"Preposterous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... You are mad! You do not know what you are saying? But if you do know, you are the most consummate liar on the face of the earth! Of all things absurd! Is it possible that you hope by any such preposterous and flimsy fabrication to escape the punishment which will surely and swiftly be meted out to you? Will, you tell that to the Mounted? And will you tell it to the judge and the jury? What will they say when I have told my story, and have had it corroborated by your own Indians—those ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... have been a sure way of exploding His pretensions, if the officials could have shown that His miracles were tricks. Not without weight is the attestation from the foe that 'this man casteth out demons.' The preposterous explanation that He cast out demons by Beelzebub, is the very last resort of hatred so deep that it will father an absurdity rather than accept the truth. It witnesses to the inefficiency of explanations of Him which omit the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Ebag said to themselves: "We are no longer aged nineteen. We are moreover living with our father. If he is bedridden, what then? This gossip connecting our names with that of Mr Ullman is worse than baseless; it is preposterous. We assert positively that we have no designs of any kind on ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... understanding or reason." [Isa. 7:9] It does not say, "Except ye have reason, ye shall not believe." Therefore this scribe would better have left his perverted reason at home, or first have well established it with texts of Scripture, so as not to put forth so ridiculous and preposterous a claim and establish the faith and the divine law by mere reason. For if this reason of ours draws the conclusion that a visible community must have a visible overlord or cease to exist, it also must draw the further ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... affected me with strange twinges of futile protest. Surely there was a time for all things, and this was the time for coffee and tobacco, not for disconcerting risks and detestable noises. I wanted never to hear our four-inch gun again by day. The idea of its shaking the peace of night to bits was preposterous. Yet a light was reported ahead, a moving light on the lake itself. 'You haven't much time, Craig,' I heard the lieutenant cry to our captain. The engine-room bells rang ominously, there was much puffing and spouting, then we were off. I stole into a safe sort of corner, as corners ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... conjecturing whether it were possible, that one as practised, as sensible, and as much accustomed to the beauties of the court, as Bluewater, had actually been caught, by the pretty face of a country girl, when so well turned of fifty, himself! Then discarding the notion as preposterous, he gave his attention to the discourse of Sir Wycherly; a dissertation on rabbits, and rabbit-warrens. In this ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Drontheim, entreating them to support at court his plans for the conversion of the Greenlanders. Both bishops replied favourably; but when his friends saw that he was in earnest, they set up vehement opposition to what they styled his preposterous enterprise. Even his wife and family were at first among his foes, so that the poor man was greatly perplexed, and well-nigh gave up in despair. Happily, his wife at the time became involved in a ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... What do you suppose this insanity is if it is not love? What do you imagine leads me to this preposterous escapade, if not ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... light which shines upon the path of obedience, and conducts to God, they naturally lose themselves amidst the perplexities of error and the mazes of falsehood: it need not, therefore, occasion surprise though their course should be eccentric, or their conduct preposterous. The passions being chiefly engaged in this service, and kept in exercise by fear or fondness, reason retires; and imagination, supported by these auxiliaries, sways the sceptre. The absurdities, however, to which under such circumstances the human mind becomes addicted, would ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... vain, as Eveley realized at once, and she subsided quickly, trying to think. The thing was impossible. It could not be. Such things did not happen any more—not in real life in the United States. It was cruel, preposterous, unbelievable. ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... forthcoming. His complaints caused him to be arrested in 1798; and with a short interval he remained in gaol until 1800. By that time Despard was desperate, and engaged in a plot to seize the Tower of London and Bank of England and assassinate George III. The whole idea was patently preposterous, but Despard was arrested, tried before a special commission, found guilty of high treason, and, with six of his fellow-conspirators, sentenced in 1803 to be hanged, drawn and quartered. These were the last men to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... than questionable in morality, if it is to be taken in earnest. To pretend that you believe any doctrine for no better reason than that you doubt everything else, would be dishonest, if it were not preposterous. ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... the cast clothes of a slug, Be the louse in the locks of the hangman, the mote in the eye of the bat, Than to live and believe in a woman, who must one day grow aged and fat? You must see it's preposterous, Bill, sir. And yet, how the thought of it clings! I have lived out my time—I have prigged lots of verse—I have kissed (ah, that stings!) Lips that swore I had cribbed every line that I wrote on them—cribbed— honour bright! Then I loathed her; ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he said at length desperately, "here is a letter which I got a few days ago. I want you to read that last page. It will show you my difficulty. It is from my sister-in-law, and, of course, her position is quite preposterous; but you know a woman finds it difficult to understand some things in a man's life. You know what I mean, but read. I think you know who she is. It was she who sent Kalman out here to save him from going wrong. God ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... an unsolicited letter from the janitor of a building in which a former Minister of Education now has his law offices. I have many letters equally preposterous.... ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... continue to exist without the vast sums which Christians of wealth so generously contributed? What was to happen, even to the churches of all denominations in England itself, if they accepted the preposterous doctrine that a man could not enjoy the fruit of his own labour, or inherit that of his ancestors, and at the same time remain a Christian? It was totally out of the question, far beyond the bounds of all practical common sense, and therefore it could not be Christian, ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... occasion against the preposterous elections of vnmeet men into episcopall ses, for that they were not so qualified as the dignitie of the place required; otherwise peraduenture enabled with competent knowledge and learning. And suerlie, we may note these ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... of the standers-by pitied the man's misfortune, and thinking he was not able to drive those flies away himself, was going to drive them away for him; but he prayed him to let them alone: the other, by way of reply, asked him the reason of such a preposterous proceeding, in preventing relief from his present misery; to which he answered, "If thou drivest these flies away, thou wilt hurt me worse; for as these are already full of my blood, they do not crowd about ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... softly at the preposterous suggestion that he would even dream of going out in the rain, which was now roaring heavily on the loose board roof, and miss a cut of cherry pie—a cherry pie of Alice's making! And the Roussillon claret, too, was always excellent. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... literary ambition grew up in me, and in the long reveries of the afternoon, when I was distributing my case, I fashioned a future of overpowering magnificence and undying celebrity. I should be ashamed to say what literary triumphs I achieved in those preposterous deliriums. What I actually did was to write a good many copies of verse, in imitation, never owned, of Moore and Goldsmith, and some minor poets, whose work caught my fancy, as I read it in the newspapers or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... passing by the rest. A group of persons presently attracted him who had just come apparently from the Rive Gauche, and were making for the Rue Royale. They consisted of a man, a woman, and a child. The child was a tiny creature in a preposterous feathered hat as large as itself. It had just been put down to walk by its father, and was dragging contentedly at its mother's hand, sucking a crust. The man had a bag of tools on his shoulder and was clearly an artisan going to work. His wife's face was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had warm defenders—who affirmed that the Marquis of Arondelle would never seek a peasant girl to win her affections, unless he intended to make her his marchioness—which was an idea too preposterous to be entertained for an instant—therefore there could be ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... adorers. It might have been supposed that, like a princess in the Arabian Nights, Emilie was rich enough and beautiful enough to choose from among all the princes in the world. Her objections were each more preposterous than the last: one had too thick knees and was bow-legged, another was short-sighted, this one's name was Durand, that one limped, and almost all were too fat. Livelier, more attractive, and gayer than ever ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... by this time that I need not hesitate further to tell the doctor the truth. I disliked the task, but I saw it would not be safe to leave him any longer in ignorance of his condition. There as no telling what other preposterous tales he might invent. So I said ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... and the daring Jimmie Thomas were thoroughly in accord with Schofield's preposterous sail-carrying was a foregone conclusion. But others of the crew were not of the same mind. An hour more here or there seemed a small matter to them as compared to the chance of drowning and leaving a family ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... dread had gripped the meeting, paralysing thought, but it passed, and while some remained perplexed the majority began to resent vehemently the suggestions of Hammer. I could hear those immediately behind me insisting that the view was sheer rubbish. It was preposterous. It was pure lunacy. With these phrases, constantly repeated, they threw off the startling effect of Hammer's speech, and fortified themselves in the conviction that the Blue Disease was merely a new malady, similar to other maladies, and that life ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... having no romance of her own, would possibly have come to enjoy the autumnal poetry of his love if he had permitted. But when she first approached him on the subject of those rumors she had heard, and treated them with a natural derision, as involving the most absurd and preposterous ideas, he, instead of suffering her jests, and then turning her interest to his favor, resented them, and closed his heart and its secret against her. What could she do, thereafter, but feign to avoid the subject, and adroitly touch it with constant, invisible ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... moment Laodice had burned with confident rage, feeling that, by force of the justice of her cause, she might overthrow this preposterous villainy, but at Philadelphus' question she suddenly chilled and blanched and shrank back. A new and supreme disadvantage of her loss presented itself to her at last. She could ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the earth rotated, just as satisfactorily as by the more cumbrous supposition of Ptolemy. He showed, moreover, that the latter supposition must attribute an almost infinite velocity to the stars, so that the rotation of the entire universe around the earth was clearly a preposterous supposition. The second great principle, which has conferred immortal glory on Copernicus, assigned to the earth its true position in the universe. Copernicus transferred the centre, about which all the planets revolve, from the earth to the sun; and he established ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... have been worse employed," said Miss Metoaca abruptly, and her face cleared. "Doesn't the autopsy settle that preposterous charge against Nancy?" ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... seen in ambush at the Ford, the shaking of the cane-brake by the breeze, or by some skulking bear, would as readily account for them. The idea of his being allowed to pass a crew of Indians in their lair, without being pursued, or even fired upon, is quite preposterous." ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... spoke through her—he could not for a moment entertain. Such a claim was opposed to all sound thinking, to every law known to science—was, in short, preposterous. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... logically considered? But these we have found legitimate. Where then? I answer in deducing any consequences by such a process, and according to such rules. The rules are alien and inapplicable; the process presumptuous, yea, preposterous. The error, [Greek: to proton pseudos], lies in the false assumption of a logical deducibility ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... done quoting, however, than his mother peered into the room, claiming the business talk that had been promised. From that talk George emerged irritable and silent. His mother's extravagance was really preposterous!—not to be borne. For four years now he had been free from the constant daily friction of money troubles which had spoilt his youth and robbed him of all power of respecting his mother. And he had hugged his freedom. But all the time it ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... do the work of war-ships. The doctrine which it was thus endeavored to establish had never been admitted into international law, has ever since been repudiated by universal consent of all nations, and is intrinsically preposterous. The British, however, designed to make it effective, and set to work in earnest to confiscate all vessels and cargoes captured on their way from any neutral nation to any port within the proscribed district. On November 21, next following, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... casts our proficiency therein so much behind, is our time lost partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and universities; partly in a preposterous exaction, forcing the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work of a head filled by long reading and observing, with elegant maxims and copious invention. These are ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... never said them. What do you think of me? Even if I did care, do you suppose I would say as much—and to another man? Oh!" she exclaimed with sudden indignation, "let's talk of something else. This is too—preposterous." ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... that one becomes aware of its bewildering variety of native and exotic trees and shrubs. From the sea it looks one dense mass of greenery, in which the bright foliage of the candle-nut relieves the glossy dark green of the breadfruit—a maze of preposterous bananas, out of which rise slender annulated trunks of palms giving their infinite grace to the grove. And palms along the bay, almost among the surf, toss their waving plumes in the sweet soft breeze, not "palms in exile," but children of a blessed isle where ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... has the most delicious head I ever saw," was Lady Ingleton's first (preposterous) thought. "And the strongest will I ever encountered," was the following thought, as she looked into her ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the Lower Fourth were, of course, too old to consider the possibility of actually working. It was a preposterous idea. Something had to be done, however, so Collins bought excellent translations of the works of Vergil and Xenophon. A vote of thanks proposed by Foster and seconded by Brown was ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... said the duke; "but the garb should always be suitable to the office and rank of the wearer: for a lawyer to be habited like a soldier, or a soldier like a priest, would be preposterous; and you; Sancho, must be clad partly like a scholar and partly like a soldier; as, in the office you will hold, arms and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... gleam of light. "But she is so insane that very little reliance should be placed on anything that she says. In such instances, you know, women make the most preposterous statements and believe them. In her condition, she might just as well have claimed me for ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... they shall be, yet they do not come to pass because they are foreseen, notwithstanding it is necessary that either things to come be foreseen by God, or that things foreseen do fall out, which alone is sufficient to overthrow free-will. But see how preposterous it is that the event of temporal things should be said to be the cause of the everlasting foreknowledge! And what else is it to think that God doth therefore foresee future things, because they are to happen, than to affirm that those things which happened long since, are the cause of that sovereign ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... preposterous words, the assembly was stimulated to action. The frightful clatter, drumming, and blowing of horns began again, and the donkey set off with all his might, the Mortimers after him. When he returned, little Bertram was seated on his back. "Johnnie ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... a plain clothes man from detective headquarters around the next bend of a peaceful Missouri road was so preposterous and incongruous that Billy had found it impossible to give the matter ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... back to his feet. He could conceive but one explanation of this preposterous statement. Severino's sickness had extended to his brain. He was delirious. This was ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... have in his turn? What government is formed for general happiness? Where is not it thought heresy by the majority, to insinuate that the felicity of one man ought not to be preferred to that Of Millions? Had not I better, at sixty-eight, leave men to these preposterous notions, than return to Bishop Hoadley, and sigh? Not but I have a heartfelt satisfaction when I hear that a mind as liberal as his, and who has dared to utter sacred truths, meets with approbation and purchasers of his work. You must not, however, flatter yourself, Sir, that all your ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... most willingly by taking the whole upon himself, and he managed so to do in a very ingenious way, without incurring any preposterous expense. He was acquainted with a set of rich, fashionable young men, who had taken a sporting lodge in a neighbouring county, who desired no better than to accede to the terms proposed, and to distinguish themselves by ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... "It is preposterous!" he cried. "The very idea of making a mechanic of you is absurd. I will see your father ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... that in the first place there is no shadow of evidence that he more than the other turned traitor. In the second place he would be sure to say that such an accusation against a Confederate officer is too monstrous and preposterous to be entertained for a moment; and that doubtless your negro, although he denies the fact, really chattered about his doings to the negroes he was lodging with, and that it was through them that someone got to know of the disguise you would wear. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... amusing to see how decisively, yet with what preposterous ignorance of any thing like the true state of affairs in this country, the English press informs the public as to the 'ex or inexpediency' of President ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... intimate association from their childhood? To say that such bringing up together creates "indifference" is obviously incorrect; to say that it leads to "aversion" is altogether unwarranted; and to trace to it such a feeling as our horror at the thought of marrying a sister, or mother, is simply preposterous. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... atrocious scheme of human sacrifice, the logical extension of a primitive Hebrew mythology—and take him in the only way that he commands attention: As a man, one of the world's great spiritual teachers. Insisting upon his godship can only make him preposterous to the modern mind. Jesus, born to a carpenter's wife of Nazareth, declares himself, one day about his thirtieth year, to be the Christ, the second person in the universe, who will come in a cloud of glory to judge the world. He will ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... The tales which I had been accustomed to hear of the world's deceit and falsehood seemed groundless and cruel—the inventions of envious disappointed minds—whose ambition had betrayed them into hopes, too preposterous for fulfilment Happiness was on earth—did I not find her in my daily walk?—for such as were not loth to greet her with a lowly and contented spirit. I had no present care. The days were prosperous. I obtained a scholarship in my college ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... a froward and obstinate girl," her father said angrily. "She has refused several most eligible offers, and I have to thank you for it. Well, sir, I hope at least that you have the grace to feel that it is preposterous that you should any longer stand in the way of ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... and means, or any other committee of Congress, to devote all their recess to public business. Elections are coming off for Members of Congress, and they will look after the elections. They must have a little rest. Therefore, the idea of waiting for the committees of Congress to act, is preposterous in my judgment. It is too late. If the committee had commenced on the first Monday of December, they might by this time probably had prepared a bill. They have made no such preparation, and, therefore, it ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Constitution itself—that it is hard to imagine what was intended by it, unless it was to take advantage of the presumed ignorance of the subject among the readers of an English journal, to impose upon them, a preposterous fiction. It was State ratification alone—the ratification of the people of each State, independently of all other people—that gave force, vitality, and validity to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... one night. "Your existence proves that there is truth in mythology, as some of us have always believed. Your visit to Titan will create a furor in scientific circles, for you are impossibility incarnate—personifications of the preposterous. In you, wildest fancy had become commonplace. According to many of our scientists, it is utterly impossible for you to exist. Yet you say, and it must be, that there are millions upon millions of similar ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... note-making on the "Old French War," with such notes as these: "Rights of the two nations"; "When did Marquette make his discoveries?" "When did La Salle settle?" "Had not the French a right both of prior discovery and prior settlement?" "The English never settled"; "The letters patent to Louisiana are preposterous, perhaps, but not more so than the English claim from coasts back of the Mississippi"; "The first blood was spilt by Washington. Jumonville would seem to have been sent with peaceful intentions. His orders charged him to attack ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... going to be dreadful and you must be honest with me. You know you asked me to go to you the middle of the week to stay over the fete. May I come now—today? I cannot tell you why I ask now, but when I do you will be interested. May I? I know I am preposterous." ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... Merope actually killed her son. The arresting and triumphant "grip" of the tragic misfortunes of Oedipus and Orestes, the combination of the course of fate and the [Greek: hamartia] of the individual, is totally absent. The wooing of Merope by Polyphontes is not so much preposterous as insignificant, though Voltaire, by a touch of modernism, has rescued it or half-rescued it from this most terrible of limbos. The right triumphs, no doubt; but who cares whether it does or not? And Mr Arnold, with the heroic ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Democratic Parliament in any case have endured it. A new civil war against Ireland seems morally impossible. Therefore Mr. Gladstone is ruining a measure which might have been good, by his preposterous dealing with it. Lord Hartington said (as indeed did John Bright) the very truth, that the Liberal Party cannot so disown its own traditions, and its wisest principles, as to allow an individual, however justly honoured, to concoct secretly from ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... land. The imagination of the people was aroused, and tales of a wealth like that of Croesus came from mariners who had sailed the seven seas, and were willingly believed by an excited audience. Indeed the nations stood ready with open-mouthed wonder to accept all stories, no matter how marvelous or preposterous. America suddenly appeared to all people as the land that offered wealth, religious and political freedom, a home for the poor, a refuge for the persecuted, in truth, a paradise for all who would begin life anew. With such a vision ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... many advantages of being very young is one's absolute certainty that there is only one type of beautiful girl in the world. That type we make a religion. We are its pugnacious champions, and the idea of our falling in love with any other is too preposterous even for discussion. If our tastes happen to be for blondness, brunettes simply do not exist for us; and if we affect the slim and willowy in figure, our contempt for the plump and rounded is too sincere for expression. Usually the type we choose is one whose beauty is somewhat ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... insignificant, for to the 80,000 holdings not exceeding one acre we must add 62,000 of from 1 to 5 acres. In the face of these facts, the assumption that "all agricultural land"—as defined in the Return—will be sold, is not only unsound but preposterous. ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... Ethics, in the completed form in which we have it (no manuscript of it is extant) has the incredible appearance of a system of philosophy sprung full-grown from an unhesitating mind. Even a most cursory reading of the Short Treatise completely dispels this preposterous illusion. The Ethics was the product ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... things that take place in the world, after making mention of those which he considered to be physical and material, adds, "and the mind and everything which is by means of man."(8) Certainly; it would have been a preposterous course, when he would trace the effects he saw around him to their respective sources, had he directed his exclusive attention upon some one class or order of originating principles, and ascribed to these everything which happened anywhere. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... pleased by this trivial attention, and she knew it. It was an absurdly insignificant incident, and yet here she was recalling it with something like a thrill. Not only that, but she recalled another and equally preposterous detail of the day. She had dropped her vanity-box in the car, and as they both stooped for it his cheek had brushed hers. He laughed lightly and apologized—forgetting it the next second. Eight hours later she dared remember ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... when a woman is barren, though the instruments of generation are perfect both in herself and in her husband, and no preposterous or diabolical course used to it, and neither age, nor disease, nor any defect hindering, and yet the woman ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... death if he goes at such a preposterous speed. It must have been nearly two hundred miles an hour: the Brennan mono-rail is nothing to it. At any rate, it's rather a feather in our cap—this record, I mean, after so many have been made by the French and the Americans—and ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the peer, "such a thing never entered into my head. It was so preposterous, so insane, so out of all reasonable calculation, that I might just as well have been afraid of building my house under a hill for fear the hill should walk out of its place and crush it. I could never have dreamed of or fancied such a thing, sir, as that you should forget the difference ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Franklin Institute. Shortly after I was invited before the Northern Medical Society of this city to address them thereon. A number of medical gentlemen have been using it in their practice, while the bulk of them have spurned it as "negative" and preposterous, without an effort at trying it, which I ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... And why, then, should any farmer in this State hold back from giving this Institution his cordial and hearty support? And stranger still—why should he put himself in antagonism to its success? Such an attitude, to my mind, is not merely unwise, but preposterous—yes, suicidal. If the College is not what it should be, the more his self-interest should prompt him to bestow upon it his aid. It is the Farmers' Institution—founded for his benefit, at much cost; and if he ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... move was to bring a preposterous charge against the whole English clergy by declaring that, in submitting to Wolsey's authority as papal legate, they had violated an ancient law forbidding papal representatives to appear in England without ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... and Leonore have had a possibly quite harmless flirtation; and instead of Vivarce being found on his way from Leonore's room, he has merely been walking with Leonore in the garden: at midnight remember, and after her husband has gone to bed. In order to lead up to this, a preposterous speech has been put into the mouth of the Marquis de Neste, an idiotic rhapsody about love and the stars, and I forget what else, which I imagine we are to take as an indication of Vivarce's sentiments as he walks with Leonore in the garden at midnight. But all these precautions are in vain; the ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... it must be forever; that he must be that party's chattel and wear its brass collar the rest of his days—would not that insult him? It goes without saying. He would say some rude, unprintable thing, and turn his back on that preposterous organization. But the political boss puts no conditions upon him at all; and this volunteer makes no promises, enlists for no stated term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; he is in no way restrained ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... big round table as if assembled for a conference and looked at each other in a sort of fatuous consternation. I would have ended by laughing outright if I had not been saved from that impropriety by poor Fyne becoming preposterous. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... in the time of Pericles were given over to two things which were enough to damn any individual and any nation—idleness and superstition. The drudgery was done by slaves; the idea that a free citizen should work was preposterous; to be useful was a disgrace. For a time Pericles dissipated their foolish thought, but it kept cropping out. To speak disrespectfully of the gods was to invite death, and the philosophers who dared discuss the powers of Nature or refer to a natural religion were safe only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... is preposterous to suppose that household roasting will be continued long in any part of this country, if coffee properly prepared can be had. This is demonstrated by the remarkable advances made in Pittsburgh and other places, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... circumstance of the human form being concealed in this country in loose folding robes, that caused the Chinese draughtsman so completely to fail, I leave to the artists of our own country to determine: but the fact was as I state it; all his attempts to draw these figures were preposterous. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... the necessity of meeting Alden again, then made a wry face at her own foolishness. "Ridiculous," she said to herself, "preposterous, absurd!" No matter what her own nightmares might be, he slept soundly—of course he did. How could healthy youth with a clear conscience ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... education which he had not, his English could not have been better; but if he had had the usage du monde which as a young man he had not, there would have been a difference. He would not, for instance, have given us the preposterous scenes in Nicholas Nickleby in which parts are played by Lord Frederick Verisopht, Sir Mulberry Hawke, and their friends; the scene of the hero's luncheon at a restaurant and the dreadful description of the mirrors and other splendours would not have been written. It is a very ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... at her as he had looked at Barbara, enjoying her absurdity, letting her play, like the child she was, with her preposterous idea. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... something supernatural which is 'the fundamental principle of all false metaphysics.' 'No such belief can for a moment be entertained by those who see in nature the cause of all effects, and treat with the contempt it merits, the preposterous notion that out of nothing at the bidding of something, of which one can ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... She indulg'd herself in every Whim that came in her Head, without Fear of being brow-beat. In the first Place, She insisted that the Chief Magus, who was old and gouty, should dance a Saraband before her; and upon his modest Refusal to comply with so preposterous a Request, she persecuted him without Mercy: Nothing would serve her Turn, in the next Place, but his Majesty's grand Master of the Horse must make her a Minc'd-pye. The Gentleman took the Liberty to let her know, that he was no profess'd Cook; a Tart, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... at the gate. There was one of the fattest white horses I ever saw, and a queer wagon, shaped like a van. A funny-looking little man with a red beard leaned forward from the seat and said something. I didn't hear what it was, I was looking at that preposterous wagon of his. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... cruelly enhancing red silk and melting sequin paste, the billowy arms inundated with the thumb-deep dimples lax out along the chair-sides, as preponderous and preposterous a heroine as ever fell the lot of scribe, she was nature's huge joke—a practical joke, too, at eighteen dollars a week, bank-books from three trust companies, and a china pig ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... He had heard hints of this preposterous opinion once or twice lately, and they disgusted his sense of fitness. How could a man possibly be good at business if he rushed through it like a steam-engine? Supposing one of the telegraph posts at the side ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... is preposterous. Why, these are the very things I had bought for you. If you won't take any of these, I shall have to give you ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... approach to a mere mock fallacy of form, and we see what poor amusement it generally affords. To feign that because words have the same sound, they convey the same thoughts or meanings is a fiction as transparent as it is preposterous. A word is nothing but an arbitrary sign, and apart from the thought connected with it, it is an empty unmeaning sound. The link is too slight in puns, the disparity between the things they represent as similar, too great—there is too much falsity. The worst kind of them is where the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... girl as Margaret to be merged in so dreary, undistinguished a class was manifestly preposterous. It was a stupid misapplication of human material. A plainer face and a more homespun fibre would have served the ...
— Different Girls • Various
... to devour their young because their owners have handled them too freely, or removed them from place to place! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed; since reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable of any enormity: but why the parental feelings of brutes, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, etc., as the only possible cause of variation. In one limited sense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true; but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions the structure, for instance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees. In the case of the mistletoe, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... obviously shaken, this monthly farce; this dinner that in reality mocked all the real meaning of blood-relationship. Good Lord! To Adrian's modern mind, impatient and courageous, the situation was preposterous, grotesque. He himself would have broken through to the woman he loved, were she seriously ill, if all the city was cordoned to keep him back. What could it mean? Entire selfishness on his uncle's part? Surely not that! That was too inhuman! Adrian was willing to grant his uncle exceptional ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... the room. Mr. Carey was unused to work, and he turned to his correspondence with resentment. On one side of the desk was a bundle of bills, and these filled him with irritation. One especially seemed preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey's death Emma had ordered from the florist masses of white flowers for the room in which the dead woman lay. It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far too much upon herself. Even if there had been no financial necessity, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... replied, stretching himself luxuriously in the long lounge chair, "the most commonplace life hovers on the edge of the bizarre. But those of us who overstep the border become preposterous in the eyes of those who have never done so. This is not because the unusual is necessarily the untrue, but because writers of fiction have claimed the unusual as their particular province, and in doing so have divorced it from fact in the public eye. Thus I, myself, am a myth, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... Joe as if life were torn to bits, as if the world's end had come. It was unbelievable, impossible—his eyes belied his brain. That all those years of labor and dream and effort were going up in flame and smoke seemed preposterous. And only a few moments before he and Myra had stood on the heights of the world; had their mad moment; and even then his life was being burned away from him. He felt the hoarse sobs lifting up through ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... the chief consolation of the pious, and leads them into perpetual doubt. For faith cannot exist unless it looks upon the promise of mercy concerning the Mediator. Nor is there an inhabitation unless the consolation is received by this faith. And it is a preposterous way of teaching that one is to believe first the inhabitation, afterwards forgiveness of sins (prius credere inhabitationem, postea remissionem peccatorum). Since therefore this dogma of Osiander is both false and pernicious to consciences, it must be shunned and damned." (C. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... so!" And Mme. de Brecourt rebounded, standing before her. "And you LET him—about yourself? You gave him preposterous facts?" ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... understands English so well, he certainly knows how to make himself understood in it. His story of the bicycle is preposterous." ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... least understand; here a madman smitten, like Fiesco, with a mania for managing a large and dangerous intrigue all in his own way, and accomplishing his ends by modes of action which seem to him heroic, but to the ordinary mind utterly preposterous. Thus he accounts for his failure to confide his plans to Carlos by saying that he was 'beguiled by false delicacy',—which seems to mean that his relation to the king was felt by him as a breach of friendship. But how strange that a man with public ends in view should feel thus under ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... story was preposterous. In examining the late lord's private papers, he discovered the letter which I typed and signed. He said very coldly that the fact that I had waited until everyone who could corroborate or deny my story was dead, united with the improbability of the narrative itself, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying to those, who would impose on us for what they are not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... very sight of books, or where the torch of learning is kindled, which burns on with ever-increasing brightness forever more, and when I think of some of the teachers of my youth I am reminded of what the wise pastor said to a "stupid lunk-head" who had conceived the preposterous idea that he was called to be a preacher. "What, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Ariel, yet as Puck profuse Of the "preposterous," was that wit, whose use Was ever held "within The limits of becoming mirth." His whim Never shy delicacy's glance could dim, Or move the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... to him in what surroundings this preposterous offer, that she should leave the Convent and fly with him to Warwick, had been made to Seraphine. Her swollen countenance would be equally unattractive, whether lifted in cell or cloister, or where white clouds chased one another across the ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... now had all the absurdity of her ridiculous love-experiences superadded to it. He tried to reason with himself that it was only a phase of frontier life, which ought to have amused him. But it did not. The intrusion of this preposterous girl seemed to disarrange the discipline of his life as well as of his school. The usual vague, far-off dreams in which he was in the habit of indulging during school-hours, dreams that were perhaps ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... Mr. Narkom, for the moment I thought you were fooling," he said in a tone of deep interest. "But I see now that you are quite in earnest, although the thing sounds so preposterous, a child might be expected to scoff at it. A man to get a magic belt; to put it on, and then to melt away? Why, the 'Seven-league Boots' couldn't be a greater tax on one's credulity. Sit down and tell me all ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... breath, more thoroughly puzzled than ever. What could be her purpose to make so bold an effort to deceive? Did she imagine for a moment that he could be made to believe she had been continuously held prisoner since that Sunday morning? It was preposterous. Why, he had seen her again and again with his own eyes; had talked with her, and so had Sexton. His heart sank, but he determined to go on, and learn how far she would carry this strange tale. Perhaps out of the welter he could discern ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... war horse that he was, had already pricked up his ears, and determined to lend his tongue or his sword, as his state might require. That a fight could go on in the Union so long as Virginia or himself kept out of it, seemed to him a possibility little less than preposterous. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... peace. In April, 1525, Tunstall and Sir Richard Wingfield were sent to Spain with proposals for the exclusion of Francis and his children from the French throne and the dismemberment of his kingdom.[474] It is doubtful if Wolsey himself desired the fulfilment of so preposterous and iniquitous a scheme. It is certain that Charles was in no mood to abet it. He had no wish to extract profit for England out of the abasement of Francis, to see Henry King of France, or lord of any French provinces. He had ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... dotage, troublesome sleep, terrible dreams in the night, subrusticus pudor et verecundia ignava, a foolish kind of bashfulness to some, perverse conceits and opinions, [2653]dejection of mind, much discontent, preposterous judgment. They are apt to loath, dislike, disdain, to be weary of every object, &c., each thing almost is tedious to them, they pine away, void of counsel, apt to weep, and tremble, timorous, fearful, sad, and out of all ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried. "Preposterous. The dream must end. It gets wilder and wilder. Here am I—in this damned twilight—I never knew a dream in twilight before—an anachronism by two hundred years and trying to persuade an old fool that I ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... loaded with slug, and my naked small sword, so that, thought I, if the thief ventures back, he shall not slip through my fingers again so easily. I do confess that these imposing preparations did appear to me somewhat preposterous, even at the time, as it was not, to say the least of it, very probable that my slippery gentleman would return the same night. However, my servant in his zeal was not to be denied, and I was not so fit to judge as usual, from having ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... upon the three young men at once, but it seemed too preposterous. The inspector had turned to the window and ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... believed himself to be that monster Richard the Third, he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it." What Dickens himself really thought of these wilder affectations of intensity among impersonators, is, with delicious humour, plainly enough indicated through that preposterous reminiscence of Mr. Crummies, "We had a first-tragedy man in our company once, who, when he played Othello, used to black himself all over! But that's feeling a part, and going into it as if you meant it; it isn't usual—more's the pity." Thoroughly giving himself up to the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent |
