"Incredulity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will; and in a certain general sense, all things are working together for good to those that love God. But when some simple-minded, childlike Christian really proceeds to refer all the smaller events of life to God's immediate care and agency, there is a smile of incredulity, and it is thought that the good brother displays more Christian ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the unfortunate girl whom his destiny had marked out for his prey. He was right in foreseeing that, after the first amazement caused by the letter of Maltravers, Evelyn would feel resentment crushed beneath her certainty of his affection her incredulity at his self-accusations, and her secret conviction that some reverse, some misfortune he was unwilling she should share, was the occasion of his farewell and flight. Vargrave therefore very soon communicated to Evelyn the tale he had ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... country, when she was overawed by his acquaintance, at first, she was not very deeply overawed, and at times she was not overawed at all. At such times she astonished him by taking his most solemn histrionics with flippant incredulity, and even burlesquing them. But he could see, all the same, that he had caught her fancy, and he admired the skill with which she punished his neglect when they met in New York. He had really come very near forgetting the Leightons; the intangible ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... consequences of resistance. Their tyranny had no other limit than their own caprice. To whom shall the unfortunate felon appeal? To what purpose complain, when his complaints are sure to be received with incredulity? A tale of mutiny and necessary precaution is the unfailing refuge of the keeper, and this tale is an ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... lifted the shadow of her big garden sun-bonnet—and then he stiffened suddenly and grew very pale. He was a little behind the other two, and they observed nothing, but Sabine saw the change of color in his healthy handsome face, and the look of surprise and incredulity and puzzle which grew in his ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... incredulity that played upon the features of his questioner, Wilcox reiterated, with an air ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Recognizing, therefore, that in this cultivated age a wall of scepticism and cynicism is gradually being built up by intellectual thinkers of every nation against all that treats of the Supernatural and Unseen, I am aware that my narration of the events I have recently experienced will be read with incredulity. At a time when the great empire of the Christian Religion is being assailed, or politely ignored by governments and public speakers and teachers, I realize to the fullest extent how daring is any attempt to prove, even by a plain history of strange occurrences happening to one's self, the actual ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... San Salvatore at Venice, we come to the Annunciation in the same church with the signature "Titianus fecit fecit," added by the master, if we are to credit the legend, in indignation that those who commissioned the canvas should have shown themselves dissatisfied even to the point of expressing incredulity as to his share in the performance. Some doubt has been cast upon this story, which may possibly have been evolved on the basis of the peculiar signature. It is at variance with Vasari's statement that ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... was an Athenian; but the atheist Diagoras, known as 'the enemy of the gods' hailed from the island of Melos. Strepsiades, crediting Socrates with the same incredulity, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... obvious incredulity, for Mr. Tomkins declared that no other chimney-pot in the United Kingdom, broken or unbroken, could be so beautiful as the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... man (no matter how nominally), too much sunning appeared reprehensible. He had also arranged for the sunning of Clem Sypher, and was aware of the indelicacy of two going through this delicious process at the same time. He also dreaded the possible incredulity of Zora when he should urge the ferociousness of his domestic demeanor as the reason for his living apart from his wife. The consequence was that after a sleepless night he bolted like a rabbit to his burrow at Nunsmere. At any rate, the mission of ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... afresh, and the girls began to look askance at Pixie, and to feel the first incredulity give place to a horrible doubt. Why wouldn't she speak? Why did she look so guilty? Why need she have been so alarmed at the first mention of the accident if she had no part in bringing it about? Margaret held out her hand with an involuntary gesture of appeal, and Pixie, seeing it, shut ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... restored and extended his patent, Evans felt that better days were ahead, but, as said already, he was too far ahead of his time to be understood and appreciated. Incredulity, prejudice, and opposition were his portion as long as he lived. Nevertheless, he went on building good engines and had the satisfaction of seeing them in extensive use. His life came to an end ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... are the politics of hope as his poetry is the poetry of hope. Europe did not adopt his politics in the generation that followed the Napoleonic Wars, and the result is we have had an infinitely more terrible war a hundred years later. Every generation rejects Shelley; it prefers incredulity to hope, fear to joy, obedience to common sense, and is surprised when the logic of its common sense turns out to be a tragedy such as even the wildest orgy of idealism could not have produced. Shelley must, no doubt, still seem a shocking poet to an age in which the limitation ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... established: no physician adopted it; and when at length it was received, one party attempted to rob Harvey of the honour of the discovery, while another asserted that it was so obvious, that they could only express their astonishment that it had ever escaped observation. Incredulity and envy are the evil spirits which have often dogged great inventors to their tomb, and there only have vanished.—But I seem writing the "calamities of authors," and have only ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... mistress to live in his home, and compelled his wife to wait upon her, was not committing cruelty within the meaning of the English law. I heard Sylvia's exclamation of horror, and met her stare of incredulity; and then suddenly I thought of Claire, and a little chill ran over me. It was a difficult hour, in more ways than one, that of my first talk with ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... inquiries must be allowed to be, to a large extent, negative. In many quarters, where thirty or forty years ago we should certainly have found acquiescence, honest if dull, in the received religious systems of Europe, we now discern incredulity, more or less far-reaching, about "revealed religion" altogether, and, at the best, "faint possible Theism," in the place of old-fashioned orthodoxy. And earnest men, content to bear as best they may their own burden of doubt and disappointment, ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... consequence of such well-directed incredulity, Storran accompanied Gillian to Dover and thence ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... could find a reply another "Coo-ee" reached them, followed quickly by some words that were blurred by the distance. Seth started. The voice had a curiously familiar sound. He glanced at Rube, and the old man's face wore a look of grinning incredulity. ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... stranger, he was jealous. People like Jacques and the Fool in Lear, although we can hardly imagine they would ever marry, keep single out of a cynical humour or for a broken heart, and not, as we do nowadays, from a spirit of incredulity and preference for the single state. For that matter, if you turn to George Sand's French version of As You Like It (and I think I can promise you will like it but little), you will find Jacques marries Celia ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the field's edge, bore her thither, laid her with care on the cushions, kissed her hand: and this act Frankl saw—with incredulity of his own eyes. As ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... return of the Polos long after they had been given up for dead, the subsequent adventures of Marco Polo, the incredulity with which his book of travels was received, the gradual and slow confirmation of the truth of his reports as later explorations penetrated the mysterious Orient, and the fact that he may be justly ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... was: "This girl is not flesh and blood; she is made of curds and whey, or something else;" the second was: "No, she is a shade hypocriticaler than other girls—before they are married, that is all;" and, acting on this latter conviction, she smiled a lofty incredulity, and fell to counting on her fingers all ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... chest—broken open! This is a fine state of things!" I hastened to lay the blame where it belonged—on Francois and his wife—and found I had made things worse instead of better. She repeated the names at first with incredulity, then with despair. A while she seemed stunned, next fell to disembowelling the box, piling the goods on the floor, and visibly computing the extent of Francois's ravages; and presently after she ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discrepancy. This is the state of the case as between the German people, including the Intellectuals, and the peoples against whom their preconceptions of national destiny have arrayed them. And the many vivid expressions of consternation, abhorrence and incredulity that have come out of this community of Intellectuals in the course of the past two years of trial and error, bear sufficient testimony to the rigorous constraint which these German preconceptions and their logic exercise ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the question with the savants aboard the Ark, and, despite their incredulity, he persisted in his opinion. He could not be shaken, either, in his belief that the first land to emerge would be the Himalayas, the Pamirs, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... slang expression, used to express incredulity. It has somewhat the same meaning as the slang phrase heard in the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Lee still affected incredulity, and was with difficulty brought to order that the whole squadron should be mustered, to see if any of them were missing. This done, there was no longer room for doubt or delay. Champe, the sergeant-major, was gone, and with him his ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... so much kinder and more lovable than ever yours was," was the answering thought in Lucilla's mind, but unwilling to hurt the dear lady's feelings she refrained from expressing it, and only said with a little laugh of incredulity, "I suppose I should not be too certain, but I am entirely willing to run the risk of ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... I do believe,) the solemn prediction of my LORD, that at the consummation of all things, "The Sun shall be darkened, and the Moon shall not give her light, and the Stars shall fall from Heaven[283]:"—shall it move me to incredulity, if God tells me, that six thousand years ago it was His Divine pleasure that the same phenomenon should prevail for a season? Surely,—(I say to myself,)—surely this is He "which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which shaketh the Earth out of her place, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Father," said Mora, leaning upon the table, her face framed in her hands, and looking with knitted brows at the Bishop; "it almost seems to me that you regard the entire vision with a measure of secret incredulity." ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy she was hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade. He spoke of the beauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise, and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently became condemnatory. They told him there were indeed no mountains at all, but that the end of the rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end of the world; thence sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the dew and the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... frantic cables your box reached here safely, but it has not reached me. Picture if you can my amazed incredulity yesterday to see an exact replica of myself as I once was, walking on the dock. I rubbed my eyes and stared. Yes, it was my purple gown. My first impulse was to jerk it off the culprit, but I decided on more diplomatic tactics. ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... your incredulity. That is why I seek the truth from you rather than from the columns of a newspaper. And you owe me this truth. You ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... and not once during the night did he think of sleep. At his little table in the light of his coal-oil lamp he read over and over the hurried words which Winifred Waverly had been driven to put on paper for him. At first his look was merely charged with perplexity; then there came into it incredulity ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... have almost taken to William," said his mother, with a note of unflattering incredulity ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... says that if any man will say he desires before belief to behold such a creature as is the Rukh in Paulus Venetus, for his own part he will not be angry with his incredulity. But M. Pauthier is of more liberal belief; for he considers that, after all, the dimensions which Marco assigns to the wings and quills of the Rukh are not so extravagant that we should refuse to admit ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... inquiringly, thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeply moved to speak. She was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked by the profundity of his gaze upon her. Her heart stood still and gave a great leap. Chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment and incredulity. An hour before he had never seen her, had never heard of her—and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbed in herself, indifferent. How could he in ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... in all the towns of Galilee. Not only did incredulous Nazareth continue to reject him who was to become her glory; not only did his brothers persist in not believing in him,[1] but the cities of the lake themselves, in general well-disposed, were not all converted. Jesus often complained of the incredulity and hardness of heart which he encountered, and although it is natural that in such reproaches we make allowance for the exaggeration of the preacher, although we are sensible of that kind of convicium seculi which Jesus affected in imitation of John the Baptist,[2] it is clear that ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... admonitions of his retainer with incredulity, though not with any degree of disdain. He knew the devotedness of the old Indian, and therefore treated, what he considered a mere superstition, with a show of respect. But he felt an inclination to cure Guapo ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... in many and divers places." Possibly the fact that the addercop is so infrequent an invader of our modern life accounts for the fact that we are left inert upon reading so surprising a statement; or possibly our incredulity dominates our awe. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... narrative will be received: with entire incredulity, but I think it well that the public should be put in possession of the facts narrated in "An Antarctic Mystery." The public is free to believe them or not, at ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... at once straight to the exaggeration which is the sure forerunner of defeat in the sort of a conflict which was engaging her. "Are you feeling any worse?" she cried in a despairing incredulity which was instantly marked as inhumanly unfilial by the scared revulsion on her face as well as Mrs. Emery's pale glare of horror. "Oh, I didn't mean that!" she cried, running to her mother; "I'm sorry, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... use of their faculties, Cadwallader, assuming a double portion of severity in his aspect, asked if they were not ashamed of their former incredulity; declaring, that he was ready to give them more convincing proofs of his art upon the spot, and would immediately recall three generations of their progenitors from the dead, if they were disposed to relish such company. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... "and we have been blaming that girl! She helped her brother to get back to college!" The voice reeked with dismay and incredulity. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... years ago the prophet Jeremiah expressed incredulity as to the power of an Ethiopian to change his skin or a leopard his spots. The march of the centuries has fully justified the seer's historic doubt, so it makes but slight demand on the critical faculties to assume that two years' residence in Europe had not cooled the hot southern ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... writing upon it, both on the handle and along the shaft—writing that, as it shaped itself before my eyes, caused them to stare in wrathful incredulity, caused my heart to sink at first in dismay and then to swell in mad indignation, caused my blood to turn to gall and my thoughts to very bitterness. For this was what ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... morning, the Marquis de Bruyeres was astir, and went to look up de Sigognae, whom he found in his own room, in order to regulate with him the conditions of the duel. The baron asked him to take with him, in case of incredulity, or refusal of his challenge, on the duke's part, the old deeds and ancient parchments, to which large seals were suspended, the commissions of various sorts with royal signatures in faded ink, the genealogical tree of the de Sigognacs, and in ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... believed on his private authority, and that is why the ungodly doubt him; so when a man, as a token of the communion which he has with God, raises the dead, foretells the future, removes the seas, heals the sick, there is none so wicked as not to bow to him, and the incredulity of Pharaoh and the Pharisees is the ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... shared with him, but which he found, as he stood at the cupboard at Alnwick, had come to Mrs Bowes in the same form, and even in the same words? As it happens, we can answer with great certainty. It was a temptation to infidelity or 'incredulity': the adversary 'would cause you abhor that, and hate it, wherein stands only salvation and life,' viz., the name, as well as the whole message, of Jesus Christ. So it is put in this letter; and in others, apparently ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... be arrayed with the whites or be neutral, stifling all thoughts of being of service to my wronged people, because my life belies it. But I am sincere, Silas; believe me," and Molly reached over and laid her hand upon the arm of Mr. Wingate, whose look betrayed his incredulity. "In spite of the lowliness of my birth, and the life I have chosen, some good remains in me." She went on: "My fair complexion and life of ease have not made me forget that I am identified with the oppressed and despised." "Thank God! thank God!" said Mr. Wingate, ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... for definite localities, turning hither and thither, or alighting on the earth according to the will of a steersman—we confess to a feeling which is apt to wrinkle our visage with the smile of incredulity; but we sternly rebuke the smile, for we know that similar smiles wreathed the faces of exceedingly wise people when, in former days, it was proposed to drive ships and coaches by steam, and hold instantaneous converse with our friends across the ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... to think of Flora's father except, as in some sort, the captive of his triumph. He turned to the mental contemplation of the white, delicate and appealing face with great blue eyes which he had seen weep and wonder and look profoundly at him, sometimes with incredulity, sometimes with doubt and pain, but always irresistible in the power to find their way right into his breast, to stir there a deep response which was something more than love—he said to himself,—as men understand it. More? Or was it only something other? Yes. It was something other. More ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... least, and whenever a man lowered his voice and started in with, "You see those girls over there? Well, their grandfather was an American—" I steeled myself for what was to follow, and expressed surprise and interest as politely as possible, for it is hard to attain conventional incredulity over a twice-told tale. After the genealogy of the family had been gone over, root and branch, we would invariably be told the story of how the grandfather, grown rich and prosperous in his island home, once went to Manila on a business trip. He had then lived in ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... list, murmuring the names aloud and nodding approval at each. But when she came to the last name, she did not utter it. She cast a black glance at Rachel, and a spark leaped up in the depths of the pale eyes. On her face were anger, amazement, incredulity, the last predominating. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... which occupied him as he went along, very little disposed to mind how often the puzzled driver halted to decide the road, or how frequently he retraced miles of distance. Men of the world, especially when young in life, and more realistic than they will be twenty years later, proud of the incredulity they can feel on the score of everything and everybody, are often fond of making themselves heroes to their own hearts of some little romance, which shall not cost them dearly to indulge in, and merely ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Hastings said. "There is no accounting for love and its vagaries. Perhaps to her he is clothed in the rosy glow of romance, and all the inconveniences of her life are forgotten. I have read of it," she added in explanation, when she noticed Mrs. Trenton's look of incredulity. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... expressed incredulity. "You must be wrong. Why, the young woman wouldn't even accept the reward. And it was not ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... "devouring ideas distilled through a bald forehead;" of a "lover's enwrapping his mistress in the wadding of his attentions;" of "abortions in which the spawn of genius cumbers an arid strand;" of the "philosophic moors of incredulity;" of a "town troubled in its ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... said the other in tones in which surprise seemed mingled with a certain incredulity. "It don't seem possible, but for sure, then, he don't come from these here parts, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... quick-firing field-guns, eight machine-guns, 1021 rifles and a quantity of ammunition, etc. The moral result of this battle can hardly be overestimated. It had never been seriously believed in Europe that a Russian army could be conquered by a Japanese in a fair fight, and probably that incredulity influenced Kuropatkin when he ordered Sassulitch to defy strategical principles by attempting to hold a radically defective position against a greatly superior force. In a moment, the Japanese were crowned with ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... face expressed surprise and incredulity, rather than anger, and Eunice's voice was gentle. In such a mood, she was even more attractive than in ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... much impressed. If scorn, or anger, or incredulity had confronted her, she would have held to her intentions; but this alarm and grief at least had the merit of allowing all importance to the affair, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to their talk. It amused me to hear the malicious little stories they told of their best friends who were absent, to note the spiteful little digs they gave their best friends who were present, to watch the utter incredulity with which they listened to the tale of some other woman's conquests, the radiant good faith they displayed in connection with their own, the instant collapse into boredom, if some topic of so-called general interest, by some extraordinary chance, were introduced." "You ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... innumerable memorials of denunciation, having attempted to proceed against the author and publishers of the pamphlet, as well as against the Society, had been forced to leave the capital under threats against his life, the document was accepted at its face- value. Almost with a gasp of incredulity China at last realized that Yuan Shih-kai had been seduced to the point of openly attempting to make himself Emperor. From those August days of 1915 until the 6th June of the succeeding year, when Fate had her own grim revenge, Peking was given up to one of the most amazing ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... century. The one, seeking for the history and transformations of the physical earth, and the other, aiming to discover the antiquity, differences of race, and social and ethnical development of man, have obtained results which we cannot regard without amazement and more or less incredulity. The two sciences have been faithful handmaidens the one to the other; but geology has always led the way, and archaeology has been competed to follow in ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... imagination, it was boldly answered that the cure took place when the wounded party did not know of the application made to the weapon, and even when a brute animal was the subject of the experiment, and that this assertion, as we all know it was, came in such a shape as to shake the incredulity of the keenest thinker of his time. The very same assertion has been since repeated in favor of Perkinism, and, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... strong tendency to the censorious. For in their circle, not only were the claims of respectability silently admitted, but the conduct of this and that man of their acquaintance, or of public note, was pronounced upon with understood reference to those claims—now with smile of incredulity or pity, now with headshake regretful or condemnatory—and this all the time that each was doing his best to reduce himself to a condition in which the word conduct could no longer have meaning ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... over his in spasmodic incredulity and saw the stunned look in her eyes, but she only said steadily, "Go on ... I knows ye hed ter do ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... yielded the most passive obedience to the laws, though they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new motives could urge the Roman ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and almost as indelibly and quite as painfully upon school-boy memory, to be sponged out at a blow, like chalk from a blackboard? We, at least, cling fondly to our Tarquins; we shudder when the abyss of historic incredulity swallows up the familiar form of Mettus Curtius; we refuse to be weaned from the she-wolf of Romulus. Your unbelieving Guy Faux, who approaches the stately superstructures of history, not to gaze ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... will doubtless at first sight cause a smile of incredulity, and will be regarded by many as one of the devices which are sometimes put forward to entrap an unsuspecting public into the perusal of a ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... incredulity. "Refuse! oh Heaven, and this means life or death to those men! They cannot appear on the streets to-night ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... very substance of the mummied flesh, were impressed a figure of the crucified Christ, the scourge, and the five stigmata. The guardian's faith in this miraculous witness to her sainthood, the gentle piety of the men and women who knelt before it, checked all expressions of incredulity. We abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... receive with incredulity a statement of the number of birds that annually visit our climate. Very few even are aware of half the number that spend the summer in their own immediate vicinity. We little suspect, when we walk in the woods, whose privacy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... that human things may not prejudice such as are divine; neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity, or intellectual night, may arise in our minds toward ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... corroborating testimony. My unknown friend evidently divined all that was passing in my mind, for she observed, "I perceive that my recital appears to you improbable; one particular which I will state may perhaps overcome your incredulity. Are you not in the habit, madam, of taking every evening mixed with a large proportion of orange- flower water?" "I am," replied I. "This day," continued my informant, "you will receive four bottles of ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... in a letter written on his third voyage, pays an honest, heartfelt tribute to the effectual patronage which he experienced from the queen. "In the midst of the general incredulity," says he, "the Almighty infused into the queen, my lady, the spirit of intelligence and energy; and, whilst every one else, in his ignorance, was expatiating only on the inconvenience and cost, her Highness approved it, on ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... doubt, of incredulity bordering upon feeble indignation, settled upon the serrated countenance. But Blanchard only shook his head as ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... strangeness of my adventures will be so apt to breed incredulity among those unacquainted with my character, that I add some certificates from the highest names ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... her mother had been one of those devout Roman Catholics who think it necessary to consult their confessor, even in regard to the most trivial details of their daily existence. Placed as she had been between her parents' incredulity and bigotry, my aunt had formed opinions of her own, of which a profound tolerance and a deep respect for the beliefs and convictions of others was the principal feature. She never condemned even when she did not approve, and she hated hypocrisy, no matter in what shape or aspect it presented ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... thought, essential to the durability of these associations, that they should have become so intense and inveterate as to be practically indissoluble, before the habitual exercise of the power of analysis had commenced. For I now saw, or thought I saw, what I had always before received with incredulity —that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and correctives. ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... mingled grief, surprise, and incredulity from Paul interrupted her at this point, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... at each hearing; but being mostly an imitator, he never approaches the serene beauty and sublimity of the hermit thrush. The word that best expresses my feelings, on hearing the mockingbird, is admiration, though the first emotion is one of surprise and incredulity. That so many and such various notes should proceed from one throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with feelings akin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats of the athlete or gymnast,—and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Bacchus! since you have no wife or household to fetter your fancies, it would not surprise me were you to succumb to her wiles, and to make of her your wife. You may recline there and smile with incredulity; but such things have been done before this, and by men who would not condescend to look upon one in your poor station. Yes, I will wager that, in the end, you will make of her your wife. Well, it would be no harm to you. She will then deceive you, of course; but what of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mingled surprise, chagrin and incredulity the knight reined in his horse, exclaiming as he ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tells a true story. To allege an authority is with him to prove a fact, and to cite all writers who repeat the original source is to render truth impregnable. Rarely does he show any symptom of the modern malady of incredulity. Scripta littera is reason enough, unless the fair fame of his city chances to be at stake. He was really learned, and I do wrong to seem to diminish his authority. He was a patient investigator of manuscripts, and did important service to Sicilian history. The simplicity ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... theology. Man had learned enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not enough to found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect and the heart. "Wherefore we are not to be surprised that the grand philosophic period should be followed by one of incredulity and moral collapse, inaugurating the long and universal decadence which was, perhaps, as necessary to the work of preparation, as was the period of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Bechuanas. Of this method for wantonly destroying animal life, practised by many of the native African tribes, the hunters had often heard. The many stories which they had been told of the wholesale destruction of game by poison, and which they had treated with incredulity, after all, had not been exaggerated. They estimated the number of dead antelopes lying within a circumference of a mile, at not less than two hundred. One of the water-holes of the chain by which they had halted, had been poisoned. A herd of antelopes had quenched their ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... away. When I found myself face to face with her, and no one else there, I could not say a word of my confession. I realised what would be her dismay, her indignation, and worst of all, I feared her incredulity. She would assuredly speak to John when she went home, and all my pride revolted at the thought. So I let ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... crew couldn't vanish completely?" Benito's tone held puzzled incredulity. "There would ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... of those original and startling calculations to which the House was soon to become accustomed from his lips. They were received at first with astonishment and incredulity; but they were never impugned. The fact is, he was extremely cautious in his data, and no man was more accustomed ever to impress upon his friends the extreme expediency of not over-stating a case. It should ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... amused incredulity all round the table interrupted the General; and while they lasted he stroked his ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... hey? Humph! I wish I might have heard it. But, Gertie," his incredulity not entirely crushed, "it wasn't ALL make-believe; all of it couldn't have been. Even Zuba, she got the advancin' craziness. She joined ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of silence followed Micky's broken confession. He dared not look at Esther, though she was staring at him, staring hard, with a curious sort of wonderment in her grey eyes. Then all at once she began to laugh, a laugh which held no real mirth, only incredulity. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... business is not threatened by civil disorders. They think the reconstruction question is practically settled, and when you speak to them of plots such as are now hatching in Washington, and which seem as preposterous as the story of a sensational novel, their incredulity confirms them in the notion that it is safe to allow things to take their course. Their very good sense makes them blind to the designs of such a Bobadil-Cromwell as Andrew Johnson. The great body of the Republican party, indeed, shows at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... indeed? My dear man, are you mad? She would simply be amazed, struck dumb, by your presumption. I can see from here her incredulity—I can see the scorn with which she would wither you. It has never dimly occurred to her as conceivable that you would venture to be in love with her, that you would dare to lift your eyes to her—you who are nothing, to her who is all. Yes—nothing, nobody. In her view, you are just a harmless nobody, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... reached the gate, and Eve turned facing him. There was a curious look in her eyes. It was almost one of relief. Yet it was not quite. There was something else in it. There was incredulity, resentment; something which suggested a whole world of trust and confidence in ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... I replied with polite incredulity; 'I really don't know to what particular period of time the phrase "in those days" may be ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... stop himself, he had laughed. For an instant it struck him like mirth in a tomb, an unpleasant, soulless sort of mirth, for his laugh had in it a jarring incredulity, a mocking lack of faith in himself. What right had he to enter into a world like that? Why, even now, his legs ached because of his exertion in furrowing through a few hundred steps of ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... her with absorbed attention. She seemed to accept the idea of an elixir of youth without any incredulity, and did not find anything extraordinary in the fact of its discovery. In that respect, I fancied, she was typical of a large class of women—that class that thinks a doctor is a magician, or should be. But when Sarakoff said that the whole world ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... men, who made it current. Now and then a soft-hearted and chivalrous male would observe indulgently of some village beauty, "I shouldn't wonder a mite if she could 'a' had Bill for the askin'"; but this opinion would be met by such a chorus of feminine incredulity that its author generally withdrew it ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... morning to confess. I need not tell you how deeply the Church is touched by such zeal, how thankful she is to those who give her this consolation and who pay her this homage in these sad times of demoralization and incredulity. We are drawn towards young men who set such a good example and who are so willing to do what is right, and we are always ready to give them what help we can and to use any influence that we may have in certain ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... frightened than before after this outburst, but Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... actor in a fine part that, in spite of the vehemence of his emotion, his silence might have been the deliberate pause for a replique. Undine kept him waiting long enough to give the effect of having lost her cue—then she brought out, with a little soft stare of incredulity: "Do you mean to say you're going to refuse such ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... indeed one farther condition of incredulity attainable, and sorrowfully attained, by many men of powerful intellect—the incredulity, namely, of inspiration in any sense, or of help given by any Divine power to the thoughts of men. But this form of infidelity merely indicates a natural incapacity for receiving ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... suspicion of incredulity, and merely suggested languidly, that—bar the matrimonial suggestion—the programme was an excellent one, and might well be carried out. Young Ronald being of the same opinion, he was soon installed at Overdene, and had what he afterwards ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... of herself. No doubt it was something about that money which people thought so interesting. Meanwhile Mr Waters went on steadily with what he had to say, not sparing them a word of the preamble; and it was not till ten minutes later that Lucy started up with a sudden cry of incredulity and wonder, and repeated his last words. "His son!—whose son?" cried Lucy. She looked all round her, not knowing whom to appeal to in her sudden consternation. "We never had a brother," said the child of Mr Wodehouse's old age; "it must ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that she ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... there are tints approaching to brightness. Notwithstanding this family likeness in colour, any person, not an ornithologist, looking at a collection of specimens comprising many genera, would hear with surprise and almost incredulity that they all belonged to one family, so great is the diversity exhibited in their structure. In size they vary from species smaller than the golden-crested wren to others larger than the woodcock; but the differences in size are as nothing compared with those shown in the ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... of Africa, they cannot conceive of the possibility of a Christian coming so far from home into The Desert, and when I tell them I wish to go to Soudan, or Bornou, or Timbuctoo, they look at me with incredulity and say, "No, no, you cannot go so far, you will die, or the people will kill you." They have not the least idea of the courage and enterprise of European tourists, nor can they understand their objects. But these their objections may be founded in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... "Why, father!" Incredulity heightened the boyishness in Peter's tone. James Thorold wheeled around until he faced him. "Peter," he said huskily, "there's something you'll have to know before I go to Forsland—if ever I go to Forsland. You'll have ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... from it as too fatiguing—and also as superfluous; since, if the proofs had satisfied the compatriots of Catalina, who came to the investigation with hostile feelings of partisanship, and not dissembling their incredulity,—armed also (and in Mr. de Ferrer's case conspicuously armed) with the appropriate learning for giving effect to this incredulity,—it could not become a stranger to suppose himself qualified for disturbing a judgment that had been so deliberately delivered. Such a tribunal of native Spaniards ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Paoli's character which I present to my readers with caution, knowing how much it may be ridiculed in an age when mankind are so fond of incredulity, that they seem to pique themselves in contracting their circle of belief as much as possible. But I consider this infidel rage as but a temporary mode of the human understanding, and am well persuaded that e'er long we shall return to a ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... Tuyn looked at him without speaking. Her expression showed intense astonishment, amounting almost to incredulity. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... with the thermometer between eighty and ninety, impress one with a kind of awe. "What regions must they be," thought I to myself, "thus sealed up in eternal snows, while the country at their feet lies scorching in the very fire!" A shadow of incredulity mingled itself with my reflections. On the whole, I bought ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... down on the wharf and watched his friend and the fisherman. They were sufficiently near for him to note the expressions upon their faces, and when he saw the blank look of wonder and incredulity that suddenly came over Dirk's coarse features, he suspected that Noll ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... than our forefathers. The disillusion has struck our self-complacency in its most vital spot. Nothing in our own experience had prepared us for the hideous savagery and vandalism of German warfare, the first accounts of which we received with blank amazement and incredulity. Then, when disbelief was no longer possible, there awoke within us a sense of fear for our homes and women and children—feeling to which modern civilised man had long been a stranger. We had not supposed that the non-combatant population of any European country would ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... completed his fourteenth year, his stature was so tall and athletic as to give him the appearance of a young giant; and on being asked his age at the police office, that it might be inserted in his passport, his reply was received with a smile of astonishment and incredulity, which afforded much subsequent amusement to his elder fellow travellers. At the age of sixteen his strength and activity were so great, that few men could have stood up against him with any chance of success. On his return to Guernsey, every interest ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... related the manner in which we had regained the possession of the Dawn. The two English officers listened attentively, and I could discern a smile of incredulity on the countenance of Clements; while the captain of the Speedy seemed far from satisfied—though he was not so much disposed to let his ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... reached 200,000, produced a terrifying impression on the troops. From that moment prisoners no longer declared themselves sure of success. For a certain time they had been consoled by the announcement of the capture of Warsaw. This pretended success having proved to be fictitious, incredulity ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... added to her tale, in resentment of her mistress's extreme and obstinate incredulity. She was instantly alarmed, however, by the effect which her news produced upon her young lady, an effect rendered doubly violent by the High-church principles and prejudices in which Miss Bellenden had been educated. Her complexion became as pale as a corpse, her respiration ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... In his eyes and face was another look. It was as if in all his life he had never seen James Kent before. It was a look born suddenly of shock, the shock of amazement, of incredulity, of a new kind of horror. Then swiftly again his countenance changed, and he put a hand on ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... populated, were soon to fall into disorder, and to be closed to any civilising influences. Nothing for a long time followed from these discoveries, and indeed almost up to the present day his accounts were received with incredulity, and he himself was regarded more as "Marco Millione" ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... coincidence that this confidence in his own work, despite all the struggles borne, was shared likewise by another man than Favre—by Germano Sommeiller, the creator of the Mont Cenis Tunnel. When the work of the first piercing of the Alps was yet in the period of attacks and incredulity, Sommeiller wrote his brother the following letter: "Always keep me posted my dear Leander, as to what the laughers are saying and remember the proverb that 'he will laugh well who laughs last!' The majority of the people, even engineers, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various |
