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More "Presumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their way across the continent. To pass the Sierra in winter had hitherto been deemed an impossibility, and, indeed, the condition of Fremont's surviving beasts of burden—thirty-three out of the sixty-seven with which he started—proved the presumption not far out of the way. To traverse the continent at all, even in summer, on a line stretching due west from the Hudson, the Delaware, or the Potomac, to the Pacific Ocean, was an unattempted feat, whereof the hardships, the dangers, were certain, and the success exceedingly doubtful. A very ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... upon his heart and he became distraught with passion for her and his soul prompted him [to evil]. So he besought her to lie with him, but she refused and chid him for his foul deed, and he found him no way unto presumption;[FN2] wherefore he importuned her ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... pretended to religion, but who stuck very close to the world." The man Temporary who lived in a town two miles off from Honesty, and next door to Mr. Turnback; Formalist and Hypocrisy, who were "from the land of Vainglory, and were going for praise to Mount Sion"; Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, "fast asleep by the roadside with fetters on their heels," and their companions, Shortwind, Noheart, Lingerafterlust, and Sleepyhead, we know them all. "The young woman whose name was Dull" taxes ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... the head, looking northwards. I said nothing aloud, nor did he. The rocks bulked dark in the bright air, the hills wore mystic colors, the sun shone passionately in a setting of tender blue. Words seemed a presumption just then, too much of a time or nation or age that passes. That which may or may not take shape in words remained the untied power of silent prayer. That morning among the many-colored hills I looked to sight the faith that can remove such as these. And I prayed there quietly, in prayer that ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... follow closely whilst I display the hidden beauties of Canto First. You will notice that the author, who now sleeps with the unnumbered dead—a presumption on my part—has no dedication, no introduction, no preface. He scorned a dedication, that misnomer for gratuitous advertising. He wanted no patron, no Lord or Count somebody or other, who might, perhaps, insure the sale of one more copy. No. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... the subject I am introducing. I admit I have not been in Parliament, any more than I have figured in the beau monde; yet I cannot but think that statesmanship, as well as high breeding, is learned, not by books, but in certain centres of education. If it be not presumption to say so, Parliament puts a clever man au courant with politics and affairs of state in a way surprising to himself. A member of the Legislature, if tolerably observant, begins to see things with new eyes, even though his views undergo ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... stoutish merchant, sitting in the corner at a tottering little one-legged table, boomed approvingly from the depths of his chest, and immediately was overcome by confusion at his own presumption. But luckily no one noticed him. He drew a long breath, and stroked ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... watched them as they walked down the avenue, wondering what they were laughing about, perhaps a little bit annoyed at Sylvia Jackson's presumption in ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... attempt to read farther at the moment. Indeed, I felt inclined to draw myself up austerely at first, but on second thought acknowledged his presumption with the same laughing coquetry I had hitherto displayed. After all, it was not worth while to become angry. His extravagance was not to be taken too seriously. It was rather refreshing for a change. I wondered how he would behave if he ever really ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... President prezidanto. Press (squeeze) premi. Press (machine) premilo. Press (newspapers) gazetaro. Press forward antauxiri. Press-gang varbigistaro. Pressure premo—ado. Pressing (urgent) neprokrastebla, urgxa. Presumably supozeble. Presume supozi. Presumption tromemfideco, tromemfido. Presumptuous tromemfida. Pretence preteksto. Pretend (to claim) pretendi. Pretend preteksti. Pretend (to feign) sxajnigi. Pretentious afektema. Preternatural supernatura, preternatura. Pretext preteksto. Pretty beleta. Prevail ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... intention of speaking, even of hinting at the truth, he had blurted forth a full confession. She had caught him off guard, and, like a perfect ass, he had betrayed himself. What would she think? How would she take his audacity, his presumption? He was surprised to feel her fingers tighten briefly before ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... as it is for gold to be somewhat more than gold, and if Jack Cade were alive, yet some of us might live, unless we should think, as the artisans in the Universities of Poland and Germany think, that the Latin tongue comes by reflection. I hope your Lordship will pardon this presumption of mine; the rather, because I know before Nobility I am to deal sincerely; and this small faculty of mine, because it is alone in me, and without the assistance of other more confident sciences, is the more to be favoured and the rather to be received into your honour's protection; ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... it obviously suggests, if it does not demand, that such phratries as are spread over wide areas should in the main follow the lines of linguistic or cultural areas. Our knowledge of these is hardly sufficient to enable us to say at present how far the presumption of coincidence is fulfilled; but it is certain that in more than one large area the facts are as Mr Lang's theory requires them ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... told him, that she chose to work for her living, but he knew as though by inspiration that her people and connections were of that world to which he could never belong, save on sufferance. He meant to belong to it, for her sake—to win her! He admitted the presumption, but then it would be presumption of any man to lift his eyes to her. He estimated his chances with common sense; he was not a man disposed to undervalue himself. He knew the power of his wealth and his advantage ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the part of a faithful interpreter, told his worship, that the prisoner's answer was no more than a simple denial, which every felon would make who had nothing else to plead in his own behalf, and that this alone was a strong presumption of his guilt, because, if he was not really the person they suspected him to be, the thing would speak for itself, for, if he was not the Young Pretender, who then was he? This argument had great weight ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... for it in the little things, the natural things of the situation. They have a knack of conducting you to the heart of a problem, if you will only have simple faith and follow them, and be not otherwise, which is presumption. ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... polish and correct the Augsburg Confession till immediately before its presentation on June 25, 1530. While, indeed he cannot be censured for doing this, it was though originally not so intended by Melanchthon, an act of presumption to continue to alter the document after it had been adopted, signed, and publicly presented. Even the editio princeps of 1531 is no longer in literal agreement with the original manuscripts. For this reason the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... same implicits of the regenerate consciousness; and would tend to solve in their light the special problems of community life. And this unity of aim would really make of it one body; the body of a fully socialized and fully spiritualized humanity, which perhaps we might without presumption describe as indeed the son ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... fertile severally, produce on crossing a sterile progeny, there is a presumption that the sterility is due to the development in the hybrid of some substance which can only be formed by the meeting of two complementary factors. That some such account is correct in essence may be inferred from the ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... (Vol. vii., p. 387.).—The following extract from an Italian newspaper raises a considerable presumption that this word is not now considered in Italy as an Italian one; the date is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... creation, whichever expires first, any person who obtains from the Copyright Office a certified report that the records provided by subsection (d) disclose nothing to indicate that the author of the work is living, or died less than fifty years before, is entitled to the benefit of a presumption that the author has been dead for at least fifty years. Reliance in food faith upon this presumption shall be a complete defense to any action for ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office
... reproved her in words or requested her to take a lower seat, but some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those wretched freshers, which must instantly be put down with ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... carry with it an air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but also to furnish him with a prophetic vision of those which I may, without undue presumption, hope for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my name has been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial catalogue of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether this is to be attributed to the difficulty ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... that into flattery which was said by me in perfect sincerity and truth-that I can not help," replied Edward. "I might have added much more, and yet have been sincere; if you had not reminded me of my not being of gentle birth, I might have had the presumption to have told you much more; but I ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... season; assured, as you must be, that we cannot attribute the refusal to any lack of hospitality or friendliness on your part. At all events, I trust you will excuse what seems — now I have committed it to paper — a great liberty, I hope not presumption, on mine. I am, my dear ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... healed, but Henry did not recover his wonted peace of mind. As Lord Clifford he might have won the hand of the high-born maiden on whom his thoughts now constantly dwelt; but, as Henry the Shepherd, even to speak to her was presumption. Never had he lamented over his fallen fortunes as he did now; but he buried his regrets in his own bosom, nor did he let it appear, either by word or look, that he was less contented ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... creature, and on several occasions had crept through the bars of its cage, and slily gone up the rigging, whence it had, after a time, descended of itself, or had been brought down by one of the boys: but frequent peril incurred with impunity breeds presumption, and towering ambition knows no safe halting-place; so my poor, pretty Poll, on each new climb, gained a more giddy and more dangerous elevation, until on this day, attracted by her usual scream of exultation, I cast my eyes upwards in search ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... felt some dissatisfaction with the evidence against Ripa; inasmuch as Mendez, who, when first questioned, had spoken confidently as to his identity, had since faltered when he came to give his evidence in public, and seemed unable to afford any positive testimony on the subject. The presumption against the prisoner, without the evidence of the Spaniard, was considered by the other judges strong enough to convict him; but Marino had objected that since the attack was made by daylight—for it was in the summer, and the evenings were quite light—it seemed extraordinary that Mendez could ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... Heaven be praised, that is a great ways off yet; and I am not afraid of dying then, no more than another man; but, surely, to tempt death before a man's time is come seems to me downright wickedness and presumption. Besides, if it was to do any good indeed; but, let the cause be what it will, what mighty matter of good can two people do? and, for my part, I understand nothing of it. I never fired off a gun above ten times in my life; and then it was not charged with bullets. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... XII), in quoting Niebuhr, makes mention of the widespread Anizeh tribe of Bedouins who were anciently known to be Jews. He further states that the Jews of Damascus and Aleppo shun them as they are non-observant Jews, considered by some to be Karaites. Does all this give ground for any presumption that they are or were crypto-Jews, the descendants of the former Kheibar Jews, possibly also of those whom Omar allowed to settle ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... fellow countrymen, the writing the history of my own life, during my confinement in a prison, will not, I trust, be considered presumption in me; because I follow the example of Sir Walter Raleigh and many other patriotic and eminent men who have gone before me. I am not much of a copyist, but I am not ashamed of being accused of endeavouring to imitate the brave and persecuted Napoleon, who is writing his Memoirs ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... future lines of search will be; the only guides for future searches are the searches of the past; the evidence of past searches is the claims of patents; they trace the course of invention. Furthermore, a presumption of novelty attaches to the claimed matter; no such presumption attaches to the unclaimed. The law requires every patent for improvement to show so much of the old as is necessary to explain the uses of the improvement. In practice much more than that is disclosed. Questions as to ...
— The Classification of Patents • United States Patent Office
... Haystacks stand there like the Pyramids on the wall of mountains. One of them eminently has this Egyptian shape. It is as accurate a pyramid to the eye as any in the old valley of the Nile, and a good deal bigger than any of those hoary monuments of human presumption, of the impious tyranny of monarchs and priests, and of the appalling servility of the erecting multitude. Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh does not more finely resemble a sleeping lion than the huge mountain on the left of the Notch does ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... between the beginning of the friendship of Jesus and Simon and the time when the man was ready for his work. The process was not easy. Simon had many hard lessons to learn. Self-confidence had to be changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into prudence, and weakness had to be tempered into calm strength. All this moral history was folded up in the words, "Thou shalt ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... he said to his demons, his veterans, those that had the toughest hide, 'Go, clear me the way.' Junot, a sabre of the first cut, and his particular friend, took a thousand men, no more, and ripped up the army of the pacha who had had the presumption to put himself in the way. After that, we came back to headquarters at Cairo. Now, here's another side of the story. Napoleon absent, France was letting herself be ruined by the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay of the soldiers of the other armies, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... They had parted for ever in that strange talk; access to her chamber of pain, rigidly guarded, was almost wholly forbidden him; he was feeling now moreover, in the face of doctors, nurses, the two or three relatives attracted doubtless by the presumption of what she had to "leave," how few were the rights, as they were called in such cases, that he had to put forward, and how odd it might even seem that their intimacy shouldn't have given him more of them. The stupidest fourth cousin had more, even though she had been nothing in ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... easily as one like Edward IV., not born to a throne, made him consider that he alone was entitled to the prerogatives of pride. As sovereign and as brother, might he not give the hand of Margaret as he listed? If Warwick was offended, pest on his disloyalty and presumption! And so saying to himself, he dismissed the very thought of the absent earl, and glided unconsciously down the current of the hour. And yet, notwithstanding all these prepossessions and dispositions, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... erase and alter several words in the most valuable Alexandrian Greek manuscript copy of the Bible, as is visible to this day. What wonder, then, (how intolerable such liberties are,) if the like has been sometimes done by others in books of less note, with a presumption like that of Dr. Bentley in his amendments of Horace. 9. Prelim Dissert. on St. Matthew. 10. Sine probabilibus autoribus, Conc. t. 7, 954. 11. Can. 62. 12. Regies de la Critique, t. 2, p. 12, 20, et Diss. 3, p. 134. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... And even should he wear the semblance of leading to virtue and practising those things which are praiseworthy and useful to salvation, it would only be to win the confidence of such as would listen to his suggestions, to make them afterward fall into misfortune, and engage them in some sin of presumption or vanity: for as he is a spirit of malice and lies, it little imports to him by what means he surprises us, and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... place of residence that after three months he returned to London. The treatment he experienced rankled in his memory. 'Look where you like at the present moment, you will find but doctors in grammar here; for in this happy realm there reigns a constellation of pedantic stubborn ignorance and presumption mixed with a rustic incivility that would disturb Job's patience. If you do not believe it, go to Oxford, and ask to hear what happened to the Nolan, when he disputed publicly with those doctors of theology in the presence of the Polish Prince Alasco.[93] Make them tell you how they answered ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... harboring submarines took place before the appearance of the U-53. Had the Allies deferred approaching the United States until after that event, the situation favored the belief that the submarine's behavior would have dictated a different reply from Washington. Indeed, there was a strong presumption that if another German armed submarine had the temerity to visit an American port it might have been promptly interned, not under international law, but at ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... art thou that talkest of revenge? my lord ambassador shall once more make your Major have a check, if he punish thee for this saucy presumption. ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... accomplished by women in Germany with far less sympathy from the men than they receive in America or in England. Cato wrote of women's suffrage: "Pray what will they not assail, if they carry their point? Call to mind all the principles governing them by which your ancestors have held the presumption of women in check, and made them subject to their husbands. ... As soon as they have begun to be your equals they will be your superiors." It is an older story than the unread realize, this of the rights of women. The bulk of Germany's ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... royal master in the campaign, during which the Battle of Dettingen was fought. He now held the reins of government in his own hands as premier. Lord Chesterfield has described him as possessing quick precision, nice decision, and unbounded presumption. The Duke of Newcastle used to say of him that he was a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... might have regarded himself in the light of an "humble instrument," had he been capable of a particle of vanity or presumption, told Elizabeth Montier, with whom he had held many a conference concerning prison matters, since Manuel first began to walk along the southern garden-walk, where the flower-beds lay against the prison-wall. What was her answer? It came ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... half a century has passed away since this incident occurred, and it will here be recorded that now I am sincerely thankful that I failed to kill that man. Considering his marvelous escape on this occasion, the presumption is strong that he lived through the war, married some good woman, and became the father of a family of interesting children, and likely some one of his boys fought under the old flag in the Spanish-American War,—so it is probably all for ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... is cast, be not broken and uneven; nor the surface from which the image is reflected, disturbed and confused; a just figure is immediately presented, without any art or attention. And it seems a reasonable presumption, that systems and hypotheses have perverted our natural understanding, when a theory, so simple and obvious, could so long have escaped the most ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... while in harassing his march, it was only to lay a foundation for fresh achievements. He who contends for truths which he has himself been permitted to discover, may well sustain the conflict in which presumption and error are destined to fall. The public tribunal may neither be sufficiently pure nor enlightened to decide upon the issue; but he can appeal to posterity, and reckon with confidence ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... him, too—a setter, with Titian hair and big eyes, which slept on the clover beside him, and an afternoon or two a week he would take dog and gun and go where the ruffed grouse were or where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees. He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them on his way back that same evening. There would be chaffings ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captains Speke and Grant, that had been sent by the English Government from the South via Zanzibar, for the same object. I had not the presumption to publish my intention, as the sources of the Nile had hitherto defied all explorers, but I had inwardly determined to accomplish this difficult task or to die in the attempt. From my youth I had been inured to hardships ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... not afraid to receive the ark. There were no idols, no irreverent curiosity, no rash presumption in his house. He feared and served the God of the ark, and so the Presence, which had been a source of disaster to the unworthy, was a source of unbroken blessing to him and to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... may have been used. Until one, at least, of these pipes shall have been found in a position which will indicate that they must have been left there at an earlier period than the Elizabethan age, the presumption remains in ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... whether the author is pretending to be in awe of Prussian Court Etiquette, or openly laughing at the Orders of the Many Coloured Eagles, or simply detailing his work at Ruhleben and the other prison camps. His devotion there has earned a gratitude throughout this country that it would be mere presumption to try to put ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... of their body to the Signory, to insist on their being confirmed by the Council, with an intimation, that if not granted they would be vindicated by force. This deputation, with amazing audacity and surpassing presumption, explained their commission to the Signory, upbraided the Gonfalonier with the dignity they had conferred upon him, the honor they had done him, and with the ingratitude and want of respect he had shown toward them. Coming to threats toward the end of their discourse, Michael could not endure ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... all human wisdom in natural science as well as in everything else. It was regarded as the duty of every student to learn Aristotle off by heart, and any disposition to doubt or even to question the doctrines of the venerated teacher was regarded as intolerable presumption. But young Galileo had the audacity to think for himself about the laws of nature. He would not take any assertion of fact on the authority of Aristotle when he had the means of questioning nature directly as to its truth or falsehood. His teachers ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... noiseless as ever, with pale, passionless face, the absolute prototype of the perfect French servant, to whom any expression of vigorous life seems to savour of presumption. He carried a small silver salver, on which ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... kindred false theories. This raises a presumption against its truth, as falsehood does not agree with the truth. It is reconcilable with infidelity and atheism, but not with Christianity. Many, like Prof. Coulter, of the Chicago University, endeavor to show that evolution is reconcilable with religion—and ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... was Christine. The Ruby, which followed in the spring of 1849, is a graceful dramatization of a fairy-tale written ten years before in Munich; Michel Angelo (1850), a satire on his critics, is a slight but clever refutation of ignorant presumption. Agnes Bernauer (1851) is a worthy successor of Herodes and Mariamne; Gyges and his Ring (1854) is the most poetic and perhaps the most characteristic of his dramas. The trilogy on the Nibelungen (1855-1860) was Hebbel's last great work, ranking with Grillparzer's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... tressel from its station near the head of the table, to the vicinity of the little consumptive lady in the winding sheet, plumped down by her side in high glee, and pouring out a skull of red wine, quaffed it to their better acquaintance. But at this presumption the stiff gentleman in the coffin seemed exceedingly nettled; and serious consequences might have ensued, had not the president, rapping upon the table with his truncheon, diverted the attention of all ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... present...—Now, what was I about to say, after all these parentheses and digressions? Yes, I remember now:—the "Dante Symphony" is a work that does not need to be ashamed of its title,—and what you tell me of the impression produced by the "Bergsymphonie" (in Sondershausen) strengthens me in my presumption. Hence I should be glad to see the preface by Pohl printed again, and placed at the end of the "Faust" pamphlet; for, considering what most people are, they require to read first, before attaining the capacity for ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... hills, and might be supposed by the fanciful to have been formerly surrounded by the rapid waters of the Nile. They are admirably placed for the purpose to which they were applied; and although I have not the presumption to fix dates, and say under what dynasty the quarries first began to be worked, there is no rashness in presuming that it must have been at a very early period indeed. The sandstone is excellent for building purposes—far superior to the friable limestone found lower down—and has been ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... virtues, but he had one vice. In the pride of his heart he forgot the Giver of all good things, and considered the blessings so abundantly showered upon him as the proper and just reward of his distinguished merit. Instances of this overweening presumption might perhaps be found in all ages among the possessors of wealth and power; but few sinners have the good fortune to be recalled, like Sir Isumbras, by a severe but salutary punishment, to the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... church is designed to be finished in marbles of harmonious colors, with carved and other decorated work, as shown in the section. The surface of the floor is to be laid in mosaic tile, the presumption being that fixed pews will not be used in the cathedral. Ample storage can be obtained for ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... looking out for them and providing reforms for them. This principle is preeminently applicable to the National Government. It is too much assumed that because an abuse exists it is the business of the National Government to provide a remedy. The presumption should be that it is the business of local and State governments. Such national action results in encroaching upon the salutary independence of the States and by undertaking to supersede their natural authority fills ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... and likewise, as a friend, to correct any error that he might notice, with the greatest joy he had the said panel taken from its case into a good light. But such was the amazement that it caused him, and so great his marvel, that, recognizing his own error and the foolish presumption of his own rash confidence, he took it greatly to heart, and in a very ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... of certain knowledge and the dark night of absolute ignorance comes the twilight of probability. We find ourselves dependent on opinion and presumption, or judgment based upon probability, when experience and demonstration leave us in the lurch and we are, nevertheless, challenged to a decision by vital needs which brook no delay. The judge and the historian must convince themselves from the reports ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... the master cannot swear to the ownership of the property (as in this case). And as I cannot send my prizes in for adjudication, I must of necessity condemn in all cases where "further proof" is necessary, since the granting of "further proof" proceeds on the presumption that the neutrality of the cargo is not sufficiently established; and where the neutrality of the property does not fully appear from the ship's papers and the master's deposition, I had the right to act upon the presumption ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... shall I have?" He answered that, since she was a maiden, he would bestow her in marriage upon a gentleman of right good worship and estimation. To this she agreed, on condition that she might have such a husband as herself should ask, without presumption to any member of his family; which he readily granted. This done, she set about her task, and before the eight days were passed he was entirely well; whereupon he told her she deserved such a husband as herself should choose, and she declared her choice of Beltramo, saying she had loved him from ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... country gloves and a waistcoat too scanty for him, he looked prodigiously ridiculous, compared with the young men in the balcony—"positively pitiable," thought Mme. de Bargeton. Chatelet, interested in her without presumption, taking care of her in a manner that revealed a profound passion; Chatelet, elegant, and as much at home as an actor treading the familiar boards of his theatre, in two days had recovered all the ground lost in ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... all, be the rank in life what it may, is to convince her of the necessity of moderation in expense; and to make her clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption, that there are children coming, that they are to be provided for, and that she is to assist in the making of that provision. Legally speaking, we have a right to do what we please with our own property, which, however, is not our own, unless it exceed our debts. And, morally speaking, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... the whole. That counter-works each folly and caprice; That disappoints th' effect of every vice; That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, To kings presumption, and to crowds belief: That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise, Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise; And build on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. Heaven forming each on ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... their conversation to this satisfactory end, they parted: Dennis, to pursue his design, and take another walk about his farm; Miss Miggs, to launch, when he left her, into such a burst of mental anguish (which she gave them to understand was occasioned by certain tender things he had had the presumption and audacity to say), that little Dolly's heart was quite melted. Indeed, she said and did so much to soothe the outraged feelings of Miss Miggs, and looked so beautiful while doing so, that if that young ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... went on presently. "Here I am working back on my perennial presumption, my incessant round of cares; and once more I am unjust to the Abbe. But it is certainly no fault of his if frequent Communion makes me cold. I look for sensations; but the very first thing should be to convince myself that such cravings are contemptible, and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... not have been ignorant of Mr. Gallatin's warning of the previous year that a continuance of the embargo restriction would reduce the revenue below the point of annual expenditures and require an additional impost; yet he had the ignorance or the presumption to say in his message, "Shall it (the surplus revenue) lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improvement of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union under the powers which Congress ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... deception of self-love, that his apparent friendliness towards me made him appear quite agreeable, and notwithstanding all that I had heard and known of him, I fancied his brutality was frankness, and his presumption strength of character.—I gave him credit especially for a happy instinct for true merit, and an honourable antipathy to flattery and meanness.—The manner in which he pronounced the words, fawning puppy! applied ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... courtyard, but before opening the door he stopped for an instant to check his presumption. How could he have thought of such a thing? What devil could have put it into his head?... Notwithstanding he could not dismiss the idea. It was she, it was she—he could ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... the presumption of one who loves him," he said, "if he makes so bold as to suggest that your majesty must not again deny that he is king. That only tends to corroborate the contention of Prince Peter that your majesty is ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... accomplishing. Under the fingers of Athene grew up pictures so real and so perfect that the watchers knew not whether the goddess was indeed creating life. And each picture was one that told of the omnipotence of the gods and of the doom that came upon those mortals who had dared in their blasphemous presumption to struggle as equals with the immortal dwellers in Olympus. Arachne glanced up from her web and looked with eyes that glowed with the love of beautiful things at the creations of Athene. Yet, undaunted, her fingers ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... that she had admitted to her friendship a man, who, to her eyes, would appear one of inferior birth? Wouldn't his behaviour on the Fort Salisbury appear to her in the light of a fraud? Wouldn't his letter appear to her as a piece of preposterous presumption on his part? How could it be expected that she should see beneath the surface of things as they seemed to be, and solve the riddle of appearances? It was such an inconceivable situation, such an altogether unheard of situation, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... Who will assure you that you are good and that you are pleasing to God with your papistic, Turkish monkery and holiness? Is it all that is necessary to assert: God will reward with heaven such as are faithful to the order? No, dear brother, mere presumption, or an expression of your opinion, will not suffice here. I could do that as well as you. Indeed, each may devise his own peculiar idea; one a black, and another a gray monk's cowl. But we should hear and know what God's counsel is, what is his will and mind. This none can tell you by ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... 1. Messala describes the presumption of the young advocates on their first appearance at the bar; their want of legal knowledge, and the absurd habits which they contracted in ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... else. The sun rose and set in its interest, and such an affair as the government of a mighty nation like the United States must be regulated with sole regard to it. They thought they knew everything in the world when they knew only one thing in it. Their ignorance was equalled only by their presumption." ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Edwin, "this is the lesson that was first communicated to my childhood; and my infant heart bounded with the sacred confidence it inspired. But excuse the presumption of a distracted heart. This lesson, to which at another time I could have listened with rapture and enthusiasm, seems now too loose and general for a medicine to my woes. Innocence the Gods have made ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... as our descendants on the other side of the Atlantic. There is a confusion of tongues, and separation of mankind from the undue amalgamation of interests, as well as individuals. Providence has a sure way to punish the selfishness and presumption of men who seek to build up a Babel of human construction; and that is to leave them to the consequences of their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... character," I said, "and without undue presumption, I think I may say that I am worthy of a woman's love. Naturally, after your convincing me that you think differently, I feel humiliated and indignant. Do you know what effect such feelings ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... as thou sufferest not thy poor creatures to be tempted above what they can bear, I will resign myself to thy good pleasure: And still, I hope, desperate as my condition seems, that as these trials are not of my own seeking, nor the effects of my presumption and vanity, I shall be enabled to overcome them, and, in God's own good time, be delivered ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... organizing and drilling their forces, and the majority of the members knew so little about the question involved, that I found the chances decidedly against me. I was obliged, also, to encounter a prevailing but perfectly unwarranted presumption that the representatives of the mining States were the best judges of the question in dispute, while it was foolishly regarded as a local one, with which the old States had no concern. The clumsy and next to incomprehensible bill thus became a law, and by legislative methods ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... honour," retorted Larry, with mock servility, as he counted out the money. "Av it wouldn't displase yer lordship, may I take the presumption to ax how the seal ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... unflinching hostility to important concessions, tried to moderate all parties. He implored the King to make no public declaration. He wrote to Ireland strongly discouraging the violence of the Orangemen and urging that 'in this age of liberal doctrine, when prescription is no longer even a presumption in favour of what is established, it will be a work of desperate difficulty to contend against "emancipation," as they call it, unless we can fight with the advantage on our side of great discretion, forbearance, and moderation on the part of the Irish Protestants.' He recurred to his ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... accomplishments. But his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber in genius, and above him in conceit and presumption. We have no toleration for this sort of perversity, or prostitution of great gifts; and do not think it necessary to qualify the expression of opinions which we have formed with as much positiveness as deliberation.—We ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... was universally believed to be her affianced lover, and she expressed the most unqualified vexation at the report, declaring that she would not go once into public again for seven years, rather than encourage the presumption of the man, or the idle gossip ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... have studied, or even seriously contemplated, the ground on which I hold it, there is—don't you think?—a slight touch of presumption on your part in criticising so severely what you do not, cannot, understand? I profess to have good reasons for what I hold; you profess merely to disbelieve it. Is there not a vast ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... His attention was at length riveted by the appearance on the other side of the street, of a modest-looking young gentleman, who appeared to be so ill at ease in his frock-coat and "stick-up" collars, as to lead to the strong presumption that he wore those articles of manly dress for the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... supererogatory. Stricture and praise are, it will perhaps be said, equally impertinent to a fame so well established. Neither have I any rash hope of adding a single ray to the light of Hawthorne's high standing. But I do not fear the charge of presumption. Time, if not the present reader, will supply the ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Frau. Could Villa Elsa have been transferred to the United States, such a viewpoint might perhaps have been altered after a time. But this representative boorish German family, stuck here on the rainy banks of the mid-continent Elbe and so rooted and clamorous in the presumption that they and their kind were eclipsing the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... alone, not to mention higher considerations! I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things. I am ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... in frequent communication with my Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he was the ultimate editor of the Universal Review. I felt that he had done so much for me, and that we were now on such terms that I might without presumption ask him a private question about Lalor Maitland. Because, knowing the man to have been mixed with some very doubtful business, I wondered that a man of such honour and probity as the Advocate would in any ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... very ill, as it is fit she should; but I advise her to stop all future occasions of the world's taking notice of his coming thither so often as of late he hath done. But to think that he should have this devilish presumption to aime at a lady so near to my Lord is strange, both for his modesty and discretion. Thence to the Cockepitt, and there walked an houre with my Lord Duke of Albemarle alone in his garden, where he expressed in great words his opinion of me; that I was the right hand of the Navy here, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... indignation was expressed by the friends of Sir Humphry Davy at Stephenson's "presumption" in laying claim to the invention of the safety-lamp. In 1831 Dr. Paris, in his 'Life of Sir Humphry Davy,' thus wrote:—"It will hereafter be scarcely believed that an invention so eminently scientific, and which could never have been derived but from the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... the countersign sent to him was for use with his regiment as well as mine, it was difficult to make him understand that this was not an unwarranted interference of one colonel over another. No doubt he attributed it for the time to the presumption of a graduate of West Point over a volunteer pure and simple. But the question was soon settled and we had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... his mother. "It has been suggested that it may be one of the evidences of Madeleine's presumption. I can scarcely credit it. I can scarcely believe she would have the audacity to use my name, or occupy herself with the affairs of my family. Yet there is ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... that original sin itself is entirely eradicated in baptism.[9] For baptism but begins the constant struggle against sin that ends only with the close of life. Hence the warning against making of baptism a ground for presumption, and against relaxing the earnestness of the struggle upon the assumption that one has been baptised. For unless baptism be the beginning of a new ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... was so much disturbed by tender vibrations and by the sense of his presumption that he could not begin; and it may be questioned if he would ever have broached the subject at all, had not a distant church clock opportunely assisted him by striking the hour of three. The trumpet-major ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... at once. It is very unhappy, my dear, since your friends will have you marry, that a person of your merit should be addressed by a succession of worthless creatures, who have nothing but their presumption for their excuse. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... experience of the instincts have a distrust as to whether the unmarried can be thoroughly human and humane, such as is hinted in the saying, "Old-maids' and bachelors' children are well cared for," which derides at once their ignorance and their presumption. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... theism—a mere indefinite first cause, an Architect of the universe, etc. Each one, however, adds its quota to a great cumulative argument, which, taken in its entirety, raises an exceedingly high presumption, which amounts to "moral" though possibly not intellectual proof. And, after all, "probability is the guide ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... office, Mr. Maclean, became expert at it, and encouraged me by his success. I was surprised at the ease with which I learned the new language. One day, desiring to take a message in the absence of the operator, the old gentleman who acted as copyist resented my presumption and refused to "copy" for a messenger boy. I shut off the paper slip, took pencil and paper and began taking the message by ear. I shall never forget his surprise. He ordered me to give him back his pencil and pad, and after that there was never any difficulty between dear old Courtney ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... this bloody insurrection? There is strong presumption against him; many of his contemporaries say he had; and the dauphin himself wrote on the 30th of August, 1359, to the Count of Savoy, that one of the most heinous acts of Marcel and his partisans ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of Rosader's Saladyne smiled as laughing at his presumption, and frowned as checking his folly: he therefore took him up ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... are the modest and correct people, inhabiting the towns and villages of the United States, to be affronted by being told publicly, that they have less religion, less morality than the people of England? How long shall we continue to be abused by folly and presumption? We, Americans, are yet a modest, clean, and moral people; as much so as the Swiss in Europe; and we feel ourselves offended, and disgusted when our blind guides tell us to follow the example of the English in ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... have witnessed of Mr. Adams's behaviour and modesty, that such a thing could be done for him." Mr. Adams bowed, and said, "O my good ladies! 'tis too considerable a thing: I cannot expect it—I do not—it would be presumption if ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... stand perfectly well even if it be left with a hole at one side, a thing which is quite impossible with soft soda glass, or is at least exceedingly unusual. An accident of this kind is particularly likely to happen if the glass be at all reduced. Hence, if a joint does not crack when cold, the presumption is, in the case of soda glass, that the joint is perfectly made, and will not allow of any leak; but this is not the case with flint glass, for which reason all joints between flint glass tubes require the most minute examination before they ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... school, even the very worst, we must suppose the culture of morals to be one: a mere day-school may perhaps reasonably confine its pretensions to the disallowance of anything positively bad; because here the presumption is that the parents undertake the management of their children excepting in what regards their intellectual education: but, wherever the heads of a school step into the full duties of a child's natural guardians, they cannot absolve ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... his balance by this volley of language and presumption of knowledge. "Mrs. Krill left at six," he gasped, backing to ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... that he had never seen him before, and indeed did not really know who he was. But, quick as a flash, he thought that the ex-manager of Drury Lane must be the only living Englishman with presumption enough to accost him in this way. So he answered without hesitation, "Why, this is ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... a progress must this nation have made in it since my head was cut off! A man in my days might offer to dispute de omni scibile, and in accepting the challenge I, as a young man, was not guilty of any extraordinary presumption, for all which books could teach was, at that time, within the compass of a diligent and ardent student. Even then we had difficulties to contend with which were unknown to the ancients. The curse of Babel fell lightly upon ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... though secret cause of this disgust. But the habitual ascendency of the favorite over his master prevented the latter from disclosing this feeling until it was heightened by an occurrence which sets in a strong light the imbecility of the one and the presumption of the other. John, on the death of his wife, Maria of Aragon, had formed the design of connecting himself with a daughter of the king of France. But the constable, in the mean time, without even the privity of ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... not cherish this sentiment without presumption when we reflect on the characters by which this ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... with roaming over the crude consistence without ever finding out one spot where it could repose in safety. Hence has arisen the demand, [Greek: pou stoi], which has been repeated for ages. It is my hope, and my presumption, that such a place of appulse may be found, where we may take our stand, and from whence we may have a full view of the mighty expanse before us; from whence also we may descry the original design, and order, of all those objects, which by length of time, and their own remoteness, have ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... who escaped capture in the preceding expedition, had owed his safety to the refuge given him by the people of Beth-Adina. Asshur-izir-pal, who seems to have regarded their conduct on this occasion as an insult to himself, and was resolved to punish their presumption, made his eighth expedition solely against this bold but weak people. Unable to meet his forces in the field, they shut themselves up in their chief city, Kabrabi (?), which was immediately besieged, and soon taken and burnt by ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... forth one of those disgraceful panics, which so often follow overweening presumption; and shrieks, oaths, prayers, and reproaches, make night hideous. There are those too on board who recollect well enough Jenebelli's fire-ships at Antwerp three years before, and the wreck which they made of Parma's bridge across the Scheldt. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and holiest aspirations. His self-esteem was too much flattered not to induce him to overlook the immediate object of the petitioner. While she prayed that she might become the humble instrument of bringing him into the flock of the faithful, she petitioned for forgiveness, on her own behalf, if presumption or indifference to the counsel of the church had caused her to set too high a value on her influence, and led her into the dangerous error of hazarding her own soul by espousing a heretic. There was so much of fervent piety, mingled with so strong a burst of natural feeling, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... once more to his hitherto futile scheming: How was he to get near his sister? To the whitest of lies he had insuperable objection, and if he appeared before her with no reason to give, would she not be far too offended with his presumption to retain him in her service? And except he could be near her as her servant, he did not see a chance of doing anything for her without disclosing facts which might make all such service as he would most ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... steady labor. Land valued at about $10 per acre may be rented for $1. More than ten acres to the tenant is not usual, and I was told that it is very common for a family to rent all the land it wants for $10 per year, the presumption being that not over ten acres would be utilized. The staple crop for the small farmer is the sea island cotton. Under the present culture land devoted to this lies fallow every other year. The islands are low and flat, ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... the dining-room of the Boomville Hotel like some distinguished alien. The three partners, by virtue, perhaps, of their college education and refined manners, had been exceptionally noticed by Kitty. And for some occult reason—the more serious, perhaps, because it had no obvious or logical presumption to the world generally—Barker was ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... at the right: "Mozart and Haydn you will do the honor not to mention"; at the left: "It was decided yesterday, and even before, that you were not to write for me any more." On another spot he writes: "correct your blunders that occur through your fatuity, presumption, ignorance and foolishness." (Unwissenheit, Uebermuth, Eigenduenkel, und Dummheit). "That will become you better than to ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... stopped, aghast at his presumption, and choking with rage; but Malcolm's eyes filled with tears, and instead of breaking out again, his master turned his head away and ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the pamphlets in the British Museum, 4to. 1587, C. 32. a. 2. But though it was most unlikely that the Dutch or their stadtholder should have presented this picture to Leicester, it well accorded with Leicester's vanity and presumption, and still more with that vanity and presumption as displayed in his conduct as commander-in-chief of the forces in Holland, to call himself The Stadtholder, and to order his painter to put that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... acquisition of the French border districts (Valenciennes had not yet surrendered). England was to retain all conquests in the two Indies. The Prussians were to march towards Flanders, which they obstinately refused to do. Dutch and other troops were to be engaged by England, the presumption being that the year 1795 would see the losses of 1794 more than retrieved. The mistake of 10,000 in adding up the totals of the troops (78,000 instead of 88,000) enables one to conjecture at what time of the day this sketch was outlined.[355] One would not take it seriously ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... his race, perhaps indeed of all mankind, and yet his efforts were unavailing, for to my sorrow must I acknowledge that much of the enmity felt towards our family, and the disrepute into which our good old name fell, was caused by the elixir. The majority of Ueberhells were accused of presumption and arrogance, of opiniativeness and pugnacity. Many had made themselves disagreeable to their neighbours by their caustic criticisms and ill-natured complaints, at the same time bringing misfortune upon themselves by a most curious exhibition of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... self-critical; he spoke with effort, vainly struggling against that peculiar force of Alma's personality which had long ago subdued him. When he looked at her, saw her distant smile, her pose of the head as in one who mildly rebukes presumption, he was overcome with a feeling of solemn ineptitude. Quite unaware that his last sentence was to Alma the most impressive—the only impressive—part of his counsel, suddenly he broke off, and ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... the constitution of every part of Nature had been planned from the beginning, and continued to take place as it had been planned, this was itself a striking feature of resemblance extending through all Nature, and affording a presumption that the whole was the work, not of many, but of the same hand. It must have appeared vastly more probable that there should be one indefinitely foreseeing Intelligence and immovable Will, than hundreds and thousands of such. The philosophers had ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... Greyson would stand revealed in the guise of a malevolent vampire. Truly that development has at this moment an appearance of unreality, and worthy even of pooh-pooh, but thus is the warning spread by your own printed papers and the records of your Halls of Justice, and it would be an unseemly presumption for one of my immature experience to ignore the outstretched and warning finger ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... but they lawfully held in the Campagna of Rome the hereditary fiefs of Zagarola and Colonna; and the latter of these towns was probably adorned with some lofty pillar, the relic of a villa or temple. [98] They likewise possessed one moiety of the neighboring city of Tusculum, a strong presumption of their descent from the counts of Tusculum, who in the tenth century were the tyrants of the apostolic see. According to their own and the public opinion, the primitive and remote source was derived from the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... never loved one of them as I loved poor Nancy. She had a cradle, and I often spent an hour or more rocking her. I guarded both doll and cradle with the most jealous care; but once I discovered my little sister sleeping peacefully in the cradle. At this presumption on the part of one to whom as yet no tie of love bound me I grew angry. I rushed upon the cradle and over-turned it, and the baby might have been killed had my mother not caught her as she fell. Thus it is that when we walk in the valley of twofold solitude we know little of the tender affections ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... called redemption or not, (for such evidence, whether for or against, would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabricated,) the case can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries of itself; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary justice, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a bibliomaniac is one who has "a passion for possessing books; not so much to be instructed by them as to gratify the eye by looking on them." This presumption is about as reasonable as it would be to say that a man is a monomaniac because he gets married when he is in no special need of a ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... superseded the mouse in pride of place; (4) images of the mouse might be associated with that of the god, (5) and used as a local badge or mark; (6) myths might be invented to explain the forgotten cause of this prominence of the mouse. If all these notes occur, they would raise a presumption in favour of totemism in the past of Greece. I then give evidence in detail, proving that all these six facts do occur among Greeks of the Troads and sporadically elsewhere. I add that, granting for the ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... that if they did not sit or lie down in the canoe, for they had been standing, it would inevitably cause the destruction of the whole party, and the reason they assigned, was, that the river had never beheld a white man before; and, therefore, they dreaded the consequences of their rashness and presumption in regarding its waters so attentively. This and similar nonsense was delivered with such determination and earnestness, that they reluctantly laid down, and allowed themselves to be covered with mats, in order to quiet their apprehensions; for they did not forget that they were ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... tells a truth when she says I am not to "count social cleverness"—she means volubility—"as a warrant for domineering a capacious intelligence": because of the gentleman's modesty. Agreed: I have done it; I am contrite. I am going into slavery to make amends for presumption. Banality, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... unanimous acclamation, and complied to with willing obedience. The result, is, that I have been able to bring about that order, without which it would be folly to face the pending struggle like men. I make no pretensions to military knowledge. I have not the presumption to assume the chief command, no more than any other man who means well in the cause of the diggers. I shall be glad to see the best among us take the lead. In fact, gentlemen, I expected some one who is really well known (J. B. Humffray?) to ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... Louisiana plantation is a somebody not to be treated with nonchalance; but, when that proprietor chances to be a young and charming lady, who could be otherwise than amiable? Not Captain B., commander of the "Belle of the West!" The very name of his boat negatived the presumption! ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... institution large sums of money and 20,000 acres of land in Virginia valued at $50,000. New York Central College which opened its doors alike to both races obtained from him several donations.[1] This gentleman proceeded on the presumption that it is the duty of the white people to elevate the colored and that the education of large numbers of them is indispensable to the uplift of the degraded classes.[2] He wanted them to have the opportunity for obtaining either a common or classical ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... peculiar connection between the tribes inhabiting those several points. This enterprising traveller moreover thinks that the idea he has started goes far towards refuting the theory of an inland sea, another presumption against which he maintains to be the hot winds that blow ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... much presumption in supposing that the appropriate influences of such an instrumentality may be brought to bear upon us with infinite advantage by Him who alone possesses perfect access to all the avenues of our spirits; ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... these transient, pampered aristocrats that I should be detailed to serve them food. Must I be blamed—must I be deprived of the means of a livelihood,' he goes on, 'on account of an accident that was the result of their own presumption and haughtiness? But what hurts me more than all,' says Sir Percival, 'is the desecration that has been done to this splendid Rindslosh—the confiscation of its halberdier to serve ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... forces, and slaughtered without mercy. Even the sanctity of the temple could not restrain their horrible ferocity. The worshipers were stricken down before the altar, and the sanctuary was polluted with the bodies of the slain. Yet in their blind and blasphemous presumption the instigators of this hellish work publicly declared that they had no fear that Jerusalem would be destroyed, for it was God's own city. To establish their power more firmly, they bribed false prophets to proclaim, even while Roman legions were besieging ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... subsequent cross-examination, in which case, if false, they will not be able to persevere in one regular, consistent story "; whereas, if no advantage be taken of such particularity in the charge to detect the falsehood thereof, and if no attempt to disprove it, and no defence whatever be made, a presumption justly and reasonably arises in favor of the truth of such charge. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of offering anything in his defence, declared that he would not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board at his accuser; that he attempted to indict ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... great abundance, and it was marked that, though he appeared to have felt the need to take a stand against the risk of being too roughly saddled with the offspring of others, he at this period exposed himself more than ever before to the presumption ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when we finished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. Macaulay died too soon; for none but he could mete out complete and comprehensive justice to the insolence, the impudence, the presumption, the mendacity, and, above all, the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... thing of close truth as well as of fine decorum. You might kiss their hands, but you certainly would think twice before pinching their cheeks—provocative as they are of this tribute of admiration—and would altogether lack presumption to lift them off the ground or the higher level or dais on which they stand so sturdily planted by right of birth. There is something inimitable in the paternal gallantry with which the painter has touched ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... having ignored Japan's "special position" in China, which according to these publicists demanded that no Power take any action in the Far East, or give any advice, without first consulting Japan. That a stern correction will have to be offered to this presumption as soon as the development of the war permits it is certain. But not only Japanese military officers and journalists were endlessly busy: so-called Japanese advisers to the Chinese Government had done their utmost to assist ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... only by their assumed names of Hamad and Yussuf—"I must first tell you how it came about that I was induced to personate our sovereign lord, Haroun Alraschid, whom may Allah preserve, and from whose ears may the story of my presumption ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... warned Fleck. "If a man cuts out one tooth-paste advertisement, the natural presumption would be that he wished to remind himself to buy some. When he cuts out two, he must have some special interest in that particular tooth paste. We'll have to find out ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... such a conception ought not to surprise us. Long before this, Jesus had regarded his relation to God as that of a son to his father. That which in others would be an insupportable pride, ought not in him to be regarded as presumption. ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... Saladyne smiled as laughing at his presumption, and frowned as checking his folly: he therefore took him up ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... constitutions furnish no apology for those which are to be found in the plan proposed, I answer, that as the former have never been thought chargeable with inattention to the security of liberty, where the imputations thrown on the latter can be shown to be applicable to them also, the presumption is that they are rather the cavilling refinements of a predetermined opposition, than the well-founded inferences of a candid research after truth. To those who are disposed to consider, as innocent omissions in ...
— The Federalist Papers
... plucked a wrinkled o'erripe fruit,—a mouldy pomegranate under the branches, a sour tamarind? 'Tis well! I say nought, save that time will come, and be thou content. It is truly as I said, that I have thee between me and Shagpat; and that honoured one of this city thought fit in his presumption to demand me in marriage at the hands of my father, knowing me wise, and knowing the thing that transformed me to this, the abominable fellow! Surely my father entertained not his proposal save with scorn; but the King looked favourably on it, and it is even now matter of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... enjoy a vision of himself defeating her purpose to ensnare the Hollins youth. Once he would have considered it crass presumption, but that was before a certain sarcophagus on the left bank of the Nile had been looted of its imperial occupant. Now he merely recalled a story about a King Cophetua and a beggar maid. It was a comparison ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... he makes vessels, such as phials, ampullas and dishes, which it is not lawful for any foreigner to make. Moreover, in the vile wickedness of his shameless heart, the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, has the presumption and effrontery to sell the said vessels, openly admitting that he has made them. And they are well made, with diabolical skill, and the sale of the said vessels is a great injury to the glass-blowers of Murano, and to the honourable ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... was worse—a Cresswell or an Alwyn? It was no sin that Alwyn had done; it was simply ignorant presumption, and she must correct him firmly, but gently, like a child. What a crazy muddle the world was! She thought of Harry Cresswell and the tale he told her in the swamp. She thought of the flitting ghosts that awful night in Washington. She thought of Miss Wynn who had jilted Alwyn ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Squire Woodbridge, "if the stocks and the whipping-post be not the remedy their discontent calls for. I am told that seditious and disorderly speech is common at the tavern of evenings. This presumption of the people to talk concerning matters of government, is an evil that has greatly increased since the war, and calls for sharp castigation. These numskulls must be taught their place or t'will shortly be no country for ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this can not be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... is commonly the parent of disorder; the seeds of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which was supposed to be more fruitful than any other in tyrants and usurpers; [8] the legions of that sequestered island had been long famous for a spirit of presumption and arrogance; [9] and the name of Maximus was proclaimed, by the tumultuary, but unanimous voice, both of the soldiers and of the provincials. The emperor, or the rebel,—for this title was not yet ascertained by fortune,—was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... following expedient for obtaining it. He had carefully studied the machine used in the shop for cutting out wooden clock wheels, and had suggested to his employer several improvements in it. The workmen, however, had ridiculed his suggestions, and had denounced as the most barefaced presumption his belief that he could improve a machine which had come all the way from Connecticut, where, they said, people were supposed to know something about clocks. Nevertheless, he maintained his opinions, and told his employer that if he would give him the silver watch, he would ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... had ever approved. No. He had that, at least, to look back upon; he had seen the whole enterprise as pure presumption, and had said so. Often. The heavens were the heavens, and Earth was Earth. It would have been better—much better for all concerned—if it had been left ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... perfectly to develop his inherent possibilities in character and capacity, while every advance in this direction reacts on the machinery of life and makes its improvement more possible. With a real sense of my own personal presumption, but with an equally real sense of the responsibility that rests on every man at the present crisis, I shall venture certain suggestions as to possible changes that may well be effected in the material forms of contemporary society as well as in its methods of thought, in ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... magistracy. Almost every letter from his friends expressed a desire that he should accept the office when tendered to him, as it surely would be, by the electors chosen by the people; and before the elections were held, so general was the presumption that Washington would be the first president of the United States, that he received many letters soliciting appointments to office. These annoyed him exceedingly; for the subject, he said, never failed ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... generation of God's people have no right to enter into bonds that entail obligations upon future generations."[2] A third Dr. said, "I hold it is a sin for men to go into the august presence of God and enter into covenant with him. It is base presumption."[3] A fourth Dr. said, "I hold that the church as an organization is not a responsible moral agent. Neither is the nation!" These sentiments may well excite astonishment and alarm, when proclaimed by accredited ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... showed it me so, which, as in everything, is for all of us: "It is but a cloud which reflects the glories of the promise of My rainbow; so can the dust, such as thyself, reflect yet other fashions of My will and glory. There is no presumption in the cloud that it should glow with My power; neither is there presumption in thy dust that it should be My vehicle. Both the cloud and ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... are afterwards the evil deeds which are forbidden in the Ten Commandments, such as [distrust] unbelief, false faith, idolatry, to be without the fear of God, presumption [recklessness], despair, blindness [or complete loss of sight], and, in short not to know or regard God; furthermore to lie, to swear by [to abuse] God's name [to swear falsely], not to pray, not to call upon God, not to regard [to despise or neglect] ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... scene would be the height of presumption in PUNCH. Nobody but "Satan" Montgomery, or the Adelphi play-bill, is equal to the task. We quote, as preferable, the latter authority:—"Grand inauguration of Wilhelm, the rightful heir. CORAL CAVES and CRYSTAL ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... too much presumption in me to beg of Sir Joseph Banks to set this matter in its proper light, because by your letters I judge it meets with your disapprobation entirely; but I hope that this opinion has been formed upon the idea of Mrs. Flinders continuing ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... no doubt in the mind of any one that the destruction of the Union would be deplored by Mr. Buchanan as profoundly as by any living man. His birth and rearing as a Pennsylvanian leave no other presumption possible. In the original Union, Pennsylvania was appropriated denominated the Keystone of the arch, supported by, and in turn supporting, the strength of all. Of the "old thirteen" there were six free States north of her, and six slave States south of her. She was allied as warmly by ties ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... "Do not blame my presumption," she said; "do not think that I am merely soft or weak, if I entreat you to take no further notice of Eunane's mood. I cannot but think that, if you do, you ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... plains. But if in one battle he should retire from the field, not without loss of blood, he would then prosecute the war more steadily and quietly." Fired by these exhortations, and at the same time wearied with the presumption of the enemy, who daily pressed upon them and provoked them to an engagement, they commenced the battle with spirit. The battle continued for more than two hours, when the right wing of the allies and the chosen band began to give ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... "Thou who has shown thyself to me, let me never forget thee again. Save me from forgetfulness. And show thyself to those I love; show thyself to all mankind. Use me, O God, use me; but keep my soul alive. Save me from the presumption of the trusted servant; save me ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... condition in life who wore better clothes than himself. For the last nine months, Dick's neat appearance had excited the ire of the young Philistine. To appear in neat attire and with a clean face Micky felt was a piece of presumption, and an assumption of superiority on the part of our hero, and he termed it "tryin' to be ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... presumption is in favour of our hypothesis. Whether we regard organic life in the genesis and preservation of the individual, or in the evolution of species, we see its natural direction to be towards utility: but the effort of thought comes after the effort of life; it is not added from outside, ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... opponents. This so exasperated the chief men of the Court, that they persuaded the Duke to recall Frischlin; but instead of finding a welcome from his old patron, he was cast into prison, in order that he might unlearn his presumption, and acquire the useful knowledge that modesty is the chief ornament of a learned man. But Frischlin did not agree ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... contempt from the ranks of the sciences—palmistry, physiognomy, phrenology, psychology. Likewise, the fact, that in all ages such conflicting views have, by the most eminent minds, been taken of mankind, would, as with other topics, seem some presumption of a pretty general and pretty thorough ignorance of it. Which may appear the less improbable if it be considered that, after poring over the best novels professing to portray human nature, the studious youth will still run risk of being ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... of hunger mixed with fear. A single wolf seldom or never attacks a man. He cannot stand the face. But a person would need to have a godlike face indeed to terrify therewith an army of wolves some thousand strong. It would be the height of presumption in any man, though beautiful as Moore thought Byron, to attempt it. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... consider necessary for its objects and interests. In harmony with this it should, besides, be agreed upon that, if also new negotiations should prove fruitless one must not return to status quo so as to adhere to the present untenable state of Union affairs. There should be a binding presumption that the present state of things must not prevent either country from exercising its right of self-determination, but that instead each country can freely decide upon the future forms of its national existence. For not a coercive union but only the mutual confidence and feeling of solidarity ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... asked the wood, triumphantly. "My trees shall grow year after year, till they become tall and strong. Then they shall close their tops over you: no sun shall shine, no rain shall fall upon you; and you shall die, as a punishment for your presumption." ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we may dismiss or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform us whether the guns used in the great pounding-match between Lucifer and Michael were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong presumption is that they were exclusively the former, and that a well-served battery of Parrotts would have silenced them in fifteen minutes. By giving him a few pieces of the kind the poet would have further brightened ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... condemned have appealed to parliament. In revising these procedures, we found them so full of absurdities and follies, that, if charity forbids our suspecting those who already discharge this function among us of dishonesty and malice, it permits and even bids us deplore their ignorance and presumption. Yet it is to such judges that you are asked, Sire, to deliver over your faithful subjects, bound hand and foot, by ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... more beefsteak, and grow a little taller, my boy, before you undertake to drive such a span as this," replied Mr. Sherwood, smiling at the boy's presumption. ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... chastity, No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer, Will dare to soil her virgin purity. Yea, there where very desolation dwells, By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblenched majesty, 430 Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call Antiquity ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... bright, and for the moment interesting. As I had no wish to talk, I gave myself up to watching her, and came away at last more fixed than ever in my belief of her extreme worthiness and of his extreme presumption in thinking of calling so perfect a ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... open to new fields of service, and, with their consent, we would leave the sick in a hospital at Greenwich, and the batteries manned by the militia, and proceed to Virginia. It might be hoped, without presumption, that James River Point, if still occupied, would yield to the united efforts of our troops and those of the Virginians. The bay of Chesapeak would then be free, and that state might bend its whole force ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... points of order with a skill and relish beyond the Southern imagination. It did not matter how harmless, even infantile, might be the proposal placed before the court by such a man as MacWheep of Pitscowrie, he has hardly got past an apology for his presumption in venturing to speak at all, before a member of Presbytery—who had reduced his congregation to an irreducible minimum by the woodenness of his preaching—inquires whether the speech of "our esteemed brother is not ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner—said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And, as it may seem a great presumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in the Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig party, that I was esteemed no longer either useful or ornamental in the concern, you will, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... pull his leg? he thought, as he moved away, and decided that she was most unlikely to venture on such presumption. No, it had been necessary to remind her of the deference due to him, and she would not forget the lesson in future. Perhaps he might unbend occasionally in private, but, on second thoughts, that would be more dangerous ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... have asked me, and yet not put into words—I have never heard or seen in Lady Angela the slightest sign that you were not her lover as well as the man whom she was engaged to marry. As for my own folly, since you seem to have noticed it, no one knows better than I that it is the rankest, most absurd presumption. But with me it begins and ends. That is a most absolute ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... entreated her Ladyship to grant him a delay of a few weeks before he entered on his explanation. Lady Lydiard's quick temper resented his request. She told Moody plainly that he was guilty of an act of presumption in making his own conditions with his employer. He received the reproof with exemplary resignation; but he held to his conditions nevertheless. From that moment the result of the interview was no longer in doubt. Moody was directed to send in ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... remarkable not only in scope and spirit, but in form. "It had excited in us apprehensions," wrote Madison to the United States minister in Paris, "which were repressed only by the inarticulate import of its articles, and the presumption that it would be executed in a sense not inconsistent with the respect due to the treaty between France and the United States." It bore, in fact, the impress of its author's mind, which, however replete with knowledge concerning conventional international law, defined ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... their blood. Or you have once looked straight at them without speaking, and you discover years after that they have chosen to foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment; and they have the astounding presumption to account this misreading of your look to the extent of a full justification, nothing short of righteous, for their treachery and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Ridgway, to arrange, if possible, a compromise. I need hardly say this is not my usual method, but the circumstances are extremely unusual. I rest under so great a personal obligation to you that I am willing to overlook a certain amount of youthful presumption." His teeth glittered behind a lip smile, intended to give the right accent to the paternal reproof. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... not so destroy'd, But that the eternal love may turn, while hope Retains her verdant blossoms. True it is, That such one as in contumacy dies Against the holy church, though he repent, Must wander thirty-fold for all the time In his presumption past; if such decree Be not by prayers of good men shorter made Look therefore if thou canst advance my bliss; Revealing to my good Costanza, how Thou hast beheld me, and beside the terms Laid on me of that interdict; for here By means of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the noble barons of more modern days, who were all pride and presumption in their iron shells, mounted on their dray horses, but useless when dismounted, did not disdain to add to his knightly accomplishments that of a most skilful archer. This skill saved Rome in a dangerous attack. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... this mortgage has given me more trouble than all the rest of my little possessions. That I have been in no hurry to foreclose is plain by the length of time I've suffered to go by, without claiming my dues. I could wait no longer, without endangering my rights, as there would be a presumption of payment after twenty years, and a presumption that would tell harder against me than old Kitty's oath. We are neighbours' children, as I've said, nevertheless, and rather than push matters to extremities I will consent to some sort of ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... to General Harrison, who promptly resented what he thought its presumption and sent to remove Major Croghan from his command. Croghan went to explain in person and was allowed to return to his post. The British and Indians appeared in force the next day, July 31st, and on the 2d of August made their first and last assault. Colonel Short of the British regulars ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... cooling the rear tires with buckets of water brought by a personage ordinarily known as Glouglou, whose look and manner, as he performed this office for the leathern dignitaries, so awed me that I wondered I had ever dared address him with any presumption of intimacy. The cars were great and opulent, of impressive wheel-base, and fore-and- aft they were laden intricately with baggage: concave trunks fitting behind the tonneaus, thin trunks fastened ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... with no presumption in her looks, with no familiarity in her manner. The eyes of her friendless mistress filled with tears, the offered hand of her friendless mistress answered in silence. Fanny took that kind hand, and pressed it respectfully—a ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Lord," S. 32. But we are quite satisfied with what is granted by Caspari himself (compare Ewald's Lehrbuch d. Hebr. Spr. Sec. 160), that it is against the nature and common use of this form to denote the action. Even by this concession, a presumption is raised against the correctness of an interpretation which would ascribe to [Hebrew: mvca], here, and in other passages, the signification of going forth, viewed as an action. The passages quoted by Winer in favour of the signification, egressus, [Pg 489] are the following: 1. Hos. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... with painted canvas, not unlike the typical French diligence, except for its absence of springs. The stage was spattered with mud from roof to wheel-tire, but as the mire was not fresh and the road fair, the presumption followed that custom and practice precluded the cleaning of the coach. The passengers, among whom were several ladies, wearing coquettish bonnets with ribbons or beau-catchers attached, were too weary even to view with wonder ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... which slept on the clover beside him, and an afternoon or two a week he would take dog and gun and go where the ruffed grouse were or where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees. He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them on his way back that same evening. There would be chaffings and expressions of doubt as ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... much Reluctance as Advice. We look upon the Man who gives it us as offering an Affront to our Understanding, and treating us like Children or Ideots. We consider the Instruction as an implicit Censure, and the Zeal which any one shews for our Good on such an Occasion as a Piece of Presumption or Impertinence. The Truth of it is, the Person who pretends to advise, does, in that particular, exercise a Superiority over us, and can have no other Reason for it, but that in comparing us with himself, he thinks us defective either in our Conduct or our Understanding. For ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her (for he gave away twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his exploits which he told about himself came to her ears; and in short, as the devil no doubt had arranged it, she fell in love with him before the presumption of making love to her had suggested itself to him; and as in love-affairs none are more easily brought to an issue than those which have the inclination of the lady for an ally, Leandra and Vicente came to an understanding without any difficulty; ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... destroyed their privileges; and who, for the same reason, had refused to acknowledge the new constitution, against which they had even dared to protest. His companions were so blinded, so besotted by their presumption, that they imagined that decrees and ordinances gave them the faculty of overturning the edifice which the nation had erected during five and twenty years of revolution. His confidents were those alone who, instead of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... most miserable, because our faith, our hope, our joy, and peace, are all but a lie, "if the dead rise not." But you will say, he that giveth up himself to God shall have comfort in this life. Ah! but "if the dead rise not," all our comfort that now we think we have from God, will then be found presumption and madness, because we believe, that God hath so loved us, as to have us in his day, in body and soul, to heaven: which will be nothing so, if the dead rise not. If in this life only, we have hope in Christ, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and began to write and read letters. The cloud was hanging over him still. He knew well enough that if he had been a poor man, of no account in the world, he would at that moment have been occupying a prison cell instead of his own comfortable study. For presumption was strong against him; and it had taken a great deal of influence and extraordinarily high bail to secure his release. At present he stood committed to take his trial for manslaughter within a very short space ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... be acquitted of presumption if I say that I cannot agree with Mr. Malone, that our ancestors did not perceive the ludicrous in these things, or that they paid no separate attention to the serious and comic parts. Indeed his own statement ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... thousands of years for that bright day you so confidently promise for the earth, but I cannot help asking myself if it is altogether a misfortune to live in the midst of the conflict, with something ahead to strive for. Will you pardon my presumption if I ask you practically the same question? You have told us of your wonderful history and that you have now reached a condition of peace and quiet. With no sickness or sorrow in your lives, with no evil passions to rise and throw you, with nothing to fear ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... justified, they said, in asserting that he saw no truth in the things he denied, was he justifiable in concluding that his not seeing a thing was a proof of its non-existence—anything more, in fact, than a presumption against its existence? or in denouncing every man who said he believed this or that which Bascombe did not believe, as either a knave or a fool, if not both in one? He would, they said, judge anybody—a Shakespeare, a Bacon, a Milton—without a moment's hesitation ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... second, curiosity writ large on her countenance. Plainly she wished to discover what Miss Hazel Weir would be getting in a package that was delivered in so aristocratic a manner. But Hazel was in no mood to gratify any one's curiosity. She was angry at the presumption of Mr. Andrew Bush. It was an excellent way of subjecting her to remark. And it did not soothe her to recollect that he ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Lucian had been at the manor a fortnight, and daily in the society of Diana, he spoke no word of love. Seeing how beautiful she was, and how dowered with lands and rents and horses, he began to ask himself whether it was not rather a presumption on his part to ask her to share his life. He had only three hundred a year—six pounds a week—and a profession in which, as yet, he had not succeeded; so he could offer her very little in exchange for her beauty, wealth, ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... am inexpressibly proud of the distinction you have generously offered to confer upon me. Sir, you can not doubt that I do most fully and gratefully appreciate this honor, which I had neither the right to expect nor the presumption to dream of. My reverence and admiration are, I confess, almost boundless, but I find not one atom of love; and an examination of my feelings satisfies me that I could never yield you that homage of heart, that devoted affection ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... and deprived of half their territories by their overlord. To be sure, France was having much trouble with her Flemish cities, which were in revolt again under the noted brewer-nobleman, Van Artevelde,[18] yet it seemed presumption for England to attack her—England, so feeble that she had been unable to avenge her own defeat by the half-barbaric Scots ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... over, as he ambled homeward, laughter broke through his annoyance, as he recalled old Charlie's family pride and the presumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think better of—not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. It was so much better than he could have expected from his "low-down" relative, and not unlike his own whim withal—the proposition ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... hitherto been no uncommon thing; since Henry VII.'s accession there have been but four, two of them in our own day. Only one took place in the sixteenth century, and the Duke of Suffolk was by some thought worthy of death for his presumption in marrying the sister of Henry VIII. The peerage was weakened not only by diminishing numbers, but by the systematic depression of those who remained. Henry VII., like Ferdinand of Aragon,[72] preferred to govern by means of lawyers and churchmen; they could be ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Species' first appeared. The continuous evolution of animated Nature had in its favour the difficulty of drawing fixed lines between species and even larger divisions, all the indications of comparative anatomy and embryology, and a good deal of general scientific presumption. Several well-known writers, and some eminent enough to command respect, had expressed their belief in it. One or two far-seeing thinkers, among whom the place of honour must be assigned to Mr. Herbert Spencer, had done more. They had used their philosophic insight, which, to science, is the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... no instance in the various history of mankind which equals in absurdity the presumption of the originators of our "Reconstruction policy" that the master class would accept cordially the conditions forced upon them, or that the enfranchised class would prove equal to the burden so unceremoniously forced upon them. On the one hand, a proud and haughty people, who had ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... accomplices, if any there were. It was in vain that he protested his innocence, and avowed his abhorrence of the crime. The banker rallied him on his assumed composure, and threatened him with consequences; until the locksmith, who had been unaccustomed to dialogues founded on the presumption that he was a villain, ordered his tormentor out of his shop, with the spirit of a man who, though poor, was resolved to preserve his self-respect, and protect the sanctity of his dwelling from impertinent ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... might very properly have informed his readers that it was diametrically opposite to the opinions of mineralogists; but, this was no reason for concluding it to be erroneous; on the contrary, it is rather a presumption that I may have corrected the error of mineralogists who have gone before me, in like manner as it is most reasonable to presume that our author may have corrected mine. Let us then proceed to examine how far this shall appear to ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... letting things alone and in undoing what I had begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. In case I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your guard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should hope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive your disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and assure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... class looks upon it as a kind of presumption for man to attempt to penetrate, by his own efforts of cognition, into a domain with regard to which he should give up all claim to knowledge and be content with faith. The adherents of this view feel it to be wrong for weak human beings to wish ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... arena during public festivals. His school was a large one, and included in its numbers a Thracian named Spartacus, who had been taken prisoner while leading his countrymen against the Romans, and was to be punished for his presumption by ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... pale face, which seemed turned to marble by this last effort of her maiden pride. "I have nothing to pardon," said she. "It was I, whose bold behavior, unbecoming a modest and well-trained young woman, gave rise to what seemed like presumption on your part." The sense of justice was strong within her, but she made her speech haughtily and primly, as if she had learned it by rote from some maiden school-mistress, and pulled her arm away and turned to go; but Thomas's ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to be born as a human creature, to be insulted, flagellated, and even executed as a malefactor; when they pretended to create God himself, to swallow, digest, revive, and multiply him ad infinitum, by the help of a little flour and water, the Indians were shocked at the impiety of their presumption. — They were examined by the assembly of the sachems who desired them to prove the divinity of their mission by some miracle. — They answered, that it was not in their power. — 'If you were really sent by Heaven for our conversion (said ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... no presumption about it, my dear fellow," replied Colston, with a laugh. "It is no secret that Radna and I are lovers, and that she will be my wife when I have ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... might reasonably be anticipated, would be devoted to the promotion of a definite policy, in place of one year in a term of four, as now. If also ineligible for reelection, there is at least a fair presumption that the occupant of the position might from start to finish apply himself to its duties and obligations, without being distracted therefrom by ulterior personal ends as constantly as humanly ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... work was completed by Thoresby. Thoresby died in 1373, and if he finished the presbytery, there was a gap of seven or eight years between its completion and the beginning of the choir. There is internal evidence to support this presumption. The presbytery, though Perpendicular in its main features, shows many traces of the transition from the curvilinear Decorated to the Perpendicular style, especially in the tracery of the great east window and the clerestory windows. In the choir proper these traces have vanished, ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... so that it was thought to be impossible to turn it by any means in a South Westerly direction, and some of the French, who were best able to judge, said that they held a position so strong that they could bid defiance to a force more than double their own. The presumption was not unreasonable, for the French had the advantage of the English in ships, guns, and men, but they had omitted to take into their calculations the fact that the English fleet was commanded by one whose promptitude in ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... phenomena may not have a wider scope; whether they may not, for instance, have determined the formation of the planets by birth from the sun, just as the moon seems to have originated by birth from the earth. Our first presumption, that the cases are analogous, is not however justified when the facts are carefully inquired into. A principle which I have not hitherto discussed here assumes prominence, and therefore we shall devote our attention to ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... me is the absurd dilettanteism and presumption of the man. He writes a tale as if he were giving dignity to romance; he applauds an artist as Dives might have thrown crumbs to Lazarus; vain to the last degree of all that he wrote or said, he was yet too fine a gentleman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... ought to beg Pardon for my Presumption, who dar'd presume to trouble a Man of so much Business, and so much Learning with my unlearned Letters. I acknowledge your usual Humanity, who have taken my Boldness in good Part. I was afraid my Letters had given you some Offence, that you sent me no Answer. There is no ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... labours. When I contemplate these things; when I know they owe little or nothing to any care of ours, but that they have arrived at this perfection through a wise and salutary neglect; I feel the pride of power and the presumption of wisdom die away within me; and I pardon everything to their spirit of liberty." The love of freedom, Burke contended, was the predominant feature in the cause of the Americans, and he pointed out ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... elder[386] of Lismore mentioned above, the second he who is said to have been the first to exercise the office of legate of the Apostolic See throughout the whole of Ireland. These, when three years had now passed in this presumption of Murtough and dissimulation of Malachy,[387] tolerating no longer the adultery of the church and the dishonour of Christ, called together the bishops and princes of the land,[388] and came, in one spirit, to Malachy, prepared to use force. But he refused at first; pleading the difficulty ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind." I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... compact with Moffatt. Even now he was not sure there had been anything crooked in that; but the fact of his having instinctively referred the point to Mr. Spragg rather than to his grandfather implied a presumption ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... with mind, to fix our affections upon the great ideal generalisation of intelligence in the one Supreme Being. And that we are capable of forming to ourselves an imperfect idea even of the infinite mind is, I think, a strong presumption of our own immortality, and of the distinct relation which our finite knowledge ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... the Souls of the Dead to minister to the Living, and appointed my departed Wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams or in any other manner agreeable to thy Government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influences of thy holy Spirit, through ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... unintelligibility, haste, and appearance of presumption, and—Believe me to be, sir, your most humble and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Graham asked, "What kind of a girl is your cousin?" to which Carrie replied, "You have a fair sample of her," at the same time nodding toward 'Lena, who was unmercifully pulling John Jr.'s ears as a reward for his presumption. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... the two elements. It is as easy to be great as to be small. The reason why we do not at once believe in admirable souls, is because they are not in our experience. In actual life, they are so rare, as to be incredible; but, primarily, there is not only no presumption against them, but the strongest presumption in favor of their appearance. But whether voices were heard in the sky, or not; whether his mother or his father dreamed that the infant man-child was the son of Apollo; whether a swarm of bees settled on his lips, or not; a man who could see ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... things, either in the same country or internationally, depend, so neither does it alter the law of the value of the precious metals itself; and there is in the whole doctrine of international values, as now laid down, a unity and harmony which are a strong collateral presumption of truth. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... in the course of the usual sweeping diatribe against Cesare, mentions "Michele da Corella, his strangler, and Sebastiano Pinzone, his poisoner." It is an amazing statement; for, whilst obviously leaning upon Giustiniani's dispatch for the presumption that Pinzone was a poisoner at all, he ignores the statement contained in it that Pinzone was the secretary and favourite of Cardinal Ferrari, nor troubles to ascertain that the man was never in Cesare Borgia's ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... I said, "and without undue presumption, I think I may say that I am worthy of a woman's love. Naturally, after your convincing me that you think differently, I feel humiliated and indignant. Do you know what effect such feelings have ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... detail, and properly passed. The best of these codes it ready to hand: at the request of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over the standing orders of the English House of Commons.[2103] But with the presumption of novices, they pay no attention to this code; they imagine it is needless for them; they will borrow nothing from foreigners; they accord no authority to experience, and, not content with rejecting the forms it ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... steed had got the heels of the others, finding it would be great folly and presumption in him to pretend to keep the saddle with his wooden leg, very wisely took the opportunity of throwing himself off in his passage through a field of rich clover, among which he lay at his ease; and seeing his captain advancing at full gallop, hailed him with the salutation of 'What ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... is why you made up your mind not to see me again.... That is why you spoke so harshly to me just now.... You were afraid, because you love me.... Do you understand now?... Oh, Philippe, I should not have acted with you as I have done, if you did not love me.... I should never have had the presumption!... But I knew.... I knew ... and you don't deny it, do you?... Oh, how I suffered! My jealousy of Marthe!... To-day again, when she kissed you.... And the thought of going away without as much as saying good-bye to you!... And the thought ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... birds chattered in the trees high above and looked curiously down on the intruders, and presently a foolish hare went scurrying across the path, so near the dogs that they sat still, amazed at his presumption, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... extreme views so ably maintained on either hand, and say how much of truth there may be in each? The present reviewer has not the presumption to undertake such a task. Having no prepossession in favor of naturalistic theories, but struck with the eminent ability of Mr. Darwin's work, and charmed with its fairness, our humbler duty will be performed if, laying aside prejudice ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... them) the injury of measuring their parts by the arguments they are ready to propose, the lawes of our Conference confining them to make use of those that the vulgar of Philosophers (for even of them there is a vulgar) has drawn up to their hands; and partly, that you should not condemn me of presumption for disputing against persons over whom I can hope for no advantage, that I must not derive from the nature, or rules of our controversy, wherein I have but a negative to defend, and wherein too I am like on several occasions to have the Assistance ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work. His "Gregory" is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas in Scots, on the same subject, which are at your service. Not that I intend to enter the lists with Peter; that would be presumption indeed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, I think, more of the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... don't know how much you know of life, but I presume you know very little. I presume that—and shall act on the presumption. I shall not expect—even ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... did not offer the chance of advancement to which the son of a Puyallup chief and a graduate of Carlisle was entitled, applied for work to the President of the Elliott Bay National Bank, it was not an act of such presumption as some might suppose. No one, to be sure, when he saw the high cheek-bones, wiry black hair brushed pompadour, dull brown eyes, and copper complexion, could possibly have been deceived by Johnny's well-cut clothes, clean linen, and good English. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... he is no more dead than you or I," she retorted, coolly. "What evidence have we? A letter, in his own handwriting, telling us gravely that he has decided to die! Does it sound probable? It is a safe presumption that that is the farthest thing from his intentions. For when did Gregory ever tell the truth concerning his movements? No, depend upon it, he is not dead. For purposes of his own, he is pretending to be. He has ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... slip-shod writer. For success in any special kind of work it is obvious that a special talent is requisite; but obvious as this seems, when stated as a general proposition, it rarely serves to check a mistaken presumption. There are many writers endowed with a certain susceptibility to the graces and refinements of Literature which has been fostered by culture till they have mistaken it for native power; and these men, being really destitute of native power, are forced to imitate what others have created. ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... undertaken at a later period. But what real artist would care to undertake such a responsibility? Unfortunately, in the year 1726, Bellotti presented himself, poor in art, but at the same time, as is usual, with an abundant supply of presumption. He, like a charlatan, boasted of a secret process with which he could restore the picture to its original state. By means of a small sample of his work he deluded the ignorant monks who yielded to his discretion ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... to but few. Ambition for acquaintance seemed to have died in him. He was the victim of a great humiliation and was silent. He avoided publicity. He was destitute of presumption. What brighter hopes he cherished were due to his father's purpose to make him a partner with his brothers. He heard Lincoln and Douglas when they canvassed the State, and approved of the argument of the former rather than of the other. He had voted for Buchanan ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... ingenious, I say; for seldom those persons really are such, or are capable to discover any wit in a wise and manly way. 'Tis not the excellency of their fancies, which in themselves are usually sorry and insipid enough, but the uncouthness of their presumption; not their extraordinary wit, but their prodigious rashness, which is to be admired. They are gazed on, as the doers of bold tricks, who dare perform that which no sober man will attempt: they do indeed rather deserve themselves to be laughed at, than their conceits. For what can be more ridiculous ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... years between the beginning of the friendship of Jesus and Simon and the time when the man was ready for his work. The process was not easy. Simon had many hard lessons to learn. Self-confidence had to be changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into prudence, and weakness had to be tempered into calm strength. All this moral history was folded up in the words, "Thou ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... failed he would display a presumption which nothing could forgive," he paraphrased. "If it's not asking too much, Mr. Gamble, I'm curious to know how you propose to accumulate your million." And he smiled across at Miss Joy, who turned to Gamble, waiting interestedly for ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... They have a genial but indifferent dignity, quite compatible with courtesy and friendly ways. They shoulder responsibility; they do not flirt; they sort out cranks; they flee from simpers; they put down presumption. If married, they laugh heartily with their wives over any letter or episode that is comical or sentimental. If not married, they get out of things the best way they know how, with a sort of plain, manly directness. If a minister would arrogate to himself his free-born ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... of the puma had heard the unwary hunter's footsteps. The grizzly had caught them and stopped to listen. Yes, he was being followed. In a rage he wheeled about and ran back noiselessly to see who it was that could dare such presumption. Turning a shoulder of rock, he came face to face with the hunter, and at once, with a deep, ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... have been so long contemplating on you! Be pleased then, madam, to receive this poem, without entitling so much excellency as yours, to the faults and imperfections of so mean a writer; and instead of being favourable to the piece, which merits nothing, forgive the presumption of the author; who is, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... Assembly of this State shall act upon any amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by Congress to the several States unless such convention or General Assembly shall have been elected after such amendment is submitted." The presumption was naturally that this clause was nullified by the U. S. Supreme Court's decision. On June 10, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Suffrage Association, telegraphed Governor Albert H. Roberts, urging him to call an extra session. He, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... was naturally made with scientific caution. Though the observation seemed to prove the actual transformation of one element into another, Professor Ramsay himself was by no means ready to declare the absolute certainty of this. Yet the presumption in favor of this interpretation of the observed phenomena is very strong; and so cautious a reasoner as Professor Rutherford has declared recently that "there can be no doubt that helium is derived from the emanations of radium in consequence ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... had advised King James to present himself in person before the Protestant stronghold, had not acted altogether, upon presumption. It is certain that there were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the governor, either despairing of its defence, or undecided in his allegiance between James and William, had opened a correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the effect of this contagious institution that it renders equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the evils of "Nobility." If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that of a distinction? The Nobility's heritage asks only homage, that of the Crown commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born illustrious,' I merely smile; when he says ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... couldn't make much of her letter. I gathered that he had taken a box containing a large amount of money aboard a coastwise craft, and that he had been found later drifting in an open boat. He had been wounded, and the presumption was, of course, that he had been assaulted and robbed of the money. But, of course, I concluded, as I suppose every one else did, that the money had been divided and spent. At any rate, I gave it up for gone ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... betrayed into associating himself intimately with a canny Scot is truly wonderful, and illustrates the eternal verity that "we are all of us weak at times," even the prophets. Bohenan's self- assertion led him on to dizzy heights of towering presumption, until at last "he acted the highest act of rebellion that ever was acted." It was all in vain; he was cut off for ever—perished from the congregation; utterly damned, and thereupon disappears, swallowed ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... the passing away of the pranas from the soul; for there is no reason to assume that there should be such a passing away (and the general rule is that a denial is made of that only for which there is a presumption).— Not so, we reply. The Chandogya-text 'For him there is delay only as long as he is not delivered (from the body); then he will be united' declares that the soul becomes united with Brahman at the time of its separation ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... to the minister. His heart was crying out in its pain and disappointment. Andrew's parting words sounded like the closing forever of the door of hope. "Aye, an' we thought he would be anither Mr. McAlpine! The Lord forgie us for oor meeserable presumption!" ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... difficulty that Joan finally obtained an interview with Boudricourt, the governor of Vaucouleurs; and he laughed at her, and bade her uncle take her home and chastise her for her presumption. She returned to her humble home, but with resolutions unabated. The voices encouraged her, and the common people believed in her. Again, in the red coarse dress of a peasant girl, she sought the governor, claiming that God had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... also now become the very sink of sin and seat of hypocrisy, and gulf where true religion was drowned. Here also now reigned presumption, and groundless confidence in God, which is the bane of souls. Amongst its rulers, doctors, and leaders, envy, malice, and blasphemy vented itself against the power of godliness, in all places where it was espied; as also against the promoters of it; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... utterance of only one word of command; it required only a wave of her hand to send this haughty and dangerous Munnich to Siberia! Nor was an excuse for such a proceeding wanting. Count Munnich's pride and presumption daily gave occasion for anger; he daily gave offence by his reckless disregard and disrespect for his chief, the generalissimo, Prince Ulrich; daily was it necessary to correct him and to confine him within his own proper ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... what was I about to say, after all these parentheses and digressions? Yes, I remember now:—the "Dante Symphony" is a work that does not need to be ashamed of its title,—and what you tell me of the impression produced by the "Bergsymphonie" (in Sondershausen) strengthens me in my presumption. Hence I should be glad to see the preface by Pohl printed again, and placed at the end of the "Faust" pamphlet; for, considering what most people are, they require to read first, before attaining the capacity for learning, understanding, feeling, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... She's a great fool. I've no faith in husbands. But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that Henry Jacobs of Markdale. He wants her bad enough. Just like his presumption,—thinking himself good enough for a King. His father is the worst man alive. He chased me off his place with his dog once. But I'll get even with ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not take it into her head this winter to constitute me her chaperon? I gave her to understand that a widow forty years old was quite old enough to go about alone! She has a mania for fearing that she may be compromised. The idea of turning up her nose at Monsieur de Gerfaut! What presumption! He certainly is too clever ever to solicit the honor of being bored to death in her house; for he is clever, very clever. I never could understand your dislike for him, nor your haughty manner of treating him; especially, during ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... out when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was ORDERED that the money should come to us in this special way, and it was you that must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence—and who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it was—just blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... same prescription, and obtains the same respect. But in our days, things are very differently circumstanced. Not merely the blind prejudice in favour of former times, but even the proper respect for them, and the reasonable presumption in their favour, has abated. Still less will the idea be endured, of any system being kept up, when the imposture is seen through by the higher orders, for the sake of retaining the common people in subjection. A system, if not supported by a real persuasion ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... to write at all on any subject once ennobled by the notice of Charles Lamb without some apprehensive sense of intrusion and presumption, least of all may we venture without fear of trespass upon ground so consecrated by his peculiar devotion as the spacious if homely province or demesne of the dramatist whose highest honor it is to have earned from ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... home, and what representations she had made to dissuade him from a passion "no less disrespectful," said she, "to your Majesty, as sultan, than to the princess your daughter. But," continued she, "my son, instead of taking my advice and reflecting on his presumption, was so obstinate as to persevere, and to threaten me with some desperate act, if I refused to come and ask the princess in marriage of your Majesty; and it was not without the greatest reluctance that I was led to accede to his request, for which I beg your Majesty once more ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... feeling of our own against creatures or circumstances. Through a quiet, gentle tolerance we leave ourselves free to be carried by the laws. Truth is greater than we are, and if we can be the means of righting any wrong, it is by giving up the presumption that we can carry truth, and by standing free and ready to let ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... the reviewers of my translations attacked me virulently for my unwarrantable presumption in changing the very names of M. Zola's characters; they were unaware that the names given by me were those first selected by the author, who had afterwards altered them and forgotten to ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Hill, near Biggar, when the text, given out from an empty cart in which the ploughmen had placed me, was "Jacob's dog," and my entire sermon was as follows:—"Some say that Jacob had a black dog (the o very long), and some say that Jacob had a white dog, but I (imagine the presumption of four years!) say Jacob had a brown dog, and a brown ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... reflections, or write down some observations, in the course of a long journey, is not strange; that I should present them before the Public is I hope not too daring: the presumption grew up out of their acknowledged favour, and if too kind culture has encouraged a coarse plant till it runs to seed, a little coldness from the same quarter will soon prove sufficient to kill it. The flattering partiality of private partisans ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... mind is affected by the gloom of his life. I suppose that he lives exclusively at Loughlinter. From time to time I am implored by him to return to my duty beneath his roof. He grounds his demand on no affection of his own, on no presumption that any affection can remain with me. He says no word of happiness. He offers no comfort. He does not attempt to persuade with promises of future care. He makes his claim simply on Holy Writ, and on the feeling of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... that he shall have a Heaven, a Joy, a Paradise, a Land, a Territory, a Kingship—but that all this is in himself, the Land to be won is himself."[8] The second one is that religion is a progressive movement, an unfolding revelation of life. "What a height of Presumption is it," he says, "to believe that the Wisdom and fullness of God can ever be pent up in a Synodical Canon? How overweening are we to limit the successive manifestations of God to a present rule and light, persecuting all that comes not forth in its height and breadth!" It is through this ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... "Astounding presumption that!" I said, now giving him the benefit of my full gaze—"to speak of pardon before making a confession of your guilt! But before I give you time even for that, the remaining mysteries which still hang around your tale of woe shall be cleared ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... are a brilliant and scholarly contribution to the external history of poetical forms: and it would be great presumption in me to attempt a review of his work. But it is so eminently suggestive, and to my mind so valuable as a study for verse writers of the present day, that I have ventured to place this book in the foreground of an attempt to sketch rapidly some clear outline of the conditions and the essential ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... find out what this Myself was good for, and that she should be! It was but the presumption of extreme youth. How gladly would I know now, after these long years, just why I was sent into the world, and whether I have in any degree fulfilled the purpose ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... so?" said Ada with mocking sarcasm, and the contempt in her voice was indescribable. "What presumption! the lower classes are beginning to look up, ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... is preferable to confining attention to American institutions with which there is at least general but often vague familiarity. If provision is made in the high school, by which the majority of those who enter the university have had a good course in American government, there seems to be a strong presumption that the beginners' course should be devoted to comparative government. It is quite probable that the introductory course will cease to be confined to a distinct and separate study of either foreign governments or of ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... then in Hanover should not be allowed by Prussia to invade Holland, and that the French garrison in the fortress of Hameln, now compassed about by Prussians, should be provisioned. To both of these requests Haugwitz assented, and pledged the word of his King, an act of presumption which that monarch ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... that the battles of the stage demanded a very large measure of faith on the part of the spectators. Of necessity they were required to "make believe" a good deal. In the prologue to "Henry V." especial apology is advanced for the presumption of the dramatist in dealing with so comprehensive a subject; and indulgence is claimed for the unavoidable feebleness of the representation as compared with the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... could say or do in any condition. 'You say you cannot test it, for you cannot follow me into my dream-world. Well, but it may be as I say; and till you can prove the reverse, I hold that I am entitled to the presumption which my dream-song establishes in my favour.' It must be admitted there is some force in this reasoning. All that her husband can in the meantime say on the other side, is just this: 'Granted the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... hard to argue with such persons, because they have not grasped the fact that the nature of international communication has undergone a complete change, and that therefore there is no presumption that the same medium will suffice for carrying it on. In the Middle Ages the cosmopolitan public was almost entirely a learned one. The only people who wanted to communicate with foreigners (except for a certain amount of commerce) ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... it is to be observed that when the superior intelligence and education of the recruiting agents are contrasted with the complete savagery and ignorance of the individuals recruited, there is obviously a strong presumption that in numberless cases the latter have been cozened into making contracts, the nature of which they did not in the least understand, and this presumption may almost be said to harden into certainty when the fact, to which allusion has already been made, is remembered, that the Portuguese officials ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
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