"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tenant, while Winburn claimed to have bought up the interests of the reversioners. He intimated that it was possible that Winburn had done this while acting as the agent of Colonel Desmit, but this was probably not susceptible of proof, on account of the death of Desmit. He only stated it as a conjecture at best. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the gods and demons, like people with no knowledge of art trying to get at the intention of artists from opinion and fancy and probabilities. For if[816] it is no easy matter for anyone not a professional to conjecture why the surgeon performed an operation later rather than sooner, or why he ordered his patient to take a bath to-day rather than yesterday, how is it easy or safe for a mortal to say anything else about the deity than that he knows best the time to cure vice, and applies to ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the Popple story overnight, and that made you think you saw a hedgehog when you were only half awake," said Mrs. Norbury, hazarding a conjecture that probably came very ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... imposing eloquence. He even acknowledges that he had not examined the testimony. "It is possible," said he, "that a critical examination of the evidence would show" that Arbuthnot was an innocent trader. We have had occasion to examine that evidence since, and we can testify that this conjecture was correct. But why was it a conjecture? Why did Mr. Clay neglect to convert the conjecture into certainty? It fell to him, as representing the civilization and humanity of the United States, to vindicate the memory of an honorable old man, who had done all that was possible to ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... entertained but Henry was murdered; and general conjecture soon pointed towards the earl of Bothwell as the author of the crime.[**] But as his favor with Mary was visible, and his power great, no one ventured to declare openly his sentiments; and all men remained in silence and mute astonishment. Voices, however, were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... imposing a certain course of action on a living witness, for definite purposes of their own. The course of action prescribed was undeniably pursued, and apparently the purpose of the ghosts was fulfilled, but what that purpose was their agent declines to state, and conjecture is hopelessly baffled. ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... "thirteen times most cruelly tortured," could "not be induced to confess anything, not even the colour of the horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in company of what Catholics, he that day was." I quote these words of Lord Burleigh, lest any of my readers, discovering weakness in his verse, should attribute ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... gevyng much study and diligence to the readynge of hystories, consyderynge wherof this woorde Britannia first came, fyndynge that all the yles in this parte in the occean, were called Brittaniae, after conjecture of Albion, remebringe (remembering) the sayde wrytynge, and by chaunce fyndyng in Suidas, that Prytania in Greeke, with a circumflexed aspiratio (aspiration,) doeth signifie metalles, fayres and markettes, also revenues belongyng to the commune treasure: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... bore, exposed to view, a natural root of yucca, crowned with its cluster of root leaves, which remain green all winter. The rest bore in their hands wands of piñon. What other properties they may have had concealed under their blankets the reader will soon be able to conjecture. On their third journey around the fire they halted in the west and formed a close circle for the purpose of concealing their operations, such as was made in the eighth dance. After a minute spent in singing and many repetitions of "Thòhay," the circle opened, disclosing ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... "A safe conjecture," Gifford commented, between indignation and amusement at the cool way the man was now trying ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... of the Order assure us that after some months' residence in Egypt, the holy Patriarch went to Palestine, and visited the holy places, but they enter into no particulars. What we may safely conjecture is, that God, who led him into the Holy Land, seemed to say to him, as He had said to Abraham: "Arise and walk through the land in the length and in the breadth thereof, for I will ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... something in him that seemed a wavering part of the best of him—a chivalry that had demanded to be killed by judgment of a righteous woman. He was conscious of an uplift, a gladdening of his spirit. Yet the ache remained. More than that, he found himself plunged deeper into conjecture, doubt. Had not the Ellen Jorth incident ended? He denied his father's indictment of her and accepted the faith of his sister. "Reckon that's aboot all, as dad says," he soliloquized. Yet was that all? He paced under the cedars. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... so isolated that gossip cannot find it out. The story of the spotted yearling went speeding through the country. Men made thin excuses to ride miles out of their way that they might air their opinions and hear some fresh bit of news, some conjecture that grew to a rumor and was finally repeated broadcast as truth. Children cringed and wept while necks were scrubbed relentlessly, for a fever of "visiting" attacked the women of the range. Miles they would travel ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... and count the votes that are taken. Every scheme of counting out legal votes cast, or counting in votes not cast, must result in confusion, uncertainty, and fraud. No matter how specious the argument may be, it will always mislead, for the reason that it must in its nature substitute conjecture for fact. The vote must, of course, be legal, it must be intelligible; but such a vote when offered must be taken, and when ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... might conceive that they were masses melted in the sun and thrown out, and that would destroy the foundation of this hypothetical theology. The ancient error of the two principles, which the Orientals distinguished by the names Oromasdes and Arimanius, caused me to explain a conjecture on the primitive history of peoples. It appears indeed probable that these were the names of two great contemporary princes, the one monarch of a part of upper Asia, where there have since been others of this name, the other king of the Scythian Celts ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... is rather too paradoxical to be comprehensively true. In another he remarks: "As for style of writing, if one has anything to say it drops from him simply as a stone falls to the ground." We must conjecture a very large sense indeed for the phrase "if one has anything to say." When truth flows from a man, fittingly clothed in style and without conscious effort, it is because the effort has been made and the work practically ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stern parents and wholesome laws as to age, girls might more often marry their first loves. It is difficult to conjecture what the state of civilisation might be, if it were common for people to marry their first loves, regardless of "age, colour, or previous ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... had been compelled to join the Francesca, and who, from their dejected appearance, he conjectured were not altogether pleased or satisfied with the arrangement, he entered into conversation with them, and soon contrived to elicit from them that his conjecture was well founded. Thereupon, as there was no time to lose, he took the bold course of asking them outright whether, in the event of there being a scheme afoot on the part of others to escape from the brigantine ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... most likely. II. is the only other possible reading, and it must be noted that the second Dalmatian cohort was in Britain at the beginning of the second century, and probably had been there for a considerable time. Trib. in the inscription is a conjecture suggested by the vitae: praef., which is epigraphically possible, is preferred by ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... fashion. 'It is to be the religion of nature, and an expurgated Christianity in so far as it agrees with the religion of nature.' The answer is a somewhat vague one, but better than none, and as such may have been welcomed. This, however, is mere conjecture. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone) Was wrought by the mad people—that's their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help— How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies; 260 But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... and purely mythological scheme arouses the antagonism of Judah Halevi. It is all pure conjecture, he says, and there is not an iota of proof in it. People believe it and think it is convincing, simply because it bears the name of a Greek philosopher. As a matter of fact this theory is less plausible than those of the "Sefer Yezirah"; and there is no agreement even among the philosophers ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... manuscripts, as well as in all the editions, except that of Cyprianus Popma." Kritzius. Gerlach, however, had, previously to Kritz, inserted them in his text though in brackets; for he supposed them to be a mere conjecture of some scribe, who was not satisfied with a single neque. But they have been found in a codex of Fronto, by Angelo Mai, and have accordingly been received as genuine by Kritz and Dietsch. Potter and Burnouf ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp through the foul womb of night The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fixed sentinels almost receive The secret whispers ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... The conjecture seemed probable, for, while the day remained, the castle of Blonay, seated on the bosom of the mountain that shelters Vevey to the north-east, had been plainly visible. It had been much admired, a pleasing object in a view that was so richly studded with hamlets and castles, and Adelheid ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... uncle, out of his head, mercifully, most of the time, begging for water, meant a constant battle with himself not to rush out, to make one frantic try at least, but he knew that the deeper courage of patient waiting was required of him. They could only conjecture what the invaders meant to do,—whether they intended to have them die of thirst, whether they meant to rush the house when it suited their pleasure—raggedly fortified and guarded by Jimsy and Carter and the half dozen of the faithful. Jimsy had talked the latter probability over steadily ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Puttock, spreading out his plump hands in pathetic fashion, "as you might conjecture, Mr.—" he glanced at the visitor's card—"Benham, my influence at the present juncture is less than nil. I am powerless. I can only look on at what I conceive to be a course of conduct fraught with peril to the true interests of New Lindsey, and entirely inconsistent ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... fine edition of the two versions published in 1850, and as buttressed up by them with what seems to me a very weak additional argument, has ever since been repeated as an established fact.[8] The readiness with which the conjecture was accepted can only be accounted for by the desire to make the work of translation centre at Lutterworth instead of, as I believe to have been the case, at Oxford. It seems to be considered that we shall ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... the barque had got so deep into the wreck-pack, she being so lately added to it, I could not determine; but my conjecture was that some storm had broken the pack and had driven her down into it, and then that the opening had closed again, leaving her fast a good way in its inside. But about the way of her getting there I did not much bother myself, ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... awakened to the knowledge of her love for Crispin. And so to him strayed now her thoughts, and to the fate her father had sent him to; and thus back again to her father and the evil he had wrought. It is matter for conjecture whether her loathing for Gregory would have been as intense as it was, had another than Crispin Galliard ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... twilight brooding dim, And along the utmost rim Wall and rampart risen to sight Cast a shadow not of night, And beyond them seemed to glow Bonfires lighted long ago. And my dark conductor broke Silence at my side and spoke, Saying, "You conjecture well: Yonder ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman
... been able to collect, do I find anything settled, either on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves, or on that of any persons who may wish to conduct their affairs in Parliament. But if I have leave to conjecture, something is in agitation towards admitting them, under certain qualifications, to have some share in the election of members of Parliament. This I understand is the scheme of those who are entitled ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... satisfied she could not be in error; but she was measurably sure of Mrs. Artemas beneath Diana's Grecian draperies, of Trego in his Western guise, of Mercedes Pride in the conventional make-up of a witch. The rest at once provoked and eluded conjecture; she fancied she knew Lyttleton in the doublet and hose of Sir Francis Drake, but could not feel certain; divested of his peculiarly well-tailored personality, he was astonishingly like half a dozen other men ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... with a weight heavier than before. That there was some malefic influence, mental or physical, thus working on him, no one who had known him before could for a moment doubt. But while Mrs. Temple and I readily admitted this much, we were entirely unable even to form a conjecture as to its nature. It is true that Mrs. Temple's fancy suggested that Constance had some rival in his affections; but we rejected such a theory almost before it was proposed, feeling that it was inherently ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... suddenly occurred to me that the young preacher was no other than my old friend, Obadiah Hawkins; and when, upon again raising my eyes I encountered one of those old-time furtive glances, I felt certain that I was right in my conjecture. The rough-looking youth, whom I had once thought so uncomely, had changed to a really fine looking man. When the services were closed, I at once made my way to him; and, as he had already recognized me, we soon renewed our former acquaintance. I introduced him to Willie, also to Birdie ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... sustained in my resistance by a sense of continuity, inherited, as it were, from the earlier part of the struggle. Somehow I found myself in the shelter of the corridor that led to the apartments of the Prince, his sister and his guest, and, for some reason I could not with my dizzy head conjecture, I was alone. I looked down the corridor, which was in gentle light, but saw nothing; it was as silent as though it had been plunged in the profound peace and slumber of the night. Without, the racket of noises reached ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... said Grandfather, "though you have made a pretty shrewd conjecture. He planned, in 1745, an expedition against Louisbourg. This was a fortified city, on the Island of Cape Breton, near Nova Scotia. Its walls were of immense height and strength, and were defended by hundreds ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thoughts: namely, that the Zecharias that here is mentioned, might not be he that we find in the book of Chronicles (2 Chron 24:21); but one of that name that lived in the days of Christ, possibly John Baptist's father, or some other holy man. My reasons for this conjecture, are, 1. Because the murderers are convict by Christ himself: Zecharias, whom ye slew between the altar and the temple. 2. Because Christ makes a stop at the blood of Zecharias, not at the blood of John ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the extent of circulation of books during the manuscript age? For the period before the Conquest we can only offer the merest conjecture, which does not help us materially. The rarity of the extant manuscripts of this age is no guide to the extent of their production. During the raids of the northmen the destruction and loss must have been very ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... giving some countenance to those who were praising him upon the above mentioned topic, or from what other motive it is now not easy to conjecture, James seems to have wished to be upon apparent good terms, at least, with the Prince of Orange; and after some correspondence with that prince concerning the protection afforded by him and the states-general to Monmouth, and other obnoxious persons, it appears that he declared himself, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... of the three other sects. I suppose, therefore, that for, with him, the old reading might be, with them; which is a very small emendation, and takes away the difficulty before us. Nor is Dr. Hudson's conjecture, hinted at by Mr. Hall in his preface to the Doctor's edition of Josephus, at all improbable, that this Banus, by this his description, might well be a follower of John the Baptist, and that from him Josephus might easily imbibe such notions, as afterwards prepared him to have a favorable opinion ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... parted from the sharer of his early fortunes, his grandeur was on the wane, and her death took place but a few weeks subsequent to his being dethroned and exiled. The emperor of Russia had visited this lady, and showed her some attention, with which Napoleon, for reasons we cannot conjecture, was extremely displeased. She was amply provided for by the treaty of Fontainbleau, but did not survive to reap any benefit from the provision, as she shortly after sickened and died at her beautiful villa of Malmaison. She was buried on the 3rd of June, at the village of Ruel. A vast number of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... probable conjecture as to the origin or meaning of this custom, or any account of its occurring ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... us swords, shields, and fire-arms, for defence. Unless I mistake the nature of their metals, our steel will resist any weapon they can manufacture. But what explosives or what noxious gases they may have, all strange to us, it is impossible to conjecture. Therefore, we shall go with ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... polite society, and there are perhaps fashionable persons who, if a speaker has occasion to explain what the occipat is, will consider that he has lately discovered that curiously named portion of the animal frame: one cannot give a genealogical introduction to every long-stored item of fact or conjecture that may happen to be a revelation for the large class of persons who are understood to judge soundly on a small basis of knowledge. But Euphorion would be very sorry to have it supposed that he is unacquainted with the history of ideas, and sometimes carries even into ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... to divine the cause of so unexpected a change were as vain as the questions I had first asked. Brigitte was ill, and remained obstinately silent. After an entire day passed in supplication and conjecture, I went out without knowing where I was going. Passing the Opera, I entered it from mere force ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... the later Middle Ages did not value early books as such; they were difficult to read, and often in bad condition. At first they were apt to be made into palimpsests; but when good new parchment became abundant and comparatively cheap, this practice was dropped. I conjecture that there is no important palimpsest whose upper writing is later than the eleventh century. The fate of the early books is rather obscure to me, but I see that bits of them were not uncommonly used for lining covers and fly-leaves for MSS. of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, and ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... impressed with the persuasion that the satellites are placed in the system with a view to compensate for the diminished light of the sun at greater distances. Mars is an exception; some persons might conjecture from this case that the arrangement itself, like other useful arrangements, has been brought about by some wider law which we have not yet detected. But whether or not we entertain such a guess (it can be nothing more), we see in other parts of creation so many ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... disappointment you meet with, at every misfortune that happens to you of which the author is unknown, do not seek or conjecture; it is useless. Cry out, it is Henri of Navarre, and you will be sure to be right. Strike on the side where he is, and you will be sure to strike right. Oh! that man, that man; he is the sword suspended over the ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... to their homes; some in vexation that their favorite had not appeared, others in a little alarm at his strange absence. Young Francois Tegot had not seen his father since early morning, and could not conjecture where he might be. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... shown by the increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I've told you all I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Halle's concert to hear ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to pursue, my friend. In that way alone you have your own life developed. If by word, look or deed he ever betrays your trust, I shall call my intuitions vain, and all my insight into human character mere idle conjecture." ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... rather in the memoirs of strangers who have visited our country, and were the proper objects and judges of such hospitality, than in the discourse and lucubrations of the modern English, who seem to describe it from theory and conjecture. Certain it is, we are generally looked upon by foreigners, as a people totally destitute of this virtue; and I never was in any country abroad, where I did not meet with persons of distinction, who complained of having been inhospitably ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... like rushes: upon this change, lightning quickly followed, playing in the distance about the edge of the darkening horizon. For about two hours we were favoured with these premonitory symptoms, and thus allowed ample time for conjecture as to the probable violence of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... of his grandfather's papers. He had promised the Queen to communicate to her all that he might discover relative to the history of the man with the iron mask, who, he thought, had become so inexhaustible a source of conjecture only in consequence of the interest which the pen of a celebrated writer had excited respecting the detention of a prisoner of State, who was merely a man of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... but, owing to the want of seasonable rains, the produce of the latter is not rapid or abundant, although the quality is excellent. It has been suggested, that the orchilla was probably the Gertulian purple of the ancients; a conjecture which is strengthened by the fact, that the coast of Africa, where the orchilla abounds, was formerly called Gertulia. That the vivid dye which resides in this weed was known to the ancients, does not ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... told Bertha, you will surely see him again? It may seem to you that what I said about the good-by kiss was but a fiction to soothe the child, but in my belief it was not. Though we know with certainty so little of the detail of the life beyond, we have two good grounds on which to base reasonable conjecture. We know of God's love; we know your father's love; now what would be natural in view of these two facts? I think we can manage to keep Bertha from seeing that which is no longer her father, and thus every memory of him will be pleasant. We will leave intact the impression which ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Government has limited the time to six months. And after burial? Why, presumably he lives still. But not with the life of the universal soul. Oh no! There have been mystics in China, but the Chinese are not mystical. What he was he still is, an eating and drinking creature, and, one might even conjecture, a snob. For if one visits the family chapel of the Changs—another of the sights of Canton—one sees ranged round the walls hundreds of little tablets, painted green and inscribed in gold. These are the memorials of the deceased. And they are arranged ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... sixty-two in the Historical Records should be eighty-two [3]. It is maintained by others that Tsze-sze's life was protracted beyond 100 years [4]. This variety of opinions simply shows that the point cannot be positively determined. To me it seems that the conjecture in the Sacrificial Canon must be pretty near the truth [5]. During the years of his boyhood, then, Tsze-sze must have been with his grandfather, and received his instructions. It is related, that one ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... forth the bottle he had borne away from Mr. Druce's. He snatched out his watch: one o'clock!—fifteen minutes overdue. Wildly he called the waiter back. "A tea-spoon, quick! No port. A wine-glass and a tea-spoon. And—for I don't mind telling you, Barrett, that your mission is of an urgency beyond conjecture—take lightning ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... KING.—You conjecture truly. I am so eager to hear the particulars of your friend's history, that I have still another ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Leaving the groom to conjecture what he pleased, I hurried on, and, reaching the Hall, inquired of the old butler ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... that the place we were at was Blackshear, and that it was the Court House, i. e., the County seat of Pierce County. Where they kept the Court House, or County seat, is beyond conjecture to me, since I could not see a half dozen houses in the whole clearing, and not one of them was a respectable dwelling, taking even so low a standard for respectable dwellings as that afforded by the majority ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... commercial importance. It is indeed a favourite theory of some writers that the commercial and civilised centre of the world is destined to shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This theory, which must be characterised, however, as open to much conjecture, has been lightly discussed elsewhere in these pages. But be it as it may, the situation of the cornucopia-shaped land of Mexico is of great and growing importance. Among the geographical features of almost international importance is the remarkable isthmus of Tehuantepec—now traversed ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Rochelle, Montauban, and St. Jean d'Angely took that side. Duke Henry of Rohan and the Duke of Soubise, his brother, supported them in their resistance. Rohan went to Montauban, and, mounting into the pulpit, said to the assembly, "I will not conceal from you that the most certain conjecture which can be formed from the current news is, that in a short time the royal army will camp around your walls, since St. Jean d'Angely is surrendered, and all that remains up to here is weakened, broken down, and ready to receive the yoke, through the factions ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Caesar was reproached with the intention of removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Caesar. c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and Dacier, the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to divert from the execution ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... whose range Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other the Exchange; Life, nature, lore, God, and affairs of that sort, He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion, With the quiet precision of science he'll sort em, But you can't ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... of thee in times gone by— The bloody mutilation of thine eyes— And therefore know thee, son of Laius. All that I lately gathered on the way Made my conjecture doubly sure; and now Thy garb and that marred visage prove to me That thou art he. So pitying thine estate, Most ill-starred Oedipus, I fain would know What is the suit ye urge on me and Athens, Thou and the helpless ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... does not give his name, he hints in the course of the volume that he may "be inquired after and perhaps soon found out." He says also that his profession "much differs from politics." Hence it may be doubted whether the conjecture is right which assigns the book to a George Searle, who had been an original member of the Long Parliament for Taunton, and had been one of the Secluded. One might venture rather on the query whether ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... being in nightly expectation of a repetition of the scene in Basque Roads; or at least of that which little more than a year previous had been enacted before Callao—every precaution was taken against surprise. He was quite right in the conjecture as to what was intended; but did not calculate—as I was obliged to do—on the general want of experience of such matters ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... valuable work was written in the main by Vicente Barrantes, who was a member of the Governor's council and his secretary. On the authorship see Retana's Archivo ii, Biblioteca Gen., p. 25, which corrects his conjecture published in his ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... a lee shore,' Elzevir shouted; and I looked and knew what the white fringe was, and that we should be in the breakers in half an hour. What a whirl of wind and wave and sea, what a whirl of thought and wild conjecture! What was that land to which we were drifting? Was it cliff, with deep water and iron face, where a good ship is shattered at a blow, and death comes like a thunder-clap? Or was it shelving sand, where there ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... that is entirely new; and allotments that shall win back Astra. Our Labor Program stands for evidence that the Board School, at least, has done enduring work; and the useless race of poets is fast dying out. Though we no longer conjecture what song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, yet many a prize (of guineas galore) awaits the competitor who will stoop, week by week, to more practical research. "Le monde marche,'' as Renan hath it, "vers une sorte ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... good boy—Blake!" She looked at him with her inscrutable eyes, and after many days he was conscious of the touch of human compassion. He did not analyze the woman's feelings—he did not even conjecture whether she knew him for boy or girl. All he comprehended was that out of this sordid atmosphere—out of the lethargy of the sultry night—some force had touched him, some force was drawing him back into the circle of human things. Strange indeed are the workings of the mind. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... which I take it is intended to convey the impression that Mr. Francis Darwin's life and letters of his father will appear shortly. I can form no idea whether Mr. F. Darwin's forthcoming work is likely to appear before this present volume; still less can I conjecture what it may or may not contain; but I can give the reader a criterion by which to test the good faith with which it is written. If Mr. F. Darwin puts the distinctive feature that differentiates Mr. C. Darwin from his predecessors clearly before his readers, enabling them to seize and carry it away ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Benedictine's own conjecture and his mother's affection probably divined facts, which did not present themselves as thoughts in the ordinary way, but took the ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... wilderness, and went to some place where He could hear of John's imprisonment. A gap is necessary. Its extent is not indicated, nor are the reasons for silence as to its contents. But we may as reasonably conjecture that Matthew's eagerness to get to his main subject, the Galilean ministry, led him to regard the short visit to Jerusalem as an episode from which little came, as put his silence down to a very improbable ignorance. The same ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... During the night they had been alarmed and perplexed by signal-fires on the mountain and by the sound of distant battle. When the morning broke the Moorish army had vanished as if by enchantment. While the inhabitants were lost in wonder and conjecture, a body of cavalry, the fragment of the army saved by Reduan de Vanegas, the brave alcayde of Granada, came galloping to the gates. The tidings of the strange discomfiture of the host filled the city ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... within St. Mary's Church—the first burial within the building—but no permanent memorial was raised to the unhappy Governor's memory; and the particular spot where he was buried is only a matter of conjecture. ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... chest open in a few minutes. An eager examination of its contents showed that there was nothing of any intrinsic value contained therein; but there were documents and papers written in Spanish which abundantly verified the captain's conjecture. For from these Cavendish, who could read and understand Spanish perfectly, learned that the bay where they were now lying was indeed the resort of a pirate crew; while the name of the chief miscreant, as ascertained from the papers, was Jose ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... wish with all his heart, though he did not give his thoughts tongue. He began to conjecture that some new aspect of the affair had been presented to his client's mind by the encounter with Elizabeth in the Forest. And he was right. The old squire had conceived for her a sort of paradoxical love at first sight, and was become suddenly ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas had called on me to sound me and learn what I knew occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... residence, a complete stranger to her neighbors. She was quiet and well-behaved; she wore good clothes and shamefully neglected her child. These were the meager facts upon which gossip built a tower of conjecture. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Amber's imagination; he had hazarded many an idle, secret guess at the riddle that was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have been was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a native of the European Continent. He had even, at a certain time when his imagination had been stimulated by the witchery of "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye," gone so far as to ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... and had almost accomplished her errand when the crash and whir of wheels drew her to the window that looked out on the lawn. Her father had gone to the plantation early that morning, and she had scarcely time to conjecture whom the visitor would prove, when Hugh's loud voice rang through the house, and, soon after, he came clattering in, with the end of his pantaloons tucked into his boots, and his whip trailing along in true boyish ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... he would try to declare directly that which was in him. In place of his men and women he would have her to be a companion in his work, and yet, he adds, "I don't think I shall let you hear, after all, the savage things about Popes and imaginative religions that I must say." We can only conjecture as to whether the theme of the poem of 1850 was already in Browning's mind. His wife's influence certainly was not unlikely to incline him towards the choice of a subject which had some immediate relation to contemporary thought. She knew that ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... assembled rapidly. None were aware of the reason for which they had been called out at such an hour, and there was a buzz of talk and conjecture until Sir John Kendall arrived. He was followed by four of the servants, who at once lighted the torches they carried, when he proceeded to go through the roll, and found that the muster was complete. Many of the knights had gazed in some surprise at Gervaise, whose dark complexion altogether ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... must have been the death penalty of the stake, for that was the mode of punishment decreed by the imperial law of 1224, which had just been copied on the registers of the papal chancery. But we are not left to mere conjecture. In February, 1231, a number of Patarins were arrested in Rome; those who refused to abjure were sent to the stake, while those who did abjure were sent to Monte Cassino and Cava to do penance. This ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... about twelve months and explored the adjacent country, became so discouraged and exhausted by fatigue and famine, that they abandoned the country. Sir Richard Grenville returning shortly afterwards to America, and not being able to find them, and at a loss to conjecture their fate, left in the island another small party of settlers and ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... agreed with Mr. Barbe in his 'Tragedy of Gowrie House,' and my replies to Mr. Barbe serve for his predecessor. But Mr. Bisset found no evidence that the King had formed a plot against Gowrie. By a modification of the contemporary conjecture of Sir William Bowes he suggested that a brawl between the King and the Master of Ruthven occurred in the turret, occasioned by an atrocious insult offered to the Master by the King. This hypothesis, for various reasons, does not deserve discussion. Mr. Bisset appeared to attribute ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... Bayard at the hospital, and when the doctor strove to detain him he begged to be excused a little while. There was a matter, he said, he wanted to look into before those ambulances started. The post surgeon gazed after him in some wonderment as the Chicagoan strode away, and tried to conjecture what could be taking him back to the house at this moment. Nellie was not to be seen, and he knew of no ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... village was he born." We perceive the author's fondness for the inverted style in composition,—acquired, perhaps, in the course of his long study of Aboriginal oratory. Even without such proofs, and without his own assertion of the fact, it would not have been difficult, we think, to conjecture his familiarity with the forms of speech common among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... he, 'I will play you all the pretty tunes that I know, if you will give me leave.' The children wished for nothing half so much. He put his violin in tune, and then thrummed over several jigs and other scraps of music, which, it was easy to conjecture, had been new ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... behalf, but his submission was that of a victim. After breakfast he always attempted to escape, and if he succeeded in eluding Mrs. Barton, he would remain for hours hidden in the laurels, enwrapped in summer meditations, the nature of which it was impossible even to conjecture. In the afternoon he spoke of the burden of his correspondence, and when the inevitable dancing was spoken of, he often excused himself on the ground of having a long letter to finish. If it were impossible for her to learn the contents of these letters, Mrs. Barton ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... seen. My person (which is excellent for 'the nonce') has been denounced in verses, the more like the subject, inasmuch as they halt exceedingly. Then, in another, I am an atheist, a rebel, and, at last, the devil (boiteux, I presume). My demonism seems to be a female's conjecture; if so, perhaps, I could convince her that I am but a mere mortal,—if a queen of the Amazons may be believed, who says [Greek: ariston cholos oiphei]. I quote from memory, so my Greek is probably deficient; but the passage is meant to mean ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... nearer to the shore, above a few miles, on account of its numerous windings, the first of which, overshadowed as it is with wood, shuts it out from further observation. By continuing here so long, we had begun to conjecture that a landing somewhere on the banks of this river was in contemplation. In this, however, we were deceived, for about one o'clock the fleet was again under sail, and moving towards the Patuxent, a river which empties itself into the bay, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... in this hour of danger? His absence is not accounted for, and conjecture is useless; but the fact that he has no share in the incident seems to raise a presumption in favour of the disputed historical character of the Book, which, if it had been fiction, could scarcely have left its hero out of so brilliant an instance of faithfulness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Bourgueville's description of the group, as it appeared in his time, trips up the heels of his own conjecture. He says that there were, besides the two figures above mentioned, "vn autre homme et femme a genoux, comme s'ils demandoient raison de la mort de leur enfant, qui est vne antiquite de grand remarque dont je ne puis donner autre certitude de l'histoire." Antiquitez de Caen; p.39. Now, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to conjecture the frame of mind in which a lady or gentleman first enters upon an engagement, we should say that it was this sense of startled suspense. They feel as Guy Faux would have felt after lighting the train of gunpowder—that they ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... in no hurry, and could select elegant expressions. Thus did Flora reply to Waverley, "I can but explain to you with candour the feelings which I now entertain; how they might be altered by a train of circumstances too favourable, perhaps, to be hoped for, it were in vain even to conjecture; only be assured, Mr. Waverley, that after my brother's honour and happiness, there is none which I shall more sincerely pray for than yours." This love is indeed what Sidney Smith heard the Scotch lady call "love in the abstract." Mr. Kingsley's ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... long, and contained a skeleton well over six feet, which "was imagined to be that of a woman," but on what grounds I cannot discover, as it does not seem to have been carefully examined, and is therefore probably mere conjecture, based upon its juxtaposition to the larger coffin. In the account of the excavation a "macabre" incident is recorded. One of the workmen, seizing the shin-bone of the giant, placed it against his own leg, and found that it reached halfway up his thigh; whereupon, taking up the lower jawbone, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... Chief among the incidents was, that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration of Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut on the skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no supporter of conjecture. What he had thought he had thought; but that was neither here nor there. He would swear to nothing that he had not touched;—eyes deceived;—he was never a guesser. He left Mrs. Sumfit to pledge herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had seen Anthony Hackbut; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Great Day might be Roland could not even faintly conjecture. He could only hope that it would also be a ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... sympathy; and finally, encouragement, at least. Of course she had seen my accident, from above; of course she had sent the harvest laborer to aid me home. It was quite natural she should imagine some special romantic interest in the lonely dell, on my part, and the gift took additional value from her conjecture. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... a peculiar appeal to Leigh's imagination. Through it, as through a golden mist, he saw the drama of life sublimated, himself an actor of dignity and worth; and a few moments later he entered the president's office with a poise in which there remained no trace of anxious conjecture. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... information. In Egypt he settled for seven years, during which he studied the mathematical and physical systems of the ancient schools. The extent to which he was influenced by the Magi and the Eastern astrologists is a matter of pure conjecture. He returned from his travels impoverished; one tradition says that he received 500 talents from his fellow-citizens, and that a public funeral was decreed him. Another tradition states that he was regarded as insane by the Abderitans, and that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Carlingford, having nothing in the world to do with the place? and coming to Carlingford, why was papa sought out, of all people, to be his tutor? Certainly the circumstances were such as invited conjecture, especially when added on to Sophy's allusions. He took Ursula in to dinner, which fluttered her somewhat; and though he was much intent upon the dinner itself, and studied the menu with a devotion which would have made her ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... cause of conjecture to a prisoner: it seemed to Mary that this young man's face was not unknown to her, and that he had seen her already; but though great the care with which she questioned her memory, she could not recall any distinct remembrance, so much so that the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in one of those rapid mental excursions which were forever sweeping her from the straight path of the actual into uncharted regions of conjecture. Her survey of life had always been marked by the tendency to seek out ultimate relations, to extend her researches to the limit of her imaginative experience. But hitherto she had been like some young captive brought up in a windowless palace ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... Either thou art most ignorant by age, Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, Added to their familiarity,— Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation, But only seeing, all other circumstances Made up to th' deed,—doth push on this proceeding. Yet, for a greater confirmation,— For, in an act of this importance, 'twere Most piteous ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... "Probably conjecture is all that can now be expected respecting the rise and progress of these changes. It is, indeed, beyond all doubt, that by the constitution, even as subsisting under the early Normans, the great council shared ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... supposition, assumption, assumed position, postulation, condition, presupposition, hypothesis, blue sky hypothesis, postulate, postulatum[Lat], theory; thesis, theorem; data; proposition, position; proposal &c. (plan) 626; presumption &c. (belief) 484; divination. conjecture; guess, guesswork, speculation; rough guess, shot, shot in the dark [coll.]; conjecturality[obs3]; surmise, suspicion, sneaking suspicion; estimate, approximation (nearness) 197. inkling, suggestion, hint, intimation, notion, impression; bare supposition, vague supposition, loose supposition, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... report from his private detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had cautioned Mr. Bernard,—as we have seen. He felt an interest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... indignant with himself that he should have allowed this interpretation to be placed on his presence here; then he still more resented the conjecture. ...
— The Crucial Moment - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle appeared in July with St. John's name in their mouths, the conjecture is probable that the wild revels of St. John's Day, A.D. 1374, gave rise to this mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so many thousands with incurable aberration of mind and disgusting distortions ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... hereafter treat with some other form of government, after it shall be tried by experience and the evidence of facts. What length of time this trial may require is impossible to ascertain; yet we have, I acknowledge, some thing of experience here by which we may form a kind of conjecture. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... Hannah was right in her conjecture, came to the window, and mother and daughter stood gazing out for some minutes, and trying to penetrate the thick gloom which hung over the wild, tempestuous sea raging ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... and from their not travelling in any numbers together, it would be difficult to form congregations. What the number of Gypsies, and of those who lead vagrant lives, like them, may be in this kingdom, I cannot even form a conjecture; and Mr. Colquhoun, I think does not mention them in his treatise on the Police of the Metropolis. Neither am I acquainted with their numbers and modes of life at Norwood, {212} which I understand is the chief residence of them; what I have to say, therefore, is only from observations ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... daylight, I began to reflect how this could have happened; and it occurred to me that the pirates had scuttled the bottom of the vessel to sink her; and in this conjecture I was right. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... from the extension of our territory, the multiplication of States, and the increase of population. Our system was supposed to be adapted only to boundaries comparatively narrow. These have been widened beyond conjecture; the members of our Confederacy are already doubled, and the numbers of our people are incredibly augmented. The alleged causes of danger have long surpassed anticipation, but none of the consequences have followed. The power and influence of the Republic have arisen to ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... the dinner-hour arrives, and no host presents himself to lead Lady FitzAlmont into dinner, a great fear falls upon all the guests save one, and confusion and dismay, and anxious conjecture ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... not willing to hazard any conjecture as to the more extraordinary features of this narrative. I can very positively, however, affirm my complete confidence in Mr. Dodd's honesty. I knew both his father and himself very well, and through a long intimacy found them both consistently conforming ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... will be said, I had no proof, only a conjecture; and this is true, but of it hereafter. Suffice it that, as soon as I had swallowed my indignation, I took all the precautions affection could suggest or duty enjoin, omitting nothing; and then, confiding the matter to no one the two men ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Turks, and had been sent by those in authority within the city to climb the tallest tree of the group and discover if the enemy was near. For Rob's conjecture had been correct, and the city of Yarkand awaited, with more or less anxiety, a threatened assault from its ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... who, though greatly troubled over things that did not matter, seemed oblivious to things that did; who could conjecture with admirable delicacy "where things might lead to," but apparently lost sight of the goal as she approached it. Now she was crouching in the corner trying to extract a circular note from a kind of linen nose-bag which hung in chaste concealment round her neck. She ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... know who "Corporal Grimsby" is. Circumstances, we regret to say, will not permit us to state definitely—but should a guess be made that the worthy old Corporal, and a certain Capt. S——, commander of a Revenue Cutter, were one and the same person, we will venture to say that the conjecture would not be far removed from the ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... away, suggested that the company view the new stables. The acrobats were dismissed. The guests went rapidly to an inspection of the carriages and horses. They were glad to escape. Jeneka, crushed in spirit and shamed at the brazen performance of her sister, began a plaintive conjecture as to "what people would say," when Kalora turned upon her such a tigerish glance that she fairly ran for her apartment, although she was too corpulent for actual sprinting. Mrs. Plumston remained behind ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... whether the world is spherical, and is disposed to believe that it is shaped like a pear, and he tries to make a theory of the difference of temperature from this suggestion. We hardly need to follow this now. We know he was entirely wrong in his conjecture. "Pliny and others," he says, "thought the world spherical, because on their part of it it was a hemisphere." They were ignorant of the section over which he was sailing, which he considers to be that of a pear cut in the wrong way. His demonstration is, that in similar latitudes ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... laughed disagreeably, but he did not say whether or not the Kid was right in his conjecture. The Kid pinched his lips together and winked very fast for a minute. Never, never in all the six years of his life had anyone played him so shabby a trick. He knew what the laugh meant; it meant that this man had lied ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... our choppers brought me the other day what he called a hornet's nest; it was certainly too small and delicate a piece of workmanship for so large an insect; and I rather conjecture that it belonged to the beautiful black and gold insect called the wasp-fly, but of this I am not certain. The nest was about the size and shape of a turkey's egg, and was composed of six paper cups inserted ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... things enduring all things for the love of Knowledge, which he could still nobly follow through trials and extremities, without encouragement of fame or profit, without vantage ground of station or wealth, for its own dear sake. Beyond this, nothing but conjecture is left. The cell, the bed-place, the lines traced on the rocks, the inscription of the year in which he hewed his habitation out of them, are all the memorials that ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... more chokie soyle like the Ile of Creete, and so is better able to reflect a stronger light, whereas our earth must supply this intention with the quantity of its body, but this I conceive to be a needlesse conjecture, since our earth if all things were well considered, will be found able enough to reflect as ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... Scarabaeus doubtless carries to-day more strange messages for us than did the great original to his first observers. Being as ignorant of what hieroglyphs tell as the man who died when Champollion was born, I do not venture a conjecture on the significance or value of the "cartouches" inscribed on the plane surface of the Scarabaeus. There can be no doubt that they were tokens of rank, and mainly bore direct reference to the history or condition of the wearer, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... we scarcely notice in the grander contrast of his pose and stature, is an old shirt of woolen blue, with a white nap at the button-holes, and upon his knees of black cloth he twirls, as if for relaxation, between his powerful manacles, a soiled white handkerchief—if from his mother, we conjecture, a gift to a bloodhound from his dam. His heavy handcuffs make his broad shoulders more narrow. Yet we can see by the outline of the sleeves what girth the muscles has, and the hand at the end of his long and bony ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... and Comedy, and to the days of Thespis, and from this time to that of Aeschylus, all is doubt, conjecture, and obscurity; neither Aristotle, nor any other ancient writer, gives us the least insight into the state and progress of the Greek Drama; the names of a few, and but a few, tragedians, during this dark period, are handed down to us; such were Epigenes, the Sicyonion, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... causeway of the path was again discovered. North of Suez the traces of the canal dug by Sesostris revealed themselves to the trained eye of the commander. The observations of his engineers confirmed his conjecture, but the vast labour of reconstruction forbade any attempt to construct a maritime canal. On his return to Cairo he wrote to the Imam of Muscat, assuring him of his friendship and begging him to forward to Tippoo Sahib a letter offering alliance and deliverance from ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... and immobile individual whom I had seen before, and whose nationality defied conjecture, came out from the curtained doorway at ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the chase, the chamberlain related to him what he had seen, and the king was angry and said: "This woman has deceived me with words and deeds, and has brought hither her desire by craft and cunning. This conjecture must be true, else why did she play such a trick, and why did she hatch such a plot, and why did she send the merchant?" The king, enraged, went into the harem. The queen saw from his countenance that the occurrence of the night before had become known to him, and she said: ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... visited every corner of these magnificent ruins again and again during the forenoon; and, having made a comfortable dinner at David's, we walked in the afternoon to such places in the neighbourhood as ancient tradition or modern conjecture had rendered mark worthy. Night found us in the interior of the ruins, attended by the sexton, who carried a dark lantern, and stumbling alternately over the graves of the dead, and the fragments of that architecture, which ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of Chinese philosophical literature must necessarily include the name of Lao Tz[)u], although his era, as seen above, and his personality are both matters of the vaguest conjecture. A number of his sayings, scattered over the works of early writers, have been pieced together, with the addition of much incomprehensible jargon, and the whole has been given to the world as the work of Lao Tz[)u] himself, said ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... rain-drops down his forehead, "the fire has caught the fulminating powder! But what meant that dreadful cry? Surely nothing of human life has suffered! The boy Hubert—but, no—he was at work at the further extremity of the building. But this is no time for vain, conjecture—let me learn the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... might have concealed the speaker the instant he uttered his mysterious caution; but wherefore it was given in such a place, or to what species of danger it directed my attention, or by whom the warning was uttered, were points on which my imagination lost itself in conjecture. It would, however, I concluded, be repeated, and I resolved to keep my countenance turned towards the clergyman, that the whisperer might be tempted to renew his communication under the idea that the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... legislation with regard to the regulation of business is now virtually complete. It has been put forth, as we intended, as a whole, and leaves no conjecture as to what is to follow. The road at last lies clear and firm before business. It is a road which it can travel without fear or embarrassment. It is the road to ungrudged, unclouded success. In it every honest man, every man who believes that the public interest is part of his own ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... inmates? Most men's experience would seem to justify them in declaring that, throughout the inhabited world, no such house exists. I, knowing at all events of one, admit the possibility that there may be more; yet I feel that it is to hazard a conjecture; I cannot point with certainty to any other instance, nor in all my secular life (I speak as one who has quitted the world) could I have named ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... not believe St. Paul to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Luther's conjecture is very probable, that it was by Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew. The plan is too studiously regular for St. Paul. It was evidently written during the yet existing glories of the Temple. For three hundred years the church did not affix St. Paul's name to it; ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... boats drew near Port Jackson, wore so unfavourable an appearance, that Captain Phillip's utmost expectation reached no farther than to find what Captain Cook, as he passed by, thought might be found, shelter for a boat. In this conjecture, however, he was most agreeably disappointed, by finding not only shelter for a boat, but a harbour capable of affording security to a much larger fleet than would probably ever seek for shelter or security in it. In one of the coves of this noble and capacious harbour, equal if ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... and, as he did not show himself the next morning, it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at a plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arriving at my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to the ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... reading of the best authorities upon the history of science, Newton discovered neither gravitation, nor the law of gravitation; nor did he pretend to offer more than a conjecture as to the causation of gravitation. Moreover, his assertion that the notion of a body acting where it is not, is one that no competent thinker could entertain, is antagonistic to the whole current conception of attractive ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... his mind with conjecture, when the door opened, and to Don Diego's increasing mystification he beheld his best suit of clothes step into the cabin. It was a singularly elegant and characteristically Spanish suit of black ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... his successors, perhaps adopted this emblem as a trophy of their conquest, whence it has remained ever since among the most remarkable of the royal insignia. A learned friend, who has a valuable collection of Oriental coins, and whose information and opinion have enabled me to make this conjecture, believes that the emblematical representation of Sol in Leo was first adopted by Ghias-ud-din Kai Khusru bin Kaikobad, who began to reign A.H. 634, A.D. 1236, and died A.H. 642, A.D. 1244; and this emblem, he adds, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... cases it is most difficult to conjecture by what transitions organs could have arrived at their present state; yet, considering that the proportion of living and known forms to the extinct and unknown is very small, I have been astonished how rarely an organ can be named, towards which ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... the very question!" cried Piers excitedly. "Who knows how far she has gone? It may be the merest conjecture on your part, and her father's. People are so ready to misunderstand a girl who respects herself enough to be free and frank in her association with men. Let me shame myself by making a confession. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... discern a human figure, drawn against the horizon, as some one, more eager than the rest, rose to his greatest height in order to extend the limits of his view. But it was not long before even these fugitive glimpses of the moving, and constantly increasing circle, were lost, and uncertainty and conjecture were added to apprehension. In this manner passed many anxious and weary minutes, during the close of which the listeners expected at each moment to hear the whoop of the assailants and the shrieks of the assailed, rising together on the stillness of the night. But it would seem, that ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper |
