"Unlikely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with her request, and then went immediately 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 and her ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... men like Bellers and Winstanley had brought into view, dropped out of notice until the last quarter of the century. There was, that is to say, no organized resistance possible to the power of individualism; and resistance was unlikely to make itself heard once the resources of the Industrial Revolution were brought into play. Men discovered with something akin to ecstasy the possibilities of the new inventions; and when the protest came against the misery they effected, ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... smart enough to take advantage of the opportunity to escape at the age of twenty-one. As he had given the matter his fullest attention for a long time, he was prepared to make rapid progress when he did start, and as he had no great distance to travel it is not unlikely, that while his master was one night sleeping soundly, this young piece of property (worth at least $1,000 in the market), was crossing Mason and Dixon's Line, and steering directly for Canada. Francis Harkins ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... know what to believe," said Mr Oswald. "It seems unlikely that you should be tempted to do so foolish and wrong a thing. But I have been deceived many a time. Who could ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... so many words, Disbrowe Erne left to Eloise Changarnier all the property of which he died possessed. An old friend of her father's in the neighborhood assured her that the only relatives were both distant, distinguished, and wealthy, unlikely to present any claims, and that she would be justified in fulfilling her father's desire. And so, without other forms, Eloise administered the affairs of The Rim,—waiting until the autumn to consult the usual lawyer, who was at present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... sarcastically says of somebody (not unlikely myself, as we are old friends);—but were it to come over again, I would not. I have since redde the cause of my couplets, and it is not adequate to the effect. C——told me that it was believed I alluded to poor Lord Carlisle's nervous disorder ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Hugh, and said: Brother, this is well thought of indeed, and I marvel that I did not prevent thee; and I am thine to live and die with thee. And the adventure is nought unlikely; for if we have lost a captain they have lost their head devil, and their head little devil; moreover, the good men of Greenford shall join them to us, and that shall make us strong, whereas they have men enough, and those stout men-at-arms; and artificers they have to make us engines, ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... Legislative Assembly, the members of which are appointed by the leaders of the major factions in the civil war note : the former bicameral legislature no longer exists and is unlikely to be ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... these possibilities, it seems unlikely that production in the United States can increase very long at the accelerating rate of the domestic demand, which is already in excess of domestic production. The supplies of Mexico are in a large ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... cared for in workhouses, thus rendering necessary, on the part of counties and boroughs, a still larger outlay than heretofore in providing additional asylum accommodation. The returns for the 1st of January last tend to show that such results are not unlikely to accompany the working of this new financial arrangement."[204] The Irish inspectors in their report for 1875 calculate that the maximum number who could properly be transferred from asylums to workhouses is seven or eight per ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... I said after a pause, "I can not take you seriously. Besides, it is very unlikely that my servant would accompany me to Lenox. If my presence there would be an embarrassment, I really do not see why Mrs. Van Reinberg ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 fighting ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... acquainted with his instruments. Mention is made of his having made Violins without corners, and that he applied to the wood a preparation for the purpose of extracting the resinous particles from it. The adoption of such means of forcing on maturity makes it unlikely that he made instruments ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... to me now: I am sure that I can save you. I do not know all the—all the circumstances connected with your association with—with that man back there at the inn. Twenty-four hours passed before they were able to identify him. It is not unlikely that to-morrow may put them in possession of the name of the woman who went with him to that place. They do not know it to-night, of that I am positive. You covered your trail too well. But you must have been seen with him during ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... infraction which occasions their mention relates only to one of them. This shows they were collected into a code, if, indeed, that need be proved; for, in truth, that various Canons should exist, and be in force, and yet not be put together, is just as unlikely as that no collection should be made of the statutes passed in a session ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... indispensable to the European merchants trading in Senegal. So, indeed, was he to Mungo Park, that doughtiest of Scotsmen, who dared on through Bambarra and Haoussa where no white-face had ever been. Without Isaaco's genius and gigantic strength, it is unlikely that the second expedition (in 1805) would ever have reached the Niger. It was Isaaco who nursed the forty brave men who one by one sickened of dysentery; supported them on their mules, even in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... ignorant of the nature of the complaint; but it is not unlikely it will turn out to be something like that which you suspect. Even in such a case no better intercessor can be required than one who is so much superior to the frailties and weaknesses of her ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... you. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you. These," he pointed around, "are my other ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that many of the types of bacteria found in the udder gain access from the outside. Those belonging to the spore-bearing, digesting and intestinal types have such a favorable opportunity for introduction from outside and are so unlikely to have come directly from the body of the animal, that the external source of infection is much more probable. Whether this explanation answers the origin of the cocci that are so generally found in the upper portion of the udder is questionable. The statement is ordinarily ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... uneducated, hysterical and superstitious, gathered about him a crowded following of those who had been discontented, but whom he turned into fanatics. Apparently by pure force of personality he seized without resistance the government of one of the world's great nations. So much is unlikely enough. But as the ruler of a civilized country he imposed upon its people the absolute despotism of a primitive sultanate. He honeycombed its society with spies. He imprisoned, tortured, and executed without trial or check. And while all this went on he received the most impassioned loyalty ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... high garden and the sea. But of course Lady Turnour would die rather than seem impressed by anything, and would probably pick faults if she were invited to sleep at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle—a contingency which I think unlikely. She was snappish with hunger, and did not trouble to restrain her temper before me. Poor Sir Samuel! It is he who has snatched her from her lodging-house, to lead her into luxury, because of his faithful love of many years; and this is the way she rewards him! ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... friendship with Bruce West, nor that she should understand his natural desire to ride where he was going this morning. Everyone in the border town had known of his letter at the postoffice; further, it was not in the least unlikely that Senorita Castelmar would know of the letter when it was dropped into the slot at the Mexican postoffice. What did strike him as odd, however, was that she should consent to his leaving the ranch, realizing that he knew much of her ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... Prather and Nogales?" Jack asked. He must reach the water-hole as soon as Prather; for it was not unlikely that Prather might have fresh mounts waiting there to take him on to the ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... overslept 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, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... enough and 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 the slightest ground for supposing him deficient in intellect; on the contrary, ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... has become known therefore as "Sthen's Name Hymn". The method of thus affixing one's name to a song was frequently practiced by authors for the purpose of impressing people with their erudition. The meek and anxious spirit that pervades this hymn makes it unlikely, however, that Sthen would have employed his undoubted skill as a poet for such a purpose. The hymn is thought to have been written at Malmoe at the time its author encountered his most severe trials there. And its intimate personal note makes it likely that he thus ineradicably affixed his name ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... death, could strike down every man of this expedition without even a wound in return; for of what avail were high-power guns, automatic pistols, and machetes against invisible enemies? Yet there was assurance in Lourenco's confident air, and reassurance in the thought that these tribemen would be unlikely to assail a band avowedly on its way to visit their chief. Besides—Knowlton smiled grimly—even if the Mayorunas hungered for human flesh it would be more economical of labor to let the meat travel to the slaughterhouse on its own legs than to kill ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... "It is not unlikely that the Perion men know to-day has forgotten me and the service which I joyed to render Perion. Let him who would understand the mystery of the Crucifixion first become a lover! I pray for old sake's sake that Perion and his lady may taste of every prosperity. Indeed, I do not envy her. Rather ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... food, there are usually available at the inns chicken, fish of some sort, eggs, omelettes and soups. With a pot of jam or two and some powdered milk in one's bag, one can live fairly well. Fresh milk can now be got in unlikely places on giving notice overnight. It is produced for invalids and children. If one makes no fuss, remembers one is a traveller who has resolved to see rural Japan, and realises that the inn people will try to do their best, one ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... an orphan brought up in Paris, a would-be decadent, a dabbler in all modern iniquities, redeemed from folly only by a certain not altogether wholesome cleverness, yet with a disposition which sometimes gained for him friends in most unlikely quarters. He had excellent qualities, which he did his best to conceal; impulses which he was ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Pomona, has its own peculiar problems of support and administration. The university college, on the other hand, such as Columbia or Harvard or Chicago or the college of any state university, has quite different problems of support and of administration. It is not unlikely that the distinction between these two types of college will become more sharply marked as years go by, and that eventually they will appear to be two distinct institutions rather than two types of one and ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... for me. I must go up to their confounded chatter again. Tell her there's no fear, none whatever. You all hate us, naturally; but you know that Austrian officers are gentlemen. Don't speak my name to her just yet. Unless, of course, she should happen to allude to me, which is unlikely. I had a dismal idea that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... matter of fact he cannot be regarded in any sense as a great man. His career shows no great political ideas, and none of his actions indicate genius. His one thought was family aggrandizement, and while it is unlikely that he meditated making the papacy hereditary in the house of Borgia, he certainly gave away its temporal estates to his children as though they belonged to him. The secularization of the church was carried to a pitch never before dreamed of, and it was clear to all Italy that he regarded ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... prevent any net diminution in the proportion of labour engaged upon the soil in the industrial world. So long as modern methods of production and consumption in civilised countries require an ever-increasing quantity of raw materials, it would seem a priori unlikely that a smaller proportion of the whole industry of the world should be devoted to agricultural and other extractive industries, and a larger amount to the manufacturing and distributive industries, where the chief economies of machine-production ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... been scarcely a breath of wind, and though our lookout place had been occupied, we knew that no vessel could pass up, and it was very unlikely that any would venture down the stream at the mercy of the current. Two days after the lookout post had been established, as I took my watch at daybreak, the bright sun rising above the distant horizon, I felt the breeze fan my ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... these unhappy beings were compelled to wash in the Inachus blankets, sheets, and clothes steeped in bubonic infection, while the collectors were hunting everywhere for imaginary hidden treasure. Hollow trees were sounded, walls pulled down, the most unlikely corners examined, and a skeleton which was discovered still girt with a belt containing Venetian sequins was gathered up with the utmost care. The archons of the town were arrested and tortured in the hope of discovering buried treasure, the clue to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to America likely. I've always been with the sheep and nothing else. It may be I can hire out to some other body, but chances are few hereabouts, and if the Auld Laird carries out this notion, there'll be many another beside ourselves who'll need to be walking the world. It seems unlikely he would be for taking away the town too, even if it is but a wee bit of a village, and the law gives him the right, for times have changed since that lease was made, long years ago, and there are few in this day who would venture to enforce it. But the Auld Laird's a hard man, I'm ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... They are your husband's appointment. I may also tell you, Natalie, that the Secretary is also of my opinion, that it is very unlikely your husband would be so audacious as to repeat his offence of former years, by conspiring to fix this duty on this man to serve his own interests. It would be too audacious, unless his temper had ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... difficult for her to escape; but this was only possible when attempted alone. With Say Koitza flight was next to impossible. Beside, it appeared very unlikely to her that the woman would flee ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... she failed him? Surely die of disappointment and despair. . . . He had little enough experience as yet of the toughness of the human heart; how life bruises and crushes, yet leaves it beating. . . . Then, from an unlikely quarter, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... correct. Adrien had believed her in love with Lord Standon, and his father had undertaken to find out the truth. She was not afraid of Adrien's being undeceived now; for, even if Lord Barminster wrote—which was very unlikely—the spur would have done ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... thirteen horizontal red and white stripes with a white canton containing a red St. George's Cross; but there is no reason to suppose that this inspired the flag of the colonies. Bunting was scarce and Franklin was always a thrifty soul. If that committee of three did design the flag, it is not at all unlikely that Franklin suggested utilizing the standards they already had, and changing their character by stitching on white stripes. To deface the flag of Britain was a serious offense, and maybe it was thought just as well that the name of the originator of this "Grand Union" ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... back—was it possible for any of us ever to be in the position of having to rely absolutely on ourselves? For several minutes I pondered that question; and slowly I came to the conclusion that, short of crime, or that unlikely event, marooning, it was not possible. Never, never—try as we might—could any single one of us be quite in the position of one of those whose approaching pauperisation my distant relative had so vehemently ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was very much annoyed when he learnt that his orders had been thus disobeyed. The Lorraines plastered over the affair by representing that they feared an affront from M. de Mantua, and indeed it did not seem at all unlikely that M. de Mantua, forced as it were into compliance with their wishes, might have liked nothing better than to reach Italy and then laugh at them. Meanwhile, Madame d'Elboeuf and her daughter embarked on board the royal galleys and started ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... in the class of philosophy he came under Professor Emile Charles, by whose original and profound though decidedly sad way of thinking he was powerfully influenced. His own ambition then was to become a teacher in the University of France, an ambition which seemed unlikely to be ever realized, as he failed to secure admission to the celebrated Ecole Normale Superieure, in the competitive examination which leads up to that school. Strangely enough, about fifteen years later he was, though ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... or Yew branches could ever have been substituted for such a very different branch as a Palm it is hard to say, but in lack of a better explanation, I think it not unlikely that it might have arisen from the direction for the Feast of Tabernacles in Leviticus xxiii. 40: "Ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, the branches of Palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and Willows of the brook." But from whatever ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... "Queen's Own" were utterly routed by the Irish under Colonel John O'Neill, and forced to run in wild confusion for a town some miles distant, Colonel Booker on his charger leading the way and distancing all competitors. Had the Irish been allowed to follow up this victory it is not unlikely that they would have swept Canada clear of the British forces, and then, according to their programme, made that country their base of operations against British power in Ireland. But the American government interfered and put an effectual stopper ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... afterwards denied; and we have certainly no ground for thinking that Burton had invited ridicule on any other than the somewhat unworthy ground of the curious ugliness of his face and figure. It is most unlikely that his success as a practitioner in a branch of the medical art in which imposture is the most easily detected, could have been earned by mere quackery; and he seems, moreover, to have been a man of learning in more ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning, but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of the darkened green above him. Once he was on the point of shouting advice to Hervey about what to do in the unlikely event of his reaching the nest before the eagle, or in the more serious contingency of an encounter ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Probably it is not possible now to explain how it happened. Of course we might believe that Richard was telling lies all the time, and that either the sailors did not beat him or that the bruises did show. But why invent anything so unlikely? It is easier to believe that he was trying to tell the truth as far as he could, even though we cannot understand it. Perhaps his heart was so happy at being allowed to suffer for what he thought right, that his body really did not feel the cruel beatings, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... Cojuelo, as the motor disappeared. "Everything is working according to plan. In the unlikely event of the car being stopped, it is found to contain Garcilaso, Don Carlos's steward, returning from doing some marketing in the city. And who would guess that the fair senorita had been spirited away in one ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... But there is another sort, black indeed, which I have now and then felt, that has somewhat in it like Tertullian's rule of faith, Credo quia impossibile est; for it believes, nay, is sure of everything that is unlikely, so it be but frightful; and on the other hand excludes and shuts its eyes to the most possible hopes, and everything that is pleasurable; from this the Lord deliver us! for none but he and sunshiny weather can do it. In hopes of enjoying this kind of weather ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... surprised to see it, for it is in the most unlikely place; there is nothing to favour its growth, the air is foul, the light is dim, everything is against it, yet there it stands, a marvel of beauty! And we look at ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... of Maupeon, Maurepas, Turgot, and the King himself, which, in many instances, attest the shrewdness with which he estimated the real bearing of the events which were taking place, and anticipated the possible character of some of those which were not unlikely to ensue. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... got known among the native hunters what they were in search of; and, as they had offered a liberal reward to any one who could guide them to the haunt or den of a real black bear, it was not unlikely they ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... amplification, the voice faded, then returned. "Can only suggest ... most unlikely ... but try ... calculator ...
— Death Wish • Robert Sheckley
... has to provide himself with the means of a livelihood, and this he did in some capacity at the theater. No one doubts that. The holding of horses is scouted by many, and perhaps with justice, as being unlikely and certainly unproved; but whatever the nature of his employment was at the theater, there is hardly room for the belief that it could have been other than continuous, for his progress there was so rapid. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the several songs have been arranged for the pianoforte, which will enhance its value to the musical part of the public. I am indebted for this to an able composer,* who has performed his task in so masterly a manner that the hearer is not unlikely to forget the poet in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... stranger in the place. Mrs. Cliff frequently spoke of him as a valued friend, and there was reason to believe that in the various adventures and dangers of which they had heard, Mr. Burke had been of great service to their old friend and neighbor, and it was not unlikely that his influence had had a good deal to do with her receipt of a portion of the treasure discovered by the commander of ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... not all of these classes—mutatis mutandis. There seems every evidence that it is made up of pictures with probably both concrete and abstract meanings; word-conventions; and grammatical particles. It is at least probable that there are also silent determinatives and not unlikely that there is also a pure phonetic or alphabetic element. That the latter element is not the basic one may I think ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... thought of some strange hallucination. Unlikely enough; but that a boat with three men in it should have sunk between the point and the jetty, suddenly, like a stone, without leaving as much on the surface as a floating oar, was still more unlikely. The theory of a phantom boat would have ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... caused his fellow-townsmen to attack the old scandal with the avidity of a dog unearthing a neglected bone; and the return of the woman in the case could hardly fail to prove far more provocative of gossip. If Lois persisted in remaining in Montgomery, it was wholly unlikely that Nan would ever marry him; nor could he with any delicacy insist upon her doing so. They might marry and move to Indianapolis, thereby escaping the discomforts of the smaller town's criticism; and this was made possible by his brightening prospects. At any rate, it was only fair ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... exaggerated on the whole, was unduly magnified in several important particulars. Thus Lord Minto, in a speech delivered at a county meeting, and afterwards published, affirms, that supposing (what no one could consider as unlikely to take place) that the court of Naples should be compelled to act under the influence of France, and that the Barbary powers were unfriendly to us, either in consequence of French intrigues or from their own caprice and insolence, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Grant has unquestionably failed in his enterprises against Richmond, and his present reduced strength certainly renders it unlikely that he can prevail against us hereafter. His new levies, if he gets any, will not be fit for the field this year; and all his veterans will soon be gone,—killed, or home,—never to return. Thank God, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... of anything more unlikely," returned the doctor, "unless the same conditions conspire, which is scarcely supposable, as I could easily prove to you. You can understand, Mr. Lynde, that this has been a sore trial to Denham and his wife; they have had no children, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... baleen, precluded from subsisting upon the tiny crustacea, which support the MYSTICETAE, the cachalots seem to be confined for their diet to cuttle-fish, and, from their point of view, the bigger the latter are the better. How big they may become in the depths of the sea, no man knoweth; but it is unlikely that even the vast specimens seen are full-sized, since they have only come to the surface under abnormal conditions, like the one I have attempted to describe, who had evidently been dragged up by ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... maintained his office was a matter for casual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it's not unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the wonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference for Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination is incapable of comprehending ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... hitherto published, between Aaron Hill, his daughters, and Richardson, respecting Tom Jones. Although I cannot claim credit for the discovery, I believe the present is also the first biography of Fielding which entirely discredits the unlikely story of his having been a stroller at Bartholomew Fair; and I may also, I think, claim to have thrown some additional light on Fielding's relations with the Cibbers, seeing that the last critical essay upon the author of the Apology which I have met with, contains no reference ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... this rude guess, however, nothing is yet known of their physical cause. It is even still a matter of speculation whether the solar influence be a principal or only a subordinate cause." That the sun may exert a modifying influence on the phenomenon is not unlikely, but that he cannot be the principal cause, is evident from the following considerations. These horary variations of the magnetic needle are as great at the bottom of deep mines far removed from solar influence, as on the surface. ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... grace and finish of his speaking had fascinated the public imagination. But what likelihood was there that these qualities would enable him to deal adequately with the harsh realities, the stubborn problems which he must face as premier? Most unlikely, it was generally agreed. The Conservatives, though profoundly chagrined at the trick fate had played upon them, looked forward with pleasurable expectation to the revenge that would be theirs when Laurier, political ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... condition, and doings of everybody. Acting on this previous knowledge, they can often tell your past to perfection, and in many cases they predict future events—which their judgment informs them are not unlikely to occur. When ignorant, they work pretty much on the same lines as the Oracle of Delphi; they give an answer that may be taken as you please. Then, if things do not occur in the way they predicted, they simply make it an excuse for extorting more money out of their victim under the plea that ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... that there were peaceable relations between Praeneste and Cave in the fifth and sixth centuries B.C., but that the two towns were on terms of equality is impossible, and that Cave was a dependency of Praeneste, and in her domain, is most unlikely both topographically and epigraphically. And more than this, just as an ancient feud can be proved between Praeneste and Rome from the slurs on Praeneste which one finds in literature from Plautus down,[23] ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... of his soul knows about this professional deception, but—go along with you!—still deceives himself: 'Ah, what a handsome man I am! Ah, how the women love me! Ah, into what an ecstasy I bring them ...' You know, there are cases when a man with the most desperate brazenness, in the most unlikely manner, is flattered to his face, and he himself sees and knows it very plainly, but—the devil take it!—despite everything a delightful feeling of some sort lubricates his soul. And so here. Query: whose is ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... when, and how he will; but let the means be what they will, and as contemptible as may be, yet God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, and that out of weakness can make strong, can, nay, doth oftentimes make use of very unlikely means to bring about the conversion and salvation of his people. Therefore, you that are come to Christ—and that by unlikely means—stay yourselves, and wonder, and, wondering, magnify almighty power, by the work of which the means hath been made effectual to bring ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... conditions in Germany is unlikely to think clearly unless he distinguishes between such terms as Social Democracy, Socialism, Trade Unionism, and Labour party. Social Democracy is a species of Socialism. All Social Democrats are Socialists, but not all Socialists Social Democrats. The latter, as an enrolled political ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... were some twenty other prisoners in the same ward. He could hardly file through the bars of the window unnoticed by them, and they would naturally wish to share in his flight; but where one person might succeed in evading the vigilance of the guard, it was unlikely in the extreme that twenty would do so, and the alarm once given all would be recaptured. He was spared the trouble of making up his mind as to his plans, for by the time he had finished his letter the hour that the hucksters were allowed to sell their goods was passed, ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... goods? We are here in a desert place, and 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, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Shetland group consists of over one hundred islands, large and small; that many of these have seldom been visited by any one, some never trod by human foot, and the greater number uninhabited save by the wild birds and sea creatures, we will see that our hero's voyage was not unlikely to be one of discovery ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... a leading Shepherd of the Nonconformist Rechabite Flock, unwarned by this nondescript sound, which he understood to betoken remorse or repentance, in fact, an awakening of the "Nonconformist Conscience," in a somewhat unlikely quarter, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, wept again, and then mechanically uttering a guttural "Hear! Hear!" (as though he were listening, in the House of Commons, to the jocund HARCOURT, or the jocular LAWSON, or the robustious T. W. RUSSELL, or the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... ruefully, "I can't thrash a white-haired villain who is old enough to be my grandfather, even if I could get to him, which is unlikely. You know he has an inner office 'way off from the rest and sneaks in and out, up and down the back stairs. A suit for libel wouldn't do any good and the publicity would hurt more than the satisfaction I might get ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... face flitted a smile of sarcasm. How little she knew of the truth, this fair hypocrite, and how unlikely she was ever to know now. If Madeline were dead, of what avail was any effort to break from the olden thraldom—for this is what had been in the mind of the ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... It is unlikely that he went far into Persia, which at that time was in a chaotic state, and where the Jews were much oppressed. From Basra, at the mouth of the Tigris, he probably visited the island of Kish in ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... give trouble, the first symptom will be burning oil which will smoke and give off dense white fumes which can be very readily seen and smelled. However, trouble with the bearings is one of the most unlikely things to be encountered, and, if it occurs, it is due to some radical cause, such as the bearings being pinched by their caps, or grit and foreign matter being allowed to get into ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... own party, their scorn to the favorite representatives of the other party. But under such circumstances, by is much as the moderation of impartiality and of a patient search for the exact truth is hard to be kept, an unlikely to win popularity, it is the more a duty, and the surer to bear good fruits of service to the public. There is a fashionable habit of laughing or sneering at the illusions of the young, a habit usually mistimed and injurious. For an illusion is as real as a truth. Every phenomenon implies truth, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the train from Knype to Shawport, a distance of three miles, and then to walk up the hill from Shawport through Oldcastle Street to Bursley. I hoped that by such a route at such an hour, I should be unlikely to meet acquaintances, of whom, in any case, I had few. My hopes appeared to be well founded, for the large booking-hall at the station was thronged with a multitude entirely strange to me—workmen and workwomen and workgirls ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... the history of my thinkings and doings in connection with this ill-advised confraternity: and now that their cabala is known to others—to how many others they cannot guess—I think it is not unlikely that we shall hear little more of ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... for her carelessness. Her commander had evidently reckoned upon the fact that the Americans were not yet aware of the outbreak of war, and had hoped to pass the gunboats under cover of a neutral flag. It also seemed unlikely that four little gunboats should have run the blockade before Manila; it was far more natural to suppose that these ships, still ignorant of the true state of affairs, were bound on some expedition in connection with the rising of the natives. The firing had scarcely lasted ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... said Mistress Pauncefort, 'I should never have thought of such a thing! Do not you remember what the old man said at Weymouth, "there is many a boat will live in a rougher sea than a ship;" and it is such an unlikely thing, it is indeed, Miss Venetia. I am certain sure my lord can manage a boat as well as a common sailor, and master is hardly less used to it than he. La! miss, don't make yourself nervous about any such preposterous ideas. And I dare say you will find them in the saloon when you go down again. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... was more unlikely than that Mrs. Geer, a prudent, modest, and sensible woman, should give her consent to such an—to use the mildest term—unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact is, her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... conceive how anything short of the rage of hunger should have induced men to bear the misery of being the associates of the Great King. It was no lucrative post. His Majesty was as severe and economical in his friendships as in the other charges of his establishment, and as unlikely to give a rix-dollar too much for his guests as for his dinners. The sum which he allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the very smallest sum for which such poet or philosopher could be induced to sell ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... moons, and that Saturn, besides having the greatest number of moons, would be likely to retain some of his inner rings unbroken; that the earth would be likely to have a long day and Jupiter a short one; that the extreme outer planets would be not unlikely to rotate in a retrograde direction; and so on, through a long list of interesting and striking details. Not only, therefore, are we driven to the inference that our solar system was once a vaporous nebula, but we find that the mere contraction of such a nebula, under the influence of the enormous ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... 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
... more interest on the mortgage, and it was barely possible that she might some day live in it herself, though she understood that it would be in very bad taste to occupy it at once. But this was unlikely, for her husband had a predilection for a new house, in the new part of the city, full of new furniture and modern French pictures. He had a pronounced dislike for old things, including old pictures and old jewellery, though ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... inquiry. And the more it was considered, the more did his theory proclaim its reasonableness. He suggests, for example, that certain "fairy herds" in Sutherlandshire were probably reindeer, that the "fairies" who milked those reindeer were probably of the same race as Lapps, and that not unlikely they were the people historically known as Picts. The fact that Picts once occupied northern Scotland formed no obstacle to his theory. And when I learned that the reindeer was hunted in that part of Scotland as recently ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... for instance—a town of importance in the later Dark Ages—had no Roman root, simply because the modern antiquary is not yet possessed of any Roman remains recently discovered in it: there may have been no town here before the fifth century: but it is unlikely. ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... trouble hit Lucy Morris as hard as it did Lord Fawn. If Lizzie Eustace was unfit to marry Lord Fawn because of these things, then was Frank Greystock not only unfit to marry Lucy, but most unlikely to do so, whether fit or unfit. For a week or two Lady Fawn had allowed herself to share Lucy's joy, and to believe that Mr. Greystock would prove himself true to the girl whose heart he had made all his own;—but she had soon learned to distrust the young member of Parliament who was always ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... selfish. That I had never seriously contemplated suicide is proved by the fact that I had not provided myself with the means of accomplishing it, despite my habit, has long been remarked by my friends, of preparing even for unlikely contingencies. So far as I had the control of my faculties, it must be admitted that I deliberated; but, strictly speaking, the rash act which followed cannot correctly be called an attempt at suicide—for how can a man who ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... we may also agree that the British race would be likely to risk everything if the consequences of carefully engendered hate were loosed upon us. But here comes a point worthy of consideration. An invasion of England is, to say the least, unlikely; an invasion of Germany may soon have to be undertaken. May it not add to the difficulties of our troops if a policy of "arming every woman, child, and cat and dog" is favorably regarded by us? Is not such a policy a sort of left-handed outcome ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... The third person singular of its present tense is nose, and its past tense is new, and the whole inconvenience is too radical and perpetual to be received all over the world. We have an occasional escape by using nay for no, since its homophone neigh is an unlikely neighbour; but that can serve only in one limited use of the ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... Way, as the road from Silchester to Old Sarum is called, and nearly eight miles of cross country rambling from Bramley, a main highway is reached at Wolverton, where the church is reputed to be a work of Sir Christopher Wren. This is unlikely, but the design of the tower is familiar to anyone acquainted with London City and dates, with the remainder of the fabric, from 1717. The red-brick walls relieved by white stone are a little startling at first in such an out-of-the-way village, but their effect is not unpleasing, ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... namely, the Idols of the Theatre. Now in VALERIUS TERMINUS we find two separate passages in which the Idols are mentioned; and in both all four are enumerated, and all by name; though what he afterwards called Idols of the Forum, he there calls Idols of the Palace; and it seems to me very unlikely that, if when he wrote the ADVANCEMENT he had already formed that classification he should have omitted all mention of the Idols of the Theatre; for though it is true that that was not the place to discuss them, and ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... are pushed to their final issues, seems to deprive her of any voice or control in the matters in which she is most interested, and commits them to the decision, not merely of a lay, but of a secular and not necessarily even Christian court, where the feeling about them is not unlikely to be that represented by the story, told by Mr. Joyce, of the eminent lawyer who said of some theological debate that he could only decide it "by tossing up a coin of the realm." The anomaly of ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... difference of opinion as to whether the sender of the letter is a community or an individual. All the old MSS., with one weighty exception, follow the reading 'she that is in Babylon.' But it seems so extremely unlikely that a single individual, with no special function, should be bracketed along with the communities to whom the letter was addressed, as 'elected together with' them, that the conclusion that the sender of the letter is a church, symbolically ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... lord, I would not take up the time of the court with what is not material: but we reckon it to be material to show how this unlikely acquaintance begun: and as for the tune, I believe, indeed, our evidence will show that even that hath a bearing on the ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... Godfrey this extraordinary and unwonted coat-of-arms, in order to induce those who should behold them to make enquiries; and hence give them the name of "arma inquirenda". But with reverence to these grave authorities, it seems unlikely that the assembled princes of Europe should have adjudged to Godfrey a coat armorial so much contrary to the general rule, if such rule had then existed; at any rate, it proves that metal upon metal, now accounted a solecism in heraldry, was admitted in other cases similar to that in ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... impartiality 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 manners, and critics without judgement.' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... war-cries and the splashing of water from the tunnels. Smoke poured into the room from the quenched and dying fires. It disappeared almost as fast as it came. Evidently the Lorens were masters of air-conditioning. Odin was thankful. Knowing Grim Hagen, he had been fearful of gas. Now that seemed unlikely. Even as Gunnar had predicted, this last fight would be with knife and sword and spear. Or, if it lasted long, ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... "I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to believe you, violet-eyes. Even granting that he has fallen as low as that, which I should think one of the most unlikely things in the world, it would hardly be in Kenton City, would it?—a place where his face is known to a thousand people. Tell me about it. What makes ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the stories which I now tell must seem very wild and unlikely to landsmen; but those who have been to the whale-fishery will admit that I tell nothing but the truth, and if there are any of my readers who are still doubtful, I would say, go and read the works of Captain Scoresby. It is well known that this whaling captain was a truly religious man, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... time of its establishment, a continual check upon the prosperity of the principal colony, draining those resources which ought to have been applied to different purposes, where the hope and probability of some recompense, adequate to the expense, might have been more sanguine, and less unlikely. Norfolk Island, so far from returning any proportionate recompense for those supplies, had not, in the course of thirteen years, sent to New South Wales property of any description exceeding in value 2000L.; ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... in the blacksmithing trade. Changed methods of production have largely done away with the old-time blacksmith, who survives only in horse-shoeing and repair shops. The proportion of native blacksmiths is steadily declining, and it is unlikely that any considerable number of boys from the public schools will enter the trade. The boiler making trade employs relatively few men, the total number of native born boiler makers at the time of ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... destitute.[2680] Jean, Bailie of Vermandois, afterwards Governor of Chartres and about 1436 Bailie of Vaucouleurs, was hardly more prosperous.[2681] Such circumstances explained much. And yet it is unlikely that they of themselves alone and unsupported would have played a game so difficult, so risky, and so dangerous. From the little we know of their lives we should conclude that they were both too simple, too naif, too placid, to carry on ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... not included in the foregoing diagram because an American (unless in the Diplomatic Service) would be unlikely to address any but personal friends, to whom he would write as to any others. An envelope would be addressed in the language of the person written to: "His Grace, the Duke of Overthere (or merely The Duke of Overthere), Hyde Park, London"; "Mme. la Princess d'Acacia, Ave. du ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... from tracing in Juliana's petulance towards herself, and resolve to force her into the background. Even Bertha was more often brought forward, for in spite of a tongue and temper cast somewhat in a similar mould, she was rather a favourite with Juliana, whom she was not unlikely to resemble, except that her much more elaborate and accurate training might give her both more ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as we have thus described them, are yet far too numerous for the facts of the case. We must still further reduce them by excluding all such tribes as, from location, from traditional friendship for the whites, or from weakness of character, are unlikely, in any event reasonably to be contemplated, ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... reason for believing that the court of Versailles had either wholly discontinued, or, at least, had become very remiss in, the payments of Charles's pension; and it is not unlikely that this consideration induced him either really to think of calling a parliament, or at least to threaten Louis with such a measure, in order to make that prince more punctual in performing his part of their secret treaty. But whether or not any secret ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... flight, and pursuing him triumphantly and persistently in his retreat, harassing his rear, cutting off and capturing stragglers, and in every possible way worrying and annoying him so thoroughly that, to those on board the Flying Fish, it looked unlikely in the extreme that the attack, whether provoked or ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... rigid with fright and horror. It were idle to argue that only unlikely chance would wing one of the bullets from the Valkyr to a vital point: there was the torn canvas overhead, there was that hole through ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... powers granted by it are, in his estimation, not necessary and proper. I pray to be informed, Sir, whether, upon similar grounds of reasoning, the President's own scheme for a bank, if Congress should do so unlikely a thing as to adopt it, would not become unconstitutional also, if it should so happen that his successor should hold his bank in as light esteem as he holds those established under the auspices ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... his troubling and look on: the walls of Jericho begin already to crumble and dissolve. That great servile war, the Armageddon of money and numbers, to which we looked forward when young, becomes more and more unlikely; and we may rather look to see a peaceable and blindfold evolution, the work of dull men immersed in political tactics ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of these women to profess whatever opinions they expect will be agreeable to men. It is not among men of talent, sprung from the people, and patronized and flattered by the aristocracy, that we look for the leaders of a democratic movement. Successful literary women are just as unlikely to prefer the cause of woman to their own social consideration. They depend on men's opinion for their literary, as well as for their feminine successes; and such is their bad opinion of men, that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Primitive Church besides ourselves; in proportion then as they are loosened from the one, they will go to the other. Next, because many doctrines which I have held, have far greater, or their only scope, in the Roman system. And, moreover, if, as is not unlikely, we have in process of time heretical Bishops or teachers among us, an evil which ipso facto infects the whole community to which they belong, and if, again (what there are at this moment symptoms of), there be a movement in the English Roman Catholics to break the alliance ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... so, monsieur, I think it is not unlikely," said Georges. "But what does that signify? Every one knows it is an impossibility, even himself, ambitious fool as ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... Thinking it very unlikely that two snakes had got on board at the same time, I turned in and went to sleep; but having all the time a vague dreamy idea that I might put my hand on another one, I lay wonderfully still, not turning over once all night, quite the reverse of my usual habits. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... God of my Heaven is as a child in my arms. Ah, I am happy, the world is good, and now the spring is coming. We rejoice in the growth of the year; Gabriel longs for the first primrose. He is so hard at work that I think it unlikely we shall get married before the end of April; the poem is writing itself at present; it would be a sin to interfere with its progress. I think, too, that if he can possibly finish it, he will be able to go away with a greater content ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... nick-name of 'Tushy.' For two or three successive years he had been elected constable, and the duties of this great public office appeared to demand that he should neglect his legitimate private business, so that it was said that the safest place for him to secrete himself—the most unlikely place where he would be sought—would be behind his own anvil. Like many others 'clothed with a little brief authority' he was not overmodest in showing ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... London Season in various parts of the globe. It is possible that he may bring over the entire "World's Show" from Chicago, to give a solitary performance on an eligible spot recently acquired for this purpose in the neighbourhood of Primrose Hill. It is not unlikely that he may re-erect the ancient Pyramids at the back of Olympia, if satisfactory arrangements can be made with the Egyptian Government. Looking to the future, it is asserted that he has undertaken ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... on the author's part of such an unsuspected (by the reader) and seemingly insignificant agent for the working of Nemesis, I think shows great skill. I say seemingly insignificant because a little dog seems such a small and unlikely thing to act the leading part in a criminal's judgment and suggested regeneration—and yet all lovers of animals know what such a tie of affection may mean, especially to one who has no human friends—and even ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... take her straight to the Vali or whatever authority ruled in the wild land, so that punishment should be inflicted on the murderers. But she laughed at them. It would take an army to dislodge her enemies from their mountain fastnesses. And who could send an army but the Sultan, a most unlikely person to trouble his head over the massacre of a few Christians? As for a local government, the mallisori, the mountain tribes, did not acknowledge any. The Englishmen swore softly. Liosha nodded her head and agreed with them. What was to be ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Pretoria on Whit-Monday," said one of the Guardsmen, "they will get the news in England next day, and then that will be Wet Tuesday"; which was a prophecy that seemed not in the least unlikely to be fulfilled, inasmuch as an Englishman's favourite way of showing his supreme delight is by accepting an extra drink, or offering one. Others were of opinion that, with a ring of forts around Pretoria on which hundreds of thousands ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... themselves as Berber live mostly in the mountainous region of Kabylie east of Algeirs; 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 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Saunders, congratulating him upon the inestimable service which he had rendered, and appointing him to the rank of captain in the Company's service. Now that the rajah would be able to protect himself, should any future assault be made upon him—an event most unlikely to happen, as Bussy and the nizam would be unwilling to risk a repetition of a defeat, which had already so greatly injured their prestige—he had better return to Madras, where, as Mr. Saunders said, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... means larger ladangs and much food. The wish of these peoples is to have ten children each. In view of the fact that in Long Pahangei the number of women was disproportionately small, the desire for large families seemed unlikely to be gratified. Many men, some of them old, were unmarried, but no women were single. Twins sometimes occur, but not triplets. The mother nourishes her offspring for about five years, the two youngest suckling at ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... to somnambulism would seem to suggest that he really might have taken on a hypnotic condition, while his consummate skill as an actor, then and always, and his early fondness of exhibition and a joke, would make it not unlikely that he was merely "showing off" and having his fun. He could follow the dictates of a vivid imagination and could be as outrageous as he chose without incurring responsibility of any sort. But there was a penalty: he must allow pins and needles to be thrust into his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... heard Wambush came very near being arrested with a barrel of whiskey he was taking to town, and that he managed to throw the officers off his track while he was talking to Hettie in our back yard. Do you know it ain't a bit unlikely that she helped him play that trick somehow? They say he was laughing down at the store after that about how he gave them the slip. I'll bet ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Esquire, had entered Parliament by another door as Baron Shalem, of Wireskiln, in the county of Suffolk. Success had crowned the lady's efforts as far as the achievement of the title went, but her social ambitions seemed unlikely to make further headway. The new Baron and his wife, their title and money notwithstanding, did not "go down" in their particular segment of county society, and in London there were other titles and incomes to compete with. ...
— When William Came • Saki
... evil force. Now this selection may result in nothing more than a friendship. Such friendships are frequently claimed in trials, and of course, they are never altogether believed in. The necessary thing in treating these cases is caution, for it will be impossible to prove these friendships unlikely, and hence unjust to deny them without further evidence. It will be necessary to discover whether the sexual interest is or can be excluded. If not, the friendship is purely ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... ignorance concerning it; an ignorance which it was one of the purposes of our trip to dispel. It might go into the Gy-Parana, in which case its course must be very short; it might flow into the Madeira low down, in which case its course would be very long; or, which was unlikely, it might flow into the Tapajos. There was another river, of which Colonel Rondon had come across the head-waters, whose course was equally doubtful, although in its case there was rather more probability of its flowing into ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... any one as yet the most distant conjecture as to the reasons which led to it. It is not too much to say, that Wilton was one of the last boys whom the rest would have suspected; they knew indeed that he never professed to be guided by any strong moral principles; but they thought him an unlikely fellow to be guilty of acts which sinned so completely against the schoolboy's artificial code, and which branded him who committed them with the charge ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... ignorant persons; so much out of the common course of things we account it for a man who knows so few things to know this one thing so well. We account it so from the settled conviction received through experience, that it is very unlikely a man ignorant of almost all other things should well understand one subject, of a nature quite foreign to that ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... new operations against him, by trying, on the grounds of some neglected formality, to oust him from his fellowship. 'Here,' cries Pattison, 'was a new abyss opened beneath my feet! My bare livelihood, for I had nothing except my fellowship to live upon, was threatened; it seemed not unlikely that I should be turned into the streets to starve. Visitatorial law, what it might contain! It loomed before me like an Indian jungle, out of which might issue venomous reptiles, man-eating tigers, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... moment of their birth, walking along the beach. Eager to come to a conference, and yet afraid of giving offence, we advanced with caution towards them, nor would they, at first approach nearer to us than the distance of some paces. Both parties were armed; yet an attack seemed as unlikely on their part, as we knew it to ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... key, and a secret return at two in the morning from some disreputable society in the neighbourhood; made the men laugh, and the women blush; and, altogether, as he might well have other hats and coats, the delicate affair was not unlikely. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sir," suggested my skipper. "It's not unlikely, in these days of torpedoes, that the entrance to places may be guarded ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... condition was assumed, very favorable to self-respect and independence of judgment. It is to be noticed that the substitution of alphabetical order in college classes for a rank based upon social distinction occurred earlier at Yale than at Harvard, and it is not unlikely that the more democratic life of Connecticut had something ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... easily and often confounded with the written 'n'. The compositor read the first syllable 'court', and—his eye at the same time catching the word 'courtier' lower down—he completed the word without reconsulting the copy. It is not unlikely that Shakspeare intended first to express, generally the same thought, which a little afterwards he repeats with a particular application to the persons meant;—a common usage of the pronominal 'our,' where the speaker does not really mean to include himself; and ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... of cedar-trees and a dark, swift spring boiling out of the rocks and banks of amber moss with purple blossoms made a beautiful camp site. Here the mustangs were unsaddled and turned loose without hobbles. It was certainly unlikely that they would leave such a spot. Some of the burros were unpacked, and the others Withers drove off ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... with a definite purpose, and they did not intend to quit the spot until that purpose was accomplished. The Sanghursts — father and son — were far away. The gloomy house — unless guarded by malevolent spirits, which did not appear unlikely — was almost tenantless. Within its walls was the miserable victim of cruel tyranny whom they had come to release. The boys, who had both confessed and received the Blessed Sacrament from the hands of the priest who had interested himself before in the woodman's son, felt strong ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his life, for she had made arrangements by which he kept more than half her money. There was no danger that he would try to snatch her back again; and as for European friends and acquaintances, it was unlikely that such worldly persons would care to come to the place she meant to select. It would be far from the paths ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... or down stream, and could be found by no one moving along the shore itself, unless he paused and made search at the exact spot. The probability of any Indian doing such a thing, it will be conceded, was as unlikely as ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... "Not unlikely. I may say it is pretty certain they will. That was the Colonel's idea; you'd better talk to him about it next time you ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... were a dozen places where Ormsby might have taken his charges. Among them there was the legislative reception at Portia Van Brock's. Kent flipped a figurative coin, and gave the order for Alameda Square. The reception was perhaps the least unlikely ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... sensitive," Sir Tom said; but he was not satisfied. It occurred to him suddenly (for schoolboys are terrible gossips) that the boy might have heard something which he had been repeating to Lucy. Nothing could have been more unlikely, had he thought of it, than that Jock should carry tales on such a subject. But we do not stop to argue out matters when our own self-regard is in question. He looked at the two with ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... had reached the boundary line shortly after emerging from the canyon. We still travelled nearly directly west. The ferry was in charge of a Cornishman who also had as pretty a little ranch as one could expect to find in such an unlikely place. A purling stream of water, piped from somewhere up in the hills, had caused the transformation. The ranch was very homey with cattle and horses, sheep and hogs, dogs and cats, all sleek and contented-looking. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... aided by the successive removal of so many restrictions on commerce, and by the practical science which has overcome so many difficulties connected with the transport of slain meat and other perishable commodities. England seems not unlikely to become a wonderfully cheap country to live in, unless some new turn of events interferes with the processes which during the last two decades have so increased the purchasing power of money that, as is confidently stated, fifteen shillings will now buy what it needed twenty shillings ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... territory of the Empire! The changeableness of Bonaparte's ideas, plans, and projects renders it difficult to master them; but they may be best understood when it is considered that all Napoleon's plans and conceptions varied with his fortunes. Thus, it is not unlikely that he might at one time have considered the reestablishment of Poland as essential to European policy, and afterwards have regarded it as adverse to the development of his ambition. Who can venture to guess what passed in his mind when dazzled ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne |
