"Improbably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upwards of 37 miles in diameter, lies at the end of the gigantic range of the Apennines. Not improbably, Eratosthenes once formed the volcanic vent for the stupendous forces that elevated the comparatively craterless ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... vast convulsions. But at least he saw, and saw with eyes of passionate alarm, that strong speculative forces were at work, which must violently prove the very bases of the great social superstructure, and might not improbably break ...
— Burke • John Morley
... in which she lay, its walls dimly visible in the light of an arc-lamp just outside the window, gay with saffron cupids who disported themselves among roses of the same complexion. Over the mantel-piece of black iron hung an improbably ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... combination, it is evident that any force which the present argument could ever have had must now be pronounced as neutralised. Natural causes have been shown, so far as scientific inference can extend, as not improbably sufficient to produce the observed effects; and therefore we are no longer free to invoke the hypothetical ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... they were called, may not improbably have owed their origin to the fashion of rustic composition set by Lorenzo de' Medici in his Nencia, and may thus in their origin have been related to the courtly eclogue; but the subsequent development of the kind is at ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... life makes a Malay run amok. All Malays have the greatest horror of suicide, and I know of no properly authenticated case in which a male Malay has committed such an act, but I have known several who ran amok when a white man, under similar circumstances, would not improbably have taken his own life. Often enough something trivial begins the trouble, and, in the heat of the moment, a blow is struck by a man against one whom he holds dear, and the hatred of self which results, causes him to long for ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... abandoned; but it can be reached only when a more particular acquaintance with the nature of coronal light than we now possess indicates the appropriate device for giving it a preferential advantage in self-portraiture. Moreover, the effectiveness of this device may not improbably be enhanced, through changes in the coronal spectrum at epochs of ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... taste—or taken a new lease of an old one—for reading history, which had been dormant all through our first and second youth. We expect to see the time when we shall read the Elizabethan dramatists with avidity. We may not improbably find a delight in statistics; there must be a hidden charm in them. We may even form a relish ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... unfortunately gives little information concerning the details of his administrative work as legate. But he relates one incident which suggests that in this period Malachy was instrumental in founding another diocese. He nominated and consecrated the first known bishop of Cork,[88] not improbably with the intention that he should unite in his own person the two offices of coarb of Barre, founder of ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... was signed, our force returned to Fort Saint David. While they had been away, there had been a revolution in the Carnatic. Now this was rather a complicated business; but as the whole situation at present turns upon it; and it will, not improbably, cause our expulsion from Southern India; I will explain it to you as well ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... addicted to literature, a warm lover of his own country, and, in general, of whatever redounded to her honour; he was, moreover, very especially qualified to appreciate Burns as a companion; and had such an introduction taken place, he might not improbably have been induced to bestow that consideration on the claims of the poet, which, in the absence of any personal acquaintance, Burns's works ought to have received at his hands." But during that visit Burns met, and made the acquaintance of, another man of some influence, Mr. Graham of Fintray, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... seeing in a variety of parts than if he had not himself been a busy member of the profession. He can censure as well as praise—less warmly, but not less candidly. His verdict on Ristori, whom he saw after his retirement, may not improbably appear harsh to her admirers, but we should recommend them to ponder well before endeavoring to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... degrees of consanguinity were forbidden by Divine authority, but not until the peculiar race was fully established, and so far multiplied, as to allow departure from close breeding without change of characteristics, and not improbably the prohibition was even then based more upon moral reasons, or upon man's ignorance or recklessness regarding selection, than upon ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... thousands, of boys every year. His first published performance, now of extreme rarity, and not, of course, produced with any literary object, was his Latin call-thesis on the rather curious subject (which has been, not improbably, supposed to be connected with his German studies and the terror-literature of the last decade of the century) of the disposal of the dead bodies of legally executed persons. His first English work was directly the result of the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... egress. There were windows, he knew, to the back; but upon what ground they opened, he seems to have had no certain information; and in a neighborhood so dangerous, the windows of the lower story would not improbably be nailed down; those in the upper might be free, but then came the necessity of a leap too formidable. From all this, however, the sole practical inference was to hurry forward with the trial of further keys, and to detect the hidden treasure. This it was, this intense absorption ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... many persons, even now, through merely unselfish (not to speak of religious) motives, sentence themselves to celibacy, it should not appear improbably that a more highly evolved humanity would cheerfully sacrifice a large proportion of its sex-life for the common weal, particular ly in view of certain advantages to be gained. Not the least of such advantages—always supposing that mankind were able ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... whatever way he chose, even for returning to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that, not improbably, in some of the battles which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank, in which case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... on by the insurgents for exciting foreign nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that the effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty, and that one strong nation promises more durable peace and a more ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband's first words might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant's last; and she waited for him ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... third year of the king's absence in particular was distinguished by the remarkable commotion excited by William Fitz-Osbert, styled Longbeard, a citizen of London, who is admitted to have possessed both eloquence and learning, and whose whole character and proceedings might not improbably, if he had had his own historian, have assumed a very different complexion from what has been given to him. Longbeard, who acquired the names of the Advocate and King of the Poor, is affirmed to have had above fifty thousand of the lower orders associated with him by oaths which bound them to follow ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... be incumbent on him to be telling something. As you, my friend, if you are very successful in the telling of that first story, will become ambitious of further storytelling, and will look out for anecdotes,—in the narration of which you will not improbably sometimes distress ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... slave for an act of gross disobedience and neglect. I found that all the tobacco required turning, and now it will not be done this afternoon, owing to my orders not being carried out, and the tobacco will not improbably be injured in quality. My position is difficult enough as it is; but if the slaves see that instead of being supported I am thwarted by your son, my authority is gone altogether. No overseer can carry on his work properly ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... sound basis depends, therefore, to no small extent, on the degree to which the moralising elements in the nation can, without injury to all that is sound and healthy in individualist action, control those defects which may not improbably spring out of the egotism of the commercial spirit, if it be subject to no ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... the party at an early and decorous hour, so that they left the Castle long before their rivals, the Cavaliers, had reached the springtide of their merriment; an arrangement which afforded the greatest satisfaction to the lady, who dreaded the consequences which might not improbably have taken place, had both parties met at the same period and point ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... this to be said," yawned the poet, "if the little bounder had kept his word, it would have been an extraordinary conclusion to our adventures—as persons of literary discretion, we can hardly regret that a story did not end so improbably.... My children, Miranda, good-night—and ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... which was reputed to be almost unlimited, but which was not absolutely fixed. A couple of hundred thousand pounds down might have been secured with greater ease. But here there had been a prospect of endless money,—of an inheritance which might not improbably make the Auld Reekie family conspicuous for its wealth even among the most wealthy of the nobility. The old man had fallen into the temptation, and abnormal difficulties had been the result. Some of these the reader knows. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... a moment. He had got his wife. The marriage could not be undone. Mr. Wharton had money enough for them all, and would not certainly discard his daughter. Mr. Wharton could place him on a really firm footing, and might not improbably do so if he could be made to feel some confidence in his son-in-law. At this moment there was much doubt with the son-in-law whether he had better not tell the simple truth. "It has gone in by degrees," he said. "Altogether I have had about L8000 in it." In truth ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... he will be almost sure to get into mischief. One will want to boss the other, but they can generally be left to settle their own quarrels. In every pack there is a master hound who rules the roost, but if he degenerates into an intolerable bully, he may, not improbably, be killed and eaten by the others, an occurrence which Mr. Mills tells us took place in Mr. Conyer's kennel at ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... which belong the cuttle-fish and the octopus (sacred to Victor Hugo), may be, for all we can say to the contrary, an order with a future. Their kindred, the Gastropods, have, in the case of the snail and slug, learnt the trick of air-breathing. And not improbably there are even now genera of this order that have escaped the naturalist, or even well-known genera whose possibilities in growth and dietary are still unknown. Suppose some day a specimen of a new species is caught off the coast of Kent. It excites remark at a Royal Society soiree, engenders ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... whole yard is redolent of dilapidation. Facing the visitor on entering is an interesting block of old buildings, forming part of the left side, and the bottom of what once was an ample courtyard. This part of the building contains not improbably the shell of the corresponding portion of the original inn. The doors of the first floor all open into one of the wide balustraded galleries or verandas so common in the genuine old English hostelry. Until recently the landlord of the Talbot, then a small public-house, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... simply, and with such an appearance of good faith, that the cure was quite convinced. And to Monsieur de Lamotte the plans attributed to his wife were not entirely improbably. Derues had learnt indirectly that such a career for Edouard had been actually under consideration. However, though Monsieur de Lamotte's entire ignorance prevented him from making any serious objection, his fears were not entirely at rest, but for ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... parent and to have migrated from some one birthplace.' This, to my mind, is much more unlikely than his further suggestion that 'all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype.' Startling as this second proposition may be on first hearing, it may not very improbably express the real fact, provided by 'some one prototype' be signified, not a single individual, but several individuals of one and the same type. Beyond all doubt there was a time when on and about our earth all matter was as yet inorganic, and when ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... introduce, the method of representing plants systematically by illustration rather than by description. This method, important still, was even more important when there was no proper system of botanical nomenclature. Crateuas by his paintings of plants, copies of which have not improbably descended to our time, began a tradition which, fixed about the fifth century, remained almost rigid until the re-discovery of nature in the sixteenth. He was physician to Mithridates VI Eupator (120-63 B. C.), but his work was well known and appreciated at Rome, which became ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... beginning of the Christmas holidays, they knew, though it had been thought best to say little about it, and the good Misses Scarlett refused to look upon it as anything but a temporary break, that it was good-bye for much longer than was supposed—good-bye perhaps and not improbably for always, to Ivy Lodge and ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... emotion which involves suffering, such an awakening was impossible. The first feeling of a girl as happily situated, healthy-minded, and physically strong as she was is bound to be pleasurable; and had she been a young man at this time she would not improbably have sought to heighten and vary her sensations by adding greater quantities of alcohol to her daily diet; she would have grown coarse of skin by eating more than she could assimilate; she would have smelt strongly enough of tobacco, as a rule, to try ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... ballades, lais, virelais, and roundels, [Footnote: Lais: ... virilais. Chansons ... roundels: different types of versification.] and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship's ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not only to the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain (Geograph. Nub. p. 151, d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114, 115). The etymology has been most improbably deduced from Vandalusia, country of the Vandals. (d'Anville Etats de l'Europe, p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of Casiri, which signifies, in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the West, in a word, the Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... was of opinion that the fortunes of the firm might not improbably be made in six, if only they would commence with sufficient distinction. He had ascertained that large and commanding premises might be had in St. Paul's Churchyard, in the frontage of which the square feet of plate glass could be counted by the hundred. It was true ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... so; on the contrary, I will uphold with my lance, her selection of John de Walton against the minions of a court, to be a wise and generous choice, and her own behaviour as alike candid and noble. But she herself is not unlikely to dread unjust misconstruction; a fear of which may not improbably induce her, upon any occasion, to seize some opportunity of showing an unwonted and unusual rigour towards her lover, in order to balance her having extended towards him, in the beginning of their intercourse, somewhat of an unusual degree of frank encouragement. Nay, it might be ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... been asked that question in the same circumstances, she would not improbably have replied, "No; worse luck!" But Alice, as we have seen, was tender over her husband's reputation. She only returned a quiet negative. Rachel, whose eyes were keen, and ears ditto, heard something in the tone, and saw something in the eyes, which Alice had no idea ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... literary fashions of the mother country. America was settled by Englishmen who were contemporary with the greatest names in English literature. Jamestown was planted in 1607, nine years before Shakspeare's death, and the hero of that enterprize, Captain John Smith, may not improbably have been a personal acquaintance of the great dramatist. "They have acted my fatal tragedies on the stage," wrote Smith. Many circumstances in The Tempest were doubtless suggested by the wreck of the Sea Venture on "the still vext Bermoothes," as described by William Strachey ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Isuspect that the more general satire "Colin Clout" preceded the more directly personal one of "Why come ye nat to court?" which lashes Wolsey himself with a heartily outspoken virulence which would hardly have been tolerated by him when in the zenith of his power. It was not improbably written whilst its author was safe in sanctuary under Bishop Islip. William Thynne, court favourite though he was, could never have kept Skelton's head on his shoulders ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... downstream. We ran as fast as we could out of the jungle to a commanding position on the hill. Thence we could determine the course of the herd. It continued on downstream as far as we could follow the sounds in the convolutions of the hills. Realizing that it would improbably recover enough from its alarmed condition to resume its regular habits that day, we ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the bishop, and sneaking out of the room, he went down stairs, troubled in his mind as to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself not very well just at present; and began to consider that he might, not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... natives are nominal Christians, and are connected more or less with the Congregational denomination. To attempt to proselytize them to the English Church, or to unsettle their religious relations in any way, would, on the whole, be a hopeless, as well as an invidious task, and would not improbably result in driving some among them into the greater apparent unity of the Church of Rome. Those who believe in the oneness of the invisible church, and that all who hold "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are within the pale of salvation, may well hesitate ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... turning to his companion said, "I wish that note was out of my book." Had he foreseen the noise his several friends continued to make, even after his death, about this purely imaginary offence on the part of Adam Smith, the poet would not improbably wish the polemical prefaces out of his book. Smith did not think much of Mickle's translation of the Lusiad, holding the French version to be much superior,[279] but if he happened to express this unfavourable opinion to the Duke of Buccleugh, it could not have been ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... head of dark, straight hair, a heavy moustache, and whiskers which formed a beard beneath his chin. Whether from his recent captivity or from constitutional causes, there was an air of lassitude in his look to which the fatigues of his voyage not improbably contributed. Altogether, he gave one the idea of a visionary or theoretical enthusiast rather then of a great leader ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... true Vine," said our Lord. Not improbably, as He was passing forth with His disciples into the moonlit air, He perceived a vine clustering around the window or door; and with an eye ever awake to each touch of natural beauty, and a heart always alert for spiritual lessons, ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... from the records of tradition, history and travel, a valuable mass of evidence concerning the legends which have grown out of these speculations. Myths of this kind would appear to fall into two categories, each of which may not improbably be associated with the different pursuits followed by the uncivilised ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... poor Cradell. There was no warmth to be got by him from that flame. There was no beauty in the light,—not even the false brilliance of unhallowed love. Injury might come to him,—a pernicious clipping of the wings, which might destroy all power of future flight; injury, and not improbably destruction, if he should persevere. But one may say that no single hour of happiness could accrue to him from his intimacy with Mrs Lupex. He felt for her no love. He was afraid of her, and, in many respects, disliked ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry,—where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came a rustling noise as of a minister's silk gown, sweeping ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mr. Mildmay. "But it may not improbably come to pass that her Majesty will feel herself obliged to send again for some one or two of us, that we may tender to her Majesty the advice which we owe to her;—for me, for instance, or for my friend the Duke. In such a matter she would ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Timothy Tawdrey would seem to have been the simple dance although not improbably ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... hunting party had taken, till he came to the spot on which the crowd had been assembled. Close to this there was a hand-gate leading into Dillsborough wood, and standing in the gateway was a man. The Senator thought that this might not improbably be Goarly himself, and asked the question, "Might your name be Mr. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Not improbably other nations might join the protesting power. The result would be a war; it might even be the world war that we have been fearing for a generation. It might conceivably be the greatest and the bloodiest war that the world has yet seen. Yet it ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... was a London merchant, a devout Catholic, and not improbably a convert to Catholicism. His mother was one of seventeen children of William Turner, of York; one of her sisters was the wife of Cooper, the well-known portrait-painter. Mrs. Cooper was the poet's godmother; she died when he was five years old, leaving to ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the soul of the revolt and that without him it might not improbably have been put down. The king therefore offered a patent of nobility and a large sum of money to any one who should make away with the Dutch patriot. After several unsuccessful attempts, William, who had been chosen hereditary governor of the United Provinces, was shot in his house at Delft, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... communicating these orders to the principal officers of the expedition, they pointed out to him that, if he attempted to take such a grave step, the soldiers and sailors would certainly resist it, and the town would not improbably be laid in ashes. The expedition then sailed round the island to Havana, where Cortez completed his preparations; and in spite of another ineffectual attempt of Velasquez to ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... openly enough to the example of the Decameron, which had been translated by her own secretary, Anthony le Macon, a member of her literary coterie, and not improbably connected with the writing or redacting of the Heptameron itself. Nor were later Italian tale-tellers likely to be without influence at a time when French was being "Italianated" in every possible way, to the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... was gone! But, in truth, this did not much annoy her. She had declared to herself once before that if anything was wrong about the money she would regard it as a present made to her brother; and when so thinking of it, she had, undoubtedly, felt that it was, not improbably, lost to her. It was something over a hundred a year to be deducted from her computed income, but she would still be able to live at the Paragon quite as well as she had intended, and be able also to educate Susanna. Indeed, she could do this ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... and gave their legs the appearance of skewers with Dutch cheeses on them. Apart from the savages, the general impression of Guiana remaining with me is that of a great hot-house, in which everything was as improbably huge as in one of Gustave Dore's illustrations—where I came across apricots as big as my head, and caimans ten yards long. As regards the inhabitants, I recollect Creoles, enervated by the climate, who were as kindly as they were intelligent; pale-faced women, languorous and seductive, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... as bulky as the "Transactions of the Royal Society" might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations [35] of the Schoolmen;[36] not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy"; but though such work engrossed the best intellects ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to discuss some of the more recondite phenomena of animal coloration, it will be well to consider for a moment the extent of the ground we have already covered. Protective coloration, in some of its varied forms, has not improbably modified the appearance of one-half of the animals living on the globe. The white of arctic animals, the yellowish tints of the desert forms, the dusky hues of crepuscular and nocturnal species, the transparent or bluish tints of oceanic creatures, represent a vast ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... contained an inner consecrated area, which was occupied by the Knights, and some houses adjacent on the west owned by them, but not improbably occupied by students of the law. It appears that when the manor was handed over to the Knights of St. John the King retained part of it, which, however, in 1338, he allowed them to purchase for L100, ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... when I described him as 'the Giusti of Italian prose.'" As a polemic writer D'Azeglio was recognized as one of the chief forces in molding public opinion. If he had not been both patriot and statesman, this versatile genius, as before intimated, would not improbably have gained an enviable reputation in the realm of art; and although his few novels are—perhaps with justice—no longer remembered, they deeply stirred the hearts of his countrymen in their day, and to say the least are characterized by good ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Water Lane, and thereupon remarked aloud: 'The whole History of the World had not the like precedent of a King's prisoner to purchase freedom, and his bosom favourite to have the halter, but in Scripture, in the case of Mordecai and Haman.' As improbably James is reported to have been told, and to have retorted that 'Ralegh might ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... stories, therefore, of infection being taken from following a coffined corpse to the grave, without reference to the state of grief, fear, and fatigue, not improbably, of drunkenness, in the mourners, must be unworthy of attention. I am no friend to the absurdly long interval which in this country is allowed to elapse,[32] even in the hottest weather, between death and burial; but still more do I deprecate the indecent ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... or the pudding, as we understand them, and as the latter has perhaps been developed from the dish, of the making of which Tom Thumb was an eye-witness to his sorrow, so the covered fruit tart may not improbably be an outgrowth from the old coffin pasty of venison or game, with the superaddition of a dish for the safe custody of ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... refute my arguments, has acted as if he had been convinced by them. I objected to the term of sixty years as far too long. My noble friend has cut that term down to twenty-five years. I warned the House that, under the provisions of Mr Serjeant Talfourd's bill, valuable works might not improbably be suppressed by the representatives of authors. My noble friend has prepared a clause which, as he thinks, will guard against that danger. I will not, therefore, waste the time of the Committee by debating points which he has conceded, but will proceed at once to the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... It is improbably radiant, the sun of noon in this yard of the dead. The air is exquisite and one becomes intoxicated by breathing it. The Pyrenean horizons have been swept of their clouds, their least vapors, and it seems as if the wind of the south had brought here the limpidities ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... or Elvina, was not improbably the owner of the seductive feet apostrophized by the poet, since, in 1816, he wrote an ode, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... for his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... were kept as an abutment to the tower, when aisles were added. Sometimes, as at Geddington and Brigstock in Northamptonshire, the whole wall above the nave arcades is the upper part of the wall of the aisleless building; and instances in which blocked window openings, of a not improbably pre-Conquest date, remain in walls that have subsequently been pierced with arcades, are exceedingly common. If an untouched Saxon nave is a rare thing, an unaltered Saxon chancel is obviously rarer. ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... for April 8, 1821, is quoted from The Traveller the following epigram, which may not improbably be Lamb's, and which shows at any rate that his protest against entrance fees for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... generally received story was, that he had stabbed or poisoned his wife, or, as some said, his mistress; although, as fame had ascribed to him no fewer than four mistresses, it was never very clearly made out which of his seraglio it was who had fallen the victim of his vengeance. The story not improbably might have arisen from his having been confounded with a contemporary violin-player of the name of Duranowski, a Pole, to whom in person he bore some resemblance, and who, for some offence or other having been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... inculcated first of all a belief in a Supreme Creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth. It is a singular fact, that the ancient Quiche tradition represents the Deity as a Triad, or Trinity, with the deified heroes arranged in orders below,—a representation not improbably connected with the Hindoo conception. The belief in a Supreme Being seems to have been generally diffused among the Central American and Mexican tribes, even as late as the arrival of the Spaniards. The Mexicans adored Him under the name of Ipalnemoaloni, or "Him in whom and by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... the further saying, if his scruples had been ever so extreme, not improbably he would at this time have smothered them. He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing of a trifle; nor was his anger like the fool's, pumped from the wells of nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; it was the wrath ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... to say a few words about myself. Not improbably, the reader might be willing to spare me the trouble; for I have made but a poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no separate interest, and suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other lives. But one still retains some little consideration for ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... friendship and concord with a hill-man, whose hill was in his lands. One time when his wife was about to have a child, it gave him great perplexity to think that he could not well avoid inviting the hill-man to the christening, which might, not improbably, bring him into ill repute with the priest and the other people of the village. He was going about pondering deeply, but in vain, how he might get out of this dilemma, when it came into his head to ask the advice of the boy that kept his pigs, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... He raises his voice, sways the body more briskly, keeps his one eye firmly fixed on his task, while with the other he throws a keen swift glance over you, which embraces every detail of your costume, and not improbably includes a shrewd estimate of your ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... conclusive against attempting it in an open country.] Another interesting feature in this plan is that if railway communication between Sherman and the Potomac Army had been opened in the summer of 1864, it would have been an interior line of immense importance, not improbably modifying essentially the final campaign of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... contest had lasted a year or two longer it is not improbably that our candidate would have fallen from his high "reflecting" state to the low level of artful politician. "It was the universal custom of the times to treat with liquor. We both did it; but he was condemned for it more than myself by the religious community, he ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... at it, unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he missed some easy opportunity. Not improbably he might have failed altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try roping from a fiery mustang. But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was beautiful and fleet. The horse learned ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... books!) we find depicted naval as well as military battles, in which the vessels are evidently those employed at sea. According to their own traditions, they colonized in a remote age. They themselves laid claim to Danaus: and the mythus of the expedition of Osiris is not improbably construed into a figurative representation of the spread of Egyptian civilization by the means of colonies. Besides, Egypt was subjected to more than one revolution, by which a large portion of her population was expelled the land, and scattered ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... part in most eyes; if it were only for his fate, which is too well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off, not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Due de Berry, the second son of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Salt. And though Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous that it will Flame all away without leaving the least Drop behinde it, yet even this Fiery Liquor is by Helmont not improbably affirm'd, in case what he relates be True, to be Materially Water, under a Sulphureous Disguise: For, according to him, in the making that excellent Medecine, Paracelsus his Balsamus Samech, (which is nothing but Sal ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... most illustrious chief of the party adverse to the House of Orange had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob in the very precinct of the palace of the States General. A similar fate might not improbably befall those who should, at this crisis, be accused of serving the purposes of France against their native land, and against the reformed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... assumed, was seeking to bring the warring powers together in conference looking toward the negotiation of "a peace without victory." In the event that he was able to persuade them to meet, his presence at the conference as a pacificator and probably as the presiding officer would not improbably have been in the interests of peace, because, as the executive head of the greatest of the neutral nations of the world and as the impartial friend of both parties, his personal influence would presumably have been very great in preventing a rupture in the negotiations ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... them the lives of many of their warriors—the lives of the captives should be safe, and they should not be exposed to any inhuman treatment. Boone was much perplexed. Had he been with his men, he would have fought to the last extremity, and his presence not improbably might have inspirited them, even to a successful defence. But deprived of their leader, taken entirely by surprise, and outnumbered three or four to one, their massacre was certain. And it was also certain that the Indians, exasperated by ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Mlechchhas, living in woods and on mountains. These passages intend, and do not much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the Gonds, Koles, Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the forests and mountains of Central India from Behar to Khandesh, and who are, not improbably, the predecessors of the present occupants of the cultivated portions of the country. They are always very black, ill-shapen, and dwarfish, and have countenances ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... he would charm her with his gaze, and emitting all the while a subdued hissing sound. The significance of this conduct I do not profess to have understood; it ended with his suddenly darting at the female, who took wing and was pursued. Not improbably the robin finds the feminine nature somewhat fickle, and counts it expedient to vary his tactics accordingly; for it is getting to be more and more believed that, in kind at least, the intelligence of the lower animals ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... Weston and Brereton, gentlemen of the king's chamber, together with Mark Smeton, groom of the chamber, were observed to possess much of the queen's friendship; and they served her with a zeal and attachment, which, though chiefly derived from gratitude, might not improbably be seasoned with some mixture of tenderness for so amiable a princess. The king's jealousy laid hold of the slightest circumstance; and finding no particular object on which it could fasten, it vented itself equally on every one that came within ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... and Cymbeline a late one, with other general facts of the same kind. We know pretty certainly that the Henry the Sixth series was based on a previous series on the same subject in which Shakespere not improbably had a hand; that King John and The Taming of the Shrew had in the same way first draughts from the same or other hands, and so forth. But all attempts to arrange and elucidate a chronological development of Shakespere's mind ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... in the impracticability of Lord Hampstead. Such men as that, she had told herself, were likely to keep themselves altogether free of marriage. He would not improbably, she thought, entertain some abominable but not unlucky idea that marriage in itself was an absurdity. At any rate, there was hope as long as he could be kept unmarried. Were he to marry and then have a son, even though he broke his neck out hunting next day, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... stubborn, enduring, manly will; capable of conquering much, and not to be conquered easily. She had a mind which, if rightly directed, might achieve great and good things, but of which it might be predicted that it would certainly achieve something, and that if not directed for good, it might not improbably direct itself for evil. It was impossible that she should ever grow into a piece of domestic furniture, contented to adapt itself to such uses as a marital tyrant might think fit to require of it. If destined ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... persons, five were laymen, four were clerics. Of the latter three were Englishmen, the fourth was an Italian, Agnellus of Pisa by name. Agnellus had been some time previously destined by St. Francis as the first Minister for the province of England, not improbably because he had some familiarity with our language. He was about thirty years of age, and as yet only in deacon's orders. Indeed, of the whole company only one was a priest, a man of middle age who had made his mark and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... though the "ideal" female figure or that admired and pictured by these races and by the modern Latin races is the same in its main features, and differs altogether from that admired in the Far East. Such deeply seated tastes may possibly (indeed, not improbably) be due to a common origin of the Mediterranean and African peoples distinct from that of the ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... (on April 26th) 'about a plan which Mr. Gladstone was to broach at the next Cabinet, for putting off the operation of the Franchise Act until January 1st, '86, in order to give time for redistribution to be dealt with. We decided to oppose it, on the ground that it would not improbably lead to our being forced into holding an ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... moderns is certainly not the chrysoprasius of Pliny, or the [Greek: chrysoprasos] of Greek writers. The ancient stone was not improbably our chrysoberyl, and it is doubtful whether the modern chrysoprase was known until a comparatively late period. The chrysoprase of Kosemuetz, near Frankenstein in Silesia, was discovered in 1740, and used by Frederick the Great in the decoration of the palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam. But ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... elsewhere. The Phoenicians seem to have made use of amber in their necklaces from a very early date;[9106] and, though they might no doubt have obtained it by land-carriage across Europe to the head of the Adriatic, yet their enterprise and their commercial spirit were such as would not improbably have led them to seek to open a direct communication with the amber-producing region, so soon as they knew where it was situated. The dangers of the German Ocean are certainly not greater than those of the Atlantic; and if the Phoenicians had sufficient skill in navigation ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... had lost the conclusion of the speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to have managed the supplementary business of a continuator most unskillfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the gaping space in a manner somewhat similar (though better executed) to what I have imagined. But too often different is rational conjecture from melancholy fact. This exordium, as contrary to all the rules of rhetoric as to those more essential rules of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... consistent expression of harmonious agreement and gratified esteem (suitable, I find, for all like occasions), and then, judging from the sympathetic animation of Jones Bob-Jones's countenance, that it had not improbably been connected with food, I discreetly introduced the subject of sea-snails, preserved in the essence of crushed peaches, by courteously inquiring whether he had ever partaken of ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... terming it bonellein, has recently figured the spectra of Anthea-green, and this also seems to differ considerably from chlorophyl, while I am strongly of the opinion that the pigment of the green crustaceans is, if possible, even more distinct, having not improbably a merely protective resemblance. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... play might belong to just any year since the time when women first began to write those purple tales of passion that are so bad for the morals of the servants' hall. It was simply to get copy for this kind of stuff that Mabel Vere (most improbably pretty in the person of Miss GLADYS COOPER) advertised for a husband, for this post had already been assigned to the dullest and stuffiest of fiances. I dare not think how the theme might have been treated in French hands, but Mr. HARCOURT is very firm about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... of telephoning was conceivably well-timed; not improbably the captain was receiving the report of somebody who had been sent to search Stateroom 29 in Lanyard's absence. He wondered and, wondering, glanced at Crane, to find that gentleman watching him with a whimsical glimmer which he was quick to extinguish when the captain said curtly, "Very good, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Not improbably my strong impression that the spider on my knee deliberately winked at me was the result of memory, enlivening imagination. But it sufficed to bring to mind, in one rapid, consoling flash, the irrevocable law of destiny—that the deeds of ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... be sure. I shall forget my own name soon. If any one was to call me Magnus without the 'Sir,' I shouldn't know whom they meant." Then he looked his niece in the face, and it occurred to him that Anderson might not improbably desire to flirt with her. Anderson was the riding attache, who always accompanied him on horseback, and of whom Lady Mountjoy had predicted that he would be sure to flirt with the minister's niece. At that moment Anderson himself came in, and some ceremony of ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... be distinguished these implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and liberty. But, gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this weight of infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a Croesus or (still more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the conventional age, and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on the part of sane men, involving the sacrifice of the priceless attributes of humanity, can be rendered intelligible by the supreme temporal gains above indicated, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... instructions with respect to some cottages to be built for the villeins on one of his estates. The Prior sat by in silence, while the Earl impressed on the mind of his agent that the cottages were to be made reasonably comfortable for the habitation of immortal souls and not improbably suffering bodies. When at last the bailiff had departed, the Prior turned to his patron with a smile. "I would all lay lords—and spiritual ones too—were as kindly thoughtful of their ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... (Hang-chau) show plainly enough that he was ignorant of Chinese. Odoric does not mention Su-chau, but he gives the same explanation of Kinsay as signifying the "City of Heaven," and Wassaf also in his notice of the same city has an obscure passage about Paradise and Heaven, which is not improbably a corrupted reference to the same interpretation.[1] I suspect therefore that it was a "Vulgar Error" of the foreign residents in China, probably arising out of a misunderstanding of the Chinese adage quoted by Duhalde ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the Abyssins, like that of all other nations, is obscure and uncertain. The tradition generally received derives them from Cham, the son of Noah, and they pretend, however improbably, that from his time till now the legal succession of their kings hath never been interrupted, and that the supreme power hath always continued in the same family. An authentic genealogy traced up so high could not but ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... time, elected to change the nature of their tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace, who, by Act of Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William Lovelace of Gray's Inn, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... for the country at large. But for John Adams it was ruinous. At the moment when he made the bold move, he doubtless expected to be followed by his party. Extreme was his disappointment and boundless his wrath, when he found that he had at his back only a fraction, not improbably less than half, of that party. He learned with infinite chagrin that he had only a divided empire with a private individual; that it was not safe for him, the President of the United States, to originate any important measure without first consulting a lawyer quietly (p. 027) engaged in the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Elizabeth's first historical female friend at Tilbury fort. Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... "they tell me something to the purport of our last discourse. Here upon ground where the Druids have certainly held their assemblies, and where not improbably, human sacrifices have been offered up, you will find it difficult to maintain that the improvement of the world has not been unequivocal, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... old, quite pleasantly situated, but affording no special points of interest for the tourist. The city is now easily reached by a branch of the Cuba Railway. It is worth the visit of those who "want to see it all." Beyond Gibara is Nipe Bay, not improbably the first Cuban harbor entered by Columbus. Nipe Bay and its near neighbor, Banes Bay, are the centres of what is now the greatest industrial activity of any part of the island. Here, recent American investment is measured in scores of millions of dollars. ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... Leeds and proceeded to join the bosom of his family, was not discontented with what he had done. It might not improbably have been the case that Mr. Mason would altogether refuse to see him, and having seen him, Mr. Mason might altogether have declined his assistance. He might have been forced as a witness to disclose his secret, of which he could make so ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... to the severer critics—in 1664 was published a little book called The Dutch Drawn to the Life, a hostile work not improbably written with the intention of exciting English animosity to the point of war. A great deal was made of the success of the Dutch fisheries and the mismanagement of our own. The nation was criticised in all its aspects—"well nigh three millions of men, well-proportioned, ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... met Mrs. Davant on the door-step. In one sense he might, for all his wife cared, have met fifty Mrs. Davants on the door-step: it was long since Claudia had enjoyed the solace of resenting such coincidences. Her only thought now was that her husband's first words might not improbably explain Mrs. Davant's last; and she ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... mindless games are very well, my friend; But ours to-night marks, not improbably, The last ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... translated "Arcturus" were rendered by the "Seventy" as "Arktouros" in the first passage; as "Hesperos" in the second passage; and their rendering was followed by the Vulgate. The rendering Hesper or Vesper is absurd, as "the sons" of Hesper has no meaning. "Arktouros" is not improbably a misrendering of "Arktos," "the north," which would give a free but not a literal translation of the meaning of the passage. In another passage from Job (xxxvii. 9) where the south wind is contrasted with the cold from another quarter of the sky, the "Seventy"—again ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... by its fermentation with brimstone and water, is evidently reduced to a calx, so that phlogiston must have escaped from it. Phlogiston also must evidently be set loose by the ignition of charcoal, and is not improbably the matter which flies off from paint, composed of white-lead and oil. Lastly, since spirit of nitre is known to have a very remarkable affinity with phlogiston, it is far from being improbable that nitrous air ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... their Three Homes, p. 182), that "there were a few people I 'shuffled' in upon them the company who were probably unmitigated scoundrels." Bradford speaks only of Billington and his family as those "shuffled into their company," and while he was not improbably one of the agitators (with Hopkins) who were the proximate causes of the drawing up of the Compact, he was not, in this case, the responsible leader. It is evident from the foregoing that the "appearance of faction" did not show itself until the vessel's prow ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... tribe of Euphuist pamphlets. But Jack Wilton the "traveller" is a little more of a person than the pedagogic Euphues and the shadowy Philautus. At any rate he has a very strong anticipation of Defoe, whose "Cavalier" was not improbably suggested by him. But Nash has neither the patience of Defoe, nor that singular originality, which accompanies in the author of Moll Flanders a certain inability to make the most of it. The Unfortunate Traveller is a sort of compilation or congeries of current fabliaux, novelle, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of fifteen to sixteen feet the trachodons were not covered with scales or a bony protecting armature, but with dermal tubercles of relatively small size, which varied in shape and arrangement in different species, and not improbably associated with this varied epidermal pattern there was a varied color pattern. The theory of a color pattern is based chiefly upon the fact that the larger tubercles concentrate and become more numerous ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... Laura,—were it in his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as proof of the accusation that ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the perpetrator from amidst the vast multitude attracted by the splendor of the feat? Did he fall by the hands of robbers, or did some private enemy slay him? The all-discerning sun alone can tell, for no other eye beheld it. Yet not improbably the murderer even now walks in the midst of the throng, and enjoys the fruits of his crime, while vengeance seeks for him in vain. Perhaps in their own temple's enclosure he defies the gods, mingling freely ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... of Errors," and indirectly also in "Twelfth Night," has given us intentionally ridiculous illustrations of scenes which he had not improbably witnessed, in the country at any rate, and which bring vividly before us the absurdity of the methods of diagnosis ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... of a constitution capable of rendering her prosperous and happy, to do with the adoration of Rousseau's speculative systems? Or why are the English encouraged in a traditional respect for the manes of republicans, whom, if living, we might not improbably consider as ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... something like 100,000 pilgrims every year. The object of adoration is the miraculous image of the Madonna and Child, twenty inches high, carved in lime-wood, which was presented to the Mother Church of Mariazell in 1157 by a Benedictine priest. Haydn was a devout Catholic, and not improbably knew all about Mariazell and its Madonna. At any rate, he joined a company of pilgrims, and on arrival presented himself to the local choirmaster for admission, showing the official some of his compositions, and telling of his eight years' training at St Stephen's. The ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... the shelves of the monastic libraries. I keep my own, with a certain touch of ritualistic observance, between this seventeenth century edition of the works of Roger Bacon and this more modern one, in Latin, of the writings of Thomas Aquinas; both of whom may not improbably have been practitioners ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... angelic world. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God." The burial of each and every body which is destined to the resurrection of the just, is, therefore, not improbably an object of interest with him who, under the God-man, will have the supervision of the last day. With a view to that harvest of the earth, he will now see the furrows made, the seed planted, the hill prepared. He will have a care that ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... "when it is remembered that no one then alive, with the same peculiar taste and the same political principles, could have written such poetry, we must either ascribe the Heroic Epistle to Mr. Mason, or suppose, very needlessly and improbably, that one person supplied the matter and another shaped it into verse; but, the personal insolence displayed in this poem to his Sovereign, which was probably the true reason for concealing the writer's -the principles of genuine taste which abound in it—the bitter and sarcastic strain ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... of a theatre. I will not question the propriety of a matter only to be settled by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the words—for the airs were sung—were the same, the hearers were not improbably in the enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though they had gone for it to the Queen's Theatre. Now, may not these railway insurances be something of the same kind? May it not be a means by which deans and canons and other broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little gambling without ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... I suggested, "grotesquely improbably, no doubt, but still just conceivable? Might the whole story of the cataleptic Russian and his son be a concoction of Dr. Trevelyan's, who has, for his own purposes, been in ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... cries announce evening editions: 'Porvenir! Noticiero!' Vendors of lottery-tickets wander up and down, audaciously offering the first prize: 'Quien quiere el premio gardo?' Beggars follow you with piteous tales of fasts improbably extended. But most striking is the gente flamenca, the bull-fighter, with his numerous hangers-on. The toreros—toreador is an unknown word, good for comic opera and persons who write novels of Spanish life and cannot be bothered to go to Spain—the toreros sit in their especial ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... may deem it singular that the head carpenter of the new edifice was no other than the son of the very man from whose dead gripe the property of the soil had been wrested. Not improbably he was the best workman of his time; or, perhaps, the Colonel thought it expedient, or was impelled by some better feeling, thus openly to cast aside all animosity against the race of his fallen antagonist. Nor was it out of keeping with the general coarseness and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... only got rid of by the amputation of the limb many years later. Mr. Gladstone, in his eloquent Eloge on Wedgwood recently delivered at Burslem, well observed that the disease from which he suffered was not improbably the occasion of his subsequent excellence. "It prevented him from growing up to be the active, vigorous English workman, possessed of all his limbs, and knowing right well the use of them; but it put him upon considering whether, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... had worn at the time when she had come into the kind hands of Mr. and Mrs. Burton, and the fact that she was a very indistinct talker at the time. The entire story, too, seemed to correspond so well—why should he not admit it?—with what might not improbably have been the history of his little Marian; and Marian would be, at that time, about the same age as was Miss Owen when she was found by the friends whose adopted child she became. But the solitary shoe! He wondered whether ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... that a small draper's shop, a West End "Hattery" and an almshouse for old actresses become the most extraordinary places on earth, where anything might happen and nobody would be surprised. Winnie, her heroine, behaves more improbably than anyone else, but she is such a dear little goose that most amiable readers will be quite glad that she doesn't have to suffer as much as such geese would if they existed in real life. You can see from this that it is one of those books that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... love him from twelve to three. If our social relations are more peaceful than those of France or America or the England of a hundred years ago, it is simply because our politics are more peaceful; not improbably because our politics are more fictitious. If our statesmen agree more in private, it is for the very simple reason that they agree more in public. And the reason they agree so much in both cases is really that they belong to one social class; and therefore the dining life is the ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented." (Nichol Smith: "Eighteenth Century Essays on ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Western road, connecting Worcester with Albany—when both money and courage seemed almost exhausted—Mr. De Grand never for a moment faltered. He might almost be said to have then had Western railroad on the brain. Among other things, he issued a circular which caused much amusement and not improbably some scandal among the more precise. The Rev. S. K. Lothrop, then a young man, had preached a sermon in Brattle Street Church which attracted a good deal of attention, on the subject of the moral and Christianizing influence of railroads. Mr. De Grand thought he saw ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the first woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in human phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could the tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful snake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a natural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the serpent, i.e. Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was likely to have been keenly managed. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
