"Speculation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her property, and accompany him to his native country, assuring him, at the same time, that she felt within herself every requisite qualification to make him a good, active, and affectionate wife. Clapperton, however, was by no means disposed to enter so suddenly into a matrimonial speculation, and he began to look rather serious at the offer which was so unexpectedly, but so lovingly made to him. This being observed by the widow, she sent for her looking-glass, and after having taken a full examination of herself, in every position which the glass would allow her, she offered ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... in roguery and intentional imposture which prevails in educated society is, to my mind, a greater presumption against the honesty of mankind than all the roguery and imposture itself. Putting aside mere swindling for the sake of gain, and looking at speculation and paradox, I find very little reason to suspect wilful deceit.[224] My opinion of mankind is founded upon the {116} mournful fact that, so far as I can see, they find within themselves the means of believing in a thousand times as much as there is to believe in, judging ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... knowledge of the ultimate Reality. The later UPANISHADS uphold the YOGA SUTRAS, among the six systems, as containing the most efficacious methods for achieving direct perception of truth. Through the practical techniques of yoga, man leaves behind forever the barren realms of speculation and cognizes in ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... marriage in high life. Bridesmaids and bridesmen were wandering about the gardens waiting for the summons to the breakfast, when one of the former thus addressed one of the latter, who was standing, gazing without much speculation in his eyes, at the gold fish ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... line of speculation! I was deep in it when, above the regular shots of the fellow in the funk hole nearest me, came a rattle of pistol explosions some distance away. "One of the runners," I thought. "Hope he was as lucky as I." Munson told me later ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... the bathing in the salt-sea waves was not a failure as a matrimonial speculation; but that is my luck. In some respects, the future to me is like a mirage—I put my hand out hopefully, and grasp nothing ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... frightened in fact that he had drunk nothing for weeks. For many years he had been leading a see-saw existence, and the see-saw had been swung by that mysterious force known as Finance. He had a real gift for speculation, and had he been granted from birth a large income he might have ended his days as a Justice of the Peace and a Member of Parliament. Unfortunately he had never had any private means, and he had never been able to make enough by his mysterious speculations to ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in "important things." Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow pools of speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... The "Speculation of Evolution of Species" was advocated among the Greeks six hundred years before the birth of Christ. Two thousand and three hundred years ago the entire system of German philosophy, along with modern pantheism, was advocated ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... Jack, "that our speculation hardly comes under the category of commerce. It was not money that was at risk, but ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... British Charge d'Affaires in Berlin, telegraphed Sir Edward Grey that Kaiser William was returning suddenly that night (from a sea trip to Norway) on his own initiative, and that the Foreign Office regretted it, owing to the speculation and excitement which it would cause. Herr von Zimmermann, German Under-Secretary of State, had inferred from Russia's statement that she would intervene in case of annexation of Serbian territory; that she would not do so if ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... they so wildly form have yet a relation to truth, and are the shadows at least, however fantastic, of reality. I am not investigating but passing this subject, and must therefore leave behind me much curious speculation. Of Personifications however we should observe that those which are made out of abstract ideas are the creatures of the Understanding only: Thus, of the mixed modes, virtue, beauty, wisdom and others,—what are they but very obscure ideas ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Antarctica Speculation over the existence of a "southern land" was not confirmed until the early 1820s when British and American commercial operators and British and Russian national expeditions began exploring the Antarctic Peninsula region and other ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... together a little gold dust; possibly we may have money enough to engage in some legitimate business, and what we can't get by the discovery of a mine, we may acquire in time in speculation. You are ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... muttered to himself; "very satisfactory for a first go-in at the gold-diggin's! but I shall expect my California to produce a little more than that before we close the shaft, and retire upon the profits of the speculation. I think my friend is safe—I don't think he'll run away. But I shall keep my eye upon him, nevertheless. The human eye is a great institution; and I shall watch ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the only one. Even Arthur sometimes provokes me. Because she has by her laborious profession made herself independent, he jestingly talks about her bank stock, and about her being a good speculation for some needy old gentleman. And because that beautiful, soft grey hair of hers will curl about her pale face, it is hinted that she makes the most of her remaining attractions, and would be ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... baffler, that's all,' returned Dick. 'I have entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs's altar. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... with him in his scheme of land speculation began to open negotiations with the Cherokees as soon as the victory of the Great Kanawha for the moment lessened the danger to be apprehended from the northwestern Indians. In October, 1774, he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... infinity. When she walked out of her first cage, the one which her mother's careful fingers had kept locked on her, she would like not to walk into another, but to escape into some park or forest, not boundless, yet so large as to leave room for exploring, for the finding of new things, for speculation, for doubt, excitement, uncertainty, even for the presence of apprehension and the possibility of danger. As she surveyed the manner in which she was expected to pass her life, the manner in which she was supposed (she faced now the common interpretation ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... and we should consequently have, as many writers confidently find that we do have, a very large proportion of scholars, scientists, savants derived from this class and deriving their incentive to scientific investigation and speculation from the discipline of a life of leisure. Some such result is to be looked for, but there are features of the leisure-class scheme of life, already sufficiently dwelt upon, which go to divert the intellectual interest ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... there would have been for the British nation no Bible of 1611, no Pilgrim Fathers to America, and no Revolution of 1688, along with all that these things imply of progress many-fold. What might have been, however, although interesting as a speculation, is too uncertain to be discussed further with profit. I only desire to give a general idea of the religious situation in India at the close of the nineteenth century. There has been ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... of man, consider, next, the sober, sensible merchant, who leads a life of speculation, thinks long over his plans and carries them out with great care, founds a house, and provides for his wife, his children and descendants; takes his share, too, in the life of a community. It is obvious ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... of the numbers, the intelligence, and the audacity of monkeys in this part of the world, it becomes a matter of curious speculation as to how they will behave when the railroad is ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... balustrade Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent Their footing through the dews; and to him said, 180 "You seem there in the quiet of content, Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade Calm speculation; but if you are wise, Bestride your steed while cold is ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... succeeded in finding out nothing which could give any countenance to suspicion that treachery was intended. They had agreed to work separately, and each mingled among the groups of citizens and soldiers, where the council was the general topic of conversation. There was much wonder and speculation as to the object for which the governor had summoned it, and as to the terms which he might be expected to propound, but to none did the idea of treachery or foul play in any way occur; and when at night they left the town and sent off their message to Archie, the lads could only say that ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... acquainted with the two families, quite a jealousy had sprung up on account of Mr. Rafferty's having made a successful butter speculation. Mrs. Rourke, in consequence, had kept the calico curtain tightly drawn for some weeks, and boxed six of the little Rourkes' ears (twelve in all,) for speaking to the little Raffertys through the rents ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... "The conjecture and speculation began in the station the moment Miss Northwick left it, and before it could be generally understood that I was there to represent her. I suppose there wasn't a man among them that wouldn't have trusted Northwick with all he had, or wouldn't have felt that his ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... manufacturers to satisfy their customers. It is easy to see that prosperity of this kind must very soon find its limit.... When a further fall in the assignats took place this prosperity would necessarily collapse, and be succeeded by a crisis all the more destructive the more deeply men had engaged in speculation under the influence of the first favorable ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... from any discussion that followed. The best thoughts that Hugh had apprehended in those days had been the thoughts that he had won from books; his mind had opened rapidly then, in the direction of a kind of poetical metaphysic, not deep speculation on the ultimate nature of things, so much as reflection on the more psychological problems of character and personality. It seemed to Hugh that his own mind, and the minds of those with whom he had lived, had been a mass of prejudices, of half-formed and inconsistent theories. None ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of a party is the G.O.M.! It is an interesting subject of speculation, though, thank God, it is one of speculation only, what might happen to this country if, like the old Red Indian in Hawthorne's novel, he lived to be 300 years old.... My own opinions about setting up a Parliament in Dublin are quite unchanged, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... agony that, for the time being at least, all thoughts of escape were completely banished from my mind. I had become quite convinced that the bite was going to prove fatal, and my only subject of speculation was how many more hours of torture I was doomed to endure before merciful death would come to my relief. But after we had been afloat for about half an hour, and were once more speeding up the river as fast ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the cheap money; there were still plenty of difficulties to overcome. If they got on, it would not be long before private speculation declared ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the office we observe a lowsized, whiskered man. Intelligence beams from a lofty brow; sharp features an aquiline nose tell of Jewish character; his eye glistens and dulls as the heaving heart throbs with its tides of joy and sorrow. Speculation, that glides at times into golden dreams, brightens his whole features with a sunbeam of joy; but suddenly it is clouded. Some unseen intruder casts a baneful shadow on the ungrasped prize; the features of the usurer contract, the hand is clenched, the brow is wrinkled, and woe betide the luckless ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... any resemblance to it in a life so different; but the old-fashioned Calvinistic divine in his small country parish, revolving in an actual world of petty details, and in another world of grim theological speculation and absorption in the contemplation of death, must have seldom smiled. The young pastor was bound by no vow of celibacy, but he knew that his life must be brief, and he gladly surrounded himself with children in the guise of pupils, and when he died ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... has now, owing to the patient attrition of many generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint, and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain?—Knowledge? Matter for further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... every section of the American Union. In North Carolina the real prosperity of the people was imperceptible, by reason of the heavy emigration to the South and West. Not only population, but wealth, was continually withdrawing to more profitable fields of labor and speculation. ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... irreverent in the speculation, but perhaps the want of power has more to do with wise resolutions of age than we are always ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... market on the continent or in the world. At that place speculation has been quite rife for the past two or three years, operators obtaining a controlling interest in the stock for the purpose of putting up prices. Last year the plan did not work well, owing to various causes, one of which ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... suspense had thrown us off our guard was superb. We bristled with indignation, but the coup (as such) was splendid. We, the victims, were not entirely blameless; we had had ample experience of the risk attached to speculation in Specials. It was ever thus. An ancient number of the Cape Times would drop from the clouds, and for weeks the news it contained would be administered in homeopathic doses to the public at three pence per dose. It ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... drooping heads and handkerchiefs pressed against their faces, while more than one quick ear caught the deep, suppressed sobs that broke from their bosoms. No one ventured to address them, however, although their appearance caused no little speculation as to who they were and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... me most, after having listened to the discourse of Probus to the end, was the practical aim and character of the religion he preached. It was no fanciful speculation nor airy dream. It was not a plaything of the imagination he had been holding up to our contemplation, but a series of truths and doctrines bearing with eminent directness, and with a perfect adaptation, upon human life, the effect and issue of ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... brought in, couched in nearly the same terms which had been rejected in the last session; and it was supported by a considerable number of members, animated with a true spirit of patriotism: but to the trading part of the nation it appeared one of those plausible projects, which, though agreeable in speculation, can never be reduced into practice, without a concomitancy of greater evils than those they were intended to remove. While the bill remained under the consideration of the house, petitions were presented against it by the merchants of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was turned in speculation upon Marjorie as she walked the length of the study hall, outwardly composed, but inwardly resentful at Miss Merton's tone, which, to her sensitive ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... With adequate revenue secured, but not until then, we can enter upon such changes in our fiscal laws as will, while insuring safety and volume to our money, no longer impose upon the Government the necessity of maintaining so large a gold reserve, with its attendant and inevitable temptations to speculation. Most of our financial laws are the outgrowth of experience and trial, and should not be amended without investigation and demonstration of the wisdom of the proposed changes. We must be both "sure ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... those ancient Greek philosophers took in language was purely philosophical. It was the form, far more than the matter of speech which seemed to them a subject worthy of philosophical speculation. The idea that there was, even in their days, an immense mass of accumulated speech to be sifted, to be analyzed, and to be accounted for somehow, before any theories on the nature of language could be safely started, hardly ever entered their ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... very eyes of the very Beast, and, used as he was to them, they could still draw from him the tribute of a sigh that rose from the depths of his being. All they had thought, first and last, rolled over him; the past seemed to have been reduced to mere barren speculation. This in fact was what the place had just struck him as so full of—the simplification of everything but the state of suspense. That remained only by seeming to hang in the void surrounding it. ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... scanning the columns of that faithful chronicle of Chicago social doings, the Chicago Saturday Review, she came across an item which served as a final blow. "For some time in high social circles," the paragraph ran, "speculation has been rife as to the amours and liaisons of a certain individual of great wealth and pseudo social prominence, who once made a serious attempt to enter Chicago society. It is not necessary to name the man, for all who are acquainted with recent events in Chicago will know who is meant. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... all you nasty Yankees come here for, is, to destroy our property, invade our sile, deserlatin' our homes. This 'ere whole war is nothing but a Yankee speculation, gotten up by the North, so that they can steal niggers and drive ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... been no events this week that I know of, except his Grace of Bedford's(51) appearance at Court. His eyes are a ghastly object. He seems blind himself, and makes every [one] else so that looks at him. They have no speculation in them, as Shakespear says; what should be white is red, and there is no sight or crystal, only a black spot. It alters his countenance, and he looks like a man in a tragedy, as in K[ing] Lear, that has had his eyes put out with ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... the Devon Road,—how to construct a theory of a reasonable kind out of these two elements. In short, I found myself in a world of mystery; I puzzled my head over it and filled up my leisure moments by gathering together odd threads of speculation, but I never moved a step toward any real solution, and as the summer days went on the matter seemed to grown misty and indistinct, shadowing some vague terror, like a nightmare of last month. I suppose it would before long have faded into the background of my brain—I should not have forgotten ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... or perhaps its one of those we came across the other day, Laurentius something." "It's neither one nor the other," his chief almost roars, while rapidly striding across the room to his assistant, who hastily hands over the portion of the violin, glad to leave the regions of speculation. "There's nothing about that fiddle having any connection with any place but Cremona," and the chief bumps down into a chair to further study the mysterious ticket. "You have not improved that ticket by washing ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... Peckham felt in good spirits. He had done a pretty stroke of business. It came into his head whether he might not follow it up with a still more brilliant speculation. So he turned his steps in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... antiquities consists of inclosures formed by heavy embankments of earth and stone. There is nothing to explain these constructions so clearly as to leave no room for conjecture and speculation. It has been suggested that some of them may have been intended for defense, others for religious purposes. A portion of them, it may be, encircled villages or towns. In some cases the ditches or fosses were on the ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... life of the race. It is the epitome of the history of humanity in its onward sweep. In its critical sense it cannot be called history, for it neglects details for general statements. Nor is it the philosophy of history, for it covers a broader field. It is not speculation, for it deals with fact. It is the philosophy of man's life as to the results of his activity. It shows alike the unfolding of the individual and of society, and it represents these in every phase embraced in the word "progress." To recount this progress and to measure civilization is ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... awarded to Matthews;—a concurrence of homage which, considering the persons from whom it came, gives such a high notion of the powers of his mind at that period, as renders the thought of what he might have been, if spared, a matter of interesting, though vain and mournful, speculation. To mere mental pre-eminence, unaccompanied by the kindlier qualities of the heart, such a tribute, however deserved, might not, perhaps, have been so uncontestedly paid. But young Matthews appears,—in spite of some little asperities ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... destroyed. It was believed that this supply had been shipped as kerosene from Saloniki to Piraeus. How submarines belonging to Germany had reached the southern theatre of naval warfare had been a matter of speculation for the outside world. But on the 6th of June, 1915, Captain Otto Hersing made public the manner in which he took the U-51 on a 3,000 mile trip from Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea to Constantinople. He was the commander who managed to torpedo the British ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... 1,116,000 white inhabitants in 1750, to about 80,000 French. The English colonies were also more convenient to the mother-country, and the better situated for commerce both coastwise and across the ocean. Among the English, temper for mere speculation and adventure decayed very early, giving way to the conviction that successful planting depended wholly ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... liked, a morbid obsession. He found all things come back to the question of what he personally might have been, how he might have led his life and "turned out," if he had not so, at the outset, given it up. And confessing for the first time to the intensity within him of this absurd speculation—which but proved also, no doubt, the habit of too selfishly thinking—he affirmed the impotence there of any other source of interest, any other native appeal. "What would it have made of me, what would it have made of me? I keep for ever wondering, all idiotically; ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... in palaces, had their raiment fashioned by hands Parisian, and gave receptions on a scale of such grandeur that the flowers offered as souvenirs thereat would have kept many a wolf from a dugout door for years, and a few Wise Men it was said lost their heads in the mad whirl of speculation, but as that often happens in the building up of any great city, not necessarily in the West, it was not so surprising as it ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... with the most important part of your letter. I reply that neither Mr. Prentiss or myself have ever had any sympathy with Second Adventists. All the talk about it seems to us mere speculation and probable doom to disappointment. I do not see that it is as powerful a stimulant to holiness as the uncertainty of life is. Christ may come any day; but He may not come for ages; but we must and shall die in the merest ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... other animal (sometimes man) and wings. It was a symbolical figure. The most famous example is of course the gigantic Sphinx near the Pyramids in Egypt, which has proved to be an inexhaustible theme for speculation and for poetry.... The theatrically tragic mood of Byron is contrasted with the easy-going, somewhat cynical epicureanism of Horace.... Don Giovanni (1787) the greatest opera of the great composer Mozart ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... voice he ever obeyed as the ship the rudder? It would be difficult to name anyone more unlike Lamb, in many aspects of character, than Dr. Johnson, for whom he had (mistakenly) no warm regard; but they closely resemble one another in their indifference to mere speculation about things—if things they can be called—outside our human walk; in their hearty love of honest earthly life, in their devotion to their friends, their kindness to dependents, and in their obedience to duty. What caused each of them ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... magically-endowed divining wand. The simple bending of a forked hazel twig, being the received sign of the deep-buried well, suited admirably with their notions of immediate information, and precluded the unpleasant and toilsome necessity for delving on speculation for the discovery of their desired object. But, alas, divining rods, like dogs, have had their day. The want of faith in the operators, or the growth of a new and obstinate assortment of hazel twigs, threw discredit on the mummery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... why I was brought to a new home. Up to this point I have borrowed the recollections of my parents, to piece out my own fragmentary reminiscences. But from now on I propose to be my own pilot across the seas of memory; and if I lose myself in the mists of uncertainty, or run aground on the reefs of speculation, I still hope to make port at last, and I shall look for welcoming faces on the shore. For the ship I sail in is history, and facts will ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... existence is the same kind of a question as though the crime were pension fraud, or counterfeiting, or public land fraud, or fraud on the revenue. Where we have found several cases we may conclude that there are, or have been, or are likely to be others, but this is speculation. Sometimes we feel confident that our pounding away for nearly two years has frightened into inactivity those who were practicing peonage in the same State with the persons convicted and sentenced. We hear now and then of workmen being turned loose to the ...
— Peonage - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 15 • Lafayette M. Hershaw
... for your maintenance which would have sufficed to keep ten hungry sailors, not speak of two little pecking birds like you, and besides that you do hard service without any pay. Indeed it would be a more profitable speculation to steal a beggar's rags than to rob you! Well, what did ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... its riches are much more evenly divided than is the case in Great Britain, Germany, or the United States. There are fewer large fortunes, and fewer cases of poverty. The average Frenchman is a small, but extremely thrifty proprietor, who abhors speculation and is always managing to add something to his accumulations; and the French economic system is adapted to this peculiar distribution of wealth. The scarcity in France of iron and coal has checked the tendency ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... matter, should receive support by actual experience, as matter is a subject of investigation. To accept it, therefore, as being possible without any positive evidence for its support, it remains but a weak speculation, no matter how ingenious ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... respective value as emigrants to the provinces, on the point of capital, industry, and enterprise, the scale will descend immediately in favour of the English population. The French are inactive, adverse to speculation, or even improvement. Every habitant is content with his farm as handed down to him by his progenitor, and the higher classes who hold the seigneuries are satisfied with their seignorial rights and the means ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... between these two schools of philosophy, that of Intuition, and that of Experience and Association, is not a mere matter of abstract speculation; it is full of practical consequences, and lies at the foundation of all the greatest differences of practical opinion in an age of progress. The practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely-spread feelings, or ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Beeman and Polly will be there," he thought, and went off into further speculation as to what the Beeman would look like in the more civilized clothes that such an occasion would demand. "I might not even know ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... a chapter of speculation. The Major alludes to one fact above, moreover, to which the public attention has not been often directed—the excellent and able men who are in command of our colored troops. They are generally men of heart—men of opinions—men whose generous impulses have not been chilled ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... a competition among the banks has always the effect of heightening the rate of interest given upon deposits, and of lowering the rates charged upon advances. Nor does this give any impetus to rash speculation on the part of the dealer, but directly the reverse. The deposits always increase with the advancing rate of interest; and experience has shown, that it is not until that rate declines to two per cent that deposited ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... the outside, had been a source of much curiosity and speculation when the twins, in their rambles about Oakwood in the long warm summer evenings, would walk past and stop to admire the stately old mansion set in its old-fashioned garden, and many were the schemes they talked over for gaining admittance and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... body.—A full perception of the truth that society is not a mere aggregate, but an organic growth, that it forms a whole, the laws of whose growth can be studied apart from those of the individual atom, supplies the most characteristic postulate of modern speculation.—L. STEPHEN, Science of Ethics, 31. Wie in dem Leben der einzelnen Menschen kein Augenblick eines vollkommenen Stillstandes wahrgenommen wird, sondern stete organische Entwicklung, so verhalt es sich such in dem Leben der Volker, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Tooting the fact that Mr. Vane's son had volunteered to wring more money from Mr. Vane's client than Mr. Tooting offered him. Considerably bewildered, that gentleman left the hospital to report the affair to the Honourable Hilary, who, at intervals during the afternoon, found himself relapsing into speculation. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... when all is changed for me now, and different, it is not possible, ... for all the changing, nor for all your line and my speculation, ... that I should not be better and stronger for being within your influences and sympathies, in this way of writing as in other ways. We shall see—you will see. Yet I have been idle lately I confess; leaning half out of some turret-window of the castle of Indolence and watching the new sunrise—as ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... those days as Giovanni Pavesi, and he wasn't in such dire financial straits, either. It was his money that backed the enterprise, and it was common property, undenied by him or anyone else, that the chief object in the speculation was the love of the prima donna, Carmenita Malban. And, Bob, she was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. The story was that she was a countess or something of the sort. Poverty forced her to make use of a glorious voice, and the devil sent Pagani to young Pavesi, who was then a student with some ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... to be continually rearranging the weekly menu. The possible number of permutations of seal meat were decidedly limited. The fact that the men did not know what was coming gave them a sort of mental speculation, and the slightest variation was of ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... any person, corporation, or syndicate in entering upon said lands, nor in collusion with any person, corporation, or syndicate to give them the benefit of the land I may enter, or any part thereof, or the timber thereon; that I do not apply to enter upon said lands for the purpose of speculation, but in good faith to obtain a home for myself; and that I have not, directly or indirectly, made and will not make any agreement or contract in any way or manner with any person or persons, corporation, ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... research does not carry a knowledge of coffee back beyond the time of Rhazes, two hundred years after Mohammed; so there is little more than speculation or conjecture to support the theory that it was known to the ancients, in Bible times or in the days of The Praised One. Our knowledge of tea, on the other hand, antedates the Christian era. We know also that tea was ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... instant meet the call of, happen what will. I do not say this without feeling at the same time how difficult it is to mark, in existing commerce, the just limits between the spirit of enterprise and of speculation. Something of the same temper which makes the English soldier do always all that is possible, and attempt more than is possible, joins its influence with that of mere avarice in tempting the English merchant into risks which he cannot justify, and efforts which he cannot sustain; ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... dollars the prize for a dog race. The country had been swept of dogs. No animal of speed and endurance escaped the fine-tooth comb that had raked the creeks and camps, and the prices of dogs had doubled and quadrupled in the course of the frantic speculation. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... who shall set to work to compare Cardan with Julius Caesar Scaliger, his rival, and a man endowed with an intellect almost superhuman. For Scaliger, although he came upon the stage with greater pomp and display, and brought with him a mind filled with daring speculation, and adequate to the highest flights, kept closely behind the lattices of the humaner letters and of medical philosophy, leaving to Cardan full liberty to occupy whatever ground of argument he might find most advantageous ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... not rest upon speculation however, it is one of the first facts of life demonstrated to the pupil of a Mystery school. He is taught to watch a child in the act of dying, also, to watch it in the invisible world from day to day, until it comes to a new birth a year or two later. Then he knows with absolute ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... approached her nearly by her own confession. He had celebrated her in sonnets, amorous sonnets—damnable thought!—gone with her to the Guinigi Tower—then rejected her! A mist seemed to gather about Nobili as he thought of this. He grew stupid in long vistas of speculation. Had Enrica not dared to meet him—Nobili—clandestinely? Was not this very act unmaidenly? (Such are men: they urge the slip, the fall, then judge a woman by the force of their own urging!) Had Enrica met Marescotti in secret also? No—impossible! The scared, white ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... been made of those great depositories of human bones found at the present day in the ancient country of the Hurons. [ See Introduction. ] They have been a theme of abundant speculation; [ 1 ] yet their origin is a subject, not of conjecture, but of historic certainty. The peculiar rites to which they owe their existence were first described at length by Brbeuf, who, in the summer of the year 1636, saw them at the town ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has been determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... host as a play centers about its hero and heroine; they were the rubicund king and the starry princess of this spectacle—they paid court to each other, and everybody paid court to them. Down near the sugar Pump Works, where Bibbs sat, there was audible speculation and admiration. "Wonder who that lady is—makin' such a hit with the old man." "Must be some heiress." "Heiress? Golly, I guess I could stand ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... affections of kindness and compassion, that it was the business of wisdom and virtue to set him about extirpating them as fast as he could? And yet each of these manifest contradictions to nature has been laid down by men of speculation as a discovery in moral philosophy; which they, it seems, have found out through all the specious appearances to the contrary. This reflection may be extended further. The extravagances of enthusiasm ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... strange as it might seem, there was a subtle bond between them, and he could follow the argument nearly all the time. He was carried over the difficult places in spite of himself; and he went plunging away in mad career—a very Mazeppa-ride upon the wild horse Speculation. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the matter, but he succeeded at last. La Roche confessed that he had placed himself within the power of the British laws in consequence of a visit he paid to England after the war, for the purpose of carrying out a speculation which ended unfortunately. It was satisfactory to hear that he lived to become a changed man, truly repenting of his misspent life, and thankful that he had been ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the Malayan name for bear; and the coincidence of this word with the sobriquet "Bruin" had already led them to indulge in the speculation, as to whether the latter might not have originally come ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Way, although a complete ring, is broad and diffuse on one side through one-half its course — that half alone containing nebul — and relatively narrow and well defined on the opposite side, the author of this singular speculation avers that these facts can best be explained by supposing that the invisible universe consists of two interpenetrating parts, one of which is a chaos of indefinite extent, strewn with stars and nebulous dust, and the other a long, broad ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... words does Mr. Thackeray's Jeames de la Pluche anticipate the historical mystery of James de la Cloche. HIS 'buth' is 'wrapped up in a mistry,' HIS 'ma' is a theme of doubtful speculation; his father (to all appearance) was Charles II. We know not whether James de la Cloche—rejecting the gaudy lure of three crowns—lived and died a saintly Jesuit; or whether, on the other hand, he married beneath him, was thrown into gaol, was sentenced to a public whipping, was pardoned and ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... alluded to again for several days, but it did Janet a deal of good to think about it. She had no time to indulge in homesick musings, with so definite a subject of indignant speculation as the meanness of the deacons. She "was nettled at herself beyond all patience" that she should have allowed herself, to fancy that so many of the things on the paper had been ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... less she dared to express her feelings. The glance, the gesture, the question and answer as it were of a pretty woman, so flattering to the man she loves, would they not be in her case mere humiliating speculation? A beautiful woman can be her natural self,—the world overlooks her little follies or her clumsiness; whereas a single criticising glance checks the noblest expression on the lips of an ugly woman, adds to the ill-grace of her gesture, gives timidity to her eyes ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... took advice well; and, was it forced upon him, nine times out of ten a certain inborn contrariness drove him to do just the opposite. Besides, he had not yet learned to look with lenience on the rage for speculation that had seized the people of Ballarat; and he held that it would be culpable for a man of his slender means to risk money in the great game.—But was there any hint of risk in the present instance? ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... begun to draw a "gate." The noise of the revolver had proved a fine advertisement. The roof of the house next door began to fill up. Only a few of the occupants could get a clear view of the proceedings, for a large chimney-stack intervened. There was considerable speculation as to what was passing between Billy Windsor and Mr. Gooch. Psmith's share in the entertainment was more obvious. The early comers had seen his interview with Sam, and were relating it with gusto to ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the prospectus, as soon as the visitors and the public chose to find the money. Nearly the whole of the village was the property of a gentleman who had built the hotel and billiard-room, and run up a few lodging-houses on a speculation, which seemed at best a doubtful one, of making it in time a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... done at evening preparation that night; the whole school was buzzing with curiosity and speculation, as we heard doors opening and shutting around, and the wheels of the doctor's gig as it rolled up the ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Or they might have started legitimately from outside New York, and be going toward the city now. Since the ultimate destination was New York, and they had made no attempt to hide that from him, it was useless to speculate—for at best it could be only speculation. He had decided that once before! The man at his side felt again over the scarf to see that it was ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Knowledge," Isaac Williams's tract on Richards, Mr. Upton Rogers, Frederic Romanism and Popular Protestantism Romanism misconceptions of Newman's attitude towards tendency in party of movement towards Rose, Hugh James an estimate of lectures on German speculation controversy with Dr. Pusey early death Routh, Dr. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... his power is broken at the root by Christ." He argues that "the world-order, being in process as a moral order, permits breaches everywhere into which Satan can obtain entrance" (pp. 99, 102). H. L. Martensen gives even freer rein to speculation. "The evil principle," he says, "has in itself no personality, but attains a progressively universal personality in its kingdom; it has no individual personality, save only in individual creatures, who in an especial manner make themselves its organs; but among ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... winter on the Riviera. A speculation which I had gone in for there had caused me heavy loss and much anxiety. In the spring I returned to Paris, and of course, asked him to meet me. He was much brighter than he had been for a long time. Lord Alfred Douglas, it appeared, had come in for a large legacy from his father's estate ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... huge piles of oak, from 16 to 20 feet long, driven into the swamp close to each other by an engine made for the purpose. The building was five stories high, contained eight large apartments, and had no fewer than 468 windows. The Lombes must have had great confidence in their speculation, as the building and the great engine for making the organzine silk, together with the other fittings, cost them ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... with such authority that there was whispered speculation who this stranger might be. Perhaps he was the first of those nobles who had promised to draw swords with them in the great cause. A messenger went quickly, and soon returned. The King would ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... scent-bottles], and boxes of orange comfits, and cups of tamarisk wood, and aqua mirabilis, and song books, and virginals [the predecessor of the piano] and viols [violins], and his portrait in little, and playing tables [backgammon], and speculation glasses [probably magnifying glasses], and cinnamon water, and sugar-candy, and fine Venice paper ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... Here speculation was stopped by the rapid oncoming of the stage-coach in all the impotent fury of a belated arrival. "Had to go round by Montezuma to let off Jack Hill," curtly explained the driver, as he swung himself from the box, and entered the hotel ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "honesty"—as he doubtless named it in his thoughts—of other men. He had expected to draw out the thousand dollars invested at Brook Farm, and he supposed he would get it, especially if he really needed it, so unbusiness-like were his ideas; but as a matter of fact, he had lost that money in the speculation as much as if he had risked it in any other way. There was more to justify his irritation in the fact that "The Democratic Review," which had begun by paying five dollars a page, and had dropped to twenty dollars an article independent of length, had ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... too great. Recalling his conclusions about the attachments of men of his age, he had no illusion about the possibly ideal character of an intimacy with William Grove's wife; she, as well, had illuminated that beyond any obscurity of motive or ultimate result. Lee's mind shifted to a speculation about the cause of their—their accident. No conscious act, no desire, of his had brought it on them; and it was evident that no conscious wish of hers had materialized their unrestrainable kisses. Savina's life, beyond ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Jaguars partly for the rise and partly for the thrill. In describing my speculation to you eighteen months ago I dwelt chiefly on the thrill part; I alleged that I wanted to see them go up and down. It would have been more accurate to have said that I wanted to see them go up. It was because I was sure they were going up that, with the united support of my solicitor, my stockbroker, ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... whole life. He knew better than anyone else that this was probably the beginning of financial misfortune, for a very important transaction was even now pending that he feared would take his all. As a merchant he had an honorable reputation and position, but this unfortunate speculation would ruin him. Failure seemed inevitable. But he hoped to save enough to pay every debt and still be able to live, even though in a modest way. Now he would not even get his insurance on his house, ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... it might do to go 'ome again—at any rate, you will get the drawback. It is filled with 'Distinctive Opinions of the Republic of Leaplow.'" The cook looked at the brigadier, who appeared to think the speculation doubtful. Still it was Hobson's choice; and, after a good deal of grumbling, the doctor, as Noah always called his cook, consented to take the "harticle," at ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reserve, that extreme abuses might sometimes justify a nation in resorting to extreme remedies. The great majority of the profession still held the doctrine of passive obedience: but that majority was now divided into two sections. A question, which, before the Revolution, had been mere matter of speculation, and had therefore, though sometimes incidentally raised, been, by most persons, very superficially considered, had now become practically most important. The doctrine of passive obedience being ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... about Mrs. Duncombe herself, for much depended on the success of her husband's filly, Dark Hag. The Captain had hitherto been cautious, and had secured himself against heavy loss, so as to make the turf a tolerable speculation, on but the wonderful perfections of this animal had led him to stake much more on her than had been his wont; and though his wife was assured of being a rich woman in another week, she was not sorry for the multiplicity ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Frederic, as already narrated; had tried his chance for fame and fortune in the naval service, and had lost his life in the adventure without achieving the one or the other. This was not a happy augury for the head of the family. Frederic had made an indifferent speculation. What could the brother hope by taking the field against Maurice of Nassau and Lewis William and the Baxes and Meetkerkes? Nevertheless the archduke eagerly accepted his services, while the Infanta, fully confident ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... infectious gaiety, and boasting (I use the word advisedly) more than a sufficiency of that rather assertive and school-boy impropriety which the charitable might quote as evidence of our author's perpetual youth. It is an interesting, though perhaps futile, speculation to reflect how Mr. THOMAS HARDY, to whose plots the present bears some resemblance, might have handled it. Had Lewis Seymour pursued his education in womanhood under the guidance of the wizard of Dorchester ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... one more precaution to take, and Mrs. Lecount did not neglect it. Mr. Bygrave had doubtless seen the coach call at Sea View. He might hire a carriage and follow it to the railway on pure speculation. Mrs. Lecount remained within view of the inn (the only place at which a carriage could be obtained) for nearly an hour longer, waiting for events. Nothing happened; no carriage made its appearance; no pursuit of Noel Vanstone was now within the range of human possibility. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... true portions of discordant theories, by supplying the links of thought necessary to connect them, and by disentangling them from the errors with which they are always more or less interwoven, must necessarily require a considerable amount of original speculation. To other originality than this, the present work lays no claim. In the existing state of the cultivation of the sciences, there would be a very strong presumption against any one who should imagine that he had effected a revolution in the theory of the investigation of truth, or ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... which preceded it, either in Europe or America. The acute and exhaustive treatises of the seventeenth century on God, on "fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," on the foundation of morals, on consciousness as a guide in metaphysical speculation, had lost much of their prestige, if Jonathan Edwards' immortal deductions may be considered an exception. Prosperity and wars and adventures had made men material, and political themes had more charm than theological discussion. Pascal had given place to Hobbes and Voltaire, and Hooker ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... He set his hat on the small table and took a seat, marking the utter stillness that reigned in that great Moorish house. Save for the purr of the fountain no sounds reached him in all that nest of cool chambers. The thought of it awoke in him new speculation as to the woman he had come to see, who had buried the ashes of her fiery youth in this serene retreat. He had thought about her with growing curiosity throughout the journey from Paris, endeavoring to reduce to terms of his own understanding the spirit that had flamed and faded ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... fort at Wangarooa as situated on an insulated rock, about three hundred feet high, and presenting the most imposing appearance. These elevated palings were a subject of much speculation to those on board of Cook's vessel, when that navigator first approached the coast of New Zealand. Some, he tells us, supposed them to be inclosures for sheep and oxen, while others maintained they ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... see the familiar places again. Since her coming to Jacqueline's everything seemed so much brighter, her old fears of capture and perhaps detention in a corrective institution, had almost disappeared, and the prospect of a country ride with Frank Pierson afforded pleasant speculation indeed. ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... which should be mentioned here, although the public did not hear of it for many years after it occurred. When the Ashantee expedition was contemplated, and speculation was rife as to whom the command should be offered to, somebody wrote to the Times, signing himself "Mandarin," and, among other things which he mentioned about Gordon, said that during the month of September, before the capture ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... very anxious to re-invest the sum he had received for the mortgage of Joel's place, and he was greatly disappointed to lose so good a speculation as that he had proposed ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... prosperity, necessarily flourished. A scientific canalisation, with irrigation works inherited from the ancients, made the Mesopotamian Valley a rival of Kemi the Black Land, and rendered cultivation a certainty of profit, not a mere speculation, as it must ever be to those who perforce rely upon the fickle rains of Heaven. The remains of extensive mines prove that this source of public wealth was not neglected; navigation laws encouraged transit and traffic; and ordinances for the fisheries aimed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... A fire burned on the hearth, in front of which revolved the skinned carcass of a rabbit, suspended by a string from a nail. Leaning with one arm on the mantle-shelf stood Winterborne, his eyes on the roasting animal, his face so rapt that speculation could build nothing on it concerning his thoughts, more than that they were not with the scene before him. She thought his features had changed a little since she saw them last. The fire-light did not enable her to perceive that ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... educational thinkers, after more than twenty-two centuries of search for the truth. Some of the problems he discussed have found their solution, and the seed sown by the great thinker has come to fruitage. Karl Schmidt says, "Aristotle is the intellectual Alexander. Rich in experience and profound in speculation, he penetrates all parts of the universe and seeks to reduce all realities to concepts. He is the most profound and comprehensive thinker of the pre-Christian world,—the Hegel of classical antiquity,—because, like Hegel, he seeks to ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... response of his nervous system to human criticism. From his very childhood he seems to have had that instinct for confronting the universe as a whole which, except in the case of Shakespeare, is not often seen among poets. Star-gazing and speculation as to the meaning of the stars and what was going on in them seem to have begun in his childhood. In his first Cambridge letter to his aunt, Mrs. Russell, written from No. 12, Rose Crescent, he says, “I am sitting owl-like and solitary in my room, nothing between me and the stars but a stratum ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... no speculation, Abe," said Morris. "This is an investment. I seen the house, Abe, six stories and basement stores, and you couldn't get another tenant into it with a shoehorn. It brings in a ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... September, and you must be a successful hotel-keeper yourself to understand how so much can be provided for so little, miles away from any market. Many of these summer hotels have been built high up in the forest, and with no others near them. Some are run as a speculation by doctors. There is hardly a woman or girl in Germany who has not needed a Kur at some time of her life, or who does not need one every year if she has money and pretty gowns. The Badereise and everything connected with it serves the German professional humorist much as the ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... a great deal of trouble, as well as delighted yet anxious speculation about Madame Hanska's opinion of it, when it arrived in Wierzchownia. This was naturally an important matter, his meetings with her being so rare that, except his letters, the picture would generally be her only reminder of him; and for ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... residing in Belgrave-square, was on the eve of giving a large party, when, upon hearing that Mr. A—— had made an unlucky speculation in the funds, the whole family were seized with influenza so violently, that they were compelled to postpone the reunion, and live upon the provided ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... murmur, as it were, at the very door of our hearts. But in the encumbering hurry of the world we perceive it not; in the noise of our daily vanities we hear not the waters of Siloah which go softly. We look widely abroad; we lose ourselves in vain speculation; we wander in the crooked paths of those who have gone before us; yea, in the language of one of the old fathers, we ask the earth and it replieth not, we question the sea and its inhabitants, we turn to the sun, and the moon, and the stars of heaven, and they may not satisfy us; we ask ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... must make one of those desperate, nerve-shattering plunges into speculation that fortune sometimes requires of those who would win her favour. Five cents was his capital, and this he must risk against the chance of winning what lay within the close grasp of the youngster's chubby hand. It was a fearful lottery, Chicken knew. But he must accomplish his end ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... producing men entirely unfit for the battle of life, so that in many families energetic women took charge of the business and became the wage earners, [2] while their husbands were losing themselves in the mazes of speculation, somewhere in the recesses of the rabbinic Betha-Midrash or the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Alas, this is a speculation for a mind at ease! It is not the persecution, but the catastrophe which is annexed to it, that makes the difference between the tyrant and the sufferer! In mere corporal exertion the hunter perhaps is upon a level with the miserable animal he pursues! But ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... angrily, "was supposed to be a rich man, and at one time no doubt he was. But he got into speculation. He was guardian of the fortune of his orphaned niece, Grace Desmond, a very sweet girl whom I've seen. Miller must have lost some of her fortune in his mad speculations. At any rate, he tried fearfully hard to marry his son, Fred, to her. I suppose he ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... a wild and ruinous spirit of speculation having seized the Dutch merchants, the government, in 1602, formed all the separate companies who traded to India, into one; and granted to this extensive sovereignty over all the establishments that might be formed in that part of the world. Their charter was for twenty-one years: their capital ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Nautilus glided along due south, and there was a good deal of speculation as to her next destination, till Mr Staples came up, and in the conversation which ensued, announced that they were to search for a river about sixty miles along the coast, one which was not marked down in any chart, but was supposed ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... paid but five cents for it this advance in price would be a fine business speculation. After a little further talk, Mr. Morris counted out the money, and the man went back to his home doubtless wishing he had a hundred more redbirds to sell at the same handsome profit. After he had gone, Mr. Morris went to a box hanging against the wall, and turning a handle began ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... Speculation as to the animal in the cave. Determined to explore the mystery of the "hole" in the hill. Trip to the hills. Difficulty in finding the "hole." Accidental discovery of a rock. The "hole" found. Indication that ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay |
