"Incredulity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sat down in the window-seat, and her look of incredulity gradually changed to one of comprehension. 'And he took such delight in London,' she said, with a break in her voice; 'just like ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... came and told me all about it. The boy is dead, as you know. Yes, terrible, isn't it?" And she looked at him. His face was almost comic, so wrinkled up with incredulity. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... from the pen of our own special correspondent. Some general indications will therefore suffice. Having described the genesis of their journey, and paid a handsome tribute to his friend Professor Challenger, coupled with an apology for the incredulity with which his assertions, now fully vindicated, had been received, he gave the actual course of their journey, carefully withholding such information as would aid the public in any attempt to locate this remarkable plateau. Having described, in general terms, ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about that," returned Mr. Ford uneasily, with a certain recollection of Uncle Ben's triumph over his own incredulity; "he surely hasn't shown himself a fool or a boaster so far. I consider your prospect a very fair one, and I wish you joy of it, my boy." He ran his fingers through Rupert's curls in his old caressing fashion, the more tenderly perhaps that he fancied he still saw ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... which demands respectful consideration. There is a great deal in his books to provoke criticism; those well acquainted with the antiquities and ancient speech of Egypt may reasonably give way to a smile of incredulity while reading what he says in support of the notion that the great civilization of Egypt also came originally from this Atlantic race. Nevertheless, his volumes are important, because they furnish materials which others ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... time without interchanging a word: almost without motion. The old woman's face was shrewdly anxious and expectant; that of her daughter was expectant too, but in a less sharp degree, and sometimes it darkened, as if with gathering disappointment and incredulity. The old woman, without heeding these changes in its expression, though her eyes were often turned towards it, sat mumbling ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... a very strange sort of questioning grunt inarticulate nevertheless expressive of rude wonder and incredulity, as far as it ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... No joking, now," said Coldfield, surrendering his incredulity with some hesitance. "And if the treasure involves no fighting or diplomatic tangle, count me in. Think of it, Jane," turning to his wife; "two old church-goers like you and me, a-going after a pirate's treasure! ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... not at once reply, but sat staring straight before him as if he saw something strange in the wall. His bronzed face had a peculiar pallid color, and his eyes expressed wonder and incredulity. He was forced to keep his hands clasped before him, so great was his emotion. Reynolds watched ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... man looked at him with almost contemptuous incredulity. "My dear fellow, what is the use of denying facts? You can't make black white, can you? Day before yesterday you loved this—this," he seemed to search for some epithet; glanced at David, and said, almost meekly: "girl. Day before yesterday ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... my assertion with open incredulity. He is determined to write to Maurice and inform him of his discovery, and also to commence legal proceedings ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... any possibility of incredulity, I may add that I wrote those words down at the time, added the date and address, and signed them; so there can ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... at the two ludicrous figures that approached him, the policeman first listened to the excited explanation of the boy indifferently, then with incredulity, ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... sink into less and less consideration in the turmoil of a city life, sink more and more from the child into the servant. And he began dimly to believe the Doctor's prophecies of evil. He could see a change in both. His generous incredulity failed him for this once; a child must have perceived that the Hermitage had completed what the absinthe had begun. If this were the first day, what would be the last? "If necessary, wreck the train," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Mortimers, even when the contract was matter of policy. Would I have taken my sweet Isabel to abide her royal scorn, it might be incredulity of our marriage? Though for that matter it is more unimpeachable than her own! Nay, nay, out of ken and out of reach was our only security from our kin on either side, unless we desired that my head should follow my hand as a dainty ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... refinement, and manners of great gentleness. My ideas of the "learned blacksmith" had been of something altogether more ponderous and peremptory. Elihu has been for some years operating, in England and on the Continent, in a movement which many in our half-Christianized times regard with as much incredulity as the grim, old warlike barons did the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. The sword now, as then, seems so much more direct a way to terminate controversies, that many Christian men, even, cannot conceive how the world is ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... happened to him before you call it 'luck,' Duffer. But you must remember that nobody except Ferlini and a few superstitious blacks ever believed that the mountain had a secret. Incredulity has protected it. And Corkran had to work like a thousand devils if he hoped to get hold of anything before he was found out. I believe he has got hold of something, and—that it then got hold of him. But ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... prosecuting the murderers. Though the aggregate number of victims was so great, they were scattered over so vast a territory that it was difficult to impress the public mind of the North with the real magnitude of the slaughter. But this incredulity vanished in a moment when the nation was startled on the 30th of July, two days after the adjournment of Congress, by a massacre at New Orleans, which had not the pretense of justification or even ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... extraordinarily solemn set of folks. The Athenians thought that the very gods must admire the rectitude of Phocion and Aristides; and those gentlemen themselves were apparently of much the same opinion. Cato's veracity was so impeccable that the extremest incredulity a Roman could express of anything was to say, 'I would not believe it even if Cato had told me.' Good was good, and bad was bad, for these people. Hypocrisy, which church-Christianity brought in, hardly existed; ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... intent her listeners were, and how full of horror the suggestion. There was even incredulity in the tones, an initiative protest against such possibilities. But the Marquise looked from one to the other with ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... front of the table, while the other monks raised their heads and glanced at him with a fixed, lifeless look that froze the current of his blood. He knew not what to do; his senses were fast forsaking him; Heaven seemed to have deserted him for his incredulity. In this moment of doubt and fear he bethought him of a prayer, and as he proceeded he felt himself becoming possessed of a confidence he had before unknown. He looked on the book before him. It was a large volume, bound in black, and clasped with bands of gold, with fastenings of the same ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... into it, very deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle of chowder, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824, which it has not been possible to do for twenty-five years; and on the other hand, my friends used to listen with incredulity when I told them that a few years later I was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods, fifteen rods from the only shore they knew, which place was long since converted into a meadow. But the pond has risen steadily for two years, and now, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Alban's they show you the dust of the good Duke Humphrey: we once begged a pinch, which the guide granted freely; this induced us to ask him how often he re-supplied the dust: the man stared at our ungrateful incredulity. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... and boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established. If the subject of the question starts back and expresses surprise and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in earnest, the fact of maturity ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... ever forget the look within her eyes? How plainly I saw it, although she stood half hidden beneath the shadow of the vines. Amazement, incredulity, scorn were expressed there, yet even as I marked them all became merged into proud unconsciousness. She would have turned away without a word, but my ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... not loudly, but in a fine chuckle which gave vent to his joy and expressed his incredulity in ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... difficult to procure a score or two 'of commonplace books,' and they had doubtless done so to carry on the cheat; for himself he would sooner believe that the whole world was leagued against him than credit any such nonsense." They were angry, in their turn, at his incredulity, and told him that he was very much mistaken if he thought himself of so much importance that they would all perjure themselves to delude him, since they saw plainly enough that he could do that very easily for himself, without any help ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... never heard of the improvement before, not so much at the time it was made, but in these later days, when there were fewer secrets between us, and this one could avail him no more. But I did not put the question out of pique. I put it out of sheer obstinate incredulity. And Raffles looked at me without replying, until I read ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... that, at the time when the Persian was writing, he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity on the part of those who were likely to read his narrative. Nowadays, when we have all seen this sort of room, his ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... of the settlement by the first expedition was first rumored in London during the middle of September, 1699. Letters giving such accounts had been received from Jamaica. The report reached Edinburgh on the 19th, but was received with scornful incredulity. It was declared to be an impudent lie devised by some Englishmen who could not endure the sight of Scotland waxing great and opulent. On October 4th the whole truth was known, for letters had been received from New ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... comrade retorted with greater incredulity. "If both doors were closed and fastenings are all right now, could anybody get the car out? They left the big ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Fear not the imaginations against thee, let not the incredulity of them trouble thee, that ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... a puckered brow and visible effort she entered on the story of the happenings of which she had been a witness in Bentley's studio. She was perfectly conscious—for a time—that she was telling it against a dead weight of half scornful, half angry incredulity on Lady Dunstable's part. Rachel Dunstable listened, indeed, attentively. But it was clear that she resented the story, which she did not believe; resented the telling of it, on her own ground, by this young woman whom she disliked; and resented above all the ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... adopted it; and when at length it was received, one party attempted to rob Harvey of the honour of the discovery, while another asserted that it was so obvious, that they could only express their astonishment that it had ever escaped observation. Incredulity and envy are the evil spirits which have often dogged great inventors to their tomb, and there only have vanished.—But I seem writing the "calamities of authors," and ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... interpreter, that I had been with the Great Chief in the Park, and of the game we had seen. When I told them of these three thousand elk all in view at once, they grunted loudly, whether with satisfaction or with incredulity, I could ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... distance made no matter; it was forever subdued. I could as soon send messages to the Sun itself as to my next-door neighbor! Smile on, Monsieur! Cesar Prevost shall not be piqued at your incredulity. He also was amazed, prostrated, when all the stupendous consequences of his discovery first flashed upon his mind; and it was very long before he could rid his mind of the notion that he was become victim to the phantasms of a ridiculous dream. Eh, bien! 't was very simple, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... criminal courts you would observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence as has been placed in his hands. And he opens his case in that spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the affected incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... expressive of incredulity. The honest and benignant face of the old Doctor showed that he ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... standing opposite Annesley. He stared with insolent incredulity. "'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' A ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... sharp cry expressed incredulity. "The man can't have any sense! He's going to be sorry all the time ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... speech was never long with-held from Annette, and she explained, in broken sentences, and in her tedious way, the occasion of her disorder. She affirmed, and with a solemnity of conviction, that almost staggered the incredulity of Emily, that she had seen an apparition, as she was passing to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... believe it? Your rosy lips assume a smile of incredulity—a most naughty and odious expression in a young lady's face. Well, then, the fact is, that my chambers, No. 24, Pump Court, Temple, were being painted by the Honourable Society, and Mrs. Slamkin, my laundress, having occasion to go into Durham ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... face of every one of our friends, as they saw this image of the Sky-Bird II cross the sky overhead and disappear in the mists beyond, was a look of amazement, incredulity, and finally ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... (not that it is not extant now, but) that the historians of the next generation never saw it. Geoffrey's History at once created a tremendous stir in the literary world—nor was it accepted on trust—but received with suspicion and incredulity. Thus William of Newburgh, in the latter part of the twelfth century, calls Geoffrey roundly, "a saucy and shameless liar." William, of course, did not know Welsh, and could not have made anything out of the Britannic book, even ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... his elation was inspired to invent two notable improvements on the machine—which were promptly patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter), concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye so," and forgot it completely. Roland ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... breaking in his victim's face, incredulity, amazement, consternation; and he began to jeer under his breath. "A great joy is this that you see your Fridtjof again! Why do you not go in boldly and rescue him? Does he not look to be in need of your help?" To stifle his laughter, he muffled his head in his cloak ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... o'clock in the morning to confess. I need not tell you how deeply the Church is touched by such zeal, how thankful she is to those who give her this consolation and who pay her this homage in these sad times of demoralization and incredulity. We are drawn towards young men who set such a good example and who are so willing to do what is right, and we are always ready to give them what help we can and to use any influence that we may have in certain families in ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... to ask me questions, but with a courteous incredulity which I could feel well enough, and some of my answers made them laugh, all but my hostess, who received them with a gravity that finally prevailed. But I was not disposed to go on talking of Altruria then, though they all protested a real interest, and murmured against the hardship ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not {parse}d) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Usage: primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of the thick ulster he wore, staring at her, drinking in every word of the story she told. A look of surprise crept into his face when she came to the point where the thought of marrying Hetty to the brother of her victim first began to manifest itself in her designs. For a time the look of incredulity remained, to be succeeded by utter scorn as she went on with the recital. Her reasons, her excuses, her explanations for this master-stroke in the way of compensation for all that she had endured at the hands of the scornful Wrandalls, all of whom ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... day, which was the festival of Corpus Christi, she had been graciously granted the rare treat of a whole hour to spend as she pleased. She had chosen to spend it in hearing the latter half of a sermon preached at Paul's Cross. For, despite Mistress Winter's disdainful incredulity, the assertion was the simple truth; though that lady, being one of the numerous persons who cannot imagine the possibility of anything unpleasant to themselves being delightful to others, had been unable to give credence to the ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... in the very vortex of his story. He told how he had posted Tiernan at the head of the steps leading down into the plumber's shop. He cunningly enlarged on the huge Irishman's bewilderment, his incredulity, his blasphemously reiterated demand to know what it was all about. He told how he himself had silently entered the shop, how he had crept through to the second door, how he had waited for a moment to take out his revolver. He described the hot and reeking air of the tunnel as ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... father married another man and then, as it appeared, had loved yet another man, as she might at someone whom she suspected of being drunk. It was true that Richard adored her, but then no doubt this kind of woman knew well how to deceive men. Softly she made to herself the Scottish manifestation of incredulity, "Mhm...." And Marion, for thirty years vigilant for sounds of scorn, heard ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... an original study (like an artist's drawing) of the unfinished romance which was published in 1883 under the title of "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret." Long lost sight of in the mass of Hawthorne's manuscripts, this last of his posthumous works was reviewed by the critics with some incredulity, and Lathrop had the hardihood to publicly assert that no such romance by Hawthorne's pen existed, thereby casting a gratuitous slander on his own brother-in-law. We may have our doubts in regard to the authorship of Shakespeare's ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... denomination—for all, in truth, who believe that the Saviour of the world had a good Mother, His only earthly parent, who brought Him forth, nurtured and loved Him. That it should be considered a point of faith with Protestants to treat such memorials with incredulity and even derision, appears to me most inconsistent and unaccountable, though I confess that between these simple primitive memorials and the sumptuous tasteless column and image recently erected at Rome there is a very wide margin of disputable ground, of which I shall say no more in ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... swelling phrases and natural and touching gestures, but in vain. He could only look at Mademoiselle de Guerchi with a miserable, heart-broken air. She remained quietly seated, with the same expression of incredulity on her features. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... pervert. I have shewn that the universe bears witness to the inspiration of its historian, by the revolution of its orbs and the succession of its seasons; that the stars in their courses fight against[1083] incredulity, that the works of GOD give hourly confirmation to the law, the prophets, and the gospel, of which one day telleth another, and one night certifieth another[1084]; and that the validity of the sacred writings can never ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... to me—so suddenly, so unexpectedly, did it come at last! I admit there is no excuse for my incredulity, except that of thinking your dear father had been so strangely deprived of his well-earned reward through the injustice of man on so many occasions, because, far better things than man could give were in store for him. And although ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... there was no sensation whatever. Almost with incredulity, they watched the glass walls cloud, realized that the fogging vapor was formed of exudations from their own substance. Then physical ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... boors over beef and punch. He cared for letters no more than his master did: he judged human nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he was right, and that men could be corrupted by means so base. But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty for us; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. There were parsons at Oxford as double-dealing and dangerous as any priests out of Rome, and he routed them both. He gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and ease, and freedom; the three per cents nearly at par; and wheat at five-and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you think I won't?" Gray became aware as he spoke that his elderly neighbor had raised to the intruder a countenance stamped with a peculiar expression of incredulity, almost of anger, at the interruption, and that the two remaining counter customers had turned startled faces over their shoulders, while the proprietor, his arms full of dishes, had paused beside the ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... his kindred Dutchmen are in question; but though most of these warlike stories rest upon the best of all authority, that of the warriors themselves, and though many of them are still current among the revolutionary patriarchs of this heroic neighborhood, yet I dare not expose them to the incredulity of a tamer and less chivalric age, Suffice it to say, the frequent gatherings at the Roost, and the hardy projects set on foot there, at length drew on it the fiery indignation of the enemy; and this was quickened by the conduct of the stout Jacob Van Tassel; with whose valorous achievements ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... genuineness of Paul's authorship of the Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Thessalonians, and the Galatians. If the Gospel narratives are legends, they grew up and found acceptance in fifty years. A pretty fair miracle in itself, when we take into consideration the inherent incredulity of the human mind! As Dean Farrar says: 'Who would have invented, who would have merely imagined, things so unlike the thoughts of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... The reproach of incredulity is commonly made to men of the greatest knowledge, because they are not over-apt to admit any proposition without proof: but this reproach may, with more justice, be oftenest made to the ignorant, who generally ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... conceal your incredulity," he said liberally, "for I forgive it. You see, then," he went on serenely, "how in Yaque the question of the succession became engrossing. The matter was not merely one of ascendancy, for the Yaquians are singularly free from ambition. But their pride in their ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... remember certain experiences that fill us with incredulity even while we admit that the facts could be proved before a jury of twelve men. So Casey Ryan, having lost his outfit and come so near to death that he could barely keep his feet under him, walked into a tent and stood there ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... at each hearing; but being mostly an imitator, he never approaches the serene beauty and sublimity of the hermit thrush. The word that best expresses my feelings, on hearing the mockingbird, is admiration, though the first emotion is one of surprise and incredulity. That so many and such various notes should proceed from one throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with feelings akin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats of the athlete or gymnast,—and this, notwithstanding many of the notes imitated have all the freshness and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... to tell me that you came kiting home from the pyramids and the lovely Sahara desert just because this chap Watkins was dishonest?" said Whitney Barnes, in tones of incredulity. ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... 484; retraction &c. 607. doubt &c. (uncertainty) 475; skepticism, scepticism, misgiving, demure; distrust, mistrust, cynicism; misdoubt[obs3], suspicion, jealousy, scruple, qualm; onus probandi[Lat]. incredibility, incredibleness; incredulity. [person who doubts] doubter, skeptic, cynic.; unbeliever &c. 487. V. disbelieve, discredit; not believe &c. 484; misbelieve[obs3]; refuse to admit &c. (dissent) 489; refuse to believe &c. (incredulity) 487. doubt; be doubtful &c. (uncertain) 475; doubt the truth of; be skeptical as ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... accounts had, of course, also reached Sue's ears. At first she took up an attitude of aggressive incredulity when her former friend was accused: nothing but the plain facts as set forth in the Public Advertiser of August the 5th would convince her that Richard Lambert could be so base and mean ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... sheik and his daughter exchange significant glances. Perhaps something of incredulity may be discovered in their expression. Evidently they have heard but little of the story before, and only know that the troubles of the woman they revere came ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... opportunity of speaking but, even if not killed at once, would be robbed of any valuable he might possess; and that his assertion that the ring was a signet, which Titus himself had given him would, even if listened to, be received with incredulity. He had therefore resolved to keep it concealed, and to produce it only when a favourable opportunity ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... hoping that by following the fancy I might quiet him,—for his face was damp with the clammy moisture, and his frame shaken with the nervous tremor that so often precedes death. His dull eye fixed upon me, dilating with a bewildered look of incredulity and wrath, till ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... proved every one of my statements, and proving them has also proved that my opponents were of two kinds. Those who had doubted simply because the discoveries were new and strange have been gradually converted, while those whose incredulity was based on personal ill-will to me have shut their eyes to the facts and have endeavoured to asperse my moral character and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... bed struck nobody there as absurd; the streets of our sweated quarters are far more genuine and human than those in which we parade the clothes they make for us. Ah, yes; that statement, at which you show some incredulity, is directly pertinent to my story; for it was an endeavor to trace my clothes to their origin—over the many impediments and difficulties placed in my way—that had led me into those slums. I won't go into that just now, though it had an ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... attention. An ordinary reader of Brydone would accept the account of his ascent with implicit confidence; but when veteran professors, scientific men, and experienced travellers and scholars refuse to believe that he reached the summit of Etna, the most probable mode of accounting for their incredulity is, perhaps to suppose, that in their opinion he had mistaken some other part of the mountain for the real summit. Not having met with any detail of their reasons for disbelief, I am only able to state their bare assertion. In my opinion, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... who had been sent out to bring in the owner of Red and Spotty, came back saying, "He come. All come. Me tell—you from below Holy Cross!" He laughed and shook his head in a well-pantomimed incredulity, representing popular opinion outside. Some of the bucks, he added, who had not gone far, had got back with ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... in place of it. Lord Lustings—'who never savoured good, but evil'—was chosen for the new Lord Mayor. Mr. Forget Good was appointed Recorder. There were new burgesses and aldermen, all with appropriate names, for which Bunyan was never at a loss—Mr. Incredulity, Mr. Haughty, Mr. Swearing, Mr. Hardheart, Mr. Pitiless, Mr. Fury, Mr. No Truth, Mr. Stand to Lies, Mr. Falsepeace, Mr. Drunkenness, Mr. Cheating, Mr. Atheism, and another; thirteen of them in all. Mr. Incredulity was the eldest, Mr. Atheism the youngest ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... round upon his heels and looked at each of the faces in turn, his own broadening into a grin, his eyes expressing incredulity, wonderment, and lastly mirth. At length ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... the lad; and he looked at Dave and John Warren, in whose boat he was, and read incredulity there; and as he gazed over the inundated fen, and thought of fishing, and shooting, and boating there, he felt himself thoroughly on the fen-men's side, while, feeling ashamed of this, he bent over the boat side, scooped up some water in his hand and ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... years' judicious educating by the Jesuits, and a continuance of supineness and incredulity as to Rome's designs on the part of British Protestants, of which all denominations are guilty, it is not at all impossible that similar scenes may be enacted in England. Ritualistic forms and ceremonies, and public processions, and, still ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... incredulity at the tracks in front of him—the tracks he knew so well, of one man in sealskin boots and three men with ribbed plastic soles. Why, it couldn't be! They should be no more than half way up the long ravine, between the ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... of the brush, to clear the hearth of the skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we can begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at great length, without bothering to remove the dead headman. The result was finally a continued respect for Simba, his magic bone, and his ready rifle; but a lingering though polite incredulity as to the matter of Winkleman—Bwana Nyele. It was possible that Simba had killed the latter, of course. But to have taken him alive—and ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... standing in amazed incredulity with the forgotten skillet at an awkward angle dripping grease into the camp fire, but his amazement regarding personality did not at all change his mental attitude as to the probable social situation. "Some collector, Brother, but hell in Sonora ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... said Stanley to me after the consomme had been served. "Now that we've actually sailed, there's no longer any need for secrecy. Indeed there never has been urgent need of it: the Professor and myself merely thought we might provoke incredulity and comment if we stated the purpose ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... I am, and as I certainly ought to be, I started back with an involuntary exclamation, a mingling doubtless of incredulity and disgust. This man, who stood before me with all the ease and self-assertion of a gentleman, was—you will never believe it, I ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... of him and his mother on the other, each holding a hand of his and gazing on him with mingled incredulity, surprise and delight, as if, indeed, they could not realize his presence except by devouring him ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... and shook his head, his gaze riveted upon the door panels in round-eyed incredulity. To him Kenny was an ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... surroundings she found in the city that was to be her home with not a little incredulity. For some days she treated the city as a deep rascal which had disguised its true nature in order to deceive her. She smiled at the ease with which she saw through all disguises. One of these days the cloak of respectability would be thrown off, and the shouting and shooting ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... aesthetics of Plato, put into the mouth of that mysterious Diotima, who was a wise woman in many branches of knowledge. As we read them nowadays we are apt to smile with incredulity not unmixed with bitterness. Is all this not mere talk, charming and momentarily elating us like so much music; itself mere beauty which, because we like it, we half voluntarily confuse with truth? And, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... several burgesses and aldermen in Mansoul, such as out of whom the town, when it needed, might choose them officers, governors, and magistrates. And these are the names of the chief of them: Mr. Incredulity, Mr. Haughty, Mr. Swearing, Mr. Whoring, Mr. Hard-Heart, Mr. Pitiless, Mr. Fury, Mr. No-Truth, Mr. Stand-to-Lies, Mr. False-Peace, Mr. Drunkenness, Mr. Cheating, Mr. Atheism—thirteen in all. Mr. Incredulity is the eldest, ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... coal dust. It was evident that, without systematic tests, very little knowledge of the safety or lack of safety of any particular explosive could ever be gained, and, consequently, the user of explosives was apt to regard with incredulity any claim by the manufacturer in regard to the qualities of safety. Owing to lack of proof, this was most natural; and it was also evident that the very slow process of testing, which was offered by a study of mine explosions during past years, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... either were dumb with fright or strident with hysteria. People with more judgment, and a smattering of scientific knowledge, dismissed the thing as some harmless meteorological manifestation that, while interesting, was not necessarily dangerous. And there were many, inclined to incredulity and skepticism, who believed that they were witnessing a hoax or an advertising scheme of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... when Congress restored and extended his patent, Evans felt that better days were ahead, but, as said already, he was too far ahead of his time to be understood and appreciated. Incredulity, prejudice, and opposition were his portion as long as he lived. Nevertheless, he went on building good engines and had the satisfaction of seeing them in extensive use. His life came to an end as the result of what ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... his life in his hands each morning at five-thirty. Something like a dozen men are alarmed from deep sleep to half-awakened incredulity, in which they believe the bell to be a dream bell and try to dream on of something noiseless. Ten seconds later these startled men have become demons, with their nice warm feet on the icy floor of the bunk-house, and with prayers of simple fervour that the so-and-so Chink may be ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... incredulity which most persons show in these matters, the events which followed the scene we have narrated confirmed the predictions ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... public break. It was to be announced that at his own request Lieutenant Willett stood relieved from duty as aide-de-camp to the department commander, and would proceed to rejoin his regiment in the Department of the Columbia; but even Wickham started with surprise and incredulity when, accompanying this application, at the close of 'Tonio's dramatic trial, Willett gravely handed him another paper—his resignation as ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... as if by shock. There was an electric silence. When she spoke again it was with awe and incredulity and something like terror ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... Captain Flanger; but do I understand that you intend, single-handed and alone, to capture the Bronx?" asked the commander, with a smile of incredulity on his face. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Jenny added to her tale, in resentment of her mistress's extreme and obstinate incredulity. She was instantly alarmed, however, by the effect which her news produced upon her young lady, an effect rendered doubly violent by the High-church principles and prejudices in which Miss Bellenden had been educated. Her complexion became as pale as a corpse, her respiration so ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the summons sounded, till at last the townsmen came up—having first made Eargate as sure as they could. So my lord Incredulity, came up and showed himself over the wall. But when the captain had set eyes on him he cried out aloud, "This is not he; where is my lord Understanding, the ancient mayor of the town of Mansoul?" Then stood forth the four captains, and, taking no notice of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... firmly to her point, notwithstanding Muriel's equally persistent attitude of incredulity, till even Muriel was conscious at last in her inner soul of a faint wonder, a dim and wholly negligible sense of regret. Not that she would under any circumstances have recalled that thrust of hers. She ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... estimate the encouragement and strength their zeal and eloquence had given to abolitionists all over the country. Men were slow to believe the reports of their wives and sisters respecting Angelina's wonderful oratory, and this incredulity produced the itching ears which soon drew to the meetings where the Grimke sisters were to speak more men than women, and gave them the applause and hearty support of some of the ablest minds of New England. The Female Anti-slavery Convention opened with ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... neutral, stifling all thoughts of being of service to my wronged people, because my life belies it. But I am sincere, Silas; believe me," and Molly reached over and laid her hand upon the arm of Mr. Wingate, whose look betrayed his incredulity. "In spite of the lowliness of my birth, and the life I have chosen, some good remains in me." She went on: "My fair complexion and life of ease have not made me forget that I am identified with the oppressed and despised." "Thank God! thank God!" said Mr. Wingate, his face brightening. ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... little hump-backed gentleman in the bright yellow waistcoat). Love, gentlemen—sweet, dear, delightful love!—(here the little man looked extremely sentimental)—came to soothe my woes and banish my regrets. Yes, my friends he said (observing a slight smile of surprise and incredulity on the countenance of his auditors, proceeding, we need hardly say, from certain impressions regarding his personal appearance), I say that love—dear, delightful love—came now to my aid, to reconcile me to my misfortunes, and to restore my equanimity. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... she gave Susan a side glance of incredulity. "I'd never, a' thought it. But I can see you weren't brought up to that. I'll write the address." And she went back through the showroom, presently to reappear with a card which she gave Susan. "You'll find Mrs. Tucker a perfect lady—too much a lady to get on. I tell her ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... adaptation to the wants of man, in broad quiet navigable rivers flowing through fertile plains that support a large population, while the rocky streams and mountain torrents, were confined to those sterile regions suitable only for a small population of shepherds and herdsmen. He would listen with incredulity to the Geologist, who assured him, that the adaptation and adjustment he so admired was an inevitable result of the action of general laws. That the rains and rivers, aided by subterranean forces, had modelled the country, had formed the hills and valleys, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... gazing at me with that puzzling expression, only now there seemed to be more of tenderness than of incredulity in it. "You seem to have great faith in things ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... be shocked you will be in earnest presently, for this is only the beginning of my strong-mindedness," continued Rose, nothing daunted by the smiles of good-natured incredulity or derision on the faces of her cousins. "I have made up my mind not to be cheated out of the real things that make one good and happy and, just because I'm a rich girl, fold my hands and drift as so many do. I haven't lived with Phebe all these years in vain. I know what courage ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... finest of these specimens are now lying on the table before us, their mottled sides thickly crusted with arsenical pyrites and streaked through and through with veins and splashes of twenty-two-carat gold. Incredulity, when raised to its highest pitch, might perhaps discredit all written testimony, whether official or scientific; but we have as yet seen no case so confirmed that the sight of these extraordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... were the stories told. At last one, whose name has not been preserved, quietly asserted that he honestly filled in the declaration each year, and honourably paid the demand which was regularly served upon him. The company's surprise had increased to contemptuous incredulity, when their Quixotic friend proceeded: "I don't think I lose by it, I always take the average of three years, according to the regulation; so I take the present year and the two future ones—and you fellows know what ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... young man vaguely, sinking back in his chair with his arms folded. He looked at Mrs. Luna with intelligent incredulity. She was sufficiently pretty; her hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack with her vivacity; and from beneath the stiff little plaits of her petticoat a small fat foot ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... but the old woman could give him no information; she could only suggest that the ghosts must to a certainty have had something to do with it. When he replied that he did not believe in such things, she answered that they had evidently carried off his daughter to punish him for his incredulity, and to prove their existence to him. He hurried round from cottage to cottage, but the people only opened their eyes and mouths wide with astonishment, and gave him no information likely to be of the ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... towers Etna, in snowy and magnificent serenity and indifference to the changes wrought by the centuries to gods and to men. Yet here the present is completely overshadowed by the past, and even the story of Arethusa knocks loudly at the well-barricaded doors of twentieth-century incredulity. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Stillwater that forenoon whose agitation was scarcely less than Mr. Slocum's, though it greatly differed from it in quality. Mr. Slocum was alive to his finger-tips with dismay; Lawyer Perkins was boiling over with indignation. It was a complex indignation, in which astonishment and incredulity were nicely blended with a cordial detestation of Mr. Taggett and vague promptings to inflict some physical injury on Justice Beemis. That he, Melanchthon Perkins, the confidential legal adviser and personal friend of the late Lemuel Shackford, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... found her father talking with Major Eltwin. General Triscoe had his own friends in the smoking-room, where he held forth in a certain corner on the chances of the approaching election in New York, and mocked their incredulity when he prophesied the success of Tammany and the return of the King. March himself much preferred Major Eltwin to the general and his friends; he lived back in the talk of the Ohioan into his own younger years in Indiana, and he was amused and touched to find how much the mid-Western life ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... so general among the French, that they would laugh at you with scornful incredulity if you ventured to assert any other. Foy's history of the Spanish War does not, unluckily, go far enough. I have read a French history which hardly mentions the war in Spain, and calls the battle of Salamanca a French victory. You know how the ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... seeing a soul. His favourite place of refuge, however, was the old laboratory, his father's cabinet, which his mother for twenty years had kept carefully locked up, as though to immure within it all the incredulity and damnation of the past. And despite the gentleness, the respectful submissiveness which she had shown in former times, she would perhaps have some day ended by destroying all her husband's books and papers, had not death so suddenly surprised her. Pierre, however, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai, when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when temporal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... world; and that it would be impossible for him to manage his English affairs without his advice and assistance." Such was the person who entered the room at the moment Mr. Vere was summoning him to his presence, and who now heard with surprise, mingled with obvious incredulity, the hasty narrative of what ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... which Vargrave coiled his snares round the unfortunate girl whom his destiny had marked out for his prey. He was right in foreseeing that, after the first amazement caused by the letter of Maltravers, Evelyn would feel resentment crushed beneath her certainty of his affection her incredulity at his self-accusations, and her secret conviction that some reverse, some misfortune he was unwilling she should share, was the occasion of his farewell and flight. Vargrave therefore very soon communicated to Evelyn the tale he had suggested ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the region of his coat and waistcoat-pockets, wandered nervelessly to his trousers-pockets—empty all! How many a time had they flown there in the last few weeks to make the same discovery—a discovery causing a shock at first, surprise, incredulity, anger; of late, mechanically only, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... incredulously, and it is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis that Abram also fell on his face and laughed, saying in his heart, "Shall a son be born unto him that is one hundred years old?" Evidently he at first received the promise with some incredulity. He could leave Ur of the Chaldees by divine command,—this was an act of obedience; but he did not fully believe in what seemed to be against natural law, which would be a sort of faith without evidence, blind, against reason. He requires some sign from God. "Whereby," ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... sir; the law will listen to it, shall listen to it. I, sir, can prove the fact, beyond even the hesitation of incredulity! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... Mississippian and Irishman with whom I have conversed opposes the instruction of freedmen. Some disguise their opposition by affected contemptuous disbelief of the negro's capacity. All the facts that we can give them, however rich and suggestive, are received with sneering incredulity and the assurance that they know the negroes better than we do. A little persistence in giving this class of men facts disproving their assertions usually makes them angry, and leads them to declare that if ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... shook her head, eyeing the document with a puzzled expression. Gradually bewilderment changed to surprise, surprise to incredulity. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... troops. From that moment prisoners no longer declared themselves sure of success. For a certain time they had been consoled by the announcement of the capture of Warsaw. This pretended success having proved to be fictitious, incredulity ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the prisons and etapes which had been described as hells upon earth, and to either confirm or gainsay the statements made by the American traveller. The evidence of a Russian subject would, for obvious reasons, have met with incredulity, and it came to pass, therefore, that through the agency of Madame de Novikoff, herself a prison Directress, I was selected for a task, which although extremely interesting, subjected me to much unfavourable criticism on my return to England. ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... little startled, and her husband frowned. Jane mistook their expressions for incredulity. "They DID, mamma," she protested. "That's just the way they talked to each other. I heard 'em this afternoon, ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... with astonishment and incredulity, not to be wondered at. The steamboat headed N.W.; right in the wind's eye. Sixteen miles off, at least, a ship was sailing N.E. So that the two courses might be ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... of the risk. Soon in the midst of surrounding reefs he shall when too late repent his temerity, and wish, that content with the experience of others he had not authenticated by the shipwreck of his hopes, the folly of his incredulity, and the reality of the danger! It is with governments as with individuals. The institutions which have occasioned anarchy and devastation before, will, if persisted in, produce them again. Vile and detestable as ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... from the trenches, and an officer approached the fort with a summons to surrender. He brought also a paper containing the names of the captive French officers, though some of them were spelled in a way that defied recognition. Pouchot, feigning incredulity, sent an officer of his own to the English camp, who soon saw unanswerable proof of the disaster; for here, under a shelter of leaves and boughs near the tent of Johnson, sat Ligneris, severely wounded, with Aubry, Villiers, Montigny, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... to me," purred the smaller man in the Western slang that phrased incredulity. Then, suddenly, he foamed at the mouth. "Keep out of this if you're squeamish. Let me play out the hand. I'll bump ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine |
