"Surmise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... duchess; but what was a duchess without diamonds?— and in a dress which farmer Hodson's daughter might have worn! Was it the duchess? Could it be the duchess? The little crowd of inquirers around Mrs. Gibson thickened, to hear her confirm their disappointing surmise. After the duchess came Lady Cumnor, looking like Lady Macbeth in black velvet—a cloud upon her brow, made more conspicuous by the lines of age rapidly gathering on her handsome face; and Lady Harriet, and other ladies, amongst whom ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... move on very carefully, feeling my way from chest to chest. I discovered in my progress not only chests, but casks and bales. I had little doubt, therefore, that I had been conveyed to the smugglers' store, but where it was situated I was totally unable to surmise. That it was some way inland I thought probable, as I could not hear the sound of the surf breaking on the sea shore, which I thought I should have done had I been near the coast. I tried to think if I recollected any building ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... geographical names has become an object of mere surmise, and this is the more the pity because they suggest such picturesque possibilities. We would like to know, for instance, how Burnt Coat and Smutty Nose came by such titles. The conglomerate that strews the fields ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Pfaff with occupations devised apparently from hour to hour. On a master's morning the girls collected in the schoolroom one by one as they finished their bed-making and dusting. On other days the time immediately after breakfast was full of uncertainty and surmise. Judging from the interchange between the four first-floor bedrooms whose doors were always open during this bustling interval, Miriam, listening apprehensively as she did her share of work on the top floor, gathered that the lack of any planned programme ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigailov could be very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigailov had probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigailov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the conversation with various irrelevant questions. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; That I have frequent been with unknown minds, And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds Which should transport me farthest from your sight. Book both my wilfulness and errors down, And on just proof surmise, accumulate; Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate; Since my appeal says I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... brought me part iv. of the P.Z.S. for 1874, containing Mr. Dresser's interesting paper on the nidification of the Hypolais and Acrocephalus groups; and if I understand him rightly, he is certainly correct in his surmise as to the eggs of Acrocephalus dumetorum approaching those of the ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... simple; and hence the Ego, which is simple in the first sense, may, in the second sense, as indicating the soul itself, be a very complex conception, with a very various content. Thus it is evident that in all such arguments there lurks a paralogism. We guess (for without some such surmise our suspicion would not be excited in reference to a proof of this character) at the presence of the paralogism, by keeping ever before us a criterion of the possibility of those synthetical propositions which aim at proving more than experience can teach ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... head. 'It's only a surmise,' I said, hesitating. 'I'll tell you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I return, and mind you don't let Lord Southminster ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... year 18—, I embarked on board the ship Cosmo, bound from the port of Bristol to that of New York. The season was unpropitious, the lingering effects of the autumnal equinox rendering it more than probable that the passage would be tempestuous. The result soon proved the correctness of this surmise, for soon after the vessel departed from Kingroad, and before she got clear of the English coast, we experienced boisterous weather, which was followed by a succession of gales, that rendered our situation perilous. But ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... especially true in our intercourse with our fellow-men. We never really know what they will do from time to time. Their action is still future and uncertain; but from our familiarity with their character, we surmise or imagine what they expect or think, and we then act so as to make our conduct fit into theirs. Here is suggestion of a personal kind which depends upon our ability, in a sense, to reconstruct the character of others, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... was seeking to find entrance into the room, he could not doubt for a moment; but, on the other hand, it seemed an incredible surmise, because the wall along which the unknown visitor had plainly felt his way was an outside wall, and if there really were any person thus moving, he must be walking along some secret passage in the thickness of ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... remarkable, that being obliged by my profession to see a number of young girls, I do not recollect one at Chambery but what was charming: it will be said I was disposed to find them so, and perhaps there maybe some truth in the surmise. I cannot remember my young scholars without pleasure. Why, in naming the most amiable, cannot I recall them and myself also to that happy age in which our moments, pleasing as innocent, were passed with such happiness together? ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... "'My surmise proved correct. I have never been more petted than I was by "Toady," as the village boys had dubbed him. My present guardian is foolish enough over me, goodness knows, but she has other ties, while "Toady" had nothing else to love, not even himself. He could hardly believe his eyes at first ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... vast inferiority of the things they sell in the shops to the universe: our great puzzle is never perfectly solved. We come across marvellous hints, we join line to line and our hearts beat with the rapture of a great surmise; we follow a certain track and know by sure signs and signals that we are not mistaken, that we are on the right road; we are furnished with certain charts which tell us "here there be water-pools," "here is a waste place," "here ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... Desmond's surmise proved correct. Aruna's left arm was broken above the elbow: a simple fracture, but it hurt a good deal. Thea, in charge of 'the wounded,' eased them both as best she could, during the long drive home. But Aruna, still in her exalted ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... mistaken in the fact that there exists, both in the educated and half-educated portions of the community, something of a surmise or misgiving, that there really is at bottom a certain contrariety between the declarations of religion and the results of physical inquiry; a suspicion such, that, while it encourages those persons who ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... surmise avers that, in 1763 the secrets of his birth and the source of his opulence were known in Holland. The authority is the 'Memoirs' of Grosley (1813). Grosley was an archaeologist of Troyes; he had travelled in Italy, and ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... New York it won't do much good to tell the police," answered Anderson Rover. "However, we can report it to morrow. But I think Cuffer and Shelley will keep in the shade until they see Sid Merrick and have a chance to get away," and in this surmise Mr. Rover was correct. The matter was reported to the police, and that was the end of it, so far as the authorities went, for they failed ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... was not less occupied by gloomy thoughts. Of all the leading men of the tribe, Topanashka saw perhaps most clearly the sinister machinations of some of the Turquoise people. Still he had not discovered, and could not even surmise, the real object of their intrigues. Of an intention to divide the tribe he had no idea. Personal ambition, greed, and thirst for influence was all he could think of; and he felt sure that they would not prevail, for to personal ambition the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... instance, the comet was followed, though at a longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China: and in the first fervor of the crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels. The seventh phenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and eighty, was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. [80] The philosophy of Bayle dispelled ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of the passing people, saying In their surmise, "Ah—whose is this dull form that perambulates, seeing nought Round him that looms Whithersoever his footsteps turn in his ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... was now in a fine attitude by act of Parliament. It could talk its contempt of medical women, and act its terror of them, and keep both its feigned contempt and its real alarm safe from the test of a public examination—that crucible in which cant, surmise, and mendacity are soon evaporated or precipitated, and only the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... since I inscribe the painful remembrance of a striking act in the career of the Emperor; of an event which has been the subject of innumerable controversies, though it has been necessarily only a matter of surmise, since I alone knew all the painful details. I refer to the poisoning of the Emperor at Fontainebleau. I trust I do not need to protest my perfect truthfulness; I feel too keenly the great importance of such a revelation ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Mr. Moncrief's surmise turned out to be correct. No further adventure befel them on the homeward journey. Paul learned, by the way, that the man Zuker was a German Jew of great ability and cunning. He was suspected to be a spy in the service of a foreign Government—which Government Mr. Moncrief did not mention, ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... conclusion from insufficient data, it is always satisfactory to discover, as one too seldom does, that one was right. I had been right about the gentleman being an accountant, and here I was right again in my surmise that the lady was exceptionally highly connected, so highly that one could overlook her mother's mesalliance with the coachman. Her uncle was only a bishop at the time of her birth, he became a cardinal soon after Mery's mother married ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... richly-toned drawings in sepia; and numerous crystals of garnet embedded in mica-schist, that were, I was sure, identical with the stones set in a little gold brooch, the property of my mother. To this last surmise, however, some of the neighbours to whom I showed my prize demurred. The stones in my mother's brooch were precious stones, they said; whereas what I had found was merely a "stone upon the shore." My ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... had announced himself, to introduce her particularly by name. To forestall in the jolly sailor the natural interpretation of their appearance together at this hour and occasion, he had to lend himself to the only other reasonable surmise. If they were not, as he saw it on the tip of the good captain's tongue to propose, newly married, they were in a hopeful way to be. The consciousness of himself as accessory to so delightful an arrangement passed from the captain to Peter with almost the obviousness of a wink, as he ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... concentrated on me, as if to read from the expression of my face whether the news was good or bad. Colonel Michler of General Miles's staff was there, and if we should happen to be together talking, the women would surmise that the news was bad; and many times their surmises were just about right. One sweet little black-eyed woman always said she could tell from my face whether I was bluffing or not. July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, were ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... nowadays, that deal with peculiarities of grammar, how supremely repulsive they are! It is impossible to glean any sense from them, as the Editor mixes up Nipperwick's view with Sidgeley's reasoning and Spreckendzedeutscheim's surmise with Donnerundblitzendorf's conjecture in a way that seems to argue a thorough unsoundness of mind and morals, a cynical insanity combined with a blatant indecency. He occasionally starts in a reasonable manner by giving one ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... thing she could surmise, with any semblance of probability, was that the whole was some frolic of Lady Honoria Pemberton, who had persuaded Delvile to send her the dog, and perhaps assured him she had herself requested ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... brother, George, the rich one, who lived in Cleveland and manufactured rakes and hoes, wrote her one of his rare letters to the same effect. Lydia thought it likely that he had been moved to this unusual show of interest in her affairs by proddings from her mother and Marietta. If this surmise was correct, and if a similar request had been sent to Henry, the other member of the Emery family, the one who had married the grocer's daughter, the appeal had a strikingly different effect. From Oregon came an impetuous, slangily-worded exhortation to Lydia not ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... suggest, even, a life lived upon a different plane. Yet every now and then their references to everyday happenings were trite enough. Sir Timothy had assailed the recent craze for drugs, a diatribe to which Lady Cynthia had listened in silence for reasons which Francis could surmise. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wondered if she really meant the marriage threat. At this distance in time it appears extremely doubtful. She may have had moments in which the steadily augmenting output of the Little Clean-Up tempted her, but this is only a surmise. And a little later I was to learn that during this very winter when she was dragging me bound and helpless at the end of her trail-rope, she was—but ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... marriage; however, I gave little credit to this rumour till I was obliged to go to town about business, and there I heard the same information confidently affirmed. Though I still considered it as a vague surmise, I wrote to him an account of what I had heard; and, in his answer, which is still in my possession, he assured me, with repeated vows and protestations, that the report was altogether false. Satisfied with this declaration, I returned to his house; and, though the tale was ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... all may be mere surmise; Wherefore, at present it will be most prudent, To hush the sad ideas of suspicion. A little time must prove its truth, or falsehood; Besides, the person ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... atmosphere, and it is now a generally accepted theory that the changes noticed in its color throughout the year are the seasonal effects on vegetable matter existing on its surface.... What the inhabitants are like, however, we can only surmise, but a study of the conditions under which they live will help us to picture the wild amphibious creatures they must be. Their planet, more than half covered with water, and being so many millions of miles nearer the sun than we are, is almost continually ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... Harero heard him utter a curse, deep but suppressed, for the surmise of the multitude was correct. Captain Bezan had been reprieved; and, probably, in fear of this very thing, the general of the division had taken upon himself to set the time of execution one hour earlier ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... boys drew nearer they perceived their surmise had been correct. A dilapidated old wagon it was, standing beside the road. To it were hitched two mules. There was not ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... arrogant, with restive and fathomless eyes, he seemed to unite the East and the West in his being. Had his mother been a Jewess of pride and intellect, and his father an adventurous American of the superman type? Kate, looking at him with fresh interest, found her thoughts leaping to the surmise. She knew that he was, in a way, a great man—a man with a growing greatness. He had promulgated ideas so daring that his brother scientists were embarrassed to know where to place him. There were those who thought of him as a brilliant charlatan; but ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... be added that Duckworthy himself was shortly hanged, so that, if his surmise was true, there were now only three left alive of all that wicked crew that had successfully carried to its completion the greatest adventure which any pirate in the world had ever, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... was criminal folly. It bore its natural fruit. Our men were scattered on the route from Harper's Ferry to Leesburg, a demoralized lot of stragglers. My diary mentions this experience with much indignation and attributes the folly to the effects of whiskey. Of course, this was only a surmise. ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... Hogsdon will to Hygate ere't be long, London has got a great way from the streame, I thinke she means to go to Islington, To eate a dish of strawberries and creame. The City's sure in progresse I surmise, Or going to revell it in some disorder, Without the Walls, without the Liberties, Where she neede feare nor Mayor nor Recorder. Well! say she do, 'twere pretty, yet 'tis pitty A Middlesex Bailiff should ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... he is only a Boer in the sense that he smokes hard and prefers coffee. He lives in a very ordinary dwelling-house, and it is even stated that his vrouw starches and irons his dress-shirts, but this may only be surmise. At all events he does not allow these trifles to worry him, his renowned diplomacy being directed chiefly to the management of his cosmopolitan children, who are apt occasionally to wax troublesome and exceed the bounds ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... had to borrow during his time of stress. Always devoted to his mother, Borrow sent her sums of money at intervals from the moment the power of earning came to him. We shall never know, we can only surmise something of the self-sacrificing devotion of that mother during the years in which Borrow had failed to find remunerative work. Wherever he wandered there had always been a home in the Willow Lane cottage. It is probable that much the greater part ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... was in the Navy," put in Bob as if to corroborate the surmise of the old gentleman. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... surmise and nothing more; and yet how true it proved! I had a 'tec with me on the following afternoon, and a pretty tale he had to tell. Not, mind you, as he himself declared, that Dolly was really dishonest. She had left a few bills behind her; but where is the woman who does not ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... his rescue from the Austrian papists of the Hungarian patriot, Martin Kozsta." The captain wisely refused to purchase any needles or thread for me on shore, or any articles of ladies' dress, for fear of the Jesuitical spies, who might surmise something and cause further trouble. But he kindly furnished me with some goods he had purchased for his own wife, and there were needles and silk enough on board, so that I soon cut and made a few articles that made me very comfortable during our ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... surmise," said Capper. "I never surmise. I know." He began to crack his fingers impatiently, and presently fell to whistling below his breath. "No," he said suddenly, "you've got the physical strength and you've got the spunk to lick creation, but what you haven't got is zeal. You're ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... his head on his hands. In all his dealings with the Spartan he had believed he had covered the details of the fate of Glaucon. Lycon could surmise what he liked, but the proof to make the damning charges good Democrates believed he had safe in his own keeping. Only one man could have unlocked the casket of infamy—Agis—and the mention of his name was as a bolt from ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... to the vault, I had no very sure purpose in mind; only a vague surmise that this finding of Blackbeard's coffin would somehow lead to the finding of his treasure. But as I looked at the beard and pondered, I began to see that if anything was to be done, it must be by ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... be, and enquire as to where he was, and whether they could afford him any information as to what had become of Harry, when his quick ear caught one or two words of the conversation which the unknown persons were carrying on. It was in Spanish. Then his surmise was a true one, and he was indeed aboard one of the enemy's ships. With a stifled cry he flung himself down in the bunk, and pulled the coverlet over him once again, closing his eyes, and simulating heavy breathing, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and then forwarded to Pastor Henkel. What the questions were we have no means of determining [no doubt, they were the same questions asked the Pennsylvania Synod], but, judging from the ability and bent of the doughty David Henkel, we may surmise that the questions involved some difficulties. In the following year Synod resolved that it could not answer these questions, since it is not our purpose at our meetings to discuss theological questions, but to consider the general welfare ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... meant, to be symbols of Jehovah. The true object of worship was worshipped in a false way. No matter though the image represented Him, its worship was idol worship. There is no ground in the narrative for the surmise of Stanley,—who in this, as usual, simply says ditto to Ewald,—that Jeroboam's motive was the desire to prevent Israel's adopting false gods, and that the calves were a compromise by which he hoped ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... prolonged—in short, we find ourselves in a land of Faery; secondly, we find that the historic conditions in which the heroes are represented as living do not, for the most part, answer to anything we know or can surmise of the third century. For Finn and his warriors are perpetually on the watch to guard Ireland against the attacks of over-sea raiders, styled Lochlannac by the narrators, and by them undoubtedly thought of as Norsemen. But the latter, as is well known, only came to Ireland at the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Louis Capet is that of Death." Death by a small majority of Fifty-three. Nay, if we deduct from the one side, and add to the other, a certain Twenty-six, who said Death but coupled some faintest ineffectual surmise of mercy with it, the majority will ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... time. Do you think, now that my son is found, and that son like John Ardworth (for there can be no doubt that my surmise was right), with genius to make station the pedestal to the power I dreamed of in my youth, but which my sex forbade me to attain,—do you think I will keep him a month from his inheritance? Before the month is out, you shall ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice that not only swept the last film of sleep out of Beverley's brain, but made it perfectly clear to him that a very important bit of craftiness was being performed; just what its nature was, however, he could not surmise. One thing was obvious, Long-Hair did not wish the other Indians to know of the move he was making. Deftly he slipped the blankets from around Beverley, and cut the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me; we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that; whom shall ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sure was some hustle! There's one thing, Court. You won't have to candidate for any church like those other guys in your little old seminary. You just went out and bought one; though I surmise you and I'll have to do some scrubbing if you calculate to hold services ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... my business," he said presently; "but from your general appearance, from bits of idiom you occasionally drop, and from the way you handled those two boes the night we met I should rather surmise that at some time or other you had been less than a thousand miles from the w.k. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... know for certain that he is somewhere in this neighborhood, and we shall hunt him down. By your leave, General," and the man swung himself into the saddle as he spoke. It was well that he did so, for a corporal of gendarmerie trained to alert observation and quick surmise would have had his suspicions at once if he had caught sight of the General's face. Everything that passed through the soldier's mind was faithfully revealed ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... glance on the man in question. He was wearing evening kit, and at first sight the brown-skinned face above the white of his collar, taken in conjunction with dark hair and very strongly-marked brows, seemed to premise the correctness of Tony's surmise. Suddenly the man lifted his bent head, and over the top of the newspaper Arm found herself looking into a pair of unmistakably grey eyes—grey as steel. They were very direct eyes, with a certain brooding discontent in their depths which looked as though it might flame ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... tide of gossip and surmise. And in Hone's pocket lay the twisted note which the woman he loved had left behind—the note which he had read with an unmoved countenance under ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... Well did he surmise from whom the deadly provocation came, the loss of his farm, the death of a noble lad committed to his care; not to mention the loss of some common men, who could easily be replaced: for there were ever fresh swarms of Normans, French, and Bretons ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... forty years, he would have learnt, first from John Huss, and then from Luther and his followers, that although in certain hands things may last a while, it is only till they are worn out. What Boccaccio and the Jew would say now if they came back, I do not venture to surmise, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... this surmise to be correct. We saw where Ranger had slipped over a twenty-foot wall. If he had gone over just under the cedar where the depth was much greater he would never have ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... cry out to him again, but she crept a little nearer. A strange surmise made her eyes dilate. With a painful wrench she pulled herself up so that she could see completely over the intervening lumps of smashed-up masonry. Her hand touched something wet, and after one convulsive movement ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... pressed to her lips, but just as they brimmed over, some quick surmise of Ann's shrewd replies choked them back. After all, what had she got out of it? What that she could show? She rose slowly and walked back to her room, where the bath, fresh, uncreased clothes, and Hester's deft ministry waited ready for her. Later, she lay again in the balcony ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... permitting a witness to wander at will over the entire field of knowledge, hearsay, surmise and opinion has several distinct advantages over our practice. In giving hearsay evidence, for example, he may suggest a new and important witness of whom the counsel for the other side would not otherwise have heard, and who can then be brought into court. On some unguarded and apparently irrelevant ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... have saddened a nobler spirit enchanted Inglesby. He was dazzled by her. Her interest in what he was saying was coolly impersonal, the fixed habit of trained politeness. He could even surmise that she was mentally yawning behind her hand. When she looked at him her eyes under her level brows held a certain scornfulness. And this, too, delighted him. He groveled to it. His red face glowed with pleasure; he swelled with ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... verisimilitude, scope, instrument, character, testimony, and circumstances, with which they presented themselves to us; and, according to the final result of those various considerations, it was our duty to be sure, or to believe, or to opine, or to surmise, or to tolerate, or to reject, or to denounce. The main difference between my Essay on Miracles in 1826 and my Essay in 1842 is this: that in 1826 I considered that miracles were sharply divided into two classes, those which were to be received, and those which were to be rejected; ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... surmise the head of the school was correct. Long afterwards it was learned that Werner had put the motor-boat into the hands of a man to bring it back to the party of whom it had been hired, and then he and Glutts had tramped three miles across the country to a railroad station where they took ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... them out to her with his finger, and seems to do so as an encouragement to her. A young man follows the saint. His action is too expressive to suppose it that of a parent or convert." This is indeed a very fine specimen, both for what is said and what is unsaid—the surmise is perfectly French, and the pitying tender familiarity of Cecilia, for commiseration's sake robbed of her saintship, would be enough to melt an auction-room to tears, were the picture to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... staring at the rug. I wondered how she came to surmise that it was Gretchen's rose? ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... of her own purity, powerless to penetrate, yet nauseating her by the unclean impact. What, then, interposed to check him? What hidden force held him back from working his will against her? She could make no surmise. Certainly, here was no physical restraint to stay him. As certainly, no moral reason would be of effect. The thing was altogether mysterious. So, she marveled mightily, and was curious to understand, even ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... upon each, Embraced like sisters, thenceforth one. For her No arduous thing was Faith, ere yet she heard In heart believing: and, as when a babe Marks some bright shape, if near or far, it knows not, And stretches forth a witless hand to clasp Phantom or form, even so with wild surmise And guesses erring first, and questions apt, She chased the flying light, and round it closed At last, and found it substance. "This is He." Then cried she, "This, whom every maid should love, Conqueror self-sacrificed of sin ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... positive intention to devote the proceeds of the sale of those securities to bolstering up your business; and even yesterday you assured me that if they could only be found you would of course hand them over to the assignee, to be devoted to the liquidation of your debts. Am I correct in this surmise, ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... ganz unbegrndet steht, statt in den zweiten, wo es allein motiviert erscheint."[110] But this is not the correct explanation. The author of the rmur for some reason, such as a wish to rationalize the story, but which, however, we can only surmise, decided to make radical changes in it. In the first instance he substitutes a wolf for the dragon, but otherwise, considering the material he is going to use in the story of the fight with the bear, retains as much as he can of the story ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... lofty and far- reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful, yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy. Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou, borne on them, art revelling in celestial light." The best way to indicate briefly what this friendship ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... instant Jerry saw that his surmise was wrong. For suddenly a single figure came into view, a figure huddled on hands and knees a full fifty feet away from his companions. For an instant Jerry couldn't understand. Then the huddled figure was swept farther ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Repeller No. 1, rowed directly over the submerged net, and made for the harbour. When the approach of this flag-of-truce was perceived from the fort nearest the mouth of the harbour, it occasioned much surmise. Had the earthquake brought these Syndicate knaves to their senses? Or were they about to make further absurd and outrageous demands? Some irate officers were of the opinion that enemies like these should be considered no better ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... great marvel; moreover, they doubted his being a king's messenger, for, as Smallbones very shrewdly observed, "Why, if he was a king's messenger, did he not come with the despatches?" However, they could only surmise, and no more. But the dog being turned out of the cabin in compliance with Ramsay's wish, was the most important point of all. They could have got over all the rest, but that was quite incomprehensible; and they all agreed with Coble, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... from what had seemed natural sleep—save for the rapid breathing—and of a sudden recollected the number of the house in Cleveland Street at which Biffen was now living. He uttered it without explanation. Amy at once conjectured his meaning, and as soon as her surmise was confirmed she despatched a ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, as we must perforce surmise, Leave ancestral ghosts behind them when they sailed 'neath alien skies? There is something in the notion, for it was a risky trip, And a spectre is a nuisance when he gibbers on board ship. So, no doubt, those sturdy people, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... "Molly Aston," not "dear Boothby," must have been the object of this rivalry[1]; and the surmise is strengthened by Johnson's calling Molly the loveliest creature he ever saw; adding (to Mrs. Thrale), "My wife was a little jealous, and happening one day when walking in the country to meet a fortune-hunting gipsy, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... practical horsemen that horses grown chiefly on alfalfa have not the staying power and endurance of those, for instance, that are grazed chiefly on Kentucky blue grass and some other grasses. There is probably some truth in the surmise, and if so, the objection raised could be met by dividing the grazing either through alternating the same with other pastures or by growing some other grass or ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... forethought and caution, he had succeeded in restoring Elise to her father's house, without her absence having been remarked, or having occasioned any surmise. In the close carriage in which they performed the journey home, they had not exchanged a word; but leaning hack on the cushions, each had rest and repose after the stormy and exciting scenes they had just passed through. Elise's hand still rested on Bertram's, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps because ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... the day I turned this over and over in my mind, and then, in the middle of our evening meal, enlightenment came to me. I remembered the man whose piteous tale had so much affected Beckenham on the day of our arrival, and the sound his crutches made upon the pavement as he left us. If my surmise proved correct, and we could only manage to communicate with him, here was a golden opportunity. But how were we to do this? We discussed it, and discussed it, times out of number, but in vain. That he must be stopped on his way down the street need not to be argued at all. ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes, But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world, and had no chart, Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art. Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine That lights the pathway but one step ahead Across a void of mystery and dread. Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... is mentioned only incidentally, which is natural, for it is a detail which would impress later piety rather than the Buddha himself. But there is no reason to be sceptical as to the part it has played in Buddhist history. Even if we had not been told that he sat under a tree, we might surmise that he did so, for to sit under a tree or in a cave was the only alternative for a homeless ascetic. The Mahavagga states that after attaining Buddhahood he sat crosslegged at the foot of the tree for seven days uninterruptedly, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... mission if, in accordance with the plan of the Jesuit provincial, it is decided to recall Father Germain to Quebec to fill the office of superior general of the house of the Jesuits in Canada. This is not merely a groundless surmise, for the destination and nomination to office of Father Germain are already determined, at least Father Germain himself so states in his last letter to the Abbe l'Isle-Dieu, and he adds that he has made every possible representation to at least delay his recall. The Abbe l'Isle-Dieu, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... think you only the most adorable woman in the world. But there is one thing which has cost me many a sleepless hour, many a jealous surmise. If I could be reassured as to the nature of your errand that night when ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... mother was a Frenchwoman (his father was Henry Morland, the painter of the delightful pair of half-lengths, The Laundry Maids) suggests to my mind the wild surmise that she may have been the daughter of Chardin. For in the technique as well as in the temperament of Morland,—making allowance for difference of circumstances,—there is something remarkably akin to those of the great Frenchman. Both eschewed the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... are—a change! semper eadem! Women will be wanting a change of air in Paradise; a change of angels too, I might surmise. A change from quarters like these to a French hotel would be a descent!—'this the seat, this mournful gloom for that celestial light.' I am perfectly at home in the library here. That excellent fellow Whitford ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... could judge from the volume of sound the battle seemed to be concentrated directly upon the hill. He knew that Grant expected to make a general attack in full force, and he surmised that one of the commanders under him was not pushing forward with the expected zeal. His surmise was correct. A general with fifteen thousand men was standing almost passive in front of a much smaller force, but other generals were showing great fire ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was on de table.'" [Footnote: This story, and the story of the "Postmaster" in a preceding chapter, I have told for so many years and to so many people, and with such varied amplifications, that I have long since persuaded myself that they are creations of my own. I surmise, however, that the basis of the "Postmaster" can be found in the corner of some forgotten newspaper, and I know that the "One-Legged Goose" is as old ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... up. That in thus surrendering the properties for which they were largely responsible they hoped at the conclusion of peace to see restored the 'status quo ante' should not be held against them. Some are now beginning to surmise that a complete restoration is impossible; and as a result of their socializing experience, are even wondering whether it is desirable. These are beginning to perceive that the national and international organizations in the course of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Mr. Moxey's countenance a curious shadow. Godwin noticed it, and at once concluded that the manufacturer condemned Christian for undue advances to one below his own station. The result of this surmise was of course a sudden coldness on Godwin's part, increased when he found that Mr. Moxey turned to another subject, without a word about ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... stopped. One of the Wyandot warriors seemed to have seen something. He was looking fixedly in Henry's direction. Boughs and stumps of every sort often floated down the Ohio. He might have caught a glimpse of Henry's head. He would take it for a small stump, but he would not stop to surmise. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Everyone could surmise where Joe Butler was, but no one voiced the supposition. Warren, handsome in his skirted coat, knee breeches, and ruffles, disappeared from the room, and the dancing went on. The scene was unbelievably brilliant, the hot, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... They walked farther along the path and found that it was one used by workmen, evidently, leading at last down the steep mountain side and across to the Rattler. They surmised that it must be one made by the timber cutters for the mine, and learned, in later months, that the surmise ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... stands away from the picture he is painting, and to examine it with a sideways head, with a peering, contracted gaze. This thing that protected a soul from sin—what was it like? What was it? He could not easily surmise. He had a clear vision of the Christ soul, of the exquisite essence of a divine individuality that prompted life to spring out of death for one perfect moment that it might miraculously reward a great human act of humanity. Yes, that soul floated before him almost visibly. He could call it ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Roosevelt as President. They united to hold a convention of the Progressive party at Chicago in 1916 on the same days on which the Republican Convention met there. Each convention opened with a calculating eye upon the activities of the other. But both watched with even more anxious surmise for some sign of intention from the Progressive leader back at Oyster Bay. He held in his single hand the power of life and death for the Progressive party. His decision as to cooperative action with the Republicans or individual action as a Progressive ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... men hurrying toward the beach with an uneasy feeling in the region of his heart. He could easily see that Aaron Dennison looked angry, and from this it was not difficult to surmise that fresh trouble hung over the heads ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... said, "is perfectly correct in her surmise. I do not want the life of this poor drivelling old man: my intentions are much more peaceable, be assured. It rests entirely with this accomplished young lady (whose spirit I like, and whose ready wit I admire), whether the business between us ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the door. 'Don't you see that this is really the first hint we have had to indicate that young Trent is still alive and a prisoner. Up to this moment all has been theory and surmise. If this letter is not a wretched fraud, a bold scheme to obtain money, hatched in the brain of some villain who has seen the advertised rewards and knows nothing about Trent, it is our first clue, and through it we may find him.' And promising to call upon her ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... sentiment, runs through the sacred books of the East, is the root and heart of their theology, the dogma that makes the cruelest penances pleasant if a renewed existence may thus be avoided. The sentiment is not alien to human longing and surmise, as witnesses the night thought of the English poet who, world sated, and sadly yearning, cries through the starry ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... time his hands were bound behind his back and he noticed that the masked rustler was fastening them tightly but with a rotten rawhide. This peculiar circumstance caused a wild thrill to flash all through Larkin's being. Perhaps, after all, here was the weak link in the rustler's chain. The surmise became a certainty when the man, unobserved by his companions, sawed Bud's arms back and forth, showing him the quickest and easiest ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... have heard, Agnes, that a gentleman visits you whom I surmise to be my brother, and, if so, I thought perhaps you would know through him ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... for you to find out how," said Mason Elliott, gravely. "It is incredible that Mrs, Embury is the guilty one, though I admit the incriminating appearance of the henbane. But I've beet thinking it over, and while Mr. Driscoll's surmise that the deed can possibly be traced to one who recently saw the play of 'Hamlet,' yet he must remember that thousands of people saw that play, and that therefore it cannot ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... But there was something pricked him which filled him for the instant with serious thoughts. When he had asked the question he wished to see her at his feet. There had come no answer, and he told himself that he was justified in thinking the surmise to be true. He was justified to himself, but only for the moment, for at the next had come her declaration that all was to be over between them. The idea of the lover became buried under the ruins which were ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... her, and press'd her hand, And said, "Art thou so pale, who wast so bland And merry in our meadows? How is this? Tell me thine ailment: tell me all amiss!— Ah! thou hast been unhappy at the change 520 Wrought suddenly in me. What indeed more strange? Or more complete to overwhelm surmise? Ambition is no sluggard: 'tis no prize, That toiling years would put within my grasp, That I have sigh'd for: with so deadly gasp No man e'er panted for a mortal love. So all have set my heavier grief above These things which happen. Rightly have they done: ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their monstrous credulity—but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence—Only it vexes me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to surmise the bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman, whom now methinks I could worship with a veneration due ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... that he desired made, a cake for a wedding; and I directly found myself curious to know whose wedding. Even a dull wedding interests me more than other dull events, because it can arouse so much surmise and so much prophecy; but in this wedding I instantly, because of his strange and winning embarrassment, became quite absorbed. How came it he was ordering the cake for it? Blushing like the boy that ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the very dust, Hoping in vain to come across a crust. And, when our God-born WILHELM brings his Huns Here, he will find a few odd skeletons." Such is the tale a Teuton lately writ. How, then, I ask, does London look so fit? This is the reason, mainly, I surmise— We are fed up, of course, with ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... bookkeeper's wife. I surmise that Percy felt she was overdressed, and that made him awkward with me. I've always suspected ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... in a serious manner, there were few of us whose hearts did not flutter responsively to this surmise, for the danger became every minute more imminent and we knew what a terrific surf there must be then running on the shingle beach. But we now rapidly approached the shore; we were near to the floating ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... who have figured in our tale, we can only surmise—at least hope—that they lived long and happily, for the saga relates nothing as to the end of their respective careers. But of this we are quite sure, that wherever they went, or however long ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Golden Eagle," he comforted, "and anyway it's likely if no one stops them, that some at least of the canoes will drift down the river to the coast. M. Desplaines will no doubt be able to surmise something serious has happened when he hears of their arrival and will send aid. In the meantime we have to consider what we are to ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... him at his house in Chelsea, and when Whistler arrived he was shown into a reception-room. Seating himself, he was soon disturbed by a noise which appeared to be made by a rat or a mouse in the wainscoting of the room. This surmise was wrong, as he found the noise was in the center of the apartment. Stooping, to his amazement he saw Rossetti lying at full length ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... concluded calmly and coldly, "that you talk nonsense, when you say I have no heart." That was my father's disposition; to suspect that any one, or anything else could hope for the privilege of making his heart beat, except this natural physical contraction, were a vain and empty surmise indeed. And yet he had been twice married; the question may suggest itself, had he ever loved? I dare say he had analysed his amative propensity thoroughly, and knew to what extent it existed within him, but when a man can reconcile himself to the belief that on the "middle line ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement for ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville |
