"Speculatively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his thought shifted once more, attaching itself curiously, speculatively, to individual objects. For his survey of the house had just now brought a box into view, situated on the grand tier and almost immediately opposite his own. It was occupied by a party of six persons. With four of those persons Richard was aware he had nothing to do. But with the remaining ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... same opinion as you, Marquis, although the ideas I communicated to you yesterday appeared to be true speculatively, that it would be dangerous if all women were to be guided by them. It is not by a knowledge of their frailty, that women will remain virtuous, but by the conviction that they are free and mistresses of themselves when it comes to yield or to resist. Is it by persuading a soldier ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... universal; and it may very well be contended that for the cases the Fathers consider it was in fact universal—for the loans with which they are concerned, being necessitous, should be, in accordance with Christian charity, gratuitous—even if speculatively usurious loans in general ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... out for. You will become a belted earl. I have already made millions, and shall make many more. Similarly, Chatelier has had and will have his women, Anandrusung and Nishimura their cherished revenges. Hartkopf his power, and so on." He eyed the other speculatively, then ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... imagine," said the old man speculatively. "She apparently had health and happiness, if one may judge from her appearance, and she came to me of her own free will on a matter of business. Immediately after her disappearance, two well-dressed men entered my office and inquired for her. One had an intellectual ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... themes would prevail in such an examination of heart? In what order and with what emphasis would they be recounted? In which of its adventures would the human race, reviewing its whole experience, acknowledge a progress and a gain? To answer these questions, as they may be answered speculatively and provisionally by an individual, is the purpose of the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... it," responded Evelyn with maddening sweetness. She eyed Grace speculatively, but made no ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... built not speculatively, but on the ancient principles of trade, of barter between men, which is to divine needs and satisfy them, and hence they are the only fortunes in our rich land that do not represent, to some degree, human blood, the sacrifice of the many for the few. They were ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... value as my book may have is in fidelity to what I actually saw and knew of Venice, I have not attempted to follow speculatively the grand and happy events of last summer in their effects upon her life. Indeed, I fancy that in the traits at which I loved most to look, the life of Venice is not so much changed as her fortunes; but at any rate I am content to remain ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... easier it is to feel towards the moral law the reverence that we ought to feel when we believe that that law is embodied in a personal Will. Not only is religious Morality not opposed to the idea of duty for duty's sake: it is speculatively the only reasonable basis of it; practically and emotionally the great safeguard of it. And whatever may be thought of the possibility of a speculative defence of such an idea without Theism, the practical ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... were turned speculatively upon Malcolm Sage. In none was there the least ray of hope. All had now made up their minds that Jefferson would win the ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... over their agricultural deficiencies, and drifted off into open-eyed dreaming. Into his picture he began to fit these two speculatively, with a purely tentative adjustment of their personalities to his requirements. They were arguing about which of the two was the worst farmer; but Luck, riding alongside them, was seeing them slouched in their saddles and riding, bone-tired, with a shuffling trail-herd hurrying to the next ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... softly shaded whole. Not for years had anything seemed to him quite a case for "Yes" or "No." It had been his creed, his delight, his business, too, to try and put himself in everybody's place, so that now there were but few places where he did not, speculatively speaking, feel ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... me speculatively. "I dare say Mr. Smart has read all about the affair in the newspapers. They've had nothing else lately. I won't say he is a count, and I won't say he isn't. We're bound by a deep, dark, sinister ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Kathlyn seen such an enormous beast. From his great padded paws to his sloping shoulders he stood easily four feet in height, and his stripes were almost as broad as her hand. He drank, doubtless eying the buffaloes speculatively; some other time. Then he, too, sat on his haunches and washed his face, but with infinite gracefulness. It occurred to the watcher that, familiar as she was with the habits of wild beasts, never had she witnessed a tiger or a lion enact this domestic scene. Either they were always pacing their ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... that horde of barbarians; there were too many of the devils to fight with their bare hands. If only they had their ray pistols, or a torpedo projector. At least they could sell their lives dearly. His eyes narrowed speculatively when they came to rest on a peculiar egg-shaped object that stood out there in the open. It was Nazu's ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... the momentary pause that followed that the eyes behind the veil were looking at her strangely, speculatively. Then very softly ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... "Speculatively regarded, this great transformation of the religious spirit (from fetishism to polytheism) is perhaps the most fundamental that it has ever undergone, though we are at present so far separated from it as not to perceive its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... wonder why there are such enormous intervals between meals in the country?" said Nan speculatively. "In town there's never any time to get things in and meals are a perfect nuisance. Here they seem to be the only ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... speculatively for a moment; and in her speculation there was the faintest tinge of contempt, the contempt which, in spite of her pity, she felt for all weakness. "I shouldn't have got into your place," she responded presently, "and if I ever found myself there by mistake, I'd make ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... point—one not merely theoretical, or speculatively possible only, but absolutely fixed and determinable in our backward survey of the vital forces of nature—we find individual parentage lost in a natural matrix, or in the vital principle implanted as ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... maxims the condition of a universal legislative form); and thus it is able for the first time to give objective, though only practical, reality to reason, which always became transcendent when it sought to proceed speculatively with its ideas. It thus changes the transcendent use of reason into an immanent use (so that reason is itself, by means of ideas, an efficient cause ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... she continued, speculatively—"I believe I am going to begin to think things and do them again; and what's more, I believe I am going ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... speculatively, roaming over the costly objects. He was by no means anxious to make a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... you at our next Concert-evening in town?' said Victor; and hearing 'the privilege' mentioned, his sharp bright gaze cleared to limpid. 'You have seen how it stands with us here!' At once he related what indeed Dr. Themison had begun speculatively to think ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they continued the argument, and then the intervals between one statement and the next became longer and longer, and they spoke more speculatively and less pugnaciously, and at last fell silent. Katharine went over the argument in her mind, remembering how, now and then, it had been set conspicuously on the right course by some remark offered either by ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... each other mildly, for the passions of yesterday were still warm. Livingstone's mood had changed, however. He felt speculatively certain that Horace Endicott sat before him, and he knew Sonia to be a guilty woman. As his mind flew over the humiliating events which connected him with Dillon, consolation soothed his wounded heart that he had been overthrown perhaps by one of his own, rather than by the Irish. The ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... of scarfs. Gerald dexterously caught it, and upholding the poor boy with one hand, with the other passed the string under his arms, and tied the ends of it to his own arm. Then he paused a moment before attempting the hazardous work of coming ashore, and looked at me speculatively. I knew what he meant. There was a shadow of trouble in his face that had nothing to do with his own danger. He was weighing the possibility of his falling in, and my doing the same in trying to save him, and Daisy alone on the shore. I gave a cheering "Go ahead, old fellow!" and he began to push ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... "The Senorita," he murmured, and his swart features were lighted by a wrinkled smile. He stepped to his tent, whipped a gay bandanna from his blankets and knotted it about his lean throat. Then he took off his hat, gazing at it speculatively. It was beyond reconstruction as to definite shape, so he tossed it to the ground, ran his fingers through his silver-streaked hair, and stepped out to await his ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... opportunity. The pincers closed and Noozak's slumbers were disturbed by a sudden bawl of agony. When she raised her head Neewa was rolling about as if in a fit. He was scratching and snarling and spitting. Noozak eyed him speculatively for some moments, then reared herself slowly and went to him. With one big paw she rolled him over—and saw Chegawasse firmly and determinedly attached to her offspring's nose. Flattening Neewa on his back ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... therapeutics. To the importance of mind-cure the medical and clerical professions in the United States are beginning, though with much recalcitrancy and protesting, to open their eyes. It is evidently bound to develop still farther, both speculatively and practically, and its latest writers are far and away the ablest of the group.[45] It matters nothing that, just as there are hosts of persons who cannot pray, so there are greater hosts who cannot by any possibility be influenced ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... change is an almost imperceptible displacement of center in the writer's manner of viewing himself. This thinker takes thirty years to move from the Epicurean quietude to the quietism of Fenelon, and this only speculatively, for his practical life remains the same, and all his anthropological discovery consists in returning to the theory of the three lives, lower, human, and higher, which is in Pascal and in Aristotle. And this is what they call a philosopher in France! Beside the great philosophers, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Future" was the title of an interesting lecture by Mr. H. G. Wells, given in London early in 1901, before the Royal Institute, in which the subject was speculatively discussed, and in the course of his lecture Mr. ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... one of the revolvers. Kitty Conover with shooting irons in her hands, like a movie actress! She heard a whistle. After this an interval of silence, save for the ticking of the alarm clock on the stand. She eyed the blindfolded men speculatively, swung out of bed, and put on her stockings and sandals; then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the sequence. Kitty Conover was going to have some queer recollections to tell her grandchildren, providing she had any. That morning she had ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... reluctantly yielded the toaster, looking speculatively over her spectacles at her would-be helper. Here was another man gone daft, or apparently so. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... comprehends all that knowledge which relates to man's welfare, so far as it is determined by his own acts, or what we call his conduct. It answers to Moral and Religious philosophy. Practically, it is the most directly valuable of all forms of knowledge, but speculatively, it is limited and criticised by that which precedes and by that which follows it ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... not. Here the fugitives place themselves one against the other in the hugeness of their numbers so that very quickly in many places the countryside hardly exists except in leapfrogged forlorn patches or farther out, where its ownership in speculatively held blocks—the old farm houses gone to pot, their fields in weeds or casually tilled or grazed to merit agricultural taxation—avouches the certainty of continuing sprawl. It is a much-documented process with two decades of history behind it now. It is cancerlike in its effect ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... said Dick. He paused a moment looking speculatively at Jack's complacent face. "It was a pity you were so damned offensive, but I suppose it's the way you're made. You were the sole cause of the whole thing, and if there's any decency in you, you'll go ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... great ones, which, on the other hand, were never his strength. He was never capable of doing anything in public affairs, and I am sure I don't know why. His views were not sufficiently broad, and he did not even see comprehensively all that was within his range, but his good sense,—very good, speculatively,—added to his suavity, his insinuating style, and his easy manners, which are admirable, ought to have compensated more than it did for his lack of penetration. He always showed habitual irresolution, but I really do not know to what to attribute ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... an' what do you s'pose he's got in his ear now?" Tim said speculatively; but with little apparent interest in the subject. "He's allers botherin' his head 'bout somethin' that ain't any of his business. He allows he'll be a detective when he gets ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... thin," Cash observed speculatively, as though he was measuring them mentally for ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... possibly be paid in a competitive commercial business. The case is not analogous with our present system of taxing mature timber, in which land and timber together are assumed to constitute inseparable realty, stationary in production and increasing only speculatively in value, therefore the comparison with one year's taxation under our present system ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... you will do nicely, though you will not feel like climbing my hill, perhaps," the stranger said to him. He eyed Jacqueline speculatively. "Are you a muscular young lady? I ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the definiteness of his views, the force of his 'understanding,' as the word was then philosophically used in distinction from the reason. Brownson's mental vigor and positiveness were very agreeable to a candid mind which was speculatively adrift and experimenting, and, as it seemed to me, which was more emotional than logical. Brownson, after his life of varied theological and controversial activity, was drawing towards the Catholic Church, and his virile force fascinated the more delicate ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... speculatively attempted, Herschel undertook to grapple with experimentally. The upshot of this memorable inquiry was the inclusion, for the first time, within the sphere of human knowledge, of a connected body ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... is the true Dramatic Art, the romantic or the ancient? We shall not venture into that land of drought, where dry minds forever wander. We can admit both schools. In fact, even the countrymen of Racine have long since admitted both,—speculatively, at least,—though practically their temperament will always confine them to artificial models. We may consider the question as set at rest in these words of M. Guizot:—"Everything which men acknowledge as beautiful in Art owes its effect to certain combinations, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... shoes?" Corrie teased, speculatively eyeing the heap of wet, unsavory clothing. "Never mind, Briggs shall make them good as new with his Transcendant Tan for Tasteful Tootsies; you haven't seen that darky of mine shine boots. I don't know what to do with ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... remarkably well preserved man, General," he ventured speculatively. "Would you mind telling me ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... of Boulogne was really, on a more sustained view, the opposition between a native race the most happily tempered, the most becomingly seasoned and salted and self-dependent, and a shifting colony—so far as the persons composing it could either urgently or speculatively shift—inimitably at odds with any active freshness. And the stale and the light, even though so scantly rebounding, the too densely socialised, group was the English, and the "positive" and hardy and ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the compliment, Corbett." Roger eyed the other cadet speculatively. "But are you sure you ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... how long she will keep this up," mused Lynde, fixing his eye speculatively on Mary's pull-back ears. "If it is to be a permanent arrangement I shall have to reverse the saddle. Certainly, the creature is a lusus naturae—her head is on the wrong end! Easy on the back," he added, with a hollow laugh, recalling Deacon Twombly's recommendation. "I ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had given Bryce a drink, and had carried his own glass to another easy chair did Folliot refer to any reason for Bryce's visit. But once settled down, he looked at him speculatively. ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... ever supplied and upheld by the indwelling Deity. In his own way Franks was in conflict with the problems of life; neither was he very able to encounter them; but on the other hand he was one to whom wonders might safely be shown, for he would use them not speculatively but practically. "Nothing almost sees miracles but misery," perhaps because to misery alone, save it be to the great unselfish joy, is it safe to show miracles. Those who must see ere they will believe, may have to be brought to the verge ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... I do!" she sobbed, with her bright head dropped on her arm. Alix saw Kow come to the door, look at them speculatively, and disappear, and thought in her shaken soul that things in a household were demoralized indeed when pretense before the servants was no ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... detective out and along Praed Street. Before they reached the doors of the hospital, a man came up to Ayscough: a solid, substantial-looking person, of cautious manner and watchful eye, whose glance wandered speculatively from the detective to his companion. Evidently sizing Purdie up as some one in Ayscough's confidence, he spoke —in the fashion of one who has something as mysterious, as ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... his right eye speculatively. "No, I can't say as he exactly appeared like he'd been drinking," he said with the air of a connoisseur, "but he did seem to be considerably upset about something. He looked mad enough to bite; his face was pale, and his hand trembled when he raised his glass. Three or ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... at the moment, was telling of the part played by Senorita Rafaela, blushed violently and grew indignant. Bob, standing near, looked at him speculatively. Was old Jack hard hit by that little Spanish beauty? Ordinarily, Jack would have answered Frank's joking in kind. But to grow indignant! Bob feared his ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... speculatively. There was an inflection in his voice each time he mentioned his master that indicated a devotion that she was unable to accredit to the brute for whose treatment she was still suffering. But her thoughts ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... She watched him speculatively for a few moments, and wondered what change would come over him when her tale was told. Anger frightened and repelled her; and for all his hastiness she had seldom seen more than a mere spark of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... "spontaneous generation." "Omne vivum ex vivo," "no life without antecedent life," aphoristically sums up Redi's doctrine; but he went no further. It is most remarkable evidence of the philosophic caution and impartiality of his mind, that although he had speculatively anticipated the manner in which grubs really are deposited in fruits and in the galls of plants, he deliberately admits that the evidence is insufficient to bear him out; and he therefore prefers the supposition that they are generated by a modification ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... self-control she went too far. She merely folded her hands in her lap and sat looking straight at Eileen without saying one word. It did not show much on the surface, but Eileen really had a conscience, she really had a soul; Linda's eyes, resting rather speculatively on her, were honest eyes, and Eileen knew what she knew. She flushed and fidgeted, and at last she broke out impatiently: "Oh, for goodness' sake, Linda, don't play 'Patience-on-a-monument.' Speak up and say what it is that you want. If that cheque was ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... hitch or mishap. No one had been abroad in the late afternoon to mark their movements—and in a little while Fishhead ought to be due. Jake's woodman's eye followed the downward swing of the sun speculatively. The shadows, thrown shoreward, lengthened and slithered on the small ripples. The small noises of the day died out; the small noises of the coming night began to multiply. The green-bodied flies went away and big mosquitoes, with speckled gray legs, came to take the places of the flies. The sleepy ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... pinched his full red lips into a pucker and stared speculatively at his wife. It was not often that she openly showed her ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... Rathburn looked speculatively at his companion. "We'll make a break for that clump of trees about a quarter of a mile ahead with all our horses have got left," he said, ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... The other looked speculatively at the trim, keen-faced young man. "Yet you do not look like a Latin scholar," he observed; ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams |
