"Probability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Marian. She was away at once in search of some of this new style canvas, in her eagerness to be at work on some winter sketches of these most interesting people, quite forgetting the peril of natives, the danger of the food supply giving out, the probability of an unpleasant meeting with ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... suppliant the ancient image of Athena at Athens, the goddess comes flying from far away in the Troad when she hears the sound of his calling. The exact relation of the goddess to the image is not, in all probability, very clearly realised; but, so far as one can trace it from the ritual procedure, what appears to be implied is that a suppliant will have a better chance of reaching the deity he addresses if he approaches one of ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... that she had to face the possibility, nay the probability, that her husband had met with some serious accident on his way to the Impasse des Nonnes. Nancy knew that this had been Gerald Burton's theory, and of her three new kind friends it was Gerald Burton who impressed her with the greatest trust and confidence. He, unlike his father, had at once ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... to further credit which I might have, instead of being turned to the Lord, and thus faith, which is kept up and strengthened only by being EXERCISED, would become weaker and weaker, till at last, according to all human probability, I should find myself deeply in debt, and have no prospect of getting out of it. 4, Faith has to do with the word of God,—rests upon the written word of God; but there is no promise that He will pay our debts,—the word says rather: "Owe no man any thing;" whilst there ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... people that we have remained united by emotional forces, or by the suggestive power of an idea. Sooner or later we shall need to see whither our present tendencies lead, and education must in all probability be put to work to control and regulate the elements that make for unity and for disruption in our life. Our work as educators will be to maintain a working harmony in the affective and instinctive life of the people. We need now, and we shall need more and more, religious, moral and ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... he would not, in all probability, have risen to acknowledged eminence in his profession for many years, if he had not fallen under the observation of Mrs. Siddons. That extraordinary actress, little less illustrious for private virtues than splendid talents, being engaged one summer in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... unknown planet. Could this planet be inside the orbit of Uranus? No, for then it would perturb Saturn and Jupiter also, and they were not perturbed by it. It must, therefore, be some planet outside the orbit of Uranus, and in all probability, according to Bode's empirical law, at nearly double the distance from the sun that Uranus is. Finally he proceeded to determine where this planet was, and what its orbit must be to produce the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... morning of the 8th of March I left Lane Seminary, with a heavy heart at the thought that in all probability I should never see it again. There was a sharp frost. Dr. Stowe accompanied me to the omnibus. "All right!"—"Pax vobiscum!"—the vehicle moved on, and directly the Doctor was at a distance of a hundred yards waving a farewell. It was ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... witness-box by counsel for the prosecution, in other words satisfactorily to account for Strether and for his "peculiar tone," was to possess myself of the entire fabric. At the same time the clue to its whereabouts would lie in a certain principle of probability: he wouldn't have indulged in his peculiar tone without a reason; it would take a felt predicament or a false position to give him so ironic an accent. One hadn't been noting "tones" all one's life without recognising when one heard it the voice of the false position. The dear man in ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... day, and therefore I did not find it so tedious as it must be in winter or bad weather; for if any thing can be worse than sea, in bad weather, it must be this vast plain, which is neither land or sea, though not very distant from the latter, and in all probability was many ages since covered by ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... must have been ground into powder and swept down the river. Johnstown will never resume its former importance. A curse will hang over this beautiful valley as long as this generation lasts. The sanitary experts who have examined the place say that in all probability it will be plague ridden for ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... regard the fairest face, after the first heyday of his youth was past, as worth the pain its owner's caprices could inflict. For, as seen under that phase, woman was apt to be both mercenary and capricious; and if the poet suffered, as he did, from the fickleness of more than one mistress, the probability is—and this he was too honest not to feel—that they had ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Lieutenant Gilmore asked permission to bury his dead comrades. This privilege was emphatically denied. What was done with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in all probability, as was customary with the natives, they cut them into fragments and threw ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... vestige of its ruins. To those who revert only to the genius of the Catholic religion, and to former periods of the history of France, this event must seem incredible; and nothing but constant opportunities of marking its gradual approach can reconcile it to probability. The pious christian and the insidious philosopher have equally contributed to the general effect, though with very different intentions: the one, consulting only his reason, wished to establish a pure and simple mode of worship, which, divested of the allurements of splendid ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... can give no greater justification to the claim of nobility than the indiscretions of lovely Lydia Poltavo, my grandmother, can offer. For the matter of that I might as well be prince on the balance of probability. I am living by my wits: I have cheated at cards, I have hardly stopped short of murder—I need the patronage of a strong wealthy man, and you fulfill all ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... the old gentleman concealed the fact, that the mine which he owned, and had partially worked, was one of the most valuable, in Ballarat, and that it we consented to the arrangement we should, in all probability, make two or three thousand pounds with but a trifling amount ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... not "our desires" must come to our aid in all examination of them. The key-note to Professor Powell's opposition is contained in the following statement: "From the nature of our antecedent convictions, the probability of some kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we know not where, is greater than the probability of the event really happening in the way and from the causes assigned."[180] The inductive philosophy, for which great respect must be paid, is enlisted against miracles. If we once ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the solution brought forward by MR. BUCKTON (Vol. viii., p. 303.) carries the greatest amount of probability with it of any yet proposed; and should any of your correspondents have the opportunity of looking through the unpublished history of Hull by the Rev. De la Pryme, "collected out of all the records, charters, deeds, mayors' letters, &c. of the said town," and now placed amongst ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... out any thing to compromise himself when he was light-headed with the fever the night before? and had she taken it down in writing to produce against him? Possessed by guilty distrust, even that monstrous doubt assumed a look of probability to Geoffrey's mind. He left the parlor as noiselessly as he had entered it, and made for the candle-light in the drawing-room, determined to examine the manuscript ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... deduction from the history of the preceding century to conclude that, as the system had risen, flourished, and fallen in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, and as South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland were apparently following in the same legislative path, the next generation would in all probability witness the last throes of the system on ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... extraordinary good Account, and not only prove profitable to the Planter, but also advantageous to Britain, even if we could but make small Quantities of Wine there; but much more beneficial would it be if there could be made Abundance, as in all Probability there might be, since the Climate and the Soil seem so extreamly well adapted for that Purpose; especially up towards the Hills and Mountains, which at present lye waste. Would it not be very advantageous to our Nations ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... of scientific theories leading to the best practical results is illustrated in the case of Columbus, whose investigations led him to believe in the sphericity of the earth and the probability of land in the far West. "Adams and Leverrier discovered Neptune simultaneously and independently, simply because certain observations had revealed perturbations that could be most naturally accounted for by the existence of an unknown ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... Indicative, (as well as the Conditional Mood) are used in Spanish oftener than in English to denote probability, as— ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... windings of the hydra), a boat, (the ship Argo) and the dog Sirius, both relative to this river, whose inundation they foretold. These circumstances, added to the preceding, and still further explaining them, increased their probability, and to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium, souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron in the boat of the ferryman Charon, and to pass through the gates of horn or ivory, guarded by the dog Cerberus. Finally, these inventions were applied to a civil ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... could not endure; and it soon reached the ears of the rough allies, who seized them, and kicked and cuffed them about unmercifully; and they took one of them, who had talked more imprudently than the rest, and led him to the lamp iron that projected from one of the prisons, and would, in all probability, have hanged him thereon, had not Shortland rescued him by an armed force. They had fixed a paper on the fellow's breast, on which was written, in large letters, a Traitor and ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... The probability is that the hymn owns a mother instead of a father—and a grand hymn it is; one of the most stimulating ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... recollections of the following generation, his solemn and melancholy form mingled reluctantly, and for a while, in the brilliant court of the Scaligers; and scared the women, as a visitant of the other world, as he passed by their doors in the streets of Verona. Rumor brings him to the West—with probability to Paris, more doubtfully to Oxford. But little that is certain can be made out about the places where he was honored and admired, and, it may be, not always a welcome guest, till we find him sheltered, cherished, and then laid at last to rest, by the lords of Ravenna. There ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... objective projection, which sometimes come to imaginative young persons, especially girls, in certain exalted nervous conditions. The study of the portraits, with the knowledge of some parts of the history of the persons they represented, and the consciousness of instincts inherited in all probability from these same ancestors, formed the basis of Myrtle's 'Vision.' The lives of our progenitors are, as we know, reproduced in different proportions in ourselves. Whether they as individuals have any consciousness of it, is another matter. It is possible ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... country home. But for the past month Jadwin had had a small army of workmen and mechanics busy about the place, and had managed to galvanise the contractors with some of his own energy and persistence. There was every probability that the house and grounds would be ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... item to Harry. There was little that it could accomplish, and besides, he felt that his comrade had enough to think about. The unexpected turn of the coroner's inquest had added to the heavy weight of Harry's troubles; it meant the probability in the future of a grand jury investigation and the possible indictment as accessory after the fact in the murder of "Sissie" Larsen. Not that Fairchild had been influenced in the slightest by the testimony of Crazy Laura; the presence of Squint Rodaine and his son ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... without expressing my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Cottle, Bristol, for the liberality with which (with little probability I know of remuneration from the sale) he purchased the poems, and the typographical elegance by which he endeavoured to recommend them, (or)—the liberal assistance which he afforded me, by the purchase of the copyright with little probability ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... become free, I would procure her liberation, even were it necessary to renounce for years my own pleasures that I might amass sufficient for her ransom. I spoke to her of our country, of the goodness of God, and of the probability of my liberation. The poor blind woman kissed my hands, and called me an angel sent by God to illumine the darkness of her life by the sweet rays of consolation and piety. I was only a few months her fellow-slave. My uncle, learning my captivity through ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... Simonians once made overtures to Lady Hester. She told me that the Père Enfantin (the chief of the sect) had sent her a service of plate, but that she had declined to receive it. She delivered a prediction as to the probability of the St. Simonians finding the “mystic mother,” and this she did in a way which would amuse you. Unfortunately I am not at liberty to mention this part of the woman’s prophecies; why, I cannot tell, but so it is, that she bound ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... the tiny scars on his leg were healed, he ventured again to the river; and for a period danger seldom threatened him. While he was unceasingly vigilant, and always ready to seek with utmost haste the safety of his home, a new desire to take precautions against the probability of attack possessed him. When, at dusk, he stole out from the upper entrance of his dwelling, he crouched on the grassy ledge at the river's brim and peered into the little bay below. If nothing stirred between the salmon "hover" and the bank, he dropped quietly into the pool, inhaled a long, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... scarcely tell, when we heard the sound of a gun booming along the water; but, instead of coming from the direction in which we were steering, it seemed to be astern of us. Still we thought it must be the cutter firing. The men even declared that they knew the sound of the gun. The probability was, certainly, that it was her gun, as she would be sure to fire to show her whereabouts to us; and it was not likely that any other vessel near us would be firing for a similar purpose. Although ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... practicability of getting conveniently at its contents. But how such a method should have become familiar to these fishermen, it is difficult to conjecture. Some accidental observation of a reed or similar body containing water when one of its ends was pressed close, had, in all probability, furnished them or their ancestors with the hint. Man, when necessitated to exertion, is essentially a philosopher; but when his natural wants are by any means supplied, he dwindles into a fool. Hence his discoveries ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... deserves—and most probably those persons, especially the ladies, whom he meets will assure him that they are "devoted" to England. He may not have time to discover that that devotion is not universal. Only after a while, in all probability, will the fact as stated by Mr. Freeman dawn upon him, and he will somehow be aware that with all the charming hospitality that he receives he is in some way treated as more of a foreigner than he is conscious of being. It is necessary that he should have some extended residence in ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... have been deceived in their first attachment who can appreciate my agony of feeling. For the first few hours I hated the whole world, and, had then the means been at hand, should in all probability have hastened into another; but gradually my excitement abated; I found relief in tears of sorrow and indignation. I arose at daylight the next morning, worn out with contending feelings, heavy and prostrated in mind. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... were several cheering circumstances. The doctor had left word that, in all probability, Mrs. Emery would be quite herself in ten days—a shorter time than he had feared. Lydia was really charming in a rose-colored dress that matched the dewy flush in her cheeks; the roast looked cooked ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the immorality of the romantic school, then dawning under the name of the Satanic school, which had been bestowed upon it by the critics of the Quotidienne and the Oriflamme; he attributed, not without some probability, to the influence of this perverse literature the crime of Champmathieu, or rather, to speak more correctly, of Jean Valjean. Having exhausted these considerations, he passed on to Jean Valjean himself. Who was this Jean Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean: a monster ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... government personnel traveling to the specified country for a period of less than three years. The degree of risk is assessed by considering the foreign nature of these infectious diseases, their severity, and the probability of being affected by the diseases present. The diseases listed do not necessarily represent the total disease burden experienced by the local population. The risk to an individual traveler varies considerably ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... preservation of articles, whether of clothing or furniture, it is hardly less necessary that the substances to be employed should have no offensive odour. Judging from the effects of attar of roses, and from what we know of scented woods not being liable to be attacked by insects, the probability is, that any volatile oil of agreeable perfume will answer the purpose required, and prove a true instance of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... a few unusual ones. Some of the geologists had been up to look at the great slide, of which they gave those prolix accounts which everybody remembers who read the scientific journals of the time. The engineers reported that there was little probability of any further convulsion along the line of rocks which overhung the more thickly settled part of the town. The naturalists drew up a paper on the "Probable Extinction of the Crotalus Durissus in the Township of Rockland." The ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... could not be done with the property,—such a house pulled down, or such another built, this copse grupped up, or those trees cut down,—because of that reprobate up in London. As to pulling down, there was no probability of interference now, though there had been much of such interference in the life of the old rector. "Ralph," he had once said to his brother the rector, "I'll marry and have a family yet if there is another word about the timber." "I have not the slightest ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... in persuading those who have glanced over these pages, that the Water Cure is by no means the violent thing which they have in all probability been accustomed to consider it. There is no need for being nervous about going to it. There is nothing about it that is half such a shock to the system as are blue pill and mercury, purgatives and drastics, leeches and the lancet. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... farthing of ready money; without any regular occupation; fed by manna from heaven, or something hardly less precarious. He expressed himself with extraordinary elegance, and obviously plumed himself on his manners; he must have been devoted to the fair sex too, and in all probability popular with them: Russian girls love fine talking. Among other things, he gave me to understand that he sometimes visited the neighbouring landowners, and went to stay with friends in the town, where he played preference, and that he was acquainted with people in the metropolis. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... of that highly respected nation. Nevertheless I must be permitted to observe that the grant of full pay, only prospectively, to one who is upwards of eighty years of age, is little more than nominal, as my life, in all human probability, is approaching its close. I had hoped that, as vast benefits have uninterruptedly accrued to the State, ever since the completion of the services so honourably recognised, the grant would have dated ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... and beauty, he has exhibited qualities incompatible with the real situation of the daughter of that most oppressed and abject being, a Jew of the twelfth century. It is plain that if Minna or Rebecca had been drawn with a strict regard to probability, and made just such as they were most likely to have been, one of the great objects of fiction would have been reversed: the reader would have been repelled instead of being attracted. This poetical tone pervades, more or less, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... mechanic was, or was not, an accomplice in the crime, it is impossible to say. That he could have committed the murder alone, seems beyond the limits of probability. Acting by himself, he could hardly have smothered Mr. Ablewhite—who was the taller and stronger man of the two—without a struggle taking place, or a cry being heard. A servant girl, sleeping in the next room, heard nothing. The landlord, sleeping in the room below, heard nothing. The whole evidence ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the extreme edge, and she was content with that, satisfied probably that this unexpected renewal of their connection was most casual—too fortunate to happen again. So she took him into a perfectly easy intimacy; it was the nearness that comes between two people when there is slight probability ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... had come to see his daughter with other purpose than that of speaking either good or evil of Mr. Slope. He had come to tell her that the place of warden in Hiram's Hospital was again to be filled up, and that in all probability he would once more return to his old home and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to comfort her with the assurance that directly he had housed her in the Maypole, he would return to the spot with a lantern (for it was now quite dark) and make strict search for the missing articles, which there was great probability of his finding, as it was not likely that anybody had passed that way since, and she was not conscious that they had been forcibly taken from her. Dolly thanked him very heartily for this offer, though with no great hope of his quest being successful; ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... right and proper, then, in the opinion of your Committee, that these ocean steam facilities should exist, through the intervention of the Government, more especially as they were, in all probability, beyond the reach ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... from a service in which as an Englishman he had been greatly respected and admitted to intimacy with the staff of the patriot army,—was distinguished by a remarkable dignity of manners and deportment: the style of his sentiments, naturally lofty, was now exalted by love: and finally he had in all probability saved Miss Walladmor's life. These were strong appeals to a young heart: doubtless it did not weaken them that the noble expression of his countenance was then embellished by the graces of early youth (for he was not twenty), and ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... intelligence and conventional sign-making must have ended in so far developing the former as to have admitted of the breaking up (or articulation) of vocal sounds, as the only direction in which any improvement in vocal sign-making was possible." Romanes continues his sketch by referring to the probability that this important stage in the development of speech was greatly assisted by the already existing habit of articulating musical notes, supposing our progenitors to have resembled the gibbons or the chimpanzees in this respect. ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... American stage to which writers on musical history have hitherto been forced to repair, 1750 is set down as the natal year for English ballad opera in America. It is thought that it was in that year that "The Beggar's Opera" found its way to New York, after having, in all probability, been given by the same company of comedians in Philadelphia in the middle of the year preceding. But it is as little likely that these were the first performances of ballad operas on this side of the Atlantic as that the people of New York were oblivious of the nature of operatic ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Mr. Hensellman," he said, "has made the most careful inquiries, and has even gone so far as to employ detectives. My brother has certainly not returned to London. We have also wired to every country house where a visit from him would have been a probability, without result. Under those circumstances, and others which I need not perhaps enlarge upon, I must confess to feeling some anxiety as to ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... danger in more shapes than one: his experience on board Captain le Harnois had taught him that he was not perfectly secure from behind; and before him was a mountainous region—better peopled in all probability with precipices and torrents than with human habitations. Under these circumstances he had to go in quest of a lodging for the night; and this, from all that he had read of England, on a double account he could scarcely venture to ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... mother was now the wife of a prosperous merchant in another town. To his stepfather Rawcliffe owed an expensive education and two or three starts in life. He was in his second year of articles to a Wattle-borough solicitor, but there seemed little probability of his ever earning a living by the law, and reports of his excesses which reached the stepfather's ears had begun to make the young man's position decidedly precarious. The incumbent of St. Luke's, whom Rawcliffe had more than once insulted, took much interest in Miss Rodney's ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... friend. From the terms used in the Letter, it is clear that the writer must have been on confidential terms with the Prelate. I cannot affirm positively that the writer was Adam de Marisco, although to no other would this document be attributed with greater probability. No one else enjoyed such a degree of Grostete's affection; none would have ventured to address him with so much familiarity. Besides, the references made more than once by Adam de Marisco in his ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... filled the oven when it was baked. Old Trine stood behind the baker's boy, and her big basket was at her feet. She had brought, among other delicacies, a bottle of good wine; for Mrs. Ritter declared that Andrew had, in all probability, not eaten a morsel since breakfast, and Wiseli was probably fasting also; and the child remembered the fact, now that she saw the feast that Trine spread upon the table. They all took their places, and a merry company they were. To be ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... been divided in their opinions concerning the probability of their captive's return. Most among them, indeed, had not expected it possible for a pale-face to come back voluntarily, and meet the known penalties of an Indian torture; but a few of the seniors expected better things from one who had already ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... had so much variety as you, but we have gone through a good deal. You know we had talked over the best possible course to take in case of an attack, come when it might. We had arranged what each should do in case of a night attack, or of a rising upon parade; and we had even considered the probability of being set upon when gathered in the messroom. We had all agreed that if taken by surprise, resistance would mean certain death; they would shoot us down through the doors and windows, and we ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... truth, or even probability, to do with a report, of which love and matrimony are the themes? Do you not know society better than to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... single, than she will be when married. Her father, I fear, will leave her too much to herself, and in that case I scarce know what may become of her; she has neither judgment nor principle to direct her choice, and therefore, in all probability, the same whim which one day will guide it, will the next lead her ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... called in 1847 to the probability of the aurora's producing an effect upon the wires; but, although having an excellent opportunity to observe such an effect, I was not fortunate enough to do so until the winter of 1850, and then, owing to the feeble displays of the aurora, only to a limited extent. In September, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Christopher, who was a stanch Royalist and barrister, lived at Ipswich, but twelve miles off. He went to see Milton, and Milton might have visited Ipswich and Stowmarket at the same time. Be that as it may, tradition and probability alike justify the belief that Milton came to Stowmarket, and that he went away all the wiser and better, all the stronger to do good work for man and God, for his age and all succeeding ages. Young, as it may be inferred, was ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... could not be more suggestively described. It is a collection of admirable short stories of intrigue and adventure, traveller's wonders narrated with a perfect air of good faith and no regard for truth or probability. All the countries on the globe, and many existing only in the imagination, are called into requisition to produce a brilliant phantasmagoria of manners and customs. The stories move rapidly and defy criticism by the very occasion of their being, invented ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's resignation had been in all probability totally disconnected with foreign policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had surprised the Court as much as the nation. Nor had Albert's influence been used in any way to favour the interests of Russia. As often happens in such cases, the Government ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... from the inn. Behind him he could hear the voices of many men. They were raised to a high pitch by excitement. It was clear to Barney that there were many more than the original three—Prince Peter had, in all probability, enlisted the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... early childhood (though other children of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet's words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at an increasingly ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... spirit of pseudo-science has impregnated even the imagination of the Duke of Argyll. The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability. ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... word of God as the ground to rest upon, and, therefore, the not doing it, or the not believing it would be sin. For instance, the gift of faith would be needed, to believe that a sick person should be restored again, though there is no human probability: for there is no promise to that effect; the grace of faith is needed to believe that the Lord will give me the necessaries of life, if I first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness: for there is a promise to that effect. ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... wait on you, and to show herself under any disadvantages, for the pleasure of seeing what there was extraordinary at yesterday's entertainment." The Queen-Dauphin gave credit to what Madam de Chartres said but the Duke de Nemours was sorry to find so much probability in it nevertheless, the blushes of the Princess of Cleves made him suspect, that what the Queen-Dauphin had said was not altogether false. The Princess of Cleves at first was concerned the Duke had any room to believe ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... where the thickness of metal is not sufficiently great to admit of strongly developed internal stresses, such is by no means the case with the colossal and costly weapons of the present day. In these the thickness of metal in the tube and hoops is very great; hence the extreme probability of very considerable internal stresses developing themselves. That the strength of large guns is often far below that anticipated is demonstrated, year by year, by the repeated cases of failure. Consciousness as to the want of strength in such guns is made evident by the precautionary measures ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... how to cut the body so that short waisted ladies shall not seem to have too short a waist, nor long-waisted ladies too long a one. This important question of a good lady's-maid is one upon which depends the probability of being well dressed and economically dressed. It is absolutely necessary for a person of moderate means, to whom the needless out-lay of a shilling is of real importance, to make her things at home. If she cannot make them herself, she must find a clever needle-woman who ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... why might not the ungodly be punished with this punishment in this world, that we might have seen it and believe?—A. If the ungodly should with punishment have been rewarded in this world, it would in all probability have overthrown the whole order that God hath settled here among men. For who could have endured here to have seen the flames of fire, to have heard the groans, and to have seen the tears, perhaps, of damned relations, as parents or children? Therefore as Tophet of old was without the city, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was too weary to tackle the matter of Patsy's unfortunate attachment to Susan Horridge. Not that she doubted Patsy. She had a queer confidence that Patsy would not hurt the woman he loved. People would talk, were talking in all probability. What a world it was! ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... despised, but they are considered a separate caste. I was shown a little north of the town a place where the Dutch, true to their national instincts, began a canal to supply Loanda with sweet and wholesome drinking material and water communication; others place it with more probability near the confluence of the Cuanza and the Lucala, the first great northern fork, where Massangano was built by the Conquistadores. This "leat" was left incomplete, the terminus being three miles from St. Paul's; ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Frank had read the explorer's narrative and realized that what Captain Hazzard said was in all probability correct. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... exhibited a slight touch of fear. Marguerite knew him well enough to guess what was passing in his mind. He had no fear for his own person, although he certainly was alone in a lonely inn with a man who was powerfully built, and who was daring and reckless beyond the bounds of probability. She knew that Chauvelin would willingly have braved perilous encounters for the sake of the cause he had at heart, but what he did fear was that this impudent Englishman would, by knocking him down, ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... seventeenth century, of the Mermaid Tavern meetings in Bread Street, Shakespeare's, Jonson's, Beaumont's, Fletcher's, Selden's, Cotton's, Camden's, and Donne's club. It is very likely; so likely that the intrinsic probability of the fact might be a motive for a fiction. Whether as founder or guest it is more than likely he would take occasional part in the wit combats of which Beaumont has sung. We may lament that there was no Boswell, or even a Drummond, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... cried Mr. Cuff, and down came the wicket again on the child's hand.—Don't be horrified, ladies, every boy at a public school has done it. Your children will so do and be done by, in all probability. Down came the wicket again; and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Prospero's speeches, till the entrance of Ariel, contain the finest example, I remember, of retrospective narration for the purpose of exciting immediate interest, and putting the audience in possession of all the information necessary for the understanding of the plot.[1] Observe, too, the perfect probability of the moment chosen by Prospero (the very Shakspeare himself, as it were, of the tempest) to open out the truth to his daughter, his own romantic bearing, and how completely any thing that might have been disagreeable ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Language was rejected, like a Diamond with a Flaw in it, if it appeared blemished with a wrong Letter. I shall only observe upon this Head, that if the Work I have here mentioned had been now extant, the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus, in all probability, would have been oftner quoted by our learned Pedants, than the Odyssey of Homer. What a perpetual Fund would it have been of obsolete Words and Phrases, unusual Barbarisms and Rusticities, absurd Spellings and complicated ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... but either way I feel assured that what she did was well done—if innocently; if with knowledge, so much the better. And I venture to assert that she is not a whit harmed by the action. In all probability she will tell us all the particulars if we ask her. Otherwise, Jennie, don't you think you have been unnecessarily alarmed?" The benign gentleness of his question ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... case of your good Father, the lamp was suffered to burn out fairly, and that his sufferings were not great; and that, by his Son's glorious and unparalleled successes, he saw his family ennobled, and with the probability, in time, of its being amply rewarded, as it ought to have been long ago—his mind could not be troubled, in his latter moments, on account of the family he left behind him: and, as to his own peace of mind, at the moment of his dissolution, there can be no doubt, among those who ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... they paused and looked one at the other with an air of utter despair. As long as they remained on the banks of this river bed a glimmering of hope remained; but I felt convinced from the general appearance of the country that there was not the slightest probability of our finding water there, and resolved therefore still to continue a direct route. When I gave this order the weak-minded quailed before it: they would rather have perished in wandering up and down those arid and inhospitable banks than ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Agatha on the first evening of the arrival of the sister, and the probability of the identification of little Lena's father with the Henry Merrifield of her former years, and she was deeply touched by the bestowal of her name—so much that Nag avoided saying more, but only kissed her ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... replied, first, that our interest does not decide the reality of things, and that when this should be even wore advantageous than it is pointed out, it would prove nothing. Secondly, that as we are obliged to admit some things are operated by nature, it is certainly on the side of probability that she performs the others; especially as her capabilities are more substantively proved by every age as it advances. Thirdly, that nature duly studied furnishes every thing necessary to render ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... N. probability, likelihood; credibleness[obs3]; likeliness &c. adj.; vraisemblance[Fr], verisimilitude, plausibility; color, semblance, show of; presumption; presumptive evidence, circumstantial evidence; credibility. reasonable chance, fair chance, good chance, favorable chance, reasonable prospect, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... silent tread he approached his intended victims, stealing along the edge of the jungle. In a few seconds, he was near enough to spring, and, as yet, the poor doe browsed unconsciously. He was just setting his paws for the leap, and, in all probability, would have pounced next moment upon the back of the deer, but, just in the nick of time, Caspar chanced to sneeze. It was not done designedly, or with, any intention of warning the deer; for all three of the hunters were so absorbed in ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... Orsini, who was a perfect adept in the art of dissimulation, and who, never losing his presence of mind, embraced at a glance the whole danger of Giulia's position and his own, and the probability that their conversation might have been overheard; "I was explaining to her ladyship the temporary embarrassment under which I lay, and from which I hoped that your friendship might probably ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... enemies, and that the American Criminal Court, which condemned him, was hoodwinked by the schemings of certain Canadians; the fact that these criminal designs on Kaltschmidt's part only came to light after the United States had become a belligerent adds probability to the supposition. One thing, however, is certain, that even if the alleged plot on the part of Kaltschmidt and his relations had any real existence, the initiative was theirs alone, and cannot be laid at ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... assured of her father's favor, was rendered a little restless by Miss Melbury's behavior. Despite his dry self-control, he could not help looking continually from his own door towards the timber-merchant's, in the probability of somebody's emergence therefrom. His attention was at length justified by the appearance of two figures, that of Mr. Melbury himself, and Grace beside him. They stepped out in a direction towards the densest quarter of the wood, and Winterborne ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... suddenness get into more water, deep or shallow, broad or narrow pools among the rocks; out of that over more rocks, etc., etc., etc.: my companions, from their noises, evidently were going in for the same kind of thing, but we were quite cheerful, because the probability of reaching the land seemed increasing. Most of us arrived into deep channels of water which here and there cut in between this rock reef and the bank, M'bo was the first to find the way into certainty; he was, and I hope still is, a perfect wonder at this sort ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to bring disgrace upon his cashier. He connived, however, at the arrest of Bertomy, hoping that later on he might obtain great kudos for himself by unmasking the banker. What might have been the result of his improper and unofficial methods will never be known, but in all probability great inconvenience would have been caused to a number of innocent persons and the whole course of justice thwarted had it not been for the intervention of the great and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... II. What probability or possibility of tyranny in the presbyterial government? For, 1. Who should tyrannize, what persons, what ruling assemblies? Not the ministers; for, hitherto they have given no just cause of any suspicion, since this government ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... young girl, "You ought to expect to be married before you are twenty, or about that time; you should intend to be; and from the time you are fifteen, it should be made your one life purpose; and in all human probability, you may expect to spend the next ten or twenty years in the nursery, and at forty or fifty, you will be an old woman, your life will be well-nigh worn out." I stand here to say that this is all false. Let the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of things, of which we are spectators, and in which we act our several parts, shall remain, so long have the general phenomena of nature gone on unchanged for more years of past ages than we can define, and will in all probability continue to operate for as many ages to come. We admit of no variation, but firmly believe that, if we were perfectly acquainted with all the causes, we could, without danger of error, predict all the effects. We are ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... about eight miles. Both of us, I think, felt, when about to separate, that we were parting from each other, never again to meet on earth. How would it have cheered the separation on both sides, were my dear father a believer! But it made my heart indeed sad to see him, in all human probability, for the last time, without having Scriptural ground for hope respecting his soul.—I arrived in the afternoon at Magdeburg, and went to a brother, a musician in one of the regiments of that fortress, who is on the ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... of idiotcy is well understood, although cases of an intricate nature may occasionally occur: but there is considerable probability, that the interpretation that has adhered to the term lunacy, more especially in the estimate of the lawyer, has been the source of considerable error, and has also tended to introduce the middle and undefined epithet of unsoundness. The old physicians, ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... there, poor animals. Now you see the advantage of having kept them in pain for a few hours; it is in all probability the saving of all of us, for we must either have found water or quitted this island. Now let us help the poor dogs with the spade, and they shall soon be rewarded for ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... trembling all over, and suffered from a slight feeling of nausea. He guessed it came from fright, not of any bodily harm that might come to him, but at the probability of failure in his adventure and of its ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... naphtha, the oleum incendiarium of the history of Jerusalem, (Gest. Dei per Francos, p. 1167,) the Oriental fountain of James de Vitry, (l. iii. c. 84,) is introduced on slight evidence and strong probability. Cinanmus (l. vi. p. 165) calls the Greek fire: and the naphtha is known to abound between the Tigris and the Caspian Sea. According to Pliny, (Hist. Natur. ii. 109,) it was subservient to the revenge ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the author of The Innocents Abroad not come to Edinburgh at that time we in all human probability might never have met, and what a deprivation that would have been to me during the last quarter of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... you a responsible command, Corporal," she said, as soon as she could catch M'Nab a little apart; "for should the island fall into the hands of the enemy, not only should we be captured, but the party that is now out would in all probability ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... life seemed to him long, it was not really so, for he was not yet thirteen when he was taken from the warehouse and sent to school. Once given a chance, he learned rapidly and easily, although in all probability the schools to which he went were not of the best. After a year or two at school he again began work, but this time under more hopeful circumstances. He was, to be sure, but an under-clerk—little more than an office-boy in a solicitor's office; but at least the surroundings were less sordid ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... father had said of the probability of war, as he sat at his window, and wished that he were a couple of years older and could take part in the struggle. The Venetian fleet had performed such marvels of valour, that, in the days when military service was almost the sole avenue to distinction and fortune, the desire ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... bear it. But you must expect nothing. I shall in all probability fail, but if I do, you will be no worse off ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... challenged; or should they run the boat ashore and take to the woods? Everything depended upon the question of what was the galley's business just there, of all places in the world; and it did not take the Englishmen long to make up their minds that in all probability she had been stationed there to keep a lookout for them, as the passage out at the back of Baru was so obviously the one that would be most likely to be taken by people anxious to escape from Cartagena by water. ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... there is no such probability. But the duke is a very determined man if he takes anything into his head;—and then he has so much in ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... was reasonably believed, turn the scales in favour of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, Bulgaria alone, owing to her commanding geographical position, might have achieved the feat more than once during the campaign. With the death of King Carol of Roumania[85] the probability of this consummation seemed to verge on certitude. It aroused high hopes ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... was but throwing dust in their eyes. There had been no blow struck against the treason in inland Africa. Women had often been the most dangerous of conspirators. As she was a stranger, there was more probability of her connection with secret societies, and also less inconvenience in her execution. Whatever happened, she was to be got rid of; but first her resolution was to be broken, for the sake of the example. First, let her be brought before the tribunal and threatened: ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... deficiency somewhere. With money in the funds, a man has nothing to do but lodge a power of attorney with his broker, and write up for four or five thousand pounds, just as he would write to his bootmaker for four or five pairs of boots, the only difference being, that in all probability the money would be down before the boots. Then, with money in the funds, a man keeps up his credit to the far end—the last thousand telling no more tales than the first, and making just as ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... introduced into Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1. According to Steevens, "the song was, in all probability, a traditional one." Collier says, "Doubtless it does not belong to Middleton more than to Shakespeare." Dyce says, "There seems to be little doubt that 'Macbeth' is of an ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Expenses Bill, which proposed to throw the expenses of elections on the ratepayers. In the course of his address, which was listened to with the utmost attention, Mr. Anderson said—"To the great bulk of those whom he addressed, the payment of L200 or L300 was in all probability a matter of trifling importance; but undoubtedly the necessity for incurring even that expense had a great effect in limiting the field from which constituencies might choose their members; and if the House were anxious to avoid the ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... but he afterwards wrote to decline further attendance in the case. The house might be a good one, but Mr. Wrench was not going to truckle to anybody on a professional matter. He reflected, with much probability on his side, that Lydgate would by-and-by be caught tripping too, and that his ungentlemanly attempts to discredit the sale of drugs by his professional brethren, would by-and-by recoil on himself. He threw ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... consequence his lordship could not be disturbed. Later, when Hanford got more thoroughly in touch with the general situation, he began to realize that introductions, influence, social prestige would in all probability go farther toward landing the Barrata Bridge than mere engineering, ability or close figuring—facts with which the younger Wylie was already familiar, and against which he had provided. It also became plain to Hanford as time went on that the contract would of necessity go ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... this, however, if the proof be demanded, I will not undertake to give it; the atoms of probability, of which my opinion has been formed, lie scattered over all his works; and by him who thinks the question worth his notice, his works must be ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... throughout this boasted battle there is not the least slaughter, nor a single individual maimed, if we except the unhappy Swede, who was shorn of his queue by the trenchant blade of Peter Stuyvesant; all of which, he observes, as a great outrage on probability, and highly injurious to the interest of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... would accept the office. I thought it doubtful whether my strength would permit me to continue my professional work without interruption. I had no thought of remaining in Congress, if I were elected, more than one term, or perhaps two. Indeed I did not contemplate the probability of a nomination as a very ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... with me, child," he went on, a little wearily (he seemed middle-aged beyond words to her). "You are making a great mistake and when you find it out, it will in all probability be too late to remedy it, worse luck! That's the real harm of all this Advanced Woman stuff: if you could only get it over before twenty-five! But when you wake up, you're nearer forty, and then—what's ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... an exasperating concession to the probability that it had been hot in town or that ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... petitions ask that the necessary steps may be taken to strike from the Constitution the legal distinction of sex. Your Committee is in favor of the prayer of the petitions; but, under the most favorable circumstances, that is a result which could not be attained in less than two years. In all probability, it will not be longer than that before the Constitution will come up directly for revision, which will be a proper, appropriate, and favorable ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... parents' roof, but in spite of his courage he felt ill at ease. His parents heard him relate his adventures, and lifted their hearts in prayer to God to avert the catastrophe which they felt would in all probability follow the encounter between their boy ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... month then," she resumed. "I shall certainly call on the 5th; and in all probability I shall begin my round with you. But it's possible that it may be rather late in the afternoon, for it happens to be my poor husband's name-day. And so be ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... royalist intrigues on the other, would have insured the ruin of the Republic. But by leaving the details of government to be administered by Italians, and at the same time sustaining the constitution by his own powerful hand, there was a probability that the republic might attain prosperity and independence. As the press of business rendered it extremely difficult for Napoleon to leave France, a plan was formed for a vast congress of the Italians, to be assembled in Lyons, about half way between ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... instance in which a law has been befriended on the ground that it can be circumvented. He believed that every man should "receive at least a moderate education." He deprecated changes in existing laws; for, he said, "considering the great probability that the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them." The clumsy phraseology of his closing paragraph coupled not badly a frank avowal of ambition with an ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... I have ever been able to obtain. The probability is, that Donna Laura was gained by the money of the Regent and the intrigues gained Dubois; and that she succeeded in convincing the Queen of Spain that Alberoni was a minister who had ruined the country, who was the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... is very various. We are probably not wrong in attributing the failure to develop and the persistently infantile appearance to a prejudicial effect upon the various ductless glands in the body. The condition is associated with an excessive retention of fluid in the body, secondary in all probability to alterations in the concentration and distribution of the saline constituents of the body. A rapid excretion of salts may be followed by a correspondingly speedy dehydration of the body, a retention of salts by a sudden increase of weight. The parathyroid ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... pigeon-woodpecker. Lumberers have a notion that he is harmful to timber, digging little holes through the bark to encourage the settlement of insects. The regular rings of such perforations which one may see in almost any apple-orchard seem to give some probability to this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail visits us, and, unseen among the currant bushes, alls Bob White, Bob White, as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (something ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... pleased with the sincerity of character and generosity of heart of his entertainer. It appeared, however, as if their acquaintance was to be but of short duration, and as if they were now soon to part, in all probability for ever. Circumstances seemed to point to this result; yet it was by no means the one that followed—an odd incident at once threw out ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... State governments will commonly possess most influence over them, the natural conclusion is that such contests will be most apt to end to the disadvantage of the Union; and that there is greater probability of encroachments by the members upon the federal head, than by the federal head upon the members. But it is evident that all conjectures of this kind must be extremely vague and fallible: and that it is by far the safest course to ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... robberies may cease: may not malicious persons, may not the offender himself perhaps, to secure himself against all chance of detection, and to frustrate every inquiry, spread a rumour that I am the heinous thief? Nay, might not such a report carry with it a very great show of probability, since assuredly no one could have got at your goods with so little risk as I? What will it profit me when far away, though you endeavour to vindicate me and to silence such a calumny? Will not your unwonted lenity, your present preposterous supineness, make the detestable rumour ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... instantly sung out the startling cry of "A man overboard!" No boats were down at the time; and in that hot tideway in another minute the drowning man would have been swept past the ship, and carried in all probability out to sea, where he must have perished. Mr Dew was forward. Whether or not he knew the person who was in peril of his life, I cannot say; probably any human being would equally have claimed his aid; but without a moment's hesitation he jumped ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... admiration, is very extraordinary. In addition to all their other high merits, the mere novelty of thought and manner were sufficient to excite immediate notice. Nor was there any thing in Collins's station or character to create prejudices against the probability that beautiful effusions of genius might be struck out by his hand. His education at the college of Winchester, his fame at Oxford, his associates in London, all were fair preludes to the production of beautiful poetry. Indeed, he had already produced beautiful poetry in his Oriental ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... the pink sheet to its pink envelope, and both to his breast-pocket, while she poured out the other cup, but Miss Filbert was still present with them. They went on talking about her, and entirely in the tone of congratulation—the suitability of the Simpsons, the suitability of Plymouth, the probability that she would entirely recover, in its balmy atmosphere, her divine singing voice. Plymouth certainly was in no sense a tonic, but Miss Filbert didn't need a tonic; she was too much inclined to be strung up as it was. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... evils for the making of their choice, and the world will remain as beautiful as it is. The author comes back to what he had already put forward here, that without this power there would be no happiness. But I have given a sufficient answer to that, and there is not the slightest probability in this assertion and in certain other paradoxes he puts forward here to support ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... of what the writer calls "a series of the most singular and mysterious events," commenced January 29,1791. It is perhaps a romance of real life, although there is something in it beyond probability—but nothing impossible. Our student is at first almost cut by an acquaintance for neglecting to notice him in the park, when in fact he was not in the park: the hall butler of the Temple proves by the parchment that he dined there four days of term, when he was sick, and ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... too much reason to believe that evil days are approaching. On such a subject it is a sacred duty to avoid exaggeration; and I shall do so. I observe that the writers,—wretched writers they are,—who defend the present Administration, assert that there is no probability of a considerable rise in the price of provisions, and that the Whigs and the Anti-Corn-Law League are busily engaged in circulating false reports for the vile purpose of raising a panic. Now, gentlemen, it shall not be in the power of anybody to throw any such ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she had instantly recognized and named them. She wished of course—small blame to her!—to sink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own interest in it had now violently taken the form of a search for the way to escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability that with recurrence—for recurrence we took for granted—I should get used to my danger, distinctly professing that my personal exposure had suddenly become the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion that was intolerable; and yet even to this complication ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... to the present time, while they may demand a retainer for their services in advance, they still cannot recover by suit if the services are rendered without receiving it. This may possibly be derived from the early Roman and Jewish view of the professional relation and suggests the probability that early in English history professional services were ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... his bed as he tried to formulate plans, which he rejected one by one. "If it comes to the worst, I must do as Mrs. Godfrey suggests," he thought—"I must go down to the Wood House and take counsel with them;" and in all probability it was this ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... by fears for his brother's safety or by actual terror at being left alone and helpless. At any rate Armine much preferred remaining, in all the certain misery and danger, to losing sight of his brother, with the great probability of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a volume called "Original Poems and Translations" chiefly by Susannah Watts, published in London in 1802, a few months before the appearance of the "History of New South Wales" (1803) — known as George Barrington's — which also, in all probability, was not written by Barrington. In Susannah Watts' book the Prologue is stated to be written by "A Gentleman", but there is no clue to the name of the author. Mr. Barron Field, Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, printed in Sydney in 1819 his "First Fruits of Australian Poetry", ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... easy if he remains there—and he'll remain for the money. The money appears to be, as a probability, so ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... she would have to draw back the left foot, and press the upper part of the thigh against the leaping head. Her forced adoption of this feeble attempt to obtain firmness of seat is due to the fact that if she raised her left knee to put pressure on the leaping head, her foot, in all probability, would come out of the iron, owing to the long leather being slack at that moment. Besides, with a leather at that length, it would be impossible for her to press her leg strongly against the leaping head by the ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... appintment uv his esteemed friend, becoz he appreciated the noble qualities wich wuz so conspikuous into him, and becoz his arduous services in the coz uv Dimokrisy entitled him to the posishun. All these wuz aside uv and entirely disconnected from the fact that thare wood now be a probability uv his gittin back a little matter uv nine dollars and sixty-two cents ("Hear! hear!") wich he hed loaned him about eighteen months ago, afore he had knowed him well, or larned to luv him. But thare wuz anuther reason why ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... there is something about sex in boys that even his mother dares not talk over with him. At about this same time when the mother begins to avoid the sex question with her boy, he will surely begin to get vulgar information and impressions from his boy companions. He will in all probability begin to hear the impure and obscene stories and vulgar language that are so common among many men and boys, and he will be sure to learn that the vulgarity which he hears must not be repeated in the presence of his mother and sisters. It is a most critical time ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... of this Henri Fourdrinier, the son of Admiral Fourdrinier, that the family fled from France to Groningen, in Holland. In all probability this flitting took place during those endless civil wars which disturbed France at that time. Possibly at the time when the heavy taxes imposed on the people made it almost impossible to live. The "Fronde" was ravaging the country too, in 1648, and for four years later. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... master with dispatches for the Lieutenant-Governor, was seized by some convicts who had been placed on board, under confinement, aided by part of the crew, and was carried beyond the reach of re-capture. She has since been heard of, but without a probability of her recovery. The latter was cut out of Farm Cove, and was carried out to sea, before any information was received on the subject. This transaction was planned in a very secret manner, so that all the convicts boarded her about twelve o'clock at night; and, although the vessel lay in ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... expense of her coming had been paid for her over and over again. Lady Ongar knew that she had money, and knew also that she would have had immediate recourse to law if any lawyer would have suggested to her, with a probability of success, that he could get more for her. No doubt she had been telling her story to some attorney, in the hope that money might thus he extracted, and had been dragging her Julie's name through the mud, telling all she knew of that wretched ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... future. He was terribly distressed over the necessity of telling Mrs. Yorke, and said that he meant to "sleep over it," and think of the best way of breaking it to her. But we all knew how much probability there was of that. No sooner would he see his wife, than his full heart would overleap all restraint he might have intended to put upon it, and she would be put in possession of all the facts, down to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... hypothetical or rational, and the historical account of facts; for though here is reason enough why ancient art might have been denominated 'High Art,' that it was so denominated on this account, is a position not capable of proof: whereas, in all probability, the true account of the matter runs thus—The works of antiquity awe us by their time-hallowed presence; the mind is sent into a serious contemplation of things; and, the subject itself in nowise contravening, we attribute all this potent effect ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various |
