"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finds it when he devotes his hours of leisure to impart the elements of decency to gutter-snipes, and save drunkards from the pit. He is as much an individualist as I, only his individualism expresses itself in a different way; which confirms my original conjecture that we may be equally right in our own mode of life. Nor, by his own confession, does he really sacrifice his inclinations in his mode of life; he gratifies his sense of altruism in Lucraft's Row, and I my love of Nature in the solitude ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... was expressed clearly, with respect to the probable position of man in the early part of his pedigree. As I have not seen Dr. Bree's recent work, and as his letter is unintelligible to me, I cannot even conjecture how he has so completely mistaken my meaning; but, perhaps, no one who has read Mr. Wallace's article, or who has read a work formerly published by Dr. Bree on the same subject as his recent one, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... same answer. No one had set eyes on "Miss Poole" since the previous evening. The last person to speak with her was the stewardess, who, on finding she did not intend going to dinner, had offered to bring her some, but had been refused. The rest was conjecture—a riddle that only the sea, lying as blue and flat and still as the sea in a gaudy oleograph, could answer. The story had flown round the ship like wildfire, and hardly a soul but felt as if he ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... was right in her conjecture, came to the window, and mother and daughter stood gazing out for some minutes, and trying to penetrate the thick gloom which hung over the wild, tempestuous ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... but not Sir Edwin Sandys." In 1621 he was committed to the Tower and only released after the House of Commons had made a vigorous protest against his incarceration. His successor as treasurer of the London company was Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, and it is not a fanciful conjecture to assume that, when the news of the disaster which befell one of the fleets of the London Company on the Island of Bermuda reached England, it inspired Shakespeare to write his incomparable sea idyl, The Tempest. If so, this lovely drama was Shakespeare's ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... visitors at Tallwoods, and their departure so soon thereafter, were events of course not unknown to Josephine, but only conjecture could exist in her mind as to the real nature of the errand in either case. Jeanne, her maid, speculated as ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Chancellorsville. I expected to hear some new deductions from old facts. I do not consider myself beyond making an occasional lapse even in a carefully prepared piece of work, and am always open to correction. But, to my surprise (with the exception of a conjecture that Lee's object in his march into Pennsylvania was to wreck the anthracite-coal industry), there was not one single fact or statement laid before the meeting, or the company at dinner, which has not ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... answered by a cuff on the ear. This incident determined his career. Whether it crystallized long-cherished fancies into sudden action, or whether it was of itself the initial cause of his resolve, is now mere matter of conjecture; probably the former. The three friends, Gallatin, Badollet, and Serre seem to have amused their leisure in planning an ideal existence in some wilderness. America offered a boundless field for the realization ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... Yet you should cease to hang forever on them. Withdraw, and leave them sometimes to themselves. Love has a thousand sallies; you restrain them. I can conjecture from myself. There's none, How near soever, Clitipho, to whom I dare lay open all my weaknesses. With one my pride forbids it, with another The very action shames me: and believe me, It is the same with him; and 'tis our place To mark on what ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... chance this building became an exception to the ordinary rule, it is now impossible to conjecture, but from a very remote period it had sheltered successive races ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blacksmith and a hurled hammer sent it flying again, with Mr. Baker and his assistant in full pursuit. But it quickly distanced them with its long, tireless gallop, and they were obliged to return to the forge, lost in wonder and conjecture. For the blacksmith had recognized it as a stranger to the locality, and as a man of oracular pretension had a startling theory to account for its presence. This he confided to the editor of the local paper, and the next issue contained an editorial paragraph: "Our presage of a severe winter in ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... into it, my good sir,' said the learned Baronet. 'Yet even now I venture to conjecture that I shall adopt the solution or explanation of this riddle, enigma, or mystery which you have in some degree thus started. Yes! revenge it must be; and, good Heaven! entertained by and against whom? ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... equipping of the Scottish army for its southward march, had been a work of time. About Christmas 1643 it was understood that the Scots were in readiness to march; but the precise time when they might be expected to cross the border was yet in anxious conjecture. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 83, 99, 104-5, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... remarkable animal, like some others which have now disappeared, may have been an inhabitant of our large lakes? Certainly the vanishing of the mammoth and other animals from the face of the creation renders such a conjecture less wild than I would otherwise esteem it. It is certain we have lost the beaver, whose bones have been more than once found in our Selkirkshire bogs and marlmosses. The remains of the wild bull are very frequently found; and I have more than one skull with ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... "practical benefit," a secondary end. XXXIX. "For herein lieth all...." (3). C. translates his conjecture olan for ola. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... contrary to sound judgment, and repugnant to the maxims of the prudent, to take a medicine on conjecture, or to follow a road but in ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... realized very soon whither the journey was leading, and at thought of actually facing those terrors which loomed so large in conjecture his pulses began to leap. He had a suspicion of O'Neil's intent, but dared not voice it. Though the scheme seemed mad enough, its very audacity fascinated him. It would be worth while to take part in such an undertaking, even if it ended in failure. And somehow, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... opened. We saw also that their precise origin is unknown. They suddenly invade a part of North America where there were conditions for preserving some traces of them, but we have as yet no remains of their early forms or clue to their place of development. We may conjecture that their ancestors had been living in some elevated inland region during the warmth of the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... seated by the open window, but I cannot conjecture how any one can have got at West, ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... sword's touch on the shoulder of the lad who is being knighted by his king—it made her want to rise up and be all that such a man could ever demand of her. Twelve miles of walking after a week's toil in the mill was a very small offering to put before so worshipful a divinity. She sought vaguely to conjecture just what his words would be when next they spoke together. Her lips formed themselves into tender, reminiscent half-smiles as she went over the few and brief moments of her three ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... twenty, in exile, without one of the crowns he wore that day upon his head, and the many revolutions once more to raise his family after overthrowing it! What a blessing that the future is hidden from man! But what a stumbling-block for his prudence, charged to conjecture the morrow and to guard against it ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... as he wrote on the 8th of October: "I have repeatedly informed your Excellency of the enemy's design against this post, but from some motive or other you always differed from me in opinion. As this conjecture of mine has for once proved right, I can not omit informing you that my real and sincere opinion is that they mean to join General Burgoyne ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... he said, "but it is all a matter of conjecture, Mary, and I own that it has worried me a bit, and, indeed, I am sorry I went to him at all. However, as it is business and ladies are not good at business, suppose we ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... wooing. It was true, of course, that Barbara had not promised to become his wife, as he had hoped that she might do, but at any rate she had confessed her love for him in a way that left nothing to conjecture. With such a woman, he reflected, love is never lightly given, and once given it can never ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... suddenly, ends our knowledge of the love-business between Perion and Melicent. For at this point, as abruptly as it began, the one existing chronicle of their adventures makes conclusion, like a bit of interrupted music, and thereby affords conjecture no inconsiderable bounds wherein to exercise itself. Yet, in view of the fact that deductions as to what befell these lovers afterward can at best result in free-handed theorising, it seems more profitable in this place to speak very briefly of the ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... view of history, but when they addressed the public in their endeavor, it is said, to produce an effect upon it, they relaxed their scientific rigor; hence such a chapter as Curtius's "The years of peace," and in another place his transmuting a conjecture of Grote into an assertion; hence Mommsen's effusive panegyric of Caesar. If Mommsen did depart from the scientific rules, I suspect that it came from no desire of a popular success, but rather from the enthusiasm of much learning. The examples ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. The symptoms of their inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid judgment or conjecture upon them. Look at Cimon, for example, and Themistocles, and a thousand others, who very much deceived the expectation men had of them. Cubs of bears and puppies readily discover their natural inclination; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... buried in the house. Their corpses are deposited on rocks or on scaffolds in the forest, or are interred on the spot where they met their death. The reason for this treatment of their corpses is not mentioned; but we may conjecture that their ghosts are regarded with contempt, dislike, or fear, and that the survivors seek to give them a wide berth by keeping their bodies at a distance from the village. The corpses of those who died suddenly are not buried but wrapt up in leaves and laid on a scaffold in the house, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... conduct. Frank was mistrustful of everyone; he had recognized Louisa's hat and shawl in spite of the darkness, and thought that the mystery must have something to do with her, though how he was unable to conjecture. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Ogilvie just now," he said, "and he sticks to his story. I fear, too, that I was wrong in my conjecture with regard to his madness. He must have had a temporary madness when he drew up and signed the false report. I suppose we ought ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... eyes waiting desirously for a glimpse of hers, and, at first more strangely, the eyes of Miss Aldclyffe furtively resting on him. On coming out of church he frequently walked beside Cytherea till she reached the gate at which residents in the House turned into the shrubbery. By degrees a conjecture grew to a certainty. She knew that he ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Their names by; for out of dread* *doubt They were almost off thawed so, That of the letters one or two Were molt* away of ev'ry name, *melted So unfamous was wox* their fame; *become But men say, "What may ever last?" Then gan I in my heart to cast* *conjecture That they were molt away for heat, And not away with stormes beat; For on the other side I sey* *saw Of this hill, that northward lay, How it was written full of names Of folke that had greate fames Of olde times, and yet they were As fresh as men had writ them there The selfe day, right ere ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the disused vat of a half-tumbled-down old mill on a lonesome and neglected road meant——But what did it mean? What could it mean? The lowered eyes of those around seemed to decline to express even a conjecture. ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... which have been held in regard to the solution of this formidable enigma. For ourselves, we hold the belief that the Man in the Iron Mask stood on the steps of the throne. Although the mystery cannot be said to be definitely cleared up, one thing stands out firmly established among the mass of conjecture we have collected together, and that is, that wherever the prisoner appeared he was ordered to wear a mask on pain of death. His features, therefore, might during half a century have brought about his recognition ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them within proper bounds. Nor was it without certain misgivings, that I found myself so situated, that I must necessarily link myself, however guardedly, with such a desperate company; and in an enterprise, too, of which it was hard to conjecture what might be the result. But anything like neutrality was out of the question; and unconditional submission was ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... plans of God came to being defeated by human enterprise is illustrated by unquestioned facts. The fact of medieval exploration, colonization, and even evangelization in North America seems now to have emerged from the region of fanciful conjecture into that of history. That for four centuries, ending with the fifteenth, the church of Iceland maintained its bishops and other missionaries and built its churches and monasteries on the frozen coast of Greenland is abundantly proved by documents ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... have rowed out and been caught in the storm," cried Paula, bursting into fresh weeping; and Magdalen saw the conjecture ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tourned to his science, whereby thei gotte their livyng: Nor there was never any, that would hope with praie, and with this arte, to be able to finde theim selves. Of this there maie be made concernyng Citezeins, moste evidente conjecture, by the ensample of Regolo Attillio, who beyng Capitain of the Romaine armies in Affrica, and havyng as it wer overcome the Carthegenens, he required of the Senate, licence to retourne home, to kepe his possessions, and told them, that thei were marde of his housbandmen. ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... ultimate success and complete triumph of the North in the present contest. For in any other event all these facts are dumb, and the inferences to be drawn from them vague and unsatisfactory, absolutely no better than mere random conjecture. And as the war has now become the great fact in our history, and its effects must modify our whole social life for many years to come, its results must not be neglected in an investigation of this kind, but, on the contrary, claim our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Foma with particular vividness that the humble preacher before him was no other than the son of old Anany Shchurov. Stunned by this conjecture, he walked up to the pilgrim and seating himself ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... The baron was a little embarrassed by some questions of the lady concerning her lord's personal appearance; but Robin came to his aid, observing a picture suspended opposite to him on the wall, which he made a bold conjecture to be that of the lord in question; and making a calculation of the influences of time and war, which he weighed with a comparison of the lady's age, he gave a description of her lord sufficiently like the picture in its groundwork to be a ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... sound that word has! The music of the wind is in it, and a peculiarly free, rhythmical swing, suggestive of the swirling lariat. Colorado is not, as some conjecture, a corruption or revised edition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was sent out by the Spanish Viceroy of Mexico in 1540 in search of the seven cities of Cibola: it is from the verb colorar—colored red, or ruddy—a ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... absolute motive. What the end of this attempt to engraft the Indian girl upon the strictest convention of English social life would have been had her introduction not been at Greyhope, where faint likenesses to her past surrounded her, it is hard to conjecture. But, from present appearances, it would seem that Richard Armour was not wholly a false prophet; for the savage had shown herself that morning to possess, in their crudeness, some striking qualities of character. Given character, many things are possible, even ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... prevented her from watching his demeanour, unless, indeed, she had turned to him, which was, of course, out of the question; but certain fugitive conscious blushes upon the young face in front of her, certain castings down of long lashes and timid upward glances, made Molly shrewdly conjecture that Mr. Landale, through all the apparent devotion with which he listened to Tanty's continuous flow of observations, was able to bestow a certain amount of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the greatest universities in Germany, under the particular circumstances of its situation, had greatly increased that of Klosterheim. Judging by the tone which prevailed, and the random expressions which fell upon the ear at intervals, a stranger might conjecture that it was no empty lamentation over impending evils which occupied this crowd, but some serious preparation for meeting or redressing them. An officer of some distinction had been for some time observing them from the antique portals of the palace. It was probable, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... 972. We have now reached a point where all can take a practical interest in the subject, because portions of this church are to be seen to this day. The exact site of the Saxon church had always been a matter of conjecture until the excavations made in the course of the works incidental to the rebuilding of the lantern tower (1883-1893) finally settled the question. Many students of the fabric supposed that the existing church practically followed ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... can't tell whether they think at all, what's the use of trying to conjecture what they would ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... if the plagues of Pharaoh were pent therein. To her dazzled eyes this luxurious home was a fairy palace, an enchanted region, and, with eager curiosity and boundless admiration, she gazed upon beautiful articles whose use she could not even conjecture. The furniture throughout the mansion was elegant and costly; pictures, statues, bronzes, marble, silver, rosewood, ebony, mosaics, satin, velvet—naught that the most fastidious and cultivated taste or dilettanteism could suggest, or lavish ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... angrily, and with loud roaring, from two great fissures in the crater bed, and now and then assailed us with their hellish odor. To our eyes, the base, denuded by the explosion, seemed to cover a space of between three and four square miles. This, however, can only be rough conjecture. Equally vague must be all present attempts to determine the volume of the disrupted matter. Yet, if we assume, as a very moderate calculation, that the mean depth of the debris covering a buried area of thirty ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... both may still be seen in Nebraska in the grave-posts and grave-mounds by their side, of Iowas and Otoes, and formerly in all parts of the United States east of the Mississippi. If Mr. Stephens had opened one of these altars he would, if this conjecture is well taken, have found within or under it an Indian grave, and perhaps a skeleton, with the personal articles usually entombed beside the dead. It was customary among the Northern Indians for the chosen friend of the decedent, with whom he formed this peculiar ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... resemblances were, from childhood up, both strong and striking. Then, this unfortunate person is perfectly inscrutable, and not to be managed by any ordinary procedure at present intelligible to me. Yet,—after all, as far as I have been able to conjecture, there is a strong similarity in the cases. The feeling among the people here is, that he is a gentleman by birth: but this may proceed from the air and manners which he can assume when he pleases. I would mention my whole design and object at hazard, but this would be ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... same subject, and then suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not, however, that there was much more to hear, for everything seemed to be in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time to think of anything during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was in arranging and rearranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed quite absent from my ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... machine-made articles of cheap manufacture. His belongings were like hers now. She was bringing him a little closer to her in such ways,—food and lodging and raiment. But not in thought and being. Behind those deep-set eyes passed a world of thought, of conjecture and theory and belief, that rarely ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... investigation, while the reasonings are fine-drawn and flimsy. Extraordinary ingenuity is shown in piling up a lofty fabric, but the foundation is of sand, and the edifice has hardly a solid wall or beam in it. A clever conjecture is treated as a fact; an inference possible but represented as probable is drawn from this conjecture; a second inference is based upon the first; we are made to forget that the probability of this second is at most only half ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... know anything about these two persons, men of position evidently, who had large households. But the most learned of our living English commentators of the New Testament has advanced a very reasonable conjecture in regard to each of them. As to the first of them, Aristobulus: that wicked old King Herod, in whose life Christ was born, had a grandson of the name, who spent all his life in Rome, and was in close relations with the Emperor of that day. He had died some little ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... correct in her conjecture. The boat had passed Madison some time before the gentlemen arrived there, had paused but a few minutes and landed no such passenger. Learning this they then telegraphed the authorities of the next ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture. The late writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of those that have gone before, as I remember, stock America from the western coast of Africa and the south of Europe; and then break down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But this is making ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. A law implies that we know the nature of the ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... His influence was potential with Mr. Sumner, and it is not an over estimate of that influence to assume that he was responsible in a large degree for the defection of Mr. Sumner. Following that election, Mr. Bird became a member of the Democratic Party, but upon what ground it is not easy to conjecture. His whole life had been a protest against that party, and much of his public career had been directed to its defeat. During the war and the period of reconstruction, he had been its earnest and even bitter antagonist. Mr. Bird was a public spirited man, and he was especially ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... Count de Gyllenborg truly states his intention, it must be confessed that the "foreigners, and gentlemen of our own country" had not much upon which to congratulate themselves. Why Swift should have chosen the Count de Gyllenborg to whom to address the dedication must also remain a matter for conjecture. The Count had been sent out of the British Isles for instigating a conspiracy for a Jacobite insurrection in Great Britain. Swift wrote his dedication three years after the Count's expulsion. Knowing that the Count's master, Charles XII. of Sweden, had ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... into the fire. "Could the ashes have been preserved if Madeline had not given the matter her personal attention, but had trusted to a housemaid?" he thought. What further reflections this question inspired must be left to conjecture. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... they knew of anatomy from inaccurate dissections of the lower animals, and the slender knowledge thus acquired, however inadequate to unfold the complicated functions of the human frame, was abundantly sufficient as a basis for conjecture, of which they took full advantage. With them everything became easy to explain, precisely because nothing was understood; and the nature and treatment of disease, the great object of medicine, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... alone, is well enough; but 'Cavalier' servente' has always the e mute in conversation, and omitted in writing; so that it is not for the sake of metre; and pray let Griffiths know this, with my compliments. I humbly conjecture that I know as much of Italian society and language as any of his people; but, to make assurance doubly sure, I asked, at the Countess Benzona's last night, the question of more than one person in the office, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... rifle, which has wonderful range, and ten millions of smokeless powder cartridges. Marksmen could sweep the decks of a ship with Mausers at the distance of a mile, and with the smokeless cartridges it would have been mere conjecture where the sharpshooters were located. There are rows of armor-piercing steel projectiles from Germany still standing around rusting in the Spanish batteries, and they never did any more than they are doing. It is said—and there is every probability of the truth of the story—that ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... gives it some empirical significance and interest. That anti-papal ardor is indeed the only note of unity in a rough and ragged chronicle which shambles and stumbles onward from the death of Queen Jeanne of Navarre to the murder of the last Valois. It is possible to conjecture what it would be fruitless to affirm, that it gave a hint in the next century to Nathaniel Lee for his far superior and really admirable tragedy on the same subject, issued ninety-seven years after ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... written by Dickens in the blank paper book containing them, are these. "'Then I'll give up snuff.' Brobity.—An alarming sacrifice. Mr. Brobity's snuff-box. The Pawnbroker's account of it?" What was proposed by this must be left to conjecture; but "Brobity" is the name of one of the people in his unfinished story, and the suggestion may have been meant for some incident in it. If so, it is the only passage in the volume which can be in any way connected with the piece of writing on which he was last ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... volition for fresh and strong doses of the divine essence. To reach success, he felt, as Remonencq half felt, that he was ready for anything, for crime itself, provided that no proofs of it remained. He had faced the Presidente boldly; he had transmuted conjecture into reality; he had made assertions right and left, all to the end that she might authorize him to protect her interests and win her influence. As he stood there, he represented the infinite misery of two lives, and the no less boundless desires of two men. He spurned the squalid horrors of the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and conjecture there were two types of astronomers—those who supplied the facts, and those who supplied the interpretation through the logic of mathematics. So Ptolemy was dependent upon Hipparchus, Kepler on Tycho Brahe, and Newton in much ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... Sonora contain, and their contiguities, we ought to infer that in the territory of Southern California the designated metals should be found in considerable quantities. The official notices which we possess in respect to Lower California fortify this conjecture. Those exhibited by persons who lack competent instruction upon this point contribute in part to foretell what will be the grade of prosperity which will come in time with the developing of the mineral ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... of the die as an instrument of pastime is unquestionable, and the general reason assigned for its invention was the amusement and relaxation of the mind from the pressure of difficulties, or from the fatigues and toils of protracted war. Indeed, one conjecture is, that gaming was invented by the Lydians when under the pressure of a great famine; to divert themselves from their sufferings they contrived dice, balls, tables, &c. This seems, however, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle appeared in July with St. John's name in their mouths, the conjecture is probable that the wild revels of St. John's Day, A.D. 1374, gave rise to this mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so many thousands with incurable aberration of mind ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... in Sicilian waters I thought I could see the summits of the Alps beautifully lighted by the rays of the setting sun. Bonaparte laughed much, and joked me about it. He called Admiral Brueys, who took his telescope and soon confirmed my conjecture. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... circumstances I should conjecture, that those female fig-flowers, which are closed on all sides in the fruit or receptacle without any male ones, are monsters, which have been propagated for their fruit, like barberries, and grapes ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... indeed! I see Orsino has talked with you, and That you conjecture things too horrible To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now, stay not, He might return: yet kiss me; I shall know 385 That then thou hast consented to his death. Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God, Brotherly love, justice and clemency, And all things that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 'in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to his chest; his spear against his arm; an urn at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... between the names of the knight in the many languages, e.g. Halewijn (Dutch), Ulver, Olmar, Hollemen (Danish), Olbert (German), and Elf-knight in English, has caused some speculation as to a common origin. Professor Bugge has gone so far as to conjecture that the whole story is an offshoot of the tale of Judith and Holofernes, the latter name being the originals of the variants given above. While this hypothesis is perhaps too startling to be accepted without further evidence, ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... "because it seems to me you are Rollitt's chief accuser in this matter. I wish I were able to feel that you were not personally interested in your charges proving to be true. That, of course, does not affect the case, as far as Rollitt is concerned. The evidence against him is merely conjecture, so far." ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... Buchanan, that he was a party to, or indeed the most active agent in, the forging of certain letters reported to have been sent by Mary to Bothwell before Darnley's murder, and known far and wide as the Casket Letters, seems to rest upon nothing but conjecture. He was one of the few members of the party who possessed the literary gift, the only one, perhaps, except Lethington, whom Mr. Skelton has presented to us as not only a very enlightened statesman, but at all times ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... his conjecture. Archie was indeed "takin'" the house! He and Eddie—having succeeded in rescuing the photographic apparatus, and, finding that no lives were in danger, and that enough people were already endeavouring to save the property—had calmly devoted themselves ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... accepted as absolutely certain. He himself describes the MS. as a palimpsest, deliberately defaced by Michael Angelo, from which the words originally written have to be recovered in many cases by a process of conjecture. That the style of the restoration is thoroughly Michael Angelesque, will be admitted by all students of Signor Guasti's edition. The only word I felt inclined to question, is donne in line 13, where I should have expected donna. But I am informed that about ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... himself to the broad prairie, where he is most at home, to cool his blood in the north wind, and restore himself to the serenity, the freedom from entanglements, befitting an uncle at the head of his tribe. This, you say, is all conjecture, deduced from the behavior of those of his nephews who most resemble him? No. Do you not recall that early affair of his, with the dark vivacious lady—Marianne, I believe, was her name? Do you not recall a later ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... in conjecture, and still thinking of a royalist conspiracy, took his landlady's remark as an opening, and he began to study her as he seated himself beside her. He was struck by the singular dexterity with which ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... in his treatment of the character of the cup-bearer. Does he make it his chief care to enhance the character of the Queen? Note the new characters introduced,—Paulina, Antigonus, Autolycus, the clown (in place of the wife in Greene). Conjecture any reason for his different names. The introduction of Autolycus makes the play more amusing on the stage, but is his part as well planned as Capnio's for leading up to the denouement? Greene lets his mariners off alive after they set Fawnia afloat. Shakespeare wrecks his, and makes a ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... between the issue of the bullet from the muzzle until it struck the earth it was possible to make certain deductions, from which it was estimated that the bullet reached an altitude of 600 feet or so. But this was merely conjecture. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... shrouded in mystery; even his age was a matter of pure conjecture. Although he was of the Maltese race, I have reason to suppose that he was American by birth as he certainly was in sympathy. Calvin was given to me eight years ago by Mrs. Stowe, but she knew nothing of his age or origin. He walked into her house one day out of the great ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... did the Brethren mean by this? We are left largely to conjecture. My own personal impression is, however, that the Brethren feared that if Wesley took Communion with them he might be tempted to leave the Church of England and join ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... some who suspected my uncles of being concerned in my father's fate, on the supposition that they would all share in the patrimony destined for him; and this conjecture was strengthened by reflecting that in all his calamities they never discovered the least inclination to serve him; but, on the contrary, by all the artifices in their power, fed his resentment and supported ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Saengers Fluch," as a constant note of the "Volkslied." The old ballad-maker does not vouchsafe explanations about persons and motives; often he gives the history, not expressly nor fully, but by hints and glimpses, leaving the rest to conjecture; throwing up its salient points into a strong, lurid light against a background of shadows. The knight rides out a-hunting, and by and by his riderless horse comes ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp through the foul womb of night The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fixed sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch: Fire answers fire, and through their ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... tendency which the high price of gold in Spain has, to draw thither all that of their mines, leaving silver principally for our and other markets. It is not impossible that 15 for 1, may be found an eligible proportion. I state it, however, as a conjecture only. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... important works. He connects it with an idea sifted and taken from popular belief of a state of penance in Hades, though it can hardly be ascertained how large a portion of mystical ornament or poetical conjecture he throws into the particular delineation of 'the last things,' and of transmigration. He adopts ten grades of migration, each of a thousand years; so that the soul, in each migration, makes a selection of its life-destiny, and renews its penance ten times, until it is enabled ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... rights they ought to have been. This is much, and praised be the eternal God, our Lord, who gives to all those who walk in his ways victory over things which seem impossible; of which this is signally one, for, although others have spoken or written concerning these countries, it was all mere conjecture, as no one could say that he had seen them—it amounting only to this, that those who heard listened the more, and regarded the matter rather as a fable than anything else. But our Redeemer has granted this victory to our illustrious King and Queen and their ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... "Probably conjecture is all that can now be expected respecting the rise and progress of these changes. It is, indeed, beyond all doubt, that by the constitution, even as subsisting under the early Normans, the great council shared the legislative power with the king, as clearly as the parliament have since ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... poet, "who is Redbud, my young friend? I should conjecture that she was a young lady, from the name.—Stay, is there not a Miss Redbud Summers, daughter of the Squire of ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... breaker to the concentrators there was nothing but splintered wood, twisted iron and upturned tanks; and the demon of destruction which had raged down through its length was nothing but the fly-wheel of the rock crusher. What power had uprooted it he was at a loss to conjecture but, a full ton in weight, it had jumped from its frame and plowed its way down through the mill. The ore-bins were intact, for the fly-wheel had overleapt them, but tables and tanks and concentrating jigs were ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... eyes; a dull throbbing weight of pain encircled my head like a crown of thorns; nervous terrors shook me from head to foot; fragments of my own musical compositions hummed in my ears with wearying persistence—fragments that always left me in a state of distressed conjecture; for I never could remember how they ended, and I puzzled myself vainly over crotchets and quavers that never would consent to arrange themselves in any sort of finale. So the days went on; for Colonel Everard and his wife, those days were full of ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... All now was conjecture and dismay at Communipaw; and the disappearance of old Pluto, who was no where to be found, gave rise to all kinds of wild surmises. Some suggested that the negro had betrayed the house to some of Vanderscamp's bucaniering associates, and that they had decamped together with the booty; ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... reveal. There is a lady, a real lady if I ever saw one, living in the Chateau here in the greatest privacy. I and the Intendant only see her. She is beautiful and full of sorrow as the picture of the blessed Madonna. What she is, I may guess; but who she is, I cannot conjecture, and would give my ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... wish to hear Berlinese trulls and bubonic bassi bleat. But, for the tolerably delicate enterprise that he had in hand, there were the preliminary steps which could only be hastened slowly and anything slower than the Metropolitan on a Sunday night, it was beyond him to conjecture. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... what James would have done, and Herbert showed that he was not wholly without knowledge of the world in forming the conjecture. ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... revealed a number of bells hanging in silent power in the brown twilight of the place. I entered carefully, for there were only some planks laid upon the joists to keep one's feet from going through the ceiling. In a few moments I had satisfied myself that my conjecture about the keys below was correct. The small iron rods I had seen from beneath hung down from this place. There were more of them hanging shorter above, and there was yet enough of a further mechanism remaining to prove that those keys, by means of the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... inducement, so that population might increase more rapidly. Jefferson, on the other hand, wished "there were an ocean of fire between this country and Europe, so that it might be impossible for any more immigrants to come hither." We can only conjecture what his thoughts would be if he were to return and study present conditions. Franklin, certainly one of the wisest and most far-seeing of the earlier statesmen, feared that immigration would tend to destroy the homogeneity essential to a democracy with ideals. ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... went, except that he had to go; why he stayed away so long, so very long, are not really relevant to this story; the facts, stripped of conjecture, were simply these: she was married, and he was not, and there came the time, it always comes in such relationships as theirs, when he had to choose between staying without honour and going quickly. He went. But even the bare facts concerning ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... election; and it contained no provision for enforcing in any individual State, whose ruler might choose to disregard it, the principle of constitutional rule. Whether the Federation would in any degree have protected Germany in case of attack by France or Russia is matter for conjecture, since a long period of peace followed the year 1815; but so far was it from securing liberty to the Minor States, that in the hands of Metternich the Diet, impotent for every other purpose, became an instrument for the persecution of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... love? There were no visitors at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, the political troubles had put an end to all society, and Amelie went nowhere alone. Madame de Montrevel could get no further than conjecture. Roland's return had given her a moment's hope; but this hope fled as soon as she perceived the effect which this event ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... said Beatrice. "Ought I not to be so? Have you not said that this concerns me? and is not all my imagination aroused in the endeavor to form a conjecture as to ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the law-receiver. I give you joy, O sons of men: that truth is altogether wholesome; that we have hope to search out what might be the very self of everything. The misery of man is to be balked of the sight of essence, and to be stuffed with conjecture: but the supreme good is reality; the supreme beauty is reality; and all virtue and all felicity depend on this science of the real: for courage is nothing else than knowledge: the fairest fortune that can befall man, is to be guided by his daemon to that ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... this conjecture: according to her, "ces paysannes anglaises etaient tout insupportables." What would she not give for some "bonne cuisiniere anversoise," with the high cap, short petticoat, and decent sabots proper to her class—something ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... object of our present criticism, we must confess we know not. Whether it be a brother man, or whether our words of praise may win us the kind regards of a 'gentle ladye,' we can only conjecture. Our process must be in rem, not in personam. 'It'—for thus perforce we must speak of our Unknown—weareth an iron mask of inscrutable mystery, as complete as that of the all-baffling Junius. The field, however, of speculation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... were caused by a custom prevalent among them of applying pieces of lighted touchwood to their flesh, in order to relieve pain or demonstrate their courage. He was now placed on a broad plank, and carried by six men into the woods, where I was invited to accompany them. I could not conjecture what would be the end of this ceremony, particularly as I saw one man carry fire, another an axe, and a third dry wood. I was, indeed, disposed to suspect that, as it was their custom to burn the dead, they intended to relieve the poor man from his pain, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... decisions ever taken by an admiral in chief command, especially at the beginning of a career, as Nelson then was. "We are now crowding sail for Alexandria; but it is very doubtful if we fall in with them at all, as we are proceeding on the merest conjecture, and not on any positive information. If, at the end of our journey, we find we are upon the wrong scent, our embarrassment will be great indeed. Fortunately, I only act here en second; but did the chief responsibility rest with me, I fear it would be more than my too irritable ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan |
