"Improbable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as forbade me to suppose that he could be joking; and, as it was barely possible (though, for reasons well known to me, in the highest degree improbable) that Agnes might have returned by a by-path, which, leading through a dangerous and disreputable suburb, would not have coincided at any one point with the public road where I had been keeping my station. I sprang forward into the house, up stairs, and in rapid succession into every room where it ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute as improbable in fiction, what are the commonest experiences in fact. Therefore, I note here, though it may not be at all necessary, that there are hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), far more remarkable than that fancied ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart, but John Vansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the moonlight out of the depths of the Atlantic. It has ever been my belief that some strange chance—one of those chances which seem so improbable and yet so constantly occur—had becalmed us over the very spot where the man had been buried a week before. For the rest, the surgeon tells me that the leaden weight was not too firmly fixed, and that seven days ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... carved the inscription, "Here lieth Religion with Superstition." Of course the object of this was to prevent any further worship of the relics, as it would be impossible to discern the bones of the saint from those of the heretic. It is not improbable that both were good women according to their light; but the saint was assuredly far the less enlightened. To common sense, apart from tradition and sentiment, it is difficult to understand why a certain group of persons, who ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... Amaryllis in the way the jade does at times, swooping down upon them suddenly and then like a whirlwind altering the very current of their destiny. It came about quite naturally, too, and not by one of those wildly improbable situations which often prove truth ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... do. The Court is necessarily adverse to allowing the presumption of death, except on evidence of the most satisfactory nature. Still, considering that nearly four months have now passed since the foundering of the Kangaroo under circumstances which make it exceedingly improbable that there were any other survivors, I think that it may fairly presume that Mr. Meeson shared the fate ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... weariness which he could not understand. He looked at his wife, and fearing that she divined his thoughts, he kissed her. She returned his kiss coldly and he wondered if she loved him. He thought that it was improbable that she did. Why should she love him? He had never loved any one. He had never inspired love in any ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... one say that our narrative is becoming too improbable for belief, that the scenes which we depict find no parallel in real life. Those who are disposed to be skeptical with reference to such scenes as the foregoing had better throw this volume aside; for crimes of a much deeper dye, than any yet described, will ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... indeed, that would remove at least a part of the obligation which rested upon him. Some day, he reasoned, the Countess might even marry and be happy in spite of what had occurred. As he contemplated the idea, it began to seem less improbable. What if she should come to care for him? He would still be true to Martel, for how could he protect her better than by making her his wife? His heart leaped at the thought, but then his old self-disgust returned, reminding him that he had yet to ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... could furnish not more than three hundred fighting-men and contained a population of not more than two thousand. Compared with the population of New England these figures seem insignificant enough, and render highly improbable the story popular with some New England historians that the Dutch were enlisted in a great scheme of ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... Tisza's daughter if I did not believe a little in all that is romantic, fantastic, improbable, impossible even. Besides, the opals are forgiven now: for they have permitted me to show you that you were not unknown to me, Prince; and, as you see, I wear this dear agraffe always. It has a double value to me, since it recalls the memory of my poor ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... by her overtures—which you must admit is not improbable—and then the position would be unpleasant, and even degrading, for her. Or, on the other hand, he might, through a ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... no fixed occupation so far as could be learned, and it was commonly known that he was a frequent visitor at the Governor's mansion. That he did not belong to the service, he knew very well, unless the man was affecting a disguise; this, however, he thought highly improbable. The French Alliance had been further confirmed by the arrival of the fleet, which brought many strangers to the city. Now as he thought of it, he had a certain manner about him somewhat characteristic of the French ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... so, in the fear that it would lead, if known, to some objection or estrangement. Suppose she married incautiously—it is not improbable, for her existence has been a lonely and monotonous one for many years—and the man turned out a ruffian, she would be anxious to screen him, and yet would revolt from his crimes. This might be. It bears ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... laid in a store of food sufficient to last for many days. Josephus, at least, who gives his account of all these circumstances, says that he quite unexpectedly found these forty citizens in hiding there; but this is improbable in the extreme, and there can be little doubt that he had, long before, prepared this refuge with them, when he found that the people would not allow them to attempt to make their escape ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... along a gravelled walk. While I reminded myself that the gravel must have been imported from a spot at least ten miles distant, I was further shocked by discovering a most improbable golf green, in gloomy survival. Then I detected a series of kennels facing a wired dog run. This was overwhelming in a country of simple, steadfast devotion to the rearing of cattle ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... class of its operations in an invariable manner. In proportion, therefore, as the invariable laws of phaenomena revealed themselves to observers, the theory which ascribed them all to one will began to grow plausible; but must still have appeared improbable until it had come to seem likely that invariability was the common rule of all nature. The Greeks and Romans at the Christian era had reached a point of advancement at which this supposition had become probable. The admirable ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... improbable but some may imagine from the account already given, that this work will be a partial one, or that it will lean, more than it ought to do, in favour of the Quakers. I do not pretend to say, that I shall be utterly able to divest myself of all undue influence, which their attention towards ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John Andre, had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... the thing calmly, as it appeared to me to pass; but the next day, when I awoke and put memory in the witness-box, I could not conceal from myself that the tale presented a good many improbable features. I had no mind for the studio, after all, and went instead to the Luxembourg gardens, there, among the sparrows and the statues and the falling leaves, to cool and clear my head. It is a garden I have always loved. You sit there in a public place of history ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... that I need rest and change of air. It is not improbable that I shall get both ere long—rest that neither the red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the meantime I ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... 'the young and gay,' as one of the counsel employed euphemistically put the case. The medical evidence did not confirm these suggestions. Details are needless, but these theories were certainly improbable. The character of La Pucelle was not more stainless ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... and innocence of his disposition. To sigh and suffer in secret, to form resolutions of separating himself from a situation so fraught with danger, and to postpone from day to day the accomplishment of a resolution so prudent, was all to which the tutor found himself equal; and it is not improbable, that the veneration with which he regarded his patron's daughter, with the utter hopelessness of the passion which he nourished, tended to render his love yet more pure ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... said; "I only hear. Look yourself. It is in the last degree improbable—but let us make sure that nobody has followed me from Boulogne, and is playing me ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the story of the Sidonian Cadmus, which is so improbable, has been readily believed, and ...
— Laws • Plato
... population, the multiplication of amusements and interests, the differentiation of social habits, the diffusion of great towns, all militate against that sufficient gathering of masses of voters in meeting-houses which gave him his power in the recent past. It is improbable that ever again will any flushed undignified man with a vast voice, a muscular face in incessant operation, collar crumpled, hair disordered, and arms in wild activity, talking, talking, talking, talking copiously out of the windows of railway ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... out of doors? At the same time, though her pity was aroused for the abandoned one, she also began to bewail the loss of their happiness. It became necessary for Mathieu to reassure them both by saying that he regarded such a visit as most improbable. Without telling them the exact truth, he spoke of the elder lad's disappearance, adding, however, that he must be ignorant even of his mother's name. Thus, when he left the sisters, they already ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... important discovery so far as tracing tissue is concerned, but it admits him into no higher mystery within the temple built by God than another may attain to by the accidental discovery that the tissues may take on the same color in some other solution—by no means an improbable discovery. Carmine in ammonia is not the only solution that may aid science in the investigations now being carried forward by the vitalists and non-vitalists with so much bitterness and asperity of feeling between them; and now that Professor Beale has made his ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... lose much of the amenity and gentleness he had of late displayed, and look upon the arrival of an armed force from England in a very different light; we were not, therefore, much astonished to hear that he had again quarrelled with the Europeans around him. It is also not improbable that a copy of the proclamation the Commander-in-Chief had sent to the different chiefs may have fallen into his hands about this time, as one was found after his death amongst his papers. Whatever may have been the cause of his sudden change, he, without any apparent reason, all at once regarded ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... that real danger from Deveny existed, for the incident in Lamo had convinced her of that, but she felt that Harlan's fears for her were rather extravagant—it was rather improbable that Deveny would come boldly to the Rancho Seco and attempt to carry her ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... own money and, subject to certain settlement, was at Lord George's immediate disposal; but he would be unable to endure the Dean's reproaches. He would be unable also to endure his own, unless—which was so very improbable—the Dean should encourage him. But how were things to be arranged? Was he to desert his mother and sisters in their difficulty? He was very fond of his wife; but it had never yet occurred to him that the daughter of Dean Lovelace could be as important ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... has atoned to posterity for all the sorrow that it caused, for all the wrong that was done in its name. If it killed laughter, it also dried many tears. By it privilege was slain in France, tyranny rendered more improbable, almost impossible. The canker of a debased feudalism was swept away. Men were made equal before the law. Those barriers by which the flow of economic life in France was checked were broken down. All careers were thrown open to talent. The ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... a king or queen in Europe, and inveighing bitterly against the English aristocracy, and against the Duke of Wellington in particular, whom he said, if he himself was ever president of an English republic—an event which he seemed to think by no means improbable—he would hang for certain infamous acts of profligacy and bloodshed which he had perpetrated in Spain. Being informed that the writer was something of a philologist, to which character the individual in question laid great pretensions, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... assist by the Pacha in command. Sometimes such revolts are factitious, for political purposes. In all cases the position of Russia in Asia Minor is one of extreme danger to Turkey, and it is far from improbable that activity on her side, and passiveness upon ours, may terminate in a friendship between the Russians and the Turks to the detriment of British interests, and to the confusion of the assumed Protectorate. This document distinctly states:—If "Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall be retained ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... their evidence might be used against them, it would appear like a breach of faith to treat them now as criminals." "Should the prosecution of these persons result in their acquittal, which seems to me not improbable, I fear that the good effect produced by the severe reprimand, which I understand that your Honor administered publicly to all the parties concerned in these two cases, might be to a ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... playing at shuttlecock with my soul. Underneath my misery there flickered a thought which, wild as it was, I dared not dismiss—the thought that, after all, it might not be Winifred who had died in that den. Possible it was—however improbable—that I might be labouring under a delusion. My imagination might have exaggerated a resemblance into actual identity, and Winifred and she whom Wilderspin painted might be two different persons—and there might be hope even ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... though it was scarce probable that any such thing should ever happen, yet to enclose myself among the hills and woods in the centre of the island was to anticipate my bondage, and to render such an affair not only improbable, but impossible; and that therefore I ought not by any means to remove. However, I was so enamoured of this place, that I spent much of my time there for the whole of the remaining part of the month of July; and though upon second thoughts, I ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... her agreeable Memoirs of Anne Boleyn, does not mention the Queen's abode in Southwark; but the date of the architecture of the annexed house, and its closer identification with Queen Elizabeth, render the first mentioned circumstance by no means improbable. Previous to the marriage of Anne Boleyn, we learn that Henry passed not a few of his leisure hours "in the delightful society of Anne Boleyn." "Every day they met and spent many hours in riding or walking together." Her family ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... me strikes at the popular part of the Treaty of Alliance. If it be the wish of the Committee to reduce the treaty to a mere skeleton of Government forms, they are taking the right method to do it, and it is not improbable they will blame you afterwards for not in-forming them upon the subject. The disposition to retort has been so notorious here, that you ought to be guarded ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... it so suddenly, just as you do into that Oriental town." But what a charming occidental place it is! It stands well above the river, the slope adorned with many fine old trees, some of which grow, and grow prosperously, in the queerest and most improbable forms, bent double, twisted, but still most green and vigorous. They have no business under any known theory of arboriculture to be beautiful, but beautiful they are. The views of the bridge, of the towers, and of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... structures can be definitely classed as dwellings or tombs, as we have seen in our separate treatment of them. It is not improbable that, if we are right in considering the dolmen as the most primitive form of megalithic monument, megalithic architecture was funerary in origin. Yet, as we find it in its great diffusion, it provides homes for the living as well as for the dead. ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... over the fury and astonishment of Hanno and his colleagues on hearing that their prisoner had disappeared, and he pictured to himself the hot search which was no doubt going on throughout the citadel. He thought it improbable in the extreme that any search would be made in the reservoir. Nessus would refasten the gate after passing through it again, and the idea that he could be floating on the subterranean lake could ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... were reported to Csar, which is not at all improbable, considering the earnestness with which his friends labored to dissuade him from his purpose of meeting the senate on the approaching Ides of March, it is very little to be doubted that it had a considerable effect upon his feelings, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... seem brighter than they appear from the open fields. I have heard that you can see a star even in daytime from the bottom of a deep mine-pit if it happens to pass overhead. That would seem to make my impression less improbable, perhaps. I know that not often have the stars seemed so much alive to me as they did that night ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... pierced its lungs. Yet, with two fatal wounds and a useless leg, the plucky creature had scaled the face of a cliff which one would think a squirrel would find impossible to traverse and made leaps which might well be considered improbable for a perfectly sound animal. The ram was dead and food for the ravens, and a reaction had taken place in my mind; I felt like a bloody murderer, and hung my head ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... by a group of industrial oligarchies, or by one great oligarchy, but it is not probable. That sporadic oligarchies may flourish for definite periods of time is highly possible; that they may continue to do so is as highly improbable. The procession of the ages has marked not only the rise of man, but the rise of the common man. From the chattel slave, or the serf chained to the soil, to the highest seats in modern society, he has risen, rung by rung, amid the crumbling of the divine right of kings ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a circle of fierce-visaged ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... to you very improbable, yet it is none the less true that America, of all the great nations, is probably the one least swayed by eagerness to attain material advantage for herself through her international policies. I do not claim that this arises necessarily from any particular virtue in her people. It may ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... she would die in childbirth of her first child, and that she did actually die in child-birth, at the age of eighteen, doubtless under a strong impression of her mother's prophecy, to which the improbable event of her marriage had given such extraordinary weight. Madame told the King of the adventure her curiosity had led her into, at which he laughed, and said he wished the Police had arrested her. He added ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... extremely sound mind, this disorder would be rendered much less formidable than we now consider it, and might in its effects be compared to those violent storms of thunder and lightning that purify the atmosphere and dispense salutary refreshment; and it is not improbable, that some, gifted by nature with mediocrity of talent, but of a philosophical turn and aspiring pretensions, might regard the occurrence of such paroxysm as a desideratum, rather than an evil, on account of the extreme soundness ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... descendants of the original french settlers have indian blood in their veins, the charge is not improbable, as far as relates to a few individuals, but that they received either the connivance, or protection of government, (as the Americans ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... Mr. Roscoe, with good reason, doubts the accuracy of this inconsistent and improbable story. See his Life ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... not be sure; very likely Johnson would know. You are hinting at the possibility of a thief coming in through a reception-room window while we were somewhat noisy over our wine. I think such a solution highly improbable. My rooms are on the third floor, and a thief would scarcely venture to make an entrance when he could not but know there was a company being entertained. Besides this, the coat was there less than an hour, and it appears ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... here attempt to shew. I do not recollect to have seen a pantomime myself without pilfering being introduced under every possible form, such as shop lifting, picking pockets, &c. &c. Can it then be for a moment supposed improbable that children, after having witnessed these exhibitions, should endeavour to put the thing into practice, whenever an opportunity offers, and try whether they cannot take a handkerchief from a gentleman's pocket with ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... closely through out the country, should demand its presence in every negro home of this country. In keeping in touch with the doings of our people in the east and northern states through the Defender. To the Majority of the Middle western race people it seem quite improbable that opportunities for good wage earning positions such as factory work and too a chance for advancement would be given to the workers ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... Archbishop Whately[566] and reprinted. It is certainly a paradox: but differs from most of those in my list as being a joke, and a satire upon the reasoning of those who cannot receive narrative, no matter what the evidence, which is to them utterly improbable a priori. But had it been serious earnest, it would not have been so absurd as many of those which I have brought forward. The next on the list is not ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... a later age, by a fragment papyrus fortuitously preserved in a temple, by accidentally coming across some monument bearing their name, and were reduced, as it were, to put together the few facts which they possessed, or to supply such as were wanting by conjectures, often in a very improbable manner. It is quite possible that they were unable to gather from the memory of the past the names of those individuals of which they made up the first two dynasties. The forms of these names are curt and rugged, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... upon its cause in some way which in it is not dependent upon other things. Thus men will urge that the mind is dependent upon the brain, or, with equal plausibility, that the brain is dependent upon the mind. It seems not improbable that if we had sufficient knowledge we could infer the state of a man's mind from the state of his brain, or the state of his brain from the state of his mind. So long as the usual conception of causal ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... were 45,000 Armenians alive in Aleppo. This forms confirmatory evidence, but at the same time there is nothing to show that they were not subsequently deported to Deir-el-Zor. In this case it is highly improbable that any survive.] ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... than one man out of fifty who knows of its existence, and those who are acquainted with it, beyond telling you emphatically that it is not a Corean work, can give you no information about it. It is not improbable that, in the course of some friendly or unfriendly intercourse between the Chinese and the Coreans, this pagoda was brought ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... jury puzzled over the case for hours, at one time, I am informed, being on the point of acquitting the prisoner for lack of proof of any motive. They reasoned, with perfect logic, that it was almost if not quite as improbable that the defendant should in broad daylight on a public street have shot down a man against whom he had not the slightest grudge as that twenty commonplace citizens should be mistaken as to what they had seen. Whether ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... in June, Clemens had a fresh crop of ideas for stories of many lengths and varieties. His note-book of that time is full of motifs and plots, most of them of that improbable and extravagant kind which tended to defeat any literary purpose, whether humorous or otherwise. It seems worth while setting down one or more of these here, for they are characteristic of the myriad conceptions that came and went, and beyond these written memoranda left no trace ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... cheeks and the anger from his eyes. Creighton watched the metamorphosis with approval; if he could get the best of his temper like that, would he have been likely to lose it to the extent of committing murder? Improbable! ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... they were at the end of the wall, for the forts at the entrance were detached. They were now approaching the most dangerous portion of the passage; they were no longer sheltered in the shadow, but must go along openly. It was, however, improbable that there would be sentries on the face of the fort looking towards the town, and Ned, accustomed as he was to keep watch on deck at night, could scarce make out the low shore a few yards away, and felt pretty confident that the eyes of the sleepy ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... letters, purporting to be signed with his name.[Footnote: Varnhagen, Amerigo Vespucci, son caractere, ses scrits (meme les moins authentiques) &c., p. 67, et seq. (Lima, 1865).] That this spirit of civic pride in that same community may have actuated the fabrication of the Verrazzano letter is not improbable; but in justice to the memory of Verrazzano it must be added, there is no reason to believe that he was in any way accessory to ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... these "beards" had been provided with prefectures; at least all, or nearly all, of them occupied public positions. There was one in the Government of National Defence, and three or four others, chosen from among the most rabid ones, were members of the Committee on Barricades; for, improbable as the thing may seem today, this commission existed and performed its duties, a commission according to all rules, with an organized office, a large china inkstand, stamped paper, verbal reports read and voted upon at the beginning of each ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... seemed the most improbable one of all," said his mother. "I wish he were not deprived of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so generous," said the captain. "Your plea is ingenious, but I put no faith in it. It is utterly improbable. You and your brother have been with us for seven years. You have become accustomed to our ways. He was faithful and loyal till the love of gold made him a traitor. What ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... undertaking—is her only fault, and is tragic because inconsistent with the character of womanhood, which the Almighty has also ordained. Compared with the iron necessity of her being, to which Judith succumbs, the accidental and improbable fault of Schiller's Maid of Orleans seems as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... translation, beyond the amount of fifteen shillings and fivepence, which he had expended in postage on the advance sheet and complete copy sent to John. To judge from the subsequent financial arrangements between the Society and its agent, it is very improbable that he was given work ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... great men were expecting, it is highly improbable that they expected that which arrived. Suddenly the British batteries spoke out, and they all spoke together. In the space of four minutes they deposited thirty thousand high-explosive shells in ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... they sought out the island of St. Croix, seized a quantity of salt, and razed to the ground all that remained of the dilapidated buildings of De Monts. They crossed the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal, guided, says Biard, by an Indian chief,—an improbable assertion, since the natives of these coasts hated the English as much as they loved the French, and now well knew the designs of the former. The unfortunate settlement was tenantless. Biencourt, with some of his men, was on a visit to neighboring bands of Indians, while the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... accomplishment of the divine promises depends on the almighty power of God, pray that I and all the ministers of the Word may take hold of His strength, and go about our work as fully expecting the accomplishment of them all, which, however difficult and improbable it may appear, is certain, as all the promises of God are in Him, yea, and in Him, Amen." Had he not, all his career, therefore expected and attempted ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... the deacon as if he had some doubts whether the old man were in his right mind. He knew the besetting weakness of his character well, and had no difficulty in appreciating the influence of such a belief as that he had just expressed, on his feelings; but it seemed so utterly improbable that he, living on Oyster Pond, should learn a fact of this nature, which was concealed from others, that, at first, he fancied his owner had been dreaming of money until its images had made him mad. Then he recollected ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... criticism will allow, the reading must stand as it is, and the claim of the Turdetanians must be for a literature nearly as old as the supposed age of the world in the current century,—a long date, and a date which would be improbable, even if we divided it by twelve, and rendered {etos} by month instead of year. It denotes either some shorter period (perhaps a day) ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... going two-thirds of the distance; and a party landing in the vicinity of William-Henry, could certainly have reached the spot where we then were, several hours sooner than we had reached it ourselves. Still, there existed all the other improbabilities on my side of the question. It was improbable that a party should have proceeded in precisely this manner; it was still more improbable that such a party, coming on a war-path, from a distant part of the country, should know exactly where to find our hut. After ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... flag-raisings in history,—even the persons most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed that much,—but it would have seemed to them improbable that any such flag-raising as theirs, either in magnitude of conception or brilliancy of actual performance, could twice glorify the same century. Of some pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and the flag-raising at Riverboro ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... which as yet I had scarcely dared dwell upon in my own mind, so wild, so improbable did it appear at any other time than dead of night, when all strange things seem possible. But now, as I judged what the height and size of the body must have been, and let my glance travel almost fearfully to the left hand, I saw that which tended in a ghastly ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... Indeed, it is not improbable that he was also a "giant-killer,"—an insolent, self-assertive, cold-hearted giant, who swaggered with equal freedom into the palaces of the rich and the cottages of the poor; but he did not by any means meet with ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... black's, who had set fire to one of the huts and then seized the opportunity to get the prisoner away. It was like the Australian to do such a thing as this, for he was cunning and full of stratagem, and though it was improbable the idea was growing upon me, when all at once a tremendous weight seemed to fall upon my head and I was dashed to the earth, with a sturdy savage pressing me down, dragging my hands behind me, and beginning to fasten them ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... rather far-fetched, improbable. Johnny was slow to accept the theory that he had been led to that airplane just as a toy is given to a child, to keep its attention engrossed with a harmless pastime while other business is afoot. It hurt his self-esteem to believe that—wherefore ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... accustomed to till land at home, but had made fighting their business. War, in short, which was an unwelcome accident to the Ceorl, was the business of life to the Gesith. The exact relationship between the Gesiths and the Ceorls cannot be ascertained with certainty. It is not improbable that the Gesiths, being the best warriors amongst their countrymen, sometimes obtained land granted them by their chiefs, and were expected in consequence to be specially ready to serve the chief whom they had followed from their home. It was from their ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... between divisions, has been seen to take place in twenty minutes. At this rate of growth from a single cholera bacillus sixteen quadrillion might arise in a single day. Such a rate of growth is extremely improbable under either natural or artificial conditions, both from lack of food and from the accumulation in the fluid of waste products which check growth. Many species of bacteria in addition to this simple mode of multiplication form spores which are ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... dream could do no harm; it was too outrageously improbable to come home to anybody's feelings. Dreams were like broken mosaics,—the separated stones might here and there make parts of pictures. If one found a caricature of himself made out of the pieces which ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pretended knowledge of soothsaying and astrology, obtained a great ascendancy over her mind, it was she who, strengthening their predictions, encouraged her in—I know not what to call them—delusions concerning matches and lovers, which my kinswoman's age rendered ungraceful and improbable. I doubt not that, from the beginning, we had been surrounded by these snares by Louis of France, in order to determine us to take refuge at his Court, or rather to put ourselves into his power, after which rash act on our part, how unkingly, unknightly, ignobly, ungentlemanlike, he hath conducted ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... misinterpret any thing I have formerly said, I must now solemnly assure you, that I never had the slightest suspicion of the secret you revealed to me till the moment when it was betrayed by your indiscretion. Still I can scarcely credit what appears to me so improbable; but, even under this uncertainty, I think it my duty to leave this family. Had the slightest idea of what you suggested ever crossed my imagination, I should then have acted as I do now. I say this, not to justify ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... over the serene waters, filled with a great inward thrill. The wonder of all the fast-crowding events of the past fortnight was asserting itself potently in his mind, and it was difficult to realize he was not now living some wild, improbable dream. But, after all, he found the sense of responsibility dominant. To his care was committed a beautiful life,—a life that must be saved, cherished, and ultimately restored to its proper environment. Of late, it seemed, an evil star had pursued him; everything he had commanded or had ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... D—-'s had the merit of originality, and it is not improbable that the utter disbelief in supernatural appearances which is common to most native-born Canadians, is the result of the same very reasonable mode of arguing. The unpeopled wastes of Canada must present the same aspect to the new settler ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... not to remember! It was Dan Barry who had gone on the trail of Silent's gang and hounded it to death; Lee Haines alone had been spared. Yes, half a dozen years before the mountain-folk had heard that story, a wild and improbable one. It fitted in with what Pete Glass had told him of the shooting of Harry Fisher; it explained a great deal which had mystified him since he first met Barry; it made the thing he had come to do at ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... to start, the Yankee's boots were missing; and, after a diligent search, were not to be found. Enraged beyond measure, their proprietor said that Varvy must have stolen them; but, considering his hospitality, I thought this extremely improbable; though to whom else to impute the theft I knew not. The doctor maintained, however, that one who was capable of drugging an innocent traveller with "Arva Tee" was ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... an unintelligible, or, in every sense, a most unnatural, passage,—improbable, if not impossible, at the moment of signing and swearing such a conspiracy, to the most libidinous satyr. The very presence of the boys is an outrage to probability. I suspect that these lines down to the words "throat ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... the German version, according to which the Burgomaster's son, a youth of 151/2 years, and of extremely gentle disposition, is said to have fired upon a superior German officer during the night of Aug. 19. Still more improbable is the version of the conspiracy organized by the Burgomaster. It is to be remarked that if—a thing which is not known—a German officer has been hit on the Grand Place, it might have happened by a stray bullet, German soldiers being engaged in shooting in the neighboring ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... pre-determined." The writer hastens to denounce the horrid heresy on the brink of which he finds himself hesitating, by adding that he sees "no ground whatever for holding such a view," though "in the light of modern research it scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before."[9] It is curious that the writer in question does not seem to have been in any way influenced by the eliminative argument so potent in connection with the discussion on Vitalism. We ask for an explanation of the occurrences—say of regeneration. We find that no physical ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... I had so long pined for was at last so near. Might not M. le Duc d'Orleans falter at the last moment? Might not all our preparations, so carefully conducted, so cleverly planned, weigh upon his feebleness until they fell to the ground? It was not improbable. He was often firm in promises. How often was he firm in carrying them out? All these questions, all these restless doubts— natural as it appears to me under the circumstances—winged their way through my mind, and kept me excited and feverish as though life and death ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... of a girl going out at night to gaze at the stars and dream was as improbable a thought for him as flying is to me, and having no soul above mud, had I attempted an explanation he would have considered me mad, and dangerous ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... now that there was a fort, manned by United States soldiers, on Humber Island. It was one of the chain of forts that guarded the approaches to Rock Haven. And Bessie had an idea that she would be able to find someone at the fort to believe her story, wild and improbable as she knew it must sound. The great problem now was to get out of the ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... p.m. instead of five, and we sent another wire, stating our arrival to be uncertain, if not improbable. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... and I've heerd things, some of them ornery, and some you'd love to believe, they was that gorgeous and improbable. Nat'ral history was always my hobby and sportin' events my special pleasure—and this yarn of Windy's reminds me of the only chanst I ever had to ring in business and pleasure and hobby all in one grand merry-go-round of joy. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... all this mean, but to awaken us to a due Sense of our Danger? And, 'tis to be hop'd, the Nation has already taken the Alarm, and begin to think how to avert God's Displeasure. The Stage is called in Question, and Papers are dispers'd to warn us of its Mischiefs; and it is not improbable that the Licentious and Unbounded Liberty the Players have taken of late years, and particularly in their daring to Act THE TEMPEST within a very few Days after the late dreadful Storm, has rais'd in the Minds of Men such an Abhorrence and Indignation, ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous
... Mr. Grimes declared that there was time enough, and that he would have the work finished by the time fixed,—unless, indeed, the Marquis should change his mind. Mr. Puddleham regarded this as a most improbable supposition. "The Marquis doesn't change his mind, Mr. Grimes," he said; and then he walked forth from Mr. Grimes's house ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... return in the evening, or sleep at the inn and come back the next morning. He must manage to catch the man alone, because he was assuredly minded to use upon him all the power of eloquence which he had at his command. And as he thought it improbable so to find him in the evening, he determined to postpone his task. But in doing so he felt that he should be at a loss. The eager words were hot now within his memory, having been sharpened against the anvil of his thoughts by his colloquy with Mary Lawrie. To-morrow they might have cooled. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... not improbable that the great conqueror entertained thoughts like these, for he was a writer of history as well as one of the mightiest makers of it; but he mentions nothing of the sort in his own story of the advance, and we may well doubt whether it was not invented by Suetonius, or some other ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... hatred that dragged down Argyll. His condemnation was an infamous perversion of justice, but as Charles would not allow him to be captured in London, it is most improbable that he would have permitted the unjust capital sentence to be carried out. The escape was probably collusive, and the sole result of these intricate iniquities was to create for the Government an enemy who would have been dangerous if he had been trusted by the extreme Presbyterians. In England ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... informed here that two ships had arrived at Huaheine, one commanded by Banks, and the other by Furneaux, and their informant describes both Captains so well that it was some time before Cook ventured to reject the tale as too improbable. It is possible that there was some foundation for the story that ships had been seen, for it afterwards became known that M. St. Dennis had been in the South Pacific about this time with ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... of the Prussian, now committed the pursuit of him to Marshal Grouchy, and a corps of 32,000 men—and turned in person to Quatre-Bras, in the hope of pouring his main force, as well as Ney's, on Wellington, in a situation where it was altogether improbable he should receive any assistance from Blucher. But no sooner was the Duke aware of Blucher's march on Wavre, than he, in adherence to the common plan of the campaign, gave orders for falling back from Quatre-Bras. He had before now been heard to say, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... fate of royal favourites may have been brought before the English public with any view to the case of George Villiers. A passage, however, in Mathieu's dedication of the original "to the king," seems to render it not improbable, certainly not inapplicable: ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... then fell upon her knees to Jones, and gave him a thousand thanks for her deliverance. He presently lifted her up, and told her he was highly pleased with the extraordinary accident which had sent him thither for her relief, where it was so improbable she should find any; adding, that Heaven seemed to have designed him as the happy instrument of her protection. "Nay," answered she, "I could almost conceive you to be some good angel; and, to say the truth, you look more like an angel than a man in my eye." ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... that all the evidence was pretty thoroughly sifted at the time, every possible clue followed up. The public would have been ready enough then to believe that you murdered old Lenman—you or anybody else. All they wanted was a murderer—the most improbable would have served. But your alibi was too confoundedly complete. And nothing you've told me has shaken it." Denver laid his cool hand over the other's burning fingers. "Look here, old fellow, go home and work up a better ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... which Lyly contributed commendatory verses. On the other hand Hakluyt's first book was supplemented by a woodcut map executed by his friend Michael Lok[36], brother of Thomas Lok the Spanish merchant, and uncle to the aforesaid Henry. It seems highly improbable, therefore, that Lyly and Hakluyt possessing these common friends could have remained unknown to each other at Oxford. Indeed we may feel justified in supposing that Hakluyt, Sidney, Carew, Lyly, Thomas Lodge, and ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... shack, nearly seven years ago. How tense they both had been, how afraid of each other, how she had irritated him! Well, he had grown accustomed to her at last, thanks be. Was he, perhaps, foolish not to get more out of their life—it was not improbable that a child might come. Why had he been taking it so for granted that this was out of the question? When one got right down to it, just what was the imaginary obstacle that was blocking the realization of this deep wish? Her chance of not pulling through? He'd get ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... certain than she deemed it. The crowd, which grew each moment, knew nothing of pursuers or pursued. On the contrary, a cry went up that the riders were Huguenots, and that the Huguenots were rising and slaying the Catholics; and as no story was too improbable for those days, and this was one constantly set about, first one stone flew, and then another, and another. A man with a staff darted forward and struck Badelon on the shoulder, two or three others pressed in and jostled the riders; and ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the Java it seems to me that he is mistaken. He has here followed the British accounts; but they are contradicted by the American authorities, and besides have a very improbable look. When the Constitution came round for the second time, on the port tack, James declares the Java passed directly across her stern, almost touching, but that the British crew, overcome by astonishment or awe, did not fire a shot; and ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... get into print, and if I dared risk my reputation by telling the things which actually occur in a menagerie, I should never need a Press Agent; but a plausible lie is accepted where a truth which sounds improbable is ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... the previous year. But he causes Appius to state, in his speech favoring the corruption of certain tribunes, "that the veto of one tribune would be sufficient to defeat all the others."[11] This is contrary to the statement of Dionysius[12] and would seem improbable, for, if the opposition of one tribune was sufficient, the patricians would not have deemed it necessary to purchase four. That would be ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... courage and pressed forward; for now we had reason to believe that a great battle was raging, which would, we hoped, be decisive of the salvation of the Republic, and we prayed that if any exigency had arisen or should arise—which seemed not improbable—in which the militia reserve should be needed to turn the fortunes of the day in favor of our arms, we might ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... the case of Thomas Roch this indifference was practically absolute. He lived but within himself, so to speak, a prey to a fixed idea which had brought him to the condition in which we find him. Could any circumstance occur to counteract it—to "exteriorize" him, as it were? The thing was improbable, but it ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... sniffing at was a page of fashion cartoons, curious human hieroglyphs that women can read and run to buy. Highly improbable garments were sketched on utterly impossible figures—female eels who could crawl through their own garters, eels of strange mottlings, with heads like cranberries, feet like thorns, and no ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... their laws regarding the female sex were cruel and unjustifiable; and even if, which is highly improbable, they succeeded by their severity in enforcing chastity, and in putting an effectual stop to crime, yet the punishment rather reminds us of the laws of a barbarous people than of a wise and civilized state. A woman who had committed adultery was sentenced to lose her nose, upon the principle ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... serving without reward, but being content with my monopolizing the portion of the prize-money known by them to have been awarded for the expulsion of the Portuguese in the preceding year, and notoriously in my possession! Their forbearance being so improbable as to refute itself, being contrary to common sense; even in the absence of the vouchers, which were transmitted to the Brazilian Government, but never acknowledged—I am able however to account for the whole from documents no less convincing than ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... produce aromatic carbides, or the derivatives of marsh gas, by the absorption of hydrogen. Berthelot's view, therefore, is too imaginative; for the presence of free alkaline metals in the earth's interior is an unproved and very improbable hypothesis. Byasson states that petroleum is formed by the action of water, carbonic anhydride, and sulphureted hydrogen upon incandescent iron. Mendelejeff thinks it is formed by the action of aqueous vapor upon carbides of iron; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... wandering bee, highly poetical, seems at first sight very improbable, and passes for one of the many strange creations of this wild poem. But yet it is quite true to nature, and was probably suggested to Southey, an omnivorous reader, by some out-of-the-way ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... lad from going to Kenwardine's when Clare was there to hear his objections, and he had no doubt that Jake enjoyed his embarrassment. Turning away, he tried to forget the matter by thinking about the coal. Since Kenwardine was at home, it was improbable that he had been at Adexe during the night. If Clare had a part in her father's plots, she might, of course, have made the statement about his getting up with an object, but Dick would not admit this. She had helped the man once, but this was an exception, and she must have yielded ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... falsity from their own researches. Materials, indeed, are many relating to the events that befell the Waldstaette during their conflicts with the bailies, whom they succeeded in expelling from their country; and it seems in the highest degree improbable that, had Tell and his friends lived and taken so prominent a part in effecting their country's freedom as is popularly assigned to them, they should have been entirely ignored by all contemporary writers, as well as by subsequent ones, for a hundred and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sail at the sides, or laterally, by unlacing a cloth at a time. This seems to me highly absurd, and is certainly not borne out by the testimony of my own observation; and that they should not conform to the common usage of maritime nations—both savage and civilized—in this particular is improbable. Even the Chinese—who are generally admitted to be the most unconforming and irrational people in the world—reef their sails, at least, in the orthodox way. Besides taking a practical view of the matter, how are they in any sudden emergency, and with ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... just at present any observer who lived in the pre-Darwin days is regarded as one of the ancients. The reasons given for the notion or theory in the celebrated Introduction to Entomology were not conclusive; nevertheless it was not an improbable supposition of the authors'; while the theory which has taken its place in recent zoological writings seems in every ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... so mysteriously conveyed was not deserving of belief, unless supported by more corroborating testimony. My unknown friend evidently divined all that was passing in my mind, for she observed, "I perceive that my recital appears to you improbable; one particular which I will state may perhaps overcome your incredulity. Are you not in the habit, madam, of taking every evening mixed with a large proportion of orange- flower water?" "I am," replied I. "This day," continued my informant, "you will receive ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... moments, I called his attention to what seemed like an unusual hurrying to and fro on the part of the enemy. It was as if they were making ready for some important movement, and, according to my way of thinking, that could only mean an assault, improbable as our officers believed ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... any long period a man of dissolute morals is improbable; for he was only twenty-four years of age when he was called to the bar, and before his call he had married (after a year's wooing) a virtuous and exemplary young lady, with whom he lived happily for more than twenty years. A merchant's child, whose face was her fortune—Judith, the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Bill and others, this must be a very rare custom. Ashhurst states that he was informed by Dr. Schell, who was stationed for some time at Fort Laramie, that it is the universal custom to dip the arrows in blood, which is allowed to dry on them; it is not, therefore, improbable that septic material may thus be inoculated ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... discovered where she lived; no less readily he gained an introduction to the family with whom she boarded. There was a window-seat in the salle a manger; it was deep and shaded by odorous flowering shrubs; it lent itself to endless conversation. The episode was strange, the passion improbable, incomprehensible, profoundly natural and true. Perhaps, until they parted in the last days of September, neither the old man nor the young girl realized what their relations had meant to each. Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... ambassadors with so much ostentation, should one day be transported to Babylon; and that his children should be carried thither, to become servants in the palace of that monarch. This was then utterly improbable; for Babylon, at the time we are speaking of, was in friendship and alliance with Jerusalem, as appears by her having sent ambassadors thither: nor did Jerusalem then seem to have any thing to fear, but from Nineveh; whose power ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... word-play, their overcrowded imagery, their loose and broken structure, their paucity of female roles, their mixture of comic and tragic, their reliance on disguise and mistaken identity as motives, their use of improbable or absurd stories; they are Elizabethan also in the qualities of their greatness, their variety of subject, their intense interest in the portrayal of character, the flexibility and audacity of their language, their noble and opulent verse, ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... the agitation of the town. Now Ramiro d'Orco had accomplished his task so well that there was nothing more to fear in the way of rebellion; for one-sixth of the inhabitants had perished on the scaffold, and the result of this situation was that it was improbable that the same demonstrations of joy could be expected from a town plunged in mourning that were looked for from Imala, Faenza, and Pesaro. The Duke of Valentinais averted this inconvenience in the prompt and efficacious fashion characteristic ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tide," and he opened with this formula, broke away from it, and came back to the ballad in the stanza, "If he had had but ten men more," which differs but slightly from stanza ii. of Scott's ballad. That this is so, and that, later, Satchells is again reminiscent of a ballad, is no improbable opinion. ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... character. Nearly one half of the entire property of the slave-holding States consists in this right to the services of human beings of a race so different from our own as to render any amalgamation to the last degree improbable, if not impossible. Any one may easily estimate the deep interest that the masters feel in the preservation of their property. The spirit of the age is decidedly against them, and of this they must be sensible; ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... o'clock until four in the evening the enemy's entire force was in sight and forming for attack, yet in view of the strong position we held, and reasoning from the former course of the rebels during this campaign, nothing appeared so improbable as that they would assault. I was so confident in this belief that I did not leave General Schofield's headquarters ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... arranged for the defensive. This was not confided to him without an injunction of the strictest secrecy, but it is said that Davoust communicated the plan to Fouche. Considering Davoust's character this is very unlikely, but if so, it is far from improbable that Fouche communicated the plan to the Allies with whom, and more particularly with Prince Metternich, he is well known to have been corresponding at ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to another a man may place himself in harmony with the infinite mind and thus receive true and healthful warnings of coming evil or good. Homer, Aristotle and other writers of the ancient classics thought this not improbable. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... later years, that when Tecumseh called the Governor a liar, that quick as a flash he arose to his feet, drew his sword and was about to resent the insult, when his friends interfered and prevented the blow. This story seems improbable, from the fact that the Governor was aware that many unarmed citizens were present, and that any rash or inconsiderate action on his part would precipitate a conflict that could only end in blood and carnage. He knew, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... years, "displayed his attachment to liberty, and protestantism," by joining the ill-advised insurrection under the Duke of Monmouth, in the west. On the failure of that unfortunate enterprise, he returned again to the metropolis; and it is not improbable, but that the circumstance of his being a native of London, and his person not much known in that part of the kingdom where the rebellion took place, might facilitate his escape, and be the means of preventing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe |
