"Dubious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grounds of love is at the best a very dubious experiment. I know that in this I am expressing an opinion contrary to that of most true lovers who embrace suicide on the slightest provocation as the only honourable termination of an existence that never ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... urge of life, how infinitely better is the attitude of trust that what is our own will gravitate to us in obedience to eternal laws. But I there learned that he had written the poem when a young man, life all before him, his prospects in a dubious and chaotic condition, his aspirations seeming likely to ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... dogmatic character will tempt us to condemn them, and to take for granted that the analysis which undermines them is justified, and will prove fruitful. But this critical assurance in its turn seems to rely on a dubious presupposition, namely, that human opinion must always evolve in a single line, dialectically, providentially, and irresistibly. It is at least conceivable that the opposite should sometimes be the case. Some of the primitive presuppositions of human reason ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... Transportation, and all reasonable men would count o^r Judges to Act, as they are like y^e Fathers of y^e public, in such a Judgment. What if such a Thing should be ordered for those whose Guilt is more Dubious, and uncertain, whose presence y^s perpetuates y^e miseries of o^r sufferers? They would cleanse y^e Land of Witchcrafts, and yett also prevent y^e shedding of Innocent Blood, whereof some are so apprehensive of Hazard. If o^r Judges want any Good Bottom, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... head, she pointed to a seat. Louis sat down nervous and overawed, wishing that he had never undertaken this impossible and depressing task. Who was he to be dealing with such a character as this dubious and ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... laughter-loving, night-rejoicing neighbours when they are eating, drinking, singing, etc. My worthy landlady tosses sleepless and unquiet, "looking for rest and finding none," the whole night. Just now she told me—though by-the-by she is sometimes dubious that I am, in her own phrase, "but a rough an' roun' Christian,"—that "we should not be uneasy or envious because the wicked enjoy the good things of this life, for the jades would one day lie ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... skilfully that money was universally declared to be worth nothing, so that every one in the island, from the Premier down to the Mendicant whom the lecture-loving Skindeep threatened with the bastinado, was enabled to participate, in some degree, in the approaching venture, if we should use so dubious a term in speaking ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... With dubious explanations, Grant managed to steer Lieutenant Ashley toward the Officers' Club. What excuses he gave her evidently had some effect; after the first fifty yards across the drill ground she steered easily, though ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... when the news of Wallace's decisive victory, distancing all their means to raise him who was now at the pinnacle of power, determined the dubious to become at once his mortal enemies. Lord Badenoch had listened with a different temper to the first breathings of Lady Mar on her favorite subject. He told her, if the nation chose to make their benefactor king, he should not oppose it; because he thought that none of the blood royal deserved ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... said March, with a dubious glance at the statue, "but I'm not sure, now, that I wouldn't like something quieter ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... difficult purity, and she will leave to her daughters the critical task of its equipoise. If she soils or rumples or tears it, she descends in her little scale of dignities and becomes an ouvriere. If she loses it, she is unclassed entirely, and enters the half-world. The porter's wife with her dubious mob-cap, and the hard, flaunting grisette with her melancholy feathers and determined chapeau, are equally removed from the white cap of the "young person." To maintain it in its vestal candor and proud sincerity is not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... but a balancing of very dubious probabilities is to be attained by approaching the question from this side. It is otherwise if we make the documents tell their own story: if we study them, as we study fossils, to discover internal evidence, of when they arose, and how they have come to be. That ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... each one destructive. The fourteen points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind cooled. They were at ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... in the same person, before and since. Geraint is claimed as the founder of Gerrans, as well as of St. Geran in Brittany; and Dingerrein is supposed to have been his residence, while Carn Beacon was his tomb. The last supposition is the most dubious. There is a traditional rumour that he was driven from Wales by Teutonic invaders, that he settled here near Veryan and built this stronghold, that he embraced religion and resigned his rule to his son, and died a ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... know what to think of it, and was afraid he might offend, smiled feebly, after a dubious fashion, and, screwing up the corners of his mouth, shook his head slowly from side ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... dubious as to the policy of the proceedings, but too loving to combat her husband upon them,—"When be ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... settlements, on their part, farther south. One horde, led, as the legend veraciously assures us, by Hengest and Horsa, landed in Thanet; another, composed entirely of Saxons, and under the command of a certain dubious AElle, came to shore on the spit of Selsea. It was from this last body that the county took its newer name of Suth-Seaxe, Suth Sexe, or Sussex. Let us first frankly narrate the legend, and then see how far it may fairly ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... while the hearts of the writers must be supposed to be wholly engaged in their subjects (the events at the time generally dubious): so that they abound not only in critical situations, but with what may be called instantaneous descriptions and reflections (proper to be brought home to the breast of the youthful reader;) as also with affecting conversations; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... been friends was forgotten. The few who expected to learn from the trial the origin of the quarrel were disappointed. Among the various conjectures, that which ascribed some occult feminine influence as the cause was naturally popular, in a camp given to dubious compliment of the sex. "My word for it, gentlemen," said Colonel Starbottle, who had been known in Sacramento as a Gentleman of the Old School, "there's some lovely creature at the bottom of this." The gallant Colonel then proceeded to illustrate his ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... if we go to the foundation of things, are, as casuists tell us, really words of very dubious signification, perpetually varying with custom and fashion, and to be adjusted ultimately by no other standards but opinion and force. Obtain power, then, by all means: power is the law of man; make it yours. But to return ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... dubious kind of belief which he had about something he had heard of Jack Pringle, he entered the room, where he met Marchdale, Jack Pringle, and Henry Bannerworth. Immediately afterwards, Mr. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... their real troubles. The refugee steamboat had departed down river from the Asphodel camp; Chill II had disappeared, the superintendent knew not how, along with the body of Peter Tonsburg; and the superintendent was dubious of their remaining. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... Miss Gall after a dubious look or two at her visitor. "How do you do? I didn't 'spect to see you. How much ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... away, himself taking a seat at the table. I led Eve to a divan at the farther corner of the room. We sat there and watched the people. There were many whose faces I knew—a sprinkling of stock-brokers, one or two actresses, and half a dozen or so men about town of a dubious type. On the whole the company was scarcely reputable. I looked at ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... their homes. It is true I am told that their ideas of good housework are often rudimentary in the extreme; that the charwoman does not know when to change her scrubbing water; that the washerwoman is easily satisfied with quite dubious results; and I can well believe it. The state of the cottages is betrayed naively by the young girls who go from them into domestic service. "You don't seem to like things sticky," one of these girls observed to a mistress distressed by sticky door-handles one day and sticky ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... the old fisherman-chief. "We saved your building for ye, Mr. Ringold. Ain't no use in buyin' a shack an' then havin' it burn down—no matter if it ain't wuth much. We saved her for you, though at one time it looked pretty dubious. This is the first fire we've had in some time, an' I reckon ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... dubious, and seized the first chance to escape. In their own room they confronted ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... description of various other dubious businesses that had attracted Eliphalet Congdon when Archie, nervously twisting a folded newspaper, brought him back to the girl who had played so mischievous a part ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for their entertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizable pocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. The social standing of the co-eds in State Universities was already precarious enough, without running the risk of acquiring dubious social connections. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... friendship, interest, common 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
... wonderfully rich; indeed, for a water-color, it is quite marvellous. This is one of Fortuny's celebrated pictures, but how the 'Ecole des Beaux Arts' would in the old days have held up its hands and closed its eyes in holy horror! Possibly an earnest disciple of Lessing, even, might have a rather dubious feeling about ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... charges, which take no account of post-war construction costs; and then, in alarm lest we may have thereby made it unprofitable for the companies to spend a single penny of fresh capital upon further development, we seek to provide for capital expenditure by cumbrous and dubious expedients. Doubtless we shall muddle through somehow with such policies: and, public opinion being what it is, they may perhaps have been about the best policies that were practicable. But the problems would have been easier to handle, if the public generally were a little less disposed ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... transparent, a calumny so shameless as the attempt of the Hon. Prop., he might say the calculated and cynical attempt of the Hon. Prop., to seduce from their faith the tenacious acolytes of Sport by the now threadbare recital of the dubious and, on his own showing, the anaemic enticements of Science. The War had proved that Science was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... suspended, and their temples forsaken. The existence, then, of churches of Christ, consisting of vast numbers of converted heathens, at the close of the first century, is in no wise mythological or dubious. It is an established historical fact. The Epistles of the apostles stand confirmed by the Epistles of the governor ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... homesick for a model nursery, an artist with a bad conscience. For it is of course my bourgeois conscience which makes me see in all artistry, in all unusualness and all genius something deeply ambiguous, deeply dubious, deeply disreputable, and which fills me with this lovelorn weakness for the simple, candid, and agreeably normal, for the decent ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... war fell into his hands. The disaster, the first of its kind in the Transvaal, was due to two causes. The British force actually at the Nek was insufficient to hold it; and the main body of the cavalry stood aloof. The latter was no doubt in a dubious position. It was under orders, which were brought by the infantry relief, to meet Smith-Dorrien nearly twenty-five miles away on July 11; and when the enemy was seen occupying a strong position on the Nek, ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... special to a weddin', don't you see? Went up to see a new compound start off—prettiest sight I ever saw—working smooth as grease; but I'm kind of dubious about repairs and general running. I'm anxious to see how the performance sheet looks at the end ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... farther appears that he continued "for some years before his death" to resort to the above-named house; "at which place several inquisitive gentlemen received from his own mouth the confirmation of those particulars which seemed dubious, or carried with them the air of romance." The period was certainly unpropitious for any but a writer of fiction, and Drury seems to have anticipated no higher rank for his Treatise, in point of authenticity, than that occupied by the several members of the Robinson ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... 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 ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... think he's showing us some consideration in not riding the beast down to the settlement," Blake remarked with a dubious smile, feeling strongly annoyed with himself for not taking more precautions. With the cunning which the lust for drink breeds in its victims Benson had outwitted him by feigning acquiescence. "Anyhow," he added, "I'll have to go after him. We must ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... in the heart of old Florence, within a labyrinth of narrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in a dubious search for a certain severely simple doorplace, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... kind, Bill stands as it did when introduced. Scene closed with exchange of compliments between BONAR LAW and little band who have succeeded in keeping talk going. He expressed satisfaction, "or perhaps something rather stronger" (this a little dubious), at the way in which opposition had been conducted. They protested it was all due to his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... up suddenly in an unexpected way. "Oh, as for that,"—he said, in a dubious tone. Poor Elinor's tunes were not music in his sense, as she very ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... prejudice of the other free members of society; no pre-eminence annexed to merit that can inspire pride, or make others feel too much their inferiority. There is, perhaps, less delicacy in their sentiments than amongst us, but surely more uprightness; less ceremony; less of all that can form a dubious character; less of the temptations or ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... talked a good deal; and the worthy Teuton was soon bewildered, and at last gave a dubious consent, "since it would ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Carlo Maratti, which too I am persuaded was a Giuseppe Chiari, lord Egremont bought at the rate of two hundred and sixty pounds. Mr. Spencer(866) gave no less than two thousand two hundred pounds for the Andrea Sacchi and the Guido from the same collection. The latter is of very dubious originality: my father, I think, preferred the Andrea Sacchi to his own Guido, and once offered seven hundred pounds for it, but Furnese said, "Damn him, it is for him; he shall pay a thousand." There is a pewterer, one Cleeve, who some time ago gave one thousand pounds for four ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... believe he would." Josephine's tone was dubious. "It doesn't seem to me that a man would do that; he'd think he was just spoiling what was left. That," she declared with a flash of inspiration, "is what a woman would do. And a man always does something different!" ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... of chairs and tables, much pleased. Then her conscience smote her. "He is really very good," she said to herself—"far too good for me. I don't think I ever could have married anybody else." But there was something dubious, that resembled a question, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... commanders. Not only before the battle, but in the height of the danger, he showed himself great, and manifested the self-possession of a just foresight and confidence. For the battle for some time fluctuated and was dubious. The left wing, where Parmenio commanded, was so impetuously charged by the Bactrian horse that it was disordered and forced to give ground, at the same time that Mazaeus had sent a detachment around ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... 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
... at first was also a little dubious about it, but youthful enthusiasm and love of new adventures conquered. While the first sleds were descending the boys and the rest of the party not immediately occupied watched the operation with a good deal ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... not help but recover some of his shattered nerve in view of the detective's airy optimism. Still, he was shaken and dubious. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... 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 while inquiry was being ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of. A mercantile term which has a dubious colloquial standing. Not in good literary ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... that might have furnished forth an army of heroes, that did go far to make heroes of that improvised, ill-conditioned, eager multitude who conquered the trained bands of their oppressors and set their sons "free and equal," to use their own dubious phraseology, before the face of humanity ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... with pain, he contorts his face, and enquires in a half-whisper—"What if this wound should mortify? would death follow quickly? I'm dubious yet!" ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... his mouth with a dubious look. "Search everybody on board, two or three thousand, quiz a few, that's about all. It'll take a long time and probably reveal nothing. Family resemblances are all right when you know both members, Tommy, but out in the big world—Well, ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... or less definitely, caused the problem called the "Italian Question" to come nearer to our sympathies than any other European exigency apart from practical interests. Moreover, the complicated and dubious aspect of the subject, viewed by transatlantic eyes, has, within the last ten years, been in a great measure dispelled by experimental facts. That Italy needs chiefly to be let alone, to achieve independence and realize a noble development, civic, economical, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... was a royal-looking woman, and she had the blood of princes in her veins. Generations back,—how we children used to reckon the thing over!—she was cradled in a throne. A miserable race, to be sure, they were,—the Stuarts; and the most devout genealogist might deem it dubious honor to own them for great-grand-fathers by innumerable degrees removed. So she used to tell us, over and over, as a damper on our childish vanity, looking such a very queen as she spoke, in every play of feature, and every motion of her hand, that it was ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... with Great Britain became every day more dubious. While striving, in every honorable manner, to come to terms of reconciliation, President Madison was making rapid preparations for war. The people of the United States, deprived by the non-intercourse act of the cheap productions of England, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... no comrade, not even the lone man's friend - Her who suffereth long and is kind; accepts what he is too weak to mend: Down there they are dubious and askance; there nobody thinks as I, But mind-chains do not clank where one's next neighbour is ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... kept in a convenient locker, and was occasionally hoisted when the owner felt inclined to indulge his tastes as a collector of works of art, or to act as a Marine Agent. I do not believe one word of it, and emphatically decline to associate such kindly people with such dubious proceedings, even if a hundred and fifty years ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... it is not painful. I think that throughout I behaved like a gentleman.' Mr Longestaffe, in an agony, first shook his head twice, and then bowed it three times, leaving the Jew to take what answer he could from so dubious an oracle. 'I am sure.' continued Brehgert, 'that I behaved like an honest man; and I didn't quite like that the matter should be passed over as if I was in any way ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... luxuriously in an arm-chair seemingly well pleased with himself and all the world. Julia Cloud wondered just what she would better do about the afternoon hour with this uncongenial guest on hand, but Leslie and Allison, after a hasty whispered consultation in the dining-room with numerous dubious glances toward the guest, ending in wry faces, came and settled down with their Bibles as usual. There was a loyalty in the quiet act that almost brought the tears to Julia Cloud's eyes, and she rewarded them ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... transcriber of the MS. considered its authorship dubious. Supposing that the author was Dionysius, which of the many writers of that name was he? Again, if he was Longinus, how far does his work tally with the characteristics ascribed to that late critic, and ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... had expected; something which as presiding judge over John's trial he had been made aware of and now recalled to render her story futile. It couldn't be that one little thing—But yes, it might be. Nothing is little where a great crime is concerned. She smiled a dubious smile, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... somewhat dubious in regard to this condition of affairs and is hardly disposed to take the charitable view which has just been given, but the general trend of more enlightened comment seems to agree with the Countess Cesaresco. In Sheridan's School ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... quite satisfied Ermine that Haldane was no genuine witch of the black order. However dubious her principles might be in some respects, she had evidently distinct notions of right and wrong, and would not do what she held ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... history. This last point is undoubted in the case of the examples from Halifax, Swift, Burke (who more than any one man pointed and steeled the resistance of England to Jacobin tyranny), and Scott; it was less immediate, but scarcely more dubious in those of Defoe, Cobbett, and Sydney Smith. And so in all humility I make my bow as introducer once more to the English public of these Seven ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... upon the scene, being summoned into the twilight room to confront those two dubious old ones who dealt with the dead. They were a pair—mother fat to despair of helplessness, Ahuna thin as a skeleton and as fragile. Of her one had the impression that if she lay down on her back she could not roll over without the aid of block-and-tackle; ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... institution, by his meek 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 and saying nothing ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... friend with a dubious smile, and taking his hand, bowed awkwardly to his sister. In her confusion she ignored Waldstricker entirely. Their presence in the squatter's hut was so portentous and the time for the preparations to receive them so short, Tessibel's wits almost ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... even the revision which all but the most careless authors give before sending their manuscripts to the printer. Some people of course do read over their letters before sending them: but it must be very rarely and in special, not to say dubious, cases that they do this with a view to the thing being seen by any other eyes than those of the intended recipient. It is therefore to the last degree unfair to plump letters on the market unselected and uncastigated. To what length the castigation ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... finance. Money is a thing of such a nature, that strict rules are absolutely necessary in its administration. There is here a great distinction between money and other property, or money's worth. A menial servant, of whose honesty there is no proof, and even when it may be dubious, is habitually trusted with the care of property to a considerable amount, and the account rendered is seldom very rigorous; but, in the case of trusting with money, every precaution is first taken, as to being trust-worthy. Security is generally ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... could make out a faint yellow haze—dust from the trampling hoofs of many cattle. They could cut off a full mile by riding down into the cedars, and Red decided to do so. The Kid was dubious, but said nothing more. If Blacksnake had a rear guard of any kind, they might have been sighted. In that case, they would run ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... suspicious lunges into that dubious region which lies outside of woman's universally acknowledged "sphere," (a blight rest upon the word!) there is within the pale, within the boundary-line which the most conservative never dreamed of questioning, room for a great divergence of ideas. Now divergence of ideas does not necessarily imply ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... more dubious the next day, and before the week was over it was yard-long. The Empress, after that one great effort, laid no more eggs, but duly began her second duty, sitting. There was no doubt that she meant to have but one chick,—out of rivalry, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... at first, offering me his room and a part of his small salary until I got my strength; then he became dubious; and finally, so well did I paint my picture of long, idle days on the ocean, of sweet, cool nights under the stars, with breezes that purred through the sails, rocking the ship to slumber—finally he waxed enthusiastic, and was even for giving up the pharmacy ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of greatness, courage. Have we made progress in that? This is a much more dubious question. The subjects of terror vary so much in different times that it is difficult to estimate the different degrees of courage shown in resisting them. Men fear public opinion now as they did in former times the Star Chamber; and those awful goddesses, Appearances, are ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... something. And they'll get it too, with the story they've got to tell, and them poor devils planted thick as taters in the cheap corner of the cemetery. I've warned yer, mister." Uncle Ben expectorated with much emphasis, looked towards the malgamite works with a dubious shake of the head, and went on his way, muttering, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... then, with equal lustre bright, Great Dryden rose, and steer'd by Nature's light. Two glimmering Orbs he just observ'd from far, The Ocean wide, and dubious either Star, Donne teem'd with Wit, but all was maim'd and bruis'd, The periods endless, and the sense confus'd: Oldham rush'd on, impetuous, and sublime, But lame in Language, Harmony, and Rhyme; ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... Matthew Henay, was dubious as to the benefits accruing from Home Rule. His driving was a study, and his conversations with Maggie, his little mare, were both varied and vigorous. "Now me little daughter, away ye go. That's the girl now. Me little duck, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... to cut the ribbon which would release the great ship and send it moving like a swan down the greasy slips into the river; and Tom Arthurs had conducted her through the Yard, telling her of the purpose of this machine and that engine until the poor lady began to be dubious of her capacity to launch the liner. There were other guides, explaining, as Tom Arthurs explained, the functions of the Yard to the visitors, but Ninian had contrived to attach himself to Tom Arthurs and he listened to him as ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... it can't hurt us. We've got to figure some way to get out of here and leave it behind." He turned and gently guided her toward the trees. When they were in the dubious shelter of the trees, Nelson stopped and tried to figure a way out. He could see the machine hanging in the center of the clearing on invisible lines of force, turning slightly to find them in the dense ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... candidly, thereby displaying more or less of her disposition and temperament. With every word she spoke he found her more and more fascinating—she had a quaint directness of speech which was extremely refreshing after the half-veiled subtleties conveyed in the often dubious conversation of the women he was accustomed to meet in society—while there was no doubt she was endowed with extraordinary intellectual grasp and capacity. Her knowledge of things artistic and literary might, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... by a sort of quiet annoyance that the poet should so confidently take a dubious idea for a certain one. He might easily argue against the poet that on the contrary it seemed to him that a man who commits a crime for his master is more at fault than one who commits it for himself, and he could support ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... Kaskaskia a band of slightly over a hundred men. He understood Hamilton's army to number five or six hundred. The outlook was dubious, until Francois Vigo, a friendly Spanish trader of St. Louis, escaping captivity at Vincennes, came to Kaskaskia with the information that Hamilton had sent away most of his troops; and this welcome news ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of sympathy. "Mr. Keston must be very fond of her," she returned in such a surprised and dubious tone ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of this deity is exceeding dubious. He is said to have carried off Ariadne from the island Dia, for which Bacchus bound him fast with vine-twigs. The ship Argo is said to have been constructed by him, and he is not only mentioned as commanding her, when Jason fought with the ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... distracting anxiety of a duel with Islam. When his son bowed to the yoke of government, he had to meet the same perplexities, complicated with Netherlands in revolt, England in antagonism, and France in dubious ferment. A succession of Popes were hampered by painful European questions, which the instinct of self-preservation taught them to regard as paramount. They were fighting for existence; for the Catholic creed; for their own theocratic sovereignty. They held strong cards. But against them were ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Captain Mayne Reid, and others less known to fame. I am sorry to say my somber news affected these sinners in a way that was shocking. Their levity was a thing to shudder at. As Sir Boyle Roche might have said, it grated harshly upon an ear that had a dubious check in its pocket. Having uttered their hilarious minds by word of mouth all they knew how, these hardy and impenitent offenders set about writing "appropriate epitaphs." Thank Heaven, all but one of these have escaped my memory, one that I wrote myself. At the close of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... organisation is due to common descent, what is divergent is due to adaptation. "Homology ... corresponds to the hypothetical genetic relationship. In the more or the less clear homology, we have the expression of the more or less intimate degree of relationship. Blood-relationship becomes dubious exactly in proportion as the proof of homologies is uncertain" (Elements, ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... unhealthful costumes offended the eye, no half-naked dancers of dubious morality were sustained in a life of dangerous excitement, by the money of Christian people, for the mere amusement of their night hours. No shivering drivers were deprived of comfort and sleep, to carry home the midnight followers of fashion; nor was the quiet and comfort ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... painfully brought into check. Democracy is full of menace to all the finer hopes of civilization, and the revival, in not unnatural companionship with it, of monarchic power based on militarism, makes the prospect dubious enough. There has but to arise some Lord of Slaughter, and the nations will be tearing at each other's throats. Let England be imperilled, and Englishmen will fight; in such extremity there is no choice. But what a dreary ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... reasoned loud, In dubious Hindoo phrase mysterious; While she, poor child, could not divine Why girls so young should be ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... 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 ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... sounded like a doxology, and some crossed themselves, amid the dubious laughter of others, who suspected Father de ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... this," said Orne. "Government is a dubious glory. You pay for your power and wealth by balancing on the sharp edge of the blade. That great amorphous thing out there—the people—has turned and swallowed many governments. The only way you can stay in power is by giving good government. Otherwise—sooner on later—your turn ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... armor, and did battle behind shields; women were objects of devotion; conversation between lovers was in the style of high-flown courtesy, chary on one side, energized on the other by calls on the Saints to witness vows and declarations which no Saint, however dubious his reputation, could have listened to, much less excused; yet it were not well to overlook one or two qualifications. The usages referred to were by no means prevalent amongst Christians in the East; in Constantinople they had ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... school eleven as hard a tussle as it wanted—and sometimes a deal harder. Boots was a bit of a driver and believed in strenuous work, but his charges liked him immensely and performed miracles of labour at his command. His greeting of Don was almost as dubious as had ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another, who did nothing but torment everybody with the catalogue of his genealogy and alliances, above half of them false (for they are most apt to fall into such ridiculous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and least sure), and yet, would he have looked into himself, he would have discerned himself to be no less intemperate and wearisome in extolling his wife's pedigree. O importunate presumption, with which the wife sees herself armed by ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... which they were held to be a part. It is sometimes more politic, and perhaps almost always more convenient, to avoid war, by the display of generosity in concession, than to run the hazard of expensive contension, and an unprofitable issue, by the obstinate maintenance of dubious advantages. Such seems to have been the opinion of the French king, in this instance. He acknowledged the claim of the Spaniards, and accordingly gave orders for the delivering up of the settlement. In this determination, it is probable, he was strengthened by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... resumed Mademoiselle Marguerite. "There are other letters which will prove that this plot was the marquis's work and which give the name of his accomplice, Coralth. And these letters are in the possession of a man of dubious integrity, who was once the marquis's ally, but who has now become his enemy. He is known as Isidore Fortunat, and lives in ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... He had thought that it might take place with Gaud Mevel, a blonde lass from Paimpol; and that he would have the happiness of being present at the marriage-feast before starting for the navy, that long five years' exile, with its dubious return, the thought of which already plucked ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... example, a Slav 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 ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... said severely: "O Lord of the world! Thine is the universe. In place of Israel choose another as Thy peculiar people from among the nations of the earth." To make the true relation between God and Israel known to the prophet, he was commanded to take to wife a woman with a dubious past. After she had borne him several children, God suddenly put the question to him: "Why followest thou not the example of thy teacher Moses, who denied himself the joys of family life after his ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... must be admitted that Byron's Occasional Pieces abound with cheap pathos, dubious fervour, and a kind of commonplace sentimentality that comes out in the form as well as in the feeling of his inferior work. The rhymes are apt to be hackneyed, the similes are sometimes tagged on awkwardly instead of being weaved into the texture, the expression has often lost its ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... names to it and tried to feel that our fortunes were made. But when we talked the matter all over with Mr. Ballou, we felt depressed and dubious. He said that this surface quartz was not all there was of our mine; but that the wall or ledge of rock called the "Monarch of the Mountains," extended down hundreds and hundreds of feet into the earth —he illustrated by saying it was like a curb-stone, and maintained ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tobacco had been discovered and was being put on the market by a syndicate consisting of rather dubious characters. The campaign was to start with a free distribution of millions of packets of cigarettes made from the new leaf. But the whole consignment of the tobacco was burnt, and one by one the members of the projected syndicate were ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... may be," answered Bertha, in a dubious voice; "we will say nothing on that point at present. You want to ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... behind 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 ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... tempestuous and irregular lover, yet he was a priest, and not a musician. Can we then blame harmony and melody for the humming-bird "amours" of the Abbe Liszt,—for the many women he made material love to from his early youth,—for the very dubious honesty of his bearing toward the Comtesse d'Agoult and the Princess Wittgenstein, with whom he debated the formalities of marriage without hesitating ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... canoe first slipped clear of the shingle bank. Lawrence accompanied the party on their return journey, and it was he who suggested sending Grace and Miss Carrington across in the canoe. The river ran high that morning, and he felt dubious about the ford, because several pack-horses ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... disgrace me, would distract my family, 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
... words perchance there was no offensive meaning, but in my tone and in the look which I bent upon the Cardinal there was that which told him that I alluded to his own obscure and dubious origin. He grew livid, and for a moment methought he would have struck me: had he done so, then, indeed, the history of Europe would have been other than it is to-day! He restrained himself, however, and drawing himself to the full height of his majestic ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... states, then our notion of the Divine Existence may be only "an association of feelings"—a mode of Self. And if we have no positive knowledge of a real self as existing, and God's existence is no more "real than our own," then the Divine existence stands on a very dubious and uncertain foundation. It can have no very secure hold upon the human mind, and certainly has no claim to be regarded as a fundamental and necessary belief. That it has a very precarious hold upon the mind of Mr. Mill, is evident from the following passage in his article on "Later ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... M. du Chatelet had besides a very pretty talent for filling in the ground of the Princess' worsted work after the flowers had been begun; he held her skeins of silk with infinite grace, entertained her with dubious nothings more or less transparently veiled. He was ignorant of painting, but he could copy a landscape, sketch a head in profile, or design a costume and color it. He had, in short, all the little talents that a man could turn to such useful ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... toward France; but where was the girl of the Re d'Italia? To what dubious rendezvous, what haunt of spies, had she hurried, once ashore? The thought of her stung my vanity almost beyond endurance. She had pleaded with me that night, swayed against me trustingly, appealed ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... has pluck and perseverance. You would have to work hard, though;' and his eyes fell on the white irresolute hands, dubious as to the requisite qualities being there indicated. 'You'd want a strong constitution if ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... doom this act to public execration. No necessity demanded, no policy justified it. Ulloa's conduct had provoked the measures to which the inhabitants had resorted. During nearly two years, he had haunted the province as a phantom of dubious authority. The efforts of the colonists, to prevent the transfer of their natal soil to a foreign prince, originated in their attachment to their own, and the Catholic king ought to have beheld in their conduct a pledge of their future devotion to himself. They had but lately ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... foreseeing 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
... dark; his way on shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure on horseback by the dubious bridle-track through unfrequented wildernesses; he must sometimes plant his lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers; and he was continually enforced to the vicissitudes of outdoor life. The joy of my grandfather in this career was strong as the love ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she seems to be flickering about always in the election, an inextinguishable flame; now she flew by on her bicycle, now she dashed into committee rooms, now she appeared on doorsteps in animated conversation with dubious voters; I took every chance I could to talk to her—I had never met anything like her before in the world, and she interested me immensely—and before the polling day she and I had become, in the frankest simplicity, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... existence and to supply the market with a variety of choice, didactic essays along the line of high thinking; but the demand did not come up to the supply, and presently he abandoned his original lofty intention in favor of a sort of dubious romance. The financial returns, however, while a trifle more regular and encouraging, were not of sufficient importance to justify him in giving up his friendly claims on my house, my library, my time, my favorite lounge, and my best brand of cigars, in return for which he contributed philosophic ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... Christian people returned a solemn thanksgiving, and saluted their deliverer as "the Hammer" of France. But the Saracens were not conquered; Charles did not even venture on their pursuit; and a second invasion proved almost as terrifying; army still poured down on army, and it was long, and after many dubious results, that the Saracens were rooted out of France. Such is the history of one of the most important events which has passed; but that of an event which did not happen, would be the result of this famous conflict, had the Mahometan power triumphed! The Mahometan dominion had predominated ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Pindar, you see, in this athletic age of Greek sculpture. It is the period no longer of battle against a foreign foe, recalling the Homeric ideal, nor against the tyrant at home, fixing a dubious ideal for the future, but of peaceful combat as a fine art—pulvis Olympicus. Anticipating the arts, poetry, a generation before Myron and Polycleitus, had drawn already from the youthful combatants in the great national games the motives ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... as she walked to her chief but his mind whirred. Yes, why not? Institute men had little connection with the Federal detectives, who, since the abolition of a discredited Security, had resumed a broad function. They might easily have become dubious about Bertrand Meade on their own, have planted operatives with him. They had women among them too and a woman was always ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... than the presence there of these patently highly solvent, ruddy joweled, admirably tailored, and impressively worldly looking connoisseurs of painting to be seen scrutinising the pictures at close range, in a near-sighted way, and rather grimly, as though somewhat sceptically appraising possibly dubious merchandise. ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... village," said, warmly, the blacksmith, Shaking his head, as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh, he continued:— "Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor Port Royal, Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts, Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of tomorrow. Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds; Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe of the mower." Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer:— "Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our cornfields, Safer ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... then, heaving a sigh, he continued:— "Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor Port Royal. Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts, Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow. Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds; Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe of the mower." Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a more dubious look, if that were possible. He humbly suggested that I had chosen a roundabout route; perhaps I was going by the way of the Healing Springs. But it must be a long, lonesome road, and the rain ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... the north, and to prevent the traffic of the west being carried to United States rather than to Canadian Atlantic ports. The Canadian Northern was assisted in its prairie construction by both federal and provincial guarantees. The Laurier Government aided the dubious project of building a third line north of Lake Superior, but refused to take any share in the responsibility or cost of building the much more expensive and premature section through the Rockies. The Borden Government and the province of British ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... made by the unscholarly anthropologist alone. Curtius has especially remarked the difficulties which beset the 'etymological operation' in the case of proper names. 'Peculiarly dubious and perilous is mythological etymology. Are we to seek the sources of the divine names in aspects of nature, or in moral conceptions; in special Greek geographical conditions, or in natural circumstances ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... opportunity had he had to tell her anything. Well, that was the end of that! He was not likely to see Eleanor Moore again, and even if he were, he could hardly hope, after such a rebuff, to win her friendship unless a miracle were to happen ... and he had begun to feel dubious about miracles since he had arrived in London. Perhaps, if he were to follow her and ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... almost primitive, conditions environing the girl, possessed a power to stir the depths of his emotions as no artful reinforcement to passion had ever done. He forgot the wall. His ego melted in a sense of complete union and happiness. Even when they returned to earth and discussed the dubious future, he was conscious of an odd resignation, very alien in his nature, not only to the barrier but to all the strange conditions of his wooing. He had felt something of this before, although less definitely, and to-night he concluded ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... long taken its place in that past wherein lurks all the antiquity of the world. No one would know, no one could tell him, precisely what occurred. And who can know whether—if it be indeed a dream—he has dreamt it often, or has dreamt once that he had dreamt it often? That dubious night is entangled in repeated visions during the lonely life a child lives in sleep; it is intricate with illusions. It becomes the most mysterious and the least worldly of all memories, a spiritual past. The ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... fulfilment of all that the better part of Heathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion which emanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance of this day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motives and its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... partly finished I looked at the clock. To my astonishment it appeared that the time by the clock was 12.30. I gave an unusual start. I certainly thought that it was most extraordinary. I had only half-finished my dinner, and it was time for me to be at the shop. I felt dubious, so in a few seconds had another look, when to my agreeable surprise I found that I had been mistaken. It was only just turned 12.15. I could never explain how it was I made the mistake. The error gave me such a shock for a few minutes as if something had happened, ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... class motto "Forward." Huge bouquets of the most exquisite roses, sent in by friends and pupils, were everywhere. A bank of ferns in front of the platform completed the decorations. Just before the time to go to the church a heavy thunder shower came up and the prospect for the evening was dubious indeed, but by eight there was nothing more than clouds and mud to trouble us. Upon reaching the church we found it full, despite the rain, and among the audience were the editor of the city paper and one of the ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... is a new idea to Florence, and it impresses her, though she is dubious about it. Finally, reconciling ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... inferior to his own, and whose parti pris was against him. In the Council Chamber he was in a minority because he spoke his mind; but this was not so with other Ministers, whose antecedents were dubious. Had his advice been taken, Ismail would have now been Khedive of Egypt. Any one who knows Cherif will agree to this account of him, and will rate him as infinitely superior to his other colleagues. He ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... them had to take a look through the glasses, and the consensus of opinion seemed to trend that way; though at first some of the more dubious were inclined to fear that it might only be another poaching boat, that was coming straight to the island to land a catch of ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... propitious moment, to propose Martyr's name for the office of preceptor to direct the studies of the young noblemen. In response to a welcome summons, the impatient canon left Granada and repaired to Valladolid where the Court then resided.[4] The ungrateful character and dubious results of the task before him were obvious, the chief difficulties to be apprehended threatening to come from his noble pupils, whose minds and manners he was expected to form. Restive under any save military discipline, averse by temperament ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... noon, on the next day, a gentleman might have been standing on the steps of the Tremont House, gazing with an eye of abstraction upon the passing throng. The age of this gentleman might have been a matter of dubious inquiry; he was not young, you'd swear at the first glance, and yet, after you had gazed two minutes into his superb countenance, you would be as ready to swear that he was not over thirty, or thirty-five at most. In truth, he was one of those singular persons whose external ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... manufacturing districts of Lancashire have found themselves unexpectedly called upon to vote upon some measure for crippling or extending rival manufactures in India; for opening new markets by some very dubious aggression in a distant land; or for limiting the child labour employed in the local manufacture; and these members have often believed that the right course was a course which was exceedingly repugnant to great sections of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Monsieur Villegagnon. Nigel is given command of one of the ships. They set off for Havre, where the vessels are, but on the way Nigel overhears a conversation between Villegagnon and a monk, which makes it plain that Villegagnon is no Protestant, and that there is a dubious motive in ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... numerous letters and legates of the Pope, but he tried to make the divorce irrevocable by taking a new wife. After several rebuffs he found in Agnes of Meran, the daughter of a Bavarian noble, one who was willing to accept the dubious position (1196). Innocent III at once took up an uncompromising attitude, and instructed his legates that if Philip refused to send away Agnes and to restore Ingebiorg, they should put the kingdom under an interdict preparatory to a sentence of personal ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... 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 ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... for him and had done nothing! Now it was too late for her personally to interest herself in his behalf, yet before she left for the East she would provide for him. If she had felt it was possible to trust the judge she would have made him her agent, but even in his best aspect he seemed a dubious dependence. Tom, for quite different reasons, was equally out of the question. She ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester |
