"Spec" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brev'ren, it's habin debbils, an' from wot I've seen ob some ob de men ob dis worl' I 'spect dey is persest ob 'bout all de debbils dey got room fur. But de Bible don' say nuffin p'intedly on de subjec' ob de number ob debbils in man, an' I 'spec' dose dat's got 'em—an' we ought ter feel pow'ful thankful, my dear brev'ren, dat de Bible don' say we all's got 'em—has 'em 'cordin to sarcumstances. But wid de women it's dif'rent; dey's got jus' sebin, an' bless my soul, ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... "Pinxter Bloem" (Whitsunday flowers), as they are in blossom about Whitsuntide. The English call them wild honeysuckles, and at a distance they really have a resemblance to the honeysuckle or lonicera. Dr. Linnaeus and other botanists call it an Azalea (Azalea Nudiflora, Linn. Spec. Plant., p. 214.) Its flowers were now open, and added a new ornament to the woods, being little inferior to the flowers of the honey-suckle and hedysarum. They sit in a circle round the stem's extremity, and have either ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... for to say as 'ow you mayn't be right. All the same, Mas'r Dick, when it comes to enterin' the ring wi' them sausage-eaters I'd raither 'ave a dozen Lancashire or Devon lads about me than all the Frenchies you could put in Hyde Park. It ain't that these here spec'mens don't 'ave a good sound heart as far as standin' up and takin' knocks is concerned, but they be too frisky and skittish for my likin'. I see 'em all wavin' their arms like as if a carriage and pair has run away, and talkin' all at once and together, likewise and sim'lar. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... DEE'S SPEC'ULUM, a mirror, which Dr. John Dee asserted was brought to him by the angels Raphael and Gabriel. At the death of the doctor it passed into the possession of the Earl of Peterborough, at Drayton; then to Lady Betty Grermaine, by whom it was given to John, last duke of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... got some? 'Ta'n't at all likely he'd spec'late in them, without saying something to me about it! No, he couldn't have any without my knowing it, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... books has cost him," he is but indulging in a feeling natural to a man of genius, and a pardonable ebullition of the amour propre. Mr. Brett seems to have been twitted with the charge of taking up authorship as a commercial spec; he sullenly admits that his book-making leaves him something, but nothing like a recompense, and draws an invidious comparison between one Counsellor Harris and himself; the {534} former having ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... corn, cattle, plants, make women abortive, not to conceive, [1263]barren, men and women unapt and unable, married and unmarried, fifty several ways, saith Bodine, lib. 2. c. 2. fly in the air, meet when and where they will, as Cicogna proves, and Lavat. de spec. part. 2. c. 17. "steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio daemonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings," saith [1264]Scheretzius, part. 1. c. 6. make men victorious, fortunate, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... exertion. And that the accumulations of it during the torpor of the cutaneous vessels by exposure to cold, or of some internal viscus in the cold fits of agues, are frequently instrumental in recovering the use of paralytic limbs, or of the motions of other paralytic parts of the system. See Spec. 4. of this genus. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... World. The Time was when all the honest Whore-masters in the Neighbourhood would have rose against the Cuckolds to my Rescue. If Fornication is to be scandalous, half the fine things that have been writ by most of the Wits of the last Age may be burnt by the common Hangman. Harkee, [Mr.] SPEC, do not be queer; after having done some things pretty well, don't begin to write at that rate that no Gentleman can read thee. Be true to Love, and burn your Seneca. You do not expect me to write my Name from hence, but I am ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... be free, had invited 'company,' i.e., two or three married daughters and their belongings; one of the children beats Magnay's 'Carina' as to beauty—he ought to paint her. Happy thought, send him and pretty Mrs. Esperance down here on spec. He can paint the child for the next Academy, and meantime I could enjoy his company. Well, all these good folks being just set-to at roast beef, I naturally wouldn't hear of disturbing them, and in the ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... reclining in every stage of squalidness. Some seemed ill, or wounded, or asleep, others were chattering eagerly among themselves, singing, praying, or soliloquizing on joys to come. "Bress de Lord," I heard one woman say, "I spec' I got salt victual now,—notin' but fresh victual dese six months, but Ise get salt victual now,"—thus reversing, under pressure of the salt-embargo, the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... With Captain MacBride, Of course at her side, Who could not look quite so forlorn—though he tried, An "idea" in fact, had got into his head, That if "poor dear Sir Thomas" should really be dead, It might be no bad "spec" to be there in his stead, And by simply contriving, in due time, to wed A lady who was young and fair, A lady slim and tall, To set himself down in comfort there, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... promoted by Rome, the Jesuits, especially Del Rio, defended them. But it was another Jesuit, Spec, who broke the back of the custom, though he had to publish his book anonymously and in a Protestant town. They were, of necessity, friends of persecution, though one of them, Faure, said that he knew of 6000 heretics put to ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... he suttinly was, all 'ceptin' one, an' hit war a yallar 'coon dawg wha' I uster own down in ole Lou'siana. I 'spec's he war jes a teenty mite more knowin' dan eben Marse Brack's Bim dawg. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... heart, honey," she said to Janice, "Ah come into dis here house when it was fust built. Ah cleaned it wid mah own han's. Ah put up de fust curtains at de windahs. Ah knowed where everything was in dem days. "But Ah spec' now you's had so many no-count folks in de house fixin' fo' you dat Ah can't find a bressed thing. Dars's dat old walnut wardrobe up in de sto'room. It come from de Avion place, it did. Ah bet de cobwebs ain't been swep' off de top o' dat wardrobe since yo' ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... be," said Toddie. "Everybody gets afraid when they see good people around. I 'spec' they thought the angel would say ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... buttons!' groaned Sponge, as the discordant noise shot through his aching head, 'but this is the worst spec I ever made in my life. Fed on pork, fluted deaf, bit with bugs, and robbed at cards—fairly, downrightly robbed. Never was a more reg'ler plant put on a man. Thank goodness, however, I haven't paid him—never will, either. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... a letter putting him on to 'a big spec.,' as he called it. He said the letter told about a secret, about a fortune the writer had discovered. He said the letter was to a boy who would never know his good luck if they didn't tell him. He said to the man there was something ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... e worlde to wasche e fayly, 548 For is no segge vnder su{n}ne so seme of his crafte[gh], If he be sulped i{n} sy{n}ne, at [ne] sytte[gh] vnclene. [Sidenote: "One speck of a spot" will ruin us in the sight of God.] On spec of a spote may spede to mysse Of e sy[gh]te of e sou{er}ayn at sytte[gh] so hy[gh]e, 552 For at schewe me schale i{n} o schyre howse[gh], [Sidenote: The beryl is clean and sound,—it has no seam.] As e beryl bornyst byhoue[gh] be clene, at is sou{n}de ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a very humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much credit for; yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; proud of the pipe I was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and in particular, proud of being in the next room to three very distinguished students, who were then conversing beside the corridor fire. One ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... persuade old Aunt Martha not to dwell upon her troubles, telling her she would feel happier if she ignored them. "Well, honey," said the old lady, "I dunno 'bout dat. I allus 'lowed when de Lord send me tribulation he done spec' ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... ruffian addressed; "I'm blastedly ashamed of you, to hear a man talk that way! You knows as well as I does that these fellers has got all the money that Darnley's gang has made for six months past, and now there's a chance of making a spec ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... shilling to jingle on a tombstone. I was obliged to borrow money of my landlord—he's a capital fellow—to pay my washerwoman's bill this morning. So don't fall in love with me. I assure you, on my honour, it would be a bad spec." ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie |
