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More "Guesswork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bishopsgate. Newgate was in existence under the name of Westgate very soon after. As it opened near the church, it is surely more likely that Erkenwald rebuilt it than the northern gate; but the history of this bishop is so overlaid with monkish legend that we do not require any guesswork. ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... by a comparison of the depths obtained with those shown on the chart, but even then the eccentricity of the tidal currents and, let it be said, the erratic and most unladylike behaviour of the Rapier's standard compass, made navigation a matter of some conjecture and a good deal of guesswork. ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... lost it, and imagination is needed in a growing business, for it is through the imagination that one anticipates future changes and so prepares for them before they come. Accordingly, as a general proposition, the selection of a man for a vacancy within the organization is more or less a matter of guesswork. Now and then an ambitious, wide-awake young man works into the organization and in a very short time is spotted by various department managers for future promotion, but the number of such individuals is discouragingly small. ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... with Greek philology consists in the imitation of its defects more than of its excellences; for instance, the basing of etymologies on mere similarity of sound both in Varro himself and in the other philologues of this epoch runs into pure guesswork and often into downright absurdity.(39) In its empiric confidence and copiousness as well as in its empiric inadequacy and want of method the Varronian vividly reminds us of the English national philology, and just like the latter, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... That guesswork has figured to some extent in these figures is evident; but as a whole they represent tolerably well the growth of the islands. The figures for 1903 are to be relied on. See Bulletin No. 1, ut supra, and U.S. Gazetteer of the Philippine ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... doubts began to assail him as to the wisdom of the course he was pursuing. After all, there was yet time to retreat. He had only to say the word and his companions would willingly follow. His plans in remaining were built largely on guesswork and theory. If they worked out as he had reasoned, the Indians would be warned. With their aid the convicts could be surrounded, captured, and sent back to a coast town under guard. Some blood would likely be shed but not as much as if ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... self-interest of the investor makes capital flow into those channels where economic conditions need it most. But how can the investor know where it should go when the true financial condition of great industrial companies is a matter of guesswork? Again, we rely upon our bankers to check excessive industrial fluctuations. How can they do this if they do not know the facts of production? The public should know what great combines are doing, but they ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... favour. One of the disabilities which he, in common with all airmen, suffered, was the impossibility of ascertaining the velocity of the wind when he was fairly afloat. He had to make allowance for it by sheer guesswork, unless he was prepared to slow down or even to alight. He had reckoned that, even with the slight assistance of the wind, he could hardly hope to reach the head of the Persian Gulf before six o'clock, which would be past nine by the sun; but he thought he might reasonably expect to reach ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the same group on the same principle. As we have seen, Roman scholars themselves explained Nerio Martis as equivalent to Virtus Martis; Herie Iunonis probably means something of the same kind; the others are not so easily explained, and guesswork about them is unprofitable. But I hope I have said enough to show that there is absolutely no good ground for supposing that these combinations of names in nominative and genitive indicate a relationship ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... from them now, Bob; and though, I daresay, they can hear the sound of the oars, it must be mere guesswork as to our position." ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... Tony were only card-room acquaintances, and it seemed unlikely that the latter would have confided in him. Yet Brett certainly spoke as though his cognisance of how matters stood betwixt herself and Tony were based on something more substantial than mere guesswork. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... remembered that there was good cause for trepidation over this venture, for though the stock markets buzzed with "Coppers" it was all guesswork as to how far the public would go with us. The question was, What would they do now that our stock was within their reach? It was a tremendous proposition we had put forth, for remember this was before the period of the great trustifications, and ten to twenty millions figured as the limit of ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... condition, presupposition, hypothesis, blue sky hypothesis, postulate, postulatum [Lat.], theory; thesis, theorem; data; proposition, position; proposal &c (plan) 626; presumption &c (belief) 484; divination. conjecture; guess, guesswork, speculation; rough guess, shot, shot in the dark [Coll.]; conjecturality^; surmise, suspicion, sneaking suspicion; estimate, approximation (nearness) 197. inkling, suggestion, hint, intimation, notion, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... acted. Beaton must have taken the same train, and the two men got friendly; probably they never knew each other in New York, but, being from the same place, it was easy enough to strike up an acquaintance. What occurred on board is all guesswork, but a sudden blow at night, on an observation platform, at some desert station, is not impossible; or it might be sickness, and the two men left behind to seek a physician. Here was where Lacy must have come in. He ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... The next day, for the first time, nothing was done towards the decoration of the door. I suspect some imprudence of Mr. Franklin's on the Continent—with a woman or a debt at the bottom of it—had followed him to England. But that is all guesswork. In this case, not only Mr. Franklin, but my lady too, for a wonder, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... leave no doubt. I may at once add here another argument. The good results stop entirely when Beulah is blindfolded. Even when both her mother and sister were sitting quite near her, her mind-reading became pure guesswork when her eyes were covered with a scarf. Again, she liked to make the experiment under this condition and was not aware that her knowledge failed her when she did not see her mother or sister. Her delight in being blindfolded spoke very clearly for her naive ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... it!" is the muttered remark exchanged between Wilder and Cully. For they know that the deflection of a single point upon the prairies—above all, upon the Staked Plain—will leave the traveller, like a ship at sea without chart or compass, to steer by guesswork, or go drifting ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... few old maps that exist, it is difficult to determine precisely in what measure the members of the expedition are responsible for the charting; some of it is certainly the guesswork of geographers, based, it must be acknowledged, on the best information then available, for we must bear in mind that the accounts of Mendana's expedition were only known from a few extracts, the actual narratives being lost at the time these charts ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... might descend. From the bank where I stood I had the whole ridge in view above the dense foliage, and could select the most promising point to make for; but this would sink out of sight as I approached the first belt of trees, and beyond them I must find my way by guesswork. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... celebrated work, "Experiments in Aerodynamics." Yet a critical examination of the data upon which he based his conclusions as to the pressures at small angles shows results so various as to make many of his conclusions little better than guesswork. ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... of Hammurabi, (3) the Assyrian pantheon, and (4) the latest or neo-Babylonian period. The most difficult phase has naturally been the old Babylonian pantheon. Much is uncertain here. Not to speak of the chronology which is still to a large extent guesswork, the identification of many of the gods occurring in the oldest inscriptions, with their later equivalents, must be postponed till future discoveries shall have cleared away the many obstacles which beset the path of the scholar. The ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... this confusion of guesswork, a grim feeling that Simonds did indeed know, and that, for the first time in his life, perhaps, he was doing an unbought, a purely ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... down less than a mile away from the scene of the wreckage—it was the best he could do, computing the landing by guesswork—and climbed into his spacesuit. He passed through the airlock and ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... north country. They were voluble in their own behalf, but their talk was slippery, so the chief felt. They were also voluble in regard to Lida Kennard, but Mern found himself more than ever enmeshed in his guesswork ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... to the accuracy of the commonly quoted statements concerning the prevalence of social disease, and therefore of immorality, it must be said in all fairness that there has been much guesswork and some deliberate exaggeration. We learn from various books and lectures that fifty, sixty-five, seventy-five and even ninety per cent of the men in the United States over eighteen years of age are at some time infected with at least one of the social diseases. The fact ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... has been taken in designing the toys which are described in this book, in order to make them so simple that any boy of average ability can construct them out of ordinary materials. The author can personally guarantee the designs, for there is no guesswork about them. Every toy was made, changed, and experimented with until it was as simple as possible; the drawings were then made from ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... is a good deal of guesswork done even under the supposed influence of "trance" is quite evident to me. I am not prepared to say that such trances were in no case genuine, but the remarks made during them were frequently of a tentative nature, and the slightest good "hit" was followed up with as much ingenuity ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... quite superfluous to dilate on the value of the information thus supplied, without which, indeed, much of our subsequent legislation on poor-laws, corn-laws, and all matters relating to rating and taxation, would have been impracticable or the merest guesswork. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... credibility, changing it in time to a mere legend, a tale told out of the hazy distance. But in America it obtrudes; it stares eternally on in all its stark unforgetfulness, absorbing its background, constantly rescuing itself from legend by turning guesswork and theory into facts, till it appears bare, irremediable, and complete,—witnessed at high noon, and in New Jersey of all places, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... lower and more firmly, out of mere guesswork, and landed appreciably closer although still within the zone of ridicule. And somebody else shot, and somebody else, and another, until we all were whooping and laughing and jesting, and the jets flew ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... matter which could affect a great deal their personal relations, which were already strained to the point of tolerance. But as to his companion—that was another affair. He had never understood the intuitions of women and thought them more often shrewd guesswork in which they were as likely to be wrong as right. But the more he considered what Hermia had said to him, the more definite became the impression that Olga Tcherny had fallen upon some clew to Hermia's whereabouts—that she had expected ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... might again be made proconsul. Dr. Lightfoot, as we have seen, has proved that Statius Quadratus was consul in A.D. 142; and then, by the aid of the dreamer Aristides, he has tried to show that he probably became proconsul of Asia about A.D. 154 or A.D. 155. His calculations are obviously mere guesswork. Even admitting their correctness, it would by no means follow that Polycarp was then consigned to martyrdom. The postscript of the Smyrnaean letter is, as we have seen, justly suspected as no part of the original document. Dr. Lightfoot himself tells ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... Crawshay said, "that this is more or less guesswork, but I suspect every one with ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disinterested actors in the comedy; they rode for the mere sport, keeping in a body, their mouths full of laughter, waving their hats as they came on, and crying (as the fancy struck them) "Tally-ho!" "Stop, thief!" "A highwayman! A highwayman!" It was other guesswork with Bellamy. That gentleman no sooner observed our change of direction than he turned his horse with so much violence that the poor animal was almost cast upon its side, and launched her in immediate and desperate pursuit. As he approached I saw that his face was deadly white ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... love his precepts, even in impossibilities, as has happened to me in the present instance, who have accomplished what human strength has hitherto never attained. For, if any one has written or told anything about these islands, all have done so either obscurely or by guesswork, so that it has ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... the bank where I stood I had the whole ridge in view above the dense foliage, and could select the most promising point to make for; but this would sink out of sight as I approached the first belt of trees, and beyond them I must find my way by guesswork. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... facts and natural laws, as we know and are able to observe them. Even as a child I never had any use for fairy-tales, or wonder-stories. I always wanted facts, tangible, concrete, irrefutable facts, not hypotheses. The Protestant churches hand out a mess of incoherent guesswork, based on as many interpretations of the Bible as there are human minds sufficiently interested to interpret it, and then wax hot and angry when hard-headed business men like myself refuse to subscribe to it. It's preposterous, Lafelle! ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and avoid any stray rocks, we should see daylight before we reach the coast. That is our sole hope. The ship is in a powerful tidal current, and it is high-water at 5.30 A.M. At a rough estimate, Hanover Island is twenty knots distant. Now you know all. The outcome is mere guesswork." ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... Polzelli as a Neapolitan who was nineteen when she was engaged to sing at the theatre of the Prince Esterhazy. She was the wife of Anton Polzelli, an insignificant and sickly violinist, with whom she was apparently not in love. Luigia is pictured—doubtless by guesswork—as not beautiful, but of a pleasing appearance, showing the indications of her Italian birth in "her small slim face, her dark complexion, her black eyes, her chestnut-coloured hair; her body of medium height and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Mother Eddy deserves a place in the Trinity as much as any member of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that for two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of guesswork. She is the benefactor ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... that young man's whereabouts," Tallente continued thoughtfully, "must necessarily be a matter of pure guesswork, but supposing, Robert, he should have wandered in that mist the wrong way—turned to the left, for instance, outside this window, instead of to the right—he might very easily have fallen ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... habitually. Of course, Furneaux readily evolved a far-fetched theory that it is a sign, or symbol, and was thrust out of sight among the clothing on the dead woman's breast by the man who killed her. But that is idle guesswork. We of the Yard seldom pay heed to theatrical notions of that kind. Here is the article. I don't mind letting you see it, but kindly remember that its existence must not be made known. I must have your promise not to mention it to a ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... hilarious ease from motives of mental hygiene, revealed the strain of his soul by striding abruptly out of the inner room and confronting the new-comer. A glance at him was quite sufficient to confirm the savage guesswork of a man in love. This very dapper but dwarfish figure, with the spike of black beard carried insolently forward, the clever unrestful eyes, the neat but very nervous fingers, could be none other than the man just described to ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... years hence, it will be able to protect the country against any enemy, we shall then instinctively adopt a policy. The fact of having ahead of us a definite, difficult thing to do, will at once take us out of the region of guesswork, and force us into logical methods. We shall realize the problem in its entirety; we shall see the relation of one part to another, and of all the parts to the whole; we shall realize that the deepest study of the wisest men must be devoted to it, as it is in ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... the road to Stanhope's that afternoon, much less of any shock that could conceivably have come to him. But he set himself to find out. By the next morning, partly through inquiry, partly through patching two and two together, he had worked out a theory. Guesswork, of course, was rather dangerous in a delicate matter such as this; but the doctor's report after breakfast had been the very worst yet. Peter never faltered. He picked up his hat from the study table, in front of which he had ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that Mr. Frog was a good tailor. He certainly knew his business. Now, as a matter of fact, Mr. Frog was a very careless person. He had thrown away Brownie's measurements before he made his clothes, instead of afterwards. And he had made the new suit entirely by guesswork. It was only natural that he would make some mistake; and so he had cut the trousers entirely ...
— The Tale of Brownie Beaver • Arthur Scott Bailey
... made up weeks before, and shrewd guesses given as to who would be chosen to this society and to that, though it was all mere guesswork. Nearly every one had agreed, however, that Merriwell would go to "Bones," as the leading society is called, and that "Bones" would be glad to get him, and would be receiving an honor as well as conferring one. Buck Badger, restless as a wolf, stood back and gloomily ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... a pretty one: but Er the Pamphylian comes back to report no more than the one thing Man already grasps for a certainty amid his welter of guesswork about the Universe—that its stability rests on ordered motion—that the "firmament" stands firm on a balance of active and tremendous forces somehow harmoniously composed. Theology asks "By whom?": Philosophy ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a good deal of guesswork done even under the supposed influence of "trance" is quite evident to me. I am not prepared to say that such trances were in no case genuine, but the remarks made during them were frequently of a tentative nature, and the slightest ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... world. The conspiracy has been attacked sometimes, and more of late than usual, and once in a while we have caught a glimpse of what is occurring behind those smug, well-fitting doors. But they have been mere glimpses, incoherent, obscure, often imaginative, or guesswork based on scanty, incorrect, at any rate secondhand information; never yet conclusive and complete. In England, Charles Dickens and Charles Reade have personally visited prisons, talked with prisoners, written stories that have stirred the world, and forced improvements. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... to stay the foremast and to bend steering sails so that the ship was brought into the wind where her motion was easier. The sky cleared before daybreak and the rosy horizon proclaimed a fair sunrise. How far and in what direction the Plymouth Adventure had been blown by the storm was largely guesswork. By means of dead reckoning and the compass and cross-staff, Captain Wellsby hoped to work out a position but meanwhile he scanned the sea with a sense of ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... was partly in his favour. One of the disabilities which he, in common with all airmen, suffered, was the impossibility of ascertaining the velocity of the wind when he was fairly afloat. He had to make allowance for it by sheer guesswork, unless he was prepared to slow down or even to alight. He had reckoned that, even with the slight assistance of the wind, he could hardly hope to reach the head of the Persian Gulf before six o'clock, which would be past nine by the sun; but he thought he might reasonably ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... from his pocket that had not been wound for many days, wound it mechanically, set it by guesswork—it was not far from eight o'clock—and replaced it in his pocket. Carefully then, one at a time, he examined his fingers, long, slim, sensitive, tapering fingers, magical masters of safes and locks and vaults of the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... can hardly expect even a moderate amount of success in such directions so long as specific methods have not been elaborated, and so long as no way has been shown to make experimental measurements by which such mere guesswork can be replaced by ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... strong, without precision. That they were written by Johnston, who seconded them, was only the rumor of the day, and very possibly unfounded." Works, vi. 484. In the face of all this tissue of rumor, guesswork, and self-contradiction, the deliberate statement of Patrick Henry himself that he wrote the five resolutions referred to by him, and that he wrote them "alone, unadvised, and unassisted," must close ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... to this neighborhood; an' the truth is, that nobody here that ever I heard of knows anything at all, barrin' guesswork, about the unfortunate poor creature. If ever he was a gintleman," exclaimed the kind-hearted waiter, "he's surely to be pitied, when one sees the state he's ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to be made in the border, plan for them now. Decide just what you want to do. Don't allow any guesswork about it. If you "think out" these things the home grounds will improve year by year, and you will have a place to be proud of. But the planless system which so many follow never gives satisfactory results. It gives one the impression of something that ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... by guesswork, with the inevitable result that her ears, chin, and nose were stained as deeply as ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... again, holding lower and more firmly, out of mere guesswork, and landed appreciably closer although still within the zone of ridicule. And somebody else shot, and somebody else, and another, until we all were whooping and laughing and jesting, and the jets ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... same group on the same principle. As we have seen, Roman scholars themselves explained Nerio Martis as equivalent to Virtus Martis; Herie Iunonis probably means something of the same kind; the others are not so easily explained, and guesswork about them is unprofitable. But I hope I have said enough to show that there is absolutely no good ground for supposing that these combinations of names in nominative and genitive indicate a relationship of any kind except a qualitative ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... What Snap might have done if you had married him is guesswork. He might have left drink alone a while longer. But he was bad clean through. I heard Dave Naab tell him that. Snap would have gone over to Holderness sooner or later. And now he's a rustler, if ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... they all lay prone, beginning to crawl toward us with their shields held before, not as protection against bullets (for as that they were utterly worthless) but as cover that made their exact position merest guesswork. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... all, some inner strain kept trying to tell him he was not dead. This was his own world, all right, and essentially unchanged. What had happened to it was beyond the pale of mere guesswork. But this one thing began to be clear: This was a world in which change or motion of any kind was ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... sense Christian Science seems abstract, but the process is simple and the results are sure if the Science is understood. The tree must be good, which 459:27 produces good fruit. Guided by divine Truth and not guesswork, the theologus (that is, the student - the Christian and scientific expounder - of the divine 459:30 law) treats disease with more certain results than any other healer on the globe. The Christian Scientist should understand and adhere strictly to the rules of divine meta- 460:1 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... muttered remark exchanged between Wilder and Cully. For they know that the deflection of a single point upon the prairies—above all, upon the Staked Plain—will leave the traveller, like a ship at sea without chart or compass, to steer by guesswork, or go drifting ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... same time he recognised a world of phenomena, or, as he expressed it, a world of guesswork or opinion ((Greek) doxa). As to the origin of things within this sphere he was ready enough to borrow [90] from the speculations of his predecessors. Earth and water are the sources from which we spring; and he imagined a time when there was ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... of the Motee Mahal, is the spot where Campbell met Outram and Havelock—a spot which, methinks, might well be marked by a monument; and after this I lose my reckoning by reason of the extent of the demolition, and am forced to resort to guesswork as to the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Edom quailed and fell before her, and the Lord wrought victory by the hand of David. So it is David's history that stands out fullest and clearest in the whole record, from Abraham onward. How much is true history and how much is imaginative addition must be largely guesswork. But we see in David the ideal hero and type of that period of Jewish history as we see in Achilles and Odysseus the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... is all swank: a parcel of suppositions and guesswork based upon nothing at all. I'm not to be caught ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... hostilities. Her progress was continuous and perceptible. As far back as the year 1906 the late Count Witte and myself made a guess at the time-distance which the nation still had to traverse, assuming the rate of progress to be constant, before reaching the abyss. This, however, was mere guesswork, which one of the many possibilities—and in especial change in the speed-rate—might belie. In effect, events moved somewhat more quickly than we anticipated, and it was the World War and its appalling concomitants that ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... august tribunals where the desire to be true and just is uppermost, false evidence is so rife that there has to be a good deal of guesswork, and calculations of probabilities, when trying to come to a right decision. It has lately been advocated that magistrates should, when practicable, hold their preliminary trial of offences in the village where the misdemeanour is alleged to have taken ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... taken in designing the toys which are described in this book, in order to make them so simple that any boy of average ability can construct them out of ordinary materials. The author can personally guarantee the designs, for there is no guesswork about them. Every toy was made, changed, and experimented with until it was as simple as possible; the drawings were then made ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... "Now—now—neighbor—that's guesswork," remonstrated the miller, in behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility. Perhaps the semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the faculties beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... defendant near by, observed his hand reaching for the purse, and then perceived him take to his heels. She has never been taught to reason and has really never found it necessary, having wandered through life by inference or, more frankly, by guesswork, until she is no longer able to point out the simplest stages of her most ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... they rode for the mere sport, keeping in a body, their mouths full of laughter, waving their hats as they came on, and crying (as the fancy struck them) "Tally-ho!" "Stop, thief!" "A highwayman! A highwayman!" It was other guesswork with Bellamy. That gentleman no sooner observed our change of direction than he turned his horse with so much violence that the poor animal was almost cast upon its side, and launched her in immediate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... picture all in the darker shades, let us look at the best type of Italian tenement life. We are not left to guesswork in the matter. Settlement workers and students of social questions are actually living in the tenement and slum sections, so as to know by experience and not hearsay. One of these investigators, Mrs. Lillian W. Betts, author of two ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... at the outbreak of the war the various Powers possessed a total of 4980 aircraft of all sorts. This sounds like a colossal fleet, but by 1917 it was probably multiplied more than tenfold. Of the increase of aircraft we can judge only by guesswork. The belligerents keep their output an inviolable secret. It was known that many factories with a capacity of from thirty to fifty 'planes a week were working in the chief belligerent lands, that the United States was shipping aircraft in parts to avoid violation of neutrality ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... an accurate computation. This is frankly confessed by the Treasury officials. They base their published figures on certain arbitrary methods of calculation which have never been submitted to any public inquiry, and which, as they admit, contain an element of guesswork. The matter is an exceedingly important one to Ireland, because ever since 1870 an increasingly heavy deduction has been made by the Treasury from her "collected" revenue, and her "true" revenue has proportionately diminished. Part of this deduction is no doubt due to the fact that her ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... both creatures splendidly rendered. I imagine these central lions to be more recent (having perhaps replaced others) than their neighbours, which are obliterated to the extent of being lions or lionesses only by guesswork. These nameless feline creatures hold what appear to be portions of sheep, one of them having at its flank a curious excrescence like the stinging scorpion of the Mithra groups. The griffins, on the other hand, although every detail is rubbed out, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... many of the supporters of either candidate belong to each of the parties concerned. Any estimate of the relative strength of the Liberal and Labour parties or of the Unionist Free Traders, and Tariff Reformers must be largely a matter of guesswork. All that is possible, therefore, is to divide the voters into two groups, as has been ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... thing in an orderly manner, is a most important precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness that men, who from their infancy are broken into method, observe. This negligent kind of guesswork, for what other epithet can be used to point out the random exertions of a sort of instinctive common sense, never brought to the test of reason? prevents their generalizing matters of fact, so they do to-day, what they did yesterday, merely because ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... coup. Lovemaking damages. Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced itself ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... you tempt me to guesswork. Sir Grenville was a keen yachtsman, and probably he is on board his yacht still resting in his coffin, waiting for his wife to bring the antidote to the drug. His son and Mr. Thompson took the body that night ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the virtue of religion; it sins, not by default as unbelief, but by excess. Now, to be able to say what is excessive, one must know what is right and just, one must have a measure. To attempt to qualify anything as excessive without the aid of a rule or measure is simply guesswork. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... to a mere legend, a tale told out of the hazy distance. But in America it obtrudes; it stares eternally on in all its stark unforgetfulness, absorbing its background, constantly rescuing itself from legend by turning guesswork and theory into facts, till it appears bare, irremediable, and complete,—witnessed at high noon, and in New Jersey of all places, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... hundreds of possible methods which lay before him. In considering this typical case, it must also be remembered that the metal-cutting machines throughout our machine-shops have practically all been speeded by their makers by guesswork, and without the knowledge obtained through a study of the art of cutting metals. In the machine-shops systematized by us we have found that there is not one machine in a hundred which is speeded by its makers at anywhere near the correct cutting speed. So that, in order to compete with the ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... genius will figure out this problem with exactitude and we will have a dependable table giving the maximum carrying capacity of various surface areas at various stated speeds, based on the dimensions of the advancing edges. At present it is largely a matter of guesswork so far as making accurate computation goes. Much depends upon the shape of the machine, and the amount of surface offering resistance ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... twelve by the captain's watch," said I, pulling it out and looking at it. "But 'tis guesswork time." ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... of the information thus supplied, without which, indeed, much of our subsequent legislation on poor-laws, corn-laws, and all matters relating to rating and taxation, would have been impracticable or the merest guesswork. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... first time, nothing was done towards the decoration of the door. I suspect some imprudence of Mr. Franklin's on the Continent—with a woman or a debt at the bottom of it—had followed him to England. But that is all guesswork. In this case, not only Mr. Franklin, but my lady too, for a wonder, left me in ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... your minds easy. Of course you'll understand there is a certain amount of guesswork in what I tell you, but you can depend upon the correctness of my general conclusions. I believe that I have made it perfectly clear that we intended no harm, and that we are not dangerous characters. At least Ala understands ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... what of Ballin, Heineken, von Gwinner, Gutmann, Thyssen, Rathenau, and other captains of industry and finance? Some of them have expressed opinions in interviews, but what do they really think? I am not going to indulge in any guesswork on this matter. I am simply going to disclose some important statements made at a secret meeting attended by many of the business directors of the German Empire. The meeting was for the purpose of discussing actual conditions in a straightforward ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... been lost before with half a dozen, sir, and every one thought different. One wanted to go one way; one wanted to go another. Fact is, gentlemen, we neither of us know the way. It's all guesswork. Once lost, there's nothing to guide you. I can't recollect this tree or that tree, because they're all so much alike, and it's as puzzling as being in the dark. There's only one way out of it, and that is to do as I say; you stand fast, and I'll cast about like a dog does after losing ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... signals. That they were all harmless traders I will not affirm; but none of them offered to chase us. Yet could I have been sure of a ship, I should have been glad to speak. My longitude was little more than guesswork; my latitude not very certain; and my compass was out. However, I supported my own and the spirits of my little company by telling them of the early navigators; how Columbus, Candish, Drake, Schouten and other heroic marine worthies ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... word; for I knew she was so proud and particular, that, if she mistrusted any thing of that kind to have been done, she would flounce in a minute. No, I never hinted it to her, or anybody else, and it was guesswork, after all," replied the abashed wife, in a deprecating tone,—she having been tempted, by the unusual mood which her stern husband had manifested for discussing his private affairs with her, to venture to speak much more freely ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... thing is a mystery and cannot be solved by any evidence that we have. Almost every one who has written of it seems to have indulged in mere guesswork. One popular theory is that Miss Allen was in love with some one else; that her parents forced her into a brilliant marriage with Houston, which, however, she could not afterward endure; and that Houston, learning the facts, left her because he ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... the future, however, must be based on clear understanding of the problems involved. And that can be gained only by straight thinking—not guesswork, ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... accuracy of the commonly quoted statements concerning the prevalence of social disease, and therefore of immorality, it must be said in all fairness that there has been much guesswork and some deliberate exaggeration. We learn from various books and lectures that fifty, sixty-five, seventy-five and even ninety per cent of the men in the United States over eighteen years of age are at some time infected with at least one of the social diseases. The fact ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... "You take special training in guesswork at library school. They call them 'teasers'. They say they're ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... a deaf old man, whose conversation was carried on principally by guesswork, and it was easy for him to gather that when her ladyship's handsome young sister had given him greeting she had not forgotten to inquire respecting the "rheumatics," which formed the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... before long." Phil stared thoughtfully at the chart. "I'll allow," he went on, "that she may have gone any other direction but north. For that matter, she may be anchored just around the corner somewhere. It's all more or less guesswork. But, looking at the probabilities, and they're all we've got to work on, I think north is the likeliest trail for ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... him. Maybe it was only fascination—I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me that she really did love Dave Walsh. Perhaps it was because he had frightened her with that even-unto-death, rise-from- the-grave stunt of his that she in the end inclined to the dago music- player. But it is all guesswork, and the facts are, sufficient. He wasn't a dago; he was a Russian count—this was straight; and he wasn't a professional piano-player or anything of the sort. He played the violin and the piano, and he sang—sang well—but it was for his own pleasure and for the pleasure ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... down finally by the most competent of possible authorities (the late Sir John Rhys) that "the love of Lancelot and Guinevere is unknown to Welsh literature." Originals for the "greatest knight" have been sought by guesswork, by idle play on words and names, if not also by positive forgery, in that Breton literature which does not exist. There do exist versions of the story in which Lancelot plays no very prominent part, and there is even one singular version—certainly late and probably devised ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... of geographical innovators, regards a younger rival theory, the exodist innovation of Dr. Heinrich Brugsch-Bey. The latter is the first who has rescued the "March of the Children of Israel" from the condition of mere guesswork described by the Rev. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... kicking up in front of him, and a wild ride had begun such as he had never yet dreamed of. There was no catching up, for the black mare could gallop two to his horse's one; but be set his teeth and followed into solid night, trusting ear, eye, guesswork and the God of Secret Service men who loves ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... years of college life were imagined with a good deal of elision and an amount of guesswork that would have amused a janitor. But Rudd and Martha were chiefly interested in the boy's vacations at home, and their own trips to New Haven, and the letters of approval from ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... as we have seen, has proved that Statius Quadratus was consul in A.D. 142; and then, by the aid of the dreamer Aristides, he has tried to show that he probably became proconsul of Asia about A.D. 154 or A.D. 155. His calculations are obviously mere guesswork. Even admitting their correctness, it would by no means follow that Polycarp was then consigned to martyrdom. The postscript of the Smyrnaean letter is, as we have seen, justly suspected as no part of the original document. Dr. Lightfoot himself tells us, that it is "generally treated as a later ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... Fraser was something like this: partly guesswork, I admit. Although I know her well I can only put her past together by deductions based on a few admitted facts, one or two letters and occasional unfinished sentences, interrupted by people coming in. Is it not always thus ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... islands are common in Bering Sea. But we were interested in this one, both because of its strange appearance, and because it was unmarked on the chart. That last was not so unusual, though. The charts of that section of Bering are mostly guesswork. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... that this book was never written by Daniel or Isaiah or Jeremiah,' 'It is certain this chapter is an addition of such and such a date,' etc. It is not universally acknowledged. It is not certain. The whole thing is pure guesswork. There is only one way to prove the authorship of a book, and that is by testimony. There is nothing under the sun more absurd, philologically, than that a common and very poor stock-actor should ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of children slain I understood, and tremble. Aye, my brain Reels at these visions, beyond guesswork true. But after, though I heard, I had ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... old maps that exist, it is difficult to determine precisely in what measure the members of the expedition are responsible for the charting; some of it is certainly the guesswork of geographers, based, it must be acknowledged, on the best information then available, for we must bear in mind that the accounts of Mendana's expedition were only known from a few extracts, the actual narratives being lost at the time these charts ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... estimated to give 2000 c.p., which was arrived at by adding together the light found at four different positions, so that in reality the actual light was about 500 c.p. Few of these data were ever actually used, however; and it was all more or less a matter of guesswork, although the central-station manager, aiming to give good service, would naturally see that the dynamos were so operated as to maintain as steadily as possible the normal potential and current. The same loose methods applied to the early attempts to use electric motors on arc-lighting ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... occurred to Hilliard that here, perhaps, was evidence of design; that this very difficulty had been deliberately caused by Mr. Coburn with the object of keeping himself and Merriman under observation and rendering them harmless. This, he recognized, was guesswork, but still ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... there's no guesswork in my case. Belle and I are engaged, and we feel perfectly sure each of the other. I'm so sure of Belle that I dream about her only in my leisure moments. I don't ever let her face come between myself and the pages of a textbook. I am here at the Naval Academy working for ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... prowl around at night," suggested Shep. "And, remember, he may not have the watch at all—-it's all guesswork." ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... "perhaps it's best to wait. They'll be tempted into getting closer after a bit. Getting tired of it if they don't hit us, and make us put up a white flag for the doctor. Look at them. Oh, it's nonsense firing at such a distance. Their rifles carry right enough, but it's all guesswork; they can't take ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... furniture, including folding screens, pottery, jewelry, rugs, and practically everything else that is needed in the daily life of the people. The art of China and Japan is so old that its real origin is almost a matter of guesswork, and has a certain general obscurity to most outsiders, owing to language, religion, and customs. This has led to a commercial exploitation of their art in Europe, and in America particularly, based mostly on humbug and partly on facts. If all the pottery, rugs and furniture ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... Goes on forever there, behind shut doors,— As it continues after our departure, So, we divine, it played before we came . . . What do you know of me, or I of you? . . . Little enough. . . . We set these doors ajar Only for chosen movements of the music: This passage, (so I think—yet this is guesswork) Will please him,—it is in a strain he fancies,— More brilliant, though, than his; and while he likes it He will be piqued . . . He looks at me bewildered And thinks (to judge from ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... Guesswork is no longer necessary in the sizing up of strangers. You can know them better than their mothers know them if you will get these nutshells of facts clearly in your mind ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... hour after this conversation she was a little uneasy. He was a clever boy, Henry; he did watch people. But then he was very young, It was all guesswork with him. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... "I cannot say. Perhaps I might hazard a guess, but it's no use talking of guesswork. To-day I ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... able man cannot decide correctly without the facts. To decide in the absence of information is guesswork—and guesswork is a poor method of deciding what to do—in the case of the stammerer as in every ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... sound, I should say they fought their way up-hill in skirmish order, and when they got to the top the enemy— whoever they were—took to flight. But that is guesswork. There were two casualties on our side. One man shot through the arm, which did not matter much; he was well able to lie about what had happened and to boast of how many men he had slain before ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... published one of these mouse coins. The people of Metapontum stamped their money with a mouse gnawing an ear of corn. The people of Cumae employed a mouse dormant. Paoli fancied that certain mice on Roman medals might be connected with the family of Mus, but this is rather guesswork. {111b} ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... nothing of the world save by guesswork, and full of an inborn belief in the existence of perfection, Gilbert dreamed of realizing the harmony of two opposites—the religious life and the life of the world. Such dreams seemed not so wild in those days, when the very idea of knighthood was based upon them, and when many brave and true ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... "My business is nine-tenths guesswork. At any rate, we are on firm ground now. If you could please yourself, I suppose, Mr. Siddle would not come ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... "It's guesswork, that, but the fact stands—I was dosed. You asked me to watch, and I did watch. Up to midnight that lantern on top of the trunk wasn't out of my sight fifteen ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... can be but one; namely, that there must be—at least to him—some efficient correspondence between the physical and the moral. This is so plain, that the wonder is, how it ever came to be doubted. Nor is it directly denied, except by those who from habitual disgust reject the guesswork of the various pretenders to scientific systems; yet even these, no less than others, do practically admit it in their common intercourse with the world. And it cannot be otherwise; for what the Creator has joined must have ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... Don would get lonesome—not necessarily for her, but for that other. He was the sort of man who needed some one around all the time to take an interest in him. This deduction was based, not upon guesswork, but upon experience. For almost a year now she had seen him every day, and had watched him react to just such interest on her part. She was only stating a fact when she said to herself that, had it not been for her, he would have lost his ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... all over the charred field where men were working with pick and axe and lifting out the poor, shattered remains of human beings, nearly always past recognition or identification, except by guesswork, or the locality where they were found. Articles of domestic use scattered through the rubbish helped to tell who some of the bodies were. Part of a set of dinner plates told one man where in the intangible ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... reconcile the statements of the reports as to the time they became engaged. General Williams says they were engaged before seven o'clock. [Footnote: Id., p. 476.] General Meade says they relieved his men not earlier than ten or eleven. [Footnote: Id., p. 270.] It seems to be guesswork in both cases, and we are forced to judge from circumstantial evidence. Ricketts thinks he had been fighting four hours when he retired for lack of ammunition, and the Twelfth Corps men had not yet ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... is no calculating on killing to a certainty with the first shot, and it is just as well to be on the safe side. In daylight it would be a different matter altogether. I can rely upon my weapon when I can see, but on a dark night it is pretty well guesswork." ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... thankful I was when I heard your voice. Of course we were proceeding only by guesswork, and could only hope that we should find you at the top of the hill. If they had carried you any farther away we could not have followed. I was turning this over in my mind as we advanced, when we heard the rushing of a large number ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... what should she write? If her father had discerned so much more than he had let any one know he had discerned, how about others? How about the kind whose chief joy is ruthless guesswork? That need of haste was one ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... time to work around the islands and draw in close to Anoroc. In the leisure afforded we took turns working on our map, and by means of the compass and a little guesswork we set down the shoreline we had left and the three ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were empty, some further glimmering knowledge had stirred her benumbed consciousness. She may have flung herself on the bed in a paroxysm of weeping, heedless of the overturned night light and the havoc it caused. That, of course, is sheer guesswork, though the glass dish which held the light was found later on the charred floor, which was protected, to some extent, by ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the merest bridle-path, which sometimes altogether disappeared and had to be retrieved by guesswork, meandered on the side of a ravine, down in the depths of which, in groves of oleander, there flowed a stream of which we caught the murmur. The forest was continuous on our side of the wadi. It consisted of dense olive groves around the villages and a much thinner ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the case in the same light as Edmund. He allowed the possibility of the scrap of paper and the ring having been sent to Rose by mistake, but he was not inclined to indulge in what seemed to him to be guesswork as to what conceivably had been intended to be sent to her in place ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... work is like that," said Captain Godfrey, when I spoke to him about it. "It's a science. It's all a matter of the higher mathematics. Everything is worked out to half a dozen places of decimals. We've eliminated chance and guesswork just as far as possible from ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... early times are to be chiefly distinguished from the less-crude theories of to-day as being largely the products of random guesswork. Hypothesis, or guesswork, indeed, lies at the foundation of all scientific knowledge. The riddle of the universe, like less important riddles, is unravelled only by approximative trials, and the most brilliant discoverers have usually ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... their names from the country, city, port, or province from whence they originated; from the names of the makers; and methods of weaving, dyeing, ornamentation, etc. The fixing of localities, methods, etc., is oftentimes guesswork. The textiles of to-day bearing the same name as those of the middle ages have nothing in common. Buckram was originally made in and called from Bokkara. In the middle ages it was costly, fine, and beautiful, used for church vestments, veils for covering lecterns, cathedral ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... between Jew and Gentile? Some people thought the kingdom would be in Jerusalem; others said it would be in heaven, and added that the Jews will look down and see the Gentiles in hell—something worth seeing at last. But, after all, it was still guesswork— "perhaps" was ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... answer to the leather-faced sailor, but tried to keep the boat's head before a heavier roll of the sea, and the wake as much like a straight line as possible. There was no compass in the craft, and it would take some nice guesswork to find a ship ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... animals is one of complete neutrality. For all we know, the mental capacities of animals may be of a higher order than our own, as their sensuous capacities certainly are in many cases. All this, however, is guesswork; one thing only is certain. If we are right that man realizes his conceptual thought by means of words, derived from roots, and that no animal possesses words derived from roots, it follows, not indeed, that animals have ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... commit to memory the name of every bone and artery in the body, yet all that related to a woman's special organs and chief natural function was studiously ignored. The subject being thus chastely shrouded in mystery, they were thrown back on guesswork and speculation—with the quaintest results. The fancies woven by quite big girls, for instance, round the physical feat of bringing a child into the world, would have supplied material for a volume of fairytales. On many a summer evening at this time, in a nook of the garden, heads ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... much out of the subject by discussing concentration sublimated, human senses coordinating sight and sound on the instant, a sort of sixth sense which must be passed on into the limbos of guesswork as instinct. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Salisbury, where Hilda would, therefore, have been likely to post her note if she were going to the far west; while some of the Southampton trains stop at Basingstoke, which is, indeed, the most convenient point on that route for sending off a letter. This was mere blind guesswork, to be sure, compared with Hilda's immediate and unerring intuition; but it had some probability in its favour, at any rate. Try both: of the two, she was likelier to be going ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the skin, which is clearly visible, much too fine—in short, wouldn't it pass anywhere for a woman's hand? Say a woman who bit her nails. If it were really such there would be a pair of feminine feet also to be concealed, and boards would do it very nicely—but this is all guesswork, and must not be allowed to affect any subsequent conclusions. If you will excuse me a few minutes I will use the microscope a little on the sill of the east window before we are interrupted by our friends the officers, who will be sure to be ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... steer by guesswork and such landmarks as were afforded by the lights on shore. He peered anxiously ahead, hoping to see the dim shapes of the three grabs; but this was at present impossible, since they lay between him and the seaward extremity of the fort, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... obligingly sent me a proof of his address, from which I gather that, owing to a superstitious dislike which the Gipsies entertain towards the Census, and the successfully cunning attempts on their part to baffle the enumerators, it is only by conjecture and guesswork that we can form any idea of the number of Bohemians in this country. The result of Mr. Smith's diligent inquiries has led him to the assumption that there are not less than 4,000 Gipsy men and women, and from 15,000 ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... convinced, but I told him, "Get it to working first, Carter, and then show me what you can do with it better than I can do without it. I'm doing pretty well as is ... pictures selling good, even if I do make 'em all by guesswork, as you call it." That's what ...
— Vanishing Point • C.C. Beck
... much fretting guesswork on her cousin's surmise. She relied too much on Owen's sense of propriety to entertain the idea that he could be forwarding a pursuit so obviously insolent, but a still wilder conjecture had been ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a face to be distrusted. I sent Watkins to the cabin for a roll of charts, and spreading these out, endeavored as well as I could, to make clear our probable position and the nearest point of land. This was largely guesswork, but I approximated distances and made the situation fairly clear. When I had completed the explanation, and stood before them awaiting decision, it was Haines who acted ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... imagination that one anticipates future changes and so prepares for them before they come. Accordingly, as a general proposition, the selection of a man for a vacancy within the organization is more or less a matter of guesswork. Now and then an ambitious, wide-awake young man works into the organization and in a very short time is spotted by various department managers for future promotion, but the number of such individuals is discouragingly ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... of the earlier effigies—the primitive wooden ones. Edward I. and Eleanor are known to be among them; and Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York; and others not less illustrious. Which is which? By size and shape you can distinguish the men from the women; but beyond that is mere guesswork, be you never so expert. Time has broken and shuffled these erst so significant effigies till they have become as unmeaning for us as the bones in one of the old plague-pits. I feel that I ought to be more deeply moved than I am by this sad state of things. But I seem to have exhausted my ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... stripped to our shirts. From the waist upwards we were visible to each other as a vague glimmer of white, and thus we fought, foot to foot, among the myrtle-trees. We could not see so much as our swords unless they clashed more than usually hard, and a spark struck from them. We fought by guesswork and feel, and in the end luck served me. I drove my sword through his chest until the ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... cannot be manipulated by the performer, in which case it is purely guesswork; even in such cases, however, I stand one chance in six of succeeding; and if I make a second trial on failing (not uncommon with mediums), I stand one chance ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... end when they try to press the Bible into their service. Every movement shows that they are hard-pushed. Their odd conceits and ever varying shifts, their forced constructions, lacking even plausibility, their bold assumptions, and blind guesswork, not only proclaim their cause desperate, but themselves. Some of the Bible defences thrown around slavery by ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical fact, that it were hard to tell ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... is not guesswork, not looseness, and not error. The process of approximation is as exact and correct at every point as that by which an absolute result is secured; the result only fails of exactness because of some inherent difficulty in the problem. The attempt to "square the circle" gives only an approximate ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... healing is to-day the acme of "well done;" a healing that is not guesswork,—chronic recovery ebbing and flowing,—but instantaneous cure. This absolute demonstration of Science must be revived. To consummate this desideratum, mortal mind must pass [10] ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative" is unwarranted, because it has been successfully challenged and disproved by the eminent critics Hermann Ulrici and Charles Knight; it is supported only by the guesswork of Clark, Wright, Halliwell and others who assume to find a divided authorship from assumed divergencies of style. The result shows the futility of the method. What Shakspere is assumed not to have written is assigned to Marlowe, Greene, ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... and reflected. She had one of her moments of clever guesswork over him. Rookie was a simple proposition. She could always, she had once boasted to him, find him out. And reaching about for the clue, suddenly she had it and proclaimed ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... sure of it?" retorted the old woman. "But I am not. For our clearest knowledge is but guesswork when it is not based on numbers. Nothing is proved or provable but by numbers, but they are surer than the rocks in the sea; that is why I believe in our coming doom, for, on those tablets, we have calculated it to a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... written, the future is beyond our control, but to-day is ours, and is an opportunity to bestow a gift which will be more welcome than any that money can purchase. There should be no guesswork concerning affection; 'make it plain,' 'write it large.' 'Silence is golden' when it represses bitter words or ignorant comment, but it sinks like lead into the heart which has a right to expect tender and ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... later on for having let himself grow weaker in the interval. Nevertheless, I have often noticed this—that the East can train athletes by methods absolutely opposite to those imposed by trainers in the West, and it may be that their asceticism is based on something more than guesswork. I ate enormously, and he sat and watched me with an air of quiet amusement. He seemed to grow more and more friendly all the time, and to forget that he had made several attempts on my life, although his yellow eyes and lionlike way of carrying his head still gave you an uncomfortable feeling, ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... by the strong predominance of certain surnames in nearly every community. So that the ratio or same-name to different-name second cousin marriage may not greatly exceed 1:4. Beyond this degree any estimate would be pure guesswork. However the coefficient of attraction between persons of the same surname would undoubtedly be well marked in every degree of kinship, and conversely there are few same-name marriages in which some kinship, ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... bruised head was turning in restless pain; the puffed and swollen lips were moving; the still unconscious man was muttering. Not a word could Geordie distinguish. It was all guesswork. But, glancing up at Cullin, he called: "He's trying to talk. Perhaps I can get his name," and again inclined his ear and bent down over the luckless fellow's face. "Yes," he said, loudly, so that Cullin could hear—"yes, I understand.... Don't worry.... You're with friends.... ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... to capture. Now he was arrested on another charge, and, as Lowell had said, Talpers's most profitable line of business was certain to suffer. As Bill walked back to his store he wondered how much Lowell actually knew, and how much had been shrewd guesswork. The young agent had a certain inscrutable air about him, for all his ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... observed flashes on our side of Waschout Hill. As these could not be our men, we knew the enemy were endeavoring to surround the detachment. We knew the ranges fairly well, and though, as we could not see our sights, the shooting was rather guesswork, we soon put a stop to this manoeuvre by firing a small volley from three or four rifles at each flash on the hill-side. So the night passed without ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... experienced, it having a more direct effect on the lungs than any they had yet given us. It had started to rain and the darkness was black, but we reached the guns within scheduled time, and under great difficulty we exploded our shells; but most of our work in that discharge was guesswork. ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... but not what a man was thinking, can you? Until you can take a precipitate of his thoughts—the very thoughts he is unconscious of himself—and put them under a microscope, why, there must be a lot of guesswork about the source of all unconventional ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... remembered that, in the absence of records, any solution of this difficult problem at present rests on mere speculation and guesswork, and the opinions expressed here must be accepted as mere conjectures unsupported by direct contemporary evidence, and based ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... ether is not guesswork or fancy, and, while it is as impossible of proof as the axioms of geometry, it is worthy the same credence and honor. We are working on physical axioms exactly as we work on ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson
... speaking by mere guesswork. His ignoble nature had evolved the whole plan by which Jack was to be ruined. Don even stooped to use his father as an innocent tool in a ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... in your sight"—I came toward her, and lowered my voice to a stern, judicial whisper, while the poor girl shrank back as though I were law itself uttering judgment upon her. If she had known what stagy guesswork it all was! "When you were discovered, the murderer would have shot you ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... to the Denison, Texas, comparison with an orange. The object would actually be huge to be seen at any great height. But unless the true height were known, any estimate of size would be guesswork. ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... Purely by guesswork a period has also been assigned to the two pairs in a supposed revolution around their common center, the time named being about a million years. It is not known, however, that such a motion exists. Manifestly it could not be ascertained ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... day, and submission to the law simply meant submission to the law of force. But there are some parts of his career apparently so inconsistent as almost to defy explanation which in any case can be little more than guesswork. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
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