"Dubious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distributions of land, all the restrictions on labor—are either carried out directly by the military or by the police with the army at their back. Anyone who serves his time in the army shares the responsibility of all these things, about which he is, in some cases, dubious, while very often they are directly opposed to his conscience. People are unwilling to be turned out of the land they have cultivated for generations, or they are unwilling to disperse when the government authority orders them, or they are unwilling to pay the taxes required of them, or ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Delights of Dougherty, The Desultory Hints and Maxims for Anglers Distinguished Visitor, A Dorgs, On Dogs Tale, A Down the Bay Drainage under Difficulties Dreadful State of Things out West, The Dubious English Dwarf Dejected, The ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... Lou's weeping soon had good cause. Ferd rushed away, rushed into another marriage, with an heiress and a beauty, as it happened, and Mary Lou had only the dubious ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... beatific speak; Yet have they ears, and eyes as well; And if not with a paler cheek, They feel the shivers in them dwell, That something of a dubious ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with no sign of her return, I began to feel somewhat anxious. I was now practically as well in health as I had ever been in my life, and I began to pine for a return to active service. I was also desirous of seeing Lotta safely removed from her present dubious and somewhat dangerous surroundings into that position which was hers by right. To achieve these two results it was necessary that I should get away from where I was, either by the fulfilment of ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... maintained that the intelligent people ought to change everything, and was at last even brought to the point of forgetting his position as a kammer-yunker, and his career as an official, and calling Lavretsky an antiquated conservative, even hinting—very remotely it is true—at his dubious position in society. Lavretsky did not lose his temper. He did not raise his voice (he recollected that Mihalevitch too had called him antiquated but an antiquated Voltairean), and calmly proceeded to refute Panshin at all points. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... gravity of the evil which the recent Indian Press law has at last, though very tardily, done something to repress that many Englishmen are still apparently disposed to regard that measure as an oppressive, or at least dubious, concession to bureaucratic impatience of criticism none the less healthy for being sometimes excessive.[1] The following quotations, taken from vernacular papers before the new Press law was enacted, will serve to show what Lord Morley meant when he said, "You may put picric acid ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... not be drawn to go these lengths. Nobody could be more of a logician than Mr. Gladstone when he liked, no logician could wield a more trenchant blade; but nobody ever knew better in complex circumstance the perils of the logical short cut. Hence, according to his general manner in all dubious cases, he moved slowly, and laboured to remove practical grounds for objection. Ashley describes him (October 16) at a dinner at Bunsen's rejoicing in the bishopric, and proposing the health of the new prelate, and this gave Ashley pleasure, for 'Gladstone is a good ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... of committing to paper Hamilton's sayings in the freedom of after-dinner conversation—a time when open-hearted men are apt to forget that there may be a Judas at table—and of saving them up to be used against him in the future? Jefferson explains away these and other dubious passages in his life with great ingenuity. He had to make such explanations too often. An apology implies a mistake, wilful or accidental. Too many indicate, to say the least, a lack of discretion. What a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... of poetry is related to the infancy of civilization, and the analogical possibilities of the one to the other sustain his argument at every point. If his historicism is dubious, his discourse is neatly illustrative of a neoclassic critical method and of the kind of psychological assumptions upon which such arguments could proceed. From the rather copious use of allegory and metaphor, as civilizing instruments, Ogilvie traces the rise of the religious fable as part ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... soothed, "there!" She carried her charge out of the room without wasting words. She had observed that when the child came to her the man had seemed on the point of surrender, too. With an effort he had kept himself inert, with a wan face. He had the dubious, sounding expression of one who stands at a door with his back to the light and looks ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... was rather dubious at first, but eventually returned with a miscellaneous collection of bathing togs from which the boys finally evolved three pairs of trunks and two suits. Meanwhile Mr. Robey had ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... dignified English household, an English gentleman, even a deposed heir presumptive, was working out a subtle plot against her such as might adorn a melodrama? She held her head in her hands as her mind depicted to her Lord Walderhurst's countenance, Lady Maria's dubious, amused smile. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... out of banks for the privilege of serving as troopers. The sons of plump graziers in the West made up parties with footmen out of their landlords' mansions, and arrived in Dublin hopeful of enlistment. Light-hearted undergraduates of Trinity, drapers' assistants of dubious character, and the crowd of nondescripts whose time is spent in preparing for examinations which they fail to pass, leaped at the opportunity of winning glory and perhaps wealth in South Africa. Those who were fortunate enough to be selected were sent to the Curragh to be broken in to their new ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... inconceivable prestige. Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the crime effaces the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud of its tale of heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and pretty woman becomes more interesting for the dubious renown of a happy love or a scandalous desertion, and the more she is to be pitied, the more she excites our sympathies. We are only pitiless to the commonplace. If, moreover, we attract all eyes, we are to all ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... man, suppose, and an excellent doctor," said Mrs. Salina Simmons, with a dubious ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... his infancy, and the four-months-old baby had been started on the same path. I explained to the mother the mechanism of elimination, told her to give up cathartics, and to set a regular time for herself and the baby, but was a little dubious about the mentally deficient four-year-old. However she soon reported that they had all three promptly acquired the new habit. Four years later she told me that they had never had ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... those simple, sincere beings, a life so calm and undisturbed that I have never had cause, then or now, to regret the civilized society from which I had voluntarily withdrawn myself, persuaded that if my character and habits incapacitated me for the dubious and not always straightforward transactions of the commercial world, the same moral qualities which impeded me from becoming a business man might find good ground for bringing forth fruit in the pure ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... was more scientist than priest all his life; for two years he held the post of Professor of Mathematics at Ferrara, and up to the time of his death, in 1687, he spent by far the greater part of his time in scientific research, He had the dubious advantage of living in an age when one man could cover the whole range of science, and this he seems to have done very thoroughly. There survives an immense work of his entitled, Magisterium Naturae et Artis, which embraces the whole field of scientific knowledge ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Exhorting the poor Souls to confess their Crimes, in order to be sav'd, or the like; no, faith, but quite contrary, for he was rather hardning them, and infusing a strong Portion of his own obstinacy, to fortifie 'em for their dubious Journey; and in few minutes after, possess'd with a stronger Spirit of Priesthood than e'er, for some past Ages there has been Example for, pronounc'd the Absolution, the extremest and most mysterious Grace the Church can possibly ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... seven and seven, the casting vote of the President must be given on one side or other: no matter, for my argument, on which; one or the other must be taken: as when I am to move, there is no matter which leg I move first. And then, Sir, it was otherwise determined here. No, Sir, a more dubious determination of any ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... during that bright brief period of the attempted apotheosis of the dirty-minded little Decadent whose stock in trade was a few Aubrey Beardsley drawings, a widow's-cruse-like bottle of Green Chartreuse, an Oscar Wilde book, some dubious blue china, some floppy ties, an assortment of second-hand epigrams, scent and scented tobacco, a nil admirari attitude ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... had no doubt domestic matters to attend to. I knew, of course, that she had gone to meet Jasper at a certain cleared spot on the banks of the only stream on Nelson's little island. The commander of the Neptun gave me a dubious black look, and began to make himself at home, flinging his thick, cylindrical carcass into a rocking-chair, and unbuttoning his coat. Old Nelson sat down opposite him in a most unassuming manner, staring anxiously with ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... his patriotism to such a degree that he cancelled Martin's account and forbade him ever to attempt to pay it. The talk in the neighborhood reflected the same feeling, and indignation against Martin ran high. No one would have anything to do with a socialist traitor. Poor Maria was dubious and frightened, but she remained loyal. The children of the neighborhood recovered from the awe of the grand carriage which once had visited Martin, and from safe distances they called him "hobo" and "bum." The Silva tribe, however, stanchly defended him, fighting more than one pitched battle for ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... compact and promised to find the means of evading it. He relies upon him to do so. This calm frankness in the god, with its effect of personal clearness from all sense of guilt, suggests the measure of Wotan's distinguishing simplicity. Referring later to the dubious act which so effectually laid the foundation of sorrows, he says, "Unknowingly deceitful, I practised untruth. Loge artfully tempted me." He explains himself to Fricka, when she asks why he continues to trust the crafty Loge, who has often already brought them ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... which denominate a man, a disorderly person, a vagabond, or incorrigible rogue, the reader may perhaps incline to think that many of the offences specified in this Act, and in subsequent statutes, on the same subject, are of a very dubious nature, and that it must require nice legal acumen, to distinguish whether a person incurs any, and what, penalty, under the ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... on examining his somewhat laborious effort to make Paul the villain of Christian theology, and Jesus no more than an innocent bystander. But this sentimental yielding never went far enough to distract his attention for long from his main idea, which was this: that Christian ethics were quite as dubious, at bottom, as Christian theology—that they were founded, just as surely as such childish fables as the story of Jonah and the whale, upon the peculiar prejudices and credulities, the special desires and appetites, of inferior men—that they warred upon the best ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... some reservation, we learn that a wind-tossed vessel was thrown upon a coast far away, which was called Iceland the Great. Then, again, we read of a young Norwegian, Eric the Red, not apparently averse to a brawl, who killed his man in Norway and fled to Iceland, where he kept his dubious character; and again outraging the laws, he was sent into temporary banishment—this time in a ship which he fitted out for discovery; and so he sailed away in the direction of Gunnbiorn's land, and found it. He whiled ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... annoyance at Mrs. Roby's unwonted assumption of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby's flippancy, at least the Lunch Club would do so in the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... wild company. The chaumiere knew him, and the balls of Parisian actresses, the coulisses of the opera at home and abroad. Those pretty heads of ladies whom nobody knows, used to nod their shining ringlets at Kew, from private boxes at theatres, or dubious Park broughams. He had run the career of young men of pleasure, and laughed and feasted with jolly prodigals and their company. He was tired of it: perhaps he remembered an earlier and purer life, and was sighing ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... driveway, then, he walked, a little startled at the fact that he cast no shadow—feeling as a ghost might feel. The pavement was hot to his thinly filmed feet. A little dubious as to the effect of heat on the vital shell that hid him, he stepped off into the cool grass beside the drive; and came soon to ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... would cut short my hopes of fame, and the grand progress which I sometimes fondly imagined I should make. Every way it would be fatal! I trembled at its possibility. Success, which had so lately appeared certain, seemed to become more and more dubious. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... at Mrs. Willett's that night, but Mr. Truefitt was back first thing next morning to take possession of his own house. He found Captain Sellers, propped up with pillows, eating his breakfast, and more than dubious as to any ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... blow in the face, and the fight between these unequally-matched combatants—a boy not fifteen against a much stronger boy of seventeen—began. The result could not be dubious. Walter fought with indomitable pluck; it was splendid to see the sturdiness with which he bore up under the blows of Harpour's strong fist, which he could only return at intervals. He was tremendously punished, while Harpour was barely ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... instant he had a glimpse of Mrs. Sartin's full face, dubious, questioning, even hostile, but to him it was merely the result of ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... from distance emerged from it and scattered across the flat and up into the clustered buildings. A few stragglers went over to explore and investigate Denver's space sled in the unlikely possibility that he and the girl had trusted to its meager and dubious protection. ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... Daniel looked dubious. "I guess not, Labe," he said. "Zuba—well, the fact is, Zuba doesn't like people to smoke ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... interested only in the pursuit of women, where he was said to have considerable success. But toward the end of 1811, when new rumours of war began to circulate, the Paris police were informed that while appearing to be solely interested in pleasure, the Russian colonel was mixed up in some dubious political schemes, and he was put under close surveillance, when it was discovered that he had frequent meetings with M. X..., an employee of the ministry for war who had special responsibility for ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... poor ass, who had just turned in, with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious with his two fore-feet on the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he would go in or no. Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike. There is a patient endurance of sufferings wrote so unaffectedly ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... inanimate beings. The sentiments of his disciple Aristo are not less erroneous. He thought it impossible to conceive the form of the Deity, and asserts that the Gods are destitute of sense; and he is entirely dubious whether the Deity is an ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... until you supplied this information I was feeling profoundly dubious about poor old Gussie's chances of inducing any spinster of any parish to join him in the saunter down the aisle. You will agree with me that he is not ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... she had never understood; in total ignorance of the complex elements of his soul, and little realizing that between her and her beloved son there was now a gulf fixed which would never be bridged, saw only the happy fruition of a life ambition. Fortunately she had been kept in ignorance of the dubious incident of the Testament translation and its results upon the boy; and when the long anticipated day dawned her eyes swam in tears of hallowed joy. The Archbishop and his grim secretary each congratulated the other heartily, and the latter, breaking into one of his rare smiles, murmured ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... competitors and his associates consider legitimate; at the same time, social changes can only be inaugurated by those who feel the unrighteousness of contemporary conditions, and the expression of their scruples may be the one opportunity for pushing forward moral tests into that dubious area ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... of commercial greed, leading to political grab in every part of the world; her infidelity in late years towards small peoples, like the Boers and the Persians; her neglect of treaty obligations and silence about them when they do not suit her; her most dubious alliance with a military despotism like Russia: all render it impossible for her to accuse Germany. The extraordinary thing is that in the face of such prevarications as these, which are patent to the whole ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... or more the man wrote and wrote—good stuff, sound stuff, extremely original stuff, often superbly fine stuff—and yet no one in the whole of this vast and incomparable Republic arose to his merit—no one, that is, save a few encapsulated enthusiasts, chiefly somewhat dubious. It would be difficult to imagine a first-rate artist cloaked in greater obscurity, even in the remotest lands of Ghengis Khan. The newspapers, reviewing him, dismissed him with a sort of inspired ill-nature; the ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... the Fair to-day, that Congress did not appropriate $100,000 to secure a full and commanding exhibition of American products at this Fair. I do not see how any tangible and adequate benefit to the Nation would have resulted from such a dubious disposition of National funds. In the first place, our great Agricultural staples—at least, all such as find markets abroad—are already accessible and well known here. Bales of Cotton, casks of Hams or other Meats, barrels ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... and said, "Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll talk of Phil Demorest," and left Barker as happy as if the appointment were to confer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, who had overheard, was more dubious. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... air. Such a proceeding would in a singular degree have the appearance of a home-thrust. It was hardly possible that Bartleby could withstand such an application of the doctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts the success of the plan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... impossible one. Barbier (Dictionnaire des Anonymes), in a helpless doubting manner, gives still others.] highly unmemorable otherwise. Whereupon you proceed to said other person's acknowledged WORKS (as they are called); and find there a style bearing no resemblance whatever; and are left in a dubious state, if it were of any moment. In the absence of proof, I am unwilling to charge his Highness de Ligne with such an action; and indeed am little careful to be acquainted with the individual who did it, who could and would do it. A Prince of Coxcombs I can discern him to have been; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... art magazine in the interior, it was my duty occasionally to visit his galleries. After such visits the remnant of my New England conscience usually forced me to diminish or actually to spoil many a sale of the dubious or merely fashionable antiquities in which he dealt. But in the main my power to harm him was slight. He held in a knowing grip the strings of his patrons' vanity and taste. So he regarded me with something between scorn and uneasiness—as a pachyderm ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... fighter—purely as a fighter—of the Alvord stripe. He was so occupied with plans for the next day's battle that the dubious features of the contest were already clearing up in his mind with the forming of plans for attacking the situation. A few hours of sleep, and he was up and at them. His telephone called up the editors of the town with the morning star. Long before the enemy could ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... Bett has prepared a solemn demonstration of fealty for the supposed Czar, whom he still mistakes for the real one, while the real Czar has found means to go on board of his ship with the Marquis and Lefort.—Before taking farewell, he promises a pass-port to Ivanow, who is very dubious as to what will become of {46} him. Meanwhile Van Bett approaches him with his procession to do homage, but during his long and confused speech cannon-shots are heard and an usher announces, that ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... had declared the Queen of Scots guilty of death, my poor Cicely had well-nigh swooned to think that there could be such joy for the doom of one poor sick lady. There hath been a petition to the Queen that the sentence may be carried out, and she hath answered in a dubious and uncertain manner, which leaves ground for hope; and the King of Scots hath written pressingly and sent the Master of Gray to speak in his mother's behalf; also M. de Chateauneuf hath both urged mercy on the Queen, and so written to France that King Henry is sending an Ambassador ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... locked and bolted. Then it came into Juve's mind that the maid Justine in giving testimony had become embarrassed and finally had admitted that the key having been lost, she had neglected to lock the door. This cleared up the dubious point and established in Juve's mind the complete ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... dubious, and made no answer; but she noticed that the man now preceded them, and raised his hand when they came up with the band, which had apparently halted to indulge in retort or badinage with some of ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... was the dubious response. "I'm farther away from a decision than ever. Just as I get it settled in my mind that the railroads have done the biggest things and conquered the most difficulties along come the steamships and I am certain they are six ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... they all think of Master Martin? Oh! I—I don't think you'll hear much said against him." At the same time Master Martin struck his big fat belly with the greatest self-satisfaction, smiling with his eyes half-closed. Then, as all remained silent, nothing being heard except a dubious clearing of the throat here and there, he continued, "Ay! ay! I see. I ought, I know very well, to thank you all handsomely that in this election the good Lord above has at last seen fit to enlighten your minds. Well, when I receive the price of my labour, when my debtor ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... you proceed to the spot, you will at least see succulent legs of mutton exposed for sale. The chef of the establishment, however, when making his morning purchases, passes by these with scorn, and betakes himself to a little booth whose table is strewn with dubious scraps of skin and bones, which have already been fingered and contemptuously thrown aside by fifty dirty Arabs (I speak as an eye-witness); he buys a few handfuls of these horrors for three or four sous, and forthwith—hey, presto!—they are transformed into a "ragout ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the dubious women uttered little screams of affright, and the Orleansville photographer bent over towards the lion-slayer, already cherishing the unequalled honour of taking ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... troubadours were inclined to blend the lady of their heart with the universal Lady of Heaven; the need of deifying the loved woman was at the root of many dubious growths, and possibly these early poets were also to some extent influenced by their dread of the Inquisition (which never gained much importance in Italy). The new poets deepened this feeling, stripped it of all externalities, and appeared ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... it became clear that the only function which the curiales were expected to perform was to emulate the Danaides by pouring gold into the bottomless cask of the Imperial Treasury,[101] they naturally rejected the dubious honours conferred on them, and fled either to be the companions of the monks in the desert or elsewhere so as to be safe from the crushing load of Imperial distinction. Mr. Hodgkin and others have ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... familiarize a sufficient number of the elect, with a grossly immoral and treasonable pamphlet, called the "Ritual of the Order," to enable them to officer the Temple, and "induct" any number of "candidates" supposed to be "in waiting in the ante-room, into the sublime," but in fact dark and dubious ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... acquaintance, to discover, and even, if needed, to invent facts and circumstances which might be turned against them, or against any other persons obnoxious to England, with the view of destroying them. So that, to England in Europe, and to Elizabeth in England, belongs the dubious honor of having invented that great agent of modern governments—the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... save the dull sound That from the mountain, previous to the storm, Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood, And shakes the forest leaf without a breath. Prone to the lowest vale, the aerial tribes Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook, Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast, Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave. 'Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... had told him she thought herself ugly. He went to Janet and asked her permission to bring a mirror to the house that he might have the privilege of being the first to reveal Kilmeny to herself exteriorly. Janet was somewhat dubious ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... word was said on the subject in all those weeks. So profound was the faith of this intelligent and skeptical and independent people in the sound judgment and unswerving integrity of the Father of the Revolution! As the weeks went by, and the issue seemed still dubious, the workingmen of Boston, shipwrights and brass-founders and other mechanics, decided to express their opinion in a way that they knew Samuel Adams would heed. They held a meeting at the Green Dragon tavern, passed resolutions in favour of the Constitution, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... dowager empress held her own. General Yuean Shih-k'ai, who had played so dubious a part in 1898, was not impeccably loyal to her, and remained unreliable. He was beyond challenge the strongest man in the country, for he possessed the only modern army; but he was still ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... answer; his eye was traveling down a column of the newspaper, and he felt a curious pricking of remorse as he read. He had once been rude to Erica Raeburn; he had all his life retailed dubious stories about her father, knowing all the time that had any one believed such stories of himself upon such shaky evidence, he would have used very strong language about them. And now this fellow was dead! Curiously enough, Mr. Cuthbert, who had many ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... own race I cling unto my country, Whatever dubious reason may protesting cry; The shame alone of all her blood bought glory, Her haughty self-assurance, conscious pride, And the ancestral faith's traditions dark, With woe ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... in his hand without reading farther. "Leave me this letter, George; I will give an answer to that and to you before night." He caught up his hat as he spoke, passed into the lifeless picture-gallery, and so out into the open air. George, dubious and anxious, gained the solitude of his own room, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be," answered Bertha, in a dubious voice; "we will say nothing on that point at present. You want ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... at the office, I proceeded to my late abode. I approached, and lifted the latch with caution. There were no appearances of any one having been disturbed. I procured a light in the kitchen, and hied softly and with dubious footsteps to my chamber. There I disrobed, and resumed my check shirt, and trowsers, and fustian coat. This change being accomplished, nothing remained but that I should strike into the country with the ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... be able to wriggle away from. If you are slippery, and faith you are, why I'm tough, and so you'll find it." "Get rid of your kinks before you marry," said he. "I've no use for a wife with one eye on me, and it a dubious one, and the other one squinting into a parlour two streets off. You've got to settle down and quit tricks. A wife has no one else to deceive but her husband, that's all she can want tricks for, and there's ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Monk's behalf! Lambert's own Army was infected. That part of it which was called the Irish Brigade, as consisting of regiments that had been brought from Ireland at the time of Sir George Booth's insurrection, sympathised with Monk openly; the rest were dubious or listless. In the rear of Lambert in Yorkshire, though he can hardly yet have known the fact, Lord Fairfax was organising a movement, really with Royalist aims, but to take the form of a concerted combination with Monk as soon as Monk should advance. But it was in London itself, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... peer in education, my superior in many things.... You and mother can never believe that the ideas, standards—even the ideals of civilisation change—have changed since your youth—are changing every hour. In your youth the word actress had a dubious significance; to-day it signifies only what the character of her who wears the title signifies. In your youth it was immodest, unmaidenly, reprehensible, for a woman to be anything except timid, easily abashed, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... that tottering ledge called society. The cad and the snob are only infrequently well-born. Mrs. Harrigan was as yet far from being a snob, but it required some tact upon Nora's part to prevent this dubious accomplishment. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... summer. We had a championship team then. Yes, sir, we won out, though for a spell it looked pretty dubious. But baseball's an old story. We've had ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... suppression of his convictions, is giving more for his salary than gave the other and more outspoken professor whose chair he occupies. And when a political party dangles a full dinner-pail in the eyes of the toiling masses, it is offering more for a vote than the dubious dollar of the opposing party. Even a money-lender is not above taking a slightly lower rate of interest ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... guard and looked dubious. But presently the captain's orderly appeared and took charge of the situation, so Johnny straight-way found himself standing before Captain Riley "Well, I'm back," he announced cheerfully. "And I've got ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... held in the left hand, is of still more dubious interpretation. It is an object of great elegance, always elaborately and sometimes very tastefully ornamented. Possibly it may represent the receptacle in which the divine gifts are stored, and from which they can be taken by the genius ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing that a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... them at the courtroom door with a pleasant greeting. Then he saw Baby Fuzzy on Jack's shoulder and looked dubious. ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... bay that bears the name Of proud Tarentum, proud to share the fame Of Hercules, though by a dubious claim.' ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... anxious to see for myself, naturally, suspecting some hocus-pocus, so I ventured to be respectfully dubious. ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... "reconstruction" according to the artist's fancy, of the pithecanthropus, the Heidelberg man, the Piltdown man, and the Neanderthal man, the "ancestors of the human race;" and the multitude of high school students and teachers, as well as the general public, are not told how dubious and ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... but intuitively understood by all, and invariably acted upon by the loyal and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must remember. Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever he may think proper to lead; to back out of an expedition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road, and return home without him: these are tricks which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, let him come to any description of mortal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to smother my derision and unbelief. My glance summed up his fastidious apparel and grooming, the gloss on his curling dark hair and the dubious diamond ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... that you have had little or no selling experience. You are conscious that you entirely lack sales art. Therefore, though in other ways you feel qualified to succeed in life, you may be dubious about your future. Perhaps you realize that skill in selling true ideas of your best capabilities is all you need to make your success certain. But you question, "Can I be sure of becoming a skillful salesman of myself?" You have no doubt of your ability to learn the selling ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Farbish's pleasant smile with a look of blank and studied lack of recognition. The circumstances out of which Farbish might weave unpleasant gossip did not occur to Samson. That they were together late in the evening, unchaperoned, at a road-house whose reputation was socially dubious, was a thing he did not realize. But Farbish was keenly alive to the possibilities of the situation. He chose to construe the Kentuckian's blank expression as annoyance at being discovered, a sentiment he could readily understand. Adrienne Lescott, following her companion's eyes, looked ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... YOUR lucid bands condense with fingers chill 20 The blue mist hovering round the gelid hill; In clay-form'd beds the trickling streams collect, Strain through white sands, through pebbly veins direct; Or point in rifted rocks their dubious way, And in each ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... and weaklings, was gathered together, and in 1311 laid before provincial councils, but neither province came to any fixed decision. "Inasmuch," says Hemingburgh, "as the Templars were not found altogether guilty or altogether innocent, they referred the dubious matter to the pope." They sent the evidence they had collected to swell the mass of testimony from all Christendom, which was laid before the council of Vienne. When the pope suppressed the order in April, 1312, and transferred its lands to the Knights of St. John, the papal decrees were quietly ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the other, 'if I covers it at all, it must be with silver, for divil a bit of gold have I by me.' 'Well, then, produce the value in silver,' said the jockey, 'and do it quickly, for I can't be staying here all day.' The thimble man hesitated, looked at Jack with a dubious look, then at the gold, and then scratched his head. There was now a laugh amongst the surrounders, which evidently nettled the fellow, who forthwith thrust his hand into his pocket, and pulling out all his silver treasure, just contrived to place the value of the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the two women across the field watched him from their window. "It ain't a good sign—he's got a hard life before him," said the older of the two, who had wild blue eyes under a tousle of gray hair, and was held in somewhat dubious repute ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and of London, and into those haunts of infamy in which adventurers and pamphleteers drag on a filthy existence: he left them an intriguer. Yet in the very midst of these vices which had rendered his honesty dubious, and name bespotted, he nurtured in the depths of his soul three virtues capable of again elevating him—an unshaken love for a young girl, whom he married in spite of his family, a love of occupation, and a courage ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... locked the stern door, and drew the curtains; she went to the bow and looked carefully at the anchor-line fastenings. With no light on board to blind her gaze, she scrutinized all the surroundings, to make sure of her locality. In that blank gloom she was dubious but brave. Not a thing visible, not a sound audible, nothing but her remote and little understood sensation of premonitory dread explained her perturbation. She entered the cabin, locked the door, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... to himself, as he walked up and down, for by now he was beginning to feel very drowsy himself, in spite of the coffee. "He needs it more than I do. And besides, I'm a little dubious as to what sort of watch Andy would keep. Anyhow, I can stand it a while ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... services, let it always be remembered to your praise and as an instructive example in our annals that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead; amidst appearances sometimes dubious; vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging; in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and a guaranty ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... interpose and slaves debate— But did not Chance at length her error mend? Did no subverted empire mark his end? Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound? Or hostile millions press him to the ground? His fall was destined to a barren strand, A petty fortress and a dubious hand; He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral and ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... speedily came true. The secretary intrusted to his servant, a dubious mulatto named Scott, two letters for Europe sewn up in a waistcoat: one of them was a long letter to Lucien Bonaparte. The servant showed the letters to his father, who in some alarm revealed the matter to the Governor. It is ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... had left no writing) served in turn to give effective outline to the contemplations of Marius. There was something in the doctrine itself congruous with the place wherein it had its birth; and for a time Marius lived much, mentally, in the brilliant Greek colony which had given a dubious name to the philosophy of pleasure. It hung, for his fancy, between the mountains and the sea, among richer than Italian gardens, on a certain breezy table-land projecting from the African coast, some hundreds of miles ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... appeared generally to be was seldome what he really was.' His portrait, {149a} in Highland dress, displays a handsome, fair, athletic young chief, with a haughty expression. Behind him stands a dark, dubious-looking retainer, like ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... ever could tower upwards into a very great philosopher, unless he should begin or end with Christianity.' The canon may be sound, but it at once destroys the pretensions of such men as Hobbes, Spinoza, Hume, and even, though De Quincey considers him 'a dubious exception,' Kant. Even heterodoxy is enough to alienate his sympathies. 'Think of a man,' he exclaims about poor Whiston, 'who had brilliant preferment within his reach, dragging his poor wife and daughter for half a century through the very mire of despondency and destitution, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... down-stairs, and found lying on his breakfast table, the first thing that met his eye, the note which Lucy Wodehouse had written to him on the previous night. As he read it, the earth somehow turned to the sun; the dubious light brightened in the skies. Unawares, he had been wondering never to receive any token of sympathy, any word of encouragement, from those for whom he had made so many exertions. When he had read Lucy's letter, the aspect of affairs changed considerably. To be ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Protestant, deliberately enough; wrote books on controversial subjects, against his old party, before he had taken orders in the Church of England; besides a strange, morbid speculation on the innocence of suicide. He used his lawyer's training for dubious enough purposes, advising the Earl of Somerset in the dark business of his divorce and re-marriage. And, in a mournful pause in the midst of many harrowing concerns, he writes to a friend: 'When I must shipwreck, I would fain ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... reasoned loud, In dubious Hindoo phrase mysterious; While she, poor child, could not divine Why girls so young ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... word and trope absurd must stump up One-and-four; Still frequent "friendly lines" were barred to all save Wealth and Rank, Or Parliamentary "pots" who held the privilege of "Frank;" Still people stooped to dubious dodge and curious device To send their letters yet evade the most preposterous price; Still to despatch to London Town a business "line or two" Would cost a Connemara peasant half his weekly "screw;" Still mothers, longing much for news, must let their letter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... in Greek, and adds a new Translation of it, he leaves out indeed the Cranes fighting with the Pygmies, yet makes them Men, which Aristotle do's not; and by anti-placing, ut aiunt, he renders Aristotle's Assertion more dubious; Neque enim (saith he in the Translation) id est fabula, sed revera, ut aiunt, Genus ibi parvum est tam Hominum quam Equorum. Julius Caesar Scaliger in translating this Text of Aristotle, omits both these Interpretations ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... him, and then turned dubious gaze on Hiram, who leaned back against the whitewashed wall, nesting his head comfortably ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... metropolitan sesquipedalian serving-man. She was, she said, Mrs. Quiverful of Puddingdale, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Quiverful. She wished to see Mrs. Proudie. It was indeed quite indispensable that she should see Mrs. Proudie. James Fitzplush looked worse than dubious, did not know whether his lady were out, or engaged, or in her bedroom; thought it most probable she was subject to one of these or to some other cause that would make her invisible; but Mrs. Quiverful could sit down in the waiting-room ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... with Hall and the driver, stretched out alongside each other in the dubious shelter of ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... down the canon was searching her insufficient clothing already. He picked her up in his arms and ran with her toward the house, setting her down in the trench outside the door. She caught her startled breath and looked at him in shy, dubious amazement. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... A late and dubious tradition asserts that the family name became so discredited owing to the pusillanimous conduct of John and Edward Baliol that it was abandoned by its owners in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the murdered man was carried to the cemetery at San Michele. In spite of some attempt on the part of the police to keep the hour secret, half Venice followed the black-draped barca, which bore that flawed poet and dubious ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... chieftain called Bogoja attacked the town of Arta, and in order to gain an easier victory announced, the chroniclers tell us, that he was of Serb, Albanian, Bulgar and Greek descent. One must therefore be a little dubious of maps which ascribe the Macedonian Slavs to any particular nationality. Much more than the rival maps, it was Kiepert's that was used by the Russians and others for determining the Bulgaria of San Stefano. "It is the best ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... traits, and not by a concentration. The vernacular Irish literature is there to prove that Irish fancy gives too much rather than too little. One may observe, again, that a nation laughs habitually over its besetting weakness; and if the French find their mirth by preference in dubious adventures, it cannot be denied that much Irish humour has a pronounced alcoholic flavour. But it is better neither to define nor to describe; there is more harmful misunderstanding caused by setting down this ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... disheartened. She was certain that the book was a worthy book, and only needed to be made a little more 'personable' to find favour in the eyes of a publisher. Accordingly, blotted sheets were hastily re-copied, new articles introduced, and passages of dubious interest omitted, husband and wife working together at this remodelling until their fingers ached and their eyes were as dim as an owl's in sunshine. Their labours were rewarded by the acceptance of the work by Bentley and Colburn, and its triumphant success with both critics ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... approaching me in the opposite direction. My faculties were fatigued with the crowded sensations of that evening, and I took no notice of her. Even when she stopped to peer into my face I thought nothing of it, and put her gently aside, supposing her to be some dubious character of the night hours. But she insisted ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... declared for a Free Parliament, and it soon became apparent to every one that the whole country was eager to return as soon as possible to the old mould. Nothing now stood between Charles and his own but half a dozen fierce old soldiers and their dubious, discontented, unpaid men. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... the Lieutenant had regarded with such prodigious pride as the one emblem of his otherwise dubious virtue ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... causeway across the moat and its adjoining platform on the wall, had indeed been taken by the English, and was to them a decided advantage, but still their further progress even to the next tower was lingering and dubious, and it appeared evident to both parties that, from the utter impossibility of the Scotch obtaining supplies of provision and men, success must finally attend the English; they would succeed more by the effects of famine than ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... calling, love it, rejoice in it, regret its defects, and honor its achievements, they begin consciously to try to show how good a newspaper can be made with nothing but the tuition of the office. Inaccuracy, carelessness, bad taste, and dubious ethics present themselves at a different angle when judged in the light of a calling for which colleges and universities furnish training. A corporate spirit and a corporate standard are felt more strongly, and men who have learned all they know in a newspaper office have ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... think," he said, "that for an artist to buy a Gallery is a bit dubious? Besides, ten thousand pounds is a lump, and I'm ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... myself.' This is sometimes done, but this does not leave the person's credit who refuses, so clear as the other, though perhaps it may not so directly reflect upon him; but it leaves the case a little dubious and uncertain, and men will be apt to write back to the person who sent the bill to inquire what the drawer says to it, and what account he gives, or what character he has upon his tongue for the ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... fine result this, of that which the German Press, before William's departure, described as the Russo-German Economic Entente, at a moment when, even for the Berlin newspapers, the prospects of a political entente were somewhat dubious. ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... the northern part of the state. He was going to look over the ground personally, and when Herb learned of this, he urged his father to take him and the other radio boys along for a brief outing over the Easter holiday. When his father seemed extremely dubious over this plan, Herb reminded him that Mr. Layton had taken them all to Mountain Pass the previous autumn, and that it would be only ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... the captain scratched his head in a dubious manner. "But I wasn't lookin' upon you as a cook, fer I had no idea that ye understood anything about ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... made contradicts laws that have been established in so many instances that they are practically beyond peradventure, it is suspect. A law, for example, that should be an exception to the laws of motion or gravitation, is a priori dubious. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Island has increased. Following the example of Buck Chizler and the Governor himself, scores of dubious lovers took heart. They succeeded in dispelling certain misgivings—and doubts lurking in the hearts,—not to say consciences,—of approximately three-fourths of the unmarried women on the island, with the result that Father Francisco and ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... And now it was in a state of intolerable stress, that laid bare the elemental facts of a great social organization. It was having its South African war, its war at the other end of the earth, with a certain defeat instead of a dubious victory.... ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... state: President Laurent GBAGBO (since 26 October 2000); note - took power following a popular overthrow of the interim leader Gen. Robert GUEI who had claimed a dubious victory in presidential elections; Gen. GUEI himself had assumed power on 25 December 1999, following a military coup against the government of former President Henri Konan BEDIE head of government: Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and Development ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... showed the remarkable resilience of the economy. Moderate recovery took place in 2002 with the GDP growth rate rising to 2.4%. A major short-term problem in first half 2002 was a sharp decline in the stock market, fueled in part by the exposure of dubious accounting practices in some major corporations. The war in March/April 2003 between a US-led coalition and Iraq shifted resources to the military. In 2003, growth in output and productivity and the recovery of the stock market to above ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... considerable fiction prevails, many persons shipping under the same mark, and even when the shipper stands alone, he might have been provided with the necessary funds from the pious and charitable establishments, possibly without risking a dollar of his own in the whole operation. Under circumstances so dubious, far from presuming to give a decided opinion on the subject, I am compelled to judge from mere conjectures, and guided only by the knowledge and experience I have been able to acquire during my long residence there. In conformity thereto, I am inclined to ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... looked about, as his habit was, as though seeking the holy picture, but when he had found it, he did not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe, he smiled contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though by no means willing to allow that this game were ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... land"; there, indeed, is a word coined by the noble rage as the last century evoked it. "The madded land" is a phrase intended to prove that the law-giver of taste, Johnson himself, could lodge the fury in his breast when opportunity occurred. "And dubious title shakes the madded land." It would be hard to find anything, even in Addison, more flagrant and ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... that a large proportion of the debts from Indians that he books are not recoverable, will frequently—and I presume there is nothing savoring of dubious dealing in the matter—add, perhaps, thirty or forty per cent. to the usual retail price of the goods sold to them, that the collection of some of the debts may, as it were, offset the loss ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... "That's rather a dubious compliment. By the way, what do you think of Miss Chisholm? I suppose you saw a good deal of her ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... held by so many distinguished writers that it deserves a brief examination. If we enquire on what evidence Osiris has been identified with the sun or the sun-god, it will be found on analysis to be minute in quantity and dubious, where it is not absolutely worthless, in quality. The diligent Jablonski, the first modern scholar to collect and sift the testimony of classical writers on Egyptian religion, says that it can be shown in many ways that Osiris ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the jungle to search for food when the plan came to him. At first it made him smile a little and then look dubious, for he still retained a vivid memory of the dire results that had followed the carrying out of a very wonderful idea along almost identical lines, yet he did not abandon his intention, and a moment later, food temporarily forgotten, he was swinging through the middle terraces ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... present hour we are engaged in the very dubious experiment of direct popular legislation and administration. We are trying to change our Government radically, discarding its representative form for that of delegation. The remotest cause of this is the desire to amalgamate all our elements into homogeneity. So far this policy has resulted in a ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... enough now to his situation to be able to take an interest in the news of the day. At any moment his environment might split to admit of a new Voles or Spicer, or perhaps some more dangerous spectre engendered from the dubious past of Rochester; but he scarcely thought of this, he had gone beyond fear, he was up to the neck ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... knowledge of the person therein concerned. Yea, may not the king after all leave this person, with others under the same transgression, to sue for, and obtain this pardon with great expense and difficulty, with many tears and heart-achings, with many fears, and dubious cogitations. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all nations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced from them and commonly ...
— A Letter to a Hindu • Leo Tolstoy
... people. At straw-plaiting Dunstable a volunteer company of farmers joined the regular escort and nearly choked the travellers with the dust the worthy yeomen raised. On leaving Woburn Abbey the same dubious compliment was paid. In the Queen's merry words, "a crowd of good, loyal people rode with us part of the way. They so pressed and pushed that it was as ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... selecting some little thing for each one of the men—books, pictures, a piece of music, a bright cushion, and a pile of picture magazines. It made a big bundle when she had them together, and she was dubious if she ought to try to carry them all; but Bud, whom she consulted on the subject, said, loftily, it "wasn't a flea-bite for the Kid; he could carry anything ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... her as though she were leaving a place of dubious repute, Helene hurried down the staircase, reascended the Passage des Eaux, and regained the Rue Vineuse, without consciousness of the ground she was covering. The old woman's last words still rang in her ears. In truth, no; never again would she set foot in that house, never again would ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... the raising the qualification proved no sort of remedy. The return of the Company's servants into Europe poured in a constant supply of proprietors, whose ability to purchase the highest qualifications for themselves, their agents, and dependants could not be dubious. And this latter description form a very considerable, and by far the most active and efficient part of that body. To add to the votes, which is adding to the power in proportion to the wealth, of men whose very offences were supposed to consist in acts which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, where she entertained intimately. At forty she had preserved the best part of her youth and prettiness, and an income insufficient for Mr. Norman, but enough for her. As she said in her rather dubious pathos, she had nobody but herself ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... in dubious sight, Along the leaguer'd wall, and bristling bank, Of the arm'd river; while with straggling light, The stars peep through the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... so, but for the time to come I shall put little trust in him. Going such a dubious way, he might well have stopped for a God ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Treasure by Subscription of all that Men are worth, and yet inrich them by taking it away. The first Part, quoth the Lord, of taking from all Men, I like; but as to the second, which is to inrich them by taking it away, I am dubious of, yet let them look to that. He looked over a Multitude of others. In the mean Time the Projectors quarrelled, each approving his own Scheme, and condemning the rest; and they grew so Scurrilous, they called one ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... of the five captive French men-of-war; and so that reading is admitted: but for my part, I will admit nothing but under Lord Howe's own hand. It is tiresome to be like the scene in Amphitryon, and cry one minute "Obvious, obvious!" and the next "Dubious, dubious!" Such fluctuability is fit only for a stock-jobber. Adieu! I must dress and dine, or I shall not be ready to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole |
