"Incredulity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will a certain Dulcinea del Toboso, once upon a time called Aldonza Lorenzo, just as I call mine Casildea de Vandalia because her name is Casilda and she is of Andalusia. If all these tokens are not enough to vindicate the truth of what I say, here is my sword, that will compel incredulity itself to give ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... exchanged for "Humbug! humbug!" If any body had told him that some one had discovered perpetual motion, he would have laughed at him, and cried "humbug!" You couldn't have hired him even to look at it. But his natural incredulity had been gained over by a different process. His confidence had first been won by a specious exterior, his reason captivated by statements and arguments that seemed like truth, and his senses deceived ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... righteousness" (Rom. x. 10); and since it alone justifies, it is evident that by no outward work or labour can the inward man be at all justified, made free, and saved; and that no works whatever have any relation to him. And so, on the other hand, it is solely by impiety and incredulity of heart that he becomes guilty and a slave of sin, deserving condemnation, not by any outward sin or work. Therefore the first care of every Christian ought to be to lay aside all reliance on works, and strengthen his faith alone more and more, and by it grow ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... 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
... not so common as to be walked upon or shovelled up by the ton, but that they were really and truly diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, in their natural uncut state, she would scarcely believe it. Even my mother expressed her incredulity with the remark, "Go along, boy! I suppose we shall not know a ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... began to prophesy. Another day, M. Olinde Rodrigues was struck as if by apoplexy; because, asking each of the members in turn whether it was not true that the Holy Spirit was in him, (M. Olinde Rodrigues,) one of the persons interrogated had the temerity to answer by certain expressions of incredulity. The fit was extremely violent, and Dr Fuster, in order to save the patient, had recourse to a formal retractation from the inconsiderate respondent, who, on his part, was full of affliction for the mischief he had occasioned. Such, even on men of serious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... to him with incredulity. Only the day before he would have put full confidence in his statement; but he had learned a ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... fields, and lived seventy-six years, to August, 1727. This is the daughter of whom publick mention has been made. She could repeat the first lines of Homer, the Metamorphoses, and some of Euripides, by having often read them. Yet here incredulity is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions are necessary to fix in the memory lines not understood; and why should Milton wish or want to hear them so often? These lines were at the beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language not understood, the beginning raises no more attention than ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... had been for a number of years in the United States, of which (then comparatively little known) part of the world she used to tell us stories that, from her characteristic exaggeration, we always received with extreme incredulity; but my own experience, subsequent by many years to hers, has corroborated her marvelous histories of flights of birds that almost darkened the sun (i.e. threw a passing shadow as of a cloud upon the ground), and roads with ruts and mud-holes into which one's carriage ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to think that some day I shall look back on my boyhood with downright incredulity. I shan't seem to have been that boy ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... 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 ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... the drunken sailor, sir, who was found one night, several years since, near the house," interrupted Harry, who had been listening attentively, and observed Mr. Wyllys's air of incredulity. "I had him locked up in the smoke-house, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... controlled these small bodies, and forced them to revolve around him, and thus exhibited a miniature of the great solar system itself. "As in the case of the spots on the sun, Galileo's announcement of this discovery was received with incredulity by those philosophers of the day who believed that everything in nature was described in the writings of Aristotle. One eminent astronomer, Clavius, said that to see the satellites one must have a telescope which would produce them; ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... was boldly taken; and open proclamation has been made from that day to this, that such a work would be seen in these United States. With every review of the argument, new features of strength have been discovered in the application; and amid a storm of scornful incredulity, we have watched the progress of events, and ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... perhaps have reached 200,000, produced a terrifying impression on the 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 became general. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Dunmore's angry incredulity when I told him that Rivers was offering twenty-five thousand instead of ten thousand. One would have thought, on the face of it, that he would have been glad; as Nelda's husband, he would share in the higher price being paid for the collection. But when you realize ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... the natives of that town had received the news of the victory of El-Teb with absolute incredulity, but the arrival of the Tokar fugitives convinced them that the Arabs had really been defeated. One of the prisoners taken at Sinkat came in a day or two later, having made his escape from Osman Digma's ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... named Hanno sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules along the west coast of Africa. He probably followed very much the same route as Sir Richard Dalyngridge and Saxon Hugh when they voyaged with Witta the Viking. He wrote in Punic a record of his adventures, which was received with the incredulity usually accorded to travellers' tales. Among the wonders he encountered were some hairy savages called gorillas. His work was translated into Greek and later on into several European languages, so that the word became familiar to naturalists. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... ammunition, etc. The moral result of this battle can hardly be overestimated. It had never been seriously believed in Europe that a Russian army could be conquered by a Japanese in a fair fight, and probably that incredulity influenced Kuropatkin when he ordered Sassulitch to defy strategical principles by attempting to hold a radically defective position against a greatly superior force. In a moment, the Japanese were crowned with military laurels and placed on a pedestal for ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... impossible to describe the look she gave me; astonishment, incredulity, and something like dawning hope were blended in it; but she ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... swept the impeding lock from his pale brow and set pained eyes upon his father by adoption. He was unable to believe this monstrous assertion. He stared his incredulity. Harvey D. winced. He felt that he had struck some defenseless child a cruel blow. Gideon shot the second gun in this ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... wonderful tales of the dog's intelligence and kindness and how one night Jack had guarded a stray lamb that had broken its leg—until daybreak—and he had been led to the dog and the sheep by Jack's barking for help. The Turner boys confirmed this story, though it was received with incredulity. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... "Confident!" There was incredulity and wonder in Alf Pond's voice. Then, with a sudden inspiration, "Look at Kid!" he cried—"look at him!" and he indicated with a nod a fair-haired giant ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... 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
... man, to have borne away the highest honours at college! A remarkable memory was of great benefit to her. Her sister states that she could repeat pages of poetry from her favourite authors after having read them over but once. On one occasion, to satisfy the incredulity of one of her brothers, she learned by heart the whole of Heber's poem of "Europe," containing four hundred and twenty-four lines, in an hour and twenty minutes. She repeated it without a single mistake or a moment's ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... of the philosopher's stone had been more than once discovered; but that the ancient and wise men who had hit upon it, would never, by word or writing, communicate it to men, because of their unworthiness and incredulity. [His "sum of perfection," or instructions to students to aid them in the laborious search for the stone and elixir, has been translated into most of the languages of Europe. An English translation, by a great enthusiast in alchymy, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... 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
... and Grace were told about the new way of being healed, and Grace looked on at first with her usual incredulity, but when she saw Mrs. Hayden getting so well and looking so happy, she began to wonder and then to exclaim. Then she wanted to learn something about this new "doctrine," and Mrs. Hayden had Miss Greening come over and ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... was received at first with some incredulity, but on being confirmed it caused a universal joy. On August 16 Queen Victoria sent a telegram of congratulation to President Buchanan through the line, and expressed a hope that it would prove 'an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... words liberty and freedom of opinion was tabooed, and that her mother had been one of those devout Roman Catholics who think it necessary to consult their confessor, even in regard to the most trivial details of their daily existence. Placed as she had been between her parents' incredulity and bigotry, my aunt had formed opinions of her own, of which a profound tolerance and a deep respect for the beliefs and convictions of others was the principal feature. She never condemned even when she did not approve, ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... that?" Mrs. Westley asked, with more or less of that incredulity concerning the performance of a woman which all the sex feel, in spite of their boasting about one another. "Has she ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... nearly time for the change of watches, and when I returned to the deck I saw that Mott was already on the bridge. He listened to our story with plain incredulity. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... was the utmost length that a woman could possibly swim, but he talked boldly of great swimming feats he had seen in his college life, and opined that a good swimmer might even cross the bay from Montrose or from the little port of Stanhope in the other direction; and when he saw the incredulity of his listeners, he knew that no one had accomplished either journey, for the water was overlooked by a hundred houses at either place, and many a small vessel ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... something like the implicit credulity of Anthonio; but the arts of the preceptors are quickly suspected by their subjects, and the charm is for ever reversed. When once a child detects you in falsehood, you lose his confidence; his incredulity will then be as extravagant as his former belief was gratuitous. It is in vain to expect, by the most eloquent manifestoes, or by the most secret leagues offensive and defensive, to conceal your real views, sentiments, and actions, from children. Their interest keeps their attention ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... enough with his total disbelief of the story Unorna had told him. But he did not answer her immediately, for he found himself in a very difficult position. He would neither do anything in the least discourteous beyond admitting frankly that he had not believed her, when she taxed him with incredulity; nor would say anything which might serve her as a stepping-stone for returning to the original situation. He was, perhaps, inclined to blame her somewhat less than at first, and her changed manner in speaking of Kafka somewhat encouraged his leniency. A man will forgive, or at least ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... incredulity bordering upon feeble indignation, settled upon the serrated countenance. But Blanchard only shook his head as ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... addressed is marked out as distinct from certain others, by putting it upon rode other means of locomotion to Newmarket are excluded, and so on. With the same order of words five interrogative sentences may also be expressed, and a third series of exclamatory sentences expressing anger, incredulity, &c., may be obtained from the same words. It is to be noticed that for these two series a different intonation, a different musical (pitch) accent appears from that which is found in the same words when employed to make a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, and Dante, pronounced three centuries ago that "man is a microcosm"—a little world. Three hundred years later, the great seer Swedenborg declared that "the world was a man." The prophet and the precursor of incredulity meet thus in ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... sound broke on our ears. It seemed to come through the keyhole, and resembled the contemptuous sniff with which Elizabeth always expresses incredulity. But, of course, ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... sceptic, using a favourite expression of his father's to express incredulity. 'The reason Brian doesn't come to Kingthorpe is, that he has other fish to fry elsewhere. As if anybody would come to Kingthorpe ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... many faces as Walcott's examination was begun. He was morose and silent, and nothing could be elicited from him. When Darrell was called upon, however, and gave his evidence, incredulity gave place to conviction. As he completed his testimony with a description of the scar, which, upon examination, was found correct, the crowd became angry and threats of lynching and personal violence were heard on various sides. The judge therefore ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... to run from Bras-Coupe in de haidge of de swamp be'ine de 'abitation of my cousin Honore, one time? You can hask 'oo you like!" (A Creole always provides against incredulity.) At this point he digressed a moment: "You know my cousin, Honore Grandissime, w'at give two hund' fifty dolla' to de 'ospill laz mont'? An' juz because my cousin Honore give it, somebody helse give de semm. Fo' w'y ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... without the flash of military excitement, presents more than the survey of a battle, or any extended campaign, or series, even of Nature's convulsions. The hot passions of the South—the strange mixture at the North of inertia, incredulity, and conscious power—the incendiarism of the abolitionists—the rascality and grip of the politicians, unparallel'd in any land, any age. To these I must not omit adding the honesty of the essential bulk of the people everywhere—yet with all the seething fury ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... transfused itself into her eyes, her lips were fixed in a suppressed and sneering smile. Incredulity was written on her aspect. Her face at that moment was very repulsive ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... at Robert, but his eyes were full of incredulity. Several of the soldiers were standing near, and they too heard, but the warning found no answer in their minds. Robert looked around at the men asleep and the others ready to follow them, ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... two narratives of voyages in the Pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, and publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... And then the earnest, enquiring glance she gives me at the end of every line. It is marvellous to see this complete absorption of a grown-up person in the study of a-b, ab, and yet at the same time there is something almost great in this ravenous thirst for knowledge, combined with incredulity of all tradition. It is a model such as this that the poets should have had for their naive characters. In Goethe's Roman Elegies, the Roman woman's figure is very inconspicuous; she is not drawn as a genuine woman of the people, she is not naive. He knew a Faustina, but one feels that he ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... For these were threatened the woful day I mockt the Preachers, put it far away; The Sermons yet upon Record do stand That cri'd destruction to my wicked land; I then believed not, now I feel and see, The plague of stubborn incredulity. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... you mean to say there was actually anything in it?" asked Tom, his incredulity beginning to weaken ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an hundred thousand pounds. The two conductors were confounded at this asseveration, which, being communicated to the cheesemonger, he shook his head with a significant grin; and, though he did not choose to express his incredulity in words, gave our hero to understand, that he did not much depend upon his veracity. From the house of this Dutch naturalist, they were draggled all round the city by the painful civility of their attendants, who did not quit them till the evening was well advanced, and then ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main points ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... before him will arise from the circumstance that the means by which such extraordinary experience was acquired are not included in the sphere of his knowledge, and that any attempt to explain them at present would only increase his incredulity. He would only see one enigma solved by another apparently more insoluble than itself. The Editor, therefore, would call especial attention to the practical value of the revelations here communicated, convinced ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... miserable incredulity. "Refuse! oh Heaven, and this means life or death to those men! They cannot appear on the ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... works that he has been regularly initiated into the mysteries of this rite, and is a member of the Me-da-we Society. This is certainly an assertion hard to believe in the Indian country; and when the old initiators or Indian priests are told of it they shake their heads in incredulity that a white man should ever have been allowed in truth to become a member ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... regardless of everyone else, was rushing across the road hurling fire grenades into the fire station and running back for more, and then her eyes lifted to the slanting outhouse roof that went up to a ridge behind the parapet of Mantell and Throbson's. An expression of incredulity came into the telephone operator's eyes and gave place to hard activity. She flung up the window and screamed out: "Two people on the roof up there! ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... and almost as indelibly and quite as painfully upon school-boy memory, to be sponged out at a blow, like chalk from a blackboard? We, at least, cling fondly to our Tarquins; we shudder when the abyss of historic incredulity swallows up the familiar form of Mettus Curtius; we refuse to be weaned from the she-wolf of Romulus. Your unbelieving Guy Faux, who approaches the stately superstructures of history, not to gaze upon them with the eye of faith and veneration, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... a lamp he sat down stupidly and looked at them. His face was gaunt and furrowed, and almost blackened by exposure to the frost, his hair was long, and tattered garments of greasy skins hung about him. There was also something that suggested bewildered incredulity in his eyes. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... false impression in so good a cause as determined incredulity, seems not only justifiable, but actually praiseworthy to ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... eyes expressed incredulity; then the assured tone and the calm manner of Edgar convinced him that he at least believed that ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... of the incredulity which most persons show in these matters, the events which followed the scene we have narrated confirmed the predictions of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Father," said Mora, leaning upon the table, her face framed in her hands, and looking with knitted brows at the Bishop; "it almost seems to me that you regard the entire vision with a measure of secret incredulity." ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... the Catalogue into his own hands, he read "Return of Persephone." "It's pronounced," he informed his help-mate, "Per-s[)e]ph-[)o]-n[)e]." "Is it?" she returned, in a tone expressive of unmitigated incredulity. "Then," she asked suddenly, as a brilliant idea struck her, "why isn't 'telephone' pronounced 'tel-[)e]ph-[)o]-n[)e]'?" And turning her back on him, would not hear another ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... days before, while his nose bent to sniff the scorn with more evident approval than then. He apprehended more thoroughly the character of the man before him, saw more clearly the nature of his business, and wondered with contemptuous incredulity that Balfour had ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... at me with an incredulity so open that I felt it to be an insult, and she preserved the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... incredulity and his confidential finger dropped from my sleeve. "Eh, that's the story. I tell what I've heard. What do I know?" He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. "This is a bad place to stay ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... followed Micky's broken confession. He dared not look at Esther, though she was staring at him, staring hard, with a curious sort of wonderment in her grey eyes. Then all at once she began to laugh, a laugh which held no real mirth, only incredulity. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... almost every girl whom civilized society fancies to be engaged. She could never doubt him for an instant, he felt assured, and he—well, he couldn't begin to realize his blessed fortune at all, so she must excuse his incredulity; but he declared he would leave her utterly untrammelled. There should not even be an "understanding." He would not ask her to accept his class-ring, all he had to offer, but write to her he would. Grace and Mrs. Stannard ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... for your incredulity; no one does believe it; no one can; and yet it is quite true. Our gardener gave it up in despair. I wonder what ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... prince Cid Hiaya had received tidings of the doubts and discussions in the Christian camp, and flattered himself with hopes that the besieging army would soon retire in despair, though the veteran Mohammed shook his head with incredulity. A sudden movement one morning in the Christian camp seemed to confirm the sanguine hopes of the prince. The tents were struck, the artillery and baggage were conveyed away, and bodies of soldiers began to march ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... custode of the chapel still claims the spot as the identical one consecrated by the legend. There is a dark grove of trees, not far from the door of the temple; but Murray, a highly essential nuisance on such excursions as this, throws such overwhelming doubt, or rather incredulity, upon the site, that I seized upon it as a pretext for not going thither. In fact, my small capacity for sight-seeing was already more ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... could not measure the time that the vision remained; but it was long enough for several questions and answers to pass rapidly between herself and other members of the family. In reply to their persistent incredulity, she said, "It is very strange that you don't see him; for I see him as plainly as I do any of you." She was so obviously awake and in her right mind, that the incident naturally made an impression on those who listened to her. Her mother looked at her watch, and despatched a messenger to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... the hour of sunset, the 2d of October, when a rumor of a most alarming nature circulated with the celerity of wild-fire through the city of Florence. At first the report was received with contemptuous incredulity; but by degrees—as circumstances tended to confirm it—as affrighted peasants came flying into the town from their country homes, bearing the dread tidings, the degenerate and voluptuous Florentines gave way to all the terrors which, in such cases, were too well ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... degrading and hypocritical conformity, is the true gratification of those spiritual sensibilities which are alleged to be so much higher in women than in men. Where such an accord exists, there may still be solicitude left in the mind of either at the superstition or the incredulity of the other, but it will be solicitude of that magnanimous sort which is in some shape or other the inevitable and not unfruitful portion ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... began to click again, and the pens and pencils scratched on to the accompaniment of murmurs and whispers and occasional grunts and snorts of incredulity. By a master-stroke of strategy Franklin Marmion had, in placing the three demonstrations of the long-supposed impossible before them in quick succession, kept the learned, but now utterly bewildered mathematicians so busy that they ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... off his bewildered incredulity and grasped the situation. He would have to contend with his enemy in the flesh and blood, but that flesh and blood would be very weak in the hands of the impassive girl beside ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... 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 the explanation in ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... single motive is that popular irony which becomes daily—or so it seems—more and more the holiday temper of the majority. Mockery is the only animating impulse, and a loud incredulity is the only intelligence. They make an image of some one in whom they do not believe, to deride it. Say that the guy is the effigy of an agitator in the cause of something to be desired; the street man and ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... criticise the manner in which a true history is told, but we become harsh investigators of the faults of an invention; so that in the modern religious mind, the capacity of emotion, which renders judgment uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders it severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance of faults, is the worst possible temper in which any art can be regarded, but more especially sacred art. For as religious faith renders emotion facile, so also it generally renders expression simple; ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... allow me to remark that the wonderful narrative of Parker excited throughout this county sentiments of the most profound and contradictory character. I, for one, halted between two opinions—horror and incredulity; and nothing but subsequent events could have fully satisfied me of the unquestionable veracity of your San Francisco correspondent, and the scientific authenticity of the ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... Meric Casaubon in his treatise "Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine and Spiritual," 1670, 12mo; and if his reply be altogether inconclusive, it cannot be denied to be, as indeed every thing of Meric Casaubon's writing was, learned, discursive and entertaining. He observes ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... answer. She stared at her mother with an expression of horror and incredulity, as though she meant to ask if she had ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... possesses and acknowledges, to which the new can be assimilated. A novelty, however true, if there be no received truths with which it can be shewn in harmonious relation, has little chance of a favourable hearing. In fact, as has been often observed, there is a measure of incredulity from our ignorance as well as from our knowledge, and if the most distinguished philosopher three hundred years ago had ventured to develop any striking new fact which only could harmonize with the as yet unknown Copernican ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... are." Also, that there is iron enough in the iron district sufficient to furnish a double track of the much talked of Whitney's railroad. These statements were then received with a stormy manifestation of incredulity. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... having been seen by bibliographer or historian. The provenance of the present one is but imperfectly known. In the spring of 1946 William H. Schab, a New York dealer, was in Paris, and heard through a friend of the existence of a 1593 Manila book. He expressed such incredulity at this information that his friend, feeling his integrity impugned, telephoned the owner then and there, and confirmed the unbelievable "1593." Delighted and enthused, Schab arranged to meet him, found that he was a Paris bookseller and collector ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... secret of the philosopher's stone had been more than once discovered; but that the ancient and wise men who had hit upon it would never, by word or writing, communicate it to men, because of their unworthiness and incredulity.[29] But the life of Geber, though spent in the pursuit of this vain chimera, was not altogether useless. He stumbled upon discoveries which he did not seek; and science is indebted to him for the first mention of corrosive sublimate, the red oxide ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... examined, a very grotesque notion ... they never realize the fact that by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated. That surprise which they feel on finding one whom they last saw as a boy, grown into a man, becomes incredulity when the degree of change is greater. Nevertheless, abundant instances are at hand of the mode in which we may pass to the most diverse ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... upon the opening sentences of the text, which somehow failed to ring out that challenge to the obstructionists she had confidently expected. As she read further, her vague disappointment gave way to a sudden breathless incredulity; that to a heartsick rigidity of attention; and when she went back, and began to read the whole article over, slowly and carefully, from the beginning, her face was about the color of the pretty white collar she wore. For what she was looking on at was, so it seemed to ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... embellished, and succeeded to their hearts' content; but the preacher of truth had a foundation to make as well as a superstructure, a difficulty which did not exist for the preacher of error. Columbus preached a new world, but was met with distrust and incredulity; had he preached with as much zeal and earnestness the discovery of some valley in the old one, where diamonds hung upon the trees, or a herb grew that cured all the ills incidental to humanity, he would have found a warm ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and whenever a man lowered his voice and started in with, "You see those girls over there? Well, their grandfather was an American—" I steeled myself for what was to follow, and expressed surprise and interest as politely as possible, for it is hard to attain conventional incredulity over a twice-told tale. After the genealogy of the family had been gone over, root and branch, we would invariably be told the story of how the grandfather, grown rich and prosperous in his island home, once went to Manila on a business trip. He had then ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... of the artillery; this he communicated in an excited manner to the others, and they, disposed to believe, also thought the clouds looked "very like a whale." But Morton, old Harmar, Mr. Jackson Harmar, Smith, and Higgins, brought their argumentative batteries to bear upon the explanation and incredulity of Wilson, and silenced, if they did not convince him. He admitted that a man of General Washington's strength of mind could not easily be deceived, and said, that if it was a fact that he had seen and mentioned the phenomenon, he could think ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... conduct, and on the good reports of the police. No longer in the army! He felt suddenly strange to the earth, like a disembodied spirit. It was impossible to exist. But at first he reacted from sheer incredulity. This could not be. He waited for thunder, earthquakes, natural cataclysms; but nothing happened. The leaden weight of an irremediable idleness descended upon General Feraud, who having no resources within himself sank into a state of awe-inspiring hebetude. He haunted ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... of mingled surprise, chagrin and incredulity the knight reined in his horse, exclaiming as he did ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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 York ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... received with indifference and incredulity. Finally, a Captain Jackson determined to trust the new chart absolutely. As a result he made a round trip to Rio de Janeiro in the time often required for the outward passage alone. Later, four clipper ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... of detachment disappeared. The interrogation was flung at Musard's head with a world of incredulity and amazement. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... a humorous fugitive tract, the late Dr Johnson is introduced as disputing the authenticity of an apparition, merely because the spirit assumed the shape of a tea-pot, and of a shoulder of mutton. No doubt, a case so much in point, as that we have now quoted, would have removed his incredulity.] ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... blank incredulity, stood gaping at the picture before him—staring at the tireless swiftness of his dog in turning back and rounding up a scattered flock which Ferris himself could not have bunched in twenty times the space of minutes. Chum, he noted, did not touch ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune |
