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More "Presumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a considerable presumption against the doctrine which we are about to combat, that it proposes to exclude at once from the service of Religion so grand a part of the composition of man; that in this our noblest employment it condemns ...
— 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
... meditates on Him, whose power he marks In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom Around its roots; and while he thus surveys, With elevated joy, each rural charm, He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope, That heaven may be one Sabbath ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the light, he stood erect, and again listened. From within came the snores of a sleeper. Now he felt sure that his guess had been correct, for none but the serang would dare to occupy the cabin, and even he would no doubt have cause to tremble if his presumption should ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the colonists. A few took the view of the case entertained by Lord Chatham, Mr Burke, and a small band of enlightened men in advance of their age; but they mostly sided with the King and the Tories, and considered that the presumption of the colonists must be put down with a high hand. They little knew of what stuff the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers—the sturdy Puritans, the dashing Cavaliers, the prim Quakers, and of many other classes whom persecution, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... not the less true, and necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for it, or because a pretence to it may be made, by presumption, a cloak for its incompetence. Nevertheless, originality is never to be sought for its own sake—otherwise it will be mere aberration—it should arise naturally out of hard, independent study of nature; and it should be remembered that in many things ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... indignation was expressed by the friends of Sir Humphry Davy at Stephenson's "presumption" in laying claim to the invention of the safety-lamp. In 1831 Dr. Paris, in his 'Life of Sir Humphry Davy,' thus wrote:—"It will hereafter be scarcely believed that an invention so eminently scientific, and which could never have been derived ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... annoyance—and, on the other, much of that comfort which springs from spontaneous tokens of disinterested goodwill and of gratitude, even from the poor and humble; but the mens conscia sibi recti enabled him to bear the former with composure, and the latter without vain presumption. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... scene would be the height of presumption in PUNCH. Nobody but "Satan" Montgomery, or the Adelphi play-bill, is equal to the task. We quote, as preferable, the latter authority:—"Grand inauguration of Wilhelm, the rightful heir. CORAL CAVES and CRYSTAL STREAMS: these are actually obtained by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... we ought to beware lest, in our presumption, we imagine that the ends which God proposed to himself in the creation of the world are understood ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... cheerfulness of spirit; to show themselves gallant in the most dangerous attempt.... And now to sum up all: It is most apparent to every impartial and ingenuous judgment; That although His Majesty cannot expect to be secured from every trivial disaster that may befall his army, either by the too much Presumption, Ignorance, or Negligence of some particular Persons (which is frequently incident and unavoidable in the best of Armies), yet the several positions of the Heavens duly considered and compared among ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... laid the clean napkin for the stranger at the foot of the table, opposite her mother, it cannot be thought presumption in him that he at once took his seat there; thus relieving Mrs. Derrick's mind of an immense responsibility. Yet something in his manner then made her pause and look at him, though she did not expect to see him bow his head and ask for a blessing on the meal before them. If that was presumption, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable of perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption, that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove otherwise than ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... vainly claimed the mighty office for his sacred blood alone reserved. God of my fathers, grant that future service, the humble service of a contrite soul, may in the coming glory that awaits us, atone for past presumption! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... mines," said Eudemius, with indifference. "If he hath done nothing, he cannot die, but his presumption deserves punishment, and this he shall have,"—and was deep in fresh papers before Hito ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... last attempt at solving the mystery of the truckle-bed was made while she was waiting on the admiral at dinner. The old gentleman's questions gave her an opportunity of referring to the subject, without any appearance of presumption or disrespect; but he proved to be quite as impenetrable, in his way, as old Mazey and Mrs. Drake had been in theirs. "It doesn't concern you, my dear," said the admiral, bluntly. "Don't be curious. Look in your Old Testament when you go downstairs, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... delivered in Holland, but alas! the recipient, with unheard-of presumption, after having read the documents, decided in his own mind that they were not of sufficient importance to be published in London and quietly kept ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... of the North American Indians from the time of the flood until some epoch prior to Columbus. It would be as difficult to prove that it was not true as to prove that Smith is not honest in his delusion. We can only fall back upon what Butler would call 'a strong presumption.'" ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... and insipidity with which they are incorporated; nor can any thing give us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr Wordsworth, and made him appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the worst ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... "The ignorance and presumption of his commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakspeare's text. The first folio, notwithstanding some few palpable misprints, requires none of their alterations. Had they understood English as well as he did, they would not have quarrelled ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... thinker a mere appearance is scarcely a presumption in favor of a conclusion in accordance with it. Science and experience are full of examples exposing the nullity or the falsity of appearances. The sun seems to move around the earth; but truth contradicts ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... peculation; and she, sweetly ignorant of the ways of justice, went to the judge and labored with him, to no effect, though he was wondrous kind. Then in court she gave just the wrong evidence, because it showed how poor her father was, and so established a presumption of his great necessity and desperation. But the Deus ex machina—the wicked partner—arrived at the right moment, and owned up, and the good father was cleared, and little Daughter Dorothy was made glad. But this meagre summary gives but a poor idea of the ins and outs of this charming story, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... went, believe in Him; by which they meant to paint not so much the folly as the vainglory of the nation of which this tale was told. They are vices that always go together, but in truth such actions as these have in them still more of presumption than want of wit. Augustus Caesar, having been tossed with a tempest at sea, fell to defying Neptune, and in the pomp of the Circensian games, to be revenged, deposed his statue from the place it had amongst the other deities. Wherein he was still less excusable ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... was for either side, he could play one party against the other, as best suited his purposes. He came to bring freedom to the one, to promote the revolt of the other, check the oppression of the third, and destroy the presumption of the another {133} tribe, or warring nation. So he caused his purposes to ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... O'Driscol thought, to the coal-hole, whether he fearlessly pursued him, but in vain. On examining the coal-hole, which Mr. O'Driscol did personally in the dark—we really shudder at that gentleman's absence of all fear—the ferocious Whiteboy could not be found in it. The presumption is that he gave Mr. O'Driscol the slip during pursuit, doubled back, and escaped from the lobby window, which, on examination, was found open. On this almost unprecedented act of bravery it is useless to indulge in comment, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... reason nor science can offer the faintest glimmer of an explanation as to how, or why, the first essence of life came into existence, or the first elemental matter, or as to what is the ultimate intention or end of a single thing in this world, or any other, yet you have the presumption to criticize the means and methods being employed for the attainment of those ends by an all-wise Creator, who presumably did know, and does know, what ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... address me as "Old Fool." Heaven is my witness that I have endeavoured of my best lights to smoothen the path for her well-born and at present bereaved feet. But what can I do? Neither lady will listen to me. The senorita, let me hasten to say, shows me always a tender, I might without too great a presumption say a filial, kindness. I held her in my arms from the day of her birth, senor; she is the flower of the world to me. When she takes me by the hands and says, "Dear old Donito Miguelito, let me do as I desire and all will be well!" I have no strength to resist her. Had I a house ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... of the whole thing dwarfed events that in the ordinary way would seem to be full of imminent peril. It is easy to imagine it,—a voyage of four days on a calm sea, without a single untoward incident; the presumption, perhaps already mentally half realized, that we should be ashore in forty-eight hours and so complete a splendid voyage,—and then to feel the engine stop, to be summoned on deck with little time ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... from town with him, too—a setter, with Titian hair and big eyes, which slept on the clover beside him, and an afternoon or two a week he would take dog and gun and go where the ruffed grouse were or where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees. He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them on his way back that same evening. There would be chaffings and expressions of doubt as to reliance ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... which Cato's companions burst out into laughter, but Cato said only, "Alas, poor city!" and passed by without any other answer. However, Pompey rendered Demetrius less odious to others by enduring his presumption and impertinence to himself. For it is reported how that Pompey, when he had invited his friends to an entertainment, would be very ceremonious in waiting, till they all came and were placed, while ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a man," replied Har, "named Mundilfari, who had two children so lovely and graceful that he called the male, Mani (moon), and the female, Sol (sun), who espoused the man named Glenur. But the gods being incensed at Mundilfari's presumption, took his children and placed them in the heavens, and let Sol drive the horses that draw the car of the sun, which the gods had made to give light to the world out of the sparks that flew from Muspellheim. These horses are called Arvak and Alsvid, and ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... and "of course" manner of the young man was more than the patience of Jackson could withstand. Hardly able to contain the indignation that swelled within him, at the presumption of an unknown clerk, thus to ask the hand of his daughter, he paused but a moment, and then seizing Wilmer by the shoulder, and looking him steadily in the face, while he almost foamed with anger, replied thus to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... different schools. One of these children, it was ascertained, had been among those who were playing round the fountain about a fortnight since, although he was not one whom the red-haired tramp had touched, but the other two had not been near the fountain. The presumption was, therefore, that they had contracted the disease through some other source of infection, perhaps at the lodging-house where the man had spent the night after bathing in the water. Also it seemed that, drawn thither by the heat, in all two or three hundred children had ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... either) was the borrower, the English or the Danes. And here comes in the consideration that the geography of the "Beowulf" is Scandinavian. There is no consciousness of Britain or England throughout the poem. If this raises a presumption that the Saxon poet got his story from a Dane, we naturally ask, When is this likely to have happened? and the answer must be that the earliest probable time begins after the Peace of Wedmore ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... to his mind than the guilt of marrying without love. No man could have spoken more strongly, more solemnly than he, on the presumption, the dishonourableness, the profligacy, of such an act: but he was unaware how a man may be betrayed into it while he has neither presumption, nor treachery, nor profligacy in his thoughts. Hope went ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... Who could control me in Paris? My young friends were eager to foster passions which furnished them with pleasures. I was deemed handsome—I was master of every knightly accomplishment. I was disconnected with any political party. I grew a favorite with all: my presumption and arrogance was pardoned in one so young; I became a spoiled child. Who could control me? not letters and advice of Torella—only strong necessity visiting me in the abhorred shape of an empty purse. But there were means to refill this void. Acre after acre, estate after ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of thine own, fair sir! Still, we must honor courage, even though it border on rashness, and I rejoice to see that the wrathful mob of Al-Kyris hath yet left thee man enough to deserve my welcome! Nevertheless thou were guilty of most heinous presumption!" Here she extended her jewelled hand. "Art thou repentant? and wilt ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Parliament was usurping privileges when it presumed to expel any one, that the people had a right to send whomsoever they pleased to Parliament, and finally that "in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption was at least upon a par in favor of the people." From this time until the American Revolution, Burke used every opportunity to denounce the policy which the king was pursuing at home and abroad. He doubtless knew beforehand that what ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... has never been entirely lost sight of in modern times, and the essays which the consciousness of this necessity has produced have proceeded from minds of very various calibre, but there is not much presumption, I think, in asserting that what has hitherto stood in the place of a science has for the most part been a set of guesses, those very guesses of the Roman lawyers which were examined in the two preceding chapters. A series of explicit statements, recognising and adopting ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... their customs and institutions; their national songs and dances, their domestic economy, their system of government, and their funeral ceremonies. I pretend not, however, to affirm that this resemblance is so exact as to create the presumption of common origin. The affinity perceivable in the dispositions and virtues of these widely-separated tribes, arose probably from a similarity in their circumstances and situation, operating on the general principles of human nature. Placed alike in a happy medium; between savage ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... canst not say that the visible world is only like the transitory enjoyment of one who smells a wreath of flowers; however closely it is scanned, there is no overpowering evidence of its unreality [to preclude the presumption founded on experience]; it continually manifests itself to us as eternal in its stream of ...
— The Tattva-Muktavali • Purnananda Chakravartin
... Chitaur, conquered Kumau and Yumila, where he established his throne, from whence his family spread to Palpa Tanahung and the Kirats. The supremacy very lately admitted by all the eastern mountain chiefs to the Rajas of Yumila, is a strong presumption in favour of this opinion. Many chiefs, and especially the Palpa Tanahung and Makwanpur families, pretend to be descended of the Chitaur princes; but it is very doubtful whether they have any claim to a descent so illustrious, for the Mahanta said, that, after ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... inglorious war, inglorious as regards the laurels or renown won in it, we violate neutral rights, which the government had solemnly pledged itself to respect, upon the principle of convenience, or upon the light presumption that, by possibility, a post might be taken by this miserable ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
... visitor said that in his opinion to explain anything, however occult, to a Bostonian, savored of intellectual impudence, and was, at the least, a piece of presumption of which he hoped he should never ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... discharge such obligations—(by) ingratitude Like a man holding a wolf by the ears Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly Not so successful as he was picturesque Plundering the country which they came to protect Presumption in entitling themselves Christian Protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life Republic, which lasted two centuries Throw the cat against their legs Worship God according to the dictates ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... frequent communication with my Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he was the ultimate editor of the Universal Review. I felt that he had done so much for me, and that we were now on such terms that I might without presumption ask him a private question about Lalor Maitland. Because, knowing the man to have been mixed with some very doubtful business, I wondered that a man of such honour and probity as the Advocate would in any circumstances act by such means—much less countenance his being put forward in ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... looked round with an expression of astonishment at his presumption, and without deigning any reply, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... conclusion of this my autobiography! What a monstrous piece of braggadocio would not Caesar's Commentaries have been, had he used the first instead of the third person singular! How intolerable would have been the presumption of his Thrasonical, "I thrashed the Helvetians—I subjugated the Germans—I utterly routed the Gauls—I defeated the painted Britons!" And, on the contrary—for I like to place heroes side by side—how decorously and ingeniously might I not have ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur, but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption English. ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... had refused to obey the constitution sanctioned by Louis XVI., because it destroyed their privileges; and who, for the same reason, had refused to acknowledge the new constitution, against which they had even dared to protest. His companions were so blinded, so besotted by their presumption, that they imagined that decrees and ordinances gave them the faculty of overturning the edifice which the nation had erected during five and twenty years of revolution. His confidents were those alone who, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... Ada with mocking sarcasm, and the contempt in her voice was indescribable. "What presumption! the lower classes are beginning ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... torment to me to hear the continual hints which my well-born master threw out upon this subject. I moreover never pretended to any knowledge which I had not; so that, by degrees, notwithstanding his prejudices, he began to feel that I had neither the presumption of an upstart, nor of a self-taught genius. I kept in mind the counsel given to me by Mr. Y——, to endeavour to make myself useful to my employer; but it was no easy matter to do this at first, because he had such a dread of my awkwardness that he would never let me touch any of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... not the foolish presumption to imagine, that I can offer any thing new on a subject, which has been so successfully treated by many learned and able writers. I would only, with all possible deference, beg leave to hazard a few short remarks on that part of the subject of education, which I would call the education ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... this period of Sir Alexander's life, is so illustrative of his character, and furnishes so strong a presumption, that the thoughtful humanity by which he was distinguished was not wholly the growth of his latter years, that, though it may appear to some trifling in itself, I will insert it in this place with the occasion on which it was communicated to me. ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... more stress upon pure Spectre testimony than it will bear. When you are satisfied, and have good plain legal evidence, that the Demons which molest our poor neighbors do indeed represent such and such people to the sufferers, though this be a presumption, yet I suppose you will not reckon it a conviction that the people so represented are witches to be immediately exterminated. It is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the Shapes of persons not only innocent, but ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... he have had the presumption to expect an answer to his cable ... she was too kind to cable "no" ... her letter of explanation would be a month in coming.... He watched as the mists around Apo gathered, thickened, darkened: the banks were flashlighted into white billows, ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... we kiss, then sigh, then look; and thus In that first garden of our simpleness We spent our childhood. But when years began To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah, how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet, stern brow, Check my presumption and my forwardness; Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show What she would have me, yet not ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... stirred to their very depths; stagnant passions and slumbering pretensions are aroused. The multitude of offices presented and expected vacancies "has excited the thirst for power, stimulated self-esteem, and fired the hopes of men the most inept. An fierce, gross presumption has freed the ignorant and the foolish of any feeling of modesty or incompetence; they have deemed themselves capable of everything because the law awards public office simply to the able. Everybody had a perspective glimpse of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... suspicion, although there are many other causes which might prevent the appearance of the menses, such as disease of the uterus, general debility, or taking cold, and all of these should be taken into account. In the absence of all apparent influences calculated to obstruct the menses, the presumption ordinarily is that pregnancy is the cause of their non-appearance. The evidence is still more conclusive when the mammae and abdomen enlarge after experiencing morning sickness. Notwithstanding all these symptoms, the audible ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... interaction of two totally distinct substances, or that matter is but thought, or that thought is but matter,—one of which must be true, and all of which approach as near to the mutual contradictions as can well be conceived,—for the very purpose of rebuking the presumption of man, and of teaching him humility; that He had left these obscurities at the very threshold—nay, within the very mansion of the mind itself,—for the express purpose of deterring man from playing the dogmatising fool when he looked abroad. Yet, in spite ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... history—the sum and crown of things—is an object of general insult. If it be rumored that we contemplate protecting American citizens in Cuba, every European government emits a growl—there's talk of rebuking Uncle Sam's "presumption," of standing him in a corner to cool. If it be suggested that we annex an island—at the earnest request of all its inhabitants worth the hanging—there more minatory caterwauling by the European courts, while even the Mikado of Japan gets his little Ebenezer up, ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... for to the German Headquarters, at the Hotel du Grand Cerf, where the table spread for thirty people, by the order of M. Odent, was still waiting for its guests. The conversation here between the Cure and the officer of high rank who spoke to him is worth repeating. From the tenor of it, the presumption is that the officer was a Catholic—probably ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... impunity for those whom it overshadows. Yet think not, Madame," she continued, in a more subdued voice, as she clasped her thin fingers together so forcibly that they became ashy white beneath the pressure—"think not, I beseech you, that I say this of myself. I have no such presumption. I have not forgotten what I was, in feeling what I am. I yet remember, deeply, thankfully, that I was poor, obscure, and insignificant, and that it was your royal hand which raised me to rank and honour; and thus it is with the most fervent gratitude that I now thank you for your past bounties; ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... annoyed at the presumption of the lad, as if he wished to be above Moa the firstborn. He feigned an errand, and called the boy to come and scratch his back. The boy went to perform the operation, but on stretching out his hand was seized by his grandfather, and beaten with the handle of his fly-flapper. ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... me a preposterous piece of presumption that I should flatter myself I could succeed where an older and much more talented officer had failed, but the idea had got into my head, and the more I thought of it, the more sanguine ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner—said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And, as it may seem a great presumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in the Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig party, that I was esteemed no ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... a scout and notwithstanding his suspense and almost panicky apprehension, he was not going to act impulsively or thoughtlessly. He knew that if he could only present a convincing case to his superiors, they would forgive him his presumption. If he made a bungle it might go hard with him. Anyway, he could not, or would ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... as the articles found on his person have established his identity. The next table contains the body of a woman. She was young and must have been fair. She was found in the river, and as there are no marks of violence on her person, the presumption is that she sought her own destruction. "Such cases are becoming common," says the Superintendent in his matter of fact way. "They are very sad, but we see too many of them to think them romantic." ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... not forget the Brahman's presumption and determined to teach him a lesson. So, one day, he sent him a written notice demanding the immediate payment of arrears of rent due for a few bighas (one-third of an acre) of land which Ramda held on a heritable ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... Ward, professor of rhetoric in Gresham College. This gentleman was supposed by his opponent, to have been employed by Dr. Mead, who did not chuse to enter personally, into this little-important debate; upon which presumption, Dr. Middleton published a defence of his former dissertation in the succeeding year;[15] wherein he treats his respondents with no little contempt.[16] The merits of this dispute are not intended to be here discussed, but it may not be amiss to observe, that however ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... intention, for having neither a "position in the county," as the phrase goes, a house of my own, nor any official connection with the hunt, a call from me would probably have been regarded, and rightly so, as a piece of presumption. As it happened, however, I not only called on Mr. Fortescue before the secretary, but became his guest, greatly to my surprise, and, I have no doubt, to his, although he was the indirect cause; for had he not bought Ranger, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... perception nor an intellectual grasp of relations, nor an emotion within the accepted rubric—joy, desire, triumph, etc. Whether or not music is an exception to this principle, remains to be seen; but the presumption is at least in favor of a direct, immediate, unique emotion aroused by the true beauty of music, whatever that may prove ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... namely, the king's name, "which they upon the adverse faction wanted." Passing them without an effort, as it seemed, we threw them into the rear with so lengthening an interval between us, as proved in itself the bitterest mockery of their presumption; whilst our guard blew back a shattering blast of triumph, that was really too ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... populous as New York; there are 60 deaths a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter—if they have luck. That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many in New York—say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is the same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will hold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of every million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to one-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the Protocol says as to this in its last paragraph but two[7] is that, apart from the cases when there is a presumption, ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... "the nature of the indebtedness," and from the fact that "Philaster" "was followed immediately by five romances of the same style in plot and characters" "which mark Fletcher's work for the next twenty years," that "these facts create a strong presumption that 'Philaster' was the original," "a strong presumption that 'Cymbeline' was the copy," and finally ends the argument as it began, with these flattering words: "We may, indeed, safely assert that Shakspere almost never invented ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... Almost every letter from his friends expressed a desire that he should accept the office when tendered to him, as it surely would be, by the electors chosen by the people; and before the elections were held, so general was the presumption that Washington would be the first president of the United States, that he received many letters soliciting appointments to office. These annoyed him exceedingly; for the subject, he said, never failed to embarrass and distress him beyond measure. The ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... himself.] No, this is to me like a strange illusive dream. Ingeborg and I,—we are to belong to each other! Ah, can it be true? So high I never dared let my thoughts ascend;—it seemed to me in the morning that I had been guilty of the greatest presumption if during the night I had dreamed about it.—Hm! I know very well of course that it is not for my sake that Lady Kirsten goes to all this trouble. She has something up her sleeve; she thinks it necessary to break the agreement ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... "Disinherited" inscribed upon it. Riding straight up to Brian de Bois-Guilbert, he struck with the sharp end of his spear the shield of the victorious Norman until it rang again. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight whom he had thus ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... before he entered, speaking more softly to the eunuch for fear of being heard by the princess. "To convince you," said he; "there is neither presumption, nor whim, nor youthful conceit in my undertaking, I leave it to your choice whether I shall cure the princess in her presence, or where we are, without going ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... my lord." I knew that a rebuke to my presumption lay in her calling me "my lord," for, save on formal occasions, she always used to call ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... and the presumption of their adepts, who maintained that through subjective or clairvoyant conditions, which they asserted were higher than ours, they had attained a more exalted degree of illumination which revealed a different cosmogony from that which has been handed down to us through countless generations of adepts, ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... in smiling and replying. "It would be presumption in my part to think so," he observed. "I was simply at random humming a few verses composed by former writers, and what reason is there to laud me to such an excessive degree? To what, my dear Sir, do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he went on to inquire. "Tonight," replied Shih-yin, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... which lies before the next century is, if I may say so without presumption, to spiritualise science, as morality and art have already been spiritualised. The vision of God should appear to us as a triple star of truth, beauty, and goodness.[402] These are the three objects of all human aspiration; and our hearts ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... immense quantity of reading, but unless you have carefully read and weighed about all the best that has been said on any question, your own opinions will have no value, and it is simply presumption to waste the time of an audience doling out a conception that, for aught you know, may have been knocked in the head half ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of unseen doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought against presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one who possessed power over her own spirit—rare gift, given to none but those who do something toward the taking of it. She was able in no small measure to ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... be said, without presumption, that such a general view as this leaves ample room for all reasonable theories as to the chronology and sequence, where these remain more or less unsettled, of Chaucer's indisputably genuine works. In any case, there is no poet whom, if only as an exercise in critical analysis, it is more ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... shows that these islands are not encircled, and as coral appears from the works of Surville, Bougainville, and Labillardiere, to grow on their shores, this circumstance, as in the case of the New Hebrides, is a presumption that they are fringed. I cannot find out anything from D'Entrecasteaux's "Voyage," regarding the southern islands of the group, so have left them uncoloured.—MALAYTA Island in a rough MS. chart ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... to serve two-year terms); note - as of 1 January 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a permanent election law; a draft law specifies four-year terms for the state and first-order administrative division entity legislatures; officials elected in 2000 were elected to two-year terms on the presumption that a permanent law would be in ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... should I become angry at fools and babblers, who pride themselves in their impudence and ignorance? No. My equals! I know not where to find them. My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my superiors! I think it presumption; therefore, if this youthful heart is protected by any of the divine rights, I never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... folly of desisting too soon from successful labours, and the haste of enjoying advantages before they are secured, are often fatal to men of impetuous desire, to men whose consciousness of uncommon powers fills them with presumption, and who, having borne opposition down before them, and left emulation panting behind, are early persuaded to imagine that they have reached the heights of perfection, and that now, being no longer in danger from competitors, they may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... destiny of Europe. I see the inward workings of fear struggling with pride in an ardent, enterprising, and tumultuous mind. I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation, dreaded, detested, and obeyed, the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success, the arrogance, the presumption, the selfwill of unlimited and idolized power, and more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority, the restless and incessant activity ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... from Your Infancy, and the many Civilities I am obliged for to Your Family, will, I hope, be an Excuse for this Presumption in, ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... no reason for opposing your desires, Mr. Gaydon," Engineer Serko replies, "and I regard your presumption as a very natural one. Observe, however, that we live here in a noble and superb independence, that we acknowledge the authority of no foreign power, that we are subject to no outside authority, that we are the colonists of no state, either of the old or new world. This is worth ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... letting her know your good opinion," replied Horace, in a tone conveying pretty plainly a rebuke of such presumption. But it was lost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... modesty or meaning. Your suggested motto is antique enough in spelling, and modern enough in phrases; a good modern antique: but the matter of it is germane to the purpose only supposing the title proposed a vindication of yourself from the presumption of authorship. The 1st title was liable to this objection, that if you were disposed to enlarge it, and the bookseller insisted on its appearance in Two Tomes, how ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... devoted love; the sacredness of simple duties and plain work; earnest help of other souls,—these were among the daily lessons of her life and teaching. "How strong was the current of her sympathy in the direction of all humble effort," exclaims one of her friends, "how reluctantly she checked presumption! The most ordinary and uninteresting of her friends must feel that had they known nothing of her but her rapid insight into and quick response to their inmost feelings she would still have been a memorable personality to them. This sympathy was extended to the sorrows ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... worst evidence pointing to any presumption of guilt against your comrade and friend is the finding of the revolver hidden under his bedclothes. What do you think of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... no doubt of that, but, if you will pardon me, Mr. Hastings, it seems to me that there is something for us to do. My solicitude for the dear ones around us, who cannot help themselves, must excuse my presumption." ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... thus, in the very act of prayer, expressly subordinated to that which is alone unerring and supreme, we acknowledge at once His rightful sovereignty and our dutiful subjection, and we are not justly chargeable with the presumption of dictating to God the course of procedure which He should pursue towards us. We are protected, too, against the evils which our own errors in prayer might otherwise entail on us, for "we know not what things to pray ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... Hjalti is now a courageous man? Perhaps; but nothing is said about it in the rmur. Since Bjarki took pains to go on the wolf hunt secretly, and since we are not informed that what occurred on that hunt has become known or that it has become known that Hjalti is now a courageous man, the presumption is that the king does not know it, and we are surprised at his unmotivated action in treating Hjalti in this unexpected manner. And if Hjalti is now known to be such a hero that Hrolf feels warranted in placing reliance on him to ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen from the beginning to be so superior ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... like a child in the presence of his schoolmaster. He was convicted of presumption. He had set down his questions with the belief that they covered the ground. And here were two of the utmost importance, not forgotten, but never even ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... a notion seem to you absurd? I answer. The teachers of the nation have unwittingly, it seems to me through unbelief, wronged the animals deeply by their silence anent the thoughtless popular presumption that they have no hereafter; thus leaving them deprived of a great advantage to their position among men. But I suppose they too have taken it for granted that the Preserver of man and beast never had a thought of keeping ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... Marechal de Richelieu' appeared. He had left his note-books, his library, and his correspondence to Soulavie. The 'Memoires' are undoubtedly authentic, and have, if not certainty, at least a strong moral presumption in their favour, and gained the belief of men holding diverse opinions. But before placing under the eyes of our readers extracts from them relating to the Iron Mask, let us refresh our memory by recalling two theories which had not stood ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... responded; and he gave me such a smiling, malicious look that I knew sought to convey he had his way with Alixe; and though I felt that she was true to me, his cool presumption so stirred me I could have struck him in the face. I got angrily to my feet, but as I did so I shrank a little, for at times the wound in my side, not yet ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pilgrimage in search of Angelica, to implore her pardon for his insensibility, and urge his new found passion. Surprise and delight at first deprived him of utterance, but soon recovering himself, he joyfully saluted her, claiming her as his, and exhorting her to put herself under his protection. His presumption was repelled by Angelica with disdain, and Orlando, enraged at the invasion of his rights, challenged him to decide ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the poetry, where the servants remain; these prosaic attendants must not raise their voices so high as to deafen the speakers in the presence-chamber; however, in those intervals when the ideal society has retired they deserve to be listened to; their bold raillery, their presumption of mockery, may afford many an insight into the situation and circumstances ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... parents of mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, and amiable after it for repentance and submission. In the first state, their affection is tender without weakness, and their piety sublime without presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discord begins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual forbearance; how confidence of the divine favour is forfeited by sin; and how hope of pardon ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... peculiar connection between the tribes inhabiting those several points. This enterprising traveller moreover thinks that the idea he has started goes far towards refuting the theory of an inland sea, another presumption against which he maintains to be the hot winds that ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... largely in the direction of municipal control. One hears and reads as little of socialism now in London as in New York, but that is because it has so effectually passed from the debated principle to the accomplished fact. It has been embodied in so many admirable works that the presumption is rather in favor of it as something truly conservative. It is not, as with us, still under the ban of a prejudice too ignorant to know in how many things it is already effective; but this is, of course, mainly because English administration is so much honester than ours. It can ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... who had held the most important civil and military offices in the country almost from boyhood, and who was looked up to by friend and foe as the most important personage in the three millions of its inhabitants, apologized for his "presumption" in coming forward publicly with his advice. "I would not," he said, "in matters of such importance, affect to be wiser or to make greater pretensions than my age or experience warrants, yet seeing affairs in such perplexity, I will rather incur the risk of being charged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in a small village, they had refused to receive me, it seemed to be presumption to hope that I should gain admittance at Oxford. What could I do? I was much tired, and so, as it was not a very cold night, I resolved to pass it in the open air; in this resolution, bouncing from this rude inn, I went to look out for a convenient ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... found we had accomplished very little legitimate business. We had established the fact that Greenback Bob was at the Fair, and the presumption was strong, amounting almost to a certainty, that Delbras was also there. We had connected the man Smug with one, if not both, for Dave was sure that the man's companion on Stony Island Avenue was Delbras, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... presence so highly esteemed, this is not true of you, Mr. Roberts, however high are our hopes that you will have such explanations ready as will relieve our minds from further doubts, and send us home rejoicing. Shall I be frank in stating the precise reasons which seem to justify our present presumption?" ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... descendants of the slave stand in Faneuil Hall, while from ocean to ocean every foot of American soil is dedicated to freedom. The Negro American has found his voice; he is able to speak for himself; he stands upon this famous platform here and thinks it no presumption to declare that he seeks nothing more, and will be satisfied with nothing less than the full measure of ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... opinions of my own, and was determined to do my own thinking, come what might. For a while this operated against me,—if not always with Mr. Pierpont, certainly with all his immediate personal friends and family; but in time, I believe, he began to like me the better for my presumption, or foolhardiness, in battling the watch with him, whenever he laid down a proposition, with a calm, dictatorial air, which did not strike me at first either as clearly self-evident, or, after a thorough investigation, as indisputably true, so that I do on my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but also to furnish him with a prophetic vision of those which I may, without undue presumption, hope for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my name has been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial catalogue of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether this is to be attributed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... here, then, in the cause of tenderness and humanity, they may come forth, without charge of presumption, or forfeiture of delicacy. Exertions here may be universal, without rivality or impropriety; the head may work, the hand may labour; the heart may suggest, indiscriminately in all, in men without disdain, in women without a blush: and however truly of the latter ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... from God's lovingkindness. They had 25 vast arrogance, in that by the might of multitudes they sought to wrest from the Lord the celestial mansions, spacious and heaven-bright. Then there fell upon them, grievously, the envy, presumption, and pride of the Angel who first began to carry out the evil plot, 30 to weave it and promote it, when he boasted by word— as he thirsted for conflict—that he wished to own the home and high throne of the heavenly kingdom to the north. Thereupon God became angered and hostile 35 towards ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... will pardon my presumption," he said, taking the single step necessary to face her, "but I confess having been deliberately waiting here to request the privilege of walking to church ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... you have forgiven my presumption, and I shall wait with all the patience I have," he said. "If I am not to know, I must do without. It is cruel, but I can bear more upon a push. Only do not add to my troubles the thought that I have made an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... presumption nor impropriety in your wish," returned the guide. "I told you at starting that we should pursue a devious route, for reasons which are immaterial to you, but there is no reason why I should not explain that at present I am diverging for only ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... figured that Fidler in his map showed only small streams coming in from the west, 'and the presumption is very strong that those little streams do not penetrate the Rocky Mountains to such distance as would afford rational grounds for a conjecture that they had their sources near any navigable branch of the Columbia.' He was right in that—and he says those little ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... In Adam Smith's time, in England, the presumption was that a servant had been hired for a year. (I, 2, 15 ed., Bas.) Frederick the Great's ordinance of 1769, on this subject, forbade any one to enter into service for a shorter time than this (II, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Of course, the presumption was that Mullins was also a gambler, but this was not certain. Chester decided to say nothing, but to be watchful. David Mullins had been five years in his present place, and his services must have been satisfactory or he would not ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... expressing, in the form of the present little volume, the views which I now entertain in regard to the claims of foreign lands. To you, my beloved classmates, the book is specially addressed; and if I use a frankness and freedom, which might possibly be construed into presumption, if I were addressing strangers and elder brethren, I am sure that I shall fall under no such imputation when communicating my thoughts to you. I wish to express my thoughts familiarly, as we used to do to each other, and at the same time with the earnestness ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... of eighteen he left school with a character for talent, but without a scholarship. All that he had obtained, over and above the advantage of his character, was a gold medal for English verse, and hence was derived a strong presumption on the part of his friends that he was destined to add another name to the imperishable list of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... object of admiration. Divines! You never cease telling us, that the designs of God are impenetrable; that his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts; that it is absurd to complain of his administration, of the motives and springs of which we are totally ignorant; that it is presumption to tax his judgments with injustice, because we cannot comprehend them. But when you speak in this strain, do you not perceive, that you destroy with your own hands all your profound systems, whose only end is to explain to us the ways of the divinity, which, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... was known to but few. Ambition for acquaintance seemed to have died in him. He was the victim of a great humiliation and was silent. He avoided publicity. He was destitute of presumption. What brighter hopes he cherished were due to his father's purpose to make him a partner with his brothers. He heard Lincoln and Douglas when they canvassed the State, and approved of the argument ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... deaths of Grand Lamas in the nineteenth century have naturally created a presumption that they were put out of the way and contemporary suspicion accused the regent in 1838. There is no evidence that the deaths of the other three were regarded as unnatural but the earlier Grand Lamas as ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... chance to affront me thus. The haughty old fool; if she had known her interest, she would have been too glad to make a powerful friend. These royalists are in a ticklish position; I can tell her that. She calls me De Riviere; that implies nobody without a 'De' to their name would have the presumption to visit her old tumble-down house. Well, it is a lesson; I am a republican, and the Commonwealth trusts and honors me; yet I am so ungrateful as to go out of the way to be civil to her enemies, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... his iron head and spiked helmet, and yet with as simple and unaffected a soul breathing under his gray mustache as ever issued from the lips of a child. So this grim but gentle veteran had arranged with the consul that in cases where the presumption of nationality was strong, although the evidence was not present, he would take the consul's parole for the appearance of the "deserter" or his papers, without the aid of prolonged diplomacy. In this way the consul had saved to Milwaukee a worthy but imprudent brewer, and to New York an excellent ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... "The being but one among many stifleth the chidings of conscience."—Book of Thoughts, p. 131. "As for its being esteemed a close translalation [sic—KTH], I doubt not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it."—Pope's Pref. to Homer. "All presumption of death's being the destruction of living beings, must go upon supposition that they are compounded, and so discerptible."—Butler's Analogy, p. 63. "This argues rather their being proper names."—Churchill's Gram., p. 382. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... misrepresenting me, and fabricating every species of calumny against me. There was no falsehood too gross to serve their turn. They seem to have acted on the old rascally maxim, of throwing as much dirt as possible, in the presumption that some of it will stick. Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press; with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who stood manfully ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... marvelous industry in organizing and drilling their forces, and the majority of the members knew so little about the question involved, that I found the chances decidedly against me. I was obliged, also, to encounter a prevailing but perfectly unwarranted presumption that the representatives of the mining States were the best judges of the question in dispute, while it was foolishly regarded as a local one, with which the old States had no concern. The clumsy and next to incomprehensible ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... historical fiction. I had heard in my boyhood a good deal of the great Napoleonic legend. I had a genuine feeling that I would find myself at home in it, and The Duel is the result of that feeling, or, if the reader prefers, of that presumption. Personally I have no qualms of conscience about this piece of work. The story might have been better told of course. All one's work might have been better done; but this is the sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Taking you as a foreigner, you must know that. Judge of the case by your own reigning Families. Such events never happen amongst them. Do you suppose that the possession of immense wealth entitles you to the immeasurable presumption of aspiring to equality of position with reigning Houses? Such folly is more frequently castigated than reasoned with. Why, now—now, were it published—that I had condescended—condescend as I am doing, I should be the laughing-stock of every ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one pleased with a fine house. By means of prodigies, omens, astrology, palmistry, teaching, and talking let him not seek alms ... he best knows salvation who (cares for naught)' ... (such are the verses). Let him neither harm nor do good to anything.... Avoidance of disagreeable conduct, jealousy, presumption, selfishness, lack of belief, lack of uprightness, self-praise, blame of others, harm, greed, distraction, wrath, and envy, is a rule that applies to all the stadia of life. The Brahman that is pure, and wears the girdle, and carries the gourd in his hand, and avoids the food ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... apertly, in work and in word, to withdraw whomsoever that they may from vices, planting in them (if they may) virtues, comforting them and furthering them that standeth in grace; so that therewith they be not borne up into vainglory through presumption of their wisdom, nor enflamed with any worldly prosperity: but ever meek and patient, purposing to abide steadfastly in the Will of GOD, suffering wilfully and gladly, without any grudging whatsoever, the rod the ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... Titmouse had served them; and his absurdity of manner and personal appearance had provoked a smile, which Titmouse a little misconstrued; for when, a Sunday or two afterwards, he met her in the Park, the little fool actually had the presumption to nod to her—she having not the slightest notion who the little wretch might be—and of course not having, on the present occasion, the least recollection of him. The reader will recollect that this incident made a deep impression on ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Pharisee had zeal without knowledge. He blazed away upon the presumption that Jesus was an impostor. Why, the Jesus idea was preposterous, Saul mused. God's Kingdom was to be set up with a great capital at Jerusalem and a great and powerful king on the throne to whom all the world around would ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... concluding, that as I had no judgment to choose by but my own, I could not discover it; and it came out by his quarrelling with the person who brought me to him, for telling him I did not understand the goods, upon which presumption he ventured to spoil ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... hope! What I now write is presumption, is madness! And why? It is not your beauty, your virtues, or the supreme qualities of your mind that would raise this gulph of misery between us. No. Avarice, vanity, and prejudice are my enemies. It is they that would sacrifice you at their ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... loves were the rarest of human experiences; he smiled at his presumption in wanting no other. Wearily he turned, and tramped homeward ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the very worst, we must suppose the culture of morals to be one: a mere day-school may perhaps reasonably confine its pretensions to the disallowance of anything positively bad; because here the presumption is that the parents undertake the management of their children excepting in what regards their intellectual education: but, wherever the heads of a school step into the full duties of a child's natural guardians, they cannot absolve ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... favorable and unfavorable alike, and it was this very frankness which had disarmed me. The incident, as far as Jerry's story went, ended when the visitor crawled under the railing. I am not sure what motive was in his mind, but the events which followed lend strong color to the presumption that Jerry believed the girl when she said that she was coming back and that at the very time he was speaking to me he intended to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... that the negroes on the coast, who associate with Europeans, are inclined to licentiousness and fraud; but he says those of the interior are humane, obliging, and hospitable. Golberry repeats the same praise, and rebukes the presumption of white men in despising "nations improperly called savage, among whom we find men of integrity, models of filial, conjugal, and paternal affection, who know all the energies and refinements of virtue; among whom sentimental ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... said, shaking her head, "if you really believe this. They never forgive superiority, assumed or real; none but the noble ones, I mean; who, of course, are in the minority. Give a pair of tongs pantaloons, and it asserts itself. Trousers, my dear, are at the root of manly presumption. I discovered that long ago. A man in petticoats would be as humble as a woman. This is my theory, at least; take it for what it is worth. And now to sleep, with what heart we may, an iceberg being in our vicinity;" and, taking my face in her hand, she kissed me cordially. "It ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... one of 6.15 P.M., suggesting the probability of your being overwhelmed by two hundred thousand, and talking of where the responsibility will belong, pains me very much. I give you all I can, and act on the presumption that you will do the best you can with what you have, while you continue, ungenerously I think, to assume that I could give you more if I would. I have omitted, and shall omit, no opportunity to send you reinforcements whenever ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... wrote it," said the young marchioness: "only insanity could excuse such presumption. Men don't go mad from disappointed love, or women either, I believe, unless there's a predisposition to madness. He must have had that, and any other accident in his life would have brought it out as well as his foolish fancy for me. If he had been thrown from his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... They are conscious of some obstacles which hinder that love from being perfect, and yet they do not understand just how those obstacles can be removed. Someone may tell them that they have all they can get from God and to ask for more would be presumption, and yet their souls cry out for that which is natural in the grace of God, and how ready they are, when they hear sanctification taught, to meet the conditions and enter into the rest for their souls—this ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... between religious and sexual emotions, and not a few have read with amazement the abnormal cults which have had the sexual element as a foundation for their denominational dissent."[67] A phenomenon so striking as to force itself on the notice of the most 'casual students' raises the presumption that the relation between the two sets of facts is rather more than that of 'apparent' intimacy. When in the course of history two things appear together over and over again, one is surely justified in assuming that there is some underlying principle responsible for the association. ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... no suspicious jealousies of any kind whatever be harboured in our breasts, without absolute or good circumstantial evidence; and if conceived upon proof or strong presumption, the same to be communicated to the suspected person, in temper and moderation, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... pardon my abuse: I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited, And more than may be gather'd by thy shape. Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath; For I am sorry that with reverence I did not entertain ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... with private property. What boundless presumption it is to claim for a system which robs ninety-nine per cent. of mankind of all and every certainty of possessing property, and leaves to them nothing that they can call their own but the air they breathe—what presumption ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... under the spell in which she whom you represented echoed my own sentiments. Bernard Stamply also had just returned from captivity, and the more enamored of you he became the more I pleased myself with fancying my own personality an incarnation of his, with less presumption than would be necessary for me to imagine myself the hero of which you spoke a moment ago. After the play, a friend brought me here, presented me ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... must pardon my presumption," he said, as the pages had already obeyed him. "I was merely carrying out the wishes of His Royal Highness the ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... he admitted. "But these are not ordinary circumstances. Forgive me if I speak plainly. I found you engaged in searching my desk. The presumption is that you wish to do the same thing ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... artillery we may dismiss or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform us whether the guns used in the great pounding-match between Lucifer and Michael were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong presumption is that they were exclusively the former, and that a well-served battery of Parrotts would have silenced them in fifteen minutes. By giving him a few pieces of the kind the poet would have further brightened ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to be hoped, will do so in all future times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the characteristic virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... captain and younger brother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this grandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those people. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sort of presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire the least trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alert for an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. The riotous powwow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... we once admit the principle that consciousness and volition have a tendency to vanish as soon as practice has rendered any habit exceedingly familiar, so that the mere presence of an elaborate but unconscious performance shall carry with it a presumption of infinite practice, we shall find it impossible to draw the line at those actions which we see acquired after birth, no matter at how early a period. The whole history and development of the embryo in all its stages forces itself on our consideration. Birth has been made too ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... Walpole could say, with every likelihood of being believed, that "his speech of last Friday, made while half drunk, was all wit and indiscretion; nobody but he could have made it, nobody but he would have made it if he could. He beat Lord Chatham in language, Burke in metaphors, Grenville in presumption, Rigby in impudence, himself in folly, and everybody ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... theft, burglary or other offenses in the company or presence of her husband, the law presumed that she acted under compulsion and held her not guilty, but this presumption did not extend to cases of murder or treason, and it might always be overcome by proof that she acted independently. The exception in cases of murder or treason, we are informed, was not alone because of the magnitude of the crimes, but rather on account of "the ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... actions that are Present; which with most certainty is done by him that has most Experience; but not with certainty enough. And though it be called Prudence, when the Event answereth our Expectation; yet in its own nature, it is but Presumption. For the foresight of things to come, which is Providence, belongs onely to him by whose will they are to come. From him onely, and supernaturally, proceeds Prophecy. The best Prophet naturally is the best guesser; and the best guesser, he that is most versed and studied ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Vindication of the Royal Martyr, with Young's Addition. We may remark, that Lord Clarendon's total silence with regard to this subject, in so full of history, composed in vindication of the king's measures and character, forms a presumption on Toland's side, and a presumption of which that author was ignorant; the works of the noble historian not being then published. Bishop Burnet's testimony, too, must be allowed of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... we have a suggestion that Ja'afar presumed upon his favour with the Caliph; such presumption would soon be reported (perhaps by the austere intrigant himself) to the royal ears, and lay the foundation of ill-will likely to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Europe. I see the inward workings of fear struggling with pride in an ardent, enterprising, and tumultuous mind. I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation, dreaded, detested, and obeyed, the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success, the arrogance, the presumption, the selfwill of unlimited and idolized power, and more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority, the restless and incessant activity of guilt, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... are you, that DARES to object?' shouted Fitzgerald; 'and what d—d presumption prompts you to DARE to wag ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... by personal experience, and enforced by the authority of the most recent navigators, is, that the canoe is not used upon the north-west coast. The negative evidence, at least, is strongly in favour of this presumption; for, while we saw the canoe in use in Clarence Strait—the western boundary of the northern coast—we saw nothing but the raft to the south of that point. I cannot, therefore, avoid the conclusion, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... administration of the government of the United States, I have fully concurred with him in all his great and leading measures. This might be inferred from the fact that I have been one of his ordinary advisers. But I do not wish to let it rest on that presumption; I wish to declare that the principles of the President, as set forth in his annual message, his letters, and all documents and opinions which have proceeded from him, or been issued by his authority, in regard ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... disavowed nor any authority to substitute proposals as to that branch which concerned the British orders in council, and, finally, that his proposals with respect to the other branch, the attack on the frigate Chesapeake, were founded on a presumption repeatedly declared to be inadmissible by the United States, that the first step toward adjustment was due from them, the proposals at the same time omitting even a reference to the officer answerable for the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... linen. If the search leads to nothing, I want to be able to account next for all the linen in the house, and for all the linen sent to the wash. If there is an article missing, there will be at least a presumption that it has got the paint-stain on it, and that it has been purposely made away with, yesterday or to-day, by the person owning it. Superintendent Seegrave," added the Sergeant, turning to me, "pointed the attention of ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... chose the service of the latter, by whose influence he was made historiographer to the Emperor Charles V. Unfortunately for Agrippa, he never had stability enough to remain long in one position, and offended his patrons by his restlessness and presumption. After the death of Margaret he was imprisoned at Brussels, on a charge of sorcery. He was released after a year; and quitting the country, experienced many vicissitudes. He died in great poverty in ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... will be disappointed if they are expecting any spiritual result. Naturally, they will be disappointed if they look in themselves for any evidence of the virtue of hope. The most that can be looked for under the circumstances is that mockery of hope, presumption. ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... with his ill-cut country gloves and a waistcoat too scanty for him, he looked prodigiously ridiculous, compared with the young men in the balcony—"positively pitiable," thought Mme. de Bargeton. Chatelet, interested in her without presumption, taking care of her in a manner that revealed a profound passion; Chatelet, elegant, and as much at home as an actor treading the familiar boards of his theatre, in two days had recovered all the ground lost ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... keystone bore a rudely carved, crowned head, and ivy vines, coming up underneath the arch, to take the old king by surprise, climbed the bearded chin, crossed the lips, and were playing before the nose as if to give it a sportive tweak, while the stern brow frowned in anger at the plant's presumption. ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Then, he was very clear and very minute in his prayers. Further, he was most careful to scan all the providential indications that might throw light on the Divine will. And when he had been carried so far on in the line of duty, he had a strong presumption that the line would be continued, and that he would not be called to turn back. It was in front, not in rear, that he expected to find the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. In course of time, this hardened into a strong instinctive habit, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... beloved ghost, and she had issued orders to servants to have everything in readiness for her arrival, but Barbara had intervened and so had Mr. Jornicroft, a man of limited sympathies and brutal common sense. All of us, including Jaffery, who seemed to regard advice to Doria as a presumption only equalled by that of a pilgrim on his road to Mecca giving hints to Allah as to the way to run the universe, had urged her to give up the abode of tragic memories and find a haven of quietude elsewhere. But she had indignantly ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... oysters. There is plenty of work on the farms for those who prefer more steady labor. Land valued at about $10 per acre may be rented for $1. More than ten acres to the tenant is not usual, and I was told that it is very common for a family to rent all the land it wants for $10 per year, the presumption being that not over ten acres would be utilized. The staple crop for the small farmer is the sea island cotton. Under the present culture land devoted to this lies fallow every other year. The islands are ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... both to our disgrace and discontent, though no great reason for either. Publique matters are all in a hurry about a Dutch warr. Our preparations great; our provocations against them great; and, after all our presumption, we are now afeard as much of them, as we lately contemned them. Every thing else in the State quiett, blessed be God! My Lord Sandwich at sea with the fleete at Portsmouth; sending some about to cruise for taking of ships, which we have done to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... no doubt about assurance in the Word of God. A person said to me some time ago: "I think it is great presumption for a person to say she is saved." I asked her if she was saved. "I belong to a church," she sobbed. "But are you saved?" "I believe it would be presumption in me to say that I was saved." "Well I think it is a greater presumption for ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... hope?" pursued Piers; not with any offensive presumption, but speaking as he thought, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... me,—he owns it! that his fortune is very small, and that he is chiefly dependent on an elder brother and on the profession he has chosen! He should have concealed these circumstances, at least, if he expected to succeed with me. Had he the presumption to suppose I would marry my niece to a person such as ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... improve its bouquet; nor to dilute it with any portion of water: it has to my mind, as it is, just the strength it ought to have, and no more. But the Greek taste was so exquisite in all matters in which we can bring it to the test, as to justify a strong presumption that in matters in which we cannot test it, it was equally correct. Salt water and turpentine do not suit our wine: it does not follow that theirs had not in it some basis of contrast, which may have made them pleasant in combination. And it was only a few of their wines ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... shallow thinker and a slip-shod writer. For success in any special kind of work it is obvious that a special talent is requisite; but obvious as this seems, when stated as a general proposition, it rarely serves to check a mistaken presumption. There are many writers endowed with a certain susceptibility to the graces and refinements of Literature which has been fostered by culture till they have mistaken it for native power; and these men, being ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... had been unlooked for, but his eyes gleamed through the clouds of smoke with a light that foreboded a speedy outburst of his slumbering fires. Nevertheless, when he began to speak, it was not to condemn the young men for their presumption, but to point out that the difficulties in performing such a work at that time were inconceivably greater than they had supposed. In Bach's time it was different, the Thomas School could supply what was necessary—the double orchestra, double chorus, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... back another hour. I should have gone mad if I had tried to keep it up any longer." He waited breathlessly for her to speak. She sat silent and rigid, looking straight before her. "Is it hopeless?" he went on at last, huskily. "Must I ask your forgiveness for my presumption and ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... prayed them that he might have leave to try; and immediately a clamour was raised among the suitors, because of his petition, and they scorned and swelled with rage at his presumption, and that a beggar should seek to contend in a game of such noble mastery. But Telemachus ordered that the bow should be given him, and that he should have leave to try, since they had failed; "for," he said, "the bow is mine, to give or to withhold:" ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... not help admiring his courage, and vowing in my heart that all one man could do to defend him I would do, I felt that he was not altogether a lovable man. He spoke with a sort of superiority which I did not admire, while he seemed to think greatly of himself. I know it sounds like presumption for me, an obscure, ignorant man, to write this, especially when I think of the good he has done; nevertheless, such thoughts came into my mind as I watched him. Perhaps his consciousness of his power over the multitudes ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... not only in scope and spirit, but in form. "It had excited in us apprehensions," wrote Madison to the United States minister in Paris, "which were repressed only by the inarticulate import of its articles, and the presumption that it would be executed in a sense not inconsistent with the respect due to the treaty between France and the United States." It bore, in fact, the impress of its author's mind, which, however replete with knowledge concerning conventional international law, defined in accordance ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... ignorance commit herself to some course or other that may be ruinously compromising. She said plaintively just now that if he could see her, and know how occupied with him and him alone is her every waking hour, she is sure he would forgive her the wicked presumption of becoming his wife. Very sweet all that, and touching. I ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... am poor!" she said. "It's all we can do to keep the place up. Besides—besides——" And then she stopped and looked out of the window. I saw I had been a fool to be so personal, and I was soon punished for my presumption, for she rose to her feet and said in an altered voice that she would now ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... abandoning the matter of the identified furs; dwelling largely on Gaut's dimly-hinted proposals to Elwood to join in the crime; and, on the ground that he was the only person in a situation to burn and rob the camp, raising the violent presumption that he must have ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... not how to dare say it,' he stammered. 'It is a presumption, indeed, but I mean it not for such. I would say that there is something in your face, most noble mistress—a look—a flash of thought—a glance of the eye—a something I know not what, which reminds me of her whom I knew so many years ago. So that sometimes, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... gave him to understand, that if he did not think him pretty well chastised for his presumption and flight, by the discipline he had undergone in the last two adventures, he would turn him out of his service with disgrace. Timothy said he believed it would be the greatest favour he could do him to turn him out of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... condescension alone could pardon? But what reason have I to hope that you can still look with favorable regard on my unworthiness? My mature judgment teaches me that this dream of my youth, which I have so long cherished, is not presumption merely, but madness. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Sambo returning and swinging his net in the narrow space between the two others, set Dan chuckling again. "Doesn't mean to make a target of himself," he said; but his chuckle died out when Sambo, preparing to curl up in the safest place in the camp, explained his presumption tersely by announcing that "Monkey sit down longa camp." Monkey was a law unto himself, and a very unpleasant law, being a reputed murderer several times over, and when he and his followers were about, white men saw to their rifles; and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of her "perfection" and of her having, in combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamed of finding. This made him observe her not only without mistrust, but without uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the first moment he looked at her, had been in her favor. And yet, if she was beautiful, it was not a dazzling beauty. She was tall and moulded in long lines; she had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features with a sort of harmonious irregularity. Her clear gray eyes were strikingly expressive; ...
— The American • Henry James
... the city of Martyrdom Calamina, but there is (I think) a fair presumption that the spot alluded to by Gregory of Tours was Mailapur, and that the Shrine visited by King Alfred's envoy, Sighelm, may have been ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... instance of the reversal of human judgment, and a very significant fact, that those very Popes who, a hundred years ago, were looked upon, even by Catholic writers, as the embodiment of supercilious arrogance and sacrilegious presumption, namely, Gregory VII., Innocent III., and Boniface VIII., are now acknowledged to have been the greatest benefactors to Europe in their time, and true ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... just conferred with Mr. Bates upon his return from a visit to the Neapolitan Company, and Mr. Bates had detailed to Mr. Johnson much that he had seen with his own eyes, and much that the Caravaggio had told him. Mr. Johnson, thereupon, begging pardon for the presumption, deemed this a fitting time, from what he had heard, to forward Bobby the inclosed letter, which, in its gray envelope, had been left behind ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... expresses also what might be expected of that portion of the future which was more immediately at hand. When Miriam and Aaron said, "Doth the Lord indeed speak only by Moses, doth He not speak by us also?" the Lord immediately, Num. xii. 6-8, reproves their presumption of thinking themselves like unto Moses, as respects the prophetical gift, in these words: "If some one be your prophet,"—i.e., if some one be a prophet according to your way, with prophets of ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... to my presumption came in the flush of her cheek and her bitten lip. She caught up the key from the table, and half motioned me to the door. But now I smiled in turn, and pointed to the unopened note on the table. "You will pardon me, Madam," I went on. "Surely it is no disgrace ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... The presumption of her lawyer seemed to obscure all other issues for the moment. Morton Bassett was annoyed to be kept waiting for an explanation that was clearly due him as her co-defendant; he controlled his irritation with difficulty. Her imprudence in having approached his enemy filled ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... court erred in holding that it was a presumption of law that the defendant knew that she was not a legal voter, although in fact she had not ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... equalled that day and evening at the palace of the Queen. I have now mingled largely with the best society of Palmyra. The doors of the noble and the rich have been opened to me with a liberal hospitality, As the friend of Gracchus and Fausta—and now I may add I believe without presumption—of Zenobia also, of Julia, and Longinus, I have been received with attentions, of which Aurelian himself might with reason have been proud. More and more do I love this people, more and more fervently do I beg of the Being or Beings who rule ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... my own character," I said, "and without undue presumption, I think I may say that I am worthy of a woman's love. Naturally, after your convincing me that you think differently, I feel humiliated and indignant. Do you know what effect such feelings have ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... misunderstood, it may be remarked here that the Druidical and the Scandinavian rites are not identical. The former are Celtic, the latter Gothic. But the fact that in both the mistletoe was a sacred plant affords a violent presumption that there must have been a common point from which both religions started. There was, as I have said, an identity of origin for the same ancient and ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... and Fatima once or twice presented him with a small supply, yet such was the barbarous disposition of the Moors, that when his boy attempted to fill his skin at the wells, he generally received a sound drubbing for his presumption. One night, having in vain attempted to obtain water, he resolved to try his fortune himself at the wells, which were about half a mile distant. About midnight he set out, and, guided by the lowing of the cattle, he reached the place. Here a number ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... practising those things which are praiseworthy and useful to salvation, it would only be to win the confidence of such as would listen to his suggestions, to make them afterward fall into misfortune, and engage them in some sin of presumption or vanity: for as he is a spirit of malice and lies, it little imports to him by what means he surprises us, and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... gazing with what other thoughts than when that horizon met her vision for the first time! She had great need of uttering all her sorrow, but could not do so to Mrs. Ormonde; it seemed to her that it would be an unpardonable presumption to speak of Mr. Egremont as she thought of him, and perhaps she could not have brought herself to tell such a secret, whoever had been involved in it, to one who, kind as she was, remained in many senses a stranger. To Lyddy, and to her alone, she ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the greatness of this man's behaviour! What a presumption was it in your Harriet, ever to aspire to call ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... nor a goddess, but a sincere, human friend,—human as yourself." She was about to make some delicate allusion to the time when he often sought her sisterly advice. But he, in the blindness of strong feeling, saw in her words only rebuke for the presumption of his love, and he harshly ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... against Ripa; inasmuch as Mendez, who, when first questioned, had spoken confidently as to his identity, had since faltered when he came to give his evidence in public, and seemed unable to afford any positive testimony on the subject. The presumption against the prisoner, without the evidence of the Spaniard, was considered by the other judges strong enough to convict him; but Marino had objected that since the attack was made by daylight—for it was in the summer, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... on—I shall really be very unhappy if I at all interfere with you. The success of mine is yet problematical; though the public will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of their own propensity for 'The Giaour' and such 'horrid mysteries.' The only advantage I have is being on the spot; and that merely amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which I had better read again. If ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... mercy!" cried Nietzel, bursting into tears, and sinking upon his knees before the proud, lofty form of the count. "Pardon for my crime, for my presumption! I was in such great want and distress that I knew not how else to help myself, and I swear to you that my copy is so faithful and exact that it can not he ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... solemn attestation of my rectitude and truth. Whatever be the language in which that sentence be spoken, I know that my fate will meet with sympathy, and that my memory will be honoured. In speaking thus, accuse me not, my lords, of an indecorus presumption in the efforts I have made in a just and noble cause. I ascribe no main importance, nor do I claim for those efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it will ever happen so, that they who have lived to serve their country—no matter how weak their efforts may have been—are sure to ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... their admiration of their hero, and admiration for their hero gratifies their self-love. Mr. Harford belongs to this class of biographers. The title and the appearance of his volumes excite expectations which acquaintance with them disappoints. The book is not a mere harmless piece of literary presumption; it is a positive evil, as cumbering ground which might be better occupied, and as giving such authority as it may acquire to false views of Art and to numerous errors of fact. There was need of a good biography of Michel Angelo, and Mr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... this transmutability of Correspondential Elements in another sphere of Being, which bases the presumption, or gives to it at least countenance from a new quarter, that the metals and other chemical Elements may be actually convertible substances by means of processes not yet suspected or sufficiently understood. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... judgment he was determined to abide. He would therefore warn his subjects to be cautious how they ventured to arraign his conduct. The proudest among them should learn that he was their sovereign, and should answer with their heads for the presumption of their tongues." Yet, notwithstanding he made all this parade of conscious superiority, Henry was prudent enough not by any means to refuse the aid of precaution. A rigorous search was made for arms, and all strangers, with the exception only of ten merchants ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... he says: "I will continue this undertaking. Loyalty to human duty shall be my concern. Results may owe other allegiance. There may be accounting for those interlopers who, crossing boundaries of warranted care, trespass upon exclusive 'preserves' of more imperious power. Such presumption may be 'les ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... occupied a considerable portion of the year 1837, I had accomplished but a slight portion of what I proposed to myself to effect in the outset. Insignificant are the results of man's labours compared with the swelling ideas of his presumption; something, however, had been effected by the journey, which I had just concluded. The New Testament of Christ was now enjoying a quiet sale in the principal towns of the north, and I had secured the friendly interest and co-operation of the booksellers of those parts, particularly of him ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... "ignorant present," and their policy in South Africa was based upon two principles: that on no account must the boundaries of the Empire be enlarged and new responsibilities incurred, and that in all quarrels between white man and black man the presumption was that the white ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... that pride, prejudice, anger, and avarice, are four of the most perverse imps the dramatis personae of the passions can afford. The irreparable wrong done to the family dignity, and the proper vengeance it became parental authority to inflict, on such presumption as my father had been guilty of, and such derogatory meanness as that of my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... "Astounding presumption that!" I said, now giving him the benefit of my full gaze—"to speak of pardon before making a confession of your guilt! But before I give you time even for that, the remaining mysteries which still hang around your ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... are my daughters of a form divine, With seven fair sons, an indefective line. Go, fools, consider this, and ask the cause From which my pride its strong presumption draws.' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Isaac Middleton was also wrong. He, a layman, had no right to raise his eyes to her. She was the prize of the elect, not the quarry of any chance pursuer. As he ate and talked, his admiration for Sally grew as did his indignation at Middleton's presumption. ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... going up to see Mr. Linden. Miss Derrick was so good as to promise she would go with me to see my sister this evening. In these circumstances,"—said Dr. Harrison in his softest voice—"do you think it would be presumption ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... and respected, he caught the little creature in his arms—as he might have caught his own daughter—and kissed her. Sylvia said nothing; but Mr. Frere—arrived, by his chain of reasoning, at quite another conclusion as to the state of affairs—was astonished at the presumption of the man. The lieutenant regarded himself as already reinstated in his old position, and with Mrs. Vickers on his arm, reproved the apparent insolence of the convict as freely as he would have done had they both been at his own little kingdom of Maria Island. "You insolent ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... speculation, had feared it even. Now he had discovered that there were in him powers, capabilities, and a breadth of grasp hitherto unsuspected. He could control the Chicago wheat market, and the man who could do that might well call himself "great," without presumption. He knew that he overtopped them all—Gretry, the Crookes gang, the arrogant, sneering Bears, all the men of the world of the Board of Trade. He was stronger, bigger, shrewder than them all. A few days now ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... thigh of one of these animals, over which the flesh had completely closed; but we have never discovered that they have any method of ensnaring them, or that they know any other beasts but the kangaroo and dog. Whatever animal is shewn them, a dog excepted, they call kangaroo: a strong presumption that the wild animals of ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... those lovers who are terrified of being over-bold or too confident, lest by their presumption they might alarm the timid object of their affections. He needn't have been afraid of wooing Gladys. She flung herself at his head rather obviously, but he seemed so obtuse she must have found him irritating at times. Thus, instead of calling upon her or asking her to meet ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... has any thing of the marvellous in it and his conversation is a surprizing hotch-potch of erudition and extravagance. He told me t'other day, with great confidence, that my case was dropsical; or, as he called it, leucophlegmatic: A sure sign, that his want of experience is equal to his presumption — for, you know, there is nothing analogous to the dropsy in my disorder — I wish those impertinent fellows, with their ricketty understandings, would keep their advice for those that ask it. Dropsy, indeed! Sure I have not lived ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... not the conclusion at which I hoped you would arrive. I think I can offer an alternative. If I ask you to look at this matter like a man of the world, you will have a right to laugh at my presumption. I was a man of the world once, but that was long ago. I have lost so much that what is left to me is hidden in a cloud of self-distrust; yet I think I am right in this, and you yourself shall be ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... at the client as if he were making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite. "Sir," returns Vholes with his inward manner of speech and his bloodless quietude, "I should not have had the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any man's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so pointedly, I will ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the absolute prerogative of the crown," he declares, "that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is it lawful to be disputed. It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: ... so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that." The king, James claimed, could make any kind of law or statute that he thought meet, without any advice from Parliament, although ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... little strange," he said; "but I know I may place implicit reliance on your lordship's word, and proceed in a matter where I own my heart is deeply engaged, without the risk of calling upon myself a charge of gross presumption." ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... James to present himself in person before the Protestant stronghold, had not acted altogether, upon presumption. It is certain that there were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the governor, either despairing of its defence, or undecided in his allegiance between James and William, had opened a correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen. But the true answer ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... one will of themselues bee willing and desirous to aduenture in the next, if there bee neuer so little more appearance, that the intended matter is by some knowledge of our owne, found true in some poynts of our first presumption. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... dress cut low when she wasn't accustomed to it, and she died in a week. When we heard of it I was glad that he had danced with her; but some were cruel enough to say that it served Blake right for his presumption. He was so broken-hearted he left the place. The dress she wore that night was a green silk, and he had her buried in it; and some one told the Prince, and he sent some flowers. Wasn't it sweet of him! They were buried with her too. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... attorney would fain have hid his head. Her surprise was equal to her indignation. Vernon had told her that Maxwell was to be the suppliant for her hand, and she could not see why his menial had the presumption to claim her. ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... the tilting in the castle court, Kriemhild, excited by the victories of her husband, declared that Siegfried, because of his might, ought to be ruler of Burgundy. This angered Brunhild, who reproached the wife of a vassal for such presumption. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... question, it will be necessary to produce much evidence of very different sorts: evidence which, at best, can perhaps only warrant an inference, or presumption, in favour of one or the other opinion. For the moment, the impartial examination of testimony is more important and practicable than the establishment of ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... What presumption, as it seems to me, in the Council of Geological Society that it hesitated to publish ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... often for equivocal and scabrous situations; in a word, for everything which could offend ordinary good sense and decency. He was quite happy when the people howled, and the people did not fail him. Even the Emperor, who dabbled in art, as every one knows, with the insolent presumption of upstarts and princes, regarded Hassler's fame as a public scandal, and let no opportunity slip of showing his contemptuous indifference to his impudent works. Hassler was enraged and delighted by such august opposition, which had almost become a consecration for the advanced paths ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... it her duty, and I suppose it was, to tell her bear-like guardian what had befallen to her sister. He was less disturbed on hearing the intelligence than Nellie supposed, and merely expressed some cold-blooded surprise at the presumption of the half-breed. He sat at his desk, and taking a sheet of ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... religious and sexual emotions, and not a few have read with amazement the abnormal cults which have had the sexual element as a foundation for their denominational dissent."[67] A phenomenon so striking as to force itself on the notice of the most 'casual students' raises the presumption that the relation between the two sets of facts is rather more than that of 'apparent' intimacy. When in the course of history two things appear together over and over again, one is surely justified in assuming that ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... were his only enemies; and if they succeeded for a while in harassing his march, it was only to lay a foundation for fresh achievements. He who contends for truths which he has himself been permitted to discover, may well sustain the conflict in which presumption and error are destined to fall. The public tribunal may neither be sufficiently pure nor enlightened to decide upon the issue; but he can appeal to posterity, and reckon with ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... I am more than paid. Forgive the presumption, for why should you think of me at all? Forget the hard thoughts, mademoiselle, and let ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... him to support them. For reasons such as these the modern European state has never been able to treat ancient endowments made under the pressure of its own intolerance with the same respect as if the donors had been really free—free to know, and free to act. The presumption that the donor or testator, if he were living now, would have acted far otherwise than he did, and that in altering his destination the State may be carrying out what he really would have wished, is in such cases by no means without foundation. Knox and ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... Mrs Farthing to walk to the station, she could not help noticing how the rough and tumble of her experiences had had a hardening effect upon her once soft heart. It was not so long ago that, although presumption on a landlady's part would have goaded Mavis into making an apposite retort, she would have bitterly regretted the pain that her words may have inflicted. Now, she was indifferent to any annoyance that she may have caused Mrs Farthing. If anything, she was rather ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... and disparaging remarks on Luther, contained in his Introduction to the Literature of Europe, are simply outrageous, "stupid and senseless paragraphs," evidencing a presumption on the part of their author which deserves intensest rebuke. "Hallam knows nothing about Luther; he himself confesses his inability to read him in his native German; and this alone renders him incapable of judging intelligently respecting his merits as a writer; and, knowing ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... one of the three great goddesses of Mecca, the others being Al-Lat ('the goddess') and Al-Uzza ('the mighty one'); as these two names are concrete, there is a certain presumption that Man[a]t likewise is concrete. The original meaning of the word is obscure. It does not occur as a common noun, but from the same stem come terms meaning 'doom, death,'[1192] and, if it be allied to these, it would be an expression for 'fate' (like 'Au[d.]). ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... immediately professed himself devoted to the fair stranger. His libertine manners, the presumption with which he declared his determination to triumph over the heart of Mrs. Robinson, assisted to defend her against him; and, while he failed to dazzle her imagination by his magnificence, he disgusted ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... indebtedness," and from the fact that "Philaster" "was followed immediately by five romances of the same style in plot and characters" "which mark Fletcher's work for the next twenty years," that "these facts create a strong presumption that 'Philaster' was the original," "a strong presumption that 'Cymbeline' was the copy," and finally ends the argument as it began, with these flattering words: "We may, indeed, safely assert that Shakspere almost never invented dramatic types." And this is the argument which Professor ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... give all she was worth that he had held his peace and let her keep her dream of pity and sympathy, took the shrubbery path to the village and Miss Hague's cottage-lodgings; and Mr. Cecil Burleigh, repenting too late the vain presumption that had reckoned on her youth and ignorance, apart from the divining power of an honest soul, walked off to Norminster to rid himself of his heavy sense ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... constitution." Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption that like children and women his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sarcastic rejoinder. "Your vanity, Ruth, would be odious if it were not so ridiculous. But you should not allow your complacency, over a merely pretty face, to lead you into such presumption as you have been guilty of to-night. I blame myself somewhat for what has occurred; if I had not accorded you permission to witness the dancing, you would not have been thrown into such temptation; but I ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and nothing but a plank of pitch to keep him, however good-looking he may be, to be looking at the daughter, and the prettiest one too, though not the best, some people think, of the gentleman that owns all the houses and the haven—presumption is the smallest word that I can find to use for it; and for her to allow it, fat—fat something ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... time when the man was ready for his work. The process was not easy. Simon had many hard lessons to learn. Self-confidence had to be changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into prudence, and weakness had to be tempered into calm strength. All this moral history was ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... that you are good and that you are pleasing to God with your papistic, Turkish monkery and holiness? Is it all that is necessary to assert: God will reward with heaven such as are faithful to the order? No, dear brother, mere presumption, or an expression of your opinion, will not suffice here. I could do that as well as you. Indeed, each may devise his own peculiar idea; one a black, and another a gray monk's cowl. But we should hear and know what God's ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... these transient, pampered aristocrats that I should be detailed to serve them food. Must I be blamed—must I be deprived of the means of a livelihood,' he goes on, 'on account of an accident that was the result of their own presumption and haughtiness? But what hurts me more than all,' says Sir Percival, 'is the desecration that has been done to this splendid Rindslosh—the confiscation of its halberdier to serve menially at the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to say so was impious. The king looked towards her with anger, and said, 'Well, my lady, you say nothing; what is the cause of this?' Then the princess, tying both her hands with a handkerchief, humbly replied, 'If your majesty will grant me safety [of my life], and pardon my presumption, then this humble slave will unfold the dictates of her heart.' The king said, 'Speak what thou hast to say.' Then the princess said, 'Mighty king, you must have heard, that the voice of truth is bitter; for which reason, disregarding life at this moment, I ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... folly, and I know my presumption. I know the pride of your caste and of your party, and how much you despise the partisan of the squalid mob of France. Have I said that I aspired to gain your love? I wonder if I have ever dreamed it? I only know, Juliette, that you ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... those Papers, would have join'd their Abilities to form a Work of this Kind, I doubt not but it would have been inimitable, and deserv'd the next Place, in Point of Fame, to that of Theophrastus: For this is the highest Pitch to which Moderns can aspire. A greater Design would be Presumption, and would only serve to shew the greater Vanity of the Attempt. An establish'd Reputation of above two thousand Years cannot be easily shaken. Theophrastus is, and ever will be, an Original in Characteristic-Writings. His Fame ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... their aim was to profoundly enrage me, and cause bloodshed. George had laughed at me, they said; never had had a moment's doubt of the young lady's sentiments; had often jested about me, and expressed his pity for my 'silly presumption;' had even amused himself and the young lady, by mimicking my peculiarities, and raising a laugh ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... your time—all these, and many other effects of this vile habit are exceedingly disgraceful, and wholly opposed to the scriptural rules laid down for the governance of our conduct one to another. I say nothing of the insult put upon the Most High, the daring presumption of breaking in upon the devotions of his worshippers, and involving them in the sin of abstractedness from the solemn work before them, by entering late into the house of prayer. Such persons may one day find they have a more serious ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... the mines," said Eudemius, with indifference. "If he hath done nothing, he cannot die, but his presumption deserves punishment, and this he shall have,"—and was deep in fresh papers before Hito had left ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... wolf by the ears Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly Not so successful as he was picturesque Plundering the country which they came to protect Presumption in entitling themselves Christian Protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life Republic, which lasted two centuries Throw the cat against their legs Worship God according to the dictates ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... voice in praise or thanksgiving for any earthly good that had befallen one, either through inheritance, or chance, or one's own successful endeavor—was in my eyes simply futile; but, putting its futility aside, it was an act of servile presumption, of wheedling impertinence, not without suspicion of a lively ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... Moeuvres were among the most trying we spent in the war, and we have the presumption to think we did well. Three companies received a special message from the Brigadier. The fourth company would have got it also, but by the luck of the war it was out of all the scrapping. "B" Company were occupying a most uncomfortable position for four days in No-Man's Land, but the enemy did not ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... said Graham, looking around and recognizing his friend and Grace mounted and passing homeward from their ride. "I've had the presumption to think that you would permit me to join you occasionally, and so have bought a good horse. ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... which conform to the rule. Still they are exceptions. Community of language does not imply community of blood; it might be added that diversity of language does not imply diversity of blood. But community of language is, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, a presumption of the community of blood, and it is proof of something which for practical purposes is the same as community of blood. To talk of "the Latin race," is in strictness absurd. We know that the so-called race is simply made up of those nations which adopted ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... and there is, no such a theory, no reason, a priori; why they should not be controlled by superior men, and made to do that for which they seem the best fitted—Work and Drudgery! Only long experiment could teach a doctrine contrary to the logical presumption arising from weakness. There could be no doctrine of human rights. It would be simply a doctrine of human forces. Right would be a word as much out of place as among birds and beasts. Authority would go with productive greatness, as gravity goes with mass in matter. The whole chance ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... Francis Marion, one of the noblest models of the citizen soldier that the world has ever produced. Brave without rashness, prudent without timidity, firm without arrogance, resolved without rudeness, good without cant, and virtuous without presumption. His mortal remains are preserved at Belle-Isle, in St. John's parish. The marble slab which covers them bears the following inscription:—"Sacred to the memory of Brigadier-General Francis Marion, who departed this life on the 29th of Feb., ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... the ascendant. In the case of many of those pitiful botches one was, in fact, quite at a loss whether more to lament the want of understanding and judgment they showed or to give the greater vent to the indignation one could not but feel at the arrogance and presumption of those miserable scribblers who pooh-poohed Darwin's ideas and bespattered his character. I had then, as on later occasions, repeatedly expressed my just scorn of the contemptible clan. Darwin smiled at this, and endeavored to calm me with the words, 'My dear young ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... desecrate her reticence, but only an indirect assurance of gratitude to her for suffering him and willingness to serve her within the compass of his poverty-stricken powers. For in retrospect his invitation assumed the proportions of an importunity, an egregious piece of presumption: so that he could have ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... the tides are caused by a 'fever of the sea,' which rages for six hours, and then intermits for as many more." [420] Dr. Winslow then subjoins a long list of learned authorities, several of whose writings he subjects to a brief analysis. He disapproves of the presumption that the subject is altogether visionary and utopian; and affirms that it has not always been pursued by competent observers. Periodicity is noted as an important symptom in disease; a feature in febrile disturbance which the present writer himself had abundant opportunity of marking ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... Surprisingly few thought it worth while to wrestle with the difficult book. It was the day of the gentle literary public which had a few years before recoiled from Sartor Resartus, and which found in the difficulty of a book the strongest presumption against it. A later generation, leavened by Carlyle, came near to regarding difficulty as a presumption in its favour, and this more strenuous and athletic attitude towards literature was among the favouring conditions which brought Browning at ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... of any sort. They were sent into the world to mop and cook and serve their betters. Of course, when the animated machines did take to thinking for themselves, and to showing that they had done so, the Cordelier regarded it as most awkward and inconvenient—a piece of insubordinate presumption that must be stamped out at once, and not suffered ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... And then, in an instant, The matter is settled: 320 'The shepherd is tiny— His youth and his folly May well be forgiven. The woman's presumption ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... Ephraim, "is a history of the North American Indians from the time of the flood until some epoch prior to Columbus. It would be as difficult to prove that it was not true as to prove that Smith is not honest in his delusion. We can only fall back upon what Butler would call 'a strong presumption.'" ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... lady, "the presumption is against them. Every young couple seen together must be considered in love till they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lands, at twenty-five cents per acre, which was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan. The veto message says: 'The Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public lands for the nest fiscal year at $4,000,000, on the presumption that the present land system would remain unchanged. Should this bill become a law, he does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this source.' It would thus seem that Jacob Thompson, then Secretary of the Interior, was permitted to dictate the financial portion of this veto. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... by breath is bard, It is not so with him that all things knowes As 'tis with vs, that square our guesse by showes: But most it is presumption in vs, when The help of heauen we count the act of men. Deare sir, to my endeauors giue consent, Of heauen, not me, make an experiment. I am not an Imposture, that proclaime My selfe against the leuill of mine aime, But know I thinke, and thinke ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a leavened heave-offering during the passover in error?" "He must pay its value and a fifth more." "In presumption?" "He is free from the payment, and from its value ...
— Hebrew Literature
... of seeing Rome and the northern cities when your health is established?" she inquired, in a voice which skilfully avoided any presumption of the reply. "Or shall ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... and presumption of his commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakspeare's text. The first folio, notwithstanding some few palpable misprints, requires none of their alterations. Had they understood English as well as he did, they ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... every family in our country has a copy of the Holy Bible; and as the presumption is that the greater portion often consult its pages, we take the liberty of saying to all those that do, that the perusal of the writings of Josephus will be found ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... addition to their use they become no longer good, but really worthy of condemnation. For such works are not free, but blaspheme the grace of God, to which alone it belongs to justify and save through faith. Works cannot accomplish this, and yet, with impious presumption, through our folly, they take it on themselves to do so; and thus break in with violence upon the ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... is going to marry Mrs Villiers, she loses her head completely, and threatens to poison herself. M. Vandeloup tries to wrench the poison from her, whereupon she flings it into the garden. This bottle has disappeared, and the presumption is that it was picked up. But if the jury had any idea that the poison was administered from the lost bottle, they might as well dismiss it from their minds, as it was absurd to suppose such an improbable thing could happen. In the first place no one but M. Vandeloup and Miss Marchurst ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... So far as your daughter is concerned, I should think, from the very slight opportunity I have had of forming an opinion in regard to her, that she is not readily susceptible of morbific intrusions. Under an unusual exposure to exciting causes, the balance of health has been overcome. If my presumption is correct, we have the steady effort of nature, in co-operation with remedial agencies, working towards ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... idol houses, and the Moals enter in and bow themselves before these images, to do them reverence. Strangers are never permitted to enter, so that once endeavouring to go into one of these tabernacles, I was sore chidden for my presumption. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... queen's answer to her son, but nothing could overcome his headstrong presumption. Arming himself at all points he mounted a powerful charger, and presented himself before Clotald's house, and shouted for Richard to come to the window. Richard was dressed as a bridegroom, and was ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Red-Rose, sometime called the Golden Dragon, separated from my Lorde of Cumberland in a storme: who certified vs of 50 sayles of the Spanish kings Armadas to be gone for the Ilands, but could not informe vs any newes of my Lord Thomas Howard, otherwise then vpon presumption to remaine about the Islandes, and so wee continued our course the winde standing ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female - to have it in his power to say, 'She was ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... pronounced, than a cry of astonishment and delight burst from all present; and the poor sign-painter, with tears in his eyes, implored pardon for all his rudeness and presumption, and poured out grateful thanks for the Master's kind intentions in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... steed had got the heels of the others, finding it would be great folly and presumption in him to pretend to keep the saddle with his wooden leg, very wisely took the opportunity of throwing himself off in his passage through a field of rich clover, among which he lay at his ease; and seeing his captain advancing at full gallop, hailed him with the salutation of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... unprofitable intrigues. The enlightened imagination rejects the figure of a witch with her profile in dark relief against the moon and her broomstick cutting a constellation. No undiscovered natural laws, no names of "respectable" witnesses, are invoked to make us feel our presumption in questioning the diabolic intimacies of that obsolete old woman, for it is known now that the undiscovered laws, and the witnesses qualified by the payment of income tax, are all in favor of a different conception—the image of a heavy gentleman ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... A great presumption almost took his breath away. He gave it voice on the moment, afraid if he waited he should lack ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... government of a mighty nation like the United States must be regulated with sole regard to it. They thought they knew everything in the world when they knew only one thing in it. Their ignorance was equalled only by their presumption." ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... was a pronounced conflict of evidence between Hill and Fanning. They were the chief witnesses in the case, but the guilt or innocence of the prisoner did not rest entirely upon the evidence of either of these witnesses. Hill might be speaking the truth and the prisoner might be innocent though the presumption would be, if Hill's evidence were truthful in every detail, that the prisoner was guilty. Fanning's evidence might be true as far as it went, but it would not in itself prove that the prisoner was innocent. Hill had admitted that he had drawn ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... the power of the observer are the means of ascertaining a copulation in the air. If you have satisfactory evidence that the fluid bedewing the last rings of the female is the same with that of the male, it is more than mere presumption in favour of copulation. Perhaps it may be necessary that the male should seize the female under the belly, which cannot easily be done but in the air. The large opening at the extremity of the queen, which you have observed in so particular a condition, seems ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... and in the abstract, those who think wrong what they think right, and right what they think wrong: though they need not be, nor was my father, insensible to good qualities in an opponent, nor governed in their estimation of individuals by one general presumption, instead of by the whole of their character. I grant that an earnest person, being no more infallible than other men, is liable to dislike people on account of opinions which do not merit dislike; ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... what I have ever heard; still it agrees perfectly with what Christ and His disciples taught. You know, I have always been taught that man is a kind of passive being, as regards the salvation of his soul; that everything has been done for him; that, in fact, it would be the basest presumption on his part to attempt to do anything for himself; that man is without free agency in the matter; that he is simply as a lump of clay, and with little more ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... be complete without quotations from Shakspere. In the field which, in the presumption of my youth, I thought was my own he has reaped before me. In almost every play there are passages where the hand plays a part. Lady Macbeth's heart-broken soliloquy over her little hand, from which all the perfumes of Arabia ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... two queens should have an interview, but this project fell through. Elizabeth, of course, was too fondly attached to Leicester to see him become the husband of her beautiful rival; Mary, on her part, despised the "new-made earl", and Leicester himself apologized to Mary's ambassador for the presumption of the proposal, "alleging the invention of that proposition to have proceeded from Master Cecil, his secret enemy".[69] While the Leicester negotiations were in progress, the Earl of Lennox, who had been exiled in 1544, returned to Scotland with his son Henry, Lord ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
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