"Assuming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "That's it! They're not! Follow it logically, point by point. Assuming that Dr. Ku's alive, he has one point of contact with us—Kurgo's house, in Porno, where I was kidnapped. He wants us badly. He will anticipate that one of us will go back to that house: to care for Kurgo's body, to get my belongings—for several reasons. So he will radio ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... the government, which, in all its formulas and official papers, proclaims a lie. A hunted fugitive, wandering in disguise through foreign lands, without a foot of ground on the globe that he could call his own, is declared in all public acts, parliamentary and judicial, and even by those assuming to utter the voice of history, to have actually reigned all the time. In our country and in our day, we are perplexed, and our public men bewildered, by a similar dogma. The merest fabric of human contrivance, a particular form of political society, is impiously clothed with an essential ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... brought with her on her frequent visitations became very trying to George. He resented her shallowness, her youthful gowns, her extravagances. Mary found herself eternally defending Mamma, in an unobtrusive sort of way, inventing and assuming congenialities between her and George. It had been an unmitigated blessing to have the little lady start gayly off for Cousin Will's, only a month ago—And now ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... escorted him to his sister's bedside. As for me, I was entirely taken up by the face of the monk. Here is his portrait. His figure was tall and majestic, his age about thirty; he had light hair and blue eyes; his features were those of Apollo, but without his pride and assuming haughtiness; his complexion, dazzling white, was pale, but that paleness seemed to have been given for the very purpose of showing off the red coral of his lips, through which could be seen, when they opened, two rows of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... murmured Mr Cowlishaw, assuming a tranquillity which he did not feel. This was the first time that he had ever looked into the mouth of a Mayoress, ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... about half-past ten or perhaps eleven o'clock, Sheridan lost no time in assuming personal command of the army. Establishing his headquarters on the hill behind Getty, he proceeded to complete the dispositions he found already in progress. He saw at a glance that the line on which Wright had placed Getty was ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... and crush it; but he controlled the brutal impulse, suppressing it with the force that made him so formidable. He put on a polite manner and the tone of obsequious civility which he had practised since assuming the garb of a priest of a superior Order, and he bowed to the little ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... of the story; and it is a story we need not dwell on. It gives us no means of reconciling the like of the Mrs. Nightingale we know now with the amount of dissimulation, if not treachery, she must have practised on an unsuspicious boy, assuming that she did, as a matter of course, conceal her relation with Penderfield. One timid conjecture we have is, that the girl, having to deal with a subject every accepted phrase relating to which is an equivocation or an hypocrisy, really ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the writings of his great contemporary and fellow-worker Emile Zola, it will occur to him that Daudet never had the steady-going indomitable energy, the ox-like patience, the large and comprehensive intellect which are so characteristic in the master of Medan; that he recoiled from assuming, like the author of 'Germinal' and 'Lourdes,' a bold and definite position in the social and religious strife of our days; that he never dreamt for a moment of taking the survey of a whole society and covering the entire ground on which it stands ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... encroachments of time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author, merely from having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... feverish," said Colin, assuming a discouraging air of gloom. "People who are not ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... grown fat, too fat for his thirty years. He seemed to be bursting through his shirt and apron, through all the snowy-white linen in which he was swathed like a huge doll. With advancing years his clean-shaven face had become elongated, assuming a faint resemblance to the snout of one of those pigs amidst whose flesh his hands worked and lived the whole day through. Florent scarcely recognised him. He had now seated himself, and his glance turned from ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... have been from time to time engaged in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... more difficult to identify Monotreme remains, but the fact that Monotremes have survived to this day in Australia, and the resemblance of some of the Mesozoic teeth to those found for a time in the young Duckbill justify us in assuming that a part of the Mesozoic mammals correspond to the modern Monotremes. Not single specimen of any higher, or placental, mammal has yet been found in the whole ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... home. The whole valley on the right side of the Adda is one gigantic vineyard, climbing the hills in tiers and terraces, which justify its Italian epithet of Teatro di Bacco. The rock is a greyish granite, assuming sullen brown and orange tints where exposed to sun and weather. The vines are grown on stakes, not trellised over trees or carried across boulders, as is the fashion at Chiavenna or Terlan. Yet every advantage of the mountain ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... circumstances. But the millions of these visions that arise nightly from the bed-chambers of the world are nothing more than the flickerings of the mind, at random, and like vapor, arising into the atmosphere of the soul, frequently assuming a variety of fantastic forms as a ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... physical collapse. The English-speaking world was stricken with sympathy, and the New York Herald at once began a subscription fund for his relief. The report was contradicted at once, but admiration for the author's strenuous effort seemed to grow, and the Herald fund was assuming generous proportions when the following characteristic message declining to accept the relief came ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... otherwise it will have gray hair.' Mr. Wright was so prostrated by grief at what had occurred, that he survived my departure only a few weeks; and at his death, Mr. Carlyle attempted to seize and control my estate. Urging the plea of my minority, he insisted upon assuming the charge of my property, and in order to consummate his avaricious designs, and screen his name from opprobrium, he told the world that I was hopelessly insane; and that the discovery of this fact, one hour after his marriage, had induced him to send me abroad under the care of a faithful ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the new line," went on Larry, boldly. "It's going to be a good thing for the district, I understand. Come now, Mr. Sullivan," he went on, assuming a familiar air he did not feel, "you might as well own up and give me an interview about deciding to ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... and received sensations only when we were touched by something, there is no reason why we should not associate the idea of one with the sensation produced by two objects and the idea of two with that produced by one object—assuming that we could have any idea of number under such circumstances. The quality of a sensation from which number is inferred depends on several factors. The number itself is determined by the attitude of the subject, but the attitude is determined largely by ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... servants. The proud spirit of Jane was touched to the quick. With a burning brow she sat down in the servants' hall, with stewards, and butlers, and cooks, and footmen, and valet de chambres, and ladies' maids of every degree, all dressed in tawdry finery, and assuming the most disgusting airs of self-importance. She went home despising in her heart both lords and menials, and dreaming, with new aspirations, of her Roman republic. One day, when Madame Roland was in power, she had just passed from her splendid dining-room, ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the only point that differs by exactly twelve hours in time from Greenwich; all places lying beneath the meridian of 180deg, "our Periaeci" as well as "our Antipodes," are similarly affected, and to them the same question would be applicable. H. is right, however, in assuming that, with respect to that meridian, the decision must be purely arbitrary. It is as though two men were to keep moving round a circle in the same direction, with the same speed, and at diametrically opposite points; it must be an arbitrary decision which would pronounce that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... sea, supporting themselves by portions of the wreck, spars, and other accessible objects, the water swept over the stern and upper deck, and when thus partially submerged, the mainmast, pierced by a shot, broke off near the head, the bow lifted from the waves, and then came the end. Suddenly assuming a perpendicular position, caused by the falling aft of the battery and stores, straight as a plumb-line, stern first, she went down, the jibboom being the last to appear above water. Down sank the terror of merchantmen, ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... head in negation. Assuming the negation to refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not having lunch when one can ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... on the 3rd day of October, 1863. Most of the companies were organized and mustered into service during the spring and summer preceding. The regiment, when organized, was full to the maximum, or nearly so, and composed of active, able-bodied young men. Immediately upon assuming command of the regiment, I moved to the front through Missouri, to Fort Smith, in Arkansas, where the regiment was stationed during the winter 1863-4, and when not on other duty or in the field, spent the time in ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... I have said lends color to that belief," he answered. "Candidly, I began by assuming that you forfeited any legal right years ago to interfere in behalf of Miss Melhuish, living or dead. Let us, at least, be candid with each other. Miss Melhuish herself told me that you and she had separated ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... dropped the bags into a corner for safety and threw off his heavy outer coat, frankly exposing the big revolver which dragged openly at his right hip. Bill Varney had always carried a rifle and had been unable to avail himself of it in time; Hap Smith in assuming the responsibilities of the United States Mail had forthwith invested heavily of his cash on hand for a Colt forty-five and wore it frankly in the open. His, by the way, was the only gun in sight, although there were perhaps a ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... accent was getting to be more formally polite. "But why you? Why did not your most efficient employers dispatch an ordinary assassin? I do not err in assuming that you all knew that this war was to be declared ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... reproved me very sharply, which I thought was taking a great liberty; but he softened it down by adding, "If you knew how dear the interests of your family are to me, you would not be surprised at my assuming the tone of a parent." I looked at Emily, and pocketed ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... will undertake it," said the young king, feeling the mighty muscles of his breast and arms, "and you may give me great credit for assuming the part, for the demi-god who strangled the snakes was lacking in the most important point, and it was not without due consideration that Lysippus represented him with a small head on his mighty body; but I shall not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ten tons of potatoes are not unfrequently produced per acre; now assuming 15 the per centage of starch, there would be a yield of one-and-a-half tons per acre, which, at the-lowest quotation, 28s. a cwt., would give L42 per acre; and were the starch to rank with that prepared from wheat, it would produce L40 per ton, or L60 per acre. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... 0.35 percent of the Negroes in the Army were officers, a shortcoming that could not be explained by poor education alone.[2-48] But when the number of black officers did begin to increase, obstacles to their employment appeared: some white commanders, assuming that Negroes did not possess leadership ability and that black troops preferred white (p. 037) officers, demanded white officers for their units. Limited segregated recreational and living facilities for black officers ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... with vexation. Such meagre reward for four days' waiting, and assuming all the time that she loved! He was a nice boy and all that, she knew, but he needn't have been in so disgraceful a hurry. But Joe had not reached the corner before he wanted to be back with her again. He just wanted to look at her. He had no thought that it was love. ...
— The Game • Jack London
... day "Solitude" appeared in Miss Wheeler's "Poems of Passion" in 1883, and so long as Field lived, he never ceased to fan this controversy into renewed life, more often than not by assuming a tone of indignation that there should be any question over it, as in the following recurrence to the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... his psychogony, based on the idea of metempsychosis borrowed from the Orient, gives itself up to numerical vagaries. Assuming for every soul a periodical rebirth, he assigns it first a period of "ascending subversion," the first phase of which lasts five thousand years, the second thirty-six thousand; then comes a period of completion, 9,000 years; ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... assuming large proportions, and ranches are now raising ducks by the tens of thousands and are finding better ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... Q. Assuming that the hour you mention is your parents' favourite time for peace and quiet, does such an invasion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... joke on him by assuming a careless tone. "I'm not plunging as much as I was; the ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Assuming a sternness that he was far from feeling, and putting aside his daughter's arms, the exile walked away. Violante paused a moment, shivered, looked round as if taking a last farewell of joy and peace and hope on earth, and then approaching her father with a firm step, she said, "I never rebelled, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... great satisfaction that we are always enabled to recur to the conduct of our Navy with price and commendation. As a means of national defense it enjoys the public confidence, and is steadily assuming additional importance. It is submitted whether a more efficient and equally economical organization of it might not in several respects be effected. It is supposed that higher grades than now exist by law would be useful. They would afford well-merited ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... and surmises there were on the subject; then her occasional exclamation of "Tremble, villain!" would escape her; and sometimes in the family circle, after sitting for a while in a state of abstraction, she would lift her attenuated hand armed with a knitting-needle or a ball of worsted, and assuming the action of poising a pistol, execute a smart click with her tongue, and say, "I hit him ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... with colonial, should be, not three millions and an eighth, but upwards of five millions, or the colonial trade of sixteen millions, if no more gainful than foreign, should be, not L.2,300,000, but about one million less. And here the question naturally recurs, assuming the principle of Mr Cobden to be correct—as so, for his satisfaction, it has been reasoned hitherto—at what rate of charge nationally are these profits, colonial and foreign, purchased? Fortunately the materials for the estimates are already in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... what a poor business proposition you've got, of course," continued Garman. "Even assuming that things are as you ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... little electric brougham, driven without regard to police regulations or any rule of the road: silent and swift, wholly regardless of other vehicles—as though, indeed, its occupants were assuming to themselves the rights of Royalty. Inside, Peter Ruff, a little breathless, was leaning forward, tying his white cravat with the aid of the little polished mirror set in the middle of the dark green cushions. At his right hand was Lady Mary, watching his proceedings ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with certainty when the first church was built on British soil. Some historians assert that the Church of England as it is constituted to-day dates no further back than the moment when S. Augustine and his followers landed on the shores of Kent in the year 596, yet one is probably justified in assuming that a church existed in these islands for centuries previous to the arrival of the Roman missionaries. Unfortunately we have no records to guide us as to the date of this earlier settlement, and the name of the first Christian ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... the death of Boris Godounof, two pretenders, one after the other, each assuming to be Demetrius, the younger son of Ivan,—a son who had been put to death,— seized on power. This was rendered possible by the mutual strife of Russian factions, and by the help afforded to the impostors ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... first," explained Louise, assuming the role of fisherman. "Get your lines out, look out! Don't ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... military and naval advisers. The sailors thought they could throw men and provisions into Fort Sumter; the soldiers said the ships would be destroyed by the Confederate batteries. Lincoln asked his Cabinet whether, assuming it to be feasible, it was politically advisable now to provision Fort Sumter. Blair said yes emphatically; Chase said yes in a qualified way. The other five members of the Cabinet said no; General Scott had ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... they came to another range of hills which was so barren that they endeavored to avoid crossing it by going around them, and with this object, followed them down two day's journey, when they found the hills decreased to half their former height, and assuming a more fertile appearance, so they started to go over them. On arriving at the summit a scene of grandeur met their vision, although it appalled the stoutest hearts. Before them, stretching away in the distance and rising until its summit, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... animal's throat that severs the head from the body. The gushing blood is directed to the Siva emblem close by, the head is borne triumphantly to the feet of Kali, and each thug-looking man smears his face with blood taken from the Siva symbol, and then dances madly around the carcass. Assuming that the spectacle has favorably impressed the visitor, the high executioner begs a donation with which to purchase a goat for a second sacrifice. You decline, probably feeling that you would subscribe ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... on the other hand, are exceedingly sober-minded, courageous, and level-headed, have had experiences (and been frightened by them too!) which cannot be explained on ordinary grounds. But on the main point our correspondent is begging the question, or at least assuming as fully proved a conclusion which is very far from being so. Is he quite sure that the only explanation of these strange sights and weird noises is that they are brought about by the action of departed spirits (we naturally exclude cases of deliberate fraud, ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... this way, by never utterly and altogether disappointing me, that she keeps her hold on me. She sees and feels nothing of what we call beautiful; on the other hand, she is cheerfully oblivious to the necessity of assuming what she does not feel; she has no idea of posing either to herself or to others; and the strange coldness of her soul makes my affection all the warmer. By not trying to appear what she is not, she constantly keeps alive in ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... as I sallied forth and went down to the Power Trust Building; nor did I show or suggest that I had heard the "shot-at-sunrise" sentence, as I strode into Roebuck's presence and greeted him. I was assuming, by way of precaution, that some rumor about me either had reached him or would soon reach him. I knew he had an eye in every secret of finance and industry, and, while I believed my secret was wholly my own, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... had contributed another female assuming airs of instant intimacy. She had gone up to the last remaining spare chamber, donned a costume all of crackling white linen, and had introduced herself, entirely uninvited, into the dim privacy of Mary's mother's room, whence Mary had ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... history. We have within living memory ended a period and begun an exceedingly different period, and we tend to judge the former by the light—or the darkness—of the latter. The Victorian age, even in its extreme old age, was still tacitly assuming and legally enforcing as axioms the Christian moral system, especially in regard to marriage and all sex questions, and the sacred nature of property. To read many disquisitions on that period today one would suppose that no one living really believed in these things: that humbug explained ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... far from assuming that life is now complete, and is in its best state. On the contrary, it is full of defects and shortcomings. We must not be puffed up with modern civilization, however great victory it has scored for its side. Beyond all doubt man is still in his cradle. He often stretches forth ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... Upon his assuming charge, the foundations of the new church had been laid and the masonry built up to nearly three feet above ground. The work was steadily carried on in accordance with the plans of Captain Macpherson, ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... their house. They numbered men enough to build without calling in their neighbors, and immediately put up a cabin on the north fork of the Sangamon River. The family thus housed and sheltered, one more bit of filial work remained for Abraham before assuming his virile independence. With the assistance of John Hanks he plowed fifteen acres, and split, from the tall walnut-trees of the primeval forest, enough rails to surround them with a fence. Little did either dream, while engaged in this work, that the day ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons, from whose names [17] the people bordering on the ocean are called Ingaevones; those inhabiting the central parts, Herminones; the rest, Istaevones. Some, [18] however, assuming the licence of antiquity, affirm that there were more descendants of the god, from whom more appellations were derived; as those of the Marsi, [19] Gambrivii, [20] Suevi, [21] and Vandali; [22] and that these are the genuine and original names. [23] That of Germany, on the other hand, they assert ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... others, it must be said that the food is really changed into the true human nature by reason of its assuming the specific form of flesh, bones and such like parts. This is what the Philosopher says (De Anima ii, 4): "Food nourishes inasmuch as it is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... those fifty-eight years about France and Europe from town to town, from profession to profession, from good to bad and from bad to good estate; first a monk of the Cordeliers; then, with Pope Clement VII.'s authority, a Benedictine; then putting off the monk's habit and assuming that of a secular priest in order to roam the world, "incurring," as he himself says, "in this vagabond life, the double stigma of suspension from orders and apostasy;" then studying medicine at Montpellier; then medical officer of the great hospital at Lyons, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... precedents adduced by the committee met the present case. Fox argued that to appoint a regent by a law was to treat the monarchy as elective, and that the two houses had no legislative power independently of the crown; and assuming that he was about to re-enter on office taunted the ministers with a design to weaken their successors by limiting the powers of the regent. The ministerial majority was 268 to 204. Pitt proposed to provide for ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... persons. This proclamation was not approved at Washington, and was modified by the order of the President. It was understood also that he issued orders for military expenditure which were not recognized at Washington, and men began to understand that the army in the West was gradually assuming that irresponsible military position which, in disturbed countries and in times of civil war, has so frequently resulted in a military dictatorship. Then there arose a clamor for the removal of General Fremont. A semi-official account ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... silent: and Sophie herself was surprised at the authoritative tone she was assuming toward a bearded man whom she had never met before. But it was impossible to associate with Bressant without either yielding to him, or, at least, behaving differently from at other times, in one way or another. He was a magnet that drew ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the elder Milbrey, "your effrontery in assuming to dictate the visiting list of my ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... strip a few inches across, there widening into a comparatively broad belt, some two or three feet over; and, as well described by M'Culloch, we find the inclosed pitchstone changing in color, and assuming a lighter or darker hue, as it nears the edge or recedes from it. In the centre it is of a dull olive green, passing gradually into blue, which in turn deepens into black; and it is exactly at the point of contact with the earthy amygdaloid that the black ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... advance on Antwerp, the base hospital must be removed from Ghent to some centre or point which will bring the Ambulance behind the Belgian lines. He thinks that working from Ghent would necessarily bring it behind the German lines. This is assuming that the Germans coming up from the south-east will cut in ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Rebellion of Bacon: for even these kennels of literature may yield a fact or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the keeper of a Virginia ordinary, calls herself the daughter of a baronet, 'undone in the late rebellion,'—her father having in truth been a tailor,—and three of the Council, assuming to themselves an equal splendor of origin, are shown to have been, one 'a broken exciseman who came over a poor servant,' another a tinker transported for theft, and the third 'a common pickpocket often flogged at the cart's tail.' The ancestry of South Carolina will as little pass muster at the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Mohammedanism, which has found due appreciation in more than one popular volume, [FN335] is a notable specimen of special pleading, of the ad captandum in its modern and least honest form. The writer begins by assuming the arid and barren Wahhabi-ism, which he had personally studied, as a fair expression of the Saving Faith. What should we say to a Moslem traveller who would make the Calvinism of the sourest Covenanter, model, genuine and ancient Christianity? What would ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... his cheeks that contrasted oddly with his yellow skin. A disagreeable smile made his intelligent face more ugly than usual. He stood half-way between the door and his employer, his long arms hanging awkwardly by his sides, his head thrust forward, his knees a little bent, assuming by habit a servile attitude of attention, but betraying in his look that he ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... But Boyle assuming the honours of an edition of "Phalaris," was but a venial offence, compared with that committed by the celebrated ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... one-half of Russia and Pougachef ruled the other? Which was bad then, and which was good? All men who happen to be in authority assert that their authority is necessary to keep the bad from oppressing the good, assuming that they themselves are the good PAR EXCELLENCE, who protect other ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... tragic spectacle; and his exuberant anticipations, his bursting hopes that fed their forcing-bed with the blight and decay of their predecessors, his transient fits of despair after a touch at my pulses, and exclamation of 'Oh, Richie, Richie, if only I had my boy up and well!'—assuming that nothing but my tardy recovery stood in the way of our contentment—were examples of downright unreason such as contemplation through the comic glass would have excused; the tragic could not. I knew, nevertheless, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... through valleys, fields and woods, like a thing of life and intelligence, and stopped at the station, where a carriage was waiting. Mechanically Margaret followed, and Martin, at Dawn's gesture, lifted her into the carriage. The smoke of the receding train rose and curled among the trees, assuming fantastic shapes, while the shrill whistle caused the cattle to race over the fields, and the lithe-winged warblers to recede into the forests. Just so does some great din of the world, falling on our ears, send us to ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... furniture, unless tenanted by deer. By the way, it is a singular illustration of a fact illustrated in one way or other every hour, namely, of the imperfect knowledge which England possesses of England, that, within these last eight or nine months, I saw in the Illustrated London News an article assuming that the red deer was unknown in England. Whereas, if the writer had ever been at the English lakes during the hunting season, he might have seen it actually hunted over Martindale forest and its purlieus. Or, again, in Devonshire and Cornwall, over Dartmoor, etc., and, I believe, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... mother.] No, mother, don't! But I shall expect you, of course, at the ceremony. [MRS. PHILLIMORE languidly retires. PHILIP strides to the centre of the room, taking the tone, and assuming the attitude of, the injured husband.] It is proper for me to tell you that I followed you to Belmont. I am aware—I know with whom—in fact, I know all! [He punctuates his words with pauses, and indicates the whole censorious universe.] And now let me assure you—I am the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... her walk with Archie, the girl had lured her step-father into assuming a rusty dress suit, which had done service for many years, and had coaxed him into a promise to be present at dinner. Mrs. Jasher, the lively widow of the district, was coming, and Braddock approved of a woman who looked ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... plan, Madam, provided for an increase from the original 10,000 colonists to approximately 40,000 within twenty years, after which the rate of increase would of course rapidly grow. Assuming sixty years for planetfall, the population should now number over one hundred sixty millions. Given ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... prowess who had issued from the mouth of Mahadeva, desired to destroy the Sacrifice of Daksha, without putting forth all his energy and without the assistance of any one else, for dispelling the wrath of Uma. Urged by her wrath, the spouse of Maheswara, herself assuming a dreadful form that is known by the name Mahakali, proceeded in the company of that Being who had issued from Mahadeva's mouth, for witnessing with her own eyes the act of destruction which was her own (for it was she who had impelled her lord to accomplish it for her sake). That ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Mr Harrel, re-assuming an air of gaiety, "why give them all a supper, to be sure. Come, gentlemen, will you favour me with ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... assuming that this is the picturesque echo of the conferences which took place at this time between Francis and the cardinal; the latter might have suggested to him by such a comparison the essential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took place during ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... it as a fixed part of the order of nature, like gravitation. Except for this error, which may be regarded as constant, we use the word with reckless looseness, meaning a dozen different things by it, and yet always assuming that to a respectable man it can have only one meaning. The pious citizen, suspecting the Socialist (for example) of unmentionable things, and asking him heatedly whether he wishes to abolish marriage, is infuriated by a sense of ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... yet entirely forsaken, and stood in Susanna's presence before I realized it. In school-master fashion Susanna patted me on the cheek and stroked back my hair. My mother, in a severe tone which she had great pains in assuming, bade me be industrious and obedient, and departed hastily, so as not to allow her emotion to get the better of her; the pug was undecided for some little time, but at last he went off to join her. I was presented with a gold paper saint, then my place was shown me and I was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... meditatively; his head nodding slightly from the effects of too much liquor. "But what will Padre Antonio say when he hears of it? How fortunate he wasn't here to witness a sight that must have caused him the deepest humiliation. Poor man," he continued, assuming a sympathetic tone, "it is already ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the General cried, in a voice of command, 'you are here to answer that question on your own responsibility. You don't choose to answer? Now, the story is that these men have been blackmailing you. Assuming that story to be true, they have been paid, and it is evident that there must be some means of discovering the channel through which payments have been made. Are you prepared to submit to an examination of ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... summer, with singing of birds in the garden, and a light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm, and we all felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in assuming the attire suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print dress, and the light straw bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French workwoman alone can make and trim, so as to unite the utterly unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the rule of costume. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the most probable explanation of the occurrence in Elam of inscriptions in the Old Babylonian language, written by native princes concerning purely domestic matters. But a further question now suggests itself. Assuming that this was the order in which events took place, are we to suppose that the first Semitic invaders of Elam found there a native population in a totally undeveloped stage of civilization? Or did they find a population enjoying a ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... with a black ribbon are worn by the better classes. The wives and daughters of the squires and lesser gentry reflect in a modified form the fashions prevailing in London, and to be observed in actuality among the gay crowds that thronged the Spa at Scarborough, assuming and discarding the hooped-petticoat according to the mode of the moment. We can see the farmers of the Vale and those from the lonely dales discussing the news of the week and reading the scarce and expensive newspapers that found their way to Pickering. How much they understood ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Heights, a walk of such vigor and happy absorption with new problems as she had never known in Panama, she caught herself being contemptuous about their frayed poverty. With a sharp emotional sincerity, she rebuked herself for such sordidness, mocked herself for assuming ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... America and Europe changed a fairly lax detention into actual custody. It is a vain thing to toy with the "might-have-beens" of history; but we can fancy a man less untamable than Napoleon frankly recognizing that he had done with active life by assuming a feigned name (e.g., that of Colonel Muiron, which he once thought of) and settling down in that equable retreat to the congenial task of compiling his personal and military Memoirs. If he ever intended to live as a country ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Barry—the situation with regard to him had become acute. His first disappearance after the coming of Constance had resulted in Gordon's assuming the responsibility of the search for him. He had found Barry in a little town on the upper Potomac, ostensibly on a fishing trip, and again there was a ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... had been the wife of a lieutenant-general. As a widow she lived in the city of Tours under the Restoration, assuming all the grand airs of the past centuries. She helped the Birotteau brothers. In 1823 she received the army paymaster, Gravier, and the terrible Spanish husband who killed the French surgeon, Bega. Madame de Listomere died, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... which meet in a central point or overlap on a latitudinal axial line, and are divided by rectangular or outwardly convex and upwardly oblique dissepiments, which become, occasionally, indistinct or obsolete near the centre, thus not assuming the usual characteristic of Cyathophyllum, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... can be the meaning of that firing in the offing. I cannot help thinking it is intended as a signal of some kind to us, and, assuming that to be the case, I can only account for it upon the pleasant supposition that Captain Blyth, instead of perishing in the hurricane as we feared, must have in some miraculous manner escaped; and that it is he who is now outside, on board ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... the presidency of 1824 may be said to have begun as early as 1816. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, V., 89.] Adams observed in 1818 that the government was assuming daily the character of cabal, "and preparation, not for the next Presidential election, but for the one after"; [Footnote: Ibid., IV., 193.] and by 1820, when the political sea appeared so placid, and parties had apparently dissolved, bitter factional fights between ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... hunters will follow," said Black Snake, as himself and about twenty dusky boys, flourishing their bows and arrows, leaped along the skirt of the forest and soon disappeared. They wound their way towards the east, where the deer frequented a marshy tract of land, Black Snake now assuming all the superiority of a chief and leader, his boasting, haughty manner returning, as he related what great deeds he could do, and his name would make his enemies tremble. Having excited sufficient awe and veneration among those artless Indian boys, he pointed to fresh tracks, and ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... the piles of notes on the desk. "Don't you see how it adds up? Right from the beginning we've been assuming that these monkey-like creatures here on this planet were the dominant, intelligent life-forms. Anatomically they were ordinary cellular creatures like you and me, and when we examined them we expected to find the same sort of biochemical reactions ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... formed by earth caught in its descent while in solution appear disproportioned to the labour of their construction, and the laborious system would suggest an extreme scarcity of land suitable for agricultural operations. I believe this to be the case, and that a serious mistake has been made in assuming that the Crown possesses large areas of land that may eventually become of great value. There are government lands, doubtless, of considerable extent, but I question their agricultural importance, and whenever the ordnance-map ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Equidae differ very widely in structure from most other mammals. Assuming the truth of the theory of evolution, we should expect to find traces among extinct animals of the steps by which this great modification has been effected; and we do really find traces of these steps, imperfectly ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... "You're assuming a great deal. Our arrangements were made by two, and are hardly to be broken by one. You can't agree to matronize me—let me buy furniture for you, and then abandon me, cut off ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... high degree of proficiency. If I am not proficient enough, yet knowing the rudiments I can easily improve. I learn most things readily," Andre-Louis commended himself. "For the rest: I possess the other qualifications. I am young, as you observe: and I leave you to judge whether I am wrong in assuming that my address is good. I am by profession a man of the robe, though I realize that the motto here ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... souls, without license, first had and obtained from the Governor, and Lord Hobart, the Duke's successor in the Colonial Department, intimated to Sir Robert Milnes that it was highly proper that he should signify to the Catholic Bishop the impropriety of his assuming any new titles or exercising any additional powers to those which he had as the Vicar of the Holy Apostolic See. The French Priests were also to be reminded that their residence in Canada was merely on sufferance, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Mr. Stretton,—I will continue to address you by this name as you desire me to do, although I am at a loss to understand your motive in assuming it. You will excuse my making this remark; the confidence that you have hitherto reposed in me leads me to utter a criticism which might otherwise be deemed an impertinence. But it seems to me a pity that you either did not ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... writing—it was a little difficult—to her father and—which was easier—to the Widgetts. She was greatly heartened by doing this. The necessity of defending herself and assuming a confident and secure tone did much to dispell the sense of being exposed and indefensible in a huge dingy world that abounded in sinister possibilities. She addressed her letters, meditated on them for a time, and then took them out and ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... to her after dinner, assuming a careless, matter-of-course air, "would you like to drive with me over to Spindlewood, and see my ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... small Arab country with insufficient supplies of water, oil, and other natural resources. Debt, poverty, and unemployment are fundamental problems, but King ABDALLAH, since assuming the throne in 1999, has undertaken some broad economic reforms in a long-term effort to improve living standards. Since Jordan's graduation from its most recent IMF program in 2002, Amman has continued to follow IMF guidelines, practicing ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Moliere which he thought he understood, made reference to the unfortunate influence of that great man on the religious opinions of his time. Jacobi, by a flash of inspiration, divined that he had confused Moliere with Voltaire, and assuming a manner of extreme suavity, he put his victim on the rack, and tortured him with affected explanations and interrogations, until Madeleine was in a manner forced to interrupt and end the scene. But even when the senator was not to be lured into a ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Nichol, rising and assuming the respectful attitude of a hospital nurse. "We uns wuz soon larned that't wuzn't healthy to go agin the doctor. When I wuz Yankee Blank, 'fo' I got ter be cap'n, I forgot ter give a Johnny a doze o' med'cine, en ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... this confidence, that I commenced a calculation as to the time at which we might expect to reach land. Assuming it to have been thirty miles distant at the time when we had seen its spectrum, by means of the refraction, arising from a peculiar state of the atmosphere; and estimating the rate of the current at three miles an hour, I came to the conclusion ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... hands, guided by common-sense and sound abilities, were perfectly capable of guiding it, without mishap, to the appointed goal. Men who, aware of their ignorance, would probably have shrunk from assuming charge of a squad of infantry in action, had no hesitation whatever in attempting to direct a mighty army, a task which Napoleon has assured us requires profound study, incessant application, and wide experience.* (* "In consequence of the excessive growth of armies ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... subject, the more vehement Dr. Eben grew, and the feebler grew Hetty's opposition. She could not gainsay his arguments. She had nothing to oppose to them, except her wifely instinct that the old bond and ceremony were by implication desecrated in assuming a second: "But what right have I to fall back on that old bond," thought poor Hetty, wringing her hands as the burden of her long, sad ten years' mistake ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... be significant," Hartson Brant said thoughtfully. "But, assuming an enemy could get an EEG—which is the handy way of saying electroencephalogram, Rick and Scotty—what would he ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... took refuge in solitude, he wanted to be done with existence. Everybody knew when anything went wrong with him. Why could not Jacqueline have let him know more plainly what it was that troubled her, and why could she not have shown a little tenderness toward him, instead of assuming, even when she said the kindest things to him, her air of mockery? And then, though she might pretend not to find Lizerolles stupid, he could see that she was bored there. Yet why had she chosen to stay at Lizerolles rather than go ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... the stage, shyness often disappears. The shy man, speaking the words and assuming the character of another, often loses his shyness. It is himself of whom he is afraid, not of Tony Lumpkin or of Charles Surface, of Hamlet or of Claude Melnotte. Behind their masks he can speak well; but if he at his own dinner-table ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... concentrated on the much desired end, I, by some accident, learned that the proprietor of the shanty was a doctor. At this discovery my hopes went up several degrees, and I determined to test his medicine chest. Putting on a look of utter exhaustion, with both my hands on my abdomen, and assuming the most plaintive voice I could muster, I said: "Doctor, I have made a long march to-day, and feel utterly broken up; have you not some spirits in your medicine chest that you could prescribe for me? I am sure it would be a great relief." He looked me over with suspicion, and ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... [6451]Heliogabalus, "put out that vestal fire at Rome, expelled the virgins, and banished all other religions all over the world, and would be the sole God himself." Our Turks, China kings, great Chams, and Mogors do little less, assuming divine and bombast titles to themselves; the meaner sort are too credulous, and led with blind zeal, blind obedience, to prosecute and maintain whatsoever their sottish leaders shall propose, what they in pride and singularity, revenge, vainglory, ambition, spleen, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... United States from a comparatively feeble nation, lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, to a continental power of assured strength and boundless promise. The coup d'etat of the First Consul was an overwhelming surprise and disappointment to the English Government. Bonaparte was right in assuming that prompt action on his part was necessary to save Louisiana from the hands of the English. Twelve days after the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was signed, the British ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, demanded his passports. At Dover he met the French ambassador to England, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Assuming, then, that every social group may be presumed to have its own (a) administrative, (b) legislative, and (c) human-nature problems, these problems may be still further classified with reference to the type of social group. Most social groups fall naturally into one or the other ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... investigator also endeavoured to support his theory by demonstrating forces which might have brought about the transformations of the organic world in the course of the ages. In addition to other factors, he laid special emphasis on the increased or diminished use of the parts of the body, assuming that the strengthening or weakening which takes place from this cause during the individual life, could be handed on to the offspring, and thus intensified and raised to the rank of a specific character. Darwin ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... it's persuasive Charms. This his dogmatical Assertion of the long-lost Art of Oratory, his wild Academical Projects, with the foregoing theatrical Inconsistencies, too much subject that Gentleman to the Character given, by the Roman Satirist, of an assuming sharp-set Greekling: ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... reflection that circular movement, and circular movement alone, was "perfect," whatever "perfect" may have meant. It was further believed to be impossible that the heavenly bodies could have any other movements save those which were perfect. Assuming this, it followed, in Ptolemy's opinion, and in that of those who came after him for fourteen centuries, that all the tracks of the heavenly bodies were in some way or other to be ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... said Kennedy, rising and assuming, with a painful effort, his most indifferent look ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... and the identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that the extremity is more worthy than ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... the elders—there was none. Before assuming one they had thought it best, with characteristic caution, to await the next act in the drama. There were ladies in Brampton whose hearts prompted them, when they called on the new teacher, to speak a kindly word of warning ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Moreover, he is so modest that it is difficult to make him understand that no other man is to be thought of for these first difficult years. When he does, there is no more question of his acceptance than there was of his assuming the command of the army. As for titles they come about as a matter of course, and it is quite positive that Washington, although a Republican, will never become a Democrat. He is a grandee and will continue to live like one, and the man who presumes ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton |
