"Plausible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I, "has been proving herself a mistress of the Socratic method. Under a plausible pretext of gross ignorance, she has been asking me a series of easy questions, with the result that I see as I never imagined it before the colossal sham of our pretended popular government in America. As one of the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... down and began to read the translation he had made, Mr. Warricombe listening with a thoughtful smile. From time to time the reader paused and offered a comment, endeavouring to show that the arguments were merely plausible; his air was that of placid security, and he seemed to enjoy the irony which often fell from his lips. Martin frequently scrutinised him, and always with a look of interest which betokened ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... to effect that result—at one-half the cost of such a transformation in any other locality; and the liquor produced was to be of such exquisite relish and potency, that all Britain was to compete for its possession. So plausible was everything made to appear, that men of commercially acquired fortune, of the greatest experience, and of long-tried judgment, invested their capital in the fullest confidence of success. Following their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... is a thing not hastily to be condemned, to clothe and adorn the obscurity even of philosophy itself with sensible and plausible elocution. For hereof we have great examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some degree; and hereof likewise there is great use, for surely, to the severe inquisition of truth and the deep progress into philosophy, it is some hindrance because it is too early ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... elegant man, with his brilliant smile, courteous voice, and searching eyes. Panshin speedily divined, with the swift comprehension of other people's sentiments which was peculiar to him, that he was not affording his interlocutor any particular pleasure, and made his escape, under a plausible pretext, deciding in his own mind that Lavretzky might be a very fine man, but that he was not sympathetic, was "aigri," and, "en somme," rather ridiculous.—Marya Dmitrievna made her appearance accompanied by Gedeonovsky; then Marfa Timofeevna entered with Liza; after them followed ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... power of conceiving an infinite number of possibilities. But because we can conceive or fancy an infinity of possibilities, does it follow that there actually exists this infinity? The whole argument is unworthy of a moment's consideration. The other is more plausible, that restriction implies a restraining power. But even this is not satisfactory when closely examined. For although the first cause must be self-existent and of eternal duration, we only are driven by the necessity of supposing a cause whereon all the argument rests, to suppose one capable of causing ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... what I saw to-night. Well, that can only lead to the most awful unhappiness for all of us. You must consider it finished. We won't have any disturbance; but, all the same, you can't see Arthur again. We'll invent some reason to explain your going away to-morrow ... something plausible ... to satisfy him. With your husband it will be more difficult. But I'm prepared to help you. It can be managed without any scandal if we work together... I'm sure you'll agree with me and be sensible about it. If you won't, I can't ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... somewhat equivocal episode of the east room at Major Pumphrey's, everything had gone to Mr. Alvord's liking since Mr. Brassfield had placed the campaign in his hands. And, as a matter of fact, that affair was so susceptible of plausible explanation, and so fenced about by the sanctities of private hospitality, that Alvord was reassured after a day or two had passed with no public scandal. Amidon stayed away from headquarters, and Alvord, acting under the unlimited authority granted by ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... point I shall mention is that universal defect which was in all their schemes, that they could not agree about their chief good, or wherein to place the happiness of mankind; nor had any of them a tolerable answer upon this difficulty to satisfy a reasonable person. For to say, as the most plausible of them did, "That happiness consisted in virtue," was but vain babbling, and a mere sound of words to amuse others and themselves; because they were not agreed what this virtue was or wherein it did consist; and likewise, because ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... childishness as the secondary personalities invent.[35] Dr Hodgson pointed out the absurdity of the explanation to Phinuit, and added, "As you are obliged to express your thoughts through the organism of the medium, and as she does not know French, it would be more plausible if you said that it would be impossible to express your thoughts in French ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... followed. Ngalyema had exhausted his arguments; but it was not easy to break faith and be uncivil, with plausible excuse. His eyes were reaching round seeking to discover an excuse to fight, when they rested on the round, burnished face of the ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... tongue for spite. She thought of a thousand ways of explaining away the hat. She should have said that a friend had lent it to her; that she had bought it for half price at a sale. She had meant to show it to William some night after his beer with a plausible story, but his sudden appearance had upset her apple-cart, and the lie had slipped out unawares. She wasn't afraid of William, she scorned him in her heart. And now that little devil must keep it, for if she went back on her word ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... court, it appeared that Delano, late master of the William brig, belonged to New York, in the United States of America. Though of most respectable parents, at an early age he had taken to evil courses, and was at length compelled to leave his native city for some notorious act of atrocity. His plausible manners, however, enabled him after a time to get command of several merchantmen in succession. One after another, they were cast away under very suspicious circumstances. The underwriters suffered, and the owners built larger and finer vessels, while he had evidently more money ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... altogether unsuitable—at which very moment, fatally for his equanimity, he discovered his parents in the congregation, and was so dismayed that he could not recover his self- possession, whence had ensued his apparent lack of cordiality! It was a lame, yet somewhat plausible excuse, and served to silence for the moment, although it was necessarily so far from satisfying his mother's heart. His father was out of doors, and ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... This plausible story found ready credence with the Syracusan generals, and they named a day on which they promised to appear in full force before the walls of Catana. When the time appointed drew near, they marched ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... being just as plausible as ours, we did not discuss it, hoping that something would happen to decide the matter ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... strain had been upon him of late, and with a more elastic step he strode away into the country, and for hours walked on, revolving plan after plan in his mind for rescuing the girls. Although nothing very plausible had occurred to him he felt brighter in mind, though weary in body, when, just after nightfall, he again approached the spot where he had that morning received so heavy a blow. He was not disheartened at the difficulty before him, for he knew that he should ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... him. He found powerful enemies. Doubtless ridicule also met his projects. To plough the bottom of the Atlantic, in search of a ship that had gone down fifty years before, certainly seemed to yield fair food for mirth. Yet the polite behavior, the plausible speech, the enthusiasm and energy of the man had their effect. He won friends among the higher nobility. The story of the mutiny and of its bold suppression had also its effect. A man who could attack a horde of armed mutineers with his bare fists, a man so ready and resolute in time of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... elderly gallant noted the attitude of the young fellow he cast a quick glance of suspicion at Opal. He would have withdrawn his proposal had he been able to find any plausible excuse. But it was too late. And with an inward invective on his own blundering, he followed the other gentlemen to ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... resembling a chain, which is no stronger than its weakest link. The strongest link in the chain of circumstances against Penreath was the footprints leading to the pit. They had undoubtedly been made by his boots, but circumstances can lie as well as witnesses, and in both cases the most plausible sometimes prove the greatest liars. Take away the clue of the footprints, and the case against Penreath was snapped in the most vital link. The remaining circumstances in the case against him, though suspicious enough, were open to an alternative explanation. The footprints ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... accepting spermatia other than as doubtful or at least uncertain sexual bodies.[Q] He says that the Messrs. Tulasne have supposed that the spermogonia represented the male sex, and that the spermatia were analogous to spermatozoids. Their opinion depends on two plausible reasons,—the spermatia, in fact, do not germinate, and the development of the spermogonia generally precedes the appearance of the sporophorous organs, a double circumstance which reminds us of what is known of the spermatozoids and antheridia of other vegetables. ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... an' speak wi' a fine leddy like you." This excuse, plausible enough, was uttered in a low voice and with downcast eyes, but hardly was it pronounced when she burst out rapidly and breathlessly into what was clearly the main object of her visit: "But please, mem, he says he'll gie me to you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... husband and the outwitted guardian had been the figures on which the dramatist relied for his comic effects. Even the miser tricked out of his savings was a shade less ridiculous, less grotesquely deserving of his fate, than the husband defrauded of his wife's affection. The plausible adulteress and the adroit seducer had a recognised claim on the sympathy of the public. But the inevitable reaction was at hand; and the new teachers to whom Odo's contemporaries were beginning to listen had thrown a strangely poetic light over the dull figures ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... accepted theory of the universe, especially the view of Copernicus. For aught I knew Mr. Eveleth held as high a position as any one else in the world of science and letters, so I read his article carefully. It was evidently wholly fallacious, yet so plausible that I feared the belief of the world in the doctrine of Copernicus might suffer a severe shock, and hastened to the rescue by writing a letter over my own name, pointing out the fallacies. This was published in the "National Intelligencer"—if my memory serves me right—in 1855. My full name, printed ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... but soon after rose up, and we all returned on board, very much dissatisfied with the issue of our negociations. During the course of the day, the king had promised that some cattle and sheep should be brought down in the morning, and had given a reason for our disappointment somewhat more plausible; he said that the buffaloes were far up the country, and that there had not been time to bring them down ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... and brains? He might fix it so that the woman could follow him without giving him away, he might plan it so that no one would suspect. She might arrive at his hiding-place only after many months, only after each had made separately a long circuit of the globe, only after a journey with a plausible and legitimate object. She would arrive disguised in every way, and they would meet as total strangers. And, as strangers under the eyes of others, they would become acquainted, would gradually grow more ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... wonderful ingenuity in divining what these wishes were. Just now, however, she was, to use a sporting phrase, "at fault" for a minute. She could not exactly tell whether Mrs. de Tracy wanted to be urged to ask her niece to Stoke Revel, or whether she wanted to be supplied with a really plausible excuse for not doing so. Those of you who have seen a hound at fault can imagine the companion at this moment: irresolute, tense, desperately anxious to find and follow up the right scent. Compromise, that useful refuge, came ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... constructions are too easy-going, too conjectural, too much dominated by prepossessions and the 'will to interpret.' The alleged sources or determinants for this dream may or may not have played the parts you assign to them; the mystery of the matter must remain inscrutable. But what your methods, so plausible in effect, certainly do show is how easy it may be to confabulate an explanation that goes no deeper than a phrenological reading of cranial bumps or than a seance in the cabinet of a palmist. Let us turn away from all this and consider what really happened, as by the grace of luck I ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... plausible, but, pardon me, is totally inadmissible, from the fact that it blends crescent and cross, and ignores antagonisms that deluged ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... in store for him, I fancy," I interrupted. "He is a very faithful servant of the Archduchess, and he has worked hard for her. From his point of view his arguments are reasonable enough. All that he says is plausible—and yet—one feels that there is something behind it all. Allan, I don't trust one of these ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... They were active members of a Jacolin Club, a violent and vulgar gathering continually plotting the overthrow of the government, and the assassination of the First Consul. They were thoroughly detested by the people, and the community was glad to avail itself of any plausible pretext for banishing them from France. Without sufficient evidence that they were actually guilty of this particular outrage, in the strong excitement and indignation of the moment a decree was passed by the legislative bodies, sending one hundred ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... to trace all spirit-stories to some plausible origin, and then to hold them up to the ridicule of the masses. To give substantial proof of his disbelief in all spiritual influence, he passed many nights in graveyards, on which occasions he manifested a sacrilegious hardihood, which, besides ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... verbal fire-works that evening. So he lit a pipe, and reviewed Ingerman's well-rounded periods very carefully, even taking the precaution to jot down exact, phrases. He analyzed them, and saw that they were capable of two readings. Of course, it could not be otherwise. The plausible rascal must have conned them over until this essential was secured. Grant even went so far as to give them a grudging professional tribute. They held a canker of doubt, too, which it was difficult to dissect. Their veiled threats were perplexing. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... obviously written down to. On the other hand, naturally, an author who knows his intriguing subject so well and drives so forceful a pen cannot fail to be interesting. The historian seems most concerned to prove, by his familiar and plausible method of going over the ground "in the same season, in the same weather, after the same rains, in the same mist," that the Prussian charge by Valmy Mill miscarried only because the infantry got bogged in marsh that looked like stubble. So ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... not sound in the least logical or plausible to Joan, but it was readily accepted by the bandits. Apparently what they knew of Kells's movements and plans since the break-up at Alder Creek fitted well ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... ten years since a law was passed by the Spanish government that an entire new set of postage stamps should be issued every year. This law applies not alone to Spain, but also to all its colonies. A plausible reason for such action is the great prevalence of counterfeits intended ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... loudly protested its impartiality, and gave very powerful and plausible arguments for interference. But the laborers feel that the right not to work is as essential as life itself, and all that distinguishes them essentially from slaves, and that no argument whatever is valid against it. Let us look at a few of ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the coolies half their day's wages after I had paid them, received money for barley for Gyalpo, and never bought it, a fact brought to light by the growing feebleness of the horse, and cheated in all sorts of mean and plausible ways, though I paid him exceptionally high wages, and was prepared to 'wink' at a moderate amount of dishonesty, so long as it affected only myself. It has a lowering influence upon one to live in a fog of lies and fraud, and the attempt ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... in his Principles of Sociology, is 'evidently a remote sequence of that system under which a subordinate ruler had from time to time to show loyalty to a chief ruler by presenting himself to do homage.' The idea is plausible: was it not for this very reason that Cleopatra galleyed down the Cydnus to call on Antony,—a call that would probably have had a different effect on history if the lady had brought a husband,—and Sheba cameled across the desert to call on Solomon? The creditor character of the visitation ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... perfect empiric in his profession, being in the constant habit of listening to his treatises on architecture with a kind of indulgent smile; yet, either from an inability to oppose them by anything plausible from his own stores of learning, or from secret admiration, Richard generally submitted to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... the business of striking camp, and for a time was fully occupied. Meanwhile his mind was in a whirl. That the professor had invented a plausible lie on the spur of the instant to save him, was of course obvious; but it was apparently not all lie, for he had certainly drugged the wine ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... failed to find. Thorne's ship was called the Dominus Vobiscum, a pious aspiration which, however, secured no success. A London man, a Master Hore, tried next. Master Hore, it is said, was given to cosmography, was a plausible talker at scientific meetings, and so on. He persuaded 'divers young lawyers' (briefless barristers, I suppose) and other gentlemen—altogether a hundred and twenty of them—to join him. They procured two vessels at Gravesend. They took the sacrament together before sailing. They ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the virtuous task of insulting every person in the room, thereby proving how much superior a cow-boy from New Hampshire is to the wretched resident of the city, whom fate has made a base and villainous gentleman. The PLAUSIBLE VILLAIN goes through with a complicated fit of St. Vitus's Dance, by way of preserving a cool exterior, and thus allaying the suspicions of PETER. Various TEDIOUS PEOPLE enter and converse tediously with the IRRELEVANT PEOPLE. After a time the stage-carpenters suddenly ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... girl, 'let me take off my wet clothes and I will tell you everything.' She wished to gain time to concoct a plausible story, for she did not intend ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... you know, you bear yourself Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had How felons, this wild earth is full of, look When they're detected, still your kind has looked! The bravo holds an assured countenance, The thief is voluble and plausible, But silently the slave of lust has crouched When I have fancied it before ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... May had been a full participator in the scheme, had suggested the addition of the pottery, had helped Harry to some liquid to efface part of the inscription, and had even come up with them to plant the snare in the most plausible corner for researches. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... insult any proposal that they should assume a head-dress fit only for madmen at masquerades or mummers at country wakes. "What! what!" cried the king, sharply; and then, smiling mischievously, as he suddenly saw a good answer to the plausible argument, he added—"True, my lord, Charles the First's judges wore no wigs, but they wore beards. You may do the same, if you like. You may please yourself about wearing or not wearing your wig; but mind, if you please yourself by imitating the old judges, as to the head—you must please ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... degrades his great creation of Falstaff; that it is, for him, a trivial production; and that it must have been written in haste and without spontaneous impulse. If judgment were to be given on the quarto version of The Merry Wives, that reasoning would commend itself as at least plausible; but it is foolish as applied to the version in the folio, where the piece is found to be remarkable for nimbleness of invention, strength and variety of natural character, affluent prodigality of animal spirits, delicious quaintness, exhilarating merriment, a lovely ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... name was mentioned, Willy thought of this incident, so very typical did it seem to him of the man, and he liked to twit his father with it. But Mr. Brookes could not be brought to see the joke, and he fell back on the plausible and insidious argument that, notwithstanding his manners, Berkins was worth ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... done to more than one promising simple-minded young Templetonian in days past who had had the ill-luck to come under his influence. And although, as usual, such stories were exaggerated, it was pretty well-known why this plausible small boys' friend was called "spider" by his enemies, who envied no one who fell into ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... accordingly encamped. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 357.] It had been confidently expected that Hood would march northward by the time we could reach Pulaski, but he delayed, and it was a week later before he really opened his new campaign. Various things combined to give plausible reasons for his delay. He could not get the supply of stores which he needed. The gap in his railroad from Cherokee to Tuscumbia was not rebuilt. The weather was continuously cold with heavy rains, and the roads going from bad to ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Course; which done, and served out, the Common Serjeant delivereth a plausible Speech to the Lord Chancellour, and his Company, at the highest Table, how necessary a thing it is to have Officers at this present; the Constable Marshall, and Master of the Game, for the better honour ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... writers in modern days who have shown plausible grounds for doubting that the murder really took place. Two contemporary writers, they say, mention the fact only as a report; a third certainly states it, incorrectly, at least, in point of time; and Sir Thomas More, who is the only ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... was plausible enough. During my recital I glanced at Polina, but nothing was to be discerned on her face. However, she had allowed me to fire up without correcting me, and from that I concluded that it was my cue to fire ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... been very lately brought to light on this subject, which supersedes that statement altogether; setting the whole argument in a new point of view, and reading a plain lesson on the care and circumspection with which inferences, however plausible, as to dates and facts, should be admitted. In the present instance, indeed, the conclusion to which we had before arrived, on the question of Gascoyne having survived Henry IV, remains unassailable, or rather, is only still further ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... examination of the sailor, protested against its irregularity. In sending the prisoner to be strangled, they said, 'We are bound to submit to your laws, while in your waters; be they ever so unjust, we will not resist them.' A plausible reason for a culpable act. They should have allowed the trade to stop, and quit the Chinese waters, rather than become parties to the murder of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... could be supported by no other evidence. Who does not believe that sweetheart has something to do with heart? Yet it was originally formed like drunk-ard, dull-ard, and nigg-ard; and poets, not grammarians, are responsible for the mischief it may have done under its plausible disguise. By the same process, shamefast, formed like steadfast and still properly spelt by Chaucer and in the early editions of the Authorized Version of the Bible, has long become shamefaced, bringing before ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... light of these provisions it appeared to the people of Iowa that a vote cast for the Constitution would be a vote for the Constitution as modified by the act of Congress. This view was altogether plausible since no provision had been made for a separate ballot on the conditions imposed by Congress. And so it was thought that a ratification of the Constitution would carry with it an acceptance of the Nicollet boundaries, while a rejection of the Constitution would imply ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... fabulous. In a recent biography of Poe an attempt had been made to prove that he enlisted in the army under an assumed name, and served for about eighteen months in the artillery in a highly creditable manner, receiving an honorable discharge at the instance of Mr. Allan. This account is plausible, but will need further explanation of its many discrepancies of dates, and verification of the different documents cited in proof of it, before the public can receive it as fact. So many fables have been ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... and opens his house for conversations on the Sundays. I found at his breakfasts, tea and coffee, with hot rolls, and men of celebrity afraid to speak. At the conversations, there was something even worse. A few plausible talking fellows created a buzz in the room, and the merits of some paltry nick-nack of mechanism or science was discussed. The party consisted undoubtedly of the most eminent men of their respective lines in the world; but they were each and all so apprehensive of having their ideas purloined, ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... tribes along the Wabash were exhausting the supply of wild game. The plan of inducing them to accept annuities and to purchase cattle, hogs and other domestic animals for the purpose of replenishing their food supply, seemed highly plausible to the minds of that day. That the Weas on the lower Wabash would be better off if removed from the immediate neighborhood of the white settlements where they could purchase fire-water and indulge their vices, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... The reasoning was plausible enough; Basine gave way, and David went. Petit-Claud was just taking leave as he came up and at his cry of "Lucien!" the two brothers flung their arms about each other ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... endangered, force may be used: "Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be forced to be free." Equally plausible and dangerous was his teaching as to the indivisibility of the general will. Deriving every public power from his social contract, he finds it easy to prove that the sovereign power, vested in all the citizens, must be incorruptible, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... anything else. But for our brutality, our recklessness of life and property, the brazen ruffianism in our great cities, the hellish greed and robbery and plunder in high places, I should have to look a long time to find so plausible an excuse. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... extremity is God's opportunity." Sending up a silent prayer to heaven for help at need, she suddenly thought of a plan—it was full of difficulty, uncertainty and peril, affording not one chance in fifty of success, yet the only possible plan of escape! It was to find some plausible pretext for leaving the room without exciting suspicion, which would be fatal. Controlling her tremors, and speaking ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... thing would do to tell the girl. But I've got to make it some plausible to put it acrost on Jennie. I'm afraid I kind of over-played my hand a little when I let her in on this, but—damn it! I felt kind of sorry for the girl even if it was her own fool fault gettin' into this jack-pot. I thought maybe a woman could kind of knock off the rough ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... are hardly ever witnessed among prisoners; their sleep is broken by no uneasy dreams—on the contrary, it is easy and sound; they have also excellent appetites. But hypocrisy is a very common vice; and all my information agrees as to the utter untruthfulness of criminals, however plausible ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... been afraid of my subject." He did not explain himself, but I can easily understand that he felt the improbability of the, physiological or pathological occurrence on which the story is founded to be so great that the narrative could hardly be rendered plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself as well as for my readers, and it was only by recalling for our consideration a series of extraordinary but well-authenticated facts of somewhat similar character that I could hope to gain any serious attention to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... why protoplasm acts as it does, least of all, why some masses of protoplasm act one way, and exact duplicates act differently. But if, on the other hand, we look beyond the facts and methods of physics and chemistry, and even beyond the most plausible theories of genetics, we can readily explain this remarkable action of the cells as the result of the will of an ever acting, omniscient, almighty God. Certainly nothing else is adequate to explain the behavior ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... we were at the mercy of as heartless a set of scoundrels as ever missed a rope, whose mercenaries, like the willing hirelings that they were, would cheerfully do the bidding of their superiors. Major Hunter, in his remarks before the meeting, modified my rather radical statement, with the more plausible argument that this tribute money was merely insurance, and what was five or ten thousand dollars a year, where an original investment of three millions and our surplus were in jeopardy? Would any line—life, fire, or ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... had passed through in the American, French and Mexican wars; would describe time methods of life-saving in America, and compare it with the British method of life-saving service, and many other things that Paul did not dare to read, as he had sufficient. He sought out the plausible Mr. Murphy and vehemently went for him for deceiving ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the learning required in their use, are altogether unfit for the use and treatment they usually get from those who have the daily care of the stock which they are intended for, and for the rough usage they receive from the animals themselves. A very pretty, and a very plausible arrangement of stabling, and feeding, and all the etceteras of a barn establishment, may be thus got up by an ingenious theorist at the fireside, which will work to a charm, as he dilates upon its good qualities, untried; ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... should vex at tyranny; Thine ear should ring with murdered women's shrieks, That torturing famine should thy footsteps clog; That captive's broken hearts should ache thine own. And Slavery—that villain plausible— That thief Gehazi!—He stripped before thine eyes And showed him all a leper, foul, accursed. He touched thy lips, and every word of thine Vibrates on chords whose deep electric thrill Shall never cease till that wide wound ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... fighting powers we could not have made any effective defence against Lalage. She had an astonishingly good case. Titherington, for instance, might have talked his best, but he could not have produced even a plausible explanation of those two letters of ours on the temperance question. O'Donoghue was in a worse case. He had made statements about budgets and things of that kind which Lalage's favourite word only feebly describes. Vittie, apart altogether ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... from becoming more and more of a national vice, when they determined for far other reasons to place it in the front of their tirade against foreign trade generally. They soon found that it would be more convenient and more plausible to substitute the moral opposition to the opium traffic for the political disinclination to foreign intercourse in any form. They scarcely expected that in this project they would receive the assistance and co- operation of many ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... censorious and selfishly ambitious in her little childhood, her womanhood had strengthened along these well-marked lines, and the lines had led her infallibly into the net of the shallowest, most smug religion that ever has set forth a plausible excuse for total selfishness. Once she was landed in the net, the rest was simple. She was in growing harmony with Universal Mind. Whatever thing opposed her viewpoint was out of harmony, and therefore sinful and laden with incipient disease, curable only ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... everything. After leaving Laleham Gardens she had taken lodgings in a small house in Kentish Town under the name of Howard, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her husband being an actor on tour. To make the thing plausible, she had obtained employment in one of the pantomimes. Not for a moment had she lost her head. No one had ever called at her lodgings, and there had come no letters for her. Every hour of her day could be accounted for. Their plans must have been worked ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Cromarty, while pretending to comply with the instructions of the Lord President, offered the command of one of the companies to a neighbouring gentleman, whom he well knew to be a strong Jacobite, and at the same time made some plausible excuse for his son's refusal of another of ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... seemed to sleep. I stood, fearing to move lest I should rouse it into malignant life once more. But at least I was able to think clearly now that the baleful eyes were off me. Here I was shut up for the night with the ferocious beast. My own instincts, to say nothing of the words of the plausible villain who laid this trap for me, warned me that the animal was as savage as its master. How could I stave it off until morning? The door was hopeless, and so were the narrow, barred windows. There was no shelter anywhere in the bare, ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the sum of them would not come within measurable distance of Alexander's cleverness. You are to set your imagination to work and conceive a temperament curiously compounded of falsehood, trickery, perjury, cunning; it is versatile, audacious, adventurous, yet dogged in execution; it is plausible enough to inspire confidence; it can assume the mask of virtue, and seem to eschew what it most desires. I suppose no one ever left him after a first interview without the impression that this was ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... the period, and mark the circumstances. In most of the capital changes that are recorded in the principles and system of any government, a public benefit of some kind or other has been pretended. The revolution commenced in something plausible, in something which carried the appearance at least of punishment of delinquency or correction of abuse. But here, in the very moment of the conversion of a department of British government into an Indian mystery, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... going out with a rod early in the day, but no one had seen any of the juniors since last night, when they had prematurely gone to bed in their own dormitory. A consultation was held, in which all sorts of conjectures were put forward, the most plausible of which was that the juniors had organised an expedition to Seastrand, a fashionable watering-place an hour distant on the railway, which both Wally and Lickford had separately been heard to express a desire to visit. It seemed probable that they had lost the last train ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... good sense and observation, were very entertaining. Johnson defended the oriental regulation of different casts of men, which was objected to as totally destructive of the hopes of rising in society by personal merit. He shewed that there was a principle in it sufficiently plausible by analogy. 'We see (said he) in metals that there are different species; and so likewise in animals, though one species may not differ very widely from another, as in the species of dogs,—the cur, the spaniel, the mastiff. The Bramins are the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... against which all your weapons are impotent. I have dug a pit for you: and whichever way you move, backward or forward, to the right or the left, it is ready to swallow you. Be still! If once you fall, call as loud as you will, no man on earth shall hear your cries: prepare a tale however plausible or however true, the whole world shall execrate you for an impostor. Your innocence shall be of no service to you. I laugh at so feeble a defence. It is I that say it: you may believe what I tell you. Do you know, miserable wretch!" ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... mean not to write a history of Somerset's invasion—of the plausible proposals which he made, and which were rejected—nor of the advantages which the Scots, through recklessness or want of discipline, flung away, and of the disasters which followed. All the places of strength upon the Borders fell into his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... and the home scenery round the place has many charms for me. Besides," added Kenelm, feeling conscious that he ought to find some more plausible excuse than the charms of home scenery for locating himself long in Cromwell Lodge, "besides, I intend to devote myself a good deal to reading. I have been very idle of late, and the solitude of this place ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... energy as elsewhere—not only by the professional dealer, but by amateurs no less unwilling to give an ignorant peasant fifteen shillings for an article which they know to be worth as many pounds. But suspicion of the plausible furniture collector has, I am glad to say, begun to spread, and the palmiest days of the spoliation of the country are probably over. It must not, however, be thought that the peasant is always the under dog, the amateur the upper. A London ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... States than upon others. Those which were sufferers by it would naturally seek for a mitigation of the burden. The others would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an increase of their own incumbrances. Their refusal would be too plausible a pretext to the complaining States to withhold their contributions, not to be embraced with avidity; and the non-compliance of these States with their engagements would be a ground of bitter discussion ...
— The Federalist Papers
... contradictory features of the man), the police were able to recognize him among the many suspects always under their eye. Arrested, he pleaded, just as Miss Strange had foretold, an alibi of a seemingly unimpeachable character; but neither it, nor the plausible explanation with which he endeavoured to account for a freshly healed scar amid the callouses of his right foot, could stand before Mrs. Amidon's unequivocal testimony that he was the same man she had seen in Mrs. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... walked up and down the room, reflecting upon the best method of proceeding. "He says it was a spectre, and he has told a plausible story," thought he; "but I don't know—I have my doubts—they may be tricking me. Well, be it so: if the money is there, I will have it; and if not, I will have my revenge. Yes! I have it: not only must they be removed, but by degrees ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... taste too, according to its capacity"; akin also to a certain slothfulness:—"Sleeping," he says, "has taken up a great part of my life." And there was almost nothing he would not say: no fact, no story, from his curious half-medical reading, he would not find some plausible pretext to tell. Man's kinship to the animal, the material, and all the proofs of it:—he would never blush at them! In truth, he led the way to the immodesty of French literature; and had his defence, a sort ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... The king should not trust the person that does not deserve to be trusted nor should he trust too much the person that is deserving of trust. Danger springs from trust. Trust should never be placed without previous examination. Having by plausible reasons inspired confidence in the enemy, the king should smite him when he makes a false step. The king should fear him, from whom there is no fear; he should also always fear them that should be feared. Fear that arises from an unfeared one may lead ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... tone of the passage to which he had just listened, his nimble wits could invent half a dozen plausible explanations. It was quite possible, indeed when one judged Mr. Phinuit by his sobriety in contrast with the gaiety of the others it seemed quite plausible, that he was equally with Jules a paid employee of those ostensible nouveaux riches: and that the ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... is incomparably more important — it has considerably reduced the number of independent hypothese forming the basis of theory. The special theory of relativity has rendered the Maxwell-Lorentz theory so plausible, that the latter would have been generally accepted by physicists even if experiment had decided ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... it that we want in a novel? We want a vivid and original picture of life; we want character naturally displayed in action; and if we get the excitement of adventure into the bargain, and that adventure possible and plausible, I so far differ from the newest school of criticism as to think that we have additional cause for gratitude. If, moreover, there is an unstrained sense of humor in the narrator we have a masterpiece, and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... not more than half convinced and inclined toward resentfulness. That a "booze-fighter" like Ford Campbell should come only a day's ride from town and not be fairly well supplied with whisky was too remarkable to be altogether plausible. He eyed the two sourly while they talked, and he did not bring forth one of the fresh pies he had baked, as he ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... it's in Hulton's favor that he'll be satisfied with one of the private detective agencies to begin with, while the man he's looking for will be on his guard against the police. Besides, it's possible that the fellow won't take many precautions, since there's a plausible explanation of Fred ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... they occasioned clamor in the camp, sharpened the discontents existing at the capital. Suspicions prevailed of treachery on the Governor's part, for he was well known to be without the excuse of incompetence. Plausible stories were told of his being in friendly relations with the murderous Indians. An apprehension that he was instructed by his Popish master to turn New England over to the French, in the contingency of a popular outbreak in England, was confirmed by reports of French men-of-war hovering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... ruined. He advised him, however, to try the King of France once more; for he was sure, if he knew anything of the French character, that the people would be delighted with a plan, not only so new, but so plausible. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... impressed in spite of himself and falling back upon the last resort of baffled argument. "It is all very plausible, but I do not believe ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... fraud?' 'My duty!' answered the man, fervently; 'my duty! Was I to suffer my wife, my children, to starve before my face, when I could save them at a little personal risk? No: my duty forbade it!' and in truth, Glendower, there was something very plausible in this ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... finally fell to temptation, dressed up in the plausible guise of reason. I would ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... 'Lo, here!' with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows; no sooner has he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great flourish of trumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than himself." That is a somewhat unkind way of putting it; but undoubtedly theory after theory is put forward, and often claimed to be final, only to disappear when another explanation takes its place. Thus at the moment we are in the full flood ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... of the word "sudden." It seems a petition indulged rather and conceded to human infirmity than exacted from human piety. It is not so much a doctrine built upon the eternities of the Christian system as a plausible opinion built upon special varieties of physical temperament. Let that, however, be as it may, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... all the Pomp and Ornament of Words. Every Infant-Year increases the Pleasure, and nourishes the Hope. And where is the Parent so wise and so cautious, and so constantly intent on his Journey to Heaven, as not to measure back a few Steps to Earth again, on such a plausible and decent Occasion, as that of introducing the young Stranger into the Amusements, nay perhaps, where Circumstances will admit it, into the Elegancies of Life, as well as its more serious and important Business? What fond Calculations ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... thought George McDonald a little audacious, though I like him in the main. There is a fallacy in this cavil, you may depend. Some years ago, when I was a little befogged by plausible talk, Dr. Skinner came to our house, got into one of his best moods, and preached a regular sermon on the glory of God, that set me all right again. I am not skilled in argument, but my heart sides with God in everything, and my conception of His character is such a beautiful one that I feel that ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... country of first importance that pays its foreign representatives trifling salaries. If we were poor, we could not find great fault with these economies, perhaps—at least one could find a sort of plausible excuse for them. But we are not poor; and the excuse fails. As shown above, some of our important diplomatic representatives receive $12,000; others, $17,500. These salaries are all ham and lemonade, and unworthy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not well. If his illness had become serious she would, of course, have heard from his doctor. She would not allow herself to contemplate that. But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily put off writing from day to day. This was all the more plausible as a reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent. He had only written when he had found he had leisure, with ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Michel bore the imprint of her amiable disposition; she was as open and candid as Father Lustucru was sly and dissimulating. The plausible air of the steward might deceive persons without much experience; but close observers could easily discover the most perverse inclinations under his false mask of good nature. There was duplicity in his great blue eyes, anger concentrated in his nostrils, something wily in the ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... 53: Huios or Hyios. The Rule doesn't seem to address the possibility of upsilon coming first in a diphthong: upsilon iota is not common, but "Hui" looks more plausible than "Hyi". ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... reached the St. Lawrence thirty leagues, and not three, below the Falls of Saint Louis. The three rivers thus named inclose or form an island of about the extent described in the text. This explanation is plausible. The passage amended would read, "This river extends near another which falls into the great river St. Lawrence thirty leagues below the falls of St. Louis." We know of no other way in which the passage can be ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... Elihu Thomson of Lynn, Mass., also believes it possible to construct electromotors of a velocity of 160 kilometers, and, with suitable strengthening of the rolling stock and improvement of the signal system, of a velocity of 260 kilometers; and he has given a plausible explanation of his system. The same scientist holds, and in this Werner Siemens, who expressed similar views at the Berlin Convention of Naturalists in 1887, agrees with him, that it is possible by means of electricity to transform the chemical elements directly into food—a revolution that ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... endowed with special finesse of feeling, it might have been expected that a highly-coloured peacock butterfly would have had but scant appeal. In fact, one is driven back upon the young May Moon as the sole plausible explanation of the fact that, on that afternoon of bewitchment, Tishy ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... unusually plausible, form of attack, is to demand that all land not now bearing trees shall be thrown out of the National Forests. For centuries forest fires have burned through the Western mountains, and much land thus deforested is scattered throughout the National Forests awaiting reforestation. This ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... bright stars are accompanied by obscure companions, sometimes as massive as themselves; the planets are non-luminous; the same is true of meteors before they plunge into the atmosphere and become heated by friction; and many plausible reasons have been found for believing that space contains as many obscure as shining bodies of great size. It is not so difficult, after all, then, to believe that there are immense collections of shadowy gases and meteoric dust whose presence is only manifested ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... many years past their ships have not only frequently been stopped and searched, but also forcibly and arbitrarily seized upon the high seas, by Spanish ships fitted out to cruise, under the plausible pretext of guarding their own coasts; that the commanders thereof, with their crews, have been inhumanly treated, and their ships carried into some of the Spanish ports and there condemned with their cargoes, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... another man's purse. I, on my part, held, that government, having often defrauded me through its agent and creature the post-office, by monstrous over-charges on letters, had thus created in my behalf a right of retaliation. And dreadfully it annoyed my mother, that I, stating this right in a very plausible rule-of-three form—namely, As is the income of the said fraudulent government to my poor patrimonial income of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, so is any one special fraud (as, for instance, that of yesterday morning, amounting to thirteen pence upon ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey |
