"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... job was. Strange I had not known this fact of grave importance. I went on past her unconscious back, left her working at her loose-leaf ledgers, beside her adding machine, my mind a whirl of ugly conjecture. Dykeman's employee; that would instantly and very painfully clear up a score of perplexing questions. Dykeman would need no detectives on my trail to tell him of my lack of success in the Skeels chase. Lord! I had sent her as concise a report as I could make—to her, for Worth. I walked on stupidly. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... ventured a conjecture that the dwarfs so often mentioned in the ancient sagas and fairy-tales were real beings, probably the Phoenician miners, who, working the coal, iron, copper, gold, and tin mines of England, Norway, Sweden, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the confidential clerk of M. Voruz there occurred the bright idea of doing something for himself with this valuable diplomatic information. One fine day the clerk was missing and with him certain papers. Then there ensued a period of months during which the firm and their employers could only conjecture the ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... to blush, for all his attempt at nonchalant grown-up airs. He was the very embodiment of youth, in its sun-tipped morning flower. What Charlie could have to "question" this artless young being—as incapable of plotting, it seemed to me, as a young faun—passed my conjecture; but, as Charlie had given me a quiet wink, as he spoke of the after-breakfast examination, I suspected that it was one of those jokes of his which are apt to have something of the simplicity and roughness of ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... this chapter, it may not be improper to offer my conjecture concerning the disease of this illustrious man. But previous to this, it is proper to remark, that it is not Job himself, or his friends, but the author of the book that attributes his calamities to Satan; for this author's intention seems to be, to shew, by a striking example, ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... every one had a conjecture and a commentary: gentlemen in wigs, and ladies powdered, patched, and sacked. Vavasour pondered somewhat dolefully on the anti-poetic spirit of the age; Coningsby hailed him as ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... brief recollection of past events enabled him to dismiss this conjecture as altogether wild and visionary. He had but to call to memory the various stratagems practised by his light-hearted companion, the young Earl of Derby, upon this forlorn girl—the conversations held in her presence, in which the character of a creature so irritable and sensitive upon all occasions, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... what the spirits which communicate are not, it just as clearly reveals also what they are; so that in no particular is one left to conjecture or guesswork. There is an order of beings brought to view in the Scriptures, above man but lower than God or Christ, called "angels." No Bible believer questions the existence of such beings. It is sometimes asserted that angels ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... ladies, middle-aged. The train stopped at Nuneaton. The two ladies exchanged a glance. One of them sighed, and said, 'Poor Eliza! She had reason to remember Nuneaton!'... That is all. But how much! how deliciously and memorably much! How infinite a span of conjecture is in those dots which I have just made! And yet, would you believe me? some of my most intimate friends, the people most like to myself, see little or nothing of the loveliness of that pearl of price. Perhaps you would believe me. That is the worst of it: one never knows. The most sensitive ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the suicidal tendency is dependent on heat; but June is not the hottest month, nor is December the coldest. Durkheim has tested this conjecture by comparing temperatures with suicides in France, Italy, and Prussia. He finds that, in all three of these countries, suicides reach their maximum in June and their minimum in December, while the temperature does not rise to its maximum until July and does not fall to its minimum until ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... just now," he said, "and he sticks to his story. I fear, too, that I was wrong in my conjecture with regard to his madness. He must have had a temporary madness when he drew up and signed the false report. I suppose we ought ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... Little'un's back was turned, a wandering pig arrived on the scene. Seeing the open door, he resolved to prospect a bit, and accordingly entered the shanty. What followed can now never be precisely known, but conjecture allows us to arrive at ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... totally unprepared and averse to hostilities, but the plan at Constantinople was, as we soon found, to provoke an insurrection in order to justify a transfer of the island to Egypt. Later we had from Constantinople all the details, but for the moment we could only conjecture the Egyptian collusion in the plan by the presence of Schahin Pasha, the general-in-chief of the Egyptian army, and minister of war of the viceroy, and the very important part taken by him in the ensuing negotiations. He came in great state and pomp, and immediately assumed ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Further conjecture was suspended by the presence of the individual in regard to whom they were in doubt. He was a stranger, and Mr. Markland presented him as Mr. Lyon, son of an old and valued business correspondent, residing in Liverpool. A cordial ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... Morning broke at length, and scarcely was the heavy mist clearing away before the red sunlight, when the sounds of fife and drum were heard from a distant part of the field. The notes swelled or sank as the breeze rose or fell, and many a conjecture was hazarded as to their meaning, for no object was well visible for more than a few hundred yards off; gradually, however, they grew nearer and nearer, and at length, as the air cleared, and the hazy vapor evaporated, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... My own private conjecture, I confess, has rather grown to be, on much reading of those RULHIERES and distracted Books, that the Czarina,—who was a grandiose creature, with considerable magnanimities, natural and acquired; with many ostentations, some really great qualities and talents; in effect, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... suppose that she was acquainted with the circumstances of his amour, but he had a suspicion amounting to conviction that she had conjectured it, as men of science from certain derangements in their calculations will conjecture the existence of a star that ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... discharge of two rivers run like a mill-race. According to Barbot (ii. 1) 'the natives call Cabo Ledo (not Liedo) or Tagrin (Cape Sa Leone) 'Hesperi Cornu,' the adjoining peoples (who are lamp-black) Leucsethiopes, and the mountain up the country Eyssadius Mons.' All the merest conjecture! Mr. Secretary Griffith, of whom more presently, here finds the terminus of the Periplus of Hanno, the Carthaginian, in the sixth century B.C., and the far-famed gorilla-land. [Footnote: This I emphatically deny. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... worn black stockings instead of her one beloved pair of white, went on in thought, unhappy, humiliated Suzanna. If only—but in conjecture Suzanna was lost. The cramped toe exerting its right, thrust itself through again. One fleeting, horrified glance told the child that two toes now peeped out on a world that would be scandalized should ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... prodigieux effet,' will prevent our blockading ships from approaching the shores of France, and that thus their steam-vessels might escape unobserved during night, even with sailing-vessels in tow. This is no vague conjecture, but a consequence which assuredly will follow any hesitation on our part to counteract the system extensively adopted, and now under the consideration of the National Assembly, of arming all batteries with projectiles, whereby to burn or blow up our ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... for t' other the Exchange; Life, nature, lore, God, and affairs of that sort, He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion, With the quiet precision of science he'll sort ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... in the blank paper book containing them, are these. "'Then I'll give up snuff.' Brobity.—An alarming sacrifice. Mr. Brobity's snuff-box. The Pawnbroker's account of it?" What was proposed by this must be left to conjecture; but "Brobity" is the name of one of the people in his unfinished story, and the suggestion may have been meant for some incident in it. If so, it is the only passage in the volume which can be in any way connected with the piece of writing on which he was last ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... were up now, millions of them, clear and brilliant; and it was quite evident that Thor had set his mind on an "all-night hike," a kuppatipsk pimootao as a Cree tracker would have called it. Just how it would have ended for Muskwa is a matter of conjecture had not the spirits of thunder and rain and lightning put their heads together to ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... great height, whilst this at Birmingham is very low.—There are within the church two marble monuments, with recumbent figures upon them, but no inscription, and are, like the church, of such ancient date, that no person has yet presumed to say when they were executed nor for whom, (only by conjecture); but let the artists be who they would, the effigies do them great credit, and were highly deserving of better treatment than they have experienced. In the church is a fine-toned organ. In the steeple are twelve musical bells, and a ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... not conjecture by what miraculous conception the angelic prediction would be verified; but she did not hesitate a moment to allow the apparently incongruous facts of his being her son, and yet the Son of the Highest, who should rise to the throne of David, and possess an everlasting kingdom. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... have already begun their work. The newspaper containing the announcement is still damp, and I have even now heard the conjecture expressed that the baron was marrying Fraeulein von Markwald because he had been forced to do so by her brother, who thought that Linden had compromised her by ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... proof that Inigo Jones's tomb now occupies its original site. The statement that Chapman was studied on the south side of the church is, I believe, mere conjecture. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... dispersed some of the greatest universities in Germany, under the particular circumstances of its situation, had greatly increased that of Klosterheim. Judging by the tone which prevailed, and the random expressions which fell upon the ear at intervals, a stranger might conjecture that it was no empty lamentation over impending evils which occupied this crowd, but some serious preparation for meeting or redressing them. An officer of some distinction had been for some time observing them from the antique portals of the palace. It was probable, however, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... a measurable annual parallax. One is a star a little above the seventh magnitude, distinguished as s Pleiadum; the other, of about the eighth, is numbered 25 in Bessel's list. Dr. Elkin has not omitted to remark that the conjecture of their disconnection from the cluster is confirmed by the circumstance that its typical spectrum (as shown on Prof. Pickering's plates) is varied in s by the marked character of the K line. The spectrum of its fellow traveler ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... subsequently entrusted with the preparation of the Confession of Faith; and it has been said that they first settled the titles of the several chapters, and then apportioned the preparation of so many of them to each. But this is matter of pure conjecture. The portion on the universities, from the multitude of its practical details, we cannot but assign mainly to Douglas, the Principal of St Mary's College, and Wynram, the sub-prior of the Augustinian Monastery at St Andrews. One can hardly doubt that the rest, ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... been able to realize the conception, or we should not have had his hypothesis of a subtle ether, the occult cause of gravitation; and his writings prove, that though he deemed the particular nature of the intermediate agency a matter of conjecture, the necessity of some such agency appeared ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... more than Jack Borlan. He had never spoken to Mr. Ruger a dozen times in his life, and he could not account for such disinterestedness. However, there was not much time for conjecture, for ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Migrate.—Why birds migrate we can only conjecture. Without doubt the growing scarcity of food in autumn is the controlling factor with many of them; and this would seem to be an excellent reason for leaving the region of their summer sojourn. Cold weather alone would not drive all of them southward, ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... noticeable in Kamchatka, Siberia, or any part of the great Russian Empire. What the ancestors of the Russians did at the Tower of Babel to have been afflicted with such a complicated, contorted, mixed up, utterly incomprehensible language, I can hardly conjecture. I have thought sometimes that they must have built their side of the Tower higher than any of the other tribes, and have been punished for their sinful industry with this jargon of unintelligible sounds, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... be found out some o' these days," he said earnestly. "We may know it all, the next step; where Mrs. Begg is now, for instance. Certainty, not conjecture, is what we ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... had been a mere conjecture on Freddy Lampton's part, a conjecture guided by scientific knowledge and careful research. He felt convinced that the tomb which they were looking for was close to the spot where they were working. Indications such as the excavator looks for had decided him to begin ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... through a cloud of rodomontade, was an idle truism. The "greatest happiness principle" of the 1st of October is, in the phrase of the American newspapers, "important if true." But unhappily it is not true. It is not our business to conjecture what new maxim is to make the bones of sages and patriots stir on the 1st of December. We can only say that, unless it be something infinitely more ingenious than its two predecessors, we shall leave ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ascertain of how many persons that community then consisted. Unfortunately the population of England in 1685, cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. For no great state had then adopted the wise course of periodically numbering the people. All men were left to conjecture for themselves; and, as they generally conjectured without examining facts, and under the influence of strong passions and prejudices, their guesses were often ludicrously absurd. Even intelligent Londoners ordinarily talked of London ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... diverted from a trend of profitless conjecture when shortly after breakfast time my 'phone bell rang. It was the editor of the Planet, to whom I had been indebted for a number of special commissions—including my fascinating quest of the Giant Gnu, which, generally supposed to be extinct, was reported by certain natives and ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... A.D. 250, mentions that there were two monuments in Ephesus bearing the name of John, and we may reasonably suppose that one of these was in memory of the presbyter mentioned by Papias. But a little reflection will soon convince us that nothing has been gained by the conjecture that this John wrote the Gospel. If John {84} the Presbyter was personally acquainted with our Lord, as some writers understand Papias to mean, then the sceptics are forced to admit that one who personally knew Jesus, describes Jesus as a more than human ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... practice enjoyed a sensation, for when the first team came trotting over from the gymnasium, a half-hour later because of a rigorous signal quiz, amongst them, dressed to play, was Don Gilbert! A buzz of surprise and conjecture travelled through the ranks of the shivering onlookers, that speedily gave place to satisfaction, and as Don, tossing aside his blanket, followed the first-string players into the field a small and enthusiastic First Form youth clapped ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... all interested in such matters, have shown almost beyond question that Zimbabwe was once an inland Phoenician city, or at the least a city whose inhabitants were of a race which practised Phoenician customs and worshipped the Phoenician deities. Beyond this all is conjecture. How it happened that a trading town, protected by vast fortifications and adorned with temples dedicated to the worship of the gods of the Sidonians—or rather trading towns, for Zimbabwe is only one of a group of ruins—were built by civilised men in the heart of Africa ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... Hannah was right in her conjecture, came to the window, and mother and daughter stood gazing out for some minutes, and trying to penetrate the thick gloom which hung over the wild, tempestuous ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... comply with your wishes, and explain as well as I can what you require; but not with any idea that, like the Pythian Apollo, what I say must needs be certain and indisputable, but as a mere man, endeavoring to arrive at probabilities by conjecture, for I have no ground to proceed further on than probability. Those men may call their statements indisputable who assert that what they say can be perceived by the senses, and who proclaim themselves ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... d'Angely took that side. Duke Henry of Rohan and the Duke of Soubise, his brother, supported them in their resistance. Rohan went to Montauban, and, mounting into the pulpit, said to the assembly, "I will not conceal from you that the most certain conjecture which can be formed from the current news is, that in a short time the royal army will camp around your walls, since St. Jean d'Angely is surrendered, and all that remains up to here is weakened, broken down, and ready to receive the yoke, through the factions of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... giving a description of either Italy or some island in the Mediterranean, and of a Christian worship that certain Hindu pilgrims might have witnessed. Indeed, a writer in the Calcutta Review has gone so far as to say that from what follows, the conjecture would not be a bold one that the whole passage refers to the impression made on certain Hindu pilgrims upon witnessing the celebration of the Eucharist according to the ordinances of the Roman Catholic Church. The Honble ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... MARADAS). Do me the favor to talk to me—talk of what you will—or of nothing. Only preserve the appearance at least of talking. I would not wish to stand by myself, and yet I conjecture that there will be goings on here worthy of our attentive observation. (He continues to fix his eye ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the identity of this Michael Field? Was it possible, was it conceivable that he held the key to those greatest riddles? Truly it would seem possible. His one big action had been so extraordinary, so mad even, that it would be quite justifiable to believe, or at least conjecture, that minor extraordinary actions might be mixed up ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... made, concerning the opening of the Eyes of the Dead Man, and viewing Isabella; but she was a Woman of so admirable a Life and Conversation, of so undoubted a Piety and Sanctity of Living, that not the least Conjecture could be made, of her having a hand in it, besides the improbability of it; yet the whole thing was a Mystery, which, they thought, they ought to look into: But a few Days after, the Body of Villenoys being interr'd in a most magnificent manner, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... disappointment you meet with, at every misfortune that happens to you of which the author is unknown, do not seek or conjecture; it is useless. Cry out, it is Henri of Navarre, and you will be sure to be right. Strike on the side where he is, and you will be sure to strike right. Oh! that man, that man; he is the sword suspended over the head ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... said this morning be correct,' remarked Atlee, 'conjecture is unnecessary. She told Dick and myself that every Irishman is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... her voice, and the simple beauty of her music, gave all the advantage which the minstrel could have desired, and which his poetry so much wanted. I almost doubt if it can be read with patience, destitute of these advantages; although I conjecture the following copy to have been somewhat corrected by Waverley, to suit the taste of those who ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... siege, tell of the destruction caused by the blowing up of the magazine in 1683, an event which had more the appearance of design than accident. York abounds with quaint houses and narrow streets. We give an illustration of the curious Melia's Passage; the origin of the name I am at a loss to conjecture. ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... annotations, suggest that it was so called 'because great store of trees, as in Lebanon, were planted about it; and gardens, orchards, and all manner of delightful things were added thereto': to aid this conjecture, they quote Ecclesiastes 2:4, 6. Poole says that it was 'a house so called, either, first, because it was built in the mountain and forest of Lebanon, for recreation in summer time; but generally held to have been near Jerusalem; or rather, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... persons passed in the course of the day, and the hurried jingle of the bells on Parry's bakery-cart was the only sound that ever shattered the silence. Whether it was an amatory or a financial disappointment that turned him into a hermit was left to ingenious conjecture. But there he sat, year in and year out, with his cheek so close to the window that the nearest pane became permanently blurred with his breath; for after ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... it is found, that it must be regarded as a marginal gloss which has become incorporated with the text. It has dislodged a sentence that must have legitimately belonged to the text, restored in the foregoing translation by conjecture. Probably the lost sentence, like the intrusive one, ended with the word trocuire, "mercy," which, indeed, may have suggested the interpolation; this might easily have caused the scribe's eye to wander. An habitual expletive is also attributed to St. Patrick (modebroth, apparently ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... leave the city, which she knew was in a fresh ferment of gossip and conjecture on the subject of her lost husband, the deceased governor-elect. The news from the Indian Territory had renewed all the public interest in the ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Montreal," were words that had often rung in his ear, and they now recurred to him with prophetic distinctness. He had no doubt that it was Montreal himself whom he had seen. Why the Great Captain should have taken this interest in him, Angelo little cared to conjecture. Most probably it was but a crafty pretence—one of the common means by which the Chief of the Grand Company attracted to himself the youths of Italy, as well as the warriors of the North. He only thought now how he could turn the Knight's promise ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which led him to constant journeys, sometimes of the nature of migrations, and the constant inception of projects to which he did not continue long to adhere; and in the statements about him there are elements from which I conjecture that he was probably of the class of persons who furnish good subjects for hypnotic experiments. When he was a year old he was handed over to the care of the nun Ita, when she dwelt at the foot of Mount Luachra. With her he remained until he was seven years old, when ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... no idle conjecture, rather a well-thought-out possibility intelligently provided for, appeared when he went on to describe how the contingency must be faced. The enemy had already brought his full resources into the field. It was a maximum which, after a succession of days ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... able and willing, still it would only remain a positive deficit made good, and no new facility would be derived for alleviating the existing burthens. The burthens and distresses must still remain what they were before. He spoke not now upon conjecture, or loose calculation, he had brought his authority with him. These were the records from which he derived his statements—the official returns of the Treasury; and if false, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... admiral in chief command, especially at the beginning of a career, as Nelson then was. "We are now crowding sail for Alexandria; but it is very doubtful if we fall in with them at all, as we are proceeding on the merest conjecture, and not on any positive information. If, at the end of our journey, we find we are upon the wrong scent, our embarrassment will be great indeed. Fortunately, I only act here en second; but did the chief responsibility rest with me, I fear it would be more than my too irritable ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... below as to the original Helgi legend be correct, the feud with Hunding's race, as told in these poems, must be extraneous. I conjecture that it belonged originally to the Volsung cycle, and to the wer-wolf Sinfjoetli. It must not be forgotten that, though he passes out of the Volsung story altogether in the later versions, both Scandinavian and German, he is in the main action in ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... overhead, that she had awakened to the knowledge of her love for Crispin. And so to him strayed now her thoughts, and to the fate her father had sent him to; and thus back again to her father and the evil he had wrought. It is matter for conjecture whether her loathing for Gregory would have been as intense as it was, had another than Crispin Galliard been ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... out to be, not any fixed and definite notion of expediency, but one liable to change with every change in individual judgment. Its boasted criterion of the right or wrong of an action is the best conjecture which the agent, with or without extrinsic advice, is able to form of the future consequences of the action. Utilitarian law, in short, resolves itself into this—that every man shall be a law unto ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... of Harold Beecham, would make quite a miniature sensation, and form food for no end of conjecture and chatter. In any company he was a distinguished-looking man, and particularly so among these hard-worked farmer-selectors, on whose careworn features the cruel effects of the drought were leaving additional lines of worry. I felt proud of my quondam sweetheart. There was an unconscious air ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... alludes to a certain event which changed his view of things in general; "ever since," "since that November," "for now nearly five years I have felt." These and similar phrases constantly occur in his diary. I will speak in a moment of what nature I should conjecture it to ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... form an argument for nationalism to be handed down by intuition to future generations. At the time it seemed that nothing but a miracle could save the Union. "Our affairs seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution—something I cannot foresee or conjecture—I am uneasy and apprehensive; more so than during the war." Jay was never given to exaggeration of thought or expression; he must have been deeply impressed to write those words to Washington. "What ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... this country was peopled from Britain, and has recourse to a romantic story of a Welsh historian in support of his wild conjecture. This author gives an account of a discovery made in the year 1170, by Maddock, a younger son of Owen Guineth, prince of Wales. That prince, observing his brethren engaged in civil war about the succession to his father's throne, formed a resolution to abandon his country. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... decay—the nauseating smell of the grave. Looking about he saw the floor was paved with grave stones. In one corner stood a fine seventeenth century lead coffin. A curious greyish light shone from it. O'Hagan's conjecture had been right: there was something awful in the room, and with the terror of nightmare seizing him swiftly by the throat and throttling him, he awoke in a spasm of terror. O'Hagan was sitting bolt upright with the impression that someone ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... certain days in the west part of England, who hath not heard? I think ye have heard of St. Blesis's heart which is at Malverne, and of St. Algar's bones, how long they deluded the people: I am afraid, to the loss of many souls. Whereby men may well conjecture, that all about in this realm there is plenty of such juggling deceits. And yet hitherto ye have sought no remedy. But even still the miserable people are suffered to take the false miracles for the true, and to lie still asleep in all kind of superstition. ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... also we must talk, not of their nature as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps larger and more strong than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose that animals think, and form concepts, what is there in the line of conjecture to justify the admission that they do so without corresponding expressions? The analogy with man, the knowledge of the spirit, human psychology, which is the instrument of all our conjectures as to animal psychology, would oblige us to suppose that if they think in any way, they ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... from poison injected into the blood; but this is a matter so easily settled that I prefer not to theorise upon it. There are several poisons which might have produced the effects we have observed. If, however, I am able to prove this conjecture correct I have still only eliminated one of the three hypotheses and resolved the matter to a choice between the suicide and murder theories, yet that is something gained. It is because I believe it can be shown death did not result from natural ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... the proper administration of the office that the person holding the important place of assistant treasurer in the city of New York, should not be engaged in business transactions which might give rise to the conjecture that he had advantages over others in consequence of ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... Boone's mind as he was returning from Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 we may only conjecture. Perhaps he was planning a career of soldiering, for in later years he was to distinguish himself as a frontier commander in both defense and attack. Or it may be that his heart was full of the wondrous tales told ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... phrasing of the definition was examined, one could not but guess limits in his mind. "That which fits a man to perform" are the words of the definition; and to perform what? "All the offices, both private and public, of Peace and War," are the words that follow. And, as one reads on, the conjecture suggested by this phrasing is confirmed. By man Milton did not mean Homo, but Vir. When he framed his definition of Education, only one of the sexes was present to his mind; and throughout the whole tract, from first ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... exercised at this time with the question who would be the next favourite, the king's passion for the Countess de la Guiche being evidently on the wane, and that which he presently evinced for Madame de Guercheville being as yet a matter of conjecture. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... time when this poor boy took his life Goldsmith was not in London, and not even in England. He was in Paris. The idea that had he encountered Chatterton it could hardly have failed to be to the advantage, and possibly the redemption, and the whole rescue of that young spirit, is not a charming conjecture that has only flattery for its foundation. Oliver Goldsmith was one who must perforce befriend the destitute. He could not let any hopeless heart still keep its despair unmarked and not alleviated, if soothing could prove possible. In the year 1772, a youth ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... but it was 'a priori reasoning, and conjecture versus evidence: yet the applause it met with showed one how happy is the orator 'qui hurle avec les loups.' Taking the scientific preacher's whole theory in theology and science, woman was high ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... workmanship of the Odes from that of the Epodes, and can partly be traced step by step in the autobiographic passages of the second book of Satires and the later Epistles. We are ignorant in what circumstances or under what pressure the Epodes were published; it is a plausible conjecture that their faults were just such as would meet the approbation of Maecenas, on whose favour Horace was at the time almost wholly dependent; and Horace may himself have been glad to get rid, as it were, of ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... enough from the sudden change in the current of his thoughts brought about by the tingling of the horsewhip. All else was mystery. But the commonest knowledge of the English and colonial history of those days was sufficient to stimulate conjecture on these points. At the date of the incident recorded James II had been on the throne more than a year, and for a long time both as duke and king had been hated and feared on both sides of the ocean. The Duke of Monmouth's ill-fated adventure for the Crown had failed at Sedgemoor, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... a miser's casket. Listen: The King of France, Noailles the Ambassador, The Duke of Suffolk and Sir Peter Carew, Sir Thomas Wyatt, I myself, some others, Have sworn this Spanish marriage shall not be. If Mary will not hear us—well—conjecture— Were I in Devon with my wedded bride, The people there so worship me—Your ear; You ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... enough to hold the majority of mankind. He thinks that the elect will be comparatively few—just numerous enough to fill those places in heaven forfeited by the rebel angels who formed according to his conjecture, about a tenth of the angelical host. That their places in Heaven are already nearly filled leaving little room for future generations Dante makes known in the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... peculiar result of this investigation of the state of religion among the upper classes seems to me to be this: the curve of intensity of religious feeling which conjecture leads us to draw through the spiritual life of the ancients as a whole, that same curve, but more distinct and sharply accentuated, is found again in the relations of the upper classes to the popular faith. Towards the close of the fifth century it looks as if the cultured ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... early part of a night in the oven. I hardly expected, when I left him to go to windward, to find him alive upon my return. He was certainly as low as he could well be when I left him, and what would be the effect of the medicines that I gave him, I hardly then dared to conjecture. Yet I knew that he must die without them. I was not a little rejoiced, therefore, and relieved, upon our return, to see him decidedly better. The medicines were strong, and took hold and gave a check to the disorder which was destroying him; and, more than that, they ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... passion, unknown to those quiet philosophers who take up novelties every day, examine them with the sobriety of practised eyes, to lay down altogether, modify in part, or accept in whole, according as inductive experiment supports or destroys conjecture. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the common honour of being descended. Perhaps neither of them had sufficient sense to be proud of the greatest intellectual ornament of their race, the author of 'Tom Jones;' but as our hero was dead before the humourist was born, it is not fair to conjecture what he might have ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to them, since he commonly formed his opinions on vain conjecture, and was always ready to yield his judgment to crafty persons, appointed Arbetio and Florentius, the chief steward, as judges to inquire how it was that the town was destroyed. They rejected the plain and easily proved causes of the disaster, fearing that Eusebius, at that time high ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of pure conjecture," he answered. "It is idle to theorize on the might-have-beens, or what might-have-happened if the what-did-happen hadn't happened. Dismiss it, at least, for this evening. You asked what I was doing for three weeks at Annapolis, ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... friendly tribe of Indians and become children of the forest like their hosts. Some tradition of this kind remained among the Indians, and it has been fancied that the Hatteras Indians showed traces of English blood. But all this is conjecture, and the fate of the lost colonists of Roanoke ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Mrs Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in the course of conversation, she communicated to me the intelligence that she had yesterday received a call from her revered husband's quondam friend, Lord Mauleverer. You will not easily conjecture what brought his lordship within the precincts of our little town. It was to see Captain Brown, with whom, it appears, his lordship was acquainted in the 'plumed wars,' and who had the privilege of averting destruction from his lordship's head when some great peril was impending over it, off the ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... various sounds which the poverty of the English language prevents me from designating—the whole blending into a hideous discord that would have been at home in some of the worst regions of Dante's Inferno. As to the cause of it I could not even form a conjecture. Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and I could dimly perceive white figures flitting about the room. At the same time I felt something standing near me, and close to my shoulder I saw a pair of eyes and long streaming hair. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... conjecturally translated. I suppose the Egyptian masons had a custom analogous to that of our own, and attached a bunch of lotus to the highest part of a building they had just finished: nothing, however, has come to light to confirm this conjecture. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Mass. On his arrival he was given a cane with a lighted candle affixed to it; with this he had to set fire to some tow placed on the capitals of the columns.{14} The ecclesiastical explanation of this strange ceremony was that it symbolised the end of the world by fire, but one may conjecture that some pagan custom lay at its root. Since 1870 the Pope, as "the prisoner of the Vatican," has of course ceased to celebrate at Santa Maria Maggiore or Sant' Anastasia. The Missal, however, still shows a trace of the papal visit to Sant' Anastasia in a commemoration of this saint ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... confounds together the most distinct races—a thorough Saxon. He belonged, that is, to the race which has in the most eminent degree the typical English qualities. Especially his intellect had a strong substratum of downright dogged common sense; his religion, one may conjecture, was pretty much that of all men of sense in his time. It was that of the society which had produced and been influenced by Hume and Adam Smith; which had dropped its old dogmas without becoming openly sceptical, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... I did not see how it could. If by any chance the girl's secret conjecture about Leavitt's identity was right, it would be verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, and in that event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting aunt ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... it is easy to conjecture, but it is fully stated in the order of the inhabitants of Charlestown at the meeting in which the action for the government of the town by selectmen was taken: "In consideration of the great trouble and charge of the inhabitants of Charlestown by reason of the frequent meeting of the townsmen ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the introduction to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron is a very sensible remark: "It may appear paradoxical: but the editor cannot help hazarding the conjecture that the motives which prompted the Highlanders to support King James were substantially the same as those by which the promoters of the Revolution were actuated." The whole introduction, indeed, well deserves ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... expressed, and until it is expressed, a thoughtful observer may fairly believe that Local Self-Government will not flourish in a country where are presented none of the conditions on which its prosperity depends, and he may conjecture that in Ireland, as in France, an honest centralised administration of impartial officials, and not Local Self-Government, would best meet the real wants of ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... things have neither beginning nor end. Manetho also, who lived about the time of Nebuchadon-Asser, Asser being a Syriac word usually applied as a sirname to the kings of that country, as Teglat Phael-Asser, Nabon-Asser, he, I say, formed a conjecture equally absurd; for as we usually say ek to biblion kubernetes, which implies that books will never teach the world; so he attempted to investigate—But, Sir, I ask pardon, I am straying from the question.'—That ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... could not fight. Whether a strict adherence to the strong, fearless policy of Hamilton, which was adopted by Jackson and advocated by Webster in 1832-33, would have prevented civil war, must, of course, remain matter of conjecture. It is at least certain that in that way alone could war have been avoided, and that the Clay policy of compromise made war inevitable by encouraging slave-holders to believe that they could always obtain anything they wanted by a sufficient ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... of her duties as a daughter and a sister.[470] People who were too sane for these extravagances, but were yet unwilling to accept the prosaic solution of a natural death and give up the pleasant task of conjecture, suggested that Scipio had found death by his own hand. The motive assigned was the sense of his inability to keep the promises which he had made.[471] These promises may have been held to be certain suggestions for the amelioration of the condition ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... arriving at the corner in "a hack," was, despite ten years' residence, a complete stranger to her neighbors. She was quiet and well-behaved; she wore good clothes and shamefully neglected her child. These were the meager facts upon which gossip built a tower of conjecture. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Cheyenne, his advent taking place about an hour subsequent to that of Fearless Frank. His name he asserted was Nix—Geoffrey Walsingham Nix—and where he came from, and what he sought in the Black Hills, was simply a matter of conjecture among the miners, as he refused to talk on the subject of his past, ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... is a matter of conjecture. Their early history is known only from their own annals, which throw no light upon the question. The Shu-King, one of the Confucian classics (edited, not composed, by Confucius), begins, like Livy, with legendary accounts of princes whose virtues and vices are intended ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... flourishing old age, at least I hope so; he is a man superior to his mechanic and mercantile condition by the benevolence of his behaviour to needy men of letters. And your respected aunt? She still knits stockings with the same zeal as of yore? At least I hope so. A lady of an austere virtue. I conjecture you are wishing to order another dantzig, my ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France |
