"Unlikely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a not unlikely explanation. But the consensus of opinion in camp was that the bright patch was the reflection of some powerful light in the low country on the opposite side of ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... and quite irrespective of their dramatic relevancy. It cannot be said that they suggested much resemblance to actual warfare. Still they demanded of the performers skill of a peculiar kind, great physical endurance and ceaseless activity. The combat-sword was an unlikely-looking weapon, very short in the blade, with a protuberant hilt of curved bars to protect the knuckles of the combatant. The orchestra supplied a strongly-accentuated tune, and the swords clashed together in strict time with the music. The fight raged hither and thither about the stage, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... be quite without foundation. Then came wafts of rumor to the effect that the prospectors had "struck it rich," but were determined to keep the strike to themselves. My youthful imagination inclined to the latter view. I had a friend who knew the Swazis well, and he held it to be unlikely in the last degree that a party of peaceful prospectors would be molested. Accordingly, I made up my mind to get on the trail of the adventurers and stick to it ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... the drama, but should bear in mind that quite recently it has been stated that both the Rev. SILAS K. HOCKING and Mr. JACK DEMPSEY have taken part in photo-plays. It cannot be doubted that the peculiar talent required for making the heart of the people throb is being revealed in the most unlikely places. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... But if Napoleon had not intended that Ney should occupy Quatre Bras on the night of the 15th, the statement that this had been done would have been a purposeless futility; and if he had intended that Ney should do so it is unlikely that he should have omitted to give him instructions to that effect. Grouchy claims to have heard Napoleon censure Ney for his omission to occupy Quatre Bras; an omission which had its importance, for the reason, among ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... of course, is eager to know whether the boatman's much more complete and connected narrative is a popular mythical development in the years between 1820 and 1890, or whether the schoolmaster of Rannoch did not tell all he knew. It is unlikely, I think, that the siege of Seringapatam would have been remembered so long in connection with the Black Officer if it had not formed part of his original legend. Meanwhile the earliest printed notice ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... thereby. Money advanced upon such a security must be as safe as money invested in Consols, unless there were anything doubtful in the circumstances of the policy; and that, with a man of Mr. Sheldon's respectability, was to the last degree unlikely. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... thought he could discern the stuff that meant an actress in her, and prophesied that she would before long be playing Juliet at the Haymarket. He was still at the age when the habit is to discover geniuses in unlikely places, especially when the women are pretty. He raved about her when he adjourned with his companions to the bar, and they chaffed him a good deal to his face and sneered at him behind his back. He was there the next ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... famous residence of the Medici, in the same city, are among, the best examples of their kind still remaining. We are informed by Vasari that these "lumiere miravigliosi" were the work of one Nicolo Grosso Caparra, a celebrated artificer of the time, by whom it is not unlikely that many of the beautiful rings and cressets which still decorate the old palaces of Siena may have been executed. On the centre spike was fixed a little iron barrel, containing tow and pitch, while on each of the other spikes a torch was fastened. In some of ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 7, - July, 1895 • Various
... are for the most part very ingenious and useful to advanced players, but when some of them are transposed into other keys as their composer demands they become practically impossible to play with the proper touch, etc. Furthermore, one would be very unlikely to find a passage demanding such a technical feat in the compositions of any of the great masters of the piano. Consequently, such exercises are of no practical value and would only be demanded by a teacher with more respect for tradition ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... have been a collision with a meteor he conceded, but, it was thought, highly unlikely. And now, the urgent business of the search called, ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... driven up to the door with a considerable pile of luggage on it. There was nothing very remarkable in that. The arrival of a cab loaded with luggage was an event of hourly occurrence at Paulo's Hotel, and quite unlikely to arouse any especial interest in the mind of Miss Dolores. What, however, did languidly arouse her interest, did slightly stir her surprise, was that the smooth-shaven patroller of the opposite side of the way immediately crossed ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... seems a terribly sterile place, but we may as well have a look round; one finds good specimens sometimes in unlikely spots. Let's get ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... prefer, sir, that you did not address me thus familiarly, since you and I have omitted the formality of an introduction; and in the absence of any joint acquaintances are unlikely ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... we lived in a condition of great misery, and death stared us in the face many times. The prospect was a gloomy one: just when my wife and I had reached the time to which we had been looking forward for many years it seemed daily increasingly unlikely that our lives could escape a violent and brutal ending. Such thoughts inevitably occurred to our minds during these dark and anxious days. But there was still to come even worse than we had yet experienced. It got colder and colder every day ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... no fastening whatever, but they passed away without molesting us. I was a little more seriously alarmed another day. Some reports had reached us that the French were coming back, and were within nine miles. I thought it unlikely, but about eight in the morning all the waggons that had passed for two hours came back as fast as possible, horses trotting and men running. I was uneasy on Sir William's account: his situation was so helpless. I leant forward, to prevent ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... indeed its constitutive elements. That two walkers starting from different points and wandering at random should finally meet, is no great wonder. But that, throughout their walk, they should describe two identical curves exactly superposable on each other, is altogether unlikely. The improbability will be the greater, the more complicated the routes; and it will become impossibility, if the zigzags are infinitely complicated. Now, what is this complexity of zigzags as compared with that of an organ in which thousands of different cells, each being itself a kind of organism, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... comments to be made on this. The first is that the scene of the fighting was in Yamato. The second, that the chiefs of the Tsuchi-gumo had Japanese names—names identical, in two cases, with those of a kind of Shinto priest (hafuri), and therefore most unlikely to have been borne by men not of Japanese origin. The third, that the presence of Tsuchi-gumo in Yamato preceded the arrival of Jimmu's expedition. And the fourth, that the Records are silent about the whole episode. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... be on my guard, and, as I have said before, I never take an avoidable risk. For this reason I sat at once in the darkest corner I could find and remained there throughout the examination. I thought it extremely unlikely, though possible, that an attempt might be made to track the assassin with dogs, yet, since that is precisely the first thing I myself would have done, I decided that the risk was worth avoiding. I accordingly set the boat adrift to indicate an escape by water, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... the author of the above lines had ever been to Japan. I should think it very unlikely; and possibly the poet is but describing the scenery of his Cumberland home. In no disparagement of the beauteous country of the lake and mountain, yet we must confess that nothing there can ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... be a fair death for the servant of God. But unlikely it is that you will accomplish this deed of violence, because God's angels follow me ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... one. A handsome master will charm a girl much more than one who is ill-favoured or deformed. Other qualities besides beauty affect the issue. Effeminate boys or tomboyish girls are apt to be repulsive to other children; they are exposed to mockery and teasing of all kinds, and are very unlikely to give rise to erotic sentiments in their companions. It is by no means rare for the inclinations of children to be directed towards their own parents. In the case of many children who are fond of "getting into mother's bed," sexual sentiments lie at the root of the desire. Moreover, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Warton, that it had more energy than could have been expected from Walpole, to whom others ascribed it, Warton remarked that it might have been written by Walpole, and buckramed by Mason. Indeed, it is not unlikely that one supplied the venom, and the other spotted the snake. In a letter of expostulation to Warton, Mason did not go the length of disclaiming the satire, though he was angry enough that it should be ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... 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 turtle-doves. They ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... unlikely (in spite of Johannes Weiss) that St. Paul ever saw Jesus in the flesh. But he did come in contact with the little Christian community at Jerusalem. These disciples at first attempted to live as strict members of the Jewish Church. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... unusually strong in him, a passion for ludicrous images, and a passion for subtle speculations, sometimes prompted him to talk on serious subjects in a manner which gave grave and just offence. It is not unlikely that Temple, who seldom went below the surface of any question, may have been infected with the prevailing scepticism. All that we can say on the subject is, that there is no trace of impiety in his works, and that the case with which he carried his election for ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to promote a system of public schools in Pennsylvania was defeated through their own ill judgment and the ignorant prejudices of the immigrant people played upon by politicians. But the mere attempt entitles them to lasting gratitude. It is not unlikely that their divisive work of church organization may have contributed indirectly to defeat the aspirations of their fellow-Germans after the perpetuation of a Germany in America. The combination of the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the momentary fright she had received from her supposed recognition of a face in the audience. Undoubtedly she had been mistaken. Yet why should she have chosen to believe that she saw about the most unlikely person of her acquaintance? A guilty conscience should have conjured up some ghost who had ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... the saddlebags he took 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 ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... utterly wretched and depressed: the world seemed a dark place to her, especially when she considered that she had already lost one friend whom she had so long and so tenderly loved, and that she was not unlikely to lose another. For Wyvis might blame her—would blame her, probably—for what she had ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... It is very likely that the same ingredients are also used in dyeing the northern green teas for the foreign market; of this, however, I am not quite certain. There is a vegetable dye obtained from Isatis indigotica much used in the northern districts, and called Teinsing; and it is not unlikely that it may be the substance which is employed. The Chinese never use these dyed teas themselves, and I certainly think their taste in this respect is more correct than ours. It is not to be supposed that the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... the MS. of the novel as fast as he wrote it, and I was afraid that some of the original characters might be recognized by their friends, being so graphically described; however, he believed it unlikely, people seeing and judging so differently ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Majesty appointed Commissions to inquire; read Reports; could for a long while make out nothing certain. At last came a decision on the sudden;—royal mind suddenly illuminated, it is a little uncertain how. Some give the credit of it to Gundling, which is unlikely; others to "Two Generals" of pious orthodox turn, acquainted with Halle;—and I have heard obscurely that it was the Old Dessauer, who also knew Halle; and was no doubt wearied to hear nothing talked ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... perhaps this sense of a clear call in an age of intellectual ferment, of sex problems and political friction, that sent so many unlikely types of manhood straight as arrows to that universal target—the Front. The War offered a high and practical outlet for their dumb idealism; to their realism, it offered the 'terrific verities of fatigue, suffering, bodily danger—beloved life and ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... were naturally disposed to borrow it, or to put on the semblance of it. But no phase of life is without its reverse side, and the present generation cannot claim freedom from pretension of the same sort. It is not unlikely that in expanding the intelligence they established new standards of distinction, which in a measure weakened the old ones. But if they precipitated the downfall of the court they began by rivaling, it was in the logical course of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun. If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have suspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was not unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so much as I could see showed me ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... deliberate rocking motion. If I was able to swing it back and forth fast enough by slowly gaining speed and multiplying the momentum, it would be possible to get it to lean far enough that the dome would snap off, leaving the room open to the air. This was possible, though rather unlikely. But I tried anyway. ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... in London," admitted Draycott. "Anyway, I got out. It was a mistake; I see it now. Who is to believe me as it is—it sounds a sort of unlikely tale. And how do they come to pick on me? to know what I had? I don't drink, or open my mouth, or hell round. It ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... seaport village the passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and some more significant ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... about that," said Mr. Granger, "and how the law will treat your claims; if you care to advance them—which I should suppose unlikely. I have no compunction about the justice of my decision. You will go nowhere without your child, you say? Did you think of that last night when your lover was persuading ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... it is so unlikely, Uncle Abel, that I shall ever have any money to spend. It is quite easy saying what we can do in imaginary circumstances. Reality is always different, and more ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... 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. ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... exist in the countries where they were originally domesticated, and yet be unknown to ornithologists; and this, considering their size, habits and remarkable characters, seems improbable; or they must have become extinct in the wild state. But birds breeding on precipices, and good flyers, are unlikely to be exterminated; and the common rock-pigeon, which has the same habits with the domestic breeds, has not been exterminated even on several of the smaller British islets, or on the shores of the Mediterranean. Hence the supposed extermination of so many ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... 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 who thirst for ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... followed a course by which he had nothing to gain and everything to lose was either a fool or was actuated by some profound unselfishness. To save a life? But with all the resources Clark could have commanded, added to his personal popularity, a first degree sentence would have been unlikely. Not a life, then, but perhaps something greater than ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... It is not unlikely that Akiba's journeys, extending into Africa, and undertaken to bring about the restoration of the independence of Judaea, had as their subsidiary, unavowed purpose, the discovery of the ten lost tribes. The "Dark Continent" played no ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... subject, he observed, "'twould be well to offer a reward of thirty or forty thousand crowns to any one who will deliver the Prince, dead or alive; since from very fear of it—as he is pusillanimous—it would not be unlikely that he should die of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... seas and lakes, there was no sign of water in the whole, vast, desolate globe. An unlikely place, Chet admitted, for the beginning of their search, and yet—those flashes of light!—the S O ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... 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 ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the young heir of Ellangowan; "and I trust, with the assistance of Heaven, which has so far guided us, and with that of these good friends, whom their own generous hearts have interested in my behalf, such a consummation of my hard adventures is now not unlikely.—But as a soldier, I must look with some interest upon that worm-eaten hold of ragged stone; and if this undermining scoundrel, who is now in possession, dare to ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... would not be very easy for me to give you any idea of the pleasure I found in your present. People who write for the magazines (probably from a guilty conscience) are apt to suppose their works practically unpublished. It seems unlikely that any one would take the trouble to read a little paper buried among so many others; and reading it, read it with any attention or pleasure. And so, I can assure you, your little book, coming from so far, gave me all the pleasure ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... down their buildings with her terrible shells. The Secretary of War said, at a hastily called cabinet meeting in Washington: "The 'Merrimac' will change the whole character of the war: she will destroy every naval vessel; she will lay all the seaboard cities under contribution. Not unlikely we may have a shell or cannon-ball from one of her guns, in the White House, before we ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... unlikely, my lord," rejoined the marquis, "that you have forgotten certain occurrences that took place last evening. Such trifling matters are not apt to make a very deep impression, so with your permission I will recall them to your mind. In the so-called green-room, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... (para 172) that the Holy Spirit was so greatly angered by the sin of Ham that he could not bear even to speak his name in the curse. And it is true, as the punishment shows, that Ham sinned grievously. The other reason mentioned above as not at all unlikely, I will here repeat: Ham had been called and received into the ark by the divine Word, and had been saved with the others, and Noah wanted to spare him whom God had spared in the flood. Therefore, he transferred the curse which Ham ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... have been an elaborate trick. It was unlikely, but not impossible, that Garr Symm had learned Ramsey's identity already and had sent an operative here to await him. Ramsey and the Vegan girl had come on foot. It was a ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... fear for me, Mr. Everard," exclaimed Alice, aroused from her timidity by a dread of the consequences not unlikely to ensue, where civil war sets relations, as well as fellow-citizens, in opposition to each other.—"Oh, begone, I conjure you, begone! Nothing stands betwixt me and my father's kindness, but these ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Dago Duke. "It's the preposterous—the most unlikely thing you can think of that is frequently true. I've studied that woman, with my comparatively limited opportunities, until I know her better than you think and far, far better ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... living in a period of transition more hysterically hurried than its immediate predecessor at least, I have made my figures vacillating, out of joint, torn between the old and the new. And I do not think it unlikely that, through newspaper reading and overheard conversations, modern ideas may have leaked down to the ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... north a similar condition is emphasized conspicuously at Majuba Hill and the surrounding country, which, however, and perhaps for that very reason, seem unlikely to play much of a part in the ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... boy, a year older than himself. The two lads were antipodal in disposition, intelligence, and social standing; for though Richard went poorly clad, the reflection of his cousin's wealth gilded him. Durgin was the son of a washerwoman. An intimacy between the two would perhaps have been unlikely but for one fact: it was Durgin's mother who had given little Dick a shelter at the period of his parents' death. Though the circumstance did not lie within the pale of Richard's personal memory, he ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... so many different kinds of homes that it is unlikely that they will meet the same sorts of difficulties. There is the girl who goes into the society home, where it is impossible for her to carry out her ideals without conflict with its social standards. On the other hand, there is the girl who goes into the very simple ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... getting on at the bar, Pleading or Sessions. I have failed in the former, I shall now try the latter. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo!" I was, I confess, amongst those of his friends who were not sanguine as to his prospects of success at the bar, regarding him as unlikely to attract favourable notice in court practice. Shortly after he had attended at the Sessions, however, he began to obtain a little employment in petty cases there; and, contrary to expectation, became very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... mark on the MS, and the date when it was written are, it may be observed, wholly unfounded. The MS. L, in which it occurs, is of the year 1502, and it is very unlikely that Leonardo was in Milan at that time; this however would not prevent the remark, which is somewhat obscure, from applying to the Cathedral at ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... unlikely that these performances in the inns caused a good deal of noise and disturbance in the quarters where they took place, and that the joyous, but by no means refined or quiet, "pit," when going home, excited ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... The boat was gone, and it was extremely unlikely anyone had seen him leave it. The turn had caused the boat to tilt, lifting the side away from him. He was certain that the guards had not seen the maneuver. That being so, and taking into account his distance from the creek entrance, he ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... suffer from slugs when in flower, but perhaps equally as much when in its dormant state, especially if the winter is mild; then I have noticed the somewhat prominent crowns eaten entirely off, and it is not unlikely that this plant has come to have the name of a fickle grower, from being the favourite prey ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... their thoughts to one another, and some of them deliberately act in concert. The comparison of similarities is endless: I only make it because some may say that since the vapour-engine is not likely to be improved in the main particulars, it is unlikely to be henceforward extensively modified at all. This is too good to be true: it will be modified and suited for an infinite variety of purposes, as much as man has been modified so as to exceed ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... naturally have been added at the same time. Stuart would never have engrossed a long Spanish inscription, and that he should have signed his name (contrary to his habit) and have added the "R. A." to which he had no right is most unlikely. What is most unlikely of all, however, is that there should have been found in Spain an artist capable of painting a portrait like the Don Josef. Both heads are absolutely alike in handling, in texture, in mixing of the pigments, and in all of those things are absolutely characteristic of Stuart, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... putting off those who plague others with their great discoveries. The first demand made should be—Mr. Moses, before I allow you to lead me over the Red Sea, I must have you show that you are learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians upon your own subject. The plea that it is unlikely that this or that unknown person should succeed where Newton, etc. have failed, or should show Newton, etc. to be wrong, is utterly null and void. It was worthily versified by Sylvanus Morgan (the great herald who in his Sphere of Gentry gave coat armor to "Gentleman Jesus," ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the latitude and longitude of the smoking mountain—and being familiar with the Bering Sea, all hands admitted that he might well know it—the ambergris was most certainly lost to them, unless, as was most unlikely, the Dawn had had even worse luck with the weather than the Cohasset. But if Carew did not know Fire Mountain's location, they had a chance, though Carew was probably cruising adjacent waters, on the lookout for them—and if they encountered him, they ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... gift of prophecy to his other high qualifications, and amongst other things has predicted that, when the town shall join the wood, Bombay shall be no more. The accomplishment of what in his days must have appeared very unlikely ever to take place—namely, the junction of inhabited dwellings with the trees of Mahim—seems to be in rapid course of fulfilment; the land has been drained, many portions formerly impassable filled up, and rendered solid ground, while the houses are extending so fast, that the Burruh ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... broken down in quotient. Two must ultimately be eliminated—barring, of course, the possible emergence of any minor factor to status of Prime, which at this stage seems unlikely. It is estimated that by today or tomorrow at the latest Carmack's murderer will be brought ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... the loan of his house at Cromer. She accepted the offer for a couple of months, and found a little benefit for the bracing air. She mentioned in her diary at this time that she had "an undue fear of an imbecile or childish state"—a not unlikely feeling to be cherished by an energetic woman accustomed all her life long to the work of helping others. At the end of October she returned home, thankfully rejoicing, however, in an improved ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... me, for Mr. Gregory had always seemed so unlikely to be swayed by impulse, or carried, in the slightest degree, beyond a point indicated by his judgment. It simply went to prove that the most regularly and smoothly laid-out man, if one may so express it, has unsuspected ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... affect the designs of civil buildings, for the most beautiful forms of Gothic chapels are not those which are best fitted for Protestant worship. As it was noticed in the second volume, when speaking of the Cathedral of Torcello it seems not unlikely, that as we study either the science of sound, or the practice of the early Christians, we may see reason to place the pulpit generally at the extremity of the apse or chancel; an arrangement entirely destructive of the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... simple enough, though very sad. The Earl— the last Earl of Cairnforth—was a hopeless cripple for life. All the consultations of all the doctors had resulted in that conclusion. It was very unlikely he would ever be better than he was now physically, but mentally he was certainly "a' richt"—or "a' there," as the country-folk express it. There was, as Mr. Cardross carefully explained to every body, not ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and their intense anxiety lest the one descendant of that branch become in any way a Marley rather than a Pritchard, she was able to gather a very fair idea of what Elsie's upbringing must have been. Unless she might have inherited a sense of humor from the Marley side (which was unlikely, since no one possessing a sense of humor would have married Augusta Pritchard), the girl could hardly have escaped becoming a prig at the mildest. Cold, colorless, correct, self-sufficient, Elsie Pritchard would ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... my rage abated, that I had set out on a foolish undertaking. I was utterly at sea as to the character of the grounds; I was following a man whom I had not seen until two hours before, and whom I began to suspect of all manner of designs upon me. It was wholly unlikely that the person who had fired into the windows would lurk about, and, moreover, the light of the lantern, the crack of the leaves and the breaking of the boughs advertised our approach loudly. I am, however, a person given to steadfastness in error, if nothing else, and I plunged ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... and this stone is therefore called Enalus to this day. To be short and to speak all in a few words,—he that knows how to distinguish between the impossible and the unusual, to make a difference between the unlikely and the absurd, to be neither too credulous nor too distrustful,—he hath learned your lesson, Do not overdo. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... and the full flow of gossip swept about him. Yes, the great Dr. Shergold lay dying; there were bulletins in the morning papers; it seemed unlikely that he would see ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Milner was to be got rid of at all costs; for the policy which The South African News was intended to promote was that not of Great Britain, but of the Transvaal. The paper was directly inspired—it is indeed not unlikely that the articles themselves were written—by some of the members of the Ministry, Lord Milner's "constitutional advisers," whom throughout he himself treated with the respect to which their ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... my errand struck me hard as I felt the city surging round me. Without a clew to work on, I was utterly unlikely to find the two women, and even if I should stumble upon them, in what way could I explain my conduct in following them? I was visited also by the discouraging thought that New York might not, after ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... Muse pays you long visits." And Gloriani turned and looked, from head to foot, at so unlikely an object of her favors. Singleton smiled and began to wipe his forehead very hard. "Oh, you!" said the sculptor; "you ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... a little surprised and embarrassed at this unexpected and informal proceeding, which she knew would greatly shock the countess; but, taking the card, answered, courteously, "I fear nothing is more unlikely than that I should cross the ocean; but, if such an unlooked-for event should ever occur, I ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... time they all studied together under Hugh Knox. At first there was discord, for Alexander would have led a host of cherubims or had naught to do with them, and these boys were clever and spirited. There were rights of word and fist in the lee of Mr. Lytton's barn, where interference was unlikely; but the three succumbed speedily, not alone to the powerful magnetism in little Hamilton's mind, and to his active fists, but because he invariably excited passionate attachment, unless he encountered jealous hate. When his popularity with these boys was established ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... an unlikely story for one of those Prussians to tell, whose hosts were everywhere all-powerful, who had the city at their beck and call, could have requisitioned a hundred carriages and brought a thousand horses from their stables. And he denied her prayer with the haughty ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... author probably had not read at thirty. So now of her budding maturity she was not the wonder-woman of fiction, causing by her brilliance her hearers, like Cortez's men, to stare at each other with a wild surmise. No, nothing so unlikely. But she was intelligent and she was ardent; and there are not boundaries to the distance one may go with that equipment. She was admirable and she felt that she was effective. She had a consciousness of confidence amounting almost ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... rejoined Diana doubtfully, "but it is unlikely. As to other people identifying the body, they no doubt did so by looking at the face and its scar. Still, I do not believe the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... at all that I was the person referred to; but what could be the reason of it all? What was there that I could possibly hear to my advantage, save news of Phyllis, and it would be most unlikely that I would learn anything about the movements of the gang who had abducted her from a firm of first-class solicitors such as I understood Messrs. Dawson & Gladman to be. However, it was no use wondering about it, so I dismissed the matter from my mind for the present, ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... been obliged to drive over the Taygetus range, over which there has never yet been a road for wheeled vehicles. It is plain therefore that the audience for whom the "Odyssey" was written was one that would be unlikely to know anything about the topography of the Peloponnese, so that the writer might take what liberties ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... qualities, and her personal attractions, that certain persons whom he names, among others the clergyman of the parish, expressed their desire to engage her in their own service. The poet rejects their solicitations, and informs them how unlikely a thing it is that Flora should engage with them, as she was intended for ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... Mr. Weatheral, if you could see the heaps and heaps of lovely things simply begging to be bought; it seemed positively unkind to come away and leave any of them." As she said nothing whatever about the young man, it seemed unlikely that she could have him much on her mind. She had a new way, very charming to Peter, of surrendering the afternoon into his hands; let him ask nothing of her she seemed to say, but to enjoy herself. She built out of their being there before her, ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... Umbrella—since for all practical purposes the two are really identical—dates from the earliest ages, some commentators on the Bible fancying they can discover it in places where a shade protecting from the sun is mentioned. This is not unlikely, but it is certain that the Parasol has been in use from ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... in the autumn; and in the autumn they said it must come in the spring. All these years have passed and there is still no sign of war. We hear the same prophecies daily, but I learned long since not to believe in them. War may come, but it seems to me more and more unlikely." He answered, "I think you are right. I advise my own government in the same sense. The fact is that war in these days is not what it once was; it is infinitely more dangerous from every point of view, and it becomes more and more so every ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... to find out that,' said John, admiringly. 'Now a man would never have thought of it. Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... her position to-day? In the eyes of the State, she is now living with a man who is not {115} her husband. Her State-husband is still alive, and can apply, at any moment, for an order for the restitution of conjugal rights—however unlikely he is to get it. Further, if in the future she has any children by her real husband (unless she has been married again to him, after divorce from her State-husband) these children will be illegitimate. This is the sort of muddle the Divorce Act has got us into. One course, and ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... a life as Clare's, so prominent are the human interests which confront us, that those of poetry, as one of the fine arts, are not unlikely to sink for a time completely out of sight. The long and painful strain upon our sympathy to which we are subject as we read the story is such perhaps as the life of no other English poet puts upon us. The spell of the great moral problems ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... clever chap like you, P-Peter." Speug had also accumulated a considerable collection of pencil sketches, mostly his own, in which life at Muirtown Seminary was treated very broadly indeed, and as he judged this portfolio unlikely to be appreciated by Nestie, and began himself to have some scruple in having his own name connected with it, it was consigned to the flames, and any offer of an addition, which boys made to Speug as a connoisseur in Rabelaisean art, was taken as a ground of offence. His personal ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... countrymen. It was hard telling how long it would be before the British and French general staffs would consider the American troops sufficiently seasoned to take over a complete sector of the battle line, and for that reason, the "Sammies," as they were affectionately called at home, were unlikely to see any real ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... In proof of the existence of such a faction, an appeal has been made to a letter from Lord Spencer to his wife.—Sidney Papers, ii. 667. Whether the cipher 243 is correctly rendered "papists," I know not. It is not unlikely that Lord Spencer may have been in the habit of applying the term to the party supposed to possess the royal confidence, of which party he was the professed adversary. But when it became at last necessary to point out the heads of this popish faction, it appeared ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... herself—that Essec Powell or Shoni might have discovered her intentions and prevented their fulfilment; perhaps even she might be shut up in one of the rooms in that gaunt, grey house! Nothing was too unreasonable or unlikely for his fears, and as he approached the church he was firmly convinced that something had happened to frustrate his hopes; nobody was in sight, the Berwen brawled on its way, the birds sang the ivy on the old church tower glistened in the sunshine, and the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Governor Bernard not unlikely felt more keenly the awkwardness of all this from having received, as a reward for service, the honor of a Baronetcy of Great Britain. The "Gazette," in announcing this, (May 1, 1769,) has an ironical article addressing the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... instance, a man goes out of a room for a walk. Nothing more trivial in appearance. And yet it may be momentous. He comes back—he has seen perhaps a drunken brute, taken particular notice of the snow on the ground—and behold he is no longer the same man. The most unlikely things have a secret power over one's thoughts—the grey whiskers of a particular person—the goggle ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... saw how impossible it would be even to keep a healthy child well in the absence of proper food, in an unwholesome atmosphere, and without sufficient shelter from the changes of weather which might come at any hour, and must come soon. How unlikely it was that a sick baby should recover under such circumstances, she was well aware. Yet she little thought how ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... It was an unlikely thing to bet on, and Barker thought he might have given the Duke odds, instead of asking them, as he had done. But he liked to get all he could in a fair way. Having arranged his bet, he told Claudius he might climb to the mast-head if ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... previously unexplored, no pains should be spared in examining every spot, even the most unlikely, where it is possible for water to exist, for after searching in vain, in large deep rocky and likely looking watercourses, I have frequently found water in some small branch or gorge, that had appeared too insignificant, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... hurriedly and ran downstairs. Lord Randolph had come to the window in his greatcoat. His follower waited for him outside. It was possible that he would take a hansom and drive straight to the House, but Andrew had reasons for thinking this unlikely. The rain had somewhat abated. Lord Randolph came out, put up his umbrella, and, glancing at the sky for a moment, set off briskly up St. ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... is very unlikely. In 1757 Griffiths, the owner of the Monthly, aiming a blow at Smollett, the editor of the Critical, said that The Monthly Review was not written by 'physicians without practice, authors without learning, men without decency, gentlemen without ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Bertran moved Henry II. to clemency by a reference [112] to the death of the "young king." The account of Alfonso's supposed treachery is probably no less unhistorical: the siege lasted only a week and it is unlikely that the besiegers would have been reduced to want in so short a time. It was probably invented to explain the hostility on Bertran's part which dated from the wars between Alfonso and Raimon V. of Toulouse. This animosity was trumpeted forth in ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... foreign countries have likewise to be approved by the parliament, etc., etc. Such strict stipulations which are not even known in such an advanced country in matters constitutional as England were extorted from the imperial family by the advisory council. Therefore it is most unlikely that the makers of the future constitution will take any article from the nineteen capitulations of "confidence." They will use the Constitutions of Japan and Prussia as joint model and will always have in their mind the actual conditions of this country and the standard of the people. In short, ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... French seem rather inclined to place, after Bolivar, a Prince of the House of Orleans on the throne, and it does not seem unlikely that the Columbians may ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... own part I have made up my mind never to believe in logs and stones, though they be in the shape of fiend or man, whose power I do not understand; and although I have been told that they have great power, yet it seems to me very unlikely, for I find that those images which are called gods are in every way uglier and less powerful than myself. How much less powerful are they therefore than the great God who rules over the whole universe, who makes the rain to fall and the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... but he said that there was no danger. He was greeted on every hand with great consideration; and it seemed not unlikely that, in recognition of his influence with the people, he might rise to some high position. The King of Prussia sympathized with him. Heine called him the Messiah of the nineteenth century. When he passed from city to city, the whole population turned ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Dallaway's Constantinople (p. 2) [Rev. James Dallaway (1763-1834) published Constantinople Ancient and Modern, etc., in 1797], a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from Gillies' History of Greece(vol. i. p. 335), which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius: "The present state of Greece, compared to the ancient, is ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... "Flora and fauna of some unknown island would be much more in the Schermerhorn line of traffic. Not unlikely that some of the festive natives collected ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... gathering, from the expression of their countenances, that they obviously relished the "fire-water" which has been the ruin of so many peoples in these beautiful but benighted seas. However, there was not enough left to go round, and it was manifestly unlikely that William Bludger had succeeded in conveying ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... from one mother? I am quite ready to admit it, so unlikely is it that the bluebottle, who is so rare inside our houses during the severe cold of winter, should be frequent enough outside to form into groups and to do business in common while an icy blast is raging. A ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... with a kindness, and would nurse the sick, and he was not afraid of contagious diseases or of anything. Gabriel could match Celeste as a dancer, but it was not likely Alexis Barbeau would find him a match in any other particular. And it grew more unlikely, every day that the man from New Orleans spent ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... his passions and despairs and infidelities, would find Caroline's stories innocent enough. Her hope was that Henrietta would not try to cap them, but the chances were that she would be a terrible young person, that she would find herself adrift in the respectability of Radstowe where she was unlikely to meet those young men, not of the right kind, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... think that the only true friend she had had in Memphis, till she had become more intimate with the physician, should quit the world forever without having heard her justification. Nothing could be more unlikely than that any one in Neforis' household—excepting her little grandchild should ever remember her with kindness; and she scarcely desired it; but she rebelled against the idea of forfeiting the respect she had earned, even in the governor's house. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was the next question? I knew my father's vessels were all out to the herring harvest, which begins in August, and ends just before Christmas, so that it was very unlikely he would send for me. Beside this, I wanted to give them a surprise by popping in upon them when they least expected me. To this proceeding, however, there was one great drawback, for, like a true Crusoe, I lacked money, having but a ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... hundred pounds—favors my theory," he replied. "Your Munich Jew, whom I happen to know by repute, is a very clever scoundrel. It is most unlikely that he would have parted with a real Rembrandt for such a sum. But I will gladly refund you the amount if this proves ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... as to whether she would ever be likely to see him again, and decided it was most unlikely, and that probably he had already forgotten the ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... unlikely, but we could ask Poli. He lives here somewhere and is in charge of the library—filing new books and tending ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... of events is not very well observed in the Assyrian text, and the liberation of Padi is inserted in 11. 8-11, before the account of the war with Hezekiah. It seems very unlikely that the King of Judah would have released his prisoner before his treaty with Sennacherib; the Assyrian scribe, wishing to bring together all the facts relating to Ekron, anticipated this event. Hebrew tradition fixed the ransom at the lowest figure, 300 talents of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... lighter and more pleasing style of poetry than the harsh and scholastic productions of Donne and Cowley. The admirers, therefore, of this old school were confined to the ancient cavaliers, and the old courtiers of Charles I.; men unlikely to lead the fashion in the court of a gay monarch, filled with such men as Buckingham, Rochester, Etherege, Sedley, and Mulgrave, whose time and habits confined their own essays to occasional verses, and satirical effusions, in which they often ridiculed the heights of poetry they ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... with the confidence accorded to such solid and old-established structures as the Church or Bank. He dreaded no shrinking in the eyes of the three women he had come to see. But supposing—merely supposing—anything so unlikely as a mental reservation or suspension of judgment on their part, there was that solid pile of dollars at his back for proof. And because the better part of five million dollars cannot be produced visibly and bodily at a moment's notice, and because the female ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... it secret, the story went the rounds, and was embellished by the way: a note of ironic pity for Olivier, who was represented as a victim, was introduced, and he cut rather a sorry figure. It seemed unlikely that the story could be very interesting to anybody, since the heroes of it were very little known: but a Parisian takes an interest in everything that does not concern him. So much so, that one day Christophe ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... cross-garterings have a certain newness and freshness. They seem sure they will yet be claimed. Why not? Why SHOULDN'T John Doe, Esq., or Mrs. Richard Roe turn up at any moment? I do not know. I can only say that nothing in the world seems to me more unlikely. Thus it is that these young bright envelops touch my heart even more than do their dusty and sallowed seniors. Sour resignation is less touching than impatience for what will not be, than the eagerness that has to wane and wither. Soured beyond measure ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... "That is extremely unlikely," answered Duncan, "particularly as his standing at Bradstreet's is unimpaired. I asked Bradstreet's yesterday for a special report on him, and they gave him four A's. That means that he has ample capital and ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... me not unlikely that there should be. Do not different tribes of our own race and color often ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... carrots, turnips, and potatoes; but although he had sufficient proofs of the suitableness of the soil and climate to the growth of most of these articles, which he found that even the winter of New Zealand was too mild to injure, it appeared to him very unlikely that the inhabitants would be at the trouble to take care even of those whose value they in some degree appreciated. With the exception, in fact, of the turnips and potatoes, the vegetable productions which Cook took so much pains to introduce seem to have all perished. The potatoes, ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... not seem at all likely that the pistols or the ammunition could fall out of the box. It is true other things had fallen along the way, but this seemed to be such an unlikely occurrence that they could scarcely ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... fancy, often put her foot into the garden; and young people like her mustn't really go into strange places, for she's not like our children, who are able to use their legs! In what graveyards don't they ramble about! A puff of wind may, on the one hand, have struck her, it's not at all unlikely; or being, on the other, so chaste in body, and her eyes also so pure she may, it is to be feared, have come across some spirit or other. I can't help thinking therefore that you should consult some book of exorcisms on her behalf; for mind ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... It is unlikely, he says, that an eternal substance having neither form, condition, measure, place or time, should change into a body or bodies having those accidents; or that a wise being, not subject to change or influence, or comprehensibility should choose ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... life had lost the edifying element of the complete poverty of his shelterless sojourn by the side of the tomb. Nor, when his time was up, did he show any inclination to resume his wanderings, and it seems not unlikely that he will remain in his quarters at the tomb till his turn comes to die, and then the kindly egg-merchant will erect a whitewashed sepulchre over his remains, and he will be ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... her advice for the journey (and perhaps something more substantial), but he must have seen that, though virtue might be its own reward, he was unlikely to get any other. Mrs. Bal had lent Barrie to us, and without a woman to aid and abet him, it seemed to me that he was powerless. Such chaperons as Mrs. James don't grow on blackberry bushes even in Scotland, where blackberries, if not gooseberries, are ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... faded, then returned. "Can only suggest ... most unlikely ... but try ... calculator ... ...
— Death Wish • Robert Sheckley
... crashed through obstacles which had delayed the upward journey and they knew where to avoid the worst of the shoals. What fretted them was the fear that Blackbeard might have buried the sea-chest and descended the creek while they were engaged in this wild-goose chase. But this seemed unlikely and, moreover, old Trimble Rogers was the man to nose out the marks of the landing-place and the trail which ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... writing is one of my amusements, but in a wild, careless, and desultory way. Judge, then, how unlikely such scraps are to come out a book. Not that I would hesitate to publish any thing which might do these people good, however it might effect my own name, about which the fifty years which have passed over my head have rendered me quite indifferent. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... before the arrest, it is not at all unlikely that the death sentence has already been decided upon. Optimists in the labor movement maintain that a repetition of the legal murder of 1887, that has caused shame and horror even in the ranks of the upper ten thousand, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... be done before it is ready for the birth-hour, that yet is at a measurable distance from the moment that the germ is planted in the womb of time. Try to realise the analogy by means of the image that I have suggested, and it will not then seem so unlikely to you, that which is true, that in our own times again many messengers have come out from the Manu of the future, in order that those messengers may strike certain keynotes, which mark the chief characteristic of the child that is to be. That note ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... the letter to the Princess Y——, he gave me another to a member of the staff of the Russian Embassy in London, a M. Gudonov. He also urged me to call upon a member of Parliament, a rising politician who is not unlikely to have a ministerial post in the next government, and who has made himself known as an apologist of the Czar's. But as I had good reason to know that this gentleman was by no means a disinterested dupe, like Mr. Place, ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... seemed to the Vicar's mind no more unlikely and infinitely more pleasant that the King's favour should be bound up with the lady we had called Cydaria than that it should be the plain fruit of my lord's friendly offices. Presently his talk infected me with ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... to the depot, where he learned that no one had entered the cars from that place on the previous night, and that Maggie, if she took the train at all, must have done so at some other station. This was not unlikely, and before the day was passed Mr. Carrollton had visited several different stations, and had talked with the conductors of the several trains, but all to no purpose; and, very much disheartened, he returned at nightfall to the old stone house, where to his surprise he found both Theo ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... who identify themselves as Berber live mostly in the mountainous region of Kabylie east of Algiers; the Berbers are also Muslim but identify with their Berber rather than Arab cultural heritage; Berbers have long agitated, sometimes violently, for autonomy; the government is unlikely to grant autonomy but has offered to begin sponsoring teaching ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Bilbao to help him to carry out any scheme he might suggest. Giles wished to catch him before he had time to formulate any new villainy. At all events, Morley would never think that they had tracked him so speedily, or had followed so rapidly. It was unlikely that he would use the yacht to the fullest extent of ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... not talk with her again about books. He imagined what erroneous conclusions she had drawn from that particular chapter, and it stung him the more in that they were undeserved. Of all unlikely things, to have the reputation of being a lady-killer,—he, Burning Daylight,—and to have a woman kill herself out of love for him. He felt that he was a most unfortunate man and wondered by what luck that one book of all the thousands of books should have fallen into his stenographer's ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... burglar or assassin, by day-time, reconnoitres the walls of a house? But, with ill purposes, to solicit such information openly of the chief person endangered, and so, in effect, setting him on his guard; how unlikely a procedure was that? Absurd, then, to suppose that those questions had been prompted by evil designs. Thus, the same conduct, which, in this instance, had raised the alarm, served to dispel it. In short, scarce any suspicion or uneasiness, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... strongly appreciated that view. When he called upon President Grant his first conversation consisted in urging upon him very strongly the selection of Governor Boutwell. He supposed then that it would be quite unlikely that the President would take two men from the same State and supposed that selection would require his own refusal of the offer of the office of Attorney- General. President Grant said that he would think it over and not ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... a turn in the season. But certainly it would have been a very unlikely place for us to meet ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... life, and such a case could hardly arise. The Princess Chiaromonte was in no bodily danger, and the chances were that the delirium would leave her before long; when it disappeared she would probably fall asleep, and it was very unlikely that she should remember anything she had said in her ravings. Meanwhile it was certainly not good for her to go on crying and throwing herself about, as she was doing, for the fever was high already and her wild excitement ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... a separate sheet of paper addressed for 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 ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... reserved headmistress talking so unreservedly they would have gasped with astonishment. But Kitty was too full of sympathetic interest to think of anything else. She had a little unconscious way of her own of winning confidence from the most unlikely of people, and poor Miss Pidsley, who was so weary, so overburthened with worries, so perplexed and altogether out of heart, could not refrain from pouring her troubles out to her; for, first of all, her sympathy, and, secondly, her little gift of the rose had carried her straight into ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... It was unlikely that the entire plant would be shut down. In that case what supervisors would want him to stay on? He ran through the list of his superiors and immediately came ...
— All Day Wednesday • Richard Olin
... in providing methods of saving the zinc formerly discarded from lead ores, and enormous supplies will come forward when required. The tin outlook is encouraging, for the supply from a mining point of view seems unlikely to more than keep pace with the world's needs. In copper the demand is growing prodigiously, but the supplies of copper ores and the number of copper mines that are ready to produce whenever normal prices recur was never so great as to-day. One very hopeful fact ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... as if it rang for her. But that was unlikely; and there were other lodgers of her kind in the house. No doubt it was a visitor ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... maintained its ground; and, when {148} the Virginian group tried in the House to prove laxity and mismanagement against Hamilton, he was triumphantly vindicated. Had the United States been allowed to develop in tranquillity and prosperity for a generation, it is not unlikely that the Federalist party might have struck its roots so deeply as to be impervious to attacks. But it needed time, for in contrast to the Jeffersonian party, whose origin is manifestly in the old-time ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... there is no likelihood of your getting horses." "My lord," answered one of the prisoners, "the black robbed us of our camels as well as our goods, and perhaps they may be in the stables of this castle." "This is not unlikely," replied Codadad; "let us examine." Accordingly they went to the stables, where they not only found the camels, but also the horses belonging to the sultan of Harran's sons. There were some black slaves in the stables, who seeing all the prisoners ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... gleamed out at him expectantly, avariciously, with some suspicion, too. She hoped it concerned money, but it seemed unlikely, so chill a habit of life ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown |
