"Assumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... respectable papers to give currency to books destitute of all merit, by the application to them of stereotyped phrases of commendation. These letters, without a grace of style, without a flash of wit, without a genial ray of humor, deformed by coarse breeding, vulgar self-conceit, and ignorant assumption, are bepraised as if they were fresh from the mint of genius, and bore the image and superscription of Madame de Sevigne or Lady Mary Wortley! This evil must be cured, or the daily press may find that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... of North Africa. True, it is defined by Skeat as 'a hot wind,' but that is only a part of its definition. Its marked characteristic is that it is sand-laden, densely hazy and black, and therefore 'choking,' like the brickfielder. The not unnatural assumption that writers by comparing a brickfielder with a sirocco, thereby imply that a brickfielder is a hot wind, is thus disposed of by this characteristic, and by the notes on the passages quoted. They were dwelling only on its choking dust, and its suffocating qualities,—'a miniature sirocco.' ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... was done. "Now, my friend," he continued, "I wish to speak to you on the remark made in your letter, in which you say that you consider the Church of Rome the mother of all Churches, and that it has the advantage of antiquity. You evidently go first on the assumption that our Lord instituted a visible Church on earth, and that that Church, though corrupted, is the Church of Rome. Now I wish to draw your attention to the origin of that wonderful establishment which has for so long exerted a ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... was as mischievous as a monkey, and who loved to play cat and mouse with a woman, continued to gaze at her with his assumption of fierce attention. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... there was this great objection that his father, though wielding the sceptre for a few months, had borne arms in the Jinshin disturbance against Temmu and Jito, and was held to have forfeited his title by defeat and suicide. His assumption of the sceptre would have created a most embarrassing situation, and his enforced disqualification might have led to trouble. In this dilemma, the Empress convened a State council, Prince Kuzuno also being present, and submitted the question for their ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... slowly. "I am pursuing a matter in which I feel certain that I need your help. There has been some evil connection between Scammon and my son. What it is Scammon has refused to tell me. I will first of all tell you what I do know. I am telling you, of course, on the assumption that you are all young men of honor, and that you will treat a father's confidence as men of ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... both of these injunctions, a heart at leisure from itself is needed to sympathise; and not less needed is a sedulous cultivation of the power of sympathy. No doubt temperament has much to do with the degree of our obedience; but this whole context goes on the assumption that the grace of God working on temperament strengthens natural endowments by turning them into 'gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.' Though we live in that awful individuality of ours, and are each, as it were, is landed in ourselves 'with echoing straits ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... one of the many natives who conspired from time to time against the Dutch. According to Raffles, the Dutch administration of Java was distinguished from the very first by a "haughty assumption of superiority, for the purpose of overawing the credulous simplicity of the natives, and a most extraordinary timidity, which led them to suspect treachery and danger in quarters where they were least to be apprehended." But large allowances must be made for the precarious position ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... Crispin, with a fine assumption of anger. "Assist you take a man? Sink me, sir, I would have you know I am a soldier, not ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... upon the second Thursday after the Feast of the Assumption, in the year of our Lord thirteen hundred and sixty-six, against brother John, formerly known as Hordle John, or John of Hordle, but now a novice in the holy monastic order of the Cistercians. Read upon the same day at the Abbey of ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... between Great Britain and Ireland in 1903-04," and I learn from the Inland Revenue Department that by this means the consumption per head of the population was arrived at, and that the present official figures are based on the assumption that the relation of consumption per head in Ireland to consumption per head in the United Kingdom as a whole has not altered since 1903-04. The unreliability of this assumption is manifest. It is probable that the heavy additional duty on spirits has ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... at Mrs. Roby's unwonted assumption of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby's flippancy, at least the Lunch Club would do so ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... closing quote immediately before footnote reference [40] has been deleted. The text immediately preceding this quote mark does not occur in the referenced work, so I have made the assumption that this quote mark was a typographical error and ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... investigation of the fact—facts for the people, and for himself as one of the people—that's the pivot on which Mathew Mizzle turns and returns, one fact being to his mind worth whole volumes of speculative assumption; and to Mizzle all facts, let them relate to what they may, are of peculiar interest. It is useless to tell him so. He must go, see and examine for himself. Often, for instance, as he had been told that Gruffenhoff's big dog would bite at the aspect of strange visitations, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... modifications. It was given dinners, lunches, and receptions, but nothing more. At last the Cubans shrugged their shoulders. The desire for an immediate withdrawal of American authority, and for Cuban assumption of the reins of government, outweighed the objection to the terms imposed. A Cuban leader said: "There is no use in objecting to the inevitable. It is either annexation or a Republic with the Amendment. I prefer the latter." After four ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... since I have been in the Academy. The Southern clique and the Northern clique have been well defined; there is always an assumption of superiority on the one side, and some resenting of it on the other side. It was on that ground Gary ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in the main to the lower forms of life, have maintained very plausibly that males are more katabolic than females, and that maleness is the product of influences tending to produce a katabolic habit of body.[1] If this assumption is correct, maleness and femaleness are merely a repetition of the contrast existing between the animal and the plant. The katabolic animal form, through its rapid destruction of energy, has been carried developmentally ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... Newman tells us, "Here may be sufficient to remark, that the difficulty on the Epicurean assumption, that physical case and comfort is the most valuable thing in the universe: but that is not true even with brutes. There is a certain perfection in the nature of each, consisting in the full development of all their powers, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Lois, drawing up her pretty figure with a most unwonted assumption of astonished dignity. Both the dignity and the astonishment drew all eyes upon her. She was looking at Mrs. Marx with eyes full of startled displeasure. Mrs. Marx was entrenched behind a whole army of coffee and tea pots ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... depend on it for their production, which it gives to them, not one refusing obedience to it. When its work is accomplished, it does not claim the name of having done it. It clothes all things as with a garment, and makes no assumption of being their lord;—it may be named in the smallest things. All things return (to their root and disappear), and do not know that it is it which presides over their doing so;—it may be named in the ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... composition, she had forgiven him. Though she did not always understand Senor Perkins, she liked him too well to allow him to become ridiculous to others; and at the present moment she promptly interposed with a charming assumption of coquetry. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... discussion of late of the possibility that the great lakes cities may suffer a water famine. The rapid increase of population along the borders of these great seas, it has been said, might render the water unfit for use. This fear is based upon the assumption that we shall always continue the present very foolish practice of dumping our sewage into the source of our water supply. The time may come when we shall know better how to protect the public health and at the same time husband the public resources. But ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Professor Bury's new theory rests on a very faint similarity between Bonaven or Bannaven—the name which the Saint gives to the town of his birth—and Bannaventa; and on an entirely gratuitous assumption that there must have been a town named Bannaventa "in the regions of the ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... is here made of observations by members of the Committee upon certain features of the Medium's operations, which tended to discredit the assumption of a supernatural agency in the production of the slate writings. In the above instance a slate which had been noted as standing against a leg of the table and behind the chair of the Medium, but conveniently ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... you! you can rely upon liking the things of this kind that I do." Madeira's assumption was comprehensive and bland. There was absolutely no sense in going against that manner of his at this stage of developments. Steering began to ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... accepted assumption that the macadam road surface is somewhat more stable than the gravel road surface of equal thickness, and since this is probably the consensus of opinion of engineers familiar with both types, it may be ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... ore appears white, it is best to assume that it already contains at least a sufficiency of silver, in the absence of any knowledge to the contrary. This will be true in almost all cases. But if, on parting, it does not lose at least two-thirds of its weight, this indicates that the assumption was not justified; and also what quantity of silver must be added to the button before again attempting to part. Generally the fault will be in the other direction; the silver will be in excess and the gold will break up and ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... I am extremely pleased to meet a gentleman so well informed in my quarterings. Is monsieur Born himself?" This I said with a great air of assumption, partly to conceal the degree of curiosity with which my visitor had inspired me, and in part because it struck me as highly incongruous and comical in my prison garb and on the lips of a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a man of the world, well-read, very little of a philosopher, and nothing of a theologian, and upon those terms with the ancient classes which alone give the Gospel occasional access to circles for which it is not suited. Abbe Dupanloup, already well known for his success at the Catechism of the Assumption among a public which set more store by elegant phrases than doctrine, was just the man to play an innocent part in the comedy which simple souls would regard as an edifying act of grace. His intimacy with the Duchesse de Dino, and especially with her daughter, whose religious ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... comments upon the evil propensities of poor relations in general, and the shocking lack of respectability in this branch of the order in particular. Worldly wisdom was not a family trait, Dolly's half-whimsical assumption of it being the only symptom of the existence of such a gift, and Mollie was the most sublimely thoughtless of the lot. Mrs. Phil had never been guilty of a discreet act in her life. Phil himself regarded consequences less than he regarded anything else, and Aimee's childish ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that he would be much as they were if his conditions of life were the same. He never deceived himself, young as he was, with the false platitudes of boastful altruists. "I should enjoy myself if I were rich," he would say—and sigh upon it; for what assumption could be ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... to go and drown yourself, and be damned to you," he said, with an unsuccessful assumption of brutality in his manner, "but I won't. We are responsible for one another—worse luck. I am almost ashamed of myself, but I can understand your dirty pride. I can! By . ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the grass outside to-morrow morning," said Walter, opening the window, and dropping it down. He wasn't a bit afraid, because he always went on the instinctive and never-mistaken assumption, that a bully must be a coward in his inmost nature. Cruelty to the weaker is incompatible with the generosity of ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... and inflicted many outrages upon one another and on the rest until they learned that Caesar, having settled the affairs of Egypt, had started for Rome. They were carrying on the quarrel under the assumption that he would never return again but be killed somewhere abroad by the Egyptians, as, indeed, they kept hearing. When his coming was reported they moderated their conduct for a time, but as soon as he set out against Pharnaces they ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... while my spleen rose at his superior indifference. I have always been a man of the people, and have fought my way along to whatever position I have held on the comprehensive rule of give and take. Nothing is so offensive to me as the assumption of superiority when backed solely by a man's own conception of his value. Therefore it was in no pleasant tone that I addressed the stranger on his return to the ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... brother, while the King, chuckling greatly over the lad's show of courtliness and ceremony, went into a learned discussion with my lord of Montacute and Master Sandy as to the origin of the snapdragon, which he, with his customary assumption of deep learning, declared was "but a modern paraphrase, my lord, of the fable which telleth how Dan Hercules did kill the flaming dragon of Hesperia and did then, with the apple of that famous orchard, make a fiery dish of burning apple brandy ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... sepulchre, the tomb is proved to have been that of Lorenzo. When the lid of the sarcophagus was raised, there accordingly were the two bodies visible—one dressed in white, the other in black. It has been assumed—and I think the assumption is abundantly justified, as will presently be seen—that the skeleton in black is that of Lorenzo, and the skeleton in white that of Alexander. The relative position of the bodies was very singular. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the Hathorn cat was found dead in the yard. Furthermore, the cat she battered was a white cat with a black spot on one side, and this is the exact description of the Hathorn cat; therefore, your honors, you will see that the assumption, or pretense, or excuse, call it what you will, by which this man justifies his tyrannical treatment of these unfortunate boys has no base or foundation whatever. You can go now, Mr. Hathorn; I have nothing ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... leaving Nelson's force unchanged, directed him to follow a particular line of operations in the district committed to him, it is conceivable that circumstances, unknown to his superior, might have justified him in choosing another; but there was nothing in the conditions that authorized his assumption that he could decide for the whole command. And this is not the less true, because Nelson was in the general a man of far sounder judgment and keener insight than Keith, or because his intuitions in ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the same time demonstrative of affection is difficult, even with mothers towards their children, though with them the assumption of authority creates no sense of injury. Emily specially desired to point out to the erring one the paths of virtue, and yet to do so ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... the same digestion coefficients, but vary with individuals as to ease of digestion and time required. It is generally considered that the digestible proteins, whether of animal or vegetable origin, are equally valuable for food purposes. This is an assumption, however, that has not been well established by experimental evidence. In a mixed ration, the proteins from different sources appear to have the same nutritive value, but as each is composed of different radicals ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... multitudes of authorities for this assumption I need only mention Strabo, who calls the first settlers on its northern end (whence the whole gulph was denominated) [Greek: Everoi]; or Livy, who merely Latinizes the term as Heneti, lib. i. cap. i., "Antenorem cum multitudine Henetum." With the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... stood there, quiet and compelling, there was an assumption of frankness and honesty about this man that it was hard to withstand. For the nonce I was persuaded of his sincerity, and weakly I surrendered my hand. His ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... and returned by Detroit to see the great American chief, Governor Cass, residing there. Both of these persons told him that if the Indians had not sold their lands and would remain quietly upon them, they would not be disturbed. Black Hawk, acting upon the assumption that the land on which their village stood, never had been legally sold to the United States, returned home determined to keep possession of it. It was late in the fall when he arrived: his people had gone to their hunting grounds for the winter and he followed them. They made an ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... attribute to the object. Or, to express it physically, we assume that the external force acting on the sense-organ invariably produces the same effect, and that the effect always varies with the external cause. But this assumption, though true in the main, is not perfectly correct. It supposes that the organic conditions are constant, and that the organic process faithfully reflects the external operation. Neither of these suppositions is ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... unreflective he had assumed that life would be a continuance of small pleasures and refined enjoyments, little dinners and pleasant converse, Dora and a comfortable home, mutual mild delight in flowers and table decoration. Into this assumption Seymour Michael had suddenly stepped—strong, restless, and mysterious—and Arthur became uneasily conscious of possibilities. There might be something in his own life, there might even be something within ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... second fiddle—" she began, with an assumption of scornful irascibility which became her less ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... assuming the whole management of the negotiation in virtue of the power vested in him, in case of the non-arrival of Mr. Hunt. That power, however, was limited and specific, and did not extend to an operation of this nature and extent; no objection, however, was made to his assumption, and he and M'Tavish soon made a preliminary arrangement, perfectly ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... rod, watching for a false quantity or similar peccadillo, which may justify a withering rebuke or a vigorous flagellation. If we add, that these writers exhibit that accuracy of statement which usually accompanies the assumption of infallibility, and that their English is of that prim and painful kind, common to pedagogues, which betrays a constant fear of being caught tripping while engaged in correcting others, the comparison—to cite once more M. de Pontmartin—"will appear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... here to observe, that on such occasions in Spain it is considered as a species of privilege to be allowed to pay, which is an honour generally claimed by the principal man of the party. Pepe Conde did not fail to take umbrage at the attempt of Pindamonas, which he considered as an undue assumption of superiority, and put in his own claim; but Pindamonas insisted, and at last flung down the money on the table, whereupon Pepe Conde instantly unclasped one of those terrible Manchegan knives which are generally carried ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... side, for the moment, these doubtful and insufficiently investigated cases, we may still maintain that the assumption that changes induced by external conditions in the organism as a whole are communicated to the germ-cells after the manner indicated in Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis, is wholly unnecessary for the explanation ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... as the officer commanding the Downingsville militia, a New-Englander, and a stanch adherent of the "Gineral's, so far as 'a decent hunk of the animal wint,' but entirely agin' the whole-hog system." Under this perfect assumption there appeared a series of really familiar epistles, either remonstrating with or speaking of the "Gineral," or, as the Major latterly styled the President, "the Govermint;" no less admirable for the political acumen they display than for a caustic drollery, which is enforced with shrewd ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... last letter, I declare that since the first assault, in which we were driven back with the loss of Captain Don Pedro Mena Pando, Adjutant Oliva, and Alferez Trigita, we have made two other assaults. One was on the twenty-fourth of March, the eve of our Lady of the Assumption. The second was on the twenty-eighth of the same month. In the first, we trusted to the mines that had been made, by means of which we expected to make a safe entrance. We would have made it had our fear of receiving harm from them matched ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... steps were promptly taken to ascertain the truth of this assumption. An agent was sent out to the island of Porto Rico, who brought back all the proofs needed to establish the claim, and also the lad himself, who was represented to be in his fourteenth year. He was a coarse, wicked-looking boy, who, it was plain, ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... arrogance of their Creed was revolting. This man Bernhardi, and Treitschke, and Nietzsche, and the rest of them lived, and acted on one assumption. They compressed their thoughts ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... commit themselves until they know definitely what I wish. I cannot afford to be a candidate unless I expect to succeed. I believe, from information already received, that I can succeed, but only after a struggle that is distasteful to me, and which I cannot well afford. I can only act upon the assumption that General Garfield will desire to make an entire change in his cabinet, and upon that basis I would gladly return to the Senate as the only position I could hold, or, if there was any doubt about election, I would cheerfully and without discontent retire ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... 15,' so ends Cartier's narrative, 'being the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, after that we had heard service, we altogether departed from the port of Blanc Sablon, and with a happy and prosperous weather we came into the middle of the sea that is between Newfoundland and Brittany, ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... Dunn from a formal acknowledgement of Mr. Plessis, as Superintendent of the Romish Church, till His Majesty's pleasure should be declared. He thought an order should be immediately issued from home, prohibiting the assumption, by a Roman Catholic prelate, of the title of Bishop of Quebec. It occurred to him that a French emigrant bishop, if one could be found, would be more easily managed than Mr. Plessis. But Mr. Plessis was too much for Mr. Ryland, and found favor in the President's sight. Mr. ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... courteous innkeeper, with such an assumption of confidence as befitted the Major's relative. "My honest friend," he said, "I shall make it a point to patronize your house on some occasion, when"—here he could not help lowering his voice—"when I may have more than a parchment three-pence in my pocket. ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... has done for England is to make it as ridiculous as is possible to a man with a limited audience. Mr. HENLEY has a pretty gift of versification, but it is spoiled by a wearisome proneness to smartness, and an assumption of personal superiority that occasionally reaches the heights of the ludicrous. If 'ARRY had been at the University, and had bent what he calls his mind upon verse-making, some of the truculent rhyme in this book is the sort of stuff he would have turned out. It seems at first hearing a far ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... ceremonials. This was especially the case at a time when the country had so recently been convulsed by intestine war, and when the Native Princes were anxiously considering how their prospects would be affected by Her Majesty's assumption of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... unhappiness or imperfection resulting directly or indirectly from economic want would be absolutely banished from the earth. That the very meaning of the word poverty would have been forgotten would seem to be a matter-of-course assumption to begin with. Beyond that we might go on and fancy almost anything in the way of universal diffusion of luxury that we pleased. The facts given as the basis of the speculation would justify the wildest day-dreams of universal ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... looked at the drawings, he slipped a hand into his wife's arm, smiling down upon her, and commenting on the sketches. There was nothing in what he said. He only 'knew what he liked,' and an unfriendly bystander would have been amused by his constant assumption that Nelly's sketches were as good as anybody's. Entirely modest for himself, he was inclined to be conceited for her, she checking him, with rather flushed cheeks. But Farrell liked him all the better, both for the ignorance and the pride. The two young people standing there together, so evidently ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... what the assumption of this ready and certain accord on the part of Captain Jones rests. Rev. Dr. Neill, whose thorough study of the records of the Virginia Companies, and of the East India Company Calendars and collateral data, entitles him to speak with authority, recites that, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... book of such slight assumption and such solid merit, a model of clear arrangement and popular treatment, may be widely read in this country, where the ignorance, carelessness, or dishonest good-nature even of journals professedly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... has children?" Mrs. Caniper went on with her superb assumption that no one joked ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... wounded heart, instead of a healing cordial? To listen to the tale of wo, and to solicit by apparent kindness its minute and tragical details, only to mock expectation by professed incapacity, is the very perfection of cruelty, the forfeiture of a solemn pledge which is given in the very assumption of a listening attitude, and highly dishonourable; for we have no right to know the history of distress, if we feel indisposed to relieve it. "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... out of Fort Sumpter I shall have to go out of the White House." The military advisers differed: the cabinet differed; and while Lincoln pondered over the problem, Seward acquiesced in the general assumption that he rather than Lincoln was the real head of the Government; and accordingly prepared and laid before Lincoln "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration," in which after complaining of the "lack of policy" he boldly proposed to make war on Spain and France, and seek "explanations ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... who felt that this assumption of superior knowledge was an uncandid subterfuge, and yet had not magnanimity enough to disclaim it on her own part, remained uneasily silent for a moment, and then only said: "Sure it's time we was gettin' home." This they accordingly proceeded to do, and had gone ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... be noted: first, the commemoration is omitted if the prayer of the office which is being recited and the prayer of the feast to be commemorated have the same object. Thus, a feast of the Blessed Virgin, falling within the octave of the Assumption, should not be commemorated. Second, where a commemoration for a saint or saints of title similar to that of the saints whose office is being said, is to be made, the Congregation of Rites (5th May, 1736) arranged that not ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Archduke of Austria unjustifiably hoisted his flag on one of the towers of Acre, which Richard no sooner saw than he tore it down with his own hands, and trampled it under his feet. Philip, though he did not sympathise with the archduke, was piqued at the assumption of Richard, and the breach between the two monarchs became wider than ever. A foolish dispute arose at the same time between Guy of Lusignan and Conrad of Montferrat for the crown of Jerusalem. The inferior knights were not slow ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Town, they were necessarily compelled to resort to the ministrations of Portuguese priests who belonged to the San Thome Mission; and within a year of the foundation of Fort St. George, the Portuguese missionaries built a church in the outskirts of the British settlement. This was the Church of the Assumption, which stands in what is still called 'Portuguese Street' in Georgetown, and is therefore a building of historic note. To the Company's representatives the ministrations of Portuguese priests to residents of Madras were objectionable; for the relations ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... he said with an assumption of carelessness, "you have overshot the mark: Betty Gordon hasn't made eyes at me at all and I'm not in love with her and have no intentions of being. Next, I fail to see what has happened that would alter your ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... is more than two years since you saw him. Two years and three months, for it was in June that we crossed.' How the date thrilled Stephen. It verified her assumption. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... being, till he takes upon himself the silence and central appeasedness of maturity; and then, after this, assumes a sacred responsibility for the next purposive step into the future, there is no rest. The great resolution of aloneness and appeasedness, and the further deep assumption of responsibility in purpose—this is necessary to every parent, every father, every husband, at a certain point. If the resolution is never made, the responsibility never embraced, then the love-craving will run on into frenzy, and lay waste to the family. In the woman particularly ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... exterminated even on several of the smaller British islets, or on the shores of the Mediterranean. Hence the supposed extermination of so many species having similar habits with the rock-pigeon seems a very rash assumption. Moreover, the several above-named domesticated breeds have been transported to all parts of the world, and, therefore, some of them must have been carried back again into their native country; but not one has become wild or feral, though the dovecot-pigeon, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... is another romantic instrument, eminently characteristic of Heine, namely, irony. Nothing could be more trenchant than his bland assumption of the point of view of the Jew-baiter, the hypocrite, or the slave-trader. It is as perfect as his adoption of childlike faith in The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar. Many a time he attains an effect of ironical contrast by the juxtaposition ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... years unsatisfied. Perhaps no earthly canvas and brash can accomplish this marvel. I think the idealist must lay aside his highest ideal, and be satisfied he shall never meet it, and then he will begin to enjoy. With this mood and understanding I did enjoy very much an Assumption of the Virgin, by Guido, and more especially Diana and her Nymphs, by Titian: in this were that softness of outline, and that blending of light and shadow into each other, of which I felt the want in the Raphaels. I felt as if there was a perfection ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... it seemed, was a man upon whom the passing world made, as a rule, but a passing impression. His attitude towards it was one of dense tolerance. He was, in fact, one of those men who usually allow their neighbours to live in a fool's-paradise, based upon the assumption of a blindness or a stupidity or an indifference, which may or may not ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... too late to attempt a remedy for the consequences of this unfortunate combination is a question which can be answered only by the diplomatists whose business it is to be intimately in touch with the susceptibilities of the various nations concerned. In the meantime, however, on the assumption that this state of things is productive of regrettable results, I may perhaps venture to indicate, recommending their adoption, the steps which appear to be required for the reformation of the Treaty as drafted. My suggestions would run ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... of a state, no matter how short or limited such history may be, its politics seem to be an essential element of presentation, and, on this assumption alone, I will say a very few words concerning that subject. I do not believe that the question of which political party has been dominant in the state has exerted any considerable influence on its material prosperity. The great "First Cause" of its creation was so generous ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... and substance of all M. Neufchateau's argument is the slight assumption, that every allusion to a man eminent for wit and genius, must be intended for a Frenchman. Of this nature is the affirmation that Triaquero is meant for Voltaire; and the still more intrepid declaration, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... masterpiece of Titian, had been fitted into the polished marble framework over the great altar, and never had the master so excelled himself as in this glorious "Assumption." The beauty, the power, the persuasive sense of motion in the figure of the Madonna, which seemed divinely upborne,—the loveliness of the infant cherubs, the group of the Apostles solemnly attesting the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... none but a literal meaning in ecclesiastical matters; and that the Church did mean, though the State did not to accept a despotic prerogative, unbounded by custom, convention, or law, and unchecked by acknowledged and active powers in herself. Yet such is the assumption, made in bitterness and vexation of spirit by some of those who have lately so hastily given up her cause; made with singular assurance by others, who, Liberals in all their political doctrines, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... expression and glean therefrom any sign of his opinion. Personally, indeed, I had nothing more to contribute than the rest, in fact rather less than more. I, no more than the others, had any view about the question at issue, while my possible contribution was less by one thing, namely, the false assumption of a knowledge that I had not got. I was, I admit, much put out, and being overwhelmed by the mob of ignorant speakers, I held my peace, fearing lest I should be rightly set down as insane if I held out for ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... been from childhood used to the sight of such, that her sympathies were so soon and so thoroughly waked on the side of suffering humanity. With parents like hers she had never been in danger of having her feelings or her insight blunted by the assumption of such a relation to the poor as that of spiritual police-agent, one who arrogates the right of walking into their houses without introduction, and with at best but faint apology: to show respect if you have it, is the quickest way to teach reverence; if you do not show respect, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... astronomers, to leave the narrow bounds of earth, and explore the illimitable spaces of the universe, in which our solar system is but a speck; with the mathematicians, to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and assumption, and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact science:—to come back anon to lighter themes, and to revel in the grotesque humor of Dickens, the philosophic page of Bulwer, the chivalric romances of Walter Scott, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... mean his 'irrelevancy'—is for our critic a strength. It was a strength, because it was 'a very delicate and even cunning literary approach.' It is the perfect art of Thackeray to get the right situation, not by an assumption of it, but by so approaching it that there is no way out, which is arriving at the situation by the fairest ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... mourned Marilla, gustily. She felt a dismal suspicion that this was going to daunt her. But her habit of facing things came to the front. "Wednesday's only four days off," she said, with a fine assumption of briskness. "I don't suppose he said anything about ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... thoughts, and what ideas of public policy lie behind them. In all that we have attempted together as yet they are themselves in absolute power. It rests with them to carry out any ideas I may suggest, so they do not fear any assumption of power or governance on my part. Thus, so long as they keep secret from me both their ideas of high policy and their immediate intentions, I am powerless to do them ill, and I may be of service should occasion arise. Well, all told, this ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... be happier. The quiet assumption of Dulness for the highest point of desirable human attainment—the good-nature and indulgent parental concern of the wish to save the younger emulator of his own glory from spending superfluous pains on a consummation sure to come of itself—the confidence of the veteran Dullard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... increasing the percentage of individuals who are carefully bred and gently nurtured even to finally making the most of every man and woman born. But that possibility existed in the days of the Hittites as much as it does to-day. It does not give the slightest real support to the common assumption that the civilized contemporaries of the Hittites were ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... there is only one species or only one individual. The earlier phases of life are an imperfect expression of the same nature which the later phases express more fully. Hence the triumphant march of evolution and the assumption that whatever is later is necessarily better than what went before. If a child were simply the partial expression of a man, his single desire would be to grow up, and when he was grown up he would embody all he had been striving for and would be happy for ever after. So if man were nothing ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... much for granted. She took for granted that he was always ready for some allusion to Mrs. Osmond; she had done so when they met in Paris, six weeks after his arrival in Europe, and she had repeated the assumption with every successive opportunity. He had no wish whatever to allude to Mrs. Osmond; he was NOT always thinking of her; he was perfectly sure of that. He was the most reserved, the least colloquial of men, and this enquiring authoress ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... this occurred the solemn festival of the Assumption; in which Ganzalvo was invited to take part. He accordingly left his palace, proceeded in great pomp in the front of the pontifical cavalry, and took his place on the Duke of Gandia's left hand. The duke attracted all eyes by his personal beauty, set off as it was by ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ships was immediately wrecked, having sprung a leak through the effect of our balls and their own firing. They only killed two of our men. After the battle, our galleon ran aground on a shoal, on the eve of our Lady of the Assumption, near Pulo Parcelar. At the first shock, the helm was shifted seaward, and all that night we tossed up and down dreadfully until, next morning, we miraculously got off the shoal. We reached the strait of Sincapura on August 10, where, as the pilots said the Manila ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... went off at a tangent to a certain issue troubling his legal conscience. He had not wavered in the usual assumption of omniscience, but he was by no means sure that he had given right advice. Well! Without that power to decide and hold to decision in spite of misgiving, one would never have been fit for one's position at the Bar, never have been fit for anything. The longer he lived, the more certain ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... carelessness before its attractively dressed window displaying a colourful array of satin dancing slippers with high heels and bejewelled toes. Winona's assumption of carelessness had been meant to deceive passers-by into believing that she looked upon these gauds with a censorious eye, and not as one meaning flagrantly to purchase of them. Her actual dire intention was nothing to flaunt in the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... wave-lengths we shall then need a different loading coil. In a well-designed set the wave-length ranges overlap. The calculation of the size of loading coil is quite easy but requires more arithmetic than I care to impose on you at present. I shall therefore merely give you illustrations based on the assumption that your antenna has a capacity of 0.0001 or of 0.0002 mf. and that the condensers which you have bought are 0.0005 ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meagre and ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... capital and the citizens of the United States from competition upon the shores of France. I recommend legislation to protect the rights of citizens of the United States, as well as the dignity and sovereignty of the nation, against such an assumption. I shall also endeavor to secure, by negotiation, an abandonment of the principle of monopolies in ocean telegraphic cables. Copies of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... we can pick up precious grains of knowledge, but it is an oracle in itself, which, if properly consulted, will give us plain answers to our modern speculations, and will possibly reprove us for our conceited assumption of omniscience. ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... among these wise, sweet, strong women, we, in our easy assumption of superiority, had suddenly arrived; and now, tamed and trained to a degree they considered safe, we were at last brought out to see the country, ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... geological-map suggestion, I wish with all my heart I could follow it; but just reflect on the number of measurements requisite; why, at present it could not be done even in England, even with the assumption of the land having simply risen any exact number of feet. But subsidence in most cases has hopelessly complexed the problem: see what Jordanhill-Smith (16/2. James Smith, of Jordan Hill, author of a paper "On the Geology of Gibraltar" ("Quart. Journ. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... was too happy to feel the sting of it. He felt, of course, greatly drawn to the Queen for her ready clemency; and yet there was something repellent about her too in spite of it. He felt in his heart that it was just a caprice, like her blows and caresses; and then the assumption of youth sat very ill upon this lean middle-aged woman. He would have preferred less lute-playing and sprightly innuendo, and more ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Berry, "puerile as it may seem, I assumed you were coming back. My assumption was so definite that I didn't even get out. For one thing, Death seemed very near, and the close similarity which the slot I was occupying bore to a coffin, had all along been too suggestive to be ignored. Secondly, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a child could have ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... The assumption of the historian's attitude was probably the largest factor in the development of the habit of expressing responsibility for following the source or for noting divergence from it. Less easy of explanation is the fact that comment on style so frequently appears in this connection. There is ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... see why Mr. Talbot was dragged into the matter at all. On the straightforward assumption that Turks were engaged in the pleasant occupation of taking other Turks' lives—an assumption to which, by the way, I attach no great amount of credence—why did they not allow Mr. Talbot to go quietly to his own home? It was not that they feared more speedy discovery of their crime. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... with this intricate matter, which was complicated by extraneous considerations, it is necessary to clear up point by point. When Gordon received the message he at once concluded that the invitation came from his old colleague Li Hung Chang, and accepted it on that assumption, which in the end proved erroneous. It is desirable to state that since Gordon's departure from China in 1865 at least one communication had passed between these former associates in a great enterprise. The following characteristic letter, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... orders. It was official theory that arithmetic values, repeated in proper order, would be the way to open conversation. The assumption was that any rational creature would grasp the idea that orderly signals were rational attempts to ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... also posit a psychological interrelation in the form of an "etiological assumption" according to the terminology of psychoanalysis. It would explain the temporary fusion of alchemistic rosicrucianism with freemasonry. The rosicrucian frenzy would never have occurred—so much I will say—in masonry, if there had been no trend ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... the first rudiments of surgery as the greatest of scientific marvels. At the same time, she was astonished at the avidity with which she was assimilating these hitherto unsuspected mysteries. Sometimes with a funny assumption of assurance, she would even believe she had ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of early diligences and small savings by which a man becomes the richest in his village, to pay any attention to him, Harry grew up a self-indulgent, self-sufficient boy. His course at the seminary and college naturally developed this into a snobbish assumption that he was of finer clay than the commonality, and in some way selected by fortune for her finer displays and luxurious purposes. I have termed this a "sterile selfishness," to distinguish it from that grand egoism which in large minds is fruitful ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... have chimed each quarter of an hour for three centuries, through peace and plenty, through lurid war and sudden death—there where hangs Rubens' masterpiece—that Cathedral is but an enlarged "Santa Maria de' Frari," where for two hundred years hung "The Assumption," by Titian. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... and burial of Mary. The tradition of Ephesus is affirmed by the synod, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1102;) yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her empty sepulchre, as it was shown to the pilgrims, produced the fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek and Latin churches have piously acquiesced. See Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 48, No. 6, &c.) and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... sniper. Wilmshurst had no definite idea of the fellow's position. He could only surmise, basing his assumption on the report of the rifle, that he was either on the kopje ahead or else concealed behind one of ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... that crude matter, instead of being the source of life and of all its complicated mental and spiritual phenomena (which assumption, on the face of it, is absurd), is only an expression of the Life Force, itself a manifestation of the great creative intelligence which some call God, others Nature, the Oversoul, Brahma, Prana, etc., each one according to his ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... "You argue like a child. If Miss Howard were capable of poisoning the old lady, she would be quite equally capable of simulating devotion. No, we must look elsewhere. You are perfectly correct in your assumption that her vehemence against Alfred Inglethorp is too violent to be natural; but you are quite wrong in the deduction you draw from it. I have drawn my own deductions, which I believe to be correct, but I will not speak of them at present." He paused a minute, then went on. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... a loss to account for the state of affairs in any other way—answered in the affirmative, and, believing it was produced by a collection of bile in the liver, called the condition "biliousness." How absurd modern science has shown this assumption to be! We now know that the liver is rarely diseased, and that it furnishes its secretion, called bile, for the purpose of aiding digestion rather than hindering it, and that this substance is rarely, if ever, produced ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... curbed in the country; but they were told that every Sunday, at the Church of the Assumption, an open discussion on matters of religion takes place, chiefly, however, among the persons who wish to pass for savants. The priests seldom or never attend. It is suspected that these discussions are encouraged by the Government, not ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... men who seem to have read you a little (especially your later works), and never to have read anything else. Now familiarity with the pages of "Our Mutual Friend" and "Dombey and Son" does not precisely constitute a liberal education, and the assumption that it does is apt (quite unreasonably) to prejudice people against the greatest comic ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... when he could no longer permit the girl to deceive herself or him with her brave assumption of cheerfulness. Norine had just told him that he was doing famously, but he smiled and shook his ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... St. Elizabeth's College, and apparently some rights over Merdon, the Chancellor Wriothesley obtained that, on the confiscation of monastic property, the manor should be granted to him. Stephen Gardiner had been bishop since 1531, a man who, though he had consented to the king's assumption of the royal supremacy, grieved over the fact as an error all his life. He appeared at the bar of the House of Commons and pleaded the rights of his See, to which Merdon had belonged for 1300 years. It was probably in consequence of his pleading that ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... The assumption that Christ was a sinner, and knew himself such, although he professed the contrary and made upon friends and enemies the impression of spotless innocency, is the most monstrous deception that can well be imagined. 'If Jesus was a sinner, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... error of indiscriminate introducing, appreciating what a presentation means and what obligations it entails. The English fall into exactly the contrary error from ours, and carry it to absurd lengths. Starting with the assumption that everybody knows everybody, and being aware of the general dread of meeting "detrimentals," they avoid the difficulty by making no introductions. This may work well among themselves, but it is trying to a stranger whom they have ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... The assumption adopted by Louis XVIII. that there had been no interruption of the Bourbon reign, and the attempt to blot from history the twenty-five most eventful years in the annals of France, deservedly excited both contempt and ridicule. An American writer of ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... often represented the French Academy since his election to that illustrious body. Unfortunately his productive literary activity has slackened of late. In 1895 he was called to the editorship of the Revue des Deux Mondes, and since his assumption of this responsible editorial position he has published only two or three articles, bearing upon ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... that this haughty and false claim (as they view it) should have been allowed; it only shows to what depth of superstition the Christian world had already sunk. What an insult to the reason and learning of the world! What preposterous arrogance and assumption! Where are the proofs that Saint Peter was really the first bishop of Rome, even? And if he were, where are the Scripture proofs that he had precedency over the other apostles? And more, where do we learn in the Scriptures that any prerogative could be transmitted to successors? Where ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... bodies; or in duration; or in spatial magnitude, as with lines, superficies, solids; or in number. And it is assumed that the equality or inequality of things that cannot be directly compared, may be proved indirectly on the assumption that 'things equal to the same thing are ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... began, "I and my young associates came at Dr. Kerama's request because of the assumption that internal or local difficulties had caused the strange peaks in your Sanborn tracings of the first tryouts of the new system. The assumption was a natural and logical one. However, we have demonstrated that it isn't true. The system is working so perfectly ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... of her childhood turn from her, if she actually knows herself guiltless? Is this merely because the father is indissolubly bound with them? If she still consciously feels entirely blameless toward him, and if he openly did her wrong from a false assumption, then should not the childhood memories return to her? I think the solution must be sought elsewhere, in this, that Maria knew nothing in clear consciousness of the happenings of that moonlight night and could honestly ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... great had been his power, so complete his dominion, and so well-rooted the fear which he had inspired, that this last move in the great game he had been playing, this unexpected, direct, personal assumption of control struck a sense of consternation into the heart of the hardiest of ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris |
