"Improbably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Not improbably my strong impression that the spider on my knee deliberately winked at me was the result of memory, enlivening imagination. But it sufficed to bring to mind, in one rapid, consoling flash, the irrevocable ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... and obviously great experience the negotiation of the diamond would give but little trouble, while to me it was a matter of impossibility. On the other part, I judged that I might lose nearly as much by cutting the diamond, and that not improbably with an unskilful hand, as might enable me to pay you with proper generosity for your assistance. The subject was a delicate one to broach; and perhaps I fell short in delicacy. But I must ask you to remember that for me the situation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... parent and to have migrated from some one birthplace.' This, to my mind, is much more unlikely than his further suggestion that 'all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype.' Startling as this second proposition may be on first hearing, it may not very improbably express the real fact, provided by 'some one prototype' be signified, not a single individual, but several individuals of one and the same type. Beyond all doubt there was a time when on and about our earth ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous that it will Flame all away without leaving the least Drop behinde it, yet even this Fiery Liquor is by Helmont not improbably affirm'd, in case what he relates be True, to be Materially Water, under a Sulphureous Disguise: For, according to him, in the making that excellent Medecine, Paracelsus his Balsamus Samech, (which is nothing but Sal Tartari dulcify'd ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... understand paint. There is a copy of these panels, recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds have been added from drawings made by Duerer, but the picture is still farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it with Duerer at his elbow. Duerer made one more attempt at representing a life-size nude, the Lucretia, finished in 1518, at a period when his powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to it are all inferior. However, studies for the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... of which man should be more sedulously careful than permitting a promiscuous assemblage of right with wrong—of suffering false conclusions to be drawn from true propositions; this will not improbably be found to be pretty much the case in this instance; the existence of the great Cause of causes, the Parent of parents, does not, I think, admit of any doubt in the mind of any one who has reasoned: but, if this existence did not rest upon better foundations than the unanimity ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... strong will, albeit, not improbably, with a touch (as was thought by several) of mental aberration, the result of his illness, he threw himself, with characteristic energy, into the work of religious proselytism, in support of the special views with which he was now inspired. He became a kind of religious clairvoyant, living an ecstatic ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... was evidently a seaman and not improbably the master of a slaver—remained the guest of Don Manuel for the night, sleeping under his roof, and taking his departure very early next morning, before either Smellie or I had turned out, in fact. On our making our appearance Don Manuel referred to his late visitor, explaining ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... 'The Ancient Tabard Inn.' The whole yard is redolent of dilapidation. Facing the visitor on entering is an interesting block of old buildings, forming part of the left side, and the bottom of what once was an ample courtyard. This part of the building contains not improbably the shell of the corresponding portion of the original inn. The doors of the first floor all open into one of the wide balustraded galleries or verandas so common in the genuine old English hostelry. Until recently the landlord of the Talbot, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... House that Jack Built) which Coleridge published as a skit on the joint volume brought out by himself, Lamb, and Lloyd. The whole thing was always a mystery to me. But I have thought that the passage on division between friends was not improbably written by Coleridge on this occasion. Curiously enough (if so) Lamb, who is said to have objected greatly to the idea of a second part of Christabel, thought (on seeing it) that the mistake was redeemed by this ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... certain motives of self- interest, peculiar good-will. But there was no city of the world in which the Roman Csar did not reckon many liege-men and partisans. And the very hands, which dressed his altars and crowned his Prtorian pavilion, might not improbably in that same hour put an edge upon the sabre which was to avenge the injuries of the too indulgent and long-suffering Antoninus. Meantime, to give a color of patriotism to his treason, Cassius alleged public ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... time, elected to change the nature of their tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace, who, by Act of Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William Lovelace of Gray's Inn, who died in 1576, and ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... It is improbably radiant, the sun of noon in this yard of the dead. The air is exquisite and one becomes intoxicated by breathing it. The Pyrenean horizons have been swept of their clouds, their least vapors, and it seems as if the wind of the south had brought here the limpidities ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... invective has about it a savor of honesty which atones for many defects of literary taste and executive art; and after a more thorough study than such rude and unattractive work seems at first to require or to deserve, the moral and intellectual impression of the whole will not improbably be far more favorable than one resulting from a cursory survey or derived from a casual selection of excerpts. They bring no manner of support to a monstrous and preposterous imputation which has been cast upon their author; the charge of having ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... consists largely of herself. She is a power, but at present no one can say with whom she will ally herself. Hitherto she has been simply anti-Richelieu, and was his most troublesome and bitter enemy; and I should say that not improbably she will at once begin to conspire against Mazarin as she did against him. She has been the queen's greatest ally; but then the queen was always a bitter enemy of Richelieu, whereas at present it is supposed that ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... the moderns is certainly not the chrysoprasius of Pliny, or the [Greek: chrysoprasos] of Greek writers. The ancient stone was not improbably our chrysoberyl, and it is doubtful whether the modern chrysoprase was known until a comparatively late period. The chrysoprase of Kosemuetz, near Frankenstein in Silesia, was discovered in 1740, and used by Frederick the Great in the decoration of the palace of Sans Souci ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... Adonis of the Bargello Palace, which not improbably was designed for one of the figures prostrate below the feet of a victorious Genius. It bears, indeed, much resemblance to a roughly indicated nude at the extreme right of the sketch for the tomb. Upon this supposition, Michelangelo must have left it in a very unfinished state, with an ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... understood that he might use his liberty in whatever way he chose; even for returning to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that not 30 improbably, in some of the battles which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank,—in which case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... eats a pear)—Ver. 543. This may either mean, very easily indeed, or not at all. It is not clear that a fox will eat a pear; but if does, his teeth will go through it with the greatest ease. Not improbably, Tranio uses ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... laugh came down the wind. It could not conceivably have been the laugh of any girl who went into the shopping street to buy bridge-markers, chocolate, bathing costumes or tennis balls. But it might have been—it not improbably was—the laugh of some girl whose mission was to sell such things. The trio meandered past, heedless. Mr. Spatt said no word, but he appreciably winced. The black figure in the midst of the two white ones ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... all that they had yet advanced in the way of claim. But, at the same tine, though indispensable negatively, positively it stretched so much further than any necessity or interest inherent in their present innovations, that not improbably they faltered and shrank back at first from the immeasurable field of consequences upon which it opened. Thy would willingly have accepted less. But, unfortunately, it sometimes happens, that, to gain as much as is needful in one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... as 'the Giusti of Italian prose.'" As a polemic writer D'Azeglio was recognized as one of the chief forces in molding public opinion. If he had not been both patriot and statesman, this versatile genius, as before intimated, would not improbably have gained an enviable reputation in the realm of art; and although his few novels are—perhaps with justice—no longer remembered, they deeply stirred the hearts of his countrymen in their day, and to say the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... of paradoxical rhetoric. It must be taken, therefore, as something serious in the main; and if so taken, and read by the light reflected from Mr. Whistler's more characteristically brilliant canvases, it may not improbably recall a certain phrase of Moliere's which at once passed into a proverb—"Vous etes orfevre, M. Josse." That worthy tradesman, it will be remembered, was of opinion that nothing could be so well calculated to restore a drooping young lady to mental and physical health as the present ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... been conclusive against attempting it in an open country.] Another interesting feature in this plan is that if railway communication between Sherman and the Potomac Army had been opened in the summer of 1864, it would have been an interior line of immense importance, not improbably modifying essentially the final ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... fine passage in the fourth, heaved a deep sigh, and turning to his companion said, "I wish that note was out of my book." Had he foreseen the noise his several friends continued to make, even after his death, about this purely imaginary offence on the part of Adam Smith, the poet would not improbably wish the polemical prefaces out of his book. Smith did not think much of Mickle's translation of the Lusiad, holding the French version to be much superior,[279] but if he happened to express this unfavourable opinion to the Duke of Buccleugh, it could not have ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... the foregoing pages may, not improbably, object that, while we have instanced certain curious and isolated parallels from early Aryan literature and tradition, and, what, from the point of view of declared intention, appears to be a kindred ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... One will want to boss the other, but they can generally be left to settle their own quarrels. In every pack there is a master hound who rules the roost, but if he degenerates into an intolerable bully, he may, not improbably, be killed and eaten by the others, an occurrence which Mr. Mills tells us took place in Mr. Conyer's kennel at ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... of which he was quite aware—even to a certain hardness such as he had hinted to Hermione. Those who strove, or seemed likely to strive to interrupt him in his work, he pushed out of his life. Even if they were charming women he got rid of them. And the fact that he did so proved to him, and not improbably to them, that he was more wrapped up in the gratification of the mind than in the gratification of the heart, or of the body. It was not that the charm of charming women had ceased to please him, but it seemed to have ceased ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... restore the ejected Consuls, and to kill the Consuls who had been established in their place. But the book in which this was written is lost, and we have only the Epitome, or heading of the book, of which we know that it was not written by Livy.[191] Suetonius, who got his story not improbably from Livy, tells us that Caesar was suspected of having joined this conspiracy with Crassus;[192] and he goes on to say that Cicero, writing subsequently to one Axius, declared that "Caesar had attempted in his Consulship to accomplish ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... occasions, claimed equally to take the lead, had come out to demand that the king should visit Paris; and the Ministerial Council thought it safer for him to comply with that petition than to throw himself into the arms of the soldiers, a step which might not improbably lead to ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... as a beauty. She was indeed improbably pretty, small, plump and very fair, with soft golden hair that was silky and yet fluffy, perfectly regular little features, and a kind of infantine sweetness, combined with an almost incredible cleverness that was curious and fascinating. She was of a ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... decorous hour, so that they left the Castle long before their rivals, the Cavaliers, had reached the springtide of their merriment; an arrangement which afforded the greatest satisfaction to the lady, who dreaded the consequences which might not improbably have taken place, had both parties met at the same period ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... taken, till he came to the spot on which the crowd had been assembled. Close to this there was a hand-gate leading into Dillsborough wood, and standing in the gateway was a man. The Senator thought that this might not improbably be Goarly himself, and asked the question, "Might your ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... gallant soldiers)—Ver. 814. Beaumont and Fletcher not improbably had this scene in view in their picture of the mob regiment in Philaster. The ragged regiment which Shakspeare places under the command of Falstaff was not very unlike it, nor that which owned the valiant Bombastes ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... all a belief in a Supreme Creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth. It is a singular fact, that the ancient Quiche tradition represents the Deity as a Triad, or Trinity, with the deified heroes arranged in orders below,—a representation not improbably connected with the Hindoo conception. The belief in a Supreme Being seems to have been generally diffused among the Central American and Mexican tribes, even as late as the arrival of the Spaniards. The Mexicans adored Him under the name of Ipalnemoaloni, or "Him in whom and by whom ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... would fill thirty sides of office folio paper,' equal to about ten pages of the 'Edinburgh Review,' The exertion, however, in this instance was exceptional: only upon one other occasion did my father ever work upon a Sunday; it cost him a severe nervous illness and not improbably sowed the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... hope so, for otherwise we can with difficulty imagine one person not deserving to be ordered for execution, on Wednesday next, between the hours of eight and nine ante-meridian. Happily, however, for our future peace of mind, and not improbably for the whole confirmation of our character, our Guardian Genius—(every boy has one constantly at his side, both during school and play hours, though it must be confessed sometimes a little remiss ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... belongs to the nineteenth century B.C. As, however, we have no direct evidence that either the city or the country was known as Asshur until four centuries later, we must be content to lay it down that the Assyrians had moved to the north certainly as early as B.C. 1440, and that their removal may not improbably have ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... recension there is a letter to one Mary of Cassobola. This was made the parent of a 'correspondence between St. John and the Virgin,' bearing the name of Ignatius: and it is not improbably connected with the outburst of Mariolatry in the eleventh and following centuries. But with 'the first streak of intellectual dawn this Ignatian spectre vanished into its kindred darkness.' The forgery was 'consigned to the limbo of foolish and forgotten things.' This pretender set aside, St. ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... experience of every form of human emotion which involves suffering, such an awakening was impossible. The first feeling of a girl as happily situated, healthy-minded, and physically strong as she was is bound to be pleasurable; and had she been a young man at this time she would not improbably have sought to heighten and vary her sensations by adding greater quantities of alcohol to her daily diet; she would have grown coarse of skin by eating more than she could assimilate; she would have smelt strongly enough of tobacco, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and each nine, a system not unlike that of the ancient Peruvians. Each candidate for admission to the band had to undergo the most trying ordeals, rivalling in severity those of the American Indians, and not improbably genuine though exaggerated reminiscences of actual tests of endurance and agility. Once admitted he had to observe certain geasa or "tabus," e.g. not to choose his wife for her dowry like other Celts, but solely for her good manners, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... were only for his fate, which is too well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off, not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Due de Berry, the second son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... as the only known exception to the generally "professional" character of all Sterne's compositions of the pre-Shandian era. This was a piece in the allegoric-satirical style, which, though not very remarkable in itself, may not improbably have helped to determine its author's thoughts in the direction of more elaborate literary efforts. In the year 1758 a dispute had arisen between a certain Dr. Topham, an ecclesiastical lawyer in large local practice, and Dr. Fountayne, the then Dean of York. This dispute had originated ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... easy one. She would not wish to leave Perrote; but if Perrote took the veil, that obstacle would be removed; and even if she did not, Amphillis had no certain chance of accompanying her wherever she might go, which would not improbably be to Drayton Manor. To leave the rest of her present companions would be no ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... had resided for three years at the time of the trial. This distressing family quarrel must have caused some bitterness of feeling, and Augustine (Ep. 138. 19) mentions a quarrel with the inhabitants of Oea on the question of the erection of a statue in his honour. These facts may not improbably have led him to seek residence elsewhere. Be this as it may, when we next hear of him he is in Carthage, enjoying the highest renown as philosopher, poet, and rhetorician. It was during this residence at Carthage that he delivered the flamboyant orations of which fragments have ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... of an almost improbably handsome young man looked back at her. Startling dark-blue eyes; a strong chin, curly brown hair. There was a gleam of white teeth behind the quick, warm smile which always awoke a ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... enchanted with the mixture at once of genius, poetry, feeling, and dialectic, which marks that prince of thinkers, and he was prepared by it for understanding the speculations of his time. The dialectical process through which Plato's mind had passed (30) represents not improbably, in some degree, the history of Schleiermacher's own mental development as traceable in his works. The conviction derived from Plato's early dialogues, that the mind, in travelling outward to study the objective, could not prove the highest realities, but must have faith ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... righteousness and black abominations, and exaggerating the consequences of both perhaps to infinity. Such a people were the Jews after the exile, and again the early Protestants. If such a people is philosophical at all, it will not improbably be Calvinistic. Even in the early American communities many of these conditions were fulfilled. The nation was small and isolated; it lived under pressure and constant trial; it was acquainted with but a small range of goods and evils. Vigilance over conduct ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... the country at large. But for John Adams it was ruinous. At the moment when he made the bold move, he doubtless expected to be followed by his party. Extreme was his disappointment and boundless his wrath, when he found that he had at his back only a fraction, not improbably less than half, of that party. He learned with infinite chagrin that he had only a divided empire with a private individual; that it was not safe for him, the President of the United States, to originate any important measure without first consulting ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... "It may not improbably force me to give up the living. I certainly will not remain there subject to the censure of the Bishop. I do not in truth want any damages. I would not accept money. I only want to set myself right before the world." It was then agreed that the necessary ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... will meet with favor in my eyes. He need not be nervous on this point. I, too, am rather anxious and eager to see my house—my house, if you please!—I, who have never hitherto possessed any larger residence than a doll's house, whose whole front wall opened at once, giving one an improbably simultaneous view of kitchen-range, best four-poster, and drawing-room chairs. I have, it is true, seen photographs of my new house, photographs of its east front, of its west front—photographs, in its park, of the great old cedar; in its gardens, of its ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... business of telephoning was conceivably well-timed; not improbably the captain was receiving the report of somebody who had been sent to search Stateroom 29 in Lanyard's absence. He wondered and, wondering, glanced at Crane, to find that gentleman watching him with a whimsical glimmer ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... with dust. Bimeby I met Old Poodles, the all-firdist gambler in the country. He was afoot and in his shirt-sleeves, and was in a wuss larther nor any race hoss I ever saw. ("All-fired," enormous, excessive, a low Americanism, not improbably a puritanical corruption of "hell-fired," designed to have the virtue of an oath ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... as to form important seams of coal in the true carboniferous era, the trees which gave birth to them being now classed amongst the humble cryptogams, the ferns, and club-mosses, &c. The graphite of Laurentian age may not improbably have been caused by deposits of minute portions of similar lowly specimens of vegetable life, and if the eozooen the "dawn-animalcule," does represent the animal life of the time, life whose types were too minute to leave undoubted traces of their existence, both ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... had apparently served, during some former occupation of the convent by monks, as the wine-cellar of the holy fathers; and had been walled up, not improbably, to protect it from the depredations of the French soldiery during Napoleon's occupation of Spain. As already mentioned, it was well stocked with casks of all sorts and sizes, most of them empty and with bottles, for the most part full. Several of the latter ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... very abstemious, and took great care of his health, and if he was really verging on eighty (which I very much doubted), I thought he might not improbably live to be a hundred and ten and even a hundred and twenty. He drank nothing, whatever, neither tea, coffee, cocoa, nor any other beverage, neither water nor wine, always quenching his thirst with fruit, of which he ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... a year or two longer it is not improbably that our candidate would have fallen from his high "reflecting" state to the low level of artful politician. "It was the universal custom of the times to treat with liquor. We both did it; but he was condemned for it more than myself by the religious ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... with brimstone and water, is evidently reduced to a calx, so that phlogiston must have escaped from it. Phlogiston also must evidently be set loose by the ignition of charcoal, and is not improbably the matter which flies off from paint, composed of white-lead and oil. Lastly, since spirit of nitre is known to have a very remarkable affinity with phlogiston, it is far from being improbable that nitrous air may also produce the same effect ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... as bulky as the "Transactions of the Royal Society" might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations [35] of the Schoolmen;[36] not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy"; but though such work engrossed the best intellects of ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... honour, and substantial reward as any office in the gift of Presidents or political parties."[1127] Had he appreciated the truth of this wise statement in 1864 his sun might not have set in a cloud. "His parliamentary failure," says Blaine, "was a keen disappointment to him, and was not improbably one among many causes which cut short a brilliant and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... unless another omnipotent wave shall give it another toss. On shore, such a rock would be a landmark for centuries. It is inconceivable how a sufficient mass of water could be brought to bear on this ponderous mass; but, not improbably, all the fragments piled upon one another round these islands have thus been flung to and fro at one time ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something more than that; and the system of repartimientos, under which the Indians of the time of Corts were divided among the conquerors, with the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting than the Mexican. Under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlour, and sometimes rustle paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry—where, nevertheless, he was invisible, in spite of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest full of manuscript discourses ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... formally restored to liberty; and it was understood that he might use his liberty in whatever way he chose, even for returning to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that, not improbably, in some of the battles which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank, in which case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... severer critics—in 1664 was published a little book called The Dutch Drawn to the Life, a hostile work not improbably written with the intention of exciting English animosity to the point of war. A great deal was made of the success of the Dutch fisheries and the mismanagement of our own. The nation was criticised in all its aspects—"well nigh three millions of men, well-proportioned, great lovers ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Lords) everything is hung up because you will not answer Thring's* letters. Thring, in desperation, appeals to me, concluding with characteristic simplicity that we must be friends because you have written a book about me. As the conclusion is accidentally and improbably true, I now urge you to give him whatever satisfaction he requires. I have no notion what it is, or what the case is about; but at least answer his letters, however infuriating they may be. Remember: you pay Thring only L500, for which you get integrity, incorruptibility, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... part in Minoan and Mycenaean art; and its influence was spread abroad as far as Western Europe[300] and towards the East as far as America. In many ways it was a factor in the development of such artistic designs as the spiral and the volute, and not improbably also ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... suitable reverence. "I am called Francis Villon," he said, "a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make Chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship's very ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... privately from person to person. This explains in part the oblivion into which their names fell; so that the author or redactor of Jeremiah l., li.; the author of chapters xiii.-xiv. 23, xxi. 1-10, xxiv.-xxvii., xxxiv., xxxv., inserted in Isaiah; and, above all, the Babylonian Isaiah, whom Hitzig improbably identifies with the high-priest Joshua, are unknown. After the return from Babylon the literary spirit manifested itself in the prophets of the restoration—Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—who wrote to recall ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... events rather diminish than increase the probability of a rupture with France, while they will task her means to the uttermost, and not improbably ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... that "salting" was a sort of initiation, like that which prevails among our Teutonic brethren, where the "Fuchs" is raised to the sublime degree of a "Brandfuchs," "junge Bursch," "bemorstes Haupt," by successive promotions. Not improbably in after times, especially at the Universities, like "passing the Line," it admitted of being commuted for a money payment. The exact nature of the "salting" at Eton I cannot explain; perhaps your able correspondent, R.O., may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... her prosperous and happy, to do with the adoration of Rousseau's speculative systems? Or why are the English encouraged in a traditional respect for the manes of republicans, whom, if living, we might not improbably consider as factious and ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... life are so many that he may not improbably be gone, but remember you found another father ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... libraries. I keep my own, with a certain touch of ritualistic observance, between this seventeenth century edition of the works of Roger Bacon and this more modern one, in Latin, of the writings of Thomas Aquinas; both of whom may not improbably have been practitioners of ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... Lacedaemonian ambassadors in Athens at the moment, at the house of Callias their proxenos; their names were Etymocles, Aristolochus, and Ocyllus. Immediately on receipt of the news the Athenians seized these three and imprisoned them, as not improbably concerned in the plot. Utterly taken aback by the affair themselves, the ambassadors pleaded that, had they been aware of an attempt to seize Piraeus, they would hardly have been so foolish as to put themselves into the power of the Athenians, or have selected the house of their proxenos ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... the minions of a court, to be a wise and generous choice, and her own behaviour as alike candid and noble. But she herself is not unlikely to dread unjust misconstruction; a fear of which may not improbably induce her, upon any occasion, to seize some opportunity of showing an unwonted and unusual rigour towards her lover, in order to balance her having extended towards him, in the beginning of their ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... as "divided" by the Arabian Gulf (which separated the two continents) into eastern and western-Asiatic and African. This was an "old opinion" of the Greeks, we are told; and, though Strabo thinks it indicated their ignorance, we may perhaps be excused for holding it that it might not improbably have arisen ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... a third and very extensive division of Wilson's work which may not improbably be more popular, or might be if it were accessible separately, with the public of to-day, than either of those which have been surveyed. His "drunken Noctes," as Carlyle unkindly calls them, require a certain peculiar attitude of mind to ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... and whiskers which formed a beard beneath his chin. Whether from his recent captivity or from constitutional causes, there was an air of lassitude in his look to which the fatigues of his voyage not improbably contributed. Altogether, he gave one the idea of a visionary or theoretical enthusiast rather then of a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... back up Dorn, who had already reached the workman he had halted. Anderson took out a whistle and blew such a shrill blast that it deafened Lenore, and must have been heard all over the harvest-field. Not improbably that was a signal agreed upon between Anderson and his men. Lenore gathered that all had been in readiness for a concerted movement and that her father believed Dorn's ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... mentioned here, Isuspect that the more general satire "Colin Clout" preceded the more directly personal one of "Why come ye nat to court?" which lashes Wolsey himself with a heartily outspoken virulence which would hardly have been tolerated by him when in the zenith of his power. It was not improbably written whilst its author was safe in sanctuary under Bishop Islip. William Thynne, court favourite though he was, could never have kept Skelton's head on his shoulders after ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... to say a few words about myself. Not improbably, the reader might be willing to spare me the trouble; for I have made but a poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no separate interest, and suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other lives. But one still retains ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... called out the foregoing comments, and has awakened the hope, which I now venture to express, that the critical use of the Versions may be expanded, and form a part of that systematic revision of the text of the Old Testament which will not improbably form part of the critical labours of ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... feature of the landscape. Indeed Mr. CYRIL HARCOURT'S play might belong to just any year since the time when women first began to write those purple tales of passion that are so bad for the morals of the servants' hall. It was simply to get copy for this kind of stuff that Mabel Vere (most improbably pretty in the person of Miss GLADYS COOPER) advertised for a husband, for this post had already been assigned to the dullest and stuffiest of fiances. I dare not think how the theme might have been treated in French hands, but Mr. HARCOURT is very firm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... of 37 miles in diameter, lies at the end of the gigantic range of the Apennines. Not improbably, Eratosthenes once formed the volcanic vent for the stupendous forces that elevated the comparatively craterless peaks of ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... wealth which was reputed to be almost unlimited, but which was not absolutely fixed. A couple of hundred thousand pounds down might have been secured with greater ease. But here there had been a prospect of endless money,—of an inheritance which might not improbably make the Auld Reekie family conspicuous for its wealth even among the most wealthy of the nobility. The old man had fallen into the temptation, and abnormal difficulties had been the result. Some of these the reader ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... different times. We know indeed pretty certainly that Romeo and Juliet was an early play, and Cymbeline a late one, with other general facts of the same kind. We know pretty certainly that the Henry the Sixth series was based on a previous series on the same subject in which Shakespere not improbably had a hand; that King John and The Taming of the Shrew had in the same way first draughts from the same or other hands, and so forth. But all attempts to arrange and elucidate a chronological development of Shakespere's mind and art have been futile. Practically the Shakesperian ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... has been telling us in his most interesting book, that the negro may not improbably hold his own in Africa. I cannot say I regard this as an unmixed evil. Why should there not be parts of the world in which races of inferior intelligence or energy should hold their own? I am not so anxious to see the whole earth covered by an indefinite multiplication of the cockney type. But I ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the expedition is intended to operate farther east, for Malta is altogether out of the way for a fleet coming from Toulon hither. Still it is just as well to continue our work. There is, naturally enough, a violent ferment among the native population, and this may not improbably find vent in a fanatical attack upon the Christians. At any rate, we will get the rest of our goods of any value on board, and then ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... inner consecrated area, which was occupied by the Knights, and some houses adjacent on the west owned by them, but not improbably occupied by students of the law. It appears that when the manor was handed over to the Knights of St. John the King retained part of it, which, however, in 1338, he allowed them to purchase for L100, and from that date we ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... remembered that, only fifteen years before, the most illustrious chief of the party adverse to the House of Orange had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob in the very precinct of the palace of the States General. A similar fate might not improbably befall those who should, at this crisis, be accused of serving the purposes of France against their native land, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... should undertake casually to examine MacDowell's songs seriatim, beginning with his earliest listed work in this form—the "Two Old Songs," op. 9—would not improbably be struck by an apparent lack of continuity and logic in the initial stages of his artistic development. At first glance, MacDowell seems to have attained a phenomenal ripeness and individuality of expression in these songs, which head the catalogue of his published works; whereas ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... refers openly enough to the example of the Decameron, which had been translated by her own secretary, Anthony le Macon, a member of her literary coterie, and not improbably connected with the writing or redacting of the Heptameron itself. Nor were later Italian tale-tellers likely to be without influence at a time when French was being "Italianated" in every possible way, to the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... no authority over the hands if your son is to interfere when I am about to punish a slave for an act of gross disobedience and neglect. I found that all the tobacco required turning, and now it will not be done this afternoon owing to my orders not being carried out, and the tobacco will not improbably be injured in quality. My position is difficult enough as it is; but if the slaves see that instead of being supported I am thwarted by your son, my authority is gone altogether. No overseer can carry on his work properly under ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... not improbably, came Jobel, the trumpet of jobel or jubilee; that large and loud musical instrument, used in proclaiming the liberty at the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... was a young man who might not improbably make a figure in the world, should circumstances be kind to him, but as to whom it might be doubted whether circumstances would be sufficiently kind to enable him to use serviceably his unquestionable talents and great personal gifts. He had taught himself to regard ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... his career had been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as proof of the accusation that had been made against ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... necessity of fighting might at any moment come to any one; even the combination of a peaceable disposition with formidable strength did not save Lincoln from numerous personal affrays, of which many are remembered, and not improbably many more have been forgotten. In spite of the picturesque adjectives which have been so decoratively used in describing the ruffian of the frontier, he seems to have been about what his class always is; and when these fellows had forced ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... operations—are not looked upon as the work of the Government, but as that of Palmerston alone—Palmerston, in some degree, as contradistinguished from the Government. All this confers upon him a vast importance, and enables him, neither unreasonably nor improbably, to aspire to head and direct any Government that may hereafter be formed by a dissolution and fresh ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... appears to be held by the chief spirit of the angelic world. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God." The burial of each and every body which is destined to the resurrection of the just, is, therefore, not improbably an object of interest with him who, under the God-man, will have the supervision of the last day. With a view to that harvest of the earth, he will now see the furrows made, the seed planted, the hill prepared. He will ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... journey northwards, Hewett only said that a near relative had met with a bad accident. But it would be easy, Joseph decided, to win the man's confidence again, and thus be apprised of all that went on. With Clem he kept silence on the subject; not improbably she would learn sooner or later what had happened, and indeed, as things now stood, it did not matter much; but on principle he excluded her as much as possible from his confidence. He knew she hated him, and he was not backward in ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to have managed the supplementary business of a continuator most unskillfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the gaping space in a manner somewhat similar (though better executed) to what I have imagined. But too often different is rational conjecture from melancholy fact. This exordium, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... less endowed mentally and much better endowed in the matter of brute force than the men of to-day. These skeletons, or parts of skeletons, are turning up every year, and we are just beginning to know much about them. Capable men are studying them with much care. The next fifty years may not improbably make the history of the ascent of man as clear as is now that of the horse, to ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... whom the letter is addressed, was probably the father of Constantine Huyghens, the Dutch poet-politician, who was secretary and privy counsellor to the Stadtholders Frederick Henry, and William I. and II., and who, not improbably, was the son here mentioned as recommended to the protection of Sir R. Winwood, and who, at that date, would have been twenty-one ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... think that he shot himself, either deliberately or inadvertently, there remains the alternative that he was shot by somebody else, either deliberately or, very improbably, by inadvertence," Rand said. "I think the latter can be safely disregarded. Let's agree that it was murder and go on ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... therefore, to no small extent, on the degree to which the moralising elements in the nation can, without injury to all that is sound and healthy in individualist action, control those defects which may not improbably spring out of the egotism of the commercial spirit, if it be subject to ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... personnages sont seulement desguisez en ce Theatre, a fin de n'affliger pas tant les familles de ceux qui en ont donne le suject, puis qu'elles en sont assez affligees." We thus find that the outlines of the story of "Lysis" tally with what we know about Bussy from other sources, and Rosset not improbably preserves details omitted by the ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... that port wine at four doses in the day, or even at two, instead of taking it all together. Kate promised to try again, but stated her conviction that the trial would be useless. The doctor, when pressed on the matter, said that his patient might probably live a week, not improbably a fortnight,—perhaps a month, if he would be obedient,—and so forth. Gogram went away without seeing Kate; and Kate, who looked upon a will as an awful and somewhat tedious ceremony, was in doubt whether her grandfather would live to complete ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in prescribing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... not at once give in to this unreasonable prejudice. Jack stuck to his resolution to judge Sawyer by what he found him to be on further acquaintance, not to fly into a dislike at first sight. And for some time nothing occurred to shake Jack's opinion that not improbably the new master was better than his looks. But Sawyer was shy and reserved; he liked Jack, and was in his heart grateful to him for his respectful and friendly behaviour, and for the good example he thereby set to his companions, only, unfortunately, ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... 347—364. Both as in a great measure unconnected with the Portuguese transactions, and as not improbably derived from the worse than suspicious source of Fernand Mendez de Pinro, these very problematical occurrences have been kept by themselves, which indeed they are in de Faria. After this opinion respecting their more than doubtful authenticity, it would be a waste ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... little troublesome, and to drive off a few horses or cattle. No doubt the thing has been exaggerated; still there is something in it, and the consequence is, people are rather afraid to bid, and I have got this splendid tract of land for about L500; and, not improbably, in ten years it may be ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... joking. New men will come in, not improbably with new ideas. I must be ready for them. An ignorance ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... State, having the upper hand under the Regent Morton, a strong man, introduced prelacy of a modified kind and patronage; did not restore to the Kirk her 'patrimony,'—the lands of the old Church; and only hanged one priest, not improbably for a certain ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... volumes as bulky as the Transactions of the Royal Society might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations of the schoolmen; not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy;" but though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed since the great fire, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... better occupation than to look down into the garden beneath his window. From its appearance, he judged it to be one of those botanic gardens which were of earlier date in Padua than elsewhere in Italy or in the world. Or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of an opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so wofully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... better: "Verbs connected by a conjunction, are usually of the same mood, tense, and form, as well as style."—Id. "The ruins of Greece or Rome are but the monuments of her former greatness."—P. E. Day cor. "It is not improbably, that in many of these cases the articles were used originally."—Priestley cor. "I cannot doubt that these objects are really what they appear to be."—Kames cor. "I question not that my reader will be as much pleased with it."—Spect. cor. "It is ten to one that my friend Peter ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... tell, but because be feels it to be incumbent on him to be telling something. As you, my friend, if you are very successful in the telling of that first story, will become ambitious of further storytelling, and will look out for anecdotes,—in the narration of which you will not improbably sometimes distress ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... friend at Tilbury fort. Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... allow us an interval of six weeks, and we had both of us other avocations that precluded us from the full command of even that limited period. Encouraged, however, by the conviction that the thought was a good one, and by the hope of making a lucky hit, we set to work con amore, our very hurry not improbably enabling us to strike out at a heat what we might have failed to produce so well, had we possessed time enough to hammer it into more careful ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... kind-hearted ladies of the country-side had all tried their hands at it and failed. Bob was now thirteen, and did not even know his letters! Yet in his own line he was extremely clever, too clever by half in the opinion of many of his neighbours, though not improbably it was a case of giving a dog a much worse name than he deserved. Never was a piece of mischief discovered, which a boy could have been the author of—from bird's nesting to orchard robbing—without gipsy Bob, as he was called, getting the credit of it. And this sort ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... will break your spirit by the most unmanly insults. To be a libertine, is to continue to be every thing vile and inhuman. Prayers, tears, and the most abject submission, are but fuel to his pride: wagering perhaps with lewd companions, and, not improbably, with lewder women, upon instances which he boast of to them of your patient sufferings, and broken spirit, and bringing them home ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the gratitude of many, and the respect of all who knew them. They afterward erected, on the top of the hill overlooking Walmesley, a lofty tower, in commemoration of the fortunate choice they had made, and not improbably as a kind of public thank-offering for the signal prosperity they had reaped. Cotton mills, and print works, were built by them of great extent, employing an immense number of hands; and they erected churches, founded schools, and gave a new life to the district. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... been a March, or Debateable Land, between the Germanic and Danish occupants of Sleswick, than by the notion that it was left empty by the exodus of its occupants to Great Britain. The deduction of the Angli from an improbably small area, on the wrong side of the Peninsula, must be looked upon as an inference under the garb of a tradition. Such I believe it to have been; freely, however, admitted that if Anglen poured forth upon England even half the Angles that England contained, it was likely enough ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... upon the road, within two or three hundred yards of the Dragon Volant. I had undertaken an adventure with a vengeance! And by way of prelude, there not improbably awaited me, at my inn, another encounter, perhaps, this time, not so lucky, with ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... year, the mother of Kiri-Tsubo departed this life. She may not improbably have longed to follow her daughter at an earlier period; and the only regret to which she gave utterance, was that she was forced to leave her grandson, whom she had ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... depicted naval as well as military battles, in which the vessels are evidently those employed at sea. According to their own traditions, they colonized in a remote age. They themselves laid claim to Danaus: and the mythus of the expedition of Osiris is not improbably construed into a figurative representation of the spread of Egyptian civilization by the means of colonies. Besides, Egypt was subjected to more than one revolution, by which a large portion of her population was expelled the land, and scattered over the neighbouring regions [13]. And even granting ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... satisfied to "lay their hands upon him" for the work, thinking, perhaps, that the veteran soldier could not better end his campaign than with his arms in his hands, actively contending for the faith. That such might not improbably be the issue of the enterprise, John Yeardley himself believed; but it is doubtful if he correctly estimated the arduous nature of the journey. It would have been a bold undertaking in the vigor of his days: at his time of life, and with his declining strength, it was, humanly ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... asked yesterday evening to go to Sir John Burke's, to meet another heroine who was very curious to see me. Whom do you think? Lady Morgan. I thought, however, that, if I went, I might not improbably figure in her next novel; and, as I am not ambitious of such an honour, I kept away. If I could fall in with her at a great party, where I could see unseen and hear unheard, I should very much like to make observations on her; but I certainly will not, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he missed some easy opportunity. Not improbably he might have failed altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try roping from a fiery mustang. But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was beautiful and fleet. The horse learned rapidly the agile turns and sudden stops necessary, and as for free running ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... one of his estates. The Prior sat by in silence, while the Earl impressed on the mind of his agent that the cottages were to be made reasonably comfortable for the habitation of immortal souls and not improbably suffering bodies. When at last the bailiff had departed, the Prior turned to his patron with a smile. "I would all lay lords—and spiritual ones too—were as kindly thoughtful of their inferiors as ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... poor Cradell. There was no warmth to be got by him from that flame. There was no beauty in the light,—not even the false brilliance of unhallowed love. Injury might come to him,—a pernicious clipping of the wings, which might destroy all power of future flight; injury, and not improbably destruction, if he should persevere. But one may say that no single hour of happiness could accrue to him from his intimacy with Mrs Lupex. He felt for her no love. He was afraid of her, and, in many respects, disliked her. But to him, in his moth-like weakness, ignorance, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... and, despite the splintered glass in the window frame, stuffy. Fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the floor, together with a choice collection of stones, brickbats, and other missiles,—which not improbably were the cause of their being there. In the corner stood a cupboard,—but a momentary examination showed that that was as bare as the other. The door at the side, which Sydney had left wide open, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... January, 1785,[13] she was absent, visiting friends in a neighboring island, so that they did not then meet,—a circumstance somewhat fortunate for us, because it led to a description of him being sent to her in a letter from a lady of Herbert's family, not improbably her cousin, Miss Herbert. Nelson had then become a somewhat conspicuous factor in the contracted interests of the island society, owing to the stand he had already publicly assumed with reference to the contraband trade. People were talking about him, although he had not as ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Lane, and thereupon remarked aloud: 'The whole History of the World had not the like precedent of a King's prisoner to purchase freedom, and his bosom favourite to have the halter, but in Scripture, in the case of Mordecai and Haman.' As improbably James is reported to have been told, and to have retorted that 'Ralegh might die in ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... octopus (sacred to Victor Hugo), may be, for all we can say to the contrary, an order with a future. Their kindred, the Gastropods, have, in the case of the snail and slug, learnt the trick of air-breathing. And not improbably there are even now genera of this order that have escaped the naturalist, or even well-known genera whose possibilities in growth and dietary are still unknown. Suppose some day a specimen of a new species is caught off the coast of Kent. It excites remark at a Royal Society soiree, engenders ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... need of a friend, who should be in equal authority with him." [Footnote: Life, ii. 485. In these words, Clarendon no doubt expressed some lively memories of the days of the Civil War.] The combination did not answer well. By a fatal error—not improbably induced by Rupert's desire for independent action—the fleet was broken up, and the Prince sailed, on the credit of a false report, to meet a French fleet under Admiral Beaufort. While he was thus detached, Albemarle was attacked ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... gave their legs the appearance of skewers with Dutch cheeses on them. Apart from the savages, the general impression of Guiana remaining with me is that of a great hot-house, in which everything was as improbably huge as in one of Gustave Dore's illustrations—where I came across apricots as big as my head, and caimans ten yards long. As regards the inhabitants, I recollect Creoles, enervated by the climate, who were as kindly as they were intelligent; pale-faced women, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville |
