"Presumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought he wanted. He would be happy enough—people might in general be happy enough, he hinted, glancing from the particular instance to lay down a general proposition—"if they did not expect too much—if they were less romantic; for himself, he had not the presumption to expect more than a sincere liking—a cordial approval—such as he himself could entertain. It was the only feeling ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... spite of all presumption, she felt so much attracted by Therese that, when Frederic Astaing stood up, she proceeded straightway to sit down beside her and consoled her in a gentle voice. The unhappy woman's ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... counter-works each folly and caprice; That disappoints th' effect of every vice; That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, To kings presumption, and to crowds belief: That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise, Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise; And build on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, she has made ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... contract as furnished by the electrical engineer of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company on or about November 14, 1904, was $121,753.68. Of this estimated salvage the sum of $46,700 was based on the presumption that the Exposition Company could sell in the open market the copper wire in its storehouse that had never been used. The contract with the American Steel and Wire Company, as read to the National Commission, provided that wire in good ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... a considerable presumption against the doctrine which we are about to combat, that it proposes to exclude at once from the service of Religion so grand a part of the composition of man; that in this our noblest employment it condemns ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... meditates on Him, whose power he marks In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom Around its roots; and while he thus surveys, With elevated joy, each rural charm, He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope, That heaven may be one Sabbath ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the light, he stood erect, and again listened. From within came the snores of a sleeper. Now he felt sure that his guess had been correct, for none but the serang would dare to occupy the cabin, and even he would no doubt have cause to tremble if his presumption should ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the colonists. A few took the view of the case entertained by Lord Chatham, Mr Burke, and a small band of enlightened men in advance of their age; but they mostly sided with the King and the Tories, and considered that the presumption of the colonists must be put down with a high hand. They little knew of what stuff the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers—the sturdy Puritans, the dashing Cavaliers, the prim Quakers, and of many other classes whom persecution, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... not the less true, and necessary to be kept in mind. There is scarcely any truth which does not admit of being wrested to purposes of evil, and we must not deny the desirableness of originality, because men may err in seeking for it, or because a pretence to it may be made, by presumption, a cloak for its incompetence. Nevertheless, originality is never to be sought for its own sake—otherwise it will be mere aberration—it should arise naturally out of hard, independent study of nature; and it should be remembered that in many things ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... indignation was expressed by the friends of Sir Humphry Davy at Stephenson's "presumption" in laying claim to the invention of the safety-lamp. In 1831 Dr. Paris, in his 'Life of Sir Humphry Davy,' thus wrote:—"It will hereafter be scarcely believed that an invention so eminently scientific, and which could never have been derived ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... annoyance—and, on the other, much of that comfort which springs from spontaneous tokens of disinterested goodwill and of gratitude, even from the poor and humble; but the mens conscia sibi recti enabled him to bear the former with composure, and the latter without vain presumption. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... scene would be the height of presumption in PUNCH. Nobody but "Satan" Montgomery, or the Adelphi play-bill, is equal to the task. We quote, as preferable, the latter authority:—"Grand inauguration of Wilhelm, the rightful heir. CORAL CAVES and CRYSTAL STREAMS: these are actually obtained by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... we ought to beware lest, in our presumption, we imagine that the ends which God proposed to himself in the creation of the world are understood ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... cheerfulness of spirit; to show themselves gallant in the most dangerous attempt.... And now to sum up all: It is most apparent to every impartial and ingenuous judgment; That although His Majesty cannot expect to be secured from every trivial disaster that may befall his army, either by the too much Presumption, Ignorance, or Negligence of some particular Persons (which is frequently incident and unavoidable in the best of Armies), yet the several positions of the Heavens duly considered and compared among ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... laid the clean napkin for the stranger at the foot of the table, opposite her mother, it cannot be thought presumption in him that he at once took his seat there; thus relieving Mrs. Derrick's mind of an immense responsibility. Yet something in his manner then made her pause and look at him, though she did not expect to see him bow his head and ask for a blessing on the meal before them. If that was presumption, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable of perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption, that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove otherwise than ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... vainly claimed the mighty office for his sacred blood alone reserved. God of my fathers, grant that future service, the humble service of a contrite soul, may in the coming glory that awaits us, atone for past presumption! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... mines," said Eudemius, with indifference. "If he hath done nothing, he cannot die, but his presumption deserves punishment, and this he shall have,"—and was deep in fresh papers before Hito ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... last attempt at solving the mystery of the truckle-bed was made while she was waiting on the admiral at dinner. The old gentleman's questions gave her an opportunity of referring to the subject, without any appearance of presumption or disrespect; but he proved to be quite as impenetrable, in his way, as old Mazey and Mrs. Drake had been in theirs. "It doesn't concern you, my dear," said the admiral, bluntly. "Don't be curious. Look in your Old Testament when you go downstairs, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... delivered in Holland, but alas! the recipient, with unheard-of presumption, after having read the documents, decided in his own mind that they were not of sufficient importance to be published in London and quietly kept ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... of the North American Indians from the time of the flood until some epoch prior to Columbus. It would be as difficult to prove that it was not true as to prove that Smith is not honest in his delusion. We can only fall back upon what Butler would call 'a strong presumption.'" ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... and insipidity with which they are incorporated; nor can any thing give us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr Wordsworth, and made him appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the worst ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... "The ignorance and presumption of his commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakspeare's text. The first folio, notwithstanding some few palpable misprints, requires none of their alterations. Had they understood English as well as he did, they would not have quarrelled ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... thinker a mere appearance is scarcely a presumption in favor of a conclusion in accordance with it. Science and experience are full of examples exposing the nullity or the falsity of appearances. The sun seems to move around the earth; but truth contradicts ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... peculation; and she, sweetly ignorant of the ways of justice, went to the judge and labored with him, to no effect, though he was wondrous kind. Then in court she gave just the wrong evidence, because it showed how poor her father was, and so established a presumption of his great necessity and desperation. But the Deus ex machina—the wicked partner—arrived at the right moment, and owned up, and the good father was cleared, and little Daughter Dorothy was made glad. But this meagre summary gives but a poor idea of the ins and outs of this charming story, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... went, believe in Him; by which they meant to paint not so much the folly as the vainglory of the nation of which this tale was told. They are vices that always go together, but in truth such actions as these have in them still more of presumption than want of wit. Augustus Caesar, having been tossed with a tempest at sea, fell to defying Neptune, and in the pomp of the Circensian games, to be revenged, deposed his statue from the place it had amongst the other deities. Wherein he was still less excusable ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... was for either side, he could play one party against the other, as best suited his purposes. He came to bring freedom to the one, to promote the revolt of the other, check the oppression of the third, and destroy the presumption of the another {133} tribe, or warring nation. So he caused his purposes to ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... O'Driscol thought, to the coal-hole, whether he fearlessly pursued him, but in vain. On examining the coal-hole, which Mr. O'Driscol did personally in the dark—we really shudder at that gentleman's absence of all fear—the ferocious Whiteboy could not be found in it. The presumption is that he gave Mr. O'Driscol the slip during pursuit, doubled back, and escaped from the lobby window, which, on examination, was found open. On this almost unprecedented act of bravery it is useless to indulge in comment, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... reason nor science can offer the faintest glimmer of an explanation as to how, or why, the first essence of life came into existence, or the first elemental matter, or as to what is the ultimate intention or end of a single thing in this world, or any other, yet you have the presumption to criticize the means and methods being employed for the attainment of those ends by an all-wise Creator, who presumably did know, and does know, what ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... address me as "Old Fool." Heaven is my witness that I have endeavoured of my best lights to smoothen the path for her well-born and at present bereaved feet. But what can I do? Neither lady will listen to me. The senorita, let me hasten to say, shows me always a tender, I might without too great a presumption say a filial, kindness. I held her in my arms from the day of her birth, senor; she is the flower of the world to me. When she takes me by the hands and says, "Dear old Donito Miguelito, let me do as I desire and all will be well!" I have no strength to resist her. Had I a house ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... of the whole thing dwarfed events that in the ordinary way would seem to be full of imminent peril. It is easy to imagine it,—a voyage of four days on a calm sea, without a single untoward incident; the presumption, perhaps already mentally half realized, that we should be ashore in forty-eight hours and so complete a splendid voyage,—and then to feel the engine stop, to be summoned on deck with little time ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... from town with him, too—a setter, with Titian hair and big eyes, which slept on the clover beside him, and an afternoon or two a week he would take dog and gun and go where the ruffed grouse were or where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees. He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them on his way back that same evening. There would be chaffings and expressions of doubt as to reliance ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... which Cato's companions burst out into laughter, but Cato said only, "Alas, poor city!" and passed by without any other answer. However, Pompey rendered Demetrius less odious to others by enduring his presumption and impertinence to himself. For it is reported how that Pompey, when he had invited his friends to an entertainment, would be very ceremonious in waiting, till they all came and were placed, while ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a man," replied Har, "named Mundilfari, who had two children so lovely and graceful that he called the male, Mani (moon), and the female, Sol (sun), who espoused the man named Glenur. But the gods being incensed at Mundilfari's presumption, took his children and placed them in the heavens, and let Sol drive the horses that draw the car of the sun, which the gods had made to give light to the world out of the sparks that flew from Muspellheim. These horses are called Arvak and Alsvid, and ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... and "of course" manner of the young man was more than the patience of Jackson could withstand. Hardly able to contain the indignation that swelled within him, at the presumption of an unknown clerk, thus to ask the hand of his daughter, he paused but a moment, and then seizing Wilmer by the shoulder, and looking him steadily in the face, while he almost foamed with anger, replied thus to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... different schools. One of these children, it was ascertained, had been among those who were playing round the fountain about a fortnight since, although he was not one whom the red-haired tramp had touched, but the other two had not been near the fountain. The presumption was, therefore, that they had contracted the disease through some other source of infection, perhaps at the lodging-house where the man had spent the night after bathing in the water. Also it seemed that, drawn thither by the heat, in all two or three hundred children had ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... either) was the borrower, the English or the Danes. And here comes in the consideration that the geography of the "Beowulf" is Scandinavian. There is no consciousness of Britain or England throughout the poem. If this raises a presumption that the Saxon poet got his story from a Dane, we naturally ask, When is this likely to have happened? and the answer must be that the earliest probable time begins after the Peace of Wedmore ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... to his mind than the guilt of marrying without love. No man could have spoken more strongly, more solemnly than he, on the presumption, the dishonourableness, the profligacy, of such an act: but he was unaware how a man may be betrayed into it while he has neither presumption, nor treachery, nor profligacy in his thoughts. Hope went ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... Who could control me in Paris? My young friends were eager to foster passions which furnished them with pleasures. I was deemed handsome—I was master of every knightly accomplishment. I was disconnected with any political party. I grew a favorite with all: my presumption and arrogance was pardoned in one so young; I became a spoiled child. Who could control me? not letters and advice of Torella—only strong necessity visiting me in the abhorred shape of an empty purse. But there were means to refill this void. Acre after acre, estate after ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of thine own, fair sir! Still, we must honor courage, even though it border on rashness, and I rejoice to see that the wrathful mob of Al-Kyris hath yet left thee man enough to deserve my welcome! Nevertheless thou were guilty of most heinous presumption!" Here she extended her jewelled hand. "Art thou repentant? and wilt ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Parliament was usurping privileges when it presumed to expel any one, that the people had a right to send whomsoever they pleased to Parliament, and finally that "in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption was at least upon a par in favor of the people." From this time until the American Revolution, Burke used every opportunity to denounce the policy which the king was pursuing at home and abroad. He doubtless knew beforehand that what ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... has never been entirely lost sight of in modern times, and the essays which the consciousness of this necessity has produced have proceeded from minds of very various calibre, but there is not much presumption, I think, in asserting that what has hitherto stood in the place of a science has for the most part been a set of guesses, those very guesses of the Roman lawyers which were examined in the two preceding chapters. A series of explicit statements, recognising and adopting ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... their customs and institutions; their national songs and dances, their domestic economy, their system of government, and their funeral ceremonies. I pretend not, however, to affirm that this resemblance is so exact as to create the presumption of common origin. The affinity perceivable in the dispositions and virtues of these widely-separated tribes, arose probably from a similarity in their circumstances and situation, operating on the general principles of human nature. Placed alike in a happy medium; between savage ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... canst not say that the visible world is only like the transitory enjoyment of one who smells a wreath of flowers; however closely it is scanned, there is no overpowering evidence of its unreality [to preclude the presumption founded on experience]; it continually manifests itself to us as eternal in its stream of ...
— The Tattva-Muktavali • Purnananda Chakravartin
... Chitaur, conquered Kumau and Yumila, where he established his throne, from whence his family spread to Palpa Tanahung and the Kirats. The supremacy very lately admitted by all the eastern mountain chiefs to the Rajas of Yumila, is a strong presumption in favour of this opinion. Many chiefs, and especially the Palpa Tanahung and Makwanpur families, pretend to be descended of the Chitaur princes; but it is very doubtful whether they have any claim to a descent so illustrious, for the Mahanta said, that, after ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... inglorious war, inglorious as regards the laurels or renown won in it, we violate neutral rights, which the government had solemnly pledged itself to respect, upon the principle of convenience, or upon the light presumption that, by possibility, a post might be taken by this miserable ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
... visitor said that in his opinion to explain anything, however occult, to a Bostonian, savored of intellectual impudence, and was, at the least, a piece of presumption of which he hoped he should never ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... discharge such obligations—(by) ingratitude Like a man holding a wolf by the ears Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly Not so successful as he was picturesque Plundering the country which they came to protect Presumption in entitling themselves Christian Protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life Republic, which lasted two centuries Throw the cat against their legs Worship God according to the dictates ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... frequent communication with my Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he was the ultimate editor of the Universal Review. I felt that he had done so much for me, and that we were now on such terms that I might without presumption ask him a private question about Lalor Maitland. Because, knowing the man to have been mixed with some very doubtful business, I wondered that a man of such honour and probity as the Advocate would in any circumstances act by such means—much less countenance his being put forward in ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... looked round with an expression of astonishment at his presumption, and without deigning any reply, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... conclusion of this my autobiography! What a monstrous piece of braggadocio would not Caesar's Commentaries have been, had he used the first instead of the third person singular! How intolerable would have been the presumption of his Thrasonical, "I thrashed the Helvetians—I subjugated the Germans—I utterly routed the Gauls—I defeated the painted Britons!" And, on the contrary—for I like to place heroes side by side—how decorously and ingeniously might I not have ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur, but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption English. ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... had refused to obey the constitution sanctioned by Louis XVI., because it destroyed their privileges; and who, for the same reason, had refused to acknowledge the new constitution, against which they had even dared to protest. His companions were so blinded, so besotted by their presumption, that they imagined that decrees and ordinances gave them the faculty of overturning the edifice which the nation had erected during five and twenty years of revolution. His confidents were those alone who, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... Ada with mocking sarcasm, and the contempt in her voice was indescribable. "What presumption! the lower classes are beginning ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... torment to me to hear the continual hints which my well-born master threw out upon this subject. I moreover never pretended to any knowledge which I had not; so that, by degrees, notwithstanding his prejudices, he began to feel that I had neither the presumption of an upstart, nor of a self-taught genius. I kept in mind the counsel given to me by Mr. Y——, to endeavour to make myself useful to my employer; but it was no easy matter to do this at first, because he had such a dread of my awkwardness that he would never let me touch any of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... not the foolish presumption to imagine, that I can offer any thing new on a subject, which has been so successfully treated by many learned and able writers. I would only, with all possible deference, beg leave to hazard a few short remarks on that part of the subject of education, which I would call the education ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... this period of Sir Alexander's life, is so illustrative of his character, and furnishes so strong a presumption, that the thoughtful humanity by which he was distinguished was not wholly the growth of his latter years, that, though it may appear to some trifling in itself, I will insert it in this place with the occasion on which it was communicated to me. ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... more stress upon pure Spectre testimony than it will bear. When you are satisfied, and have good plain legal evidence, that the Demons which molest our poor neighbors do indeed represent such and such people to the sufferers, though this be a presumption, yet I suppose you will not reckon it a conviction that the people so represented are witches to be immediately exterminated. It is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the Shapes of persons not only innocent, but ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... he have had the presumption to expect an answer to his cable ... she was too kind to cable "no" ... her letter of explanation would be a month in coming.... He watched as the mists around Apo gathered, thickened, darkened: the banks were flashlighted into white billows, ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... we kiss, then sigh, then look; and thus In that first garden of our simpleness We spent our childhood. But when years began To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah, how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet, stern brow, Check my presumption and my forwardness; Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show What she would have me, yet not ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... stirred to their very depths; stagnant passions and slumbering pretensions are aroused. The multitude of offices presented and expected vacancies "has excited the thirst for power, stimulated self-esteem, and fired the hopes of men the most inept. An fierce, gross presumption has freed the ignorant and the foolish of any feeling of modesty or incompetence; they have deemed themselves capable of everything because the law awards public office simply to the able. Everybody had a perspective glimpse of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... suspicion, although there are many other causes which might prevent the appearance of the menses, such as disease of the uterus, general debility, or taking cold, and all of these should be taken into account. In the absence of all apparent influences calculated to obstruct the menses, the presumption ordinarily is that pregnancy is the cause of their non-appearance. The evidence is still more conclusive when the mammae and abdomen enlarge after experiencing morning sickness. Notwithstanding all these symptoms, the audible ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... interaction of two totally distinct substances, or that matter is but thought, or that thought is but matter,—one of which must be true, and all of which approach as near to the mutual contradictions as can well be conceived,—for the very purpose of rebuking the presumption of man, and of teaching him humility; that He had left these obscurities at the very threshold—nay, within the very mansion of the mind itself,—for the express purpose of deterring man from playing the dogmatising fool when he looked abroad. Yet, in spite ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... history—the sum and crown of things—is an object of general insult. If it be rumored that we contemplate protecting American citizens in Cuba, every European government emits a growl—there's talk of rebuking Uncle Sam's "presumption," of standing him in a corner to cool. If it be suggested that we annex an island—at the earnest request of all its inhabitants worth the hanging—there more minatory caterwauling by the European courts, while even the Mikado of Japan gets his little Ebenezer up, ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... for to the German Headquarters, at the Hotel du Grand Cerf, where the table spread for thirty people, by the order of M. Odent, was still waiting for its guests. The conversation here between the Cure and the officer of high rank who spoke to him is worth repeating. From the tenor of it, the presumption is that the officer was a Catholic—probably ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... impunity for those whom it overshadows. Yet think not, Madame," she continued, in a more subdued voice, as she clasped her thin fingers together so forcibly that they became ashy white beneath the pressure—"think not, I beseech you, that I say this of myself. I have no such presumption. I have not forgotten what I was, in feeling what I am. I yet remember, deeply, thankfully, that I was poor, obscure, and insignificant, and that it was your royal hand which raised me to rank and honour; and thus it is with the most fervent gratitude that I now thank you for your past bounties; ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... annoyed at the presumption of the lad, as if he wished to be above Moa the firstborn. He feigned an errand, and called the boy to come and scratch his back. The boy went to perform the operation, but on stretching out his hand was seized by his grandfather, and beaten with the handle of his fly-flapper. ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... me a preposterous piece of presumption that I should flatter myself I could succeed where an older and much more talented officer had failed, but the idea had got into my head, and the more I thought of it, the more sanguine ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner—said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And, as it may seem a great presumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in the Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig party, that I was esteemed no ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... a scout and notwithstanding his suspense and almost panicky apprehension, he was not going to act impulsively or thoughtlessly. He knew that if he could only present a convincing case to his superiors, they would forgive him his presumption. If he made a bungle it might go hard with him. Anyway, he could not, or would ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... as the articles found on his person have established his identity. The next table contains the body of a woman. She was young and must have been fair. She was found in the river, and as there are no marks of violence on her person, the presumption is that she sought her own destruction. "Such cases are becoming common," says the Superintendent in his matter of fact way. "They are very sad, but we see too many of them to think them romantic." ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... not forget the Brahman's presumption and determined to teach him a lesson. So, one day, he sent him a written notice demanding the immediate payment of arrears of rent due for a few bighas (one-third of an acre) of land which Ramda held on a heritable ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... Ward, professor of rhetoric in Gresham College. This gentleman was supposed by his opponent, to have been employed by Dr. Mead, who did not chuse to enter personally, into this little-important debate; upon which presumption, Dr. Middleton published a defence of his former dissertation in the succeeding year;[15] wherein he treats his respondents with no little contempt.[16] The merits of this dispute are not intended to be here discussed, but it may not be amiss to observe, that however ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... intention, for having neither a "position in the county," as the phrase goes, a house of my own, nor any official connection with the hunt, a call from me would probably have been regarded, and rightly so, as a piece of presumption. As it happened, however, I not only called on Mr. Fortescue before the secretary, but became his guest, greatly to my surprise, and, I have no doubt, to his, although he was the indirect cause; for had he not bought Ranger, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... perception nor an intellectual grasp of relations, nor an emotion within the accepted rubric—joy, desire, triumph, etc. Whether or not music is an exception to this principle, remains to be seen; but the presumption is at least in favor of a direct, immediate, unique emotion aroused by the true beauty of music, whatever that may prove ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... namely, the king's name, "which they upon the adverse faction wanted." Passing them without an effort, as it seemed, we threw them into the rear with so lengthening an interval between us, as proved in itself the bitterest mockery of their presumption; whilst our guard blew back a shattering blast of triumph, that was really too ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... populous as New York; there are 60 deaths a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter—if they have luck. That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many in New York—say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is the same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will hold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of every million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to one-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the Protocol says as to this in its last paragraph but two[7] is that, apart from the cases when there is a presumption, ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... "the nature of the indebtedness," and from the fact that "Philaster" "was followed immediately by five romances of the same style in plot and characters" "which mark Fletcher's work for the next twenty years," that "these facts create a strong presumption that 'Philaster' was the original," "a strong presumption that 'Cymbeline' was the copy," and finally ends the argument as it began, with these flattering words: "We may, indeed, safely assert that Shakspere almost never invented ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... Almost every letter from his friends expressed a desire that he should accept the office when tendered to him, as it surely would be, by the electors chosen by the people; and before the elections were held, so general was the presumption that Washington would be the first president of the United States, that he received many letters soliciting appointments to office. These annoyed him exceedingly; for the subject, he said, never failed to embarrass and distress him beyond measure. The ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... himself.] No, this is to me like a strange illusive dream. Ingeborg and I,—we are to belong to each other! Ah, can it be true? So high I never dared let my thoughts ascend;—it seemed to me in the morning that I had been guilty of the greatest presumption if during the night I had dreamed about it.—Hm! I know very well of course that it is not for my sake that Lady Kirsten goes to all this trouble. She has something up her sleeve; she thinks it necessary to break the agreement ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... "Disinherited" inscribed upon it. Riding straight up to Brian de Bois-Guilbert, he struck with the sharp end of his spear the shield of the victorious Norman until it rang again. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight whom he had thus ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... before he entered, speaking more softly to the eunuch for fear of being heard by the princess. "To convince you," said he; "there is neither presumption, nor whim, nor youthful conceit in my undertaking, I leave it to your choice whether I shall cure the princess in her presence, or where we are, without going ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... my lord." I knew that a rebuke to my presumption lay in her calling me "my lord," for, save on formal occasions, she always used to call ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... and the presumption of their adepts, who maintained that through subjective or clairvoyant conditions, which they asserted were higher than ours, they had attained a more exalted degree of illumination which revealed a different cosmogony from that which has been handed down to us through countless generations of adepts, ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... in smiling and replying. "It would be presumption in my part to think so," he observed. "I was simply at random humming a few verses composed by former writers, and what reason is there to laud me to such an excessive degree? To what, my dear Sir, do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he went on to inquire. "Tonight," replied Shih-yin, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... which lies before the next century is, if I may say so without presumption, to spiritualise science, as morality and art have already been spiritualised. The vision of God should appear to us as a triple star of truth, beauty, and goodness.[402] These are the three objects of all human aspiration; and our hearts ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... immense quantity of reading, but unless you have carefully read and weighed about all the best that has been said on any question, your own opinions will have no value, and it is simply presumption to waste the time of an audience doling out a conception that, for aught you know, may have been knocked in the head half ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of unseen doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought against presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one who possessed power over her own spirit—rare gift, given to none but those who do something toward the taking of it. She was able in no small measure to ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... be said, without presumption, that such a general view as this leaves ample room for all reasonable theories as to the chronology and sequence, where these remain more or less unsettled, of Chaucer's indisputably genuine works. In any case, there is no poet whom, if only as an exercise in critical analysis, it is more ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... shows that these islands are not encircled, and as coral appears from the works of Surville, Bougainville, and Labillardiere, to grow on their shores, this circumstance, as in the case of the New Hebrides, is a presumption that they are fringed. I cannot find out anything from D'Entrecasteaux's "Voyage," regarding the southern islands of the group, so have left them uncoloured.—MALAYTA Island in a rough MS. chart ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... to serve two-year terms); note - as of 1 January 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a permanent election law; a draft law specifies four-year terms for the state and first-order administrative division entity legislatures; officials elected in 2000 were elected to two-year terms on the presumption that a permanent law would be in ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... should I become angry at fools and babblers, who pride themselves in their impudence and ignorance? No. My equals! I know not where to find them. My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my superiors! I think it presumption; therefore, if this youthful heart is protected by any of the divine rights, I never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... folly of desisting too soon from successful labours, and the haste of enjoying advantages before they are secured, are often fatal to men of impetuous desire, to men whose consciousness of uncommon powers fills them with presumption, and who, having borne opposition down before them, and left emulation panting behind, are early persuaded to imagine that they have reached the heights of perfection, and that now, being no longer in danger from competitors, they may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... destiny of Europe. I see the inward workings of fear struggling with pride in an ardent, enterprising, and tumultuous mind. I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation, dreaded, detested, and obeyed, the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success, the arrogance, the presumption, the selfwill of unlimited and idolized power, and more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority, the restless and incessant activity ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... from Your Infancy, and the many Civilities I am obliged for to Your Family, will, I hope, be an Excuse for this Presumption in, ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... no reason for opposing your desires, Mr. Gaydon," Engineer Serko replies, "and I regard your presumption as a very natural one. Observe, however, that we live here in a noble and superb independence, that we acknowledge the authority of no foreign power, that we are subject to no outside authority, that we are the colonists of no state, either of the old or new world. This is worth ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... letting her know your good opinion," replied Horace, in a tone conveying pretty plainly a rebuke of such presumption. But it was lost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... modesty or meaning. Your suggested motto is antique enough in spelling, and modern enough in phrases; a good modern antique: but the matter of it is germane to the purpose only supposing the title proposed a vindication of yourself from the presumption of authorship. The 1st title was liable to this objection, that if you were disposed to enlarge it, and the bookseller insisted on its appearance in Two Tomes, how ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... devoted love; the sacredness of simple duties and plain work; earnest help of other souls,—these were among the daily lessons of her life and teaching. "How strong was the current of her sympathy in the direction of all humble effort," exclaims one of her friends, "how reluctantly she checked presumption! The most ordinary and uninteresting of her friends must feel that had they known nothing of her but her rapid insight into and quick response to their inmost feelings she would still have been a memorable personality to them. This sympathy was extended to the sorrows ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... worst evidence pointing to any presumption of guilt against your comrade and friend is the finding of the revolver hidden under his bedclothes. What do you think of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... no doubt of that, but, if you will pardon me, Mr. Hastings, it seems to me that there is something for us to do. My solicitude for the dear ones around us, who cannot help themselves, must excuse my presumption." ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... thus, in the very act of prayer, expressly subordinated to that which is alone unerring and supreme, we acknowledge at once His rightful sovereignty and our dutiful subjection, and we are not justly chargeable with the presumption of dictating to God the course of procedure which He should pursue towards us. We are protected, too, against the evils which our own errors in prayer might otherwise entail on us, for "we know not what things to pray ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... Hjalti is now a courageous man? Perhaps; but nothing is said about it in the rmur. Since Bjarki took pains to go on the wolf hunt secretly, and since we are not informed that what occurred on that hunt has become known or that it has become known that Hjalti is now a courageous man, the presumption is that the king does not know it, and we are surprised at his unmotivated action in treating Hjalti in this unexpected manner. And if Hjalti is now known to be such a hero that Hrolf feels warranted in placing reliance on him to ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen from the beginning to be so superior ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... like a child in the presence of his schoolmaster. He was convicted of presumption. He had set down his questions with the belief that they covered the ground. And here were two of the utmost importance, not forgotten, but never even ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... a notion seem to you absurd? I answer. The teachers of the nation have unwittingly, it seems to me through unbelief, wronged the animals deeply by their silence anent the thoughtless popular presumption that they have no hereafter; thus leaving them deprived of a great advantage to their position among men. But I suppose they too have taken it for granted that the Preserver of man and beast never had a thought of keeping ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... Marechal de Richelieu' appeared. He had left his note-books, his library, and his correspondence to Soulavie. The 'Memoires' are undoubtedly authentic, and have, if not certainty, at least a strong moral presumption in their favour, and gained the belief of men holding diverse opinions. But before placing under the eyes of our readers extracts from them relating to the Iron Mask, let us refresh our memory by recalling two theories which had not stood ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... responded; and he gave me such a smiling, malicious look that I knew sought to convey he had his way with Alixe; and though I felt that she was true to me, his cool presumption so stirred me I could have struck him in the face. I got angrily to my feet, but as I did so I shrank a little, for at times the wound in my side, not yet ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pilgrimage in search of Angelica, to implore her pardon for his insensibility, and urge his new found passion. Surprise and delight at first deprived him of utterance, but soon recovering himself, he joyfully saluted her, claiming her as his, and exhorting her to put herself under his protection. His presumption was repelled by Angelica with disdain, and Orlando, enraged at the invasion of his rights, challenged him to decide ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the poetry, where the servants remain; these prosaic attendants must not raise their voices so high as to deafen the speakers in the presence-chamber; however, in those intervals when the ideal society has retired they deserve to be listened to; their bold raillery, their presumption of mockery, may afford many an insight into the situation and circumstances ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... parents of mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, and amiable after it for repentance and submission. In the first state, their affection is tender without weakness, and their piety sublime without presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discord begins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual forbearance; how confidence of the divine favour is forfeited by sin; and how hope of pardon ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... peculiar connection between the tribes inhabiting those several points. This enterprising traveller moreover thinks that the idea he has started goes far towards refuting the theory of an inland sea, another presumption against which he maintains to be the hot winds that ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... largely in the direction of municipal control. One hears and reads as little of socialism now in London as in New York, but that is because it has so effectually passed from the debated principle to the accomplished fact. It has been embodied in so many admirable works that the presumption is rather in favor of it as something truly conservative. It is not, as with us, still under the ban of a prejudice too ignorant to know in how many things it is already effective; but this is, of course, mainly because English administration is so much honester than ours. It can ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... who had held the most important civil and military offices in the country almost from boyhood, and who was looked up to by friend and foe as the most important personage in the three millions of its inhabitants, apologized for his "presumption" in coming forward publicly with his advice. "I would not," he said, "in matters of such importance, affect to be wiser or to make greater pretensions than my age or experience warrants, yet seeing affairs in such perplexity, I will rather incur the risk of being charged ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in a small village, they had refused to receive me, it seemed to be presumption to hope that I should gain admittance at Oxford. What could I do? I was much tired, and so, as it was not a very cold night, I resolved to pass it in the open air; in this resolution, bouncing from this rude inn, I went to look out for a convenient ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... found we had accomplished very little legitimate business. We had established the fact that Greenback Bob was at the Fair, and the presumption was strong, amounting almost to a certainty, that Delbras was also there. We had connected the man Smug with one, if not both, for Dave was sure that the man's companion on Stony Island Avenue was Delbras, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... presence so highly esteemed, this is not true of you, Mr. Roberts, however high are our hopes that you will have such explanations ready as will relieve our minds from further doubts, and send us home rejoicing. Shall I be frank in stating the precise reasons which seem to justify our present presumption?" ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... descendants of the slave stand in Faneuil Hall, while from ocean to ocean every foot of American soil is dedicated to freedom. The Negro American has found his voice; he is able to speak for himself; he stands upon this famous platform here and thinks it no presumption to declare that he seeks nothing more, and will be satisfied with nothing less than the full measure of ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... opinions of my own, and was determined to do my own thinking, come what might. For a while this operated against me,—if not always with Mr. Pierpont, certainly with all his immediate personal friends and family; but in time, I believe, he began to like me the better for my presumption, or foolhardiness, in battling the watch with him, whenever he laid down a proposition, with a calm, dictatorial air, which did not strike me at first either as clearly self-evident, or, after a thorough investigation, as indisputably true, so that I do on my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but also to furnish him with a prophetic vision of those which I may, without undue presumption, hope for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my name has been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial catalogue of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether this is to be attributed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... here, then, in the cause of tenderness and humanity, they may come forth, without charge of presumption, or forfeiture of delicacy. Exertions here may be universal, without rivality or impropriety; the head may work, the hand may labour; the heart may suggest, indiscriminately in all, in men without disdain, in women without a blush: and however truly of the latter ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... from God's lovingkindness. They had 25 vast arrogance, in that by the might of multitudes they sought to wrest from the Lord the celestial mansions, spacious and heaven-bright. Then there fell upon them, grievously, the envy, presumption, and pride of the Angel who first began to carry out the evil plot, 30 to weave it and promote it, when he boasted by word— as he thirsted for conflict—that he wished to own the home and high throne of the heavenly kingdom to the north. Thereupon God became angered and hostile 35 towards ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... will pardon my presumption," he said, taking the single step necessary to face her, "but I confess having been deliberately waiting here to request the privilege of walking to church ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... you have forgiven my presumption, and I shall wait with all the patience I have," he said. "If I am not to know, I must do without. It is cruel, but I can bear more upon a push. Only do not add to my troubles the thought that I have made an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... presumption nor impropriety in your wish," returned the guide. "I told you at starting that we should pursue a devious route, for reasons which are immaterial to you, but there is no reason why I should not explain that at present I am diverging for only ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... figured that Fidler in his map showed only small streams coming in from the west, 'and the presumption is very strong that those little streams do not penetrate the Rocky Mountains to such distance as would afford rational grounds for a conjecture that they had their sources near any navigable branch of the Columbia.' He was right in that—and he says those little ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... In Adam Smith's time, in England, the presumption was that a servant had been hired for a year. (I, 2, 15 ed., Bas.) Frederick the Great's ordinance of 1769, on this subject, forbade any one to enter into service for a shorter time than this (II, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Of course, the presumption was that Mullins was also a gambler, but this was not certain. Chester decided to say nothing, but to be watchful. David Mullins had been five years in his present place, and his services must have been satisfactory or he would not ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... expressing, in the form of the present little volume, the views which I now entertain in regard to the claims of foreign lands. To you, my beloved classmates, the book is specially addressed; and if I use a frankness and freedom, which might possibly be construed into presumption, if I were addressing strangers and elder brethren, I am sure that I shall fall under no such imputation when communicating my thoughts to you. I wish to express my thoughts familiarly, as we used to do to each other, and at the same time with the earnestness ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... of eighteen he left school with a character for talent, but without a scholarship. All that he had obtained, over and above the advantage of his character, was a gold medal for English verse, and hence was derived a strong presumption on the part of his friends that he was destined to add another name to the imperishable list of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... object of admiration. Divines! You never cease telling us, that the designs of God are impenetrable; that his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts; that it is absurd to complain of his administration, of the motives and springs of which we are totally ignorant; that it is presumption to tax his judgments with injustice, because we cannot comprehend them. But when you speak in this strain, do you not perceive, that you destroy with your own hands all your profound systems, whose only end is to explain to us the ways of the divinity, which, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... was known to but few. Ambition for acquaintance seemed to have died in him. He was the victim of a great humiliation and was silent. He avoided publicity. He was destitute of presumption. What brighter hopes he cherished were due to his father's purpose to make him a partner with his brothers. He heard Lincoln and Douglas when they canvassed the State, and approved of the argument ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... deaths of Grand Lamas in the nineteenth century have naturally created a presumption that they were put out of the way and contemporary suspicion accused the regent in 1838. There is no evidence that the deaths of the other three were regarded as unnatural but the earlier Grand Lamas as ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... chance to affront me thus. The haughty old fool; if she had known her interest, she would have been too glad to make a powerful friend. These royalists are in a ticklish position; I can tell her that. She calls me De Riviere; that implies nobody without a 'De' to their name would have the presumption to visit her old tumble-down house. Well, it is a lesson; I am a republican, and the Commonwealth trusts and honors me; yet I am so ungrateful as to go out of the way to be civil to her enemies, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... his iron head and spiked helmet, and yet with as simple and unaffected a soul breathing under his gray mustache as ever issued from the lips of a child. So this grim but gentle veteran had arranged with the consul that in cases where the presumption of nationality was strong, although the evidence was not present, he would take the consul's parole for the appearance of the "deserter" or his papers, without the aid of prolonged diplomacy. In this way the consul had saved to Milwaukee a worthy but imprudent brewer, and to New York an excellent ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... "The being but one among many stifleth the chidings of conscience."—Book of Thoughts, p. 131. "As for its being esteemed a close translalation [sic—KTH], I doubt not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it."—Pope's Pref. to Homer. "All presumption of death's being the destruction of living beings, must go upon supposition that they are compounded, and so discerptible."—Butler's Analogy, p. 63. "This argues rather their being proper names."—Churchill's Gram., p. 382. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... misrepresenting me, and fabricating every species of calumny against me. There was no falsehood too gross to serve their turn. They seem to have acted on the old rascally maxim, of throwing as much dirt as possible, in the presumption that some of it will stick. Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press; with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who stood manfully ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... marvelous industry in organizing and drilling their forces, and the majority of the members knew so little about the question involved, that I found the chances decidedly against me. I was obliged, also, to encounter a prevailing but perfectly unwarranted presumption that the representatives of the mining States were the best judges of the question in dispute, while it was foolishly regarded as a local one, with which the old States had no concern. The clumsy and next to incomprehensible ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... historical fiction. I had heard in my boyhood a good deal of the great Napoleonic legend. I had a genuine feeling that I would find myself at home in it, and The Duel is the result of that feeling, or, if the reader prefers, of that presumption. Personally I have no qualms of conscience about this piece of work. The story might have been better told of course. All one's work might have been better done; but this is the sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Taking you as a foreigner, you must know that. Judge of the case by your own reigning Families. Such events never happen amongst them. Do you suppose that the possession of immense wealth entitles you to the immeasurable presumption of aspiring to equality of position with reigning Houses? Such folly is more frequently castigated than reasoned with. Why, now—now, were it published—that I had condescended—condescend as I am doing, I should be the laughing-stock of every ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one pleased with a fine house. By means of prodigies, omens, astrology, palmistry, teaching, and talking let him not seek alms ... he best knows salvation who (cares for naught)' ... (such are the verses). Let him neither harm nor do good to anything.... Avoidance of disagreeable conduct, jealousy, presumption, selfishness, lack of belief, lack of uprightness, self-praise, blame of others, harm, greed, distraction, wrath, and envy, is a rule that applies to all the stadia of life. The Brahman that is pure, and wears the girdle, and carries the gourd in his hand, and avoids the food ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... apertly, in work and in word, to withdraw whomsoever that they may from vices, planting in them (if they may) virtues, comforting them and furthering them that standeth in grace; so that therewith they be not borne up into vainglory through presumption of their wisdom, nor enflamed with any worldly prosperity: but ever meek and patient, purposing to abide steadfastly in the Will of GOD, suffering wilfully and gladly, without any grudging whatsoever, the rod the ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... Titmouse had served them; and his absurdity of manner and personal appearance had provoked a smile, which Titmouse a little misconstrued; for when, a Sunday or two afterwards, he met her in the Park, the little fool actually had the presumption to nod to her—she having not the slightest notion who the little wretch might be—and of course not having, on the present occasion, the least recollection of him. The reader will recollect that this incident made a deep impression on ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Pharisee had zeal without knowledge. He blazed away upon the presumption that Jesus was an impostor. Why, the Jesus idea was preposterous, Saul mused. God's Kingdom was to be set up with a great capital at Jerusalem and a great and powerful king on the throne to whom all the world around would ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... concluding, that as I had no judgment to choose by but my own, I could not discover it; and it came out by his quarrelling with the person who brought me to him, for telling him I did not understand the goods, upon which presumption he ventured to spoil ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... hope! What I now write is presumption, is madness! And why? It is not your beauty, your virtues, or the supreme qualities of your mind that would raise this gulph of misery between us. No. Avarice, vanity, and prejudice are my enemies. It is they that would sacrifice you at their ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... loves were the rarest of human experiences; he smiled at his presumption in wanting no other. Wearily he turned, and tramped homeward ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the very worst, we must suppose the culture of morals to be one: a mere day-school may perhaps reasonably confine its pretensions to the disallowance of anything positively bad; because here the presumption is that the parents undertake the management of their children excepting in what regards their intellectual education: but, wherever the heads of a school step into the full duties of a child's natural guardians, they cannot absolve ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... favorable and unfavorable alike, and it was this very frankness which had disarmed me. The incident, as far as Jerry's story went, ended when the visitor crawled under the railing. I am not sure what motive was in his mind, but the events which followed lend strong color to the presumption that Jerry believed the girl when she said that she was coming back and that at the very time he was speaking to me he intended to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... that the negroes on the coast, who associate with Europeans, are inclined to licentiousness and fraud; but he says those of the interior are humane, obliging, and hospitable. Golberry repeats the same praise, and rebukes the presumption of white men in despising "nations improperly called savage, among whom we find men of integrity, models of filial, conjugal, and paternal affection, who know all the energies and refinements of virtue; among whom sentimental ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... said, shaking her head, "if you really believe this. They never forgive superiority, assumed or real; none but the noble ones, I mean; who, of course, are in the minority. Give a pair of tongs pantaloons, and it asserts itself. Trousers, my dear, are at the root of manly presumption. I discovered that long ago. A man in petticoats would be as humble as a woman. This is my theory, at least; take it for what it is worth. And now to sleep, with what heart we may, an iceberg being in our vicinity;" and, taking my face in her hand, she kissed me cordially. "It ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... one of 6.15 P.M., suggesting the probability of your being overwhelmed by two hundred thousand, and talking of where the responsibility will belong, pains me very much. I give you all I can, and act on the presumption that you will do the best you can with what you have, while you continue, ungenerously I think, to assume that I could give you more if I would. I have omitted, and shall omit, no opportunity to send you reinforcements whenever ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... wrote it," said the young marchioness: "only insanity could excuse such presumption. Men don't go mad from disappointed love, or women either, I believe, unless there's a predisposition to madness. He must have had that, and any other accident in his life would have brought it out as well as his foolish fancy for me. If he had been thrown from his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... They are conscious of some obstacles which hinder that love from being perfect, and yet they do not understand just how those obstacles can be removed. Someone may tell them that they have all they can get from God and to ask for more would be presumption, and yet their souls cry out for that which is natural in the grace of God, and how ready they are, when they hear sanctification taught, to meet the conditions and enter into the rest for their souls—this ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... between religious and sexual emotions, and not a few have read with amazement the abnormal cults which have had the sexual element as a foundation for their denominational dissent."[67] A phenomenon so striking as to force itself on the notice of the most 'casual students' raises the presumption that the relation between the two sets of facts is rather more than that of 'apparent' intimacy. When in the course of history two things appear together over and over again, one is surely justified in assuming that there is some underlying principle responsible for the association. ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen |
