"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this action it is easy to conjecture, but it is fully stated in the order of the inhabitants of Charlestown at the meeting in which the action for the government of the town by selectmen was taken: "In consideration of the great trouble and charge of the inhabitants of Charlestown by reason of the frequent meeting of the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... correct knowledge of their nature and instincts; and this we shall never obtain by the course hitherto pursued. As much of their labor is performed in the dark, and difficult to be observed, it has given rise to conjecture and false reasoning, leading ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the great Roman Bath. (4) Lucas's Bath being a plain hall without piers, Sutherland assumed the same form for the hall of the great Roman Bath, and altogether omitted the arcades that divide it into three aisles. (5) Not to dwell on other errors built on the baseless fabric of conjecture, it is evident that Sutherland imagined a system of baths existed west of the great Roman Bath similar in all respects to that known to exist east of the great Roman Bath. But here, again, theory has been upset by facts. And now is a fitting opportunity to draw attention to what has ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis
... features, again, had none of her mother's regularity of proportion. Her smile, simple and sweet, and soon passing away, was certainly not an inherited smile on the maternal side. Whether she resembled her father, I was unable to conjecture—having never seen him. The one thing certain was, that not the faintest trace, in feature or expression, of Eunice's mother was to be seen in Eunice herself. Of the two girls, Helena—judging by something in the color of ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... him anew, where his person should not be known. Jacopo forced his boat from among the crowd at the quay, and having entered the open space between the tiers, he lay on his oar, well knowing that he was watched, and that he would soon be followed. His conjecture was right, for in a few moments a gondola pulled swiftly to the side of his own, and two men in masks passed from the strange boat into that of the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... man's spirit, there is Progress, in spite of checks and hindrances which come from within it, a constant if chequered advance in true worth or value. And that knowledge I build on grounded and reasoned hope that it will and must continue—how, I do not know, but can only surmise and conjecture and imagine. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... a darker glimmer of old oak and old armour; and higher up hung the most extraordinary looking South Sea tools or utensils, whether designed for killing enemies or merely for cooking them, no mere white man could possibly conjecture. But the romance of the eye, which really on this rich evening, clung about the shop, had its main source in the accident of two doors standing open, the front door that opened on the street and a back door that opened on an odd green square of garden, that the sun turned to a square ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... was on visiting terms with the authorities—the general in command, the prefect, the receiver-general, and the bishop but in every house he was frigid, polite, and slightly supercilious, like a man out of his proper place awaiting the favors of power. His social talents he left to conjecture, nor did they lose anything in reputation on that account; then when people began to talk about him and wish to know him, and curiosity was still lively; when he had reconnoitred the men and found them nought, and studied the women with the eyes of experience in the cathedral for ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... plumbers who were at work in the south gutter. According to the "Builder" of that month, "a peculiar whirring noise" caused them to look inside the roof, and they found three of the main roof-timbers blazing. "The best conjecture seems to be that the dry twigs, straw, and similar debris, carried into the roof by birds, and which it has been the custom to clear at intervals out of the vault pockets, had caught fire from a spark that had in some way passed through the roof covering, perhaps under a sheet raised ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... even in our time received what I may call some fireside embellishments; but these are the facts, and the parish knows little beyond them. I (as you conjecture) know a great deal more; and yet there is a sense in which I know nothing more. You and I, my old friend, have come to an age when men do not care to juggle with the mysteries of another world, but knowing that the time is near when all accounts must ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "My conjecture is that she came either to confront Farrington with evidence of his complicity, which is unlikely, or else to secure confirmation of the story her lover told ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... danger too was great. Fritzing was so conscious of it that he used to break out into perspirations whenever Priscilla was with him in public, and his very perspirations were conspicuous. The strain made his manner oddly nervous when speaking to or of his niece, and he became the subject of much conjecture to the observant Robin. Robin thought that in spite of her caressing ways with her uncle the girl must be privately a dreadful tyrant. It seemed difficult to believe, but Robin prided himself on being ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... mark. Many eyes are fixed upon him; many have interest in his well-being; his movements are of concern; he can not disappear unheeded; his name is in many mouths; his name is upon many books; he is a man of note—of promissory note; he fills the speculation of many minds; men conjecture about him, wonder about him,—wonder and conjecture whether he will pay. He is a man of consequence, for many are running after him. His door is thronged with duns. He is inquired after every hour ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... swordsman, sir," Philip said; "though my arm may lack somewhat of the strength it will have, a few years later. But had it been otherwise, I should have still taken the course I have. I do not say your conjecture is a correct one, but at any rate I would prefer the most unequal fight to being seized and questioned. One can but be killed once, and it were better that it should be by a thrust in the open air than a long imprisonment, ending perhaps ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... engendered by local differences previous to organization, and the Governor desired to bridge over all these troubles by giving the regiment a commander who knew nothing about them. I presume that some one said to the Governor about this time, "Why don't you get Sheridan?" This, however, is only conjecture. I really do not know how my name was proposed to him, but I have often been told since that General Gordon Granger, whom I knew slightly then, and who had been the former colonel of the regiment, first suggested the appointment. At all events, on the morning of May ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... not conjecture by what miraculous conception the angelic prediction would be verified; but she did not hesitate a moment to allow the apparently incongruous facts of his being her son, and yet the Son of the Highest, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... few moments in which the brain, like a Samson shaking himself, is trying its strength, he had some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal proceeding. But the realities of his situation soon displaced conjecture on ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... no doubt. I wonder much that Dr. Macmichael or Dr. B. Hawkins, when favouring us with eastern quotations, did not give the public the opinion of Dr. Davy, who is so well known in Europe, and who saw the cholera in Ceylon; his conjecture (quite accessible, I believe, to every medical man in London) may perhaps be as valuable as that of any other person. The following is a copy of it:—"The cause of the disease is not any sensible change in the atmosphere; yet, considering ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... thoughts: namely, that the Zecharias that here is mentioned, might not be he that we find in the book of Chronicles (2 Chron 24:21); but one of that name that lived in the days of Christ, possibly John Baptist's father, or some other holy man. My reasons for this conjecture, are, 1. Because the murderers are convict by Christ himself: Zecharias, whom ye slew between the altar and the temple. 2. Because Christ makes a stop at the blood of Zecharias, not at the blood of John the Baptist: wherefore, if the person here mentioned were not murdered after, but before ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... might have done for Birmingham it is impossible to conjecture had he remained longer our local leader. But he was called up higher. Perhaps this was lucky for him. The great enterprises, or at least some of them, were only fairly started when he relinquished his grasp of them, and it remained to be seen whether ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... interrupted Montreal, "the only conjecture I could form;—Adeline's mother, on learning we had a son, sent to Adeline a letter, that well nigh broke her heart, reproaching her for her love to me, and so forth, as if that had made her the vilest of the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rescuing himself—The wife of Blackburn we cannot find to be sufficiently charged with any offence known to our laws which do not acknowledge a state of slavery; for the imputation of conspiring with the rioters and contriving the rescue is supported by no evidence and seems to rest on conjecture—The prisoner Blackburn it appears from the Documents before us was not committed for felony nor for any crime nor imprisoned for any cause which by our laws could be recognized as a justification of imprisonment. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... had was another groan, as from the burthened breast, as if he felt it almost an outrage to one whom he so reverenced to transfer to her the heart that had once beat for Meg Cree. There was no more speech for a long time, during which I feared that I had merely made him unhappy by communicating my conjecture, but just as we were reaching our own grounds he said, "You ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... French frontier, in exchanging ideas with English military experts as to how best her neutrality could be defended, Belgium was preparing for the inevitable. This inevitableness is no longer a matter of moral conjecture. It is a matter of ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... adopted the erroneous hypothesis of Columbus, who considered the lands he had discovered, as bordering on the eastern shores of Asia, and lying adjacent to the vast and opulent regions depicted in such golden colors by Mandeville and the Poli. This conjecture, which was conformable to the admiral's opinions before undertaking the voyage, was corroborated by the apparent similarity between various natural productions of these islands, and of the east. From this misapprehension, the new dominions soon came to be distinguished ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... this was only conjecture, and I must have certainty. The certainty came that evening. Mr. Hammond passed the store as I was standing by the counter, and insisted that I should go home to tea with him. I had often done so before, and had no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... was the same who pillaged Angers, and commanded a fleet of Saxon pirates on the ocean. Greg. Turon. l. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170. 8 Note: According to St. Martin there is no foundation for this conjecture, vii 5—M.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... to estimate the amount or direction of the movements due to volcanic power by no means renders its efficacy as a land-preserving force in past times a mere matter of conjecture. The student will see in Chapter 24 that we have proofs of Carboniferous forests hundreds of miles in extent which grew on the lowlands or deltas near the sea, and which subsided and gave place to other forests, until in some regions fluviatile ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... had been compelled to join the Francesca, and who, from their dejected appearance, he conjectured were not altogether pleased or satisfied with the arrangement, he entered into conversation with them, and soon contrived to elicit from them that his conjecture was well founded. Thereupon, as there was no time to lose, he took the bold course of asking them outright whether, in the event of there being a scheme afoot on the part of others to escape from the brigantine to the ship, they would be disposed to join in it, to which they replied ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... "upstairs teacher"—that is, the lady who presided over the grammar grade of the school—and the question of her probable successor. In fact, this question of who the new teacher was to be was the prevailing subject of surmise and conjecture in the village ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... funereal chamber draped with black; while another authority declares that the poet, the victim of his own satires, was hung on a fork-shaped gibbet, not on account of his abuse of Pius IV., but through the hatred of Pius V., which some personal quarrel had excited. This conjecture is, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... Grandfather, "though you have made a pretty shrewd conjecture. He planned, in 1745, an expedition against Louisbourg. This was a fortified city, on the Island of Cape Breton, near Nova Scotia. Its walls were of immense height and strength, and were defended by hundreds of heavy cannon. It was the strongest fortress which the French possessed in ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... burial? Why, presumably he lives still. But not with the life of the universal soul. Oh no! There have been mystics in China, but the Chinese are not mystical. What he was he still is, an eating and drinking creature, and, one might even conjecture, a snob. For if one visits the family chapel of the Changs—another of the sights of Canton—one sees ranged round the walls hundreds of little tablets, painted green and inscribed in gold. These are the memorials of the deceased. And they are arranged in three classes, those who ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... appeal to Leigh's imagination. Through it, as through a golden mist, he saw the drama of life sublimated, himself an actor of dignity and worth; and a few moments later he entered the president's office with a poise in which there remained no trace of anxious conjecture. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... accept any such conclusion or result merely because it removes difficulties or because it makes or rather leaves the poetry better; but I shall present—that the Sonnets contain direct testimony, testimony not leading to surmise or conjecture, but testimony which would authorize a judgment in a court of law, that the Sonnets were not written by Shakespeare, and that they very strongly indicate that Shakespeare was the friend or patron to whom so many of ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... will be seen that there were lakes in the centre of what is now the island-continent of Australia—lakes where the land is at present exceedingly dry and parched. By the second map period those lakes had disappeared, and it seems natural to conjecture that the districts where those lakes lay, must, during the eruptions of the great volcanoes which lay to the south-east (between the present Australia and New Zealand), have been so raked with red-hot volcanic dust that the very ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... did not originate in our solar system has been verified, for we find that the globe of which it was once a part revolved around an immense sun which had a retinue of twenty- seven planets of various sizes. Whether this great sun is one of the stars of our firmament we can only conjecture; perhaps in some future state ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... from between her long curls, with great anxiety, "you do know more only you are afraid to tell us. Pray be kind to us, and tell us all you know." "Why should I tell you what would add to your sorrow, when there may be nothing but conjecture in the idea?" "Oh," said the eager Mother, "tell us all, we are so bewildered and lost in conjectures, that nothing you can tell us could add to the anxiety we are in. Moreover, I think I know what you mean. I have already hinted such a thing to my husband. Are ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... walking-stick and quitted the house, leaving his pupil to gather up her music and conjecture, meanwhile, whether the wood-yard or a neighboring bar-room was his ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Laurillard's arm with the other, he led him up-stairs to present him to his wife and sister-in-law, saying, 'I have got my foot, and M. Laurillard found it for me.' It seems that this skilful operation confirmed all M. Cuvier's previous conjecture concerning a foot, the existence and form of which he had already guessed, but for which he had long and vainly sought. So occupied had he been by it, that, when he appeared to be particularly absent, his family were wont to accuse him of seeking his fore-foot. The next morning ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... shape, and as giving only solidity or hardness, which last, it is apprehended, is the only sense in which our author here considers crystallization, although, from the way in which he has employed this principle, it would seem that it is the figure which is to be explained by it. This conjecture is supported by the example of alabaster or stalactites, with which he compares the section of those mountains; for, in the example of implicated figures of the stalactite marble, similar to those of the present distorted strata, crystallization ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... traveller has however, with much ingenuity of conjecture, given us an excellent reason why the Sphinx was peculiar to Egypt, as the Nile was observed to overflow when the sun was in those ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... told herself at this moment whether she was glad or sorry that the impressive manager was awaiting her presence. She was slightly flurried and tingling in the cheeks, but it was more nervousness than either fear or favour. She did not try to conjecture what the drift of the conversation would be. She only felt that she must be careful, and that Hurstwood had an indefinable fascination for her. Then she gave her tie its last touch with ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... undoubtedly a benefactor to her small public. She had roused the intelligence of Drayton Parva as it had never been roused before. Conjecture followed furtively on her footsteps, and inference met her and stared her in the face. No circumstance, not even Sir Peter's innocent admiration, was too trivial to furnish a link in the chain of evidence against her. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... and yet more bitterly they bewailed them, and the mariners were at their wits' end, as the gale grew hourly more violent, nor knew they, nor might conjecture, whither they went, they drew nigh the island of Rhodes, albeit that Rhodes it was they wist not, and set themselves, as best and most skilfully they might, to run the ship aground. In which enterprise Fortune favoured them, bringing them ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... beginning of history. But that beginning had emerged without any breach of continuity from a development which carries us back to a quadrimane ancestor, still further back (according to Darwin's conjecture) to a marine animal of the ascidian type, and then through remoter periods to the lowest form of organism. It is essential in this theory that though links have been lost there was no break in the gradual development; and this conception of a continuous ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... may be suffered by those whom you seek to avenge I can conjecture but I wish never to hear. I pray God that I may never know what it might break my heart to learn. You must save them, you must also avenge them. You are strong, and you are implacable. When you strike your blow will ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... which after the third generation a tall and highly self-fertile variety appeared. But as in the two succeeding generations the crossed plants resumed their former superiority over the self-fertilised, the case must be looked at as an anomaly. The sole conjecture which I can form is that the crossed seeds had not been sufficiently ripened, and thus produced weakly plants, as occurred with Iberis. When the crossed plants were between 3 and 4 inches in height, ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... believed, they were not singular; or, anyhow, he wasn't; he saw what he was convinced was the same failure in the men past youth about him. But in Fanny there was, he recognized, that fierce if narrow singleness of impulse, of purity. His thoughts of other women were not innocent of provocative conjecture—Anette's sinuous body, now as dead to him as Alohabad, recurred to his mind—but in this Fanny was utterly loyal. Yes, she had, a thing impossible for any man he had known, a ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... having remained about twelve months and explored the adjacent country, became so discouraged and exhausted by fatigue and famine, that they abandoned the country. Sir Richard Grenville returning shortly afterwards to America, and not being able to find them, and at a loss to conjecture their fate, left in the island another small party of settlers and again ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... ten years' rebellion as well as the present insurrection from its start. No alternative save physical exhaustion of either combatant, and therewithal the practical ruin of the island, lay in sight, but how far distant no one could venture to conjecture. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... vestige of popular election; and it contained no provision for enforcing in any individual State, whose ruler might choose to disregard it, the principle of constitutional rule. Whether the Federation would in any degree have protected Germany in case of attack by France or Russia is matter for conjecture, since a long period of peace followed the year 1815; but so far was it from securing liberty to the Minor States, that in the hands of Metternich the Diet, impotent for every other purpose, became an instrument for the persecution ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... wall, but remains covered as it extends to a great distance inside the city, being carried on a high arch of baked brick. Consequently, when the men under the command of Magnus and Ennes had got inside the fortifications, they were one and all unable even to conjecture where in the world they were. Furthermore, they could not leave the aqueduct at any point until the foremost of them came to a place where the aqueduct chanced to be without a roof and where stood a building ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... anonymous author always arouses a certain inquiry, and when the book is clever and original the interest becomes keen; and conjecture is rife, endowing the most unlikely people with authorship.... It is very brilliant, very forcible, very sad.... It is perfect in its way, in style clear, sharp and forcible, the dialogue epigrammatic and sparkling.... Enough has been said to show that 'The Hypocrite' is a striking ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... price, from a new king, confirmations of the important grants of his predecessors. But any explanation of the ground of right on which the king demanded this general redemption of lands must remain from lack of evidence a mere conjecture. The fact itself seems beyond question, and is an indication of no little value of the views and intentions of the new king. The kingdom was his; all the land must be held of him and with his formal consent, but no uncalled-for disturbance ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... was rumored that an American corvette of twenty-two guns had been brought into Rio, a prize to a British seventy-four. This intelligence placed Capt. Porter in some perplexity. He felt convinced that the successful American frigate was the "Constitution;" a conjecture in which he was correct, for the news referred to the celebrated action of that ship with the "Java." The captured American corvette, he concluded, must be the "Hornet;" but herein the captain was wrong, for the "Hornet" was at that moment ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to the community had Edison's automatic telegraph inventions been allowed to take their legitimate place in the art, but we shall not allow ourselves to indulge in flights of fancy, as the value of this chapter rests not upon conjecture, but only upon actual fact. Nor shall we attempt to offer any statistics regarding Edison's numerous inventions relating to telegraphs and kindred devices, such as stock tickers, relays, magnets, rheotomes, repeaters, printing telegraphs, messenger calls, etc., on which ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... these testimonies belong to the region of conjecture. Let me close this chapter by a narrative of fact, derived from the late Lord de Ros, who was an eye-witness of the events which he narrated. Arthur Thistlewood (whose execution for the "Cato Street Conspiracy" I have described ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... sense of poetic form, he has not read the poems aloud to get the charm of their melody, and he will not let them linger in his mind long enough to feel that the simplest sentiments are often the most profound and moving. He simply tries to conjecture what sort of questions he is likely to meet on examination. Doubtless from this type of pupil better results can be obtained by the reading of prose not too familiar, that suggests more questions for ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... of poverty. There must have been in his mind, I think, a dim feeling: "Did all my dark crises mean only this; was I crucified only that I might become a solicitor's clerk?" Whatever be the truth about this conjecture there can be no question about the facts themselves. It was about this time that he began to burst and bubble over, to insist upon his own intellect, to claim a career. It was about this time that he put together a loose pile of papers, satires on institutions, pictures of private persons, ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... funds than was reckoned; dear old gentleman doesn't cut up as well as they hoped! And meanwhile our friend B——! Does it dawn on you at all, from our friend B——'s point of view, Sergeant? I may be wrong, but that's my provisional conjecture. The question remains how he's got the old gent ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... he seemed singularly uncommunicative, and we could get but little out of him beyond the fact that he had, with very great difficulty, reached the summit, and found my conjecture as to its being an extinct crater correct. He thawed a little during dinner, and volunteered the information that he had seen land far away on the southern board—nearly or quite a hundred miles distant, he supposed— ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... something good or evil, or produced some exceptional work; or if this is denied them, at any rate to hear from others what he looks like. This is why, on the one hand, they go to places where they conjecture he is to be found; and on the other, why the press, and especially the English press, tries to describe him in a minute and striking way; he is soon brought visibly before us either by a painter or an engraver; and ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... "it is true; and that makes me conjecture, that these devils were in fact only playing a part; to deceive me into thinking that the red heathen around us were not really the children of Satan, as ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... impossible to conjecture in what an exchange of confidences may terminate: it may be a kiss, or it ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... obviousness and familiarity of a casual observation. The truth of the imitation is indeed so great, that it has been argued that Fielding must have had his materials ready-made to his hands, and was merely a transcriber of local manners and individual habits. For this conjecture, however, there seems to be no foundation. His representations, it is true, are local and individual; but they are not the less profound and conclusive. The feeling of the general principles of human nature, operating in particular circumstances, is always intense, and uppermost in his mind; and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and, although they belonged to different political parties, the young poet must have known and visited the old polymath; there was every reason for him to have taken advantage of the opportunity. Whatever justification there may be for this conjecture, the fact remains that Varro is in the background every where throughout the Georgics, as the "deadly parallel" in the appended note will indicate. This is perhaps the most interesting thing about Varro's treatise: ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... replied with the most provoking simplicity. The uncle was annoyed. He would rather that Ralph should have relieved him, by a conjecture of his own, from the necessity of hinting to him that such extreme sympathies, between the parties, were by no means a matter of course. But the nephew would not, or could not, see; and his surprise, at the uncle's course, was perpetually looking for explanation. It ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... assumed position, postulation, condition, presupposition, hypothesis, blue sky hypothesis, postulate, postulatum[Lat], theory; thesis, theorem; data; proposition, position; proposal &c. (plan) 626; presumption &c. (belief) 484; divination. conjecture; guess, guesswork, speculation; rough guess, shot, shot in the dark [coll.]; conjecturality[obs3]; surmise, suspicion, sneaking suspicion; estimate, approximation (nearness) 197. inkling, suggestion, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... not win anything even if he tried. Others darkly hinted that he was one of the authors of the house's present disgrace; and others whispered that there was no love lost between Railsford and his fourth prefect. In this last conjecture the gossips were right. Felgate and the Master of the Shell had not hit it from the first day of their acquaintance; and within the last few days an occurrence had taken place which had brought the two into ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... it, one inflicted from the back and two from the front, but who inflicted or caused to be inflicted those wounds it was impossible to assert with knowledge, though it was easy enough to hazard a conjecture. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... had written, purely to amuse myself, before I was admitted to my charmer. But now I have to tell thee, that I was quite right in my conjecture, that she would set up for herself, and dismiss me: for she has declared in so many words that such was her resolution: And why? Because, to be plain with me, the more she saw of me, and of my ways, the less ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... is known that there is vital heat in man and in every living creature; but its origin is not known. Every one speaks of it from conjecture, consequently such as have known nothing of the correspondence of natural things with spiritual have ascribed its origin, some to the sun's heat, some to the activity of the parts, some to life itself; but as they have not known what life is, they have been content with the mere phrase. But any ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... when he began to stumble, loud was the laughter, which is not in good taste, not even in Germans. And if there was always a full audience to honour the Liedenbrock courses, I should be sorry to conjecture how many came to make merry ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... might conjecture, even if we knew nothing more about him, that Sulpicius was a man of very fine clay, of real humanitas in the widest sense of that expressive word; and this is entirely borne out in other ways.[179] Emerging at last from retirement, he stood again ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... transcends, or is absolutely detached from, all human experience. Uncompounded (asankhato) may refer to the passing away of all sankharas but what may be the meaning of dhatu or element in this context, I do not presume to conjecture. But whatever else the word may mean, it clearly does not signify annihilation. Both here and in the Questions of Milinda an impression is produced in the mind of the reader, and perhaps was not absent in the mind of the writer, that nirvana is a sphere ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... felt like it, and did not scruple to leave an observation, or even a question, permanently suspended in an embarrassing silence. Quin soon found it much more interesting to commune with himself. It was exciting to conjecture what was about to happen, and what effect it would have on his love affair. If he got a raise, would he be justified in putting his fate to the test? All spring he had fought the temptation of going to New York in the hope that by waiting he would have more to offer. If by any miracle of grace Miss ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... stewardess was to help along the matter. It seemed to me that some heavy reward had been promised to Cornwood for his services, or he would not endanger the liberal wages he was paid for his services on board of the Sylvania. But I knew nothing about the matter, and it was useless to conjecture ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... in the balance, he experienced a sudden distaste of his work which almost drove him into renouncing the whole affair. But the habits of a lifetime are not parted with so easily; and when the Chief Inspector observed—evidently with the idea of goading him on—"This seems to be mainly a matter of conjecture, Gryce," his old self reasserted itself, and ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. And yet I aimed better than I knew, for, with a loud report, one of the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. It was very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast, clear bladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant the huge, cloud-like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance, while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... American camp that the decision to hold the city was now reconsidered, and the evacuation fixed for September 15. It was seen that the storm centre was now shifting over toward the American communications, but just where it would break forth was still a matter of conjecture. ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... division was also in process of organization, and he, like Sherman, was in advance, and on Sherman's left. The complete absence of the ordinary precautions, always taken by military commanders since the beginning of history, is inexplicable. The only reason I can conjecture for it grows out of the character of General Grant and his distinguished subordinate, and their inexperience. They had had then little practical knowledge of actual warfare. General Sherman, except on one occasion, ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney
... was obscure. He must be introduced, as he has come down to us, without rank or pedigree. His pedigree nature acknowledged, and gave him a right to become great among her sons. His birth is a matter of fact, its time and place, circumstances of conjecture. Some affirm that he was born at the Old Seneca Castle, near the foot of Seneca lake, not far from 1750. [Footnote: Hist. of North American tribes by ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... tell you, ladies? It is painful to leave a subject where the soul has so many mysterious emanations; there is such a field for conjecture; but as everything in this world must have an end, so must even ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned. She wished rather to forestall his arrival by a process of conjecture, and to judge by the expression of her face this attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse of the year she had spent in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space and surveyed much of mankind, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... again, as to who would most probably take her in to dinner, who would be assigned to Mr. Alwynn, and whether Ruth would be taken in by a married man or a single one. As it was quite impossible absolutely to settle these interesting points beforehand, Mrs. Alwynn's mind had a vast field for conjecture opened to her, in which she disported herself at will, varying the entertainment for herself and Ruth by speculating as to who would sit on the other side of each of them; "for," as she justly observed, "everybody has two ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... friends, originated with me, and I proposed it in consequence of his calling to my recollection the certificates he had received from them. I then had no suspicion awake, and I believed what he told me. In what manner the disguise was ultimately disposed of I can only conjecture, as any one else might, from the evidence given on the trial. He presented himself to me in a grey great coat, and a green under coat; and if the persons whose affidavits I now tender had been examined on the trial, and they did attend for that purpose, I do feel persuaded that ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... flower-bud or an inflorescence than a leaf-bud or a branch. This may be due to the position of the flowers on a portion of the stem of the plant especially devoted to the formation of flower-buds, to the more or less complete exclusion of leaf-buds, i.e. on the inflorescence. This conjecture is borne out by the comparative rarity with which prolification has been observed in flowers that are solitary in the axils of the ordinary leaves of the plant. If the lists of genera appended hereto be perused, it will be seen that nearly all the cases occur in genera where the inflorescence ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... Sayce has even gone so far as to suggest an identification of Adapa (by reading Adawa) with the Biblical Adam, but this conjecture is untenable. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... residence, a complete stranger to her neighbors. She was quiet and well-behaved; she wore good clothes and shamefully neglected her child. These were the meager facts upon which gossip built a tower of conjecture. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... queries were forthcoming. Durend could have spoken, but would not. Dale might have spoken; for though he knew not the plans of his chief, his position at the rudder enabled him to conjecture a great deal. But he, too, was dumb. So it was that the Benson crew could answer the questions of their distressed friends only by referring them with disparaging shrugs of the shoulders to ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... are not left to conjecture in regard to the status or condition of Abraham's servants; we will bring proofs showing that it could not have ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen
... occupied, and hobbled towards the window. I thought a signal-gun was just then audible, as from some vessel in distress. Ere I could communicate this intelligence, another and a nearer roll silenced all conjecture. It was indeed but too evident that a vessel was in the offing, and rapidly driving towards the shore, from the increasing distinctness of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... was introduced among the Indians at the time of which we write, it is impossible to say and useless to conjecture. The fact of its desolating effects is unquestionable. One who dwelt in the country at the time writes: [See Sir Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages, page 14.] "The fatal infection spread around with a baneful rapidity which no flight could escape, ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... willing the spirit, to hide the wound our guilt had dealt him. Whatever the object of this display, it gave me a great itching to retreat behind my sister's skirts, for fear and shame. And, as it appeared, he was quick to conjecture my feeling: for at once he dropped the fantastic manner and proceeded to a quiet and appallingly lucid statement of ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... too much to conjecture that it was remembered also in popular poetry; and these and other classical writers of the Middle Ages, who despised not the common folk and their ways, no doubt drank deeply of knowledge and inspiration from the clear and hidden ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... them in orderly array; but, under the cold logic of events, one by one they crumbled and fell away. More and more heavily, more and more depressingly the enormity of his offense weighed upon him as he considered it, and what the outcome of it all would be he did not even dare to conjecture. ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... that there was considerable bustle in the palace, attended by hammering, and the sound of furniture either placed or displaced. She had paid very little attention to it, for the rooms were entirely empty, and she could only conjecture that her needy spouse might have rented them out for the carnival. But the noise came nearer and nearer, until she perceived that it had reached the adjoining chamber, whence she could hear the sound of voices, and distinguish much ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... intellectual state or commonwealth of learning, will soon discover the first ground of disagreement between the two great parties at this time in arms, and may form just conclusions upon the merits of either cause. But the issue or events of this war are not so easy to conjecture at; for the present quarrel is so inflamed by the warm heads of either faction, and the pretensions somewhere or other so exorbitant, as not to admit the least overtures of accommodation. This quarrel first ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... soon be for the removal of the Seminoles. I regret that the Cherokees east of the Mississippi have not yet determined as a community to remove. How long the personal causes which have heretofore retarded that ultimately inevitable measure will continue to operate I am unable to conjecture. It is certain, however, that delay will bring with it accumulated evils which will render their condition more and more unpleasant. The experience of every year adds to the conviction that emigration, and that alone, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson |
