"Plausible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... advertisements on these social forms. I am told that there was once a famous man—a distinguished novelist—who so disliked formal parties but was so timid at their rejection that he took refuge in the cellar whenever one of these forbidding documents arrived, until he could forge a plausible excuse; for he believed that these colder and more barren rooms quickened his invention. The story goes that once when he was in an unusually timid state he lacked the courage to break the seal and so spent an uneasy morning ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... should walk on tiptoe, and he wished to exhibit to Mrs. Vivian the possible lightness of his own step. She herself was incapable of being rude or ungracious, and now that she was fairly confronted with the plausible object of her mistrust, she composed herself to her usual attitude of refined liberality. Her book was a ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... plausible reasons for making a time limit or a special offer. A large publishing house, selling both magazines and books by mail occasionally turns the trick ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with the English - of which I will go bail he knows nothing. His ignorance of the sister kingdom cannot be described; it can only be illustrated by anecdote. I once travelled with a man of plausible manners and good intelligence - a University man, as the phrase goes - a man, besides, who had taken his degree in life and knew a thing or two about the age we live in. We were deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; among other things, he began to describe ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... relation of supply and demand. Lord Lauderdale's famous theory has found much support among later economists, though it is now rather unpopular when stated in its old, simple form. Disguised in the so-called Austrian theory of final utility, it has attained considerable vogue.[172] The theory is plausible and convincing to the ordinary mind. Every day we see illustrations of its working: prices are depressed when there is an oversupply, and elevated when the demand of would-be consumers exceeds the supply of the commodities they desire ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... stalk mentioned in Pharaoh's dream of the seven years of plenty." For it must not be forgotten that Mr. Cobbett maintains that Indian corn is the true corn of scripture, and defends this opinion by many plausible arguments. We have no room to discuss them, and shall only observe in contravention, that Indian corn is not now known in Palestine or Syria, and that it is dangerous to raise a verbal discussion founded upon a translation. His argument is, however, well worth the attention of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... strong a sense of the defects under which they labour, and be so conscious that reformations are requisite in their manners, that they must be ready to adopt, with joy, every plan of improvement, and to receive every plausible proposal with implicit compliance. And we are thus inclined to believe, that the harp of Orpheus could effect, in one age, what the eloquence of Plato could not produce in another. We mistake, however, the characteristic of simple ages: mankind then appear to feel the fewest defects, and are then ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... am afraid Susan Downer never wrote that excellent story, 'Storied West Rock.' I always have wondered over it, for it was far superior to anything else she has done since she has been in school, and now, I am sure, though she denies it in a very plausible way, that she has copied a poem, with only a few immaterial changes to make it fit her subject, intending to palm it off ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... young officer finally, "Mr. Holmes has told me what a very thorough search was made after the alarm had been given. But no sign of the missing money was found. Have you any idea on that head? Can you make even a plausible suggestion as to how the money was taken care of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... livelihood. This is not the place to discuss the origin and the nature of the Albigeois heresy.[26] The general opinion has almost invariably considered the heretics as dualists and their belief as a variation of Manicheism: but a plausible case has been made out for regarding the heresy as a variant of the Adoptionism which is found successively in Armenia, in the Balkan peninsula and in Spain, and perhaps sporadically in Italy and Germany. Whatever its real nature was, the following ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... cow-hippopotamus by metempsychosis might, under unfavourable circumstances, become an undergraduate of the Calcutta University, and that, when patent-leather shoes and English supervened, the thing was a Baboo. [This sounds very plausible; but how about the prehensile tail which the Education Department finds so much in the way of improvement, which indeed is said to preclude all access to the Bengali mind, and which can grasp everything but an idea, ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... were contraband of war. The list of contraband had been from time immemorial rigidly limited, and confined almost wholly to munitions of war, or to raw material used in their construction. But international law went by the board early in the war. Each belligerent was able to ascribe plausible reasons for its amendment out of recognizable form. Great Britain established blockades two hundred miles away from the blockaded ports because the submarines made the old practice of watching at ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... to govern Athens by sheer force of character and eloquence, and required no tricks of manner or plausible speeches to gain him credit with the populace; but Nikias had no natural gifts of this sort, and owed his position merely to his wealth. As he could not vie with Kleon in the versatile and humorous power of speech by ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... right expression there," said Oaklands; "in such cases as the present, it is not that the woman is weak enough to be gulled by every plausible tale which may be told her, but that she has such entire confidence, such pure and child-like faith in the man she loves, that she will believe anything rather than admit the possibility ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... argument sounds not only plausible, but reasonable, and inexperienced persons might use the argument, believing it to be a sound and good one. I must, however, confess that I have been surprised to see this argument used by persons who must surely know that there is no weight in it ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... not. He is now in this neighborhood, however. The reason why I did not bring him now was because I wished first to see Wiggins myself. He must be prepared, or he may make trouble. I wish to frighten him into allowing him to pass. I shall have to make up some plausible story, however, to account for his visiting you. I have not yet decided on what it shall be. I think, however, that the lawyer had better come here alone. You will, of course, know that he is to be trusted. You may say to him, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... my judgment, a divine softness! But can you naturally, lady, as I enjoin these by doctrine and industry, refer yourself to the search of my judgment, and, not taking pleasure in your tongue, which is a woman's chiefest pleasure, think it plausible to answer me by silent gestures, so long as my speeches jump right with what you conceive? [EPI. CURTSIES.] —Excellent! divine! if it were possible she should hold out thus! Peace, Cutbeard, thou art made for ever, as thou hast made me, if this felicity have lasting: ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... acts as it does, least of all, why some masses of protoplasm act one way, and exact duplicates act differently. But if, on the other hand, we look beyond the facts and methods of physics and chemistry, and even beyond the most plausible theories of genetics, we can readily explain this remarkable action of the cells as the result of the will of an ever acting, omniscient, almighty God. Certainly nothing else is adequate to explain the behavior of ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... pickerels lay their eggs among the leaves; but so they do among the sedges, arums, wild rice, and various aquatic plants, like many another fish. Bees and flies, that congregate about the blossoms to feed, may sometimes fly too low, and so give a plausible reason for the pickerel's choice of haunt. Each blossom lasts but a single day; the upper portion, withering, leaves the base of the perianth to harden about the ovary and protect the solitary seed. But as the gradually lengthened spike keeps up ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... if I found that I had misunderstood her; but for the moment I did not dare to inquire; it would be too painful to hear I had misunderstood her; but at last, feeling she might guess the cause of my silence, I said, not being able to think of anything more plausible: ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the exigencies of justice for the purpose of surreptitious personal gain. Thus used, this agency, which even in honest hands and for lawful ends is one of doubtful propriety, becomes essentially dangerous and demoralizing. Originally an individual enterprise, the last resort of plausible rascals driven to desperation to evade honest labor, it has come to be one of associated effort, employing much capital in its establishment and some capacity in its direction. All the large commercial cities are now liberally provided with 'Detective ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a plausible explanation. At any rate, in lieu of a more reasonable one, it answered. Men on the Canopus now rushed hurriedly to and fro, officers darted hither and thither. The Canopus was ready ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... pardon me for intruding," began Craig, with as plausible an explanation as he could muster, "but I have become interested in an opportunity to invest in a Peruvian venture, and I have heard that you are a Peruvian. Your son, Alfonso, I have already met, once. I thought that ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive to this fundamental rule, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... that he should make some plausible excuse for visiting a certain house that we should agree upon, and I would ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... terror. They were active members of a Jacolin Club, a violent and vulgar gathering continually plotting the overthrow of the government, and the assassination of the First Consul. They were thoroughly detested by the people, and the community was glad to avail itself of any plausible pretext for banishing them from France. Without sufficient evidence that they were actually guilty of this particular outrage, in the strong excitement and indignation of the moment a decree was passed by the legislative bodies, sending one hundred and sixty of these bloodstained culprits ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... things are not to be made right by now extending the vote to women, a great majority of whom are in the lower walks of life, and are not supposed to be competent to inform themselves. This is a most plausible argument to those who are under the unconscious influence of Pharisaism, to those who think that wisdom lives and dies with them. It is a strong argument, too; I don't know that you can put any stronger; but I am bold to make the statement that, low and bad as human nature may be in some ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... her, not for herself but for Sommers, who would suffer grievously. And it did not seem easy to discuss the matter with him as she must now; it would bring up distressing scenes. Her face burned at the thought. The woman's tale was plausible. Had Sommers wondered about the death? Gradually it came over her that Sommers had always suspected this thing. She was sure of it. He had not spoken of it because he wished to protect her from her own deed. But, now, he would ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... immortality." Yet with what cheerful wisdom he laughs away the fancy, which threatened to become an obsession, that Allegra was still alive in 1869: "My dear Clare, you may be well in body; but you have a bee in your bonnet." He suggests raking up "some plausible cranky old dried-up hanger-on" of fifty-two or so, who "should follow you about like a feminine Frankenstein," as he carelessly puts it. He tried to mitigate the crazy malevolence she cherished for her earliest lover: "Your relentless vindictiveness against Byron is not tolerated by any religion ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... never at a loss for embellishments for her own fancy, in order to make her tales appear the more plausible, it may easily be supposed what mischief such a conduct was capable of producing. In a little time, all the families in the neighbourhood were set together by the ears, and the seeds of discord soon after ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... other origin and birth in the mind than speculative first principles, as, that the whole is greater than the part, that two and two are four, that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. The assumption is specious, but unfounded. It looks plausible because of this difference, that moral judgments have emotions to wait upon them, speculative judgments have not. Speculative judgments pass like the philosophers that write them down, unheeded in the quiet of their studies. But moral judgments are ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... interest to the medical man, particularly those cases in which the accident has happened in early pregnancy and the child is born with a very satisfactory and clean stump. Montgomery, in an excellent paper, advances the theory, which is very plausible, that intrauterine amputations are caused by contraction of bands or membranes of organized lymph encircling the limb and producing amputation by the same process of disjunctive atrophy that the surgeons induce by ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... genius and learning in the days of the Commonwealth. But so soon as we come to inquire into the matter we find that this good Bishop was borrowing from the ideas of others who had gone before him; and, look back as far as we will, mankind is discovered to have entertained persistent and often plausible ideas of human flight. And those ideas had in some sort of way, for good or ill, taken practical shape. Thus, as long ago as the days when Xenophon was leading back his warriors to the shores of the Black Sea, and ere the Gauls had first burned ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... seat. He was vexed to exasperation by the consciousness that he couldn't guess why or by whom it had been so cavalierly thrust into his keeping. Consequently he cudgelled his wits unmercifully in exhaustive and exhausting attempts to clothe it with a plausible raison d'etre. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... had passed, I asked him how he came to go home so soon in the season; to which he replied, that there had been some disagreement between the governor and inhabitants of the Isle of France, and that he had been sent home in haste with dispatches: This story was the more plausible, as I had heard of the dispute between the governor and inhabitants of the Isle of France, from a French gentleman who came from thence, at the Cape of Good Hope; yet I was not perfectly satisfied: For, supposing M. Bougainville to have been sent in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... observation; but the Polynesian, by experience, or knowledge brought from his old Asiatic home, must have held such a theory, and sought in the system of adoption, and in not bringing up consanguineous children together, to ward off such misfortune. This at least is a plausible reason for such an unnatural practice among a people so ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to remount at once and set out with the guide in search of Orso. Her guests' alarm recalled Colomba to a sense of her duties as a hostess. She strove to force a smile as she pressed the colonel to come to table, and suggested twenty plausible reasons, which she herself demolished within an instant, to account for her brother's delay. The colonel, feeling it to be his duty, as a man, to reassure the ladies, put ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... certainly put the matter in a very plausible way, but there seem to be two flaws in the analogy. The novelist can make two people fall in love with each other, and make them live happily together with the mother-in-law, but that—with all due respect to his Reverence, be it said—is ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... to work in real earnest to devise some plan of escape, or to invent some plausible secret. But we utterly failed. Minute after minute passed; and, as the end of our time drew near, we felt less and less able to think of any scheme, until our brains became confused with the terror of approaching and inevitable death, aggravated by previous torture. I trembled violently, and Jack ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... evening the head-boy reported to Dr Rowlands that the perpetrator of the offence had not been discovered, but that one boy was very generally suspected, and on grounds that seemed plausible. "I admit," he added, "that from the little I know of him, he seems to me a very unlikely sort ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... little of Eli's sudden favour; for this reserve she had always a plausible reason ready; and never hinted at the true one, which was this; there were two men in that house at sight of whom she shuddered with instinctive antipathy and dread. She had read wickedness and hatred in their faces, and mysterious signals of secret intelligence. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... store for the Magpie. Had the Magpie traded on that—to get rid of some one who was in his way, this out-stretched, inert thing on the floor, and lay it to the door of the Gray Seal? It was clever, hellish in its cunning. And it would appear plausible enough. The Gray Seal had come here, say, searching for the Magpie, and in the darkness had struck another down! Yes, the Magpie could get away with that. It would stand to reason that the Magpie would not lure a victim to his own ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... chronological relations which strike me as improbable. Goethe died in 1832. As his attack upon Mr. M—— must, of course, have taken place before, Mr. M—— must have been then a very young man. It seems to me plausible that he was eighteen. I am not certain, however, what year we are actually in, and the whole calculation falls into obscurity. The attack was, moreover, contained in ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... Was it merely the tooth of physical disease? Or, in his reckless course, often verging upon profligacy, if not plunging into its depths, had he been guilty of some deed which made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed that more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good cheer and slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the whole matter to ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... on the other, and it is treason to the pure truth of this teaching to cloud and confuse it with the thoughts of men whose Master was over their heads often, but most of all here. Such a statement of the case is plausible, and judging from the frequency with which it occurs must to some minds be very convincing, but nothing could be more superficial, or more unjust both to Jesus and the apostles. A parable is a comparison, ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... This explanation was tolerably plausible, and Jack was unable to gainsay it, though it was disagreeable to him to think of even a nominal connection between Ida and the woman ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... governor. This proposition terrified Granvelle, who saw, as clearly as did his sagacious opponent in the council, that the nomination of a special protector between the people and the government would have paralyzed all his efforts for hurrying on the discord and resistance which were meant to be the plausible excuses for the introduction of arbitrary power. He therefore energetically dissented from the proposed measure, and William immediately desisted from his demand. But he at the same time claimed, in the name of the whole country, the convocation of the states-general. This assembly alone ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... the writer of a letter to the 'Times' advocates the claims of the ex-Governors, on the plausible plea that it is exactly the very men who best represent the dignity of the station—best reflect the splendour of the Sovereign—who come back poor and penniless from the high office: while the penurious Governor, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... saint. I had assigned this motive to Ayd, who was himself a Mezeine, telling him that I had made a vow to thank the saint for his protection in our encounter with the robbers; Ayd would otherwise have been much astonished at my proceeding to this distance without any plausible object. The nearest road from Sherm to the convent is at first the same way by which we came, and it branches off northward from Wady Orta; but as I was desirous of seeing as much as possible of the coast, I suggested to my guides, that if we proceeded by that route ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... Mothe, impressed in spite of himself and falling back upon the last resort of baffled argument. "It is all very plausible, but I do not believe it all ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... declaring the throne vacant. As soon, therefore, as the benches had filled, the Earl of Wiltshire, who represented Hampshire, stood up, and proposed that Powle should be Speaker. Sir Vere Fane, member for Kent, seconded the motion. A plausible objection might have been raised; for it was known that a petition was about to be presented against Powle's return: but the general cry of the House called him to the chair; and the Tories thought it prudent to acquiesce. [641] The mace was then laid on the table; the list of members was called ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is special pleading and not very plausible at that. It may be replied, "Is not the labourer worthy of his hire?"—however noble the labour. If we choose to call society's or a husband's support of motherhood "a form of commercial exchange," it is indeed "revolting" so to see it; let us then look at the case as it is. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... and inferences swarmed apparently unsorted through his mind; a few secret observations that he had made, and which he felt must have significance, still stood unrelated to any plausible theory of the crime; yet as he went up he seemed to know indubitably that ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... assistance, which was always rendered, accompanied, of course, by long and ineffectual lectures on the necessity of reformation. But the old man was flattered at his nephew's popularity, and pleased with his varied powers and accomplishments; by plausible representations, too, he was convinced that the irregularities which occasionally reached even his ears, were but the exuberance of youth, and the effervescence of a high spirit. Latterly, however, when the applications for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... proceeds to indicate four 'lines of hopeful recovery.' First, the Church must get rid of the administration of poor relief. Where the charity of the Church is understood to mean the patronage of the rich, it can do nothing without disaster. All will be in vain till it has ceased to be a plausible taunt that a man or woman goes to church for what can be got. Secondly, we must give the artisans their true place in Church management, and must consult their tastes in all non-essentials. Thirdly, the clergy should 'concentrate themselves upon bringing out the social meaning ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... rather odd upon first seeing it, but the most plausible when you become acquainted with its import. It surely becomes the best friend of the whole family. "It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity," but cheerfully answers a thousand and one questions of vital importance ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... The old German thesis of a barbaric "conquest" upon the Continent, possible when modern history was a child, has necessarily been abandoned in its maturity. But that thesis still tries to make out a plausible case when it speaks of Britain, because so much of the record here is lost that there is more room for make-believe; and having made it out, the tale of a German and barbaric England, his false result will powerfully affect modern and immediate conclusions upon ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... which was in all their schemes, that they could not agree about their chief good, or wherein to place the happiness of mankind, nor had any of them a tolerable answer upon this difficulty, to satisfy a reasonable person. For, to say, as the most plausible of them did, that happiness consisted in virtue, was but vain babbling, and a mere sound of words, to amuse others and themselves; because they were not agreed what this virtue was, or wherein it did consist; and likewise, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... to cause those who have to do with children to feel all the emancipating and renovating power of their trust. It cannot leave us satisfied with any conventional arrangement which brings to plausible maturity a limited per cent. There are, indeed, minds strong enough to pass through the bitter years of unlearning what has been taught amiss, and then, bating no jot of heart or courage, to begin education for themselves in middle life. But often it is far otherwise. Too often, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... varied forms, which are all the same in fact, is described in the old Artes Memorandi, or Arts of Memory. There are several hundreds of these, and to the present day there are professors who give instructions according to systems of the same kind. These are all extremely plausible, being based on Association of ideas, and in most cases the pupil makes great progress for a short time. Thus, we can remember the French for bread, pain, Italian Pane, by thinking of the pan ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... instant, Lord Edward said again, "To my own mind the hypothesis is so plausible, that I have no doubt whatever the event occurred on the coast of Patagonia, but still I will have inquiries made in Glasgow, as to the destination of the BRITANNIA, and we shall know if it is possible she could have been wrecked on ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... point of despairing altogether, then a plausible opening would show itself as if leading towards the land, and we would be tempted to run down it until we found the field become so closely packed, that it was with great difficulty we could get the vessel round,—and only then at ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... our author's noble play, the "Bacchae," appears to have given origin to the tradition that he himself was torn to pieces by dogs. If we reflect that this play was probably the last of his works, the mistake seems a plausible one. The death of Euripides, which probably happened in the ordinary course of nature, has, like that of AEschylus, been ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... prevalent scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of Mr Carlyle:—"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... of this is so simple, so plausible, that it might be accepted without further examination, and yet further examination is necessary, for in a country like Ireland logic and plausibility are more often wrong than right. It may just as easily be that except for furnishing some arms and ammunition Germany ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... dense population with a knowledge of mathematics far beyond that of any tribe or race existing on the American continent, when discovered by Columbus. The works of the mound builders can be seen, and have been described, but no ray of light has been cast upon, or plausible suggestion made to account for, the origin, existence or ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... I was striving anxiously to invent a plausible story to be told at headquarters. It was an entirely new experience. Hitherto I had always told the plain truth, as the law required, and now I found the inventive machinery singularly rusty. But the wheels were made to turn in some fashion. By ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the more we know about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... or, rather, demand from them a large ransom? at this thought they became panic-stricken. The wealthiest were the most alarmed, seeing themselves already compelled, in order to redeem their lives, to pour bags of gold into the hands of this insolent soldier. They racked their brains to find plausible and acceptable lies, conceal their wealth, pass themselves off as very poor, very poor. Loiseau took off his watch and chain and hid it in his pocket. The approaching night filled them with apprehension.—The lamp was lighted, and as they still had ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... from contracts with the Government upon plausible application is, in my opinion, not sufficiently resisted; but to refund money paid into the public Treasury upon such a liberal compromise as is exhibited in this case seems like a departure from all business principles and an unsafe concession that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... teach their republican cousins a wholesome lesson. However, their wish was to retaliate without causing war, and it was done. In fact, closing ports as they did at the beginning of Argentine's most valuable season of exports to Brazil, and with the plausible excuse, namely fear of pain in the stomach, so filled the Argentines with admiration of their equals in strategy that they on the earliest opportunity proclaimed two public holidays in honour of bright Brazil. So the matter ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... disappointment in store for him, I fancy," I interrupted. "He is a very faithful servant of the Archduchess, and he has worked hard for her. From his point of view his arguments are reasonable enough. All that he says is plausible—and yet—one feels that there is something behind it all. Allan, I don't trust one of these ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... process of counterfeiting depicted, and the audience, as audiences did in Shakespeare's time when a sign represented a forest or a tree or a mountain, allowed its imagination to make the thing seem plausible. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... confirmed by nothing in the prelate's extant correspondence. Everywhere there is evidence that until his courage broke down, Briconnet was in full accord with the reformers. His first step may possibly have been justified at the bar of conscience by the plausible suggestion that, since the anger of the Sorbonne had been directed specially against Meaux, the evangelical preachers could be more serviceable elsewhere. But, from the mere withdrawal of support to positive measures of repression, the transition ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... not trouble about that. I will make such charming and plausible excuses for you, that you will really feel quite rewarded for all the trouble you have had in teaching me the ways of society. Look now, I will begin like this;" and Madeleine, who had now got on her dress, curtsied and smiled, and began a most pathetic story about dear Fanny's dreadful ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... thing I thought of was my own position and what I should do. If I were called on to account for my presence there it would involve the mention of Lucy's name if I told the truth—and to save my neck I couldn't think of a plausible lie! There was none to explain my presence in Varr's kitchen garden at eleven o'clock ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... discomforts, and miserable ill-success of this expedition, while they occasioned clamor in the camp, sharpened the discontents existing at the capital. Suspicions prevailed of treachery on the Governor's part, for he was well known to be without the excuse of incompetence. Plausible stories were told of his being in friendly relations with the murderous Indians. An apprehension that he was instructed by his Popish master to turn New England over to the French, in the contingency of a popular outbreak in England, was confirmed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... of the natives of the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Land of Fire, is too vague to permit their positive identification with the Araucanians of Chili; but there is much to render the view plausible. Certain physical peculiarities, a common unconquerable love of freedom, and a delight in war, bring them together, and at the same time place them both in strong ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... also to a certain slothfulness:—"Sleeping," he says, "has taken up a great part of my life." And there was almost nothing he would not say: no fact, no story, from his curious half-medical reading, he would not find some plausible pretext to tell. Man's kinship to the animal, the material, and all the proofs of it:—he would never blush at them! In truth, he led the way to the immodesty of French literature; and had his defence, a sort of defence, ready. "I know very well that few will ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... fact, there is no difficulty in accounting for the name here given to Jesus, nor for the sudden change from the fierce purpose of barring an intruder's path to abject submission. If it is not a fact, to make a plausible explanation of either circumstance will be a task needing many contortions, as is seen by the attempts to achieve it. For example, we are told that the demoniacs were afraid of Jesus, because He 'was not afraid of them,' and they knew Him, because 'men with shattered reason ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... on that suppressed testament, she made the only plausible shadow of an excuse that could be made for George the Second. She told me that George the First had burnt two wills made in favour of his son. They were, probably, the wills of the Duke and Duchess of Zell; or one of them might be that of his mother, the Princess Sophia. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... when trusted with whisky, of the two non-commissioned officers of Co. D, "men who were strictly temperate and absolutely reliable." But Tim had no trouble about his break. I suppose he gave some plausible explanation, and as for me, I had lived up to the standard, so far as the public knew, and maintained a profound silence in regard to the episode. Tim and I in private conversation, or otherwise, both carefully ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... requested I should take a bed with him, upon which I plainly told my old friend that he might go home and take care of the horse he had given me, but that I should never re-enter his doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving me to add this to the other little things the counselor already knew of his plausible neighbor. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... outside of the shops and market-stalls, to the higher class of gentlemen pickpockets. His appearance was some what genteel, with a bullying sort of an impudent air, which is mistaken for fashion by those who know no better. A remarkable neat dresser, for that was part of his profession; a very plausible manner and address; a great fluency of language, although he clipped the king's English; and, as he had suffered more than once by the law, it is not to be wondered at that he was, as he called himself, a hout-and-hout radical. During the latter part of his service, in his last ship, he ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... be taken for ordinary. There was a new infusion in his consciousness—an element in his life which altered the relations of things. He was not easy till he had found the right name for it—a name the more satisfactory that it was simple, comprehensive, and plausible. A new "distraction," in the French sense, was what he flattered himself he had discovered; he could recognise that as freely as possible without being obliged to classify the agreeable resource as a new entanglement. He was neither too much nor ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... companions the natural fruit of their crimes; they join to run them down with the hue and cry of mankind, which pursues their common offences; and then hope to mount into their places on the credit of the sobriety with which they show themselves disposed to carry on what may seem most plausible in the mischievous projects they pursue in common. But these men are naturally despised by those who have heads to know, and hearts that are able to go through the necessary demands of bold, wicked enterprises. They are naturally classed below the latter description, and will only be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... about fancying they knew everything there was to be known, because they didn't, not by a long way. And he warned them against the sin of romancing, and making up stories and fancying other people would believe them just because they were plausible and highly-coloured. Then he sat down, amidst much repentant cheering, and the dragon nudged the Boy in the ribs and whispered that he couldn't have done it better himself. Then every one went off to get ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... produce any good result, and would cause us no end of trouble," Arthur added, striving to assign some plausible explanation to ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... favorably; every open indication would be manifested of keeping faith with Vanderbilt. Upon the certainty of its passage the market value of the stock would rise. With their prearranged plan of defeating the bill at the last moment upon some plausible pretext, the clique in the meantime would be ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... a remark addressed to the company generally, "D——d hot it is." No one said anything for a time, till a man in the corner slily remarked, "I dinna doubt, sir, but it may." The cautiousness against committing himself unreservedly to any proposition, however plausible, was ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Ruthven coldly, "you have some plausible explanation for this sort of thing. If you haven't, you'd better trump up one together, and I'll send you my attorney to hear it. In that event," he added, "you'd better leave your joint address when you find a more ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... been wrought into a somewhat plausible form by the brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug. Comte. The religious phenomena of the world are simply one stage in the necessary development of mind, whether in the individual or the race. He claims to have been the first to discover the great law of the three successive ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... ispravnik gave of the curious delusion known as the "Anadyrski bol"; and although it argued more subtlety on the part of the women and more credulity on the part of the men than I had supposed either sex to be capable of, I could not but admit that the explanation was a plausible one, and accounted satisfactorily for most ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... rather than to create, beauty,—that he is the connoisseur rather than the genius,—seems to have persisted in the eighteenth century, and at the beginning of the romantic movement to have combined with the new exaltation of the lower classes to work against the plausible view that the poet is the exquisite ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... Egyptian colonizers, under Cecrops, in Attica, have been shown to be slender—the authorities for the assertion to be comparatively modern—the arguments against the probability of such an immigration in such an age, to be at least plausible and important. Not satisfied, however, with reducing to the uncertainty of conjecture what incautiously had been acknowledged as fact, the assailants of the Egyptian origin of Cecrops presume too much upon their victory, when they demand us to accept as a counter fact, what can be, after ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... scarcely have been an easy man to abduct, would he," he remarked, "even if we could hit upon any plausible reason for such a thing! As a matter of fact, Seaman," he concluded, turning on his heel a little abruptly as he saw Rosamund standing in the avenue, "I cannot bring myself to treat this Johann Wolff business seriously. Granted that the man was a spy, well, let ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... catastrophe it proves that the voices are produced by a skilled ventriloquist, Carwin, who has been admitted as an intimate friend of the family. Realising that this explanation may seem somewhat incredible, Brown seeks to make it appear more plausible by dwelling on Wieland's abnormal state of mind, which would render him peculiarly open to suggestion. Carwin's motive for thus persecuting the Wieland family with his accursed gift is never satisfactorily explained. His attitude is apparently that of an obtuse psychologist, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling and romantic situations." "So naively fresh in its handling, so plausible through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze across the far-spreading desert ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... whatever it may be, is a chemical substance and that it circulates in the mother's blood, is almost certainly true. There are, however, very weighty reasons for believing that this substance has not the character of food. A more plausible supposition is that the fetus produces this material in the course of its natural living processes, and the substance would accordingly be ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... become rich (and if I get out of debt I shall be rich) I may not become grasping and avaricious, and acquire a taste for hoarding money merely for hoarding's sake. When I see how insensibly, and under what plausible pretexts, this passion steals upon others, I tremble lest I should become a victim ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Meldon. "It'll be all right. The judge knows what is expected of him, and will disappear at once, making a plausible excuse, so as not to embarrass Miss King unnecessarily. I shall deal with the Major. It won't take me ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... the get-rich-quick idea in the head of Mr. Spackles, who communicated it to Grandmother Penny in the course of a clandestine meeting. The old folks discussed it, and hope made it seem more and more plausible to them. Realizing the fewness of the days remaining to them, they were anxious to utilize every moment. It was Grandmother Penny who was the daring spirit. She was for drawing their money out of the bank that very day and investing it somehow, somewhere, in the hope of seeing ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... ancients, supposes the Atlantis of Plato to have been nothing more nor less than one of the nearest of the Canaries, viz, Fortaventura or Lancerote. Carli and many others find America in the Atlantis, and adduce many plausible arguments in support of their assertion.—Carli, Letters Amer.; Fr. transl., ii., 180. M. Bailly, in his "Letters sur l'Atlantide de Platon," maintains the existence of the Atlantides, and their island Atlantis, by the authorities of Homer, Sanchoniathon, and Diodorus Siculus, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... could get out of his way. There were ugly stories about the harm he had done to more than one promising simple-minded young Templetonian in days past who had had the ill-luck to come under his influence. And although, as usual, such stories were exaggerated, it was pretty well-known why this plausible small boys' friend was called "spider" by his enemies, who envied no one who fell into ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... were so plausible and his arguments so ingenious that his doctrines steadily gained in influence, and in the first half of the nineteenth century pretty generally triumphed. In actual practice the abolition of restrictions ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... herself with a guilty start from the task of dressing and re-dressing Mr. Manning in fancy costume, as though he was a doll. She had tried him as a Crusader, in which guise he seemed plausible but heavy—"There IS something heavy about him; I wonder if it's his mustache?"—and as a Hussar, which made him preposterous, and as a Black Brunswicker, which was better, and as an Arab sheik. Also she had tried him ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... well known, that many things appear plausible in speculation, which can never be reduced to practice; and that of the numberless projects that have flattered mankind with theoretical speciousness, few have served any other purpose than to show the ingenuity of their contrivers. A voyage to the moon, however romantick ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... figures, it seemed plausible that somewhere up on the Plateau of Cuyaba—where no rails run, no boats ply, and no telegraph line penetrates; which juts out ultimately into that unknown region where the Rio Zingu and the Tapajoz have their origins—certainly it seemed plausible that there must lie the headquarters of the whole ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... conspiracy; that seemed to be the best way. She did not try to make herself better than her associates; she admitted that she was an operative; in no other way could she account for her presence in the north country; and the old man's keen eyes warned her that a less plausible statement would endanger her secret. Therefore, she arraigned herself bitterly as the cause of Latisan's undoing, and to explain her new attitude she pleaded love and resulting repentance. There seemed to be no other way of giving Flagg a good reason why she was interested in speeding the fortunes ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... interpreted as espousing a cause when I observe that the basis of this loathing—namely, that this part of the body serves for the excretion and comes in contact with the loathsome excrement—is not more plausible than the basis which hysterical girls have for the disgust which they entertain for the male genital because it ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... the great plea was to commence, Thirty good Knights were called by Ganelon Out of his kin, and one among them makes A speech all others hark: 'tis Pinabel Of Castel de Sorence, of greatest skill In words, and apt with reason plausible; Withal, a vassal brave to guard his arms. Thus to him Ganelon:—"In you my trust I place; my life from death, my name from shame Preserve!"—Said Pinabel:—"Thou shalt be saved. Dare one French Knight condemn thee to be hanged, And would the Emperor make us both to meet In combat, my ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... a plausible explanation, but there may be a reason which is entirely different from anything which now occurs to us. I believe a search of the island will show that we are not the only white people living here, and that the loss of the boat indicates that they ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... attempted to discuss questions of critical scholarship. Sometimes where there are more than one plausible reading I have signified which I adopt; once only (Ol. 2. 56.) I have ventured on an emendation of my own. For the most part I have, as was natural, followed the text of Boeckh ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... like more plausible notions on Indian matters, I believe it's a mistake. You'll find when you come to consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class—I speak of the civilian now—is rather to magnify the progress that has been made toward liberal institutions. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... I cast about desperately for some tale that would seem more plausible than the truth. Could I save my neck by a lie? One after another came into my mind; I need not trouble to remember them now. Each had its own futilities and perils; but every one split upon the fact—or what would be taken for fact—that ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... hindrance. Once in the street, she fairly flew to the hall where the circus performance was to be given, for she well knew that Ray Rose had probably already secured her dancing costume from Elise by some plausible bit of trickery. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... three months of the period which my beloved and myself had fixed upon for the celebration of our nuptials. To the fair I went, a couple of trusty men following me with the horses. I soon found a purchaser for the animals, a portly, plausible person, of about forty, dressed in a blue riding coat, brown top boots, and leather breeches. There was a strange-looking urchin with him, attired in nearly similar fashion, with a beam in one of his eyes, who called him father. The man ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... cause of his anxiety was really a wish to provide a hallowed resting-place for the cavalier, or this pretence was merely to cover some ulterior purposes of his own, the maiden was left without a clue to form any plausible conjecture. She had heard sufficient, however, to ascertain that he was in some way or another accessory to the disappearance of Egerton, and that in all likelihood he knew the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Renan, the plausible and analytical infidel, read the record carved on the stones of Baalbeck, and announced, openly, that Luke ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... opposite moral forces if it succeeds. I judge that it will fail, because I can see no marks of wisdom in the style of execution, and the State paper is singularly puerile and weak in argument. It is passionate and not dexterous, not even plausible. All this is wonderfully interesting, and will give us a ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... that they were free? I told him, "Very well indeed; and you may very safely venture to emancipate your slaves as soon as you please." This led us at once in medias res. His views I found to be simply as follows: how pious! how plausible! how convenient! how extensively prevalent in reference to other evils than slavery! "Slavery is a political institution. As a Christian minister, I have nothing to do with politics. My business is to preach the Gospel, and try to save men's souls. ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... were too real for that. Had she other friends? Had not the sentinel turned traitor, and having liberated the prisoner, was anxious to get away, lest his perfidy should be discovered, or to gain a reward for his treachery? This, though hardly probable, was the most plausible supposition, and Bill concluded to act upon it. He was resolved to carry out his plans in, all their details; except that Eveline could not be taken with them; for he was not going to yield up his stolen gold, nor ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... most natural—the most plausible story. If Delane forced himself on George with any vile tale, Ellesborough would probably give him in charge for molesting his former wife. There was absolutely nothing to fear, if she handled the thing ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for he seems 'cum ratione insanire'; the physicians have collected all he has said and done that indicated an alienation of mind, and have laid it before him in writing; he has answered it in writing too, and justifies himself in the most plausible arguments than can possibly be urged. He tells his brother, and the few who are allowed to see him, that they are such narrow and contracted minds themselves, that they take those for mad who have a great and generous way of thinking; as, for instance, when he determined to send his daughter ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... avarice as he was permitted to exercise; the distinguished soldiers Meghen and Aremberg—these, with many others whose deeds of arms were to become celebrated throughout Europe, were all conspicuous in the brilliant crowd. There, too, was that learned Frisian, President Viglius, crafty, plausible, adroit, eloquent—a small, brisk man, with long yellow hair, glittering green eyes, round, tumid, rosy cheeks, and flowing beard. Foremost among the Spanish grandees, and close to Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy Gomez, or, as he was ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... questions he could think of. Why was I there? Where had I come from? Where (if I was honest) had I intended to sleep? How came I at such an hour on foot? and other examinations. I thought a little what excuse to give him, and then, determining that I was too tired to make up anything plausible, I told him the full truth; that I had meant to sleep rough, but had been overcome by fatigue, and that I had walked from Toul, starting at evening. I conjured him by our common Faith to let me in. He told me that it was impossible, as he ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... keeping women of full age under a guardian almost no reason of any worth can be urged. The common belief, that because of the levity of their disposition (propter animi levitatem) they often are deceived and therefore may be guided by a guardian, seems more plausible than true. ...
— The Twelve Tables • Anonymous
... the opposition, and perhaps himself, to the measure, by plausible reasoning. An impost of threepence on the pound could never, he alleged, be opposed by the colonists, unless they were determined to rebel against Great Britain. Besides, a duty on that article, payable in England, and amounting to nearly one shilling on the pound, was taken ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... betraying those who were his enemies. As to this priest, every thing was against him. He lived close by; every step of the country was no doubt familiar to him; he had come to the camp under very suspicious circumstances, bringing with him a stranger in disguise. He had given plausible answers to the cross-questioning of Girasole; but those were empty words, which went for nothing in the presence of the living facts that now stood before him in the presence of ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... a scapegrace, but a gentleman! Robert, you are a careful, sober, plausible man; and it is a great pity you were not in business; you would have made a fortune!—you won't inherit one, though you think it: I have marked you, sir. Philip, beware of your brother. Now let ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of nature are permanent, how are we to explain the fact that in the barbarous centuries after the decline of Rome—the term Middle Ages has not yet come into currency—ignorance was so dense and deep? This breach of continuity is one of the plausible arguments of the advocates of the Ancients. Those ages, they say, were ignorant and barbarous because the Greek and Latin writers had ceased to be read; as soon as the study of the classical models revived there was a renaissance of reason and good taste. That ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... rather not," he decided quietly. "I know you mean to be kind but that sort of thing—well, I don't think I understand it. Besides," he added with a sudden naive relief, as he clutched at a fugitive but plausible thought, "if I did you would not believe the things which I have ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon, and were always naturally anxious to hold it under the strongest side in any competition for dominion. When the star of the competitor under whom they served seemed to be on the wane, they soon found some plausible excuse to make their peace with his rival, and serve under his banners. Each competitor fought for his own life, and those of his children; the imperial throne could be filled by only one man; and that ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... there was the unusual word "scrak", spelled with a c with acute accent. Author might have intended "sorak" spelled with a circumflex over the "o". "Sorak" occurs elsewhere in the text meaning a "war-cry", which is plausible in the context here. However, "scrak" is preserved, with ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... carriage-clock in front of him, and thought of the famine of porters at Waterloo Station in August, and invented several other plausible excuses for a resolution which he foresaw that he was about ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... sometimes eloquent. No contrast could be more complete than that presented by these two "sample-speeches." The objects remain the same, but we see them through different ends of the telescope. Either account taken by itself is so plausible as to seem almost morally conclusive. But in both instances we have down-right apology and condemnation, partiality bred of prejudice. Tertium Quid presents us with a reasoned and judicial judgment, impartiality bred of contempt ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... irksome; did the jumps in the riding-school loom too large; did the serjeant speak a harsh word unto him, "The Beachcomber" promptly went sick. Malaria was his long suit. By aid of black arts learned during those seven years sojourning with the heathen Chinee he could switch malaria (or a plausible imitation of it) on or off at will and fool the M.O.'s every time. I used to interview them about it, but got scant sympathy. The Healers' Union ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the apocryphal writings." "Their pretences are specious and plausible, for the most part going under the name of our Saviour himself, his apostles, their companions, or immediate successors. They are generally thought to be cited by the first Christian writers with the same authority ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... was his duty, reported to Henry Dundas afterwards Lord Melville, Secretary of State for the Home Department concerning this Act September 28, 1793. Simcoe had discovered that there was much resistance to the slave law. There were many plausible arguments of the demand for labor and the difficulty of obtaining "Servants to cultivate Lands." "Some possessed of Negroes," said he, "knowing that it was very questionable whether any subsisting Law did authorize Slavery and having purchased ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... have tried to find him, for he is the secret agent of La Pompadour, and if I had one plausible reason to weigh with him—- But I have none, unless you can give it. There are vague hints of things between you and him, and I have come to ask if you can put any fact, any argument, in my hands that would aid me with him. I would go far to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... much to bring it into ridicule. Those who sincerely wished to treat with us, found themselves so embarrassed between the rival factions, that they did not know what to do; and others made our disagreements a plausible pretext for ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the vaulting included, are covered with paintings. The effect clashes with Northern taste, but the absence of a columnar system affords a plausible reason for relieving the sameness of these large surfaces with colour. The Gothic style of the North, holding in itself such decorative resources, gains nothing from mural paintings, but always loses something of its true character when they are added. Apart from ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... sat up in bed and begun unwrapping her head as if to prepare for the journey, now that time pressed, and she must again put on her own things. But if she had had the slightest hope that Lella Mabrouka might be deceived by Ourieda's plausible excuse, the cold glint of black eyes staring at her in the lamplight would have ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... was sudden, and her death took place in the last week of July. Richard's preparations at that date were far advanced towards completion, and Sir Thomas Scroope had been already some months in Dublin to prepare for his reception. The reason assigned by Anglo-Irish writers is more plausible: he had been a candidate for the Imperial Crown of Germany, and was tauntingly told by his competitors to conquer Ireland before he entered the lists for the highest political honour of that age. This rebuke, and the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... out clearly the limitations of the subject. It is indeed something to have shown that the stigma of slavery and disgrace attaching to his name has no solid historical justification, and something to have suggested plausible reasons for conjecturing that his worship had a genuine spiritual basis. Yet the sincere critic, at the end of the whole inquiry, will confess that he has only cast a plummet into the unfathomable sea of ignorance. What remains, immortal, indestructible, victorious, is Antinous ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of the administration. Its numbers were indeed so small both in Congress and out of it, as to exercise no weight in the call of the ayes and noes, or at the polls; but its members mingled in every debate, wrote plausible essays in the papers, and used all justifiable means as well as some that were questionable, in attaining their ends. Of this party, Mr. Tazewell, though never a member, and only a casual coadjutor, was considered to belong; but there was no evidence ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... on this subject because my theory of the two roots of eroticism permits of a new, and in my opinion plausible, explanation of erotic perversions; one might even go as far as to say that the existence of perversions follows as a necessary consequence; that they must exist because it obviously cannot always be possible to maintain ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... British America, of which we possess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution broke out, congratulate himself that he had not made any further progress? "It is lucky that my American History was not finished before this event; how many plausible theories that I should have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... authors attacked by Peak himself in his Critical article. In the end Godwin sat down and began to read the translation he had made, Mr. Warricombe listening with a thoughtful smile. From time to time the reader paused and offered a comment, endeavouring to show that the arguments were merely plausible; his air was that of placid security, and he seemed to enjoy the irony which often fell from his lips. Martin frequently scrutinised him, and always with a look of interest ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... loose, feels for Mary Doul, sinking his voice to a plausible whine.] — You may cure herself, surely, holy father; I wouldn't stop you at all — and it's great joy she'll have looking on your face — but let you cure myself along with her, the way I'll see when it's lies she's telling, and be looking out ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... no great gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," said Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yet I trust to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before me, and to teach my children, as I have myself been taught, to make some personal sacrifices, if they be necessary, in order to maintain with dignity the situation ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Whenever the man is required invariably the man will appear.' So it happened in the present instance. A public instructor jumped up in the person of Mr. Flummery Flam, the least insinuating and the least plausible personage that ever performed the easy task of gulling a nation. His manners were vulgar, his voice was sharp, and his language almost unintelligible. Flummery Flam was a provisional optimist. He maintained that everything ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... half as long, and is a well-written and extremely plausible story about a house owned by an old gentleman of ancient lineage, where there is a collection of gold plate which was said to be an "incubus", that is, the subject of a curse. As indeed there ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn |
