"Unlikely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... always been with the sheep and nothing else. It may be I can hire out to some other body, but chances are few hereabouts, and if the Auld Laird carries out this notion, there'll be many another beside ourselves who'll need to be walking the world. It seems unlikely he would be for taking away the town too, even if it is but a wee bit of a village, and the law gives him the right, for times have changed since that lease was made, long years ago, and there are few in this day who would ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... if they had done so he must have met them as he came from Staveley. There was the bare possibility that he had missed them by going round the fields to the old woman's cottage; but this seemed unlikely. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... (No. 169), though an unlikely spot, has been, of all the side binns of Fleet Street, one of the most specially favoured by Minerva. Here Valpy published that interminable series of Latin and Greek authors, which he called the "Delphin Classics," which Lamb's eccentric friend, George Dyer, of Clifford's Inn, laboriously edited, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... not a clever chap like you, P-Peter." Speug had also accumulated a considerable collection of pencil sketches, mostly his own, in which life at Muirtown Seminary was treated very broadly indeed, and as he judged this portfolio unlikely to be appreciated by Nestie, and began himself to have some scruple in having his own name connected with it, it was consigned to the flames, and any offer of an addition, which boys made to Speug as a connoisseur in Rabelaisean art, was taken as a ground of offence. His personal ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... produce. This augmented yield will, it is true, not be adequate to supply the needs of Turkey, who for the last two years has suffered from very acute food shortage, which in certain districts has amounted to famine and wholesale starvation of the poorer classes. But it is unlikely that their needs will be considered at all, for Germany's needs (she, the fairy godmother of the Pan-Turk ideal) must obviously have the first call on such provisions as are obtainable. Thus, in the new preserved meat factory at Aidin, the ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... me unlikely," replied Lousteau. "I can still believe in love, but I have ceased to believe in woman. There are in me, I suppose, certain defects which hinder me from being loved, for I have often been thrown over. Perhaps I ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Lutheran that is. And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you only knew, Alyosha, what ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... all. The immense amount of writing would cease. Authors would be extinct. Thinkers could find their ideas stated in the best possible way, and the most effective arguments in their favor. If this event seems at all unlikely to any one, let him only reflect on the long geological ages, and on the innumerable writings, short and long, now published daily,—from Mr. Buckle to the newspapers. Estimate everything in type daily throughout Christendom. If so much is done in a day, how much in a few decades of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... "Didn't expect her, of course, did you. So unlikely she'd come, after getting a letter like that.... I suppose you're wondering, Lucy, what I'm doing ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... consisting of twelve "sars", i.e. 12 x 3600 43,200 years. The Sumerians themselves had no difficulty in picturing two of their dynastic rulers as each reigning for two "ners" (1,200 years), and it would not be unlikely that "sars" were distributed among still earlier rulers; the numbers were easily written. For the unequal distribution of his hundred and twenty "sars" by Berossus among his ten ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... careful of hastily rejecting any evidence because it conflicted with some preconceived theory. It would have been easy now, for instance, to assume that this prim spinster was mistaken in declaring that she had seen the pistol thrown from the window of Number Seven. That, of course, seemed most unlikely, since the shooting was done in Number Six, yet how account for the woman's positiveness? She seemed a truthful, well-meaning person, and the murderer might have gone into Number Seven after committing the crime. It was evidently important to get as much light as possible on this ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... filled the air with odor, and chequered the green foliage and grass; the whole scene was full of vernal freshness, life, and beauty. The track which the Jamesons had followed was about midway between the northern and southern routes generally pursued by emigrants, and it was quite unlikely that others would cross the river at that point. The dense jungle that skirted the river bank was an impediment in the way of reaching the settlements lower down, and there was danger of being lost in the woods if the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... right," replied mine host—"you are, I say, fully right, my kinsman. Thou hast got a gay horse; see thou light not unaware upon a halter—or, if thou wilt needs be made immortal by means of a rope, which thy purpose of following this gentleman renders not unlikely, I charge thee to find a gallows as far from Cumnor as thou conveniently mayest. And so I ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the origin of the fairy idea. First and foremost, the smaller prehistoric aboriginal peoples of Europe themselves possessed tales of little people, of spirits of field and forest, flood and fell. It is unlikely that man was ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... now a new light had been thrown upon it by Rachel. If a paper could be taken out in the way that she had shown him, it was possible that Gore might have obtained the map in the same way, though it still seemed to Rendel exceedingly unlikely that, granted he had done so, he would have been able, given the condition he was in, to act upon it soon enough for it to appear this morning. He hesitated a moment, then he made up his mind to wait no longer. He took up the Arbiter and went upstairs to Sir ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... therefore all must be here this morning. Suppose they missed me? 'Where is the "reporter," with whom we talked last evening?' Haldane would reply that he must have slipped out of the door before it was shut. They might scour the country; but would they search the shed? It seemed most unlikely. The scheme pleased my fancy exceedingly, and I was just resolving to conceal myself, when one of the guards entered and ordered everyone ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... said he ruefully, "I can't thrash a white-haired villain who is old enough to be my grandfather, even if I could get to him, which is unlikely. You know he has an inner office 'way off from the rest and sneaks in and out, up and down the back stairs. A suit for libel wouldn't do any good and the publicity would hurt more than the satisfaction I might get out of a verdict. But vengeance ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... was altogether attended with so much mystery that that of itself would have kept the excitement alive. What could have taken Rachel Frost near the pond at all? Allowing that she had chosen that lonely road for her way home—which appeared unlikely in the extreme—she must still have gone out of it to approach the pond, must have walked partly across a field to gain it. Had her path led close by it, it would have been a different matter: it might have been supposed (unlikely still, though) that she had missed ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... here pretended, that we should be always [sitting [1]] with Chaplets of Flowers round our Heads, or be crowned with Roses, in order to make our Entertainment agreeable to us; but if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve to be Merry, seldom are so; it will be much more unlikely for us to be well-pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad. Whatever we do we should keep up the Chearfulness of our Spirits, and never let them sink below an Inclination at least to be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... fix, the Nautilus's latitude bearings were modulated to the southwest. Our prow pointed to the Indian Ocean. Where would Captain Nemo's fancies take us? Would he head up to the shores of Asia? Would he pull nearer to the beaches of Europe? Unlikely choices for a man who avoided populated areas! So would he go down south? Would he double the Cape of Good Hope, then Cape Horn, and push on to the Antarctic pole? Finally, would he return to the seas of the Pacific, where his Nautilus could navigate freely ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... personated familiar to one, but the other spoke only the pure and native language of which it was a corruption. It might have occurred to them at a cooler moment, and under less critical circumstances, that, even if their disguise had been penetrated, it was unlikely a female, manifesting so much lively affection for her parent, would have done aught to injure those with whom he had evidently connected himself. But the importance attached to their entire security from danger left them but little room for ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... so, has given Michigan an unusually large body of alumni. There are, however, a number of universities, notably Columbia, California, and Chicago, which have had a very large enrolment of late years, and it is not unlikely that within a few years their alumni catalogues will contain more names than Michigan's. It may be remarked in connection with the relatively large proportion of those who have not received degrees, about 42 percent ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... in the list, "Tallarte de Lajes" (Ingles). It is not unlikely that an English sailor, making voyages from Bristol or from one of the Cinque Ports to Coruna, may have married and settled at Lajes. But what can we make of "Tallarte"? Spaniards would be likely enough to prefix a "T" to any English name beginning with a vowel, and they ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... all these reasons, he was desirous to raise up against the Disinherited Knight (towards whom he already entertained a strong dislike) a powerful enemy in the person of Waldemar Fitzurse, who was likely, he thought, highly to resent the injury done to his daughter, in case, as was not unlikely, the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... misgiving when the work was done; as he could not but see that he had somewhat impaired the beauty of the peacemaker's butt by the hang-dog looking initial which he had grafted upon it. But when he recollected the subordinate uses to which this "puppy" was to be put, and considered how unlikely, in his case, it would be exposed to sight in comparison with its more masculine brother, he grew partially reconciled to an evil which was ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and most dispassionate judgment. And yet again, if he did, may we, with all reverence for Lamb's exquisite genius, have permission to say—that his own constitution of intellect sinned by this very habit of discontinuity. It was a habit of mind not unlikely to be cherished by his habits of life. Amongst these habits was the excess of his social kindness. He scorned so much to deny his company and his redundant hospitality to any man who manifested a wish ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly humorous process as ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... red St. George's Cross; but there is no reason to suppose that this inspired the flag of the colonies. Bunting was scarce and Franklin was always a thrifty soul. If that committee of three did design the flag, it is not at all unlikely that Franklin suggested utilizing the standards they already had, and changing their character by stitching on white stripes. To deface the flag of Britain was a serious offense, and maybe it was thought just as well that the name of the originator of this "Grand Union" ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... It is unlikely that Seneca opposed the murder of Britannicus (Feb. A.D. 55). Cf. Tac. Ann. xiii. 17, 'Facinus cui plerique iam hominum ignoscebant, antiquas fratrum ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... other of Gotham's gambling devices, may have heard of what is aptly designated "Skin Faro," but it is altogether unlikely that he may be acquainted with the modus operandi of the game. Skin faro is not played at a regular establishment in which the player against the bank is fleeced. The game is liable to drift against the stranger in his journey to New ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... and I am glad to find you thinking so far beforehand. It would be a pretty commission, and I will 'accingere me' to procure it to you. The only competition I fear, is that of General Yorke, in case Prince Ferdinand should pass any time with his brother at The Hague, which is not unlikely, since he cannot go to Brunswick to his eldest brother, upon account of their ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... used in 1518 in the presence of the Emperor Maximilian: "We would all of us prefer to die," they said, "rather than to fall under the domination of Venice." Such language may, of course have been a compliment; and yet it does not seem unlikely that the people of Triest had some knowledge of the ruin and death that were overtaking all the Dalmatian towns with the one exception of Dubrovnik, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... Swallow for themselves, and my mother's fervent "God keep you, Phil!" and all the other prayers that I felt in her arms round my neck, were with me still as we ran past Brecqhou, and I stood with an arm round the mast looking eagerly for possible, but unlikely, sight of Carette. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... went to Peg and said coldly "Good-bye, Margaret. It is unlikely we'll meet again. I hope you have a safe ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... to his fancy seemed to protest against the vulgarities of her surroundings. He thought he could discern the stuff that meant an actress in her, and prophesied that she would before long be playing Juliet at the Haymarket. He was still at the age when the habit is to discover geniuses in unlikely places, especially when the women are pretty. He raved about her when he adjourned with his companions to the bar, and they chaffed him a good deal to his face and sneered at him behind his back. He was there the next night, and ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... Cosmo. Von Steinwald was a man of influence in the court, well known for his reckless habits and fierce passions. The very possibility that the mirror should be in his possession was hell itself to Cosmo. But violent or hasty measures of any sort were most unlikely to succeed. All that he wanted was an opportunity of breaking the fatal glass; and to obtain this he must bide his time. He revolved many plans in his mind, but without being able to fix ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... of the Great Eastern is full of surprises. It is always that which is most unlikely to happen to her which occurs. Not long since we recorded her sale by auction in Liverpool for L26,000. It was stated that her purchasers were going to fit her out for the Australian trade, and that she would ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... House to prove laxity and mismanagement against Hamilton, he was triumphantly vindicated. Had the United States been allowed to develop in tranquillity and prosperity for a generation, it is not unlikely that the Federalist party might have struck its roots so deeply as to be impervious to attacks. But it needed time, for in contrast to the Jeffersonian party, whose origin is manifestly in the old-time colonial political habits of democracy, local independence, and love of lax finance, the Federalist ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... before her, Cutter and I, for several seconds, watching for some change of expression in her face. He had hoped that my sudden appearance would arouse a memory in her disordered mind. I understood his anxiety, but it appeared to me very unlikely that when she failed to recognize him she should remember me. For some moments she gazed upon me, and then a slight flush rose to her pale cheeks, her fixed stare wavered, and her eyes fell. I could hear Cutter's long-drawn breath of excitement. She clasped her hands together and turned ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... fictitious value was given to shares which had cost nothing; and of the misery produced by this systematic swindling. He remarked, that if a man purchased in the lottery, he knew something of what he was doing, that he was giving a certain sum for a very unlikely chance, and that in doing so he was conferring some benefit on government. But the joint-stock gambling was of a much more atrocious kind: it was gambling with false dice. The loss itself on the whole speculation was an evil, but the great and signal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... indeed difficult, with regard to these castles, to be positive as to the people by whom they were constructed. Tradition and history point to Romans and Saxons, as well as to Celts; nor is it at all unlikely that many of these half-natural, half-artificial strongholds, though originally planned by the Celtic inhabitants, were afterwards taken possession of and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... completely like the estufas in the court. These buildings, according to Sr. Epifanio Vigil, of Santa Fe, were barns or store-houses (round towers 10 to 11 feet high), in which the Indians preserved their gathered crops, forage, etc. Still, it is not unlikely that they were tanks, ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... looking for a needle in a rick of hay," he answered; "or, rather, far more hopeless, for it is very unlikely that the case should have escaped ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... identify themselves as Berber live mostly in the mountainous region of Kabylie east of Algiers; the Berbers are also Muslim but identify with their Berber rather than Arab cultural heritage; Berbers have long agitated, sometimes violently, for autonomy; the government is unlikely to grant autonomy but has offered to begin sponsoring teaching Berber ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... which his Scottish subjects received from Charles II. after the Restoration, must be held to be a proof of the sagacity at least of Binning, and a justification of the suspicion with which he and some of the other Protesters regarded him. It is not unlikely that, in their case, the strong appeal to the fears of the English and Scottish presbyterians, as the supposed friends of monarchy, contained in Milton's "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates," which was published but ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... melodic contents of the first measure may be exactly reproduced in the succeeding measure; but if this is the case, they are very unlikely to appear still again in the next (third) measure, for that would exaggerate the condition of Unity and create the ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... possible that a portion of the Esquimaux crossed Davis's Straits by accident from the west to the east: such things have occurred within the memory of living men; but I deny that it would ever be a voluntary act, and therefore unlikely to have led to the population of South Greenland. A single hunter of seals, or more, might have been caught in the ice and been drifted across, or a boat's load of women may have been similarly obliged to perform a voyage which would have been very distasteful ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... obviously, men working almost against time to turn out "curios," for which there is a persistent demand on the part of visitors who are not always by temperament or training fitted to appreciate the artistic or the beautiful, are unlikely to produce such fine or original work as the artisan of old leisurely employed at his craft and pluming himself, not on the amount of his earnings or the extent of his output, but on the quality and artistic merits of ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... sent a whole division of white regiments to the right-about. If there be any disgrace in that, it does not belong exclusively nor mainly to the negroes. A second attack is far more perilous and unlikely to succeed than a first; the enemy having been encouraged by the failure of the first, and had time to concentrate his forces. And, in this case, there seems to have been a fatal delay in ordering both ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... its solution. I can give no opinion as to whether by these means the Russians will succeed in finding their way out of the quagmire of industrial ruin in which they are involved. I can only say that they are unlikely to find their way out by any other means. I think this is instinctively felt in Russia. Not otherwise would it have been possible for the existing organization, battling with one hand to save the towns front starvation, ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... average of 32 for the gray as against 27 for the white. More than one subject, in fact, records a slight advantage in favor of the gray. And if we must admit the possibility of a subjective interest, it seems not unlikely that a bald blank space, constituting one extreme of the white-black series, should be poorer in suggestion and perhaps more fatiguing than intermediate members lying nearer to the general tone of the ordinary visual field. Probably the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... of the St. Malo vikings been heralded by watchful swift-footed retainers to swarthy king Donnacona, the ruler of the populous town of Stadacona, and a redoubtable agouhanna of the Huron nation? 'Tis not unlikely. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... had encountered him with a tree pulled up from the root, the boughs of which had been torn from it), and in token of his success assumed the Ragged Staff. You will thus see that the origins of the two were different, which would render the bearing of them separately not unlikely, and you will likewise infer that both came through the Beauchamps. I do not find the Ragged Staff ever attributed to the Neviles ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... considered as a partial benefit. All the navigating States may, in different degrees, advantageously participate in it, and under circumstances of a greater extension of mercantile capital, would not be unlikely to do it. As a nursery of seamen, it now is, or when time shall have more nearly assimilated the principles of navigation in the several States, will become, a universal resource. To the establishment of a navy, it must ...
— The Federalist Papers
... key." Change a single tone in a melody, as, for instance, to make fa a half step sharp, and the expression of the entire melody is thereby changed, until such time as the hearer has forgotten the change of key effected by the introduction of the foreign tone. It is not at all unlikely that what little of melodic expression the music of the Greeks had, may have rested to some extent upon an unconscious perception of these relations, which, although foreign to their musical theory, may nevertheless have made their way into the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... the loss of teeth, &c.; and Ponting's contribution and observation of adult Adelies teaching their young to swim—this point has been obscure. It has been said that the old birds push the young into the water, and, per contra, that they leave them deserted in the rookery—both statements seemed unlikely. It would not be strange if the young Adelie had to learn to swim (it is a well-known requirement of the Northern fur seal—sea bear), but it will be interesting to see in how far the adult birds lay themselves out ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... provision grounds—that they will not be permitted, even to rent them; so that, by producing starvation and rendering the population entirely dependent upon foreign-supplies for the daily necessaries of life, a lower rate of wages may be enforced. Cruel as this may appear to your lordship, and unlikely as it may seem, long experience has taught us that there is no possible baseness of which a slave-owner will not be guilty, and no means of accomplishing his purposes, however fraught with ruin to those around him, which ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... not unlikely but I shall be in England before you receive this. You may be sure that I feel happy at turning my face towards home. We this morning have done with all intercourse with the natives, and the sails are now hoisting for ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of the back stairs is a little doorless press, which he pointed out as a favorite play-place of his and his brother's. Here they found room for their few toys, as perhaps three generations of Whittier children had done before them. And it is not unlikely that some of their toys had amused the youth of their grandfather. One of his earliest memories is connected with this little closet, for here he had his first severe twinge of conscience. He had told a lie—no doubt a white one, for it did not trouble him at first—and ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... unlikely, Uncle Abel, that I shall ever have any money to spend. It is quite easy saying what we can do in imaginary circumstances. Reality is always different, and more difficult ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... the Socialist to trace the long struggle of the temperance movement against its initial ideas of freedom, and to see how inevitably the most reluctant and unlikely people have been forced to recognize Private Ownership in this trade and for profit as the ultimate evil. I am delighted to have to hand an excellent little tract by "A Ratepayer": National Efficiency and the Drink ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... coat and hat of his, I shall be certain to succeed. It is not too early to begin now. They will hardly come back to the room in a hurry. I will return to it and see what I can find to serve my purpose. It is the Squire's private closet, hence it is not unlikely that here some at least of his clothing ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... into her mind. Perhaps she had missed the trail,—the real trail. She could not have been mistaken in the signs; there was the last pyramid in plain view still from where she stood. But it was not unlikely that there was another trail from the sharp turn where she had been confused for a moment, another exit made necessary by the disruption of the cliff. She paused uncertainly, looking now at the ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... "Doctor, I am glad you asked me, for I have thought myself it wasn't unlikely some folks would fall into that mistake. I'll tell you how this comes, though I wouldn't take the trouble to enlighten others, for it kinder amuses me to see a fellow find a mare's nest with a tee-hee's egg in it. First, I believe that a republic is the only form ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... virtuous example, and prevented apostasy. They themselves were willing to remain; at least they wished to be in a place where there was a college of the Society, and were thinking of taking the newly-built Franciscan convent, the Italian Franciscans for whom it had been constructed being unlikely to remain on account of the climate and the difficulties they experienced in mastering the German language. In case the archduchesses did not get possession of this convent they had also in view a house in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck. In this event they humbly begged for fathers to direct them ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... unlikely that he refused to marry Ruth because she was a Moabitess, fearing that a marriage with an alien might mar his reputation and position in ...
— A Farmer's Wife - The Story of Ruth • J. H. Willard
... Irish, travel so much now a days, that one ought never to feel surprised at finding them anywhere. The instance I am about to relate will verify to a certain extent the fact, by showing that no situation is too odd or too unlikely to be ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you. These," he pointed around, "are my other guns. The parallel ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Theodoric, was holding the great city of Sirmium, and was sending his governors to civilise and subdue the inhabitants of what is now called the "Austrian Military Frontier", the Emperor who reigned at Constantinople was not unlikely ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... these years, I am neither happy nor content, what chance is there of my being happy and content in the second half of my life? The realisation of part of my worldly ambition has not made me any happier, and, therefore, it is unlikely that the realisation of the whole of my ambition will make me any happier. My strength cannot improve; it can only weaken; and my health likewise. I in my turn am coming to believe—what as a youth I rejected with disdain—namely, that happiness is what ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... contrived to hold on. Under such circumstances, it evidently became expedient to endeavour, by sawing, to get the ships as close in-shore as possible, so as to secure them either to grounded ice or by anchoring within the shelter of a bay at no great distance inside of us; for it now seemed not unlikely that winter was about to put a premature stop to all further operations at sea for this season. At all events it was necessary to consult the immediate safety of the ships, and to keep them from being drifted back to the eastward. I therefore gave orders for endeavouring ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... information about Joam Dacosta, that the document was not in the handwriting of the adventurer. But, as had been suggested by Judge Jarriquez, why should not the scoundrel have invented it for the sake of his bargain? And this was less unlikely to be the case, considering that Torres had declined to part with it until after his marriage with Dacosta's daughter—that is to say, when it would have been impossible ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... care to have his name mentioned in connection with this affair. But because he left your bar a few minutes after the murdered man, it is sheer folly to assume that therefore he is necessarily implicated in his death. I cannot conceive anything more unlikely." ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... got to pay, and the little ink-bottle hung on to his buttonhole in case you should pay him. Father says the Water Rates is a sensible man, and knows it is always well to be prepared for whatever happens, however unlikely. Alice said afterwards that she rather liked the Water Rates, really, and Noel said he had a face like a good vizier, or the man who rewards the honest boy for restoring the purse, but we did not think about these ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... ROBERT SMITH was the author of A Complete System of Optics, a masterly work, which, notwithstanding the rapid growth of that branch of the science, is not yet wholly superseded. It seems to us not unlikely that HERSCHEL, studying the Harmonics, conceived a reverence for the author, who was at that time still living, so that from the Philosophy of Music he passed to the Optics, a work on which SMITH'S great reputation chiefly rested; and thus undesignedly prepared ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... along the line on 18 November, but Ruszky's left seemed to afford the easiest prey; it had no natural line of defence, and Hindenburg's devastation during his retreat in October made the arrival of reinforcements from Ivanov farther south unlikely. Nevertheless Mackensen's most impetuous drive was against Ruszky's centre across the causeway at Piontek; it promised a dramatic success, and nearly ended in resounding disaster. The Russian centre was ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would Henchard let out the secret in his parting words? Her suspense was terrible. Had she confessed all to Donald in their early acquaintance he might possibly have got over it, and married her just the same—unlikely as it had once seemed; but for her or any one else to tell him now ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to which the tap-root penetrates, it is not unlikely the succory derived its name from the Latin succurrere to run under. The Arabic name chicourey testifies to the almost universal influence of Arabian physicians and writers in Europe after the Conquest. As chicoree, achicoria, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... two of the sons ultimately set up a business in Montrose. James Mill appears to have helped to support his father, whose debts he undertook to pay, and to have afterwards helped the Greigs. They thought, it seems, that he ought to have done more, but were not unlikely to exaggerate the resources of a man who was making his way in England. Mill was resolute in doing his duty, but hardly likely to do it graciously. At any rate, in the early years, it must have been a severe strain to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... of Marlborough's; is otherwise a shining kind of man; and has immense things in his eye, at this time. They say, what is not unlikely, he proposed an Interview with Friedrich now at Aachen; would come privately, to 'take the waters' for a day or two,—while Maillebois was on his new errand, and such a crisis had risen. But Friedrich, anxious to be neutral and give no offence, politely waived such honor. Lord ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... unlikely-looking person suggested "Abide with Me." When it was over, and the party, standing as rigid as their own rifles, had sung "God Save the King," the ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... going to be the end of the great display of superficial sentimentality for the stricken city? An all-around good deal: Moneyed people, contractors, real estate speculators will make large sums of money. Indeed it is not at all unlikely that within a few months good Christian capitalists will secretly thank their Lord that he ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... English kings before the days of Eadwine, under whom the two Northumbrian chieftainships were united into a single kingdom. However, as Eadwine assumed some of the imperial Roman trappings, it seems not unlikely that a portion at least of the Romanised population survived the conquest. The two principalities probably spread back politically in most places as far as the watershed which separates the basins of the German Ocean and the Irish ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... as to whether she would ever be likely to see him again, and decided it was most unlikely, and that probably he had already forgotten ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... at a map of the Archipelago, nothing seems more unlikely than that the closely connected chain of islands from Java to Timor should differ materially in their natural productions. There are, it is true, certain differences of climate and of physical geography, but these do not ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... brilliant exploits. With Barney to aid, he plundered the Border like a reiver. He stripped the yeomen of Tweedside with a ferocity which should have avenged the disgrace of Flodden. More than once he ransacked Ecclefechan, though it is unlikely that he emptied the lean pocket of Thomas Carlyle. There was not a gaff from Newcastle to the Tay which he did not haunt with sedulous perseverance; nor was he confronted with failure, until his figure ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... to Theresa was only another side of the morbid perversity of his relations with the rest of the world. People of a certain kind not seldom make the most serious and vital sacrifices for bare love of singularity, and a man like Rousseau was not unlikely to feel an eccentric pleasure in proving that he could find merit in a woman who to everybody else was desperate. One who is on bad terms with the bulk of his fellows may contrive to save his self-respect and confirm his conviction that they are all in the wrong, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... on only two of them did he perceive any signs of terror; he therefore decided that when making his plans for escape he would take especial care that those two officers were not made acquainted with them, as they would be not unlikely to disclose the plot, hoping that by so doing they might procure their own freedom without the danger involved in fighting for it. The remaining four held their heads high, and looked as though, if only they possessed ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... a few lines below. The written 'r' is easily and often confounded with the written 'n'. The compositor read the first syllable 'court', and—his eye at the same time catching the word 'courtier' lower down—he completed the word without reconsulting the copy. It is not unlikely that Shakspeare intended first to express, generally the same thought, which a little afterwards he repeats with a particular application to the persons meant;—a common usage of the pronominal 'our,' where the speaker does not really mean to include himself; and the word 'you' is an additional ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... with infinitesimal parcels of tea and sugar for the very aged or the helplessly sick, I set out with the clergyman and went up unexpected lanes and twisted round unlikely corners, dived into low tenements and climbed up unreliable stairs into high ones. One home, without a window, no floor but the ground, not a chair or table, dark with smoke, and so small that we, standing on the floor, took up all the available ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... was baffled. If one can't solve a chess problem by starting off with the most unlikely-looking thing on the board, one can't solve it at all. However, I copied down the position and said I'd glance at it.... At eleven that night I rose from my glance, decided that Herbert's problem was the more immediately pressing, and took it to bed ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... Whether the constitution was adopted or rejected was, in itself, unimportant; in either case, Aditya would have a government recognizable as such by the Empire, which was already recognizing some fairly unlikely-looking governments. In either case, too, Aditya would make nobody on any other planet any trouble. It wouldn't have, at least for a long time, even if it had been left unannexed, but no planet inhabited by Terro-humans could be trusted to remain permanently peaceful ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... walk again, he exercises his muscular powers by bending down young elm-trees, or making the old oaks fly into splinters, as Milo of Crotona used to do; and, as there are no lions in the park, it is not unlikely we shall find him alive. Porthos is ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... arbor, where I sat for half an hour with my head in my hands. What could have become of Georgiana's note? A hand might have filched it; unlikely. A gust of wind have whisked it out; impossible. I debated and rejected every hypothesis to the last one. Acting upon this, I walked straight to the saddle-house, and in a dark corner peered at the nest of the wrens. ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... to all those who have not been "content to ask unlikely gifts in vain," nature, life, destiny, whatever one chooses to call it, that power which is strength to the strong, presented itself as a barrier against which all one's strength only served to dash one to more hopeless ruin. He was not a dreamer; ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... reason to regard this as a piece of hypocrisy, a vice as alien from the Fielding of fancy as from the Fielding of fact, and one the particular manifestation of which, in this particular place, would have been equally unlikely ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... come down to us as yet concerning this legend except the incident of his dwelling in Hades, whither Istar, the Babylonian Venus, went in search of him. It is not by any means unlikely, however, that the whole story existed in Babylonia, and thence spread to Phoenicia, and afterwards to Greece. In Phoenicia it was adapted to the physical conditions of the country, and the place of Tammuz's encounter with the boar was said to be the mountains of Lebanon, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches
... new organism starts are those which it has received from its ancestors plus its individuality. The fact that the sexual cells are formed from the early formed cells of the new organism which represent all of the qualities of the fertilized ovum or primordial cell, renders it unlikely that the new offspring will contain qualities which the parents have acquired. The question of the inheritance of characteristics which the parents have acquired as the result of the action of environment upon them is one which is still actively investigated ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... six years back, when the League had first been started, O'Hara remembered that the members of that enterprising society had been wont to hold meetings in a secluded spot, where it was unlikely that they would be disturbed. It seemed to him that the first thing he ought to do, if he wanted to make their nearer acquaintance now, was to find their present rendezvous. They must have one. They would never run the risk involved in holding mass-meetings in one another's ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... it many times. Blackie banged his giant only a little once or twice, and then not savagely, like a thrush. Also, again, he may or may not have used his feet. Moreover, he gave up two intervals to surveying the world against any likely or unlikely stalking death. Yet that worm shut up meekly in most unworm-like fashion, and Blackie cut it up into pieces. The whole operation took ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... rumoured that such is the success of The Melting Pot that Mr. ZANGWILL has been approached by more than one manager with flattering proposals. Mr. ZANGWILL, however, is not to be rushed, and it is extremely unlikely that we shall have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... whole, was unduly magnified in several important particulars. Thus Lord Minto, in a speech delivered at a county meeting, and afterwards published, affirms, that supposing (what no one could consider as unlikely to take place) that the court of Naples should be compelled to act under the influence of France, and that the Barbary powers were unfriendly to us, either in consequence of French intrigues or from their own caprice and insolence, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to speak to you again, and Madame will not allow you to come to school. AND—I see your papa driving up the street, and there is the chief policeman's buggy just behind." Lily acquiesced entirely in the extraordinary coincidence of the father and the chief of police appearing upon the scene. The unlikely seemed to her the likely. "NOW," said she, cheerfully, "you will be put in state prison and locked up, and then you will be put to death by ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the principal colony, draining those resources which ought to have been applied to different purposes, where the hope and probability of some recompense, adequate to the expense, might have been more sanguine, and less unlikely. Norfolk Island, so far from returning any proportionate recompense for those supplies, had not, in the course of thirteen years, sent to New South Wales property of any description exceeding in value 2000L.; during which period all the ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... had gained this position at a sufficient distance to make any collision on this wild sea unlikely, the liner ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... pedagogic establishment in Barbican, and went into a new house, where he either ceased to teach altogether, or had no pupils remaining but his two nephews. What may have been his reasons for the step we do not know; but it is not unlikely that the change of his circumstances by his father's death had something to do with it. No will of the ex-scrivener having been found, it is not known what property he left; but there is reason to believe that he left something considerable, and that, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... to the ambassador royal of France and Scotland who came behind, rode the Earl of Avondale and his five sons, noble young men, and most unlikely to have sprung from such a stock. James the Gross rode a broad Clydesdale mare, a short, soft unwieldy man, sitting squat on the saddle like a toad astride a roof, and glancing slily sideways out of the pursy recesses ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Unlikely, too, that JACK FISHER will take part in perfunctory performances, as when the House, meeting at 4.15, sits twiddling its noble thumbs till 4.30, the hour on stroke of which public business commences. There being none, or not any that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... like that? Minutes passed, and she did not come. What should he do if she failed him? Surely die of disappointment and despair. . . . He had little enough experience as yet of the toughness of the human heart; how life bruises and crushes, yet leaves it beating. . . . Then, from an unlikely quarter, he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Portman's—that is the most material part of the story to me," continued Lord Delacour; "for otherwise, you know, Mr. Vincent would be no more to me than any other gentleman. But in that point of view—I mean as a lover of Belinda Portman, and I may say, not quite unlikely to be her husband—he is highly interesting to my Lady Delacour, and to me, and to you, as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... long-shot prophecy. The doctor was even then a man past his first youth; the neighbours looked upon him as a confirmed bachelor; he seemed as unlikely ever to possess a daughter as a diamond mine. Yet, all these improbabilities notwithstanding, he had taken to himself the luxury of a wife within a very few years, and soon children were climbing on his knees. I cannot say whether this red-haired ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... said, with a smile of shadowed sadness. "We are to say good night in a moment or two, and—it will be good-by as well. It's unlikely that we shall ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Hampshire. The London papers, too, devoted much space to the matter, the problem they set their readers to solve being: whether the murder could have any bearing upon the robbery. Some of the leading journals declared that both crimes must have been in some way related; others urged that this was most unlikely, and then proceeded to "prove" the accuracy of their ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... that, unless he promptly moved in the direction of peace, the German Government "would be forced to regain the freedom of action which it has reserved to itself in the note of May 4th last[49]." It is unlikely that the annals of diplomacy contain many documents so cool and insolent as this one. It was a notification from the Kaiser to the President that the so-called "Sussex pledge" was not regarded as an unconditional one by the Imperial Government; that it was given merely to furnish ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... a strong infusion of new blood, whatever excesses or mistakes may arise, it is very unlikely that all the results will be on the same side. It is certainly not so in this case. Even the opposition to woman's suffrage which the suffragettes are responsible for, and the Anti-Suffrage societies which they have called ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... personal and clandestine method of negotiation was probably due to the President's belief that he could in this way exercise more effectively his personal influence in favor of the acceptance of a League. It is not unlikely that this belief was in a measure justified. In Colonel House he found one to aid him in this course of procedure, as the Colonel's intimate association with the principal statesmen of the Allied Powers during previous visits to Europe as the President's personal envoy was an asset which he could ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... the pirates had their favourite haunts and places of rendezvous. These had to be within easy sailing distance of one or more regular trade routes, and at the same time had to be in some quiet spot unlikely to be visited by strange craft, and, besides being sheltered from storms, must have a suitable beach on which their vessels could be careened and the hulls scraped of barnacles and weeds. The greatest stronghold of the buccaneers was at Tortuga, or Turtle Island, a small ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... his will from the yacht to the town, where all his business was neatly arranged for his doing. Certainly it appeared as if the hand of intelligent destiny must have been in it somewhere. No mere blind luck could have driven him half a mile into the country to the one spot in all Hunston—impossibly unlikely as it was—where he could become acquainted with Uncle Elbert's daughter without ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... certain, and the possible causes of his departure are discussed by Dr. Greenhill in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology." A pestilence raged in Rome at this time, but it is unlikely that Galen would have deserted his patients for that reason. Probably he disliked Rome, and longed for his native place. He had been in Pergamos only a very short time when he was summoned to attend the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus in Venetia. The latter died of apoplexy on his way home ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... of my copy, or something over. In the second paragraph I'd show the immense issues involved in the present contest, and expose the fallacies of our opponents who attempt to belittle the matter as temporary and unlikely to recur—say, three sides of my copy again, but not a word more. And, then, in the third paragraph, I'd adjure the Government, in the name of all their party hold sacred, to stand firm, and I'd appeal to the people of ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... would never do. Such steps had not been taken by belligerents in 1870, nor at the time of the American War of Secession, and I am not sure that Messrs. Mason and Slidell were not trotted out. The Foreign and Home Secretaries, the very distinguished civil servants declared, would not unlikely be agitated when they heard of the shocking affair. Soldiers, no doubt, were by nature abrupt and unconventional in their actions, and the Foreign and Home Offices would make every allowance, realizing that we had acted in good faith. But, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... still waiting in anxious expectation for news of the fleet. The Ministers here think the Mediterranean is the object, and to me it seems not unlikely that they may pursue that object, and at the same time ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... It is not unlikely that the difficult personal circumstances in which the Jews were placed had a good deal to do at all times with stimulating their ambitions and making them accomplish all that was in them. Certain it is that at all times we find a wonderful ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... "energy," for example, and except for the last two items I would submit that these qualities, though of enormous personal value, are of no practical value in inheritance whatever; that to wed "ability" to "ability" may breed something less than mediocrity, and that "ability" is just as likely or just as unlikely to be prepotent and to assert itself in descent with the most casually selected partner as it is with one picked with all the knowledge, or rather pseudo-knowledge, anthropology in its present state can ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity: which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... race of people who build nests in trees and have often five eggs at a time, and I believe that they leave these countries because their nests are full of broken egg-shells, and because the winter is setting in, and because they dislike cold weather; and, thus disliking cold weather, it is unlikely that they would fly to the North Pole where the cold is very intense, and where, moreover, there is little food to be found, saving polar bears and Esquimos, a form of victual for which birds have only the scantiest relish. My own impression ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... party likely to live, is precisely that policy of theoretical inflexibility and of refusing to enter into any "alliance" with partiti affini, as such an alliance is for socialism only a "false placenta" for a fetus that is unlikely to live. ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... ourselves; in proportion then as they are loosened from the one, they will go to the other. Next, because many doctrines which I have held have far greater, or their only scope, in the Roman system. And, moreover, if, as is not unlikely, we have in process of time heretical Bishops or teachers among us, an evil which ipso facto infects the whole community to which they belong, and if, again (what there are at this moment symptoms of), there be a movement ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... "Not unlikely," replied Mrs. Malmayns. "But there are plenty of ways of getting money in a season like this. If one fails, we must resort to another. I shall make all I can, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ODDNY 'Tis an unlikely tale: he never said it. No one could mind such things in such an hour. Plainly he saw his fetch come down the sands, And knew he need not seek another country And take that with him to walk upon the deck In night ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Uncle Gregory. I knew that it was ever so unlikely, and I didn't think about it. You are so good to me that of course I couldn't say anything. But you may be sure he is ever so much in love with Miss Lowther; and I do hope we shall be so ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... (1) the mention of a Paduan adventure, the basis of the plot, a thing that Sprot is very unlikely to have invented. With all my admiration for Sprot, I do think that the Paduan touch is beyond him. This occurs in Letter IV, 'the good sport that M.A., your lordship's brother, told me of a nobleman in Padua. It is a parasteur' ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... growing in the Ogowe. There were three of them, evidently carefully taken care of, among some coffee plants. It was highly exciting, and I tried to find out about them. It seemed, even in this centre of enterprise, unlikely that they had been brought just "for dandy" from the Australasian region, and I had never yet come across them in my wanderings save on Fernando Po. Unfortunately, my friends thought I wanted them to keep, and shouted for men to bring things ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the interior of the antiquated strong-box, the girl uttered a low cry of dismay. To pick out what she sought from that accumulation (even if it were really there) would be the work of hours—barring a most happy and unlikely ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... occurred to him, from the appearance of the sky, that he was at least an hour too early for his purpose, and that it would be better not to appear at the place of rendezvous till nearer the time assigned. Other gallants were not unlikely to be on the watch as well as himself about the house of the Fair Maid of Perth; and he knew his own foible so well as to be sensible of the great chance of a scuffle arising ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... upon atoms. We know how to make atoms vibrate; it is done by what we call "heating" the substance, and if we could deal with individual atoms unhampered by others, it is possible that we might get a pure and simple mode of vibration from them. It is possible, but unlikely; for atoms, even when isolated, have a multitude of modes of vibration special to themselves, of which only a few are of practical use to us, and we do not know how to excite some without also the others. However, we do not at present even deal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... the United States, after faithfully discharging the errand of the Dey, he found that it was unlikely that either he or any other officer would be forced to carry any further tribute to the Barbary pirates. For, while the tribute paid to Algiers had merely changed the attitude of that country from open hostility to contemptuous forbearance, it had brought the other Barbary states clamoring to the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... words "ancien militaire" were written in every furrow of his face; in every seam and on every button of his shabby clothing. That he had seen service, missed promotion, suffered unmerited neglect (or, it might be, merited disgrace), seemed also not unlikely. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... five!" the Superintendent smiled, though his shrewd grey eyes were coldly critical. It was most unlikely that she was the Lady of Peacock Alley; yet all things are possible where a woman is concerned, as he knew from experience. "About what time was it when the cab stopped ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... little. Frank, who has just finished a letter to his mother, will no doubt join me. Two of my comrades are sitting close by, playing euchre. When I joined them I found they were in the habit of playing for small stakes, but I have succeeded in inducing them to give up a practice which might not unlikely lead to bad results. ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... object in stealing the Rembrandt? What did he hope to do with a copy of so well-known a work of art? Was there any connection between this crime and the one committed last night on the premises of the Pall Mall dealers? That was extremely unlikely. It was beyond question that Lamb and Drummond had had the original painting in their possession, and that ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... as apparently representing au, from Turkish ahv. This seems unsupported by evidence, and the v is already represented by the ff, so on Sir James's assumption coffee must stand for kahv-ve, which is unlikely. The change from a to o, in my opinion, is better accounted for as an imperfect appreciation. The exact sound of a in Arabic and other Oriental languages is that of the English short U, as in "cuff." This sound, so easy to us, is a great stumbling-block to other nations. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... made for the safety of all non-combatants, where they will not be exposed to shell fire from any quarter, or other dangers except unlikely accidents, and against these no foresight can guard entirely. There are some people who continue to take all risks rather than forsake their property by day or night. These, however, are comparatively few. The great majority got away while there was yet time, leaving their ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... sudden impulse she turned into the courtyard that led to the school-house and chapel. There was one spot where she would be in perfect seclusion, and that was the school library; even if some stray boy were to make his appearance in search of a book—a very unlikely thing at this time in the afternoon—her presence there would attract no notice: she had several times chosen it as a cool, quiet retreat on a hot summer's afternoon. The sight of the big shabby ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with small bullets travelling at a high degree of velocity must be very rare, since little deflection is probable unless the contact has been sufficiently decided to fracture the external table; while in the cases of spent bullets the injury is unlikely, as requiring a considerable ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... hit Lucy Morris as hard as it did Lord Fawn. If Lizzie Eustace was unfit to marry Lord Fawn because of these things, then was Frank Greystock not only unfit to marry Lucy, but most unlikely to do so, whether fit or unfit. For a week or two Lady Fawn had allowed herself to share Lucy's joy, and to believe that Mr. Greystock would prove himself true to the girl whose heart he had made all his own;—but she had soon learned to distrust ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... increase over the 6.7% rate in 1997. Latvia continued to have a high current account deficit, estimated at about 9%. Privatization of large state utilities—especially the energy sector—was postponed and is unlikely to resume before late 1999. EU accession remains Latvia's top priority, and Latvia expects to be invited to start EU accession talks by the end of 1999. Continued troubles in the Russian and East Asian economies probably will hold growth ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... serve a tailor; or to kiss when he comes home drunk, or wants money; but far unlikely to create jealousy in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... made to this, except a laugh, the clown (who, by the way, wore a similarly glossy great-coat, with a hat to match) protested that his ears must have deceived him, or his imagination had been whispering hopeful things—which was not unlikely, for his imagination was a very powerful one—when he noticed Frank's tall ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne |
