"Probability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throws a stone into the water; but where in the whole town, or indeed the land, had the ripple hit the exact point? He looked again at the envelope. It bore the stamp of the Copenhagen city mail: that was all. But that showed with some probability that the writer lived in Copenhagen, and maybe at this moment she looked down upon him from one of the many windows; for now he stood by the fountain. There was something in the paper, the handwriting, or more properly ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... occurs to him that, but for that picture or book, the artist would, in all probability, have been mouching about with a pipe in ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... considered as being blood relations there was no stopping short of the admission that all animals might also be blood relations—that is to say, descended from common ancestors—and now he tells us that the ass and horse are in all probability descended from common ancestors. Will a reader of any literary experience hold that so laborious, and yet so witty a writer, and one so studious of artistic effect, could ignore the broad lines he had laid down for himself, or forget how what he had ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... he failed to appear for a treatment appointment, and I never saw him again. But I did see a letter written to him by the clinic which showed that he had come up for the examination with a newly acquired sore while he knew I was away—in all probability a reinfection. He was not even man enough to face me with his broken word. Three or four men with chancres may report in an afternoon and leave, the clinic powerless to detain them or to protect others against ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... as he gave us our change, that we should have immediate delivery. We had explained at some length that this was important, and why. He waved us off with the assurance that we need give ourselves no uneasiness in the matter—that, in all probability, the matting we had purchased as a floor basis would be ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... infectious diseases represent risks to US government personnel traveling to the specified country for a period of less than three years. The degree of risk is assessed by considering the foreign nature of these infectious diseases, their severity, and the probability of being affected by the diseases present. The diseases listed do not necessarily represent the total disease burden experienced by the local population. The risk to an individual traveler varies considerably by the specific location, visit duration, type of activities, type of accommodations, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... an event of great importance, for he was not only the son of the Prince of Aquitaine, but he was the grandson of the King of England, and, of course, every one knew that he might one day be the King of England himself. Still, the probability was not very great that this would happen, at least for a long period to come; for, though his father, Prince Edward, was the oldest son of the King of England, he himself was not the oldest son of his father. He had a brother who was some years ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... states against those who wanted a strong national government. If, however, there were Anglicism on one side, so there was quite as much Gallicism, if not a good deal more, on the other. In writing to Jefferson of the probability that the Senate would make no discrimination in the tonnage duties, he said that in that case "Great Britain will be quieted in the enjoyment of our trade as she may please to regulate it, and France discouraged from her efforts at a competition which it is not less our interest ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... inconsistency of the tone, the amphibology of the effect, the uncertainty of the time of day, the strangeness of the figures, their flashing apparition in deep shadow,—all this results here by chance from an effect conceived contrary to probability, and pursued in spite of all logic, not at all necessary, and with the following purpose: to illuminate a real scene with unreal light, that is to say, to clothe a fact with the ideal character of a vision. Do not seek for anything beyond this audacious project that mocked the painter's aims, ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... savouring of priestcraft, yet I must acknowledge I see no way of avoiding the admission. I do not presume to offer any explanations, I only state the fact; and the fact is that to-night one or other of you will, in all human—or unhuman—probability, receive a visit from Sister Maddelena. You need not be in the least afraid, the apparition is perfectly gentle and harmless; and, moreover, having seen it once, you will never see it again. No one sees the ghost, or whatever it is, but once, and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... extraordinary amount of solitary sauntering, social strolling, confidential confabulating, evening-rambling, and general lingering, in the open air. To "adapt" this novel peculiarity to American practice, without some little violation of probability, is what the present conscientious Adapter finds almost the artistic requirement ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... added, "there is one lesson that I would fain impress on you, and it is the greatest of them all. Observe the sacrifices and pay heed to the omens; when they are against you, never risk your army or yourself, for you must remember that men undertake enterprises on the strength of probability alone and without any real knowledge as to what will bring them happiness. [45] You may learn this from all life and all history. How often have cities allowed themselves to be persuaded into war, and that by advisers who were thought the wisest of men, and then been utterly ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... a continual formation of organic life from inorganic matters, and as constant a return of the matter of living bodies to the inorganic world; so that the materials of which our bodies are composed are largely, in all probability, the substances which constituted the matter of long extinct creations, but which have in the interval constituted a ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... which the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's travel, responded briskly. He had received in some way intimations that his companion's corn-crib was near at hand, and if he had not deduced from these premises the probability of sharing his fare, his mental processes served him quite as well as reason, and brought him to the same result. On and on they sped, neck and neck, through the darkening woods; fire flashed now and again from their iron-shod hoofs; often a splash and a shower of drops told of a swift ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... was accordingly done; the trenches were commenced in the middle of September, and the garrison capitulated on the 27th of the same month: a poor compensation for the total defeat of the French army, which would in all probability have ensued if the bolder plan of operation he had so earnestly counselled had been adopted.[8] This terminated the campaign of 1703, which, though successful, had led to very different results from what might have been anticipated if Marlborough's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... M. de Voltaire, tom. xiv. p. 297, unsupported by either fact or probability, has generously bestowed the Canary ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... this month, and thence by and by to White Hall again to Sir G. Carteret to dinner, where very good company and discourse, and I think it my part to keep in there now more than ordinary because of the probability of my Lord's coming soon home. Our Commissioners for the treaty set out this morning betimes down the river. Here I hear that the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York's son, is very sick; and my Lord Treasurer very bad of the stone, and hath been so some days. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... she, too, under what in so heavy a gale, might be deemed a press of canvass. There was no apparent reason for the division's carrying sail so hard, while the frigate would he obliged to do it, did she wish to overtake vessels like the Plantagenet and her consorts. He suggested, therefore, the probability that the ship was alone, and that her object might ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the man tallied so accurately with that of the king that Edmund felt confident that he was on the right track. The fact, too, that from time to time men had come to see this person added to the probability of his being the king. Presently they came upon the hut. A number of pigs were feeding under the trees around it; the door was open, and the shrill tones of a woman's voice raised in anger could be heard ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... recited to me, as extremely fresh, novel and entertaining, and would be bound to make what publishers call a 'hit' if properly presented, but at the same time I am compelled to say that I soon became convinced that there was no probability that you would properly present your admirable subject matter to the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... necessarily accompany intellectual advancement. Girls generally surpassed boys, and as with clicks too rapid to be counted, it was found that when the pupils reached the limits of their span, the number of digits was overestimated. The power of concentrated and prolonged attention was tested. The probability of error for the larger number of digits, 7 and 8, decreased in a marked way with the development of pubescence, at least up to fourteen years, with the suggestion of a slight rise again ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... general terms on the comparative importance of animal and vegetative organs, circulation, respiration, and the like. But when we come to the work itself, to the discrimination and arrangement of the species, genera, families, etc., in all probability not one of the ninety-nine will pay the least attention to these fine rules, or undertake the hopeless attempt to carry them out in detail. Agassiz, for example, like Cuvier, and in opposition to the majority ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... to bulls and bears, or a dupe to the pernicious arts practised in the Alley. I thought a prudent man, who had any thing to lose, and really meant to do the best for himself and his family, ought to consider the state of things at large, of the prospect before him, and the probability of public events. A letter which appeared some days ago in the Public Advertizer revived many serious reflections of this sort in my mind, because it seemed to be written with candour and judgment. The effect of those reflections was, that I did ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... been an early achievement, of a great many peoples who lived near the water, or who in the course of their wanderings found their progress obstructed by rivers; it belongs to a large class of similar discoveries which answer urgent and constantly recurring needs. It was, in all probability, often made and as often lost again, until a growing habit of venturing beyond shore or river bank in search of better fishing, or of using the easy open waterways through the thick tangle of a primeval forest to reach fresh hunting ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... of the Polar Sea, in two Canoes, as far as Cape Turnagain, to the Eastward, a distance exceeding Five Hundred and Fifty Miles—Observations on the probability of ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... some uncertainty whether Romulus gave his name to the city, or derived his own from it; the latter is asserted by several historians, but those who ascribe to the city a Grecian origin, with some show of probability assert that Romus (another form of Romulus) and Roma are both derived from the Greek [Greek: rome], strength. The city, we are assured, had another name, which the priests were forbidden to divulge; but what that was, it is ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... with interest and admiration and pleasure. It was an excellent thing that England's backbone should be composed of men like that, he thought and he half wished he were not so consciously undeserving of national vertebral honors himself—that Elfrida's warnings had a little more basis of probability. Not that he wanted to drop his work, but a man owed something to his country, especially when he had what they called a stake in it—to establish a home perhaps, to marry, to have children growing up about him. A man had to think of his old age. He told himself that he must be the lightest ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... people who took out books began to arrive. These kept Mr. Tolman very busy. He not only had to do a good deal of entering and cancelling, but he had to answer a great many questions about the change in proprietorship, and the probability of his getting in some new books, with suggestions as to the quantity and character of these, mingled with a few dissatisfied remarks in regard to the volumes already ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... rapidly, and there is every probability of our being able to make a start to-morrow morning. They will think I am inventing when I tell them at home all the strange things that have ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about my Lord's business. He told me my Lord runs in debt every day more and more, and takes little care how to come out of it. He counted to me how my Lord pays use now for above L9000, which is a sad thing, especially considering the probability of his going to sea, in great danger of his life, and his children, many of them, to provide for. Thence, the young ladies going out to visit, I took my wife by coach out through the city, discoursing how to spend the afternoon; and conquered, with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... effect of his words, "I have a certain amount of respect for your feelings, because you are a Southerner, as I am. You have pride and you have courage. You are a gentleman. You are the only gentleman at present engaged in this profession, I'll say that for you. There is a probability that you may not be so unique in the course of a week or two. I am already a part owner of this concern. You know that, of course. It is pretty generally known among the performers that I have a creditor's lien on the business. I wish ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... than he said, and among other things he thought that the lieutenant might perhaps be rather in the way; but as his presence was unavoidable, he made up his mind to try to believe that he, the lieutenant, would in all probability be an engaged man already. As to the possibility of his seeing Minnie and being indifferent to her (in the event of his being a free man), he felt that such an idea was preposterous! Suddenly a thought flashed across ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... of interest; but, if real, besides the glorious excitement of such a novelty, they will have something to look back upon through life. As to the dangers, they are always magnified, and, in general, peril is discovered soon enough for escape. But, in all probability, if any discovery is made, it will be made by the Padres. As for ourselves, to attempt it alone, ignorant of the language and with the mozos who were a constant annoyance to us, was out of the question. The most we thought ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... what he deemed to be right, would have made many serious blunders. During his brief administration he made, as the country knows, an admirable beginning in reforming abuses and exacting the most rigid economy in the public service. There was every probability of his being his own successor ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the ocean now, a fugitive from justice—yes, my dear, no less. He could not stay in this country without the danger of being prosecuted for bigamy, and sent to the State prison. He dared not stay and face that peril. In all human probability, we shall ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... At night to my office, and did business; and there came to me Mr. Wade and Evett, who have been again with their prime intelligencer, a woman, I perceive: and though we have missed twice, yet they bring such an account of the probability of the truth of the thing, though we are not certain of the place, that we shall set upon it once more; and I am willing and hopefull in it. So we resolved to set upon it again on Wednesday morning; and the woman herself will be there in a disguise, and confirm us in the place. So they took leave ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... remarkably handsome—and said, by some grocer's assistant present at the time, to be a Miss Hale, living at Crampton, whose family dealt at his shop. There was no certainty that the one lady and gentleman were identical with the other pair, but there was great probability. Leonards himself had gone, half-mad with rage and pain, to the nearest gin-palace for comfort; and his tipsy words had not been attended to by the busy waiters there; they, however, remembered his starting up and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Ritual, Watson. They have the crown down at Hurlstone—though they had some legal bother and a considerable sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it. I am sure that if you mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to you. Of the woman nothing was ever heard, and the probability is that she got away out of England and carried herself and the memory of her crime to some land ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... have no chance of seeing for a month to come. A faint idea of hiding himself in the shrubs crossed his mind for a moment; but he could not stay there for an indefinite time, and the priest would in all probability wait for him, if it were he whom he meant to see. No, it would be better to go forward and get it over; but it was with a fervid wish that it were over that Mr Roberts went on and ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... money coming from? For you must remember that the men of that period had no such vast fortunes as many of them have now, and it was no easy task to finance a scheme where the outlay was so tremendous and the probability of success so shadowy. Even as late as 1856 the whole notion was considered visionary by the greater part ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... the young officer was recalling the fact that this made two shots, and he felt that in all probability there were four more to come. His hand was busy as well as his head, for he struck out again and again in an effort to get hold of the pistol; but he could not prevent the firing of another shot, which struck the rock beside him ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... as is the case in reference to the Japanese race and language. The most generally received opinion is that Shintoism is closely allied with, if not an offshoot of, the old religion of the Chinese people prior to the days of Confucius. Originally Shinto was in all probability a natural religion, but, like all religious systems, it has developed or suffered from accretions until the ancient belief is lost in obscurity. The author of a now somewhat out-of-date book, entitled "Progress of Japan," asserts that ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... discussion is in fact required. From whatever new points of view the Bauddha system is tested with reference to its probability, it gives way on all sides, like the walls of a well dug in sandy soil. It has, in fact, no foundation whatever to rest upon, and hence the attempts to use it as a guide in the practical concerns of life are mere folly.—Moreover, Buddha by propounding ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... south-western trip was undertaken in pursuance of some of Wilkinson's schemes. Unquestionably this trip was intended by Pike to throw light on the exact nature of the Spanish boundary claims. In all probability he also intended to try to find out all he could of the military and civil situation in the northern provinces of Mexico. Such information could be gathered but for one purpose; and it seems probable that Wilkinson had hinted to him that ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... his white-hot brain jumped to the correct conclusion that Roaring Dick, driven by some vague conscience-stirring in regard to his work, had insisted on going down river; and that this dive-keeper, loth to lose a profitable customer in the dull season, had offered transportation in the hopeful probability that he could induce the riverman to return with him. Bob stooped, lifted his unconscious opponent, strode to the side-bar buggy and unceremoniously ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... seems to me the plain duty of parents to encourage the child to attend church, though not necessarily for the entire service; for if the child does not establish a church-going habit during these plastic years, the probability is that he will never form it. This partially explains why there is such a leakage between the Bible-school and the church. When the child gets "too old for Bible-school," not having formed the ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... guessed right, yes, sir; but I am not going to do any thing now. M. de Boiscoran tells us that the facts are improbable. I should, therefore, in all probability, soon be astray; but, since we are now bound to be passive till the investigation is completed, I shall employ the time in examining the country people, who will, probably, tell me more than Anthony did. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... always expecting thrills, and never got them. Nevertheless, she had not realized how close a bond of sympathy had grown between them until this sudden announcement of his going back to New York. In a little while she too would be leaving for St. Louis. The probability that she would never see him again seemed graver than she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reflected her head and shoulders. In the glass she wore an expression of tense melancholy, for she had come to the depressing conclusion, since the arrival of the Dalloways, that her face was not the face she wanted, and in all probability never ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... forehead and a broad band running through the eye are black. A bird having a broad black band through the eye is probably a shrike, and if the bird in question habitually sits on an exposed branch or other point of vantage, and from thence swoops on to the ground to secure some insect, the probability of its being a ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... him more closely than ever. Mad with love. That was the phrase. He conned it over and over; mad with love. That excused many things. How strangely the chess-men were moved! Had Grumbach not assisted in the abduction, her highness would in all probability have grown up as other princesses, artificial, cold, reserved, seldom touched by the fires of animated thought or action. In fact, had things been otherwise, he never would have ridden with her highness in the freshness of the morning—or fallen in love with her. By rights he ought ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... and had harboured a suspected heretic within his walls, then the prior would at once turn against him, and representations would be made to the king which would almost force him to turn away his favour. The Lord of Chad would be a disgraced and suspected person, whilst in all probability the wiles of the ambitious Mortimer would prove successful, and the claim of Sir Edward Chadwell would be admitted, and the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... marriage from thence would be cold,—that there could be no hope of attaching to it any honour and glory, or of making it resound with fashionable eclat in the columns of the Morning Post. But then, had they been married in the country, the earl would have been there; whereas there was no probability of his travelling up to London for the purpose of being present on ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... that the necessary steps may be taken to strike from the Constitution the legal distinction of sex. Your Committee is in favor of the prayer of the petitions; but, under the most favorable circumstances, that is a result which could not be attained in less than two years. In all probability, it will not be longer than that before the Constitution will come up directly for revision, which will be a proper, appropriate, and favorable time to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... The probability that such was the cause of the horseman's haste threw the young Kentuckian at once on his mettle. Inasmuch as he was putting forth every effort to rejoin his companion, there was good reason for fearing a collision with the red men. He had been in several desperate affrays with them, and, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... rejected, like a Diamond with a Flaw in it, if it appeared blemished with a wrong Letter. I shall only observe upon this Head, that if the Work I have here mentioned had been now extant, the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus, in all probability, would have been oftner quoted by our learned Pedants, than the Odyssey of Homer. What a perpetual Fund would it have been of obsolete Words and Phrases, unusual Barbarisms and Rusticities, absurd Spellings and complicated Dialects? I make no question but it ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was attracted to it. That boy must be made to feel his treason. But the point of the cogitation was, that similarly were Clara to see her affianced shining, as shine he could when lighted up by admirers, there was the probability that the sensation of her littleness would animate her to take aim at him once more. And then was the time ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her own experience that love means a greater want than the satisfaction of the eye and mind. She would have given anything but her inherited ideals of right and wrong if he had come back and taken her in his arms and kissed her; and she loved him with adoration that he did not, that in all probability he never would, that although he had the great passions which stimulate all great brains, the inflexible honour which his State had rewarded and never questioned for thirty-five years must make short work of struggles with ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... continued to increase, it was by no means at its former rate nor in proportion to the increase of population. At the beginning of September, 1853, there were said to be nearly seventy thousand persons living at the Victorian gold-fields, and many of these, in all probability, earned very little more than mechanics employed in settled work. Hence there was a fair ground for an orderly agitation against the amount of the fee; but, unfortunately, the diggers preferred violent measures. There was some excuse for them. They were not represented in the Legislative Council, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... of scientific theories leading to the best practical results is illustrated in the case of Columbus, whose investigations led him to believe in the sphericity of the earth and the probability of land in the far West. "Adams and Leverrier discovered Neptune simultaneously and independently, simply because certain observations had revealed perturbations that could be most naturally accounted for by the ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... than their proportion of the athletes who win positions on college teams, furnish far less than their proportion of scholarship men, and far more than their proportion of conditions and failures. It is perhaps too early to be quite sure of these results; but in all probability further experiment will confirm them, and make it certain that tobacco is physically harmful as has long been recognized by trainers for athletic contests. The harm to adults seems to be less marked; perhaps to some it is inappreciable. And if there is appreciable ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... related their adventures to a fellow-prisoner, the information at length reached the ears of Goncalves Zarco, who certainly brought the first news of the discovery of the island to Europe. The tale, however, is doubted; but there is an air of probability about it, which makes me fancy that it has its foundation in truth, and I can no more speak of Madeira without thinking of the unfortunate, high-born, and lovely Anna D'Abret, and the bold plebeian, Robert ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... with, and I have passed many times through some of the most crowded streets in London and in Birmingham, in steam-carriages. I have also seen horses out in the morning, led by grooms, which would in all probability be startled by any object at all likely to frighten a horse, and they did not take the least notice of the engine. At another time, several ladies passed on horseback without the least alarm, and some of them rode close after the carriage, and alongside ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... continued, moving towards the window, "this is the only exit, and it is locked on the inside. Third, this blade here has a tiny touch of blood at the point, but there is no wound on Mr Todhunter. Mr Glass took that wound away with him, dead or alive. Add to all this primary probability. It is much more likely that the blackmailed person would try to kill his incubus, rather than that the blackmailer would try to kill the goose that lays his golden egg. There, I think, we have ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... French language did not, till you appeared, possess one translation of the great masterpieces of antiquity, which might fairly be said to have attained the rank of a classical work: while the English had been long enriched with such translations of most of them, as will like yours, in all probability share the immortality of their originals. In the cloud of critics which superior lustre necessarily attracts, many perhaps were not sufficiently aware of the peculiar difficulties of your undertaking, from the nature of the materials which you had to employ, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... sentiment: "The way," said he, "which you propose to make a poor man rich, is not so certain as you imagine. Your plan is very hazardous, and I can bring many good arguments against your opinion, but that they would carry us too far into dispute, I believe, with as much probability, that a poor man may become rich by other means as well as by money: and there are people who have raised as large and surprising fortunes by mere chance, as others have done by money, with all their good economy and management to increase it by the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... well until about two weeks before election day, June 6, 1900, and the measure in all probability would have carried had it not been for the slum vote of Portland and Astoria, which was stirred up and called out by the Oregonian, edited by H. W. Scott, the most influential newspaper in the State. It was the only paper, out of 229, which opposed the amendment. But notwithstanding ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... driuen to take some other course then before had beene by them entended. Wherefore vpon a graue consultation had by a select Counsell, what great dangers might ensue vpon so mightie a disaduantage as appeared in all probability, if it were not by good and sound iudgement preuented, and therewithall in their singular wisedomes foreseeing that some great stratageme might be practised by the enemy, either by fire-worke, or some other subtill politike deuise, for the hazarding of her Maiesties ships of honor in so narrow ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... that "Figaro" was about to be performed; there were even wagers laid upon the subject; I never should have laid any myself, fancying that I was better informed as to the probability than anybody else; if I had, however, I should have been completely deceived. The protectors of Beaumarchais, feeling certain that they would succeed in their scheme of making his work public in spite of the King's prohibition, distributed the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... In it I have neither wholly followed the truth of the history, nor altogether left it; but have taken all the liberty of a poet, to add, alter, or diminish, as I thought might best conduce to the beautifying of my work: it being not the business of a poet to represent historical truth, but probability. But I am not to make the justification of this poem, which I wholly leave to your grace's mercy. It is an irregular piece, if compared with many of Corneille's, and, if I may make a judgment of it, written with more flame than art; in which it represents ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... probability in this, for the extraordinary custom of tabooing, by which various things are supposed to be rendered sacred, and therefore not to be used or touched, is extended by the South Sea Islanders to various parts of their bodies, as for instance, the hands; in which case the ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... have murdered him; but suggested, in order to allay the fears of his Moslem subordinate, that they should both proceed to the chief with whom they were staying, who, being a sensible man, would be able to advise them as to the probability or improbability of the tale being correct. Together, they proceeded to the Babisa chief, who, when he had heard the Arab's story, unhesitatingly denounced the Arab as a liar, and his story without the least foundation in fact; giving as a reason that, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... bestow, and which the minister himself had expressly sought. With these remorseful feelings, he lost no time in making the amplest apologies, and besought his friend still to continue the care, which, if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour. Roger Chillingworth readily assented, and went on with his medical supervision of the minister; doing his best for him, in all good faith, but always quitting ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... remember where I stopped in my narrative: I only know it was two in the morning when I went to bed; and if you had been with me, that I might have talked instead of writing to you, I should, in all probability, have kept ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... and insidious in its progress, and it never reaches the same degree of severity. Trismus is the most marked and constant form of spasm; and while the trunk muscles may be involved, those of respiration as a rule escape. Every additional day the patient lives adds to the probability of his ultimate recovery. When the disease does prove fatal, it is from exhaustion, and not from respiratory or cardiac spasm. The usual duration is from ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... that barter of opinions and interests, which must necessarily take place in Coalitions between the partisans of the People and of the Throne, the former had any thing like an equality of chance, the mere probability of gaining thus any concessions in favor of freedom might justify to sanguine minds the occasional risk of the compromise. But it is evident that the result of such bargains must generally be to the advantage of the Crown—the alluvions of power all naturally tend towards ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... with Trophonius strikes us at once as affording a clue to THE CAVE into which Venus fled, giving great probability to Valens as the true ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... badly off at all," said Henri. "We have now what we never had before—a fine army collected together in one spot, a promise of succour from faithful England, and a strong probability of ultimate success. After all, what are we giving up but an old barrack? Let the rascal blues burn it; cannot we build a better Durbelliere when the King shall ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... in the yard at the side apprised him that he had called at a fortunate time. Mrs Trimble during the play-hour would in all probability be disengaged. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... the expediency and constitutionality of the Wilmot Proviso. It seemed to him wiser to confine the authority of the general government to the erection of proper governments for the new countries, leaving the inhabitants meantime to regulate their internal concerns in their own way. In all probability neither California nor New Mexico would be adapted to slave labor, because of physical and climatic conditions. Dickinson of New York carried this doctrine, which was promptly dubbed "Squatter Sovereignty," to still greater lengths. Not only by ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... give top-lofty advice to all others on how to make the start up the right ladder, and he would win a reputation as a personnel expert, which in itself is no mean assignment. But in all probability, he would still be doing better by himself than by ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... all probability the only true picture we have yet had of that most densely populated spot on the face of the earth—the ghetto of the metropolis, rather the metropolis of the ghettos of ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... conviction that she was comfortably provided with worldly gear. Mrs. Berry was even speculating upon the probability of her giving Rose something wherewith to begin house-keeping when her marriage ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Hall's reprints from the popular English publications, "Little Truths" was in all probability one of the most salable. So few books contained any information about America that one of these two volumes may be regarded as of particular interest to the young generation of his time. The author ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... exaggeration to say that there is in historic Christendom a sort of unnatural life: it could be explained as a supernatural life. It could be explained as an awful galvanic life working in what would have been a corpse. For our civilization OUGHT to have died, by all parallels, by all sociological probability, in the Ragnorak of the end of Rome. That is the weird inspiration of our estate: you and I have no business to be here at all. We are all REVENANTS; all living Christians are dead pagans walking about. Just as Europe was about to be gathered ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Ministerial party, secure in its strength, pushed on its way. The King now regarded the war as the issue {97} upon which he had staked his personal honour, and would tolerate no faltering. Yet in the winter of 1778 the rumours of a French alliance thickened; and, when the probability seemed to be a certainty, North made a desperate effort to end the war through a policy of granting everything except independence. In a speech of incredible assurance, he observed that he had never favoured trying to tax ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... have. Remember, we followed you over here," suggested Jane. "We shall be near here for some time in all probability. We have plenty of time. After we get tired of this spot we probably shall move to some other anchorage, but we'll be here ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... it would be so, knew she would sit up for him until morning, if necessary, and knew, too, that in all probability bowls of herb tea and a hot foot-bath awaited him, for Martha was careful of his health, and sometimes oppressive with her attentions, and he sighed as he drew near his home and saw the light, and thought, "Oh, if she would only go to bed and leave ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... die. But ten days later Stonehouse received a wireless, and a month later a letter and a photograph of a fair-haired, tender-eyed, slightly bovine-looking girl in evening dress. It appeared that she was a Good Woman and the daughter of wealthy and doting parents, and that in all probability West Africa would see Rufus Cosgrave ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... were on shipboard and that we had become acquainted without the friendly intervention of an introducer, and suppose, if such a supposition is at all within the bounds of probability, that you wanted to find out something about me, how would ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... of thirty years, whose health had been failing for many months, was at last compelled to relinquish the duties of his pulpit for a time; and a supply was sought with the ultimate probability of a succession. A new minister came to preach, who was to fill the pastor's place for the ensuing three months. On his first Sunday among them, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... my escape, and what method I might take to effect it, but found no way that had the least probability in it; nothing presented to make the supposition of it rational; for I had nobody to communicate it to that would embark with me - no fellow-slave, no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman there but myself; so that for two years, though I often pleased myself with ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... under the orders of the Inca, and was inclined, it appeared, to set up as the Inca himself. It argued ill for the Indian cause, that there should be this division in their forces. From what I heard of him, I was afraid that there was very little probability of his granting the request which had been denied by his inferior, the ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... will remember the Patriarch Matteos, and his degradation in 1849. After ten years passed in retirement, he was elected Catholikos of all the Armenians, and removed to Echmiadzin. His election to such a post at this time was significant, but the probability of his being able then to hinder the reformation did ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... that of Mr. Gibney in that McGuffey's job on the Maggie was the first he had had in six months and he treasured it accordingly. For this reason he and Gibney had been inclined to take considerable slack from Captain Scraggs until McGuffey discovered that, in all probability, no engineer in the world, except himself, would have the courage to trust himself within range of the Maggie's boilers, and, consequently, he had Captain Scraggs more or less at his mercy. Upon imparting this suspicion ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Mr. Hensellman," he said, "has made the most careful inquiries, and has even gone so far as to employ detectives. My brother has certainly not returned to London. We have also wired to every country house where a visit from him would have been a probability, without result. Under those circumstances, and others which I need not perhaps enlarge upon, I must confess to feeling some anxiety as to what has ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... TACITUS was born in the early part of the reign of Nero, and near the middle of the first century in the Christian Era. The probability is, that he was the son of Cornelius Tacitus, a man of equestrian rank, and procurator of Belgic Gaul under Nero; that he was born at Interamna in Umbria, and that he received a part of his education at Massilia (the modern Marseilles), which ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... felt more distress, within these two months, than it had ever known before. He could resolve on nothing. Yet he could not but wish I had not been quite so determined on going to America. There was no saying what course things might take. Mrs. Clifton was very ill, and in all probability could not live long. But again he knew not what to say. He certainly wished me very well—Very well—I was an uncommon young man. I was a gentleman by nature, which for aught he knew might be better than a gentleman by birth. The world had its opinions; ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... other symptoms of refinement, which some modern accounts or speculations, founded on native reports, have taught us to look for, we are disposed to receive the humbler descriptions of Adams, as approaching with much greater probability to the truth. Let us, however, not be understood as rating too highly the value of a sailor's reports. They must of necessity be defective in a variety of ways. Many of the subjects upon which Adams was questioned, were evidently beyond the competency of such ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... no real foundation. Darwin and Wallace, as we shall see later, were quite unconscious of their having been forestalled in the theory of Natural Selection by Dr Wells and Patrick Matthew; and Hutton, like his successor Lyell, in all probability arrived, quite independently, and by different lines of reasoning, at conclusions identical with those of ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... which I spoke of my country as consisting of nine millions of people. I could hardly persuade myself that within the short time which had elapsed since that epoch our population had doubled; and that at the present moment there does exist most unquestionably as great a probability of its continued progress, in the same ratio, as has ever existed in any previous time. I do not know whose imagination is fertile enough, I do not know whose conjectures, I may almost say, are wild enough to tell what may be the progress of wealth and population in the United ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... an absence of several hours, returned into court, not having agreed upon a verdict. They were instructed and sent out again, and again a third time, in vain; they stated to the judge that there was no probability that they could ever agree. Seven were for conviction and five for ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... her back as if she had been a child of the house, and saved from death against all hope or probability. They chided her for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during all those hours. They could not realize that she had meant to carry her warriorship so far, and asked her if it had really ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... persons, however, are readier to take measure of the capacity of others than of themselves. "Bring him to me," said a certain Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, speaking of Rousseau— "bring him to me that I may see whether he has got anything in him!"—the probability being that Rousseau, who knew himself better, was much more likely to take measure of Tronchin than Tronchin was ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... In public there may have been a certain primness or aloofness in the relations of man and woman, but it would seem that in the home there was at least as much tender affection and mutual confidence as in the modern family. In all probability, wives and mothers gave much closer heed to the needs and tastes of husbands and children than is their case to-day; for woman's only sphere in that period was her home, and her whole heart and ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday |
