"Incredulity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interest, and perhaps pain you, to know that the incredulity with which you met my story has prevented me from ever opening my mouth upon the subject again. I leave this record after my death, and perhaps strangers may be found to have more confidence ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... adventure had become his ruling passion. After hunting and trapping for several years he returned to St. Louis. Here he told his friends the marvels that he had seen and his adventures with Indians and wild beasts; but his hearers being doubting Thomases, listened with incredulity to his ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... Bessie grew impatient, and wished she could be let alone. Mr. Phipps laughed at her, and asked if she did not enjoy her novel importance. Bessie rejoined with a scorny "No, indeed!" Mr. Phipps retaliated with a grimace of incredulity. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... influences from the West, the indications of history as now read, pointed in 1850 toward the bloodiest of Japan's many civil wars. Could the statistics of the suicides during this long period be collected, their publication would excite in Christendom the utmost incredulity. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... corrupt, no negligence can lose, and no interest can pervert. I have shewn that the universe bears witness to the inspiration of its historian, by the revolution of its orbs and the succession of its seasons; that the stars in their courses fight against[1083] incredulity, that the works of GOD give hourly confirmation to the law, the prophets, and the gospel, of which one day telleth another, and one night certifieth another[1084]; and that the validity of the sacred writings can never be denied, while the moon shall increase and wane, and the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... accepted the surroundings she found in the city that was to be her home with not a little incredulity. For some days she treated the city as a deep rascal which had disguised its true nature in order to deceive her. She smiled at the ease with which she saw through all disguises. One of these days the cloak of respectability would be thrown off, and the ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... I should never have broken away from Catholicism if I had not formed so narrow a view of it; or if, to put it in another way, my teachers had not given me this narrow view of it. Some people hold St. Sulpice partially responsible for my incredulity, and reproach that establishment upon the one hand with having inspired me with too complete a trust in a scholasticism which implied an exaggerated rationalism, and, upon the other, with having required me to admit as necessary to salvation ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... startled, and her husband frowned. Jane mistook their expressions for incredulity. "They DID, mamma," she protested. "That's just the way they talked to each other. I heard 'em this afternoon, when Willie had ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... yet I suppressed all appearance of interest. A child! Barrymore had said that our unknown was supplied by a boy. It was on his track, and not upon the convict's, that Frankland had stumbled. If I could get his knowledge it might save me a long and weary hunt. But incredulity and indifference ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... odd revival of this old libel was mentioned to me recently by Mr. George Moffatt. When he was at school it was common among the boys to express incredulity by the phrase: "Oh, what ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Bush, W., had been the heroine of divorce proceedings under queer circumstances, that her husband wasn't dead at all, and that that dear little puss Sally was Goodness-knows-who's child, we feel certain that the information would have been cross-countered with a blank stare of incredulity. Why, the mere fact that Mrs. Nightingale had refused so many offers of marriage was surely sufficient to refute such a nonsensical idea! Who ever heard of a lady with a soiled record refusing ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... echoed the words with fluttering incredulity. "Oh, no, of course not—if you really ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... impossible to calculate the number of converts they had made, as to estimate the encouragement and strength their zeal and eloquence had given to abolitionists all over the country. Men were slow to believe the reports of their wives and sisters respecting Angelina's wonderful oratory, and this incredulity produced the itching ears which soon drew to the meetings where the Grimke sisters were to speak more men than women, and gave them the applause and hearty support of some of the ablest minds of New England. The ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... incredulity, perplexity, suspense, distrust, indecision, question, suspicion, hesitancy, irresolution, scruple, unbelief, hesitation, misgiving, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... certain others, by putting it upon rode other means of locomotion to Newmarket are excluded, and so on. With the same order of words five interrogative sentences may also be expressed, and a third series of exclamatory sentences expressing anger, incredulity, &c., may be obtained from the same words. It is to be noticed that for these two series a different intonation, a different musical (pitch) accent appears from that which is found in the same words when employed to make a matter-of-fact ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... broke into a slight sneer of incredulity. "My dear brother, you do right to say this—any man in your situation would say the same. But I know that my uncle took every pains to ascertain if the report of a private marriage ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the Gods that, when they do speak sooth, mortals must needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity at the revelation of Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than the bonds and broken links of chain at his wrists ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... dawn of modern thought the darkness faded amidst which mankind had so long cowered in the abject terrors of superstition. Already in the beginning of the fifteenth century many of the ancient dogmas had begun to awaken incredulity, and sceptics learned to mock at that claim to infallibility upon which the priesthood based their right to command the blind obedience of the Christian world. Between such adversaries compromise was impossible; ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... their audience or readers with new stories about familiar heroes. Such was the condition of the stories themselves. The attitude of the public towards them was, by the middle of the fifteenth century, one of complete incredulity and frivolous amusement; the paladins were as unreal as the heroes of any granny's fairy tale. The people wanted to hear of wonderful battles and adventures, of enchantments and love-makings; but they wanted also to laugh; and, sceptical, practical, democratic, the artizans and shopkeepers ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... clouds of a dreary scepticism. I have sometimes, in looking back on the doubts and questionings of this period, thought, and perhaps even spoken of myself as an infidel. But an infidel I assuredly was not: my belief was at least as real as my incredulity, and had, I am inclined to think, a much deeper seat in my mind. But wavering between the two extremes—now a believer, and anon a sceptic—the belief usually exhibiting itself as a strongly-based instinct,—the scepticism as the result of some intellectual process—I lived on ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... through it all, simply stood there, his eyes wide and his face sharp with curiosity and incredulity, his body twitching now and then from the infection of the excitement which rippled over the room. That excitement had been there, though Bryce had not permitted himself to indulge in it in any visible way. He had showed Pierce a new facet to his operations, one ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... a very strange sort of questioning grunt inarticulate nevertheless expressive of rude wonder and incredulity, as far as it ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... heavy disappointment, perhaps his incredulity; for she added in the same unsympathetic tone: 'You don't believe it. Still, it is so. As to personal communication: it seems that there was personal communication between him and your mother. And yet you say you believe her declaration that she ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... hypothetical form; and because of these expressions of sane and sacred experience I am led to ask my readers to follow me in the consideration of a subject which is seldom mentioned, except with incredulity, by ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock. It was not only received with utter incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances that had ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... I lacked the necessary conviction. After all I was the average citizen, with the average incredulity of the far-fetched, the melodramatic, the absurd. To connect the head waiter's panic at my departure with the episode in my room, to declare that the floor clerks had been called from their posts ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... that if any man will say he desires before belief to behold such a creature as is the Rukh in Paulus Venetus, for his own part he will not be angry with his incredulity. But M. Pauthier is of more liberal belief; for he considers that, after all, the dimensions which Marco assigns to the wings and quills of the Rukh are not so extravagant that we should ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the dear familiar figure, so little changed, must have afforded a brief reprieve, and lent a sense of almost glad incredulity to the distress which had gone before. But the well-meant whisper of one of the attendants of "Ein sanftes ende" destroyed the passing illusion. "Seeing that my presence did not disturb her," the Queen wrote afterwards, "I knelt before her, kissed her dear hand and placed it next ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the room, and in a state of great agitation announced to us that a message had been received at the Carlton Club stating that the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary had been assassinated. I cannot describe the mingled amazement, horror, and incredulity with which the news was received, but I remember well the extreme distress shown by Mr. Shaw and the other Irish members. "This is the end of Ireland!" cried Mr. Shaw, with tears in his eyes. For some time most of us steadily refused ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... they tell you, in the presence of the black, whose strong brawny arm and sinewy frame show that in him lies the real strength of the state, that this great empire is to be built on the shoulders of the slave, your smile of incredulity gives way to an expression of pity, and you are tempted to ask if those sinewy machines may not THINK, and some day rise, and topple down the mighty fabric which is to be reared on ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... by the students of the development of the use of metal in prehistoric Europe, when they came to know of it. No doubt their incredulity was partly due to want of appreciation of the Egyptological evidence, partly to disinclination to accept a conclusion which did not at all agree with the knowledge they had derived from their own study of prehistoric Europe. In Southern Europe it was quite certain that iron ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... I selected from the rest to learn the fatal lesson! Unwished, unfortunate distinction! Was I, who am simple and undisguised as the light of day, who know not how to conceal one sentiment of my heart, or arm myself with the shield of vigilance and incredulity, was I fitted by nature for a scene like this? In the mean time have not the Gods encouraged me by the most splendid appearance, and the most animating praises? I would not impeach their venerable ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... old-world rubbish; while the other is abject, and blindly reverent, and full of the old mythic imagination that is in strong contrast with the keen common-sense of the Protestant, who dispels all twilight fantasies with a laugh of utter incredulity. The one sees projected on the outer world his own imaginings, now fair, now gloomy; while the other sees in the world, land to be cut up into corner-lots for speculation, and water for sawmills and cotton-mills, and to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... hurriedly, and the younger people were quick to perceive a slight restraint in her words. It was quite natural. A mother, weighing the actions of others in a matter touching the safety of her son, would hardly make allowance for the incredulity such a messenger as Sobieski would inspire, and Beaumanoir tactfully led the talk to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... statement!" Jernyngham remarked with ironical incredulity. "May one ask if he gave any reasons for wishing you ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... in the morning to confess. I need not tell you how deeply the Church is touched by such zeal, how thankful she is to those who give her this consolation and who pay her this homage in these sad times of demoralization and incredulity. We are drawn towards young men who set such a good example and who are so willing to do what is right, and we are always ready to give them what help we can and to use any influence that we may have in certain families in ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... the Indian. Peigan Charley's bovine stare changed swiftly as the white chief whom he regarded above all men gave his decision. Its stolidity had given way to incredulity, and Bill found in it a ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... city built by the Chan Santa Cruz Indians which has received this name because the ornamentation of the houses is of silver, and so profuse as to give it the appearance, at a distance, of being a collection of silver buildings. Don't laugh until you hear the whole story," he added, as a smile of incredulity passed over ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... or, "It must require a great deal of faith [25] to make your demonstrations." When it is answered that there is no will-power required, and that something more than faith is necessary, we meet with an expression of incredulity. It is not alone the mission of Christian Science to heal the sick, but to destroy sin ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... thought that the very gods must admire the rectitude of Phocion and Aristides; and those gentlemen themselves were apparently of much the same opinion. Cato's veracity was so impeccable that the extremest incredulity a Roman could express of anything was to say, 'I would not believe it even if Cato had told me.' Good was good, and bad was bad, for these people. Hypocrisy, which church-Christianity brought in, hardly existed; the naturalistic system ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... grief, surprise, and incredulity from Paul interrupted her at this point, but she presently ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... the struggles borne, was shared likewise by another man than Favre—by Germano Sommeiller, the creator of the Mont Cenis Tunnel. When the work of the first piercing of the Alps was yet in the period of attacks and incredulity, Sommeiller wrote his brother the following letter: "Always keep me posted my dear Leander, as to what the laughers are saying and remember the proverb that 'he will laugh well who laughs last!' The majority of the people, even engineers, are rubbing their hands in expectation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... he had had trial enough, and gave so little credit to him, that he (though he loved the man) silenced him for a time, which our apocalyptical prophet took very ill at his hands, and wondered much at his incredulity. Well, that month and some after that over, our prophet (who had made no little stir in the country by his prophesying) was cast into prison for his obstinacy. After a while Luther visited him, thinking by that time to find him of another mind; but so far was he from acknowledging his ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... hard to believe that after Claude's conduct toward Rosie her father-in-law could have the heart to bring further woe upon a family that had already had enough. Nothing but seeing for herself could coerce her incredulity. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... two later, Dora, who could not sleep from the effects of fatigue and emotion, was lying in her uncomfortable stretcher-bed, thinking with a sort of incredulity of all that had passed since David's telegram had reached her the day before, or puzzling herself to know how her employers could possibly spare her for another three or four days' holiday, when she was startled by some recurrent sounds from the room beyond her own. David was sleeping ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... add that I have the strongest testimonials to her character for integrity from William H. Seward, Gerritt Smith, Wendell Phillips, Fred. Douglass, and my brother, Prof. S.M. Hopkins, who has known her for many years, I do not fear to brave the incredulity of any reader. ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... Europe. But the lands he discovered, though already fully populated, were soon to fall into disorder, and to be closed to any civilising influences. Nothing for a long time followed from these discoveries, and indeed almost up to the present day his accounts were received with incredulity, and he himself was regarded more as "Marco Millione" ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... that the percentage which this commission represents shall be deducted in advance from the manufacturer's price, that my client may have the benefit of it? If this is denied, can I resist the conclusion that it is a bribe to command future services at my hands? Is not the smile of incredulity with which the dealer receives my assurance that I can only take it for my client and hand it over to him, an insult to the profession, which, as a man of honor, I ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... does not believe!" exclaimed Ardan. "The Chair must be excused for reminding the honorable gentleman that it can not accept his incredulity as a sound and valid argument. These two movements have certainly equal periods now; ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... long, low whistle, and looked in my face with a serio-comic expression. I was not far in my teens, and to talk of setting off alone for Kentucky, to turn hunter, seemed doubtless the idle prattle of a boy. He was little aware of the dogged resolution of my character; and his smile of incredulity but fixed me more obstinately in my purpose. I assured him I was serious in what I said, and would certainly set off for ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... who ventured beneath the shade were officers of the little garrison, the sutler and half a dozen "casuals" of the civilian persuasion, among whom, if not among the members of the court, Nevins' harangue had created undoubted sensation, for glances indicative of surprise if not of incredulity ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... these periods. The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established. If the subject of the question starts back and expresses surprise and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in earnest, the fact of maturity is no ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... in high praise of the late school master, and recommendations of his widow from the clergyman of the parish where they had lived; and place and name being both in the "Clergy List," even Ermine and Alison began to feel ashamed of their incredulity, whilst as to Grace, she had surrendered herself completely to the eager delight of finding a happy home for the little children in whom she was interested. Grace might laugh a little at Rachel, but in the main her trust in her sister's superiority always led her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... impression in so good a cause as determined incredulity, seems not only justifiable, but ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... to stammer out her errand; but the sudden pallor, the starting eyes—the whole shocked, almost terrified appearance of the man she was facing, stopped her. She forgot the surprise, the incredulity of mind with which he would naturally hail her presence at his door in a place so remote and of such inaccessibility. She only saw that his hands had gone up and out at sight of her, and to her sensitive soul, this looked like a rebuff which, while ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... look of mingled surprise, chagrin and incredulity the knight reined in his horse, exclaiming as he did so, ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the air with a little movement of incredulity. But her anger had long since been a thing of the past. Good-tempered, she could not cherish resentment very long. But as yet she had greeted Landry only by ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... us, of imparting reality to new phenomena—an idolatrous attachment to the old things which our belief in them did once animate, as if it was in that belief and not in ourselves that the divine spark resided, and as if our present incredulity had a contingent ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... considerable change in the physiognomy of my own auditor. He had heard my story with that half kind of belief that is given to a tale of spirits and supernatural events; but when he was called upon to act officially in consequence, the whole tide of his incredulity returned. He, however, answered mildly, "I would willingly afford you every aid in your pursuit, but the creature of whom you speak appears to have powers which would put all my exertions to defiance. Who can follow an animal ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... began to click again, and the pens and pencils scratched on to the accompaniment of murmurs and whispers and occasional grunts and snorts of incredulity. By a master-stroke of strategy Franklin Marmion had, in placing the three demonstrations of the long-supposed impossible before them in quick succession, kept the learned, but now utterly bewildered mathematicians so busy that they literally had not time to begin "the trouble" which Brenda ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... he saw incredulity in her gaze; "I wasn't to tell you. I reckon Lawler would half kill me if he know'd I was tellin' you. But there ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... will doubtless at first sight cause a smile of incredulity, and will be regarded by many as one of the devices which are sometimes put forward to entrap an unsuspecting public into the ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... if shot. His broad face spelled first blank amazement, then incredulity, then surprised belief. Spreading his legs wide and bending his knees, he rested his hand on one and his hook on the other, shut one eye, and stuck his tongue out at the corner of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... tell a good story," retorted the foreman with dry incredulity. "It's up to you to come through with an explanation of why Webb's men have just gunned three of our friends. Your story doesn't make any hit with me. I don't believe a ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... reticence as the magistrates. The bigoted believed, the hypocrites pretended to believe; and the worldly-minded, who were numerous, discussed the doctrine of possession in all its phases, and made no secret of their own entire incredulity. They wondered, and not without reason it must be confessed, what had induced the devils to go out of the nuns' bodies for two days only, and then come back and resume possession, to the confusion of the exorcists; further, they wanted to know why the mother superior's devil ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... retorted with greater incredulity. "If both doors were closed and fastenings are all right now, could anybody get the car out? They left the big door open—that's ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... listen to such words unmoved, when her armor of incredulity fell from her as Lesley's armor had fallen. Hitherto she had felt a scornful disbelief in the reality of Oliver's love for her. But now that disbelief had gone. There was a ring of passionate feeling in Oliver's tones which could not be simulated. The coldness, the ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... had to run from Bras-Coupe in de haidge of de swamp be'ine de 'abitation of my cousin Honore, one time? You can hask 'oo you like!" (A Creole always provides against incredulity.) At this point he digressed a moment: "You know my cousin, Honore Grandissime, w'at give two hund' fifty dolla' to de 'ospill laz mont'? An' juz because my cousin Honore give it, somebody helse give de semm. Fo' w'y don't ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... some reason for his incredulity. Jack was a stout, good-looking boy, with a pleasant face; but Ida's beauty was of a delicate, refined type, which argued gentle birth,—her skin of a brilliant whiteness, dashed by a tinge of rose,—exhibiting ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... intermediate forms are examined, a very grotesque notion ... they never realize the fact that by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated. That surprise which they feel on finding one whom they last saw as a boy, grown into a man, becomes incredulity when the degree of change is greater. Nevertheless, abundant instances are at hand of the mode in which we may pass to the most diverse forms by ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... proved every one of my statements, and proving them has also proved that my opponents were of two kinds. Those who had doubted simply because the discoveries were new and strange have been gradually converted, while those whose incredulity was based on personal ill-will to me have shut their eyes to the facts and have endeavoured to asperse my moral ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... looked shocked but not surprised. Wrayson, dumb and unnerved, had staggered back, and was leaning against the table. Mrs. Barnes had already taken a step towards the door. She was very pale, but her eyes were ablaze. Incredulity struggled with her passionate desire ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and as if she had a perfect stranger on her hands, though Bertha's high tone was, after all, chiefly from her extremity, and by way of reply to her brother's scornful incredulity of her exalted position. She was the first to speak on leaving the library. 'Pray, Phoebe, how came you to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flash of understanding passed from the brown eyes to the grey, which meant that they were on their mettle. They were not going to defend themselves, but henceforth it was a case of die or produce a good photograph, and so oblige Oswald to alter his tone of scornful incredulity. ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... than an Honorary President, as we could not expect you often to come to London. I am anxious that in our records for future reference your Presidency should appear.... Podmore, who is proposed as President, represents the attitude of resolute incredulity, and I consider this line of action has been to some extent injurious to the S.P.R. Crookes supported my proposal, and so did Lodge, and so would Myers if he had lived. All this is ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... city!" interrupts Laura, with both dismay and incredulity in her tone. "My dearest dear, you will not be allowed to leave Grandon Park, except with myself for keeper, to return as soon ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... received this conjecture with astonishment and incredulity, not to be wondered at. The steamboat headed N.W.; right in the wind's eye. Sixteen miles off, at least, a ship was sailing N.E. So that the two courses might ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... faithfulness of narrative, and that, contrary to the practice of other histories, they do not conceal the faults of the persons they describe. The faults of Abraham and Jacob are detailed, as well as their virtues; and the incredulity of Thomas, and the defection of Peter, are not concealed, but faithfully recorded. The apostles, especially, seem everywhere to forget that they are writing of themselves, and appear not at all solicitous about their own reputation, but only that they might represent ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... were told about the new way of being healed, and Grace looked on at first with her usual incredulity, but when she saw Mrs. Hayden getting so well and looking so happy, she began to wonder and then to exclaim. Then she wanted to learn something about this new "doctrine," and Mrs. Hayden had Miss Greening come over and meet the girls one evening so they could hear ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... she had passed through about all the phases described. These phenomena are sometimes very intense and may come late in life, but it is impossible to remember feelings and emotions with definiteness, and these now make up a large part of life. Hence we are prone to look with some incredulity upon the immediate records of the tragic emotions and experiences typical and normal at this time, because development has scored away their ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... upon the prisons and etapes which had been described as hells upon earth, and to either confirm or gainsay the statements made by the American traveller. The evidence of a Russian subject would, for obvious reasons, have met with incredulity, and it came to pass, therefore, that through the agency of Madame de Novikoff, herself a prison Directress, I was selected for a task, which although extremely interesting, subjected me to much unfavourable criticism on my return to England. Some yellow journals even went so far as to ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... to me—so suddenly, so unexpectedly, did it come at last! I admit there is no excuse for my incredulity, except that of thinking your dear father had been so strangely deprived of his well-earned reward through the injustice of man on so many occasions, because, far better things than man could give were in store for him. And although ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... and incredulity. The dark creature claimed her, she declared herself helpless to escape from that dominion into normal life, and yet It never had spoken to her? It spoke to me, a stranger most ignorant, and not to the seeress who was familiar with Its existence and the lore which linked humanity ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... however, of such unwonted incredulity, Map, having once begun by telling this story, proceeds to tell another like it, which he seems to have no difficulty in believing. The second tale concerns a hero of the Welsh border, Wild Edric, of whose historic reality as one of the English rebels against William the Conqueror there is ample ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... laughed. While Sir Purcell was maintaining the fact of his total ignorance of the subject against Madame's incredulity, Emilia left the room. When she came back Madame was pressing her visitor to be explicit with regard to a certain process of cure conducted by an application of cold water. The Neapolitan gave several shudders as she marked him attentively. "Water cold!" she murmured with the deepest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... several burgesses and aldermen in Mansoul, such as out of whom the town, when it needed, might choose them officers, governors, and magistrates. And these are the names of the chief of them: Mr. Incredulity, Mr. Haughty, Mr. Swearing, Mr. Whoring, Mr. Hard-Heart, Mr. Pitiless, Mr. Fury, Mr. No-Truth, Mr. Stand-to-Lies, Mr. False-Peace, Mr. Drunkenness, Mr. Cheating, Mr. Atheism—thirteen in all. Mr. Incredulity is the eldest, and Mr. Atheism ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... in view. The facts that we have to relate form one of the blackest chapters in the history of human slavery, and slavery brought up to the present time. Our statements if standing merely on our own word would be met at once with incredulity and challenged, and before we could defend them by producing the proof, a prejudice would be created that might prove disastrous to our hopes of arousing our country to the point of exterminating this horrible Oriental brothel slavery by means of which even American men ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... as daring, as resolute as himself; that of his children, some may be deformed, and others vicious; some may disgrace him by their follies, some offend him by their insolence, and some exhaust him by their profusion. He hears all this with obstinate incredulity, and wonders by what malignity old age is influenced, that it cannot forbear to fill his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... moment he gasped with astonishment. For a moment gloomy incredulity, suspicion, delight, pride, admiration, even affection, struggled for mastery in his sullen, staring eyes and open, twitching mouth. For here was Clarence Brant, handsomer than ever, more superior than ever, in the majesty ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... apocryphal encounter, and wounded in the leg. This was a little too much for the good Bathonians to believe, but Nash silenced their doubts. On one occasion, a lady who was present when he was telling this story, expressed her incredulity. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... succeeded by hours of utter incredulity, in which he lay wide-eyed on the sleeping porch of McLean's domicile and stared into the white cloud of his fly net and questioned ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Mark was cut as deeply by this as the speaker intended; he could give no other answer than a sigh, which was perfectly genuine. Caffyn affected to take this as an expression of incredulity. 'Surely you don't doubt that!' he said; 'why, Holroyd would have been as glad as if he had written the book himself. If he could come back to us again, you would see that I am right. What a meeting it would be, if one could only ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... witty objections and detractions; yet (I hope) my reasons and my deeds will so prevail with some, that I shall not want employment in these affairs to make the most blind see his own senselessness and incredulity; hoping that gain will make them affect that which religion, charity and the common good cannot.... For I am not so simple to think that ever any other motive than wealth will ever erect there a Commonwealth; or draw company ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... beauty. So partial, indeed, are several of the young men of the university to the tawny tribe, that they are frequently observed in their academicals, lounging round the picturesque tents, having their fortunes told; though, it must be remarked, their countenances usually evince a waggish incredulity on those occasions, and they appear much more amused with the novel scene around them than gratified with the favourable predictions of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... spite of all Techne's efforts to restrain him rushes off with the intention of putting an end to his life. Techne, perceiving the ill-success of her plot, tells Cloris of Amyntas' resolve. We here return to the imitation of Tasso: Cloris, like that poet's Silvia, begins by pretending incredulity and indifference, but being at length convinced agrees to accompany Techne in search of the desperate swain. Daniel has produced what is little better than a parody of the scene in his model. Not content with placing in the girl's mouth ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... incredulity at this figure which had pursued him down the platform at Wyck and now ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... ridicule has been thrown on the operation of compound interest, because its effects are so amazing as not to be capable of being realized; but, on this subject, two things are to be said,—first of all, it has never been to the operation during the first hundred years that either incredulity or ridicule have applied, and the sinking fund was never meant to continue to operate so long. Secondly, though there are many drawbacks on the employment of large sums laid out at interest, that diminish, ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... were threatened the woful day I mockt the Preachers, put it far away; The Sermons yet upon Record do stand That cri'd destruction to my wicked land; I then believed not, now I feel and see, The plague of stubborn incredulity. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... involved in the intricacies of their music. After the band came four rather shabby riders on horseback, then some men dressed apparently in admiring imitation of Charles II.; then, to the wonder and whispered incredulity of the crowd, Britannia on her triumphal car. The car—an elaborate cart, with gilt wheels and strange cardboard figures of dolphins and Father Neptune—had in its centre a high seat painted white and perched on ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... of his testimony in which he had told of the motive which induced him to return and give himself up to justice. In doing so his questions, the tone of his voice, and his manner were marked with incredulity. It was as if he were saying to the jury: "Just listen to this impossible story while I take him over it again. Did you ever hear anything like it?" When he had gone in this direction as far as he thought discreet, he asked abruptly: ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... without breaking it; that the houses were as high as mountains, and so large, that he had walked three days in one of them without coming to the end of it. It was evident that Lauri had stretched a little; but Nomahanna had no notion of incredulity. She approved of our inventions for warming the inside of our houses, and thought, that if she were at Petersburg, she would not go out at all during the cold weather, but would drive her carriage about the house. She ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... much at the time it was made, but in these later days, when there were fewer secrets between us, and this one could avail him no more. But I did not put the question out of pique. I put it out of sheer obstinate incredulity. And Raffles looked at me without replying, until I read the ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... in a way that was exceedingly irritating to his vanity, and in a tone of good-natured incredulity, she remarked: "It is easy to ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the effect that a Professor Roentgen, until then the possessor of only a local fame in the town mentioned, had discovered a new kind of light, which penetrated and photographed through everything. This news was received with a mild interest, some amusement, and much incredulity; and a week passed. Then, by mail and telegraph, came daily clear indications of the stir which the discovery was making in all the great line of universities between Vienna and Berlin. Then Roentgen's own report arrived, so cool, so business-like, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... not the imaginations against thee, let not the incredulity of them trouble thee, ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... lack confirmation; but he has much, also, which demands respectful consideration. There is a great deal in his books to provoke criticism; those well acquainted with the antiquities and ancient speech of Egypt may reasonably give way to a smile of incredulity while reading what he says in support of the notion that the great civilization of Egypt also came originally from this Atlantic race. Nevertheless, his volumes are important, because they furnish materials which others can use more carefully, and because ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... that of a man who hastened with some express object; his limbs seemed spurred to activity by the gallop of his thoughts. His reason would scarcely accept the evidence of consciousness that he had indeed just heard such things from Emily's lips; it was too monstrous for belief; a resolute incredulity sustained him beneath a blow which, could he have felt it to be meant in very earnest, would have deprived him of his senses. She did not, she could not, know what she had said! Yet she spoke with such cruel appearance ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... a monomaniac in her dream of a Southern empire, she heard in scornful incredulity the rumor of defeat and disaster brought to her by her daughters. All the pride and passion of her strong nature was in arms against the bare thought. But at quarantine papers were received on board, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... First incredulity, then horror, overspread the haggard face of the sheriff as he read and re-read the dispatch. He staggered back against the wall, putting up his arm to keep ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... replies promptly. When he is told that it is his own, to buy toys with, his eyes open wide with wondering incredulity. By degrees he understands. The father does not. He looks questioningly from one to the other. When told, his respect increases ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... with amazement and incredulity. He might even have flushed or turned pale, but such a possible exhibition of emotion was lost beneath an artificial bloom, painted by his valet. His eyes, however, gleamed like ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Clio upon so many monumental tablets, and almost as indelibly and quite as painfully upon school-boy memory, to be sponged out at a blow, like chalk from a blackboard? We, at least, cling fondly to our Tarquins; we shudder when the abyss of historic incredulity swallows up the familiar form of Mettus Curtius; we refuse to be weaned from the she-wolf of Romulus. Your unbelieving Guy Faux, who approaches the stately superstructures of history, not to gaze upon them with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... unable to resist the charm of his address or to deny the fascinating beauty of his words, but unable also to admit his claim; they received his predictions with stubborn unbelief. They expressed their incredulity and at the same time explained it by their question, "Is not this Joseph's son?" They were saying in effect: "Is not this man our neighbor, the carpenter, with whom we have all been acquainted; do we not know him and his family? Surely he cannot be ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... was the festival of Corpus Christi, she had been graciously granted the rare treat of a whole hour to spend as she pleased. She had chosen to spend it in hearing the latter half of a sermon preached at Paul's Cross. For, despite Mistress Winter's disdainful incredulity, the assertion was the simple truth; though that lady, being one of the numerous persons who cannot imagine the possibility of anything unpleasant to themselves being delightful to others, had been unable to give credence to the statement. As to the charge of dancing in Finsbury ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... sang out the chaps standing by; but, seeing that the cook appeared as if he would turn rusty if they showed any further incredulity at his statements, they composed their faces—"looking nine ways for Sunday," as the phrase goes; or, like the Carthaginians when the pious Aeneas was spinning that wonderful yarn of his which we read about in Virgil, in the presence of Queen Dido and her court, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... with an incredulity so open that I felt it to be an insult, and she preserved the same ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... hands folded on her lap to hear the business. Dickson narrated their pre-supper doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal's evidence. His exposition was cautious and colourless, and without conviction. He seemed to expect a robust incredulity in ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... the papers handed him by Nimbus, and read, slowly and with evident difficulty; but as he mastered line after line the look of incredulity vanished, and a glow of solemn joy spread over his face. It was the first positive testimony of actual freedom—the first fruits of self-seeking, self-helping manhood on the part of his race which had come into the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the fateful slip of paper on his desk, and silently watched him as he read and then re-read it. I seemed to read his mind in the expressions that raced across his strong features: first, blank amazement; then incredulity that even Germany could be guilty of such perfidy; then gravity and sternness, a sudden grayness of colour, a compression of the lips and the familiar locking of the jaw which always characterized him in ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... possessive. "My chest—broken open! This is a fine state of things!" I hastened to lay the blame where it belonged—on Francois and his wife—and found I had made things worse instead of better. She repeated the names at first with incredulity, then with despair. A while she seemed stunned, next fell to disembowelling the box, piling the goods on the floor, and visibly computing the extent of Francois's ravages; and presently after she was observed in high speech with Taniera, who seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contradictory theories to be met with in books, pamphlets, and reviews concerning St. Patrick's native country are calculated to provoke a spirit of weary incredulity and impatience. However, when presenting this book to the public, we may quote the late Canon O'Hanlon's plea for adventurous writers who still endeavour to solve the problem: "The question of St. Patrick's country," writes the distinguished ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... upon him a look of scornful incredulity, "you have said all this before. I suppose you had something else to ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... when Durbin, joining us, added his incredulity to the air of suspicion assumed by the others. Through all the explanations I now entered into, I found myself inwardly repeating with somewhat forced iteration, "I will not believe her guilty under any circumstances. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... physique of their regiment was duly lauded by our soldier companions. At length one of them remarked, in that aggravatingly superior tone which some Englishmen assume, that any man in his troop could handle any two of the then present company. This provoked a general laugh of incredulity, and two or three of our college set turned to me with—"What do you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... public mind already possesses and acknowledges, to which the new can be assimilated. A novelty, however true, if there be no received truths with which it can be shewn in harmonious relation, has little chance of a favourable hearing. In fact, as has been often observed, there is a measure of incredulity from our ignorance as well as from our knowledge, and if the most distinguished philosopher three hundred years ago had ventured to develop any striking new fact which only could harmonize with the as yet unknown Copernican solar system, we cannot ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... eye of thousands of spectators of both sexes and all ages, watching from afar every turn of a battle in which the lives of those most dear to them were at hazard. The British soldiery in Boston gazed with astonishment and almost incredulity at the resolute and protracted stand of raw militia whom they had been taught to despise, and at the havoc made among their own veteran troops. Every convoy of wounded brought over to the town increased their consternation, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... and told me all about it. The boy is dead, as you know. Yes, terrible, isn't it?" And she looked at him. His face was almost comic, so wrinkled up with incredulity. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with amazement, with incredulity, with indignation, she began to realize that he was proposing to go off by himself upon this vague extravagant research, that all this work she had been doing to make a social place for him in London was as nothing to him, that he was thinking of ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... statement that, in the case of the other prisoners included in the verdict, "the law should take its course." No one credited this declaration for an instant, and most persons felt that the Crown officials were indulging in an indecent piece of mockery. Amidst this universal incredulity, however—this disdainful and indignant disbelief—the prisoners' solicitor, Mr. Roberts, vigilant and untiring to the last, took the necessary steps to pray arrest of execution pending decision of the serious law points raised on the trial. Some of the most eminent ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... listened with a sense of growing angry incredulity. The fellow couldn't be as much of a fool as he seemed! Therefore, he had devised this hoax after he realised he would be captured, to cover up his real purpose which could only be that of a spy. Menesee saw that Administrator Bradshaw was ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... I entertained a kind of apprehension that the tale would be heard by him with incredulity and secret ridicule. I had formerly heard stories that resembled this in some of their mysterious circumstances; but they were commonly heard by me with contempt. I was doubtful whether the same impression would ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... enlightened society of Protestant dissenters of the Baptist denomination, I observed to a doctor of divinity, who was advancing towards his seventieth year, that my time had been delightfully engaged with John Bunyan's commentary on Genesis. "What," said the D.D., with some appearance of incredulity, "Bunyan a commentator—upon Genesis!! Impossible! Well, I never heard of that work of the good Bunyan before. Why, where is it to be found?" Yes, it is true that he has commented on that portion of sacred scripture, containing the cosmogony of creation—the fall of man—the first murder—the deluge—and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the eye." Bill spoke earnestly. "Twenty thousand iron men ain't so bad. It'll buy a lot of doll's clothes. We can have a big party—I ain't kidding!" Then reading amused incredulity in his friend's face he demanded: "How you know I ain't got a rich uncle that raised me from a colt and that broke his heart at me runnin' away and turning out wild, and has had lawyers gunnin' for me ever since he knew he was gettin' old and ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... warnings which God has sent to the world by His servants have been received with like incredulity and unbelief. When the iniquity of the antediluvians moved Him to bring a flood of waters upon the earth, He first made known to them His purpose, that they might have opportunity to turn from their evil ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... was related to us immediately, was received without incredulity. The martial air of that monarch, the brilliancy of his chivalrous dress, his reputation, and the novelty of such an action, caused this momentary ascendancy to appear true, in spite of its improbability; for such was Murat, a theatrical monarch by the splendor of ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... in spite of what Mr. Brown's neighbours had said about nearly recognizing Mrs. Manston on her recent visit—which might have meant anything or nothing; in spite of the photograph, and in spite of his previous incredulity; in consequence of the verse, of her silence and backwardness at the visit to Hoxton with Manston, and of her appearance and distress at the present moment, Graye had a conviction that the woman ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... provokes a slight incredulity, it is yet worth while to understand its real meaning; and the explanation is not ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... doubt, of incredulity bordering upon feeble indignation, settled upon the serrated countenance. But Blanchard only shook his head as if he did ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... George had wrought more disastrously upon his temper than P. Sybarite had let him see. His hints, innuendoes, and downright assertions had in reality distilled a subtle poison into the little man's humour. For in spite of his embattled incredulity and the clear reasoning with which he had overborne George's futile insistence, there still lingered in his mind (and always would, until he knew the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... slowly, frozen incredulity in his eyes; and she, fearing she had gone too far, caught at the hand ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... in again, I'd like to know?" asked Joel, looking at the little red spots on his hands in incredulity; ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney |
