"Presume" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whether by general observation or actual proof, than that their fecundity varies in different communities and countries. The principle which effects this variation, without the necessity of those cruel and unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what I presume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION; and that law may ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you, Colin—if Mr Maule LIKES to be disposed of in that way. HE is to be allowed freedom of contract I presume, though the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... her lips to reply, when one of the old Indians interposed, with a frown of displeasure, and, taking her by the arm, led her angrily to the door, where he waved her away, with gestures that seemed to threaten a worse reception should she presume ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... orchard on river bottom lands; soil about 15 or 16 feet deep. Quite a number of trees have died, I presume from old age. I desire to remove them and to replace them with prune trees. I have been advised to use dynamite in preparing the soil for the planting of the ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... Harrison. I presume all this is the result of what happened to him on Dovenil. Do you think there's any foundation in truth for what they say he did? Or do you think it's just an excuse to ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... plunder. That, said with a wink by one of the Triumvirate—Caesar, let us say—and assented to with a nod by Pompey and Crassus, was sufficient for the construction of such a conspiracy as that which I presume to have been hatched when the First Triumvirate was formed.[231] Mommsen, who never speaks of a Triumvirate under that name, except in his index,[232] where he has permitted the word to appear for the guidance ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... great disturbance," said Wallace, "and besides, though I don't know any thing about it, I presume that you came in a noisy manner through the kitchen and left all the doors ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... presume you have made a mistake in the house. This is a private meeting, where none ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... so plainly hath condemned. Let all men take heed what quarrel and cause from henceforth they do defend. If GOD raise up any noble heart to vindicate the liberty of his country and to suppress the monstrous Empire of Women: let all such as shall presume to defend them in the same, most certainly know; that in so doing they lift their hand against GOD, and that one day they shall find His power ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... to me too, sir," said Robert. "We're permitting the Marquis de Montcalm to make the fighting, to choose the fields of battle, and as long as we do that we have to dance to his music. But, sir, that's only my opinion. I would not presume to give it in the presence of ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... replied, "I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little meat-chopper. And you, I presume, are the Artilleryman who attended my lectures on the Eroticism ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... presume to attempt a description of the luscious birds as they come in by pairs, "hot and hot?" A dozen of the members of the club are assembled; a hearty and hospitable welcome greets the stranger—a welcome so warm that he cannot feel he is ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... and family to support out of his hard earnings—are the occasion of a carriage being overturned, and very nearly cause the death of an amiable girl! And all this mischief in the short space of six hours, not to say a word of your intentions towards the little actress, which I presume are none of the most honourable. Where ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... distresses. If you can calm the agitated surface of society, you heed not that fathomless depth of misery, sorrow, and distress whose troubled waves heave unseen and disregarded: and this, forsooth, is patriotism, Ireland asks of you bread, and you proffer her Catholic emancipation: and this, I presume, is construed to be the taking into our consideration, as his majesty recommended, the whole situation of Ireland." As regards the nature of the measure, Mr. Sadler contended that it could only be described as an inroad on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "I presume you would find a like explanation for the messages she professed to be sending to her husband, when engaged in babbling fool words ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Pope's epithet "low" mean? Is it used for "vulgar" (as I presume [Greek: ph]. intends us to infer), or simply for "small, petty, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... good-humoured a lot of seamen as I had ever met with. Their principal employment seemed to be to take their turn at the wheel; and as the natives performed most of the little work that was to be done in a vessel of this description, carrying no sails, I presume they were entertained only with the view of manning the two small howitzers and half-a-dozen swivel-guns, in case our little craft should find it necessary to shew her teeth. The remaining portion of the men were even finer specimens of humanity ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... nut. Yes," said Mr. Sewell, crooking his elbow in inimitable pantomime, "altogether too often. Found dead in the road hugging a three-gallon demijohn. Habeas corpus in the barn," added Mr. Sewell, intending, I presume, to intimate that a post-mortem examination had been deemed necessary. "Silas," he resumed, in that respectful tone which one should always adopt when speaking of capital, "is a man of considerable property; lives on his interest, and keeps a hoss and shay. ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... possibly I might one day call you mine. I had formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress; still I presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a little further off, and you, I suppose, will perhaps soon leave this place, I wish ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... scruples about doing so. He was old enough to know that it was rather a delicate business to ask a man in a high official station for a testimonial on so slight an acquaintance. The mayor was interested in Katy, though she did not presume to call him her friend. She had twice called upon him, ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... lived, he durst not thus have moved me. Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him! Cas. I durst not? Bru. No. Cas. What? durst not tempt him? Bru. For your life, you durst not! Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love; I may do that I shall be sorry for. Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For I am armed so strong in honesty, That they pass by ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... hope your future success will be in proportion to the lateness of your appearance at the bar. Your companion has much more the air of a sailor than of a lawyer."—This was true enough, there being no mistaking Marble's character, though I had put on a body-coat to come ashore in;—"I presume he ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the republication was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing even the most serious books through the pages of ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... exclaimed, "I never calkilated to see you alive agin, and that's a fact. Hed some more adventures, I presume. Look as if ye'd hed more ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... flourished wit in our forefathers' age, And thus the Roman and Athenian stage. Whose wit is best, we'll not presume to tell, But this we know, our audience will excell; For never was in Rome, nor Athens seen So fair a circle, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... you analyze the needs of the school, in fact, going right at it as if it was a merchandizing problem, of course the one basic and fundamental need is growth. I presume we're all agreed we won't be satisfied till we build up the biggest darn Sunday School in the whole state, so the Chatham Road Presbyterian won't have to take anything off anybody. Now about jazzing up the campaign for prospects: they've ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Gospel, or strict Adherence to the Precepts of it, will make men good Soldiers, any more than they will make them good Painters, or any thing else the most remote from the Design of it. That good Christians, strictly speaking, can never presume or submit to be Soldiers. That Clergymen under Pretence of Preaching the Gospel, by a small Deviation from it, may easily misguide their Hearers, and not only make them fight in a just Cause, and against the Enemies of their Country, but likewise incite them to civil Discord and ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... through mental suggestion or arrests a nervous breakdown in a patient by teaching that patient how to relax, when the doctor himself does not hesitate to give bread pills in the first instance and to recommend a sanitarium where relaxation is the only thing attempted in the second. And I presume this quotation from the Dhamma-pada, which is many centuries older than the Christian religion, would be denounced as heresy by some of the Christian Scientists, although it embodies the spirit and almost the words of their own teachings: ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... between Avenel's friends and our Committee, whom, I am told, I displeased by the moderate speech which your Lordship so eloquently defended,—a coalition by which Avenel would come in with Mr. Egerton, whereas, if we all four stand, Mr. Egerton, I presume, will be quite safe,—and I certainly think I ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... teachers in their opposition to him were constantly quoting the ancient writings against his innovations, ordered the chief historical books to be destroyed, and sentenced to death any one who should presume to talk about the proscribed writings, or even allude to the virtues of the ancients in such a way as to reflect upon his reforms. The contumacious he sent to work upon the Great Wall. But the people concealed the books in the walls of their houses, ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... I have been careful to specify in the exact words of the Revisers, will appear to every impartial reader to be fully in harmony with the principle of faithfulness; and will be found—if an outsider may presume to make a passing comment—to have been carried out with pervasive ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... The boy or girl is becoming conscious of himself as a person, and resents being treated as a child; the only way he knows of asserting his personality is by affecting an air of disdain toward those who presume to treat him as a child. This swagger is more likely to be put on when there is a third person present. It is therefore always safer to reserve your discussions and corrections to the time when you are alone with your girl or boy, and can place your conversation ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... prayers. When the prayer was concluded we all rose, and the coffin being taken up, proceeded to the people's burial-ground, when London read aloud portions of the funeral service from the prayer-book—I presume the American episcopal version of our Church service, for what he read appeared to be merely a selection from what was perfectly familiar to me; but whether he himself extracted what he uttered I did not enquire. Indeed I was too much absorbed in the whole scene, and the many mingled emotions ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... my friend," said he, lightly. "I presume he is somewhere about here, as these are his head-quarters. What has he been doing? Nothing that can surprise me, I assure you—he was always an erratic ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... Ithuel Bolt, I presume. He has not yet been regularly before us, but you can produce him or any other witness; the court reserving to itself the right to decide afterward on the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the intellect cannot grasp the beginning of creation, or the end, the original cause of man's existence, or the final result—how can it presume to criticize and doubt, without getting out of its element ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... "I presume he really would have made serious objection had it not been for the fact that he had signed up for that forestry contract in Oregon. Tom knew that I would have a lonely summer at home, and, I believe, deep down in his heart, felt that were he to deny me the pleasure of this ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... consideration that our knowledge is at present inadequate. It lies in the extraordinary confusion, in the minds of those who advocate such legislation, between legal marriage and procreation. The persons who fall into such confusion have not yet learnt the alphabet of the subject they presume to dictate about, and are no more competent to legislate than a child who cannot tell A from B ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... if W. C. Ralston and William Sharon, and other members of the San Francisco mining and milling Ring feel that he above all other men in this State and California is the most fitting man to supervise and control Yellow Jacket matters, until I am able to vote more than half their stock I presume he will be retained to grace ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "I presume, my son, you do not wish to remain here as a hermit, as I have done? Methinks it were well that we made our arrangements for your return to the Christian host, who will, I hope, ere long be ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... spirits." Mrs. Butler patted Tad affectionately on the head. "Tad knows what I think of you all and how appreciative we both are over what Mr. Perkins has done for us. Now that I have had a little money left me, I am glad that Tad is able to spend more time with you in the open. I presume you will soon be ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... theological colleges down here do for you? It's a pity you couldn't have six months even at Laval—but, of course, Sabrevois and the long procession of colporteurs is more in your line. But in spite of such small defects you remain a man of cheerful yesterdays, and we may presume—equally confident tomorrows, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... is one of the laws of greatness that it dwindles all things in its vicinity, which would otherwise show large enough. Nay, in our regard for the great man, we may even admit to a compassionate honor, as pensioners upon our charity, those who bear and transmit his name. But if these heirs should presume upon that fame, and claim any precedence of living men and women because their dead grandfather was a hero—they must be shown the door directly. We should dread to be born a Percy, or a Colonna, or a Bonaparte. We should not like to be the second Duke of Wellington, nor Charles ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... nevertheless Robinson did bear it. Men at the "Goose and Gridiron" also would shoulder him now-a-days, rather than make way for him. Geese whose names had never been heard beyond the walls of that room would presume to occupy his place. And on one occasion, when he rose to address the chamber, the Grand omitted the courtesy that had ever been paid to him, and forgot to lay down his pipe. This also he ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... when America will make every other nation's conflict our own, or make every other nation's future our responsibility, or presume to tell the people of other nations how to manage ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... have found as regards space is much the same as what we find in relation to the correspondence of the sense-data with their physical counterparts. If one object looks blue and another red, we may reasonably presume that there is some corresponding difference between the physical objects; if two objects both look blue, we may presume a corresponding similarity. But we cannot hope to be acquainted directly with the ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... is neither created by statute nor sanctioned by custom, it is difficult to know what to call it until it advises the Lord Chamberlain to deprive some author of his means of livelihood, when it will, I presume, become a conspiracy, and be indictable accordingly; unless, indeed, it can persuade the Courts to recognize it as a new Estate of the Realm, created by the Lord Chamberlain. This constitutional position is so questionable that I strongly advise the members to ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... also a storehouse of what might be called the practical wisdom of an imaginative mind. A good example of what I mean is the following. Townsend was once having an exciting and not to say violent argument with a younger man. In the course of the combat Townsend, we may presume, used a generous freedom of language, and it was returned in kind by his opponent. The clash of mind was fierce. Then the younger man pulled himself together. He felt he had gone too far in some of the things he had said, and apologised ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... How canst thou presume thou hast leave to destroy The beauties which Venus but lent to thy keeping? Those looks were designed to inspire love and joy: More ordinary eyes may serve people ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... involved in chemical and meteorological questions; as, for instance, when you ask—How is it that I find one flora on the sea-shore, another on the sandstone, another on the chalk, and another on the peat-making gravelly strata? The usual answer would be, I presume—if we could work it out by twenty years' experiment, such as Mr. Lawes, of Rothampsted, has been making on the growth of grasses and leguminous plants in different soils and under different manures—the usual answer, ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... of the tavern a gentle man and two ladies, who were about to depart. The cavalier was clad entirely in green; he even had on a pair of green spectacles which cast a verdigris tinge upon his copper-red nose. The gentleman's general appearance was like what we may presume King Nebuchadnezzar's to have been in his later years, when, according to tradition, he ate nothing but salad, like a beast of the forest. The Green One requested me to recommend him to a hotel in Goettingen, and I advised him, when there, to inquire of the first convenient ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... care what wickedness I do] [This short dialogue I have inserted from the old quarto, because I think it full of nature. Servants could hardly see such a barbarity committed on their master, without pity; and the vengeance that they presume canst overtake the actors of it is a sentiment and doctrine well worthy of the stage. THEOBALD.] It is not necessary to suppose them the servants of Glo'ster; for Cornwall was opposed to extremity ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... you are at liberty to employ the same fearsome frankness, provided you do it politely and are not speaking to an outsider. It is perfectly permissible for you to say exactly what you please about your own people to your own people, but should an outsider and an alien presume to do likewise, the Carolina code admits of but one course of conduct; borrowing the tactics of the goats against the wolf, they close in shoulder to shoulder and present to the audacious intruder an unbroken and formidable front ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... different from those used in the parent nest, if they arranged them in a way they had seen no example of, and formed the whole structure differently from that in which they themselves were reared, and which we may fairly presume is that which their whole organization is best adapted to put together with celerity and ease? It has, however, been objected that observation, imitation, or memory, can have nothing to do with a bird's architectural powers, because the young birds, which in England are ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in a miscellaneous audience; while those which were addressed privately to the circle of disciples represent the kingdom more especially in its intrinsic nature and individual, personal application. I would not presume to affirm that there is no ground for this distinction; but I think it is a mistake to make it the hinge on which our view of the whole group must turn. I suspect there are things in the parable of the sower which require, for their ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... we can consider competent, because it concerns the lot of his daughter. What would happen, sir, if this prelate, adopting other principles than those which determined the judgment of our officials, should presume to invalidate them? How can we submit to a new discussion of a treaty ratified before the eyes of all Europe, and made public by the order of the Emperor of Austria himself? May we not suppose ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... led off straight to prison [1], as he deserves. Let no one presume to attempt such an enterprise. Had it not been for you who discovered this to me, still would they have been leading me by the bridle with their tricks. Now am I resolved henceforth never to trust any person in ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... various methods during the next six years after 1871, under control of the whites, who still retain control. One of the avowed objects of reconstruction has thus failed; but, to one who does not presume that all things will be accomplished at a single leap, the scheme, in spite of its manifest blunders and crudities, must seem to have had a remarkable success. Whatever the political status of the negro may now be in the seceding States, it ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... more difficult to handle each day," replied Mr. Philander, with a sigh and a shake of his head. "I presume he is now off to report to the directors of the Zoo that one of their lions was at large last night. Oh, Miss Jane, you don't know what I have ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... branch of the Chelonians has given rise to birds, we can yet presume that the palmipede aquatic birds, especially the brevipennes, such as the penguins and the manchots, have given origin to ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... is the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred rites of some notorious Isis or Mithra; and the Gods themselves they honour by washings.... At the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptised; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is the regeneration and the remission of the penalties due to their perjuries. Which fact, being acknowledged, we recognise here also the zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God, while we find him too ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... do not presume to be sure, that any endeavour to save the intellectual and moral credit of Chaldaean religion, by suggesting the application to it of that universal solvent of absurdities, the allegorical method, ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... c. 87, and Dion Cassius (35, c. 3). Sallustius in the fourth book of his History has given a long letter, which we may presume to be his own composition, from Mithridates to Arsakes, this Parthian king, in which he urges him to fight against the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... here— I have no correspondent who franks. No! Yes! Can it be? Why, my dear, 'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes. "Dear sir, as I know you desire That the Church should receive due protection, I humbly presume to require Your aid at ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Enid just in time to cut out that young lady from under the guns of Merrifield, a South African millionaire who had complicated the situation by providing Cyril with money for his law-suit. What happened to Major Harley is not stated, but I presume he must have drunk off the phial of poison which such desperate adventurers always carry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... certainly," replied the colonel (the actual number was three hundred and fifteen). "Most of them not already done for were lost in the explosion, I presume?" ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... possesses for their erection. A principal object of such fortifications would be the defence of the shipping in the harbor from the inroads of an enemy's cruisers. At one point the soundings, as given in the Admiralty chart, are stated nine fathoms, within three quarters of a mile of the shore; and I presume that batteries within this distance would afford protection to the largest class of merchantmen. In Singapore Roads no class of shipping above mere native craft can lie nearer than two miles of the shore; so that in a war with a European naval power, the merchant ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... "I presume it would," I answered steadily; "and on the whole I believe that to shoot me would be the more merciful act of the two. So fire by all means, senor, if you must take ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... diplomatic attach or a clerk in a government office. About one thing the objectors seem to be unanimous, that general mental cultivation is not useful in these employments, whatever else may be so. If, however (as I presume to think), it is useful, or if any education at all is useful, it must be tested by the tests most likely to show whether the candidate possesses it or not. To ascertain whether he has been well educated, he must be interrogated in the things which he is likely to know if he has been well educated, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... "I presume he is right. As your uncle was formerly in business here, he is likely to come here some time on a visit. If he does, he will be likely to call at your establishment. The best thing you can do is to attend to your ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... and threw into it his sister-in-law and the midwife—"ce tison de l'enfer!" As to the princess and her two brothers, I think they made good marriages all three, and as to the bird, they do not say if it continues still to speak the truth;—"mats je presume que oui, puisque ce n'etait pas ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... threadbare, exasperating quotations from the ancient poets and philosophers, delivering them with unction in the sounding grandeurs of the original tongues, they being from the Mastodon, the Dodo, and other dead languages.] "Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle with matters pertaining to astronomy at all, in such a presence as this, I who have made it the business of my life to delve only among the riches of the extinct languages and unearth the opulence of their ancient lore; but still, as unacquainted as I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... day I ever saw you; from the moment when at Blois, where I was pining away my existence, your royal looks, full of light and life, were first bent upon me. I love you still, sire; it is a crime of high treason, I know, that a poor girl like myself should love her sovereign, and should presume to tell him so. Punish me for my audacity, despise me for my shameless immodesty; but do not ever say, do not ever think, that I have jested with or deceived you. I belong to a family whose loyalty has been proved, sire, and I, too, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... business of every one, but that its advancement or decline in any country is so intimately connected with the temporal interests of society, as to render it the peculiar concern of a political man; and that what he may presume to offer on the subject of Religion may perhaps be perused with less jealousy and more candour, from the very circumstance of its having been written by a Layman, which must at least exclude the idea (an idea sometimes illiberally suggested to take off the effect of the works ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... other parts not being generally more than one or two feet deep immediately at the roots of the trees, and; of course the marks left by the rubing of the indian baggage against them is not concealed. the reason why the snow is comparitively so shallow about the roots of the trees I presume proceeds as well from the snow in falling being thrown off from their bodies by their thick and spreading branches as from the reflection of the sun against the trees and the warmth which they in some measure ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... objects may sometimes seem productive of each other, they are commonly found upon examination to be linked by a chain of causes, which are contiguous among themselves, and to the distant objects; and when in any particular instance we cannot discover this connexion, we still presume it to exist. We may therefore consider the relation of CONTIGUITY as essential to that of causation; at least may suppose it such, according to the general opinion, till we can find a more [Part IV. Sect. 5.] proper occasion ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... bequeath to you: small legacys are accepted by true friends, much more by dutiful children. I have avoyded incroaching upon others conceptions, because I would leave you nothing but myne owne, though in value they fall short of all in this kinde, yet I presume they will be better priz'd by you for the Author's sake. The Lord blesse you with grace heer, and crown you with glory heerafter, that I may meet you with rejoyceing at that great day of appearing, which is ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the holy mysteries of our religion is preserved a pure and deep meaning, as the waters of Arethusa flow uncontaminated beneath the earth and the sea. I do not presume to decide whether all that is believed has the inward significancy. I have ever deemed such speculations unwise. If the chaste daughter of Latona always appears to my thoughts veiled in heavenly purity, it is comparatively unimportant ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... the voice, "I went to America. For five years I had been free from any return of the madness. You can imagine the longing to be like other men—to presume on the years of immunity. I felt unshakably sane. I even felt that I had never been mad. I gloried in the keenness of my intellect, the absolute order and control of my thoughts. What had I to do with madness? ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... Florence, rousing herself from her momentary weakness, and speaking with all her old fire, "and never presume to address me ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... candidate was elected, and solid substantial people of the North-west, and I presume the same order of people throughout the entire North, felt very serious, but determined, after this event. It was very much discussed whether the South would carry out its threat to secede and set up a separate government, the corner-stone ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... busily employed in gathering the fruits of that harvest of republicanism which they were so soon to transport to their own country, where they were destined to produce extraordinary results. At the time this event happened, Talleyrand was twenty-five years of age, and in holy orders; and we are to presume that the Anglo-mania, which overtook his countrymen ten years later, and was the rage in '89, had not yet set in. The anecdote is curious, but it strikes us as being illustrative rather of the character of the age ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... That is, I presume, we should become as dirty as the Chinese, and as unprogressive as the Central Americans, agnostics like the Japanese, and revolutionary like the Peruvians. And, by a parity of reasoning, the gold standard will make us as fanatical as the Turks, as superstitious as the ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... you, therefore, the glorious orb of America, we presume to offer Masonic ornaments, as an emblem of your virtues. May the Grand Architect of the Universe be the Guardian of your precious days, for the glory of the Western Hemisphere and the entire universe. Such are the vows of ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... too great," he said, "to be tried by the ordinary rules which govern social life. Will you presume that I am your friend, and let us consider the ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... more a sort of an upper servant," Wingrave continued. "I should require him to obey me implicitly, whatever I told him to do. You have a conscience, I presume?" ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it does not; for a literary Chasseur d'Afrique is such a whim as Nature never yet indulged herself in. So perhaps he caught at the only resource that could have saved him from worse things; under which, I presume, is to be included the temptation to take laudanum in proportions by no means prescribed ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... to hear, at the conclusion of his lame peroration, a voice of strange delicacy of intonation proceeding from the figure: "An Englishman, I presume." The accent was a little affected, but the speaker was evidently more English than Persian by training: "Not only English," said Arthur to himself, "but London English ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... know when you put a net into it what you'll drag up to the light of day. Human nature is never exhausted, and it abounds in contradictions. You cannot make hard and fast laws for it, and you cannot, if you are philosophically inclined, presume to argue about it as though it were a consistent and unchanging factor. History is full of examples of men defeating their own characters, of falling away from their own ideals, yet struggling back to ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... to Maclean, the elevation of Matucanas is 8026 feet above the level of the sea. I presume that this calculation refers to the village itself, which is situated about the eighth of a league from the tambo, and lies ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... that they should harass the King's army as much as might be. Now the King being very careful of the lives of his men, as knowing that a soldier lost could not be replaced, had given a strict commandment that no one should presume to leave the line of march and charge the enemy. When the Turks saw this, or, haply, had learnt from their spies that the King had given this commandment, they grew bolder and bolder, till one of them, riding up to the line, overthrew one of the Knights Templar. This was done under ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... presume, about an investment," he began, ingratiatingly. "Anything that the bank can do ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... surely we may perceive the dawn of what I do not hesitate to term religion. A distinguished scholar and poet did indeed once ask me whether the Mousterians, when they performed these rites, did not merely show themselves unable to grasp the fact that the dead are dead. But I presume that my friend was jesting. A sympathy stronger than death, overriding its grisly terror, and converting it into the vehicle of a larger hope—that is the work of soul; and to develop soul is progress. A religious animal is no brute, but ...
— Progress and History • Various
... at any time a cross-grained reviewer should treat thy cherished book with scorn, and presume to ridicule thy sentiment and scoff at thy style (which Heaven forfend!), console thyself that thou livest in peaceable and enlightened times, and needest fear that no greater evil can befall thee on account of thy folly in writing than the lash of his satire and the bitterness ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... "Dost thou presume my course to block? Off, off! or, puny Thing! I'll hurl thee headlong with the rock To which thy fibres cling." The Flood was tyrannous and strong; [A] 15 The patient Briar suffered long, Nor did he utter groan or sigh, Hoping the danger would be past; But, seeing no relief, at last, He ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... anxiety to see. Being ready to leave, and hearing that his craft was going to return to New York, I repaired on board and inquired for Mr. Fulton. I was referred to the cabin, and there found a plain, gentlemanly man, wholly alone and engaged in writing. 'Mr. Fulton, I presume?' 'Yes sir.' 'Do you return to New York with this boat?' 'We shall try to get back, sir.' 'Can I have a passage down?' 'You can take your chance with us, sir.' I inquired the amount to be paid, and after a moment's hesitation, a sum, I think six dollars, was named. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... yesterday, stopping at a cabinet-maker's shop in Church Street, a coach with four beautiful white horses, and a postilion on each near-horse; behind, in the dicky, a footman; and on the box a coachman, all dressed in livery. The coach-panel bore a coat-of-arms with a coronet, and I presume it must have been the equipage of the Earl of Derby. A crowd of people stood round, gazing at the coach and horses; and when any of them spoke, it was in a lower tone than usual. I doubt not they all had a kind of enjoyment of the spectacle, for these English are strangely proud of having ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... your king and country, and your uncommon perseverance in promoting the honor and true interest of the service, convince us that the most cogent reasons only could induce you to quit it; yet we, with the greatest deference, presume to entreat you to suspend those thoughts for another year, and to lead us on to assist in the glorious work of extirpating our enemies, towards which so considerable advances have been already made. In you we place the most implicit confidence. Your presence only ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... than usual, and the place looked empty. Mr. Frith worked on as usual, but preserved an ungracious attitude, as though he were either still incredulous or, if convinced against his will, resolved that 'that prig of a Winslow' should not presume upon his services. Altogether the poor fellow was quite unhinged, and wrote such dismal bills of mortality, and meek, resigned forebodings that my father was almost angry, declaring that he would frighten himself into the sickness; yet I suppressed a good deal, and never told them of the last ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... plans to authorize a body of four or five men—one branch in New York, one in Buffalo, I presume—to grant all new franchises and extend old ones with the consent of the various local communities involved. They are to fix the rate of compensation to be paid to the state or the city, and the rates of ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the character of this fondness, great as it was, that would have inclined any child to presume upon it. Ellen was least of all likely to try; but if her will, by any chance, had run counter to theirs, she would have found it impossible to maintain her ground. She understood this from the first with her grandmother; and in one or two trifles since had been more and more confirmed in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner |
