement would have originated in any other than a Christian country, or among the followers of any other Leader than the Man of Nazareth. It was the natural thing for the disciples of Jesus to do; and while many men of the other ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... in 924, Edward the Elder was striving to suppress the Danes south of the Humber, and had no claims to overlordship of any kind over the Northumbrian Danes and English; and (3) the place assigned, Bakewell, in Derbyshire, is improbable, and the recorded building of a fort there is irrelevant. The reassertion of this homage, under Aethelstan, in 926, which occurs in one MS. of the Chronicle, is open to the objection that it describes the King of Scots as giving up idolatry, ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... events which I shall relate in this history may seem incredible; some of the escapes may seem improbable; but again let me assure you that there shall not be one word of exaggeration. The incidents took place just as I shall state them. I have passed through not only all that you will find recorded in these pages, but ten thousand times ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... its bearing from the Scuir lying nearly at right angles with the direction of the drift-boulders of the western coast, which are, besides, of rare occurrence in the Hebrides; nor has it a single neighbor; and it seems not improbable, as a tradition of the island testifies, that it was removed thus far for the purpose of marking some place of sepulture, and that the catastrophe of the cave arrested its progress after by far the longer and rougher portion of ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... who followed Jim Silent; and Dan Barry? What a fool he had been not to remember! It was Dan Barry who had gone on the trail of Silent's gang and hounded it to death; Lee Haines alone had been spared. Yes, half a dozen years before the mountain-folk had heard that story, a wild and improbable one. It fitted in with what Pete Glass had told him of the shooting of Harry Fisher; it explained a great deal which had mystified him since he first met Barry; it made the thing he had come to do at ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... Savage felt it to be a false one. It seems, also, to be forgotten by most readers, that at this day real sons—not denied to be such—are continually banished, nay, ejected forcibly by policemen, from the paternal roof in requital of just such profligate conduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still he was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been consigned to the treadmill. But the whole was ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... being admitted—can be affirmed or denied by reliable witnesses who testify from their own personal knowledge of the matter, the most that any arguer can do is to establish a balance of probability. Those who believe that Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare try to show how improbable it is that a man like Shakespeare could have produced such works, and how very likely it is that Bacon was the real author. Many criminals are convicted or acquitted on evidence that establishes merely a strong probability of guilt or ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... singular coincidence, it so happened that the agent was at that very time holding a council with the chiefs of the identical band of Indians from whom she had last escaped, and they had just given a full history of the entire affair, which seemed so improbable to the agent that he was not disposed to credit it until he received its confirmation through Mr. Bent. He at once dispatched a man to follow the woman and conduct her to Council Grove, where she was kindly received, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... "displayed his attachment to liberty, and protestantism," by joining the ill-advised insurrection under the Duke of Monmouth, in the west. On the failure of that unfortunate enterprise, he returned again to the metropolis; and it is not improbable, but that the circumstance of his being a native of London, and his person not much known in that part of the kingdom where the rebellion took place, might facilitate his escape, and be the means of preventing his being brought to trial for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... families and important personages are originally buried. If so, the people add to the bones on this platform such of the other skulls and special arm and leg bones, collected as above mentioned, as are not required for decorating the posts. If, as is most improbable, there is no such burial platform, then they erect one, and upon it place all the available skulls and special bones ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... or Mrs. Cowperwood had trailed them—in all probability her father. He wondered now what he should do to protect her, not himself. He was in no way deeply concerned for himself, even here. Where any woman was concerned he was too chivalrous to permit fear. It was not at all improbable that Butler might want to kill him; but that did not disturb him. He really did not pay any attention to that thought, and he was ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... hog-wild. Any other thing can happen to anybody else—to you, for example—but no violence can happen to the thing or person you're trying to do something violent to. The psi field has melted down ordinary probabilities. The violence you intend has become the most improbable of ...
— The Ambulance Made Two Trips • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... gradation between the two depths. This is very like laying down a formal law or recipe for you; but you will find it is merely the assertion of a natural fact. It is not indeed physically impossible to meet with an ungradated piece of colour, but it is so supremely improbable, that you had better get into the habit of asking yourself invariably, when you are going to copy a tint,—not "Is that gradated?" but "Which way is it gradated?" and at least in ninety-nine out of a hundred instances, you will be able to answer decisively after ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... wearer's chin that the lower part of his face was lost, as it were, in a muslin abyss. A silk watch-guard, plaited to resemble the keepsakes made of hair, meandered down the shirt front and secured his watch from the improbable theft. The greenish coat, though older by some three years than the breeches, was remarkably neat; the black velvet collar and shining metal buttons, recently renewed, told of carefulness which descended even ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Bright was not by nature given to the melting mood, but his eyes grew dim and his voice faltered at this point and it is not improbable that there would have been a regular break-down, if Joe's blessed babby had not suddenly come to the rescue in the nick of time with one of her unexpected howls. As temporary neglect was the cause of her complaint it was of course easily cured. When quiet had been restored Mrs Bright ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... occupied public positions. There was one in the Government of National Defence, and three or four others, chosen from among the most rabid ones, were members of the Committee on Barricades; for, improbable as the thing may seem today, this commission existed and performed its duties, a commission according to all rules, with an organized office, a large china inkstand, stamped paper, verbal reports read and voted upon at the beginning of each meeting; and, around a table covered ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to forget that all the evidence was pretty thoroughly sifted at the time, every possible clue followed up. The public would have been ready enough then to believe that you murdered old Lenman—you or anybody else. All they wanted was a murderer—the most improbable would have served. But your alibi was too confoundedly complete. And nothing you've told me has shaken it." Denver laid his cool hand over the other's burning fingers. "Look here, old fellow, go home and work up a better ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... your improbable tale of having found this child, and all your declarations in respect to it were true, still you would be greatly criminal. What plea can you make for not having immediately revealed the circumstance to me or some other proper ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... than that given to his neighbour. His neighbour may be an excellent man, and he may be in possession of very good sheep, but that his wool should be more valuable is not so apparent—is, in fact, most improbable. Every farmer has implicit faith in the merits of his own particular clip, and if differences really exist, he is prepared to state emphatically that the advantage ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... It is not improbable that these long and melancholy vigils, lowering the spirits and exciting the nervous system, prepared them for illusions. At all events, one night at dead of night, Miss Baily and her sister, sitting in the dying lady's room, ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... she led him across the room, to the improbable green-and-yellow couch. Sitting down, Anders decided he would tell her when she came back with the drink. No use in putting off the fatal moment. A lemming ...
— Warm • Robert Sheckley
... Rightly or wrongly, the most eminent lawyers in Holland ascribe the often-recurring cases of miscarriage of justice in some countries which have adopted the jury system to this system itself, and it is very improbable, therefore, that in this respect the Dutch will copy ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... true like a good sovereign. Readers who have approached the "Vicomte," not across country, but by the legitimate, five-volumed avenue of the "Mousquetaires" and "Vingt Ans Apres," will not have forgotten d'Artagnan's ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable trick upon Milady. What a pleasure it is, then, what a reward, and how agreeable a lesson, to see the old captain humble himself to the son of the man whom he had personated! Here, and throughout, if I am to choose virtues for myself or my friends, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smiles of fortune; and it was she who deceived you, because she stayed with me longer than she commonly does with her favorites. But, fated as we are, we must bear this reverse, and make another trial of her. For it is no more improbable that we may emerge from this poor condition and rise to great things again, than it was that we should fall from great things into ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... between the classes Ornithorhyncus?). As far as geological discoveries they tend towards such gradation{110}. Illustrate it with net. Toxodon,—tibia and fibula,—dog and otter,—but so utterly improbable is , in ex. gr. Pachydermata, to compose series as perfect as cattle, that if, as many geologists seem to infer, each separate formation presents even an approach to a consecutive history, my theory must be given up. Even if it were consecutive, ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... country south of this, but were unsuccessful in finding any trace of him. Middleton and Palmer got on his tracks and followed them to about dark when within a very short distance of our tracks here, and more than half the distance to this camp, and thought it not improbable, from the course he was then pursuing, that he had got to our camp and came home but the unfortunate had not; had he been followed the day before by Hodgkinson with the same perseverance all would have been well and much anxiety spared to all. If the poor man has kept to the ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... philosophy of any particular period in the intellectual development of man. No age knows it all. It was almost a lo, here, and a lo, there, with him, so large was his bump of wonder, so unlimited was his appetite for the incredible and the improbable in the domain of human knowledge and speculation. Great was the man's faith, great was his hope, great ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... it appeared to me very improbable, but I am bound to say the description tallies very closely with that given of him. The surgeon took him to be nearly thirty; but after what he has gone through he may well look three or four years older than he is. He had light hair, rather small ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... improbable in that," returned the captain. "This fish belongs to a species that is found in all latitudes and in all seas. It is the 'balance-fish,' or hammer-headed shark, if I am not much mistaken. But if your Lordship ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... city he arrived on the 3d October, and handed his trunk to a porter to carry to the train for Philadelphia. What now happened has never been clearly explained. Previous to starting on his journey, Poe had complained of indisposition,—of chilliness and of exhaustion,—and it is not improbable that an increase or continuance of these symptoms had tempted him to drink, or to resort to some of those narcotics he is known to have indulged in towards the close of his life. Whatever the cause of his delay, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... party,—a dozen or so,— and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I came to my cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the dressing-table. It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems to me uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find you as I have found your letter. Oh, my dear G——-, it is scarcely well to love friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me deeply. They are present, and I enjoy ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here tonight, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave reasons. No, do not ask me. Think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most not-improbable. Goodnight." ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... the light, is proportional to the square of the amplitude. Hence the amplitude being one-hundredfold, the energy of the largest light-giving waves would be ten-thousandfold that of the smallest. This is not improbable. I use these figures not with a view to numerical accuracy, but to give you definite ideas of the differences that probably exist among the light-giving waves. And if we take the whole range of solar radiation into account—its non-visual ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... related to the Longinus legend. It is even possible that, as Burdach insists, features of the Byzantine Liturgy may have coloured the representation of the Grail procession, although, for my own part, I consider such a theory highly improbable in view of the facts that (a) Chretien's poem otherwise shows no traces of Oriental influence; (b) the 'Spear' in the Eastern rite is simply a small spear-shaped knife; (c) the presence of the lights is accounted for by the author of Sone de Nansai on the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... them, whether they had died, and the wash of the ocean had slipped their bodies overboard, the baboon holding on to the raft, who was to tell? 'At sea,' said Lord Nelson, 'nothing is impossible and nothing improbable.' ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... he should notice anything ... although I think it very improbable that he is the kind of man who would.... But let us suppose that he concluded from various signs that some such thoughts were passing through your head—would you deny them, if ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... minutes to make sure they were not going to move. Then, leaving all our men except the gunbearers under the tree, we slipped back until out of sight, and began to execute our flank movement. The chances seemed good. The jumble of boulders was surrounded by open country, and it was improbable the lions could leave it without being seen. We had arranged with our men a system ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... sick at heart, would not leave the room with any evidence of a broken spirit; and when Lord Castlefort again repeated, "Pay us when we meet again," he said, "I think it very improbable that we shall meet again, my Lord. I wished to know what gaming was. I had heard a great deal about it. It is not so very disgusting; but I am a young man, and cannot play tricks ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... suffered, execrated the villain who had bribed Matteo to murder her, and endeavoured to connect the different circumstances together by the help of one hypothesis or other, among which it would have been difficult to decide which was the most improbable. ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... at all improbable, for, strange to say, hot springs are numerous on the Himalaya Mountains—often bursting out amidst ice and snow, and at very ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... with a touch of apprehension. Did Sandy mean anything in particular by this enigmatical inquiry, and if so, what? But Sandy's face clearly indicated a state of mind in which consecutive thought was improbable; and after a brief glance Delamere ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... highly improbable that Galen dissected human bodies in Rome, though he dissected a great variety of the lower animals. He writes that the doctors who attended Marcus Aurelius in the German wars dissected the dead bodies of the barbarians. The chief mistakes made by Galen as an anatomist were due ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... Austrian regiments encamp within his dominions. "I pledge my word as a sovereign to your majesty." he had written to the Emperor of Germany, "that I shall not hinder the operations of your army in any manner whatever, and if, what is improbable, however, your majesty should be obliged to retreat with your army, I promise and swear that I shall remain quiet and support your projects in every respect. But I implore your majesty on my knees to permit me graciously to maintain the strictest neutrality. It is ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... strongly, my friend," said Peter of Blentz, "upon your resemblance to the king of Lutha. I will admit that it is strong, but not so strong as to convince me of the truth of so improbable a story. How in the world could the American have brought you through the castle, from one end to the other, unseen? There was a guard before the king's door and another before this. No, Herr Custer, you will have to ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "That is not improbable, for Stiger was around this vicinity and did not fight with the Comanches. He could easily have come in after we went off on the trail. ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... their slow metrical movement, invest them with singular weight and dignity. The poet is confronting two representatives, in principle, of Force and Authority, whose prototypes in bygone times would undoubtedly have sent him to the scaffold or to the stake; nor is it improbable that both Carlyle and Newman, though in all other opinions they differed widely, would have agreed that a revolutionary firebrand and a pestilent infidel deserved some such fate. The poet might console himself with the reflection ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... to read it," she answered. "Such an outlandish story, no love story in it, and so coarse, so brutal, and then so improbable. I couldn't ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... the habits of the animals were supposed to have some spiritual meaning and carry with them a lesson for mankind. It may be added that this and similar stories were centuries old. The most improbable things were repeated from generation to generation without its occurring to any one to inquire if there was any truth in them. Even the most learned men of the time believed in astrology and in the miraculous virtues of herbs and gems. For instance, Albertus ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... an old man is, that they will not let me be at quiet in my bed, but pursue me to my very dreams. I must not dream but when they please, nor upon long continued subjects, however visionary in their own natures; because there is a manifest moral quite through them, which to produce as a dream is improbable and unnatural. The pain I might have had from this objection, is prevented by considering they have missed another, against which I should have been at a loss to defend myself. They should have asked me, whether the dreams I publish can properly be called Lucubrations, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... improbable, that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to shew the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech so considered, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... the baptism of the jailer and his family are of such a nature as to render the opinion of its being performed by immersion improbable. The baptism was evidently performed at midnight, and within the limits of the prison,—a time and a situation evidently implying some other mode than plunging. Similar views will hold in respect to the baptism of the three thousand at the season ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... previous night, and that the ship she had seen was but a creation of the brain. There, however, floated the beautiful fabric, but there was not the slightest movement or sign of life on board. At all events, it seemed improbable that she would soon move from her present position. At length she descended to her boudoir below, where, as usual, her light and frugal meal was brought to her by her own attendant, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... end of the year another assembly of young men is called; the number invited is limited, however, to forty-five, and the evenings are reduced to twelve. Should the lady again fail to select—a very improbable occurrence—another and final assembly would be called for the following year, the number of gentlemen being reduced to twenty-one, and the evenings to seven, and if the lady should still remain undecided she must be content to enjoy single blessedness ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... altered, the somewhat incredible assertion of the novelist, that the pure and delicate and highborn Venetian loves the swarthy Moor—and that Romeo fresh from his "woes for Rosaline," becomes suddenly enamoured of Juliet: He found the Improbable, and employed his art to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of the Senate investigating committee, did not include this testimony in his report, and the startling and improbable publication in the Commercial Advertiser must have withered as the sensation of a day, had not the belief obtained that the use of money in senatorial contests played a prominent and important part. This scandalous ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... wealth product of the land, nothing facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea. The fundamental truth concerning the sea—perhaps we should rather say the water—is that it is Nature's great medium of communication. It is improbable that control ever again will be exercised, as once it was, by a single nation. Like the pettier interests of the land, it must be competed for, perhaps fought for. The greatest of the prizes for which nations contend, it too will serve, like other conflicting interests, ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... from this treatise in his Collection of Voyages; but the original work is so very rare and occupies so small a space that it has been deemed eligible to reprint it entire. EDIT.] impediments in nature, and circumstances of former practises duly considered. The Northerly passage to China seme very improbable. For first it is a matter very doubtfull whether there bee any such passage or no, sith it hath beene so often attempted and neuer performed, as by historical relation appeareth, whereby wee may fully perswade our selues that America and Asia, or some other ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... means improbable that under the influence of the custom of exchanging sisters there may be a tendency for the control of the kin in this respect to diminish; in fact the Boulia example is only explicable on this hypothesis. At the same time we cannot overlook the fact that elopement, ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... Henry crossed to Normandy. His brother Geoffrey was making trouble and was demanding that Anjou and Maine should be assigned to him. We are told an improbable story that their father on his deathbed had made such a partition of his lands, and that Henry had been required blindly to swear that he would carry out an arrangement which was not made known to him. If Henry made any such promise as heir, he immediately repudiated it as reigning sovereign. He ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... though it was scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the hills and woods in the centre of the island was to anticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but impossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove. However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent much of my time there for the whole of the remaining part of the month of July; and though upon ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... a reputation as a scholar to lose to-day credits the story of Hans Luther's homicide. It is improbable on its face. The small landholdings of Hans at Moehra are not real, but irreal estate. Nobody has found the title for them. There is, however, a very good reason why Hans should want to leave Moehra. He was, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... of what may be called Saxon puns on Cornish words have been communicated to me by a Cornish friend of mine, Mr. Bellows. "The old Cornish name for Falmouth," he writes, "was Penny come quick,(63) and they tell a most improbable story to account for it. I believe the whole compound is the Cornish Pen y cwm gwic, 'Head of the creek valley.' In like manner they have turned Bryn uhella (highest hill) into Brown Willy, and Cwm ty goed (woodhouse valley) into Come to good." To ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... has actually happened. I wanted to bring out the underlying issues which would affect our own conduct, and our own policy, and to put them clearly. I have now put the vital facts before the House, and if, as seems not improbable, we are forced, and rapidly forced, to take our stand upon those issues, then I believe, when the country realizes what is at stake, what the real issues are, the magnitude of the impending dangers in the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... be given by a girl of seventeen," answered Aunt Mabel, looking up with a quiet smile; "when I was your age, Kate, no romance was too extravagant, no incident too improbable for my belief. Every young heart has its love-dream; and you too, my merry Kate, must sooner or later yield ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... crews, the Admiralty warned merchants that it was CERTAIN DESTRUCTION to go up river to Bruni. For forty years this intimation was left on British charts, and British seamen followed the humiliating counsel. Not until the early forties was peace restored, after an event of the most romantic and improbable kind, the accession of an English gentleman to ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... and he asked himself, "What if I had seen game and fired?" After waiting a few moments, it occurred to him that there was a possibility that the shot had been fired by white men. Of course it was improbable, but he must investigate. If they were Indians, they would gorge themselves with the meat and sleep soundly so that he ought to have no trouble in getting past them. Moreover, unless many were in the party, they would leave a portion of the carcass ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... plausible at first sight, seems, in the light of recent biology, to be more and more improbable. The second principle is one of anthropomorphic interpretation. No arrangement that for us is "disorderly" can possibly have been an object of design at all. This principle is of course a mere assumption in the interests ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... ask you to believe me, but,—as I was springing on my horse just now above there, the gurgling of this spring caught my ear, and looking down suddenly—upon my word, Captain Maitland, I am ashamed to describe what cannot but seem to you such an improbable piece of fancy-work; and yet, true it seemed, as that I see you now. I was looking down, as I said, when suddenly, among those low evergreens, the brilliant hue of a silken mantle caught my eye, and then a woman's brow gleamed up upon me. Yes, there ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... cheer up! It's not at all improbable that Ford[28] and his cargo of cranks, if they get across the ocean, may strike a German mine in the North Sea. Then they'll die happy, as martyrs; and the rest of us will live happy, and it'll be a Merry Christmas ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... like that of our schoolboys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable, and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think with humble submission, be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves: And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the ladies had failed to appear on the housetop, as Mirza-Schaffy was turning disappointed away he was accosted by a closely-veiled female, who, bidding him follow her, led the way to a secluded spot where interruption would be improbable, and thus addressed him: "I am Fatima, the confidential attendant of Zuleikha. My mistress hath gazed on thee with the eye of satisfaction. The resonance of thy voice hath delighted her ear, the purport of thy songs touched her heart. I am ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... messengers calling for aid. But he had seen the Idalia not three hours before, safe and speeding. Suppose the crew had mutinied and imprisoned the passengers below, and the message was one begging for succour! But, premising such an improbable outrage, would the agitated captives have taken the pains to fill four pages of note-paper with carefully penned ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... elephants in Ceylon was told me by the Rhatamahatmeya of Doolana, who was present at the scene when a lad. I do not profess to credit it entirely; but I will give it in his own words, and, to avoid the onus of an improbable story, I will entitle it the 'Rhatamahatmeya's Tale.' In justice to him, I must acknowledge that his account was corroborated by all the old men of ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... a psychological reason for thinking this story especially improbable and a physical reason for dismissing it as ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... conduct arose from what they might have conceived to be the suspicious actions of their strange and uninvited visitors. As to their being armed, and declining to lay down their arms, it is to be remembered that the English had arms also, which they did not lay down. It certainly does not seem improbable that if the chief of these poor barbarians and the English captain could have interchanged a few words, intelligible on both sides, and so convinced each other of their honest intentions and wishes, the subsequent ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... asking advice and assistance for the king. This Madam Whorwood I have not met with elsewhere in my reading, and the name may be a fictitious one; but that King Charles, in his straits, sought aid of William Lilly, who by repute could read the stars, is not improbable. In 1648, Lilly gave to the council of state 'some intelligence out of France,' which he got by means not astrological, or in any way supernatural; and the council thereupon gave him 'in money fifty pounds, and a pension of one ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... now clear in my own mind that unless we get Europe to move—or some improbable convulsion occur in the North—the end will be a sad one. It seems to me therefore, impossible that too strenuous an effort can be made to move our Government and I cannot understand the Southerners who say: 'Oh, what can you make of it?' I have known a man brought back to life two hours after ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... only one improbable thing in it: the second act takes place two years after the first, and they have ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... China proper; absent in the eastern Kuen-lun; occurs again in the ranges of S.E. China. In Liao-tung Cambrian fossils have been found near the summit of the series; they belong to the oldest fauna known upon the earth, the fauna of the Olenellus zone. It is, however, not improbable that in many places beds of considerably later date have been included in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... nervously paced up and down the sands at Scheveningen looking out upon the North Sea and waiting for the call. It came one short drizzly afternoon. The Germans, of course, knew the whereabouts of the vessel on which I should embark for England, though it is highly improbable that they knew the sailing time, and they did not know when I should go ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... but at other times I break out with anger. Then her own irritation is launched forth in a flood of insults, in charges of imaginary crimes and all carried to the highest degree by sobs, tears, and retreats through the house to the most improbable spots. I go to look for her. I am ashamed before people, before the children, but there is nothing to be done. She is in a condition where I feel that she is ready for anything. I run, and finally find her. Nights of torture follow, in which both of us, with exhausted ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... (1878), as quoted, appears to be the first name formally given the family, and is therefore accepted. Recent investigations of the dialect spoken at Taos and some of the other pueblos of this group show a considerable body of words having Shoshonean affinities, and it is by no means improbable that further research will result in proving the radical relationship of these languages to the Shoshonean family. The analysis of the language has not yet, however, proceeded far enough to warrant a ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Nothing is known as to the cause of this apparent germicidal action. The question is yet by no means satisfactorily settled, although the facts on which the hypothesis is based are not in controversy. If such a peculiarity belongs to milk, it is not at all improbable that it may serve to keep down the germ content in the udder. Freudenreich[22] found that udders which were not examined for some time after death showed abundant growth, which fact he attributed to the loss of ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... let either of them go. He hated the very thought of seeing the Englishman being led out of this narrow cell, where he had kept a watchful eye over him night and day for a fortnight, satisfied that with every day, every hour, the chances of escape became more improbable and more rare; at the same time there was the possibility of the recapture of little Capet, a possibility which made Heron's brain reel with the delightful vista of it, and which might never come about if the prisoner remained silent to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... are like the eyelids of the morning." I think this gives us as great an image of the thing it would express as can enter the thought of man. It is not improbable that the Egyptians stole their hieroglyphic for the morning, which is the crocodile's eye, from this passage, though no commentator, I have seen, mentions it. It is easy to conceive how the Egyptians should be both readers and admirers ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... moment, for the impulse of the moment had always been the guide of his life; and once abroad he might have returned to India, and in new connections forgotten the old ties at home. Letters from abroad too, miscarry; and it was not improbable that the wanderer might have written repeatedly, and receiving no answer to his communications, imagined that the dissoluteness of his life had deprived him of the affections of his family, and, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... without any other sustenance than a few stale crusts of bread, and about a gallon of water; till at length she forced her way through a window, and ran home to her mother's house almost naked, in the night of the twenty-ninth of January. This story, improbable and unsupported, operated so strongly on the passions of the people in the neighbourhood of Aldermanbury, where Canning's mother lived, and particularly among fanatics of all denominations, that they raised voluntary contributions, with surprising eagerness, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... omens than Knox, the great reformer, did; and he himself foresaw several events, and the fate of certain persons. When condemned to a galley in Rochelle, he predicted that within two or three years he would preach the gospel at St. Giles's, in Edinburgh, which, improbable though it was at the time, happened as he had foretold. Of Queen Mary and Darnley he said, that in justice she would be made an instrument of retribution, and that he (the king) would be overthrown. Knox predicted the death of Thomas Maitland, and ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... greyhound, whilst in general form it approaches the English lurcher. Some of the party who went to Timor stated it to resemble precisely the Malay dog common to that island, and considered it to be of the same breed; which I think not improbable, as I cannot state that I ever saw one wild, or unless in the vicinity of natives; in company with whom they were generally observed in a domesticated state. On the other hand the Canis australiensis was common in some parts in a state ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... share the given amount of total excentricity and obliquity in various proportions between themselves; but even if it were all piled on to one planet it would not be very excessive, unless the planet were so small a one as Mercury; and it would be most improbable that one planet should ever have all the excentricity of the solar system heaped upon itself. The earth, therefore, never has been, nor ever will be, enormously nearer the sun than it is at present: nor can it ever get very much further off. Its changes are small ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... well-founded. For negroes were drawn from Guinea as early as 1511, and his proposition was made in 1517. The Spaniards were already introducing these substitutes for the native labor, regardless of the ordinance which restricted the possession of negroes in Hayti to those born in Spain. It is not improbable that Las Casas desired to regulate a traffic which had already commenced, by inducing the Government to countenance it. His object was undoubtedly to make it easier for the colonists to procure the blacks; but it must have occurred to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various |
