"Improbably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his last trip to the Antipodes either, for rumour has it that, not improbably, Frank Harness, promoted to the rank of a master in the mercantile marine, will proceed shortly again to Otago in command of a ship of his own, when, possibly, he will have one especial item of human freight to bring home with him ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... animals, save the very lowest (and further inquiries may not improbably remove the apparent exception), commences its existence as an egg: as a body which is, in every sense, as much an egg as that of a hen, but is devoid of that accumulation of nutritive matter which confers upon the bird's ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... better explained by supposing it to have been a March, or Debateable Land, between the Germanic and Danish occupants of Sleswick, than by the notion that it was left empty by the exodus of its occupants to Great Britain. The deduction of the Angli from an improbably small area, on the wrong side of the Peninsula, must be looked upon as an inference under the garb of a tradition. Such I believe it to have been; freely, however, admitted that if Anglen poured forth upon England even half the Angles that ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... their books!) we find depicted naval as well as military battles, in which the vessels are evidently those employed at sea. According to their own traditions, they colonized in a remote age. They themselves laid claim to Danaus: and the mythus of the expedition of Osiris is not improbably construed into a figurative representation of the spread of Egyptian civilization by the means of colonies. Besides, Egypt was subjected to more than one revolution, by which a large portion of her population was expelled the land, and scattered over the neighbouring regions [13]. And ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mindless games are very well, my friend; But ours to-night marks, not improbably, The ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... stories, therefore, of infection being taken from following a coffined corpse to the grave, without reference to the state of grief, fear, and fatigue, not improbably, of drunkenness, in the mourners, must be unworthy of attention. I am no friend to the absurdly long interval which in this country is allowed to elapse,[32] even in the hottest weather, between death ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... that a persistently jealous husband may not improbably end by irritating an innocent wife into affording real ground for jealousy. A man with small knowledge of the world is much impressed by dicta such as there; they get into the crannies of his mind, and thence direct the course ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... had yet advanced in the way of claim. But, at the same tine, though indispensable negatively, positively it stretched so much further than any necessity or interest inherent in their present innovations, that not improbably they faltered and shrank back at first from the immeasurable field of consequences upon which it opened. Thy would willingly have accepted less. But, unfortunately, it sometimes happens, that, to gain as much as is needful in one direction, you must take ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... its commander, and officers to each hundred, each fifty, and each nine, a system not unlike that of the ancient Peruvians. Each candidate for admission to the band had to undergo the most trying ordeals, rivalling in severity those of the American Indians, and not improbably genuine though exaggerated reminiscences of actual tests of endurance and agility. Once admitted he had to observe certain geasa or "tabus," e.g. not to choose his wife for her dowry like other Celts, but solely for her good manners, not ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... schoolboy was Mr. Raffles?" inquired Miss Belsize, not by any means in the tone of a devotee. But I reflected that her own devotion was bespoke, and not improbably tainted with some ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... the Hotel de Valentinois, which was kindly placed at his disposal by its owner, M. Ray de Chaumont. In this at that time retired suburb he hoped to be able to keep the inevitable but useless interruptions within endurable limits. Not improbably also he was further influenced, in accepting M. Chaumont's hospitality, by a motive of diplomatic prudence. His shrewdness and experience must soon have shown him that his presence in Paris, if not precisely distasteful to the French ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... one parent and to have migrated from some one birthplace.' This, to my mind, is much more unlikely than his further suggestion that 'all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype.' Startling as this second proposition may be on first hearing, it may not very improbably express the real fact, provided by 'some one prototype' be signified, not a single individual, but several individuals of one and the same type. Beyond all doubt there was a time when on and about our earth all matter was as yet inorganic, and when whatever spirit,[38] ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... abstemious, and took great care of his health, and if he was really verging on eighty (which I very much doubted), I thought he might not improbably live to be a hundred and ten and even a hundred and twenty. He drank nothing, whatever, neither tea, coffee, cocoa, nor any other beverage, neither water nor wine, always quenching his thirst with fruit, of which he ate largely. So far as ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... no records of initial humanity, it is hardly possible for us to know certainly what the earliest men's feeling was toward the animate and inanimate forces around them. Not improbably it was simply fear, the result of ignorance of their nature and absence of social relations with them. But in the human communities known to us, even the lowest, the relations with extrahuman beings appear to be in general of a mixed nature, sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly, but neither ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... chivalrous, perhaps Quixotic, in his friendships for those whom he regarded, had long been felt, and this feeling was now stronger than ever. He certainly could bring up Sam Brattle if he pleased;—or, if he pleased, as might, some said, not improbably be the case, he could keep him away. There would be L400 to pay for the bail-bond, but the Vicar was known to be rich as well as Quixotic, and,—so said the Puddlehamites,—would care very little about that, if he might thus secure for himself his ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... turning to his companion said, "I wish that note was out of my book." Had he foreseen the noise his several friends continued to make, even after his death, about this purely imaginary offence on the part of Adam Smith, the poet would not improbably wish the polemical prefaces out of his book. Smith did not think much of Mickle's translation of the Lusiad, holding the French version to be much superior,[279] but if he happened to express this unfavourable opinion to the Duke of Buccleugh, it could not have been with any thought of injuring ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... being flung into the nearest canal. Men remembered that, only fifteen years before, the most illustrious chief of the party adverse to the House of Orange had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob in the very precinct of the palace of the States General. A similar fate might not improbably befall those who should, at this crisis, be accused of serving the purposes of France against their native land, and against the reformed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reverence. "I am called Francis Villon," he said, "a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make Chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship's very obsequious servant ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... theory proceed too much on an assumption that the Sclavonians dispossest the Teutons by force? And is not this assumption his ground for objecting that the movement was effected improbably 'by that division of the European population (the Sclavonic and Lithuanian) which has, within the historic period, receded before ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... made use of amber in their necklaces from a very early date;[9106] and, though they might no doubt have obtained it by land-carriage across Europe to the head of the Adriatic, yet their enterprise and their commercial spirit were such as would not improbably have led them to seek to open a direct communication with the amber-producing region, so soon as they knew where it was situated. The dangers of the German Ocean are certainly not greater than those of the Atlantic; and ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Cephalopods, to which belong the cuttle-fish and the octopus (sacred to Victor Hugo), may be, for all we can say to the contrary, an order with a future. Their kindred, the Gastropods, have, in the case of the snail and slug, learnt the trick of air-breathing. And not improbably there are even now genera of this order that have escaped the naturalist, or even well-known genera whose possibilities in growth and dietary are still unknown. Suppose some day a specimen of a new species is caught off the coast of Kent. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... lasted a year or two longer it is not improbably that our candidate would have fallen from his high "reflecting" state to the low level of artful politician. "It was the universal custom of the times to treat with liquor. We both did it; but he was condemned for it more than myself ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... clergy and the army disaffected, the parliament torn by factions: civil war was already raging in one part of the empire: foreign war was impending. At such a moment a minister, whether Whig or Tory, might well be uneasy; but neither Whig nor Tory had so much to fear as the Trimmer, who might not improbably find himself the common mark at which both parties would take aim. For these reasons Halifax determined to avoid all ostentation of power and influence, to disarm envy by a studied show of moderation, and to attach to himself by civilities and benefits persons whose gratitude might ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... are in fact among the first and most absorbing formations in the human mind. If we could penetrate into animal consciousness we should not improbably find that what there accompanies instinctive motions is a wholly irrelevant fancy, whose flaring up and subsidence no doubt coincide with the presence of objects interesting to the organism and causing marked reactions within it; yet this fancy may in no ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... have so very much difficulty in claiming the book as one of the tribe of Euphuist pamphlets. But Jack Wilton the "traveller" is a little more of a person than the pedagogic Euphues and the shadowy Philautus. At any rate he has a very strong anticipation of Defoe, whose "Cavalier" was not improbably suggested by him. But Nash has neither the patience of Defoe, nor that singular originality, which accompanies in the author of Moll Flanders a certain inability to make the most of it. The Unfortunate Traveller is a sort of compilation or congeries of current fabliaux, novelle, and facetiae, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... upon the shelves of the monastic libraries. I keep my own, with a certain touch of ritualistic observance, between this seventeenth century edition of the works of Roger Bacon and this more modern one, in Latin, of the writings of Thomas Aquinas; both of whom may not improbably have been practitioners ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... able to hate a man from three to twelve and to love him from twelve to three. If our social relations are more peaceful than those of France or America or the England of a hundred years ago, it is simply because our politics are more peaceful; not improbably because our politics are more fictitious. If our statesmen agree more in private, it is for the very simple reason that they agree more in public. And the reason they agree so much in both cases is really that they belong to one social class; and therefore the dining life is the real ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... paradoxical rhetoric. It must be taken, therefore, as something serious in the main; and if so taken, and read by the light reflected from Mr. Whistler's more characteristically brilliant canvases, it may not improbably recall a certain phrase of Moliere's which at once passed into a proverb—"Vous etes orfevre, M. Josse." That worthy tradesman, it will be remembered, was of opinion that nothing could be so well calculated to restore a drooping young ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... it, unmindful of defeats, often chagrined when he missed some easy opportunity. Not improbably he might have failed altogether if he had been riding an ordinary horse, or if he had to try roping from a fiery mustang. But Silvermane was as intelligent as he was beautiful and fleet. The horse learned rapidly the agile turns and sudden stops necessary, and as for free running he never ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... does not interdict the further saying, if his scruples had been ever so extreme, not improbably he would at this time have smothered them. He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing of a trifle; nor was his anger like the fool's, pumped from the wells of nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... recognized my fair form, so kiverd was I with dust. Bimeby I met Old Poodles, the all-firdist gambler in the country. He was afoot and in his shirt-sleeves, and was in a wuss larther nor any race hoss I ever saw. ("All-fired," enormous, excessive, a low Americanism, not improbably a puritanical corruption of "hell-fired," designed to have the virtue of an ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Indeed Mr. CYRIL HARCOURT'S play might belong to just any year since the time when women first began to write those purple tales of passion that are so bad for the morals of the servants' hall. It was simply to get copy for this kind of stuff that Mabel Vere (most improbably pretty in the person of Miss GLADYS COOPER) advertised for a husband, for this post had already been assigned to the dullest and stuffiest of fiances. I dare not think how the theme might have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... stuck to his resolution to judge Sawyer by what he found him to be on further acquaintance, not to fly into a dislike at first sight. And for some time nothing occurred to shake Jack's opinion that not improbably the new master was better than his looks. But Sawyer was shy and reserved; he liked Jack, and was in his heart grateful to him for his respectful and friendly behaviour, and for the good example he thereby set to his ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as proof of the accusation that had been made against ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Tregear was a young man who might not improbably make a figure in the world, should circumstances be kind to him, but as to whom it might be doubted whether circumstances would be sufficiently kind to enable him to use serviceably his unquestionable ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... go with the least hindrance. A solution now presented itself. If the Emperor intrusted the guardianship of the gate to one foreigner, why not to another? In other words, why not have the duty committed to himself and his people? Not improbably the charge might be proposed to him; he would wait awhile, and see; if, however, he had to formally request it, could anything be more plausibly suggestive than the relation between the captaincy of that Port and residence in the Palace of Julian? The idea was too ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... blindness seem to be the two most salient characteristics by which are to be distinguished these implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and liberty. But, gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this weight of infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a Croesus or (still more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the conventional age, and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on the part of sane men, involving the sacrifice of the priceless attributes of humanity, can be rendered intelligible ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... even in Knox's lifetime, the State, having the upper hand under the Regent Morton, a strong man, introduced prelacy of a modified kind and patronage; did not restore to the Kirk her 'patrimony,'—the lands of the old Church; and only hanged one priest, not improbably for a certain reason ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... was related so simply, and with such an appearance of good faith, that the cure was quite convinced. And to Monsieur de Lamotte the plans attributed to his wife were not entirely improbably. Derues had learnt indirectly that such a career for Edouard had been actually under consideration. However, though Monsieur de Lamotte's entire ignorance prevented him from making any serious objection, his fears were not entirely at rest, but for the present he appeared ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... every appearance of satisfaction.—If the truth must be told, Mrs. Cooper's cakes were renowned throughout society at Deadham, as of the richest, the most melting in the mouth; and James—hence not improbably the tendency to abdominal protuberance—possessed an inordinate fondness for cakes. He had shown himself so docile in respect of projected inflammatory sermons, and of morning calls personally conducted by his wife, that the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... less well equipped, and more scantily supplied, the Confederates nevertheless kept up the war, with many brilliant successes on land, for four years. Had they been able to maintain their trade with neutral states they could have carried on the war longer, and—not improbably—have succeeded in the end. The Federal navy, which was largely increased, took away all chance of this. It established effective blockades of the Confederate ports, and severed their communications with the outside world. Indispensable articles of equipment could not be ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... capable of rendering her prosperous and happy, to do with the adoration of Rousseau's speculative systems? Or why are the English encouraged in a traditional respect for the manes of republicans, whom, if living, we might not improbably consider as factious ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Cheshire, had pocketed the hire, and had left the troops in Ulster to get on as they best might, [442] Schomberg thought that, if he should, with an ill trained and ill appointed army, risk a battle against a superior force, he might not improbably be defeated; and he knew that a defeat might be followed by the loss of one kingdom, perhaps by the loss of three kingdoms. He therefore made up his mind to stand on the defensive till his men had been disciplined, and till ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... much annoy her. She had declared to herself once before that if anything was wrong about the money she would regard it as a present made to her brother; and when so thinking of it, she had, undoubtedly, felt that it was, not improbably, lost to her. It was something over a hundred a year to be deducted from her computed income, but she would still be able to live at the Paragon quite as well as she had intended, and be able also ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... and it was understood that he might use his liberty in whatever way he chose, even for returning to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that, not improbably, in some of the battles which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank, in which case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiating an exchange. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Not improbably, it was to this latter class of men that Mr. Dimmesdale, by many of his traits of character, naturally belonged. To the high mountain peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mother of Kiri-Tsubo departed this life. She may not improbably have longed to follow her daughter at an earlier period; and the only regret to which she gave utterance, was that she was forced to leave her grandson, whom she had ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... festive occasions, claimed equally to take the lead, had come out to demand that the king should visit Paris; and the Ministerial Council thought it safer for him to comply with that petition than to throw himself into the arms of the soldiers, a step which might not improbably ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... grizzle a head of dark, straight hair, a heavy moustache, and whiskers which formed a beard beneath his chin. Whether from his recent captivity or from constitutional causes, there was an air of lassitude in his look to which the fatigues of his voyage not improbably contributed. Altogether, he gave one the idea of a visionary or theoretical enthusiast rather then of a great ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "cold, crude, silent, and desolate" ruin of nature, without the possibility, if life were on it, of articulate speech, of music, even of sound. Sometimes a greenish tint was seen upon its surface, which might have been taken for vegetation, but it was thought not improbably to be a reflection from the vast forests of South America. The ancients had a fancy, some of them, that the face of the moon was a mirror in which the seas and shores of the earth were imaged. Now we know the geography ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Monday to make a statement to the House of Lords upon the subject of Canada, on which a debate may not improbably arise by which Lord Melbourne may be detained. On Wednesday there is neither House of Lords nor Cabinet dinner. Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday will therefore be festive days, on which Lord Melbourne will have great pleasure in obeying ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... living in woods and on mountains. These passages intend, and do not much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the Gonds, Koles, Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the forests and mountains of Central India from Behar to Khandesh, and who are, not improbably, the predecessors of the present occupants of the cultivated portions of the country. They are always very black, ill-shapen, and dwarfish, and have countenances of a very ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Adonis of the Bargello Palace, which not improbably was designed for one of the figures prostrate below the feet of a victorious Genius. It bears, indeed, much resemblance to a roughly indicated nude at the extreme right of the sketch for the tomb. Upon this supposition, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... with brimstone and water, is evidently reduced to a calx, so that phlogiston must have escaped from it. Phlogiston also must evidently be set loose by the ignition of charcoal, and is not improbably the matter which flies off from paint, composed of white-lead and oil. Lastly, since spirit of nitre is known to have a very remarkable affinity with phlogiston, it is far from being improbable that nitrous air may also produce the same effect ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... conventional type. Holguin is perhaps two hundred years old, quite pleasantly situated, but affording no special points of interest for the tourist. The city is now easily reached by a branch of the Cuba Railway. It is worth the visit of those who "want to see it all." Beyond Gibara is Nipe Bay, not improbably the first Cuban harbor entered by Columbus. Nipe Bay and its near neighbor, Banes Bay, are the centres of what is now the greatest industrial activity of any part of the island. Here, recent American investment is measured in scores of millions of dollars. Here, in the immediate neighborhood, ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... which Coleridge published as a skit on the joint volume brought out by himself, Lamb, and Lloyd. The whole thing was always a mystery to me. But I have thought that the passage on division between friends was not improbably written by Coleridge on this occasion. Curiously enough (if so) Lamb, who is said to have objected greatly to the idea of a second part of Christabel, thought (on seeing it) that the mistake was redeemed by this very passage. He may have traced its meaning, though, of course, its beauty alone ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... some little difference between the two; at least we hope so, for otherwise we can with difficulty imagine one person not deserving to be ordered for execution, on Wednesday next, between the hours of eight and nine ante-meridian. Happily, however, for our future peace of mind, and not improbably for the whole confirmation of our character, our Guardian Genius—(every boy has one constantly at his side, both during school and play hours, though it must be confessed sometimes a little remiss in his duty, for the nature even ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... five and six feet in length, is astonishingly like our existing divers or grebes in a great many respects; so like them indeed that, had the skeleton of Hesperornis been found in a museum without its skull, improbably would have been placed in the same group of birds as the divers and grebes of the present day.[1] But Hesperornis differs from all existing birds, and so far resembles reptiles, in one important particular—it is provided with teeth. The long ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... shake hands. Franks turned abruptly, with a wave of the arm, and walked off unsteadily, like a man in liquor. Observing this, Warburton said to himself that not improbably the artist had been trying to drown his misery, which might account for his strange delusion. Yet this explanation did not put Will's mind at ease. Gloomily he made his way homeward ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... sweetheart as if he would charm her with his gaze, and emitting all the while a subdued hissing sound. The significance of this conduct I do not profess to have understood; it ended with his suddenly darting at the female, who took wing and was pursued. Not improbably the robin finds the feminine nature somewhat fickle, and counts it expedient to vary his tactics accordingly; for it is getting to be more and more believed that, in kind at least, the intelligence of the lower animals ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... suggestions of Governor Rutledge, who, at that time in the camp of the Continentals, might very well have informed him of the value of the man whose followers inspired only ridicule. It was with Marion that the plan was concerted, and not improbably at his suggestion, for moving into the very heart of the State. This, subsequently, was the policy of Greene, and had Gates adopted the deliberate caution of that commander, his successes would unquestionably have been the same. The object of such a movement was to give an opportunity ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... continents) into eastern and western-Asiatic and African. This was an "old opinion" of the Greeks, we are told; and, though Strabo thinks it indicated their ignorance, we may perhaps be excused for holding it that it might not improbably have arisen ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... therefore, to no small extent, on the degree to which the moralising elements in the nation can, without injury to all that is sound and healthy in individualist action, control those defects which may not improbably spring out of the egotism of the commercial spirit, if it be subject to no ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... is a letter to one Mary of Cassobola. This was made the parent of a 'correspondence between St. John and the Virgin,' bearing the name of Ignatius: and it is not improbably connected with the outburst of Mariolatry in the eleventh and following centuries. But with 'the first streak of intellectual dawn this Ignatian spectre vanished into its kindred darkness.' The forgery was 'consigned to the limbo of foolish and forgotten ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... mind that the will would not be found. These women had clearly made up their minds to deprive Ralph and Mabel of their rights, and unless they had felt perfectly satisfied that no search would discover the hiding-place of the will, they would not improbably have taken it, and either destroyed it or concealed it in some fresh place where the searchers would never be likely to look for it. She did not think it likely, therefore, that the hiding-place would be discovered, and she felt assured that ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... an awakening was impossible. The first feeling of a girl as happily situated, healthy-minded, and physically strong as she was is bound to be pleasurable; and had she been a young man at this time she would not improbably have sought to heighten and vary her sensations by adding greater quantities of alcohol to her daily diet; she would have grown coarse of skin by eating more than she could assimilate; she would have smelt strongly enough ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... warriors—the lives of the captives should be safe, and they should not be exposed to any inhuman treatment. Boone was much perplexed. Had he been with his men, he would have fought to the last extremity, and his presence not improbably might have inspirited them, even to a successful defence. But deprived of their leader, taken entirely by surprise, and outnumbered three or four to one, their massacre was certain. And it was also certain ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... from normal space, and entered that improbably stressed area of extension which it formed about itself and in which physical constants were wildly strange. For one thing, the speed of light in overdrive-stressed space had not been measured yet. It was too high. For another, a ship could travel very ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... her chief, as representing Queen Elizabeth's first historical female friend at Tilbury fort. Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark that Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been represented ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... passu with the natural laws of chemical combination, it is evident that any force which the present argument could ever have had must now be pronounced as neutralised. Natural causes have been shown, so far as scientific inference can extend, as not improbably sufficient to produce the observed effects; and therefore we are no longer free to invoke the hypothetical ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... that the more general satire "Colin Clout" preceded the more directly personal one of "Why come ye nat to court?" which lashes Wolsey himself with a heartily outspoken virulence which would hardly have been tolerated by him when in the zenith of his power. It was not improbably written whilst its author was safe in sanctuary under Bishop Islip. William Thynne, court favourite though he was, could never have kept Skelton's head on his shoulders after so terrible ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... occupied by the French. In fine, it was with Prussia a question of competition, brought to its ultimate tension by war. Prussia had no alternative as a conquered land but to radically accelerate her momentum, or perish. And so, at the present day, it may not improbably be with us. Competition must ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... couplet. The poem appeared again in the following year in the Passionate Pilgrim, this time with both the couplet and the addition. The Helicon version is certainly by far the best, and not improbably represents the poem as originally written in imitation of Shakespeare's. See J. B. Henneman's paper in An English ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... "Your search will not improbably lead you into places where the Indians have won back their own from the civilization introduced by the Spaniards, and I have always heard that on the eastern side of the Cordilleras the natives entertain a deadly hatred for whites, and attack all who endeavour ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Impregnated as to rob no more Distill'd Vinager of its Salt. And though Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous that it will Flame all away without leaving the least Drop behinde it, yet even this Fiery Liquor is by Helmont not improbably affirm'd, in case what he relates be True, to be Materially Water, under a Sulphureous Disguise: For, according to him, in the making that excellent Medecine, Paracelsus his Balsamus Samech, (which is nothing but Sal Tartari dulcify'd by Distilling from it Spirit of Wine ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... was a sort of initiation, like that which prevails among our Teutonic brethren, where the "Fuchs" is raised to the sublime degree of a "Brandfuchs," "junge Bursch," "bemorstes Haupt," by successive promotions. Not improbably in after times, especially at the Universities, like "passing the Line," it admitted of being commuted for a money payment. The exact nature of the "salting" at Eton I cannot explain; perhaps your able correspondent, R.O., may afford ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... taken, till he came to the spot on which the crowd had been assembled. Close to this there was a hand-gate leading into Dillsborough wood, and standing in the gateway was a man. The Senator thought that this might not improbably be Goarly himself, and asked the question, "Might your ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... This business of telephoning was conceivably well-timed; not improbably the captain was receiving the report of somebody who had been sent to search Stateroom 29 in Lanyard's absence. He wondered and, wondering, glanced at Crane, to find that gentleman watching him with ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... improbably the old seaport of Brouage, near La Rochelle, now deserted. This appears to be the only notice extant of an expedition by de La Roche in 1584. For an account of his later expedition, consult Parkman, Pioneers ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... Glenn's casual, easy tone had been adopted for her benefit or was merely an assimilation from this Western life. Not improbably Glenn himself might be capable of playing a trick on her. Carley endeavored to fortify herself against disaster, so that when it befell she might not ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... the nature of their tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace, who, by Act of Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William Lovelace of Gray's Inn, who ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... was distinguished by the remarkable commotion excited by William Fitz-Osbert, styled Longbeard, a citizen of London, who is admitted to have possessed both eloquence and learning, and whose whole character and proceedings might not improbably, if he had had his own historian, have assumed a very different complexion from what has been given to him. Longbeard, who acquired the names of the Advocate and King of the Poor, is affirmed to have had above fifty thousand of the lower orders associated with him by oaths which bound ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... hilly district called by the ancients, Etruria (now Tuscany), and the plains of Latium and Campania. What is now termed Campania, the district about Rome, is a part of ancient Latium. The Etrurians differed widely, both in appearance and in language, from the Romans. They were not improbably Aryans, but nothing more is known of their descent. In the east, in what is now Calabria, and in Apulia, there was another people, the Iapygians, whose origin is not certain, but who were not so far removed from the Greeks as from the Latins. The southern and south-eastern ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... had any sure means of egress. There were windows, he knew, to the back; but upon what ground they opened, he seems to have had no certain information; and in a neighborhood so dangerous, the windows of the lower story would not improbably be nailed down; those in the upper might be free, but then came the necessity of a leap too formidable. From all this, however, the sole practical inference was to hurry forward with the trial of further keys, and to detect the ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Cawnpore they would doubtless be carried away with other regiments, and would only swell the force of mutineers there. He was assured, at any rate, they would not rise unless their comrades at Cawnpore did so, but that it was best to manifest confidence in them, as not improbably, did they hear that they were ordered back to Cawnpore, they might take it as a slur on their fidelity, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... Mycenaean art; and its influence was spread abroad as far as Western Europe[300] and towards the East as far as America. In many ways it was a factor in the development of such artistic designs as the spiral and the volute, and not improbably also ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... Abyssins, like that of all other nations, is obscure and uncertain. The tradition generally received derives them from Cham, the son of Noah, and they pretend, however improbably, that from his time till now the legal succession of their kings hath never been interrupted, and that the supreme power hath always continued in the same family. An authentic genealogy traced up so high could not but be extremely curious; and with good reason might the Emperors of ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... assonances and alliterations; that where an author is running the open A, deceived by the eye and our strange English spelling, he will often show a tenderness for the flat A; and that where he is running a particular consonant, he will not improbably rejoice to write it down even when it is mute or ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... defects of literary taste and executive art; and after a more thorough study than such rude and unattractive work seems at first to require or to deserve, the moral and intellectual impression of the whole will not improbably be far more favorable than one resulting from a cursory survey or derived from a casual selection of excerpts. They bring no manner of support to a monstrous and preposterous imputation which has been cast upon their author; the charge of having been concerned ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... great news of Myrtle Hazard's accession to fortune came out, the secret was told that she had promised herself in marriage to Mr. Clement Lindsay. But her friends hardly knew how to congratulate her on this last event. Her lover was gone, to risk his life, not improbably to lose it, or to come home a wreck, crippled by wounds, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... degree to the lamentable result. Yet, as it seems to me, we may remove them all without making any great improvement. All the circumstances may be varied, but that intellectual apathy which has become so marked a characteristic of English life, especially of English public and social life, may not improbably continue. Why nations pass into these morbid phases no one can tell. The spirit of the age, that "polarisation of society" as Tarde[1] used to call it, in a definite direction, is brought about by no cause ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... away downstream. We ran as fast as we could out of the jungle to a commanding position on the hill. Thence we could determine the course of the herd. It continued on downstream as far as we could follow the sounds in the convolutions of the hills. Realizing that it would improbably recover enough from its alarmed condition to resume its regular habits that ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... only for his fate, which is too well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off, not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Due de Berry, the second son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; and it was most unfortunate for the Marshal that this was not ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all the other Christian sects ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... The little Hindoo scholar probably wishes to impress you with a sense of his assiduity. He raises his voice, sways the body more briskly, keeps his one eye firmly fixed on his task, while with the other he throws a keen swift glance over you, which embraces every detail of your costume, and not improbably includes a shrewd estimate of ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Lords) everything is hung up because you will not answer Thring's* letters. Thring, in desperation, appeals to me, concluding with characteristic simplicity that we must be friends because you have written a book about me. As the conclusion is accidentally and improbably true, I now urge you to give him whatever satisfaction he requires. I have no notion what it is, or what the case is about; but at least answer his letters, however infuriating they may be. Remember: ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... I am about to punish a slave for an act of gross disobedience and neglect. I found that all the tobacco required turning, and now it will not be done this afternoon owing to my orders not being carried out, and the tobacco will not improbably be injured in quality. My position is difficult enough as it is; but if the slaves see that instead of being supported I am thwarted by your son, my authority is gone altogether. No overseer can carry on his ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... in conference looking toward the negotiation of "a peace without victory." In the event that he was able to persuade them to meet, his presence at the conference as a pacificator and probably as the presiding officer would not improbably have been in the interests of peace, because, as the executive head of the greatest of the neutral nations of the world and as the impartial friend of both parties, his personal influence would presumably have been very great in preventing a rupture in the negotiations ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... boyhood, years ago, had brought him to! He was a stately youth, of noble bearing, of high purpose, of fastidious taste; and, if his broad forehead, his clear, large blue eyes, his commanding features, his lips, firm, yet plastic to every change of thought and feeling, were not an empty mask, might not improbably claim that Promethean quality of which the girl's letter had spoken,—the strange, divine, dread ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the left ventricle. And this was where Galen got upon his wrong track, without which divergence a man of his scientific insight must infallibly have discovered the true character of the pulmonary current, and not improbably have been led to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... get even with me it would be necessary for them to make certain incriminating admissions, and to call certain evidence that would entail caustic remarks from a learned judge, and would not improbably lead to a charge of murder being preferred against them. No, Mr. Fairfax, I know my own business, and, what is better, I know theirs. If they like to take fifty thousand pounds, and will retire into obscurity upon it, I will pay it to them, always through you. But I won't see either of them, and ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... production of cultivated pecans is still slight in comparison with that of the wild product or with cultivated walnuts and almonds of the Pacific Coast. Just now, however, a great many of the orchards, planted this century, are beginning to bear and not improbably the production of cultivated pecans will soon eclipse that of the forest product, and before long will overhaul the lead now held by ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... a moment. He had got his wife. The marriage could not be undone. Mr. Wharton had money enough for them all, and would not certainly discard his daughter. Mr. Wharton could place him on a really firm footing, and might not improbably do so if he could be made to feel some confidence in his son-in-law. At this moment there was much doubt with the son-in-law whether he had better not tell the simple truth. "It has gone in by degrees," he said. "Altogether I have had about L8000 in it." In truth he had ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... bulky as the 'Transactions of the Royal Society' might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations of the Schoolmen; not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy"; but though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley
... John de Walton against the minions of a court, to be a wise and generous choice, and her own behaviour as alike candid and noble. But she herself is not unlikely to dread unjust misconstruction; a fear of which may not improbably induce her, upon any occasion, to seize some opportunity of showing an unwonted and unusual rigour towards her lover, in order to balance her having extended towards him, in the beginning of their intercourse, somewhat of an unusual degree of frank encouragement. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... improbably handsome young man looked back at her. Startling dark-blue eyes; a strong chin, curly brown hair. There was a gleam of white teeth behind the quick, warm smile which always awoke ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... are," Geoffrey said quietly, "I shall share them with you. Your kindness has saved me from what at best might have been imprisonment for life, and not improbably would have been torture and death at the hands of the Inquisition, and I am certainly not going to withdraw myself from you now when you are entering upon what is undoubtedly a very dangerous adventure. If we escape from Spain ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... political oaths. The most ordinary sumpahan is a kris, and on the blade of this they sometimes drop lime-juice, which occasions a stain on the lips of the person performing the ceremony; a circumstance that may not improbably be supposed to make an impression on a weak and guilty mind. Such would fancy that the external stain conveyed to the beholders an image of the internal. At Manna the sumpahan most respected is a gun barrel. When produced ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... have the fruits of rebellion brought home to you; a brother wounded and a prisoner, and perhaps a victim; your father distressed, his privacy interrupted, and not improbably his estates torn from him, on account of his loyalty ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... term of office he invited the republics to send representatives to Washington to discuss arbitration, but his successor in office feared that such a meeting of "a partial group of our friends" might offend Europe, which indeed was not improbably part of Blaine's intention. On resuming office, Blaine finally arranged the meeting of a Pan-American Congress in the United States. Chosen to preside, he presented an elaborate program, including a plan for arbitrating disputes; commercial reciprocity; the establishment of uniform weights ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... brute force than the men of to-day. These skeletons, or parts of skeletons, are turning up every year, and we are just beginning to know much about them. Capable men are studying them with much care. The next fifty years may not improbably make the history of the ascent of man as clear as is now that of the horse, to ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... party consists largely of herself. She is a power, but at present no one can say with whom she will ally herself. Hitherto she has been simply anti-Richelieu, and was his most troublesome and bitter enemy; and I should say that not improbably she will at once begin to conspire against Mazarin as she did against him. She has been the queen's greatest ally; but then the queen was always a bitter enemy of Richelieu, whereas at present it is supposed that she is ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... modified by education; that they would probably fail to be developed in any individual without at least so much education as is required to furnish the needful intellectual conceptions on which they are founded; or that we may not improbably trace their origin, as Mr. Spencer traces it, to a primitive mode of interpreting dreams. For even in view of all these considerations the fact remains that these instincts exist, and therefore, like all other instincts, may ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... men at your disposal, and you can take with you Amuba and Jethro. He will see that there are slaves to carry provisions and tents, for it will be necessary for much of your sport that you rise early, and not improbably you may have to sleep close ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... at four doses in the day, or even at two, instead of taking it all together. Kate promised to try again, but stated her conviction that the trial would be useless. The doctor, when pressed on the matter, said that his patient might probably live a week, not improbably a fortnight,—perhaps a month, if he would be obedient,—and so forth. Gogram went away without seeing Kate; and Kate, who looked upon a will as an awful and somewhat tedious ceremony, was in doubt whether her grandfather would live to complete any new operation. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... time when she had come into the kind hands of Mr. and Mrs. Burton, and the fact that she was a very indistinct talker at the time. The entire story, too, seemed to correspond so well—why should he not admit it?—with what might not improbably have been the history of his little Marian; and Marian would be, at that time, about the same age as was Miss Owen when she was found by the friends whose adopted child she became. But the solitary shoe! He wondered whether it was still in her possession. He would ask her in the morning. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... "Possibly—very improbably, mind, still possibly—when Millicent comes of age and learns who she is, Mrs. Cunningham may be able to help you. I have no idea whether it is so. I have never spoken to her about this treasure of George's, ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... treaties and our warlike operations—are not looked upon as the work of the Government, but as that of Palmerston alone—Palmerston, in some degree, as contradistinguished from the Government. All this confers upon him a vast importance, and enables him, neither unreasonably nor improbably, to aspire to head and direct any Government that may hereafter be formed by a dissolution and ...
— 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
... Woman's Prize," improbably assigned to 1604, the whole play is imitated from "The Taming of the Shrew,"—is in fact an attempted sequel to it, and Professor Thorndike wanders from chronology to indulge a sneer, by the remark that "The Woman's Prize" was "very well liked," the "Taming ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... friend Kelly in an ivied bower, lost in a cigar, and possibly, though improbably, in improving meditation, he is careful not to disturb him, but, making a successful detour, escapes his notice, and turns his face towards that part of Coole that is connected with Moyne by means ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... statement to this effect. At the same time the fire that has been kept burning by the coffin is allowed to die out. To the coffin, which is shaped roughly like a boat, two small wooden figures are attached — a figure of a woman at the head, a male figure at its foot. These figures are not improbably a vestige of a bygone custom of killing slaves, whose souls would row the boat of the dead man on his journey to the other world. This interpretation is borne out by the fact that a live fowl is usually tied to ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... relative size and situation of different countries, yet occasionally there appeared maps which corrected some long established error, or supplied some new information; and even the errors of the maps, in some cases, not improbably held out inducements or hopes, which would not otherwise have been entertained and realized, as we have already remarked, after D'Anville, that the greatest of Ptolemy's errors proved eventually the efficient cause which led to the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... entered in his diary, "The Lord Keeper, who not long since was privately married to Mrs. Clavering of the bishoprick of Durham, brought her home this day." Mr. Foss, in his 'Judges of England,' suggests that the concealment of the union "may not improbably be explained by the Lord Keeper's desire not to disturb the last days of his father, who might perhaps have been disappointed that the selection had not fallen on some other lady to whom he had wished his son to be united." But this conjecture, notwithstanding ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the bishop, and sneaking out of the room, he went down stairs, troubled in his mind as to how he should receive the archdeacon on the morrow. He felt himself not very well just at present; and began to consider that he might, not improbably, be detained in his room the next morning by an attack of bile. He was, unfortunately, very subject to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... above the middle size, spare, and raw-boned; his face very red, his features sharp and bluish, and his age might be about sixty. His attire savoured a good deal of the SHABBY-GENTEEL; his clothes, which had much of tarnished and faded pretension about them, did not fit him, and had not improbably fluttered in the stalls of Plunket Street. We had risen on his entrance, and O'Connor had twice requested of him to take a chair at the table, without his hearing, or at least noticing, the invitation; while with a slow pace, and with an air of mingled importance and effrontery, he advanced into ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... possibly first suggested by a mistake—for the second choir to commence before the first had ceased; thus producing a fugue. With the simple airs then in use, a partially-harmonious fugue might not improbably thus result: and a very partially-harmonious fugue satisfied the ears of that age, as we know from still preserved examples. The idea having once been given, the composing of airs productive of fugal harmony would naturally grow up, as in some way it did grow up, out of this alternate choir-singing. ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... decorous hour, so that they left the Castle long before their rivals, the Cavaliers, had reached the springtide of their merriment; an arrangement which afforded the greatest satisfaction to the lady, who dreaded the consequences which might not improbably have taken place, had both parties met at the same period and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... that some account of the voyage out, in the shape of excerpts from the letters of the devoted ladies who themselves accompanied our Arabs across the Atlantic, may prove interesting; while, at the same time, a calculation of their probable success in their new life and homes may not improbably stimulate those who cannot give their time, to give at least their countenance, and it may be, their material aid, to a scheme which recommends itself to all our sympathies—the permanent reclamation of the little homeless ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies |
