"Unlikely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of 22 H. P., assumed for this power (the result in calculating the work with compressed air being 19 H. P.) may be somewhat incorrect, it is unlikely that this error can be so large that its correction could reduce the efficiency below 80 per cent. Messrs. Sautter and Lemonnier, who construct a number of compressors, on being consulted by the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... of Alvarado. Filled with consternation at these rapid successes of his rival, he now returned in all haste to Lima, which he put in the best posture of defence, to secure it against the hostile movements, not unlikely, as he thought, to be directed against that capital itself. Meanwhile, far from indulging in impotent sallies of resentment, or in complaints of his ancient comrade, he only lamented that Almagro should have resorted to these violent measures ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the usual time, Lady Louisa set out to walk to the lodge; not that she did not know of what had happened, for she had heard of that, but she thought it not unlikely that Dr. Brunton might be there on the chance of meeting her, and the sooner this misunderstanding was put right the better, especially as they were on the eve of leaving Birns for London, and she might as well make things straight before going. She was right in her calculations: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... a good effect; and there was general satisfaction that it was unlikely that they would be called upon to make further efforts, as no news came of fresh gatherings ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... before the "Secret Memoirs" was published. It is possible, however, that he may have assembled most of the material for the book and composed a number of pages. The inclusion of his "Friendly Daemon" makes this suspicion not unlikely. And furthermore, certain anecdotes told in the first section, particularly in the first eighty pages, are such stories as would have appealed to Defoe's penchant for the uncanny, and might well have been selected by him. The style is not different from that of pieces ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... unlikely thought! He with his pony now doth roam The cliffs and peaks so high that are, To lay his hands upon a star, And in ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... very few bits of this kind of verse, from one to a half dozen lines in length, have come down to us in literature. They have the unique distinction, too, of being specimens of Roman folk poetry, and some of them are found in the most unlikely places. Two of them are preserved by a learned commentator on the Epistles of Horace. They carry us back to our school-boy days. When ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... signature. The messenger brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, "J. L. for S. A.," and there was no reply. There remained the possibility of absence from Calcutta, of illness. That he should have gone away was most unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked from her bedroom window across the varying expanse of parapeted flat roofs and mosque bubbles that lay between her and College Street, and curbed the impulse in her feet that would have resulted in the curious spectacle ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... would scarce have shook the credit of the New Bedford owners. And the act itself was simply murder. Tari's life must have hung in the beginning by a hair. In the grief and terror of that time, it is not unlikely he went mad, an infirmity to which he was still liable; or perhaps a child may have taken a fancy to him and ordained him to be spared. He escaped at least alive, married in the island, and when I knew him was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... back to the beach, stowed the dory in the boathouse, and set out in the sleigh for Monday Port. Diligent enquiry there, in likely and unlikely places, proved fruitless. It was nightfall when ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... was empty. I turned on all the lights. He was nowhere in sight. I shook the hangings. I looked under my desk, for perhaps the lad was hiding from me in jest. It was unlikely that he could have passed me to gain the door, but I listened at the sill for any sound upon the stairs. The hall was silent. I called without response. Somewhat bewildered I came back to the hearth. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... was as quiet when I left it as when I had entered. I took my way up the hill with an easier mind, for I had got off the telegram, and I hoped I had covered my tracks. My friend the postmistress would, if questioned, be unlikely to recognize any South African suspect in the frank and homely traveller who had spoken with her of ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... the world that the political and social results of printing were not comprehended at the time of its introduction. Had the ruling classes foreseen that it would lead to the gradual shifting of political power from themselves to the masses, it is not unlikely that they would have regarded it ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... irreproachably. One must do him that justice. Not even an appearance accused him. He was faithful, unlikely as that may seem in a man of his kind; he never left his wife. He had hardly ever gone out without her; they were a couple of ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... lurching dully along the road, and at the sight of him Poussette's extraordinary remark about his "best girl" came back. What possible connexion could have suggested itself to Poussette between the faded sickly creature he called his wife and the visitor from Ontario? Ringfield thought it not unlikely that Poussette was confusing him with Crabbe, for to-day was not the first time he had seen the woman wandering in the proximity of the shack. However, Crabbe gave him no opportunity for ministerial argument or reasoning, for as soon as he perceived ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... marked with charcoal to be shipped. Oh, they were just gathering up parts of mortals in packing cases, dispatching them to Throat River Landing; and blood was leaking on the decks every way in little lines. They were unlikely consignments. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 'Tis not unlikely but he was begot by some intelligencer under a hedge, for his mind is wholly given to travel. He is not troubled with making of jointures; he can divorce himself without the fee of a proctor, nor fears he the cruelty of overseers of his will. He leaves his children all the world to ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... master of Laburnum Lodge may have something better to tell his wife than the incident of the runaway horse; he may have heard a new funny story at lunch. The joke may have been all over the City, but it is unlikely that his wife in the suburbs will have heard it. Put it on the credit side of marriage that you can treasure up your jokes for some one else. And perhaps She has something for him too; some backward plant, it may be, has burst suddenly into flower; at least he will walk more eagerly ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... Not unlikely the squire of these two ladies was rather loath to leave this gay assemblage; but he was speedily consoled, for, to his inexpressible joy, he found, when they got in-doors, that there was no one else coming to lunch—these three were to ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... his cradle, than live by that land and inherit that gold. I have been poor, but I have never turned to anything at Melcombe with one thought that it could mend my case; and as I have renounced it for myself, I would fain renounce it for my heirs for ever. Nothing is so unlikely as that this property should ever fall to my son, but if it should, I trust to his love and duty to let it be, and I trust to you, Giles, to make this easy for him, either to get him away while he is yet young, to lead a fresh and manly ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... learn from the "Isitsoornot," both grieved and astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from the reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... had been the case, I reasoned that it was altogether unlikely that the trivial impression as to President Byxbee had been the only one which I had received in that state. It was far more probable that it had remained over in my mind, on waking from the swoon, merely because it was the latest ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... fellow-townsmen to attack the old scandal with the avidity of a dog unearthing a neglected bone; and the return of the woman in the case could hardly fail to prove far more provocative of gossip. If Lois persisted in remaining in Montgomery, it was wholly unlikely that Nan would ever marry him; nor could he with any delicacy insist upon her doing so. They might marry and move to Indianapolis, thereby escaping the discomforts of the smaller town's criticism; and this was made possible ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... based on the stock supplied by leading seedsmen under the trade names here given. It is not unlikely that some of the discrepancies were due to mixture of seed or to stock being untrue to type; some of it may have been due to soil conditions. The same name may be found in two divisions in some instances, the plants having been grown from different lots of seeds. The lists will indicate ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... special habits, the more important it becomes for classification" (p. 414), and adduces in support Owen's remark that the generative organs afford very clear indications of affinities, since they are unlikely to be modified by special habits. These rules of classification can be explained "on the view that the natural system is founded on descent with modification; that the characters which naturalists consider as showing true affinity ... are those which have been inherited from a common ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... was full early for tourists, and at no time did the place attract many. Englishmen who came now probably came on business which was unlikely to bring them out to these quiet, flat fields. But Anna and Denah, who joined her in a much more demonstrative look-out than Marbridge would have considered well-bred, were ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... so preposterous in this desperate match-making between people whom they had never seen, that Colonel Prowley and his sister had taken into their hands, that it really made a greater impression upon me than if the parties had been less unlikely to come together. A Professor of Calisthenics! Could anything be more unpromising? Yet, when my friend copied for me some extracts from the lady's letters that were sensible and feminine, I thought how odd it would be, if something should come of it, after all. I often found myself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... odds were all in favour of my ultimate capture. No escaped prisoner had ever yet succeeded in retaining his liberty for more than a few days, and where so many gentlemen of experience had tried and failed it seemed distressingly unlikely that I should be ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... also." His literary labours subsequent to The Village seem to have been slight, with the exception of a brief memoir of Lord Robert Manners contributed to The Annual Register in 1784, for the poem of The Newspaper, published in 1785, was probably "old stock." It is unlikely that Crabbe, after the success of The Village, should have willingly turned again to the old and unprofitable vein of didactic satire. But, the poem being in his desk, he perhaps thought that it might bring ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... talking of what they were going to do, and I thought that I should very much like to see the fun. I knew, however, that neither Dick nor Miss Kitty would approve of my going, and that Mr Falconer was also unlikely to take me, should I ask him to do so. The last boat which left the ship was commanded by the boatswain, a rough but good-natured man, with whom I had become somewhat of a favourite. I watched my opportunity, and slipped in directly after him, and the ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... letter to his mother, will no doubt join me. Two of my comrades are sitting close by, playing euchre. When I joined them I found they were in the habit of playing for small stakes, but I have succeeded in inducing them to give up a practice which might not unlikely lead to bad results. ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... bread, eggs, chocolate, sardines, biscuits and apples. With a mixture of permanganate of potash, tea and cold water from the well, if the puddle at the bottom of a deep hole could be so termed, he made a drink that, while drinkable by one who has known worse, was unlikely to cause an attack upon an enfeebled constitution, of cholera, enteric, dysentery or any other of India's specialities. What would he not have given for a clean whisky-and-soda in the place of the nauseating muck—but what should ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... escape him. Such a woman was capable of the wildest resolve. She might take to a convent; or maybe to the plains with this base-born cibolero! Such an event in the life of such a woman would be neither impossible nor unlikely. In either case she could not take her fortune with her; but what mattered? it would not ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... his bent and go to Ionia. Great Ionian cities like Smyrna and Ephesus were full of admired sophists or teachers of rhetoric. But it is unlikely that Lucian's means would have enabled him to become the pupil of these. He probably acquired his skill to a great extent by the laborious method, which he ironically deprecates in The Rhetorician's Vade mecum, of studying exhaustively ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity: which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones, that they ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... fatal canker of the soldier's soul—spread disease among the ranks; and the roads on which we followed the march, gave terrible evidence of the havoc that every hour made among them. The mortality at last became so great, that it seemed not unlikely that the whole army would thus melt away before it reached the boundary of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... mind. He was never more serene than in the midst of a domestic circle, and was invariably remarkable for a perfectly benignant interest in young couples and young lovers. That, in his ever-fresh fancy, he conceived in this association innumerable histories of himself involving far more unlikely events that never happened than Isaac D'Israeli ever imagined, is hardly to be doubted; but as to this part of his real history he was mute, or revealed his nobleness in an impulse to be generously just. We verge on delicate ground, but a slight remembrance rises in the ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... "Sounds rather unlikely," says Mr. Robert. "Still, you seem to have an uncanny instinct for being right in such matters. Perhaps we ought to go down and ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... a long conversation with Syde, who thinks that the sun rises and sets because the Koran says so, and he sees it. He asserts that Jesus foretold the coming of Mohamad; and that it was not Jesus who suffered on the cross but a substitute, it being unlikely that a true prophet would be put to death so ignominiously. He does not understand how we can be glad that our Saviour ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... precipitate. He has contrived, by the good offices of his lay confessor, to square matters with the hierarchy of Adonai, who belongs to the Latin persuasion; he has changed his name, adopted a third profession, and is so safe in retreat that his friends are as unlikely to find him as are the enemies ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... south and what was now Nevada, on the north, for we had reached the boundary line shortly after emerging from the canyon. We still travelled nearly directly west. The ferry was in charge of a Cornishman who also had as pretty a little ranch as one could expect to find in such an unlikely place. A purling stream of water, piped from somewhere up in the hills, had caused the transformation. The ranch was very homey with cattle and horses, sheep and hogs, dogs and cats, all sleek and contented-looking. The garden proved that this country had a warm climate, ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... project the false appearance of this world, and it certainly is as improbable that the Sutras should open with a definition of that inferior principle, from whose cognition there can accrue no permanent benefit, as, according to a remark made above, it is unlikely that they should conclude with a description of the state of those who know the lower Brahman only, and thus are debarred from obtaining true release. As soon, on the other hand, as we discard the idea of a twofold Brahman and conceive ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... open to us. I did not attempt to solve the problem of the election of 1876 either upon ethical or political grounds. The evidence was more conclusive than satisfactory that there had been wrong-doing in New York, in Oregon, in New Orleans, and not unlikely in many other places. As a measure of peace, when ascertained justice had become an impossibility, I was ready to accept the report of the commission, whether it gave the Presidency to General Hayes or to Mr. Tilden. The circumstances were such that ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... I paced the passage without or wandered through the back door into the neglected garden, which I found abutted on a disused graveyard—a very common object, met with often in startlingly unlikely places ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... Washington in November, 1882. The time of meeting was fixed at a period then remote, in the hope, as the invitation itself declared, that in the meantime the disturbances between the South American Republics would be adjusted. As that expectation seemed unlikely to be realized, I asked in April last for an expression of opinion from the two Houses of Congress as to the advisability of holding the proposed convention at the time appointed. This action was prompted in part by doubts which mature reflection had suggested whether the diplomatic ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... daughter, born in May, 1652. The birth of this child may have been connected with the death of the mother in the same or the following month. The household had apparently been peaceful, but it is unlikely that Mary Milton can have been a companion to her husband, or sympathized with such fraction of his mind as it was given her to understand. She must have become considerably emancipated from the creeds of her girlhood if his ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... take us off, or we must be prepared for the dark time that must follow after the sun should go down for the winter; otherwise a third thing would certainly happen, that is, we should both die,—an event which did not, in any case, seem at all unlikely; so we pledged ourselves to stand by each other through every fortune, each helping the other all he could. At any rate, we would not lose hope, and never despair of being saved, through the mercy of Providence, ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... think so. But it's so unlikely that I'm not sure. Rick, I thought I saw the barber from Washington—the one ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... surmised, in the may-dew of high philosophies—ah, so high! washed from within by a constant radiancy of pure thoughts, and from without by a constant basking in the shine of every beautiful and noble and tender thing,—I thought it not unlikely that he might fulfil ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... are given in the Gospels. He was a rich man. Thus an ancient prophecy was fulfilled. According to Isaiah, the Messiah was to make his grave with the rich. This prediction seemed very unlikely of fulfilment when Jesus hung on the cross dying. He had no burying-place of his own, and none of his known disciples could provide him with a tomb among the rich. It looked as if his body must be cast into the Potter's Field ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... "I can't thrash a white-haired villain who is old enough to be my grandfather, even if I could get to him, which is unlikely. You know he has an inner office 'way off from the rest and sneaks in and out, up and down the back stairs. A suit for libel wouldn't do any good and the publicity would hurt more than the satisfaction I might get out of a verdict. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... were always crowded, and his hearers were not all Democrats. His courage and fighting power were beginning to win him general admiration. The public took a lively though impartial interest in the contest. To critical outsiders it seemed not unlikely that the Professor (a word of good- humoured contempt) might "whip" even "old man Gulmore." Bets were made on the result and short odds accepted. Even Mr. Hutchings allowed himself to ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... this woman who could be so virtuously impertinent, as to admonish one she was hardly acquainted with. However, it struck upon the vanity of a girl that it may possibly be, his thoughts might have been as favourable of me, as mine were amorous of him, and as unlikely things as that have happened, if he should make me his wife. She never mentioned this more to me; but I still in all public places stole looks at this man, who easily observed my passion for him. It is so hard a thing to check the return of agreeable thoughts, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... see that. In the first place, it's quite unlikely there'll be any blood at all—or more than a very little. One of the things I admire in men—our men, especially—is the maximum of courage with which they avenge their honor, coupled with the minimum of damage they work in doing it. It must require a great ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... of resources, I know well; had you not been so, I would not have employed you in this matter. Come to me to-morrow, next day, next week—when you like; only don't come barren of ideas; don't come without a plan, likely or unlikely, of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... the part of Salamander recalled me, and, by way of rousing myself to the necessity of present watchfulness, I examined the priming of my gun. Then it occurred to me that a bullet, if fired at a foe in the dark, would be very unlikely to hit; I, therefore, drew both charges, and loaded with buckshot instead. You see, thought I, there is no absolute necessity to kill any one. All I can possibly wish to do is to disable, and big shot is more likely to do that without ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... important. While, as we have said, it is improbable that an experienced fiction writer would fail in the field of photoplay writing once he had learned to put the plot together in proper form and had mastered a knowledge of the limitations of the moving-picture stage, it is also just as unlikely that the most famous writer living could legitimately sell a photoplay that was essentially faulty in construction and absolutely lacking in screen quality. If the idea were a good one and the writer were to submit ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... the decision to offer defence there? She could not believe it. It seemed more probable that he had hurried down the river toward Zalapata to meet his antagonist, who may have turned and fled to his own town. Even this looked unlikely, but it was the only explanation that presented itself. She would have liked to converse with her friend, but the circumstances were unfavorable. The continual shifting of conditions compelled her to keep a firm seat and rein and to watch every ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... to eat his victim," said Bearwarden, "it is fair to suppose he is not carnivorous, and so must have had some other motive than hunger in making the attack; unless we can suppose that our approach frightened him away, which, with such power as he must possess, seems unlikely. Let us see," he continued, "parts of two legs remain unaccounted for. Perhaps, on account of their shape, he has been able the more easily to carry or roll them off, for we know that elephant foot makes a capital dish." "From the way you talk," said Cortlandt, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and raised the representation of the negroes in the South from the old three-fifths ratio to par. Every State would come back with more Representatives than it had had before the war, and with the aid of Northern Democrats it was not unlikely that a control of ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... blush, while Grant's nominations had the singular effect of making the hearer ashamed, not so much of Grant, as of himself. He had made another total misconception of life — another inconceivable false start. Yet, unlikely as it seemed, he had missed his motive narrowly, and his intention had been more than sound, for the Senators made no secret of saying with senatorial frankness that Grant's nominations betrayed his intent as plainly as they betrayed his ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the mother of all the rest. It reminds one of the seven devils from which poor Mary Magdalen was freed. It is not unlikely these were their names: Selfishness, pride, envy, avarice, jealousy, malice and cruelty. This we deny for the patient through the five different sources, and you can see how apt it will be to touch him, for who is there ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... have injured our trade is too evident from our present experience, and that they would have supported the Ostend company, which they espoused in an open manner, is undeniable. Nor is it in the least unlikely, that, elated with the certain power of doing much mischief, and with the imaginary prospects of far greater effects, they might engage in a confederacy, and farther attempts ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... saying that it was impossible. It was quite unlikely that he should be arrested for preventing a suttee. The complainants would not dare present themselves with such a charge. There was some mistake. Moreover, he would not, in any event, abandon Aouda, but would escort ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... do so, know my determination. I begin by telling you, that I am convinced of the death of my poor child; but, no matter, I will pretend she is not dead; the most unlikely events are often brought about. You are at this moment in such a position that you must have many envious rivals; they will regard it as a piece of good fortune to attack you. I ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... ear at Dick, as he came up, but took no further notice, being engaged in picking nutriment out of some scraps of as unlikely looking vegetation as could be found in the fen. Perhaps it was the thistly food he ate which had an effect upon his temper and made him the awkward ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... came out bareheaded, nestling with both hands at the coil of hair on her neck. Then she lit two candles that stood on the piano in brass candlesticks, and Maurice lighted her round the room, while she searched in likely and unlikely places—inside the piano, in empty vases, in the folds of the curtains—laughing at herself as she did so, until Madeleine said that this was only nonsense, and came after them herself. When Maurice held the candle above the writing-table, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Pierce, Peek, Fly,[104] and all Your jests so nominal, Are things so far beneath an able brain, As they do throw a stain Thro' all th' unlikely plot, and do displease As deep as PERICLES. Where yet there is not laid Before a chamber-maid Discourse so weigh'd,[105] as might have serv'd of old For schools, when they of love and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... food at the knees of women gaunt and haggard with the suffering which hopeless poverty inflicts on them; and by way of explanation of these grisly phenomena I would take him to the dock gates in the early morning, where not unlikely he would see men literally fighting for entrance because there is not work enough to go round. If that does not point him out the cause with sufficient clearness I would suggest an examination of the employment returns of ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... first place, that alternative which it had become him to put before the baronet as one unlikely to occur—that of the speedy death of both father and son—was one which he felt in his heart of hearts might very probably ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... themselves willing to seize Mary and Cardinal Beaton, and so to deprive the national party of their leaders. Then came the news that the Earl of Arran had been appointed regent in December, 1542. He was heir-presumptive to the throne, and so was unlikely to acquiesce in Henry's scheme, and the traitors were instructed to deal with him as they thought necessary. But the traitors, who had, of course, been joined by the Earl of Angus, proved false to Henry and were falsely true to Scotland. They imprisoned Beaton, but did not deliver him up to ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... thing that makes that notion seem consider'ble more than unlikely. How in the world could she have found out that there ever was ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... plaza in which the church (Pl. LXXX) stands is so much larger than such inclosures usually are when incorporated in a pueblo plan that it seems unlikely to have formed part of the original village. It probably resulted from locating the church prior to the construction of the eastern rows of the village. Certain features in the houses themselves indicate the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... Kabul, Ghazni, Herat, Balkh, and other places, still considered themselves undefeated and capable of defying us. They and their leaders had to depend for information as to recent events upon the garbled accounts of those who had fought against us, and it was unlikely they would be shaken in their belief in their superiority by such one-sided versions of what had occurred. On many occasions I had been amused, in listening to Afghan conversation, to find that, while they appeared thoroughly conversant with and frequently alluded to their ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... justice is regarded as a great defect even in Holland, and one which is more and more being recognized. The establishment of the Police Court as known and conducted in England is felt, therefore, to be a great desideratum, and it is by no means unlikely that it may be introduced before long, since the Dutch have always shown themselves ready to adopt any modification of their own institutions which the experience of other countries may ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... yacht to the town, where all his business was neatly arranged for his doing. Certainly it appeared as if the hand of intelligent destiny must have been in it somewhere. No mere blind luck could have driven him half a mile into the country to the one spot in all Hunston—impossibly unlikely as it was—where he could become acquainted with Uncle Elbert's daughter without the formality of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... International Monetary fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development will commence operations during 1946. The organization of these institutions will undoubtedly take some time, and it is unlikely that their operations will reach any appreciable scale before the beginning of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... reached the United States, after faithfully discharging the errand of the Dey, he found that it was unlikely that either he or any other officer would be forced to carry any further tribute to the Barbary pirates. For, while the tribute paid to Algiers had merely changed the attitude of that country from open hostility to contemptuous ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... in defending Thucydides, whom he has so admirably translated, from the charge of some obscurity in his design, observes that "Marcellinus saith he was obscure, on purpose that the common people might not understand him; and not unlikely, for a wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men), that wise men only should be able to commend him." Thus early in life Hobbes had determined on a principle which produced all his studied ambiguity, involved him in so much controversy, and, in some ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... then: We must admit that it is not at all unlikely that our eldest daughter may live to inherit her grandfather's earldom and become Countess of Enderby in her own right. In which case, should she be living here, the wife of an American citizen, she must either lose all the privileges of her rank and ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... movement receives a strong infusion of new blood, whatever excesses or mistakes may arise, it is very unlikely that all the results will be on the same side. It is certainly not so in this case. Even the opposition to woman's suffrage which the suffragettes are responsible for, and the Anti-Suffrage societies which they have called into active existence, are not an ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire, summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world, to the spot that MUST be come to. Strange, if the little sick-room light were in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until an appointed event should be watched out! Which of the vast ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... culminating in a fine show on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when the Senussi, although they took full advantage of the extraordinarily difficult country, were trounced so severely that more fighting was unlikely for some weeks. Curiously enough, this cheerful news rather damped our enthusiasm. We had come expecting to find a large and exciting war on the beach waiting for us. Instead, we found battery-drills innumerable ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... it—by Lauzun. That brilliant and reckless adventurer could see Dauger, in prison at Pignerol, when he pleased, for he had secretly excavated a way into the rooms of his fellow-prisoner, Fouquet, on whom Dauger attended as valet. Lauzun was released soon after Fouquet's death. It is unlikely that he bought his liberty by the knowledge of the secret, and there is nothing to suggest that he used it (if he possessed it) in any ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... business like yours there might be a cash transaction at a time, apart from your books, which was settled for there and then?-Yes, it might have been; but it is a very unlikely thing that she asked me for 1s. in cash and I refused it unless I had very good grounds for doing so. She was ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... this was one of those tragically insignificant circumstances which so often shape life apart from any consciousness of ours. Probably ruin would never have overtaken Sir Walter had he been in the steady and careful hands of Murray and Blackwood, for it is unlikely that even the glamour of the great Magician would have turned heads ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... indignant blush which mounted in Caroline's face on reading his letter, Rosamond saw how unlikely it was that this request should be granted. It came, indeed, at an unlucky time. Rosamond could not refrain from a few words of apology, and looks of commiseration for Buckhurst; yet she entirely approved of Caroline's answer to his letter, and the steady repetition of her refusal, and even ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... opportunity it was at that. Everyone about me was chatting Parliament and appointments; one breathed distracting and irritating speculations as to what would be done and who would be asked to do it. I was chiefly impressed by what was unlikely to be done and by the absence of any general plan of legislation to hold us all together. I found the talk about Parliamentary procedure and etiquette particularly trying. We dined with the elder Cramptons one evening, and old Sir Edward was lengthily sage about what the House ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... for instance, may be the true meaning of [Greek: bolbhost tist kochlhiast] in the fourteenth Idyll I have no idea. It is not very important. And no doubt the sense of the last two lines of the "Death of Adonis" is very unlikely to be what I have made it. But no suggestion that I met with seemed to me satisfactory or even plausible: and in this and a few similar cases I have put down what suited the context. Occasionally also, as in the Idyll here printed last—the one lately discovered by Bergk, which I elucidated by the ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations? For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too often be decided according to their probable ...
— The Federalist Papers
... recent letters to the King denouncing him as a rebel should be publicly contradicted. When Berkeley heard of these demands, he swore he would rather suffer death than submit to them. But the Burgesses, who thought it not unlikely that they might soon have their throats cut, advised him to grant whatever was demanded.[603] So a letter was written to the King, and signed by the Governor, the Council and the Burgesses, expressing confidence in Bacon's ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... and Overweg returned without them, and brought letters from my colleagues, each one stating that he should continue his journey as previously determined. Ferajee, one of the messengers, pretends that En-Noor is going with Overweg to Maradee; which is very unlikely. Dr. Barth seems very angry, but his comrade takes ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... I have long ceased to think on the subject—perhaps my first girlish misery was true, and there is in me something repulsive—something that would prevent any man's seeking me as a wife. Therefore, even if my own feelings could change, it is unlikely there will ever come any soothing after-tie to take away the memory ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... added her mother; "there is nae saying what may betide ye yet. Ye think ye winna be married before ye are six and twenty; but, truly, my dear, there has mony a mair unlikely ship come to land. Now, what wad ye think o' the young ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... over. 'But it's manuscript, Dick. Why don't you bring home the printed score?' The lie that came to his lips was that the score of Trone d'Ecosse had never been printed, and this seeming to her very unlikely she said she didn't care whether it had or hadn't, but was tired of living in Islington, and would like to see something of the London of which she had heard ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... great, awe-inspiring rooms in this house, the cellars are the hugest and weirdest. Great, gloomy caverns of places, unlit by any ray of daylight. Yet, I would not shirk the work. I felt that to do so would smack of sheer cowardice. Besides, as I reassured myself, the cellars were really the most unlikely places in which to come across anything dangerous; considering that they can be entered, only through a heavy oaken door, the key of which, I carry ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... Ripley, smiling, as he rose. "Just go and help yourselves to the cabin and what few improvements it contains. But I am afraid, boys, you are going to be very much disappointed if you expect that your parents will consent. I think it very unlikely that you'll get any such permission. I will send your thanks to Mrs. Dexter, and will also tell her what I have told you about the use of the camp. As to-morrow will be Christmas, I shall not be back here to-day. If you go camping, boys—which I don't believe you will—don't burn the ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... established College de France, felt confident of ultimate success. They realised that the king was most anxious to arrive at an understanding with the Protestant princes of Germany against Charles V., and that therefore it was unlikely that he would indulge in a violent persecution of their co-religionists at home. They knew, too, that Francis I. had set his heart on securing complete control of the Church in his own dominions, as was evident by the hard bargain which ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... of an advertising tycoon should not be the instrument by which the discovery should come about. A psychiatrist should not be the means of associating Jones—a very junior physicist with no money—and Cochrane and the things Cochrane was prepared to bring about if only this unlikely-looking gadget worked. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the Negro is a menace to the position of the white man in trying to maintain racial superiority. The significant achievements of the Negro in Africa and this country were passed in rapid review to show how untenable this position of the white man is and how unlikely it can continue in view of the fact that the Negro is accomplishing more now than ever before in the history of the race. Professor John R. Hawkins then delivered a brief address showing how the development of the schools ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... connections. The tenure which an entrepreneur most values consists in his relation to his customers; and if the state should see to it that the goods he makes could always be had from some other source, the entrepreneur would be unlikely to close his mills. How the state shall keep the sources of supply open will become an important question if it shall appear that producers do defy the public opinion ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... habits of potation in less quantity; and observed that he was then for one winter stronger and freer from the gout than usual. This however did not long continue, as the disease afterwards returned with its usual or increased violence. This I think is a circumstance not unlikely to occur, as opium has a greater effect after its use has been a while intermitted; and the debility or torpor, which is the cause of gout, is thus for a few months prevented by the greater irritability of the system, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... to the visiting of art exhibitions. He took little interest in any productions save his own, and was moreover disposed to believe that good pictures, like clever criminals, are apt to go unhung. Stanwell therefore thought it unlikely that his portrait of Mrs. Millington would be seen by Kate, who was not given to independent explorations in the field of art; but one day, on entering the exhibition—which he had hitherto rather nervously shunned—he saw the Arrans at the end of the gallery ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... and must run, the little maid picked up her paraphernalia (not forgetting the red bergamot), and fled down the lane. And Jack, with equal haste, snatched up the tell-tale heap of flowers and threw them into a disused pig-sty, where it was unlikely that Daddy Darwin would go to look ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... courage; but finally broke and retreated under the same fire which just before had sent a whole division of white regiments to the right-about. If there be any disgrace in that, it does not belong exclusively nor mainly to the negroes. A second attack is far more perilous and unlikely to succeed than a first; the enemy having been encouraged by the failure of the first, and had time to concentrate his forces. And, in this case, there seems to have been a fatal delay in ordering both the first ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... counter a little Sekhet boat, carved in wood and highly coloured, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods were amateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to learn anything. I wondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted such an inquiry, and I racked my brains for some means of penetrating into the recesses of the establishment. Indeed I had been seeking such a plan for the past half ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Phil argued. "If you want to write Braille with it,—which seems unlikely,—I'll consider. But if you want it to prop open the door with, or crack nuts on, or something, you can't ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... person to whom Jasper felt he could turn for assistance, and that was Lois. He had thought of her before, and wondered if she had heard the news of David's disappearance. He felt that it was unlikely as no one would think of carrying the news there. As he stood for a few minutes looking upon Betty who was sitting before him the very embodiment of abject misery, he believed that Lois was the only one who could ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... end more than a century earlier. The name of one of them, however, the "bawbee," has survived in popular humour. Some people say that the name is merely a corruption of "baby," referring to the portrait of Queen Mary as an infant. It seems to me as unlikely a derivation as could ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... see a dull yellow pall rising high into the sky. It was a duststorm and it was sweeping down on the wings of that gale. Carley remembered that somewhere along this flat there was a log cabin which had before provided shelter for her and Flo when they were caught in a rainstorm. It seemed unlikely that she had passed by ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... whole tale was so unlikely that, by degrees, as he gazed at the wreck, now completely bathed in moonlight, he began to persuade himself that his eyes ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fix, the Nautilus's latitude bearings were modulated to the southwest. Our prow pointed to the Indian Ocean. Where would Captain Nemo's fancies take us? Would he head up to the shores of Asia? Would he pull nearer to the beaches of Europe? Unlikely choices for a man who avoided populated areas! So would he go down south? Would he double the Cape of Good Hope, then Cape Horn, and push on to the Antarctic pole? Finally, would he return to the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... teacher who most influenced young Mondino when he came to the University of Bologna, for it seems not unlikely that as a medical student he was actually the pupil of Taddeo, then in a vigorous old age. If not, he was at least brought under the direct influence of the teaching tradition created during more than thirty years by that wonderful old ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... last duty off her shoulders, then to say farewell to him and all the other human constituents of her brief period of partial sunshine. Besides, the personal delivery of the precious manuscript would afford her the opportunity of this farewell to him. With his social remissness, it was unlikely he would call soon upon the Goldsmiths, and she now restricted her friendship with Addie to receiving Addie's visits, so as to prepare for its dissolution. Addie amused her by reading extracts from Sidney's letters, for the brilliant young artist had suddenly gone off to Norway the morning ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of types and shadows, and that all the interventions of the divine hand are one in principle, and all foretell the great intervention of redeeming love, in the person of Jesus Christ. Nor need that be unlikely in the eyes of any who believe that Christ's coming is the centre of the world's history, and that there is in prophecy a supernatural element. We are not reading our own fancies into Scripture; we are not using, in allowable freedom, words which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... six years back, when the League had first been started, O'Hara remembered that the members of that enterprising society had been wont to hold meetings in a secluded spot, where it was unlikely that they would be disturbed. It seemed to him that the first thing he ought to do, if he wanted to make their nearer acquaintance now, was to find their present rendezvous. They must have one. They would never run ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse |
