"Speculate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sea. At Raynham they look up at the sky and speculate that Richard is approaching fairly speeded. He comes to throw himself on his darling's mercy. Lucy irradiated over forest and sea, tempest and peace—to her the hero comes humbly. Great is that day when we see our folly! Ripton ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at that. The street crowds held and interested him. He liked to speculate about them; what life meant to them, in work and love and play; to what they were going on such hurrying feet. A country boy, the haste of the city ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the reciprocal actions and reactions of certain bodies and their material environment, how should it not reveal to us something of the very essence of which these bodies are made? Action cannot move in the unreal. A mind born to speculate or to dream, I admit, might remain outside reality, might deform or transform the real, perhaps even create it—as we create the figures of men and animals that our imagination cuts out of the passing cloud. But an intellect bent upon the act to be performed and ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... beast!"—that the door was suddenly shut again with a bang—and that he was left once more in total darkness. He did not care for the light, or the voice, or the banging of the door: he did not think of them afterwards; he did not mourn over the past, or speculate on the future. He just sank back on his pillow with a gasp, drew the clothes over him with a groan, and fell asleep, blissfully reckless of the retribution that was to come with the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... good dogs of Caneville were little disposed to speculate that day, or I was very awkward in my occupation, but no one seemed willing to make a trial of my "fire-flies." In vain I used the most enticing words to set off my goods, even going so far as to say that cigars lighted with these matches would have a very much finer flavour, and could ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... country so much inclined to speculate, to philosophize, and to reason on everything, it is not surprising that a fundamental law, as vaguely expressed as the charter, should leave ample room for discussion. We find that our own long experience in these written instruments does not protect ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... forward on his chair when he knelt, glanced sharply round at Bruce. He had seen him take something from the Bible, and crumple it up in his hand but would not have felt any inclination to speculate about it, had it not been for the peculiarly keen expression of eager surprise and happy greed which came over his face in the act. Having seen that, and being always more or less suspicious of Bruce, he wanted ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... logic: they are suitable for Italy, but they are not suitable for England. But, over and above England, my own case was special; from a boy I had been led to consider that my Maker and I, His creature, were the two beings, luminously such, in rerum natura. I will not here speculate, however, about my own feelings. Only this I know full well now, and did not know then, that the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... others, he has brought no happiness to himself, and, unless I am mistaken, he is going to wreck his whole scheme in one tremendous crash that we cannot now foresee. A lawyer, like myself, sees many hard, miserable, sordid things, but a Beeman has leisure to speculate as to whither they tend. And they all tend ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... that those who do not either push the themselves into noise, or give some one else a substantial interest in pushing them, never do get made a noise about. How can they? I was too lazy to go about from publisher to publisher and to decline to publish a book myself if I could not find some one to speculate in it. I could take any amount of trouble about writing a book but, so long as I could lay my hand on the money to bring it out with, I found publishers' antechambers so little to my taste that I soon tired and fell back ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... Present Inhabitants. The undertaking met with almost prompt and cordial support; the proudest names and the brightest lights of the age were enlisted in it. The celebrated Madame de Maintenon became the patroness, forbidding, however, the Society to speculate upon her affairs; the illustrious Duke de Rohan became the president; the Czar Peter an honorary member; and the Society was otherwise royally and nobly officered and befriended. So numerous were the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... in no mood to speculate on the idiosyncrasies of woman. Even the woman. So he topped his mount and rejoined Tom Loudon and Mr. Saltoun. They ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... into the yard. Mrs. Somerby flew out with a lump of sugar for a jaded-looking horse, bought by Joe to speculate upon, and who ate everything he could get, including his ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... was not on the deck, just then, and young Vanderlyn was politic enough to say nothing of her, merely talking of the old man's impressive bearing, asking his mother to help him speculate about his history. ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... never imagined. Once again he remained where he was, as still as death. Unless the new-comer was there because his suspicions were aroused, there was a chance that Mr. Morgan might yet escape notice. Who the new-comer might be, he had no time to speculate, for, without being unlocked, the door was pushed open. Mr. Morgan marked the phenomenon, and his hair rose. Then a man ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... as a shock to Ethne. She did not guess the correct answer; she was not, indeed, sufficiently mistress of herself to speculate upon any answer, but she dreaded it, whatever ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... and speculate as they might the lads were unable to arrive at a solution of the mysterious presence and disappearance of the package bearing the curious mark. Weary with the exertion of attempting to solve the problem the boys at ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... war between aristocrats and plebeians, as in ancient Rome; and, as at Rome, every succeeding battle ended in the increase of power among the democracy. At the close of the administration of President Adams the Federal party was destroyed forever. It is useless to speculate as to which party was in the right. Probably both parties were right in some things, and wrong in others. The worth of a strong government in critical times has been proved by the wholesome action of such an autocrat as Jackson in the Nullification ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master The backstairs of history (Memoirs) To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck With this money, said the demon, you might speculate Work is medicine ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... departments, coextensive with that which would be necessary for a government of the whole. The entire separation of the States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is a project too extravagant and too replete with danger to have many advocates. The ideas of men who speculate upon the dismemberment of the empire seem generally turned toward three confederacies—one consisting of the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a third of the five Southern States. There is little probability that there would be a greater number. According to this ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... house. (There is no mustard in the plaster, really—only a few pepper-corns and a little sand scraped from the geological hammer.) But we say aloud that we hope Mac can bear it for twenty minutes, and we speculate on whether it will bring all the skin with it ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... been afforded more time than I in which to speculate upon the substitution of the false for the genuine stone, and Burke had not gone inconsiderately to the Page place on Friday night, but, quite the reverse, to prosecute a definite plan of search. How near he came to the goal I did n't appreciate ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... daughters, and of all the young men who came near them, seemed to leave everything to take its chance. There was not the smallest appearance of solicitude or remark about them in the Mansion-house; but it was different at the Cottage: the young couple there were more disposed to speculate and wonder; and Captain Wentworth had not been above four or five times in the Miss Musgroves' company, and Charles Hayter had but just reappeared, when Anne had to listen to the opinions of her brother and sister, as to which was the one liked best. Charles gave it for Louisa, Mary ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... merely passing his days there, and spending his nights on board the yacht in the harbour, where, no doubt, that same illness had been contracted. But she resisted the inclination to attempt further discovery. She even resisted the inclination to speculate regarding all this. What Richard might elect to tell her, that, and that only, would she know, lest, seeking further, bitter and vindictive thoughts should arise in her and mar the calm, pathetic sweetness of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to discover the exquisite pencil that paints the flower of the field? and have I ever detected the secret that gives their brilliant dye to the ruby and the emerald, or the art that enamels the delicate shell?—I observe the sagacity of animals—I call it instinct, and speculate upon its various degrees of approximation to the reason of man; but, after all, I know as little of the cogitations of the brute as he does of mine. When I see a flight of birds overhead, performing their evolutions, or steering their course to ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... Church. The career of Warburton, who rose from a similar position to a bishopric might have been rivalled by Johnson, and his connexions with Lichfield might, one would suppose, have helped him to a start. It would be easy to speculate upon causes which might have hindered such a career. In later life, he more than once refused to take orders upon the promise of a living. Johnson, as we know him, was a man of the world; though a religious man of the world. He represents ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... both Gulian and Yorke were destined to discover. What special imp prompted Betty to sally forth for a walk after dinner, thereby missing a call from Yorke (who came thus early to prevent Gulian's intended interview), it would be vain to speculate; but when the maid returned, feeling more like her old happy self than she had done in weeks, the irony of fate prompted an encounter with her brother-in-law at ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... because I'm beginning to get used to it," I thought. Then I began to speculate as to what would happen now if the sergeant was right, and we were to be attacked front and rear; and what it would feel like if I were hit, as seemed very likely now that the enemy were getting so near. But I glanced right and left at my companions, just in time, to see the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... friends, as in foreign countries against himself? It's a league of lies against him and his. 'Intriguing lacqueys.' That's a sweeping phrase for all persons of distinction in France, except members of the Opposition. That men like De Morny and Walewski may speculate unduly I don't doubt, but even the 'Times' says now that these things have been probably exaggerated. I have heard great good of both these men. As to Prince Napoleon, he has spoken like a man and a prince. We are at his feet here in Italy. Tell our dear friend Milsand that I read the seventeen ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... might have followed the lane for hours without meeting a soul, without hearing a human sound beyond the echoes of one's own footsteps sent back from the depth of a copse. For miles it went, turning now this way, now that, until a stranger would wonder whither it was leading him, and speculate whether, at the end, he might not find himself on the same high road which he had left long ago. At one part, for a mile or more, the lane skirted a forest, where, down short vistas, could be seen deeper depths beyond, solemn gloom which might serve ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... dreadful. Margaret, for her part, had no recollection of reaching the fir-wood, and as, long before morning, all traces were obliterated, the facts remained a mystery. Janet thought that David had some wonderful persuasion about it; but he was never heard even to speculate on the subject. Certain it was, that Hugh had saved Margaret's life. He seemed quite well next day, for he was of a very powerful and enduring frame for his years. She recovered more slowly, and perhaps never altogether overcame the effects of ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... you are," he said, aloud, with all his old lazy urbanity. "I suppose it's no use trying to throttle you in order to find out; it would be displeasing to pass the night with a corpse. Besides I might be the corpse. I've got no matches and I've smashed my torch, so I can only speculate. Who could you be, now? ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... wavered, then stopped and began to stare at the candidate, not intrusively, but with a kindly curiosity that it considered legitimate. Harley had quietly joined the Graysons, and they gave him a sincere welcome. The people unfamiliar with his face began to speculate audibly ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... for, in spite of all their scout courage, the girls were not especially anxious to run headlong into the arms of two foreigners, who would undoubtedly be angry. The prospect of meeting a benevolent old grandfather was much more comfortable to speculate upon. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... of begging-letter impostors; a man whom I myself caught, last time he was down here, playing at marbles with three of my charity-boys in the street, and promising to treat them to hardbake and gingerbeer afterwards, is—in short, is not a man whose actions it is possible to speculate on." ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... notwithstanding of any extraneous means to work it off. "Slow and sure," is their motto—"Carpe diem," essentially that of their antagonists. And yet in one thing, we believe, most individuals holding these opposite opinions will be found to concur. They all speculate. Heraclitus signs his contract with a shudder, and trembles as he places his realized premium in the bank. Democritus laughingly subscribes his name to thousands, and chuckles as he beholds his favourite stock ascending in the thermometer of the share-market. Heraclitus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... sake," he said, "don't play such dangerous games with your facility. If you have got facility, revere it, respect it, adore it, treasure it—don't speculate on it." And he wondered what his companion, up to his knees in debt, would have done if there had been no good-natured Rowland Mallet to lend a helping hand. But he did not formulate his curiosity audibly, and the contingency seemed not to have presented itself to Roderick's imagination. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Alley Bears to speculate, As usual, for a fall; And green and scarlet runners, such As never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... Christ! What!—do you think because I am a cardinal I am not to make a profit in corn? I tell you those people have no business to be miserable—they have no business to go and pawn their things; if I am allowed to speculate with the funds, why not? Allons donc!—It is a devilish ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Fred could speculate for hours on the question without satisfying himself. He was sorry that he and Terry had not brought their guns with them, and was half inclined to go back. It was not yet noon, and they had plenty of time in which ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... keenness, his poise of brain, if one might call it so, and the habilete with which, without permitting it to be part of his character, he sometimes allowed himself to charm even people of whom he disapproved. These things were indeterminately present to her, and led her often to speculate as to how it was that Mr. Cardiff's work expressed him so little. It seemed to her that the one purpose of a personality like his was its expression—otherwise one might as well be of the ruck. "You write with your intellectual faculties," she said to him once; "your soul is curiously ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... prelates, who were the ecclesiastical advisers of the Imperial Government, were preferable to the nominees of the Roman chiefs, who had no object or consideration but their own ambition, and were inclined to speculate on the worthlessness of their candidates. During the first half of the eleventh century they recovered their predominance, and the deliverance of the Church came once more from Germany. A succession of German Popes, named by the emperor, opened ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... was his astonishment, he was left no time to indulge in it, or speculate how his old "crammer" came to be there. For close behind the Dictator's carriage followed another, holding one who had yet more interest for him than Don Ignacio—Don ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... same is true in even greater degree. All the bravado and illusion of war are gone, also all the nervous revulsion; and in their places a grimly reliable resource of energy held in instant, almost mechanical, readiness to do what is necessary. The hazards which it is useless to speculate about, the miseries, delays, tediums, casualties, have lost their exclamatory value and have fallen into the sullen routine of the day's work. Here it is that morale begins to show in its more vital dimensions. Here ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... off the River Plate we speculate, if we are disabled, of running in to Buenos Ayres, the "Paris of America," and I have visions of bright congregating places of men, of the jollity of raised glasses, and of song and cheer and the hum of genial voices. When we have picked ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... Hostility to me seemed really to have been a sort of monomania with him from the first. How else was this canton procedure to be accounted for? how, even with this belief, could it be excused? His conduct was certainly one of those mysteries of idiosyncracy upon which the moral philosopher may speculate to doomsday without being a jot ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the jovial countenance, and doubtless genial ways, had the right to stand at her dressing-table, if he chose, and speculate upon the various uses of all the daintiness that was spread before him. He had the right and cared nothing for it, while the man who did care, stood there shamefaced, all at once feeling himself an ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... a full-blown pawnbroker of Silverton town, whom the legislature, with that keen knowledge of human nature which marks the British senate, permitted, and still permits, to speculate in Insanity, stipulating, however, that the upper servant of all in his asylum should be a doctor; but omitting to provide against the instant dismissal of the said doctor should he go and rob his employer of a lodger—by curing ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... pretty, mocking courtesy, and he could not help looking with some interest at the woman who might have been his wife. The best of men, and the best of husbands, are liable to speculate a little under such circumstances, and in fancy to put themselves into a position they have probably no wish in reality to fill. She noticed his air of consideration; and, with a toss of her handsome head, she spread out all her finery. ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... friends!—do not let a hired Press think for you! Think for yourselves—judge for yourselves, and act for yourselves! By your observation of a statesman's life, you shall know his capabilities. If he has once been a turncoat, he will be a turncoat again. If he has been known to speculate privately in a forthcoming political crisis, which he alone knows of ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... since boyhood, and crossed the Atlantic with me on my return. He always, morning, noon, and night, had one either in his hand or projecting out of his mouth. It signified not what was his occupation, the little stiletto was always to the fore. We used to speculate on board if he so slept, and the ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... minor experiments made in 1782 and 1783, that a heat of 180 degrees rarefied the air and made it occupy a space of TWICE the extent it occupied before being heated—or, in other words, that this degree of heat diminished the weight of air by one half—began to speculate on what might be the shape and the material of a structure which being filled with air thus heated, would be able to raise itself from the earth in spite of the ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... disturber, it bumps into every kind of fixed notion and takes off a chip here and there, it probes into all sorts of mysteries and opens them to find that they are hollow wind-bag affairs, tho' always held as holy of holies heretofore. To think, to speculate, to wonder, to query—these imply imagination, and the Devil has just one function in this Universe —to destroy, to kill, or suppress or to divert or prevent the imagination. Imagination is the Divine Spark, and old Beelzebub ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... nature or fixed order in all things known to us, it is conformable to the nature of our minds to believe that this universal Nature has a cause which operates continually, and that we are totally unable to speculate on the reason of any of those disorders or evils which we perceive. This I believe is the answer which may be collected from ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... professed to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe, entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with the Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary; the disciples of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... negative. And Fenwick looked up quickly, and uttered a little sharp "Ah!" as though something had struck him. The slow head-shake said as plain as words could have said it, "I wish I could say yes." So expressive was it that Fenwick did not even speculate on the third alternative—a separation without a divorce. He saw at once he could make it easier for her if he spoke out plain, treating the bygone as a thing that could be spoken ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... strong—the strength of level brows, straight nose and square chin, with a pair of paradoxical lips, which were curved and womanish in their sensitiveness; the refinement was an intangible expression which belonged to no particular feature but pervaded the whole face. As to his eyes, she was left to speculate upon their color, since she had not seen them, but she reflected that many a girl would give a good deal ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... amongst the trees of the forest, or in the streets of crowded cities, or precincts of temples. Such a study would not fail to awaken strange ideas; and although the European would not be prepared to regard monkeys as sacred animals he might be led to speculate as to their origin by the light of data, which are at present unknown to the naturalist whose observations have been ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the limits of the allied nations' capacity to bear it is a fit subject for meditation when we feel uplifted in self-complacency. Doubtless it is encouraging to watch the symptoms of slow exhaustion displaying themselves in the central empires and to speculate on the consequences of the further fall of the German mark. But these consequences we are too apt to exaggerate. For we misjudge the character, the staying powers, the ideals, the psychology of the German people. We fancy that ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... right up at that and thanked him for putting it so clear and removing the doubts that had been worrying him. Said that he could speculate with a clear conscience after listening to the Deacon's able exposition of the subject. Was only sorry he hadn't seen him to talk it over before breakfast, as the two hundred had been lying so heavy ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... northern as well as by southern men, and with the increase of information, there has been a subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the mind to receive truth. Our friends are still in a minority. It would be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be reversed. Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled to our regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our constitutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... strong mind of his son to seek occupation of more certain profit; and those who feel interest in the whereabouts of celebrated men, may think upon the days when William Hogarth wrought in silver, as the apprentice of Ellis Gamble, in Cranbourne Street, and speculate upon the change of circumstances, wrought by his own exertions, when, as a great painter, in after time, he occupied the house, now known as the Sabloniere ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... her kindly drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling masses of tawny brick that we come across in our rambles are all swathed in garlands of clematis, myrtle, honey-suckle and coronella. It is a delight to speculate upon the original use and appearance of these shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which attract the eye on all sides amidst the vineyards and orange groves, where the peasants delving in the rich soil frequently alight upon treasures ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Shepard of North Carolina to make emphatic objections all along the line. He opened his speech by intimating that the bill had been introduced to the end that "a fresh rich field might be opened to those who speculate in public lands, and a batch of new offices created for such as seek Executive favor." He had no sympathy with the squatters. "Who are these that . . . . pray for the establishment of a new Territory? Individuals who have left their own homes and seized on the public land ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... not. And there is no free trade in England. Both negro-trading and smuggling are illegal. Yet, as you manage to drive a pretty profitable business in the latter, you might speculate a little in ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... brown steel in a soldier's hands, kept us back. The chance wasn't worth fighting for, after all. I didn't believe the steamer would sink, any way. I was aboard the 'San Francisco' when she drifted for nine days. However, there wasn't much time left for us to speculate on that,—for a rush of firemen and crew and the like into the boats was the next thing, and then the fasts were cast off or cut, and the wind and sea did the rest. They shot away into the darkness. A couple ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... taking up their trail, do not pause to speculate upon it, nor make any delay. On the contrary, as hounds that have several times lost the scent, hitherto faint, but once more recovered, and now fresher and stronger than ever, they press on with ardour ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... me with congenial food for reflection. I used to lie in the long grass, and speculate on the advantages and disadvantages ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... use; the train had gone and the men with it, and the best we could do was to speculate on the intention of the runaways, while we waited the result of the telegrams sent to both ends of the line for another engine. At last it came puffing up, and we whirled at its full ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was too full of the busy trembling fancies natural to her position to speculate overmuch on the hearts of other people. Very soon Major Harper quitted the house, and the Thornycrofts also. She was left alone with her lover and with Anne—Anne, who ever since her arrival had seemed to keep a steady watch over Nathanael's bride. They ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... "Probably speculate on the Stock Exchange, or take up Mexican mines!" declared Gwen, trying to turn things ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... ages of this world there was far more laughter than is to be heard now, and that aeons hence laughter will be obsolete, and smiles universal—every one, always, mildly, slightly, smiling. But it is less useful to speculate as to mankind's past and future than to observe men. And you will have observed with me in the club-room that young men at most times look solemn, whereas old men or men of middle age mostly smile; and also that those young men do often laugh loud and long among themselves, while we others—the ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... sure that he will never come forward, that I have never taken the trouble to speculate as to whether, if he did, my greediness would make him ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... relying on her own strength to bear the consequences of her act. To call such a woman a wanton and a kept mistress is to confess one's self devoid of sense and sensibility. Nor does it show much insight to assert that "infidelity betrayed and wrecked her life," and to speculate how glorious it might have been if she had "found Jesus." It will be time enough to listen to this strain when Mr. Watkinson can show us a more "glorious" female writer ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... clerk in a bank and sharp as a needle in forecasting what was going to happen downtown. I used to say to myself that if I had capital it would be easy to make money breed money. Well, one day I borrowed from the bank, without the bank's leave, $3,000 in order to speculate. I won on that deal and the next and the next. Then I was able to return what I'd borrowed and to set up in a small way for myself in the furniture business. That was my start, ladies—the ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... fifty per cent. He invested in the traffic of usury what had sufficed to save a hundred such as I am from perdition, and he lost it all. It was nearly his whole fortune; but he lives and has his luxuries still: be cannot speculate, but he can save: he cared not if I starved, for he finds an hourly ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... these remains have only been found in an imperfect state of preservation. It is evident, however, that these extinct species, or at least certain of them, lived down to the time when man had come upon the earth, and was beginning to speculate on his surroundings for such company and help as he might win therefrom. It may interest the reader to know that a species of American dog existed in the Southern Appalachians down to a very recent time—recent, at least, in a geological sense. The remains of one of ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... "reverent disciple" whom he hints at, but does not name. In short, I think that {402} Fletcher was the pupil of Shakspeare; and this view, it appears to me, demands the serious attention of the biographer who next may study or speculate upon the great ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... the Gila River, out upon the Pima reservation. Now there is further extension eastward, and the great plain that stretches as far as Florence is being settled by population very generally tributary to Mesa. It would be idle to speculate upon the future of the city, but its tributary farming country is fully as great as ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... framed no great theories of government. Even their literature was, in part, an imitation of the Greek, though possessing many elements of native strength and beauty. They were a people who knew how to accomplish results rather than to speculate about means and ends. Usefulness and effectiveness were with them the criteria of the worth of any idea or project. They subdued and annexed an empire, they gave law and order to a primitive world, they civilized and Romanized ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... anxious to develop its operation in his child. No doubt the best beginning, especially if the child be young, is an acquaintance with nature, in which let him he encouraged to observe vital phenomena, to put things together, to speculate from what he sees to what he does not see. But let earnest care be taken that upon no matter shall he go on talking foolishly. Let him be as fanciful as he may, but let him not, even in his fancy, sin against fancy's sense; for fancy has its laws as certainly as the most ordinary business ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... a hill, and on the top of it George could see a number of lights twinkling and bobbing about through the fringe of bush that covered it. His captors gave him but little time to speculate as to the place they were nearing, for not for one instant did they slacken their speed as they ascended the steep slopes. Helmar knew by the pace of the journey that he could not be far from Kafr Dowar, but he had ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... of the last eight years, during which the system has been in force, may be taken as a reliable guide, the experiment shows many signs of success. It has certainly checked the tendency to speculate in lands with a view to a rise in price, which threatened to become a great, as it certainly was a growing, evil. It has been found that it will not pay to do this in the face of taxation, and particularly of the graduated tax; and owners of large areas of land have developed a strong ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... fathers in their wisdom deemed it necessary that the Church should have such a service? Can it, in short, be traced to any human origin? If so, then we can deal with it as with any other human institution. We are then at liberty to reason and speculate about it. We can apply to it the rules of human science and learning. We can test it, measure it, sound it by philosophy, logic, and the laws of the mind. Each one then has a right to his own opinion about it. Each one can apply to ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting upon all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate upon the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 {169a} into a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to me probable. From that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope I may be excused these personal details, as I give them ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... ruin to thousands. Fluctuation, however, in the paper value of the measure of all values (gold) is detrimental to the interests of trade. It makes the man of business an involuntary gambler, for in all sales where future payment is to be made both parties speculate as to what will be the value of the currency to be paid and received. I earnestly recommend to you, then, such legislation as will insure a gradual return to specie payments and put an immediate stop to fluctuations in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... she made a touching and gallant picture. Her face had gone very pale and he saw, or fancied he saw, her lips tremble. But her solemn eyes shone with a steady light, and, whatever the excitement affecting her, she held it bravely in check. Noting all which he could not but speculate as to whether she had any knowledge of a certain romantic attachment—culminating on the one hand in an act of virtuous treachery, on the other in an act of renunciation—which had overshadowed and wrenched from its natural sequence so large a portion of her father's life. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... other, and, top of all, one of those old-fashioned massive, carved sounding-boards, which gave so queer a Jack-in-the-box aspect to the pulpit, and prompted dreamers in dreary sermons, heedless of George Herbert's counsel that if nothing else, the sermon 'preacheth patience,' to speculate on severing the iron rod that supported the board, letting it fall, and so, by one process shutting up, so to speak, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... de Voisenon, ever hanging, as it were, between pates and his grave, becomes now a rather interesting subject of study. We begin to speculate upon what it is that will finally carry him off: his asthma, or the confectionary he ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... and sewing of each household be done by its women? We have laundries, ready-made clothing, and bakeries, and now it is proposed in Boston to furnish a complete supply of ready-cooked food. This can be done cheaper than families can supply themselves, if we leave out the American propensity to speculate in ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... a chance, but a certainty. You shall have the place. And what a delight it will be to the General to visit his daughter there. Now, don't speculate—let it be settled. Well, I'll see you to-morrow and tell you how it's all to turn out, but have no fears ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... vagabondage which it suggests. And so it is that Slang words have a life as closely packed with adventure as is the life of those who use them with the quickest understanding. To ask what becomes of last year's Slang is as rash as to speculate on the fate of last year's literature. Many specimens die in the gutter, where they were born, after living a precarious life in the mouths of men. Others are gathered into dictionaries, and survive to become the sport of philologists. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Hindu sages never attempt to speculate on the original creation of the universe. Their speculations, however, are concerned with what is called Avantara srishti or that creation which springs forth with the awakening of Brahman. Creation and Destruction have occurred ceaselessly and will occur ceaselessly. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Is it extravagant to speculate on the possibility of the Episcopalian, Catholic, and Presbyterian clergy joining in an Antiquarian Society to preserve our ecclesiastical remains—our churches, our abbeys, our crosses, and our fathers' tombs, from fellows ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he went —in the night. Who can say? Wherefore speculate? He is gone. It is enough. Were it not for thee, Egypt should see ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mysterious charges against Leigh Hunt in his domestic relations. The world could not understand the nature of his poetical love of incest; and instead of at once forgetting both the poem and the poet, many people set themselves to speculate, and talk, and ask questions, and pry into secrets with which they had nothing to do, till at last there was something like an identification of Leigh Hunt himself with Paolo, the incestuous hero of Leigh Hunt's chief Cockney poem. This was wrong, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the universe and its Maker? He had his definite material Elysium and Tartarus, as the only ultimate relation between man and the universe; his dogma of an absolute fiat, creating arbitrary and once for all, as the only relation between the universe and its Maker: and further it was not lawful to speculate. The idea which I believe unites both physic and metaphysic with man's highest inspirations and widest speculations—the Alexandria idea of the Logos, of the Deity working in time and space by successive thoughts—he ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... think must have nettled him. I have long with Pain suspected a perfidious Design. This Resolution must have crossd it. It will cause much Speculation in Europe. No Matter. The Powers there seem more inclind to speculate than to espouse the Rights of Man. Let them speculate. Our Business is to secure America against the Arts & the Arms of a treacherous Enemy. The former we have more to ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... possible (and here lies the interest of the enigma) that the Veiled Being may one day justify himself even morally. Perhaps he is all the time doing so behind the veil. But on that it is absolutely useless to speculate. Light may one day come to us, but it will come through patient investigation, not through idle pondering and guessing. In the meantime, poised between the macrocosm and the microcosm, ourselves including both extremes, and ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... (as she addressed herself to me) upon this fortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of it. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder whose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me, contemplating the birds, and I had no ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... time enough to stare and speculate, for it was two hours before he was summoned. He went into the office building, where a company timekeeper interviewed him. The superintendent was busy, he said, but he (the timekeeper) would try to find Jurgis a job. He had never worked in a steel mill ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... that he feared it would be so, although he could not yet speak with any degree of certainty; and getting away as soon as he could, went home to con Newman's letter once more, and speculate ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... to speculate then, and, indeed, the boys were in little mood for it. The precariousness of their position was alarming. And while I have detailed the conversation among them, you are to understand that it all took place very quickly. In fact from the time they first observed the strange ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... bring a light into her lovely eyes that seemed to spread up and around her white forehead and beautiful hair like a supernatural lustre. There was a fire that animated her which nobody who saw its glow or felt its warmth could question. Without that altar of music—But why speculate on what she might have been if she had not been what she was? That would be to consider ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... brought from a distance. The unfortunate feature about all the hybridizing work with apples is the mongrel character of the plants on which we work. We know nothing of the parentage of any of our varieties, and it seems quite useless to speculate on what the segregation of characters may be in crosses between different varieties. A further discouraging feature in apple breeding is the long period required to get results from any particular cross. Effort is being made to shorten this period by grafting ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... was through Captain Cannonby. If this gentleman really was with Frederick Massingbird when he died, and saw him buried, it was evident that it could not be Frederick come back to life. In that case, who or what it might be, Lionel did not stay to speculate; his business lay in ascertaining by the most direct means in his power, whether it was, or was not, Frederick Massingbird. How was it possible to do this? how could it be possible to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... picture of their house. I began to feel sorry for my companion: the thought of our riding gaily off, and leaving him at work, made him seem pathetic. My appeals, however, made no impression upon his inflexible sense of duty, and I soon ceased trying to persuade him to join us, and began to speculate, instead, as to whether all four sisters would accompany me, or whether only two or three of them would ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... apt to consider as abounding to an astonishing degree with large animals, because we find the remains of many ages accumulated at certain spots, could hardly boast of more large quadrupeds than Southern Africa does at present. If we speculate on the condition of the vegetation during those epochs, we are at least bound so far to consider existing analogies, as not to urge as absolutely necessary a luxuriant vegetation, when we see a state of things so totally different at the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... vicinity of Pittsburg may one day wake the lyre of the Pennsylvanian bard to strains as martial and as sweet as Scott; ... believe me, I should tread with as much reverence over the mausoleum of a Shawanee chief, as among the catacombs of Egypt, and would speculate with as much delight upon the site of an Indian village as in the gardens of Tivoli, or the ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... theories of courteous love, every one is more or less familiar if only from the ridicule of Cervantes and the follies of Quixote, who, though four hundred years younger, was Lancelot's child; but we never can know how far she took herself and her laws of love seriously, and to speculate on so deep a subject as her seriousness is worse than useless, since she would herself have been as uncertain as her lovers were. Visionary as the courtesy was, the Holy Grail was as practical as any bric-a-brac that has survived of the time. The mystery of Perceval is like that of the Gothic ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... shaded space of the chamber she stopped to speculate on the varied and colorful pictures of the wall paper reaching from the white paneling above her waist to the deep white carving at the ceiling. The scene which absorbed her most showed, elevated above a smooth stream, a marble pavilion with sweeping steps and ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of an eating-place in a good-sized seaport city, and had not yet noticed that some people ate pie without a knife. By it I fancied I could gauge the man's social inheritance. And there were other customs of the place in keeping with the pie and knife. I used to speculate on what primitive sort of an upbringing he had that he was so slow to adopt the most ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... Merchants here would speculate deeply in the American trade, could they be insured at any premium within bounds. I wish to know if offices are already open, and I would suggest that if the Congress would take the insurance under their own direction, it would give it such a proportionably ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... realised how great a factor in his own life this slim young girl might be. As lady of the Court and his own patron, she would have it in her power to ensure his comfort or the reverse. Ah, well, well, it was too early to speculate! The child had a sweet, good face; no doubt all would ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... within the bronzed skull, but it is useless to speculate, since we have no more means of knowing their nature than had Jack Carleton, who wondered and guessed without ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... incompleteness may be remedied, as a season, not of changing the spiritual bent and character of the soul departed, whatever that be, for probation ends with mortal life, but of developing it in a more determinate form, whether of good or evil. Again, when the mind once allows itself to speculate, it will discern in such a provision a means whereby those who, not without true faith at bottom, yet have committed great crimes, or those who have been carried off in youth while still undecided, or who die after a barren, though not immoral or scandalous ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... accumulation had been increasing for five or six years, therefore it is impossible to ascertain or even to speculate upon the distance to which it might extend. The slave-traders had been obliged to seek another rout, which they had found via the Bahr Giraffe, which river had proved to be merely a branch of the White Nile, as I had suggested in my former work, and ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... procedure of modern financial speculation, was in fact better versed in the jargon and gossip of the Stock Exchange than Melrose himself; and had made use now and then of the large amount of information and the considerable number of useful acquaintances he possessed to speculate cautiously on his own account—without much result, but without disaster. Also it was very soon clear that, independently of his special reasons for knowing something about engraved gems and their value, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the 'Origin of Species' does not purport to be philosophical. In this aspect it is very different from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious observer, skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in dealing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. He ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... paused in her breathless career ready to cry at this malicious fate fighting against her, and for the first time allowing herself time to speculate on what was up. All around her she became aware of weeping and wailing and shrieking ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... should expect any thing of Elaborate or Methodical in what you will meet with here, I must confess to you before-hand, that the seasons I was wont to chuse to devise and try Experiments about Colours, were those daies, wherein having taken Physick, and finding my self as unfit to speculate, as unwilling to be altogether idle, I chose this diversion, as a kind of Mean betwixt the one and the other. And I have the less scrupled to set down the following Experiments, as some of them came to my mind, and as the Notes wherein I had set down the rest, occurr'd to my hands, that ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... speculate whether the "nephesh" of the animals, or the "living self" of the man, is an entity separate from the body, and capable of existing per se—of its own inherent nature—apart from it. We do not know that animal forms are the clothing of a lower-graded ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... remember to have seen a single historical picture of Sir Joshua's that has not suffered; happily there are yet many of his portraits fresh, vigorous, and beautiful in colouring. It should seem, that he thought it worth while to speculate upon those of least value to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... House of Commons. He agreed that it was extremely adverse to the growth of greatness among our public men; and he said the mass of public business increased so fast that he could not tell what it was to end in, and did not venture to speculate even for a few years upon the mode of administering public affairs. He thought the consequence was already manifest in ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... 'Review' would be of use in the debate which will then be going on, and will probably be noticed; whereas, after the division on leave to bring in the Bill, it would be less opportune. The article on Ireland is complete, and it would be premature to speculate on the details of ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... began to speculate on the possibility of starting anew after finances were once straightened out. It appeared doubtful, she being herself more ignorant than Kate, but presently a happy suggestion presents itself to her. One afternoon she asked Mrs. King, a kind, motherly, grey-haired lady who taught ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... narrative I had so lately heard; that is to say, though my eyes were still fixed upon the line, I had completely given up my thoughts to the story of the poor German boy, who had been snatched from poverty by the interference of the parish clerk's daughter; and I contrived to speculate on what I should have done under such circumstances, imagining all sorts of extravagances in which I should have indulged, to testify my gratitude to so ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for other reasons, better or worse as it may be; to all which I am accustomed to answer (and I do not see how I can be in error), that, if Christ had not meant His Church to answer a purpose, He would not have set it up, and that our business is not to speculate about possible Dispensations of Religion, but to resign and devote ourselves to that in ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... d'elire goes forth, it will rend the veil of ages. It implies the conferment on the people of power hitherto unknown in their history. What a commotion will the ballot-box excite! How suddenly will it arouse the dormant [Page 199] intellect of a brainy race! But it is premature to speculate. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... sight Buddhism is much more like Christianity than those of us who stay at home and speculate upon it commonly appreciate. As a system of philosophy it sounds exceedingly foreign, but it looks unexpectedly familiar as a faith. Indeed, the one religion might well pass for the counterfeit presentment of the other. The resemblance ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... ours is the last generation for many generations that will go freely about the world, that will have abundance of leisure, and science and free speech and abundant art and much beauty and many varied occupations. We stand about in our old haunts and try to keep on with our old ways of living and speculate when the war will be "over," and when we shall be able to go back to everything just as it was before the war. This war and its consequences will never be "over," and we have not even begun to realize what it has ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of the sun gave 79 deg. 45'. We have therefore drifted only 8' southward during the four days since March 4th. This slow drift is remarkable in spite of the high winds. If there should be land to the north? I begin more and more to speculate on this possibility. Land to the north would explain at once our not progressing northward, and the slowness of our southward drift. But it may also possibly arise from the fact of the ice being so closely packed together, and frozen ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... part of my present purpose to discuss the point historically, or to speculate on the formation of either Canon. Rather, such inquiries are altogether alien from the great object of my pursuits and studies, which is to convince myself and others that the Bible and Christianity are their own sufficient evidence. But it concerns both my character and ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... happy in the present, and did not speculate much upon the future. The rolling years brought him completeness, and to the graces of person were added the gifts of wisdom and knowledge. The down that shaded his cheek, like the down upon a ripe peach, had darkened and strengthened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... to speculate what would have been the progress of poetry in England if the Renaissance had not come and the Elizabethan courtier had not enriched himself at the expense of the people. What we have to bear in mind is that all through the centuries ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... rid of unless formally investigated and dismissed by an ecclesiastical council. Laws against blasphemy, which were virtually laws against heresy, were in force in these three states. In Massachusetts, Catholic priests were liable to imprisonment for life. Any one who should dare to speculate too freely about the nature of Christ, or the philosophy of the plan of salvation, or to express a doubt as to the plenary inspiration of every word between the two covers of the Bible, was subject to fine and imprisonment. ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... frightened, and to have, in consequence, removed his property. What a strange notion Mr. Sudlow must have of Steele and Addison, if he has read the The Spectator and The Tatler after this literal fashion. But I will not speculate on his speculations, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... approach; and when they come alongside you may have a talk with them if you know the language or have an interpreter; or you may amuse yourself with a little pantomime, if articulate speech is impossible. Now you encounter a long train of camels marching along with solemn, stately step, and speculate as to the contents of the big packages with which they are laden. Now you encounter the carcass of a horse that has fallen by the wayside, and watch the dogs and the steppe eagles fighting over their prey; and if you ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and those men are very susceptible to flattery. Also he will be led to speculate favourably upon the stylishness and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... unusual with this well-bred woman; and a bit of speech that does not flow, causes us to speculate. The lady resumed: 'I value the favour. We're in a horsey-doggy-foxy circle down there. We want enlivening. If we had your ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... difficult to analyze the effect of tho punishment Kirsty had given him, but its influence was upon him through the whole of the terrible time—none the less beneficent that his response to her stinging blows was indignant rage. I dare hardly speculate what, had she not defended herself so that he could not reach her, he might not have done in the first instinctive motions of natural fury. It is possible that only Kirsty's skill and courage saved him from what he would never have surmounted the shame of—taking ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... the ruin is not only different from the other portions, but different also from anything else in the canyon, and the difference is not one of degree only. Doubtless systematic excavation in the various parts of the ruin would afford an explanation. In the absence of such work we can only speculate on ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... detective began to speculate upon the chance that had brought the Chicago ward bully into a village labor fight, and since it was his business to put two and two together, he was not long in finding the answer to his own query. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... with things which have a principle of motion in themselves; mathematics speculate on permanent, but not transcendental and self-existent things; and there is another science separate from these two, which treats of that which is immutable and transcendental, if indeed there exists ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... longer. If I had been caged in there a few hours more than I was, in my nervous tension I probably would have vented my sense of outraged justice by assaulting one of the officers myself. I wouldn't have had a long time then to speculate upon the immortality of the soul. I would have possessed first-hand information. One can understand why, for their own protection, the Germans imposed their iron laws upon the Belgians with their terrible penalties. What is ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... known to be there. "It's Theodore," said his wife, jumping up and going out to meet him. "I'm so glad that you have been here a little before him, because now I feel that I know you. When he's here, I shan't get in a word." Then she went down to her husband, and Harry was left to speculate how so very charming a woman could ever have been brought to love a man who cleaned his boots ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... ways, or from a deliberate artistic purpose to account adequately for Ferdinand's jealousy? Had he taken a lesson from the maidenly reserve of Lotte von Wolzogen and the prudential scruples of her mother? These are questions upon which one can only speculate. As matters stand, the whole catastrophe is made to hinge upon Ferdinand's suspicion. A little patience, a little faith in his sweetheart, would turn the course of fate. But her conduct makes faith difficult; so we understand his jealousy, but not so well ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... credited(1) with many other discoveries. In the work already referred to he allows his imagination freely to speculate as to the wonders that might be accomplished by a scientific utilisation of Nature's forces—marvellous things with lenses, in bringing distant objects near and so forth, carriages propelled by mechanical means, flying machines...—but in ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... was but little. He could only speculate whether or not the duke would give up Brussels, and retire for reinforcements. If the two armies could effect a union, they would be near about the strength of the French, but then the Prussians were cut to pieces; so the curate broke down, and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... I have purposely excluded from this list all tricks and accomplishments which are not universally taught to working elephants. We have seen, however, that performing elephants are capable of executing nearly double the number of acts commonly taught to the workers; and, while it is useless to speculate upon the subject, it must be admitted that, were a trainer to test an elephant's memory by ascertaining the exact number of commands it could remember and execute in rotation, the result would far exceed anything yet obtained. For my own part, I believe it would exceed ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... fifty thousand, plus what I have got already—put that at only two hundred and fifty thousand net. Two millions in all, which of course may or may not be added to, probably not, unless the ordinaries boom, for I don't mean to speculate any more. That's the end of twenty years' work, Robert Aylward. And to think of it, eighteen months ago, although I seemed so rich, I was on the verge of bankruptcy—the very verge, not worth five thousand pounds. Now what did the trick? I ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... my dear sister. To speculate upon my title and my rank in order to make a wealthy marriage? To quit my nomad's tent for a fixed residence other than that where the Prerolles have succeeded one another from generation to generation? Never! Of all our ancient prejudices, that is the only one I cherish. ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... was Alice who said, "Shut up, Pop"—and rather casually at that—and she and me went on to speculate and then to argue about which buttons we ought to push, if any and ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... himself and told the truth, and the truth was mighty and would prevail. After that he had nothing to do during the rest of his trip but sit alongside one of his companions and talk of cattle-herding and speculate concerning the future of Black Dan. All he could learn regarding the latter was that he was going to the bad as ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... to the utmost; and Wilfred, determined to rise to the occasion, threw off his sadness, ceased to speculate as to the chances of the insurrection {xvi}; that night, at least, he would give to joy—he would encourage his people who loved him so faithfully by ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake |
