"Speculate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the end next the horses, two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light. They were about two inches apart, and about the size of those small brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon their jackets. I began to speculate, as listless men will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From what centre did that faint but deep red light come, and from what—glass beads, buttons, toy decorations—was it reflected? We were lumbering along gently, having nearly a mile still to go. I had not solved ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Yelvertoft, and finally to Paulerspury, farther south—as well as over the whole Danegelt from Lincolnshire to Devonshire. If thus there was Norse blood in William Carey it came out in his persistent missionary daring, and it is pleasant even to speculate on the possibility of such an origin in one who was all his Indian life indebted to Denmark for the protection which alone ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine citizen who had received the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... better, a letter comes to hand Astin' how I'd like to dicker fer some Illinois land— "The feller that had owned it," it went ahead to state, "Had jest deceased, insolvent, leavin' chance to speculate,"— ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... It is interesting to speculate as to the particular form in which this new art will manifest itself. The question is perhaps already answered in the "color organ," the earliest of which was Bambridge Bishop's, exhibited at the old Barnum's Museum—before the days of electric light—and the latest ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... much disposed to speculate in doubtful securities," he said. "I can't afford it, for one thing, and, of course, I am not in position to watch the market, as you say. What I would like is to put a few thousands into some good, safe, ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... correct. It is plain that a party of the villagers have captured the man, and the excitement we heard was caused by that fact." And John began to speculate on the probability of the island containing more ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... she knocked and had kept a roof above her head. She had been just sixty years of age when Willie Spence's sister had died and left him alone in the wee cottage on the Harbor Road, and all Wilton had begun to speculate as to what was to become of him. Willie was as dependent as an infant; the village gossips who knew everything knew that. From childhood he had been looked after,—first by his mother, then by his ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... is very sensible," replied Athos; "we must speculate upon the faults of people, and not upon their virtues. Monsieur Abbe, you are ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... needless to speculate on what would have been the fortunes of the English in Bengal if that vote had settled the question. Luckily, Clive was a man of genius, and was not either afraid to admit that he had made a mistake, or to change his mind. A short period of solitary reflection ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... formal 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 ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... notice even this, certainly none in which to speculate concerning its cause. Miss Snowden, who held a paper in her hand, stepped forward and began to speak, gesticulating with the paper as she did so. She paid absolutely no attention to the masculine visitor. She was trembling with excitement and it is doubtful ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... had lessened the sharpness of their feelings, they learned to speculate reasonably about the phenomenon, which Mr. Grant had accepted as something not to be scoffed away, not to be treated as a poor joke, but to be put aside as something inexplicable ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... he would cordially approve, I used to speculate. Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen, intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... I remember, with three dozen undershirts, a gallon of pennyroyal for insect bites, a box of assorted fish hooks, thirty pounds of tea, and a case of carpet tacks. When I hadn't anything else to worry over, I used to lie awake at night and speculate on the purpose of those carpet tacks. He had something in mind: if there was anything on which he prided himself, it was his practical bent. But the list never got any further: it ceased short of one page in the ledger, as you may have noticed. I outfitted ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... begin to speculate about the future of this country there is no end. And the past of the nation has rather little to do with estimating its future. We have been a wide-open immigration country. In twenty years we have transformed ourselves by a foreign policy with which Britain had nothing ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... astronomers of a future age. Afterward I was comforted by the reflection that in airless space, although I might die and my body become desiccated, yet there could be no real decay; even my garments would probably last forever. The savants, after all, should never speculate on ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... roulette seems to have a different system: some powder the numbers with florins or five-franc pieces, in the hope of one coming up out of them; others speculate merely on the rouge or noir. One Spaniard at Ems, we remember, made a very comfortable living at it by a method of playing he had invented. He placed three louis-d'or on the manque, which contains all the numbers to eighteen, and two ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... ridiculed what he preached to the people—that the notions of the few and the many were never united. But, in this new faith, it seemed to him that philosopher, priest, and people, the expounders of the religion and its followers, were alike accordant: they did not speculate and debate upon immortality, they spoke of as a thing certain and assured; the magnificence of the promise dazzled him—its consolations soothed. For the Christian faith made its early converts among sinners! ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... to be kapellmeister—on the contrary, wished most vigorously not to be kapellmeister. What on earth he did wish to be, how he hoped to earn bread—he who had had only one opera produced, and gained L45 by it: it is idle to speculate concerning such questions. Excepting that he laboured incessantly at his operas—scheming and sketching, if not actually composing and writing—he would seem at this stage of his growth to have been ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... out into the Lobby to chatter about the new phase of the crisis and to speculate as to what were the points outstanding, and whether the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS was or was not the prickliest of them. To the noise and flurry created by their exit Mr. MCKENNA owes it that his Finance Bill ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... the first time it was noticed that, in place of the habitual smile that had made Burns the idol he was, there was a grim set about his jaw that caused those nearest to the ring to wonder and to speculate. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... first place, this was enough to make him recall all that had happened. This led him to speculate on all that might be about to happen—how much he could not at that moment even imagine. Neither line of thought ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... never been able to keep this sphere of thought and cognition pure from all admixture of foreign elements. The idea of a science of this kind is as old as speculation itself; and what mind does not speculate—either in the scholastic or in the popular fashion? At the same time, it must be admitted that even thinkers by profession have been unable clearly to explain the distinction between the two elements of our cognition—the one completely ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... running. Some one had even gone to the church, and now, from the distance, rang the tocsin note of the old bell. There was a long flare of crimson on the sky, which made remote people speculate as to the whereabouts of ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Hoddon Grey, Reginald Lester was passing a solitary Sunday at Coryston, until the afternoon, at least, when visitors appeared. To be left to himself, the solitary inhabitant, save for the servants, of the great classical pile; to be able to wander about it as he liked, free to speculate on its pictures and engravings; to rummage the immense collection of china in the basement rooms which no one but himself ever looked at; to examine some new corner of the muniment-room, and to ponder the strange and gruesome collection of death-masks, made ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now for the first time since she entered this unpeopled house that she had leisure to speculate on the circumstances which had brought about such loneliness and neglect, here where rank and state, and wealth almost without limit should have secured the patient every care and comfort that devoted service could lavish upon a sufferer. How was it that she found her sister's husband abandoned ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... that if we will not fight him now in his own country we shall perhaps be obliged to do so in ours—if, I say, we are assured of this, then we shall have made up our minds aright, and shall be quit of idle words. For you have not to speculate what the future may be: you have only to be assured that the future must be evil, unless you give heed and are ready to do ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... as you said just now, kind of lonely: he feels rather abandoned and even, I think, a little betrayed. So far from being jealous he yearns for me and regrets me. The only thing he really takes seriously is to speculate and understand, to talk about the reasons and the essence of things: the people who do that are the highest. The applications, the consequences, the vulgar little effects, belong to a lower plane, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... sorry that headache and neuralgia should have been added to illness and dislike of writing, as your reason for not inquiring how we were going on. We sit here in the receipt of news without any means of reciprocity, but we can speculate on France, Italy, and Ireland. Of those, the country which most interests and most concerns me, is Ireland.... I have heard much of Lady and Lord Byron, and from good sources. I can only conclude that he was half mad ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... Alice, "that property is mine and I bought it for a home, not to sell. If you and Colonel Doller want to speculate, you need n't think you 're going to rope me into ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... American rebellion so soon after he had ignominiously washed his hands of it, sealed forever his own social doom. That, it is certain, was most severe and drastic. The money paid him by the British Government was accursed as were the thirty silver pieces of Iscariot; for his passion to speculate ruined him financially some time before the end of his life, and he breathed his last amid comparative poverty and the dread of still ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... to enter the chamber of Father Beret's soul and look upon his sacred and secret trouble; nor must we even speculate as to its particulars. The good old man writhed and wrestled before the cross for a long time, until at last he seemed to receive the calmness and strength he prayed for so fervently; then he rose, tore the letter into pieces so small that not a word remained whole, and squeezed them ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... who were assembled in the old parlour, rose to greet Mr. Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performance of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the characters and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded—a habit in which he in common with many other great men ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... who do not know her, and have not this ground, it is probably profitable and necessary that they painfully collect isolated facts and then speculate upon them, and base whatever views they should form upon these collections. It might even be profitable that they should form no definite opinions at all, but wait till the ages of practical experience have put doubt to rest. For those of us who have a ground of knowledge which ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... fine and generous spirit that the giant was showing, though Tom had no time to speculate on ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... them that the new King, though born a Jew, was of universal interest and was more than human; they forefelt his divinity. Therefore they were come to the King, not to gratify their curiosity, not to speculate and debate and frame a new creed, but to worship him. There was no war between the science and the theology of these wise men. Their science did not kill their religion, and their religion did not strangle their science. The stars, according to their simple-minded way of thinking, did not ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... only speculate as to causes of the occurrence of valuable minerals in certain igneous rocks and not in others. Many granites are intruded into the outer shell of the earth, but only a few carry "minerals"; also, of a series of intrusions in the same locality, only one may carry valuable minerals. It ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... had come to the stage of querulous self-pity. 'Twas monstrous, this burying a man alive, ill, fettered, uncared-for, to live or die in utter solitude as might happen. I could not remotely guess to whom I owed this dismal fate, and was too petulant to speculate upon it. But the meddler, friend or foe, who had bereft me of my chance to die whilst I was fit and ready, came in for a Turkish cursing—the curse that calls down in all the Osmanli variants the same pangs in duplicate upon the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Sometimes I speculate as to whether it can be due to the mansard-roof of their house. I have always had a theory that inanimate things exerted more of an influence over people than they dreamed, and a mansard-roof, to my mind, belongs to a period which was most ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... 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 which we are ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... knees. The sun lit up her bobbed hair that shone like brass and had touched her white skin with a warm finger. Wistful and elfish, sitting like Puck on a toadstool, she might have slipped out of some mossy corner of the woods to taste the breeze and speculate about life. She wore a butter-colored sport shirt wide open at the neck and brown cord riding breeches and puttees. Slight and small boned and rather thin she could easily have passed for a delicate boy or, except for something at the back of her eyes that showed that she had not always ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... had made in order to get at her, was a novel species of flattery. She recognized the ring of a distinctly new note in his voice; but, strangely enough, the note lost its unfamiliarity in an instant. Margaret recognized that fact also, and as she swiftly speculate don the phenomenon her pulse went one or ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... not necessary to speculate on this matter. For the present we may accept the fact, that the proportion of potash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen in the crop is no indication of the proper proportion in which these ingredients should be applied to the soil for these crops ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... The resort to "Omnipotency" in such matters is more convenient than philosophical; it is a dodging of the question, instead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordination—"[Greek: Doz d' etelevto Bonlae]"—is a maxim which settles all difficulties. But it also precludes all inquiry. Why speculate at all, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... it had not occurred to the prince to resent the assured attitude of the merchant, or to speculate upon the insinuating suggestions of complicity which the latter had managed to lodge in the consciousness of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... powerful means of transport not known to-day. Hundreds of thousands of people have travelled to Stonehenge and have gone away but little wiser than when they came. What the stones were for no man knows; he can only speculate and wonder. ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... John did not perhaps speculate on the reason why this double outflow took place from the wounded side, others have occupied ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... spectator, spectacle, suspect, aspect, prospect, expect, respectable, disrespect, inspection, speculate, special, especial, species, specify, specimen, spice, suspicion, conspicuous, despise, despite, spite; (2) specter, spectrum, spectroscope, prospector, prospectus, introspection, retrospect, circumspectly, conspectus, perspective, specie, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of the Prince's purpose; for he was more demonstrative of affection than was his wont. He seemed to eye me with a pitiful love that puzzled me; and he began to talk (this also was rare with him) of my special position, how I must be apart from other men, and to speculate in seeming idleness on what a place such as mine would be to him and make of him. All this came between our spurts of rowing or among our talk of sport or of flowers as we lay ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... 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 hard to ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... upon the issues of the present campaign, and upon them it may be bootless to speculate. No one may foretell the fortunes of war—I mean where victory will ultimately perch in this frightful struggle. We are environed and invaded by not less than 600,000 men in arms, and we have not in the field more than 250,000 ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... 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 barbarian tribes, they built roads connecting all ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... into the unbroken whiteness of the thoroughfare, lined by the snow-laden pines and spruces, all inextricably mixed as the sleigh spun by. It was too late to turn back now, she knew; the best that could be done, was to hurry on—and she began to count the hoof-beats and to speculate how long it would be before they would see the lights of the little station, and find ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... measure, to the rapid changes which occurred in the system of navigation shortly after the projection of the undertaking. For these Telford was not responsible. He was called upon to make the canal, and he did so in the best manner. Engineers are not required to speculate as to the commercial value of the works they are required to construct; and there were circumstances connected with the scheme of the Caledonian Canal which removed it from the category of mere commercial adventures. It was a Government ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... meaning in this text than we at first see. Of "these three," two concern ourselves; the third concerns others. When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... designed, the directors, to improve the infatuation of the monied men, opened their books for a second subscription of a million, at four hundred per cent. Such was the frantic eagerness of people of every class to speculate in these funds, that in the course of a few hours no less than a million and a half ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... not watching the patient, nor the good-looking young surgeon, who seemed to be the special property of her superior. Even in her few months of training she had learned to keep herself calm and serviceable, and not to let her mind speculate idly. She was gazing out of the window into the dull night. Some locomotives in the railroad yards just outside were puffing lazily, breathing themselves deeply in the damp, spring air. One hoarser note than the others struck familiarly on the nurse's ear. That ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "it's horrible even to speculate about such things—a mere question of proximity! Well, it can't be mended now; and the result is that I not only drive you back to work, but you have to carry me back as well, like Sindbad and the ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... much leisure to be thinking of late. A man has time to wonder and to speculate concerning life and what he's seen o' it when he's taking a long ocean voyage. And I've been meditating on some curious contrasts. I was in Australia when I heard of the coming of the war. My boy John was with me, then; he'd come ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... and venison hams, and gourds for drinking cups, and bags of seed, and my father's best hunting shirt; also, in a neglected corner, several articles of woman's attire from pegs. These once belonged to my mother. Among them was a gown of silk, of a fine, faded pattern, over which I was wont to speculate. The women at the Cross-Roads, twelve miles away, were dressed in coarse butternut wool and huge sunbonnets. But when I questioned my father on these matters he would ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... deserter walking between them in his shirt-sleeves, his pinioned hands covered from public gaze by the loose folds of his great-coat, explained everything. But from the hurried march of these mud-splashed men, nothing could be gathered, and we were left to speculate upon its meaning. Gradually, however, before the evening fell, the rumour of a murder having been committed spread through the city, and with that I instinctively connected the apparition of the file of muddy soldiers. Next day, murder ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... indicate the relations of my work on monkeys and apes to that of other investigators. Although throughout the report I have used freely the psychological terms idea and ideation, it has been my aim to describe the behavior of my animals rather than to interpret it or speculate concerning its accompaniments. Certain acts I have designated as ideational simply because they seemed to exhibit the essential features of what we call ideational behavior in man. Further study may, and probably ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... February Corrie first noticed that Gerard and Rupert simultaneously disappeared for an hour and a half every morning. No one knew why, or had interested enough to speculate, it seemed. Gerard always sent Corrie off on some duty, at that time each day, and only accidental circumstances awoke the young driver's attention to a ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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 has had his hands full ever since ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Mrs. Willoughby; 'but I hardly fancy Stephen Drake would consider that. I believe he would feel that he had no right to speculate on what may not happen. He would just see this one clear, definite, immediate thing to do, and simply do it.' She spoke the sentence with a slow emphasis upon each word, and Fielding moved uneasily. It seemed to strike an accusation ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... bell-tent which Queen Mab had bought for their special use and amusement. They pitched it on a corner of the lawn, and were always repairing thither to read, and talk, and hold councils of war. It was delightful to speculate as to what doughty warriors might have been sheltered beneath it; and to imagine that sundry small rents and patches must be the result of the enemy's fire, and not due to the wear and tear ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... his return home in November, 1389, with the affairs of Castile, and with claims arising out of his disbursements there. The reasons for Chaucer's attachment to this particular patron are probably not far to seek; on the precise nature of the relation between them it is useless to speculate. Before Wyclif's death in 1384, John of Gaunt had openly dissociated himself from the reformer; and whatever may have been the case in his later years, it was certainly not as a follower of his old patron that at this date Chaucer could ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... 'Matthew compiled the oracles' ([Greek: xunegrapsato ta logia]), requires this interpretation. If this explanation were correct, the notice would suggest that Papias looked upon the Greek Gospel as not merely a translation, but an enlargement, of the original document. In this case it would be vain to speculate how or when or by whom he supposed it to be made; for either he did not give this information, or (if he did) Eusebius has withheld it. This hypothesis was first started, I believe, by Schleiermacher, and has found favour with not a few critics ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... He died, like his father, at eighty-four (or rather, within a few days of eighty-five), but, unlike him, he had never been ill; a French friend exclaimed when all was over, 'Il n'a jamais ete vieux.' His faculties were so unclouded up to the last moment that he could watch himself dying, and speculate on the nature of the change which was befalling him. 'What do you think death is, Robert?' he said to his son; 'is it a fainting, or is it a pang?' A notice of his decease appeared in an American newspaper. It was written by an unknown hand, and bears a stamp of genuineness which renders the greater ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... habit to scrutinize the faces of those who had achieved greatness, Archbishops, Field-Marshals, Cabinet Ministers, and to speculate on the quality of mind that had raised them to their high estate; and often he would shift his position, so as to obtain a glimpse of his own features in the plate-glass window, and compare them with those of the famous. Thus he would determine ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... 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, he had been, through his Oxford uncle, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... himself to speculate as to how the door happened to be open, but, picking up the spade, wandered forth into the garden. The gate gave no trouble. He walked fast, and long before Marianne came back to her sweeping he had gained the woods, which were near, and enclosed the house on two sides in a shady half-circle. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... was not attack I was to fear, but some mysterious, underhanded treachery which would rob me of consciousness and make the precipitation of my body into the water both safe and easy. Perhaps it was in the bottle of brandy that the peril lay; perhaps—but why speculate further! I would watch till midnight and then, if nothing happened, signal my companions ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Nicholas's five sleeps were accomplished, the Boy began to curse the hour he had laid eyes on Father Wills. He began even to speculate desperately on the good priest's chances of tumbling into an air-hole, or being devoured by a timely wolf. But no, life was never so considerate as that. Yet he could neither face being the cause of the first serious row in camp, nor endure the thought of having ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... plunge from philology into ethnology. I prefer to speculate upon Mr. Thomas Burroughs. Who is he? and what does he want of ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... day we approached a warmer clime with its glowing sunshine and glittering waves and the deep blue sky bending down in unbroken circle around us. The rebel cruisers were then in the midst of their destructive work and it was natural, as we caught sight of a distant vessel, to speculate whether it was a friendly or a hostile craft. When we were in the latitude of Charleston, a steamer appeared in the far distance, then a flash, a puff of smoke and a loud report notified us that it was sending us its compliments. It approached nearer, a boat put out and ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman
... remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed to be with ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her feet in a moment. She appeared glad to have some excuse for action. She was, no doubt, nervous and excited as to the probable result of her lover's mission to the Hall, and wanted to be alone with Anne in order that they might speculate upon those probabilities which Banks's return would presently transform ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... resumed, and Mr. Fogo left to speculate on these dark sayings. But as the boat drew near the column of blue smoke that, rising from the hazels on the left bank, marked the whereabouts of the Dearloves' cottage, he grew aware of a picture that, perhaps by mere charm of composition, ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rearing as good birds as he can, according to his skill, and according to the standard of excellence at each successive period. He does not wish permanently to modify the breed; he does not look to the distant future, or speculate on the final result of the slow accumulation during many generations of successive slight changes: he is content if he possesses a good stock, and more than content if he can beat his rivals. The fancier in the time of Aldrovandi, when in ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... the Upper and Lower Orinoco permit the Indians of their Missions to paint their skins. It is painful to add, that some of them speculate on this barbarous practice of the natives. In their huts, pompously called conventos,* (* In the Missions, the priest's house bears the name of the convent.) I have often seen stores of chica, which they sold as high as four francs the cake. To form a ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... complaisant, very gentle, very disposed to pay court to people in office, to conform blindly to everything which flattered their views and projects; above all, to prefer to the sure and modest society of good farmers, simple citizens, and honest artisans, that of distinguished personages who speculate so patriotically in the public funds, in the lands, and in the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... walls had never tasted whitewash, but Lotte kept them scoured. She went to church barefoot, and put on her shoes at the door. Good things such as coffee and plums, that the poorest hut has now-a-days, we never saw. We didn't save much, for crops sold cheap. But I didn't speculate, nor squeeze money from the sweat of the poor. In time five pretty little chatterboxes arrived, all flaxen-haired girls with blue eyes, or brown. I was satisfied with girls, but the mother hankered after a boy. That's a poor father that prefers ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... vile tricks a foolish old man, and make him marry her, openly and avowedly selling her beauty and her youth. Such things happen, and are excused by the morality of our day. The same wicked, heartless woman might speculate upon becoming speedily a widow, and thus regaining her liberty, together with a large fortune. This also happens, however horrible it may appear. But that she should marry a poor old fool, with the preconceived ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... who speculate and doubt as to the existence of a hell but peer into the hearts of those vile creatures who slew poor Cook, you will draw back in terror; for hell, black hell is there. To give birth to a deed of such infamy, their hearts ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... 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 applications to be received as members, that it was found necessary to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... alienation from things about me, while I am yet amidst them; the slow rending of the bonds which make this body a home, so that it turns half alien, while yet some bonds unsevered hold the live thing fluttering in its worm-eaten cage—but God knows me and my house, and I need not speculate or forebode. When it comes, death will prove as natural as birth. Bethink thee, Lord—nay, thou never forgettest. It is because thou thinkest and feelest that I think and feel; it is on thy deeper consciousness that mine ever floats; thou knowest my frame, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... so perfectly considerate, so ever kind. She did not realize that she was thinking of him as a lover; but she dreamed, there, of the girls down in the bluegrass and wondered how it must seem to them to have lovers such as he. She could but very vaguely speculate as to their emotions or appearance, but her speculations on both points, vague as they might be, made her suffer strangely and cast queer, furtive little side-glances at him. In her heart were stirrings of keen jealousy ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... discard dancing. Though Germans, they have ceased to use tobacco; which loss, it is said, the men feel more heavily than that of the wives. They make considerable wine and beer, which they drink in moderation. They are said to be worth from two millions to three millions of dollars, and speculate in mines, oil-wells, saw-mills, etc., doing very little hard work, and hiring laborers from without to take their places in all drudgery. They are engaged principally in farming and the common trades, and supply nearly everything for themselves. They ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... 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 ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out before me things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, which the ordinary man only examines through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood induces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... on the roofs of the houses along the route of travel, with injunctions to watch narrowly the windows opposite and fire upon the first manifestation of disorder. One cannot resist the temptation to speculate upon the excitement that would have developed had a mischievous boy set off a large fire-cracker at ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... adventure was, thus far, pure fun, and the excitement delicious. I giggled in my sleeve in the anticipation of hearing the furious hoofs sweep past and lose themselves in the distance on the false scent. I had not had time to speculate as to why my companion was ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... to throw over Mr. Smithson, and speculate upon her chances of next year, what hope had she of doing better in her second season than in her first? The horizon was blank. There was no great parti likely to offer himself for competition. She had seen all that the market could produce. Wealthy ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... into illegibility, never reinforced by the scanning process. Sensory data, coming in from the outside world as it does, is probably permanent. But the thought patterns originating within the mind itself, the processes that correlate and cross-index and speculate on and hypothesize about the sensory data, these are much more fragile. A man might glance once through a Latin primer and have each and every page imprinted indelibly on his recording mechanism and still be unable ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... hysteria and general debility were regarded as the outward indications of a sweet and gentle character. Woman was a tendril clinging to the strong oak of masculinity. Modesty was her cardinal virtue. One is, of course, entitled to speculate on the probable contemporary causes for the seeming overemphasis placed on this admirable characteristic. Perhaps feminine honesty was so rare as to be at a premium and modesty was a sort of electric sign ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... this episode T. began to speculate about sexual matters and to observe the coupling of dogs with newly acquired interest. At 10 years he often lay awake, listening to a woman of 25 singing to a piano accompaniment. The woman's voice seemed very beautiful, and so strongly ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and everything? What of the reformer who went beyond Erasmus in denouncing the profane excesses perpetrated in the name of religion at the shrine of Becket at Canterbury? Colet died of the "sweating sickness" at the early age of fifty-three, in 1519; and it is idle to speculate on his action had he lived until the breach with Rome. His monument in the south aisle of the choir perished in the Fire; and in the new Renaissance cathedral a second might well be erected to the memory of this great leader of the Renaissance ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... it as a matter of course that he should speculate and gamble at cards, and indeed do anything and everything he fancied, but they beg him at least to keep to respectable clubs. He is constantly away. His daughter tries to tempt him home with the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... reason, cannot have any practical legal effect upon a then existing controversy."[188] Cases may become moot because of a change in the law, or the status of the litigants, or because of some act of the parties which dissolves the controversy.[189] Just as courts will not speculate an hypothetical question, so they will not analyze dead issues.[190] The duty of every federal court, said Justice Gray, "is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not give opinions upon moot questions or abstract ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the other. "That is why we're only ready to offer you out-district virgin forest value for the portions colored blue in this plan. In other words, we speculate by advancing you money on ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... to this time, it is impossible not to speculate upon how things might have turned out had the Radical party taken Andrew to them in his day of ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... upon those who would shrink from it if they recognized it as it really is and as it will ultimately show itself. Moreover, it is natural, and not unprofitable, for persons under our circumstances to speculate on the forms of error with which a University of this age will have to contend, as the medieval Universities had their own special antagonists. And for both reasons I am hazarding some remarks on a set of ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... adviser of the Executive, flees from office before charges of corruption, shall the historian add that the Senate treated the demand of the people for its judgment of condemnation as a farce, and laid down its high functions before the sophistries and jeers of the criminal lawyer? Shall he speculate about the petty political calculations as to the effect on one party or the other which induced his judges to connive at the escape of the great public criminal? Or, on the other had, shall he close the chapter by narrating how these things were detected, reformed and punished by Constitutional ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... mine! If you got any of your own put it up, and then I'll roll 'em. If you got a hundred to pile on top of that, or five hundred, or ten hundred, come on and pile it up. Then I'll roll 'em. But I ain't a goin' to stand here and speculate in my own money ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... his sharp eyes, nose and mouth, all alive with enterprise. "Look here, now, Loker, a beautiful opening. We'll do a business here on our own account;—we does the catchin'; the boy, of course, goes to Mr. Haley,—we takes the gal to Orleans to speculate on. An't it beautiful?" ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... this sojourn he won the hearts of his friends in Bethany, for the first picture the gospels give of this household seems to presuppose a somewhat intimate relation of Jesus to the family (Luke x. 38-42). It would be idle to speculate whether it was at this time or later that he became acquainted with Joseph of Arimathea, or the friends who during the last week of his life showed him hospitality (Mark ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... have endeavored to engage merchants to speculate in a direct commerce to America, to find out the sentiments of the people in general respecting us, to know whether, in case of necessity, the United States would be able to negotiate a loan, whether England would be able to obtain further credit, and by this ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... he began in apologetic explanation, "how mighty queer it was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages, without the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to sit here, night after night, and flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd do if we ever DID make one; and now, Great Scott! that we HAVE made it, and are just wallowing in gold, here we are sitting as glum and silent as if we'd had a washout! Why, Lord! I remember one night—not so long ago, either—that ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... an Englishman who had been in America 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 ayes were ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... He tried to speculate on my Christian character. He tried to make it appear that I was so pious and honest that I would not runaway for ill treatment; which was a gross mistake, for I never had religion enough to keep me from running away from ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... and the reign of intelligence. And here is a mandate which appears before my eyes—the tenacious law which must pounce without respite on all public robbers, on all those, little and big, cynics and hypocrites, who, when their trade or their functions bring the opportunity, exploit misery and speculate on necessity. There is a new hierarchy to make mistakes, to commit offenses and crimes—the ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... danger will know God, and will speculate of him, let him look first into the manger, that is, let him begin below, and let him first learn to know the Son of the Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem, that lies and sucks in his mother's bosom; ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Italian race, whose ghosts, if they wail over the "find," "speak in a language man knows no more." She charms us with etchings or scratchings of mammoths on mammoth-bone, and invites us to explore mysterious caves, to picnic among megalithic monuments, and speculate on pictured Scottish stones. In short, she engages man to investigate his ancestry, a pursuit which presents charms even to the illiterate, and asks us to find out facts concerning works of art which have interested ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... religion and locating the stars in heaven. At that time your forbears were gibbering cave savages, sharpening bones and gnawing raw flesh. When you see the negro on the opposite seat, the ill-starred one who has gone down in the human race while we have gone up, think about him, study him, speculate as to his ultimate end—and your own. Don't merely say to yourself, "That's a plain negro," and go on ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... continual coming and going, a little panorama of life that to a student of men like myself is intensely interesting. And at night it is just as amusing to sit there in the shadow and watch the people returning from the theaters or dances and to speculate as to whom and what they are. At that one little corner of London just off the Strand you see more variety of men and women than perhaps at any other spot. All grades pass before you, from the pushful American commercial man interested in a patent medicine, to the proud Indian Rajah with his turbaned ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... seasoned apparatus inherited from hard-drinking Southern ancestors. Altogether, he gave himself little time for thought, and if he felt at times an inclination to dream he thrust it from him with an almost superstitious fear. He would speculate no longer, but neither would he run the risk of invoking the laughter of cynical gods. If unimaginable disaster awaited him, at least he would not weaken his defences by a sojourn in ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... brows; the frankness of the eyes; the soft wave of her hair. There was a marked sadness in her face in repose; to wonder why, was to transgress the code of loyal humility that Will set himself; he had not even considered it due chivalry to speculate, much less ask, as to the reason of so amazing a phenomenon as her presence in California at all, and the incongruity of her school-teaching. Her pose was perfect, and yet nothing could be more unconscious. Was that ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... sun, his breath of life; he worshipped her. Then one day she died—suddenly—sank down and died as a butterfly might die, chilled by a blast. With her Henry Floyd buried his youth. For a time people were sympathetic; but they began immediately to speculate about him, then to gossip about him. It made no difference to him or in him. He was like a man that is dead, who felt no more. One thing about a great sorrow is that it destroys all lesser ones. A man with a crushed ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... of copying, did not interest him so much as the composing and creating, which were all done before he took up the pen. "You know," he writes to his father, "that I am immersed in music, as it were, that I am occupied with it all day long, that I like to study, speculate, reflect." He was often absent-minded and even followed his thoughts while playing billiards or nine pins, or riding. Like Beethoven, he walked up and down the room, absorbed in thought, even while washing his hands; and his hair-dresser used to ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Minchumina, perhaps one hundred miles' journey, to have the child baptized. It was generally known amongst all the natives of the region that the enterprise was on foot, and "Minchumina John," hoping to meet us in the Kantishna, and missing us, had followed our trail thus far. It was interesting to speculate how much further he would have penetrated: Walter thought as far as the glacier, but I think he would have followed as far as the dogs could go or until food was ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... the basement and were passed in by the grille-keeper, whose manner betrayed a discreet consciousness of something in the air. It was unnecessary to speculate why. In the distance, muffled by the armoured passages, an authoritative voice boomed like a ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... in the eyes of Felix Graham had come to her—at any rate as yet; and as to Peregrine Orme, she had hardly thought of his existence. "By heavens!" said Peregrine to himself, "she is the most beautiful creature that I ever saw;" and then he began to speculate within his own mind how the idea might be ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... evident. Indeed she must have been quite out of her mind to have called him Martin in that shameless fashion. The fact that the name had slipped so spontaneously from her lips and that she hastened to correct her mistake caused the man to speculate with delight as to whether she was wont to think of him by this familiar cognomen. This thought, however, was of minor importance, the flash of an instant. What chiefly disturbed Martin was the ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... opening of new sources of supply, so abundant as the Ural Mountains, California, and Australia, may be the commencement of another period of decline, on the limits of which it would be useless at present to speculate. But, on the whole, no commodities are so little exposed to causes of variation. They fluctuate less than almost any other things in their cost of production. And, from their durability, the total quantity in existence is at all times so great in proportion ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... was probably the inspired outpouring of one voice, and all the people said 'Amen,' and so made it theirs. Whose voice it was which thus put into words the common sentiment we should gladly have known, but need not speculate. The great fact is that the Church answered threats by prayer. It augurs healthy spiritual life when opposition and danger neither make cheeks blanch with fear nor flush with anger. No man there trembled ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... signing, on August 19th, of an agreement for the suspension of arms for four months. Torcy's reception of Bolingbroke was so managed that the bon vivant peer had as pleasant a time as he could well have wished. How much influence that had on Bolingbroke we can only speculate; but it is certain that he would have made a separate peace with France, after his return, had Oxford been willing. See Torcy's "Memoires" (vol. ii., p. 202). "Bolingbroke avoit conseille a la Reine sa maitresse de preferer une paix particuliere a la suspension d'armes, et d'assurer ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... hopeful believer exerted himself to the utmost, and "poor peasants and farmers, cottagers and their masters, threw their stakes into the claimant's lucky-bag, from which they were afterwards to draw 'all prizes and no blanks.'" Men of loftier position, also, were not averse to speculate upon the chances of this newly-discovered heir. Poor John Montgomerie gave him every penny he had saved, and every penny he could borrow, and after mortgaging his little property, was obliged to flee to America from his duns, where, it is said, he died. His son Peter, who succeeded to Ladeside, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... project may seem, it was sanctioned by the cool deliberate judgment of Washington; and it cannot, therefore, be doubted, that his Royal Highness was, for a time, in a situation of great though unknown danger. We leave it to our readers to speculate on the possible consequences, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... had to listen to them when we were engaged—I'm sure he is telling the same ones still. And now I shan't always have to be asking Carry Fisher here to keep him in a good-humour. She's a perfect vulture, you know; and she hasn't the least moral sense. She is always getting Gus to speculate for her, and I'm sure she ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... guarding against. Anyhow there is no doubt that the scene holds the place of honour, that it is the readiest means of starting an interest and raising a question—we drop into a scene on the first page and begin to speculate about the people concerned in it: and that it recurs for a climax of any sort, the resolution of the question—and so the scene completes what it began. In Madame Bovary the scenes are distributed and rendered with very rare skill; not one ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... be the same romance about the warships of the present day,—what those of the future will be like we do not care to speculate,—and the old "wooden walls" whose prowess on the high seas founded England's maritime glory? Will a Dibdin ever arise to sing a Devastation or a Glatton? Can a Devastation or a Glatton ever inspire poetic thoughts and images? One would say that the singer must be endowed in no ordinary ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... might have answered, or in what perplexity between truth and unwillingness to hurt she might have landed him before long, I need not speculate, seeing all danger was suddenly swept away by a second voice, addressing Cosmo as unexpectedly as ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... life was not too easy either, at this time, though few folks troubled themselves to speculate upon the reason for her added gruffness. So she concealed her anxieties under an extra harshness of tongue and did her best to make life a burden to everyone she came across. For, naturally, now that the Inn was no longer a pleasant place ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... 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 ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... to Littlebath, intent on enjoying her short reprieve. Something might happen; she did not ask herself what. The old gentleman might not last long; but she certainly did not speculate on his death. Or;—she had a sort of an idea that there might be an "or," though she never allowed herself to dwell on it as a reality. But on one point she did make up her mind, that if it should be her destiny to keep house for either of those two gentlemen, she ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... of paper from headquarters had said, and he did not speculate as to what those services would be, but he knew that they would not be exactly holding Sunday-School picnics in the neighborhood of Montdidier. Billy Brownway, machine gunner, had assured Thatchy that undoubtedly he was wanted to represent the messenger service on the War Council at Versailles. ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... 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 such a substance, as we shall endeavor to show that there ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the lofty hall, high above the first story. The dust lay thick on a large marble table—but what was that?—a streak across it, brushed sharply through the middle of the dust! It was strange! But he would not wait to speculate on the agent! The room to which the earl had directed him was on the first floor, and he ascended to it at once—by the great oak staircase which went up the ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... went back to Mr. Falconer, feeling that she had wings and could soar to the heavens. And she was happier yet as she walked that half block, her arm in his, feeling its warmth and strength. It is all very well to speculate in stocks and to build houses, but for such hearts as Susan's there is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... slowly the victims emerge from the lower depths of gloom, feebly smile, faintly joke, pick fearfully but wistfully at once-rejected dishes; talk about getting up, but don't do it; read a little, look at their sallow countenances in hand-glasses, and speculate upon the good effects of travel upon the constitution. Then they suddenly become daring, gay, and social; rise, adorn themselves, pervade the cabins, sniff the odours of engine and kitchen without qualms, play games, go to table; and, just ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... virtues of temperance and fortitude. It may direct the understanding, and ultimately the members of the body, in order to the production of some practical result in the external world, as a bridge. Lastly, it may direct the understanding to speculate and think, contemplate and consider, for mere contemplation's sake. Happiness must take one or ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... as many more next year," he said, throwing them into her apron. "So before long you'll get all his gewgaws," he added, rubbing his hands, delighted to be able to speculate on his daughter's feelings. ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... your last remark," he said. "My opinion is your views are sound. It is very rash to speculate on shares you don't know ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... practice. It is in the nature of morality that it should be implicit in practice long before it is explicit in theory. Morality belongs to the group and is rooted in certain impulses that are a product of the essential conditions of group life. It is as reflection awakens that men are led to speculate upon the nature and origin of the moral feelings. Morality, whether in practice or theory, is thus based upon what is. On the other hand, religion, whether it be true or false, is in the nature of a discovery—one ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... It is idle 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 ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... it, appears very plain, being composed of large blue pebble, some of a tun weight; and directs us to a village called Aimanderby. Barton on the Street, and Appleton on the Street, lye a little on the side of the road." Drake then proceeds to speculate as to the likelihood of the road still making a bee-line for York, or whether it diverged towards Malton, then no doubt a Roman station; but as his ideas are unimportant in comparison with his discoveries, we will leave him to return to the camps at Cawthorne. The hill they occupy forms ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... nothing good to report. Years of sick idleness and barrenness have grown wearisome to me. I do nothing. I waver and hover, and painfully speculate even now as to health, and where I shall spend the summer out of London! I am a very poor fellow;—but hope to grow better by and by. Then this alluvies of foul lazy stuff that has long swum over me may perhaps yield the better ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sago, or handkerchiefs. I then have to endeavour to explain, through any interpreter who may be at hand, that neither tripang nor pearl oyster shells have any charms for me, and that I even decline to speculate in tortoiseshell, but that anything eatable I will buy—fish, or turtle, or vegetables of any sort. Almost the only food, however, that we can obtain with any regularity, are fish and cockles of very good quality, and to supply our daily wants it is absolutely necessary to be always provided with ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... disturbing the ashes. Perhaps, he felt it all the more keenly on account of those expressions which recalled his own youth. He understood how irresistible must have been the strength of such a love and he trembled to speculate as to the result. ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau |
