"Unlikely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am going home again across the sea. I am in spirit young but in the flesh old, so that it is unlikely that when I go away I shall ever see England again. But I shall go with the recollection of the generous and kindly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... love. It was a love that they were obliged to keep a profound secret, for not only had Eleazer Cooper held the strictest sort of testimony against the late war—a testimony so rigorous as to render it altogether unlikely that one of so military a profession as Mainwaring practiced could hope for his consent to a suit for marriage, but Lucinda could not have married one not a member of the Society of Friends without losing her own birthright ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... men. It was the first time, doubtless, that such a doctrine had ever been mentioned to English electors; and the fact that I was elected after proposing it, gave the start to the movement which has since become so vigorous, in favour of women's suffrage. Nothing, at the time, appeared more unlikely than that a candidate (if candidate I could be called) whose professions and conduct set so completely at defiance all ordinary notions of electioneering, should nevertheless be elected. A well-known literary man[, who was also a man of society,] was heard to say that ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... between the sleeping soldiers. There was a certain amount of safety in the very boldness of the plan, for it was unlikely, should a sentry see them moving about, he would take them for English; and even if he did now, they would be able to make a dash with some hope of success. The German soldiers, tired and completely ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... hopes. He was certain that they were not warranted by any intelligence which had arrived from any part of Great Britain; and he considered them as the mere daydreams of a feeble mind. He thought it unlikely that the usurper, whose ability and resolution he had, during an unintermitted conflict of ten years, learned to appreciate, would easily part with the great prize which had been won by such strenuous ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unlikely comforts opened before her, even the hat with red flowers was possible. It ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... us other news that morning, however. Cascade Pass was closed with snow. A miner who lived alone somewhere up the gorge had brought in the information. It was a serious moment. We could get to Doubtful Lake, but it was unlikely we could get any farther. The comparatively simple matter thus became a complicated one, for Doubtful Lake was not only a detour; it was almost inaccessible, especially for horses. But we hated to acknowledge defeat. So again we ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was more unlikely than that these two should advance by smooth paths to a clear and utter understanding. His one glimpse of her face dethroned his cold logic and moved him very deeply; she was so white, so pitifully sad-looking. She, too, had suffered; God knew that she had battled through ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... upon his arm in a window that looked towards the fields. Casting up his eyes by chance, he saw a gentleman walking up and down as if for his diversion, whereupon a thought immediately struck him, that it would be an easy matter to rob him, and by his appearance it was not unlikely but that he might prove a good prize. Without reflecting, he resolved upon the thing, and putting on over his nightgown an old great coat which he had in his closet and with a case of pistols in his breast, he slipped out at the garden gate without ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... away altogether, and he had had all the large tablecloths and napkins rough dried and locked away against he got married; an event that he seemed more anxious to provide for the more unlikely it became. He had also abdicated the main body of the mansion, and taken up his quarters in what used to be the steward's room; into which he could creep quietly by a side door opening from the outer ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... did not respect the rights of the Sultan, but occupied Suttorina and Klek, the argument that they assume the frontier left them by the French is hardly entitled to much consideration. That Austria is very unlikely to open Klek of her own free will, I have already said; nor can she be blamed for the determination, since she must be well aware that, in the event of her doing so, English goods at a moderate price would find a far readier market ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... it was not likely that the girl would give them up easily. It was just possible, too, that the whole affair was a mistake, that Mrs. Feverel had merely boasted for the sake of impressing old Mrs. Bethel, that there was little or nothing behind it, but that was unlikely. ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... depend on boldness to take us through," said Hal. "It is unlikely that we shall be questioned until we reach the outposts and then we'll have to make ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... power, now, very much greater, had a firm hold of certain wires carefully concealed; the dexterous pulling of which would cause 100,000,000 of men to rush at each other's throats: nor is this supposition rendered the more unlikely because of the utterance of the most religious sentiments on the part of the great power in question, and because of the well-known Christianity and orthodoxy of its ruler. But this was not the only power that possessed ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... lonely path which I travelled, it was unlikely I should meet any one. It was rarely traversed except by the foot of the sportsman, or some stray messenger from the castle to the town of Banagher. Its solitude, however, was in no wise distasteful to me; my heart was full to bursting. Each moment as I walked some new feature of my home presented ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... little booth made of cedar boughs is a table, on which sputters a solitary tallow candle, in a stick not remarkable for polish. This light illuminates the booth, and reveals to the observer—if there be one, which is very unlikely, for those who usually observe have in all probability retired—a wash basin, a newspaper, a penknife, which originally had two blades, but at present has but one, and that one very dull, a gentleman of say thirty, possibly thirty-five, two ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Galatians. The Judaizers are called "dogs," and as their circumcision was no longer the sign of a covenant with God, the apostle calls it a mere outward mutilation of the flesh (iii. 2). It is unlikely that Jewish influences were potent at Philippi. The explanation of this passage appears to be that the apostle, before completing his letter, learnt of some new and successful plot of the Judaizers at Rome or elsewhere. Nervously dreading lest they should invade his ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... the mind. It was unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson was tempted to suspect. "Yes," he thought; "he is a doctor, he must know his own state and that his days are counted; and the knowledge is more than he can bear." And yet when Utterson remarked on his ill-looks, it was with an air ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... may indeed be but a larger form of selfishness, but it is a larger form. It does involve devotion to others. As long as men are men, it is so unlikely as almost to be impossible that patriotism will ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Wessex (Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, &c.), each of which had an earl (aldormon, princeps, dux) of its own, at all events from the 8th century onwards. Many, if not all, of these persons were members of the royal family, and it is not unlikely that they originally bore the kingly title. At all events they are sometimes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... husband this afternoon. He is at liberty to inform you of what passed. But in case he does not, there is one detail which you ought to know: your husband believes that you once paid a visit to my apartments. It is unlikely that he will repeat the accusation and I think there is no occasion for you to worry. However, it is only proper that you should know this—which is my only excuse for writing you a letter that requires no acknowledgment. Very ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... why Ruth had desired to choose Dr. Cuyler to listen to rather than some other names on the programme, because, from the nature of his subject she had judged it most unlikely that he should have about him any arrows that would touch home to her. Not that she put it in that language; she did not admit even to herself that any of the solemn words that had been spoken at Chautauqua ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... 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 ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... chronicler, "that they should believe her to be the chief who was destined to be Queen of Scotland and also heir of England." Perhaps it was the after light of these events that conveyed that high appreciation of Margaret's qualities into the story, for she must have been quite young, and it is very unlikely that in presence of her mother, and the brother whom they all considered as the King of England, a young girl, however gifted, would have taken ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... addressed for signature. The messenger brought back the sheet of paper with strange initials, "J. L. for S. A.," and there was no reply. There remained the possibility of absence from Calcutta, of illness. That he should have gone away was most unlikely, that he had fallen ill was only too probable. Hilda looked from her bedroom window across the varying expanse of parapeted flat roofs and mosque bubbles that lay between her and College street, and curbed the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... she could have sunk to such depths; she prepared to meet him calmly and quietly; she even hoped that, perhaps, he might be so changed that she would welcome him. And, after all, he would in a little time be head of the House. Robin, too, was strongly under her influence, and it was unlikely that he would leave her for a man whom he had never known, for whom he could not ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... success of the mining project of this expedition is almost totally lacking, but it seems certain that nothing was done to discover the hoped-for gold mines. The climate affected the men so adversely, that it is altogether unlikely that they even attempted to look for the mines. The small cargo carried back by the various ships, most of which seems to have been on the "Amity," probably represents the only tangible results of the expedition. These goods, consisting of elephants' teeth, wax and hides sold for L1,567.8s.,[8] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... the case, I reasoned that it was altogether unlikely that the trivial impression as to President Byxbee had been the only one which I had received in that state. It was far more probable that it had remained over in my mind, on waking from the swoon, merely because it was the latest of a series of impressions received while outside ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... undertaken. Gathering was a surety, assuming of course that there was a harvest to gather. With the wide variety of plants available within the Washo territory during the spring, summer, and fall it seems highly unlikely that the failure of one species of plant created a serious problem. This, of course, was not true of the pine nut. A failure of the pine-nut crop was a harbinger of a starvation winter. The gathering of pine nuts, in contrast to the gathering of other plants, was the subject of a great deal of ritual ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... now from an outbreak of the imagination which exhibits itself in politics and the most unlikely places. The German Emperor, for example, is neither a tyrant nor a lunatic, as used to be absurdly represented; he is simply a minor poet; and he feels just as any minor poet would feel if he found himself on the throne of Barbarossa. The revival of ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... prizes, of which one should fall to the disposition of France, a second to the Spanish King, and a third reward the personal exertions of Godoy, came not from him, but from the Spanish minister. It was unlikely that Napoleon should have given any other account of the matter. The suggestion has been attributed, by every Spanish authority, to the Emperor; and it is difficult to doubt that such was the fact. The treaty, in which the unprincipled design took complete ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... 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 guns. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at the date of his great crime, seldom falls so low, unless there has been previous, perhaps unconscious, relaxation of the girded loins, and negligence of the untrimmed lamp. The sensitive nature of the psalmist was indeed not unlikely to yield to the sudden force of such a temptation as conquered him, but we can scarcely conceive of its having done so without a previous decay of his religious life, hidden most likely from himself. And the ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... Mr. Buckle disbelieved. The economy which prevailed throughout nature, he thought it very unlikely should admit of this exception. He considered that human beings acted necessarily from the impulse of outward circumstances upon their mental and bodily condition at any given moment. Every man, he said, acted from a motive; and his ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... very uneasy at the account of the sailor who had reported white water ahead, for he was one of the best men in the ship, and altogether unlikely to say that which was not true. It being now six o'clock in the evening, and the second-mate having taken charge of the watch, Mark went up into the fore-top-gallant cross-trees himself, in order to get the best look ahead that he could before the night set in. It wanted but half ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... lending her aid. Dorothy loved to shell peas, that ordinarily prosaic task being enlivened by the certainty that she would drop at least two-thirds of the agile vegetables, and be compelled to pursue them into the most unlikely hiding-places. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... the betting ring with a persistence almost pitiful, but he had neither the appearance nor the manner which begets confidence in unlikely tales, and in his mouth the truth itself sounded like a fabrication. He was a willing but an unconvincing liar, and the few who lingered long enough to listen to his clumsy ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... assured the future from even John Bull's proverbial growling. General McArthur, with a few troops, promptly, but not without considerable bloodshed, ended the sad farce. In view of the very exceptional features of an incident extremely unlikely to occur again, Fawkner and most others of the commission were most decided for a general condonance; and this was agreed to in the report by all except the Official Commissioner, Mr. Wright, who, excusably enough, sided with his official superiors for a treason trial. But the jury, ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... a very funny and very unlikely supposition to Matilda. "I don't think I shall ever have anybody to take care of but mamma and Norton," she ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... miraculously in the wilderness is impossible—but you cannot think it illiberal. If you really want poor children to go to the seaside, you cannot think it illiberal that they should go there on flying dragons; you can only think it unlikely. A holiday, like Liberalism, only means the liberty of man. A miracle only means the liberty of God. You may conscientiously deny either of them, but you cannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea. The Catholic Church believed that man and ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... was in love that she spoke, you would like to have her for our reprover for ever, and I can assure you more unlikely things have happened. I have heard it ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... glad to hear, has joined us on probation till next Christmas, but he is very unlikely to change his mind. He and his father have behaved in a very straightforward manner. I am not at all anxious to get fellows here in a hurry. The Norfolk Islanders, e.g., are in need of training much more than our best Melanesians, less useful as teachers, cooks, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unlikely that part of the poet's reluctance to embrace the creed of his contemporaries arises from the fact that he, in his secret heart, still hankers for his old title of priest. He knows that it is the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... I was hungry. She had threatened me with tortures, and was likely to inflict them if she should think that necessary; but nothing seemed more unlikely than that she would keep me for the present without food and water. It would be bad strategy, to say the least of it. She had admitted that she did not ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... would not dream of giving you without the permission of the young woman herself," Darrin answered, slowly. "As I do not even know her name, it is unlikely that I shall be ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... June 28, when the debates were becoming so bitter that it seemed unlikely that the convention could continue, Doctor Franklin, erroneously supposed by many to be an atheist, made the following solemn and beautiful appeal to their better natures. ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... describe the organization and methods with which she is attempting its solution. I can give no opinion as to whether by these means the Russians will succeed in finding their way out of the quagmire of industrial ruin in which they are involved. I can only say that they are unlikely to find their way out by any other means. I think this is instinctively felt in Russia. Not otherwise would it have been possible for the existing organization, battling with one hand to save the towns front starvation, to destroy with the other the various forces clothed and armed by Western ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... said, in kindlier tone, "for it is not much pleasure waiting century after century for some one to command my services. I have often thought my existence uncalled for, since you Earth people are so stupid and ignorant that you seem unlikely ever to master the secret ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... conspicuous by its absence) "a man." Such a woman was to be forgiven, even—a bitter sigh could not be suppressed—to be prayed for; but it was not necessary to try to take a falsely charitable view of her, or invent unlikely circumstances in her defence. It was a relief to the darkest of all dark thoughts in Rose's mind, the doubt of the validity of her own marriage, to hear her mother settling this question as she had settled so many questions years ago, ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... treacherous things which always hid themselves, and jumped out from unexpected places. So she now proceeded cautiously round the room, peeping into dark corners and behind curtains, as if some dangerous animal were lurking there. There was no place too small or too unlikely that she did not thoroughly examine, but it was Philippa who at last caught sight of a pair of green eyes gleaming in the ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... "Not unlikely," returned Branasko. "There, we are going ahead again. One thing in our favor is that we can more easily escape capture in darkness than if ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... is his own judge and mountain-guide through life. There is an old story of a mote and a beam, apparently not true, but worthy perhaps of some consideration. I should, if I were you, give some consideration to these scruples of his, and if I were he, I should do the like by yours; for it is not unlikely that there may be something under both. In the meantime you must hear how my friend acted. Like many invalids, he supposed that he would die. Now, should he die, he saw no means of repaying this huge loan which, by the hands of his father, mankind had ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conjectured, that persons of higher rank, partisans of the house of York, had laid the plan of this conspiracy, and had conveyed proper instructions to the actors. The queen dowager herself was exposed to suspicion; and it was indeed the general opinion, however unlikely it might seem, that she had secretly given her consent to the imposture. This woman was of a very restless disposition. Finding that, instead of receiving the reward of her services in contributing to Henry's elevation, she herself was fallen into absolute insignificance, her daughter ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... strange thing it was, Brandon thought, that through the force of circumstances he himself should have been made to bring about such an unlikely thing! That so young a man should want to marry was strange enough. It was more strange that he should have fixed on the only woman in the world that his brother wanted. This said brother had thought it the very climax of all that ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... man who manufactures furniture to sell. But I do say that speed may be, and often has been, sought at too dear a rate, and that bottom, courage, docility and action are equally elements of money value and equally worthy of being sought for in progeny. Nor is it unlikely that an attempt to breed for these last named qualities, with a proper reference to speed, would result in the production of as many fast horses as we now get, and in addition to this, a much higher average degree of merit ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... have place for, but as yet we have no distinct chemical knowledge as to whether the fats put on under alcohol or morphia, or rapidly by the use of oils, or pathologically in fatty degenerations, or in anaemia, vary in their constituents. It is not at all unlikely that such is the case, and that, for example, the fat of an obese anaemic person may differ from that of a fat and florid person. The flabby, relaxed state of many fat people is possibly due not ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... as the woof [1].' This would seem, therefore, to have been the opinion of that early time, and I may say the only difficulty in admitting it is that no mention is made of it by Chang Hsuan. There certainly is that agreement between the two treatises, which makes their common authorship not at all unlikely. 3. Though we cannot positively assign the authorship of the Great Learning, there can be no hesitation in receiving it as a genuine monument of the Confucian school. There are not many words in it from the sage himself, but it is a faithful reflection of his teachings, written by some of his ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... unlikely that the entire plant would be shut down. In that case what supervisors would want him to stay on? He ran through the list of his superiors ...
— All Day Wednesday • Richard Olin
... Fortunately, this country's large size and nearness to the mainland has prevented any such fatal crystallization of its organisms as we see in islands like St. Helena. That any English species would be exterminated by foreign competition is extremely unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we shall have to deplore in the future will, like those of the past, be directly due to our own insensate action in slaying every rare and beautiful thing ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... purposes. No one can tell, what is going on in the mind of a young man, brought under the influence of the divine Spirit; nor how deep the impressions, that may have been made upon the heart of those, who naturally seem most unlikely to become heralds ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... 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 ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... she resumed her seat. He had foreseen that while she was on her guard he was unlikely either by threats or coaxing to induce her to speak. The hint of forgery had been deliberately intended to throw her off her balance. She could not know that her blotting-pad had betrayed that and more. Nor could she know that without the evidence of her father and the bank officials—neither ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... for such kindness and foresight, though she thought it unlikely that she would need a wrap ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... To him it meant something more than mere evasion of state laws and frauds on the state revenue. The subject fell into line with his reflections upon the looseness of the bonds that held the States together, and how unlikely it was that they would ever grow into a respectable or prosperous nation while their present relations continued. Virtually there was no maritime law on the Potomac, and hardly even the pretense of any. What could be ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... step by step towards the perfection of his state, the new man's first winter-session passes; and it is not unlikely that, at the close of the course, he may enter to compete for the anatomical prize, which he sometimes gets by stealth, cribbing his answers from a tiny manual of knowledge, two inches by one-and-a-half in size, which he hides under his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... terminating in flexible fingers or paws, as indicated in the several sculptures, a shapeless paddle-like flipper. The nails with which the flipper terminates are very small, and if shown at all in carving, which is wholly unlikely, as being too insignificant, they would be barely indicated and would present a very different appearance from the distinctly marked digits common to ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... like John Winram, and the Governor of the Castle, and his wife, who sympathised with the Reformers, even though at first they did not come out boldly on their side. And there are still people, in the most unlikely places, who really love truth and goodness, and show their secret feeling at times in unexpected and ...
— Evangelists of Art - Picture-Sermons for Children • James Patrick
... 5) of Solomon's dream, in which he chose an understanding heart and wisdom, rather than riches and honor, reminds us of the choice of Hercules. It is not unlikely that he had such a dream, it is quite probable that he always preferred wisdom to anything else, and it is certain that his wisdom came from God. This is the only connection we can trace between the dream and ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... nests in many kinds of trees—oaks, maples, apple-trees, elms—but her favorite is the elm. She chooses the end of one of the long drooping branches where a group of small swaying twigs affords her suitable support. It is the most unlikely place imaginable for any but a pendent nest, woven to half a dozen or more slender, vertical twigs, and swaying freely in the wind. Few nests are so secure, so hidden, and so completely sheltered from ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... this woman was really in earnest, as well as being Saxe Leinitzer's jackal. We were friendly enough in Paris that year. She is unscrupulous enough, of course. Always with some odd fancy for the grotesque or unlikely. ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... But what is her position to-day? In the eyes of the State, she is now living with a man who is not {115} her husband. Her State-husband is still alive, and can apply, at any moment, for an order for the restitution of conjugal rights—however unlikely he is to get it. Further, if in the future she has any children by her real husband (unless she has been married again to him, after divorce from her State-husband) these children will be illegitimate. ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... nocturnal patrons, where she knew she would find Tom Martin in the office back of the main room. He was there as she expected—a keen-eyed, sharp-featured little cockney whose history from the time he disappeared from London in a fog to the day when he emerged in this unlikely corner of the great United States would have made a thrilling story—particularly to the English police! Through the open door of his office he was keeping an eye on the activities of several waiters who were cleaning up the dance hall and straightening ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... because he was deformed. The idea that he might become her lover or that her meeting him could cause disapproval in that light, had not occurred to her; and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough, saw it with a certain pang, although it made her consent to his request the less unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained toward him as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... seaport village the passage of time was deliberate, and the development of hard-worked apothecaries was slow. Ibsen's nature was not in any sense precocious, and even if he had not languished in so lost a corner of society, it is unlikely that he would have started prematurely in life or literature. The actual waking up, when it came at last, seems to have been almost an accident. There had been some composing of verses, now happily lost, and some more significant distribution of "epigrams" ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are hungry they will come back for more. For six nights I told those boys gipsy stories. I took them out into the woods. We went out amongst the rabbits. I told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me—so fond that they used to go home with ...
— Your Boys • Gipsy Smith
... me that the system works on the whole extremely well," said Edward Watton, whose heightened colour alone betrayed the irritation of his mother's chronic aggression, "and that Maxwell is not at all unlikely to adopt it on ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... heard every syllable that passed, was not, however, so manageable a subject as the plaintiff expected to find him. Whether, like Toby Allspice in the play, he 'made it a rule never to disoblige a customer;' or whether, which was not unlikely, he owed Karl Gurtler a grudge, either for stopping him on his route, or for some previous disagreement with that conscientious public functionary; or whether, which was likeliest of all, he feared to compromise his claim for trinkgeld from the highborn, gracious ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... "I think it not unlikely but I shall be in England before you receive this. You may be sure that I feel happy at turning my face towards home. We this morning have done with all intercourse with the natives, and the sails are now hoisting for ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... choose to have them running about. Hugh confessed that he did find ordinary society tiresome; but to persist in frequenting it, on the chance that some day it would turn out to be a method of filling up vacant hours, seemed to him to be providing against an unlikely contingency, and indeed an ugly and commercial business. He did not think it probable that he would lose interest in his work, and he thought it better to devote himself to it while it interested him. If the time ever came when ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... opportunities of knowing the truth. The letter, whose postscript is mentioned by the king, is to be found in Carte, vol. ii. App. xiii. 3. As the king had really so low an opinion of Glamorgan's understanding, it is very unlikely that he would trust him with the sole management of so important and delicate a treaty. And if he had intended that Glamorgan's negotiation should have been independent of Ormond, he would never have told the latter nobleman of it, nor have put him on his guard against Glamorgan's imprudence. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... the story. Aristophanes intends to deride the boasting of Lamachus, who was always ascribing to himself most unlikely exploits. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... not be called luxurious, his life had lost the edifying element of the complete poverty of his shelterless sojourn by the side of the tomb. Nor, when his time was up, did he show any inclination to resume his wanderings, and it seems not unlikely that he will remain in his quarters at the tomb till his turn comes to die, and then the kindly egg-merchant will erect a whitewashed sepulchre over his remains, and he will ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... which placed woman in a new relation to man, was unlikely to be permanently accepted. Thus a reaction to the earlier theory of the patriarchal family has set in, especially in recent years. Many writers, while acknowledging the existence of mother descent, deny that such a system carries with it, except ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... 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, there would not be a single port, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to find your mind grow clearer. My part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... had really occurred, did certainly follow very close upon the arrival of Hortense; but I had spoken one true thought in intimating that I doubted if it was due to the influence of Miss Rieppe. It seemed to me to the highest degree unlikely that the boy in his present state of feeling would do anything he did not wish to do because his ladylove happened to wish it—except marry her! There was apparently no doubt that he would do that. Did she want him, poverty and ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... 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 ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Germans were bearing down on us, and swiftly. When we looked at the map and saw the names of the cities, towns and villages whose populations had succeeded each other down the road, it was clear that the French must be beating a forced retreat, or (and this was unlikely) panic had spread so quickly that the whole north of France was now moving south on a fool's errand. We cast this second hypothesis aside. We had heard too many tales of woe and seen too much misery to ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... a letter-case with the badges of the Dominions worked in wool and "Across the sea, A letter from thee," straggling wearily across one corner. Then there was an antimacassar in purple and magenta sateen, with yellow daffodils making a brave attempt to flourish in unlikely surroundings. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... to Paris for the purpose of superintending in person a search for the culprits. It is true that the Queen of Navarre attempted to moderate his anger by suggesting that it was not unlikely that the placard, far from being composed by the "Lutherans," was the cunning device of their enemies, who thus sought to insure the ruin of the innocent. But the king appears not unreasonably to have rejected the suggestion ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... by braces. She bubbled that he was going to be the Big Man in his class. He said, "Aw, rats!" and felt that his collar was too tight.... He went home. His father remarked that Carl was late for supper, that he had been extravagant in Plato, and that he was unlikely to make money out of "all this runnin' races." But his mother stroked his hair and called him her big boy.... He tramped out to Bone Stillman's shack, impatient for the hand-clasp of the pioneer, and grew eloquent, for the first time since his home-coming, as he described Professor ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... invader of the country; but this was not the case with certain gate-sockets and great blocks of diorite which were too hard and big to be easily broken. Moreover, any conqueror of a city would be unlikely to spend time and labour in destroying materials which might be usefully employed in the construction of other buildings which he himself might erect. Stone could not be obtained in the alluvial plains of Babylonia and had to be quarried in the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... world from the eyes of the immigrant who has lost all his illusions of the land where dollars grow on the street and where everyone has an equal chance to be president, and if you do not cringe in abject humility, you are not unlikely to be insufferably self-asserting, considering that the world has robbed you and that now it is your turn to get all that is coming to you. So you make loud demands in a rude, ordering voice. The nurse is there to wait upon you—and finally you ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... originally nothing but the god of doors. That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the Romans revered as a god of gods and the father of his people, should have started in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable, doorkeeper appears very unlikely. So lofty an end hardly consorts with so lowly a beginning. It is more probable that the door (janua) got its name from Janus than that he got his name from it. This view is strengthened by a consideration of the word janua itself. The regular ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... subscribed to anti-Semitic societies on the Continent and cherished with a peculiar affection The Jewish Encyclopaedia. Such a preservation of tone is admirable, for it is a subtly restrained acidity, requiring either intense and unremitting care (which seems unlikely) or a special adjustment of temperament. It is very Gaulish, it must have been modelled on Voltaire: but it is also enlivened with flashes of irresponsibility ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... useless to the state; not only so, but dangerous. But these (it will be said) may be serviceable by their labor in the country. To force them to it, I am afraid, is impracticable; to suppose they will voluntarily do it, I am sure is unlikely. The Colony of Georgia will be a proper asylum for these. This will make the act of parliament of more effect. Here they will have the best motive for industry; a possession of their own, and no ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... not unlikely that this conversation of the Emperor reached the ears of Yuan Shih-kai. Walls have ears in China. Everything has ears, and every part of nature has a tongue. If so, here was the occasion for the last plot in the drama of the ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... giant (who had encountered him with a tree pulled up from the root, the boughs of which had been torn from it), and in token of his success assumed the Ragged Staff. You will thus see that the origins of the two were different, which would render the bearing of them separately not unlikely, and you will likewise infer that both came through the Beauchamps. I do not find the Ragged Staff ever attributed to the Neviles before the match ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ever. The sun gaed doun amang unco-lookin' clouds; it fell as mirk as the pit; no a star, no a breath o' wund; ye couldnae see your han' afore your face, and even the auld folk cuist the covers frae their beds and lay pechin' for their breath. Wi' a' that he had upon his mind, it was gey and unlikely Mr. Soulis wad get muckle sleep. He lay an' he tummled; the gude, caller bed that he got into brunt his very banes; whiles he slept, and whiles he waukened; whiles he heard the time o' nicht, and ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... Lady Gregory has done her "Grania" (1912), it is hardly likely that Mr. Yeats will return to the story, and with the waning of Mr. Moore's interest in old Irish legend it is very unlikely that he will wish to rewrite the play. It would seem we have lost it, whatever its value, until the "literary remains" of Mr. Moore are ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... be understood," Philip continued, "that if, when one of us gets round to the other side of the town, he should not meet the other party, and can hear no tidings of it, he shall gallop on till he meets it; for it is just possible, although I think it unlikely, that one or other of us may meet with so strong a party of the enemy as to be forced to stand on the defensive, until ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... disappearance seemed to be the only way to insure my safety. Of course no one could know I was connected with this matter. I would not go near the bank, and unless he was followed, which was most unlikely, as he had been with the bank some years and was a thoroughly trusted official, there would be absolutely no ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... view, the extinction of religion by science seems very unlikely. It is as unlikely that any thing that an Infidel says about religion should be true, as that a blind man should describe the sun correctly, or even read a chapter accurately, with the book open before him? I shall show you presently that learned Infidels make ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... out of the Clayton region, how is he to know which I have taken? Suppose he goes straight at once to the right station, they will not remember my departure for the simple reason that I didn't depart. But they may remember about Shaphambury? It was unlikely. ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... of what they would do under such unlikely circumstances; so, after thinking a little, she merely said, "Don't be silly, Maurice!" And that sort of answer puts an end to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... character. He considered that the ways of the Gods are not as our ways, and that it is rather the rule than the exception with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy might in the end cost the temple the whole of its revenues. The result of his cogitations was a resolution, if the old woman should present herself ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... a fine opportunity the next day to make up for the evening's disappointment. It was cloudy and stormy; going out was not to be thought of, and it was very unlikely that anybody would come in. Ellen joyfully allotted the whole morning to the examination and trial of her new possessions; and as soon as breakfast was over and the room clear, she set about it. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... must have distinctly understood: This romantic attachment you fancy you have conceived for my niece—I must hear no more of it. You have seen her but once, and under circumstances which make it unlikely that you will ever meet her again. Your time will be fully occupied in preparations for our departure; as for her, I shall see that she leaves St Malo at once. Go, now, and prove yourself indeed a man of honour by attempting ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis |
