"Improbably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... public spirit and enterprise of the country did not fail it at this juncture. The English people, though they may be defective in their capacity for organization, are strong in individualism; and not improbably their admirable qualities in the latter respect detract from their efficiency in the former. Thus, in all times, their greatest enterprises have not been planned by officialism and carried out upon any regular system, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... the sacrilegious British soldiers made a target of this stone during the war of Independence. How odious an animosity which pauses not at the grave! How brutal that which spares not the monuments of authentic history! This is not improbably from the pen of Rev. Moddy Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as having been noted for a silver vein of poetry. If his papers be still extant, a copy might ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... whom he stayed awhile on his journey, urged him to throw the whole matter up: forgo the improbably fortune and very certain peril, and not rush in where the strongest living might fear to tread. Why, there was Mark Anthony, Caesar's lieutenant—the Hercules, mailed Bacchus, Roman Anthony—the great dashing captain whom his soldiers so adored— ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... these investigators in terming it bonellein, has recently figured the spectra of Anthea-green, and this also seems to differ considerably from chlorophyl, while I am strongly of the opinion that the pigment of the green crustaceans is, if possible, even more distinct, having not improbably a merely protective resemblance. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... Creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth. It is a singular fact, that the ancient Quiche tradition represents the Deity as a Triad, or Trinity, with the deified heroes arranged in orders below,—a representation not improbably connected with the Hindoo conception. The belief in a Supreme Being seems to have been generally diffused among the Central American and Mexican tribes, even as late as the arrival of the Spaniards. The Mexicans adored Him under the name of Ipalnemoaloni, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... in this, as well as on more festive occasions, claimed equally to take the lead, had come out to demand that the king should visit Paris; and the Ministerial Council thought it safer for him to comply with that petition than to throw himself into the arms of the soldiers, a step which might not improbably lead to ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... in the way of claim. But, at the same time, though indispensable negatively, positively it stretched so much further than any necessity or interest inherent in their present innovations, that not improbably they faltered and shrank back at first from the immeasurable field of consequences upon which it opened. They would willingly have accepted less. But, unfortunately, it sometimes happens, that, to gain as much as is needful ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... passu with the natural laws of chemical combination, it is evident that any force which the present argument could ever have had must now be pronounced as neutralised. Natural causes have been shown, so far as scientific inference can extend, as not improbably sufficient to produce the observed effects; and therefore we are no longer free to invoke the hypothetical ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... understood that he might use his liberty in whatever way he chose; even for returning to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that not 30 improbably, in some of the battles which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank,—in which case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own severe affliction, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... Fenwick was chivalrous, perhaps Quixotic, in his friendships for those whom he regarded, had long been felt, and this feeling was now stronger than ever. He certainly could bring up Sam Brattle if he pleased;—or, if he pleased, as might, some said, not improbably be the case, he could keep him away. There would be L400 to pay for the bail-bond, but the Vicar was known to be rich as well as Quixotic, and,—so said the Puddlehamites,—would care very little about that, if he might thus secure for himself ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... difficulty in claiming the book as one of the tribe of Euphuist pamphlets. But Jack Wilton the "traveller" is a little more of a person than the pedagogic Euphues and the shadowy Philautus. At any rate he has a very strong anticipation of Defoe, whose "Cavalier" was not improbably suggested by him. But Nash has neither the patience of Defoe, nor that singular originality, which accompanies in the author of Moll Flanders a certain inability to make the most of it. The Unfortunate Traveller is ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and roundels, [Footnote: Lais: ... virilais. Chansons ... roundels: different types of versification.] and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship's very ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... was in his lands. One time when his wife was about to have a child, it gave him great perplexity to think that he could not well avoid inviting the hill-man to the christening, which might, not improbably, bring him into ill repute with the priest and the other people of the village. He was going about pondering deeply, but in vain, how he might get out of this dilemma, when it came into his head to ask the advice of the boy that kept his pigs, who had a great head-piece, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... a structure of paradoxical rhetoric. It must be taken, therefore, as something serious in the main; and if so taken, and read by the light reflected from Mr. Whistler's more characteristically brilliant canvases, it may not improbably recall a certain phrase of Moliere's which at once passed into a proverb—"Vous etes orfevre, M. Josse." That worthy tradesman, it will be remembered, was of opinion that nothing could be so well calculated ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... of an almost improbably handsome young man looked back at her. Startling dark-blue eyes; a strong chin, curly brown hair. There was a gleam of white teeth behind the quick, warm smile which always awoke a ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unwelcome news for the lads. Once removed farther from the sea the tribe might, not improbably, take up their abode there, as they would fear to return to the neighborhood of their enemies. This would be fatal to any chance of the lads being taken off by a passing ship. After a few words together, they determined to oppose the movement. Will, in a loud voice and with threatening gestures, ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... cries announce evening editions: 'Porvenir! Noticiero!' Vendors of lottery-tickets wander up and down, audaciously offering the first prize: 'Quien quiere el premio gardo?' Beggars follow you with piteous tales of fasts improbably extended. But most striking is the gente flamenca, the bull-fighter, with his numerous hangers-on. The toreros—toreador is an unknown word, good for comic opera and persons who write novels of Spanish life and cannot be bothered to ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... only to say a few words about myself. Not improbably, the reader might be willing to spare me the trouble; for I have made but a poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no separate interest, and suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other lives. But one still retains some little consideration for one's self; so ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the severer critics—in 1664 was published a little book called The Dutch Drawn to the Life, a hostile work not improbably written with the intention of exciting English animosity to the point of war. A great deal was made of the success of the Dutch fisheries and the mismanagement of our own. The nation was criticised in all its aspects—"well nigh three millions of men, well-proportioned, great ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... perform the ceremony that made her his father's wife, and of the room in which she lay, its walls dimly visible in the light of an arc-lamp just outside the window, gay with saffron cupids who disported themselves among roses of the same complexion. Over the mantel-piece of black iron hung an improbably colored ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... relates it, in nothing; and after due consideration, I have determined, therefore, to abstain from presenting any precis of the learned Doctor's reasoning, or extract from his statement on a subject which he describes as "involving, not improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... parlor, and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry,—where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came a rustling noise as of a minister's silk ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... may remove them all without making any great improvement. All the circumstances may be varied, but that intellectual apathy which has become so marked a characteristic of English life, especially of English public and social life, may not improbably continue. Why nations pass into these morbid phases no one can tell. The spirit of the age, that "polarisation of society" as Tarde[1] used to call it, in a definite direction, is brought about by no cause that can be named as yet. It will remain beyond volitional ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... before, the most illustrious chief of the party adverse to the House of Orange had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob in the very precinct of the palace of the States General. A similar fate might not improbably befall those who should, at this crisis, be accused of serving the purposes of France against their native land, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... himself his lady-love, or rather certain Newport aspects of her which had, so to speak, jarred upon his Kings Port notions of what a lady might properly do? I sat on my gravestone with my wonder, and my now-dawning desire to help him (if improbably I could), to get him out of it, if he were really in it; and he sat on his gravestone opposite, with the path between us, and the little noiseless breeze rustling the white irises, and bearing hither and thither the soft perfume of the ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... stand in need of a friend, who should be in equal authority with him." [Footnote: Life, ii. 485. In these words, Clarendon no doubt expressed some lively memories of the days of the Civil War.] The combination did not answer well. By a fatal error—not improbably induced by Rupert's desire for independent action—the fleet was broken up, and the Prince sailed, on the credit of a false report, to meet a French fleet under Admiral Beaufort. While he was thus detached, Albemarle was attacked by the Dutch fleet, and escaped only with heavy loss. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... military battles, in which the vessels are evidently those employed at sea. According to their own traditions, they colonized in a remote age. They themselves laid claim to Danaus: and the mythus of the expedition of Osiris is not improbably construed into a figurative representation of the spread of Egyptian civilization by the means of colonies. Besides, Egypt was subjected to more than one revolution, by which a large portion of her population was expelled the land, and scattered over the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is not improbably the same as Gale, which, Skinner says, is from the A.-S. Gagel ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... Faria, III. 347—364. Both as in a great measure unconnected with the Portuguese transactions, and as not improbably derived from the worse than suspicious source of Fernand Mendez de Pinro, these very problematical occurrences have been kept by themselves, which indeed they are in de Faria. After this opinion respecting ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... four doses in the day, or even at two, instead of taking it all together. Kate promised to try again, but stated her conviction that the trial would be useless. The doctor, when pressed on the matter, said that his patient might probably live a week, not improbably a fortnight,—perhaps a month, if he would be obedient,—and so forth. Gogram went away without seeing Kate; and Kate, who looked upon a will as an awful and somewhat tedious ceremony, was in doubt whether her ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... it was ruinous. At the moment when he made the bold move, he doubtless expected to be followed by his party. Extreme was his disappointment and boundless his wrath, when he found that he had at his back only a fraction, not improbably less than half, of that party. He learned with infinite chagrin that he had only a divided empire with a private individual; that it was not safe for him, the President of the United States, to originate any important measure without first consulting ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... between five and six feet in length, is astonishingly like our existing divers or grebes in a great many respects; so like them indeed that, had the skeleton of Hesperornis been found in a museum without its skull, improbably would have been placed in the same group of birds as the divers and grebes of the present day.[1] But Hesperornis differs from all existing birds, and so far resembles reptiles, in one important particular—it is provided with teeth. The long jaws are armed with ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... recension there is a letter to one Mary of Cassobola. This was made the parent of a 'correspondence between St. John and the Virgin,' bearing the name of Ignatius: and it is not improbably connected with the outburst of Mariolatry in the eleventh and following centuries. But with 'the first streak of intellectual dawn this Ignatian spectre vanished into its kindred darkness.' The forgery ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... built for the villeins on one of his estates. The Prior sat by in silence, while the Earl impressed on the mind of his agent that the cottages were to be made reasonably comfortable for the habitation of immortal souls and not improbably suffering bodies. When at last the bailiff had departed, the Prior turned to his patron with a smile. "I would all lay lords—and spiritual ones too—were as kindly thoughtful of their ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... necklaces from a very early date;[9106] and, though they might no doubt have obtained it by land-carriage across Europe to the head of the Adriatic, yet their enterprise and their commercial spirit were such as would not improbably have led them to seek to open a direct communication with the amber-producing region, so soon as they knew where it was situated. The dangers of the German Ocean are certainly not greater than those of the Atlantic; ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Comedy of Errors," and indirectly also in "Twelfth Night," has given us intentionally ridiculous illustrations of scenes which he had not improbably witnessed, in the country at any rate, and which bring vividly before us the absurdity of the methods of ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... paillasse on trestles, a chair, a half-crown looking-glass, an old jug and a basin on a wooden table. Even in the houses of the wealthy poor Biddy is very badly treated in this respect. In Muttonwool's house, if he keeps two servants, they both sleep in one room, and not improbably share the same basin. Servants are undoubtedly troublesome to a degree in Australia, but it is not altogether a satisfactory feature in colonial life that the provision made for their ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... for otherwise we can with difficulty imagine one person not deserving to be ordered for execution, on Wednesday next, between the hours of eight and nine ante-meridian. Happily, however, for our future peace of mind, and not improbably for the whole confirmation of our character, our Guardian Genius—(every boy has one constantly at his side, both during school and play hours, though it must be confessed sometimes a little remiss in his duty, for the nature even of angelical beings is imperfect)—always ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... interesting feature in this plan is that if railway communication between Sherman and the Potomac Army had been opened in the summer of 1864, it would have been an interior line of immense importance, not improbably modifying essentially the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the hands if your son is to interfere when I am about to punish a slave for an act of gross disobedience and neglect. I found that all the tobacco required turning, and now it will not be done this afternoon, owing to my orders not being carried out, and the tobacco will not improbably be injured in quality. My position is difficult enough as it is; but if the slaves see that instead of being supported I am thwarted by your son, my authority is gone altogether. No overseer can carry on his work ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... might belong to just any year since the time when women first began to write those purple tales of passion that are so bad for the morals of the servants' hall. It was simply to get copy for this kind of stuff that Mabel Vere (most improbably pretty in the person of Miss GLADYS COOPER) advertised for a husband, for this post had already been assigned to the dullest and stuffiest of fiances. I dare not think how the theme might have been treated in French hands, but Mr. HARCOURT is very firm about the proprieties. My only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... the store of grain in the Fort of Dig, that the strictest blockade proved fruitless for a twelvemonth; nor was the Fort finally reduced till the end of March, 1776, when the garrison found means not improbably by connivance to escape to the neighbouring castle of Kumbhair with portable property on elephants. The rest of the Thakur's wealth was seized by the victors his silver plate, his stately equipages and paraphernalia, and his military chest, containing six lakhs ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... point out the perpetrator from amidst the vast multitude attracted by the splendor of the feat? Did he fall by the hands of robbers, or did some private enemy slay him? The all-discerning sun alone can tell, for no other eye beheld it. Yet not improbably the murderer even now walks in the midst of the throng, and enjoys the fruits of his crime, while vengeance seeks for him in vain. Perhaps in their own temple's enclosure he defies the gods, mingling freely in ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... swell, and gave their legs the appearance of skewers with Dutch cheeses on them. Apart from the savages, the general impression of Guiana remaining with me is that of a great hot-house, in which everything was as improbably huge as in one of Gustave Dore's illustrations—where I came across apricots as big as my head, and caimans ten yards long. As regards the inhabitants, I recollect Creoles, enervated by the climate, who were as kindly as they were intelligent; pale-faced women, languorous and seductive, with ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... sisters' narrow opportunities was, so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask herself if pleasure could be the end of life—was ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... straight hair, a heavy moustache, and whiskers which formed a beard beneath his chin. Whether from his recent captivity or from constitutional causes, there was an air of lassitude in his look to which the fatigues of his voyage not improbably contributed. Altogether, he gave one the idea of a visionary or theoretical enthusiast rather then of a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... established in their place. But the book in which this was written is lost, and we have only the Epitome, or heading of the book, of which we know that it was not written by Livy.[191] Suetonius, who got his story not improbably from Livy, tells us that Caesar was suspected of having joined this conspiracy with Crassus;[192] and he goes on to say that Cicero, writing subsequently to one Axius, declared that "Caesar had attempted in his Consulship ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... ketched by some Shawnees?" remarked another youth, as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves. They all looked at Joe now. It was not improbably their estimate of him would be greatly influenced by the way he answered ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... was formally restored to liberty; and it was understood that he might use his liberty in whatever way he chose, even for returning to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that, not improbably, in some of the battles which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank, in which case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating an exchange. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... rest. This golden-green forest, barred with sunlight, canopied by the blue sky, and melodious with its soughing moan of wind, absolutely filled me with content and happiness. If a stag or a bear had trotted out into my sight, and had showed me no animosity, not improbably I would have forgotten my gun. More and more as I lived in the open ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... schoolmaster, kind-hearted ladies of the country-side had all tried their hands at it and failed. Bob was now thirteen, and did not even know his letters! Yet in his own line he was extremely clever, too clever by half in the opinion of many of his neighbours, though not improbably it was a case of giving a dog a much worse name than he deserved. Never was a piece of mischief discovered, which a boy could have been the author of—from bird's nesting to orchard robbing—without gipsy Bob, as he was called, ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... Secession, therefore none but Southerners wholly in harmony with the North are eligible to seats. This is true for the time being. But the oath is alterable; and in the wonted fluctuations of parties not improbably it will undergo alteration, assuming such a form, perhaps, as not to bar the admission into the National Legislature of men who represent the populations lately in revolt. Such a result would involve no violation of the ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... had so long and so effectively promoted. To the great grief of {145} Sir John Macdonald, White died within three years of taking office. Few statesmen of so great merit have experienced such persistent ill fortune. Had he lived, he might not improbably have become ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... Marquis had been wrong in flying at wealth which was reputed to be almost unlimited, but which was not absolutely fixed. A couple of hundred thousand pounds down might have been secured with greater ease. But here there had been a prospect of endless money,—of an inheritance which might not improbably make the Auld Reekie family conspicuous for its wealth even among the most wealthy of the nobility. The old man had fallen into the temptation, and abnormal difficulties had been the result. Some of these the reader knows. Latterly ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Congregational denomination. To attempt to proselytize them to the English Church, or to unsettle their religious relations in any way, would, on the whole, be a hopeless, as well as an invidious task, and would not improbably result in driving some among them into the greater apparent unity of the Church of Rome. Those who believe in the oneness of the invisible church, and that all who hold "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are within the pale of salvation, may well hesitate before expending ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... rendering her prosperous and happy, to do with the adoration of Rousseau's speculative systems? Or why are the English encouraged in a traditional respect for the manes of republicans, whom, if living, we might not improbably consider as ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... very extensive division of Wilson's work which may not improbably be more popular, or might be if it were accessible separately, with the public of to-day, than either of those which have been surveyed. His "drunken Noctes," as Carlyle unkindly calls them, require a certain peculiar attitude ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... a moment. He had got his wife. The marriage could not be undone. Mr. Wharton had money enough for them all, and would not certainly discard his daughter. Mr. Wharton could place him on a really firm footing, and might not improbably do so if he could be made to feel some confidence in his son-in-law. At this moment there was much doubt with the son-in-law whether he had better not tell the simple truth. "It has gone in by degrees," he said. "Altogether I have had about L8000 in it." In truth he had never ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... right," said the bishop, and sneaking out of the room, he went downstairs, troubled in his mind as to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself not very well just at present, and began to consider that he might, not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... right ventricle passes directly, through certain pores in the septum, into the left ventricle. And this was where Galen got upon his wrong track, without which divergence a man of his scientific insight must infallibly have discovered the true character of the pulmonary current, and not improbably have been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... were called, may not improbably have owed their origin to the fashion of rustic composition set by Lorenzo de' Medici in his Nencia, and may thus in their origin have been related to the courtly eclogue; but the subsequent development of the kind is at most parallel to that of the pastoral drama, and should not be regarded ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... of tradition, history and travel, a valuable mass of evidence concerning the legends which have grown out of these speculations. Myths of this kind would appear to fall into two categories, each of which may not improbably be associated with the different pursuits followed by the uncivilised races ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... Maryland legislature assembles to-morrow at Annapolis, and not improbably will take action to arm the people of that State against the United States. The question has been submitted to and considered by me whether it would not be justifiable, upon the ground of necessary defense, for you, as General in Chief of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Patavium, the poet-friend to whom two of Martial's epigrams are addressed.[475] For Martial's acquaintance was poor and is exhorted to abandon poetry as unlucrative, whereas Valerius Flaccus had some social standing and, not improbably, some wealth. From the opening of the Argonautica we learn that he held the post of quindecimvir sacris faciundis.[476] But there our knowledge of the poet ends, save for one solitary allusion in Quintilian, the sole reference to Valerius in any ancient ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... involves suffering, such an awakening was impossible. The first feeling of a girl as happily situated, healthy-minded, and physically strong as she was is bound to be pleasurable; and had she been a young man at this time she would not improbably have sought to heighten and vary her sensations by adding greater quantities of alcohol to her daily diet; she would have grown coarse of skin by eating more than she could assimilate; she would have smelt strongly enough ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous that it will Flame all away without leaving the least Drop behinde it, yet even this Fiery Liquor is by Helmont not improbably affirm'd, in case what he relates be True, to be Materially Water, under a Sulphureous Disguise: For, according to him, in the making that excellent Medecine, Paracelsus his Balsamus Samech, (which is nothing ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... at it, unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he missed some easy opportunity. Not improbably he might have failed altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try roping from a fiery mustang. But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was beautiful and fleet. The horse learned rapidly ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... merit: it abounds with wit and imagination, and shews him well versed in human nature, and the insinuating manners of a court. The allegorical characters are finely described, and well sustained; the fabric of the whole I believe entirely his own, and not improbably may have the honour of furnishing a hint even to the inimitable Spencer. How or by whose interest he was made Laureat, or whether it was a title he assumed to himself, cannot be determined, neither is his principal patron any where named; but if his poem of the Crown Lawrel before ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... established himself at Passy, in a part of the Hotel de Valentinois, which was kindly placed at his disposal by its owner, M. Ray de Chaumont. In this at that time retired suburb he hoped to be able to keep the inevitable but useless interruptions within endurable limits. Not improbably also he was further influenced, in accepting M. Chaumont's hospitality, by a motive of diplomatic prudence. His shrewdness and experience must soon have shown him that his presence in Paris, if not precisely distasteful to the French government, must at least in ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He, therefore, remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... sky was gloomy and overcast, the entire firmament being obscured by a thick pall of cold, leaden-hued cloud lying in horizontal layers, and presenting the appearance described by sailors as "greasy"—an appearance that usually forebodes plenty of wind and, not improbably, rain. The breeze was blowing fresh from the westward, having hauled round from the north-west during the night, and the brig was pounding through a short, lumpy sea under single-reefed topsails. The air was damp and raw, with a nip in it that sent everybody into their thick winter clothing, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... most freedom and go with the least hindrance. A solution now presented itself. If the Emperor intrusted the guardianship of the gate to one foreigner, why not to another? In other words, why not have the duty committed to himself and his people? Not improbably the charge might be proposed to him; he would wait awhile, and see; if, however, he had to formally request it, could anything be more plausibly suggestive than the relation between the captaincy of that Port and residence in the Palace of Julian? ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... to the spot on which the crowd had been assembled. Close to this there was a hand-gate leading into Dillsborough wood, and standing in the gateway was a man. The Senator thought that this might not improbably be Goarly himself, and asked the question, "Might your name be Mr. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... characteristics, there was apparent in his face the mental weariness which had come from the prolonged and exacting labor of his profession. His parliamentary failure was a keen disappointment to him, and was not improbably one among many causes which cut short a brilliant and useful life. He died in 1869, in the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Hindoo scholar probably wishes to impress you with a sense of his assiduity. He raises his voice, sways the body more briskly, keeps his one eye firmly fixed on his task, while with the other he throws a keen swift glance over you, which embraces every detail of your costume, and not improbably includes a shrewd estimate of your ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... government. But these were political oaths. The most ordinary sumpahan is a kris, and on the blade of this they sometimes drop lime-juice, which occasions a stain on the lips of the person performing the ceremony; a circumstance that may not improbably be supposed to make an impression on a weak and guilty mind. Such would fancy that the external stain conveyed to the beholders an image of the internal. At Manna the sumpahan most respected is a gun barrel. When produced to be sworn on it is carried ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... crater, upwards of 37 miles in diameter, lies at the end of the gigantic range of the Apennines. Not improbably, Eratosthenes once formed the volcanic vent for the stupendous forces that elevated the comparatively craterless peaks ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... was evidently a seaman and not improbably the master of a slaver—remained the guest of Don Manuel for the night, sleeping under his roof, and taking his departure very early next morning, before either Smellie or I had turned out, in fact. On our making our appearance Don Manuel referred to his late visitor, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Myrtle Hazard's accession to fortune came out, the secret was told that she had promised herself in marriage to Mr. Clement Lindsay. But her friends hardly knew how to congratulate her on this last event. Her lover was gone, to risk his life, not improbably to lose it, or to come home a wreck, crippled by wounds, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... courage seemed almost exhausted—Mr. De Grand never for a moment faltered. He might almost be said to have then had Western railroad on the brain. Among other things, he issued a circular which caused much amusement and not improbably some scandal among the more precise. The Rev. S. K. Lothrop, then a young man, had preached a sermon in Brattle Street Church which attracted a good deal of attention, on the subject of the moral and Christianizing influence of railroads. Mr. De Grand ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... hart. You'd scacely hav recognized my fair form, so kiverd was I with dust. Bimeby I met Old Poodles, the all-firdist gambler in the country. He was afoot and in his shirt-sleeves, and was in a wuss larther nor any race hoss I ever saw. ("All-fired," enormous, excessive, a low Americanism, not improbably a puritanical corruption of "hell-fired," designed to have the virtue of an ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of the narrative, all critics would agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to have managed the supplementary business of a continuator most unskillfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the gaping space in a manner somewhat similar (though better executed) to what I have imagined. But too often different is rational conjecture from melancholy fact. This exordium, as contrary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been represented ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... so simply, and with such an appearance of good faith, that the cure was quite convinced. And to Monsieur de Lamotte the plans attributed to his wife were not entirely improbably. Derues had learnt indirectly that such a career for Edouard had been actually under consideration. However, though Monsieur de Lamotte's entire ignorance prevented him from making any serious objection, his fears were ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for certain motives of self- interest, peculiar good-will. But there was no city of the world in which the Roman Csar did not reckon many liege-men and partisans. And the very hands, which dressed his altars and crowned his Prtorian pavilion, might not improbably in that same hour put an edge upon the sabre which was to avenge the injuries of the too indulgent and long-suffering Antoninus. Meantime, to give a color of patriotism to his treason, Cassius alleged public motives; in a letter, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... living in woods and on mountains. These passages intend, and do not much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the Gonds, Koles, Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the forests and mountains of Central India from Behar to Khandesh, and who are, not improbably, the predecessors of the present occupants of the cultivated portions of the country. They are always very black, ill-shapen, and dwarfish, and have countenances of a very ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... mother-country. America was settled by Englishmen who were contemporary with the greatest names in English literature. Jamestown was planted in 1607, nine years before Shakespeare's death, and the hero of that enterprise, Captain John Smith, may not improbably have been a personal acquaintance of the great dramatist. "They have acted my fatal tragedies on the stage," wrote Smith. Many circumstances in The Tempest were doubtless suggested by the wreck of the Sea Venture on "the still vext Bermoothes," as described ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... and the third year of the king's absence in particular was distinguished by the remarkable commotion excited by William Fitz-Osbert, styled Longbeard, a citizen of London, who is admitted to have possessed both eloquence and learning, and whose whole character and proceedings might not improbably, if he had had his own historian, have assumed a very different complexion from what has been given to him. Longbeard, who acquired the names of the Advocate and King of the Poor, is affirmed to have had above fifty thousand of the lower orders associated with him by oaths which bound them to follow ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... whether Glenn's casual, easy tone had been adopted for her benefit or was merely an assimilation from this Western life. Not improbably Glenn himself might be capable of playing a trick on her. Carley endeavored to fortify herself against disaster, so that when it befell she might ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... Venters laughed. He knew what passed in Card's mind. The rider was trying to make out what horse it happened to be that thus gained on Jane Withersteen's peerless racers. Wrangle had so long been away from the village that not improbably Jerry had forgotten. Besides, whatever Jerry's qualifications for his fame as the greatest rider of the sage, certain it was that his best point was not far-sightedness. He had not recognized Wrangle. After what must have been a searching gaze he got his comrade to face about. This action gave ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the Ubii, on the Rhine, not improbably the present village of Gelb, on that river eleven German ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... must be a considerable change of food, but it would be hard to prove that there was in every case an excess of the kind proper to the plant. If it be an excess of food, compared with that which the being obtained in its natural state{212}, the effects continue for an improbably long time; during how many ages has wheat been cultivated, and cattle and sheep reclaimed, and we cannot suppose their amount of food has gone on increasing, nevertheless these are amongst the most ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... continued Mr. Mildmay. "But it may not improbably come to pass that her Majesty will feel herself obliged to send again for some one or two of us, that we may tender to her Majesty the advice which we owe to her;—for me, for instance, or for my friend the Duke. In such a matter she ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... away," said Lord George, "for ten years; but not improbably he may return soon, and then we shall have ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... emerged into a green opening on the brow of the hill, and seated myself under the statue of Ceres. From this high point I surveyed the mosaic cupola of the Duomo, its quaint turret, and one still more grotesque in its neighbourhood, built not improbably in the style of ancient Etruria. Beyond this singular group of buildings a plain stretches itself far and wide, most richly scattered over with villas, gardens, and groves of pine and olive, quite to ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... usual to future times, as to us in a literary correspondence. The restoration of grey hairs to juvenility, and renewing the exhausted marrow, may at length be effected without a miracle; and the turning the now comparative desert world into a paradise, may not improbably be expected from late agriculture.' Again, when Sir William Temple, some thirty years later, cast contempt upon the Moderns in his Essay of Ancient and Modern Learning, it was the speculations of Wilkins ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... they knew would cost them the lives of many of their warriors—the lives of the captives should be safe, and they should not be exposed to any inhuman treatment. Boone was much perplexed. Had he been with his men, he would have fought to the last extremity, and his presence not improbably might have inspirited them, even to a successful defence. But deprived of their leader, taken entirely by surprise, and outnumbered three or four to one, their massacre was certain. And it was also certain that the Indians, exasperated by the loss which they would have encountered, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... from Water Lane, and thereupon remarked aloud: 'The whole History of the World had not the like precedent of a King's prisoner to purchase freedom, and his bosom favourite to have the halter, but in Scripture, in the case of Mordecai and Haman.' As improbably James is reported to have been told, and to have retorted that 'Ralegh might die in ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... operations—are not looked upon as the work of the Government, but as that of Palmerston alone—Palmerston, in some degree, as contradistinguished from the Government. All this confers upon him a vast importance, and enables him, neither unreasonably nor improbably, to aspire to head and direct any Government that may hereafter be formed by a dissolution and fresh ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... special points of interest for the tourist. The city is now easily reached by a branch of the Cuba Railway. It is worth the visit of those who "want to see it all." Beyond Gibara is Nipe Bay, not improbably the first Cuban harbor entered by Columbus. Nipe Bay and its near neighbor, Banes Bay, are the centres of what is now the greatest industrial activity of any part of the island. Here, recent American investment is measured in scores of millions ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... to aid in its defence—I should recommend that you should place no obstacle in his way. As a lad of spirit, he would naturally be glad of any opportunity to distinguish himself. I gathered, from him, that one of his schoolfellows was serving as a midshipman in a ship of war that would, not improbably, be stationed at Gibraltar; and Bob would naturally dislike remaining inactive, when his schoolfellow, and many other lads of the same age, were playing men's parts in an historical event of such importance. Therefore you will fully understand ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... the so-called Adonis of the Bargello Palace, which not improbably was designed for one of the figures prostrate below the feet of a victorious Genius. It bears, indeed, much resemblance to a roughly indicated nude at the extreme right of the sketch for the tomb. Upon this supposition, Michelangelo ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... saying so; on the contrary, I will uphold with my lance, her selection of John de Walton against the minions of a court, to be a wise and generous choice, and her own behaviour as alike candid and noble. But she herself is not unlikely to dread unjust misconstruction; a fear of which may not improbably induce her, upon any occasion, to seize some opportunity of showing an unwonted and unusual rigour towards her lover, in order to balance her having extended towards him, in the beginning of their intercourse, somewhat of an ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of infection being taken from following a coffined corpse to the grave, without reference to the state of grief, fear, and fatigue, not improbably, of drunkenness, in the mourners, must be unworthy of attention. I am no friend to the absurdly long interval which in this country is allowed to elapse,[32] even in the hottest weather, between death and burial; but still more do I deprecate the indecent haste which would give sanction ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... octopus (sacred to Victor Hugo), may be, for all we can say to the contrary, an order with a future. Their kindred, the Gastropods, have, in the case of the snail and slug, learnt the trick of air-breathing. And not improbably there are even now genera of this order that have escaped the naturalist, or even well-known genera whose possibilities in growth and dietary are still unknown. Suppose some day a specimen of a new species is caught off the coast of Kent. It excites remark at a Royal Society soiree, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... purpose, its noise, which is so suggestive of thunder or wind, with a superadded touch of weirdness and general mystery, fitting it to play a leading part in rain-making ceremonies. From these not improbably have developed all sorts of other ceremonies connected with making vegetation and the crops grow, and with making the boys grow into men, as is done at the initiation rites. It is not surprising, therefore, to find a carved human ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... could out of the jungle to a commanding position on the hill. Thence we could determine the course of the herd. It continued on downstream as far as we could follow the sounds in the convolutions of the hills. Realizing that it would improbably recover enough from its alarmed condition to resume its regular habits that day, we returned ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... dead, appears to be held by the chief spirit of the angelic world. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God." The burial of each and every body which is destined to the resurrection of the just, is, therefore, not improbably an object of interest with him who, under the God-man, will have the supervision of the last day. With a view to that harvest of the earth, he will now see the furrows made, the seed planted, the hill prepared. He will have a care that every thing lies down, whether by seeming accident, or by ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... when he wrote, and this is better explained by supposing it to have been a March, or Debateable Land, between the Germanic and Danish occupants of Sleswick, than by the notion that it was left empty by the exodus of its occupants to Great Britain. The deduction of the Angli from an improbably small area, on the wrong side of the Peninsula, must be looked upon as an inference under the garb of a tradition. Such I believe it to have been; freely, however, admitted that if Anglen poured forth upon England even half the Angles that England contained, ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... question no easy one. She would not wish to leave Perrote; but if Perrote took the veil, that obstacle would be removed; and even if she did not, Amphillis had no certain chance of accompanying her wherever she might go, which would not improbably be to Drayton Manor. To leave the rest of her present companions would be no hardship ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... a warm lover of his own country, and, in general, of whatever redounded to her honour; he was, moreover, very especially qualified to appreciate Burns as a companion; and had such an introduction taken place, he might not improbably have been induced to bestow that consideration on the claims of the poet, which, in the absence of any personal acquaintance, Burns's works ought to have received at his hands." But during that visit Burns met, and made the acquaintance of, another man of some influence, Mr. Graham of Fintray, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Not improbably Clammer was thinking first of his presence before the multitude, secondly of his batting average and thirdly of the run to be scored. In this instance he waited and feinted at balls and fouled strikes at length to work his base. When he got to ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... warmth to be got by him from that flame. There was no beauty in the light,—not even the false brilliance of unhallowed love. Injury might come to him,—a pernicious clipping of the wings, which might destroy all power of future flight; injury, and not improbably destruction, if he should persevere. But one may say that no single hour of happiness could accrue to him from his intimacy with Mrs Lupex. He felt for her no love. He was afraid of her, and, in many respects, disliked her. But to him, in his moth-like weakness, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... they were in Italy. I escaped unharmed from the windy gusts at Epsom and the nipping chill of the Kensington garden-party; but if a score of my contemporaries had been there with me, there would not improbably have been a funeral or two within a week. If, however, the super-septuagenarian is used to exposures, if he is an old sportsman or an old officer not retired from active service, he may expect to elude the pneumonia which follows his footsteps whenever he wanders far from his fireside. But to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to have passed through approximately the following stages. Earliest of all and fundamental to all come the ancient traditions and the ancient poetry, such as the book of the wars of Jehovah, and the book of Jashar. Upon this basis, during the monarchy men of prophetic spirit in both kingdoms—not improbably at the sanctuaries—wrote the history of the Hebrew people. These documents, J and E, were subsequently combined into a single history (JE), possibly in the seventh century, though how long, if at all, J and ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... of the hero of Tolosa, stopped the voting by force, and the law was not carried. [Sidenote: Law of treason.] The third law of Saturninus was a Lex de Majestate, a law by which anyone could be prosecuted for treason against the State, and which was not improbably aimed specially at Caepio, who was impeached under it. It seems at any rate certain that of these laws the agrarian was the chief, and the others subsidiary; in other words, that he and Glaucia were working together on an organized plan, and striving to admit the whole Roman world into ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... I replied, "they tell me something to the purport of our last discourse. Here upon ground where the Druids have certainly held their assemblies, and where not improbably, human sacrifices have been offered up, you will find it difficult to maintain that the improvement of the world has not been unequivocal, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... desolate" ruin of nature, without the possibility, if life were on it, of articulate speech, of music, even of sound. Sometimes a greenish tint was seen upon its surface, which might have been taken for vegetation, but it was thought not improbably to be a reflection from the vast forests of South America. The ancients had a fancy, some of them, that the face of the moon was a mirror in which the seas and shores of the earth were imaged. Now we know the geography of the side toward us about as well as that of Asia, better ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Saturday edition, hurried down to the office to have it put right in that of Sunday. The same number of The Champion (November 4 and 5, 1820) contains another poem in the same measure signed C., which not improbably was Lamb's contribution to the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... while shepherding in the mountains. John de la Somet of Virginia died in 1766 aged one hundred and thirty. He was a great smoker, and according to Eaton the habit agreed with his constitution, and was not improbably the cause of his long health and longevity. William Riddell, who died at one hundred and sixteen carefully avoided water all his life and had a love ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... was in his turn influenced by Marquart's method of reconciling the dynasties of Berossus with the Kings' List. He continued to accept the figure of the Kings' List for Dynasty III., but he reduced the length of Dynasty II. by fifty years, arguing that the figures assigned to some of the reigns were improbably high. His slight reduction in the length of Dynasty I. was obtained from the recently published date-lists, though his proposed reduction of Ammizaduga's reign to ten years ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... undertake casually to examine MacDowell's songs seriatim, beginning with his earliest listed work in this form—the "Two Old Songs," op. 9—would not improbably be struck by an apparent lack of continuity and logic in the initial stages of his artistic development. At first glance, MacDowell seems to have attained a phenomenal ripeness and individuality of expression in these songs, ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... such abundance as to form important seams of coal in the true carboniferous era, the trees which gave birth to them being now classed amongst the humble cryptogams, the ferns, and club-mosses, &c. The graphite of Laurentian age may not improbably have been caused by deposits of minute portions of similar lowly specimens of vegetable life, and if the eozooen the "dawn-animalcule," does represent the animal life of the time, life whose types were too minute to leave undoubted traces of their ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... he was staying, with one of his friends, before the discovery of the escape of a prisoner was made. The affair was certain to cause great excitement, and there was no doubt that everyone leaving the town would be strictly examined at the gates and, not improbably, every house would be searched, and an order issued that no one would be allowed to be out at night, after ten o'clock, without a military pass. Three soldiers had been in turn assassinated, and one had deserted, a prisoner had been released; and there were evidently several ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... sides of office folio paper,' equal to about ten pages of the 'Edinburgh Review,' The exertion, however, in this instance was exceptional: only upon one other occasion did my father ever work upon a Sunday; it cost him a severe nervous illness and not improbably sowed the seed ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Pope was a London merchant, a devout Catholic, and not improbably a convert to Catholicism. His mother was one of seventeen children of William Turner, of York; one of her sisters was the wife of Cooper, the well-known portrait-painter. Mrs. Cooper was the poet's godmother; she died when he was five years old, leaving to her ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... safe in that wild refuge! Duane had spent the last two days climbing the roughest and most difficult trail he had ever seen. From the looks of the descent he imagined the worst part of his travel was yet to come. Not improbably it was two thousand feet down to the river. The wedge-shaped valley, green with alfalfa and cottonwood, and nestling down amid the bare walls of yellow rock, was a delight and a relief to his tired eyes. Eager to get down to a level and to find ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... sheet of studies is probably one of the 'carte stupendissime di teste divine,' which Vasari says (Vita, p. 272) Michel Angelo executed, as presents or lessons for his artistic friends. Not improbably it is actually one of those made for his friend Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who, when young, was desirous ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... Knox's lifetime, the State, having the upper hand under the Regent Morton, a strong man, introduced prelacy of a modified kind and patronage; did not restore to the Kirk her 'patrimony,'—the lands of the old Church; and only hanged one priest, not improbably for a certain reason of a ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... records of initial humanity, it is hardly possible for us to know certainly what the earliest men's feeling was toward the animate and inanimate forces around them. Not improbably it was simply fear, the result of ignorance of their nature and absence of social relations with them. But in the human communities known to us, even the lowest, the relations with extrahuman beings appear to be in general of a mixed nature, sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly, but neither ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... will not answer Thring's* letters. Thring, in desperation, appeals to me, concluding with characteristic simplicity that we must be friends because you have written a book about me. As the conclusion is accidentally and improbably true, I now urge you to give him whatever satisfaction he requires. I have no notion what it is, or what the case is about; but at least answer his letters, however infuriating they may be. Remember: you pay Thring only L500, for which you get integrity, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... republics to send representatives to Washington to discuss arbitration, but his successor in office feared that such a meeting of "a partial group of our friends" might offend Europe, which indeed was not improbably part of Blaine's intention. On resuming office, Blaine finally arranged the meeting of a Pan-American Congress in the United States. Chosen to preside, he presented an elaborate program, including a plan for arbitrating disputes; commercial ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... few horses or cattle. No doubt the thing has been exaggerated; still there is something in it, and the consequence is, people are rather afraid to bid, and I have got this splendid tract of land for about twenty-five hundred dollars; and, not improbably, in ten years it may be worth ten times ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as proof of the accusation that had been made against him. As he thought of all ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... aisles were added. Sometimes, as at Geddington and Brigstock in Northamptonshire, the whole wall above the nave arcades is the upper part of the wall of the aisleless building; and instances in which blocked window openings, of a not improbably pre-Conquest date, remain in walls that have subsequently been pierced with arcades, are exceedingly common. If an untouched Saxon nave is a rare thing, an unaltered Saxon chancel is obviously rarer. The small rectangular chancel ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... improbably the isthmus of Syracuse, an island, perhaps, or peninsula at that period, or at least imagined to be such by Homer. The birth of Diana gave fame ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Not improbably, Madeline revolved in mind, this letter was one reason for Stewart's headstrong, long-continued abasement. It had been received too late—after he had squandered the money that would have meant so much to mother and sister. Be that as it ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... of herself. She is a power, but at present no one can say with whom she will ally herself. Hitherto she has been simply anti-Richelieu, and was his most troublesome and bitter enemy; and I should say that not improbably she will at once begin to conspire against Mazarin as she did against him. She has been the queen's greatest ally; but then the queen was always a bitter enemy of Richelieu, whereas at present it is supposed that she ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... "my own weapon, an air-gun which I can fire sixteen times without reloading, and which will kill at a hundred yards' distance. With a weapon unknown to me I might not only fail altogether, but I might not improbably do serious injury, by my clumsiness and inexperience, to ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... had resided for three years at the time of the trial. This distressing family quarrel must have caused some bitterness of feeling, and Augustine (Ep. 138. 19) mentions a quarrel with the inhabitants of Oea on the question of the erection of a statue in his honour. These facts may not improbably have led him to seek residence elsewhere. Be this as it may, when we next hear of him he is in Carthage, enjoying the highest renown as philosopher, poet, and rhetorician. It was during this residence ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... Castle long before their rivals, the Cavaliers, had reached the springtide of their merriment; an arrangement which afforded the greatest satisfaction to the lady, who dreaded the consequences which might not improbably have taken place, had both parties met at the same ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... can be bought at an ordinary bookseller's shop for an ordinary prosaic crown. I fear that in thus extolling Francis Thompson's work, I am grossly outraging the canons of criticism. For the man is alive, he gets up of a morning like common mortals, not improbably he eats bacon for breakfast; and every critic with an atom of discretion knows that a poet must not be called great until he is dead or very old. Well, please yourself what you think. But, in time to come, don't say I didn't tell you." A whole generation of men has passed away ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off, not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Due de Berry, the second son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; and it was most unfortunate for the Marshal that this ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to discuss some of the more recondite phenomena of animal coloration, it will be well to consider for a moment the extent of the ground we have already covered. Protective coloration, in some of its varied forms, has not improbably modified the appearance of one-half of the animals living on the globe. The white of arctic animals, the yellowish tints of the desert forms, the dusky hues of crepuscular and nocturnal species, the transparent or ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... oblivion into which their names fell; so that the author or redactor of Jeremiah l., li.; the author of chapters xiii.-xiv. 23, xxi. 1-10, xxiv.-xxvii., xxxiv., xxxv., inserted in Isaiah; and, above all, the Babylonian Isaiah, whom Hitzig improbably identifies with the high-priest Joshua, are unknown. After the return from Babylon the literary spirit manifested itself in the prophets of the restoration—Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—who wrote to recall their countrymen to a sense of religious duties; though their ideas were ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... fact among the first and most absorbing formations in the human mind. If we could penetrate into animal consciousness we should not improbably find that what there accompanies instinctive motions is a wholly irrelevant fancy, whose flaring up and subsidence no doubt coincide with the presence of objects interesting to the organism and causing marked reactions within it; yet this ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... their Three Homes, p. 182), that "there were a few people I 'shuffled' in upon them the company who were probably unmitigated scoundrels." Bradford speaks only of Billington and his family as those "shuffled into their company," and while he was not improbably one of the agitators (with Hopkins) who were the proximate causes of the drawing up of the Compact, he was not, in this case, the responsible leader. It is evident from the foregoing that the "appearance of faction" did not show itself ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... and nicknames of the members of the respective teams and the positions on the field they were to fill, but their weights in fighting trim, their fine points both as foot-ball kickers and as men, and not improbably their love affairs. When now and then, as occasionally happened, I betrayed by an unfortunate question or by unappreciative silence my lack of familiarity with this or that celebrity, the look of wondering pity with which my ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... de n'affliger pas tant les familles de ceux qui en ont donne le suject, puis qu'elles en sont assez affligees." We thus find that the outlines of the story of "Lysis" tally with what we know about Bussy from other sources, and Rosset not improbably preserves details omitted by the historians ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... that no one then alive, with the same peculiar taste and the same political principles, could have written such poetry, we must either ascribe the Heroic Epistle to Mr. Mason, or suppose, very needlessly and improbably, that one person supplied the matter and another shaped it into verse; but, the personal insolence displayed in this poem to his Sovereign, which was probably the true reason for concealing the writer's -the principles of genuine taste which abound in it—the bitter ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... honesty which atones for many defects of literary taste and executive art; and after a more thorough study than such rude and unattractive work seems at first to require or to deserve, the moral and intellectual impression of the whole will not improbably be far more favorable than one resulting from a cursory survey or derived from a casual selection of excerpts. They bring no manner of support to a monstrous and preposterous imputation which has been cast upon their author; the ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
