"Improbability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in regard to fertility given in the last two paragraphs, when we reflect on the inherent improbability of man having domesticated throughout the world one single species alone of so widely distributed, so easily tamed, and so useful a group as the Canidae; when we reflect on the extreme antiquity of the different breeds; and especially when we reflect on the close similarity, both ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... researches concerning the ballad to Blackwood's Magazine, maintaining that the ballad must have arisen from the 1563 story, as it is too old and too good to have been written since 1718. Balancing this improbability—that the details of a Russian court scandal of 1718 should exactly correspond to a previously extant Scottish ballad—against the improbability of the eighteenth century producing such a ballad, Child afterwards ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... hurried without pause from sensation to sensation. But this is a fault, if it be a fault, which the reader will always forgive, whatever the critic may say. The latter, indeed, can see much to blame if he look at the work purely as an artistic creation. He can find improbability of action, insufficiency of motive, and feebleness of outline in many of the leading characters. But these are minor drawbacks. They sink into absolute insignificance when compared with the wealth of power displayed. As they are unable to retard the unflagging interest with ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... illustration of the man "who knows his place" that the stage has seen. He is the most pathetic figure of the play. One touch of verisimilitude is lacking; none of the guests gives him a tip, yet he maintains his urbanity. As Mr. Shaw has not yet visited America he may be unaware of the improbability of this situation. ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... insisting on the improbability of this supposition, we have only to recollect that from the results of actual and decisive experiments, made for the express purpose of ascertaining that fact, the capacity for heat for the metal of which great guns ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... no inherent improbability in supposing that the bird myth was told before the phratry names were invented or adopted, and that the latter were in some cases taken from the principal characters in the myth. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the phratry names ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... luminosity, to disappear again behind, a new impression thrust itself upon me. I call it an impression, not an observation. It is very hard to say, what was reality, what fancy on a night like that. In spite of its air of unreality, of improbability even, it has stayed with me as one of my strongest visions. I nearly hesitate to put it ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... and every Shaker, male and female, is devoted to a life of celibacy. Rumour has been busy upon this theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of the store, and say, that if many of the sister Shakers resemble her, I treat all such slander as bearing on its face the strongest marks of wild improbability. But that they take as proselytes, persons so young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot possess much strength of resolution in this or any other respect, I can assert from my own observation of the extreme ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... him at the improbability of such things befalling. I carried in my bosom too large a heart, and one that was the property of every wench I met—for just so long as I chanced to be ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... importance of the despatches I am the bearer of; the uncertainty and improbability of receiving any others here; my giving intelligence at Versailles may be for the advantage of both nations; the inconvenience of detaining the fine frigate, on board which I return, and the danger of losing all the men, who desert very fast, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Against all this improbability Mr. Darwin brings forward the supposed advantages which these variations give to their possessors. But here again a new element is introduced into the calculation. It is assumed, in the very statement of the question, ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... gradually crept into the dialects of Java and Menangkabau. But, in the first place, the affinities will be found in the very roots of the language—in the expressions for the primary and necessary ideas, which seldom alter in any people; in the next, there is a high degree of improbability in supposing a rude dialect to supplant a substantial portion of a more polished one; and, thirdly, we must not overlook the collateral evidence of the similarity of conformation pervading the entire race ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... are sufficient under existing circumstances to account for his fall on that occasion. But it is inconcievable that a person of established piety should remain for a whole year stupid and unconcerned under the guilt of such transgressions; and the utter improbability of such an event will be further apparent, if ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... am not writing a history of English parties, I need not discuss here the truth or falsehood of this contention. But I cannot let it pass without a word as to two cases which came under my own observation, and which aggravate the inherent improbability of the tale. In November 1885 I went to America, and on my way passed through Stockport, where my friend, Mr. Jennings, long my correspondent in England, was then standing as a Conservative candidate. ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... his Shakespeare and in his edition as a whole shows allegiance to Pope. Anonymous, on the contrary, decisively, though urbanely, rejects Pope's edition in favor of Theobald's text and notes. The fact that Theobald was at that time still the king of dunces in the Dunciad, adds to the improbability that an admirer of Pope's, as Hanmer certainly was, would ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... improbability, unlikelihood; unfavorable chance, bad chance, ghost of a chance, little chance, small chance, poor chance, scarcely any chance, no chance; bare possibility; long odds; incredibility &c. 485. V. be improbable &c. adj.; have a small chance &c. n. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... informed of the state of the case, whereupon the matter was laid before him in all its details. He was not slow in taking a fair view of it, and spoke well and eloquently in my behalf—insisting on the improbability that a person of my habits and position would be wilfully mixed up with a transaction like that of which it appeared I was suspected—adding, that as he was fully convinced of my innocence, he was ready to enter into any surety with respect to my appearance at any time ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... it seemed, to proceed to extreme severities, offered him his choice, either of being executed on the island, or set ashore on the mainland, or being sent to England to be tried before the council; of which, after a day's consideration, he chose the first, alleging the improbability of persuading any to leave the expedition, for the sake of transporting a criminal to England, and the danger of his future state among savages and infidels. His choice, I believe, few will approve: to be set ashore on the mainland, was, indeed, only to be executed in a different ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... an objection on the manifest improbability of this vigilant observer, a convalescent too, being able to keep upon his legs, running or walking, the whole of the night and of the next day, (to say nothing of the pedestrian powers of the old man.) In a picture of this kind, a moral idea is sought to be portrayed by imaginary incidents ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... in structure and more masterly in form. It is said to be a close copy of a Greek original by Parthenius of Nicaea, a distinguished man of letters of this period who taught Virgil Greek; nor is there any grave improbability in supposing that the Moretum is really one of the early exercises in verse over which Virgil must have spent years of his laborious apprenticeship, saved by some accident from the fate to which his own rigorous judgment ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... expatiating on the distance from Reate and the improbability of such a town harboring a competent physician, on the number of excellent surgeons in Rome, on the advisability of getting me out of the locality afflicted with our Vedian-Satronian ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... False Systems, Claims Christ as a Believer in its Principles—The Theory that the Life of Christ is Modelled after that of the Buddha—The Superior Authenticity of the Life of Christ—The Unreliable Character of Buddhist Legends—The Intrinsic Improbability that a Religion claiming a Distinct Derivation from Jewish Sources would Borrow from a far-off Heathen System—The Contrast of Christ's Loving Recognition of the Father in Heaven with the Avowed Atheism of Buddhism—The General Spirit of the System Forbids all Thought of Borrowing ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... taken it appears that the civil population of Aerschot has in no wise participated in the hostilities, that no shot was fired by them; that all the witnesses agree in pointing out the improbability of 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 ...
— 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
... sure, tells of equally fabulous exploits performed by the youth, but there we move in an atmosphere of the marvelous. In Bodenstedt's poem, however, the supernatural has been almost completely banished, and we cannot help noticing the improbability of these deeds. ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... think it is very likely," said the Man of Wrath; but whether he meant it prettily, or whether he was merely thinking of the improbability of his ever eating too much of the local savouries, I cannot tell. I object, however, to discussing cooks in the garden on a starlight night, so I got off his knee and proposed that we ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... consciousness. Spellbound, she stood above her victim watching the spectacle. It seemed incredible that a human being could best the king of beasts in personal encounter and yet before her very eyes there was taking place just such an improbability. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and expression that had occurred. My senses assured me of the truth of them, and yet their abruptness and improbability made me, in my turn, somewhat incredulous. The adventure had made a deep impression on my fancy, and it was not till after a week's abode at my brother's, that I resolved to resume the possession of my own dwelling. There was another circumstance that enhanced ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... evidence, and could not find the shadow of a pretext for detaining the prisoner. He then went on to speak of the prisoner himself, his age, his harmless life, and the excellent character he sustained. All this, he argued, went to show the improbability of his having uttered the language considered most objectionable. He contended that although he would most cheerfully admit that the prisoner had said something in the conference-room, it was impossible ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... could not possibly have as strong an assurance of his honesty, clear-sightedness, and penetration, as of the great improbability of the fact, I should not ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... shall be free from this reproach is rather our good fortune than our merit. It is by favor of our stars, not by virtue of our own, that we turn not aside from the plain path of truth to the by-ways of supernaturalism and improbability. Yet we refrain with difficulty from a breath of self-praise; there is a proud and solid satisfaction in holding an unassailable position could we but catch the world's eye, we would meet ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of a Maharaja in the sands of western Rajputana, is too daring a venture; and the plot's development, though here and there are some touches of true vision and some vigorous passages, labours under the weight of its extravagant improbability. The American's restless energy, brought face to face with Oriental immobility, expresses itself ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... not what to think, still less what to reply to this information. He could not fail to perceive its improbability, drunk as he was, but still he could not, for the life of him, ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... more apparent improbability than usual. But the impression appears to exist that these supernatural beings could never really die. Is it not ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... this scrap of a letter addressed to the spy in this island cabin off the coast of North Carolina. Yet it smacked of no improbability. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... More than fifty lords and gentlemen had signed an address to the French King, imploring him to make a great effort for the restoration of the House of Stuart. Fuller declared that he had seen this address, and recounted many of the names appended to it. Some members made severe remarks on the improbability of the story and on the character of the witness. He was, they said, one of the greatest rogues on the face of the earth; and he told such things as could scarcely be credited if he were an angel from heaven. Fuller audaciously pledged himself to bring proofs which would satisfy the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... objectionable points of the English rules, which had escaped Bentham's notice. I also replied to the objections which had been made to some of his doctrines by reviewers of Dumont's book, and added a few supplementary remarks on some of the more abstract parts of the subject, such as the theory of improbability and impossibility. The controversial part of these editorial additions was written in a more assuming tone than became one so young and inexperienced as I was: but indeed I had never contemplated coming forward in my own person; and as an anonymous editor of Bentham I fell into ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... stories were related by several others concerning the doings of different employers they had worked for, but after a time the conversation reverted to the subject that was uppermost in their thoughts—the impending slaughter, and the improbability of being able to obtain another job, considering the large number of men who were already out ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... der bilder sturmenden Kaiser, p. 90) supposed that the young princes were mutilated after the first insurrection; that after this the acts were still inscribed with their names, the princes being closely secluded in the palace. The improbability of this circumstance may be weighed against Gibbon's want of authority for ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... submarine campaign increasing here with prolongation of war and improbability of decisive military blow, without, however, shaking ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... and himself be perfectly informed of the state and condition of Egypt and Macedonia within less than five days. Whereupon the said Alexander, plunged into a sullen animadvertency of mind, through his rash opinion of the improbability of performing a so strange and impossible-like undertaking, dismissed the merchant without giving ear to what he had to say, and vilified him. What could it have cost him to hearken unto what the honest man had ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... carriage, to be a military man. Now he had never seen his uncle the retired officer, but it struck him that this might be he; and under the tyranny of his passion for concealment, he fancied that, if it were he, he might recognise him by some family likeness—not considering the improbability of his looking at him. This fancy, with the painful effect which the sight of an officer, even in plain clothes, had upon him, recalling the torture of that frightful day, so overcame him, that he found himself at the other end ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... the great improbability of this relation, and fearing to be the dupe of Sarah, he cried, "No, no; it is a dream! it is impossible, you deceive me; it is ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... would be easy for the Grand Duke to defend Irkutsk, and any time gained against an invasion was a step towards repulsing it. Michael sometimes let his thoughts run on these hopes, but he soon saw their improbability, and felt that the preservation of the Grand Duke depended alone ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... Consider the improbability. He had been accustomed to call her his child, and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling upon the difference in their respective ages, and to speak of himself as one who was turning old. Yet she might not have thought him old. Something reminded ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... regards such action as the primary and, indeed, the most essential element in the disposal of the Tallulah incident, I advise that, in accordance with precedent, and in view of the improbability of that particular case being reached by the bill now pending, Congress make gracious provision for indemnity to the Italian sufferers in the same form and ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... himself. He declares that, at this juncture (October 11, 1763), Louis XV. sent him the extraordinary private autograph letter, speaking of his previous services in female attire, and bidding him remain with his papers in England disguised as a woman. The improbability of this action by the King has already been exposed. (Pp. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... matter a little, we must soon have convinced ourselves that there was no ground for alarm to us at least; for the noise was like that of some one half stifled, and little likely to heave up from above him a six-feet-deep load of earth—to say nothing of the improbability of his being able to unscrew the coffin from the inside. Be that as it may, we cleared about a dozen of decent tombstones at three jumps—the fourth took us over a wall five feet high within and about fifteen without, and landed us, with a squash, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... of some experience in such matters, I fully recognized its improbability, but beyond relating the circumstances leading up to my possession of the pigtail and the events which had ensued, I could do no more in the matter. The weird relic had not been found on the dead ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... say that it is a function of matter alone, any more than the wind is a function of the leaves which dance under its influence; there is nothing even to contradict the notion that it sprang into existence suddenly at a literal word of command. The improbability or absurdity of such a conception as this last, except in the symbolism of poetry, is extreme, and it is unthinkable by any educated person; but its improbability depends upon other considerations than biologic ones, and it is as repugnant to ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... silence, near a minute. During this interval, he was thinking of the improbability of any but a bona-fide Englishman's dreaming of giving a vessel an appellation so thoroughly idiomatic, and was fast mystifying himself, as so often happens by tyros in any particular branch of knowledge, by his own critical acumen. Then he half whispered a conjecture ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... troubled, like so many in our day, about the miracles. I could hardly bring my mind to believe them. One day, talking with a jovial fellow whom I casually met (not of very strong mind indeed, but who made up for it by very strong passions) over the improbability of such occurrences, he exclaimed, as he mixed his third glass of brandy and water, "I only wonder how any one can be such a fool as to believe in any stuff of that sort? Do you think that, if the miracles ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... of salesmanship for girls, other than small pay and improbability of much advancement, we shall consider in a later chapter. We may say here, however, that these disadvantages and dangers, for the really commercially minded girl, are to a certain extent neutralized by her ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... because of that laboured beginning. Copying one's own words is at all times a disenchanting drudgery, and when the end was reached Godwin signed his name with hasty contempt. What answer could he expect to such an appeal? How vast an improbability that Sidwell would consent to profit by the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... entrance was not a triumph of dissimulation. His colour was high, and his expression, indeed, a little idiotic; and he declared afterwards that he felt like a sandwich-man, with the news printed in red letters before and behind. Honora knew that the intense improbability of the truth would save them, and it did. Mrs. Holt remarked, slyly, that the game of golf must have hidden attractions, and regretted that she was too ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the learned professorial body of our sister university should conceive an attachment for a lady-student of Girtham College (of course a very improbable supposition!), and the infatuated savant became somewhat jealous of another learned lecturer of the same college (another improbability!), the fact of his jealousy would be imparted to the latter by a wave of thought, and might cause considerable confusion in the serene course of love or science. The fact of the existence of the wave ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... scarcely wait to show why it appears to me that if this position is granted, the world-object furnishes, as I have said, overwhelming proof of psychism; for this proof has been ably presented by many other writers. There is first the antecedent improbability that the human mind should be the highest manifestation of subjectivity in this universe of infinite objectivity. There is next the fact that throughout this universe of infinite objectivity—so far, at least, as human observation can extend—there is unquestionable ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... enjoy an equal immunity from danger. For my part, I should say that the female alone had happened to vary in the right manner, and that the beneficial variations had been transmitted to the same sex alone. Believing in this, I can see no improbability (but from analogy of domestic animals a strong probability) that variations leading to beauty must often have occurred in the males alone, and been transmitted to that sex alone. Thus I should account in many cases for the greater beauty of the male over the female, without the need of the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... leave a matter of this kind for a person of active imagination. Of course, in five minutes, Mary had settled in her mind a list of remarks that would have been suited to any of her village companions, as coming from her cousin. All the improbability of the thing vanished in the absorbing consideration of its possibility; and, after a moment's reflection, she pressed her lips together in a very firm way, and remarked that "Mr. Barton would have no occasion to say ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... extent—they exercise the mind to a habit of observation, and so far from giving false views of life, they more frequently direct us to its true estimate. To be sure, there is sometimes a degree of improbability in some of the incidents, which is mostly forgiven, if the whole mass be, in the main, true and accurate. There are certain standard incidents, which are common property—such as the discovery of relationships—the change of children—and liberal aunts, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... make the geographical nature of the question well understood; and we shall content ourselves with remarking, that the discovery of the termination of the Quorra, or Niger, tends to throw a degree of improbability upon the narrative of that individual, which it will require much ingenuity to explain away. It is certain that the latitude given to Timbuctoo by the editor of those travels, and upon which sufficient ridicule has already been thrown in the Edinburgh Geographical Journal, may be considered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... it would not be just to hold any creed responsible for the manner in which a person like Stimson defended it. Still, he was struck with both of this man's facts. The last, he had often met in books; but the first was new to him. Of the two, this novel idea of the improbability of the apostles' inventing that which would seem to be opposed to all men's notions and prejudices, struck him more forcibly than the argument adduced from the acquiescence of the Redeemer in his own divinity. The last might be subject to verbal criticism, and could possibly be ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... question is resolved to the satisfaction of all competent scholars, no further questions need be raised. In any case the prim facie presumption must be held to be enormously against the genuineness of the fragments. Such a presumption rests on the improbability of finding manuscripts older by at least sixteen centuries than any extant manuscripts of the same text, on the comparative ease with which such fragments can be forged, and on the powerful motives to such forgery attested by the price placed by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Notwithstanding the improbability of the explanation, he did not hesitate. He murmured a few soft words of reproach and placed her in the hands of her maid, ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... would soon repair the damage. Once they got the casks filled, they could return to Africa, and King Dingo was the man to find them a fresh cargo. Perhaps he would let them have it on credit, if they couldn't do better (at this improbability several laughed); but the skipper need not go a begging for credit. He was not so easily broken up as that came to. If he himself was short, he had friends in Brazil—ay, and in Portsmouth, too—who would soon find ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... continued Mrs. Mervale, "but I don't see the improbability of the thing, Angila, nor, indeed, the disagreeability even. The Constants are young people with a small family, and I think a woman is quite sufficient for them. Their house is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... convent of nuns, who rise from their graves and begin dancing like so many bacchantes, is revolting; and a sacred service in a church, accompanied by an organ on the stage, not very decorous. Neither does the music of Meyerbeer compensate for a fable which is a tissue of nonsense and improbability."* ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... disposition to shift about from one occupation to another, seems to be peculiar to American life, so much so that, when a young man meets a friend whom he has not seen for some time, the commonest question to ask is, "What are you doing now?" showing the improbability or uncertainty that he is doing to-day what he was doing ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Errors was an experiment of an exactly opposite kind. It was a play, purely of incident; a farce, in which the main improbability being granted, namely, that the twin Antipholi and twin Dromios are so alike that they cannot be distinguished, all the amusing complications follow naturally enough. There is little character-drawing in the play. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... he saw them. He had been called by a patient, lodging near Madame Zenobie's house. The proximity of the young couple occurred to him at once, but he instantly realized the extreme poverty of the chance that he should see them. To increase the improbability, the short afternoon was near its close,—an hour when people ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... The inherent improbability of the German contention is shown by the fact that after the first few days of the invasion every possible precaution had been taken by the Belgian authorities, by way of placards and handbills, to warn the civilian population not to intervene ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was picturing the meeting. How would she look? He knew so well the fluttering colour that changed in any emotion, pleasurable or otherwise: but would he see a true loving welcome in those transparent eyes? He had considered every probability or improbability of this sort, but not how he should act in such a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... she could never perceive the prodigious improbability of the arrival of that boat. She did not seem to be thinking of it. Perhaps she had already forgotten the fact herself. And Heyst resolved suddenly to say nothing more of it. It was not that he shrank from alarming her. Not feeling anything ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... was now complete. Unimaginative as he was by practice and profession, he had an explanation a minute until the time was up, when the truth beat them all for wild improbability. Macbean had risen, lifting the lamp; holding it on high he led the way through baize doors into the banking premises. Here was another door, which Macbean not only unlocked, but locked again behind them both. A small inner office led them into a shuttered chamber of fair size, with a broad polished ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... observable in this romance are obviously the glaring improbability of many of the incidents, and the want of connexion and necessary dependence between the several parts of the story. Of the former—the device of the false stomach and theatrical dagger, by means of which Menelaus and Satyrus (after gaining, moreover, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... of the Alfieri Theatre for the scene of the culmination of the domestic drama seemed to touch the extreme of improbability. The actors were not a poor travelling company of mummers, as in Pagliacci, with no decent private accommodation for this kind of thing. The protagonist of Carnival was lodged in a perfectly good Venetian palace, where there was every convenience for having the matter out with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... improbability of war between Japan and the United States in the near future would, if known to the German people, cause still another keen disappointment, since one of their solaces has been the thought that they would soon have an opportunity of ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... rather elaborate controversy on the subject between Mr. Lang and myself, carried through the transactions of the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, the introduction to Miss Roalfe Cox's "Cinderella," and in various numbers of "Folk-Lore," I urged the improbability of this explanation as applied to the plots of fairy tales. Similar states of mind might account for similar incidents arising in different areas independently, but not for whole series of incidents artistically ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... creed, to the Methodist creed, to, one might say, a hundred creeds, even including the slender one of Unitarians. How certain words of Newman came home to me in the midst of such reflections! "There is an overpowering antecedent improbability in Almighty God's announcing that He has revealed something, and then revealing nothing; there is no antecedent improbability in His revealing it elsewhere than in an inspired volume." I do not mean to say that I ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... miracles, as those of Scripture, as the Resurrection, was a fact establishing the principle that the laws of nature had sometimes been suspended by their Divine Author; and since what had happened once might happen again, a certain probability, at least no kind of improbability, was attached to the idea, taken in itself, of miraculous intervention in later times, and miraculous accounts were to be regarded in connection with the verisimilitude, scope, instrument, character, testimony, and circumstances, with which they presented themselves to ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... have not seen fit, perhaps, from the supposed improbability that the crime would be attempted, to make your offence a felony. Its grade and punishment have been left to the provisions of the common law, which treats it as a misdemeanor, and punishes it with fine and imprisonment in the common jail. The court ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... the noblest of human kind—unfortunate even in the shades of life—when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight years—when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again—I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the big case now being tried before him," Deborah would say, when Reuther's eyes grew wide and misty in her sympathetic trouble. And there was no improbability in the plea, for it was a case of much moment, and of great local interest. A man was on trial for his life and the circumstances of the case were such that the feeling called forth was unusually bitter; so much so, indeed, that every word uttered by the counsel ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... they must either kill her or else secure her in such a way that she could not give immediate notice of their escape. But at any rate I have shown, have I not, that there is a certain element of improbability about the lady's story? And now on the top of this comes the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whose literary flavour, when read, makes us overlook their inherent improbability in the mouth of the character that utters them, take on, when spoken, an air of artifice. Such are the lines in which Miriam describes her old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Summer Shelter made very good time, that she had coaled at Nassau, and was therefore ready for an extended cruise, it was impossible for any of those on board of her to conceal from themselves the very strong improbability of sighting the Dunkery Beacon after she had got out upon the wide Atlantic, and that she would pass the comparatively narrow channel south of Tobago Island before the yacht reached it, was almost a ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... my resolution, but I was obdurately silent. While he canvassed the whole position, bringing to bear his really profound knowledge of naval equipment and routine—and incidentally helping me greatly to realise the improbability of my own guesswork solution—I was able to maintain an air of lofty superiority. I must have aggravated him intensely, unpardonably, for I was his guest. He ought to have kicked me out. Yet he bore with me like the sweet-blooded kindly angel that ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... dropped his eyes to the carpet. "There must have been some misunderstanding," he stammered. "The invitation was delayed—or it miscarried. Perhaps it went to the store and got mixed up with the mail there," he ventured; any improbability would do ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... and of other minor events. On the other hand it seemed odd that Maria Consuelo should be at liberty to go whithersoever she pleased. She could not reasonably be supposed to have a guardian in every city of Europe. The more he thought of this improbability the less he ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... subject of these miracles has been considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,[10] in a very liberal spirit; but few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some miracles, "there is no strong a priori improbability in their occurrence, but rather the contrary." One of the most striking of the historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Nothing certain was known of countries fifty miles distant; the traveller must be prepared for the most amazing events. No one knew what fate awaited him behind yonder blue mountains. The existence of natural laws was undreamt of; there was no improbability in dragons or lions possessing power of speech. A period incapable of distinguishing between the natural and supernatural will always indulge in those fancies which are best suited to its temper. Be the native country never so poor, the long darkness and cold of the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... That I have not overlooked entirely "the Devonshire tradition, which represents Sir William Hankford to be the judge {343} who committed Prince Henry," may be seen in The Judges of England, vol. iv. p. 324., wherein I show the total improbability of the tale. And my disbelief in the story of Hankford's death, and its more probable application to Sir Robert Danby, is already noticed in "N. & Q.," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... viii., p. 42.).—I am sorry MR. GATTY takes the phrase "mythic accompaniments" as an imputation on himself. I did not intend it for one, having no doubt that he repeated the story as he heard it. In it were two statements of the highest decree of improbability. One I showed (Vol. v., p. 434.) to be contrary to penal, the other to forensic practice. One MR. GATTY found to have been only a report, the other to have occurred at a different place and under different circumstances. Had these been stated in the first version, I should not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... to Stanhope. And yet Daumer has not taken the trouble to inquire whether it agrees with the family history. It is possible that he may be right; but his story carries with it so much the air of improbability, that we cannot give it ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... life had made her in most things, she was still young enough to build high hopes on a romantic improbability. And nothing was more improbable than that "Slim" Naudain, even if he had lived, ever would have returned ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... out flaws in Charles Brockden Brown's story-structure, and reproves him for improbability, morbidness, and a style often too elevated, yet his work lives. His downright originality is worthy of Cooper himself, and his weird imaginations and horribly sustained scenes of terror have been surpassed by few writers save ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... "The Tell-Tale Heart," also depicting insanity; and "The Black Cat," of which the atmosphere is horror. "The Adventures of One Hans Pfaal" and "The Balloon Hoax" are examples of the pseudo-scientific tales, which attain their verisimilitude by diverting attention from the improbability or impossibility of the general incidents to the accuracy and naturalness of details. In "The Descent into the Maelstrom," scientific reasoning is skillfully blended with imaginative strength, poetic description, and stirring adventure. This type ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... considerations which as motives may practically take the place of inability to continue the contest. The first is the improbability, the second is ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... the stranger was there, still sitting in his chair, and declared he had passed the night pleasantly, but had not been asleep. Of course the improbability of the thing made, as the newspapers say, a "sensation." "By gad," said John, "I caught him asleep in the Eyry parlor. I did, upon my word; I did, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... in the Vlsung Saga, of the sleeping men being found with their wolf-skins hanging to the wall above their heads, is divested of its improbability, if we regard these skins as worn over their armour, and the marvellous in the whole story is reduced to a minimum, when we suppose that Sigmund and Sinfjtli stole these for the purpose of disguising themselves, whilst they lived a life ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... strong predisposition of Montaigne was to regard witchcraft as the result of natural causes, and therefore, though he did not attempt to explain all the statements which he had heard, he was convinced that no conceivable improbability could be as great as that which would be ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... should discover, and guard as its secret, some diabolically horrible means of destroying human life and property by wholesale and over materially unbridged distances, can armaments even temporarily put an end to war. In such event—and it is by no means an improbability—the whole world might suddenly be made to bow in terror before the will of the all-powerful nation. Before this approaching crisis, can we do less than earnestly pray that the translation of physical progress into armament ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... dreamy heaviness the discourse began. The inspirational claims seemed to lie in the manifest improbability of a man of Clifton's cultivation being so dull and diffuse in a natural condition. Yet, as the message wore on, it cannot be denied that a strange influence was at work. The words followed each other with greater fluency and in richer abundance. The meaning, to be sure, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... of Lammermuir," "Ivanhoe," the "Monastery," the "Abbot," "Kenilworth," and the "Pirate."[54] The marks of broken health on all these are essentially twofold—prevailing melancholy, and fantastic improbability. Three of the tales are agonizingly tragic, the "Abbot" scarcely less so in its main event, and "Ivanhoe" deeply wounded through all its bright panoply; while even in that most powerful of the series the impossible ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... induce his present guide through the darkened paths to come there some moonlight evening, and listen to the fancies which her unexpected appearance had occasioned. The possibility of such an event in contrast with its far greater improbability caused him to sigh, and then he smiled broadly at ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Betterton communicated it, made no use of it. The two regular theatres of the time were both reached on horseback by men of fashion, and the owner of The Theatre, James Burbage, kept a livery stable at Smithfield. There is no inherent improbability in the tale. Dr. Johnson's amplified version, in which Shakespeare was represented as organising a service of boys for the purpose of ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... her away, far from the grasp of her lover; when a rich uncle in a farce dies to oblige a starving author in a garret; when, two rivals duellise with toasting-forks; when such things are plotted and acted in the theatre, hypercritics murmur at their improbability; but compare them with the haps of the drama off the stage, and they become the veriest of commonplaces. This is a world of change: the French have invaded Algiers, British arms are doing mortal damage in the Celestial Empire, Poulett Thomson has gone over to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... hand, helped him to his feet, and turned angrily to the door. In the failing light outside the improbability of the attack struck through him strongly. He turned to the boy, his face dark. "David," he said evenly, "you wouldn't be making up stories about feeling that gun ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... his tents and all his goods, and carried the corpse to Seistan, where it was interred; the army of Turan was, agreeably to the last request of Sohrab, permitted to cross the Oxus unmolested. To reconcile us to the improbability of this tale, we are informed that Rustum could have no idea his son was in existence. The mother of Sohrab had written to him her child was a daughter, fearing to lose her darling infant if she revealed the truth; and Rustum, as before stated, fought under a feigned name, an usage ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... thing that this absence of the three men from the feed box at the time of the sharp lieutenant's investigation should terrify the girl more than it should joy her. That for which she had prayed had come to pass. Apparently the escape of these men in the face of every improbability had been granted her, but her dominating emotion was fright. The feed box was a mystic and terrible machine, like some dark magician's trap. She felt it almost possible that she should see the three weird men floating ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... says, "there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can supply are easily exhausted, and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey that they studied together, it is easy to suppose how much he must miss the companion of his labours and the partner of his discoveries; but what image of tenderness can ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... leaven of improbability in this tale, and it leavened the whole lump. Ganders do not roost; there is not one in a hundred of them that could sit on a fender long enough to say Jack Robinson. So, as the Frau lived a thousand years before the birth of common sense—say about a half century ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... child who had blundered into the privacy of the ante-room. Something daintily virginal in Dolly's face appealed to him; he caught himself thinking that her frock was more than a miracle in bleached cotton—it was moonshine shot with alabaster; and the improbability of that combination had hardly struck him when Fosdike's voice forced itself ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... to explain the foregoing laws of geographical distribution, on the theory of allied species having a common descent Improbability of finding fossil ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... French prisoners on board a vessel in which the plague existed, the improbability of the circumstance alone, but especially the notorious facts of the case, repell this odious accusation. I observed the conduct of Sir Sidney Smith closely at the time, and I remarked in him a chivalric spirit, which sometimes hurried him into trifling eccentricities; ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... as present the appearance of star-clusters grown misty through excessive distance are of the same kind. It would, however, be eminently rash to conclude thence that they are really aggregations of sun-like bodies. The improbability of such an inference has been greatly enhanced by the occurrence, at an interval of a quarter of a century, of stellar outbursts in the midst of two of them. For it is practically certain that the temporary stars were equally remote with the hazy formations they illuminated; ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... to say, that I do not believe that Messrs. Charles and Thomas Heath were in any way privy to this transaction. On the contrary, I am convinced, that they are totally incapable of such dirty conduct; there is no improbability in their being ignorant of the matter; Squire Quaker Williams having the sole management of the Banking concern, while the two elder brothers, Charles and Thomas, managed the Brewing and Wine Trade. The secret of this dirty conduct ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt |
