"Surmise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cortez—when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... of the years of Jupiter, Saturn and the Georgian Sidus. If we then find that the globe we inhabit has its polar region frozen and covered with mountains of ice and snow, that only partially melt when alternately exposed to the sun, I may well be permitted to surmise that the same causes may probably have the same effect on the globe of Mars; that the bright polar spots are owing to the vivid reflection of light from frozen regions; and that the reduction of these spots is to be ascribed ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... with great satisfaction. "Those two are going to catch it!" she said to herself; "I am glad I am out of it!" Mr Roberts knew sorrowfully that the surmise was woefully true, but he was rather relieved to find that his sister-in-law was "going to catch it" with him. Her presence was a sort of stick for him ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... Mrs. Dinneford. "If you and I keep our own counsel, we are safe. The testimony of a condemned criminal goes for nothing. People may surmise and talk as much as they please, but no one knows anything about those notes but you ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... me, as you rightly surmise, the gravest anxiety, and it is no exaggeration to say that whenever her name was mentioned, my tongue seemed to thicken and I ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... The surmise that Halicz, the important railroad point on the Dniester, was soon to fall into the hands of the Russians, provided they were able to keep up the strength and swiftness of their offensive, was proved correct on July 10, 1917. Late that day the news that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... whirl of the previous night, and by reason of the abiding joy of her morning's reverie, she had failed to miss the dapper Frenchman. Once, indeed, she had mentioned him to Isobel, who offered a brief surmise that he might be ill, and keeping to his cabin. Yet, here he was on deck, and possibly on the point of seeking an interview with the lady to whom he had paid such close attention during the early days of the voyage. Perhaps Mrs. Somerville had told him of the fainting fit, and he was ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... diplomatic reserve when he was in presence of a member of the clergy plumply unfolded the Barthes business. Pierre had experienced the keenest anguish during the two hours that he had been waiting there, for he could only explain the letter he had received by a surmise that the police had discovered his brother's presence in his house. And so when he heard the Minister simply speak of Barthes, and declare that the government would rather see him go into exile than be obliged to imprison him once more, he remained for a moment quite disconcerted. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... eternal crops and politics and populations. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, while she grievously suspected from Storri's sigh—which little whisper of despair still sounded in her ears—that he had met reverses, would not voice her surmise. She would treat the affair as commencing with Storri's request. But she would watch Dorothy; and if she detected symptoms of failure to appreciate Storri as a nobleman possessing wealth and station,—in short, if Dorothy betrayed an intention ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... desperately anxious to curry favour with the United States, and it was scarcely likely, therefore, that houses would be sacked and burnt, civilians executed and women violated under the disapproving eyes of the American representative. This surmise proved to be well founded. The Germans did not want Mr. Whitlock in Brussels, and nothing would have pleased them better than to have had him depart and leave them to their own devices, but, so long as he blandly ignored their hints that his room was ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... of it. It is remarkable, that being obliged by my profession to see a number of young girls, I do not recollect one at Chambery but what was charming: it will be said I was disposed to find them so, and perhaps there maybe some truth in the surmise. I cannot remember my young scholars without pleasure. Why, in naming the most amiable, cannot I recall them and myself also to that happy age in which our moments, pleasing as innocent, were passed with such happiness together? The first was Mademoiselle de Mallarede, my neighbor, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten who in ears and eyes Match me; we all surmise, They this thing, and I that; whom shall my ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... why our hero abandoned bristol board and india ink, and it is no duty of this inquirendo to offer surmise. The fact is that he disappeared from Broome street, and after the appropriate interval might have been observed (odd as it seems) on the campus of the University of Kansas. This vault into the petals of the sunflower seems so quaint that I once ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... door. 'Don't you see that this is really the first hint we have had to indicate that young Trent is still alive and a prisoner. Up to this moment all has been theory and surmise. If this letter is not a wretched fraud, a bold scheme to obtain money, hatched in the brain of some villain who has seen the advertised rewards and knows nothing about Trent, it is our first clue, and through it we may find him.' And promising to call upon her again that ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... still alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... best; and, indifferent as that was, it would rather have surprised you, all things considered, that it was not yet worse. But I exerted all the courage I possess, and, having often read to the queen, I felt how much it behoved me not to let her surmise I had any greater awe ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... to a similar mode of progression, though with a difference in their mode of walking, which, as we shall see later on, is never that of the quadruped. As for the man-ape, it may have originally walked in the same manner as the related species, if we surmise that the variation in the length of the limbs was a subsequent development. Certainly after its limbs attained the proportions of those of man, its facility of swinging from tree to tree must have been diminished, while it would have found it inconvenient to move in the ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... so wild a surmise—that the religious fanatic had offered up his wealth—or, rather, Madame Tibault's—in the shape of a material symbol of his consuming devotion? Stranger things have been done in the name of worship. Was it not possible that the lost thousands were molded ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the bishop and Cardington, did not doubt the truth of this declaration. He wondered what his colleague would surmise should he come in at that moment. The situation would be complicated, and would no doubt gain in interest, but it was an interest he was content to forego. He was impressed by a hint of passion and resentment in his guest's voice, restrained ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... those eloquent eyes! I was drunk with the dawn Of a splendid surmise - I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear, ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... contradictions possible in human nature, it may be that these men of the same time, who so coolly killed their wives and sisters for acts of infidelity, were touched in some dim way with the same feeling, to which, alas! they gave but sorry expression, if the surmise ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Through billows blackened by the northern wind, And backward on the city bent his gaze, Bright with the flames of Dido. Whence the blaze Arose, they knew not; but the pangs they knew When love is passionate, and man betrays, And what a frantic woman scorned can do, And many a sad surmise their ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Dr. Meigs's 140th paragraph soberly, and then remember, that not only does he infer, suspect, and surmise, but he actually asserts (page 154), "there was poison in the house," because three out of five patients admitted into a ward had puerperal fever and died. Have I not as much right to draw a positive inference from "Dr. A.'s" seventy exclusive cases as he from the three cases in the ward ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Thucydides, the historian, thinks it likely that the Greeks had to farm the neighboring lands for food. How the Trojans and their allies contrived to survive so long within their walls we are left to surmise, unless they farmed their streets. And thus we reach the opening of the tenth year ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... suppose this fellow came here for?" Stephen asked, as if unable to surmise the reason for Jim ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... did not speak for a few minutes, and I made no attempt to break the silence. Somehow I felt that her intuition had already told her that I wished to speak about the happenings of the morrow, and her opening remark proved that my surmise was correct. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... they ever murder the squaws, children, and old men, who may be left unprotected when the war-parties are out. In fact, they are honourable and noble foes, sincere and trustworthy friends. In many points they have the uses of ancient chivalry among them, so much so as to induce me to surmise that they may have brought them over with them when they first ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken: Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... the surmise correct. Fortunately I was still alone, and in consequence was able, a few minutes later, to meet my hostess with calm and dignity. I said nothing about the rocking-chair. As a matter of fact, I was hoping to have the pleasure, before I went, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... sighed and wished she had two big brothers—or at least that Nancy had included her in the invitation. She was right in her surmise that Sally May had been chosen because she was so far from home, but ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... establish that Carnot's fundamental idea survived the destruction of the hypothesis on the nature of heat, on which he seemed to rely. As he no doubt himself perceived, his idea was quite independent of this hypothesis, since, as we have seen, he was led to surmise that heat could disappear; but his demonstrations needed to be recast ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... his work scientific but it appears that he had not prosecuted this study very far before he found that important facts were lacking and that in making his conclusions and suggestions he would have to rely upon faith that what he may surmise may in the future prove to be true, although some modification may be necessary. Taking up this problem of education, however, he made use of the reports of the government departments, reports of school officials, books, pamphlets, articles in periodicals, statistical and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... early dawn to practise on thee, Jove! 685 I noticed her a suitress at thy knees, And much misdeem or promise-bound thou stand'st To Thetis past recall, to exalt her son, And Greeks to slaughter thousands at the ships. To whom the cloud-assembler God, incensed. 690 Ah subtle! ever teeming with surmise, And fathomer of my concealed designs, Thy toil is vain, or (which is worse for thee,) Shall but estrange thee from mine heart the more. And be it as thou sayest,—I am well pleased 695 That so it ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... coffin was opened in the presence of the king, whose surmise proved correct. The bolts on the coffin were intact. The gold chain was there, safe round the princess' neck. But the cross was gone. There was not the ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... dwelled the arch contrivers of the plot, Good Heavens! said she, I well remember now, I've business with a friar here, I vow; 'Twill presently be done if you'll but wait; Religious duties we must ne'er abate. What duties? cried the husband with surprise; You're surely mad:—'tis midnight I surmise; Confess yourself to-morrow if required; The holy fathers are to bed retired. That makes no difference, the lady cried.— I think it does, the husband straight replied, And thither I'll not let you go to-night:— What heinous sins so terribly affright, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... obliged to take a most painful step, namely, that of severing the bonds of friendship that existed between us and the British Government, and, true to our alliance with the Transvaal, to help the sister Republic. That we were perfectly correct in our surmise that the British Government had firmly decided to wipe out the two Republics has been clearly proved since the breaking out of the war. It was not only made evident from the documents that fell into our hands, although there it was easy to gather that since 1896, that is from Jameson's raid, the ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... same incident last night,' said Saxon, 'of the chest filled, as I surmise, with gold, which I was inclined to take as lawful plunder, I am now ready to admit that I may have shown an undue haste and precipitance, considering that the old ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thinking that he was no true poacher, but, what is even more dangerous—a madman at large. We have not received any particulars as to the man's appearance, nor the clothes he was wearing, but we have little doubt that these will confirm the surmise to which we now give publicity. If it is correct it becomes doubly incumbent on all our fellow-citizens to be both on the watch, ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... a surmise. Perhaps some struggling band of political exiles, fighting their way through summer's tundra swamps and over winter's blizzard-swept hills, had passed this way, or lingered to die here. Who could ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... spoken do they come Again with finer relish to my mind Starved on your absence. False surmise is numb, For now in these reliques of you I find The smile you meant when rebel lips were dumb, The ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... hill-top at Woolwich from which, better than from Richmond, our River, the burden-bearer, the road which joins us to New York and Sydney, can be seen for what it is, plainly related to a vaster world, with the ships upon its bright path moving through the smoke and buildings of the City. And surely some surmise of what our River is comes to a few of that multitude who cross London Bridge every day? They favour the east side of it, I have noticed, and they cannot always resist a pause to stare overside to the Pool. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... endeavour to discover their whereabouts, taking it for granted that they would reappear when they had disposed of their dead to their satisfaction. While we were partaking of breakfast a big cloud of smoke arose from the woods situated at the eastern extremity of the bay, causing us to surmise that the dead were at that moment undergoing the process of cremation; but we made no attempt to investigate, leaving the savages to their own devices for that day, and proceeding to the shipyard as usual ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... to him. We then shouted together, and some of the wolves nearest to us, startled by our approach, left their prey, when we were convinced, by the dresses of the corpses, that Uncle Mark's surmise was correct. This discovery somewhat relieved our minds. Our friends might have escaped; but at the same time it was too evident that hostile Indians were scouring that part of the country, and that we ourselves might ere long ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... enough," said the Major; "I am glad he has escaped, but he has lost his famous black horse. Let Lady Margaret know, John Gudyill; order some refreshments; get oats for the soldiers' horses; and let us to the hall, Edith, to meet him. I surmise we ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... first surmise, the person I have supposed would be apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic declamation can be without some colorable pretext. ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... ... if I fancy I can do it with the least success. For instance, it is on my mind to explain what I meant yesterday by trusting that the entire happiness I feel in the letters, and the help in the criticising might not be hurt by the surmise, even, that those labours to which you were born, might be suspended, in any degree, through such generosity to me. Dearest, I believed in your glorious genius and knew it for a true star from the moment ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... was as permanent as it was acute; her sense of honour was refined and delicate; but her high-seated love was fixed on those unalterable properties which not only rejected every light surmise to her lover's disadvantage, but also clung to the conviction of his integrity with a confidence which, in the present state of things, looked like obstinate credulity. No chain of circumstances, no concurring testimony could induce her to think Eustace treacherous or depraved. By his own mouth ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... granted that an Iturbi y Moncada could not be blind to Carillo's plots and plans and intrigues, that, having been the intimate of his house and table, I must perforce aid and abet whatever schemes engrossed him. Ay, more often than frequently did a dark surmise cross my mind, but I brushed it aside as one does the prompting of evil desires. I would not believe that a Carillo would plot, conspire, and rise again, after the terrible lesson he had received in 1838. Alvarado holds California ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of wild-fowl in the tulares, against pronghorn and bighorn and deer. You can guess, however, that all this warring of rifles and bowstrings, this influx of overlording whites, had made game wilder and hunters fearful of being hunted. You can surmise also, for it was a crude time and the land was raw, that the women became in turn the ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... monster pickle. At a distance, with backs discreetly turned, were two other small sinners whom Ivy eyed suspiciously, and she turned at last with a hopeless shake of her head to Laura, whom she suspected was to be blamed. But she was mistaken in her surmise for Alene was the real offender. Not being used to the always hungry state of a half dozen small brothers and sisters, she could not withstand the ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... had a flourishing civic and commercial life before the first students came; even after it was established, the University for years was comparatively small and made no great place for itself in local affairs, as one may easily surmise by the rare references to it in the early newspapers. The members of the Faculty, however, were welcomed from the first as leaders in the community, though perhaps less can be said for the students, whose irrepressible spirits often led them to carry things with a high hand. Nor was the younger ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... consulting you.... He must be well aware that you cannot be present on so short notice, especially since he knows that you are about to make an expedition against Gotland. His real purpose, I suspect, is to induce you to postpone your expedition." In this surmise the shrewd bishop doubtless was correct. Fredrik, though satisfied that Sweden should go to great expense in preparing for an expedition against Gotland, was reluctant to see her armies actually land upon the isle, lest his own claims to Gotland might thereby ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... beasts of the field, in the days before the chalk, were not our beasts of the field, nor the fowls of the air such as those which the eye of man has seen flying, unless his antiquity dates infinitely further back than we at present surmise. If we could be carried back into those times, we should be as one suddenly set down in Australia before it was colonized. We should see mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, snails, and the like, clearly recognizable as such, and yet not ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... grave and beautifully harmonized, although the paper has deteriorated and the colors have darkened somewhat. The blocks were cut with ardor, almost fury; everything is brought to life with masterly assurance. Martin Hardie, who made the only previous comment on this print, which he could only surmise was Jackson's, says:[38] "Jackson's supreme achievement is a large battle scene, with wonderful masses of rich colour superbly blended, reminiscent of Velasquez in breadth, in dignity, and in glory ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... not be oblivious to certain signs which pointed to renewed activity in our sector. The American ambulance boys predicted with the emphasis and at the same time with the vagueness born of surmise instead of exact knowledge, that we should "see something doing" ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... divide qualities which often overlap, one would be inclined to surmise that Jane Austen inherited from her father her serenity of mind, the refinement of her intellect, and her delicate appreciation of style, while her mother supplied the acute observation of character, and the wit and humour, for ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon the bed. 'How can he sleep? How can he sleep?' she whispered with a black and hopeless indignation. What a night she had ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... breast gazing with serious speculation at the crumpled figure opposite him. Indy, corroborating his surmise, said to the girl: ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... refitting both vessels, which had very much suffered in the sails and rigging. There was an occasional wonder on board the Harpy what that strange vessel might be, who had turned the corvette and enabled them to capture her, but when people are all very busy, there is not much time for surmise. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... readers of me in some aftertime, Thankful to some idea of my being That doth not even my with gone true soul rime; An anger at the essence of the world, That makes this thus, or thinkable this wise, Takes my soul by the throat and makes it hurled In nightly horrors of despaired surmise, And I become the mere sense of a rage That lacks the very words ...
— 35 Sonnets • Fernando Pessoa
... he struck off into the grove, and thanks to his perfect local knowledge easily avoided meeting Lentulus or his slaves. Lentulus he would gladly have confronted alone. What would have followed, the athletic young man could only surmise grimly; but he was unarmed, and for Cornelia's sake he must take ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... thing that might have happened into the thing that did happen, found no trouble in turning Sir Thomas Lucy into Mr. Justice Shallow. They have long ago convinced the world—on surmise and without trustworthy evidence—that ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not, still less could the Majesty's Ministry, surmise the Czarina's secret at all, now or for a good while coming. And in fact, poor Hanbury, busy as a Diplomatic bee, never did more good in Russia, or out of it. By direction of the Majesty's Ministry, Hanbury still tried industriously, cash in both hands; tried various ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... His surmise proved correct and about five minutes later, having found other evidences of the passage of the wreckers, they came out on ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... in an instant, and only stopped on his way to tell Duncan and the others of the danger which threatened their companions. The absence of the three boys from tea and lock-up had already excited general surmise, and Montagu's appearance, jacketless and wet, at the door of the boarders' room, at once attracted a group round him. He rapidly told them how things stood, and, hastening off, left them nearly as much agitated as himself. In a very short time he presented himself again before Dr. Rowlands, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... swinging as a guide to Sam when he should follow with the riders from the ranch. They would be coming in now and in a few minutes would start on remounts. Perhaps Brandon had come? Sandy wasted little time on surmise. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... happily wedded, Pringle set himself to goad ferret-eyed Creagan and the heavy-jawed sheriff into unwise speech. And inattentive Anastacio had a shrewd surmise at Pringle's design. He knew nothing of the fight at the Gadsden House, but he sensed an unexplained ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... This surmise was afterwards proved to be correct. On going to the spot the following morning, they found that at least a dozen of their foes must have been blown up, for legs and arms and other human remains were picked up in all directions. These the soldiers gathered, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... The same that had been recently pronounced, When Robespierre, not ignorant for what mark Some words of indirect reproof had been 105 Intended, rose in hardihood, and dared The man who had an ill surmise of him To bring his charge in openness; whereat, When a dead pause ensued, and no one stirred, In silence of all present, from his seat 110 Louvet walked single through the avenue, And took his station in the Tribune, saying, "I, Robespierre, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... "Evidently," I surmise, "he is in no mood to talk to concerning damages and how we can get out of paying them, so we will talk to him later ...
— The Flying Cuspidors • V. R. Francis
... Everything in her is simple, and she says just what she thinks, and laughs merely when she feels inclined. Such a damsel might be made into anything—or she might be turned into worthless rubbish. The latter, I surmise, for trudging after her she will have a fond mother and a bevy of aunts, and so forth—persons who, within a year, will have filled her with womanishness to the point where her own father wouldn't know her. And to that there will be added pride and affectation, and she will ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... in French, "if I prefer my own language in replying to you. I speak the English I learned many years ago, and your language in the beau monde, to which you evidently belong, is strange to me. You are quite right, however, in your surmise that I have other clients than those who, like yourself, think I could correct their verbs or their spelling. I have seen a great deal of the world,—I know something of it, and something of the law; so that many persons come to me for advice and for legal information on terms ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a lamp from its socket, and held it while the detective made a brief inspection. It took him a very short time to assure him that his surmise was near the truth. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... brass-workers say that they dare not make metal images of the gods, because they are afraid that the badness of their handiwork might arouse the wrath of the gods and move them to take revenge. The surmise might in fact be almost justifiable that the end to which figures of men and animals were first drawn or painted, or modelled in clay or metal was that they might be worshipped as images of the deities, the savage mind not distinguishing at all between an image of the god and the god ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... embroidery wears: Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away,—where'er thy bones are hurl'd; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world; Or whether thou, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... two witnesses heard at Carcassonne who spoke of "Figura Baflometi," and suggests that it was a corruption of "Mohammed," whom the Inquisitors wished to make the Knights confess they were taught to adore.[188] But this surmise with regard to the intentions of the Inquisitors seems highly improbable, since they must have been well aware that, as Wilcke points out, the Moslems forbid all idols.[189] For this reason Wilcke concludes that the Mohammedanism of the Templars was combined with ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... evidently surmise, you are a young idiot. I am the President of the local branch of the W. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... dining-club at his house named the Company of the Kettle, also a second club named the Trowel. At one time, Franciabigio being then the chairman of the Kettle-men, Andrea recited, and is by some regarded as having composed, a comic epic, "The Battle of the Frogs and Mice''—a rechauffe, as one may surmise, of the Greek Batrachomyomachia, popularly ascribed to Homer. He fell in love with Lucrezia (del Fede), wife of a hatter named Carlo Recanati; the hatter dying opportunely, the tailor's son married her on the 26th of December 1512. She was a very handsome woman and has come down to us treated with ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes 130 Match me: we all surmise, They this thing and I that; ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the garment of a shining one; and he so quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man alive as if expecting to receive more than he could impart!" One may without indiscretion risk the surmise that Hawthorne's perception, of the "shining" element in his distinguished friend was more intense than his friend's appreciation of whatever luminous property might reside within the somewhat ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... the Prince's table, he saw that his surmise was only too correct, and he was furious with himself for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... surmise darted through Peter's soul. Could it be? Could it conceivably be? Was it possible that—that—was it possible, in fine, that this was a kind of signal, a ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... "Your surmise is, no doubt, right. Anybody else would have worn boots or waders. But there are three ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... first question—pretty strong proceeding; for though, in consequence and in resentment of the Duke of Bedford's speech, it seemed to justify his grace, who had accused the mayor and magistracy of not trying to suppress the tumult; if they will not prosecute the rioters, it is not very unfair to surmise that they did not dislike the riot. Indeed, the city is so inflamed, and the ministry so obnoxious, that I am very apprehensive of some violent commotion. The court have lost the Essex election(412) merely from Lord Sandwich interfering in it, and from the Duke ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Manita, overcome with fatigue, had fallen asleep in a corner of the room, wrapped up in her cloak. Oliver was too anxious to close his eyes. As he watched the features of the young girl, he felt more and more convinced that the surmise of Captain Audley was correct, and he thought of the happiness it would be to restore her to civilised life, and of the blessing she might prove to their aged grandfather, whom she might tend with a watchful care far better than he was able to bestow. At last he too dropped off ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... system of irrigation, which must have covered the country from Adam's Peak to Galle, like a net-work, with most perfect means to this end, so excellent as to be the marvel of modern engineers. Their completeness, intelligent purpose, and extent are marvelous. But no one can say, or reasonably surmise, what caused the ruin and decadence of the ancient capitals, which, like those about Delhi, have crumbled away, leaving only a blank memorial of their existence. What could have swept from the globe a population of millions, and left us no clearer record of their ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... and structure. Of the jealousy of these Indians, Byron relates some striking evidences, from what he himself had the unhappiness to experience. Who knows what some waggish spectator of the young lady might surmise about her English features, if he had ever heard of the gallant commodore's adventure in the wigwam, &c., so feelingly introduced and dilated ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... out of my pale face. But they never knew the story, and they could only guess at what made me wretched. It is amazing (again) what power there is in silence, and how much you can keep in your hands if you do not open them. People may surmise—may invent, but they cannot know your secret unless you tell it to them, and their imaginings take so many forms, the multitude of things that they create blot out all definite design. Thus every one at R—— had a different theory about my loss of spirits and ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... thy more rigid censors reflect, that thou wast literally and strictly but a boy. Let many of thy bitterest enemies reflect what were their own religious principles, and whether they had any at the age of fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Surely it is a severe and an unjust surmise that thou wouldst probably have ended thy life as a victim to the laws, if thou hadst not ended it ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... penetrate. And even Garry, who had greater respect for the other man's preoccupation because he felt that he understood it better, tried also to hide all evidence of the bitterness which it was re-awakening in him. Yet, at that, Garry's surmise was erroneous; his conclusion wide ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... clue for the labyrinth of surmise: and I went home, more vexed and disappointed with my day's expedition than I ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... discovery George himself had providentially led (the father referred here to what George had told him of his first meeting with Waife, and his visit to Mrs. Crane); the impostor, it seemed, from what Mr. Hartopp let fall, not being a little queer in the head, as George had been led to surmise, but a very bad character. "In fact," added the elder Morley, "a character so bad that Mr. Hartopp was too glad to give up to her lawful protectors the child, whom the man appears to have abducted; and I suspect, from what Hartopp said, though ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... craftsmen of the quattrocento were not averse to setting thus together, in one framework, the myths of our first parents and Alemena's son: partly perhaps because both subjects gave scope to the free treatment of the nude; but partly also, we may venture to surmise, because the heroism of Hellas counterbalanced the sin of Eden. Here then we see how Adam and Eve were made and tempted and expelled from Paradise and set to labour, how Cain killed Abel, and Lamech slew a man to his hurt, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... deliberately gone contrary to his wishes in disclosing where Adrien had spent the fateful twenty-second of May, she could not but doubt that Vermont would make use of the mysterious power which he had hinted he held over her. What this power was she could only surmise, for, of course, she was in ignorance of Jasper's connection with "Harker's Ltd." But she had an uncomfortable feeling that Adrien's freedom had been purchased at considerable danger to herself, and the ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... Christian, as a Catholic, I am interested in the Christians of the East, and I am for the Cross against the Crescent.' He pronounced these words, Christian, Catholic, and cross, in a tone full of unction. I surmise that he is a devotee. He added, 'As a Pole, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... those curious coincidences which do occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur, when Mr. Greenwood courageously struggling for his case says that, even assuming the validity of the surmise that there is an allusion to Shakspere, {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say is that Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as his own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another" ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... men and this woman, were in league with him whose rivalry I feared, and whom I had intended to supplant on the morrow. It was a wild surmise, but was it any wilder than to believe I was held here for a mere whim, a freak, a joke, as this bowing, smiling man before me ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... her with his finger, and seems to do so as an encouragement to her. A young man follows the saint. His action is too expressive to suppose it that of a parent or convert." This is indeed a very fine specimen, both for what is said and what is unsaid—the surmise is perfectly French, and the pitying tender familiarity of Cecilia, for commiseration's sake robbed of her saintship, would be enough to melt an auction-room to tears, were the picture to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... of David's handwriting, the astonishing verification of his own first surmise, the vivid memory of Rose unwillingly showing him the letter and the ring and the photograph she supposed to have been intended for herself, had a very powerful effect on Edmund Grosse. The whole story was so clear, so well connected, it seemed impossible to doubt it. Yet he believed in ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... going to ask you whether my surmise is a correct one, but I'm going to ask you another question, as a friend only, and in no official way. Of course, in a friendly matter you may suit yourself about answering it. Have you done anything else that could excuse the class ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... ever did before him, it would almost seem that he had selected his abode for the purpose of watching over the safe custody of the numerous victims of his rapacity and tyranny. This was the general surmise; and, it must be owned, there was ample warranty for ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... translation was poor; and that a friend or friends of Mrs. Eddy mended its English three times, and finally got it into its present shape, where the grammar is plenty good enough, and the sentences are smooth and plausible though they do not mean anything. I think I am right in this surmise, for Mrs. Eddy cannot write English to-day, and this is argument that she never could. I am not able to guess who did the mending, but I think it was not done by any member of the Eddy Trust, nor by the editors of the 'Christian Science Journal,' for their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
